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diff --git a/24364.txt b/24364.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8620f56 --- /dev/null +++ b/24364.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2216 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems, by Aldous Huxley + +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: The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems + +Author: Aldous Huxley + +Release Date: January 20, 2008 [EBook #24364] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEFEAT OF YOUTH *** + + + + +Produced by Tamise Totterdell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + THE DEFEAT OF YOUTH AND + OTHER POEMS + + BY ALDOUS HUXLEY, + AUTHOR OF "THE BURNING WHEEL." + + + CONTENTS + + Page + + The Defeat of Youth 5 + Song of Poplars 16 + The Reef 17 + Winter Dream 19 + The Flowers 20 + The Elms 21 + Out of the Window 21 + Inspiration 22 + Summer Stillness 23 + Anniversaries 23 + Italy 25 + The Alien 26 + A Little Memory 27 + Waking 28 + By the Fire 29 + Valedictory 31 + Love Song 32 + Private Property 33 + Revelation 34 + Minoan Porcelain 34 + The Decameron 35 + In Uncertainty to a Lady 35 + Crapulous Impression 36 + The Life Theoretic 37 + Complaint of a Poet Manque 37 + Social Amenities 38 + Topiary 38 + On the Bus 39 + Points and Lines 39 + Panic 40 + Return from Business 40 + Stanzas 41 + Poem 42 + Scenes of the Mind 43 + L'Apres-Midi D'un Faune 44 + The Louse-Hunters 48 + + + + + THE DEFEAT OF YOUTH + + + I. UNDER THE TREES. + + There had been phantoms, pale-remembered shapes + Of this and this occasion, sisterly + In their resemblances, each effigy + Crowned with the same bright hair above the nape's + White rounded firmness, and each body alert + With such swift loveliness, that very rest + Seemed a poised movement: ... phantoms that impressed + But a faint influence and could bless or hurt + No more than dreams. And these ghost things were she; + For formless still, without identity, + Not one she seemed, not clear, but many and dim. + One face among the legions of the street, + Indifferent mystery, she was for him + Something still uncreated, incomplete. + + + II. + + Bright windy sunshine and the shadow of cloud + Quicken the heavy summer to new birth + Of life and motion on the drowsing earth; + The huge elms stir, till all the air is loud + With their awakening from the muffled sleep + Of long hot days. And on the wavering line + That marks the alternate ebb of shade and shine, + Under the trees, a little group is deep + In laughing talk. The shadow as it flows + Across them dims the lustre of a rose, + Quenches the bright clear gold of hair, the green + Of a girl's dress, and life seems faint. The light + Swings back, and in the rose a fire is seen, + Gold hair's aflame and green grows emerald bright. + + + III. + + She leans, and there is laughter in the face + She turns towards him; and it seems a door + Suddenly opened on some desolate place + With a burst of light and music. What before + Was hidden shines in loveliness revealed. + Now first he sees her beautiful, and knows + That he must love her; and the doom is sealed + Of all his happiness and all the woes + That shall be born of pregnant years hereafter. + The swift poise of a head, a flutter of laughter-- + And love flows in on him, its vastness pent + Within his narrow life: the pain it brings, + Boundless; for love is infinite discontent + With the poor lonely life of transient things. + + + IV. + + Men see their god, an immanence divine, + Smile through the curve of flesh or moulded clay, + In bare ploughed lands that go sloping away + To meet the sky in one clean exquisite line. + Out of the short-seen dawns of ecstasy + They draw new beauty, whence new thoughts are born + And in their turn conceive, as grains of corn + Germ and create new life and endlessly + Shall live creating. Out of earthly seeds + Springs the aerial flower. One spirit proceeds + Through change, the same in body and in soul-- + The spirit of life and love that triumphs still + In its slow struggle towards some far-off goal + Through lust and death and the bitterness of will. + + + V. + + One spirit it is that stirs the fathomless deep + Of human minds, that shakes the elms in storm, + That sings in passionate music, or on warm + Still evenings bosoms forth the tufted sleep + Of thistle-seeds that wait a travelling wind. + One spirit shapes the subtle rhythms of thought + And the long thundering seas; the soul is wrought + Of one stuff with the body--matter and mind + Woven together in so close a mesh + That flowers may blossom into a song, that flesh + May strangely teach the loveliest holiest things + To watching spirits. Truth is brought to birth + Not in some vacant heaven: its beauty springs + From the dear bosom of material earth. + + + VI. IN THE HAY-LOFT. + + The darkness in the loft is sweet and warm + With the stored hay ... darkness intensified + By one bright shaft that enters through the wide + Tall doors from under fringes of a storm + Which makes the doomed sun brighter. On the hay, + Perched mountain-high they sit, and silently + Watch the motes dance and look at the dark sky + And mark how heartbreakingly far away + And yet how close and clear the distance seems, + While all at hand is cloud--brightness of dreams + Unrealisable, yet seen so clear, + So only just beyond the dark. They wait, + Scarce knowing what they wait for, half in fear; + Expectance draws the curtain from their fate. + + + VII. + + The silence of the storm weighs heavily + On their strained spirits: sometimes one will say + Some trivial thing as though to ward away + Mysterious powers, that imminently lie + In wait, with the strong exorcising grace + Of everyday's futility. Desire + Becomes upon a sudden a crystal fire, + Defined and hard:--If he could kiss her face, + Could kiss her hair! As if by chance, her hand + Brushes on his ... Ah, can she understand? + Or is she pedestalled above the touch + Of his desire? He wonders: dare he seek + From her that little, that infinitely much? + And suddenly she kissed him on the cheek. + + + VIII. MOUNTAINS. + + A stronger gust catches the cloud and twists + A spindle of rifted darkness through its heart, + A gash in the damp grey, which, thrust apart, + Reveals black depths a moment. Then the mists + Shut down again; a white uneasy sea + Heaves round the climbers and beneath their feet. + He strains on upwards through the wind and sleet, + Poised, or swift moving, or laboriously + Lifting his weight. And if he should let go, + What would he find down there, down there below + The curtain of the mist? What would he find + Beyond the dim and stifling now and here, + Beneath the unsettled turmoil of his mind? + Oh, there were nameless depths: he shrank with fear. + + + IX. + + The hills more glorious in their coat of snow + Rise all around him, in the valleys run + Bright streams, and there are lakes that catch the sun, + And