Walter de la Mare (1873 – 1956)
English poet, short story writer, and novelist.
Here lies a most beautiful lady,
Light of step and heart was she;
I think she was the most beautiful lady
That ever was in the West Country.
What lovely things
Thy hand hath made.
"Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word," he said.
A face peered. All the grey night
In chaos of vacancy shone;
Nought but vast sorrow was there—
The sweet cheat gone.
So, blind to Someone
I must be.
The delicate, invisible web you wove
The inexplicable mystery of sound.
Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon.
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.
‘What is the world, O soldiers?
It is I,
I, this incessant snow,
This northern sky.
"Is anybody there?" said the Traveler,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor.
It's a very odd thing&mdas;
As odd as can be—
That whatever Miss T. eats
Turns into Miss T.