Marjorie Pickthall

Living, I had no might To make you hear, Now, in the inmost night, I am so near No whisper, falling light, Divides us, dear. Living, I had no claim On your great hours. Now the thin candle-flame, The closing flowers, Wed summer with my name, — And these are ours. Your shadow on the dust, Strength, and a cry, Delight, despair, mistrust, — All these am I. Dawn, and the far hills thrust To a far sky. Living, I had no skill To stay your tread, Now all that was my will Silence has said. We are one for good and ill Since I am dead.

I have not walked on common ground, Nor drunk of earthly streams; A shining figure, mailed and crowned, Moves softly through my dreams. He makes the air so keen and strange, The stars so fiercely bright; The rocks of time, the tides of change, Are nothing in his sight. Death lays no shadow on his smile; Life is a race fore-run; Look in his face a little while, And life and death are one.

I gave my thoughts a golden peach, A silver citron tree; They clustered dumbly out of reach And would not sing for me. I built my thoughts a roof of rush, A little byre beside; They left my music to the thrush And flew at eveningtide. I went my way and would not care If they should come and go; A thousand birds seemed up in air, My thoughts were singing so.

Now in the West the slender moon lies low, And now Orion glimmers through the trees, Clearing the earth with even pace and slow, And now the stately-moving Pleiades, In that soft infinite darkness overhead Hang jewel-wise upon a silver thread. And all the lonelier stars that have their place, Calm lamps within the distant southern sky, And planet-dust upon the edge of space, Look down upon the fretful world, and I Look up to outer vastness unafraid And see the stars which sang when earth was made.

I shall not go with pain Whether you hold me, whether you forget My little loss and my immortal gain. O flower unseen, O fountain sealed apart! Give me one look, one look remembering yet, Sweet heart. I shall not go with grief, Whether you call me, whether you deny The crowning vintage and the golden sheaf. O, April hopes that blossom but to close! Give me one look, one look and so good-bye, Red rose. I shall not go with sighs, But as full-crowned the warrior leaves the fight, Dawn on his shield and death upon his eyes. O, life so bitter-sweet and heaven so far! Give me one look, one look and so good night, My star.

The earth builds on the earth Castles and towers; The earth saith of the earth: All shall be ours. Yea, though they plan and reap The rye and the corn, Lo, they were bond to Sleep Ere they were born. Yea, though the blind earth sows For the fruit and the sheaf, They shall harvest the leaf of the rose And the dust of the leaf. Pride of the sword and power Are theirs at their need Who shall rule but the root of the flower The fall of the seed. They who follow the flesh In splendour and tears, They shall rest and clothe them afresh In the fulness of years. From the dream of the dust they came As the dawn set free. They shall pass as the flower of the flame Or the foam of the sea. The earth builds on the earth Castles and towers. The earth saith of the earth: All shall be ours.

Out of the winds' and the waves' riot, Out of the loud foam, He has put in to a great quiet And a still home. Here he may lie at ease and wonder Why the old ship waits, And hark for the surge and the strong thunder Of the full Straits, And look for the fishing fleet at morning, Shadows like lost souls, Slide through the fog where the seal's warning Betrays the shoals, And watch for the deep-sea liner climbing Out of the bright West, With a salmon-sky and her wake shining Like a tern's breast, — And never know he is done for ever With the old sea's pride, Borne from the fight and the full endeavour On an ebb tide.

Under the level winter sky I saw a thousand Christs go by. They sang an idle song and free As they went up to calvary. Careless of eye and coarse of lip, They marched in holiest fellowship. That heaven might heal the world, they gave Their earth-born dreams to deck the grave. With souls unpurged and steadfast breath They supped the sacrament of death. And for each one, far off, apart, Seven swords have rent a woman's heart.

Give me a few more hours to pass With the mellow flower of the elm-bough falling, And then no more than the lonely grass And the birds calling. Give me a few more days to keep With a little love and a little sorrow, And then the dawn in the skies of sleep And a clear to-morrow. Give me a few more years to fill With a little work and a little lending, And then the night on a starry hill And the road's ending.

I chose the place where I would rest When death should come to claim me, With the red-rose roots to wrap my breast And a quiet stone to name me. But I am laid on a northern steep With the roaring tides below me, And only the frosts to bind my sleep, And only the winds to know me.