Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.
Mull was astern, Rum on the port,
Eigg on the starboard bow;
Glory of youth glowed in his soul;
Where is that glory now?
Whenever the moon and stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?
Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
And ships are tossed at sea,
By, on the highway, low and loud,
By at the gallop goes he.
By at the gallop he goes, and then
By he comes back at the gallop again.
My daughter made drawings with the pens you sent,
line drawings that suggest the things they represent,
different from any drawings she — at ten — had done,
closer to real art, implying what the mind fills in.
For her mother she made a flower fragile on its stem;
for me, a lion, calm, contained, but not a handsome one.
She drew a lion for me once before, on a get-well card,
and wrote I must be brave even when it’ s hard.
You have not conquered meit is the surge
Of love itself that beats against my will;
It is the sting of conflict, the old urge
That calls me still.
It is not you I loveit is the form
And shadow of all lovers who have died
That gives you all the freshness of a warm
And unfamiliar bride.
I could not pity your pain but I pitied the branches
Losing what little the frost had left them to hold.
I could not warm you with sorrow; I turned to the sparrows,
Clustered like heavy brown blossoms puffed out by the cold.
Green miles of leafy peace are spread
Over these ranks, unseen and serried;
Screening the trenches with their dead
And living men already buried.
The rains beat down, the torrents flow
Into each cold and huddling cave;
And over them the beet-fields grow,
A fortress gentle as a grave.
The forest is the only place
where green is green and blue is blue.
Walking the forest I have seen
most everything. I’ ve seen a you
with yellow eyes and busted wing.
And deep in the forest, no one knew.
Now that I know
That passion warms little
Of flesh in the mold,
And treasure is brittle,
I’ ll lie here and learn
How, over their ground,
Trees make a long shadow
And a light sound.
August 1922
This poem originally appeared in the September 1988 issue of Poetry. See it in its original context.
Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee,
With promise of strength and manhood full and fair!
Though cold and stark and bare,
The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee.
Thy mother’ s treasure wert thou; — alas! no longer
To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be
Thy father’ s pride; — ah, he
Must gather his faith together, and his strength make stronger.
