TARANTELLA     

 SAD as he sits on the white sea-stone And the suave sea chuckles, and turns to the moon, And the moon significant smiles at the cliffs and the boulders. He sits like a shade by the flood alone While I dance a tarantella on the rocks, and the croon Of my mockery mocks at him over the waves'         bright shoulders. What can I do but dance alone, Dance to the sliding sea and the moon, For the moon on my breast and the air on my limbs and the foam on my feet?      For surely this earnest man has none Of the night in his soul, and none of the tune Of the waters within him; only the world's old wisdom to bleat. I wish a wild sea-fellow would come down the glittering shingle, A soulless neckar, with winking seas in his eyes And falling waves in his arms, and the lost soul's kiss On his lips: I long to be soulless, I tingle To touch the sea in the last surprise Of fiery coldness, to be gone in a lost soul's bliss. 

  

  

       IN CHURCH     

 IN the choir the boys are singing the hymn. The morning light on their lips Moves in silver-moist flashes, in musical trim. Sudden outside the high window, one crow Hangs in the air And lights on a withered oak-tree's top of woe. One bird, one blot, folded and still at the top Of the withered tree!—in the grail Of crystal heaven falls one full black drop. Like a soft full drop of darkness it seems to sway In the tender wine Of our Sabbath, suffusing our sacred day. 

  

  

       PIANO     

      Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me; Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings. In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide. So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour With the great black piano 

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