sunlit fields of emerald far below + That seem alive with inward light. In smoke + The far horizons fade; and there is peace + On everything, a sense of blessed release + From wilful strife. Like some prophetic cloak + The spirit of the mountains has descended + On all the world, and its unrest is ended. + Even the sea, glimpsed far away, seems still, + Hushed to a silver peace its storm and strife. + Mountains of vision, calm above fate and will, + You hold the promise of the freer life. + + + X. IN THE LITTLE ROOM. + + London unfurls its incense-coloured dusk + Before the panes, rich but a while ago + With the charred gold and the red ember-glow + Of dying sunset. Houses quit the husk + Of secrecy, which, through the day, returns + A blank to all enquiry: but at nights + The cheerfulness of fire and lamp invites + The darkness inward, curious of what burns + With such a coloured life when all is dead-- + The daylight world outside, with overhead + White clouds, and where we walk, the blaze + Of wet and sunlit streets, shops and the stream + Of glittering traffic--all that the nights erase, + Colour and speed, surviving but in dream. + + + XI. + + Outside the dusk, but in the little room + All is alive with light, which brightly glints + On curving cup or the stiff folds of chintz, + Evoking its own whiteness. Shadows loom, + Bulging and black, upon the walls, where hang + Rich coloured plates of beauties that appeal + Less to the sense of sight than to the feel, + So moistly satin are their breasts. A pang, + Almost of pain, runs through him when he sees + Hanging, a homeless marvel, next to these, + The silken breastplate of a mandarin, + Centuries dead, which he had given her. + Exquisite miracle, when men could spin + Jay's wing and belly of the kingfisher! + + + XII. + + In silence and as though expectantly + She crouches at his feet, while he caresses + His light-drawn fingers with the touch of tresses + Sleeked round her head, close-banded lustrously, + Save where at nape and temple the smooth brown + Sleaves out into a pale transparent mist + Of hair and tangled light. So to exist, + Poised 'twixt the deep of thought where spirits drown + Life in a void impalpable nothingness, + And, on the other side, the pain and stress + Of clamorous action and the gnawing fire + Of will, focal upon a point of earth--even thus + To sit, eternally without desire + And yet self-known, were happiness for us. + + + XIII. + + She turns her head and in a flash of laughter + Looks up at him: and helplessly he feels + That life has circled with returning wheels + Back to a starting-point. Before and after + Merge in this instant, momently the same: + For it was thus she leaned and laughing turned + When, manifest, the spirit of beauty burned + In her young body with an inward flame, + And first he knew and loved her. In full tide + Life halts within him, suddenly stupefied. + Sight blackness, lightning-struck; but blindly tender + He draws her up to meet him, and she lies + Close folded by his arms in glad surrender, + Smiling, and with drooped head and half closed eyes. + + + XIV. + + "I give you all; would that I might give more." + He sees the colour dawn across her cheeks + And die again to white; marks as she speaks + The trembling of her lips, as though she bore + Some sudden pain and hardly mastered it. + Within his arms he feels her shuddering, + Piteously trembling like some wild wood-thing + Caught unawares. Compassion infinite + Mounts up within him. Thus to hold and keep + And comfort her distressed, lull her to sleep + And gently kiss her brow and hair and eyes + Seems love perfected--templed high and white + Against the calm of golden autumn skies, + And shining quenchlessly with vestal light. + + + XV. + + But passion ambushed by the aerial shrine + Comes forth to dance, a hoofed obscenity, + His satyr's dance, with laughter in his eye, + And cruelty along the scarlet line + Of his bright smiling mouth. All uncontrolled, + Love's rebel servant, he delights to beat + The maddening quick dry rhythm of goatish feet + Even in the sanctuary, and makes bold + To mime himself the godhead of the place. + He turns in terror from her trance-calmed face, + From the white-lidded languor of her eyes, + From lips that passion never shook before, + But glad in the promise of her sacrifice: + "I give you all; would that I might give more." + + + XVI. + + He is afraid, seeing her lie so still, + So utterly his own; afraid lest she + Should open wide her eyes and let him see + The passionate conquest of her virgin will + Shine there in triumph, starry-bright with tears. + He thrusts her from him: face and hair and breast, + Hands he had touched, lips that his lips had pressed, + Seem things deadly to be desired. He fears + Lest she should body forth in palpable shame + Those dreams and longings that his blood, aflame + Through the hot dark of summer nights, had dreamed + And longed. Must all his love, then, turn to this? + Was lust the end of what so pure had seemed? + He must escape, ah God! her touch, her kiss. + + + XVII. IN THE PARK. + + Laughing, "To-night," I said to him, "the Park + Has turned the garden of a symbolist. + Those old great trees that rise above the mist, + Gold with the light of evening, and the dark + Still water, where the dying sun evokes + An echoed glory--here I recognize + Those ancient gardens mirrored by the eyes + Of poets that hate the world of common folks, + Like you and me and that thin pious crowd, + Which yonder sings its hymns, so humbly proud + Of holiness. The garden of escape + Lies here; a small green world, and still the bride + Of quietness, although an imminent rape + Roars ceaselessly about on every side." + + + XVIII. + + I had forgotten what I had lightly said, + And without speech, without a thought I went, + Steeped in that golden quiet, all content + To drink the transient beauty as it sped + Out of eternal darkness into time + To light and burn and know itself a fire; + Yet doomed--ah, fate of the fulfilled desire!-- + To fade, a meteor, paying for the crime + Of living glorious in the denser air + Of our material earth. A strange despair, + An agony, yet strangely, subtly sweet + And tender as an unpassionate caress, + Filled me ... Oh laughter! youth's conceit + Grown almost conscious of youth's feebleness! + + + XIX. + + He spoke abrupt across my dream: "Dear Garden, + A stranger to your magic peace, I stand + Beyond your walls, lost in a fevered land + Of stones and fire. Would that the gods would harden + My soul against its torment, or would blind + Those yearning glimpses of a life at rest + In perfect beauty--glimpses at the best + Through unpassed bars. And here, without, the wind + Of scattering passion blows: and women pass + Glitter-eyed down putrid alleys where the glass + Of some grimed window suddenly parades-- + Ah, sickening heart-beat of desire!