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diff --git a/old/60487-0.txt b/old/60487-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3d05e92..0000000 --- a/old/60487-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2999 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Verses, by Hilaire Belloc - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Verses - -Author: Hilaire Belloc - -Release Date: October 13, 2019 [EBook #60487] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VERSES *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - -VERSES BY H. BELLOC - - - - - VERSES - - _By_ - - HILAIRE BELLOC - - _With an Introduction_ - - _By_ - - JOYCE KILMER - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK - LAURENCE J. GOMME - 1916 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY - LAURENCE J. GOMME - - VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY - BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK - - - - -To - -JOHN SWINNERTON PHILLIMORE - -A DEDICATION - -WITH THIS BOOK OF VERSE - - _When you and I were little tiny boys - We took a most impertinent delight - In foolish, painted and misshapen toys - That hidden mothers brought to us at night._ - - _Do you that have the child’s diviner part-- - The dear content a love familiar brings-- - Take these imperfect toys, till in your heart - They too attain the form of perfect things?_ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - INTRODUCTION xi - - TO DIVES 1 - - STANZAS WRITTEN ON BATTERSEA BRIDGE DURING - A SOUTH-WESTERLY GALE 4 - - THE SOUTH COUNTRY 7 - - THE FANATIC 10 - - NOËL 14 - - THE EARLY MORNING 16 - - THE BIRDS 17 - - OUR LORD AND OUR LADY 18 - - IN A BOAT 20 - - COURTESY 22 - - THE NIGHT 24 - - THE LEADER 25 - - A BIVOUAC 27 - - TO THE BALLIOL MEN STILL IN AFRICA 28 - - VERSES TO A LORD WHO, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, - SAID THAT THOSE WHO OPPOSED THE SOUTH - AFRICAN ADVENTURE CONFUSED SOLDIERS WITH - MONEY-GRUBBERS 30 - - THE REBEL 32 - - THE PROPHET LOST IN THE HILLS AT EVENING 34 - - SONG, INVITING THE INFLUENCE OF A YOUNG LADY - UPON THE OPENING YEAR 36 - - THE RING 37 - - CUCKOO 38 - - THE MIRROR 39 - - THE LITTLE SERVING MAID 40 - - THE END OF THE ROAD 43 - - AUVERGNAT 45 - - DRINKING SONG, ON THE EXCELLENCE OF BURGUNDY WINE 46 - - DRINKING DIRGE 48 - - WEST SUSSEX DRINKING SONG 50 - - A BALLAD ON SOCIOLOGICAL ECONOMICS 52 - - AN ORACLE THAT WARNED THE WRITER WHEN ON PILGRIMAGE 54 - - HERETICS ALL 55 - - THE DEATH AND LAST CONFESSION OF WANDERING PETER 56 - - DEDICATORY ODE 58 - - DEDICATION ON THE GIFT OF A BOOK TO A CHILD 66 - - DEDICATION OF A CHILD’S BOOK OF IMAGINARY TALES 67 - - HOMAGE 68 - - FILLE-LA-HAINE 69 - - THE MOON’S FUNERAL 70 - - THE HAPPY JOURNALIST 72 - - LINES TO A DON 74 - - NEWDIGATE POEM 77 - - THE YELLOW MUSTARD 82 - - ON HYGIENE 83 - - THE FALSE HEART 84 - - SONNET UPON GOD THE WINE-GIVER 85 - - THE POLITICIAN OR THE IRISH EARLDOM 86 - - SHORT BALLAD AND POSTSCRIPT ON CONSOLS 89 - - - - -INTRODUCTION - -By JOYCE KILMER - - -Far from the poets being astray in prose-writing (said Francis -Thompson) it might plausibly be contended that English prose, as an -art, is but a secondary stream of the Pierian fount, and owes its very -origin to the poets. The first writer one remembers with whom prose -became an art was Sir Philip Sidney. And Sidney was a poet. - -This quotation is relevant to a consideration of Hilaire Belloc, -because Belloc is a poet who happens to be known chiefly for his -prose. His _Danton_ and _Robespierre_ have been read by every -intelligent student of French history, his _Path to Rome_, that most -high-spirited and engaging of travel books, has passed through many -editions, his political writings are known to all lovers--and many -foes--of democracy, his whimsically imaginative novels have their -large and appreciative audience, and his exquisite brief essays are -contemporary classics. And since the unforgetable month of August of -the unforgetable year 1914, Hilaire Belloc has added to the number -of his friends many thousands who care little for _belles lettres_ -and less for the French Revolution--he has become certainly the most -popular, and by general opinion the shrewdest and best informed, of all -chroniclers and critics of the Great War. - -There is nothing, it may be said, about these achievements to indicate -the poet. How can this most public of publicists woo the shy and -exacting Muse? His superabundant energy may now and again overflow in -little lyrical rivulets, but how can he find time to turn it into the -deep channels of song? - -Well, what is the difference between a poet who writes prose and a -prose-writer who writes verse? The difference is easy to see but hard -to describe. Mr. Thomas Hardy is a prose writer. He has forsaken the -novel, of which he was so distinguished a master, to make cynical -little sonnet portraits and to pour the acid wine of his philosophy--a -sort of perverted Presbyterianism--into the graceful amphora of poetic -drama. But he is not a poet. Thackeray was a prose-writer, in spite of -his delicious light verse. Every novelist writes or has written verse, -but not all of them are poets. - -Of course, Sir Walter Scott was first of all a poet--the greatest poet -who ever wrote a novel. And no one who has read _Love in the Valley_ -can hesitate to give Meredith his proper title. Was Macaulay a poet? I -think so--but perhaps I am in a hopeless minority in my belief that the -author of _The Battle of Naseby_ and _The Lays of Ancient Rome_ was the -last of the great English ballad makers. - -But this general truth cannot, I think, honestly be denied; there have -been many great poets who have devoted most of their lives to writing -prose. Some of them have died without discovering their neglected -talent. I think that Walter Pater was one of these; much that is -annoyingly subtle or annoyingly elaborate in his essays needs only -rhyme and rhythm--the lovely accidents of poetry--to become graceful -and appropriate. His famous description of the Mona Lisa is worthless -if considered as a piece of serious æsthetic criticism. But it would -make an admirable sonnet. And it is significant that Walter Pater’s two -greatest pupils--Lionel Johnson and Father Gerard Hopkins, S.J.,--found -expression for their genius not in prose, the chosen medium of their -“unforgetably most gracious friend,” but in verse. - -From Walter Pater, that exquisite of letters, to the robust Hilaire -Belloc may seem a long journey. But there is, I insist, this similarity -between these contrasting writers, both are poets, and both are known -to fame by their prose. - -For proof that Walter Pater was a poet, it is necessary only to -read his _Renaissance Studies_ or his interpretations--unsound but -fascinating--of the soul of ancient Greece. Often his essays, too -delicately accurate in phrasing or too heavily laden with golden -rhetoric, seem almost to cry aloud for the relief of rhyme and rhythm. - -Now, Hilaire Belloc suggests in many of his prose sketches that he is -not using his true medium. I remember a brief essay on sleep which -appeared in _The New Witness_--or, as it was then called, _The Eye -Witness_--several years ago, which was not so much a complete work in -itself as it was a draft for a poem. It had the economy of phrase, the -concentration of idea, which is proper to poetry. - -But it is not necessary in the case of Hilaire Belloc, as it is in -that of Walter Pater, to search pages of prose for proof that their -author is a poet. Now and then--all too seldom--the idea in this man’s -brain has insisted on its right, has scorned the proffered dress of -prose, however fine of warp and woof, however stiff with rich verbal -embroidery, and has demanded its rhymed and rhythmed wedding garments. -Therefore, for proof that Hilaire Belloc is a poet it is necessary only -to read his poetry. - - -II - -Hilaire Belloc is a poet. Also he is a Frenchman, an Englishman, -an Oxford man, a Roman Catholic, a country gentleman, a soldier, a -democrat, and a practical journalist. He is always all these things. - -One sign that he is naturally a poet is that he is never deliberately a -poet. No one can imagine him writing a poem to order--even to his own -order. The poems knock at the door of his brain and demand to be let -out. And he lets them out, carelessly enough, setting them comfortably -down on paper simply because that is the treatment they desire. And -this happens to be the way all real poetry is made. - -Not that all verse makers work that way. There are men who come upon a -waterfall or mountain or an emotion and say: “Aha! here is something -out of which I can extract a poem!” And they sit down in front of that -waterfall or mountain or emotion and think up clever things to say -about it. These things they put into metrical form, and the result they -fondly call a poem. - -There’s no harm in that. It’s good exercise for the mind, and of it -comes much interesting verse. But it is not the way in which the sum of -the world’s literature is increased. - -Could anything, for example, be less studied, be more clearly marked -with the stigmata of that noble spontaneity we call inspiration, -than the passionate, rushing, irresistible lines “To the Balliol Men -Still in Africa”? Like Gilbert K. Chesterton and many another English -democrat, Hilaire Belloc deeply resented his country’s war upon the -Boers. Yet his heart went out to the friends of his university days -who were fighting in Africa. They were fighting, he thought, in an -unjust cause; but they were his friends and they were, at any rate, -fighting. And so he made something that seems (like all great