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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17735-8.txt b/17735-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a78e392 --- /dev/null +++ b/17735-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1994 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Eyes of Youth, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Eyes of Youth + A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. + +Author: Various + +Release Date: February 9, 2006 [EBook #17735] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EYES OF YOUTH *** + + + + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe. + + + + +EYES OF YOUTH + + + * * * * * + + A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum--Shane + + Leslie--Viola Meynell--Ruth Lindsay-- + + Hugh Austin--Judith Lytton--Olivia + + Meynell--Maurice Healy--Monica + + Saleeby--Francis Meynell--With + + four early Poems by Francis + + Thompson, & a Foreword by + + Gilbert K. Chesterton. + + + * * * * * + + "He has eyes of youth, + he writes verses" + + _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. + + + * * * * * + + The four early poems of Francis Thompson are here published, for + the first time in book form, by the permission of his Literary + Executor. + + We have also to thank the Editors of _The Station, The Tablet, + The Outlook, The New Age, The Westminster Gazette, The Evening + Standard, The Irish Rosary_ and _The Lamp_, for permission to + re-publish other Verses. + + + * * * * * + +CONTENTS + + +G.K. CHESTERTON + +Foreword + +FRANCIS THOMPSON + +Threatened Tears +Arab Love Song +Buona Notte +The Passion of Mary + +PADRAIC COLUM + +"I shall not die for you" +An Idyll +Christ the Comrade +Arab Songs (I) +Arab Songs (II) + +SHANE LESLIE + +A Dead Friend (J.S. 1905) +Forest Song +The Bee +Outside the Carlton +The Pater of the Cannon +Fleet Street +Nightmare +To a Nobleman becoming Socialist +St. George-in-the-East + +VIOLA MEYNELL + +The Ruin +The Dream +The Wanderer +"Nature is the living mantle of God" +Secret Prayer +The Unheeded +Dream of Death + +THE HON. MRS. LINDSAY + +Mater Salvatoris +To Choose +The Hunters + +HUGH AUSTIN + +The Astronomer's Prayer +The Moon +To Yvonne +The Burial of Scald + +THE HON. MRS. LYTTON + +A Day Remembered +Childhood +Love in Idleness +Love's Counterfeit + +OLIVIA MEYNELL + +A Grief without Christ +The Crowning + +MAURICE HEALY + +In Memoriam +A Ballad of Friendship +In the Midst of Them +Sic Transit + +MONICA SALEEBY + +Retrospect + +FRANCIS MEYNELL + +Any Stone +Lux in Tenebris +Mater Inviolata +Song-burden +Gifts +Wraith +A Dedication + + + * * * * * + + +FOREWORD + + +My office on this occasion is one which I may well carry as lightly as +possible. In our society, I am told, one needs an introduction to a +beautiful woman; but I have never heard of men needing an introduction +to a beautiful song. Prose before poetry is an unmeaning interruption; +for poetry is perhaps the one thing in the world that explains itself. +The only possible prelude for songs is silence; and I shall endeavour +here to imitate the brevity of the silence as well as its stillness. + +This collection contains four new poems by one whom all serious critics +now class with Shelley and Keats and those other great ones cut down +with their work unfinished. Yet I would not speak specially of him, +lest modern critics should run away with their mad notion of a one-man +influence; and call this a "school" of Francis Thompson. Francis +Thompson was not a schoolmaster. He would have said as freely as Whitman +(and with a far more consistent philosophy), "I charge you to leave all +free, as I have left all free." The modern world has this mania about +plagiarism because the modern world cannot comprehend the idea of +communion. It thinks that men must steal ideas; it does not understand +that men may share them. The saints did not imitate each other; not +always even study each other; they studied the Imitation of Christ. +A real religion is that in which any two solitary people might suddenly +say the same thing at any moment. It would therefore be most misleading +to give to this collection an air of having been inspired by its most +famous contributor. The little lyrics of this little book must surely +be counted individual, even by those who may count them mysterious. +A variety verging on quaintness is the very note of the assembled bards. + +Take, for example, Mr. Colum's stern and simple rendering of the bitter +old Irish verses: + + "O woman, shapely as the swan, + On your account I shall not die." + +Like Fitzgerald's Omar and all good translations, it leaves one +wondering whether the original was as good; but to an Englishman the +note is not only unique, but almost hostile. It is the hardness of the +real Irishman which has been so skilfully hidden under the softness of +the stage Irishman. The words are ages old, I believe; they come out of +the ancient Ireland of Cairns and fallen Kings: and yet the words might +have been spoken by one of Bernard Shaw's modern heroes to one of his +modern heroines. The curt, bleak words, the haughty, heathen spirit are +certainly as remote as anything can be from the luxuriant humility of +Francis Thompson. + +If the writers have a real point of union it is in a certain instinct +for contrast between their shape and subject matter. All the poems are +brief in form, and at the same time big in topic. They remind us of the +vivid illuminations of the virile thirteenth century, when artists +crowded cosmic catastrophes into the corner of an initial letter; where +one may find a small picture of the Deluge or of the flaming Cities of +the Plain. One of the specially short poems sees the universe overthrown +and the good angels conquered. Another short poem sees the newsboys in +Fleet Street shouting the news of the end of the world, and the awful +return of God. The writers seem unconsciously to have sought to make a +poem as large as a revelation, while it was nearly as short as a riddle. +And though Francis Thompson himself was rather in the Elizabethan +tradition of amplitude and ingenuity, he could write separate lines that +were separate poems in themselves:-- + + "And thou, what needest with thy tribe's black tents, + Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?" + +A mediaeval illuminator would have jumped out of his sandals in his +eagerness to illustrate that. + +G.K. CHESTERTON. + + + + +FRANCIS THOMPSON + + +_THREATENED TEARS_ + +Do not loose those rains thy wet +Eyes, my Fair, unsurely threat; +Do not, Sweet, do not so; +Thou canst not have a single woe, +But this sad and doubtful weatlier +Overcasts us both together. +In the aspect of those known eyes +My soul's a captain weatherwise. +Ah me! what presages it sees +In those watery Hyades. + + +_ARAB LOVE SONG_ + +The hunchèd camels of the night* +Trouble the bright +And silver waters of the moon. +The Maiden of the Morn will soon +Through Heaven stray and sing, +Star gathering. + +Now while the dark about our loves is strewn, +Light of my dark, blood of my heart, O come! +And night will catch her breath up, and be dumb. + +Leave thy father, leave thy mother +And thy brother; +Leave the black tents of thy tribe apart! +Am I not thy father and thy brother, +And thy mother? + +And thou--what needest with thy tribe's black tents +Who hast the red pavilion of my heart? + +* The cloud-shapes often observed by travellers in the East. + + +_BUONA NOTTE_ + +_Jane Williams, in her last letter to Shelley, wrote: "Why do you +talk of never enjoying moments like the past? Are you going to join +your friend Plato, or do you expect I shall do so soon? Buona +Notte." This letter was dated July 6th, and Shelley was drowned on +the 8th. The following is his imagined reply from, another world_:-- + +Ariel to Miranda:--hear +This good-night the sea-winds bear; +And let thine unacquainted ear +Take grief for their interpreter. + +Good-night; I have risen so high +Into slumber's rarity, +Not a dream can beat its feather +Through the unsustaining ether. +Let the sea-winds make avouch +How thunder summoned me to couch, +Tempest curtained me about +And turned the sun with his own hand out: +And though I toss upon my bed +My dream is not disquieted; +Nay, deep I sleep upon the deep, +And my eyes are wet, but I do not weep; +And I fell to sleep so suddenly +That my lips are moist yet--could'st thou see +With the good-night draught I have drunk to thee. +Thou can'st not wipe them; for it was Death +Damped my lips that has dried my breath. +A little while--it is not long-- +The salt shall dry on them like the song. + +Now know'st thou, that voice desolate, +Mourning ruined joy's estate, +Reached thee through a closing gate. +"Go'st thou to Plato?" Ah, girl, no! +It is to Pluto that I go. + + +_THE PASSION OF MARY_ + +O Lady Mary, thy bright crown + Is no mere crown of majesty; +For with the reflex of His own + Resplendent thorns Christ circled thee. + +The red rose of this passion tide + Doth take a deeper hue from thee, +In the five Wounds of Jesus dyed, + And in Thy bleeding thoughts, Mary. + +The soldier struck a triple stroke + That smote thy Jesus on the tree; +He broke the Heart of hearts, and broke + The Saint's and Mother's hearts in thee. + +Thy Son went up the Angels' ways, + His passion ended; but, ah me! +Thou found'st the road of further days + A longer way of Calvary. + +On the hard cross of hopes deferred + Thou hung'st in loving agony, +Until the mortal dreaded word, + Which chills our mirth, spake mirth to thee. + +The Angel Death from this cold tomb + Of life did roll the stone away; +And He thou barest in thy womb + Caught thee at last into the day-- +Before the living throne of Whom + The lights of heaven burning pray. + + + L'ENVOY. + +O thou who dwellest in the day, + Behold, I pace amidst the gloom: +Darkness is ever round my way, + With little space for sunbeam room. + +Yet Christian sadness is divine, + Even as thy patient sadness was: +The salt tears in our life's dark wine + Fell in it from the saving Cross. + +Bitter the bread of our repast; + Yet doth a sweet the bitter leaven: +Our sorrow is the shadow cast + Around it by the light of Heaven. + O Light in light, shine down from Heaven! + + + * * * * * + + +PADRAIC COLUM + + +"_I SHALL NOT DIE FOR YOU_" + +(From the Irish) + +O woman, shapely as the swan, + On your account I shall not die. +The men you've slain--a trivial clan-- + Were less than I. + +I ask me shall I die for these: + For blossom-teeth and scarlet lips? +And shall that delicate swan-shape + Bring me eclipse? + +Well shaped the breasts and smooth the skin, + The cheeks are fair, the tresses free; +And yet I shall not suffer death, + God over me. + +Those even brows, that hair like gold, + Those languorous tones, that virgin way; +The flowing limbs, the rounded heel + Slight men betray. + +Thy spirit keen through radiant mien, + Thy shining throat and smiling eye, +Thy little palm, thy side like foam-- + I cannot die. + +O woman, shapely as the swan, + In a cunning house hard-reared was I; +O bosom white, O well-shaped palm, + I shall not die. + + +_AN IDYLL_ + +You stay at last at my bosom, with your beauty + young and rare, +Though your light limbs are as limber as the + foal's that follows the mare, +Brow fair and young and stately where thought + has now begun--Hair +bright as the breast of the eagle when he + strains up to the sun! + +In the space of a broken castle I found you on + a day +When the call of the new-come cuckoo went + with me all the way. +You stood by the loosened stones that were + rough and black with age: +The fawn beloved of the hunter in the panther's + broken cage! + +And we went down together by paths your + childhood knew-- +Remote you went beside me, like the spirit of + the dew; +Hard were the hedge-rows still: sloe-bloom + was their scanty dower-- +You slipped it within your bosom, the bloom + that scarce is flower. + +And now you stay at my bosom with you + beauty young and rare, +Though your light limbs are as limber as the + foal's that follows the mare; +But always I will see you on paths your childhood + knew, +When remote you went beside me like the + spirit of the dew. + + +_CHRIST THE COMRADE_ + +Christ, by thine own darkened hour + Live within my heart and brain! + Let my hands not slip the rein. + +Ah, how long ago it is + Since a comrade rode with me! + Now a moment let me see + +Thyself, lonely in the dark, +Perfect, without wound or mark. + + +_ARAB SONGS (I)_ + +Saadi the Poet stood up and he put forth his + living words. +His songs were the hurtling of spears and + his figures the flashing of swords. +With hearts dilated our tribe saw the creature + of Saadi's mind; +It was like to the horse of a king, a creature + of fire and of wind. + +Umimah my loved one was by me: without + love did these eyes see my fawn, +And if fire there were in her being, for me + its splendour had gone; +When the sun storms up on the tent, he makes + waste the fire of the grass-- +It was thus with my loved one's beauty: the + splendour of song made it pass. + +The desert, the march, and the onset--these + and these only avail, +Hands hard with the handling of spear-shafts, + brows white with the press of the mail! +And as for the kisses of women--these are + honey, the poet sings; +But the honey of kisses, beloved, it is lime + for the spirit's wings. + + +_ARAB SONGS (II)_ + +_The poet reproaches those who have affronted him_. + +Ye know not why God hath joined the horse + fly unto the horse +Nor why the generous steed is yoked with + the poisonous fly: +Lest the steed should sink into ease and lose + his fervour of nerve +God hath appointed him this: a lustful and + venomous bride. + +Never supine lie they, the steeds of our folk, + to the sting, +Praying for deadness of nerve, their wounds + the shame of the sun; +They strive, but they strive for this: the fullness + of passionate nerve; +They pant, but they pant for this: the speed + that outstrips the pain. + +Sons of the dust, ye have stung: there is + darkness upon my soul. +Sons of the dust, ye have stung: yea, stung + to the roots of my heart. +But I have said in my breast: the birth + succeeds to the pang, +And sons of the dust, behold, your malice + becomes my song. + + + * * * * * + + +SHANE LESLIE + + +_A DEAD FRIEND_ (_J.S._, 1905) + +I drew him then unto my knee, my friend who + was dead, +And I set my live lips over his, and my heart + by his head. + +I thought of an unrippled love and a passion + unsaid, +And the years he was living by me, my friend + who was dead; + +And the white morning ways that we went, + and how oft we had fed +And drunk with the sunset for lamp--my friend + who was dead; + +Now never the draught at my lips would thrill + to my head-- +For the last vintage ebbed in my heart; my + friend he was dead. + +Then I spake unto God in my grief: My wine + and my bread +And my staff Thou hast taken from me--my + friend who is dead. + +Are the heavens yet friendless to Thee, and + lone to Thy head, +That Thy desolate heart must have need of my + friend who is dead? + +To God then I spake yet again: not Peter + instead +Would I take, nor Philip nor John, for my + friend who is dead. + + +_FOREST SONG_ + +All around I heard the whispering larches + Swinging to the low-lipped wind; +God, they piped, is lilting in our arches, + For He loveth leafen kind. + +Ferns I heard, unfolding from their slumber, + Say confiding to the reed: +God well knoweth us, Who loves to number + Us and all our fairy seed. + +Voices hummed as of a multitude + Crowding from their lowly sod; +'Twas the stricken daisies where I stood, + Crying to the daisies' God. + + +_THE BEE_ + +Away, the old monks said, +Sweet honey-fly, +From lilting overhead +The lullaby +You heard some mother croon +Beneath the harvest moon. +Go, hum it in the hive, +The old monks said, +For we were once alive +Who now are dead. + + +_OUTSIDE THE CARLTON_ + +The death of the grey withered grass + Of man's is a sign, + And his life is as wine +That is spilt from a half-shivered glass. + At a quarter to nine + Went Dives to dine ... +(Man, it is said, is as grass.) + +Riches and plunder had met + To furnish his feast-- + Both succulent beast +And fish from the fisherman's net; + While he tasteth of dishes + And all his soul wishes-- +Nor knoweth his hour hath been set. + +The death of the pale-sodden hay + 'Neath the feet of the kine + Is to man for a sign; +At the striking of ten he was grey, + And they carried him out + Stiff-strangled with gout. +(Man, it is said, is as hay.) + + +_THE PATER OF THE CANNON_ + +Father of the thunder, + Flinger of the flame, +Searing stars asunder, + _Hallowed be Thy Name_! + +By the sweet-sung quiring + Sister bullets hum, +By our fiercest firing, + _May Thy Kingdom come_! + +By Thy strong apostle + Of the Maxim gun, +By his pentecostal + Flame, _Thy Will be done_! + +Give us, Lord, good feeding + To Thy battles sped--Flesh, +white grained and bleeding, + _Give for daily bread_! + + +_FLEET STREET_ + +I never see the newsboys run + Amid the whirling street, + With swift untiring feet, +To cry the latest venture done, +But I expect one day to hear + Them cry the crack of doom + And risings from the tomb, +With great Archangel Michael near; +And see them running from the Fleet + As messengers of God, + With Heaven's tidings shod +About their brave unwearied feet. + + +_NIGHTMARE_ + +I dreamt that the heavens were beggared + And angels went chanting for bread, +And the cherubs were sewed up in sackcloth, + And Satan anointed his head. +I dreamt they had chalked up a price + On the sun and the stars at God's feet, +And the Devil had bought up the Church, + And put out the Pope in the street. + + +_TO A NOBLEMAN BECOMING SOCIALIST_ + +I do remember thee so blest and filled + With all life offered thee, +Yet unsurprised I learn that thou hast willed + To share or lose her fee. + +It seems a very great and stalwart thing + To toss defence away, +To tear the golden feathers from thy wing + And lie with shards of clay. + +To some far vision's light thine eyes are set + That mock life's treasure trove, +And see the changing woof not woven yet + As God would have it wove. + +The red thou flauntest bravely, friend, for me + Hast lost alarming power; +For who but guilty men will quake their knee, + And who but robbers cower? + +For many hallowed things are symbolled red, + Live fire and cleansing war, +And the bright sealing Blood that Christ once shed, + And Martyrs yet must pour. + +O friend, choose one of these ourselves to link; + For how could friendship be +If from the foaming cup thou hast to drink + The dregs come not to me? + +Dividing much, thou makest little thine + Except the gain of loss; +Yet haply Christ's true peer hath better sign + Than coronet--the Cross. + + +_ST. GEORGE-IN-THE-EAST_ + +'Mid the quiet splendour of a pennoned crowd, + Gently proud, +Moved in armour, silvered in celestial forge, + Great Saint George, +Stands he in the crimson-woven air of fight + Speared with light-- +Hell is harried by the holy anger poured + From his sword. + +Where the sweated toilers of the river slum + Shiver dumb, +Passed to-day a poorly clad and poorly shod + Knight of God; +Where the human eddy smears with shame and rags + Paving flags, +Hell shall weakly wail beneath the words he cries + Piteous-wise. + + + * * * * * + + +VIOLA MEYNELL + + +_THE RUIN_ + +I led thy thoughts, having them for my own, + To where my God His head to thee did bend. +I bore thee in my bosom to His throne. + O, the blest labour, and the treasured end! + +Now like a ruined aqueduct I go + Unburdened; thou by more fleet ways hast been +With Him. Since thou thine own swift road dost know, + Thou canst not brook such slow and devious mean. + + +_THE DREAM_ + +I slept, and thought a letter came from you-- + You did not love me any more, it said. +What breathless grief!