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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ad587d --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #50376 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50376) diff --git a/old/50376-0.txt b/old/50376-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1f01c30..0000000 --- a/old/50376-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2486 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Oxford Poetry, by Vera Mary Brittain - -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/license - - -Title: Oxford Poetry - 1920 - -Editors: Vera Mary Brittain - Clifford Henry Benn Kitchin - Alan Porter - -Authors: Edmund Blunden - G. H. Bonner - Vera M. Brittain - G. A. Fielding Bucknall - Roy Campbell - Eric Dickinson - Louis Golding - L. P. Hartley - B. Higgins - Winifred Holtby - R. W. Hughes - E. W. Jacot - G. H. Johnstone - C. H. B. Kitchin - V. De S. Pinto - Alan Porter - Hilda Reid - Edgell Rickword - W. Force Stead - L. A. G. Strong - -Release Date: November 3, 2015 [EBook #50376] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OXFORD POETRY *** - - - - -Produced by MWS, Chuck Greif 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) - - - - - - - - - - - OXFORD POETRY - - 1920 - - - _Uniform with this Volume_ - - OXFORD POETRY, 1914 - - (_Out of Print_) - - OXFORD POETRY, 1915 - - OXFORD POETRY, 1916 - - OXFORD POETRY, 1917 - - OXFORD POETRY, 1918 - - OXFORD POETRY, 1919 - - OXFORD POETRY, 1917-1919, - - 7s. 6d. net - - - - - OXFORD POETRY - 1920 - - EDITED BY - V. M. B., C. H. B. K., A. P. - - OXFORD - BASIL BLACKWELL - 1920 - - - The following authors wish to make acknowledgment to the editors of - the publications mentioned for permission kindly given to reprint: - Mr. E. Blunden, _The Nation_ ("Forefathers"), _Voices_ ("Sheet - Lightning"); Miss V. M. Brittain, _The Oxford Chronicle_ ("Boar’s - Hill," and "The Lament of the Demobilized"); Mr. R. Campbell, _The - Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany_ ("Bongwi’s Theology"); Mr. L. - Golding, _Voices_ ("The Moon-Clock," "Cold Branch," "I Seek a Wild - Star"); Mr. A. Porter, _Voices_ ("Life and Luxury," "A Far - Country"); Mr. E. Rickword, _The London Mercury_ ("Intimacy"); Mr. - W. Force Stead, _The Poetry Review_; Mr. L. A. G. Strong, _Coterie_ - ("A Devon Rhyme," "Christopher Marlye"), _The Oxford Chronicle_ - ("From the Greek"). - - - - -CONTENTS - - -EDMUND BLUNDEN (QUEEN’S) PAGE - SHEET LIGHTNING 1 - FOREFATHERS 3 - -G. H. BONNER (MAGDALEN) - SONNET 5 - -VERA M. BRITTAIN (SOMERVILLE) - BOAR’S HILL, OCTOBER, 1919 6 - THE LAMENT OF THE DEMOBILIZED 7 - DAPHNE 8 - -G. A. FIELDING BUCKNALL (EXETER) - UNTO DUST 9 - -ROY CAMPBELL (MERTON) - THE PORPOISE 10 - BONGWI’S THEOLOGY 11 - -ERIC DICKINSON (EXETER) - THREE SONNETS 12 - -LOUIS GOLDING (QUEEN’S) - THE MOON-CLOCK 14 - COLD BRANCH IN THE BLACK AIR 15 - I SEEK A WILD STAR 16 - -ROBERT GRAVES (ST. JOHN’S) - MORNING PHŒNIX 17 - -L. P. HARTLEY (BALLIOL) - CANDLEMAS 18 - -B. HIGGINS (B.N.C.) - ONE SOLDIER 21 - -WINIFRED HOLTBY (SOMERVILLE) - THE DEAD MAN 22 - -R. W. HUGHES (ORIEL) - THE ROLLING SAINT 23 - THE SONG OF PROUD JAMES 25 - -E. W. JACOT (QUEEN’S) - HERE’S A DAFFODIL 26 - NURSERY RHYMES 26 - -G. H. JOHNSTONE (MERTON) - SUMMER 27 -"IPSE EGO ..." 28 - -C. H. B. KITCHIN (EXETER) - OPENING SCENE FROM "AMPHITRYON" 29 - -V. DE S. PINTO (CHRIST CHURCH) - ART 38 - -ALAN PORTER (QUEEN’S) - LIFE AND LUXURY 39 - A FAR COUNTRY 44 - -HILDA REID (SOMERVILLE) - THE MAGNANIMITY OF BEASTS 45 - -EDGELL RICKWORD (PEMBROKE) - INTIMACY 46 - GRAVE JOYS 47 - ADVICE TO A GIRL FROM THE WARS 48 - YEGOR 49 - STRANGE ELEMENTS 50 - -W. FORCE STEAD (QUEEN’S) - THE BURDEN OF BABYLON 51 - -L. A. G. STRONG (WADHAM) - FROST 55 - VERA VENVSTAS 55 - A BABY 56 - FROM THE GREEK 56 - A DEVON RHYME 56 - THE BIRD MAN 57 - CHRISTOPHER MARLYE 58 - - - - -_EDMUND BLUNDEN_ - -(_QUEEN’S_) - - -SHEET LIGHTNING - - WHEN on the green the rag-tag game had stopt, - And red the lights through alehouse curtains glowed, - The clambering brake drove out and took the road. - Then on the stern moors all the babble dropt - Among those merry men, who felt the dew - Sweet to the soul and saw the southern blue - Thronged with heat lightning leagues and leagues abroad, - Working and whickering; snake-like; winged and clawed; - Or like old carp lazily rising and shouldering, - Long the slate cloud flank shook with the death-white smouldering; - Yet not a voice. - - The night drooped oven-hot; - Then where the turnpike pierced the black wood plot, - Tongues wagged again and each man felt the grim - Destiny of the hour speaking through him: - And then tales came of dwarfs on Starling Hill, - And those young swimmers drowned at the roller mill, - Where on the drowsiest noon the undertow - Famishing for life boiled like a pot below: - And how two higglers at the "Walnut Tree" - Had curst the Lord in thunderstorm and He - Had struck them into soot with lightning then-- - It left the pitchers whole, it killed the men. - Many a lad and many a lass was named - Who once stept bold and proud--but death had tamed - Their revel on the eve of May: cut short - The primrosing and promise of good sport, - Shut up the score book, laid the ribbands by. - - Such bodings mustered from the fevered sky; - But now the spring well through the honeycomb - Of scored stone rumbling tokened them near home, - The whip lash clacked, the jog-trot sharpened, all - Sang "Farmer’s Boy" as loud as they could bawl, - Till at the "Walnut Tree" the homeward brake - Stopt for hoarse ribaldry to brag and slake. - - The weary wildfire faded from the dark - While this one damned the parson, that the clerk; - And anger’s balefire forked from the unbared blade - At word of notches missed or stakes not paid: - While Joe the driver stooped with oath to find - A young jack rabbit in the roadway, blind - Or dazzled by the lamps, as stiff as steel - With fear. Joe beat its brain out on the wheel. - - -FOREFATHERS - - HERE they went with smock and crook, - Toiled in the sun, lolled in the shade, - Here they mudded out the brook - And here their hatchet cleared the glade: - Harvest-supper woke their wit, - Huntsman’s moon their wooings lit. - - From this church they led their brides; - From this church themselves were led - Shoulder-high; on these waysides - Sat to take their beer and bread: - Names are gone--what men they were - These their cottages declare. - - Names are vanished, save the few - In the old brown Bible scrawled, - These were men of pith and thew, - Whom the city never called; - Scarce could read or hold a quill: - Built the barn, the forge, the mill. - - On the green they watched their sons - Playing till too dark to see, - As their fathers watched them once, - As my father once watched me; - While the bat and beetle flew - On the warm air webbed with dew. - - Unrecorded, unrenowned, - Men from whom my ways begin, - Here I know you by your ground, - But I know you not within-- - All is mist, and there survives - Not one moment of your lives. - - Like the bee that now is blown - Honey-heavy on my hand - From the toppling tansy-throne - In the green tempestuous land,-- - I’m a-Maying now, nor know - Who made honey long ago. - - - - -_G. H. BONNER_ - -(_MAGDALEN_) - - -SONNET - - QUIETLY the old men die, in carven chairs - Nodding to silence by the extinguished hearth; - Their days are as a treasure nothing worth, - For all their joy is stolen by the years. - The striving and the fierce delights and fears - Of youth trouble them not; for them the earth - Is dead; in their cold hearts naught comes to birth - Save ghosts: they are too old even for tears. - - As to the breast of some slow moving stream, - Close girt with sentinel trees on either side, - The sear leaves flutter down and silently - Glide onward on its dark November dream, - So peacefully upon the quiet tide - They steal out to the still moon-silvered sea. - - - - -_VERA M. BRITTAIN_ - -(_SOMERVILLE_) - - -BOAR’S HILL, OCTOBER, 1919 - - TALL slender beech-trees, whispering, touched with fire, - Swaying at even beneath a desolate sky; - Smouldering embers aflame where the clouds hurry by - To the wind’s desire. - - Dark sombre woodlands, rain-drenched by the scattering shower, - Spindle that quivers and drops its dim berries to earth-- - Mourning, perhaps, as I mourn here alone for the dearth - Of a happier hour. - - Can you still see them, who always delighted to roam - Over the Hill where so often together we trod - When winds of wild autumn strewed summer’s dead leaves on the sod, - Ere your steps turned home? - - -THE LAMENT OF THE DEMOBILIZED - - "FOUR years," some say consolingly. "Oh well, - What’s that? You’re young. And then it must have been - A very fine experience for you!" - And they forget - How others stayed behind, and just got on-- - Got on the better since we were away. - And we came home and found - They had achieved, and men revered their names, - But never mentioned ours; - And no one talked heroics now, and we - Must just go back, and start again once more. - "You threw four years into the melting-pot-- - Did you indeed!" these others cry. "Oh well, - The more fool you!" - And we’re beginning to agree with them. - - -DAPHNE - - SUNRISE and spring, and the river agleam in the morning, - Life at its freshest, like flowers in the dawn-dew of May, - Hope, and Love’s dreams the dim hills of the future adorning, - Youth of the world, just awake to the glory of day-- - - Is she not part of them, golden and fair and undaunted, - Glad with the triumph of runners ahead in the race, - Free as a child by no shadows or memories haunted, - Challenging Death to his solemn and pitiful face? - - Sunset and dusk, and the stars of a mellow September, - Sombre grey shadows, like Sleep stealing over the grass, - Autumn leaves blown through the chill empty lanes of November, - Sorrow enduring, though Youth with its rhapsodies pass-- - - Are they not part of her, sweet with unconscious compassion, - Ready to shoulder our burden of life with a jest, - Will she not make them her own in her light-hearted fashion, - Sadder than we in her song, in her laughter more blest? - - - - -_G. A. FIELDING BUCKNALL_ - -(_EXETER_) - - -UNTO DUST - - NOT with a crown of thorns about his head - But with a single rose in his white hand, - Fairer than Death herself, he joins the dead, - He that could laugh at life, yet understand. - No veils are rent in twain, or unknown fears - Fall on the crowd who crucify my lord; - Lay him to rest, while poetry and tears - Be the last gifts his mourning friends accord. - Cast not white flowers on one who loved but red, - Leave him the dust who found in dust the praise - Only of life, and, now that he is dead - Surely in death is fair a thousand ways. - Leave him in peace, a poem to the end-- - He was the man I loved: I was his friend. - - - - -_ROY CAMPBELL_ - -(_MERTON_) - - -THE PORPOISE - - THE ocean-cleaving porpoise goes - Thrashing the waves with fins of gold, - Butting the waves with brows of steel, - From palm-fringed archipelagos - To coasts of coral, where the bold - Cannibal drives a pointed keel. - - And round and round the world he runs, - A golden rocket trailing fire, - Out-distancing the moon and stars, - Leaving the pale abortive suns - To paint their dreams of dead desire - On faint horizons. Nothing mars - - His constant course, though storms may rend - The charging waves from strand to strand, - Though Love may wait with fingers curled - To clutch him at the current’s bend, - Though Death may dart an eager hand - To drag him underneath the world! - - Still threading depths of pearl and rose, - Derisive, gay, and overbold, - Who will not hear, who will not feel, - The ocean-cleaving porpoise goes, - Thrashing the waves with fins of gold, - Butting the waves with brows of steel! - - -BONGWI’S THEOLOGY - - THIS is the wisdom of the ape - Who yelps beneath the moon-- - ’Tis God who made me in his shape; - He is a great baboon. - ’Tis he who tilts the moon askew - And fans the forest trees: - The Heavens, which are broad and blue, - Provide him his trapeze. - He swings with tail divinely bent - Around those azure bars, - And munches, to his soul’s content, - The kernels of the stars. - And when I die, his loving care - Shall raise me from the sod, - To learn the perfect Mischief there, - The Nimbleness of God! - - - - -_ERIC DICKINSON_ - -(_EXETER_) - - -THREE SONNETS - - FOR RANDOLPH HUGHES - - -I - - SUCH beauty is the magic of old kings - Who webbed enchantments on the bowls of night, - Who stole the ocean-coral for their rings, - And samite-curls of mermaids for their light; - Who sent their envoys from the courts of Kand, - To find the blue-flowered crown of ecstasy - That grows beneath a Titan’s quiet hand. - The beauty that is yours is grown to me - More fine than furthest snows in golden Ind, - More fair indeed than doves, who draw the cars - Of purpurate belief in monarch’s mind, - With benediction of the ultimate stars. - Because of all this knowledge born of you, - Raise up my faith in stone, and keep men true. - - -II - - ALWAYS your eyes, your hair, your cheek, your voice, - Impel the wish I had a magic art; - Your beauty’s kind can perfectly rejoice - With delicate music all a poet’s heart, - As voice of summer over hills of joy. - Oh, you are utterly of beauty’s dance, - Such kind of rhythmic beauty they employ, - Where Pheidias shakes the Parthenon with prance - Of his proud steeds, and prouder youths show us - The glory of a fair Athenian day. - Your beauty lived before tumultuous - Chattering knaves sped time and faith away, - Before the chime for Babylon was rung, - Or from the cross men found the stars were hung! - - -III - - My love of most complete and dearest worth, - Has ever breath of years, one day all spent, - Mingled with thought of present smiling earth? - Have you bethought you how so soon is sent - To this poor passionate heart the Worm of Death - With twined and intimate corrupt caress? - Have you bethought you, how that your dear breath, - Bathing the rose upon your mouth, shall press - One day no more betwixt its petalled home? - How all exceeding beauties exquisite - Of limbs, of eyes, of hair, of cheek, shall come - One day perhaps within that open night, - Where sheep go plaintive on a lone highway, - And ecstasy of love is far away? - - - - -_LOUIS GOLDING_ - -(_QUEEN’S_) - - -THE MOON-CLOCK - - TICK-TOCK! the moon, that pale round clock, - Her big face peering, goes tick-tock! - - Metallic as a grasshopper - The far faint tickings start and stir. - - All night tinily you can hear - Tick-tock tinkling down the sheer - - Steep falls of space. Minute, aloof, - Here is no praise, here no reproof. - - Remote in voids star-purged of sense, - Tick-tock in stark indifference! - - From ice-black lands of lack and rock, - The two swords shake and clank tick-tock. - - In the dark din of the day’s vault - Demand thy headlong soul shall halt - - One moment. Hearken, taut and tense, - In the vast Silence beyond sense, - - The moon! From the hushed heart of her, - Metallic as a grasshopper, - - Patient though earth may writhe and rock, - Imperturbably, tock, tick-tock! - - Till, boastful earth, your forests wilt - In grotesque death. Till death shall silt, - - Loud-blooded man, her unchecked sands - From feet and warped expiring hands - - Through fatuous channels of the thinned - Brain. Till all the clangours which have dinned - - Through your arched ears are only this, - Tick-tock down blank eternities, - - Where still the sallow death’s-head ticks - As stars burn down like candle-wicks. - - -COLD BRANCH IN THE BLACK AIR - - WHO taps? You are not the wind tapping? - _No! Not the wind!_ - You straining and moaning there, - Are you a cold branch in the black air - Which the storm has skinned? - _No! Not a cold branch! - Not the wind!_ - - Who are you? Who are you? - _But you loved me once, - You drank me like wine. - The dead wood simmers in my skull. I am rotten. - And your blood is red still and you have forgotten, - And my blood was yours once and yours mine!_ - - Are you there still? O fainter, O further ... nothing! - Nothing taps! - Surely you straining and moaning there, - You were only a cold branch in the black air? -... Or a door perhaps? - - -I SEEK A WILD STAR - - WHAT seek you in this hoarse hard sand - That shuffles from your futile hand? - Your limbs are wry. With salt despair - All day the scant winds freeze your hair. - What mystery in the barren sand - Seek you to understand? - - _All day the acute winds' finger-tips - Flay my skin and cleave my lips. - But though like fame about my skull - Leap the gibes of the cynic gull, - I shall not go from this place. I - Seek through all curved vacancy - Though the sea taunt me and frost scar, - I seek a star, a star!_ - - Why seek you this, why seek you this - Of all distraught futilities? - The tide slides closer. The tide’s teeth - Shall bite your body with keen death! - Of all unspaced things that are - Vain, vain, most hideously far, - Why seek you then a star? - - _I seek a wild star, I that am - Eaten by earth and all her shame; - To whom fields, towns are a close clot - Of mud whence the worm dieth not; - To whom all running water is - Besnagged with timeless treacheries, - Who in a babe’s heart see designed - Mine own distortion and the blind - Lusts of all my kind! - Hence of all things that are - Vain, most hideously far, - A star, I seek, a star!_ - - - - -_ROBERT GRAVES_ - -(_ST. JOHN’S_) - - -MORNING PHŒNIX - - IN my body lives a flame, - Flame that burns me all the day, - When a fierce sun does the same, - I am charred away. - - Who could keep a smiling wit, - Roasted so in heart and hide, - Turning on the sun’s red spit, - Scorched by love inside? - - Caves I long for and cold rocks, - Minnow-peopled country brooks, - Blundering gales of Equinox, - Sunless valley-nooks. - - Daily so I might restore - Calcined heart and shrivelled skin, - A morning phœnix with proud roar - Kindled new within. - - - - -_L. P. HARTLEY_ - -(_BALLIOL_) - - -CANDLEMAS - - THE conversation waned and waxed, - _I_ was there: _you_ were there: - Doubtless a few were overtaxed, - Talking was more than they could bear. - - The aura of each candle-flame - Excited me, excited you; - I felt you in each diadem, - Now in the yellow, now the blue. - - The conversation waxed and waned: - Question, reply; question, reply: - We, for our intercourse, disdained - Such palpable machinery. - - Columnar in transparent gloom, - Symbolical, inviolate, - Those candles held the spell of some - Campanile or minaret, - - Which still takes in, as it exhales, - The mood of joy or orison; - With hoarded ceremonials - Enfranchising communion-- - - Till every spoken word or thought, - However alien and profane, - Becomes the medium and resort - Where spirits spirits entertain; - - So, idle talk’s quintessences - Gleamed in the candles' radiance - With gathered stores of unproved bliss: - The multiplied inheritance - - Of each succeeding moment.... More - Perfect in form the flames appeared; - Their arduous strivings overbore - Slight wayward wisps that swayed and veered. - - They changed their contours, one and all, - Carefully, persistently, - With efforts economical - That had their will of you and me,-- - - For we somehow were party to - The issue of their enterprise; - Confounded in their overthrow, - Triumphant in their victories. - - The alternation of each flame - --Thinning here--swelling there-- - Compell’d our souls into the same - Compass,--ampler or narrower. - - We knew that when those luminous spires - Hung upwards, pacified, and tranc’d, - Pois’d betwixt all and no desires, - Beyond their accidents advanc’d,-- - - We, their adepts, might acquiesce: - The promised consummation - Would drown our wills in its excess, - And mingle both our souls in one. - - When suddenly a permanence, - --A flutter of wings before rest-- - Drew down to those flame-forms: our sense - Was steeped in it, folded, caress’d.... - - A casual devastating gust - (The jolt, the sickening recoil!) - Our universe in chaos thrust; - And, not content to spoil - - Our husbanded endeavour, threw - A mocking, flickering light, - Devour’d by shadows, on us two: - The talk became more bright. - - We entered into it with zest; - Question, reply; question, reply: - And lookers-on were much impressed - By our inane garrulity. - - - - -_B. HIGGINS_ - -(_B.N.C._) - - -ONE SOLDIER - -TO GEORGE WRIGHT - - HEAP the earth upon this head. - Nature, like a wistful child, - Clings unto the clay she fed, - Shatters it--unreconciled - Moans the ashes of her dead. - Heap the earth upon this head. - - Chanter of the lonely tombs, - Lift him to thy harmony-- - Moulded in the million wombs - That breed the soul’s nobility!... - Such the man that perished? - Heap the earth upon this head. - - Our masters brood and preach and plot, - And mourn in monuments, not tears, - The man the centuries forgot - Who builded up the mighty years! - Faded are the fights they led, - Piteous the blood they shed. - Heap the earth upon this head. - - Heap, heap the earth upon this head, - Brother he was to you, to me-- - Lived, lusted, joyed and wept.... _They_ spent - Their verbal earnings, and he went - And fought for human liberty, - And died. And politics were free. - - Raise, raise memorials to our Dead.... - But heap the earth upon this head. - Oh! heap the earth upon this head. - - - - -_WINIFRED HOLTBY_ - -(_SOMERVILLE_) - - -THE DEAD MAN - - I see men walk wild ways with love, - Along the wind their laughter blown - Strikes up against the singing stars; - But I lie all alone. - When love has stricken laughter dead - And tears their silly hearts in twain, - They long for easeful death, but I - Am hungry for their pain. - - - - -_R. W. HUGHES_ - -(_ORIEL_) - - -THE ROLLING SAINT - - UNDER the crags of Teiriwch, - The door-sills of the Sun, - Where God has left the bony earth - Just as it was begun; - Where clouds sail past like argosies - Breasting the crested hills, - With mainsail and foretop-sail - That the thin breeze fills; - With ballast of round thunder, - And anchored with the rain; - With a long shadow sounding - The deep, far plain: - Where rocks are broken playthings - By petulant gods hurled, - And Heaven sits a-straddle - On the roof-ridge of the World. - --Under the crags of Teiriwch - Is a round pile of stones: - Large stones, small stones, - --White as old bones; - Some from high places, - Or from the lake’s shore; - And every man that passes - Adds one more: - The years it has been growing - Verge on a hundred score. - - For in the cave of Teiriwch - That scarce holds a sheep, - Where plovers and rock-conies - And wild things sleep, - A woman lived for ninety years - On bilberries and moss - And lizards, and small creeping things, - And carved herself a cross: - But wild hill robbers - Found the ancient saint - And dragged her to the sunlight, - Making no complaint: - Too old was she for weeping, - Too shrivelled, and too dry: - She crouched and mumle-mumled - And mumled to the sky. - No breath had she for wailing, - Her cheeks were paper-thin: - She was, for all her holiness - As ugly as sin. - They cramped her in a barrel - --All but her bobbing head. - --And rolled her down from Teiriwch - Until she was dead: - They took her out, and buried her - --Just broken bits of bone - And rags and skin: and over her - Set one small stone: - But if you pass her sepulchre - And add not one thereto - The ghost of that old murdered Saint - Will roll in front of you - The whole night through. - - The clouds sail past in argosies - And cold drips the rain: - The whole world is far and high - Above the tilted plain. - The silent mist floats eerily, - And I am here alone: - _Dare I pass the place by, - And cast not a stone?