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diff --git a/old/60663-0.txt b/old/60663-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6fe2c59..0000000 --- a/old/60663-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4329 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sonnets and Verse, by Hilaire Belloc - -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: Sonnets and Verse - -Author: Hilaire Belloc - -Release Date: November 10, 2019 [EBook #60663] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONNETS AND VERSE *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell, 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/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - SONNETS AND VERSE - - BY - - H. BELLOC - - - - - SONNETS AND VERSE - - BY - - H. BELLOC - - [Illustration: colophon] - - DUCKWORTH & CO. - 3 HENRIETTA STREET, LONDON, W.C. - - - _First Published in 1923_ - - _All rights reserved_ - - - _Made and Printed in Great Britain - by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh_ - - - - - 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_ - _Which 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 - - -I. SONNETS - - PAGE - -I. LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS IN GUMBER, LAUGH -THE WEALD 3 - -II. I WAS LIKE ONE THAT KEEPS THE DECK BY NIGHT 4 - -III. RISE UP AND DO BEGIN THE DAY’S ADORNING 5 - -IV. THE WINTER MOON HAS SUCH A QUIET CAR 6 - -V. WHATEVER MOISTURE NOURISHES THE ROSE 7 - -VI. YOUTH GAVE YOU TO ME, BUT I’LL NOT BELIEVE 8 - -VII. MORTALITY IS BUT THE STUFF YOU WEAR 9 - -VIII. NOT FOR THE LUCKLESS BUDS OUR ROOTS MAY BEAR 10 - -IX. THAT WHICH IS ONE THEY SHEAR AND MAKE IT TWAIN 11 - -X. SHALL ANY MAN FOR WHOSE STRONG LOVE ANOTHER 12 - -XI. THEY THAT HAVE TAKEN WAGES OF THINGS DONE 13 - -XII. BEAUTY THAT PARENT IS TO DEATHLESS RHYME 14 - -XIII. WHAT ARE THE NAMES FOR BEAUTY? WHO SHALL PRAISE 15 - -XIV. LOVE WOOING HONOUR, HONOUR’S LOVE DID WIN 16 - -XV. YOUR LIFE IS LIKE A LITTLE WINTER’S DAY 17 - -XVI. NOW SHALL THE CERTAIN PURPOSE OF MY SOUL 18 - -XVII. BECAUSE MY FALTERING FEET MAY FAIL TO DARE 19 - -XVIII. WHEN YOU TO ACHERON’S UGLY WATER COME 20 - -XIX. WE WILL NOT WHISPER, WE HAVE FOUND THE PLACE 21 - -XX. I WENT TO SLEEP AT DAWN IN TUSCANY 22 - -XXI. ALMIGHTY GOD, WHOSE JUSTICE LIKE A SUN 23 - -XXII. MOTHER OF ALL MY CITIES ONCE THERE LAY 24 - -XXIII. NOVEMBER IS THAT HISTORIED EMPEROR 25 - -XXIV. HOAR TIME ABOUT THE HOUSE BETAKES HIM SLOW 26 - -XXV. IT FREEZES: ALL ACROSS A SOUNDLESS SKY 27 - -XXVI. O MY COMPANION, O MY SISTER SLEEP 28 - -XXVII. ARE YOU THE END, DESPAIR, OR THE POOR LEAST 29 - -XXVIII. BUT OH! NOT LOVELY HELEN, NOR THE PRIDE 30 - -XXIX. THE WORLD’S A STAGE. THE LIGHT IS IN ONE’S EYES 31 - -XXX. THE WORLD’S A STAGE--AND I’M THE SUPER MAN 32 - -XXXI. THE WORLD’S A STAGE. THE TRIFLING ENTRANCE FEE 33 - - -II. LYRICAL, DIDACTIC AND GROTESQUE - -TO DIVES 37 - -STANZAS WRITTEN ON BATTERSEA BRIDGE DURING A SOUTH-WESTERLY GALE 39 - -THE SOUTH COUNTRY 42 - -THE FANATIC 45 - -THE EARLY MORNING 48 - -OUR LORD AND OUR LADY 49 - -COURTESY 51 - -THE NIGHT 53 - -THE LEADER 54 - -A BIVOUAC 56 - -TO THE BALLIOL MEN STILL IN AFRICA 57 - -VERSES TO A LORD WHO, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, -SAID THAT THOSE WHO OPPOSED THE SOUTH AFRICAN -ADVENTURE CONFUSED SOLDIERS WITH MONEY-GRUBBERS 59 - -THE REBEL 61 - -THE PROPHET LOST IN THE HILLS AT EVENING 63 - -THE END OF THE ROAD 65 - -AN ORACLE THAT WARNED THE WRITER WHEN ON PILGRIMAGE 67 - -THE DEATH AND LAST CONFESSION OF WANDERING PETER 68 - -DEDICATORY ODE 70 - -DEDICATION ON THE GIFT OF A BOOK TO A CHILD 78 - -DEDICATION OF A CHILD’S BOOK OF IMAGINARY TALES 79 - -HOMAGE 80 - -THE MOON’S FUNERAL 81 - -THE HAPPY JOURNALIST 83 - -LINES TO A DON 85 - -NEWDIGATE POEM 88 - -THE YELLOW MUSTARD 93 - -THE POLITICIAN OR THE IRISH EARLDOM 94 - -THE LOSER 96 - - -III. SONGS - -NOËL 99 - -THE BIRDS 101 - -IN A BOAT 102 - -SONG INVITING THE INFLUENCE OF A YOUNG LADY UPON THE OPENING YEAR 104 - -THE RING 105 - -CUCKOO! 