--my love not true, not true ... + I was afraid of people, and afraid +Of things inanimate--the wind that blew, + The clock, the wooden chair; and so I strayed +From home, but could not stray from grief, I knew. + And then at dawn I woke, and wept, and prayed, +And knew my blessed love was still the same;-- + And yet I sit and moan upon the bed +For that dream-creature's loss. For when I came + (I came, perhaps, to comfort her) she fled. +I would be with her where she wanders now, +Fleeing the earth, with pain upon her brow. + + +_THE WANDERER_ + +All night my thoughts have rested in God's fold; + They lay beside me here upon the bed. +At dawn I woke: the air beat sad and cold. + I told them o'er--Ah, God, one thought had fled. + +Into what dark, deep chasm this wayward one + Has sunk, I scarcely know; I will not chide. +O Shepherd, leave me! Seek this lamb alone. + The ninety-nine are here. They will abide. + + +"_NATURE IS THE LIVING MANTLE OF GOD_"--_GOETHE_ + +O for the time when some impetuous breeze +Will catch Thy garment, and, like autumn trees, +Toss it and rend it till Thou standest free, +And end Thy long secluded reverie! + +Still now its beauty folds Thee, and--as she +Who kissed Thy garment and had health from Thee-- +I feel the sun, or hear some bird in bliss, +And Thou hast then my sudden, humble kiss. + + +_SECRET PRAYER_ + +Since that with lips which moved in one we prayed, + So that God ceased to hear us speak apart, +What law irrevocable have we made? + How shall He hear a solitary heart + +When He did need that we, to have His ear, + Should go aside and pray together there +With urgent breath? Ah, now I pause and fear-- + How shall uprise my lonely, separate prayer? + + +_THE UNHEEDED_ + +Upon one hand your kisses chanced to rest: +I smiled upon the other hand and said +"Poor thing," when you had gone: and then in quest +Of pity rose a clamour from the dead-- +Some way of mine, some word, some look, some jest +Complained they too went all uncoveted ... +That night I took these troubles to my breast, +And played that you and I, my own, were wed; +Those troubles were our child, with eyes of fear,-- +A wailing babe, whom I, his mother dear, +Must soothe to quiet rest and calm relief, +And urge his eyes to sleeping by and by. +"O hush," I said, and wept to see such grief; +"Hush, hush, your father must not hear you cry." + + +_DREAM OF DEATH_ + +In sleep my idle thoughts were sadly led + By wild dark ways: it strangely seemed that I +Must join the number of the silent dead, + And with my young and fearful heart must die. + +But ah, what drew my bitter moans and sighs, + And pierced my sleeping spirit, was that she +Who with the saddest tears would close these eyes + And with maternal passion mourn for me, + +She on some pleasure-errand stayed away. + Ah, bitter, bitter thought! Ah, lonely death +To seek me in the night! And not till day + Had come and soothed my fear, and calmed my breath, + +And in the sun my new life I could kiss, + And look with prayer and hope to future years, +Did I discern God's mercy still in this-- + That I was spared the anguish of her tears. + + + * * * * * + + +RUTH TEMPLE LINDSAY + + +_MATER SALVATORIS_ + +Ah, wilt thou turn aside and see +The little Child on Mary's knee? +Enter the stable bleak and cold, +Grope through the straw and myrrh and gold; +Seek in the darkness near and far-- +Lift up the lantern and the Star. +Rough shepherds came to love and greet, +There knelt three kings at Mary's feet. +Ah! draw thee nigh the holy place-- +He sleepeth well in her embrace, +The little Saviour of thy race-- +Then raise thine eyes to Mary's face. + +But wilt thou come in years to be? +She held Him dead across her knee. +Stretch Him aloft on planks of wood; +Offer Him gall for tears and blood. +Blazon thy hatred far and near: +Lift up the hammer and the spear. +Red thorns about his head were wound-- +There lay three nails upon the ground. +Yea I Heed the Lover of thy race-- +He lieth dead in her embrace. +Ah! scourge thy soul with its disgrace: +Then raise thine eyes to Mary's face. + + +_TO CHOOSE_ + +Thou canst choose the eastern Circle for thy part, + And within its sacred precincts thou shalt rest; + Thou shalt fold pale, slender hands upon thy breast, +Thou shalt fasten silent eyes upon thy heart. +If there steal within the languor of thine ark + The thunder of the waters of the earth, + The human, simple cries of pain and mirth, +The wails of little children in the dark, +Thou shalt contemplate thy Circle's radiant gleam, + Thou shalt gather self and God more closely still: + Let the Piteous and the Foolish moan at will, +So thou shelter in the sweetness of thy dream. + +Thou canst bear a bloodstained Cross upon thy breast, + Thou shalt stand upon the common, human sod, + Thou shalt lift unswerving eyes unto thy God, +Thou shalt stretch torn, rugged hands to east and west +Thou shalt call to every throne and every cell-- + Thou shalt gather all the answers of the Earth, + Thou shalt wring repose from weariness and dearth, +Thou shalt fathom the profundity of Hell-- +But thy height shall touch the height of God above, + And thy breadth shall span the breadth of pole to pole, + And thy depth shall sound the depth of every soul, +And thy heart the deep Gethsemane of Love. + + +_THE HUNTERS_ + +"_The Devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about +seeking whom he may detour_" + +The Lion, he prowleth far and near, + Nor swerves for pain or rue; +He heeded nought of sloth nor fear, + He prowleth--prowleth through +The silent glade and the weary street, + In the empty dark and the full noon heat; +And a little Lamb with aching Feet-- + He prowleth too. + +The Lion croucheth alert, apart-- + With patience doth he woo; +He waiteth long by the shuttered heart, + And the Lamb--He waiteth too. +Up the lurid passes of dreams that kill, + Through the twisting maze of the great Untrue, +The Lion followeth the fainting will-- + And the Lamb--He followeth too. + +From the thickets dim of the hidden way + Where the debts of Hell accrue, +The Lion leapeth upon his prey: + But the Lamb--He leapeth too. +Ah! loose the leash of the sins that damn, + Mark Devil and God as goals, +In the panting love of a famished Lamb, + Gone mad with the need of souls. + +The Lion, he strayeth near and far; + What heights hath he left untrod? +He crawleth nigh to the purest star, + On the trail of the saints of God. +And throughout the darkness of things unclean, + In the depths where the sin-ghouls brood, +There prowleth ever with yearning mien-- + A lamb as white as Blood! + + + * * * * * + + +HUGH AUSTIN + + +_THE ASTRONOMERS PRAYER_ + +Night. O Thou God! who rulest Heaven and earth, + The terraced atmospheres, the bounded seas; +Who knowest equally both death and birth, + Frail human men, strong divine mysteries, +Whose unencumbered thought sways all the spheres, + In all their turning, snake-like, perfect ways; +Now that the season of my labour nears, + Grant me an insight to Thy larger days! + +To Thee all things create and unborn yield, + Being of Thee, the secret of their souls-- +The traversed elements, the azure field + Whereo'er eternal each huge star-world rolls. +There is no tiny insect but does know + Itself within Thy Presence visual: +From us too swiftly years and seasons go, + To Thee all change is a thing gradual. + +E'en as at nightfall, when the lights come in, + The moth attracted woos and meets her death, +So do I seek Thy light to wander in, + Though fearfully and with half-bated breath. +So do I seek all knowledge of Thy stars, + Which move in and without my vision's reach; +Maybe yet burning with internal wars, + Or shaking as this world with human speech. + +Stars which perhaps ten thousand years ago + Waned and grew cold at Thy almighty word +Waft their light hitherward. I do not know-- + Thy recreating voice I have not heard. +Maybe, e'en at this hour Thine accents shake + Some chaos into order, into life; +Perchance some great creation now doth break + Into new form beneath Thy wisdom's knife. + +Ah, Lord! The night appals me. Give me strength + Within myself to search this planet's dome: +O Supreme Architect, give me at length + Some clearer knowledge of Thy spaceless home! +My spirit seethes within me; in the sky + Thy constellations shine; for me begin +My labours until night-time passes by-- + And before dawn I must or fail or win. + + +_THE MOON_ + +Cirqued with dim stars and delicate moonflowers, +Silent she moves among the silent hours-- +Watching the spheres that glow with golden heat + Under her feet. + +Then, when the sunrise tints the east with light, +She fades to westward, with the dreamy night +And all her starry train--in faint disguise + Of twilight skies. + + +_TO YVONNE_ + +Such things have been, Yvonne; but you and I, + Can we touch lips again across the years? +Re-order what is past? Forget--or try + Not to remember what through mists of tears +Is still too memorable? Dare we two + Start both our lives again, as we were young +And happy, in such love as falls to few? + Nay, for our violins are all unstrung. + +Yet it is well that memory should hold + Some few pale rose-leaves plucked in bygone days, +That still are sweet, despite those pains untold + Which throng the marges of life's winding ways. +Yea, these will stay when nearer things are gone; + I shall keep mine. Will you keep yours, Yvonne? + + +_THE BURIAL OF SCALD_ + +A long, low wail of harps across the snow, + Falling and rising with the whistling wind; +A shifting glare of lights that come and go, + As if men searched for what they could not find. +And then the music thrilled out loud and well + Over the waste and barren dunes of sand-- +Solemn and stately as a passing bell + Heard dimly in some weary twilight land. + +Then slipped the moon behind a dusky cloud, + And each bright star its silver visage hid; +Mystery 'gan the darkness to enshroud; + Across the sky a blood-red message slid. + +Sudden the ship blazed up, the dark was light; + Lo! Scald is dead! his pyre was lit to-night. + + + * * * * * + + +JUDITH LYTTON + + +_A DAY REMEMBERED_ + +Oh, Love, what fate is ours? No summer morning + Shall give us joy, no sunrise bring relief; +No end--no end is there unto our sorrow, + No measure to our grief. + +You looked at me, and all your living beauty + Swept to my heart in flame a moment's space, +A sudden mist of tears in darkness veiling + The glory of your face. + +You spoke: I seemed to hear the wild doves cooing-- + The rain upon the hills, sweet falling rain; +And all my soul was filled with joy and anguish, + In ecstasy of pain. + +I saw as in a mist celestial visions + Beyond the bitter seas whence hope has fled, +Heard the wind blow among the trees in summer, + But knew not what you said. + +It matters not what words the lips have spoken + When heart shall speak to heart, for love can hear +Unspoken words, and see as in reflection + His own thoughts mirrored there. + +You came to me, the sun arose in splendour; + I saw the roses spread their petals sweet, +And thought that all the world must see in wonder + The wings upon our feet. + +You touched me, and a wave of passionate longing + Flooded my soul until it swooned away, +And knew no more the sunlight from the shadow-- + If it were night or day. + +We wandered in the shadow of the woodland, + Mute while we looked into each other's eyes, +And saw as in still pools of darkened water + The wonder of the skies. + +No word we spoke. We knew that love had silenced + All that we wished to speak yet left unsaid; +The bees were humming in the wild-rose blossoms + Which clustered overhead. + +And all that summer day we were together, + Alone with love, yet with a sword between-- +The flaming sword that stands between us ever, + And all that might have been. + +Mist gathered white at evening in the valleys, + And slowly grew the dusk from gold to grey, +While rain-clouds gathered on the low horizon + Dark at the close of day. + +And softly rose a wind from out the darkness, + With scent of flower and fern and herb and tree, +And in its breath there came a sound of thunder, + Storm-laden from the sea. + +And thus we reached the wicket of the garden; + The wood was full of sound, the sound of wings; +The scent of lavender brought back remembrance + Of long-forgotten things. + +Though heaven and earth and sky should be forgotten, + Yet of that hour my soul should bear the trace: +For night fell fast, and in the deepening shadow + You turned and kissed my face. + + +_CHILDHOOD_ + +A stranger come I to the festival +Thou holdest in the regions of romance, +Where dragons lurk and elfin spirits dance, +And pearls lie hid within each rose petal. +What magic changes in life's crystal ball +Shall thus transform earth's dullness at thy glance! +Ride then the wind, a feather for thy lance, +A pool thy sea, thy heaven a waterfall. +So shall thy soul to fairy worlds belong, +Where dust is gold and dew-drops turn to wine; +Remember still the visions that are thine +When sorrow shall disperse that phantom throng; +And dream once more that thou hast found divine +Love in a flower, and kingdoms in a song. + + +_LOVE IN IDLENESS_ + +To look at thee, and see the sunlight move +The shadow of the leaves upon thy face, +Lighting the glory of thy youth and grace +With golden rays wind-stirred from trees above; +To listen to the rustling of the grove, +The warblers in the reeds which interlace +The waters of the pool, and dream a space, +Forgetful of the hours ... this then is love! +Thy passion and thy strength, thy gentleness, +All these are mine. Who then shall dispossess +My soul of paradise? In truth I learn +More than the world can teach. Oblivion waits, +And distance parts, and Death annihilates: +But now thy love is all my love's concern. + + +_LOVE'S COUNTERFEIT_ + +By what false spell of what enchanter's wand +Should thy gross fibre be with love allied? +Unhappy youth, thou callest to thy side +An unknown shade from some far spirit land; +Thou canst not guess, nor shalt thou understand, +The waters that thy soul from his divide. +In place of Love, what alien spirits glide +About thy sleep to answer thy command? +What blasphemy is this? Thou hast no spell +To call that heaven-born spirit from the deep, +Or move the stars. What cometh in his place? +This monstrous fraud which thou hast raised from hell, +Whose arms about thee in the darkness creep? +Light not thy torch, lest thou shouldst see +his face. + + + * * * * * + + +OLIVIA MEYNELL + + +_A GRIEF WITHOUT CHRIST_ + +I sought Him in the trees, and Him I found +In every colour, and in every sound. + +I sought Him in the sky, and He was there, +A living God, breathing the living air. + +I sought Him in my soul--oh, passionate loss! +All that I found was a forsaken Cross. + + +_THE CROWNING_ + +Whenas we wandered in the summer hours, +My kind love crowned me with a crown of flowers. + +Softly they touched my forehead and my hair; +Gay, sunny, yellow, and sweet-breathed they were-- + +Soft flowers and tender hands, gay sun, soft skies; +And sweeter, tenderer yet, his loving eyes. + +Ah! but it should have been with thorns he crowned me, +Who follow Christ, while cold skies blackened round me. + +Dear love, I will accept from you cold frown, +Sharp words, hard touch, as symbols of His crown. + + + * * * * * + + +MAURICE HEALY + + +_IN MEMORIAM_ + +"Lord, teach us how to pray," they said; +And Jesus raised His weary head, +Bowed by the sorrows of the way, +And taught His children how to pray. + +"Lord, teach me how to pray," I cried; +And Jesus sent you to my side +To make your own the soul I wear +And mould it purer into prayer. + +And since your love first lit the way +I find that I have learned to pray; +For, that my soul may benefit, +I pray that you may pray for it. + + +_A BALLAD OF FRIENDSHIP_ + +_for two most dear Children_ + +Soured and dimmed and chilled with senility + Hobbled the year to its uttermost day; +I gave the best of a slender ability, + Seeking to make a short afternoon gay. +You were both claimed ere the sky was grey + Over the tips of the western towers; +Yet, as you went, you had time to say, + "This is no stranger: we name him ours!" + +Slaves and serfs have woes in abundancy-- + Clashing of manacle, whistling of thong, +Tales of terror and tears to redundancy; + What is the score of my slavery's wrong? +Surely where pleasures so freely throng + Some sad fiend of unhappiness lowers; +Or is the refrain of Good Fortune's song, + "This is no stranger: we name him ours"? + +When you enfranchised me into your mystery, + Lovingly stealing the sorrows I had, +Wisdom came with you; the old sad history + Glowed; and I knew in my heart why the sad +And outcast Lord grew suddenly glad + As the children thronged to crown Him with flowers, +When their cry was voiced by some tiny lad, + "This is no Stranger: we name Him ours!" + + L'ENVOI. + +So do I thank you; and if some day + You in your gained Paradisal bowers +Hear me knocking, be bold to pray, + "This is no stranger: we claim him ours!" + + +_IN THE MIDST OF THEM_ + + "_Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, + Look on me, a little child. + Pity my simplicity + And suffer me to come to Thee_." + +Now prevails a creed which tells +Us to seek no miracles. +Reason by discovered lore +Reigns where Faith was found before. +God, Who set our world aspin, +Now is weary of its din; +He, Who for our fathers' sake +Conjured lightning and earthquake, +Vanquished sorrow, sickness, death, +Deems we are not worth the Breath +That blessed the trusting prophet's rod +When Moses called upon his God. +How dare _we_ expect Him give +Miracles to help us live? + +Yet I build on Him Who saith, +"Move the mountains with your faith"-- +Doubt the lips that falter, wan, +"The age of miracles is gone!" +I have learned to read the grim +Testimony unto Him +Printed with starvation's hand +On every hove! through the land; +I have swung the crazy door +To find huddled on a floor +Rat-gnawed and riddled, with never a clout +To keep the eager winter out, +Some six or seven of our kind +Shivering beneath the wind, +Foodless, fireless, hungry-eyed, +Crouched round one who just had died, +Hopeless that the dawn would bring +Friendly aid and comforting. + +And after prayer for the parted soul, +They have thanked the slender dole, +And spoken of hope of days to come, +And have forgotten their martyrdom. +The anguished grief of motherhood +Has firmly whispered "God is good +And can in His Eternity +Repay this present loss"; till I +Have almost turned my head to see +If Christ has not come in with me! + + _Gentle Jesus, mild and meek, + These the simple words I speak + Are the faith Thou gavest me; + Suffer me to come to Thee!_ + + +_SIC TRANSIT_ + +They camped in the meadow at sunrise, + And their crests gleamed bright in the sun, +And the breeze that blew sighed soft, for it knew + Their fate e'er the day was done. +They lay in the meadow at sunset, + As the sky in anger blushed red; +For the host of the dawn lay still on the lawn-- + The host was a host of dead. + +Let the gardener but pass his scythe o'er the grass-- + And the life of a daisy is sped! + + + * * * * * + + +MONICA SALEEBY + + +_RETROSPECT_ + +You loved the child of fifteen years. + I knew not this vast thing. +Your great heart shrank beneath your fears; + You left me wondering. + +Now fourteen years have passed us by; + Our souls meet once again; +And, meeting, I have asked you why + Our ways apart have lain? + +And now your answer comes at last:-- + "I loved you in that day." +Oh, strange reply! Oh, tender past! + Oh, long love locked away! + +And now, yes, I have climbed Love's hill; +My heart is bound, yet free. +And is there not some young child still +For you to love in me? + +You have the right to love her yet, + For he who loves me grown +Knew not the child you'll ne'er forget; + I give her for your own. + +Oh, keep her young within your breast, + Allow her to survive; +For love of you _I'll_ do my best + To keep your child alive. + + + * * * * * + + +FRANCIS MEYNELL + + +_ANY STONE_ + +A myriad years God toiled to mould + A nerveless stone to His intent-- +From peace to war, from heat to cold, + It triumphed against the Omnipotent: +God strove until His strength grew old, + Then cried "Thy help, My firmament!" + +The stars in succour gave their light, + The aiding moon her ocean-sway; +At dawn and dusk the hosts of night + Watched round the battle-fires of day ... +To set the dust He loved aright + God called His winds to that array, + +And all the burden of the world, + And all the tears from all men's eyes, +Drought, dew, and every flower unfurled, + The priest, the fire, the sacrifice, +The pillared cloud, His thunder hurled-- + Victor, He held as nought the price! + +Thus loved, thus wrought, God deemed the stone +Fit bed for beasts to lie upon. + + * * * * * + +O God of Gods, make short my days + Of blind approach to her and Thee; +Life-long upon Thy rugged ways + Her heart has danced: she calls to me. +Hast Thou forgotten me alone, + O Watcher where the wild beast lies?-- +Mould to Thy will this other stone + --A stone, yet precious in her eyes. + + +_LUX IN TENEBRIS_ + +Spirit of smiles and tears, you came to me in the night, +The golden moon aglow in your hair, and the spear-driven light +Of an army of stars in your eyes, weary with truant sleep. +O little skilled in self, who thought you came to weep! + +Out of the darkness, light; flame in the virgin dew! +Love came unto her own, and knew him not, who knew. +O understood! O known! O apprehended bliss! +O self unskilled in self! O taught of my one kiss! + + +_MATER INVIOLATA_ + +A maiden's love most nuptial is, +Innocent of his nuptial kiss; +And only after marriage call +Her lips, her passion, virginal! + +For when she dreams, who is beloved, +The ancient miracle stands proved-- +Virginity's much Motherhood! +For O, the unborn babes she keeps, +The unthought glory, lips unwooed!