by George Barker
O misted woods hanging on a hill
Under a dirty sky of those November
Evenings when only streams are not still
And even Autumn knows that it is sombre
And images like reflected faces fill
The welling memory, I know I shall remember
Your evergreen aviaries of the past until
I add my lineage to your sacred number.
No valediction was the last image of
My trudging love that I her hunter had
With her hair tawny and tossed, and the courage of
Those who foresee defeat and are not sad,
I saw her traipsing down the evening
Track with a glass milk jug held in her arms
And now never again shall all my loving
Even in a dream ever bring her back.
O love, my milk and honey dove, what mist
Came down and hid you from me ever after,
With that glass pearled in your hand and the honey kissed
Into the curl of your combs and your small laughter
Like the dancing of watered light? What beast
Stepped from behind a bush and dragged down
Your gathering-love-in-a-mist face to its breast
Smothering in rage what it could never own?
Into that empty house, whence you have so
Improvidently taken a last leave
I again turn in the evening, but find no
Echo of your possession or your love.
What walls could ever imitate your dove
Calling in silence from its amorous cage?
What glittering shadows ever shift or move
So near as the whispering icon of your face?
Was it the unicorn of my long horned pride
Crushed your lost milkmaid underneath that hill?
I had not thought that any beast could kill
Such innocence of spirit, but would ride :
Roughshod as through a morning of early May
And not leave a hoofmark upon the day.
Now I have seen a butchered dawn lie still
Where it was broken by the brute I ride.
But these sad monsters weep beside the streams
Their elephantine vanity has ploughed up:
The heart of the tyrant is scored with his crimes;
Not every bridegroom knows when the fury should stop
And let its victims rest. I loved too much
The maidenhair vessel with its cradling chain
And capturing it in that berserker clutch
Shattered what no remorse could restore again.
There is no shame and no pity; only regret
That innocence must either alter or die.
And mercifully the evening can forget
Its morning glories. Who could blame the high
Sun because it burns a dawn into noon,
Or dolls the midday bird with hanging veils
In the lascivious evening? But too soon
I harried a pearl into a hunter’s moon.
Only the whole world now turns between us
My unreturning dove. Only the whole
Unholy world, and nothing, nothing more.
Hesper is not nearer now to Venus
Than I to you where you flitter alone
By a vast sea, on a dark shore.
It is not very far from pole to pole—
They marry at the middle of the star.
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