FOUR NOCTURNALS

I

He came by night, offering me
flowers whose throats were clear and red:
turning the door with a dog's knee,
"Sir, buy my wolves," he said.

The yellow and the scarlet wine,
the bare table, the white bread,
he saw: laying his hand on mine,
"Give me this house," he said.

He watched with his etruscan eyes
the quiet phantom on my bed:
flashed in his hand the lifted glass;
"Sweet quicksilver," he said.

II

Whether awake in the dumb night
or losing agony to the sun,
we hear the mocking-bird alight
and speak of things we have not done.
	Makers of music, snap your strings;
	the echoes answer only kings.

Whether alone with burning thigh
or coupled in the reins of fear,
we flinch; the torches die;
and the mocking-bird is near.
	Carvers of beauty, leave your blocks;
	the chisel breaks upon the rocks.

Whether desire in bitterness
or sleeping prophecy of gold,
the robes are torn, the masks eyeless;
and he speaks, and we are cold.
	Coiners of colour, stain your cheeks;
the mocking-bird is blind, and speaks.

Whether by flame in the sour blood
or green of gyves upon the flesh,
we have listened, we have stood
like broken beasts in a mesh.
	Weavers of words, be dumb, be dumb;
	the night is dangerous, and will come.

III

Now the night lays ghostly charms
in the lover's anxious arms,
and his hapless dreams devise
whispering, the familiar lies
as the futile and the great
go their ways by the same gate.

Formless hands and shadowless
mock us in our meek distress;
one by one nostalgic feet
tread the lonely rainy street;
images of easy tears
follow the false comforters.

Now the trains run roaring through
a hollow sky from me to you,
and destructive resonant things
cross the moon on rigid wings:
but the bridge is broken down
and the homeward signal gone.

Arms outstretched across the bay
lift the lovely hill of day,
but the lover's arms are spread
vainly in his haunted bed.
Time puts out a hand to break
the hearts of them that dare not wake.

IV

The nights are long; and in our wood
   the wakeful satyrs cry:
the horrors of our flesh and blood
   are of infinity.
For still we hear about our bed
the brazen hammers of the dead.

And that which hung enormous dark
   around us, and a gulf
wherein proleptic evils walk,
   and the raging wolf,
turns to his own, and spares no more
the coward thing behind the door.

Softly the living nightmare comes
   and the dead rise, the false,
moving before us to their drums;
   and the deceived heart feels
the clutch of other love; our eyes,
the sorrow of unfaithfulness.