-- +And O, the quickening of her sleeps +Whose dreams, dreamed over, do repeat +The echoes of Love's falling feet! +For his, her young inviolate mouth +Longs with the longing of long drouth: +And, lacking substance for such feast, +She clasps a dream-baby to breast, +And kisses, where her head has place, +The dream-lips of her love's dream-face! + +On the decked bridal bed of Night +She knows the Moon shows maiden light-- +The Sun's kiss urged in marriage-rite! +So, when her very night shall come, +Virginal, in her virgin home +When stars show unfamiliar faces, +Laughing for love in their high places-- +When her essential lips are dumb +In a thronged panic of embraces-- +Her maiden heart, her spousal breast, +Shall throb, surrendered and possessed, +Throb, passion-sweet and ungainsaid-- +"Now at the last am I a Maid!" + + +_SONG-BURDEN_ + +I do confess I have no art +To tell the tale of my own heart. + +Of lips and tears, of hearts and eyes, +I rhyme my rhymes and fear my fears; +And if of these I make you wise, +These pictured hearts, these lips, these tears, +There is nought to do; I have played my part. + +And I, a captain of much guile, +Within your ranks dissensions preach +Till all are jealous, each of each-- +Your eyes, lips, heart, a tear, a smile! + +So, when you turn your eyes away +From mirrored eyes, and when you stay +Love-hearing with reluctant hand, +Straight then your heart-throbs will betray +That you have read, and understand! + +And should your maiden heart uprise +Against fain ears and full-fain eyes, +Upon your lips, that cannot err, +I set my kiss-interpreter! + +Or hold you steadfast as allies +Your heart, hand, lips, your smiles, your all, +Your faithful eyes are traitrous eyes-- +Out-steals a tear to your downfall! + +Your heart, your eyes, the lips of you +--Hesitant and full-fain your eyes!-- +Make all my song; have I sung true? +Make all my song; are you song-wise? + + +_GIFTS_ + +My given gifts have been, ah me! +Sorrow, and superfluity. + +You needed primal force, and this +Was all my giving--emphasis. + +For your mute voice more mute I made, +And at your singing proffered song; +You trembled, and I was afraid-- +Were pierced, I fell on the same blade-- +Triumphed, and then my arm was strong. +For peace I builded on your peace, +And on your weakness mine up-piled; +Of too fond hope I made increase, +And at your smilings, as a child, +Ignorant of their cost, I smiled. + +Always I fear at sight of fears, +And always weep at weeping eyes; +O my Belovéd, take my tears, +Take my sighs! + +And these, and these, alas! shall be +Sorrow, and superfluity. + + +_WRAITH_ + +Mine was not equal of her trust-- + As whose, my friend, as whose should be?-And +now, a panic dream of dust, + She comes to haunt the heart of me; + +She comes to haunt my heart for this, + And lo, a glory of my sighs! +For still her phantom lips I kiss, + Who cannot meet her phantom eyes. + + +_A DEDICATION_ + +I took the universe for theme, + And all young eyes, and all old stars; +A thousand angels of my dream + I sang, and a thousand of love's wars. + +Blind then my eyes, that now can see +The narrowness of infinity! + +For these my songs sing but her eyes, + And all my song one star apart, +One angel's dream-soliloquies, + One conquered, one triumphant, heart. + +Yea, one is all, and all is one; +My songs, O love, are sung, and I have done. + + + * * * * * + + +_By_ The Hon. Mrs. Lindsay + THE HERMIT OF DREAMS. + 3s. 6d. net. + +_By_ Viola Meynell + MARTHA VINE: A Love Story of + Simple Life. 6s. + +_By_ Padraic Colum + WILD EARTH, 1s. net. + +_By_ Shane Leslie + SONGS OF ORIEL. 1s. net. + LOUGH DEARG. 1s. net. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Eyes of Youth, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EYES OF YOUTH *** + +***** This file should be named 17735-8.txt or 17735-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/7/3/17735/ + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Eyes of Youth + A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. + +Author: Various + +Release Date: February 9, 2006 [EBook #17735] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EYES OF YOUTH *** + + + + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe. + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>EYES OF YOUTH</h1> + +<hr style='width: 35%;' /> + +<p class="center">A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum—Shane</p> + +<p class="center">Leslie—Viola Meynell—Ruth Lindsay—</p> + +<p class="center">Hugh Austin—Judith Lytton—Olivia</p> + +<p class="center">Meynell—Maurice Healy—Monica</p> + +<p class="center">Saleeby—Francis Meynell—With</p> + +<p class="center">four early Poems by Francis</p> + +<p class="center">Thompson, & a Foreword by</p> + +<p class="center">Gilbert K. Chesterton. +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p class="center">"He has eyes of youth, +he writes verses"</p> + +<p class="center"><i>The Merry Wives of Windsor</i>. +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p style="margin-left: 34%;">The four early poems of Francis<br /> +Thompson are here published,<br /> +for the first time in book form, by the<br /> +permission of his Literary Executor.</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 34%;">We have also to thank the Editors<br /> +of <i>The Station, The Tablet, The Outlook,<br /> +The New Age, The Westminster<br /> +Gazette, The Evening Standard, The<br /> +Irish Rosary</i> and <i>The Lamp</i>, for permission<br /> +to re-publish other Verses.</p> + + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h4>CONTENTS</h4> +<p class="center"> +G.K. CHESTERTON<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#FOREWORD" class="lnk">Foreword</a><br /> +<br /> +FRANCIS THOMPSON<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Threatened_Tears" class="lnk">Threatened Tears</a><br /> +<a href="#Arab_Love_Song" class="lnk">Arab Love Song</a><br /> +<a href="#Buona_Notte" class="lnk">Buona Notte</a><br /> +<a href="#The_Passion_of_Mary" class="lnk">The Passion of Mary</a><br /> +<br /> +PADRAIC COLUM<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#I_shall_not_die_for_you" class="lnk">"I shall not die for you"</a><br /> +<a href="#An_Idyll" class="lnk">An Idyll</a><br /> +<a href="#Christ_the_Comrade" class="lnk">Christ the Comrade</a><br /> +<a href="#Arab_Songs_I" class="lnk">Arab Songs (I)</a><br /> +<a href="#Arab_Songs_II" class="lnk">Arab Songs (II)</a><br /> +<br /> +SHANE LESLIE<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#A_Dead_Friend" class="lnk">A Dead Friend (J.S. 1905)</a><br /> +<a href="#Forest_Song" class="lnk">Forest Song</a><br /> +<a href="#The_Bee" class="lnk">The Bee</a><br /> +<a href="#Outside_the_Carlton" class="lnk">Outside the Carlton</a><br /> +<a href="#The_Pater_of_the_Cannon" class="lnk">The Pater of the Cannon</a><br /> +<a href="#Fleet_Street" class="lnk">Fleet Street</a><br /> +<a href="#Nightmare" class="lnk">Nightmare</a><br /> +<a href="#To_a_Nobleman_becoming_Socialist" class="lnk">To a Nobleman becoming Socialist</a><br /> +<a href="#St_George-in-the-East" class="lnk">St. George-in-the-East</a><br /> +<br /> +VIOLA MEYNELL<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#The_Ruin" class="lnk">The Ruin</a><br /> +<a href="#The_Dream" class="lnk">The Dream</a><br /> +<a href="#The_Wanderer" class="lnk">The Wanderer</a><br /> +<a href="#Nature_is_the_living_mantle_of_God" class="lnk">"Nature is the living mantle of God"</a><br /> +<a href="#Secret_Prayer" class="lnk">Secret Prayer</a><br /> +<a href="#The_Unheeded" class="lnk">The Unheeded</a><br /> +<a href="#Dream_of_Death" class="lnk">Dream of Death</a><br /> +<br /> +THE HON. MRS. LINDSAY<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Mater_Salvatoris" class="lnk">Mater Salvatoris</a><br /> +<a href="#To_Choose" class="lnk">To Choose</a><br /> +<a href="#The_Hunters" class="lnk">The Hunters</a><br /> +<br /> +HUGH AUSTIN<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#The_Astronomers_Prayer" class="lnk">The Astronomer's Prayer</a><br /> +<a href="#The_Moon" class="lnk">The Moon</a><br /> +<a href="#To_Yvonne" class="lnk">To Yvonne</a><br /> +<a href="#The_Burial_of_Scald" class="lnk">The Burial of Scald</a><br /> +<br /> +THE HON. MRS. LYTTON<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#A_Day_Remembered" class="lnk">A Day Remembered</a><br /> +<a href="#Childhood" class="lnk">Childhood</a><br /> +<a href="#Love_in_Idleness" class="lnk">Love in Idleness</a><br /> +<a href="#Loves_Counterfeit" class="lnk">Love's Counterfeit</a><br /> +<br /> +OLIVIA MEYNELL<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#A_Grief_without_Christ" class="lnk">A Grief without Christ</a><br /> +<a href="#The_Crowning" class="lnk">The Crowning</a><br /> +<br /> +MAURICE HEALY<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#In_Memoriam" class="lnk">In Memoriam</a><br /> +<a href="#A_Ballad_of_Friendship" class="lnk">A Ballad of Friendship</a><br /> +<a href="#In_the_Midst_of_Them" class="lnk">In the Midst of Them</a><br /> +<a href="#Sic_Transit" class="lnk">Sic Transit</a><br /> +<br /> +MONICA SALEEBY<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Retrospect" class="lnk">Retrospect</a><br /> +<br /> +FRANCIS MEYNELL<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Any_Stone" class="lnk">Any Stone</a><br /> +<a href="#Lux_in_Tenebris" class="lnk">Lux in Tenebris</a><br /> +<a href="#Mater_Inviolata" class="lnk">Mater Inviolata</a><br /> +<a href="#Song-burden" class="lnk">Song-burden</a><br /> +<a href="#Gifts" class="lnk">Gifts</a><br /> +<a href="#Wraith" class="lnk">Wraith</a><br /> +<a href="#A_Dedication" class="lnk">A Dedication</a><br /> +</p> + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + + +<h3><a name="FOREWORD" id="FOREWORD"></a>FOREWORD</h3> + + +<p>My office on this occasion is one which I may well carry as lightly as +possible. In our society, I am told, one needs an introduction to a +beautiful woman; but I have never heard of men needing an introduction +to a beautiful song. Prose before poetry is an unmeaning interruption; +for poetry is perhaps the one thing in the world that explains itself. +The only possible prelude for songs is silence; and I shall endeavour +here to imitate the brevity of the silence as well as its stillness.</p> + +<p>This collection contains four new poems by one whom all serious critics +now class with Shelley and Keats and those other great ones cut down +with their work unfinished. Yet I would not speak specially of him, lest +modern critics should run away with their mad notion of a one-man +influence; and call this a "school" of Francis Thompson. Francis +Thompson was not a schoolmaster. He would have said as freely as Whitman +(and with a far more consistent philosophy), "I charge you to leave all +free, as I have left all free." The modern world has this mania about +plagiarism because the modern world cannot comprehend the idea of +communion. It thinks that men must steal ideas; it does not understand +that men may share them. The saints did not imitate each other; not +always even study each other; they studied the Imitation of Christ. A +real religion is that in which any two solitary people might suddenly +say the same thing at any moment. It would therefore be most misleading +to give to this collection an air of having been inspired by its most +famous contributor. The little lyrics of this little book must surely be +counted individual, even by those who may count them mysterious. A +variety verging on quaintness is the very note of the assembled bards.</p> + +<p>Take, for example, Mr. Colum's stern and simple rendering of the bitter +old Irish verses:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"O woman, shapely as the swan,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">On your account I shall not die."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Like Fitzgerald's Omar and all good translations, it leaves one +wondering whether the original was as good; but to an Englishman the +note is not only unique, but almost hostile. It is the hardness of the +real Irishman which has been so skilfully hidden under the softness of +the stage Irishman. The words are ages old, I believe; they come out of +the ancient Ireland of Cairns and fallen Kings: and yet the words might +have been spoken by one of Bernard Shaw's modern heroes to one of his +modern heroines. The curt, bleak words, the haughty, heathen spirit are +certainly as remote as anything can be from the luxuriant humility of +Francis Thompson.</p> + +<p>If the writers have a real point of union it is in a certain instinct +for contrast between their shape and subject matter. All the poems are +brief in form, and at the same time big in topic. They remind us of the +vivid illuminations of the virile thirteenth century, when artists +crowded cosmic catastrophes into the corner of an initial letter; where +one may find a small picture of the Deluge or of the flaming Cities of +the Plain. One of the specially short poems sees the universe overthrown +and the good angels conquered. Another short poem sees the newsboys in +Fleet Street shouting the news of the end of the world, and the awful +return of God. The writers seem unconsciously to have sought to make a +poem as large as a revelation, while it was nearly as short as a riddle. +And though Francis Thompson himself was rather in the Elizabethan +tradition of amplitude and ingenuity, he could write separate lines that +were separate poems in themselves:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"And thou, what needest with thy tribe's black tents,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>A mediaeval illuminator would have jumped out of his sandals in his +eagerness to illustrate that.</p> + +<p>G.K. CHESTERTON.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="FRANCIS_THOMPSON" id="FRANCIS_THOMPSON"></a>FRANCIS THOMPSON</h3> + + +<h5><i><a name="Threatened_Tears" id="Threatened_Tears"></a>Threatened Tears</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Do not loose those rains thy wet<br /> +Eyes, my Fair, unsurely threat;<br /> +Do not, Sweet, do not so;<br /> +Thou canst not have a single woe,<br /> +But this sad and doubtful weatlier<br /> +Overcasts us both together.<br /> +In the aspect of those known eyes<br /> +My soul's a captain weatherwise.<br /> +Ah me! what presages it sees<br /> +In those watery Hyades.<br /> +</p> + +<h5><i><a name="Arab_Love_Song" id="Arab_Love_Song"></a>Arab Love Song</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +The hunchèd camels of the night*<br /> +Trouble the bright<br /> +And silver waters of the moon.<br /> +The Maiden of the Morn will soon<br /> +Through Heaven stray and sing,<br /> +Star gathering.<br /> +<br /> +Now while the dark about our loves is strewn,<br /> +Light of my dark, blood of my heart, O come!<br /> +And night will catch her breath up, and be dumb.<br /> +<br /> +Leave thy father, leave thy mother<br /> +And thy brother;<br /> +Leave the black tents of thy tribe apart!<br /> +Am I not thy father and thy brother,<br /> +And thy mother?<br /> +<br /> +And thou—what needest with thy tribe's black tents<br /> +Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?<br /> +</p> + +<p class="verse">* The cloud-shapes often observed by travellers in the East.</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Buona_Notte" id="Buona_Notte"></a>Buona Notte</i></h5> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Jane Williams, in her last letter to Shelley, wrote: +"Why do you talk of never enjoying moments like +the past? Are you going to join your friend Plato, +or do you expect I shall do so soon? Buona Notte." +This letter was dated July 6th, and Shelley was +drowned on the 8th. The following is his imagined +reply from, another world</i>:—</p></div> + +<p class="verse"> +Ariel to Miranda:—hear<br /> +This good-night the sea-winds bear;<br /> +And let thine unacquainted ear<br /> +Take grief for their interpreter.<br /> +<br /> +Good-night; I have risen so high<br /> +Into slumber's rarity,<br /> +Not a dream can beat its feather<br /> +Through the unsustaining ether.<br /> +Let the sea-winds make avouch<br /> +How thunder summoned me to couch,<br /> +Tempest curtained me about<br /> +And turned the sun with his own hand out:<br /> +And though I toss upon my bed<br /> +My dream is not disquieted;<br /> +Nay, deep I sleep upon the deep,<br /> +And my eyes are wet, but I do not weep;<br /> +And I fell to sleep so suddenly<br /> +That my lips are moist yet—could'st thou see<br /> +With the good-night draught I have drunk to thee.<br /> +Thou can'st not wipe them; for it was Death<br /> +Damped my lips that has dried my breath.<br /> +A little while—it is not long—<br /> +The salt shall dry on them like the song.<br /> +<br /> +Now know'st thou, that voice desolate,<br /> +Mourning ruined joy's estate,<br /> +Reached thee through a closing gate.<br /> +"Go'st thou to Plato?" Ah, girl, no!<br /> +It is to Pluto that I go.<br /> +</p> + +<h5><i><a name="The_Passion_of_Mary" id="The_Passion_of_Mary"></a>The Passion of Mary</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +O Lady Mary, thy bright crown<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is no mere crown of majesty;</span><br /> +For with the reflex of His own<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Resplendent thorns Christ circled thee.</span><br /> +<br /> +The red rose of this passion tide<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Doth take a deeper hue from thee,</span><br /> +In the five Wounds of Jesus dyed,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And in Thy bleeding thoughts, Mary.</span><br /> +<br /> +The soldier struck a triple stroke<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That smote thy Jesus on the tree;</span><br /> +He broke the Heart of hearts, and broke<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Saint's and Mother's hearts in thee.</span><br /> +<br /> +Thy Son went up the Angels' ways,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His passion ended; but, ah me!</span><br /> +Thou found'st the road of further days<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A longer way of Calvary.</span><br /> +<br /> +On the hard cross of hopes deferred<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou hung'st in loving agony,</span><br /> +Until the mortal dreaded word,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which chills our mirth, spake mirth to thee.</span><br /> +<br /> +The Angel Death from this cold tomb<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of life did roll the stone away;</span><br /> +And He thou barest in thy womb<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Caught thee at last into the day—</span><br /> +Before the living throne of Whom<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The lights of heaven burning pray.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 9.5em;">L'ENVOY.</span><br /> +<br /> +O thou who dwellest in the day,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Behold, I pace amidst the gloom:</span><br /> +Darkness is ever round my way,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With little space for sunbeam room.</span><br /> +<br /> +Yet Christian sadness is divine,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Even as thy patient sadness was:</span><br /> +The salt tears in our life's dark wine<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fell in it from the saving Cross.</span><br /> +<br /> +Bitter the bread of our repast;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet doth a sweet the bitter leaven:</span><br /> +Our sorrow is the shadow cast<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Around it by the light of Heaven.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O Light in light, shine down from Heaven!</span><br /> +</p> + + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + + +<h3><a name="PADRAIC_COLUM" id="PADRAIC_COLUM"></a>PADRAIC COLUM</h3> + + +<h5>"<i><a name="I_shall_not_die_for_you" id="I_shall_not_die_for_you"></a>I shall not die for you</i>"</h5> + +<p class="verse"><i>(From the Irish</i>)</p> + +<p class="verse"> +O woman, shapely as the swan,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On your account I shall not die.</span><br /> +The men you've slain—a trivial clan—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Were less than I.</span><br /> +<br /> +I ask me shall I die for these:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For blossom-teeth and scarlet lips?</span><br /> +And shall that delicate swan-shape<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bring me eclipse?</span><br /> +<br /> +Well shaped the breasts and smooth the skin,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The cheeks are fair, the tresses free;</span><br /> +And yet I shall not suffer death,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">God over me.</span><br /> +<br /> +Those even brows, that hair like gold,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Those languorous tones, that virgin way;</span><br /> +The flowing limbs, the rounded heel<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Slight men betray.</span><br /> +<br /> +Thy spirit keen through radiant mien,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thy shining throat and smiling eye,</span><br /> +Thy little palm, thy side like foam—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I cannot die.</span><br /> +<br /> +O woman, shapely as the swan,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In a cunning house hard-reared was I;</span><br /> +O bosom white, O well-shaped palm,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I shall not die.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="An_Idyll" id="An_Idyll"></a>An Idyll</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +You stay at last at my bosom, with your beauty<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">young and rare,</span><br /> +Though your light limbs are as limber as the<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">foal's that follows the mare,</span><br /> +Brow fair and young and stately where thought<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">has now begun—Hair</span><br /> +bright as the breast of the eagle when he<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">strains up to the sun!