'O THAT 'TWERE POSSIBLE'

Ah Christ, that it were possible

For one short hour to see

The souls we loved, that they might tell us
What and where they be.

It leads me forth at evening,
It lightly winds and steals

In a cold white robe before me,
When all my spirit reels

At the shouts, the leagues of lights,
And the roaring of the wheels.

Half the night I waste in sighs,
Half in dreams I sorrow after
The delight of early skies:
In a wakeful doze I sorrow
For the hand, the lips, the eyes,
For the meeting of the morrow,
The delight of happy laughter,
The delight of low replies.

'Tis a morning pure

and sweet,

And a dewy splendour falls
On the little flower that clings
To the turrets and the walls
'Tis a morning pure and sweet,
And the light and shadow fleet;
She is walking in the meadow,
And the woodland echo rings;
In a moment we shall meet;
She is singing in the meadow,
And the rivulet at her feet
Ripples on in light and shadow
To the ballad that she sings.

Do I hear her sing as of old,

My bird with the shining head,

My own dove with the tender eye?

But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry,

There is some one dying or dead,
And a sullen thunder is roll'd;
For a tumult shakes the city,
And I wake, my dream is fled;
In the shuddering dawn, behold,
Without knowledge, without pity,
By the curtains of my bed
That abiding phantom cold!

Get thee hence, nor come again,
Mix not memory with doubt,
Pass, thou deathlike type of pain,
Pass and cease to move about!
'Tis the blot upon the brain
That will show itself without.

Then I rise, the eavedrops fall,
And the yellow vapours choke
The great city sounding wide;
The day comes, a dull red ball
Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke
On the misty river-tide.

Through the hubbub of the market
I steal, a wasted frame;

It crosses here, it crosses there,
Through all that crowd confused and loud,

The shadow still the same;

And on my heavy eyelids
My anguish hangs like shame.

'O THAT 'TWERE POSSIBLE

Alas for her that met me,
That heard me softly call,

Came glimmering through the laurels
At the quiet evenfall,

In the garden by the turrets

Of the old manorial hall.

Would the happy spirit descend,
From the realms of light and song,
In the chamber or the street,
As she looks among the blest,
Should I fear to greet my friend
Or to say, 'forgive the wrong',
Or to ask her, 'take me, sweet,
To the regions of thy rest'?

But the broad light glares and beats,
And the shadow flits and fleets
And will not let me be;

And I loathe the squares and streets,
And the faces that one meets,
Hearts with no love for me:
Always I long to creep

Into some still cavern deep,

There to weep,
My whole soul out to thee.

and weep, and weep

ALFRED TENNYSON.

The little hand is knocking patiently;
I listen, dumb with pain.

'Wilt thou not open any more to me?
I have come back again.'

'I will not open any more. Depart.
I, that once lived, am dead.'

The hand that had been knocking at my heart
Was still. 'And I?' she said.

There is no sound, save, in the winter air,
The sound of wind and rain.

All that I loved in all the world stands there,

And will not knock again.

ARTHUR SYMONS.

'When you are old'

WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS.

MENS SANA