_ - - -THE SONG OF PROUD JAMES - -(FROM "THE ENGLISHMAN.") - - "If kith and kin disowned you, - And all your friends were dead?" - --I’d buy a spotted handkerchief - To flaunt upon my head: - I’d resurrect my maddest clothes, - And gaily would I laugh, - And climb the proud hills scornfully - With swinging cherry staff. - - "But when you’d crossed the sky-line, - And knew you were alone?" - --I’d cast away the hollow sham, - I’d kick the ground, and groan, - And tear my coloured handkerchief - And snap my staff; and then - I’d curse the God that built me up - To break me down again. - - - - -_E. W. JACOT_ - -(_QUEEN’S_) - - -HERE’S A DAFFODIL - - HERE’S a daffodil - Nodding to the hill, - Tipsy in the sunlight - Drinking his fill. - - Here’s a violet - Pearled in dew as yet, - Smiling in the wood shade, - Sweet coquette! - -NURSERY RHYMES - - -I - - QUEEN Anne is dead - ’Tis often said, - For my part I agree. - But she lived full ten score years ago - And so - She ought to be. - - -II - - There was a scholar - Of Oxford Town. - He read till his wits were blunt. - He put his gown - On upside down, - And his cap - On back to front. - - - - -_G. H. JOHNSTONE_ - -(_MERTON_) - - -SUMMER - - FULL of unearthly peace lies river-water, - Glaucous and here and there with irised circles: - Now subdued melody rises from the wreaths - Of whirling flies, their mazy conflict driving - To melancholy lamp-images in the pool: - An unseen fish greyly breeds lubric rounds - Up-reaching to the thrill of populous air: - O hour supreme for poised and halting thought! - Down colonnade on colonnade of rose - The immense Symbols move augustly on; - Mystery, her stony eyes revealed a little, - Not cumbered longer by the veils of noise: - Evening, a lithe and virginal dream-figure, - Wavering between a green cloak and a blue, - And, robed at length, turning with exquisite - And old despair towards the gate of Dawn: - And Fate, bemused awhile and half withdrawn, - Charmed to short rest between grim Day and Night. - - -"IPSE EGO ..." - - MARSILIO sighed: and drew a rough discord - From his guitar, and sang so to us listeners: - "I too have mounted every step of ice - And dragged my bleeding ankles, hope-enthralled, - To Heaven’s blessed door; when instantly - From side-nooks rising tripped the outer angels, - In thin, light-hammered armour, giggling boys, - But muscular, and with concerted charge - Seized my poor feet, and flung me laughing, laughing, - Laughing, down, down among the insect men - Who look up never, antwise busy--crawling: - Alas! the burden of their feathery laughter, - More bitter than my fall, has pried a passage - Into my luckless head, and 'Ha-ha, ha-ha!' - Maddens its walls and frets them ruinously: - Beware my flitting pestilence: I’ll not gage - That certain easier outlets may not bring - The noise out and about and thick among you: - O bitter, bitter days for those it visits!" - And murmuring "bitter" with a fading sadness - Marsilio went: the assembly all were silent. - - - - -_C. H. B. KITCHIN_ - -(_EXETER_) - - -OPENING SCENE FROM "AMPHITRYON" - -ALCMENA. THREE ASTROLOGERS - - ALCMENA - - I have commanded you as often of old - To ply the doctor’s trade with my disease, - To cure me or to kill; for in whose veins - Courses the age-long poison of despair, - Seeks for himself no gentle surgery, - Nor wishes for the touch of tender hands - Upon his body. - - FIRST ASTROLOGER - - Something of your need - Has been revealed us. Yet should there remain - No secret hid from the physician’s eye. - - ALCMENA - - It has been said that from the lips of queens - Should come no word more bitter than sweet honey. - If you adjudge me queen, let this too pass - That I must act unqueenly. In my soul - Drips wine more bitter than the taste of gall. - - FIRST ASTROLOGER - - When roses bloom most fully, death is near. - - ALCMENA - - You too know this? - - SECOND ASTROLOGER - - We know that life glides slowly - But death is quicker than a lightning stroke. - - ALCMENA - - Is it of me that you have gained this wisdom? - - THIRD ASTROLOGER - - The grand revolving spheres of heaven teach - The mind that hears their music. We have learned - To listen through the clamour of all noons - With evening in the heart. - - ALCMENA - - He does not live - Who hears no noon-day clamour about his ears. - - FIRST ASTROLOGER - - And you, Queen, that have lived and now confront - Death or his shadow deep within your soul, - Have you in life such wisdom garnered up - As may disarm the heart’s rebellion? - Wherefore then are we summoned? - - SECOND ASTROLOGER - - The garden of life - Is barren for you, bearing little fruit, - And yields no store for hungry days ahead. - - THIRD ASTROLOGER - - To me you seem as one that has in thought - A hidden sin, and seeks an easy priest - Who shall with smooth and flowing words of grace - Persuade it from the heart. - - ALCMENA - - Nay, I am sinless. - - FIRST ASTROLOGER - - You are still young to be thus weary of life. - - ALCMENA - - There comes to every man a sudden time - When he undoes the bolts that bar his heart - Displaying hidden shame and scars concealed. - Such season is the present. Hear me now; - For I am sick and pale with lingering - Over a mystery that has no clue - Created idly by an idle brain. - Astrologers, thrice mighty in yourselves, - Say whence crept into me this discontent, - This fretfulness of mine. Say whence arose - My malady, so cunning in its ways, - That I tormented have no skill to guide - My doctors to the secret. Day by day - I feel the heavy burden of the flesh - Grow heavier. Your words rang true indeed. - Though I am young, I am grown weary of life. - The tedious cycle of each passing day - Like streams of dripping tears from blinded eyes - Falls in the cup of my calamity; - While thoughts, such as you guess, are often here, - Bringing a sweet temptation. - I have tried - All means of remedy. This perfumed air, - This gold and ivory, these purple robes - Have caused no change. The mute insistent hours - Wait for me still, interminably slow. - And, as in mental pain a man will crave - For any fierce sensation of the flesh - To rid his agony, so I have craved - The frenzied lashing of tempestuous rain, - The heat of flame, the sharpened fang of frost. - I have gone forth at midnight with no robe, - And walked bare-footed over stony ground - While wind and rain have done their worst on me. - - I have kissed flame and held these hands in fire; - These hands have taken the scourge, that is for slaves, - To beat my body. Hear then all my curse. - Neither the blade of sharp-projecting flint - Nor wind nor rain nor burning tongue of flame - Nor knotted scourge can leave a mark on me. - These lips are no less red since they were kissed - By glowing coal; these hands are yet untorn. - Such is my fate, with flesh insensible - To suffer from a mind which has no love - And no distraction. Have it as you will, - I am a shipwreck far on lonely seas - With neither oars aboard, nor land in sight, - Nor mast, nor mast for fluttering rags of sail. - - FIRST ASTROLOGER - - When you have seen the solemn moon in tears - With long green tresses dipped in a purple sea, - And noted in each tear a breaking heart, - A lump of salty crystal, then your dreams - Will give you counsel which we cannot give. - - SECOND ASTROLOGER - - We are empowered to tell you what has been - And what shall be, but this created image - Of your own thought eludes our groping hand. - - THIRD ASTROLOGER - - Soon he shall come to you! - That stung your heart? - - ALCMENA - - O wailing winds, scatter these words away - As chaff unfruitful to unfruitful soil. - - FIRST ASTROLOGER - - As glints the jewel in the toad’s brown head---- - - SECOND ASTROLOGER - - As lurks a bitter sting in honeyed words---- - - THIRD ASTROLOGER - - As a foul plague lies hid beneath the skin---- - - ALCMENA - - You wrong me. - - THIRD ASTROLOGER - - Nay, your heart has uttered it. - When the strong arms of young Amphitryon---- - - FIRST ASTROLOGER - - I hear a voice. - - ALCMENA - - O God! the dream returns. - - THIRD ASTROLOGER - - The dream was not, then, of Amphitryon? - - ALCMENA - - May the royal hand of Zeus deliver me. - - [ZEUS _enters in the form of Amphitryon_. - - ZEUS - - Your task is ended. Go, astrologers, - Taking your admonition to such ears - As are in need of it. Go silently. - - [_The_ ASTROLOGERS _go out_. - - ZEUS - - Still you pursue their empty sorceries? - - ALCMENA - - Will you now weary me again? You drive - My friends away like dogs. I follow them. - - ZEUS - - A sullen greeting to the traveller. - - ALCMENA - - Have I not told you often how it is - With me and you? Or must you ask again - And hear me through unreasoned reasonings - To the last drop of bitterness? And yet---- - - ZEUS - - Why gaze so strangely on me? - - ALCMENA - - I had thought - Your journey would be longer. - - ZEUS - - No, alas! - - ALCMENA - - What brings you here to probe the core of my heart - With your unspoken question? - - ZEUS - - We have need - No longer of these lamps. Quench them. The dawn - Arises in the East. - - ALCMENA - - Since when am I - Become your slave? - - ZEUS - - Since you obeyed my word. - - ALCMENA - - I was no friend to such obedience - In the dead days that were my life’s design. - - ZEUS - - You tremble. Speak your fear. - - ALCMENA - - Heart’s utterance - Were mockery, if spoken by the tongue. - - ZEUS - - Yet, be assured, nothing is hid from me. - - ALCMENA - - Unmoving figure of Amphitryon - I knew and hated, when you crossed the threshold, - Hope seemed to step beside you. - - ZEUS - - Hope is mine. - - ALCMENA - - Then say, where have you found the keys of life, - That you unlock its portals suddenly? - - ZEUS - - At my command all doors are set ajar. - - ALCMENA - - The miserable forebodings of the night - Have fallen from me like the gossamer - Which spiders weave until a master-hand - Sweeps clean their tracery. Mark you a change - In me, as I in you? - - ZEUS - - I am unchanging, - But, till this moment, me you have not known. - - ALCMENA - - Or known myself save as a falling leaf, - The toy of winds, uncherished and unloved, - Gliding to earth and slow decay in earth - Of what was green and young. - - ZEUS - - When you were younger - And guarded still the pitiable illusion - That life is good and destiny exalted, - Did you not dream perhaps of sacrifice - In which yourself as immolated victim - Should satisfy delirious desire, - Wedded at last in death with strength,--which marriage - Humanly shaped has never learned to yield? - - ALCMENA - - Your voice has in it the power of new command - To pierce my secret. - - ZEUS - - Naught is hid from me. - - ALCMENA - - My soul is weak with longing for your counsel. - - ZEUS - - When Semele, with lightning-darted flame - Engirdled, woke with knowledge she must die, - Having aspired to touch the majesty - Of the omnipotent, in no wise dismayed - Was she consumed with that unquenchable fire - Which burns all veils that overspread the flesh. - - ALCMENA - - Whence came the thought of Semele to you? - And why this chain of words now coiled on me - As a predestined victim? - - ZEUS - - I myself - Blaze with the fire of Semele. This hand - Shall rend the veil once more. Myself am hope, - Sole arbiter of germinating life, - The driver of the lusty winds of morning, - The cloud-compeller, dancer of the dance - Wherein the sea is festive and the hills - Nod musical assent, the charioteer - That drags the world behind his flashing wheels, - Bringer of life and change that is called death - And vibrant longing, setter of an end - To fear and doubt, a darting two-edged sword - That heals the wounds created of itself, - The crystal-veined one, in whose blood there flows - The flame of life--in such wise apprehend - Me standing here, and in such wise remark - The honour I have done you. - - ALCMENA - - Open-eyed - At last, I see a spirit stands beside me. - For this cause I grew pale and bent my head - In sweet confusion. Bringer of release, - Even if it should be my worship falls - Before a devil from hell, behold I kneel - To kiss the fragrance of your garment’s hem. - - - - -_V. DE S. PINTO_ - -(_CHRIST CHURCH_) - - -ART - - FATE from an unimaginable throne - Scatters a million roses on the world; - They fall like shooting stars across the sky - Glittering: - Under a dark clump of trees - Man, a gaunt creature, squats upon the ground - Ape-like, and grins to see those brilliant flowers - Raining through the dark foliage: - He tries - Sometimes to clutch at them, but in his hands - They melt like snow. - Then in despair he turns - Back to his wigwam, stirs the embers, pats - His blear-eyed dog, and smokes a pipe, and soon, - Wrapped in his blankets, drowses off to sleep. - - But all his dreams are full of flying flowers. - - - - -_ALAN PORTER_ - -(_QUEEN’S_) - - -LIFE AND LUXURY - - I held imagination’s candle high - To thread the pitchy cavern, life. A whisper - Dazed all the dark with sweetness oversweet, - A lithe body languished around my neck. - "Do out this unavailing light;" she pleaded. - "Soother is darkness. How may candle strive - With topless, bleak, obdurate blanks of space? - It can but cold the darkness else were warm. - Leave, leave to search so bitter-toilfully - Unthroughgone silence, leave and follow me; - For I will lead where many riches lie, - Where rippling silks and snow-soft cushions, rare - Cool wines, and delicates unearthly sweet, - And all the comfort flesh of man craves more. - We two shall dallying uncurl the long - And fragrant hours." She reached a slender arm - Slowly along mine to the light. I flung her - Off, down. My candle showed her cheeks raddled, - Her bindweed pressure made me sick and mad; - I flung her back to the gloom. Her further hand - Clanked; hidden gyves fell ringing to the rock. - Peering behind her barely I could discern - Outstretching bodies clamped along the floor, - Unmoving most and silent, some uneasy, - Stirring and moaning. Smothery clutches came - Of slothful scents and fingered at my throat; - But, brushing by them, unaccompanied - I held aloft my rushlight in the cave - And searched for beauty through the cleaner air. - Thus far in parable. Laugh loud, O world, - Laugh loud and hollow. There are those would spurn - Your joys unjoyous and your acid fruits. - They would not tread the corpsy paths of commerce - Nor juggle with men’s bones; they would not chaffer - Their souls for strumpet pleasure. Cast them out, - Deny what little they would ask of life, - Assail, starve, torture, murder them, and laugh. - Shall it be war between us? Better war - Than faint submission--better death. And yet - I would not, no, nor shall not die. How weaponed - Shall I go passionate against your host? - How, cautelous, elude your calm blockade? - - Of older days heart-free the poet roved - Along the furrowed lanes, and watched the robin - Squat in a puddle, whir his stumpy wings, - And tweet amid the tempest he aroused; - A hare would hirple on ahead (keep back, - Let her get out of sight; quick, cross yourself), - Or taper weasel slink past over the road; - And, seeing native blossoms, breathing air - From English hills, what recked the wanderer - That barons threw no penny to his song? - Should he be hungered, he would seek some rill - And, scrambling down the hazel scarp, would walk - Wet-ankled up the stream until he found - A larger pool of cold, colourless water, - Full two-foot deep, scooped out of solid stone - By a chuckling trickle spated after rains. - There he would rest upon the bank, while slowly - His fingers crept along the crannied rock. - Poor starveling belly!--No, that lower fissure, - Straight, lipless grin like an unholy god’s, - Reach out for that. The water stings to his armpit, - He hangs above the pool from head to waist, - His legs push tautly back for body’s poise, - And careful, careful creep the sensitive fingers. - - --Sudden touch of cold, wet silk. - Now flesh be one with brain! He lightly strokes - The slippery smoothness upward to the gills - And throws a twiring trout upon the grass. - Or where the rattle of the water slacks - To low leaf-whisper, there he gropes beneath - Root-knots that hug black, unctuous mould from toppling - To slutch the daylit stream. His wary nerves - Tell blunt teeth biting at his thumb. Stormswift - He snatches a heavy hand over his head. - A floundering eel flops wildly to the floor, - And glides for the water. Quick the hungry poet - Spins round, whips out his knife, and shears the neck - How firm soever gripped, the limber body - Long after wriggles headless out of hand. - But if he roam across foot-tangling heath - And bracken, where no burble glads the root - Of juicy grasses? If along his way - Never a kingcup lifted bowls of light, - Nor burly watermint with bludgeon scent, - Beat down the fair, mild, slumbering meadowsweet? - If no nearby forgetmenot looks up - With frank and modest eye, no yellow flag - Plays Harold crowned and girt by fearless pikes? - No more he fails of ample fare; nor famine - Drains out his blood and piecemeal drags his flesh - From outward-leaping bones, till wrathful death, - Grudging to lose a pebble from his cairn, - Bears off the pitiful orts. For, stepping soft, - He finds a rabbit gazing at the world - With eyes in which not many moons have gleamed; - And, raising a bawl of more expended breath - Than fritter your burghers in a year of gabbling, - He runs and hurls himself headlong on to it. - Stunned at the cry, the rabbit waits and dithers; - His muscles melt beneath him; "Pluck up strength," - He calls to his legs; "oh, stiffen, stiffen!" and still - He waits and dithers. Now the trembling scale - Of timeless pain crashes suddenly down, - And life’s a puffed-out flame. - - Thus the poet - Of bygone England (as an alchemist - After ill magics and long labours wrought - Seals in the flask his magisterium, - Lest volatile it waste among the winds, - And all men breathe a never-ageing youth) - Found way to pend within his body life - And what of pain or interwoven joy - Life brings to poets. Friend, I do not gulp - And weep with maudlin, sentimental tears, - Lacking a late lamented golden age. - The more of life was ever misery’s, - And Socrates won hemlock. Yet before - Was man so constant enemy to man? - Did earth grow bleak at all these purposeless, - Rotting and blotting, roaking, smoking chimneys? - Look, men are dying, women dying, children dying. - They sell their souls for bread, and poison-filths - Whiten their flesh, bow their bodies. Crippled, - Consumption-spotted, feeble-minded, sullen, - They seek, bewildered, out of black despair, - The star of life; so, dying a Christian death, - Lie seven a grave unheedful. "Bad as that? - Put down five hundred on the Lord Mayor’s list. - After the cost of organizing’s paid - There’ll still be something left. Besides, it looks well, - And charity brings the firm new customers. - Not that I hold with all this nonsense really. - When I was young I’d nothing more than they, - But I climbed, and trampled other people down. - Why shouldn’t they?" O murderers, look, look, look. - No man but tramples, tramples on his neighbour, - And these the lowest wrench and writhe and kick - And crush the desperate lives of whom they can. - I will not tread the corpsy path of commerce - Nor juggle with men’s bones. The world shall wend - Those murderous ways. Not I, no, never I. - You shall not gaol me round with city walls; - I will not waste among your houses; roads - That indiscriminate feel a thousand footings - Shall not for mine augment their insolence. - But, as of old the poet, poet now - Shall hold a near communion with earth, - Free from all traffic or truck with worldlihood: - As poet one time lived of natural bounty, - So now shall I. Yet differs even this. - Me no man wronging still the world shall hound - With interdict of food. Gamekeepers, bailiffs, - And all the manlings vail and bob to lords - Shall sturdy stand on decent English Law - And threat my famine with a worser fate, - The seasonless monotonies of walls - That straitlier cabin than the closest town. - So let them threat. War stands between us. I - Take peril comrade, knowing a hazel scarp - That breaks down ragged to a scampering brook; - Knowing a hill whose deep-slit, slanting sides - Brave out the wind and shoulder the rough clouds through. - - -A FAR COUNTRY - - THIS wood is older born than other woods: - The trees are God’s imagining of trees, - Anemones - So pale as these - Have never laughed like children in far solitudes, - Shaking and breaking worldforweary moods - To pure and childish glees. - - The dripple from the mossed and plashing beck - Has carven glassy walls of pallid stone, - Where ferns have thrown - Fine silks unsewn, - Faint clouds unskied, that, one enchanted moment, check - And chalice waterdrops. They, silver grown, - With moons the darkness fleck. - - - - -_HILDA REID_ - -(_SOMERVILLE_) - - -THE MAGNANIMITY OF BEASTS - - MAN--you who think you really know - The beast you gaze on in the show, - Nor see with what consummate art - Each animal enacts its part-- - How different do they all appear - The moment that you are not there! - Then, fawns with liquid eyes a-flame - Pursue the bear, their nightly game; - Wolves shiver as the rabbit roars - And stretches his terrific claws; - While trembling tigers dare not sleep - For passionate, relentless sheep, - And frantic eagles through the skies - Are chased by angry butterflies. - --But beasts would suffer all confusions - Before they shattered man’s illusions. - - - - -_EDGELL RICKWORD_ - -(_PEMBROKE_) - - -INTIMACY - - SINCE I have seen you do those intimate things - That other men but dream of; lull asleep - The sinister dark forest of your hair, - And tie the bows that stir on your calm breast - Faintly as leaves that shudder in their sleep. - Since I have seen your stocking swallow up, - A swift black wind, the pale flame of your foot, - And deemed your slender limbs so meshed in silk - Sweet mermaid sisters drowned in their dark hair; - I have not troubled overmuch with food, - And wine has seemed like water from a well; - Pavements are built of fire, grass of thin flames. - All other girls grow dull as painted flowers - Or flutter harmlessly like coloured flies - Whose wings are tangled in the net of leaves - Spread by frail trees that grow behind the eyes. - - -GRAVE JOYS - -TO PEGGY - - WHEN our sweet bodies moulder under-ground, - Shut off from these bright waters and clear skies, - When we hear nothing but the sullen sound - Of dead flesh dropping slowly from the bone - And muffled fall of tongue and ears and eyes; - Perhaps, as each disintegrates alone, - Frail broken vials once brimmed with curious sense, - Our souls will pitch old Grossness from his throne, - And on the beat of unsubstantial wings - Soar to new ecstasies still more intense. - There the thin voice of horny, black-legged things - Shall thrill me as girls' laughter thrills me here, - And the cold drops a passing storm-cloud flings - Be my strong wine, and crawling roots and clods - My trees and hills, and slugs swift fallow deer. - There I shall dote upon a sexless flower - By dream-ghosts planted in my dripping brain, - And suck from those cold petals subtler power - Than from your colder, whiter flesh could fall, - Most vile of girls and lovelier than all. - But in your tomb the deathless She will reign - And draw new lovers out of rotting sods - That your lithe body may for ever squirm - Beneath the strange embraces of the worm. - - -ADVICE TO A GIRL FROM THE WARS - - WEEP for me but one day, - Dry then your eyes; - Think, is a heap of clay - Worth a maid’s sighs? - - Sigh nine days if you can - For my waste blood; - Think then, you love a man - Whose face is mud; - - Whose flesh and hair thrill not - At your faint touch; - Dear! limbs and brain will rot, - Dream not of such. - - -YEGOR - -"What shall I write?" said Yegor.