Song.

You who know what easeful arms
Silence winds about the dead,
Or what far-swept music charms
Hearts that were earth-wearied;

You who know - if aught be known
In that everlasting Hush
Where the life-born years are strewn,
Where the eyeless ages rush, -

Tell me, is it conscious rest
Heals the whilom hurt of life?
Or is Nirvana undistressed
E'en by memory of strife?

Thomas Runciman

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Thomas Runciman

Sonnet.

Thomas Runciman, Simple Poetry

A Hamadryad Dies. Sonnet

Thomas Runciman, Simple Poetry

Northumbria. - A Dirge.

Thomas Runciman, Simple Poetry

An Afternoon Soliloquy.

Thomas Runciman, Simple Poetry

English

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Song.

                Once as the aureole
                Day left the earth,
                Faded, a twilight soul,
                Memory, had birth:
Young were her sister souls, Sorrow and Mirth.

                Dark mirrors are her eyes:
                Wherein who gaze
                See wan effulgencies
                Flicker and blaze -
Lorn fleeting shadows of beautiful days.

                Scan those deep mirrors well
                After long years:
                Lo! what aforetime fell
                In rain of tears,
In radiant glamour-mist now reappears.

                See old wild gladness
                Tamed now and coy;
                Grief that was madness
                Turned into joy.
Fate cannot harr...

Thomas Runciman

An Afternoon Soliloquy.

How good some years of life may be!
Ah, once it was not guessed by me,
Past years would shine, like some bright sea,
In golden dusks of memory.

Ere then the music of the dawn
From me had long since surged away;
And in the disillusioned day
Of chill mid-life I plodded on.

Anon a fuller music thrilled
My world with meaning undertones,
That elegized our vanished ones,
And told how Lethe's banks are filled

With wordless calm, and wistful rest,
And sweet large silence, solemn sleep,
And brooding shadows cool and deep,
And grand oblivions, undistressed.

No more 'twas "Lethe rolling doom,"
But Lethe calling, "Come to me,
And wash away all memory
And taint of what precedes the tomb;

And know the changeless afterthought...

Thomas Runciman

Song.

    Life with the sun in it -
        Shaded by gloom!
    Life with the fun in it -
        Shadowed by Doom!

Life with its Love ever haunted by Hate!
Life's laughing morrows frowned over by Fate!
Young Life's wild gladness still waylaid by Age!
All its sweet badness still mocking the sage!
What can e'er measure the joy of its strife?

    What boundless leisure
    Count the heaped treasure
    Of woe, that's the pleasure
    And beauty of Life?

Thomas Runciman

Sonnet.

She scanned the record of Beethoven's thought,
And made the dumb chords speak both clear and low,
And spread the dead man's voice till I was caught
Away, and now seemed long and long ago.
Methought in Tellus' bosom still I lay,
While centuries like steeds tramped overhead,
To the wild rhythms that, by night and day,
From nature and man's passions still are made.
The music of their motion as they pranced
Lulled me to flawless ease as of a God;
Never upon me pain or pleasure chanced;
Unknown the dew of bliss, or fate's hard rod.
Thus dreamed I ... But I know our mother Earth
Waits to give back the peace she reft at birth.

Thomas Runciman

Sonnet.

Hopeless! Despairless! like that Indian wise
Free of desire, save no desire to know.
To gain that sweet Nirvana each one tries,
Thinks to assuage soul-wearing passion so.
From the white rest, the ante-natal bliss,
Not loth, the wondrous wondering soul awakes;
Now drawn to that illusion, now to this,
With gathering strength each devious pathway takes;
Till at the noon of life his aims decline;
Evermore earthward bend the tiring eyes,
Evermore earthward, till with no surprise
They see Nirvana from Earth's bosom shine.
The still kind mother holds her child again
In blank desirelessness without a stain.

Thomas Runciman

What though my voice cease like a moan o' the wind?

What though my voice cease like a moan o' the wind?
Not the less shall I
Cast on this life a kindly eye,
Glad if through its mystery
Faint gleams of love and truth glance o'er my mind.

What though I end like a spring leaf shed on the wind?
Restrained by pure-eyed Sorrow's hand,
Lithe Joy through this wondrous land
Leads me; nothing have I scanned
Unmixed with good. Fate's sharpest stroke is kind.

To me, thoughts lived of old anew are born
From glances at the unsullied sea,
Or breath of morning purity,
From cloud or blown grass tossing free,
Or frail dew quivering on leaf, rose or thorn.

What though behind me all is mist and shade,
Yet warmth of afterglow bathes all.
Hallowed spirits move and call
Each to me, a willing thrall,
W...

Thomas Runciman