</span><br /> +<br /> +In the space of a broken castle I found you on<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a day</span><br /> +When the call of the new-come cuckoo went<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">with me all the way.</span><br /> +You stood by the loosened stones that were<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rough and black with age:</span><br /> +The fawn beloved of the hunter in the panther's<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">broken cage!</span><br /> +<br /> +And we went down together by paths your<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">childhood knew—</span><br /> +Remote you went beside me, like the spirit of<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the dew;</span><br /> +Hard were the hedge-rows still: sloe-bloom<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">was their scanty dower—</span><br /> +You slipped it within your bosom, the bloom<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">that scarce is flower.</span><br /> +<br /> +And now you stay at my bosom with you<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">beauty young and rare,</span><br /> +Though your light limbs are as limber as the<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">foal's that follows the mare;</span><br /> +But always I will see you on paths your childhood<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">knew,</span><br /> +When remote you went beside me like the<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">spirit of the dew.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Christ_the_Comrade" id="Christ_the_Comrade"></a>Christ the Comrade</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Christ, by thine own darkened hour<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Live within my heart and brain!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let my hands not slip the rein.</span><br /> +<br /> +Ah, how long ago it is<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Since a comrade rode with me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now a moment let me see</span><br /> +<br /> +Thyself, lonely in the dark,<br /> +Perfect, without wound or mark.<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Arab_Songs_I" id="Arab_Songs_I"></a>Arab Songs (I)</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Saadi the Poet stood up and he put forth his<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">living words.</span><br /> +His songs were the hurtling of spears and<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his figures the flashing of swords.</span><br /> +With hearts dilated our tribe saw the creature<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Saadi's mind;</span><br /> +It was like to the horse of a king, a creature<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of fire and of wind.</span><br /> +<br /> +Umimah my loved one was by me: without<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">love did these eyes see my fawn,</span><br /> +And if fire there were in her being, for me<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its splendour had gone;</span><br /> +When the sun storms up on the tent, he makes<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">waste the fire of the grass—</span><br /> +It was thus with my loved one's beauty: the<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">splendour of song made it pass.</span><br /> +<br /> +The desert, the march, and the onset—these<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and these only avail,</span><br /> +Hands hard with the handling of spear-shafts,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">brows white with the press of the mail!</span><br /> +And as for the kisses of women—these are<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">honey, the poet sings;</span><br /> +But the honey of kisses, beloved, it is lime<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">for the spirit's wings.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Arab_Songs_II" id="Arab_Songs_II"></a>Arab Songs (II)</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"><i>The poet reproaches those who have affronted him</i>.</p> + +<p class="verse"> +Ye know not why God hath joined the horse<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fly unto the horse</span><br /> +Nor why the generous steed is yoked with<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the poisonous fly:</span><br /> +Lest the steed should sink into ease and lose<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his fervour of nerve</span><br /> +God hath appointed him this: a lustful and<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">venomous bride.</span><br /> +<br /> +Never supine lie they, the steeds of our folk,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">to the sting,</span><br /> +Praying for deadness of nerve, their wounds<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the shame of the sun;</span><br /> +They strive, but they strive for this: the fullness<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of passionate nerve;</span><br /> +They pant, but they pant for this: the speed<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">that outstrips the pain.</span><br /> +<br /> +Sons of the dust, ye have stung: there is<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">darkness upon my soul.</span><br /> +Sons of the dust, ye have stung: yea, stung<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">to the roots of my heart.</span><br /> +But I have said in my breast: the birth<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">succeeds to the pang,</span><br /> +And sons of the dust, behold, your malice<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">becomes my song.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h3><a name="SHANE_LESLIE" id="SHANE_LESLIE"></a>SHANE LESLIE</h3> + + +<h5><i><a name="A_Dead_Friend" id="A_Dead_Friend"></a>A Dead Friend</i> (<i>J.S.</i>, 1905)</h5> + +<p class="verse"> +I drew him then unto my knee, my friend who<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">was dead,</span><br /> +And I set my live lips over his, and my heart<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by his head.</span><br /> +<br /> +I thought of an unrippled love and a passion<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">unsaid,</span><br /> +And the years he was living by me, my friend<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">who was dead;</span><br /> +<br /> +And the white morning ways that we went,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and how oft we had fed</span><br /> +And drunk with the sunset for lamp—my friend<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">who was dead;</span><br /> +<br /> +Now never the draught at my lips would thrill<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">to my head—</span><br /> +For the last vintage ebbed in my heart; my<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">friend he was dead.</span><br /> +<br /> +Then I spake unto God in my grief: My wine<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and my bread</span><br /> +And my staff Thou hast taken from me—my<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">friend who is dead.</span><br /> +<br /> +Are the heavens yet friendless to Thee, and<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">lone to Thy head,</span><br /> +That Thy desolate heart must have need of my<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">friend who is dead?</span><br /> +<br /> +To God then I spake yet again: not Peter<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">instead</span><br /> +Would I take, nor Philip nor John, for my<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">friend who is dead.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Forest_Song" id="Forest_Song"></a>Forest Song</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +All around I heard the whispering larches<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Swinging to the low-lipped wind;</span><br /> +God, they piped, is lilting in our arches,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For He loveth leafen kind.</span><br /> +<br /> +Ferns I heard, unfolding from their slumber,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Say confiding to the reed:</span><br /> +God well knoweth us, Who loves to number<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Us and all our fairy seed.</span><br /> +<br /> +Voices hummed as of a multitude<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Crowding from their lowly sod;</span><br /> +'Twas the stricken daisies where I stood,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Crying to the daisies' God.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="The_Bee" id="The_Bee"></a>The Bee</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Away, the old monks said,<br /> +Sweet honey-fly,<br /> +From lilting overhead<br /> +The lullaby<br /> +You heard some mother croon<br /> +Beneath the harvest moon.<br /> +Go, hum it in the hive,<br /> +The old monks said,<br /> +For we were once alive<br /> +Who now are dead.<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Outside_the_Carlton" id="Outside_the_Carlton"></a>Outside the Carlton</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +The death of the grey withered grass<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of man's is a sign,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And his life is as wine</span><br /> +That is spilt from a half-shivered glass.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">At a quarter to nine</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Went Dives to dine ...</span><br /> +(Man, it is said, is as grass.)<br /> +<br /> +Riches and plunder had met<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To furnish his feast—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Both succulent beast</span><br /> +And fish from the fisherman's net;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While he tasteth of dishes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And all his soul wishes—</span><br /> +Nor knoweth his hour hath been set.<br /> +<br /> +The death of the pale-sodden hay<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Neath the feet of the kine</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Is to man for a sign;</span><br /> +At the striking of ten he was grey,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And they carried him out</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Stiff-strangled with gout.</span><br /> +(Man, it is said, is as hay.)<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="The_Pater_of_the_Cannon" id="The_Pater_of_the_Cannon"></a>The Pater of the Cannon</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Father of the thunder,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Flinger of the flame,</span><br /> +Searing stars asunder,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Hallowed be Thy Name</i>!</span><br /> +<br /> +By the sweet-sung quiring<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sister bullets hum,</span><br /> +By our fiercest firing,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>May Thy Kingdom come</i>!</span><br /> +<br /> +By Thy strong apostle<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the Maxim gun,</span><br /> +By his pentecostal<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Flame, <i>Thy Will be done</i>!</span><br /> +<br /> +Give us, Lord, good feeding<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To Thy battles sped—Flesh,</span><br /> +white grained and bleeding,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Give for daily bread</i>!</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Fleet_Street" id="Fleet_Street"></a>Fleet Street</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +I never see the newsboys run<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Amid the whirling street,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With swift untiring feet,</span><br /> +To cry the latest venture done,<br /> +But I expect one day to hear<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Them cry the crack of doom</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And risings from the tomb,</span><br /> +With great Archangel Michael near;<br /> +And see them running from the Fleet<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As messengers of God,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With Heaven's tidings shod</span><br /> +About their brave unwearied feet.<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Nightmare" id="Nightmare"></a>Nightmare</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +I dreamt that the heavens were beggared<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And angels went chanting for bread,</span><br /> +And the cherubs were sewed up in sackcloth,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Satan anointed his head.</span><br /> +I dreamt they had chalked up a price<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On the sun and the stars at God's feet,</span><br /> +And the Devil had bought up the Church,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And put out the Pope in the street.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="To_a_Nobleman_becoming_Socialist" id="To_a_Nobleman_becoming_Socialist"></a>To a Nobleman becoming Socialist</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +I do remember thee so blest and filled<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With all life offered thee,</span><br /> +Yet unsurprised I learn that thou hast willed<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To share or lose her fee.</span><br /> +<br /> +It seems a very great and stalwart thing<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To toss defence away,</span><br /> +To tear the golden feathers from thy wing<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And lie with shards of clay.</span><br /> +<br /> +To some far vision's light thine eyes are set<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That mock life's treasure trove,</span><br /> +And see the changing woof not woven yet<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As God would have it wove.</span><br /> +<br /> +The red thou flauntest bravely, friend, for me<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hast lost alarming power;</span><br /> +For who but guilty men will quake their knee,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And who but robbers cower?</span><br /> +<br /> +For many hallowed things are symbolled red,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Live fire and cleansing war,</span><br /> +And the bright sealing Blood that Christ once shed,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Martyrs yet must pour.</span><br /> +<br /> +O friend, choose one of these ourselves to link;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For how could friendship be</span><br /> +If from the foaming cup thou hast to drink<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The dregs come not to me?</span><br /> +<br /> +Dividing much, thou makest little thine<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Except the gain of loss;</span><br /> +Yet haply Christ's true peer hath better sign<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Than coronet—the Cross.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="St_George-in-the-East" id="St_George-in-the-East"></a>St. George-in-the-East</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +'Mid the quiet splendour of a pennoned crowd,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Gently proud,</span><br /> +Moved in armour, silvered in celestial forge,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Great Saint George,</span><br /> +Stands he in the crimson-woven air of fight<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Speared with light—</span><br /> +Hell is harried by the holy anger poured<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">From his sword.</span><br /> +<br /> +Where the sweated toilers of the river slum<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Shiver dumb,</span><br /> +Passed to-day a poorly clad and poorly shod<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Knight of God;</span><br /> +Where the human eddy smears with shame and rags<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Paving flags,</span><br /> +Hell shall weakly wail beneath the words he cries<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Piteous-wise.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h3><a name="VIOLA_MEYNELL" id="VIOLA_MEYNELL"></a>VIOLA MEYNELL</h3> + + +<h5><i><a name="The_Ruin" id="The_Ruin"></a>The Ruin</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +I led thy thoughts, having them for my own,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To where my God His head to thee did bend.</span><br /> +I bore thee in my bosom to His throne.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O, the blest labour, and the treasured end!</span><br /> +<br /> +Now like a ruined aqueduct I go<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Unburdened; thou by more fleet ways hast been</span><br /> +With Him. Since thou thine own swift road dost know,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou canst not brook such slow and devious mean.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="The_Dream" id="The_Dream"></a>The Dream</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +I slept, and thought a letter came from you—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You did not love me any more, it said.</span><br /> +What breathless grief!—my love not true, not true ...<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I was afraid of people, and afraid</span><br /> +Of things inanimate—the wind that blew,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The clock, the wooden chair; and so I strayed</span><br /> +From home, but could not stray from grief, I knew.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And then at dawn I woke, and wept, and prayed,</span><br /> +And knew my blessed love was still the same;—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And yet I sit and moan upon the bed</span><br /> +For that dream-creature's loss. For when I came<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(I came, perhaps, to comfort her) she fled.</span><br /> +I would be with her where she wanders now,<br /> +Fleeing the earth, with pain upon her brow.<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="The_Wanderer" id="The_Wanderer"></a>The Wanderer</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +All night my thoughts have rested in God's fold;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They lay beside me here upon the bed.</span><br /> +At dawn I woke: the air beat sad and cold.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I told them o'er—Ah, God, one thought had fled.</span><br /> +<br /> +Into what dark, deep chasm this wayward one<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Has sunk, I scarcely know; I will not chide.</span><br /> +O Shepherd, leave me! Seek this lamb alone.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The ninety-nine are here. They will abide.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5>"<i><a name="Nature_is_the_living_mantle_of_God" id="Nature_is_the_living_mantle_of_God"></a>Nature is the living mantle of God</i>" +<br />—<i>Goethe</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +O for the time when some impetuous breeze<br /> +Will catch Thy garment, and, like autumn trees,<br /> +Toss it and rend it till Thou standest free,<br /> +And end Thy long secluded reverie!<br /> +<br /> +Still now its beauty folds Thee, and—as she<br /> +Who kissed Thy garment and had health from Thee—<br /> +I feel the sun, or hear some bird in bliss,<br /> +And Thou hast then my sudden, humble kiss.<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Secret_Prayer" id="Secret_Prayer"></a>Secret Prayer</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Since that with lips which moved in one we prayed,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So that God ceased to hear us speak apart,</span><br /> +What law irrevocable have we made?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How shall He hear a solitary heart</span><br /> +<br /> +When He did need that we, to have His ear,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Should go aside and pray together there</span><br /> +With urgent breath? Ah, now I pause and fear—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How shall uprise my lonely, separate prayer?