--TCHEKOV. - - "What shall I write?" said Yegor; - "Of the bright-plumed bird that sings - Hovering on the fringes of the forest, - Where leafy dreams are grown, - And thoughts go with silent flutterings, - Like moths by a dark wind blown?" - - "Oh, write of those quiet women, - Beautiful, slim and pale, - Whose bodies glimmer under cool green waters, - Whose hands like lilies float - Tangled in the heavy purple veil - Of hair on their breast and throat." - - "Or write of swans and princes - Carved out of marble clouds, - Of the flowers that wither upon distant mountains, - Grey-pencilled in the brain; - Of fiercely hurrying night-born crowds - By the first swift sun-ray slain." - - "Nay, I will sing," said Yegor, - "Of stranger things than these, - Of a girl I met in the fresh of morning, - A laughing, slender flame; - Of the slow stream’s song and the chant of bees, - In a land without a name." - - -STRANGE ELEMENTS - - WHEN my girl swims with me I think - She is a Shark with hungry teeth, - Because her throat that dazzles me - Is white as sharks are underneath. - - And when she drags me down with her - Under the wave, she clings so tight, - She seems a deadly Water-snake - Who smothers me in that dim light. - - Yet when we lie on the hot sand, - I find she cannot bite or hiss, - But she swears I’m a Tiger fierce - Who kills her slowly with a kiss. - - - - -_W. FORCE STEAD_ - -(_QUEEN’S_) - - -THE BURDEN OF BABYLON[A] - - "It is in the soul that things happen." - - [A] The lyrics from "The Burden of Babylon" appeared in OXFORD POETRY, - 1919. The present editors have decided to reprint them with their - context. - - SCENE: _An upper chamber in the Palace of the King of Babylon. Dusk - on a hot summer’s evening. The voice of one singing far off beyond - the palace-gardens is heard vaguely from time to time. The King is - sitting by an open window._ - - - THE KING OF BABYLON - - SINCE I am Babylon, I am the world. - The windy heavens and the rainy skies - Attend the earth in humble servitude. - And I am Babylon, I am the world: - The heavens and their powers attend on me. - - THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE NIGHT - - _Babylon, the glory of the Kingdoms,_ - _And the Chaldee’s excellency,_ - _Is become as Sodom and Gomorrah,_ - _Whom God overthrew by the Sea._ - - THE KING - - Who is that fellow crying by the river? - I think I heard him lift his voice in praise - Of Babylon: some minstrelle seeking hire: - I need him not to tell me who I am, - For I am Baladan of Babylon. - The splendours of my sceptre, throne, and crown, - And all the awe that fills my royal halls, - The pomp that heralds me, the shout that follows, - Are flying shadows and reflections only - From the wide dazzlings of myself, the King. - This I conceive: and yet, we kings have labour - To apprehend ourselves imperially, - And see the blaze and lightnings of our person; - The thought of their own sovereignty amazes - The princelings even, and the lesser kings: - But I am Baladan of Babylon. - - THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT - - _Never again inhabited,_ - _Babylon, O Babylon_ - _Even the wandering Arabian_ - _From thy weary waste is gone._ - _Neither shall the shepherd tend his fold there,_ - _Nor any green herb be grown:_ - _It cometh in the night-time suddenly,_ - _And Babylon is overthrown._ - - THE KING - - PALE from the east, the stars arise, and climb, - And then grow bright, beholding Babylon; - They would delay, but may not; so they pass, - And fade and fall, bereft of Babylon. - Quick from the Midian line the sun comes up, - For he expects to see my palaces; - And the moon lingers, even on the wane.... - Mine ancient dynasty, as yon great river, - Euphrates, with his fountains in far hills, - Arose in the blue morning of the years; - And as yon river flows on into time, - Unalterable in majesty, my line - Survives in domination down the years. - I know, but am concerned not, that some peoples, - At the pale limits of the world, abide - As yet beyond the circle of my sway, - The miserable sons of meagre soil - That needs much tillage ere the yield be good. - I only wait until they ripen more, - And fatten toward my final harvesting: - When I am ready, I will reap them in. - For it is written in the stars, and read - Of all my wise men and astrologers, - That I, and my great line of Babylon, - Shall rule the world, and only find a bound - Where the horizon’s bounds are set, an end - When the world ends; so shall all other lands, - All languages, all peoples, and all tongues, - Become a fable told of olden times, - Deemed of our sons a thing incredulous. - - THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT - - _Woeful are thy desolate palaces,_ - _Where doleful creatures lie,_ - _And wild beasts out of the islands_ - _In thy fallen chambers cry._ - _Where now are the viol and the tabret?--_ - _But owls hoot in moonlight,_ - _And over the ruins of Babylon_ - _The satyrs dance by night._ - - THE KING - - THAT voice, that seems to hum my kingdom’s glory - Fails in the vast immensity of night, - As fails all earthly praise of Him who hears - The ceaseless acclamation of the stars. - What needs there more?--the apple of the world, - Grown ripe and juicy, rolls into my lap, - And all the gods of Babylon, well pleased - With blood of bulls and fume of fragrant things, - Even while I take mine ease, attend on me: - The figs do mellow, the olive, and the vine, - And in the plains climb the big sycamores; - My camels and my laden dromedaries - Move in from eastward bearing odorous gums, - And the Zidonians hew me cedar beams, - Even tall cedars out of Lebanon; - Euphrates floats his treasured freightage down, - And all great Babylon is filled with spoil. - Wherefore, upon the summit of the world, - The utmost apex of this thronèd realm, - I stand, as stands the driving charioteer, - And steer my course right onward toward the stars. - Mean-fated men my horses trample under, - And my wine-bins have drained the blood of mothers, - And smoothly my wheels run upon the necks - Of babes and sucklings,--while I hold my way, - Serene, supreme, secure in destiny, - Because the gods perceive mine excellence, - And entertain for mine imperial Person - Peculiar favours.... I am Babylon: - Exceeding precious in the High One’s eyes. - - THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT - - _Babylon is fallen, fallen,_ - _And never shall be known again!_ - _Drunken with the blood of my belovèd,_ - _And trampling on the sons of men._ - _But God is awake and aware of thee,_ - _And sharply shines His sword,_ - _Where over the earth spring suddenly_ - _The hidden hosts of the Lord;_ - _Armies of right and of righteousness,_ - _Huge hosts, unseen, unknown:_ - _And thy pomp, and thy revellings, and glory,_ - _Where the wind goes, they are gone._ - - - - -_L. A. G. STRONG_ - -(_WADHAM_) - - -FROST - - Unnatural foliage pales the trees, - Frost in compassion of their death - Has kissed them, and his icy breath - Proclaims and silvers their election. - Death, wert thou beautiful as these, - We scarce would pray for resurrection. - - -VERA VENVSTAS - - CORPORIS - - Proud Eastern Queene, - Borne forth in splendour to thy buriall. - What need of gems - To deck thee? Bear the Tyrian gauds aside. - Thy own dead loveliness outshines the pride - Of diadems. - - ANIMÆ - - O splendid hearte, - Scorned and afflicted, still thou needest not - Comfort of me. - What matter though the body be uncouthe - Wherein thou art? Fear not. He seeth truth - Who gave it thee. - -[To be chaunted as in a solemn Dumpe by such as fear God.] - - -A BABY - - TWO days with puckered face of pain - The accidental baby cried, - And on the morning of the third - Unclenched her tiny hands, and died. - - -FROM THE GREEK - - BILL Jupp lies ’ere, aged sixty year: - From Tavistock ’e came. - Single ’e bided, and ’e wished - ’Is father’d done the same. - - -A DEVON RHYME - - GNARLY and bent and deaf ’s a post - Pore ol' Ezekiel Purvis - Goeth creepin' slowly up the ’ill - To the Commoonion Survis. - - Tap-tappy-tappy up the haisle - Goeth stick and brassy ferule; - And Parson ’ath to stoopy down - And ’olley in ees yerole. - - -THE BIRD MAN - -TO ERIC DICKINSON - - I DREAD the parrots of the summer sun, - The harsh and blazing screams of July noon, - A riot of jays and peacocks and macaws. - There is some presage of big ardours due - Even in the pale flamingoes of the dawn; - While golden pheasants and hoopoes of the West - Burn fierce and proudly still, when he has set. - - Better the winter wagtails of pied skies, - Cold ospreys of the north, cormorants of squall, - Brown wrens of rain, white silent owls of snow, - And bitterns of great clouds that in October - Sweep from the west at evening. Lovelier still - The night’s black swans, the daws of starless night - (Daw-like to hide what’s shiny), plovers and gulls - Of winds that cry on autumn afternoons.... - - These every one I love: but above these - Rarest of all my birds, I dearly love - The blue and silver herons of the moon. - - -CHRISTOPHER MARLYE - - CHRISTOPHER MARLYE damned his God - In many a blasphemous mighty line, - --Being given to words and wenches and wine. - - He wrote his Faustus, and laughed to see - How everyone feared his devils but he. - - Christopher Marlye passed the gate, - Eager to stalk on the floor of Heaven, - Outface his God, and affront the Seven: - - But Peter genially let him in, - Making no mention of all his sin. - - And he got no credit for all he had done, - Though he grabbed a hold on the coat of God, - And bellowed his infamies one by one, - Blasphemy, lechery, thought, and deed ... - - But nobody paid him the slightest heed. - - And the devils and torments he thought to brave - He left behind, on this side of the grave. - - Heigh-ho! for Christopher Marlye. - - - PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY - BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND ESHER - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Oxford Poetry, by Vera Mary Brittain - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OXFORD POETRY *** - -***** This file should be named 50376-0.txt or 50376-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/3/7/50376/ - -Produced by MWS, Chuck Greif 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) - - -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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text-indent: -3em;} -.poem span.i12 {display: block; margin-left: 11em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} -.poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} -.poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} -.poem span.i7 {display: block; margin-left: 7em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} -.poem span.i9 {display: block; margin-left: 9em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - -.poem span.ig {display: block; margin-left: 0em; -padding-left: 2.8em;margin-bottom:-1.75%; text-indent: -3em;} - -.poem span.ig2 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; -padding-left: 5em;margin-bottom:-1.75%; text-indent: -3em;} -</style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Oxford Poetry, by Vera Mary Brittain - -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/license - - -Title: Oxford Poetry - 1920 - -Editors: Vera Mary Brittain - Clifford Henry Benn Kitchin - Alan Porter - -Authors: Edmund Blunden - G. H. Bonner - Vera M. Brittain - G. A. Fielding Bucknall - Roy Campbell - Eric Dickinson - Louis Golding - L. P. Hartley - B. Higgins - Winifred Holtby - R. W. Hughes - E. W. Jacot - G. H. Johnstone - C. H. B. Kitchin - V. De S. Pinto - Alan Porter - Hilda Reid - Edgell Rickword - W. Force Stead - L. A. G. Strong - -Release Date: November 3, 2015 [EBook #50376] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OXFORD POETRY *** - - - - -Produced by MWS, Chuck Greif 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) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="303" height="450" alt="bookcover" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="cb">OXFORD POETRY -<a name="page_i" id="page_i"></a><br />1920</p> - -<p><a name="page_ii" id="page_ii"></a> </p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="border:2px solid black;padding:1em;" class="c"> -<tr><td align="center"><i>Uniform with this Volume</i><br /> </td></tr> -<tr><td class="bt"> </td></tr> -<tr><td align="center">OXFORD POETRY, 1914</td></tr> -<tr><td align="right">(<i>Out of Print</i>)</td></tr> -<tr><td align="center">OXFORD POETRY, 1915</td></tr> -<tr><td align="center">OXFORD POETRY, 1916</td></tr> -<tr><td align="center">OXFORD POETRY, 1917</td></tr> -<tr><td align="center">OXFORD POETRY, 1918</td></tr> -<tr><td align="center">OXFORD POETRY, 1919</td></tr> -<tr><td align="center">——</td></tr> -<tr><td align="center">OXFORD POETRY, 1917-1919,</td></tr> -<tr><td align="center">7s. 6d. net</td></tr> -</table> - -<p><a name="page_iii" id="page_iii"></a> </p> - -<h1> -OXFORD POETRY<br /> -1920</h1> - -<p class="cb">EDITED BY<br /> -V. M. B., C. H. B. K., A. P.<br /> -<br /><br /><br /> -OXFORD<br /> -BASIL BLACKWELL<br /> -1920</p> - -<p><a name="page_iv" id="page_iv"></a> </p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> following authors wish to make acknowledgment to the editors of -the publications mentioned for permission kindly given to reprint: -Mr. E. Blunden, <i>The Nation</i> (“Forefathers”), <i>Voices</i> (“Sheet -Lightning”); Miss V. M. Brittain, <i>The Oxford Chronicle</i> (“Boar’s -Hill,” and “The Lament of the Demobilized”); Mr. R. Campbell, <i>The -Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany</i> (“Bongwi’s Theology”); Mr. L. -Golding, <i>Voices</i> (“The Moon-Clock,” “Cold Branch,” “I Seek a Wild -Star”); Mr. A. Porter, <i>Voices</i> (“Life and Luxury,” “A Far -Country”); Mr. E. Rickword, <i>The London Mercury</i> (“Intimacy”); Mr. -W. Force Stead, <i>The Poetry Review</i>; Mr. L. A. G. Strong, <i>Coterie</i> -(“A Devon Rhyme,” “Christopher Marlye”), <i>The Oxford Chronicle</i> -(“From the Greek”).</p></div> - -<p><a name="page_v" id="page_v"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#EDMUND_BLUNDEN">EDMUND BLUNDEN</a> (<span class="smcap">Queen’s</span>)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Sheet Lightning</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_1">1</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Forefathers</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_3">3</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#G_H_BONNER">G. H. BONNER</a> (<span class="smcap">Magdalen</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Sonnet</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_5">5</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#VERA_M_BRITTAIN">VERA M. BRITTAIN</a> (<span class="smcap">Somerville</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Boar’s Hill, October, 1919</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_6">6</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">The Lament of the Demobilized</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_7">7</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Daphne</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_8">8</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#G_A_FIELDING_BUCKNALL">G. A. FIELDING BUCKNALL</a> (<span class="smcap">Exeter</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Unto Dust</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_9">9</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#ROY_CAMPBELL">ROY CAMPBELL</a> (<span class="smcap">Merton</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">The Porpoise</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_10">10</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Bongwi’s Theology</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_11">11</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#ERIC_DICKINSON">ERIC DICKINSON</a> (<span class="smcap">Exeter</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Three Sonnets</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_12">12</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#LOUIS_GOLDING">LOUIS GOLDING</a> (<span class="smcap">Queen’s</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">The Moon-Clock</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_14">14</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Cold Branch in the Black Air</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_15">15</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">I Seek a Wild Star</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_16">16</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#ROBERT_GRAVES">ROBERT GRAVES</a> (<span class="smcap">St. John’s</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Morning Phœnix</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_17">17</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#L_P_HARTLEY">L. P. HARTLEY</a> (<span class="smcap">Balliol</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Candlemas</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_18">18</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#B_HIGGINS">B. HIGGINS</a> (B.N.C.)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">One Soldier</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_21">21</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#WINIFRED_HOLTBY">WINIFRED HOLTBY</a> (<span class="smcap">Somerville</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">The Dead Man</span><a name="page_vi" id="page_vi"></a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_22">22</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#R_W_HUGHES">R. W. HUGHES</a> (<span class="smcap">Oriel</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">The Rolling Saint</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_23">23</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">The Song of Proud James</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_25">25</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#E_W_JACOT">E. W. JACOT</a> (<span class="smcap">Queen’s</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Here’s a Daffodil</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_26">26</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Nursery Rhymes</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_26">26</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#G_H_JOHNSTONE">G. H. JOHNSTONE</a> (<span class="smcap">Merton</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Summer</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_27">27</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd">“<span class="smcap">Ipse Ego ...</span>”</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_28">28</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#C_H_B_KITCHIN">C. H. B. KITCHIN</a> (<span class="smcap">Exeter</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Opening Scene from “Amphitryon”</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_29">29</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#V_DE_S_PINTO">V. <span class="smcap">de</span> S. PINTO</a> (<span class="smcap">Christ Church</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Art</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_38">38</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#ALAN_PORTER">ALAN PORTER</a> (<span class="smcap">Queen’s</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Life and Luxury</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_39">39</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">A Far Country</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_44">44</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#HILDA_REID">HILDA REID</a> (<span class="smcap">Somerville</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">The Magnanimity of Beasts</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_45">45</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#EDGELL_RICKWORD">EDGELL RICKWORD</a> (<span class="smcap">Pembroke</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Intimacy</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_46">46</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Grave Joys</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_47">47</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Advice to a Girl from the Wars</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_48">48</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Yegor</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_49">49</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Strange Elements</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_50">50</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#W_FORCE_STEAD">W. FORCE STEAD</a> (<span class="smcap">Queen’s</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">The Burden of Babylon</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_51">51</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tp"><a href="#L_A_G_STRONG">L. A. G. STRONG</a> (<span class="smcap">Wadham</span>)</td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Frost</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_55">55</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Vera Venvstas</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_55">55</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">A Baby</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_56">56</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">From the Greek</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_56">56</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">A Devon Rhyme</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_56">56</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">The Bird Man</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_57">57</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><span class="smcap">Christopher Marlye</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_58">58</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><a name="page_1" id="page_1"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="EDMUND_BLUNDEN" id="EDMUND_BLUNDEN"></a><i>EDMUND BLUNDEN</i><br /> -(<i>QUEEN’S</i>)</h2> - -<h3>SHEET LIGHTNING</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">W</span>HEN on the green the rag-tag game had stopt,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And red the lights through alehouse curtains glowed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The clambering brake drove out and took the road.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then on the stern moors all the babble dropt<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Among those merry men, who felt the dew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweet to the soul and saw the southern blue<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thronged with heat lightning leagues and leagues abroad,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Working and whickering; snake-like; winged and clawed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or like old carp lazily rising and shouldering,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Long the slate cloud flank shook with the death-white smouldering;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet not a voice.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">The night drooped oven-hot;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then where the turnpike pierced the black wood plot,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tongues wagged again and each man felt the grim<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Destiny of the hour speaking through him:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then tales came of dwarfs on Starling Hill,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And those young swimmers drowned at the roller mill,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where on the drowsiest noon the undertow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Famishing for life boiled like a pot below:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And how two higglers at the “Walnut Tree”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had curst the Lord in thunderstorm and He<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had struck them into soot with lightning then—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It left the pitchers whole, it killed the men.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Many a lad and many a lass was named<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who once stept bold and proud—but death had tamed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their revel on the eve of May: cut short<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The primrosing and promise of good sport,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shut up the score book, laid the ribbands by.