--the grace + Of bare and milk-warm flesh: the vision fades, + And at the pane shows a blind tortured face." + + + XX. SELF-TORMENT. + + The days pass by, empty of thought and will: + His thought grows stagnant at its very springs, + With every channel on the world of things + Dammed up, and thus, by its long standing still, + Poisons itself and sickens to decay. + All his high love for her, his fair desire, + Loses its light; and a dull rancorous fire, + Burning darkness and bitterness that prey + Upon his heart are left. His spirit burns + Sometimes with hatred, or the hatred turns + To a fierce lust for her, more cruel than hate, + Till he is weary wrestling with its force: + And evermore she haunts him, early and late, + As pitilessly as an old remorse. + + + XXI. + + Streets and the solitude of country places + Were once his friends. But as a man born blind, + Opening his eyes from lovely dreams, might find + The world a desert and men's larval faces + So hateful, he would wish to seek again + The darkness and his old chimeric sight + Of beauties inward--so, that fresh delight, + Vision of bright fields and angelic men, + That love which made him all the world, is gone. + Hating and hated now, he stands alone, + An island-point, measureless gulfs apart + From other lives, from the old happiness + Of being more than self, when heart to heart + Gave all, yet grew the greater, not the less. + + + XXII. THE QUARRY IN THE WOOD. + + Swiftly deliberate, he seeks the place. + A small wind stirs, the copse is bright in the sun: + Like quicksilver the shine and shadow run + Across the leaves. A bramble whips his face, + The tears spring fast, and through the rainbow mist + He sees a world that wavers like the flame + Of a blown candle. Tears of pain and shame, + And lips that once had laughed and sung and kissed + Trembling in the passion of his sobbing breath! + The world a candle shuddering to its death, + And life a darkness, blind and utterly void + Of any love or goodness: all deceit, + This friendship and this God: all shams destroyed, + And truth seen now. + Earth fails beneath his feet. + + + + + SONG OF POPLARS + + + Shepherd, to yon tall poplars tune your flute: + Let them pierce, keenly, subtly shrill, + The slow blue rumour of the hill; + Let the grass cry with an anguish of evening gold, + And the great sky be mute. + + Then hearken how the poplar trees unfold + Their buds, yet close and gummed and blind, + In airy leafage of the mind, + Rustling in silvery whispers the twin-hued scales + That fade not nor grow old. + + "Poplars and fountains and you cypress spires + Springing in dark and rusty flame, + Seek you aught that hath a name? + Or say, say: Are you all an upward agony + Of undefined desires? + + "Say, are you happy in the golden march + Of sunlight all across the day? + Or do you watch the uncertain way + That leads the withering moon on cloudy stairs + Over the heaven's wide arch? + + "Is it towards sorrow or towards joy you lift + The sharpness of your trembling spears? + Or do you seek, through the grey tears + That blur the sky, in the heart of the triumphing blue, + A deeper, calmer rift?" + + So; I have tuned my music to the trees, + And there were voices, dim below + Their shrillness, voices swelling slow + In the blue murmur of hills, and a golden cry + And then vast silences. + + + + + THE REEF + + + My green aquarium of phantom fish, + Goggling in on me through the misty panes; + My rotting leaves and fields spongy with rains; + My few clear quiet autumn days--I wish + + I could leave all, clearness and mistiness; + Sodden or goldenly crystal, all too still. + Yes, and I too rot with the leaves that fill + The hollows in the woods; I am grown less + + Than human, listless, aimless as the green + Idiot fishes of my aquarium, + Who loiter down their dim tunnels and come + And look at me and drift away, nought seen + + Or understood, but only glazedly + Reflected. Upwards, upwards through the shadows, + Through the lush sponginess of deep-sea meadows + Where hare-lipped monsters batten, let me ply + + Winged fins, bursting this matrix dark to find + Jewels and movement, mintage of sunlight + Scattered largely by the profuse wind, + And gulfs of blue brightness, too deep for sight. + + Free, newly born, on roads of music and air + Speeding and singing, I shall seek the place + Where all the shining threads of water race, + Drawn in green ropes and foamy meshes. There, + + On the red fretted ramparts of a tower + Of coral rooted in the depths, shall break + An endless sequence of joy and speed and power: + Green shall shatter to foam; flake with white flake + + Shall create an instant's shining constellation + Upon the blue; and all the air shall be + Full of a million wings that swift and free + Laugh in the sun, all power and strong elation. + + Yes, I shall seek that reef, which is beyond + All isles however magically sleeping + In tideless seas, uncharted and unconned + Save by blind eyes; beyond the laughter and weeping + + That brood like a cloud over the lands of men. + Movement, passion of colour and pure wings, + Curving to cut like knives--these are the things + I search for:--passion beyond the ken + + Of our foiled violences, and, more swift + Than any blow which man aims against time, + The invulnerable, motion that shall rift + All dimness with the lightning of a rhyme, + + Or note, or colour. And the body shall be + Quick as the mind; and will shall find release + From bondage to brute things; and joyously + Soul, will and body, in the strength of triune peace, + + Shall live the perfect grace of power unwasted. + And love consummate, marvellously blending + Passion and reverence in a single spring + Of quickening force, till now never yet tasted, + + But ever ceaselessly thirsted for, shall crown + The new life with its ageless starry fire. + I go to seek that reef, far down, far down + Below the edge of everyday's desire, + + Beyond the magical islands, where of old + I was content, dreaming, to give the lie + To misery. They were all strong and bold + That thither came; and shall I dare to try? + + + + + WINTER DREAM + + + Oh wind-swept towers, + Oh endlessly blossoming trees, + White clouds and lucid eyes, + And pools in the rocks whose unplumbed blue is pregnant + With who knows what of subtlety + And magical curves and limbs-- + White Anadyomene and her shallow breasts + Mother-of-pearled with light. + + And oh the April, April of straight soft hair, + Falling smooth as the mountain water and brown; + The April of little leaves unblinded, + Of rosy nipples and innocence + And the blue languor of weary eyelids. + + Across a huge gulf I fling my voice + And my desires together: + Across a huge gulf ... on the other bank + Crouches April with her hair as smooth and straight and brown + As falling waters. + Oh brave curve upwards and outwards. + Oh despair of the downward tilting-- + Despair still beautiful + As a great star one has watched all night + Wheeling down under the hills. + Silence widens and darkens; + Voice and desires have dropped out of sight. + I am all alone, dreaming she would come and kiss me. + + + + + THE FLOWERS + + + Day after day, + At spring's return, + I watch my flowers, how they burn + Their lives away. + + The candle crocus + And daffodil gold + Drink fire of the sunshine-- + Quickly cold. + + And the proud tulip-- + How red he glows!