The Landscape

You and your landscape! There it lies     Stripped, resuming its disguise,     Clothed in dreams, made bare again,     Symbol infinite of pain,     Rapture, magic, mystery     Of vanished days and days to be.     There's its sea of tidal grass     Over which the south winds pass,     And the sun-set's Tuscan gold     Which the distant windows hold     For an instant like a sphere     Bursting ere it disappear.     There's the dark green woods which throve     In the spell of Leese's Grove.     And the winding of the road;     And the hill o'er which the sky     Stretched its pallied vacancy     Ere the dawn or evening glowed.     And the wonder of the town     Somewhere from the hill-top down     Nestling under hills and woods     And the meadow's solitudes.             *        *        *        *        *     And your paper knight of old     Secrets of the landscape told.     And the hedge-rows where the pond     Took the blue of heavens beyond     The hastening clouds of gusty March.     There you saw their wrinkled arch     Where the East wind cracks his whips     Round the little pond and clips     Main-sails from your toppled ships. ...     Landscape that in youth you knew     Past and present, earth and you!     All the legends and the tales     Of the uplands, of the vales;     Sounds of cattle and the cries     Of ploughmen and of travelers     Were its soul's interpreters.     And here the lame were always lame.     Always gray the gray of head.     And the dead were always dead     Ere the landscape had become     Your cradle, as it was their tomb.             *        *        *        *        *     And when the thunder storms would waken     Of the dream your soul was not forsaken:     In the room where the dormer windows look -     There were your knight and the tattered book.     With colors of the forest green     Gabled roofs and the demesne     Of faery kingdoms and faery time     Storied in pre-natal rhyme. ...     Past the orchards, in the plain     The cattle fed on in the rain.     And the storm-beaten horseman sped     Rain blinded and with bended head.     And John the ploughman comes and goes     In labor wet, with steaming clothes.     This is your landscape, but you see     Not terror and not destiny     Behind its loved, maternal face,     Its power to change, or fade, replace     Its wonder with a deeper dream,     Unfolding to a vaster theme.     From time eternal was this earth?     No less this landscape with your birth     Arose, nor leaves you, nor decay     Finds till the twilight of your day.     It bore you, moulds you to its plan.     It ends with you as it began,     But bears the seed of future years     Of higher raptures, dumber tears.             *        *        *        *        *     For soon you lose the landscape through     Absence, sorrow, eyes grown true     To the naked limbs which show     Buds that never more may blow.     Now you know the lame were straight     Ere you knew them, and the fate     Of the old is yet to die.     Now you know the dead who lie     In the graves you saw where first     The landscape on your vision burst,     Were not always dead, and now     Shadows rest upon the brow     Of the souls as young as you.     Some are gone, though years are few     Since you roamed with them the hills.     So the landscape changes, wills     All the changes, did it try     Its promises to justify?...             *        *        *        *        *     For you return and find it bare:     There is no heaven of golden air.     Your eyes around the horizon rove,     A clump of trees is Leese's Grove.     And what's the hedgerow, what's the pond?     A wallow where the vagabond     Beast will not drink, and where the arch     Of heaven in the days of March     Refrains to look. A blinding rain     Beats the once gilded window pane.     John, the poor wretch, is gone, but bread     Tempts other feet that path to tread     Between the barn and house, and brave     The March rain and the winds that rave. ...     O, landscape I am one who stands     Returned with pale and broken hands     Glad for the day that I have known,     And finds the deserted doorway strown     With shoulder blade and spinal bone.     And you who nourished me and bred     I find the spirit from you fled.     You gave me dreams,'twas at your breast     My soul's beginning rose and pressed     My steps afar at last and shaped     A world elusive, which escaped     Whatever love or thought could find     Beyond the tireless wings of mind.     Yet grown by you, and feeding on     Your strength as mother, you are gone     When I return from living, trace     My steps to see how I began,     And deeply search your mother face     To know your inner self, the place     For which you bore me, sent me forth     To wander, south or east or north. ...     Now the familiar landscape lies     With breathless breast and hollow eyes.     It knows me not, as I know not     Its secret, spirit, all forgot     Its kindred look is, as I stand     A stranger in an unknown land.             *        *        *        *        *     Are we not earth-born, formed of dust     Which seeks again its love and trust     In an old landscape, after change     In hearts grown weary, wrecked and strange?     What though we struggled to emerge     Dividual, footed for the urge     Of further self-discoveries, though     In the mid-years we cease to know,     Through disenchanted eyes, the spell     That clothed it like a miracle -     Yet at the last our steps return     Its deeper mysteries to learn.     It has been always us, it must     Clasp to itself our kindred dust.     We cannot free ourselves from it.     Near or afar we must submit     To what is in us, what was grown     Out of the landscape's soil, the known     And unknown powers of soil and soul.     As bodies yield to the control     Of the earth's center, and so bend     In age, so hearts toward the end     Bend down with lips so long athirst     To waters which were known at first -     The little spring at Leese's Grove     Was your first love, is your last love!             *        *         *        *        *     When those we knew in youth have crept     Under the landscape, which has kept     Nothing we saw with youthful eyes;     Ere God is formed in the empty skies,     I wonder not our steps are pressed     Toward the mystery of their rest.     That is the hope at bud which kneels     Where ancestors the tomb conceals.     Age no less than youth would lean     Upon some love. For what is seen     No more of father, mother, friend,     For hands of flesh lost, eyes grown blind     In death, a something which assures,     Comforts, allays our fears, endures.     Just as the landscape and our home     In childhood made of heaven's dome,     And all the farthest ways of earth     A place as sheltered as the hearth.         *        *        *        *        *     Is it not written at the last day     Heaven and earth shall roll away?     Yes, as my landscape passed through death,     Lay like a corpse, and with new breath     Became instinct with fire and light -     So shall it roll up in my sight,     Pass from the realm of finite sense,     Become a thing of spirit, whence     I shall pass too, its child in faith     Of dreams it gave me, which nor death     Nor change can wreck, but still reveal     In change a Something vast, more real     Than sunsets, meadows, green-wood trees,     Or even faery presences.     A Something which the earth and air     Transmutes but keeps them what they were;     Clear films of beauty grown more thin     As we approach and enter in.     Until we reach the scene that made     Our landscape just a thing of shade.