us, it must Clasp to itself our kindred dust. We cannot free ourselves from it. Near or afar we must submit To what is in us, what was grown Out of the landscape's soil, the known And unknown powers of soil and soul. As bodies yield to the control Of the earth's center, and so bend In age, so hearts toward the end Bend down with lips so long athirst To waters which were known at first— The little spring at Leese's Grove Was your first love, is your last love!
When those we knew in youth have crept Under the landscape, which has kept Nothing we saw with youthful eyes; Ere God is formed in the empty skies, I wonder not our steps are pressed Toward the mystery of their rest. That is the hope at bud which kneels Where ancestors the tomb conceals. Age no less than youth would lean Upon some love. For what is seen No more of father, mother, friend, For hands of flesh lost, eyes grown blind In death, a something which assures, Comforts, allays our fears, endures. Just as the landscape and our home In childhood made of heaven's dome, And all the farthest ways of earth A place as sheltered as the hearth.
Is it not written at the last day Heaven and earth shall roll away? Yes, as my landscape passed through death, Lay like a corpse, and with new breath Became instinct with fire and light— So shall it roll up in my sight, Pass from the realm of finite sense, Become a thing of spirit, whence I shall pass too, its child in faith Of dreams it gave me, which nor death Nor change can wreck, but still reveal In change a Something vast, more real Than sunsets, meadows, green-wood trees, Or even faery presences. A Something which the earth and air Transmutes but keeps them what they were; Clear films of beauty grown more thin As we approach and enter in. Until we reach the scene that made Our landscape just a thing of shade.
TO-MORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY
Well, then, another drink! Ben Jonson knows, So do you, Michael Drayton, that to-morrow I reach my fifty-second year. But hark ye, To-morrow
Prev.
Back
Top