-- + Is quenched ere summer + Can kindle the rose. + + Purple as the innermost + Core of a sinking flame, + Deep in the leaves the violets smoulder + To the dust whence they came. + + Day after day + At spring's return, + I watch my flowers, how they burn + Their lives away, + Day after day ... + + + + + THE ELMS + + + Fine as the dust of plumy fountains blowing + Across the lanterns of a revelling night, + The tiny leaves of April's earliest growing + Powder the trees--so vaporously light, + They seem to float, billows of emerald foam + Blown by the South on its bright airy tide, + Seeming less trees than things beatified, + Come from the world of thought which was their home. + + For a while only. Rooted strong and fast, + Soon will they lift towards the summer sky + Their mountain-mass of clotted greenery. + Their immaterial season quickly past, + They grow opaque, and therefore needs must die, + Since every earth to earth returns at last. + + + + + OUT OF THE WINDOW + + + In the middle of countries, far from hills and sea, + Are the little places one passes by in trains + And never stops at; where the skies extend + Uninterrupted, and the level plains + Stretch green and yellow and green without an end. + And behind the glass of their Grand Express + Folk yawn away a province through, + With nothing to think of, nothing to do, + Nothing even to look at--never a "view" + In this damned wilderness. + But I look out of the window and find + Much to satisfy the mind. + Mark how the furrows, formed and wheeled + In a motion orderly and staid, + Sweep, as we pass, across the field + Like a drilled army on parade. + And here's a market-garden, barred + With stripe on stripe of varied greens ... + Bright potatoes, flower starred, + And the opacous colour of beans. + Each line deliberately swings + Towards me, till I see a straight + Green avenue to the heart of things, + The glimpse of a sudden opened gate + Piercing the adverse walls of fate ... + A moment only, and then, fast, fast, + The gate swings to, the avenue closes; + Fate laughs, and once more interposes + Its barriers. + The train has passed. + + + + + INSPIRATION + + + Noonday upon the Alpine meadows + Pours its avalanche of Light + And blazing flowers: the very shadows + Translucent are and bright. + It seems a glory that nought surpasses-- + Passion of angels in form and hue-- + When, lo! from the jewelled heaven of the grasses + Leaps a lightning of sudden blue. + Dimming the sun-drunk petals, + Bright even unto pain, + The grasshopper flashes, settles, + And then is quenched again. + + + + + SUMMER STILLNESS + + + The stars are golden instants in the deep + Flawless expanse of night: the moon is set: + The river sleeps, entranced, a smooth cool sleep + Seeming so motionless that I forget + The hollow booming bridges, where it slides, + Dark with the sad looks that it bears along, + Towards a sea whose unreturning tides + Ravish the sighted ships and the sailors' song. + + + + + ANNIVERSARIES + + + Once more the windless days are here, + Quiet of autumn, when the year + Halts and looks backward and draws breath + Before it plunges into death. + Silver of mist and gossamers, + Through-shine of noonday's glassy gold, + Pale blue of skies, where nothing stirs + Save one blanched leaf, weary and old, + That over and over slowly falls + From the mute elm-trees, hanging on air + Like tattered flags along the walls + Of chapels deep in sunlit prayer. + Once more ... Within its flawless glass + To-day reflects that other day, + When, under the bracken, on the grass, + We who were lovers happily lay + And hardly spoke, or framed a thought + That was not one with the calm hills + And crystal sky. Ourselves were nought, + Our gusty passions, our burning wills + Dissolved in boundlessness, and we + Were almost bodiless, almost free. + + The wind has shattered silver and gold. + Night after night of sparkling cold, + Orion lifts his tangled feet + From where the tossing branches beat + In a fine surf against the sky. + So the trance ended, and we grew + Restless, we knew not how or why; + And there were sudden gusts that blew + Our dreaming banners into storm; + We wore the uncertain crumbling form + Of a brown swirl of windy leaves, + A phantom shape that stirs and heaves + Shuddering from earth, to fall again + With a dry whisper of withered rain. + + Last, from the dead and shrunken days + We conjured spring, lighting the blaze + Of burnished tulips in the dark; + And from black frost we struck a spark + Of blue delight and fragrance new, + A little world of flowers and dew. + Winter for us was over and done: + The drought of fluttering leaves had grown + Emerald shining in the sun, + As light as glass, as firm as stone. + Real once more: for we had passed + Through passion into thought again; + Shaped our desires and made that fast + Which was before a cloudy pain; + Moulded the dimness, fixed, defined + In a fair statue, strong and free, + Twin bodies flaming into mind, + Poised on the brink of ecstasy. + + + + + ITALY + + + There is a country in my mind, + Lovelier than a poet blind + Could dream of, who had never known + This world of drought and dust and stone + In all its ugliness: a place + Full of an all but human grace; + Whose dells retain the printed form + Of heavenly sleep, and seem yet warm + From some pure body newly risen; + Where matter is no more a prison, + But freedom for the soul to know + Its native beauty. For things glow + There with an inward truth and are + All fire and colour like a star. + And in that land are domes and towers + That hang as light and bright as flowers + Upon the sky, and seem a birth + Rather of air than solid earth. + + Sometimes I dream that walking there + In the green shade, all unaware + At a new turn of the golden glade, + I shall see her, and as though afraid + Shall halt a moment and almost fall + For passing faintness, like a man + Who feels the sudden spirit of Pan + Brimming his narrow soul with all + The illimitable world. And she, + Turning her head, will let me see + The first sharp dawn of her surprise + Turning to welcome in her eyes. + And I shall come and take my lover + And looking on her re-discover + All her beauty:--her dark hair + And the little ears beneath it, where + Roses of lucid shadow sleep; + Her brooding mouth, and in the deep + Wells of her eyes reflected stars ... + + Oh, the imperishable things + That hands and lips as well as words + Shall speak! Oh movement of white wings, + Oh wheeling galaxies of birds ...! + + + + + THE ALIEN + + + A petal drifted loose + From a great magnolia bloom, + Your face hung