writing) -an utterance rather than a composition; he put his love of war in -general and his hatred of this war in particular, his devotion to -Balliol and to the friends of his youth into one of the very few pieces -of genuine poetry which the Boer War produced. Nor has any of Oxford’s -much-sung colleges known praise more fit than this - - “House that armours a man - With the eyes of a boy and the heart of a ranger, - And a laughing way in the teeth of the world, - And a holy hunger and thirst for danger.” - -But perhaps a more typical example of Hilaire Belloc’s wanton genius is -to be found not among those poems which are, throughout, the beautiful -expressions of beautiful impressions, but among those which are -careless, whimsical, colloquial. There is that delightful, but somewhat -exasperating _Dedicatory Ode_. Hilaire Belloc is talking--charmingly, -as is his custom--to some of his friends, who had belonged, in their -university days, to a youthful revolutionary organization called the -Republican Club. He happens to be talking in verse, for no particular -reason except that it amuses him to talk in verse. He makes a number of -excellent jokes, and enjoys them very much; his Pegasus is cantering -down the road at a jolly gait, when suddenly, to the amazement of -the spectators, it spreads out great golden wings and flashes like a -meteor across the vault of heaven! We have been laughing at the droll -tragedy of the opium-smoking Uncle Paul; we have been enjoying the -humorous spectacle of the contemplative freshman--and suddenly we come -upon a bit of astonishingly fine poetry. Who would expect, in all this -whimsical and jovial writing, to find this really great stanza? - - “From quiet homes and first beginning, - Out to the undiscovered ends. - There’s nothing worth the wear of winning, - But laughter and the love of friends.” - -Who having read these four lines, can forget them? And who but a poet -could write them? But Hilaire Belloc has not forced himself into this -high mood, nor does he bother to maintain it. He gaily passes on to -another verse of drollery, and then, not because he wishes to bring -the poem to an effective climax, but merely because it happens to -be his mood, he ends the escapade he calls an Ode with eight or ten -stanzas of nobly beautiful poetry. - -There is something almost uncanny about the flashes of inspiration -which dart out at the astonished reader of Hilaire Belloc’s most -frivolous verses. Let me alter a famous epigram and call his light -verse a circus illuminated by lightning. There is that monumental -burlesque, the Newdigate Poem--_A Prize Poem Submitted by Mr. Lambkin -of Burford to the Examiners of the University of Oxford on the -Prescribed Poetic Theme Set by Them in 1893, “The Benefits of the -Electric Light.”_ It is a tremendous joke; with every line the reader -echoes the author’s laughter. But without the slightest warning, -Hilaire Belloc passes from the rollicking burlesque to shrewd satire; -he has been merrily jesting with a bladder on a stick, he suddenly -draws a gleaming rapier and thrusts it into the heart of error. He -makes Mr. Lambkin say: - - “Life is a veil, its paths are dark and rough - Only because we do not know enough: - When Science has discovered something more - We shall be happier than we were before.” - -Here we find the directness and restraint which belong to really great -satire. This is the materialistic theory, the religion of Science, -not burlesqued, not parodied, but merely stated nakedly, without the -verbal frills and furbelows with which our forward-looking leaders of -popular thought are accustomed to cover its obscene absurdity. Almost -these very words have been uttered in a dozen “rationalistic” pulpits -I could mention, pulpits occupied by robustuous practical gentlemen -with very large eyes, great favourites with the women’s clubs. Their -pet doctrines, their only and most offensive dogma, is not attacked, -is not ridiculed; it is merely stated for them, in all kindness and -simplicity. They cannot answer it, they cannot deny that it is a -mercilessly fair statement of the “philosophy” that is their stock in -trade. I hope that many of them will read it. - - -III - -Hilaire Belloc was born July 27, 1870. He was educated at the Oratory -School, Edgbaston, and at Balliol College, Oxford. After leaving school -he served as a driver in the Eighth Regiment of French Artillery at -Toul Meurthe-et-Moselle, being at that time a French citizen. Later he -was naturalized as a British subject, and entered the House of Commons -in 1906 as Liberal Member for South Salford. British politicians -will not soon forget the motion which Hilaire Belloc introduced one -day in the early Spring of 1908, the motion that the Party funds, -hitherto secretly administered, be publicly audited. His vigorous -and persistent campaign against the party system has placed him, -with Cecil Chesterton, in the very front ranks of those to whom the -democrats of Great Britain must look for leadership and inspiration. -He was always a keen student of military affairs; he prophesied, long -before the event, the present international conflict, describing with -astonishing accuracy the details of the German invasion of Belgium and -the resistance of Liège. Now he occupies a unique position among the -journalists who comment upon the War, having tremendously increased the -circulation of _Land and Water_, the periodical for which he writes -regularly, and lecturing to a huge audience once a week on the events -of the War in one of the largest of London’s concert halls--Queen’s -Hall, where the same vast crowds that listen to the War lectures used -to gather to hear the works of the foremost German composers. - - -IV - -Hilaire Belloc, as I have said, is a Frenchman, an Englishman, -an Oxford man, a country gentleman, a soldier, a democrat, and a -practical journalist. In all these characters he utters his poetry. As -a Frenchman, he is vivacious and gallant and quick. He has the noble -English frankness, and that broad irresistible English mirthfulness -which is so much more inclusive than that narrow possession, a sense -of humour. Democrat though he is, there is about him something of the -atmosphere of the country squire of some generations ago; it is in his -heartiness, his jovial dignity, his deep love of the land. The author -of _The South Country_ and _Courtesy_ has made Sussex his inalienable -possession; he owns Sussex, as Dickens owns London, and Blackmore owns -Devonshire. And he is thoroughly a soldier, a happy warrior, as brave -and dextrous, no one can doubt, with a sword of steel as with a sword -of words. - -He has taken the most severe risk which a poet can take: he has written -poems about childhood. What happened when the late Algernon Charles -Swinburne bent his energies to the task of celebrating this theme? -As the result of his solemn meditation on the mystery of childhood, -he arrived at two conclusions, which he melodiously announced to the -world. They were, first, that the face of a baby wearing a plush cap -looks like a moss-rose bud in its soft sheath, and, second, that -“astrolabe” rhymes with “babe.” Very charming, of course, but certainly -unworthy of a great poet. And upon this the obvious comment is that -Swinburne was not a great poet. He took a theme terribly great and -terribly simple, and about it he wrote ... something rather pretty. - -Now, when a really great poet--Francis Thompson, for example--has -before him such a theme as childhood, he does not spend his time making -far-fetched comparisons with moss-rose buds, or hunting for words that -rhyme with “babe.” Childhood suggests Him Who made childhood sacred, -so the poet writes _Ex Ore Infantium_, or such a poem as that which -ends with the line: - - “Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven.” - -A poet may write pleasingly about mountains, and cyclones, and battles, -and the love of woman, but if he is at all timid about the verdict of -posterity he should avoid the theme of childhood as he would avoid the -plague. For only great poets can write about childhood poems worthy to -be printed. - -Hilaire Belloc has written poems about children, and they are worthy to -be printed. He is never ironic when he thinks about childhood; he is -gay, whimsical, with a slight suggestion of elfin cynicism, but he is -direct, as a child is direct. He has written two dedicatory poems for -books to be given to children; they are slight things but they are a -revelation of their author’s power to do what only a very few poets can -do, that is, to enter into the heart and mind of the child, following -that advice which has its literary as well as moral significance, to -“become as a little child.” - -And in many of Hilaire Belloc’s poems by no means intended for -childish audiences there is an appealing simplicity that is genuinely -and beautifully childish, something quite different from the adult and -highly artificial simplicity of Professor A. E. Housman’s _A Shropshire -Lad_. Take that quatrain _The Early Morning_. It is as clear and cool -as the time it celebrates; it is absolutely destitute of rhetorical -indulgence, poetical inversions or “literary” phrasing. It is, in -fact, conversation--inspired conversation, which is poetry. It might -have been written by a Wordsworth not painfully self-conscious, or -by a Blake whose brain was not as yet muddled with impressionistic -metaphysics. - -And his Christmas carols--they are fit to be sung by a chorus of -children. Can any songs of the sort receive higher praise than that? -Children, too, appreciate _The Birds_ and _Our Lord and Our Lady_. Nor -is that wonderful