| Once more the storm is howling, and half hid |
| Under this cradle-hood and coverlid |
| My child sleeps on.
There is no obstacle |
| But Gregory’s wood and one bare hill |
| Whereby the haystack-and roof-levelling
wind, |
| Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; |
| And for an hour I have walked and prayed |
| Because of the
great gloom that is in my mind. |
|
|
|
|
| I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour |
| And heard the
sea-wind scream upon the tower, |
| And under the arches of the bridge, and scream |
| In the elms above
the flooded stream; |
| Imagining in excited reverie |
| That the future years had come, |
| Dancing to a frenzied
drum, |
| Out of the murderous innocence of the sea. |
|
|
|
|
| May she be granted beauty and yet not |
| Beauty to
make a stranger’s eye distraught, |
| Or hers before a looking-glass, for such, |
| Being made beautiful overmuch, |
| Consider beauty a sufficient end, |
| Lose natural kindness and maybe |
| The heart-revealing intimacy |
| That
chooses right, and never find a friend. |
|
|
|
|
| Helen being chosen found life flat and dull |
| And later had much
trouble from a fool, |
| While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray, |
| Being fatherless could have her
way |
| Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man. |
| It’s certain that fine women eat |
| A crazy salad with their
meat |
| Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone. |
|
|
|
|
| In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned; |
| Hearts are not
had as a gift but hearts are earned |
| By those that are not entirely beautiful; |
| Yet many, that have played
the fool |
| For beauty’s very self, has charm made wise, |
| And many a poor man that has roved, |
| Loved and
thought himself beloved, |
| From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes. |
|
|
|
|
| May she become a flourishing
hidden tree |
| That all her thoughts may like the linnet be, |
| And have no business but dispensing round |
| Their magnanimities of sound, |
| Nor but in merriment begin a chase, |
| Nor but in merriment a quarrel. |
| O
may she live like some green laurel |
| Rooted in one dear perpetual place. |
|
|
|
|
| My mind, because the minds
that I have loved, |
| The sort of beauty that I have approved, |
| Prosper but little, has dried up of late, |
| Yet
knows that to be choked with hate |
| May well be of all evil chances chief. |
| If there’s no hatred in a mind |
| Assault and battery of the wind |
| Can never tear the linnet from the leaf. |
|
|
|
|
| An intellectual hatred is the worst, |
| So let her think opinions are accursed. |
| Have I not seen the loveliest woman born |
| Out of the mouth
of Plenty’s horn, |
| Because of her opinionated mind |
| Barter that horn and every good |
| By quiet natures
understood |
| For an old bellows full of angry wind? |
|
|
|
|
| Considering that, all hatred driven hence, |
| The soul
recovers radical innocence |
| And learns at last that it is self-delighting, |
| Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, |
| And that its own sweet will is Heaven’s will; |
| She can, though every face should scowl |
| And every windy
quarter howl |
| Or every bellows burst, be happy still. |
|
|
|
|
| And may her bridegroom bring her to a house |
| Where
all’s accustomed, ceremonious; |
| For arrogance and hatred are the wares |
| Peddled in the thoroughfares. |
| How but in custom and in ceremony |
| Are innocence and beauty born? |
| Ceremony’s a name for the rich
horn, |
| And custom for the spreading laurel tree. |
| June 1919 |
