Walter De la Mare

“ No more with wordless grief a loved one grieve,
But to heaven’s nothingness re-welcome Eve?
EYES O STRANGE DEVICES that alone divide
The seër from the seen—
The very highway of earth’s pomp and pride
That lies between
The traveller and the cheating, sweet delight
Of where he longs to be,
But which, bound hand and foot, he, close on night,
Can only see.
THE TRYST WHY IN MY HEART, O GRIEF,
Dost thou in beauty bide?
Dead is my well-content,
And buried deep my pride.
Cold are their stones, beloved,
To hand and side. ”

“ And we—who sing but as we can,
In the small knowledge of a man—
Have we an answer found?
Nay, some are happy whose delight
Is hid even from themselves from sight;
And some win peace who spend
The skill of words to sweeten despair
Of finding consolation where
Life has but one dark end;
Who, in rapt solitude, tell o’er
A tale as lovely as forlore
Into the midnight air. ”

“ From these rapt eyes,
Ere the first dart of daybreak
Pierce the skies.
THE OLD MEN OLD AND ALONE, SIT WE,
Caged, riddle-rid men;
Lost to earth’s ‘Listen!’ and ‘See!’
Thought’s ‘Wherefore?’ and ‘When?’
Only far memories stray
Of a past once lovely, but now
Wasted and faded away,
Like green leaves from the bough.
Vast broods the silence of night,
The ruinous moon
Lifts on our faces her light,
Whence all dreaming is gone.
We speak not; trembles each head;
In their sockets our eyes are still;
Desire as cold as the dead ”