The Song of Love

The Treasured Three written by William Henry Davies

From "The Song of Love", 1926

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I
The oak bears little acorns, yet
Is big in branch and root:
My love is like the smaller tree,
That bears a larger fruit.
II
In Spring, when it is leafing time,
We know what plants will live;
But love need never wait for Spring,
To show its power to thrive.
III
Trouble may come, yet love will stay:
No heavy rain can beat
The lightning down and out - and birds
Wet through sing twice as sweet.
IV
Love is a staff, and Love's a rod,
A wise man and a fool;
I thought that I was wise, until
Love sent me back to school.
V
Scorn not because my body lives
In such a little place;
Think how my mind, on that account,
Inhabits greater space.
VI
My smallest blossom sometimes is
The Moon or setting Sun;
Seas are my pearls, and forests vast
Have no more trees than one!
VII
The finest scarf or collar made,
To keep a woman warm,
By night or day, on sea or land,
Is still a lover's arm.
VIII
Last night I dreamt that Dinah's ghost
Was standing near my bed:
What brings you here this hour of the night,
Picking your cheek? I said.
IX
She picked her cheek with her right hand,
Then held her arm out firm:
She made my hand a present then
Of a tiny little worm.
X
Lie here, I said, my poor dead love,
I'll not live many hours;
And take my word that I'll return
A worm of mine for yours.
XI
I thought when I was thirty years,
My marrying time had come;
But in that year the girl I love
Was in her mother's womb,
XII
But when she brought her twenty years
To my two score and ten,
I heard a cuckoo in a place
It never charmed till then.
XIII
Time, my love said, is sprinkling his
White jewels in my hair;
To join like dewdrops soon, and make
One big white diamond there!
XIV
So let her still praise Age and Time,
The more our years are told,
And say a garden's beauty's grown
The more as it grows old.
XV
Six months in friendship, side by side,
Like blades of grass we grew;
Love pinned us then together with
One diamond of his dew.
XVI
Since then our love has vaster grown,
Far up the branches reach;
Our smallest twigs as big as trunks
Of full-grown oak or beech.
XVII
And though my years outnumber hers
By thirty years all told,
My healthy fear of Death remains
To prove I am not old.
XVIII
Who can deserve a dog's pure love,
Which any villain can have?
One of the richest things on earth
Goes cheap to any knave.
XIX
My dog and I are waiting now,
His love is safe at least;
But never think my love can be shamed
By the love of my beast.
XX
Let's marry soon, and live no more
Like disappointed flowers
Whose heads are wet, but not their feet —
When mocked by passing showers.
XXI
Where shall we live, in some green vale,
Or on a Hill that's high?
Sometimes a Hill and wood are one,
With tree-tops in the sky.
XXII
And should we live in London town
Shall we by chance not meet
Two horses with a load of hay,
Sweetening a crowded street?
XXIII
A sight as fair as when the Sun
Is burning on a pool,
And, standing on their heads in water,
The ducks keep calm and cool.
XXIV
When I was rich without a care,
And lived with wandering men -
My belly spread across my back
Was all my bed-clothes then.
XXV
But when I say a house is mine,
The tax-collectors come
To show a man is poor indeed,
Who keeps a little home.
XXVI
I'll go into the country now
And find a little house;
And though its eyes are small, they shall
Have heavy, leafy brows.
XXVII
A house with curtains made of leaves,
Hanging from every stone;
I'll pass before the windows oft,
And it shall not be known.
XXVIII
I'll have a garden full of flowers,
With many a corner-place;
Where love can learn from spiders' webs
To make her mats of lace.
XXIX
When I am at one end of the garden
And she at the other end,
I'll see the Sun's bright face and hers
Into each other blend.
XXX
Until her face alone is seen,
And nothing she has on;
I'll see her shining face, with no
More body than the Sun.
XXXI
We'll sit in our garden, with a joy
That's great enough to give
The Sun our pity with his poor
Few million years to live.