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Such bodings mustered from the fevered sky;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But now the spring well through the honeycomb<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of scored stone rumbling tokened them near home,<a name="page_2" id="page_2"></a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">The whip lash clacked, the jog-trot sharpened, all<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sang “Farmer’s Boy” as loud as they could bawl,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till at the “Walnut Tree” the homeward brake<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stopt for hoarse ribaldry to brag and slake.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The weary wildfire faded from the dark<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While this one damned the parson, that the clerk;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And anger’s balefire forked from the unbared blade<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At word of notches missed or stakes not paid:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While Joe the driver stooped with oath to find<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A young jack rabbit in the roadway, blind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or dazzled by the lamps, as stiff as steel<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With fear. Joe beat its brain out on the wheel.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_3" id="page_3"></a></p> - -<h3>FOREFATHERS</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">H</span>ERE they went with smock and crook,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Toiled in the sun, lolled in the shade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here they mudded out the brook<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And here their hatchet cleared the glade:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Harvest-supper woke their wit,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Huntsman’s moon their wooings lit.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">From this church they led their brides;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From this church themselves were led<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shoulder-high; on these waysides<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sat to take their beer and bread:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Names are gone—what men they were<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These their cottages declare.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Names are vanished, save the few<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the old brown Bible scrawled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These were men of pith and thew,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whom the city never called;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Scarce could read or hold a quill:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Built the barn, the forge, the mill.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">On the green they watched their sons<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Playing till too dark to see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As their fathers watched them once,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As my father once watched me;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While the bat and beetle flew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the warm air webbed with dew.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Unrecorded, unrenowned,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Men from whom my ways begin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here I know you by your ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But I know you not within—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All is mist, and there survives<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not one moment of your lives.<a name="page_4" id="page_4"></a><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Like the bee that now is blown<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Honey-heavy on my hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the toppling tansy-throne<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the green tempestuous land,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I’m a-Maying now, nor know<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who made honey long ago.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_5" id="page_5"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="G_H_BONNER" id="G_H_BONNER"></a><i>G. H. BONNER</i><br /> -(<i>MAGDALEN</i>)</h2> - -<h3>SONNET</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">Q</span>UIETLY the old men die, in carven chairs<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nodding to silence by the extinguished hearth;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their days are as a treasure nothing worth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For all their joy is stolen by the years.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The striving and the fierce delights and fears<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of youth trouble them not; for them the earth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is dead; in their cold hearts naught comes to birth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Save ghosts: they are too old even for tears.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">As to the breast of some slow moving stream,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Close girt with sentinel trees on either side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sear leaves flutter down and silently<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Glide onward on its dark November dream,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So peacefully upon the quiet tide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They steal out to the still moon-silvered sea.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_6" id="page_6"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="VERA_M_BRITTAIN" id="VERA_M_BRITTAIN"></a><i>VERA M. BRITTAIN</i><br /> -(<i>SOMERVILLE</i>)</h2> - -<h3>BOAR’S HILL, OCTOBER, 1919</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">T</span>ALL slender beech-trees, whispering, touched with fire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swaying at even beneath a desolate sky;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Smouldering embers aflame where the clouds hurry by<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the wind’s desire.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Dark sombre woodlands, rain-drenched by the scattering shower,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Spindle that quivers and drops its dim berries to earth—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mourning, perhaps, as I mourn here alone for the dearth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of a happier hour.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Can you still see them, who always delighted to roam<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Over the Hill where so often together we trod<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When winds of wild autumn strewed summer’s dead leaves on the sod,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ere your steps turned home?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_7" id="page_7"></a></p> - -<h3>THE LAMENT OF THE DEMOBILIZED</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">“F</span>OUR years,” some say consolingly. “Oh well,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What’s that? You’re young. And then it must have been<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A very fine experience for you!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And they forget<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How others stayed behind, and just got on—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Got on the better since we were away.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we came home and found<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They had achieved, and men revered their names,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But never mentioned ours;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And no one talked heroics now, and we<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Must just go back, and start again once more.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“You threw four years into the melting-pot—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Did you indeed!” these others cry. “Oh well,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The more fool you!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we’re beginning to agree with them.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_8" id="page_8"></a></p> - -<h3>DAPHNE</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">S</span>UNRISE and spring, and the river agleam in the morning,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Life at its freshest, like flowers in the dawn-dew of May,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hope, and Love’s dreams the dim hills of the future adorning,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Youth of the world, just awake to the glory of day—<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Is she not part of them, golden and fair and undaunted,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Glad with the triumph of runners ahead in the race,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Free as a child by no shadows or memories haunted,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Challenging Death to his solemn and pitiful face?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Sunset and dusk, and the stars of a mellow September,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sombre grey shadows, like Sleep stealing over the grass,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Autumn leaves blown through the chill empty lanes of November,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sorrow enduring, though Youth with its rhapsodies pass—<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Are they not part of her, sweet with unconscious compassion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ready to shoulder our burden of life with a jest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will she not make them her own in her light-hearted fashion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sadder than we in her song, in her laughter more blest?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_9" id="page_9"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="G_A_FIELDING_BUCKNALL" id="G_A_FIELDING_BUCKNALL"></a><i>G. A. FIELDING BUCKNALL</i><br /> -(<i>EXETER</i>)</h2> - -<h3>UNTO DUST</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">N</span>OT with a crown of thorns about his head<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But with a single rose in his white hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fairer than Death herself, he joins the dead,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He that could laugh at life, yet understand.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No veils are rent in twain, or unknown fears<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fall on the crowd who crucify my lord;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lay him to rest, while poetry and tears<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be the last gifts his mourning friends accord.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cast not white flowers on one who loved but red,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Leave him the dust who found in dust the praise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Only of life, and, now that he is dead<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Surely in death is fair a thousand ways.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Leave him in peace, a poem to the end—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He was the man I loved: I was his friend.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_10" id="page_10"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="ROY_CAMPBELL" id="ROY_CAMPBELL"></a><i>ROY CAMPBELL</i><br /> -(<i>MERTON</i>)</h2> - -<h3>THE PORPOISE</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">T</span>HE ocean-cleaving porpoise goes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thrashing the waves with fins of gold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Butting the waves with brows of steel,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From palm-fringed archipelagos<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To coasts of coral, where the bold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cannibal drives a pointed keel.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And round and round the world he runs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A golden rocket trailing fire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out-distancing the moon and stars,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Leaving the pale abortive suns<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To paint their dreams of dead desire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On faint horizons. Nothing mars<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">His constant course, though storms may rend<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The charging waves from strand to strand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though Love may wait with fingers curled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To clutch him at the current’s bend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though Death may dart an eager hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To drag him underneath the world!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Still threading depths of pearl and rose,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Derisive, gay, and overbold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who will not hear, who will not feel,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ocean-cleaving porpoise goes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thrashing the waves with fins of gold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Butting the waves with brows of steel!<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_11" id="page_11"></a></p> - -<h3>BONGWI’S THEOLOGY</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">T</span>HIS is the wisdom of the ape<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who yelps beneath the moon—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">’Tis God who made me in his shape;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He is a great baboon.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">’Tis he who tilts the moon askew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fans the forest trees:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Heavens, which are broad and blue,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Provide him his trapeze.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He swings with tail divinely bent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Around those azure bars,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And munches, to his soul’s content,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The kernels of the stars.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And when I die, his loving care<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall raise me from the sod,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To learn the perfect Mischief there,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Nimbleness of God!<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_12" id="page_12"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="ERIC_DICKINSON" id="ERIC_DICKINSON"></a><i>ERIC DICKINSON</i><br /> -(<i>EXETER</i>)</h2> - -<h3>THREE SONNETS</h3> - -<p class="c"><span class="smcap">For</span> RANDOLPH HUGHES</p> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">S</span>UCH beauty is the magic of old kings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who webbed enchantments on the bowls of night,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who stole the ocean-coral for their rings,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And samite-curls of mermaids for their light;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who sent their envoys from the courts of Kand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To find the blue-flowered crown of ecstasy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That grows beneath a Titan’s quiet hand.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The beauty that is yours is grown to me<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More fine than furthest snows in golden Ind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More fair indeed than doves, who draw the cars<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of purpurate belief in monarch’s mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With benediction of the ultimate stars.<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Because of all this knowledge born of you,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Raise up my faith in stone, and keep men true.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Always your eyes, your hair, your cheek, your voice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Impel the wish I had a magic art;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your beauty’s kind can perfectly rejoice<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With delicate music all a poet’s heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As voice of summer over hills of joy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh, you are utterly of beauty’s dance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such kind of rhythmic beauty they employ,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where Pheidias shakes the Parthenon with prance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of his proud steeds, and prouder youths show us<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The glory of a fair Athenian day.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your beauty lived before tumultuous<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Chattering knaves sped time and faith away,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Before the chime for Babylon was rung,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Or from the cross men found the stars were hung!<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_13" id="page_13"></a></p> - -<h4>III</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">My love of most complete and dearest worth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Has ever breath of years, one day all spent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mingled with thought of present smiling earth?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have you bethought you how so soon is sent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To this poor passionate heart the Worm of Death<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With twined and intimate corrupt caress?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have you bethought you, how that your dear breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bathing the rose upon your mouth, shall press<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One day no more betwixt its petalled home?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How all exceeding beauties exquisite<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of limbs, of eyes, of hair, of cheek, shall come<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One day perhaps within that open night,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Where sheep go plaintive on a lone highway,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">And ecstasy of love is far away?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_14" id="page_14"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="LOUIS_GOLDING" id="LOUIS_GOLDING"></a><i>LOUIS GOLDING</i><br /> -(<i>QUEEN’S</i>)</h2> - -<h3>THE MOON-CLOCK</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">T</span>ICK-TOCK! the moon, that pale round clock,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her big face peering, goes tick-tock!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Metallic as a grasshopper<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The far faint tickings start and stir.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">All night tinily you can hear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tick-tock tinkling down the sheer<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Steep falls of space. Minute, aloof,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here is no praise, here no reproof.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Remote in voids star-purged of sense,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tick-tock in stark indifference!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">From ice-black lands of lack and rock,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The two swords shake and clank tick-tock.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">In the dark din of the day’s vault<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Demand thy headlong soul shall halt<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">One moment. Hearken, taut and tense,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the vast Silence beyond sense,<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The moon! From the hushed heart of her,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Metallic as a grasshopper,<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Patient though earth may writhe and rock,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Imperturbably, tock, tick-tock!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Till, boastful earth, your forests wilt<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In grotesque death. Till death shall silt,<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Loud-blooded man, her unchecked sands<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From feet and warped expiring hands<a name="page_15" id="page_15"></a><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Through fatuous channels of the thinned<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Brain. Till all the clangours which have dinned<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Through your arched ears are only this,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tick-tock down blank eternities,<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Where still the sallow death’s-head ticks<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As stars burn down like candle-wicks.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>COLD BRANCH IN THE BLACK AIR</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">W</span>HO taps? You are not the wind tapping?<br /></span> -<span class="i5"><i>No! Not the wind!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0">You straining and moaning there,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are you a cold branch in the black air<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Which the storm has skinned?