Odes

BY LAURENCE BINYON - CONTENTS - PAGE - ODES THE DRYAD - WHAT hath the ilex heard, What hath the laurel seen, That the pale edges of their leaves are stirred What spirit stole between 0 trees upon your circle of smooth green, You stir as youths when beauty paces by, Moving heart and eye To unuttered praise. Was it the wind that parted your light boughs, Some odour to recapture as he strays, Or some fair virgin shape of human brows Yet lost to human gaze - 0 for that morning of the simple world, When hollow oak and fount and flowering reed. Were storied each with glimpses of a face By dropping hair dew-pearled Strange eyes that had no heed Of men, and bodies shy with the firm grace Of young fawns flying, yet of human kin, Whose hand might lead us, could we only spare Doubt and suspicious pride, a world to win, Where all that lives would speak with us, now dumb For fear of us. 0 might I yet win there Wave, boughs, aside to your fresh glooms I come. But all is lonely here Yet lonelier is the glade Than the woods entrance, and more dark appear The hollows of still shade. Ah, yet the nymphs white feet have surely stayed Beside the spring how solitary fair Shines and trembles there White narcissus bloom By lichened gray stones, where the glancing stream Swerves over into green wet mossy gloom, Their snowy frail flames on the ripple gleam And all the place illume. Surely her feet a moment rested here Nerving her hand upon a pliant branch, She paused, she listened, and then glided on Half-turned in lovely fear And her young shoulder shone Like moonbeams that wet sands, foam-bordered, blanch, A sight to stay the beating of the breast Alas, but mortal eyes may never know That beauty. Hark, whatbird above his nest So rapturously sings Ah, thou wilt tell, Thou perfect flower, whither her footsteps go, And all her thoughts, pure flower, for thou knowst well. White sweetness, richest odours round thee cling. Purely thou breathest of voluptuous Spring Thou art so white, because thou dost enclose All the advancing splendours of the year And thou hast burned beyond the reddest rose, To shine so keenly clear. Shadowed within thy radiance I divine Frail coral tinges of the anemone, Dim blue that clouds upon the columbine, And wallflowers glow as of old, fragrant wine, And the first tulips sanguine clarity, And pansys midnight-purple of sole star . All these that wander far From thee, and wilder glories would assume, Evn the proud peony of drooping plume, Robed like a queen in Tyre, All to thy lost intensity aspire Toward thee they yearn out of encroaching gloom They are all faltering beams of thy most perfect fire And she, that only haunts remote green ways, Is it an empty freedom she doth praise Doth she, distrustfully averse, despise The common sweet of passion, apt to fault And turns she from the hunger in loves eyes Pale famine to exalt Oh no, her bosoms maiden hope is still A morning dewdrop, imaging complete All life, full-stored with every generous thrill No hope less perfect could her body fill, Nor she be false to her own hearts rich beat. But she is pure because she hath not soiled Hope with endeavour foiled She not condemns glad love, but with the best Enshrines it, lovelier because unpossest........