XXXII
We'll keep a pool where under leaves
The fish swim out and i n;
Sometimes we'll see a breast of gold,
Sometimes a silver fin.
XXXIII
And though I scorn a painted skin,
Think not my tongue could scold her,
Should such fair things as butterflies
Encourage her to powder.
XXXIV
And if, when I've been out with some
Bass-singing, belted bee,
I take a drink or two myself -
Will she not pardon me?
XXXV
One time I thought it was my brain
That made the songs I sing;
But now I know it is a heart
That loveth every thing.
XXXVI
And while his heart's blood feeds his brain.
To keep it warm and young
A man can live a hundred years,
And day break into song.
XXXVII
How sad it is when Age has lost
Imagination's power,
And with a feeble, active tongue
Can jest of his last hour.
XXXVIII
But when I hear no birds in song,
And beauty there is none,
That is the hour when Death can strike -
With all my wonder gone.
XXXIX
The hour I hear a nightingale,
Or see a dragonfly
Shall not be my last hour on earth -
For then I cannot die.
XL
My love grows large when I behold
A blossom sucked by a bee;
Or leaves with sails of butterflies,
Floating like ships at sea.
XLI
So will my love increase when I
Can cast some kindly light
Of human thought on matter dead,
That's lovely to my sight.
XLII
Our life is dust, and dust is life:
When I am heavy and sigh,
A paper rag that rides the wind
Is greater far than I.
XLIII
I pass through life a laughing man,
Untouched by any sin:
Death makes us all, both king and fool,
Lie down at last to grin.
XLIV
And who can tell, when stripped by Death,
A monarch from his clown;
Who knows which head has worn the bells,
And which has worn the crown?
XLV
Day after day, and night by night,
The silly game is fought:
Life makes a question mark, and Death
Answers it with a nought.
XLVI
No matter what we say or do,
Or what it's all about,
There's that lean fellow, Death, behind,
Waiting to blot it out.
XLVII
Is Death a mask that Life puts on
To curb our foolish laughter;
And shall our spirits, living still,
Enjoy the jest hereafter?
XLVIII
Is Death's dark tunnel endless night
Where, entering, none can choose;
Or is a greater light to come
Beyond the light we lose?
XLIX
Answer, you poets, one and all,
Answer us from the Height;
Speak from your Many-jewelled Mountain —
Are we wrong or right?
L
But the more I question things unknown,
The more my mind is lost;
My voice is Echo's echo, and
My life a Shadow's ghost.
LI
For while I speak the thunder growls;
My dog, without a whine,
Barks fiercely back, and proves his voice
To be as vain as mine.
LII
When as a little boy I saw
The water break and stir,
I wondered what mysterious life
Had brought those bubbles there.
LIII
Now as a man full-grown and strong,
And known to many men,
I watch those bubbles still, and know
No more than I did then.
LIV
Is there a God, I ask, and smoke -
But fear, with reverence,
To foul the Face of a God with smoke
And a mortal's arrogance.
LXV
All other women that I know,
I'll look on them as men;
She'll look on other men as women -
There'll be no trouble then.
LXVI
My rival has a pleasant wife,
But who has heard her name?
Let him praise his, as I'll praise mine,
And leave the rest to Fame.
LXVII
See how my horse can fret and stamp
To pass a bird in flight:
My rival's horse is stamping too -
To shake off fleas that bite.
LXVIII
A donkey's gallop, rare and short,
Gives joy to all that see't:
My rival's horse gives joy to none -
Except its own vain poet.
LXIX
Would that some power would turn all things
To mirrors that reflect him;
To haunt him with his own vain face,
Till later days neglect him.
LXX
If our contented hearts are blind
To what the world calls great,
How can that world, whose pride is wealth,
Look down on our low state?
LXXI
The thing we call a truth to-day
Is but to-morrow's lie;
We change our minds, our bodies change,
Until we come to die.