prayer rather flatly called _In a Boat_ beyond the -reach of their intelligence. - -Naturally enough, Hilaire Belloc is strongly drawn to the almost -violent simplicity of the ballad. Bishop Percy would not have enjoyed -the theological and political atmosphere of _The Little Serving Maid_, -but he would have acknowledged its irresistible charm. There is that -wholly delightful poem _The Death and Last Confession of Wandering -Peter_--a most Bellocian vagabond. “He wandered everywhere he would: -and all that he approved was sung, and most of what he saw was good.” -Says Peter: - - “If all that I have loved and seen - Be with me on the Judgment Day, - I shall be saved the crowd between - From Satan and his foul array.” - -Hilaire Belloc has seen much and loved much. He has sung lustily the -things he approved--with what hearty hatred has he sung the things he -disapproved! - - -V - -Hilaire Belloc is not the man to spend much time in analysing his own -emotions; he is not, thank God, a poetical psychologist. Love songs, -drinking songs, battle songs--it is with these primitive and democratic -things that he is chiefly concerned. - -But there is something more democratic than wine or love or war. That -thing is Faith. And Hilaire Belloc’s part in increasing the sum of the -world’s beauty would not be the considerable thing that it is were it -not for his Faith. It is not that (like Dante Gabriel Rossetti) he is -attracted by the Church’s pageantry and wealth of legend. To Hilaire -Belloc the pageantry is only incidental, the essential thing is his -Catholic Faith. He writes convincingly about Our Lady and Saint Joseph -and the Child Jesus because he himself is convinced. He does not delve -into mediæval tradition in quest of picturesque incidents, he merely -writes what he knows to be true. His Faith furnishes him with the theme -for those of his poems which are most likely to endure; his Faith gives -him the “rapture of an inspiration.” His Faith enables him, as it has -enabled many another poet, to see “in the lamp that is beauty, the -light that is God.” - -And therein is Hilaire Belloc most thoroughly and consistently a -democrat. For in this twentieth century it happens that there is on -earth only one genuine democratic institution. And that institution is -the Catholic Church. - - - - -TO DIVES - - - Dives, when you and I go down to Hell, - Where scribblers end and millionaires as well, - We shall be carrying on our separate backs - Two very large but very different packs; - And as you stagger under yours, my friend, - Down the dull shore where all our journeys end, - And go before me (as your rank demands) - Towards the infinite flat underlands, - And that dear river of forgetfulness-- - Charon, a man of exquisite address - (For, as your wife’s progenitors could tell, - They’re very strict on etiquette in Hell), - Will, since you are a lord, observe, “My lord, - We cannot take these weighty things aboard!” - Then down they go, my wretched Dives, down-- - The fifteen sorts of boots you kept for town, - The hat to meet the Devil in; the plain - But costly ties; the cases of champagne; - The solid watch, and seal, and chain, and charm; - The working model of a Burning Farm - (To give the little Belials); all the three - Biscuits for Cerberus; the guarantee - From Lambeth that the Rich can never burn, - And even promising a safe return; - The admirable overcoat, designed - To cross Cocytus--very warmly lined: - Sweet Dives, you will leave them all behind - And enter Hell as tattered and as bare - As was your father when he took the air - Behind a barrow-load in Leicester Square. - Then turned to me, and noting one that brings - With careless step a mist of shadowy things: - Laughter and memories, and a few regrets, - Some honour, and a quantity of debts, - A doubt or two of sorts, a trust in God, - And (what will seem to you extremely odd) - His father’s granfer’s father’s father’s name, - Unspoilt, untitled, even spelt the same; - Charon, who twenty thousand times before - Has ferried Poets to the ulterior shore, - Will estimate the weight I bear, and cry-- - “Comrade!” (He has himself been known to try - His hand at Latin and Italian verse, - Much in the style of Virgil--only worse) - “We let such vain imaginaries pass!” - Then tell me, Dives, which will look the ass-- - You, or myself? Or Charon? Who can tell? - They order things so damnably in Hell. - - - - -STANZAS WRITTEN ON BATTERSEA BRIDGE DURING A SOUTH-WESTERLY GALE - - - The woods and downs have caught the mid-December, - The noisy woods and high sea-downs of home; - The wind has found me and I do remember - The strong scent of the foam. - - Woods, darlings of my wandering feet, another - Possesses you, another treads the Down; - The South West Wind that was my elder brother - Has come to me in town. - - The wind is shouting from the hills of morning, - I do remember and I will not stay. - I’ll take the Hampton road without a warning - And get me clean away. - - The Channel is up, the little seas are leaping, - The tide is making over Arun Bar; - And there’s my boat, where all the rest are sleeping - And my companions are. - - I’ll board her, and apparel her, and I’ll mount her, - My boat, that was the strongest friend to me-- - That brought my boyhood to its first encounter - And taught me the wide sea. - - Now shall I drive her, roaring hard a’ weather, - Right for the salt and leave them all behind. - We’ll quite forget the treacherous streets together - And find--or shall we find? - - There is no Pilotry my soul relies on - Whereby to catch beneath my bended hand, - Faint and beloved along the extreme horizon - That unforgotten land. - - We shall not round the granite piers and paven - To lie to wharves we know with canvas furled. - My little Boat, we shall not make the haven-- - It is not of the world. - - Somewhere of English forelands grandly guarded - It stands, but not for exiles, marked and clean; - Oh! not for us. A mist has risen and marred it:-- - My youth lies in between. - - So in this snare that holds me and appals me, - Where honour hardly lives nor loves remain, - The Sea compels me and my Country calls me, - But stronger things restrain. - - * * * * * - - England, to me that never have malingered, - Nor spoken falsely, nor your flattery used, - Nor even in my rightful garden lingered:-- - What have you not refused? - - - - -THE SOUTH COUNTRY - - - When I am living in the Midlands - That are sodden and unkind, - I light my lamp in the evening: - My work is left behind; - And the great hills of the South Country - Come back into my mind. - - The great hills of the South Country - They stand along the sea; - And it’s there walking in the high woods - That I could wish to be, - And the men that were boys when I was a boy - Walking along with me. - - The men that live in North England - I saw them for a day: - Their hearts are set upon the waste fells, - Their skies are fast and grey; - From their castle-walls a man may see - The mountains far away. - - The men that live in West England - They see the Severn strong, - A-rolling on rough water brown - Light aspen leaves along. - They have the secret of the Rocks, - And the oldest kind of song. - - But the men that live in the South Country - Are the kindest and most wise, - They get their laughter from the loud surf, - And the faith in their happy eyes - Comes surely from our Sister the Spring - When over the sea she flies; - The violets suddenly bloom at her feet, - She blesses us with surprise. - - I never get between the pines - But I smell the Sussex air; - Nor I never come on a belt of sand - But my home is there. - And along the sky the line of the Downs - So noble and so bare. - - A lost thing could I never find, - Nor a broken thing mend: - And I fear I shall be all alone - When I get towards the end. - Who will there be to comfort me - Or who will be my friend? - - I will gather and carefully make my friends - Of the men of the Sussex Weald, - They watch the stars from silent folds, - They stiffly plough the field. - By them and the God of the South Country - My poor soul shall be healed. - - If I ever become a rich man, - Or if ever I grow to be old, - I will build a house with deep thatch - To shelter me from the cold, - And there shall the Sussex songs be sung - And the story of Sussex told. - - I will hold my house in the high wood - Within a walk of the sea, - And the men that were boys when I was a boy - Shall sit and drink with me. - - - - -THE FANATIC - - - Last night in Compton Street, Soho, - A man whom many of you know - Gave up the ghost at half past nine. - That evening he had been to dine - At Gressington’s--an act unwise, - But not the cause of his demise. - The doctors all agree that he - Was touched with cardiac atrophy - Accelerated (more or less) - By lack of proper food, distress, - Uncleanliness, and loss of sleep. - He was a man that could not keep - His money (when he had the same) - Because of creditors who came - And took it from him; and he gave - So freely that he could not save. - But all the while a sort of whim - Persistently remained with him, - Half admirable, half absurd: - To keep his word, to keep his word.... - By which he did not mean what you - And I would mean (of payments due - Or punctual rental of the Flat-- - He was a deal too mad for that) - But--as he put it with a fine - Abandon, foolish or divine-- - But “That great word which every man - Gave God before his life began.” - It was a sacred word, he said, - Which comforted the pathless dead - And made God smile when it was shown - Unforfeited, before the Throne. - And this (he said) he meant to hold - In spite of debt, and hate, and