<br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>No! Not a cold branch!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i5"><i>Not the wind!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Who are you? Who are you?<br /></span> -<span class="i10"><i>But you loved me once,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>You drank me like wine.</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>The dead wood simmers in my skull. I am rotten.</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And your blood is red still and you have forgotten,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>And my blood was yours once and yours mine!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Are you there still? O fainter, O further ... nothing!<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Nothing taps!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Surely you straining and moaning there,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You were only a cold branch in the black air?<br /></span> -<span class="i3">... Or a door perhaps?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_16" id="page_16"></a></p> - -<h3>I SEEK A WILD STAR</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">W</span>HAT seek you in this hoarse hard sand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That shuffles from your futile hand?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your limbs are wry. With salt despair<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All day the scant winds freeze your hair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What mystery in the barren sand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seek you to understand?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>All day the acute winds’ finger-tips</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>Flay my skin and cleave my lips.</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>But though like fame about my skull</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>Leap the gibes of the cynic gull,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>I shall not go from this place. I</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>Seek through all curved vacancy</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>Though the sea taunt me and frost scar,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>I seek a star, a star!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Why seek you this, why seek you this<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of all distraught futilities?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tide slides closer. The tide’s teeth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall bite your body with keen death!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of all unspaced things that are<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Vain, vain, most hideously far,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why seek you then a star?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>I seek a wild star, I that am</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>Eaten by earth and all her shame;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>To whom fields, towns are a close clot</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>Of mud whence the worm dieth not;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>To whom all running water is</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>Besnagged with timeless treacheries,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>Who in a babe’s heart see designed</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>Mine own distortion and the blind</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>Lusts of all my kind!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>Hence of all things that are</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>Vain, most hideously far,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>A star, I seek, a star!</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_17" id="page_17"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="ROBERT_GRAVES" id="ROBERT_GRAVES"></a><i>ROBERT GRAVES</i><br /> -(<i>ST. JOHN’S</i>)</h2> - -<h3>MORNING PHŒNIX</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">I</span>N my body lives a flame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flame that burns me all the day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When a fierce sun does the same,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I am charred away.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Who could keep a smiling wit,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Roasted so in heart and hide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Turning on the sun’s red spit,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Scorched by love inside?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Caves I long for and cold rocks,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Minnow-peopled country brooks,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Blundering gales of Equinox,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sunless valley-nooks.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Daily so I might restore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Calcined heart and shrivelled skin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A morning phœnix with proud roar<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Kindled new within.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_18" id="page_18"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="L_P_HARTLEY" id="L_P_HARTLEY"></a><i>L. P. HARTLEY</i><br /> -(<i>BALLIOL</i>)</h2> - -<h3>CANDLEMAS</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">T</span>HE conversation waned and waxed,<br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>I</i> was there: <i>you</i> were there:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Doubtless a few were overtaxed,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Talking was more than they could bear.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The aura of each candle-flame<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Excited me, excited you;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I felt you in each diadem,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Now in the yellow, now the blue.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The conversation waxed and waned:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Question, reply; question, reply:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We, for our intercourse, disdained<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Such palpable machinery.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Columnar in transparent gloom,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Symbolical, inviolate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those candles held the spell of some<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Campanile or minaret,<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Which still takes in, as it exhales,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The mood of joy or orison;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With hoarded ceremonials<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Enfranchising communion—<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Till every spoken word or thought,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">However alien and profane,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Becomes the medium and resort<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where spirits spirits entertain;<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So, idle talk’s quintessences<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Gleamed in the candles’ radiance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With gathered stores of unproved bliss:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The multiplied inheritance<a name="page_19" id="page_19"></a><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Of each succeeding moment.... More<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Perfect in form the flames appeared;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their arduous strivings overbore<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Slight wayward wisps that swayed and veered.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">They changed their contours, one and all,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Carefully, persistently,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With efforts economical<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That had their will of you and me,—<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">For we somehow were party to<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The issue of their enterprise;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Confounded in their overthrow,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Triumphant in their victories.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The alternation of each flame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">—Thinning here—swelling there—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Compell’d our souls into the same<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Compass,—ampler or narrower.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We knew that when those luminous spires<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Hung upwards, pacified, and tranc’d,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pois’d betwixt all and no desires,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beyond their accidents advanc’d,—<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We, their adepts, might acquiesce:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The promised consummation<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would drown our wills in its excess,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And mingle both our souls in one.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">When suddenly a permanence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">—A flutter of wings before rest—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drew down to those flame-forms: our sense<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Was steeped in it, folded, caress’d....<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A casual devastating gust<br /></span> -<span class="i2">(The jolt, the sickening recoil!)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our universe in chaos thrust;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And, not content to spoil<a name="page_20" id="page_20"></a><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Our husbanded endeavour, threw<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A mocking, flickering light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Devour’d by shadows, on us two:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The talk became more bright.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We entered into it with zest;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Question, reply; question, reply:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lookers-on were much impressed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">By our inane garrulity.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_21" id="page_21"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="B_HIGGINS" id="B_HIGGINS"></a><i>B. HIGGINS</i><br /> -(<i>B.N.C.</i>)</h2> - -<h3>ONE SOLDIER</h3> - -<p class="c">T<small>O</small> GEORGE WRIGHT</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">H</span>EAP the earth upon this head.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nature, like a wistful child,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clings unto the clay she fed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shatters it—unreconciled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Moans the ashes of her dead.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Heap the earth upon this head.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Chanter of the lonely tombs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lift him to thy harmony—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Moulded in the million wombs<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That breed the soul’s nobility!...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such the man that perished?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Heap the earth upon this head.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Our masters brood and preach and plot,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mourn in monuments, not tears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The man the centuries forgot<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who builded up the mighty years!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Faded are the fights they led,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Piteous the blood they shed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Heap the earth upon this head.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Heap, heap the earth upon this head,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Brother he was to you, to me—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lived, lusted, joyed and wept.... <i>They</i> spent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their verbal earnings, and he went<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fought for human liberty,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And died. And politics were free.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Raise, raise memorials to our Dead....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But heap the earth upon this head.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh! heap the earth upon this head.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_22" id="page_22"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="WINIFRED_HOLTBY" id="WINIFRED_HOLTBY"></a><i>WINIFRED HOLTBY</i><br /> -(<i>SOMERVILLE</i>)</h2> - -<h3>THE DEAD MAN</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">I</span> SEE men walk wild ways with love,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Along the wind their laughter blown<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Strikes up against the singing stars;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But I lie all alone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When love has stricken laughter dead<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And tears their silly hearts in twain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They long for easeful death, but I<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Am hungry for their pain.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_23" id="page_23"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="R_W_HUGHES" id="R_W_HUGHES"></a><i>R. W. HUGHES</i><br /> -(<i>ORIEL</i>)</h2> - -<h3>THE ROLLING SAINT</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">U</span>NDER the crags of Teiriwch,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The door-sills of the Sun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where God has left the bony earth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Just as it was begun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where clouds sail past like argosies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Breasting the crested hills,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With mainsail and foretop-sail<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That the thin breeze fills;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With ballast of round thunder,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And anchored with the rain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With a long shadow sounding<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The deep, far plain:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where rocks are broken playthings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By petulant gods hurled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Heaven sits a-straddle<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the roof-ridge of the World.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">—Under the crags of Teiriwch<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is a round pile of stones:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Large stones, small stones,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">—White as old bones;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some from high places,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or from the lake’s shore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every man that passes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Adds one more:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The years it has been growing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Verge on a hundred score.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">For in the cave of Teiriwch<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That scarce holds a sheep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where plovers and rock-conies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wild things sleep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A woman lived for ninety years<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On bilberries and moss<a name="page_24" id="page_24"></a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lizards, and small creeping things,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And carved herself a cross:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But wild hill robbers<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Found the ancient saint<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And dragged her to the sunlight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Making no complaint:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Too old was she for weeping,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Too shrivelled, and too dry:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She crouched and mumle-mumled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mumled to the sky.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No breath had she for wailing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her cheeks were paper-thin:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She was, for all her holiness<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As ugly as sin.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They cramped her in a barrel<br /></span> -<span class="i0">—All but her bobbing head.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">—And rolled her down from Teiriwch<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Until she was dead:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They took her out, and buried her<br /></span> -<span class="i0">—Just broken bits of bone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rags and skin: and over her<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Set one small stone:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But if you pass her sepulchre<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And add not one thereto<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ghost of that old murdered Saint<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will roll in front of you<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The whole night through.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The clouds sail past in argosies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And cold drips the rain:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The whole world is far and high<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Above the tilted plain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The silent mist floats eerily,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I am here alone:<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Dare I pass the place by,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And cast not a stone?</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_25" id="page_25"></a></p> - -<h3>THE SONG OF PROUD JAMES</h3> - -<p class="c">(<span class="smcap">From “The Englishman.”</span>)</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">“I</span>F kith and kin disowned you,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And all your friends were dead?”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">—I’d buy a spotted handkerchief<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To flaunt upon my head:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I’d resurrect my maddest clothes,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And gaily would I laugh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And climb the proud hills scornfully<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With swinging cherry staff.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“But when you’d crossed the sky-line,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And knew you were alone?”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">—I’d cast away the hollow sham,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I’d kick the ground, and groan,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And tear my coloured handkerchief<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And snap my staff; and then<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I’d curse the God that built me up<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To break me down again.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_26" id="page_26"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="E_W_JACOT" id="E_W_JACOT"></a><i>E. W. JACOT</i><br /> -(<i>QUEEN’S</i>)</h2> - -<h3>HERE’S A DAFFODIL</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">H</span>ERE’S a daffodil<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nodding to the hill,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tipsy in the sunlight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drinking his fill.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Here’s a violet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pearled in dew as yet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Smiling in the wood shade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweet coquette!<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>NURSERY RHYMES</h3> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">Q</span>UEEN Anne is dead<br /></span> -<span class="i10">’Tis often said,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For my part I agree.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But she lived full ten score years ago<br /></span> -<span class="i10">And so<br /></span> -<span class="i2">She ought to be.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">There was a scholar<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Of Oxford Town.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He read till his wits were blunt.<br /></span> -<span class="i6">He put his gown<br /></span> -<span class="i6">On upside down,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">And his cap<br /></span> -<span class="i6">On back to front.