in the gloom, + Floating, white and close. + + We seemed alone: but another + Bent o'er you with lips of flame, + Unknown, without a name, + Hated, and yet my brother. + + Your one short moan of pain + Was an exorcising spell: + The devil flew back to hell; + We were alone again. + + + + + A LITTLE MEMORY + + + White in the moonlight, + Wet with dew, + We have known the languor + Of being two. + + We have been weary + As children are, + When over them, radiant, + A stooping star, + + Bends their Good-Night, + Kissed and smiled:-- + Each was mother, + Each was child. + + Child, from your forehead + I kissed the hair, + Gently, ah, gently: + And you were + + Mistress and mother + When on your breast + I lay so safely + And could rest. + + + + + WAKING + + + Darkness had stretched its colour, + Deep blue across the pane: + No cloud to make night duller, + No moon with its tarnish stain; + But only here and there a star, + One sharp point of frosty fire, + Hanging infinitely far + In mockery of our life and death + And all our small desire. + + Now in this hour of waking + From under brows of stone, + A new pale day is breaking + And the deep night is gone. + Sordid now, and mean and small + The daylight world is seen again, + With only the veils of mist that fall + Deaf and muffling over all + To hide its ugliness and pain. + + But to-day this dawn of meanness + Shines in my eyes, as when + The new world's brightness and cleanness + Broke on the first of men. + For the light that shows the huddled things + Of this close-pressing earth, + Shines also on your face and brings + All its dear beauty back to me + In a new miracle of birth. + + I see you asleep and unpassioned, + White-faced in the dusk of your hair-- + Your beauty so fleetingly fashioned + That it filled me once with despair + To look on its exquisite transience + And think that our love and thought and laughter + Puff out with the death of our flickering sense, + While we pass ever on and away + Towards some blank hereafter. + + But now I am happy, knowing + That swift time is our friend, + And that our love's passionate glowing, + Though it turn ash in the end, + Is a rose of fire that must blossom its way + Through temporal stuff, nor else could be + More than a nothing. Into day + The boundless spaces of night contract + And in your opening eyes I see + Night born in day, in time eternity. + + + + + BY THE FIRE + + + We who are lovers sit by the fire, + Cradled warm 'twixt thought and will, + Sit and drowse like sleeping dogs + In the equipoise of all desire, + Sit and listen to the still + Small hiss and whisper of green logs + That burn away, that burn away + With the sound of a far-off falling stream + Of threaded water blown to steam, + Grey ghost in the mountain world of grey. + Vapours blue as distance rise + Between the hissing logs that show + A glimpse of rosy heat below; + And candles watch with tireless eyes + While we sit drowsing here. I know, + Dimly, that there exists a world, + That there is time perhaps, and space + Other and wider than this place, + Where at the fireside drowsily curled + We hear the whisper and watch the flame + Burn blinkless and inscrutable. + And then I know those other names + That through my brain from cell to cell + Echo--reverberated shout + Of waiters mournful along corridors: + But nobody carries the orders out, + And the names (dear friends, your name and yours) + Evoke no sign. But here I sit + On the wide hearth, and there are you: + That is enough and only true. + The world and the friends that lived in it + Are shadows: you alone remain + Real in this drowsing room, + Full of the whispers of distant rain + And candles staring into the gloom. + + + + + VALEDICTORY + + + I had remarked--how sharply one observes + When life is disappearing round the curves + Of yet another corner, out of sight!-- + I had remarked when it was "good luck" and "good night" + And "a good journey to you," on her face + Certain enigmas penned in the hieroglyphs + Of that half frown and queer fixed smile and trace + Of clouded thought in those brown eyes, + Always so happily clear of hows and ifs-- + My poor bleared mind!--and haunting whys. + + There I stood, holding her farewell hand, + (Pressing my life and soul and all + The world to one good-bye, till, small + And smaller pressed, why there I'd stand + Dead when they vanished with the sight of her). + And I saw that she had grown aware, + Queer puzzled face! of other things + Beyond the present and her own young speed, + Of yesterday and what new days might breed + Monstrously when the future brings + A charger with your late-lamented head: + Aware of other people's lives and will, + Aware, perhaps, aware even of me ... + The joyous hope of it! But still + I pitied her; for it was sad to see + A goddess shorn of her divinity. + In the midst of her speed she had made pause, + And doubts with all their threat of claws, + Outstripped till now by her unconsciousness, + Had seized on her; she was proved mortal now. + "Live, only live! For you were meant + Never to know a thought's distress, + But a long glad astonishment + At the world's beauty and your own. + The pity of you, goddess, grown + Perplexed and mortal." + Yet ... yet ... can it be + That she is aware, perhaps, even of me? + + And life recedes, recedes; the curve is bare, + My handkerchief flutters blankly in the air; + And the question rumbles in the void: + Was she aware, was she after all aware? + + + + + LOVE SONG + + + Dear absurd child--too dear to my cost I've found-- + God made your soul for pleasure, not for use: + It cleaves no way, but angled broad obtuse, + Impinges with a slabby-bellied sound + Full upon life, and on the rind of things + Rubs its sleek self and utters purr and snore + And all the gamut of satisfied murmurings, + Content with that, nor wishes anything more. + + A happy infant, daubed to the eyes in juice + Of peaches that flush bloody at the core, + Naked you bask upon a south-sea shore, + While o'er your tumbling bosom the hair floats loose. + + The wild flowers bloom and die; the heavens go round + With the song of wheeling planetary rings: + You wriggle in the sun; each moment brings + Its freight for you; in all things pleasures abound. + + You taste and smile, then this for the next pass over; + And there's no future for you and no past, + And when, absurdly, death arrives at last, + 'Twill please you awhile to kiss your latest lover. + + + + + PRIVATE PROPERTY + + + All fly--yet who is misanthrope?