cold; - And this (he said) he meant to show - As passport to the wards below. - He boasted of it and gave praise - To his own self through all his days. - He wrote a record to preserve - How steadfastly he did not swerve - From keeping it; how stiff he stood - Its guardian, and maintained it good. - He had two witnesses to swear - He kept it once in Berkeley Square. - (Where hardly anything survives) - And, through the loneliest of lives - He kept it clean, he kept it still, - Down to the last extremes of ill. - So when he died, of many friends - Who came in crowds from all the ends - Of London, that it might be known - They knew the man who died alone, - Some, who had thought his mood sublime - And sent him soup from time to time, - Said, “Well, you cannot make them fit - The world, and there’s an end of it!” - But others, wondering at him, said: - “The man that kept his word is dead!” - Then angrily, a certain third - Cried, “Gentlemen, he kept his word. - And as a man whom beasts surround - Tumultuous, on a little mound - Stands Archer, for one dreadful hour, - Because a Man is borne to Power-- - And still, to daunt the pack below, - Twangs the clear purpose of his bow, - Till overwhelmed he dares to fall: - So stood this bulwark of us all. - He kept his word as none but he - Could keep it, and as did not we. - And round him as he kept his word - To-day’s diseased and faithless herd, - A moment loud, a moment strong, - But foul forever, rolled along.” - - - - -NOËL - - -I - - On a winter’s night long time ago - (_The bells ring loud and the bells ring low_), - When high howled wind, and down fell snow - (Carillon, Carilla). - Saint Joseph he and Notre Dame, - Riding on an ass, full weary came - From Nazareth into Bethlehem. - And the small child Jesus smile on you. - - -II - - And Bethlehem inn they stood before - (_The bells ring less and the bells ring more_), - The landlord bade them begone from his door - (Carillon, Carilla). - “Poor folk” (says he), “must lie where they may, - For the Duke of Jewry comes this way, - With all his train on a Christmas Day.” - And the small child Jesus smile on you. - - -III - - Poor folk that may my carol hear - (_The bells ring single and the bells ring clear_), - See! God’s one child had hardest cheer! - (Carillon, Carilla). - Men grown hard on a Christmas morn; - The dumb beast by and a babe forlorn. - It was very, very cold when our Lord was born. - And the small child Jesus smile on you. - - -IV - - Now these were Jews as Jews must be - (_The bells ring merry and the bells ring free_), - But Christian men in a band are we - (Carillon, Carilla). - Empty we go, and ill be-dight, - Singing Noël on a Winter’s night. - Give us to sup by the warm firelight, - And the small child Jesus smile on you. - - - - -THE EARLY MORNING - - - The moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other: - The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother. - The moon on my left and the dawn on my right. - My brother, good morning: my sister, good night. - - - - -THE BIRDS - - - When Jesus Christ was four years old, - The angels brought Him toys of gold, - Which no man ever had bought or sold. - - And yet with these He would not play. - He made Him small fowl out of clay, - And blessed them till they flew away: - _Tu creasti Domine_. - - Jesus Christ, Thou child so wise, - Bless mine hands and fill mine eyes, - And bring my soul to Paradise. - - - - -OUR LORD AND OUR LADY - - - They warned Our Lady for the Child - That was Our blessed Lord, - And She took Him into the desert wild, - Over the camel’s ford. - - And a long song She sang to Him - And a short story told: - And She wrapped Him in a woollen cloak - To keep Him from the cold. - - But when Our Lord was grown a man - The Rich they dragged Him down, - And they crucified Him in Golgotha, - Out and beyond the Town. - - They crucified Him on Calvary, - Upon an April day; - And because He had been her little Son - She followed Him all the way. - - Our Lady stood beside the Cross, - A little space apart, - And when She heard Our Lord cry out - A sword went through Her Heart. - - They laid Our Lord in a marble tomb, - Dead, in a winding sheet. - But Our Lady stands above the world - With the white Moon at Her feet. - - - - -IN A BOAT - - - Lady! Lady! - Upon Heaven-height, - Above the harsh morning - In the mere light. - - Above the spindrift - And above the snow, - Where no seas tumble, - And no winds blow. - - The twisting tides, - And the perilous sands - Upon all sides - Are in your holy hands. - - The wind harries - And the cold kills; - But I see your chapel - Over far hills. - - My body is frozen, - My soul is afraid: - Stretch out your hands to me, - Mother and maid. - - Mother of Christ, - And Mother of me, - Save me alive - From the howl of the sea. - - If you will Mother me - Till I grow old, - I will hang in your chapel - A ship of pure gold. - - - - -COURTESY - - - Of Courtesy, it is much less - Than Courage of Heart or Holiness, - Yet in my Walks it seems to me - That the Grace of God is in Courtesy. - - On Monks I did in Storrington fall, - They took me straight into their Hall; - I saw Three Pictures on a wall, - And Courtesy was in them all. - - The first the Annunciation; - The second the Visitation; - The third the Consolation, - Of God that was Our Lady’s Son. - - The first was of Saint Gabriel; - On Wings a-flame from Heaven he fell; - And as he went upon one knee - He shone with Heavenly Courtesy. - - Our Lady out of Nazareth rode-- - It was Her month of heavy load; - Yet was Her face both great and kind, - For Courtesy was in Her Mind. - - The third it was our Little Lord, - Whom all the Kings in arms adored; - He was so small you could not see - His large intent of Courtesy. - - Our Lord, that was Our Lady’s Son, - Go bless you, People, one by one; - My Rhyme is written, my work is done. - - - - -THE NIGHT - - - Most holy Night, that still dost keep - The keys of all the doors of sleep, - To me when my tired eyelids close - Give thou repose. - - And let the far lament of them - That chaunt the dead day’s requiem - Make in my ears, who wakeful lie, - Soft lullaby. - - Let them that guard the horned moon - By my bedside their memories croon. - So shall I have new dreams and blest - In my brief rest. - - Fold your great wings about my face, - Hide dawning from my resting-place, - And cheat me with your false delight, - Most Holy Night. - - - - -THE LEADER - - - The sword fell down: I heard a knell; - I thought that ease was best, - And sullen men that buy and sell - Were host: and I was guest. - All unashamed I sat with swine, - We shook the dice for war, - The night was drunk with an evil wine-- - But she went on before. - - _She rode a steed of the sea-foam breed, - All faery was her blade, - And the armour on her tender limbs - Was of the moonshine made._ - - By God that sends the master-maids, - I know not whence she came, - But the sword she bore to save the soul - Went up like an altar flame - Where a broken race in a desert place - Call on the Holy Name. - - _We strained our eyes in the dim day-rise, - We could not see them plain; - But two dead men from Valmy fen - Rode at her bridle-rein._ - - I hear them all, my fathers call, - I see them how they ride, - And where had been that rout obscene - Was an army straight with pride. - A hundred thousand marching men, - Of squadrons twenty score, - And after them all the guns, the guns, - But she went on before. - - _Her face was like a king’s command - When all the swords are drawn. - She stretched her arms and smiled at us, - Her head was higher than the hills. - She led us to the endless plains. - We lost her in the dawn._ - - - - -A BIVOUAC - - -I - - You came without a human sound, - You came and brought my soul to me; - I only woke, and all around - They slumbered on the firelit ground, - Beside the guns in Burgundy. - - -II - - I felt the gesture of your hands, - You signed my forehead with the Cross; - The gesture of your holy hands - Was bounteous--like the misty lands - Along the Hills in Calvados. - - -III - - But when I slept I saw your eyes, - Hungry as death, and very far. - I saw demand in your dim eyes - Mysterious as the moons that rise - At midnight, in the Pines of Var. - - - - -TO THE BALLIOL MEN STILL IN AFRICA - - - Years ago when I was at Balliol, - Balliol men--and I was one-- - Swam together in winter rivers, - Wrestled together under the sun. - And still in the heart of us, Balliol, Balliol, - Loved already, but hardly known, - Welded us each of us into the others: - Called a levy and chose her own. - - Here is a House that armours a man - With the eyes of a boy and the heart of a ranger, - And a laughing way in the teeth of the world - And a holy hunger and thirst for danger: - Balliol made me, Balliol fed me, - Whatever I had she gave me again: - And the best of Balliol loved and led me. - God be with you, Balliol men. - - I have said it before, and I say it again, - There was treason done, and a false word spoken, - And England under the dregs of men, - And bribes about, and a treaty broken: - - But angry, lonely, hating it still, - I wished to be there in spite of the wrong. - My heart was heavy for Cumnor Hill - And the hammer of galloping all day long. - - Galloping outward into the weather, - Hands a-ready and battle in all: - Words together and wine together - And song together in Balliol Hall. - Rare and single! Noble and few!... - Oh! they have wasted you over the sea! - The only brothers ever I knew, - The men that laughed and quarrelled with me. - - * * * * * - - Balliol made me, Balliol fed me, - Whatever I had she gave me again; - And the best of Balliol loved