LXXII
To-day I swear that music's best,
To-morrow swear by books;
If there's one truth that stays unchanged,
It's Love, and how she looks.
LXXIII
The story of my love shall be,
When I am one with Her,
Far richer than a Blackbird's yarn
In merry April's ear.
LXXIV
I praise the Blackbird's golden bill
Because of his golden song:
Were Love less kind than she is fair,
The devil could take my song.
LXXV
When she, poor bird, is croaking hoarse
After her glorious June,
The Nightingale shall wonder much
To hear my love in tune.
LXXVI
Skylarks sing well for meadows green,
But for ploughed land sing sweeter:
When I was single I sang well,
But married men sing better.
LXXVII
When rats bite rats and snakes bite snakes,
They seldom die from harm:
Could Dinah live if one of these
Should bite her leg or arm?
LXXVIII
We'll live beyond our fellow's reach,
From gossip, slander, strife,
And leave those human rats and snakes
To their own poisoned life.
LXXIX
So when my foe, who knows far less
Than He who knows all life,
Has taken a mistress from my side,
God gives me a good wife.
LXXX
A fool without experience, poor,
Began one day to think
How rich he'd be with scores of friends -
And wrote that down in ink.
LXXXI
A rich man said, with scores of friends,
Who wisely understood,
'How poor am I with these false friends!'
And wrote that down in blood.
LXXXII
I met a lonely man who had
No friend, no child, no wife:
O what a wretched thing, said I,
Is this poor mortal's life!
LXXXIII
But when I met a poorer man,
With neither friend nor foe,
This man is doubly damned, said I -
With twice the other's woe.
LXXXIV
But Love has saved me from that state,
I shall not live alone,
A weak, unloved, unhated thing,
Unnoticed and unknown.
LXXXV
Though we are two are we not one?
Aye, even as that Pair
Of scissors, which we hold in turns,
To cut each other's hair.
LXXXVI
One - like our Pair of household tongs,
There with his crooked thighs,
His long thin legs, his little head
With neither mouth nor eyes.
LXXXVII
My love is fair, but fairer still
With eyes a little wild,
When she forgets how fair she is,
And wonders like a child.
LXXXVIII
Let not her face be doted on
Too much by stranger men,
For when her back is turned their eyes
Dart on her ankles then.
LXXXIX
When flies are old and going blind,
They bite all things they touch:
But never think that Age or Time
Will trouble Love so much.
XC
And when a Spider damns the dew
For pearls on every string,
My Love will clap her hands, and say -
'Look at this lovely thing !'
XCI
I've seen six bees together kiss
A Sunflower's golden face;
But still she turns towards the Sun,
And follows face to face.
XCII
So, thinking of my greater love,
I live on her good looks;
And give my second thoughts, not first,
To music, verse, or books.
XCIII
The kiss of Love is half a bite,
And worth a thousand others;
Girls who have no desire for that
Should never leave their mothers.
XCIV
Should she complain no kiss of mine
Has left one little bite,
I'll let her take a needle and thread
And sew my mouth up tight.
XCV
If cheek or chin of hers can say
It never felt one nip,
I'll let her take a packet of pins
And pin me lip to lip.
XCVI
In Winter, when the evergreens
Have seen their plumpness go;
When all the little holly leaves
Wear padded gloves of snow -
XCVII
We'll pay the birds for their past songs,
In bread that's white and new:
Jack Frost, the finest artist known.
Shall be the kindest, too.
XCVIII
Her birthday comes, and I will buy
A pair of buckled shoes;
With two silk stockings cradled there,
Between the heels and toes.
XCIX
Her right leg's stocking shall contain
A comb to dress her hair;
In her left stocking she shall find
A silver thimble there.
C
See how my hands stretch out to take
The hand of Her I love:
Did Noah make more haste when he
Reached out to take God's Dove?

This work is in the public domain in countries where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or less.