-- + The actual men and things that pass + Jostling, to wither as the grass + So soon: and (be it heaven's hope, + Or poetry's kaleidoscope, + Or love or wine, at feast, at mass) + Each owns a paradise of glass + Where never a yearning heliotrope + Pursues the sun's ascent or slope; + For the sun dreams there, and no time is or was. + + Like fauns embossed in our domain, + We look abroad, and our calm eyes + Mark how the goatish gods of pain + Revel; and if by grim surprise + They break into our paradise, + Patient we build its beauty up again. + + + + + REVELATION + + + At your mouth, white and milk-warm sphinx, + I taste a strange apocalypse: + Your subtle taper finger-tips + Weave me new heavens, yet, methinks, + I know the wiles and each iynx + That brought me passionate to your lips: + I know you bare as laughter strips + Your charnel beauty; yet my spirit drinks + + Pure knowledge from this tainted well, + And now hears voices yet unheard + Within it, and without it sees + That world of which the poets tell + Their vision in the stammered word + Of those that wake from piercing ecstasies. + + + + + MINOAN PORCELAIN + + + Her eyes of bright unwinking glaze + All imperturbable do not + Even make pretences to regard + The justing absence of her stays, + Where many a Tyrian gallipot + Excites desire with spilth of nard. + The bistred rims above the fard + Of cheeks as red as bergamot + Attest that no shamefaced delays + Will clog fulfilment, nor retard + Full payment of the Cyprian's praise + Down to the last remorseful jot. + Hail priestess of we know not what + Strange cult of Mycenean days! + + + + + THE DECAMERON + + + Noon with a depth of shadow beneath the trees + Shakes in the heat, quivers to the sound of lutes: + Half shaded, half sunlit, a great bowl of fruits + Glistens purple and golden: the flasks of wine + Cool in their panniers of snow: silks muffle and shine: + Dim velvet, where through the leaves a sunbeam shoots, + Rifts in a pane of scarlet: fingers tapping the roots + Keep languid time to the music's soft slow decline. + + Suddenly from the gate rises up a cry, + Hideous broken laughter, scarce human in sound; + Gaunt clawed hands, thrust through the bars despairingly, + Clutch fast at the scented air, while on the ground + Lie the poor plague-stricken carrions, who have found + Strength to crawl forth and curse the sunshine and die. + + + + + IN UNCERTAINTY TO A LADY + + + I am not one of those who sip, + Like a quotidian bock, + Cheap idylls from a languid lip + Prepared to yawn or mock. + + I wait the indubitable word, + The great Unconscious Cue. + Has it been spoken and unheard? + Spoken, perhaps, by you ...? + + + + + CRAPULOUS IMPRESSION + + (To J.S.) + + + Still life, still life ... the high-lights shine + Hard and sharp on the bottles: the wine + Stands firmly solid in the glasses, + Smooth yellow ice, through which there passes + The lamp's bright pencil of down-struck light. + The fruits metallically gleam, + Globey in their heaped-up bowl, + And there are faces against the night + Of the outer room--faces that seem + Part of this still, still life ... they've lost their soul. + + And amongst these frozen faces you smiled, + Surprised, surprisingly, like a child: + And out of the frozen welter of sound + Your voice came quietly, quietly. + "What about God?" you said. "I have found + Much to be said for Totality. + All, I take it, is God: God's all-- + This bottle, for instance ..." I recall, + Dimly, that you took God by the neck-- + God-in-the-bottle--and pushed Him across: + But I, without a moment's loss + Moved God-in-the-salt in front and shouted: "Check!" + + + + + THE LIFE THEORETIC + + + While I have been fumbling over books + And thinking about God and the Devil and all, + Other young men have been battling with the days + And others have been kissing the beautiful women. + They have brazen faces like battering-rams. + But I who think about books and such-- + I crumble to impotent dust before the struggling, + And the women palsy me with fear. + But when it comes to fumbling over books + And thinking about God and the Devil and all, + Why, there I am. + But perhaps the battering-rams are in the right of it, + Perhaps, perhaps ... God knows. + + + + + COMPLAINT OF A POET MANQUE + + + We judge by appearance merely: + If I can't think strangely, I can at least look queerly. + So I grew the hair so long on my head + That my mother wouldn't know me, + Till a woman in a night-club said, + As I was passing by, + "Hullo, here comes Salome ..." + + I looked in the dirty gilt-edged glass, + And, oh Salome; there I was-- + Positively jewelled, half a vampire, + With the soul in my eyes hanging dizzily + Like the gatherer of proverbial samphire + Over the brink of the crag of sense, + Looking down from perilous eminence + Into a gulf of windy night. + And there's straw in my tempestuous hair, + And I'm not a poet: but never despair! + I'll madly live the poems I shall never write. + + + + + SOCIAL AMENITIES + + + I am getting on well with this anecdote, + When suddenly I recall + The many times I have told it of old, + And all the worked-up phrases, and the dying fall + Of voice, well timed in the crisis, the note + Of mock-heroic ingeniously struck-- + The whole thing sticks in my throat, + And my face all tingles and pricks with shame + For myself and my hearers. + These are the social pleasures, my God! + But I finish the story triumphantly all the same. + + + + + TOPIARY + + + Failing sometimes to understand + Why there are folk whose flesh should seem + Like carrion puffed with noisome steam, + Fly-blown to the eye that looks on it, + Fly-blown to the touch of a hand; + Why there are men without any legs, + Whizzing along on little trollies + With long long arms like apes': + Failing to see why God the Topiarist + Should train and carve and twist + Men's bodies into such fantastic shapes: + Yes, failing to see the point of it all, I sometimes wish + That I were a fabulous thing in a fool's mind, + Or, at the ocean bottom, in a world that is deaf and blind, + Very remote and happy, a great goggling fish. + + + + + ON THE BUS + + + Sitting on the top of the 'bus, + I bite my pipe and look at the sky. + Over my shoulder the smoke streams out + And my life with it. + "Conservation of energy," you say. + But I burn, I tell you, I burn; + And the smoke of me streams out + In a vanishing skein of grey. + Crash and bump ... my poor bruised body! + I am a harp of twittering strings, + An elegant instrument, but infinitely second-hand, + And if I have not got phthisis it is only an accident. + Droll phenomena! + + + + + POINTS AND LINES + + + Instants in the quiet, small sharp stars, + Pierce my spirit with a thrust whose speed + Baffles even the grasp of time. + Oh that I might reflect them + As swiftly, as keenly as they shine. + But I am a pool of waters, summer-still, + And the stars are mirrored across me; + Those stabbing points of the sky + Turned to a thread of shaken silver, + A long fine thread. + + + + + PANIC + + + The eyes of the portraits on the wall + Look at me, follow me, + Stare incessantly: + I take it their glance means nothing at all? + --Clearly, oh clearly! Nothing at all ... + + Out in the gardens by the lake + The sleeping peacocks suddenly wake; + Out in the gardens, moonlit and forlorn, + Each of them sounds his mournful horn: + Shrill peals that waver and crack and break. + What