and led me, - God be with you, Balliol men. - - - - -VERSES TO A LORD - -WHO, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, SAID THAT THOSE WHO OPPOSED THE SOUTH -AFRICAN ADVENTURE CONFUSED SOLDIERS WITH MONEY-GRUBBERS - - - You thought because we held, my lord, - An ancient cause and strong, - That therefore we maligned the sword: - My lord, you did us wrong. - - We also know the sacred height - Up on Tugela side, - Where those three hundred fought with Beit - And fair young Wernher died. - - The daybreak on the failing force, - The final sabres drawn: - Tall Goltman, silent on his horse, - Superb against the dawn. - - The little mound where Eckstein stood - And gallant Albu fell, - And Oppenheim, half blind with blood, - Went fording through the rising flood-- - My Lord, we know them well. - - The little empty homes forlorn, - The ruined synagogues that mourn, - In Frankfort and Berlin; - We knew them when the peace was torn-- - We of a nobler lineage born-- - And now by all the gods of scorn - We mean to rub them in. - - - - -THE REBEL - - - There is a wall of which the stones - Are lies and bribes and dead men’s bones. - And wrongfully this evil wall - Denies what all men made for all, - And shamelessly this wall surrounds - Our homesteads and our native grounds. - - But I will gather and I will ride, - And I will summon a countryside, - And many a man shall hear my halloa - Who never had thought the horn to follow; - And many a man shall ride with me - Who never had thought on earth to see - High Justice in her armoury. - - When we find them where they stand, - A mile of men on either hand, - I mean to charge from right away - And force the flanks of their array, - And press them inward from the plains, - And drive them clamouring down the lanes, - And gallop and harry and have them down, - And carry the gates and hold the town. - Then shall I rest me from my ride - With my great anger satisfied. - - Only, before I eat and drink, - When I have killed them all, I think - That I will batter their carven names, - And slit the pictures in their frames, - And burn for scent their cedar door, - And melt the gold their women wore, - And hack their horses at the knees, - And hew to death their timber trees, - And plough their gardens deep and through-- - And all these things I mean to do - For fear perhaps my little son - Should break his hands, as I have done. - - - - -THE PROPHET LOST IN THE HILLS AT EVENING - - - Strong God which made the topmost stars - To circulate and keep their course, - Remember me; whom all the bars - Of sense and dreadful fate enforce. - - Above me in your heights and tall, - Impassable the summits freeze, - Below the haunted waters call - Impassable beyond the trees. - - I hunger and I have no bread. - My gourd is empty of the wine. - Surely the footsteps of the dead - Are shuffling softly close to mine! - - It darkens. I have lost the ford. - There is a change on all things made. - The rocks have evil faces, Lord, - And I am awfully afraid. - - Remember me! the Voids of Hell - Expand enormous all around. - Strong friend of souls, Emmanuel, - Redeem me from accursed ground. - - The long descent of wasted days, - To these at last have led me down; - Remember that I filled with praise - The meaningless and doubtful ways - That lead to an eternal town. - - I challenged and I kept the Faith, - The bleeding path alone I trod; - It darkens. Stand about my wraith, - And harbour me--almighty God! - - - - -SONG - -INVITING THE INFLUENCE OF A YOUNG LADY UPON THE OPENING YEAR - - -I - - You wear the morning like your dress - And are with mastery crowned; - Whenas you walk your loveliness - Goes shining all around. - Upon your secret, smiling way - Such new contents were found, - The Dancing Loves made holiday - On that delightful ground. - - -II - - Then summon April forth, and send - Commandment through the flowers; - About our woods your grace extend - A queen of careless hours. - For oh, not Vera veiled in rain, - Nor Dian’s sacred Ring, - With all her royal nymphs in train - Could so lead on the Spring. - - - - -THE RING - - - When I was flying before the King - In the wood of Valognes in my hiding, - Although I had not anything - I sent a woman a golden ring. - - A Ring of the Moors beyond Leon - With emerald and with diamond stone, - And a writing no man ever had known, - And an opal standing all alone. - - The shape of the ring the heart to bind: - The emerald turns from cold to kind: - The writing makes her sure to find:-- - But the evil opal changed her mind. - - Now when the King was dead, was he, - I came back hurriedly over the sea - From the long rocks in Normandy - To Bosham that is by Selsey. - And we clipt each other knee to knee. - But what I had was lost to me. - - - - -CUCKOO! - - - In woods so long time bare. - Cuckoo! - Up and in the wood, I know not where - Two notes fall. - Yet I do not envy him at all - His phantasy. - Cuckoo! - I too, - Somewhere, - I have sung as merrily as he - Who can dare, - Small and careless lover, so to laugh at care, - And who - Can call - Cuckoo! - In woods of winter weary, - In scented woods, of winter weary, call - Cuckoo! - In woods so long time bare. - - - - -THE MIRROR - - - The mirror held your Fair, my Fair, - A fickle moment’s space; - You looked into mine eyes and there - For ever fixed your face. - - Keep rather to your Looking Glass - Than my more faithful eyes. - It told the truth. Alas! my lass! - My constant memory lies. - - - - -THE LITTLE SERVING MAID - - -I - - There was a Queen of England, - And a good Queen too. - She had a house in Powis Land - With the Severn running through; - And Men-folk and Women-folk - Apprenticed to a trade; - But the prettiest of all - Was a Little Serving Maid. - - -II - - “Oh Madam, Queen of England! - Oh will you let me go! - For there’s a Lad in London - And he would have it so. - And I would have it too, Madam, - And with him would I bide; - And he will be the Groom, Madam, - And I shall be the Bride!” - - -III - - “Oh fie to you and shame to you, - You Little Serving Maid! - And are you not astonied? - And are you not afraid? - For never was it known - Since Yngelonde began - That a Little Serving Maid - Should go a-meeting of a man!” - - -IV - - Then the Little Serving Maid - She went and laid her down, - With her cross and her bede, - In her new courting gown. - And she called in Mother Mary’s name - And heavily she sighed: - “I think that I have come to shame!” - And after that she died. - - -V - - The good Queen of England - Her women came and ran: - “The Little Serving Maid is dead - From loving of a man!” - Said the good Queen of England - “That is ill news to hear! - Take her out and shroud her, - And lay her on a bier.” - - -VI - - They laid her on a bier, - In the court-yard all; - Some came from Foresting, - And some came from Hall. - And Great Lords carried her, - And proud Priests prayed. - And that was the end - Of the Little Serving Maid. - - - - -THE END OF THE ROAD - - - IN THESE BOOTS AND WITH THIS STAFF - Two hundred leaguers and a half - Walked I, went I, paced I, tripped I, - Marched I, held I, skelped I, slipped I, - Pushed I, panted, swung and dashed I; - Picked I, forded, swam and splashed I, - Strolled I, climbed I, crawled and scrambled, - Dropped and dipped I, ranged and rambled; - Plodded I, hobbled I, trudged and tramped I, - And in lonely spinnies camped I, - And in haunted pinewoods slept I, - Lingered, loitered, limped and crept I, - Clambered, halted, stepped and leapt I; - Slowly sauntered, roundly strode I, - And ... (Oh! Patron saints and Angels - That protect the four Evangels! - And you Prophets vel majores - Vel incerti, vel minores, - Virgines ac confessores - Chief of whose peculiar glories - Est in Aula Regis stare - Atque orare et exorare - Et clamare et conclamare - Clamantes cum clamoribus - Pro Nobis Peccatoribus.) - Let me not conceal it.... _Rode I._ - (For who but critics could complain - Of “riding” in a railway train?) - Across the valley and the high-land, - With all the world on either hand - Drinking when I had a mind to, - Singing when I felt inclined to; - Nor ever turned my face to home - Till I had slaked my heart at Rome. - - - - -AUVERGNAT - - - There was a man was half a clown - (It’s so my father tells of it). - He saw the church in Clermont town - And laughed to hear the bells of it. - - He laughed to hear the bells that ring - In Clermont Church and round of it; - He heard the verger’s daughter sing, - And loved her for the sound of it. - - The verger’s daughter said him nay; - She had the right of choice in it. - He left the town at break of day: - He hadn’t had a voice in it. - - The road went up, the road went down, - And there the matter ended it. - He broke his heart in Clermont town, - At Pontgibaud they mended it. - - - - -DRINKING SONG - -ON THE EXCELLENCE OF BURGUNDY WINE - - - My jolly fat host with your face all a-grin, - Come, open the door to us, let us come in. - A score of stout fellows who think it no sin - If they toast till they’re hoarse, and they drink till they spin, - Hoofed it amain, - Rain or no rain, - To crack your old jokes, and your bottles to drain. - - Such a warmth in the belly that nectar begets - As soon as his guts with its humour he wets, - The miser his gold, and the student his debts, - And the beggar his rags and his hunger forgets. - For there’s never a wine - Like this tipple of thine - From the great hill of Nuits to the River of Rhine. - - Outside you may hear the great gusts as they go - By Foy, by Duerne, and the hills of Lerraulx, - But the rain he may rain, and the wind he may blow, - If the Devil’s above there’s good liquor