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Robert Laurence Binyon - Sirmione
Work rating: Low

Give me your hand, Beloved! I cannot see;
 So close from shadowy--branching tree to tree
 Dark leaves hang over us. How vast and still
 Night sleeps! and yet a murmur, a low thrill,
 Sighed out of mystery, steals slowly near,
 Solitary as longing or as fear,
 Through the faint foliage, stirring it, and shy
 Amid the stillness, ere it tremble by,
 Touches us on the cheek and on the brow
 Light as a dew--dript finger! Listen now,
 `Tis not alone the hushings of the bough,
 But on the slabbed rock--beaches far beneath
 Listen, the liquid breath
 Of the vast lake that rustles up all round
 Whispering for ever! Soon shall we be where
 The trees end, and the promontory bare
 Breathes all that wide and water--wandering air
 Which shall our foreheads and our lips delight,
 Blown darkly through the breadth and depth and height
 Of soft, immense, and solitary Night.

 Where is the Day,
 Bright as a dream, that on this same cliff--way
 Fretted light shadows on old olive stems
 By whose gray, riven roots like scarlet gems
 The little poppies burned? Where those clear hues
 Of water, melted to diviner blues
 In the deep distance of each radiant bay,
 But close beneath us, past the narrowed edge
 Of shadow from sheer crag and jutting ledge,
 Shallowing upon the low reef into gold,
 A ripple of keen light for ever rolled
 Up to the frail reed sighing on the shore?
 Where are those mountains far--enthroned and hoar
 Above the glittering water`s slumbrous heat,
 With old blanched towns sprinkled about their feet,
 Lifting majestic shoulders, that each side
 Of that steep misty northern chasm divide,
 Where, ambushed in the dim gulf ere they leap,
 Wild spirits of the Wind and Thunder sleep?

 `Tis flown, that many--coloured dream is flown,
 And with the heart of Night we are alone.
 This is the verge. The promontory ends.
 Now the dim branches cover us no more.
 Abrupt the path descends:
 But here will we sit, high above the shore,
 Here, where we know what wild flowered bushes cloak
 Old ruined walls, and crumbling arches choke
 With mounded earth, though buried from our eyes
 In dark now, as beneath dark centuries
 The marble--towered magnificence of Rome,
 From whose hot dust the passionate poet fled
 Hither, and laid his head
 Where these same waters laughed him welcome home!

 It is all dark; but how the air breathes free!
 Beloved, lean to me!
 Feel how the stillness like a bath desired
 With happy pressure heals our senses tired;
 And drink the keen sweet fragrance from the grass
 And wafts from hidden flowers that come and pass,--
 None here but we, and we have left behind
 The world, and cares confined,
 All with the daylight drowned
 In darkness on this height of utmost ground,
 Where under us the sighing waters cease
 And over us are only stars and peace.

 O Love, Love, Love, look up! Let your head lean
 Back on my shoulder. Ah, I feel the keen
 Indrawing of your breath, and your heart beat
 Under my own, and sighing through you sweet
 The wonder of the Night that widely broods
 Over us with her glittering multitudes.
 Oh, in Night`s garden has a fountain sprung
 That over old earth showers forever young
 A fairy splendour of still--dropping spray?
 Or in mad rapture has enamoured May
 Through the warm dusk mounted like wine, and towered
 And in far spaces infinitely flowered,
 Breaking the deep heaven into milky bloom?
 So beautiful in this most tender gloom
 Ten thousand thousand stars through height on height
 Burn over us, how breathless and how bright!
 Some wild, some fevered, some august and large,
 Royal and blazing like a hero`s targe,
 Some faint and secret, from abysses brought,
 Lone as an incommunicable thought--
 They throng, they reign, they droop, they bloom, they glow
 Upon our gaze, and as we gaze they grow
 In patience and in glory, till the mind
 Is brimmed and to all other being blind;
 They hang, they fall towards us, spears of fire,
 Piercing us through with joy and with desire.

 Ah me, Beloved, comes an alien gust,
 A sudden cold thought, blowing bitter dust
 Upon this rapture. They are dead, all dead!
 `Tis but the beauty of Medusa`s head
 Gleaming on us in icy masks, that stare
 From everlasting winter blind and bare;
 They have no answer for our hearts that yearn,
 They have no joy in burning, only burn
     Upon their senseless motion. Ah, no, no!
 Can you not feel the warm truth overflow?
 Light to light answers, even as heart to heart,
 And by their shining we in them have part.
 Lo, the same light that in the tiniest spark
 Makes momentary beauty from the dark,
 The light that blesses warm earth and inweaves
 A million colours in young flowers and leaves,
 That our sick thoughts and melancholy eyes
 Confounds with magical simplicities,
 Yea, that by dawn`s beginning shall unfold
 Wide glimmering waters, and to glory mould
 Frore peaks, wild torrents in the vales between.
 And golden mists on lawns of living green,
 `Tis the same light that now above us showers
 These star--drops, white and fair as falling flowers;
 And silent rings a cry from star to sun,
 Through all the worlds, Light, life and love are one!

 Hush your heart now, Beloved, hush to sink
 Your thought down, deep as the still mind can think,
 Then climb as high as boldest thought can climb!
 Were these dark heavens the unfathomed gulfs of Time,
 So might we see bright peopling spirits star
 The memoriless ages, burning far,
 Splendid or faint, tempestuous or serene,
 All quick and fiery spirits that have been,
 From whose immortal ecstasies and pains
 Drops of red life run sanguine in our veins;
 Who lived and loved, and prodigally spent
 Their strength, their prayers, upon one pure intent,
 In whom no deed was willed, no lonely thought
 Attempered and to sword--blade keenness brought,
 But it has helped us, even us, for whom
 They shine in glory from the ages` gloom.
 But oh, it is not only these I see:
 Look up, behold unnumbered hosts to be!
 What shall we do for them, whose hope endears
 Futurity`s dark wilderness of years?
 Heroes, that shall adventure and attain
 What broke our wills in passion and in pain;
 Sages, to find all that we vainly seek,
 Poets, to utter all we cannot speak!
 And they at last shall into strong towers build
 The stones we bled to gather, the unfulfilled
 House of our dream; what was but fable sung,
 Or indignation on a prophet`s tongue,
 Made form and hue of life`s own tissue, wrought
 Into the rich reality of thought.
 And women, ah, what majesty of fate
 Is theirs, for whom the little is made great,
 The tender strong; far--off they also wait
 The glory of their burden. Love, what deep
 Of mystery unfolds! Let your heart leap!
 Lo, at your bosom all the world to come,
 A child! It waits, it watches, it is dumb,
 Yet hearkens and desires; the vision grows
 Before us, and behind us overflows,
 Mingling, as throng on throng of stars o`erhead,
 One undivided host, the mighty dead,
 The mightier unborn! Time is rent away;
 There is no morrow, no, nor yesterday,
 Nor here, nor there, nor sleeping nor awaking;
 But, like full waters into ocean breaking,
 Lost at this moment in our heart`s high beating
 The boundless tides of either world are meeting;
 And by the love--cry in my heart that rings,
 And by the answer in your heart that sings,
 We feel, at once exulting and afraid,
 Near to the glowing of the Hand that made
 And out of earth, with divine fire instinct,
 Moulded us for each other`s need, and linked
 Our brief breath with the eternal will. That light
 Shall kindle, in the dulling world`s despite,
 The inmost of our spirits, burning through
 The shadow of all we suffer, dream and do,
 As surely as mine eyes, new facultied
 In vision to the estranging day denied,
 Still shall behold, when this fair night is fled,
 All the stars shine round your belovèd head.
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