can have made the peacocks wake? + + + + + RETURN FROM BUSINESS + + + Evenings in trains, + When the little black twittering ghosts + Along the brims of cuttings, + Against the luminous sky, + Interrupt with their hurrying rumour every thought + Save that one is young and setting, + Headlong westering, + And there is no recapture. + + + + + STANZAS + + + Thought is an unseen net wherein our mind + Is taken and vainly struggles to be free: + Words, that should loose our spirit, do but bind + New fetters on our hoped-for liberty: + And action bears us onward like a stream + Past fabulous shores, scarce seen in our swift course; + Glorious--and yet its headlong currents seem + Backwaters of some nobler purer force. + + There are slow curves, more subtle far than thought, + That stoop to carry the grace of a girl's breast; + And hanging flowers, so exquisitely wrought + In airy metal, that they seem possessed + Of souls; and there are distant hills that lift + The shoulder of a goddess towards the light; + And arrowy trees, sudden and sharp and swift, + Piercing the spirit deeply with delight. + + Would I might make these miracles my own! + Like a pure angel, thinking colour and form, + Hardening to rage in a flame of chiselled stone, + Spilling my love like sunlight, golden and warm + On noonday flowers, speaking the song of birds + Among the branches, whispering the fall of rain, + Beyond all thought, past action and past words, + I would live in beauty, free from self and pain. + + + + + POEM + + + Books and a coloured skein of thoughts were mine; + And magic words lay ripening in my soul + Till their much-whispered music turned a wine + Whose subtlest power was all in my control. + + These things were mine, and they were real for me + As lips and darling eyes and a warm breast: + For I could love a phrase, a melody, + Like a fair woman, worshipped and possessed. + + I scorned all fire that outward of the eyes + Could kindle passion; scorned, yet was afraid; + Feared, and yet envied those more deeply wise + Who saw the bright earth beckon and obeyed. + + But a time came when, turning full of hate + And weariness from my remembered themes, + I wished my poet's pipe could modulate + Beauty more palpable than words and dreams. + + All loveliness with which an act informs + The dim uncertain chaos of desire + Is mine to-day; it touches me, it warms + Body and spirit with its outward fire. + + I am mine no more: I have become a part + Of that great earth that draws a breath and stirs + To meet the spring. But I could wish my heart + Were still a winter of frosty gossamers. + + + + + SCENES OF THE MIND + + + I have run where festival was loud + With drum and brass among the crowd + Of panic revellers, whose cries + Affront the quiet of the skies; + Whose dancing lights contract the deep + Infinity of night and sleep + To a narrow turmoil of troubled fire. + And I have found my heart's desire + In beechen caverns that autumn fills + With the blue shadowiness of distant hills; + Whose luminous grey pillars bear + The stooping sky: calm is the air, + Nor any sound is heard to mar + That crystal silence--as from far, + Far off a man may see + The busy world all utterly + Hushed as an old memorial scene. + Long evenings I have sat and been + Strangely content, while in my hands + I held a wealth of coloured strands, + Shimmering plaits of silk and skeins + Of soft bright wool. Each colour drains + New life at the lamp's round pool of gold; + Each sinks again when I withhold + The quickening radiance, to a wan + And shadowy oblivion + Of what it was. And in my mind + Beauty or sudden love has shined + And wakened colour in what was dead + And turned to gold the sullen lead + Of mean desires and everyday's + Poor thoughts and customary ways. + Sometimes in lands where mountains throw + Their silent spell on all below, + Drawing a magic circle wide + About their feet on every side, + Robbed of all speech and thought and act, + I have seen God in the cataract. + In falling water and in flame, + Never at rest, yet still the same, + God shows himself. And I have known + The swift fire frozen into stone, + And water frozen changelessly + Into the death of gems. And I + Long sitting by the thunderous mill + Have seen the headlong wheel made still, + And in the silence that ensued + Have known the endless solitude + Of being dead and utterly nought. + Inhabitant of mine own thought, + I look abroad, and all I see + Is my creation, made for me: + Along my thread of life are pearled + The moments that make up the world. + + + + + L'APRES-MIDI D'UN FAUNE + + (From the French of Stephane Mallarme.) + + + I would immortalize these nymphs: so bright + Their sunlit colouring, so airy light, + It floats like drowsing down. Loved I a dream? + My doubts, born of oblivious darkness, seem + A subtle tracery of branches grown + The tree's true self--proving that I have known + No triumph, but the shadow of a rose. + But think. These nymphs, their loveliness ... suppose + They bodied forth your senses' fabulous thirst? + Illusion! which the blue eyes of the first, + As cold and chaste as is the weeping spring, + Beget: the other, sighing, passioning, + Is she the wind, warm in your fleece at noon? + No, through this quiet, when a weary swoon + Crushes and chokes the latest faint essay + Of morning, cool against the encroaching day, + There is no murmuring water, save the gush + Of my clear fluted notes; and in the hush + Blows never a wind, save that which through my reed + Puffs out before the rain of notes can speed + Upon the air, with that calm breath of art + That mounts the unwrinkled zenith visibly, + Where inspiration seeks its native sky. + You fringes of a calm Sicilian lake, + The sun's own mirror which I love to take, + Silent beneath your starry flowers, tell + _How here I cut the hollow rushes, well + Tamed by my skill, when on the glaucous gold + Of distant lawns about their fountain cold + A living whiteness stirs like a lazy wave; + And at the first slow notes my panpipes gave + These flocking swans, these naiads, rather, fly + Or dive._ Noon burns inert and tawny dry, + Nor marks how clean that Hymen slipped away + From me who seek in song the real A. + Wake, then, to the first ardour and the sight, + O lonely faun, of the old fierce white light, + With, lilies, one of you for innocence. + Other than their lips' delicate pretence, + The light caress that quiets treacherous lovers, + My breast, I know not how to tell, discovers + The bitten print of some immortal's kiss. + But hush! a mystery so great as this + I dare not tell, save to my double reed, + Which, sharer of my every joy and need, + Dreams down its cadenced monologues that we + Falsely confuse the beauties that we see + With the bright palpable shapes our song creates: + My flute, as loud as passion modulates, + Purges the common dream of flank and breast, + Seen through closed eyes and inwardly caressed, + Of every empty and