below. - So it abound, - Pass it around, - Burgundy’s Burgundy all the year round. - - - - -DRINKING DIRGE - - - A thousand years ago I used to dine - In houses where they gave me such regale - Of dear companionship and comrades fine - That out I went alone beyond the pale; - And riding, laughed and dared the skies malign - To show me all the undiscovered tale-- - But my philosophy’s no more divine, - I put my pleasure in a pint of ale. - - And you, my friends, oh! pleasant friends of mine, - Who leave me now alone, without avail, - On Californian hills you gave me wine, - You gave me cider-drink in Longuevaille; - If after many years you come to pine - For comradeship that is an ancient tale-- - You’ll find me drinking beer in Dead Man’s Chine. - I put my pleasure in a pint of ale. - - In many a briny boat I’ve tried the brine, - From many a hidden harbour I’ve set sail, - Steering towards the sunset where there shine - The distant amethystine islands pale. - There are no ports beyond the far sea-line, - Nor any halloa to meet the mariner’s hail; - I stand at home and slip the anchor-line. - I put my pleasure in a pint of ale. - -ENVOI - - Prince! Is it true when you go out to dine - You bring your bottle in a freezing pail? - Why then you cannot be a friend of mine. - _I_ put my pleasure in a pint of ale. - - - - -WEST SUSSEX DRINKING SONG - - - They sell good Beer at Haslemere - And under Guildford Hill. - At Little Cowfold as I’ve been told - A beggar may drink his fill: - There is a good brew in Amberley too, - And by the bridge also; - But the swipes they take in at Washington Inn - Is the very best Beer I know. - -_Chorus_ - - With my here it goes, there it goes, - All the fun’s before us: - The Tipple’s Aboard and the night is young, - The door’s ajar and the Barrel is sprung, - I am singing the best song ever was sung - And it has a rousing chorus. - - If I were what I never can be, - The master or the squire: - If you gave me the hundred from here to the sea, - Which is more than I desire: - - Then all my crops should be barley and hops, - And did my harvest fail - I’d sell every rood of mine acres I would - For a belly-full of good Ale. - -_Chorus_ - - With my here it goes, there it goes, - All the fun’s before us: - The Tipple’s aboard and the night is young, - The door’s ajar and the Barrel is sprung, - I am singing the best song ever was sung - And it has a rousing chorus. - - - - -A BALLAD ON SOCIOLOGICAL ECONOMICS - - - A while ago it came to pass - (Merry we carol it all the day), - There sat a man on the top of an ass - (Heart be happy and carol be gay - In spite of the price of hay). - - And over the down they hoofed it so - (Happy go lucky has best of fare), - The man up above and the brute below - (And singing we all forget to care - A man may laugh if he dare). - - Over the stubble and round the crop - (Life is short and the world is round), - The donkey beneath and the man on top - (Oh! let good ale be found, be found, - Merry good ale and sound). - - It happened again as it happened before - (Tobacco’s a boon but ale is bliss), - The moke in the ditch and the man on the floor - (And that is the moral to this, to this - Remarkable artifice). - - - - -AN ORACLE - -THAT WARNED THE WRITER WHEN ON PILGRIMAGE - - - Matutinus adest ubi Vesper, et accipiens te - Saepe recusatum voces intelligit hospes - Rusticus ignotas notas, ac flumina tellus - Occupat--In sancto tum, tum, stans Aede caveto - Tonsuram Hirsuti Capitis, via namque pedestrem - Ferrea praeveniens cursum, peregrine, laborem - Pro pietate tua inceptum frustratur, amore - Antiqui Ritus alto sub Numine Romae. - - -_Translation of the above_:-- - - When early morning seems but eve - And they that still refuse receive: - When speech unknown men understand; - And floods are crossed upon dry land. - Within the Sacred Walls beware - The Shaven Head that boasts of Hair, - For when the road attains the rail - The Pilgrim’s great attempt shall fail. - - - - -HERETICS ALL - - - Heretics all, whoever you be, - In Tarbes or Nimes, or over the sea, - You never shall have good words from me. - _Caritas non conturbat me._ - - But Catholic men that live upon wine - Are deep in the water, and frank, and fine; - Wherever I travel I find it so, - _Benedicamus Domino_. - - On childing women that are forlorn, - And men that sweat in nothing but scorn: - That is on all that ever were born, - _Miserere Domine_. - - To my poor self on my deathbed, - And all my dear companions dead, - Because of the love that I bore them, - _Dona Eis Requiem_. - - - - -THE DEATH AND LAST CONFESSION OF WANDERING PETER - - - When Peter Wanderwide was young - He wandered everywhere he would: - And all that he approved was sung, - And most of what he saw was good. - - When Peter Wanderwide was thrown - By Death himself beyond Auxerre, - He chanted in heroic tone - To priests and people gathered there: - - “If all that I have loved and seen - Be with me on the Judgment Day, - I shall be saved the crowd between - From Satan and his foul array. - - “Almighty God will surely cry, - ‘St. Michael! Who is this that stands - With Ireland in his dubious eye, - And Perigord between his hands, - - “‘And on his arm the stirrup-thongs, - And in his gait the narrow seas, - And in his mouth Burgundian songs, - But in his heart the Pyrenees?’ - - “St. Michael then will answer right - (And not without angelic shame), - ‘I seem to know his face by sight: - I cannot recollect his name...?’ - - “St. Peter will befriend me then, - Because my name is Peter too: - ‘I know him for the best of men - That ever walloped barley brew. - - “‘And though I did not know him well - And though his soul were clogged with sin, - _I_ hold the keys of Heaven and Hell. - Be welcome, noble Peterkin.’ - - “Then shall I spread my native wings - And tread secure the heavenly floor, - And tell the Blessed doubtful things - Of Val d’Aran and Perigord.” - - * * * * * - - This was the last and solemn jest - Of weary Peter Wanderwide. - He spoke it with a failing zest, - And having spoken it, he died. - - - - -DEDICATORY ODE - - - I mean to write with all my strength - (It lately has been sadly waning), - A ballad of enormous length-- - Some parts of which will need explaining.[1] - - Because (unlike the bulk of men - Who write for fame or public ends), - I turn a lax and fluent pen - To talking of my private friends.[2] - - For no one, in our long decline, - So dusty, spiteful and divided, - Had quite such pleasant friends as mine, - Or loved them half as much as I did. - - * * * * * - - The Freshman ambles down the High, - In love with everything he sees, - He notes the very Midland sky, - He sniffs a more than Midland breeze. - - “Can this be Oxford? This the place?” - (He cries) “of which my father said - The tutoring was a damned disgrace, - The creed a mummery, stuffed and dead? - - “Can it be here that Uncle Paul - Was driven by excessive gloom, - To drink and debt, and, last of all, - To smoking opium in his room? - - “Is it from here the people come, - Who talk so loud, and roll their eyes, - And stammer? How extremely rum! - How curious! What a great surprise. - - “Some influence of a nobler day - Than theirs (I mean than Uncle Paul’s), - Has roused the sleep of their decay, - And flecked with light their ancient walls. - - “O! dear undaunted boys of old, - Would that your names were carven here, - For all the world in stamps of gold, - That I might read them and revere. - - “Who wrought and handed down for me - This Oxford of the larger air, - Laughing, and full of faith, and free, - With youth resplendent everywhere?” - - Then learn: thou ill-instructed, blind, - Young, callow, and untutored man, - Their private names were ...[3] - Their club was called REPUBLICAN. - - * * * * * - - Where on their banks of light they lie, - The happy hills of Heaven between, - The Gods that rule the morning sky - Are not more young, nor more serene - - Than were the intrepid Four that stand, - The first who dared to live their dream. - And on this uncongenial land - To found the Abbey of Theleme. - - We kept the Rabelaisian plan:[4] - We dignified the dainty cloisters - With Natural Law, the Rights of Man, - Song, Stoicism, Wine and Oysters. - - The library was most inviting: - The books upon the crowded shelves - Were mainly of our private writing: - We kept a school and taught ourselves. - - We taught the art of writing things - On men we still should like to throttle: - And where to get the Blood of Kings - At only half a crown a bottle. - - * * * * * - - Eheu Fugaces! Postume! - (An old quotation out of mode); - My coat of dreams is stolen away - My youth is passing down the road. - - * * * * * - - The wealth of youth, we spent it well - And decently, as very few can. - And is it lost? I cannot tell: - And what is more, I doubt if you can. - - The question’s very much too wide, - And much too deep, and much too hollow, - And learned men on either side - Use arguments I cannot follow. - - They say that in the unchanging place, - Where all we loved is always dear, - We meet our morning face to face - And find at last our twentieth year.... - - They say (and I am glad they say) - It is so; and it may be so: - It may be just the other way, - I cannot tell. But this I know: - - From quiet homes and first beginning, - Out to the undiscovered ends, - There’s nothing worth the wear of winning, - But laughter and the love of friends. - - * * * * * - - But something dwindles, oh! my peers, - And something cheats the heart and passes, - And Tom that meant to shake the years - Has come to merely rattling glasses. - - And He, the Father of the Flock, - Is keeping Burmesans in order, - An exile on a lonely rock - That overlooks the Chinese border. - - And One (Myself I mean--no less), - Ah!