</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="The_Unheeded" id="The_Unheeded"></a>The Unheeded</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Upon one hand your kisses chanced to rest:<br /> +I smiled upon the other hand and said<br /> +"Poor thing," when you had gone: and then in quest<br /> +Of pity rose a clamour from the dead—<br /> +Some way of mine, some word, some look, some jest<br /> +Complained they too went all uncoveted ...<br /> +That night I took these troubles to my breast,<br /> +And played that you and I, my own, were wed;<br /> +Those troubles were our child, with eyes of fear,—<br /> +A wailing babe, whom I, his mother dear,<br /> +Must soothe to quiet rest and calm relief,<br /> +And urge his eyes to sleeping by and by.<br /> +"O hush," I said, and wept to see such grief;<br /> +"Hush, hush, your father must not hear you cry."<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Dream_of_Death" id="Dream_of_Death"></a>Dream of Death</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +In sleep my idle thoughts were sadly led<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By wild dark ways: it strangely seemed that I</span><br /> +Must join the number of the silent dead,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And with my young and fearful heart must die.</span><br /> +<br /> +But ah, what drew my bitter moans and sighs,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And pierced my sleeping spirit, was that she</span><br /> +Who with the saddest tears would close these eyes<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And with maternal passion mourn for me,</span><br /> +<br /> +She on some pleasure-errand stayed away.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, bitter, bitter thought! Ah, lonely death</span><br /> +To seek me in the night! And not till day<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Had come and soothed my fear, and calmed my breath,</span><br /> +<br /> +And in the sun my new life I could kiss,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And look with prayer and hope to future years,</span><br /> +Did I discern God's mercy still in this—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That I was spared the anguish of her tears.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h3><a name="RUTH_TEMPLE_LINDSAY" id="RUTH_TEMPLE_LINDSAY"></a>RUTH TEMPLE LINDSAY</h3> + + +<h5><i><a name="Mater_Salvatoris" id="Mater_Salvatoris"></a>Mater Salvatoris</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Ah, wilt thou turn aside and see<br /> +The little Child on Mary's knee?<br /> +Enter the stable bleak and cold,<br /> +Grope through the straw and myrrh and gold;<br /> +Seek in the darkness near and far—<br /> +Lift up the lantern and the Star.<br /> +Rough shepherds came to love and greet,<br /> +There knelt three kings at Mary's feet.<br /> +Ah! draw thee nigh the holy place—<br /> +He sleepeth well in her embrace,<br /> +The little Saviour of thy race—<br /> +Then raise thine eyes to Mary's face.<br /> +<br /> +But wilt thou come in years to be?<br /> +She held Him dead across her knee.<br /> +Stretch Him aloft on planks of wood;<br /> +Offer Him gall for tears and blood.<br /> +Blazon thy hatred far and near:<br /> +Lift up the hammer and the spear.<br /> +Red thorns about his head were wound—<br /> +There lay three nails upon the ground.<br /> +Yea I Heed the Lover of thy race—<br /> +He lieth dead in her embrace.<br /> +Ah! scourge thy soul with its disgrace:<br /> +Then raise thine eyes to Mary's face.<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="To_Choose" id="To_Choose"></a>To Choose</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Thou canst choose the eastern Circle for thy part,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And within its sacred precincts thou shalt rest;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou shalt fold pale, slender hands upon thy breast,</span><br /> +Thou shalt fasten silent eyes upon thy heart.<br /> +If there steal within the languor of thine ark<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The thunder of the waters of the earth,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The human, simple cries of pain and mirth,</span><br /> +The wails of little children in the dark,<br /> +Thou shalt contemplate thy Circle's radiant gleam,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou shalt gather self and God more closely still:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let the Piteous and the Foolish moan at will,</span><br /> +So thou shelter in the sweetness of thy dream.<br /> +<br /> +Thou canst bear a bloodstained Cross upon thy breast,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou shalt stand upon the common, human sod,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou shalt lift unswerving eyes unto thy God,</span><br /> +Thou shalt stretch torn, rugged hands to east and west<br /> +Thou shalt call to every throne and every cell—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou shalt gather all the answers of the Earth,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou shalt wring repose from weariness and dearth,</span><br /> +Thou shalt fathom the profundity of Hell—<br /> +But thy height shall touch the height of God above,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thy breadth shall span the breadth of pole to pole,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thy depth shall sound the depth of every soul,</span><br /> +And thy heart the deep Gethsemane of Love.<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="The_Hunters" id="The_Hunters"></a>The Hunters</i></h5> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>The Devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about +seeking whom he may detour</i>"</p></div> + +<p class="verse"> +The Lion, he prowleth far and near,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor swerves for pain or rue;</span><br /> +He heeded nought of sloth nor fear,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He prowleth—prowleth through</span><br /> +The silent glade and the weary street,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the empty dark and the full noon heat;</span><br /> +And a little Lamb with aching Feet—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He prowleth too.</span><br /> +<br /> +The Lion croucheth alert, apart—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With patience doth he woo;</span><br /> +He waiteth long by the shuttered heart,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the Lamb—He waiteth too.</span><br /> +Up the lurid passes of dreams that kill,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through the twisting maze of the great Untrue,</span><br /> +The Lion followeth the fainting will—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the Lamb—He followeth too.</span><br /> +<br /> +From the thickets dim of the hidden way<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where the debts of Hell accrue,</span><br /> +The Lion leapeth upon his prey:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But the Lamb—He leapeth too.</span><br /> +Ah! loose the leash of the sins that damn,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mark Devil and God as goals,</span><br /> +In the panting love of a famished Lamb,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gone mad with the need of souls.</span><br /> +<br /> +The Lion, he strayeth near and far;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What heights hath he left untrod?</span><br /> +He crawleth nigh to the purest star,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On the trail of the saints of God.</span><br /> +And throughout the darkness of things unclean,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the depths where the sin-ghouls brood,</span><br /> +There prowleth ever with yearning mien—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A lamb as white as Blood!</span><br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h3><a name="HUGH_AUSTIN" id="HUGH_AUSTIN"></a>HUGH AUSTIN</h3> + + +<h5><i><a name="The_Astronomers_Prayer" id="The_Astronomers_Prayer"></a>The Astronomers Prayer</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Night. O Thou God! who rulest Heaven and earth,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The terraced atmospheres, the bounded seas;</span><br /> +Who knowest equally both death and birth,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Frail human men, strong divine mysteries,</span><br /> +Whose unencumbered thought sways all the spheres,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In all their turning, snake-like, perfect ways;</span><br /> +Now that the season of my labour nears,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grant me an insight to Thy larger days!</span><br /> +<br /> +To Thee all things create and unborn yield,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Being of Thee, the secret of their souls—</span><br /> +The traversed elements, the azure field<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whereo'er eternal each huge star-world rolls.</span><br /> +There is no tiny insect but does know<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Itself within Thy Presence visual:</span><br /> +From us too swiftly years and seasons go,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To Thee all change is a thing gradual.</span><br /> +<br /> +E'en as at nightfall, when the lights come in,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The moth attracted woos and meets her death,</span><br /> +So do I seek Thy light to wander in,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though fearfully and with half-bated breath.</span><br /> +So do I seek all knowledge of Thy stars,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which move in and without my vision's reach;</span><br /> +Maybe yet burning with internal wars,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or shaking as this world with human speech.</span><br /> +<br /> +Stars which perhaps ten thousand years ago<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Waned and grew cold at Thy almighty word</span><br /> +Waft their light hitherward. I do not know—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thy recreating voice I have not heard.</span><br /> +Maybe, e'en at this hour Thine accents shake<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some chaos into order, into life;</span><br /> +Perchance some great creation now doth break<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Into new form beneath Thy wisdom's knife.</span><br /> +<br /> +Ah, Lord! The night appals me. Give me strength<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Within myself to search this planet's dome:</span><br /> +O Supreme Architect, give me at length<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some clearer knowledge of Thy spaceless home!</span><br /> +My spirit seethes within me; in the sky<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thy constellations shine; for me begin</span><br /> +My labours until night-time passes by—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And before dawn I must or fail or win.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="The_Moon" id="The_Moon"></a>The Moon</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Cirqued with dim stars and delicate moonflowers,<br /> +Silent she moves among the silent hours—<br /> +Watching the spheres that glow with golden heat<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Under her feet.</span><br /> +<br /> +Then, when the sunrise tints the east with light,<br /> +She fades to westward, with the dreamy night<br /> +And all her starry train—in faint disguise<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Of twilight skies.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="To_Yvonne" id="To_Yvonne"></a>To Yvonne</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Such things have been, Yvonne; but you and I,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Can we touch lips again across the years?</span><br /> +Re-order what is past? Forget—or try<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not to remember what through mists of tears</span><br /> +Is still too memorable? Dare we two<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Start both our lives again, as we were young</span><br /> +And happy, in such love as falls to few?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nay, for our violins are all unstrung.</span><br /> +<br /> +Yet it is well that memory should hold<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some few pale rose-leaves plucked in bygone days,</span><br /> +That still are sweet, despite those pains untold<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which throng the marges of life's winding ways.</span><br /> +Yea, these will stay when nearer things are gone;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I shall keep mine. Will you keep yours, Yvonne?</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="The_Burial_of_Scald" id="The_Burial_of_Scald"></a>The Burial of Scald</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +A long, low wail of harps across the snow,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Falling and rising with the whistling wind;</span><br /> +A shifting glare of lights that come and go,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As if men searched for what they could not find.</span><br /> +And then the music thrilled out loud and well<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Over the waste and barren dunes of sand—</span><br /> +Solemn and stately as a passing bell<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Heard dimly in some weary twilight land.</span><br /> +<br /> +Then slipped the moon behind a dusky cloud,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And each bright star its silver visage hid;</span><br /> +Mystery 'gan the darkness to enshroud;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Across the sky a blood-red message slid.</span><br /> +<br /> +Sudden the ship blazed up, the dark was light;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo! Scald is dead! his pyre was lit to-night.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h3>JUDITH LYTTON</h3> + + +<h5><i><a name="A_Day_Remembered" id="A_Day_Remembered"></a>A Day Remembered</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Oh, Love, what fate is ours? No summer morning<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall give us joy, no sunrise bring relief;</span><br /> +No end—no end is there unto our sorrow,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No measure to our grief.</span><br /> +<br /> +You looked at me, and all your living beauty<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Swept to my heart in flame a moment's space,</span><br /> +A sudden mist of tears in darkness veiling<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The glory of your face.</span><br /> +<br /> +You spoke: I seemed to hear the wild doves cooing—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The rain upon the hills, sweet falling rain;</span><br /> +And all my soul was filled with joy and anguish,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In ecstasy of pain.</span><br /> +<br /> +I saw as in a mist celestial visions<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beyond the bitter seas whence hope has fled,</span><br /> +Heard the wind blow among the trees in summer,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But knew not what you said.</span><br /> +<br /> +It matters not what words the lips have spoken<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When heart shall speak to heart, for love can hear</span><br /> +Unspoken words, and see as in reflection<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His own thoughts mirrored there.</span><br /> +<br /> +You came to me, the sun arose in splendour;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I saw the roses spread their petals sweet,</span><br /> +And thought that all the world must see in wonder<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wings upon our feet.</span><br /> +<br /> +You touched me, and a wave of passionate longing<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Flooded my soul until it swooned away,</span><br /> +And knew no more the sunlight from the shadow—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If it were night or day.</span><br /> +<br /> +We wandered in the shadow of the woodland,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mute while we looked into each other's eyes,</span><br /> +And saw as in still pools of darkened water<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wonder of the skies.</span><br /> +<br /> +No word we spoke. We knew that love had silenced<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All that we wished to speak yet left unsaid;</span><br /> +The bees were humming in the wild-rose blossoms<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which clustered overhead.</span><br /> +<br /> +And all that summer day we were together,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alone with love, yet with a sword between—</span><br /> +The flaming sword that stands between us ever,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all that might have been.</span><br /> +<br /> +Mist gathered white at evening in the valleys,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And slowly grew the dusk from gold to grey,</span><br /> +While rain-clouds gathered on the low horizon<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dark at the close of day.</span><br /> +<br /> +And softly rose a wind from out the darkness,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With scent of flower and fern and herb and tree,</span><br /> +And in its breath there came a sound of thunder,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Storm-laden from the sea.</span><br /> +<br /> +And thus we reached the wicket of the garden;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wood was full of sound, the sound of wings;</span><br /> +The scent of lavender brought back remembrance<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of long-forgotten things.</span><br /> +<br /> +Though heaven and earth and sky should be forgotten,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet of that hour my soul should bear the trace:</span><br /> +For night fell fast, and in the deepening shadow<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You turned and kissed my face.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Childhood" id="Childhood"></a>Childhood</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +A stranger come I to the festival<br /> +Thou holdest in the regions of romance,<br /> +Where dragons lurk and elfin spirits dance,<br /> +And pearls lie hid within each rose petal.<br /> +What magic changes in life's crystal ball<br /> +Shall thus transform earth's dullness at thy glance!<br /> +Ride then the wind, a feather for thy lance,<br /> +A pool thy sea, thy heaven a waterfall.<br /> +So shall thy soul to fairy worlds belong,<br /> +Where dust is gold and dew-drops turn to wine;<br /> +Remember still the visions that are thine<br /> +When sorrow shall disperse that phantom throng;<br /> +And dream once more that thou hast found divine<br /> +Love in a flower, and kingdoms in a song.<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Love_in_Idleness" id="Love_in_Idleness"></a>Love in Idleness</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +To look at thee, and see the sunlight move<br /> +The shadow of the leaves upon thy face,<br /> +Lighting the glory of thy youth and grace<br /> +With golden rays wind-stirred from trees above;<br /> +To listen to the rustling of the grove,<br /> +The warblers in the reeds which interlace<br /> +The waters of the pool, and dream a space,<br /> +Forgetful of the hours ... this then is love!<br /> +Thy passion and thy strength, thy gentleness,<br /> +All these are mine. Who then shall dispossess<br /> +My soul of paradise? In truth I learn<br /> +More than the world can teach. Oblivion waits,<br /> +And distance parts, and Death annihilates:<br /> +But now thy love is all my love's concern.<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Loves_Counterfeit" id="Loves_Counterfeit"></a>Love's Counterfeit</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +By what false spell of what enchanter's wand<br /> +Should thy gross fibre be with love allied?<br /> +Unhappy youth, thou callest to thy side<br /> +An unknown shade from some far spirit land;<br /> +Thou canst not guess, nor shalt thou understand,<br /> +The waters that thy soul from his divide.<br /> +In place of Love, what alien spirits glide<br /> +About thy sleep to answer thy command?<br /> +What blasphemy is this? Thou hast no spell<br /> +To call that heaven-born spirit from the deep,<br /> +Or move the stars. What cometh in his place?<br /> +This monstrous fraud which thou hast raised from hell,<br /> +Whose arms about thee in the darkness creep?<br /> +Light not thy torch, lest thou shouldst see<br /> +his face.