monotonous line. + + Bloom then, O Syrinx, in thy flight malign, + A reed once more beside our trysting-lake. + Proud of my music, let me often make + A song of goddesses and see their rape + Profanely done on many a painted shape. + So when the grape's transparent juice I drain, + I quell regret for pleasures past and feign + A new real grape. For holding towards the sky + The empty skin, I blow it tight and lie + Dream-drunk till evening, eyeing it. + Tell o'er + Remembered joys and plump the grape once more. + _Between the reeds I saw their bodies gleam + Who cool no mortal fever in the stream + Crying to the woods the rage of their desire: + And their bright hair went down in jewelled fire + Where crystal broke and dazzled shudderingly. + I check my swift pursuit: for see where lie, + Bruised, being twins in love, by languor sweet, + Two sleeping girls, clasped at my very feet. + I seize and run with them, nor part the pair, + Breaking this covert of frail petals, where + Roses drink scent of the sun and our light play + 'Mid tumbled flowers shall match the death of day._ + I love that virginal fury--ah, the wild + Thrill when a maiden body shrinks, defiled, + Shuddering like arctic light, from lips that sear + Its nakedness ... the flesh in secret fear! + Contagiously through my linked pair it flies + Where innocence in either, struggling, dies, + Wet with fond tears or some less piteous dew. + _Gay in the conquest of these fears, I grew + So rash that I must needs the sheaf divide + Of ruffled kisses heaven itself had tied. + For as I leaned to stifle in the hair + Of one my passionate laughter (taking care + With a stretched finger, that her innocence + Might stain with her companion's kindling sense + To touch the younger little one, who lay + Child-like unblushing) my ungrateful prey + Slips from me, freed by passion's sudden death, + Nor heeds the frenzy of my sobbing breath._ + + Let it pass! others of their hair shall twist + A rope to drag me to those joys I missed. + See how the ripe pomegranates bursting red + To quench the thirst of the mumbling bees have bled; + So too our blood, kindled by some chance fire, + Flows for the swarming legions of desire. + At evening, when the woodland green turns gold + And ashen grey, 'mid the quenched leaves, behold! + Red Etna glows, by Venus visited, + Walking the lava with her snowy tread + Whene'er the flames in thunderous slumber die. + I hold the goddess! + Ah, sure penalty! + + But the unthinking soul and body swoon + At last beneath the heavy hush of noon. + Forgetful let me lie where summer's drouth + Sifts fine the sand and then with gaping mouth + Dream planet-struck by the grape's round wine-red star. + + Nymphs, I shall see the shade that now you are. + + + + + THE LOUSE-HUNTERS + + (From the French of Rimbaud). + + + When the child's forehead, full of torments red, + Cries out for sleep and its pale host of dreams, + His two big sisters come unto his bed, + Having long fingers, tipped with silvery gleams. + + They set him at a casement, open wide + On seas of flowers that stir in the blue airs, + And through his curls, all wet with dew, they slide + Those terrible searching finger-tips of theirs. + + He hears them breathing, softly, fearfully, + Honey-sweet ruminations, slow respired: + Then a sharp hiss breaks time and melody-- + Spittle indrawn, old kisses new-desired. + + Down through the perfumed silences he hears + Their eyelids fluttering: long fingers thrill, + Probing a lassitude bedimmed with tears, + While the nails crunch at every louse they kill. + + He is drunk with Languor--soft accordion-sigh, + Delirious wine of Love in Idleness; + Longings for tears come welling up and die, + As slow or swift he feels their magical caress. + + + + + B. H. Blackwell, + Oxford. + + + + + THIS THIRD OF THE INITIATES SERIES OF + POETRY BY PROVED HANDS, WAS PRINTED + IN OXFORD AT THE VINCENT WORKS, + AND FINISHED IN JUNE, MCMXVIII. + + PUBLISHED BY B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD + STREET, OXFORD, AND SOLD IN AMERICA + BY LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., NEW YORK. + + + + + INITIATES + A SERIES OF POETRY BY PROVED HANDS + UNIFORM VOLUMES IN DOLPHIN OLD STYLE TYPE ART, BOARDS, THREE SHILLINGS + NET. + + + _NOW READY_ + + I. IN THE VALLEY OF VISION + BY GEOFFREY FABER, AUTHOR OF "INTERFLOW." + + II. SONNETS AND POEMS + BY ELEANOR FARJEON, AUTHOR OF "NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN." + + III. THE DEFEAT OF YOUTH, AND OTHER POEMS + BY ALDOUS HUXLEY, AUTHOR OF "THE BURNING WHEEL." + + _IN PREPARATION_ + + IV. SONGS FOR SALE + AN ANTHOLOGY OF VERSE, EDITED BY E. B. C. JONES FROM BOOKS ISSUED + RECENTLY BY B. H. BLACKWELL. + + V. CLOWNS' HOUSES + BY EDITH SITWELL, EDITOR OF "WHEELS." + + + + + THE SHELDONIAN SERIES OF REPRINTS AND RENDERINGS OF MASTERPIECES IN ALL + LANGUAGES EDITED BY REGINALD HEWITT, M.A. + + + _FIRST THREE BOOKS_ + + I. SONGS AND SAYINGS OF WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE, MINNESAENGER + ENGLISHED BY FRANK BETTS. + + II. THE FUNERAL ORATION OF PERICLES + ENGLISHED BY THOMAS HOBBES OF MALMESBURY. + + III. BALLADES OF FRANCOIS VILLON + INTERPRETED INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY PAUL HOOKHAM. + + ¶ The series is limited in the case of each volume to an edition + of five hundred copies on hand-made paper, printed in two + colours in Dolphin old style type, and published at two shillings + and sixpence net. + + + OXFORD + B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD ST. + + + + + ADVENTURERS ALL + A SERIES OF YOUNG POETS UNKNOWN TO FAME + UNIFORM VOLUMES IN DOLPHIN OLD STYLE TYPE IN ART WRAPPERS + TWO SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE NET EACH. + + + ¶ "Beautiful little books ... containing poetry, real poetry."-- + _The New Witness._ + + I., II., III. and IV. [_Out of print._] + + V. THE IRON AGE + BY FRANK BETTS. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GILBERT MURRAY. + + VI. THE TWO WORLDS + BY SHERARD VINES. + + VII. THE BURNING WHEEL + BY A. L. HUXLEY. + + VIII. A VAGABOND'S WALLET + BY STEPHEN REID-HEYMAN. + + IX. OP. I. + BY DOROTHY L. SAYERS. [_Out of print._] + + X. LYRICAL POEMS + BY DOROTHY PLOWMAN. + + XI. THE WITCHES' SABBATH + BY E. H. W. MEYERSTEIN. + + XII. A SCALLOP SHELL OF QUIET + POEMS BY FOUR WOMEN. INTRODUCED BY MARGARET L. WOODS. + + XIII. AT A VENTURE + POEMS BY EIGHT YOUNG WRITERS. + + XIV. ALDEBARAN + BY M. ST. CLARE BYRNE. + + XV. LIADAIN AND CURITHIR + BY MOIREEN FOX. + + XVI. LINNETS IN THE SLUMS + BY MARION PRYCE. + + XVII. OUT OF THE EAST + BY VERA AND MARGARET LARMINIE. + + XVIII. DUNCH + BY SUSAN MILES. + + XIX. DEMETER AND OTHER POEMS + BY ELEANOR HILL. + + XX. CARGO + BY S. BARRINGTON GATES. + + XXI. DREAMS AND JOURNEYS + BY FREDEGOND SHOVE. + + XXII. THE PEOPLE'S PALACE + BY SACHEVERELL SITWELL. + + XXIII. GALLEYS LADEN + POEMS BY FOUR WRITERS. + + + OXFORD + B. H. 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