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Beyond his silent
vault green springs went by,
The river flashed along its open way,
Blithe swallows flitted in their billowy play,
And the sweet lark went quivering up the sky.
With him was stillness and his heart's dumb cry
And darkness of the tomb through hopeless day,
Save that along the wall one single ray
Shifted, through jealous loop-holes, westerly.
One single ray: and where its light could fall
His rusty nail carved saints and angels there,
And warriors, and slim girls with braided hair,
And blossomy boughs, and birds athwart the air.
Rude work, but yet a world. And light for all
Was one slant ray upon a prison wall.
One ray, and in its track hlie lived and wrought,
And in free wideness of the world, I know,
One said, "Fair sunshine, yet it serves not so,
It needs a tenderer when I shape my thought;"
And, "'Tis too brown and molten in the drought,"
And, "'Tis too wan a greyness in this snow,"
And would have toiled, but wearied and was woe,
While days stole past and had bequeathed him nought.
Maybe in Gisors, round the fortress mead -
Gisors where now, when fair-time brings its press,
They seek the prisoner's tower to gaze and guess
And love the work he made in loneliness -
One cursed the gloom, and died without a deed,
The while he carved where his one ray could lead.
"Oh loneliness! oh darkness!" so we wail,
Crying to life to give we know not what,
The hope not come, the ecstasy forgot,
The things we should have had and, needing, fail,
Nor know what thing it was for which we ail,
And, like tired travellers to an unknown spot,
Pass listless, noting only "Yet 'tis not,"
And count the ended day an empty tale.
Ah me! to linger on in dim repose
And feel the numbness over hand and thought,
And feel the silence in the heart, that grows.
Ah me! to have forgot the hope we sought.
One ray of light, and a soul lived and wrought,
And on the prison walls a message rose.
Home
A Bird And Flower
A Coarse Morning
A
Comrade A Song Of A Springtime
A Summer Mood
Autumn
Warnings Baby Eyes
Belated Betrothed
Beyond The
Shadow Day Is Dead And Let Us Sleep
Dear Love, Goodnight
Dearest, This One Day we Own
Disenchanted
Farewell Hark
The Skylight In The Cloud
Her Memories
In After Years
Late Roses
Linnet And Lark
Miles And Miles
My Loss
News To The King
No News From The War
Not Love Not To
Be Once A Sea Nymph Loved A Boy
Once One Star Only For
Love's Heaven
Question And Answer
Seeds With Wings
Siste Viator
Spring And Summer
St.-Amé
Tell Me Not Of Morrows Sweet
Tell Thee Truth Sweet No
The
Apple Orchard The Bees
In The Lime
The Bindweed
The Brambles
The Brook Rhine
The Butterfly
The Cornflower
The Daughter
The First Spring Day
The Flower By The Path
The Flowers to Come
The Flowing Tide
The Frozen River
The Graveyard
The Heart That Lacks Room
The Heather
The Holly
The Lovers
The Missing Star
The Nightingale
The Old Dream
The Old Love
The Oldest Inhabitant
The Pine
The Primrose
The Rivulet
The Sea-Maid's Song
The Skylark's Song
The Snows
The Storm
The Swallows
The Violet And The Rose The Whisper
The Wind's Tidings
To-Day Too Soon So Far, Fair Lillies
Waiting
We Two
Where Found Love His Yesterday
Where home
Was While The Woods Were Green
White Rose And Red
Young May |
