Waiting for sleep, I drift from thoughts like these; And where to-day was dream-like, build my dreams. Music ... there was a bright white room below, And someone singing a song about a soldier,-- One hour, two hours ago; and soon the song Will be 'last night': but now the beauty swings Across my brain, ghost of remember'd chords Which still can make such radiance in my dream That I can watch the marching of my soldiers, And count their faces; faces; sunlit faces. Falling asleep ... the herons, and the hounds... September in the darkness; and the world I've known; all fading past me into peace. PRELUDE TO AN UNWRITTEN MASTERPIECE You like my bird-sung gardens: wings and flowers; Calm landscapes for emotion; star-lit lawns; And Youth against the sun-rise ... '_Not profound;_ '_But such a haunting music in the sound:_ '_Do it once more; it helps us to forget._' Last night I dreamt an old recurring scene-- Some complex out of childhood; (sex, of course!) I can't remember how the trouble starts; And then I'm running blindly in the sun Down the old orchard, and there's something cruel Chasing me; someone roused to a grim pursuit Of clumsy anger ... Crash! I'm through the fence And thrusting wildly down the wood that's dense With woven green of safety; paths that wind Moss-grown from glade to glade; and far behind, One thwarted yell; then silence. I've escaped. That's where it used to stop. Last night I went Onward until the trees were dark and huge, And I was lost, cut off from all return By swamps and birdless jungles. I'd no chance Of getting home for tea. I woke with shivers, And thought of crocodiles in crawling rivers. Some day I'll build (more ruggedly than Doughty) A dark tremendous song you'll never hear. My beard will be a snow-storm, drifting whiter On bowed, prophetic shoulders, year by year. And some will say, 'His work has grown so dreary.' Others, 'He used to be a charming writer.' And you, my friend, will query-- 'Why can't you cut it short, you pompous blighter?' LIMITATIONS If you could crowd them into forty lines! Yes; you can do it, once you get a start: All that you want is waiting in your head, For long-ago you've learnt it off by heart. * * * * * * * Begin: your mind's the room where you must sleep, (Don't pause for rhymes), till twilight wakes you early. The window stands wide-open, as it stood When tree-tops loomed enchanted for a child Hearing the dawn's first thrushes through the wood Warbling (you know the words) serene and wild. You've said it all before: you dreamed of Death, A dim Apollo in the bird-voiced breeze That drifts across the morning veiled with showers, While golden weather shines among dark trees.