<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h3><a name="OLIVIA_MEYNELL" id="OLIVIA_MEYNELL"></a>OLIVIA MEYNELL</h3> + + +<h5><i><a name="A_Grief_without_Christ" id="A_Grief_without_Christ"></a>A Grief without Christ</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +I sought Him in the trees, and Him I found<br /> +In every colour, and in every sound.<br /> +<br /> +I sought Him in the sky, and He was there,<br /> +A living God, breathing the living air.<br /> +<br /> +I sought Him in my soul—oh, passionate loss!<br /> +All that I found was a forsaken Cross.<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="The_Crowning" id="The_Crowning"></a>The Crowning</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Whenas we wandered in the summer hours,<br /> +My kind love crowned me with a crown of flowers.<br /> +<br /> +Softly they touched my forehead and my hair;<br /> +Gay, sunny, yellow, and sweet-breathed they were—<br /> +<br /> +Soft flowers and tender hands, gay sun, soft skies;<br /> +And sweeter, tenderer yet, his loving eyes.<br /> +<br /> +Ah! but it should have been with thorns he crowned me,<br /> +Who follow Christ, while cold skies blackened round me.<br /> +<br /> +Dear love, I will accept from you cold frown,<br /> +Sharp words, hard touch, as symbols of His crown.<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h3><a name="MAURICE_HEALY" id="MAURICE_HEALY"></a>MAURICE HEALY</h3> + + +<h5><i><a name="In_Memoriam" id="In_Memoriam"></a>In Memoriam</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +"Lord, teach us how to pray," they said;<br /> +And Jesus raised His weary head,<br /> +Bowed by the sorrows of the way,<br /> +And taught His children how to pray.<br /> +<br /> +"Lord, teach me how to pray," I cried;<br /> +And Jesus sent you to my side<br /> +To make your own the soul I wear<br /> +And mould it purer into prayer.<br /> +<br /> +And since your love first lit the way<br /> +I find that I have learned to pray;<br /> +For, that my soul may benefit,<br /> +I pray that you may pray for it.<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="A_Ballad_of_Friendship" id="A_Ballad_of_Friendship"></a>A Ballad of Friendship</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"><i>for two most dear Children</i></p> + +<p class="verse"> +Soured and dimmed and chilled with senility<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hobbled the year to its uttermost day;</span><br /> +I gave the best of a slender ability,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seeking to make a short afternoon gay.</span><br /> +You were both claimed ere the sky was grey<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Over the tips of the western towers;</span><br /> +Yet, as you went, you had time to say,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"This is no stranger: we name him ours!"</span><br /> +<br /> +Slaves and serfs have woes in abundancy—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Clashing of manacle, whistling of thong,</span><br /> +Tales of terror and tears to redundancy;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What is the score of my slavery's wrong?</span><br /> +Surely where pleasures so freely throng<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some sad fiend of unhappiness lowers;</span><br /> +Or is the refrain of Good Fortune's song,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"This is no stranger: we name him ours"?</span><br /> +<br /> +When you enfranchised me into your mystery,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lovingly stealing the sorrows I had,</span><br /> +Wisdom came with you; the old sad history<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Glowed; and I knew in my heart why the sad</span><br /> +And outcast Lord grew suddenly glad<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As the children thronged to crown Him with flowers,</span><br /> +When their cry was voiced by some tiny lad,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"This is no Stranger: we name Him ours!"</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 9em;">L'ENVOI.</span><br /> +<br /> +So do I thank you; and if some day<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You in your gained Paradisal bowers</span><br /> +Hear me knocking, be bold to pray,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"This is no stranger: we claim him ours!"</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="In_the_Midst_of_Them" id="In_the_Midst_of_Them"></a>In the Midst of Them</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"<i>Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Look on me, a little child.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Pity my simplicity</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>And suffer me to come to Thee</i>."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p class="verse"> +Now prevails a creed which tells<br /> +Us to seek no miracles.<br /> +Reason by discovered lore<br /> +Reigns where Faith was found before.<br /> +God, Who set our world aspin,<br /> +Now is weary of its din;<br /> +He, Who for our fathers' sake<br /> +Conjured lightning and earthquake,<br /> +Vanquished sorrow, sickness, death,<br /> +Deems we are not worth the Breath<br /> +That blessed the trusting prophet's rod<br /> +When Moses called upon his God.<br /> +How dare <i>we</i> expect Him give<br /> +Miracles to help us live?<br /> +<br /> +Yet I build on Him Who saith,<br /> +"Move the mountains with your faith"—<br /> +Doubt the lips that falter, wan,<br /> +"The age of miracles is gone!"<br /> +I have learned to read the grim<br /> +Testimony unto Him<br /> +Printed with starvation's hand<br /> +On every hove! through the land;<br /> +I have swung the crazy door<br /> +To find huddled on a floor<br /> +Rat-gnawed and riddled, with never a clout<br /> +To keep the eager winter out,<br /> +Some six or seven of our kind<br /> +Shivering beneath the wind,<br /> +Foodless, fireless, hungry-eyed,<br /> +Crouched round one who just had died,<br /> +Hopeless that the dawn would bring<br /> +Friendly aid and comforting.<br /> +<br /> +And after prayer for the parted soul,<br /> +They have thanked the slender dole,<br /> +And spoken of hope of days to come,<br /> +And have forgotten their martyrdom.<br /> +The anguished grief of motherhood<br /> +Has firmly whispered "God is good<br /> +And can in His Eternity<br /> +Repay this present loss"; till I<br /> +Have almost turned my head to see<br /> +If Christ has not come in with me!<br /> +</p> + +<p class="verse"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Gentle Jesus, mild and meek,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>These the simple words I speak</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Are the faith Thou gavest me;</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Suffer me to come to Thee!</i></span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Sic_Transit" id="Sic_Transit"></a>Sic Transit</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +They camped in the meadow at sunrise,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And their crests gleamed bright in the sun,</span><br /> +And the breeze that blew sighed soft, for it knew<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their fate e'er the day was done.</span><br /> +They lay in the meadow at sunset,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As the sky in anger blushed red;</span><br /> +For the host of the dawn lay still on the lawn—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The host was a host of dead.</span><br /> +<br /> +Let the gardener but pass his scythe o'er the grass—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the life of a daisy is sped!</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h3><a name="MONICA_SALEEBY" id="MONICA_SALEEBY"></a>MONICA SALEEBY</h3> + + +<h5><i><a name="Retrospect" id="Retrospect"></a>Retrospect</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +You loved the child of fifteen years.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I knew not this vast thing.</span><br /> +Your great heart shrank beneath your fears;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You left me wondering.</span><br /> +<br /> +Now fourteen years have passed us by;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our souls meet once again;</span><br /> +And, meeting, I have asked you why<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our ways apart have lain?</span><br /> +<br /> +And now your answer comes at last:—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"I loved you in that day."</span><br /> +Oh, strange reply! Oh, tender past!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh, long love locked away!</span><br /> +<br /> +And now, yes, I have climbed Love's hill;<br /> +My heart is bound, yet free.<br /> +And is there not some young child still<br /> +For you to love in me?<br /> +<br /> +You have the right to love her yet,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For he who loves me grown</span><br /> +Knew not the child you'll ne'er forget;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I give her for your own.</span><br /> +<br /> +Oh, keep her young within your breast,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Allow her to survive;</span><br /> +For love of you <i>I'll</i> do my best<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To keep your child alive.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h3><a name="FRANCIS_MEYNELL" id="FRANCIS_MEYNELL"></a>FRANCIS MEYNELL</h3> + + +<h5><i><a name="Any_Stone" id="Any_Stone"></a>Any Stone</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +A myriad years God toiled to mould<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A nerveless stone to His intent—</span><br /> +From peace to war, from heat to cold,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It triumphed against the Omnipotent:</span><br /> +God strove until His strength grew old,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then cried "Thy help, My firmament!"</span><br /> +<br /> +The stars in succour gave their light,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The aiding moon her ocean-sway;</span><br /> +At dawn and dusk the hosts of night<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Watched round the battle-fires of day ...</span><br /> +To set the dust He loved aright<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">God called His winds to that array,</span><br /> +<br /> +And all the burden of the world,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all the tears from all men's eyes,</span><br /> +Drought, dew, and every flower unfurled,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The priest, the fire, the sacrifice,</span><br /> +The pillared cloud, His thunder hurled—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Victor, He held as nought the price!</span><br /> +<br /> +Thus loved, thus wrought, God deemed the stone<br /> +Fit bed for beasts to lie upon.<br /> +</p> + +<hr class="vers" /> + +<p class="verse"> +O God of Gods, make short my days<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of blind approach to her and Thee;</span><br /> +Life-long upon Thy rugged ways<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her heart has danced: she calls to me.</span><br /> +Hast Thou forgotten me alone,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O Watcher where the wild beast lies?—</span><br /> +Mould to Thy will this other stone<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">—A stone, yet precious in her eyes.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Lux_in_Tenebris" id="Lux_in_Tenebris"></a>Lux in Tenebris</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Spirit of smiles and tears, you came to me in the night,<br /> +The golden moon aglow in your hair, and the spear-driven light<br /> +Of an army of stars in your eyes, weary with truant sleep.<br /> +O little skilled in self, who thought you came to weep!<br /> +<br /> +Out of the darkness, light; flame in the virgin dew!<br /> +Love came unto her own, and knew him not, who knew.<br /> +O understood! O known! O apprehended bliss!<br /> +O self unskilled in self! O taught of my one kiss!<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Mater_Inviolata" id="Mater_Inviolata"></a>Mater Inviolata</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +A maiden's love most nuptial is,<br /> +Innocent of his nuptial kiss;<br /> +And only after marriage call<br /> +Her lips, her passion, virginal!<br /> +<br /> +For when she dreams, who is beloved,<br /> +The ancient miracle stands proved—<br /> +Virginity's much Motherhood!<br /> +For O, the unborn babes she keeps,<br /> +The unthought glory, lips unwooed!—<br /> +And O, the quickening of her sleeps<br /> +Whose dreams, dreamed over, do repeat<br /> +The echoes of Love's falling feet!<br /> +For his, her young inviolate mouth<br /> +Longs with the longing of long drouth:<br /> +And, lacking substance for such feast,<br /> +She clasps a dream-baby to breast,<br /> +And kisses, where her head has place,<br /> +The dream-lips of her love's dream-face!<br /> +<br /> +On the decked bridal bed of Night<br /> +She knows the Moon shows maiden light—<br /> +The Sun's kiss urged in marriage-rite!<br /> +So, when her very night shall come,<br /> +Virginal, in her virgin home<br /> +When stars show unfamiliar faces,<br /> +Laughing for love in their high places—<br /> +When her essential lips are dumb<br /> +In a thronged panic of embraces—<br /> +Her maiden heart, her spousal breast,<br /> +Shall throb, surrendered and possessed,<br /> +Throb, passion-sweet and ungainsaid—<br /> +"Now at the last am I a Maid!"<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Song-burden" id="Song-burden"></a>Song-burden</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +I do confess I have no art<br /> +To tell the tale of my own heart.<br /> +<br /> +Of lips and tears, of hearts and eyes,<br /> +I rhyme my rhymes and fear my fears;<br /> +And if of these I make you wise,<br /> +These pictured hearts, these lips, these tears,<br /> +There is nought to do; I have played my part.<br /> +<br /> +And I, a captain of much guile,<br /> +Within your ranks dissensions preach<br /> +Till all are jealous, each of each—<br /> +Your eyes, lips, heart, a tear, a smile!<br /> +<br /> +So, when you turn your eyes away<br /> +From mirrored eyes, and when you stay<br /> +Love-hearing with reluctant hand,<br /> +Straight then your heart-throbs will betray<br /> +That you have read, and understand!<br /> +<br /> +And should your maiden heart uprise<br /> +Against fain ears and full-fain eyes,<br /> +Upon your lips, that cannot err,<br /> +I set my kiss-interpreter!<br /> +<br /> +Or hold you steadfast as allies<br /> +Your heart, hand, lips, your smiles, your all,<br /> +Your faithful eyes are traitrous eyes—<br /> +Out-steals a tear to your downfall!<br /> +<br /> +Your heart, your eyes, the lips of you<br /> +—Hesitant and full-fain your eyes!—<br /> +Make all my song; have I sung true?<br /> +Make all my song; are you song-wise?<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Gifts" id="Gifts"></a>Gifts</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +My given gifts have been, ah me!<br /> +Sorrow, and superfluity.<br /> +<br /> +You needed primal force, and this<br /> +Was all my giving—emphasis.<br /> +<br /> +For your mute voice more mute I made,<br /> +And at your singing proffered song;<br /> +You trembled, and I was afraid—<br /> +Were pierced, I fell on the same blade—<br /> +Triumphed, and then my arm was strong.<br /> +For peace I builded on your peace,<br /> +And on your weakness mine up-piled;<br /> +Of too fond hope I made increase,<br /> +And at your smilings, as a child,<br /> +Ignorant of their cost, I smiled.<br /> +<br /> +Always I fear at sight of fears,<br /> +And always weep at weeping eyes;<br /> +O my Belovéd, take my tears,<br /> +Take my sighs!<br /> +<br /> +And these, and these, alas! shall be<br /> +Sorrow, and superfluity.<br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="Wraith" id="Wraith"></a>Wraith</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +Mine was not equal of her trust—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As whose, my friend, as whose should be?-And</span><br /> +now, a panic dream of dust,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She comes to haunt the heart of me;</span><br /> +<br /> +She comes to haunt my heart for this,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And lo, a glory of my sighs!</span><br /> +For still her phantom lips I kiss,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who cannot meet her phantom eyes.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><i><a name="A_Dedication" id="A_Dedication"></a>A Dedication</i></h5> + +<p class="verse"> +I took the universe for theme,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all young eyes, and all old stars;</span><br /> +A thousand angels of my dream<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I sang, and a thousand of love's wars.</span><br /> +<br /> +Blind then my eyes, that now can see<br /> +The narrowness of infinity!<br /> +<br /> +For these my songs sing but her eyes,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all my song one star apart,</span><br /> +One angel's dream-soliloquies,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One conquered, one triumphant, heart.</span><br /> +<br /> +Yea, one is all, and all is one;<br /> +My songs, O love, are sung, and I have done.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + +<p class="verse"> +<i>By</i> The Hon. Mrs. Lindsay<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">THE HERMIT OF DREAMS.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">3s. 6d. net.</span><br /> +<br /> +<i>By</i> Viola Meynell<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">MARTHA VINE: A Love Story of</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Simple Life. 6s.</span><br /> +<br /> +<i>By</i> Padraic Colum<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">WILD EARTH, 1s. net.</span><br /> +<br /> +<i>By</i> Shane Leslie<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">SONGS OF ORIEL. 1s. net.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">LOUGH DEARG. 1s. net.