Poems (Tree)/What Words that Move on Wings in a Long Drift
WHAT words that move on wings in a long driftCan waft this silence into weary ears,And steal into the veins and fingertipsOf restless bodies, like magnificent shipsProud from the seas that calmly sail through fears,Mean streets, and miseries, with passage swift.What words pricked from the stars and shimmering together,Or swept like little winds through leaves alert,Can filter through the chinks of bolted doorsDeaf to the clamours knocking without pause,Steeled with indifference against all hurt,Deaf to the cry of man, and rack of weather:To sing the hubbub of this glittering night,Where all the lamps each with a separate soulThrob to the ecstasies of dancing life;And Beauty, gleaming high her magic knifeCuts free the tethered heart from long controlAnd flings it like a ball with mad delightInto the silver lap of the young moon.What needles quick, what threads, what fingers fineCan broider tapestries as rich as these,Stranger than dreams and drifting melodies,Transparent as the gods we half divine,Frail as the thoughts that dwindle in a swoonGhostly before begetting. Tinged with painThat glimmers pale on hands we cannot find,And visioned faces that our dreams createBorn in the land forbidden us of fateAnd longed for all our lives . . . What words can bindForever Joy, that never comes again!
1915