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_27" id="page_27"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="G_H_JOHNSTONE" id="G_H_JOHNSTONE"></a><i>G. H. JOHNSTONE</i><br /> -(<i>MERTON</i>)</h2> - -<h3>SUMMER</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">F</span>ULL of unearthly peace lies river-water,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Glaucous and here and there with irised circles:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now subdued melody rises from the wreaths<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of whirling flies, their mazy conflict driving<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To melancholy lamp-images in the pool:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An unseen fish greyly breeds lubric rounds<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Up-reaching to the thrill of populous air:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O hour supreme for poised and halting thought!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down colonnade on colonnade of rose<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The immense Symbols move augustly on;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mystery, her stony eyes revealed a little,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not cumbered longer by the veils of noise:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Evening, a lithe and virginal dream-figure,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wavering between a green cloak and a blue,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, robed at length, turning with exquisite<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And old despair towards the gate of Dawn:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Fate, bemused awhile and half withdrawn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Charmed to short rest between grim Day and Night.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_28" id="page_28"></a></p> - -<h3>“IPSE EGO ...”</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">M</span>ARSILIO sighed: and drew a rough discord<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From his guitar, and sang so to us listeners:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“I too have mounted every step of ice<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And dragged my bleeding ankles, hope-enthralled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Heaven’s blessed door; when instantly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From side-nooks rising tripped the outer angels,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In thin, light-hammered armour, giggling boys,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But muscular, and with concerted charge<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seized my poor feet, and flung me laughing, laughing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Laughing, down, down among the insect men<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who look up never, antwise busy—crawling:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alas! the burden of their feathery laughter,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More bitter than my fall, has pried a passage<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into my luckless head, and ‘Ha-ha, ha-ha!’<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Maddens its walls and frets them ruinously:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beware my flitting pestilence: I’ll not gage<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That certain easier outlets may not bring<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The noise out and about and thick among you:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O bitter, bitter days for those it visits!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And murmuring “bitter” with a fading sadness<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Marsilio went: the assembly all were silent.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_29" id="page_29"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="C_H_B_KITCHIN" id="C_H_B_KITCHIN"></a><i>C. H. B. KITCHIN</i><br /> -(<i>EXETER</i>)</h2> - -<h3>OPENING SCENE FROM “AMPHITRYON”</h3> - -<p class="c">ALCMENA. THREE ASTROLOGERS</p> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">I</span> HAVE commanded you as often of old<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To ply the doctor’s trade with my disease,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To cure me or to kill; for in whose veins<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Courses the age-long poison of despair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seeks for himself no gentle surgery,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor wishes for the touch of tender hands<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon his body.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">First Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5">Something of your need<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Has been revealed us. Yet should there remain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No secret hid from the physician’s eye.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">It has been said that from the lips of queens<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should come no word more bitter than sweet honey.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If you adjudge me queen, let this too pass<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I must act unqueenly. In my soul<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drips wine more bitter than the taste of gall.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">First Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">When roses bloom most fully, death is near.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">You too know this?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Second Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">We know that life glides slowly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But death is quicker than a lightning stroke.<a name="page_30" id="page_30"></a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Is it of me that you have gained this wisdom?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Third Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The grand revolving spheres of heaven teach<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mind that hears their music. We have learned<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To listen through the clamour of all noons<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With evening in the heart.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">He does not live<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who hears no noon-day clamour about his ears.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">First Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And you, Queen, that have lived and now confront<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Death or his shadow deep within your soul,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have you in life such wisdom garnered up<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As may disarm the heart’s rebellion?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wherefore then are we summoned?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Second Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">The garden of life<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is barren for you, bearing little fruit,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yields no store for hungry days ahead.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Third Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">To me you seem as one that has in thought<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A hidden sin, and seeks an easy priest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who shall with smooth and flowing words of grace<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Persuade it from the heart.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Nay, I am sinless.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">First Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">You are still young to be thus weary of life.<a name="page_31" id="page_31"></a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There comes to every man a sudden time<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When he undoes the bolts that bar his heart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Displaying hidden shame and scars concealed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such season is the present. Hear me now;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I am sick and pale with lingering<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Over a mystery that has no clue<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Created idly by an idle brain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Astrologers, thrice mighty in yourselves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Say whence crept into me this discontent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This fretfulness of mine. Say whence arose<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My malady, so cunning in its ways,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I tormented have no skill to guide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My doctors to the secret. Day by day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I feel the heavy burden of the flesh<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grow heavier. Your words rang true indeed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though I am young, I am grown weary of life.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The tedious cycle of each passing day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like streams of dripping tears from blinded eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Falls in the cup of my calamity;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While thoughts, such as you guess, are often here,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bringing a sweet temptation.<br /></span> -<span class="i10">I have tried<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All means of remedy. This perfumed air,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This gold and ivory, these purple robes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have caused no change. The mute insistent hours<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wait for me still, interminably slow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, as in mental pain a man will crave<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For any fierce sensation of the flesh<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To rid his agony, so I have craved<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The frenzied lashing of tempestuous rain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The heat of flame, the sharpened fang of frost.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I have gone forth at midnight with no robe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And walked bare-footed over stony ground<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While wind and rain have done their worst on me.<a name="page_32" id="page_32"></a><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I have kissed flame and held these hands in fire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These hands have taken the scourge, that is for slaves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To beat my body. Hear then all my curse.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Neither the blade of sharp-projecting flint<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor wind nor rain nor burning tongue of flame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor knotted scourge can leave a mark on me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These lips are no less red since they were kissed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By glowing coal; these hands are yet untorn.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such is my fate, with flesh insensible<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To suffer from a mind which has no love<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And no distraction. Have it as you will,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I am a shipwreck far on lonely seas<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With neither oars aboard, nor land in sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor mast, nor mast for fluttering rags of sail.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">First Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">When you have seen the solemn moon in tears<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With long green tresses dipped in a purple sea,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And noted in each tear a breaking heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A lump of salty crystal, then your dreams<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will give you counsel which we cannot give.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Second Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We are empowered to tell you what has been<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And what shall be, but this created image<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of your own thought eludes our groping hand.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Third Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Soon he shall come to you!<br /></span> -<span class="i8">That stung your heart?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O wailing winds, scatter these words away<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As chaff unfruitful to unfruitful soil.<a name="page_33" id="page_33"></a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">First Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">As glints the jewel in the toad’s brown head——<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Second Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">As lurks a bitter sting in honeyed words——<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Third Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">As a foul plague lies hid beneath the skin——<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">You wrong me.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Third Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5">Nay, your heart has uttered it.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When the strong arms of young Amphitryon——<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">First Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I hear a voice.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O God! the dream returns.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Third Astrologer</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The dream was not, then, of Amphitryon?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">May the royal hand of Zeus deliver me.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">[<span class="smcap">Zeus</span> <i>enters in the form of Amphitryon</i>.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Your task is ended. Go, astrologers,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Taking your admonition to such ears<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As are in need of it. Go silently.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10">[<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">Astrologers</span> <i>go out</i>.<a name="page_34" id="page_34"></a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Still you pursue their empty sorceries?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Will you now weary me again? You drive<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My friends away like dogs. I follow them.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A sullen greeting to the traveller.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Have I not told you often how it is<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With me and you? Or must you ask again<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hear me through unreasoned reasonings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the last drop of bitterness? And yet——<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Why gaze so strangely on me?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10">I had thought<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your journey would be longer.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">No, alas!<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">What brings you here to probe the core of my heart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With your unspoken question?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">We have need<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No longer of these lamps. Quench them. The dawn<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arises in the East.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5">Since when am I<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Become your slave?<a name="page_35" id="page_35"></a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Since you obeyed my word.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I was no friend to such obedience<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the dead days that were my life’s design.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">You tremble. Speak your fear.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i7">Heart’s utterance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were mockery, if spoken by the tongue.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Yet, be assured, nothing is hid from me.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Unmoving figure of Amphitryon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I knew and hated, when you crossed the threshold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hope seemed to step beside you.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5">Hope is mine.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then say, where have you found the keys of life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That you unlock its portals suddenly?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">At my command all doors are set ajar.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The miserable forebodings of the night<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have fallen from me like the gossamer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which spiders weave until a master-hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweeps clean their tracery. Mark you a change<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In me, as I in you?<a name="page_36" id="page_36"></a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3">I am unchanging,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, till this moment, me you have not known.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Or known myself save as a falling leaf,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The toy of winds, uncherished and unloved,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gliding to earth and slow decay in earth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of what was green and young.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5">When you were younger<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And guarded still the pitiable illusion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That life is good and destiny exalted,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Did you not dream perhaps of sacrifice<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which yourself as immolated victim<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should satisfy delirious desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wedded at last in death with strength,—which marriage<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Humanly shaped has never learned to yield?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Your voice has in it the power of new command<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To pierce my secret.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Naught is hid from me.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">My soul is weak with longing for your counsel.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">When Semele, with lightning-darted flame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Engirdled, woke with knowledge she must die,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Having aspired to touch the majesty<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the omnipotent, in no wise dismayed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was she consumed with that unquenchable fire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which burns all veils that overspread the flesh.<a name="page_37" id="page_37"></a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Whence came the thought of Semele to you?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And why this chain of words now coiled on me<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As a predestined victim?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Zeus</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">I myself<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Blaze with the fire of Semele. This hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall rend the veil once more. Myself am hope,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sole arbiter of germinating life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The driver of the lusty winds of morning,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cloud-compeller, dancer of the dance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wherein the sea is festive and the hills<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nod musical assent, the charioteer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That drags the world behind his flashing wheels,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bringer of life and change that is called death<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And vibrant longing, setter of an end<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To fear and doubt, a darting two-edged sword<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That heals the wounds created of itself,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The crystal-veined one, in whose blood there flows<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The flame of life—in such wise apprehend<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Me standing here, and in such wise remark<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The honour I have done you.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Alcmena</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">Open-eyed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At last, I see a spirit stands beside me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For this cause I grew pale and bent my head<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In sweet confusion. Bringer of release,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even if it should be my worship falls<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before a devil from hell, behold I kneel<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To kiss the fragrance of your garment’s hem.