</span><br /> +</p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Eyes of Youth, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EYES OF YOUTH *** + +***** This file should be named 17735-h.htm or 17735-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/7/3/17735/ + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Eyes of Youth + A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. + +Author: Various + +Release Date: February 9, 2006 [EBook #17735] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EYES OF YOUTH *** + + + + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe. + + + + +EYES OF YOUTH + + + * * * * * + + A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum--Shane + + Leslie--Viola Meynell--Ruth Lindsay-- + + Hugh Austin--Judith Lytton--Olivia + + Meynell--Maurice Healy--Monica + + Saleeby--Francis Meynell--With + + four early Poems by Francis + + Thompson, & a Foreword by + + Gilbert K. Chesterton. + + + * * * * * + + "He has eyes of youth, + he writes verses" + + _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. + + + * * * * * + + The four early poems of Francis Thompson are here published, for + the first time in book form, by the permission of his Literary + Executor. + + We have also to thank the Editors of _The Station, The Tablet, + The Outlook, The New Age, The Westminster Gazette, The Evening + Standard, The Irish Rosary_ and _The Lamp_, for permission to + re-publish other Verses. + + + * * * * * + +CONTENTS + + +G.K. CHESTERTON + +Foreword + +FRANCIS THOMPSON + +Threatened Tears +Arab Love Song +Buona Notte +The Passion of Mary + +PADRAIC COLUM + +"I shall not die for you" +An Idyll +Christ the Comrade +Arab Songs (I) +Arab Songs (II) + +SHANE LESLIE + +A Dead Friend (J.S. 1905) +Forest Song +The Bee +Outside the Carlton +The Pater of the Cannon +Fleet Street +Nightmare +To a Nobleman becoming Socialist +St. George-in-the-East + +VIOLA MEYNELL + +The Ruin +The Dream +The Wanderer +"Nature is the living mantle of God" +Secret Prayer +The Unheeded +Dream of Death + +THE HON. MRS. LINDSAY + +Mater Salvatoris +To Choose +The Hunters + +HUGH AUSTIN + +The Astronomer's Prayer +The Moon +To Yvonne +The Burial of Scald + +THE HON. MRS. LYTTON + +A Day Remembered +Childhood +Love in Idleness +Love's Counterfeit + +OLIVIA MEYNELL + +A Grief without Christ +The Crowning + +MAURICE HEALY + +In Memoriam +A Ballad of Friendship +In the Midst of Them +Sic Transit + +MONICA SALEEBY + +Retrospect + +FRANCIS MEYNELL + +Any Stone +Lux in Tenebris +Mater Inviolata +Song-burden +Gifts +Wraith +A Dedication + + + * * * * * + + +FOREWORD + + +My office on this occasion is one which I may well carry as lightly as +possible. In our society, I am told, one needs an introduction to a +beautiful woman; but I have never heard of men needing an introduction +to a beautiful song. Prose before poetry is an unmeaning interruption; +for poetry is perhaps the one thing in the world that explains itself. +The only possible prelude for songs is silence; and I shall endeavour +here to imitate the brevity of the silence as well as its stillness. + +This collection contains four new poems by one whom all serious critics +now class with Shelley and Keats and those other great ones cut down +with their work unfinished. Yet I would not speak specially of him, +lest modern critics should run away with their mad notion of a one-man +influence; and call this a "school" of Francis Thompson. Francis +Thompson was not a schoolmaster. He would have said as freely as Whitman +(and with a far more consistent philosophy), "I charge you to leave all +free, as I have left all free." The modern world has this mania about +plagiarism because the modern world cannot comprehend the idea of +communion. It thinks that men must steal ideas; it does not understand +that men may share them. The saints did not imitate each other; not +always even study each other; they studied the Imitation of Christ. +A real religion is that in which any two solitary people might suddenly +say the same thing at any moment. It would therefore be most misleading +to give to this collection an air of having been inspired by its most +famous contributor. The little lyrics of this little book must surely +be counted individual, even by those who may count them mysterious. +A variety verging on quaintness is the very note of the assembled bards. + +Take, for example, Mr. Colum's stern and simple rendering of the bitter +old Irish verses: + + "O woman, shapely as the swan, + On your account I shall not die." + +Like Fitzgerald's Omar and all good translations, it leaves one +wondering whether the original was as good; but to an Englishman the +note is not only unique, but almost hostile. It is the hardness of the +real Irishman which has been so skilfully hidden under the softness of +the stage Irishman. The words are ages old, I believe; they come out of +the ancient Ireland of Cairns and fallen Kings: and yet the words might +have been spoken by one of Bernard Shaw's modern heroes to one of his +modern heroines. The curt, bleak words, the haughty, heathen spirit are +certainly as remote as anything can be from the luxuriant humility of +Francis Thompson. + +If the writers have a real point of union it is in a certain instinct +for contrast between their shape and subject matter. All the poems are +brief in form, and at the same time big in topic. They remind us of the +vivid illuminations of the virile thirteenth century, when artists +crowded cosmic catastrophes into the corner of an initial letter; where +one may find a small picture of the Deluge or of the flaming Cities of +the Plain. One of the specially short poems sees the universe overthrown +and the good angels conquered. Another short poem sees the newsboys in +Fleet Street shouting the news of the end of the world, and the awful +return of God. The writers seem unconsciously to have sought to make a +poem as large as a revelation, while it was nearly as short as a riddle. +And though Francis Thompson himself was rather in the Elizabethan +tradition of amplitude and ingenuity, he could write separate lines that +were separate poems in themselves:-- + + "And thou, what needest with thy tribe's black tents, + Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?" + +A mediaeval illuminator would have jumped out of his sandals in his +eagerness to illustrate that. + +G.K. CHESTERTON. + + + + +FRANCIS THOMPSON + + +_THREATENED TEARS_ + +Do not loose those rains thy wet +Eyes, my Fair, unsurely threat; +Do not, Sweet, do not so; +Thou canst not have a single woe, +But this sad and doubtful weatlier +Overcasts us both together. +In the aspect of those known eyes +My soul's a captain weatherwise. +Ah me! what presages it sees +In those watery Hyades. + + +_ARAB LOVE SONG_ + +The hunched camels of the night* +Trouble the bright +And silver waters of the moon. +The Maiden of the Morn will soon +Through Heaven stray and sing, +Star gathering. + +Now while the dark about our loves is strewn, +Light of my dark, blood of my heart, O come! +And night will catch her breath up, and be dumb. + +Leave thy father, leave thy mother +And thy brother; +Leave the black tents of thy tribe apart! +Am I not thy father and thy brother, +And thy mother? + +And thou--what needest with thy tribe's black tents +Who hast the red pavilion of my heart? + +* The cloud-shapes often observed by travellers in the East. + + +_BUONA NOTTE_ + +_Jane Williams, in her last letter to Shelley, wrote: "Why do you +talk of never enjoying moments like the past? Are you going to join +your friend Plato, or do you expect I shall do so soon? Buona +Notte." This letter was dated July 6th, and Shelley was drowned on +the 8th. The following is his imagined reply from, another world_:-- + +Ariel to Miranda:--hear +This good-night the sea-winds bear; +And let thine unacquainted ear +Take grief for their interpreter. + +Good-night; I have risen so high +Into slumber's rarity, +Not a dream can beat its feather +Through the unsustaining ether. +Let the sea-winds make avouch +How thunder summoned me to couch, +Tempest curtained me about +And turned the sun with his own hand out: +And though I toss upon my bed +My dream is not disquieted; +Nay, deep I sleep upon the deep, +And my eyes are wet, but I do not weep; +And I fell to sleep so suddenly +That my lips are moist yet--could'st thou see +With the good-night draught I have drunk to thee. +Thou can'st not wipe them; for it was Death +Damped my lips that has dried my breath. +A little while--it is not long-- +The salt shall dry on them like the song. + +Now know'st thou, that voice desolate, +Mourning ruined joy's estate, +Reached thee through a closing gate. +"Go'st thou to Plato?" Ah, girl, no! +It is to Pluto that I go. + + +_THE PASSION OF MARY_ + +O Lady Mary, thy bright crown + Is no mere crown of majesty; +For with the reflex of His own + Resplendent thorns Christ circled thee. + +The red rose of this passion tide + Doth take a deeper hue from thee, +In the five Wounds of Jesus dyed, + And in Thy bleeding thoughts, Mary. + +The soldier struck a triple stroke + That smote thy Jesus on the tree; +He broke the Heart of hearts, and broke + The Saint's and Mother's hearts in thee. + +Thy Son went up the Angels' ways, + His passion ended; but, ah me! +Thou found'st the road of further days + A longer way of Calvary. + +On the hard cross of hopes deferred + Thou hung'st in loving agony, +Until the mortal dreaded word, + Which chills our mirth, spake mirth to thee. + +The Angel Death from this cold tomb + Of life did roll the stone away; +And He thou barest in thy womb + Caught thee at last into the day-- +Before the living throne of Whom + The lights of heaven burning pray. + + + L'ENVOY. + +O thou who dwellest in the day, + Behold, I pace amidst the gloom: +Darkness is ever round my way, + With little space for sunbeam room. + +Yet Christian sadness is divine, + Even as thy patient sadness was: +The salt tears in our life's dark wine + Fell in it from the saving Cross. + +Bitter the bread of our repast; + Yet doth a sweet the bitter leaven: +Our sorrow is the shadow cast + Around it by the light of Heaven. + O Light in light, shine down from Heaven! + + + * * * * * + + +PADRAIC COLUM + + +"_I SHALL NOT DIE FOR YOU_" + +(From the Irish) + +O woman, shapely as the swan, + On your account I shall not die. +The men you've slain--a trivial clan-- + Were less than I. + +I ask me shall I die for these: + For blossom-teeth and scarlet lips? +And shall that delicate swan-shape + Bring me eclipse? + +Well shaped the breasts and smooth the skin, + The cheeks are fair, the tresses free; +And yet I shall not suffer death, + God over me. + +Those even brows, that hair like gold, + Those languorous tones, that virgin way; +The flowing limbs, the rounded heel + Slight men betray. + +Thy spirit keen through radiant mien, + Thy shining throat and smiling eye, +Thy little palm, thy side like foam-- + I cannot die. + +O woman, shapely as the swan, + In a cunning house hard-reared was I; +O bosom white, O well-shaped palm, + I shall not die. + + +_AN IDYLL_ + +You stay at last at my bosom, with your beauty + young and rare, +Though your light limbs are as limber as the + foal's that follows the mare, +Brow fair and young and stately where thought + has now begun--Hair +bright as the breast of the eagle when he + strains up to the sun! + +In the space of a broken castle I found you on + a day +When the call of the new-come cuckoo went + with me all the way. +You stood by the loosened stones that were + rough and black with age: +The fawn beloved of the hunter in the panther's + broken cage! + +And we went down together by paths your + childhood knew-- +Remote you went beside me, like the spirit of + the dew; +Hard were the hedge-rows still: sloe-bloom + was their scanty dower-- +You slipped it within your bosom, the bloom + that scarce is flower. + +And now you stay at my bosom with you + beauty young and rare, +Though your light limbs are as limber as the + foal's that follows the mare; +But always I will see you on paths your childhood + knew, +When remote you went beside me like the + spirit of the dew. + + +_CHRIST THE COMRADE_ + +Christ, by thine own darkened hour + Live within my heart and brain! + Let my hands not slip the rein. + +Ah, how long ago it is + Since a comrade rode with me! + Now a moment let me see + +Thyself, lonely in the dark, +Perfect, without wound or mark. + + +_ARAB SONGS (I)_ + +Saadi the Poet stood up and he put forth his + living words. +His songs were the hurtling of spears and + his figures the flashing of swords. +With hearts dilated our tribe saw the creature + of Saadi's mind; +It was like to the horse of a king, a creature + of fire and of wind. + +Umimah my loved one was by me: without + love did these eyes see my fawn, +And if fire there were in her being, for me + its splendour had gone; +When the sun storms up on the tent, he makes + waste the fire of the grass-- +It was thus with my loved one's beauty: the + splendour of song made it pass. + +The desert, the march, and the onset--these + and these only avail, +Hands hard with the handling of spear-shafts, + brows white with the press of the mail! +And as for the kisses of women--these are + honey, the poet sings; +But the honey of kisses, beloved, it is lime + for the spirit's wings. + + +_ARAB SONGS (II)_ + +_The poet reproaches those who have affronted him_. + +Ye know not why God hath joined the horse + fly unto the horse +Nor why the generous steed is yoked with + the poisonous fly: +Lest the steed should sink into ease and lose + his fervour of nerve +God hath appointed him this: a lustful and + venomous bride. + +Never supine lie they, the steeds of our folk, + to the sting, +Praying for deadness of nerve, their wounds + the shame of the sun; +They strive, but they strive for this: the fullness + of passionate nerve; +They pant, but they pant for this: the speed + that outstrips the pain. + +Sons of the dust, ye have stung: there is + darkness upon my soul. +Sons of the dust, ye have stung: yea, stung + to the roots of my heart. +But I have said in my breast: the birth + succeeds to the pang, +And sons of the dust, behold, your malice + becomes my song. + + + * * * * * + + +SHANE LESLIE + + +_A DEAD FRIEND_ (_J.S._, 1905) + +I drew him then unto my knee, my friend who + was dead, +And I set my live lips over his, and my heart + by his head. + +I thought of an unrippled love and a passion + unsaid, +And the years he was living by me, my friend + who was dead; + +And the white morning ways that we went, + and how oft we had fed +And drunk with the sunset for lamp--my friend + who was dead; + +Now never the draught at my lips would thrill + to my head-- +For the last vintage ebbed in my heart; my + friend he was dead. + +Then I spake unto God in my grief: My wine + and my bread +And my staff Thou hast taken from me--my + friend who is dead. + +Are the heavens yet friendless to Thee, and + lone to Thy head, +That Thy desolate heart must have need of my + friend who is dead? + +To God then I spake yet again: not Peter + instead +Would I take, nor Philip nor John, for my + friend who is dead. + + +_FOREST SONG_ + +All around I heard the whispering larches + Swinging to the low-lipped wind; +God, they piped, is lilting in our arches, + For He loveth leafen kind. + +Ferns I heard, unfolding from their slumber, + Say confiding to the reed: +God well knoweth us, Who loves to number + Us and all our fairy seed. + +Voices hummed as of a multitude + Crowding from their lowly sod; +'Twas the stricken daisies where I stood, + Crying to the daisies' God. + + +_THE BEE_ + +Away, the old monks said, +Sweet honey-fly, +From lilting overhead +The lullaby +You heard some mother croon +Beneath the harvest moon. +Go, hum it in the hive, +The old monks said, +For we were once alive +Who now are dead. + + +_OUTSIDE THE CARLTON_ + +The death of the grey withered grass + Of man's is a sign, + And his life is as wine +That is spilt from a half-shivered glass. + At a quarter to nine + Went Dives to dine ... +(Man, it is said, is as grass.) + +Riches and plunder had met + To furnish his feast-- + Both succulent beast +And fish from the fisherman's net; + While he tasteth of dishes + And all his soul wishes-- +Nor knoweth his hour hath been set. + +The death of the pale-sodden hay + 'Neath the feet of the kine + Is to man for a sign; +At the striking of ten he was grey, + And they carried him out + Stiff-strangled with gout. +(Man, it is said, is as hay.) + + +_THE PATER OF THE CANNON_ + +Father of the thunder, + Flinger of the flame, +Searing stars asunder, + _Hallowed be Thy Name_! + +By the sweet-sung quiring + Sister bullets hum, +By our fiercest firing, + _May Thy Kingdom come_! + +By Thy strong apostle + Of the Maxim gun, +By his pentecostal + Flame, _Thy Will be done_! + +Give us, Lord, good feeding + To Thy battles sped--Flesh, +white grained and bleeding, + _Give for daily bread_! + + +_FLEET STREET_ + +I never see the newsboys run + Amid the whirling street, + With swift untiring feet, +To cry the latest venture done, +But I expect one day to hear + Them cry the crack of doom + And risings from the tomb, +With great Archangel Michael near; +And see them running from the Fleet + As messengers of God, + With Heaven's tidings shod +About their brave unwearied feet. + + +_NIGHTMARE_ + +I dreamt that the heavens were beggared + And angels went chanting for bread, +And the cherubs were sewed up in sackcloth, + And Satan anointed his head. +I dreamt they had chalked up a price + On the sun and the stars at God's feet, +And the Devil had bought up the Church, + And put out the Pope in the street. + + +_TO A NOBLEMAN BECOMING SOCIALIST_ + +I do remember thee so blest and filled + With all life offered thee, +Yet unsurprised I learn that thou hast willed + To share or lose her fee. + +It seems a very great and stalwart thing + To toss defence away, +To tear the golden feathers from thy wing + And lie with shards of clay. + +To some far vision's light thine eyes are set + That mock life's treasure trove, +And see the changing woof not woven yet + As God would have it wove. + +The red thou flauntest bravely, friend, for me + Hast lost alarming power; +For who but guilty men will quake their knee, + And who but robbers cower? + +For many hallowed things are symbolled red, + Live fire and cleansing war, +And the bright sealing Blood that Christ once shed, + And Martyrs yet must pour. + +O friend, choose one of these ourselves to link; + For how could friendship be +If from the foaming cup thou hast to drink + The dregs come not to me? + +Dividing much, thou makest little thine + Except the gain of loss; +Yet haply Christ's true peer hath better sign + Than coronet--the Cross. + + +_ST. GEORGE-IN-THE-EAST_ + +'Mid the quiet splendour of a pennoned crowd, + Gently proud, +Moved in armour, silvered in celestial forge, + Great Saint George, +Stands he in the crimson-woven air of fight + Speared with light-- +Hell is harried by the holy anger poured + From his sword. + +Where the sweated toilers of the river slum + Shiver dumb, +Passed to-day a poorly clad and poorly shod + Knight of God; +Where the human eddy smears with shame and rags + Paving flags, +Hell shall weakly wail beneath the words he cries + Piteous-wise. + + + * * * * * + + +VIOLA MEYNELL + + +_THE RUIN_ + +I led thy thoughts, having them for my own, + To where my God His head to thee did bend. +I bore thee in my bosom to His throne. + O, the blest labour, and the treasured end! + +Now like a ruined aqueduct I go + Unburdened; thou by more fleet ways hast been +With Him. Since thou thine own swift road dost know, + Thou canst not brook such slow and devious mean. + + +_THE DREAM_ + +I slept, and thought a letter came from you-- + You did not love me any more, it said. +What breathless grief!--my love not true, not true ... + I was afraid of people, and afraid +Of things inanimate--the wind that blew, + The clock, the wooden chair; and so I strayed +From home, but could not stray from grief, I knew. + And then at dawn I woke, and wept, and prayed, +And knew my blessed love was still the same;-- + And yet I sit and moan upon the bed +For that dream-creature's loss. For when I came + (I came, perhaps, to comfort her) she fled. +I would be with her where she wanders now, +Fleeing the earth, with pain upon her brow. + + +_THE WANDERER_ + +All night my thoughts have rested in God's fold; + They lay beside me here upon the bed. +At dawn I woke: the air beat sad and cold. + I told them o'er--Ah, God, one thought had fled. + +Into what dark, deep chasm this wayward one + Has sunk, I scarcely know; I will not chide. +O Shepherd, leave me! Seek this lamb alone. + The ninety-nine are here. They will abide. + + +"_NATURE IS THE LIVING MANTLE OF GOD_"--_GOETHE_ + +O for the time when some impetuous breeze +Will catch Thy garment, and, like autumn trees, +Toss it and rend it till Thou standest free, +And end Thy long secluded reverie! + +Still now its beauty folds Thee, and--as she +Who kissed Thy garment and had health from Thee-- +I feel the sun, or hear some bird in bliss, +And Thou hast then my sudden, humble kiss. + + +_SECRET PRAYER_ + +Since that with lips which moved in one we prayed, + So that God ceased to hear us speak apart, +What law irrevocable have we made? + How shall He hear a solitary heart + +When He did need that we, to have His ear, + Should go aside and pray together there +With urgent breath? Ah, now I pause and fear-- + How shall uprise my lonely, separate prayer? + + +_THE UNHEEDED_ + +Upon one hand your kisses chanced to rest: +I smiled upon the other hand and said +"Poor thing," when you had gone: and then in quest +Of pity rose a clamour from the dead-- +Some way of mine, some word, some look, some jest +Complained they too went all uncoveted ... +That night I took these troubles to my breast, +And played that you and I, my own, were wed; +Those troubles were our child, with eyes of fear,-- +A wailing babe, whom I, his mother dear, +Must soothe to quiet rest and calm relief, +And urge his eyes to sleeping by and by. +"O hush," I said, and wept to see such grief; +"Hush, hush, your father must not hear you cry." + + +_DREAM OF DEATH_ + +In sleep my idle thoughts were sadly led + By wild dark ways: it strangely seemed that I +Must join the number of the silent dead, + And with my young and fearful heart must die. + +But ah, what drew my bitter moans and sighs, + And pierced my sleeping spirit, was that she +Who with the saddest tears would close these eyes + And with maternal passion mourn for me, + +She on some pleasure-errand stayed away. + Ah, bitter, bitter thought! Ah, lonely death +To seek me in the night! And not till day + Had come and soothed my fear, and calmed my breath, + +And in the sun my new life I could kiss, + And look with prayer and hope to future years, +Did I discern God's mercy still in this-- + That I was spared the anguish of her tears. + + + * * * * * + + +RUTH TEMPLE LINDSAY + + +_MATER SALVATORIS_ + +Ah, wilt thou turn aside and see +The little Child on Mary's knee? +Enter the stable bleak and cold, +Grope through the straw and myrrh and gold; +Seek in the darkness near and far-- +Lift up the lantern and the Star. +Rough shepherds came to love and greet, +There knelt three kings at Mary's feet. +Ah! draw thee nigh the holy place-- +He sleepeth well in her embrace, +The little Saviour of thy race-- +Then raise thine eyes to Mary's face. + +But wilt thou come in years to be? +She held Him dead across her knee. +Stretch Him aloft on planks of wood; +Offer Him gall for tears and blood. +Blazon thy hatred far and near: +Lift up the hammer and the spear. +Red thorns about his head were wound-- +There lay three nails upon the ground. +Yea I Heed the Lover of thy race-- +He lieth dead in her embrace. +Ah! scourge thy soul with its disgrace: +Then raise thine eyes to Mary's face. + + +_TO CHOOSE_ + +Thou canst choose the eastern Circle for thy part, + And within its sacred precincts thou shalt rest; + Thou shalt fold pale, slender hands upon thy breast, +Thou shalt fasten silent eyes upon thy heart. +If there steal within the languor of thine ark + The thunder of the waters of the earth, + The human, simple cries of pain and mirth, +The wails of little children in the dark, +Thou shalt contemplate thy Circle's radiant gleam, + Thou shalt gather self and God more