--will Posterity believe it-- - Not only don’t deserve success, - But hasn’t managed to achieve it. - - Not even this peculiar town - Has ever fixed a friendship firmer, - But--one is married, one’s gone down, - And one’s a Don, and one’s in Burmah. - - * * * * * - - And oh! the days, the days, the days, - When all the four were off together: - The infinite deep of summer haze, - The roaring charge of autumn weather! - - * * * * * - - I will not try the reach again, - I will not set my sail alone, - To moor a boat bereft of men - At Yarnton’s tiny docks of stone. - - But I will sit beside the fire, - And put my hand before my eyes, - And trace, to fill my heart’s desire, - The last of all our Odysseys. - - The quiet evening kept her tryst: - Beneath an open sky we rode, - And passed into a wandering mist - Along the perfect Evenlode. - - The tender Evenlode that makes - Her meadows hush to hear the sound - Of waters mingling in the brakes, - And binds my heart to English ground. - - A lovely river, all alone, - She lingers in the hills and holds - A hundred little towns of stones, - Forgotten in the western wolds - - * * * * * - - I dare to think (though meaner powers - Possess our thrones, and lesser wits - Are drinking worser wine than ours, - In what’s no longer Austerlitz) - - That surely a tremendous ghost, - The brazen-lunged, the bumper-filler, - Still sings to an immortal toast, - The Misadventures of the Miller. - - The unending seas are hardly bar - To men with such a prepossession: - We were? Why then, by God, we _are_-- - Order! I call the Club to session! - - You do retain the song we set, - And how it rises, trips and scans? - You keep the sacred memory yet, - Republicans? Republicans? - - You know the way the words were hurled, - To break the worst of fortune’s rub? - I give the toast across the world, - And drink it, “Gentlemen: the Club.” - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [1] But do not think I shall explain - To any great extent. Believe me, - I partly write to give you pain, - And if you do not like me, leave me. - - [2] And least of all can you complain, - Reviewers, whose unholy trade is, - To puff with all your might and main - Biographers of single ladies. - - [3] Never mind. - - [4] The plan forgot (I know not how, - Perhaps the Refectory filled it), - To put a chapel in; and now - We’re mortgaging the rest to build it. - - - - -DEDICATION ON THE GIFT OF A BOOK TO A CHILD - - - Child! do not throw this book about! - Refrain from the unholy pleasure - Of cutting all the pictures out! - Preserve it as your chiefest treasure. - - Child, have you never heard it said - That you are heir to all the ages? - Why, then, your hands were never made - To tear these beautiful thick pages! - - Your little hands were made to take - The better things and leave the worse ones: - They also may be used to shake - The Massive Paws of Elder Persons. - - And when your prayers complete the day, - Darling, your little tiny hands - Were also made, I think, to pray - For men that lose their fairylands. - - - - -DEDICATION OF A CHILD’S BOOK OF IMAGINARY TALES - -WHEREIN WRONG-DOERS SUFFER - - - And is it true? It is not true! - And if it was it wouldn’t do - For people such as me and you, - Who very nearly all day long - Are doing something rather wrong. - - - - -HOMAGE - - -I - - There is a light around your head - Which only Saints of God may wear, - And all the flowers on which you tread - In pleasaunce more than ours have fed, - And supped the essential air - Whose summer is a-pulse with music everywhere. - - -II - - For you are younger than the mornings are - That in the mountains break; - When upland shepherds see their only star - Pale on the dawn, and make - In his surcease the hours, - The early hours of all their happy circuit take. - - - - -FILLE-LA-HAINE - - - Death went into the steeple to ring, - And he pulled the rope and he tolled a knell. - Fille-la-Haine, how well you sing! - Why are they ringing the Passing Bell? - _Death went into the steeple to ring; - Fille-la-Haine, how well you sing!_ - - Death went down the stream in a boat, - Down the river of Seine went he; - Fille-la-Haine had a pain in her throat, - Fille-la-Haine was nothing to me. - _Death went down the stream in a boat; - Fille-la-Haine had a pain in her throat._ - - Death went up the hill in a cart - (I have forgotten her lips and her laughter). - Fille-la-Haine was my sweetheart - (And all the village was following after). - _Death went up the hill in a cart. - Fille-la-Haine was my sweetheart._ - - - - -THE MOON’S FUNERAL - - -I - - The Moon is dead. I saw her die. - She in a drifting cloud was drest, - She lay along the uncertain west, - A dream to see. - And very low she spake to me: - “I go where none may understand, - I fade into the nameless land, - And there must lie perpetually.” - And therefore I, - And therefore loudly, loudly I - And high - And very piteously make cry: - “The Moon is dead. I saw her die.” - - -II - - And will she never rise again? - The Holy Moon? Oh, never more! - Perhaps along the inhuman shore - Where pale ghosts are - Beyond the low lethean fen - She and some wide infernal star-- - To us who loved her never more, - The Moon will never rise again. - Oh! never more in nightly sky - Her eye so high shall peep and pry - To see the great world rolling by. - For why? - The Moon is dead. I saw her die. - - - - -THE HAPPY JOURNALIST - - - I love to walk about at night - By nasty lanes and corners foul, - All shielded from the unfriendly light - And independent as the owl. - - By dirty grates I love to lurk; - I often stoop to take a squint - At printers working at their work. - I muse upon the rot they print. - - The beggars please me, and the mud: - The editors beneath their lamps - As--Mr. Howl demanding blood, - And Lord Retender stealing stamps, - - And Mr. Bing instructing liars, - His elder son composing trash; - Beaufort (whose real name is Meyers) - Refusing anything but cash. - - I like to think of Mr. Meyers, - I like to think of Mr. Bing. - I like to think about the liars: - It pleases me, that sort of thing. - - Policemen speak to me, but I, - Remembering my civic rights, - Neglect them and do not reply. - I love to walk about at nights! - - At twenty-five to four I bunch - Across a cab I can’t afford. - I ring for breakfast after lunch. - I am as happy as a lord! - - - - -LINES TO A DON - - - Remote and ineffectual Don - That dared attack my Chesterton, - With that poor weapon, half-impelled, - Unlearnt, unsteady, hardly held, - Unworthy for a tilt with men-- - Your quavering and corroded pen; - Don poor at Bed and worse at Table, - Don pinched, Don starved, Don miserable; - Don stuttering, Don with roving eyes, - Don nervous, Don of crudities; - Don clerical, Don ordinary, - Don self-absorbed and solitary; - Don here-and-there, Don epileptic; - Don puffed and empty, Don dyspeptic; - Don middle-class, Don sycophantic, - Don dull, Don brutish, Don pedantic; - Don hypocritical, Don bad, - Don furtive, Don three-quarters mad; - Don (since a man must make an end), - Don that shall never be my friend. - - * * * * * - - Don different from those regal Dons! - With hearts of gold and lungs of bronze, - Who shout and bang and roar and bawl - The Absolute across the hall, - Or sail in amply bellowing gown - Enormous through the Sacred Town, - Bearing from College to their homes - Deep cargoes of gigantic tomes; - Dons admirable! Dons of Might! - Uprising on my inward sight - Compact of ancient tales, and port - And sleep--and learning of a sort. - Dons English, worthy of the land; - Dons rooted; Dons that understand. - Good Dons perpetual that remain - A landmark, walling in the plain-- - The horizon of my memories-- - Like large and comfortable trees. - - * * * * * - - Don very much apart from these, - Thou scapegoat Don, thou Don devoted, - Don to thine own damnation quoted, - Perplexed to find thy trivial name - Reared in my verse to lasting shame. - Don dreadful, rasping Don and wearing, - Repulsive Don--Don past all bearing. - Don of the cold and doubtful breath, - Don despicable, Don of death; - Don nasty, skimpy, silent, level; - Don evil; Don that serves the devil. - Don ugly--that makes fifty lines. - There is a Canon which confines - A Rhymed Octosyllabic Curse - If written in Iambic Verse - To fifty lines. I never cut; - I far prefer to end it--but - Believe me I shall soon return. - My fires are banked, yet still they burn - To write some more about the Don - That dared attack my Chesterton. - - - - -NEWDIGATE POEM - - A PRIZE POEM SUBMITTED BY MR. LAMBKIN OF BURFORD TO THE EXAMINERS OF - THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD ON THE PRESCRIBED POETIC THEME SET BY THEM - IN 1893, “THE BENEFITS OF THE ELECTRIC LIGHT” - - - Hail, Happy Muse, and touch the tuneful string! - The benefits conferred by Science[1] I sing. - Under the kind Examiners’ direction[2] - I only write about them in connection - With benefits which the Electric Light - Confers on us; especially at night. - These are my theme, of these my song shall rise. - My lofty head shall swell to strike the skies.