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_38" id="page_38"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="V_DE_S_PINTO" id="V_DE_S_PINTO"></a><i>V. DE S. PINTO</i><br /> -(<i>CHRIST CHURCH</i>)</h2> - -<h3>ART</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">F</span>ATE from an unimaginable throne<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Scatters a million roses on the world;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They fall like shooting stars across the sky<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Glittering:<br /></span> -<span class="i5">Under a dark clump of trees<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Man, a gaunt creature, squats upon the ground<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ape-like, and grins to see those brilliant flowers<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Raining through the dark foliage:<br /></span> -<span class="i10">He tries<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sometimes to clutch at them, but in his hands<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They melt like snow.<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Then in despair he turns<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Back to his wigwam, stirs the embers, pats<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His blear-eyed dog, and smokes a pipe, and soon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wrapped in his blankets, drowses off to sleep.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But all his dreams are full of flying flowers.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_39" id="page_39"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="ALAN_PORTER" id="ALAN_PORTER"></a><i>ALAN PORTER</i><br /> -(<i>QUEEN’S</i>)</h2> - -<h3>LIFE AND LUXURY</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">I</span> HELD imagination’s candle high<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To thread the pitchy cavern, life. A whisper<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dazed all the dark with sweetness oversweet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A lithe body languished around my neck.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Do out this unavailing light;” she pleaded.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Soother is darkness. How may candle strive<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With topless, bleak, obdurate blanks of space?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It can but cold the darkness else were warm.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Leave, leave to search so bitter-toilfully<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unthroughgone silence, leave and follow me;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I will lead where many riches lie,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where rippling silks and snow-soft cushions, rare<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cool wines, and delicates unearthly sweet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the comfort flesh of man craves more.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We two shall dallying uncurl the long<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fragrant hours.” She reached a slender arm<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Slowly along mine to the light. I flung her<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Off, down. My candle showed her cheeks raddled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her bindweed pressure made me sick and mad;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I flung her back to the gloom. Her further hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clanked; hidden gyves fell ringing to the rock.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Peering behind her barely I could discern<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Outstretching bodies clamped along the floor,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unmoving most and silent, some uneasy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stirring and moaning. Smothery clutches came<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of slothful scents and fingered at my throat;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, brushing by them, unaccompanied<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I held aloft my rushlight in the cave<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And searched for beauty through the cleaner air.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus far in parable. Laugh loud, O world,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Laugh loud and hollow. There are those would spurn<a name="page_40" id="page_40"></a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your joys unjoyous and your acid fruits.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They would not tread the corpsy paths of commerce<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor juggle with men’s bones; they would not chaffer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their souls for strumpet pleasure. Cast them out,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deny what little they would ask of life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Assail, starve, torture, murder them, and laugh.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall it be war between us? Better war<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than faint submission—better death. And yet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I would not, no, nor shall not die. How weaponed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall I go passionate against your host?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How, cautelous, elude your calm blockade?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Of older days heart-free the poet roved<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Along the furrowed lanes, and watched the robin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Squat in a puddle, whir his stumpy wings,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And tweet amid the tempest he aroused;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A hare would hirple on ahead (keep back,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let her get out of sight; quick, cross yourself),<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or taper weasel slink past over the road;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, seeing native blossoms, breathing air<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From English hills, what recked the wanderer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That barons threw no penny to his song?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should he be hungered, he would seek some rill<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, scrambling down the hazel scarp, would walk<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wet-ankled up the stream until he found<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A larger pool of cold, colourless water,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Full two-foot deep, scooped out of solid stone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By a chuckling trickle spated after rains.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There he would rest upon the bank, while slowly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His fingers crept along the crannied rock.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Poor starveling belly!—No, that lower fissure,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Straight, lipless grin like an unholy god’s,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Reach out for that. The water stings to his armpit,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He hangs above the pool from head to waist,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His legs push tautly back for body’s poise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And careful, careful creep the sensitive fingers.<a name="page_41" id="page_41"></a><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">—Sudden touch of cold, wet silk.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now flesh be one with brain! He lightly strokes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The slippery smoothness upward to the gills<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And throws a twiring trout upon the grass.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or where the rattle of the water slacks<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To low leaf-whisper, there he gropes beneath<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Root-knots that hug black, unctuous mould from toppling<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To slutch the daylit stream. His wary nerves<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tell blunt teeth biting at his thumb. Stormswift<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He snatches a heavy hand over his head.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A floundering eel flops wildly to the floor,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And glides for the water. Quick the hungry poet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Spins round, whips out his knife, and shears the neck<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How firm soever gripped, the limber body<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Long after wriggles headless out of hand.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But if he roam across foot-tangling heath<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bracken, where no burble glads the root<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of juicy grasses? If along his way<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Never a kingcup lifted bowls of light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor burly watermint with bludgeon scent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beat down the fair, mild, slumbering meadowsweet?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If no nearby forgetmenot looks up<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With frank and modest eye, no yellow flag<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Plays Harold crowned and girt by fearless pikes?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No more he fails of ample fare; nor famine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drains out his blood and piecemeal drags his flesh<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From outward-leaping bones, till wrathful death,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grudging to lose a pebble from his cairn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bears off the pitiful orts. For, stepping soft,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He finds a rabbit gazing at the world<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With eyes in which not many moons have gleamed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, raising a bawl of more expended breath<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than fritter your burghers in a year of gabbling,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He runs and hurls himself headlong on to it.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stunned at the cry, the rabbit waits and dithers;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His muscles melt beneath him; “Pluck up strength,”<a name="page_42" id="page_42"></a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">He calls to his legs; “oh, stiffen, stiffen!” and still<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He waits and dithers. Now the trembling scale<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of timeless pain crashes suddenly down,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And life’s a puffed-out flame.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i9">Thus the poet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of bygone England (as an alchemist<br /></span> -<span class="i0">After ill magics and long labours wrought<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seals in the flask his magisterium,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lest volatile it waste among the winds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all men breathe a never-ageing youth)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Found way to pend within his body life<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And what of pain or interwoven joy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Life brings to poets. Friend, I do not gulp<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And weep with maudlin, sentimental tears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lacking a late lamented golden age.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The more of life was ever misery’s,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Socrates won hemlock. Yet before<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was man so constant enemy to man?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Did earth grow bleak at all these purposeless,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rotting and blotting, roaking, smoking chimneys?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Look, men are dying, women dying, children dying.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They sell their souls for bread, and poison-filths<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whiten their flesh, bow their bodies. Crippled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Consumption-spotted, feeble-minded, sullen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They seek, bewildered, out of black despair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The star of life; so, dying a Christian death,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lie seven a grave unheedful. “Bad as that?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Put down five hundred on the Lord Mayor’s list.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">After the cost of organizing’s paid<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There’ll still be something left. Besides, it looks well,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And charity brings the firm new customers.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not that I hold with all this nonsense really.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When I was young I’d nothing more than they,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I climbed, and trampled other people down.<a name="page_43" id="page_43"></a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why shouldn’t they?” O murderers, look, look, look.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No man but tramples, tramples on his neighbour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And these the lowest wrench and writhe and kick<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And crush the desperate lives of whom they can.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I will not tread the corpsy path of commerce<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor juggle with men’s bones. The world shall wend<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those murderous ways. Not I, no, never I.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You shall not gaol me round with city walls;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I will not waste among your houses; roads<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That indiscriminate feel a thousand footings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall not for mine augment their insolence.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, as of old the poet, poet now<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall hold a near communion with earth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Free from all traffic or truck with worldlihood:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As poet one time lived of natural bounty,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So now shall I. Yet differs even this.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Me no man wronging still the world shall hound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With interdict of food. Gamekeepers, bailiffs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the manlings vail and bob to lords<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall sturdy stand on decent English Law<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And threat my famine with a worser fate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The seasonless monotonies of walls<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That straitlier cabin than the closest town.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So let them threat. War stands between us. I<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Take peril comrade, knowing a hazel scarp<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That breaks down ragged to a scampering brook;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Knowing a hill whose deep-slit, slanting sides<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Brave out the wind and shoulder the rough clouds through.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_44" id="page_44"></a></p> - -<h3>A FAR COUNTRY</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">T</span>HIS wood is older born than other woods:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The trees are God’s imagining of trees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Anemones<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So pale as these<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have never laughed like children in far solitudes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shaking and breaking worldforweary moods<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To pure and childish glees.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The dripple from the mossed and plashing beck<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Has carven glassy walls of pallid stone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where ferns have thrown<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fine silks unsewn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Faint clouds unskied, that, one enchanted moment, check<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And chalice waterdrops. They, silver grown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With moons the darkness fleck.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_45" id="page_45"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="HILDA_REID" id="HILDA_REID"></a><i>HILDA REID</i><br /> -(<i>SOMERVILLE</i>)</h2> - -<h3>THE MAGNANIMITY OF BEASTS</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">M</span>AN—you who think you really know<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The beast you gaze on in the show,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor see with what consummate art<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each animal enacts its part—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How different do they all appear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The moment that you are not there!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, fawns with liquid eyes a-flame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pursue the bear, their nightly game;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wolves shiver as the rabbit roars<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stretches his terrific claws;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While trembling tigers dare not sleep<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For passionate, relentless sheep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And frantic eagles through the skies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are chased by angry butterflies.<br /></span> -<span class="i3">—But beasts would suffer all confusions<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Before they shattered man’s illusions.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_46" id="page_46"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="EDGELL_RICKWORD" id="EDGELL_RICKWORD"></a><i>EDGELL RICKWORD</i><br /> -(<i>PEMBROKE</i>)</h2> - -<h3>INTIMACY</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">S</span>INCE I have seen you do those intimate things<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That other men but dream of; lull asleep<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sinister dark forest of your hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And tie the bows that stir on your calm breast<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Faintly as leaves that shudder in their sleep.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Since I have seen your stocking swallow up,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A swift black wind, the pale flame of your foot,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And deemed your slender limbs so meshed in silk<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweet mermaid sisters drowned in their dark hair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I have not troubled overmuch with food,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wine has seemed like water from a well;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pavements are built of fire, grass of thin flames.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All other girls grow dull as painted flowers<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or flutter harmlessly like coloured flies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose wings are tangled in the net of leaves<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Spread by frail trees that grow behind the eyes.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_47" id="page_47"></a></p> - -<h3>GRAVE JOYS</h3> - -<p class="c">TO PEGGY</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">W</span>HEN our sweet bodies moulder under-ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Shut off from these bright waters and clear skies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When we hear nothing but the sullen sound<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of dead flesh dropping slowly from the bone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And muffled fall of tongue and ears and eyes;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Perhaps, as each disintegrates alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Frail broken vials once brimmed with curious sense,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Our souls will pitch old Grossness from his throne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on the beat of unsubstantial wings<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Soar to new ecstasies still more intense.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There the thin voice of horny, black-legged things<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Shall thrill me as girls’ laughter thrills me here,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the cold drops a passing storm-cloud flings<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Be my strong wine, and crawling roots and clods<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My trees and hills, and slugs swift fallow deer.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">There I shall dote upon a sexless flower<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By dream-ghosts planted in my dripping brain,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And suck from those cold petals subtler power<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than from your colder, whiter flesh could fall,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Most vile of girls and lovelier than all.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But in your tomb the deathless She will reign<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And draw new lovers out of rotting sods<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That your lithe body may for ever squirm<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beneath the strange embraces of the worm.