closely still: + Let the Piteous and the Foolish moan at will, +So thou shelter in the sweetness of thy dream. + +Thou canst bear a bloodstained Cross upon thy breast, + Thou shalt stand upon the common, human sod, + Thou shalt lift unswerving eyes unto thy God, +Thou shalt stretch torn, rugged hands to east and west +Thou shalt call to every throne and every cell-- + Thou shalt gather all the answers of the Earth, + Thou shalt wring repose from weariness and dearth, +Thou shalt fathom the profundity of Hell-- +But thy height shall touch the height of God above, + And thy breadth shall span the breadth of pole to pole, + And thy depth shall sound the depth of every soul, +And thy heart the deep Gethsemane of Love. + + +_THE HUNTERS_ + +"_The Devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about +seeking whom he may detour_" + +The Lion, he prowleth far and near, + Nor swerves for pain or rue; +He heeded nought of sloth nor fear, + He prowleth--prowleth through +The silent glade and the weary street, + In the empty dark and the full noon heat; +And a little Lamb with aching Feet-- + He prowleth too. + +The Lion croucheth alert, apart-- + With patience doth he woo; +He waiteth long by the shuttered heart, + And the Lamb--He waiteth too. +Up the lurid passes of dreams that kill, + Through the twisting maze of the great Untrue, +The Lion followeth the fainting will-- + And the Lamb--He followeth too. + +From the thickets dim of the hidden way + Where the debts of Hell accrue, +The Lion leapeth upon his prey: + But the Lamb--He leapeth too. +Ah! loose the leash of the sins that damn, + Mark Devil and God as goals, +In the panting love of a famished Lamb, + Gone mad with the need of souls. + +The Lion, he strayeth near and far; + What heights hath he left untrod? +He crawleth nigh to the purest star, + On the trail of the saints of God. +And throughout the darkness of things unclean, + In the depths where the sin-ghouls brood, +There prowleth ever with yearning mien-- + A lamb as white as Blood! + + + * * * * * + + +HUGH AUSTIN + + +_THE ASTRONOMERS PRAYER_ + +Night. O Thou God! who rulest Heaven and earth, + The terraced atmospheres, the bounded seas; +Who knowest equally both death and birth, + Frail human men, strong divine mysteries, +Whose unencumbered thought sways all the spheres, + In all their turning, snake-like, perfect ways; +Now that the season of my labour nears, + Grant me an insight to Thy larger days! + +To Thee all things create and unborn yield, + Being of Thee, the secret of their souls-- +The traversed elements, the azure field + Whereo'er eternal each huge star-world rolls. +There is no tiny insect but does know + Itself within Thy Presence visual: +From us too swiftly years and seasons go, + To Thee all change is a thing gradual. + +E'en as at nightfall, when the lights come in, + The moth attracted woos and meets her death, +So do I seek Thy light to wander in, + Though fearfully and with half-bated breath. +So do I seek all knowledge of Thy stars, + Which move in and without my vision's reach; +Maybe yet burning with internal wars, + Or shaking as this world with human speech. + +Stars which perhaps ten thousand years ago + Waned and grew cold at Thy almighty word +Waft their light hitherward. I do not know-- + Thy recreating voice I have not heard. +Maybe, e'en at this hour Thine accents shake + Some chaos into order, into life; +Perchance some great creation now doth break + Into new form beneath Thy wisdom's knife. + +Ah, Lord! The night appals me. Give me strength + Within myself to search this planet's dome: +O Supreme Architect, give me at length + Some clearer knowledge of Thy spaceless home! +My spirit seethes within me; in the sky + Thy constellations shine; for me begin +My labours until night-time passes by-- + And before dawn I must or fail or win. + + +_THE MOON_ + +Cirqued with dim stars and delicate moonflowers, +Silent she moves among the silent hours-- +Watching the spheres that glow with golden heat + Under her feet. + +Then, when the sunrise tints the east with light, +She fades to westward, with the dreamy night +And all her starry train--in faint disguise + Of twilight skies. + + +_TO YVONNE_ + +Such things have been, Yvonne; but you and I, + Can we touch lips again across the years? +Re-order what is past? Forget--or try + Not to remember what through mists of tears +Is still too memorable? Dare we two + Start both our lives again, as we were young +And happy, in such love as falls to few? + Nay, for our violins are all unstrung. + +Yet it is well that memory should hold + Some few pale rose-leaves plucked in bygone days, +That still are sweet, despite those pains untold + Which throng the marges of life's winding ways. +Yea, these will stay when nearer things are gone; + I shall keep mine. Will you keep yours, Yvonne? + + +_THE BURIAL OF SCALD_ + +A long, low wail of harps across the snow, + Falling and rising with the whistling wind; +A shifting glare of lights that come and go, + As if men searched for what they could not find. +And then the music thrilled out loud and well + Over the waste and barren dunes of sand-- +Solemn and stately as a passing bell + Heard dimly in some weary twilight land. + +Then slipped the moon behind a dusky cloud, + And each bright star its silver visage hid; +Mystery 'gan the darkness to enshroud; + Across the sky a blood-red message slid. + +Sudden the ship blazed up, the dark was light; + Lo! Scald is dead! his pyre was lit to-night. + + + * * * * * + + +JUDITH LYTTON + + +_A DAY REMEMBERED_ + +Oh, Love, what fate is ours? No summer morning + Shall give us joy, no sunrise bring relief; +No end--no end is there unto our sorrow, + No measure to our grief. + +You looked at me, and all your living beauty + Swept to my heart in flame a moment's space, +A sudden mist of tears in darkness veiling + The glory of your face. + +You spoke: I seemed to hear the wild doves cooing-- + The rain upon the hills, sweet falling rain; +And all my soul was filled with joy and anguish, + In ecstasy of pain. + +I saw as in a mist celestial visions + Beyond the bitter seas whence hope has fled, +Heard the wind blow among the trees in summer, + But knew not what you said. + +It matters not what words the lips have spoken + When heart shall speak to heart, for love can hear +Unspoken words, and see as in reflection + His own thoughts mirrored there. + +You came to me, the sun arose in splendour; + I saw the roses spread their petals sweet, +And thought that all the world must see in wonder + The wings upon our feet. + +You touched me, and a wave of passionate longing + Flooded my soul until it swooned away, +And knew no more the sunlight from the shadow-- + If it were night or day. + +We wandered in the shadow of the woodland, + Mute while we looked into each other's eyes, +And saw as in still pools of darkened water + The wonder of the skies. + +No word we spoke. We knew that love had silenced + All that we wished to speak yet left unsaid; +The bees were humming in the wild-rose blossoms + Which clustered overhead. + +And all that summer day we were together, + Alone with love, yet with a sword between-- +The flaming sword that stands between us ever, + And all that might have been. + +Mist gathered white at evening in the valleys, + And slowly grew the dusk from gold to grey, +While rain-clouds gathered on the low horizon + Dark at the close of day. + +And softly rose a wind from out the darkness, + With scent of flower and fern and herb and tree, +And in its breath there came a sound of thunder, + Storm-laden from the sea. + +And thus we reached the wicket of the garden; + The wood was full of sound, the sound of wings; +The scent of lavender brought back remembrance + Of long-forgotten things. + +Though heaven and earth and sky should be forgotten, + Yet of that hour my soul should bear the trace: +For night fell fast, and in the deepening shadow + You turned and kissed my face. + + +_CHILDHOOD_ + +A stranger come I to the festival +Thou holdest in the regions of romance, +Where dragons lurk and elfin spirits dance, +And pearls lie hid within each rose petal. +What magic changes in life's crystal ball +Shall thus transform earth's dullness at thy glance! +Ride then the wind, a feather for thy lance, +A pool thy sea, thy heaven a waterfall. +So shall thy soul to fairy worlds belong, +Where dust is gold and dew-drops turn to wine; +Remember still the visions that are thine +When sorrow shall disperse that phantom throng; +And dream once more that thou hast found divine +Love in a flower, and kingdoms in a song. + + +_LOVE IN IDLENESS_ + +To look at thee, and see the sunlight move +The shadow of the leaves upon thy face, +Lighting the glory of thy youth and grace +With golden rays wind-stirred from trees above; +To listen to the rustling of the grove, +The warblers in the reeds which interlace +The waters of the pool, and dream a space, +Forgetful of the hours ... this then is love! +Thy passion and thy strength, thy gentleness, +All these are mine. Who then shall dispossess +My soul of paradise? In truth I learn +More than the world can teach. Oblivion waits, +And distance parts, and Death annihilates: +But now thy love is all my love's concern. + + +_LOVE'S COUNTERFEIT_ + +By what false spell of what enchanter's wand +Should thy gross fibre be with love allied? +Unhappy youth, thou callest to thy side +An unknown shade from some far spirit land; +Thou canst not guess, nor shalt thou understand, +The waters that thy soul from his divide. +In place of Love, what alien spirits glide +About thy sleep to answer thy command? +What blasphemy is this? Thou hast no spell +To call that heaven-born spirit from the deep, +Or move the stars. What cometh in his place? +This monstrous fraud which thou hast raised from hell, +Whose arms about thee in the darkness creep? +Light not thy torch, lest thou shouldst see +his face. + + + * * * * * + + +OLIVIA MEYNELL + + +_A GRIEF WITHOUT CHRIST_ + +I sought Him in the trees, and Him I found +In every colour, and in every sound. + +I sought Him in the sky, and He was there, +A living God, breathing the living air. + +I sought Him in my soul--oh, passionate loss! +All that I found was a forsaken Cross. + + +_THE CROWNING_ + +Whenas we wandered in the summer hours, +My kind love crowned me with a crown of flowers. + +Softly they touched my forehead and my hair; +Gay, sunny, yellow, and sweet-breathed they were-- + +Soft flowers and tender hands, gay sun, soft skies; +And sweeter, tenderer yet, his loving eyes. + +Ah! but it should have been with thorns he crowned me, +Who follow Christ, while cold skies blackened round me. + +Dear love, I will accept from you cold frown, +Sharp words, hard touch, as symbols of His crown. + + + * * * * * + + +MAURICE HEALY + + +_IN MEMORIAM_ + +"Lord, teach us how to pray," they said; +And Jesus raised His weary head, +Bowed by the sorrows of the way, +And taught His children how to pray. + +"Lord, teach me how to pray," I cried; +And Jesus sent you to my side +To make your own the soul I wear +And mould it purer into prayer. + +And since your love first lit the way +I find that I have learned to pray; +For, that my soul may benefit, +I pray that you may pray for it. + + +_A BALLAD OF FRIENDSHIP_ + +_for two most dear Children_ + +Soured and dimmed and chilled with senility + Hobbled the year to its uttermost day; +I gave the best of a slender ability, + Seeking to make a short afternoon gay. +You were both claimed ere the sky was grey + Over the tips of the western towers; +Yet, as you went, you had time to say, + "This is no stranger: we name him ours!" + +Slaves and serfs have woes in abundancy-- + Clashing of manacle, whistling of thong, +Tales of terror and tears to redundancy; + What is the score of my slavery's wrong? +Surely where pleasures so freely throng + Some sad fiend of unhappiness lowers; +Or is the refrain of Good Fortune's song, + "This is no stranger: we name him ours"? + +When you enfranchised me into your mystery, + Lovingly stealing the sorrows I had, +Wisdom came with you; the old sad history + Glowed; and I knew in my heart why the sad +And outcast Lord grew suddenly glad + As the children thronged to crown Him with flowers, +When their cry was voiced by some tiny lad, + "This is no Stranger: we name Him ours!" + + L'ENVOI. + +So do I thank you; and if some day + You in your gained Paradisal bowers +Hear me knocking, be bold to pray, + "This is no stranger: we claim him ours!" + + +_IN THE MIDST OF THEM_ + + "_Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, + Look on me, a little child. + Pity my simplicity + And suffer me to come to Thee_." + +Now prevails a creed which tells +Us to seek no miracles. +Reason by discovered lore +Reigns where Faith was found before. +God, Who set our world aspin, +Now is weary of its din; +He, Who for our fathers' sake +Conjured lightning and earthquake, +Vanquished sorrow, sickness, death, +Deems we are not worth the Breath +That blessed the trusting prophet's rod +When Moses called upon his God. +How dare _we_ expect Him give +Miracles to help us live? + +Yet I build on Him Who saith, +"Move the mountains with your faith"-- +Doubt the lips that falter, wan, +"The age of miracles is gone!" +I have learned to read the grim +Testimony unto Him +Printed with starvation's hand +On every hove! through the land; +I have swung the crazy door +To find huddled on a floor +Rat-gnawed and riddled, with never a clout +To keep the eager winter out, +Some six or seven of our kind +Shivering beneath the wind, +Foodless, fireless, hungry-eyed, +Crouched round one who just had died, +Hopeless that the dawn would bring +Friendly aid and comforting. + +And after prayer for the parted soul, +They have thanked the slender dole, +And spoken of hope of days to come, +And have forgotten their martyrdom. +The anguished grief of motherhood +Has firmly whispered "God is good +And can in His Eternity +Repay this present loss"; till I +Have almost turned my head to see +If Christ has not come in with me! + + _Gentle Jesus, mild and meek, + These the simple words I speak + Are the faith Thou gavest me; + Suffer me to come to Thee!_ + + +_SIC TRANSIT_ + +They camped in the meadow at sunrise, + And their crests gleamed bright in the sun, +And the breeze that blew sighed soft, for it knew + Their fate e'er the day was done. +They lay in the meadow at sunset, + As the sky in anger blushed red; +For the host of the dawn lay still on the lawn-- + The host was a host of dead. + +Let the gardener but pass his scythe o'er the grass-- + And the life of a daisy is sped! + + + * * * * * + + +MONICA SALEEBY + + +_RETROSPECT_ + +You loved the child of fifteen years. + I knew not this vast thing. +Your great heart shrank beneath your fears; + You left me wondering. + +Now fourteen years have passed us by; + Our souls meet once again; +And, meeting, I have asked you why + Our ways apart have lain? + +And now your answer comes at last:-- + "I loved you in that day." +Oh, strange reply! Oh, tender past! + Oh, long love locked away! + +And now, yes, I have climbed Love's hill; +My heart is bound, yet free. +And is there not some young child still +For you to love in me? + +You have the right to love her yet, + For he who loves me grown +Knew not the child you'll ne'er forget; + I give her for your own. + +Oh, keep her young within your breast, + Allow her to survive; +For love of you _I'll_ do my best + To keep your child alive. + + + * * * * * + + +FRANCIS MEYNELL + + +_ANY STONE_ + +A myriad years God toiled to mould + A nerveless stone to His intent-- +From peace to war, from heat to cold, + It triumphed against the Omnipotent: +God strove until His strength grew old, + Then cried "Thy help, My firmament!" + +The stars in succour gave their light, + The aiding moon her ocean-sway; +At dawn and dusk the hosts of night + Watched round the battle-fires of day ... +To set the dust He loved aright + God called His winds to that array, + +And all the burden of the world, + And all the tears from all men's eyes, +Drought, dew, and every flower unfurled, + The priest, the fire, the sacrifice, +The pillared cloud, His thunder hurled-- + Victor, He held as nought the price! + +Thus loved, thus wrought, God deemed the stone +Fit bed for beasts to lie upon. + + * * * * * + +O God of Gods, make short my days + Of blind approach to her and Thee; +Life-long upon Thy rugged ways + Her heart has danced: she calls to me. +Hast Thou forgotten me alone, + O Watcher where the wild beast lies?-- +Mould to Thy will this other stone + --A stone, yet precious in her eyes. + + +_LUX IN TENEBRIS_ + +Spirit of smiles and tears, you came to me in the night, +The golden moon aglow in your hair, and the spear-driven light +Of an army of stars in your eyes, weary with truant sleep. +O little skilled in self, who thought you came to weep! + +Out of the darkness, light; flame in the virgin dew! +Love came unto her own, and knew him not, who knew. +O understood! O known! O apprehended bliss! +O self unskilled in self! O taught of my one kiss! + + +_MATER INVIOLATA_ + +A maiden's love most nuptial is, +Innocent of his nuptial kiss; +And only after marriage call +Her lips, her passion, virginal! + +For when she dreams, who is beloved, +The ancient miracle stands proved-- +Virginity's much Motherhood! +For O, the unborn babes she keeps, +The unthought glory, lips unwooed!-- +And O, the quickening of her sleeps +Whose dreams, dreamed over, do repeat +The echoes of Love's falling feet! +For his, her young inviolate mouth +Longs with the longing of long drouth: +And, lacking substance for such feast, +She clasps a dream-baby to breast, +And kisses, where her head has place, +The dream-lips of her love's dream-face! + +On the decked bridal bed of Night +She knows the Moon shows maiden light-- +The Sun's kiss urged in marriage-rite! +So, when her very night shall come, +Virginal, in her virgin home +When stars show unfamiliar faces, +Laughing for love in their high places-- +When her essential lips are dumb +In a thronged panic of embraces-- +Her maiden heart, her spousal breast, +Shall throb, surrendered and possessed, +Throb, passion-sweet and ungainsaid-- +"Now at the last am I a Maid!" + + +_SONG-BURDEN_ + +I do confess I have no art +To tell the tale of my own heart. + +Of lips and tears, of hearts and eyes, +I rhyme my rhymes and fear my fears; +And if of these I make you wise, +These pictured hearts, these lips, these tears, +There is nought to do; I have played my part. + +And I, a captain of much guile, +Within your ranks dissensions preach +Till all are jealous, each of each-- +Your eyes, lips, heart, a tear, a smile! + +So, when you turn your eyes away +From mirrored eyes, and when you stay +Love-hearing with reluctant hand, +Straight then your heart-throbs will betray +That you have read, and understand! + +And should your maiden heart uprise +Against fain ears and full-fain eyes, +Upon your lips, that cannot err, +I set my kiss-interpreter! + +Or hold you steadfast as allies +Your heart, hand, lips, your smiles, your all, +Your faithful eyes are traitrous eyes-- +Out-steals a tear to your downfall! + +Your heart, your eyes, the lips of you +--Hesitant and full-fain your eyes!-- +Make all my song; have I sung true? +Make all my song; are you song-wise? + + +_GIFTS_ + +My given gifts have been, ah me! +Sorrow, and superfluity. + +You needed primal force, and this +Was all my giving--emphasis. + +For your mute voice more mute I made, +And at your singing proffered song; +You trembled, and I was afraid-- +Were pierced, I fell on the same blade-- +Triumphed, and then my arm was strong. +For peace I builded on your peace, +And on your weakness mine up-piled; +Of too fond hope I made increase, +And at your smilings, as a child, +Ignorant of their cost, I smiled. + +Always I fear at sight of fears, +And always weep at weeping eyes; +O my Beloved, take my tears, +Take my sighs! + +And these, and these, alas! shall be +Sorrow, and superfluity. + + +_WRAITH_ + +Mine was not equal of her trust-- + As whose, my friend, as whose should be?-And +now, a panic dream of dust, + She comes to haunt the heart of me; + +She comes to haunt my heart for this, + And lo, a glory of my sighs! +For still her phantom lips I kiss, + Who cannot meet her phantom eyes. + + +_A DEDICATION_ + +I took the universe for theme, + And all young eyes, and all old stars; +A thousand angels of my dream + I sang, and a thousand of love's wars. + +Blind then my eyes, that now can see +The narrowness of infinity! + +For these my songs sing but her eyes, + And all my song one star apart, +One angel's dream-soliloquies, + One conquered, one triumphant, heart. + +Yea, one is all, and all is one; +My songs, O love, are sung, and I have done. + + + * * * * * + + +_By_ The Hon. Mrs. Lindsay + THE HERMIT OF DREAMS. + 3s. 6d. net. + +_By_ Viola Meynell + MARTHA VINE: A Love Story of + Simple Life. 6s. + +_By_ Padraic Colum + WILD EARTH, 1s. net. + +_By_ Shane Leslie + SONGS OF ORIEL. 1s. net. + LOUGH DEARG. 1s. net. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Eyes of Youth, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EYES OF YOUTH *** + +***** This file should be named 17735.txt or 17735.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/7/3/17735/ + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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