[3] - And tears of hopeless love bedew the maiden’s eyes. - Descend, O Muse, from thy divine abode, - To Osney, on the Seven Bridges Road; - For under Osney’s solitary shade - The bulk of the Electric Light is made. - Here are the works;--from hence the current flows - Which (so the Company’s prospectus goes) - Can furnish to Subscribers hour by hour - No less than sixteen thousand candle power,[4] - All at a thousand volts. (It is essential - To keep the current at this high potential - In spite of the considerable expense.) - The Energy developed represents, - Expressed in foot-tons, the united forces - Of fifteen elephants and forty horses. - But shall my scientific detail thus - Clip the dear wings of Buoyant Pegasus? - Shall pure statistics jar upon the ear - That pants for Lyric accents loud and clear? - Shall I describe the complex Dynamo - Or write about its Commutator? No! - To happier fields I lead my wanton pen, - The proper study of mankind is men. - Awake, my Muse! Portray the pleasing sight - That meets us where they make Electric Light. - Behold the Electrician where he stands: - Soot, oil, and verdigris are on his hands; - Large spots of grease defile his dirty clothes, - The while his conversation drips with oaths. - Shall such a being perish in its youth? - Alas! it is indeed the fatal truth. - In that dull brain, beneath that hair unkempt, - Familiarity has bred contempt. - We warn him of the gesture all too late: - Oh, Heartless Jove! Oh, Adamantine Fate! - Some random touch--a hand’s imprudent slip-- - The Terminals--a flash--a sound like “Zip!” - A smell of burning fills the started Air-- - The Electrician is no longer there! - But let us turn with true Artistic scorn - From facts funereal and from views forlorn - Of Erebus and Blackest midnight born.[5] - Arouse thee, Muse! and chaunt in accents rich - The interesting processes by which - The Electricity is passed along: - These are my theme: to these I bend my song. - It runs encased in wood or porous brick - Through copper wires two millimetres thick, - And insulated on their dangerous mission - By indiarubber, silk, or composition. - Here you may put with critical felicity - The following question: “What is Electricity?” - “Molecular Activity,” say some, - Others when asked say nothing, and are dumb. - Whatever be its nature, this is clear: - The rapid current checked in its career, - Baulked in its race and halted in its course[6] - Transforms to heat and light its latent force: - It needs no pedant in the lecturer’s chair - To prove that light and heat are present there. - The pear-shaped vacuum globe, I understand, - Is far too hot to fondle with the hand. - While, as is patent to the meanest sight, - The carbon filament is very bright. - As for the lights they hang about the town, - Some praise them highly, others run them down. - This system (technically called the Arc), - Makes some passages too light, others too dark. - But in the house the soft and constant rays - Have always met with universal praise. - For instance: if you want to read in bed - No candle burns beside your curtain’s head, - Far from some distant corner of the room - The incandescent lamp dispels the gloom, - And with the largest print need hardly try - The powers of any young and vigorous eye. - Aroint thee, Muse! Inspired the poet sings! - I cannot help observing future things! - Life is a vale, its paths are dark and rough - Only because we do not know enough: - When Science has discovered something more - We shall be happier than we were before. - Hail, Britain, Mistress of the Azure Main, - Ten thousand Fleets sweep over thee in vain! - Hail, Mighty Mother of the Brave and Free, - That beat Napoleon, and gave birth to me! - Thou that canst wrap in thine emblazoned robe - One quarter of the habitable globe. - Thy mountains, wafted by a favouring breeze, - Like mighty rocks withstand the stormy seas. - Thou art a Christian Commonwealth; and yet - Be thou not all unthankful--nor forget - As thou exultest in Imperial Might - The Benefits of the Electric Light. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [1] To be pronounced as a monosyllable in the Imperial fashion. - - [2] Mr. Punt, Mr. Howl, and Mr. Grewcock (now, alas, deceased). - - [3] A neat rendering of “Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.” - - [4] To the Examiners: These facts (of which I guarantee the accuracy) - were given me by a Director. - - [5] A reminiscence of Milton: “Fas est et ab hoste doceri.” - - [6] Lambkin told me he regretted this line, which was for the sake of - Rhyme. He would willingly have replaced it, but to his last day - could construct no substitute. - - - - -THE YELLOW MUSTARD - - - Oh! ye that prink it to and fro, - In pointed flounce and furbelow, - What have ye known, what can ye know - That have not seen the mustard grow? - - The yellow mustard is no less - Than God’s good gift to loneliness; - And he was sent in gorgeous press - To jangle keys at my distress. - - I heard the throstle call again, - Come hither, Pain! come hither, Pain! - Till all my shameless feet were fain - To wander through the summer rain. - - And far apart from human place, - And flaming like a vast disgrace, - There struck me blinding in the face - The livery of the mustard race. - - * * * * * - - To see the yellow mustard grow - Beyond the town, above, below; - Beyond the purple houses, oh! - To see the yellow mustard grow! - - - - -ON HYGIENE - - - Of old when folk lay sick and sorely tried, - The doctors gave them medicine and they died. - Here is an happier age, for now we know - Both how to make men sick and keep them so. - - - - -THE FALSE HEART - - - I said to Heart, “How goes it?” Heart replied: - “Right as a Ribstone Pippin!” But it lied. - - * * * * * - - A critic said large margins did not please him, - I therefore printed just two lines, to tease him. - And if he still complains of what I’ve done, - In my next book I’ll fill a page with ONE. - - - - -SONNET UPON GOD, THE WINE GIVER - -(_For Easter Sunday_) - - - Thought Man made wine, I think God made it, too; - God making all things, made Man made good wine. - He taught him how the little tendrils twine - About the stakes of labor close and true. - Then next, with intimate prophetic laughter, - He taught the Man, in His own image blest, - To pluck and wagon and to--all the rest! - To tread the grape and work his vintage after. - - So did God make us, making good wine makers; - So did He order us to rule the field - And now by God are we not only bakers; - But winners also sacraments to yield; - Yet most of all strong lovers, Praised be God! - Who taught us how the wine-press should be trod! - - - - -THE POLITICIAN OR THE IRISH EARLDOM - - - A strong and striking Personality, - Worth several hundred thousand pounds-- - Of strict political Morality-- - Was walking in his park-like Grounds; - When, just as these began to pall on him - (I mean the Trees, and Things like that), - A Person who had come to call on him - Approached him, taking off his Hat. - - He said, with singular veracity: - “I serve our Sea-girt Mother-Land - In no conspicuous capacity. - I am but an Attorney; and - I do a little elementary - Negotiation, now and then, - As Agent for a Parliamentary - Division of the Town of N.... - - “Merely as one of the Electorate-- - A member of the Commonweal-- - Before completing my Directorate, - I want to know the way you feel - On matters more or less debatable; - As--whether our Imperial Pride - Can treat as taxable or rateable - The Gardens of ...” His host replied: - - “The Ravages of Inebriety - (Alas! increasing day by day!) - Are undermining all Society. - I do not hesitate to say - My country squanders her abilities, - Observe how Montenegro treats - Her Educational Facilities.... - ... As to the African defeats, - - “I bitterly deplored their frequency; - On Canada we are agreed, - The Laws protecting Public Decency - Are very, very lax indeed! - The Views of most of the Nobility - Are very much the same as mine, - On Thingumbob’s eligibility ... - I trust that you remain to dine?” - - His Lordship pressed with importunity, - As rarely he had pressed before. - - * * * * * - - It gave them both an opportunity - To know each other’s value more. - - - - -SHORT BALLAD AND POSTSCRIPT ON CONSOLS - - -I - - Gigantic daughter of the West - (The phrase is Tennysonian), who - From this unconquerable breast - The vigorous milk of Freedom drew - --We gave it freely--shall the crest - Of Empire in your keeping true, - Shall England--I forget the rest, - But Consols are at 82. - - -II - - Now why should any one invest, - As even City people do - (His Lordship did among the rest), - When stocks--but what is that to you? - And then, who ever could have guessed - About the guns--and horses too!-- - Besides, they knew their business best, - And Consols are at 82. - - -III - - It serves no purpose to protest, - It isn’t manners to halloo - About the way the thing was messed-- - Or vaguely call a man a Jew. - A gentleman who cannot jest - Remarked that we should muddle through - (The continent was much impressed), - And Consols are at 82. - - -_Envoi_ - - And, Botha lay at Pilgrim’s Rest - And Myberg in the Great Karroo - (A desert to the south and west), - And Consols are at 82. - - -_Postscript_ - - Permit me--if you do not mind-- - To add it would be screaming fun - If, after printing this, I find - Them after all at 81. - - Or 70 or 63, - Or 55 or 44, - Or 39 and going free, - Or 28--or even more. - - No matter--take no more advice - From doubtful and intriguing men. - Refuse the stuff at any price, - And slowly watch them fall to 10. - - Meanwhile I feel a certain zest - In writing once again the new - Refrain that all is for the best, - And Consols are at 82. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Verses, by Hilaire Belloc - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VERSES *** - -***** This file should be named 60487-0.txt or 60487-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/4/8/60487/ - -Produced by Tim Lindell, David E. 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