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_48" id="page_48"></a></p> - -<h3>ADVICE TO A GIRL FROM THE WARS</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">W</span>EEP for me but one day,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Dry then your eyes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Think, is a heap of clay<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Worth a maid’s sighs?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Sigh nine days if you can<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For my waste blood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Think then, you love a man<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whose face is mud;<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Whose flesh and hair thrill not<br /></span> -<span class="i2">At your faint touch;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dear! limbs and brain will rot,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Dream not of such.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_49" id="page_49"></a></p> - -<h3>YEGOR</h3> - -<p class="c"><small> -“What shall I write?” said Yegor.—<span class="smcap">Tchekov.</span></small> -</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">“W</span>HAT shall I write?” said Yegor;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">“Of the bright-plumed bird that sings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hovering on the fringes of the forest,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where leafy dreams are grown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thoughts go with silent flutterings,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Like moths by a dark wind blown?”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Oh, write of those quiet women,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beautiful, slim and pale,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose bodies glimmer under cool green waters,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whose hands like lilies float<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tangled in the heavy purple veil<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of hair on their breast and throat.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Or write of swans and princes<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Carved out of marble clouds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the flowers that wither upon distant mountains,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Grey-pencilled in the brain;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of fiercely hurrying night-born crowds<br /></span> -<span class="i2">By the first swift sun-ray slain.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Nay, I will sing,” said Yegor,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">“Of stranger things than these,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of a girl I met in the fresh of morning,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A laughing, slender flame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the slow stream’s song and the chant of bees,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In a land without a name.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_50" id="page_50"></a></p> - -<h3>STRANGE ELEMENTS</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">W</span>HEN my girl swims with me I think<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She is a Shark with hungry teeth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because her throat that dazzles me<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is white as sharks are underneath.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And when she drags me down with her<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Under the wave, she clings so tight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She seems a deadly Water-snake<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who smothers me in that dim light.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Yet when we lie on the hot sand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I find she cannot bite or hiss,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But she swears I’m a Tiger fierce<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who kills her slowly with a kiss.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_51" id="page_51"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="W_FORCE_STEAD" id="W_FORCE_STEAD"></a><i>W. FORCE STEAD</i><br /> -(<i>QUEEN’S</i>)</h2> - -<h3>THE BURDEN OF BABYLON<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“It is in the soul that things happen.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> The lyrics from “The Burden of Babylon” appeared in <span class="smcap">Oxford -Poetry</span>, 1919. The present editors have decided to reprint them with -their context.</p></div> - -<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang"><span class="smcap">Scene</span>: <i>An upper chamber in the Palace of the King of Babylon. Dusk -on a hot summer’s evening. The voice of one singing far off beyond -the palace-gardens is heard vaguely from time to time. The King is -sitting by an open window.</i></p></div> - -<h3><span class="smcap">The King of Babylon</span></h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">S</span>INCE I am Babylon, I am the world.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The windy heavens and the rainy skies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Attend the earth in humble servitude.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I am Babylon, I am the world:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The heavens and their powers attend on me.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">The Voice of One Crying in the Night</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Babylon, the glory of the Kingdoms,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>And the Chaldee’s excellency,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Is become as Sodom and Gomorrah,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Whom God overthrew by the Sea.</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">The King</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Who is that fellow crying by the river?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I think I heard him lift his voice in praise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Babylon: some minstrelle seeking hire:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I need him not to tell me who I am,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I am Baladan of Babylon.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The splendours of my sceptre, throne, and crown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the awe that fills my royal halls,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The pomp that heralds me, the shout that follows,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are flying shadows and reflections only<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the wide dazzlings of myself, the King.<a name="page_52" id="page_52"></a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">This I conceive: and yet, we kings have labour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To apprehend ourselves imperially,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And see the blaze and lightnings of our person;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The thought of their own sovereignty amazes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The princelings even, and the lesser kings:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But I am Baladan of Babylon.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">The Voice in the Night</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Never again inhabited,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Babylon, O Babylon</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Even the wandering Arabian</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>From thy weary waste is gone.</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Neither shall the shepherd tend his fold there,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Nor any green herb be grown:</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>It cometh in the night-time suddenly,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>And Babylon is overthrown.</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">The King</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Pale from the east, the stars arise, and climb,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then grow bright, beholding Babylon;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They would delay, but may not; so they pass,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fade and fall, bereft of Babylon.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Quick from the Midian line the sun comes up,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For he expects to see my palaces;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the moon lingers, even on the wane....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mine ancient dynasty, as yon great river,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Euphrates, with his fountains in far hills,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arose in the blue morning of the years;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as yon river flows on into time,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unalterable in majesty, my line<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Survives in domination down the years.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I know, but am concerned not, that some peoples,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At the pale limits of the world, abide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As yet beyond the circle of my sway,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The miserable sons of meagre soil<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That needs much tillage ere the yield be good.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I only wait until they ripen more,<a name="page_53" id="page_53"></a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fatten toward my final harvesting:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When I am ready, I will reap them in.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For it is written in the stars, and read<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of all my wise men and astrologers,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That I, and my great line of Babylon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall rule the world, and only find a bound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where the horizon’s bounds are set, an end<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When the world ends; so shall all other lands,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All languages, all peoples, and all tongues,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Become a fable told of olden times,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deemed of our sons a thing incredulous.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">The Voice in the Night</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Woeful are thy desolate palaces,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Where doleful creatures lie,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And wild beasts out of the islands</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>In thy fallen chambers cry.</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Where now are the viol and the tabret?—</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>But owls hoot in moonlight,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And over the ruins of Babylon</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>The satyrs dance by night.</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">The King</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">That voice, that seems to hum my kingdom’s glory<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fails in the vast immensity of night,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As fails all earthly praise of Him who hears<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ceaseless acclamation of the stars.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What needs there more?—the apple of the world,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grown ripe and juicy, rolls into my lap,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the gods of Babylon, well pleased<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With blood of bulls and fume of fragrant things,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even while I take mine ease, attend on me:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The figs do mellow, the olive, and the vine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in the plains climb the big sycamores;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My camels and my laden dromedaries<a name="page_54" id="page_54"></a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Move in from eastward bearing odorous gums,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the Zidonians hew me cedar beams,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even tall cedars out of Lebanon;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Euphrates floats his treasured freightage down,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all great Babylon is filled with spoil.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wherefore, upon the summit of the world,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The utmost apex of this thronèd realm,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I stand, as stands the driving charioteer,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And steer my course right onward toward the stars.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mean-fated men my horses trample under,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And my wine-bins have drained the blood of mothers,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And smoothly my wheels run upon the necks<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of babes and sucklings,—while I hold my way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Serene, supreme, secure in destiny,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because the gods perceive mine excellence,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And entertain for mine imperial Person<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Peculiar favours.... I am Babylon:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Exceeding precious in the High One’s eyes.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">The Voice in the Night</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Babylon is fallen, fallen,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>And never shall be known again!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Drunken with the blood of my belovèd,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>And trampling on the sons of men.</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>But God is awake and aware of thee,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>And sharply shines His sword,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Where over the earth spring suddenly</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>The hidden hosts of the Lord;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Armies of right and of righteousness,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Huge hosts, unseen, unknown:</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And thy pomp, and thy revellings, and glory,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Where the wind goes, they are gone.</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_55" id="page_55"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="L_A_G_STRONG" id="L_A_G_STRONG"></a><i>L. A. G. STRONG</i><br /> -(<i>WADHAM</i>)</h2> - -<h3>FROST</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">U</span>NNATURAL foliage pales the trees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Frost in compassion of their death<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Has kissed them, and his icy breath<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Proclaims and silvers their election.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Death, wert thou beautiful as these,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We scarce would pray for resurrection.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>VERA VENVSTAS</h3> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Corporis</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig2"><span class="letra">P</span>ROUD Eastern Queene,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Borne forth in splendour to thy buriall.<br /></span> -<span class="i3">What need of gems<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To deck thee? Bear the Tyrian gauds aside.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy own dead loveliness outshines the pride<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Of diadems.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">Animæ</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3">O splendid hearte,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Scorned and afflicted, still thou needest not<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Comfort of me.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What matter though the body be uncouthe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wherein thou art? Fear not. He seeth truth<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Who gave it thee.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="c"><small> -[To be chaunted as in a solemn Dumpe by such as fear God.]</small></p> - -<p><a name="page_56" id="page_56"></a></p> - -<h3>A BABY</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">T</span>WO days with puckered face of pain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The accidental baby cried,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on the morning of the third<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unclenched her tiny hands, and died.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>FROM THE GREEK</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">B</span>ILL Jupp lies ’ere, aged sixty year:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From Tavistock ’e came.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Single ’e bided, and ’e wished<br /></span> -<span class="i2">’Is father’d done the same.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>A DEVON RHYME</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">G</span>NARLY and bent and deaf ’s a post<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pore ol’ Ezekiel Purvis<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Goeth creepin’ slowly up the ’ill<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the Commoonion Survis.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Tap-tappy-tappy up the haisle<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Goeth stick and brassy ferule;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Parson ’ath to stoopy down<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ’olley in ees yerole.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_57" id="page_57"></a></p> - -<h3>THE BIRD MAN</h3> - -<p class="c">TO ERIC DICKINSON</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">I</span> DREAD the parrots of the summer sun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The harsh and blazing screams of July noon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A riot of jays and peacocks and macaws.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There is some presage of big ardours due<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even in the pale flamingoes of the dawn;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While golden pheasants and hoopoes of the West<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Burn fierce and proudly still, when he has set.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Better the winter wagtails of pied skies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cold ospreys of the north, cormorants of squall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Brown wrens of rain, white silent owls of snow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bitterns of great clouds that in October<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweep from the west at evening. Lovelier still<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The night’s black swans, the daws of starless night<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Daw-like to hide what’s shiny), plovers and gulls<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of winds that cry on autumn afternoons....<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">These every one I love: but above these<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rarest of all my birds, I dearly love<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The blue and silver herons of the moon.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_58" id="page_58"></a></p> - -<h3>CHRISTOPHER MARLYE</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="ig"><span class="letra">C</span>HRISTOPHER MARLYE damned his God<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In many a blasphemous mighty line,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">—Being given to words and wenches and wine.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">He wrote his Faustus, and laughed to see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How everyone feared his devils but he.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Christopher Marlye passed the gate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eager to stalk on the floor of Heaven,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Outface his God, and affront the Seven:<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But Peter genially let him in,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Making no mention of all his sin.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And he got no credit for all he had done,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though he grabbed a hold on the coat of God,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bellowed his infamies one by one,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Blasphemy, lechery, thought, and deed ...<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But nobody paid him the slightest heed.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And the devils and torments he thought to brave<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He left behind, on this side of the grave.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Heigh-ho! for Christopher Marlye.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="c"> -PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY<br /> -BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND ESHER<br /> -</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Oxford Poetry, by Vera Mary Brittain - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OXFORD POETRY *** - -***** This file should be named 50376-h.htm or 50376-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/3/7/50376/ - -Produced by MWS, Chuck Greif 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) - - -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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