Last Poems — Poems XXXI-XXXVI

Dead clay that did me kindness, I can do none to you, But only wear for breastknot The flower of sinner's rue.

XXXI. HELL'S GATE

Onward led the road again Through the sad uncoloured plain Under twilight brooding dim, And along the utmost rim Wall and rampart risen to sight Cast a shadow not of night, And beyond them seemed to glow Bonfires lighted long ago.

And my dark conductor broke Silence at my side and spoke, Saying, "You conjecture well: Yonder is the gate of hell."

Ill as yet the eye could see The eternal masonry, But beneath it on the dark To and fro there stirred a spark.

And again the sombre guide Knew my question, and replied: "At hell gate the damned in turn Pace for sentinel and burn."

Dully at the leaden sky Staring, and with idle eye Measuring the listless plain, I began to think again.

Many things I thought of then, Battle, and the loves of men, Cities entered, oceans crossed, Knowledge gained and virtue lost, Cureless folly done and said, And the lovely way that led To the slimepit and the mire And the everlasting fire.

And against a smoulder dun And a dawn without a sun Did the nearing bastion loom, And across the gate of gloom Still one saw the sentry go, Trim and burning, to and fro, One for women to admire In his finery of fire.

Something, as I watched him pace, Minded me of time and place, Soldiers of another corps And a sentry known before.

Ever darker hell on high Reared its strength upon the sky, And our footfall on the track Fetched the daunting echo back.

But the soldier pacing still The insuperable sill, Nursing his tormented pride, Turned his head to neither side, Sunk into himself apart And the hell-fire of his heart.

But against our entering in From the drawbridge Death and Sin Rose to render key and sword To their father and their lord.

And the portress foul to see Lifted up her eyes on me Smiling, and I made reply: "Met again, my lass," said I. Then the sentry turned his head, Looked, and knew me, and was Ned.

Once he looked, and halted straight, Set his back against the gate, Caught his musket to his chin, While the hive of hell within Sent abroad a seething hum As of towns whose king is come Leading conquest home from far And the captives of his war, And the car of triumph waits, And they open wide the gates.

But across the entry barred Straddled the revolted guard, Weaponed and accoutred well From the arsenals of hell;

And beside him, sick and white, Sin to left and Death to right Turned a countenance of fear On the flaming mutineer.

Over us the darkness bowed, And the anger in the cloud Clenched the lightning for the stroke;

But the traitor musket spoke.

And the hollowness of hell Sounded as its master fell, And the mourning echo rolled Ruin through his kingdom old.

Tyranny and terror flown Left a pair of friends alone, And beneath the nether sky All that stirred was he and I. Silent, nothing found to say, We began the backward way;

And the ebbing luster died From the soldier at my side, As in all his spruce attire Failed the everlasting fire.

Midmost of the homeward track Once we listened and looked back;

But the city, dusk and mute, Slept, and there was no pursuit.

XXXII.

When I would muse in boyhood The wild green woods among, And nurse resolves and fancies Because the world was young, It was not foes to conquer, Nor sweethearts to be kind, But it was friends to die for That I would seek and find.

I sought them far and found them, The sure, the straight, the brave, The hearts I lost my own to, The souls I could not save.

They braced their belts about them, They crossed in ships the sea, They sought and found six feet of ground, And there they died for me.

XXXIII.

When the eye of day is shut, And the stars deny their beams, And about the forest hut Blows the roaring wood of dreams, From deep clay, from desert rock, From the sunk sands of the main, Come not at my door to knock, Hearts that loved me not again.

Sleep, be still, turn to your rest In the lands where you are laid;

In far lodgings east and west Lie down on the beds you made.

In gross marl, in blowing dust, In the drowned ooze of the sea, Where you would not, lie you must, Lie you must, and not with me.

XXXIV. THE FIRST OF MAY

The orchards half the way From home to Ludlow fair Flowered on the first of May In Mays when I was there;

And seen from stile or turning The plume of smoke would show Where fires were burning That went out long ago.

The plum broke forth in green, The pear stood high and snowed, My friends and I between Would take the Ludlow road;

Dressed to the nines and drinking And light in heart and limb, And each chap thinking The fair was held for him.

Between the trees in flower New friends at fairtime tread The way where Ludlow tower Stands planted on the dead.

Our thoughts, a long while after, They think, our words they say;

Theirs now's the laughter, The fair, the first of May.

Ay, yonder lads are yet The fools that we were then;

For oh, the sons we get Are still the sons of men.

The sumless tale of sorrow Is all unrolled in vain: May comes to-morrow And Ludlow fair again.

XXXV.

When first my way to fair I took Few pence in purse had I, And long I used to stand and look At things I could not buy.

Now times are altered: if I care To buy a thing, I can;

The pence are here and here's the fair, But where's the lost young man?

--To think that two and two are four And neither five nor three The heart of man has long been sore And long 'tis like to be.

XXXVI. REVOLUTION

West and away the wheels of darkness roll, Day's beamy banner up the east is borne, Spectres and fears, the nightmare and her foal, Drown in the golden deluge of the morn.

But over sea and continent from sight Safe to the Indies has the earth conveyed The vast and moon-eclipsing cone of night, Her towering foolscap of eternal shade.