To Henry Halloran
You know I left my forest home full loth,And those weird ways I knew so well and long,Dishevelled with their sloping sidelong growthOf twisted thorn and kurrajong.
It seems to me, my friend (and this wild thoughtOf all wild thoughts, doth chiefly make me bleed),That in those hills and valleys wonder-fraught,I loved and lost a noble creed.
A splendid creed! But let me even turnAnd hide myself from what I’ve seen, and tryTo fathom certain truths you know, and learnThe Beauty shining in your sky:
Remembering you in ardent autumn nights,And Stenhouse near you, like a fine stray guestOf other days, with all his lore of lightsSo manifold and manifest!
Then hold me firm. I cannot choose but longFor that which lies and burns beyond my reach,Suggested in your steadfast, subtle songAnd his most marvellous speech!
For now my soul goes drifting back again,Ay, drifting, drifting, like the silent snowWhile scattered sheddings, in a fall of rain,Revive the dear lost Long Ago!
The time I, loitering by untrodden fens,Intent upon low-hanging lustrous skies,Heard mellowed psalms from sounding southern glens—Euroma, dear to dreaming eyes!
And caught seductive tokens of a voiceHalf maddened with the dim, delirious themesOf perfect Love, and the immortal choiceOf starry faces—Astral dreams!
That last was yours! And if you sometimes findAn alien darkness on the front of things,Sing none the less for Life, nor fall behind,Like me, with trailing, tired wings!
Yea, though the heavy Earth wears sackcloth nowBecause she hath the great prophetic griefWhich makes me set my face one way, and bowAnd falter for a far belief,
Be faithful yet for all, my brave bright peer,In that rare light you hold so true and good;And find me something clearer than the clearWhite spaces of Infinitude.