Old ghosts that death forgot to ferry Across the Lethe of the years-- These are my friends, and at their tears I weep and with their mirth am merry. On a high tower, whose battlements Give me all heaven at a glance, I lie long summer nights in trance, Drowsed by the murmurs and the scents That rise from earth, while the sky above me Merges its peace with my soul's peace, Deep meeting deep. No stir can move me, Nought break the quiet of my release: In vain the windy sunlight raves At the hush and gloom of polar caves. "CONTRARY TO NATURE AND ARISTOTLE." One head of my soul's amphisbaena Turns to the daytime's dust and sweat; But evenings come, when I would forget The sordid strife of the arena. And then my other self will creep Along the scented twilight lanes To where a little house contains A hoard of books, a gift of sleep. Its windows throw a friendly light Between the narrowing shutter slats, And, golden as the eyes of cats, Shine me a welcome through the night. ESCAPE. I seek the quietude of stones Or of great oxen, dewlap-deep In meadows of lush grass, where sleep Drifts, tufted, on the air or drones On flowery traffic. Sleep atones For sin, comforting eyes that weep. O'er me, Lethean darkness, creep Unfelt as tides through dead men's bones! In that metallic sea of hair, Fragrance! I come to drown despair Of wings in dark forgetfulness. No love ... Love is self-known, aspires To heights unearthly. I ask less,-- Sleep born of satisfied desires. THE GARDEN. There shall be dark trees round me:--I insist On cypresses: I'm terribly romantic-- And glimpsed between shall move the whole Atlantic, Now leaden dull, now subtle with grey mist, Now many jewelled, when the waves are kissed By revelling sunlight and the corybantic South-Western wind: so, troubled, passion-frantic, The poet's mind boils gold and amethyst. There shall be seen the infinite endeavour Of a sad fountain, white against the sky And poised as it strains up, but doomed to break In weeping music; ever fair and ever Young ... and the bright-eyed wood-gods as they slake Their thirst in it, are silent, reverently ... THE CANAL. No dip and dart of swallows wakes the black Slumber of the canal:--a mirror dead For lack of loveliness remembered From ancient azures and green trees, for lack Of some white beauty given and flung back, Secret, to her that gave: no sun has bled To wake an echo here of answering red; The surface stirs to no leaf's wind-blown track.