Memories

Painter of Painters,
Artist of Artists,
Loving the earliest,
Holding it tenderly
Nearest thy breast.
Giver of colour,
Form and perception,
Shapes without number,
God of the child-world!
How shall I thank thee,
Life’s benefactor,
Earliest and dearest?
When shall thy joys fail?
Cease to enchant me?
Cease to soothe sorrow?

Only in Death!

Tenderly, daintily,
Vividly, cloudily,
Gleam through the darkness
These, thy first pictures;
Odours and tones too,
Scents of wet seaweed,
Wings of wild sea-birds,
Flashes of sunlight,
Winds from the westward,
Red streams of sunset,
Bog-scents and sea-scents,
Huge domes of cloudland,
Clattering of rain-drops,
Rushing and splashing,
Beating to leeward.

Wild wastes of moorland;
Deep pools of colour;
Grey tarns and tussocks,
Starry blue blossoms;
Sheets of bog-myrtle;
Odorous with crushing;
Grey moths uprising,
Ghosts of the heather,
Others at eventide,
Larger, more splendid,
Peering mysteriously;
Bats flitting swiftly,
Wild storms at midnight;
Grey morning wakings;
Rushes to seaward;
Rides through the wet grass;

Laughter and greetings.
Up on the heights too,
Ancient grey ruins,
--Hoary, so hoary--
Toppling and perilous,
From whose high ramparts
Spreads like a deluge,
Endless as Chaos,
Spreads to the uttermost,
Wastes of grey water;
Wakening the child-brain,
Rousing its visions--
--Dreams of the measureless
Hints of the boundless,
Breaths of the Infinite,
Soul of God’s world!

Oh, mighty artist!
Life’s benefactor,
Earliest and dearest,
When shall thy joys fail?
Cease to enchant me?
Cease to soothe sorrow?

Only in Death.