FullReads

When the first jonquils come,
And spring is sold
On the street corners, some
Of the pretty gold

Is sure to find its way
Home in his hand.
And many a winter day
At some cab-stand,

He’ll watch the cabmen feed
The pigeon flocks,
Or bid some liner speed
From the icy docks.

His rooms? I much regret
You cannot see
His rooms, but they were let
With guarantee

Of his seclusion there–
Except myself.
Each morning, table, chair,
Lamp, hearth, and shelf,

I rearrange, refreshen,
Put all to rights,
Then leave him in possession.
Ah, but the nights,

The nights! Sir, if I dared
But once set eye
To keyhole, nor be scared,
From playing Paul Pry,

I doubt not I should learn
A wondrous thing
Or two; and in return
Go blind till spring.

The light under his door
Is glory enough,
It outshines any star
That I know of.

Wirrah, my lad, my lad,
‘T is fearsome strange,
The hints we all have had
Passing the range

Of science, knowledge, law,
Or what you will,
Whose intangible touch of awe
Makes reason nil.

Many a night I start,
Sudden awake,
Feeling my smothered heart
Flutter and quake;

Like an aspen at dead of noon,
When not a breath
Is stirring to trouble the boon
Valley. A wraith

Or a fetch, it must be, shivers
The soul of the tree
Till every leaf of it quivers.
And so with me.

Was it the shuffle of feet
I heard go by,
With muffled drums in the street?
Was it the cry

Of a rider riding the night
Into ashes and dawn,
With news in his nostrils and fright
Where his hoof-beats had gone?

Did the pipes, at “Bonny Dundee,”
Bid regiments form?
Did a renegade’s soul get free
On a wail of the storm?

Did a flock of wild geese honk
As they cleared the hill?
Or only a bittern cronk,
Then all was still?

Was it a night stampede
Of a thousand head?
I know I shook like a reed
There on my bed.

Nameless and void and wild
Was the fear before me,
Ere I bethought me and smiled
As the truth flashed o’er me.

Of course, it was only his hand
Freeing the bass
Of his old Amati, grand
In the silence’ face.

Rummaging up and down,
From string to string,
Bidding the discords drown,
The harmonies spring,

Where tides and tide-winds rove
Far out from land,
On the ocean of music a-move
At the will of his hand.

Sobbing and grieving now,
Now glad as a bird,
Thou, thou, thou
Of the joys unheard,

Luminous radiant sea
Of the sounds and time,
Surely, surely by thee
Is eternal prime.

Holy and beautiful deep,
Spread down before
The imperial coming of sleep,
Endure, endure!

And sleep, be thou the ranger
Over it wan.
And dream, be thou no stranger
There with the dawn.

Then wings of the sun, go abroad
As a scarlet desire,
Unwearied, unwaning, unawed,
To quest and aspire,

Till the drench of the dusk you drink
In the poppy-field west;
Then veer and settle and sink
As a gull to her nest.

Wind,
Away, away!
And hurry your phantom kind
Through the gates of day,

Or ever the king’s dark cup
With its studs and spars
Be inverted, and earth look up
To the shuddering stars.

Blaring and triumphing now,
Now quailing and lone,
Thou, thou, thou
Of the joys unknown!

Unknown and wild, wild,
Where the merrymen be,
Sink to sleep, soul of a child,
Slumber, thou sea!