106 - -THE LITTLE SERVING MAID 107 - -AUVERGNAT 110 - -DRINKING SONG, ON THE EXCELLENCE OF BURGUNDY -WINE 111 - -DRINKING DIRGE 113 - -WEST SUSSEX DRINKING SONG 115 - -A BALLAD ON SOCIOLOGICAL ECONOMICS 117 - -HERETICS ALL 118 - -HA’NACKER MILL 119 - -TARANTELLA 120 - -THE CHAUNTY OF THE “NONA” 122 - -THE WINGED HORSE 125 - -STREPHON’S SONG (FROM “THE CRUEL SHEPHERDESS”) 127 - - -IV. BALLADES - -SHORT BALLADE AND POSTSCRIPT ON CONSOLS AND BOERS 131 - -BALLADE OF THE UNANSWERED QUESTION 134 - -BALLADE TO OUR LADY OF CZESTOCHOWA 136 - -BALLADE OF HELL AND OF MRS ROEBECK 138 - -BALLADE OF UNSUCCESSFUL MEN 140 - -BALLADE OF THE HERESIARCHS 142 - - -V. EPIGRAMS 147 - - -VI. THE BALLAD OF VAL-ÈS-DUNES 157 - - - - -I SONNETS - - - I - - Lift up your hearts in Gumber, laugh the Weald - And you my mother the Valley of Arun sing. - Here am I homeward from my wandering - Here am I homeward and my heart is healed. - You my companions whom the World has tired - Come out to greet me. I have found a face - More beautiful than Gardens; more desired - Than boys in exile love their native place. - - Lift up your hearts in Gumber, laugh the Weald - And you most ancient Valley of Arun sing. - Here am I homeward from my wandering, - Here am I homeward and my heart is healed. - If I was thirsty, I have heard a spring. - If I was dusty, I have found a field. - - -II - - I was like one that keeps the deck by night - Bearing the tiller up against his breast; - I was like one whose soul is centred quite - In holding course although so hardly prest, - And veers with veering shock now left now right, - And strains his foothold still and still makes play - Of bending beams until the sacred light - Shows him high lands and heralds up the day. - - But now such busy work of battle past - I am like one whose barque at bar at last - Comes hardly heeling down the adventurous breeze; - And entering calmer seas, - I am like one that brings his merchandise - To Californian skies. - - -III - - Rise up and do begin the day’s adorning; - The Summer dark is but the dawn of day. - The last of sunset fades into the morning; - The morning calls you from the dark away. - The holy mist, the white mist of the morning - Was wreathing upward on my lonely way. - The way was waiting for your own adorning - That should complete the broad adornéd day. - - Rise up and do begin the day’s adorning; - The little eastern clouds are dapple grey: - There will be wind among the leaves to-day; - It is the very promise of the morning. - _Lux Tua Via Mea_: your light’s my way-- - Then do rise up and make it perfect day. - - -IV - - The Winter Moon has such a quiet car - That all the winter nights are dumb with rest. - She drives the gradual dark with drooping crest - And dreams go wandering from her drowsy star - Because the nights are silent do not wake - But there shall tremble through the general earth, - And over you, a quickening and a birth. - The Sun is near the hill-tops for your sake. - - The latest born of all the days shall creep - To kiss the tender eyelids of the year; - And you shall wake, grown young with perfect sleep, - And smile at the new world and make it dear - With living murmurs more than dreams are deep; - Silence is dead, my dawn, the morning’s here. - - - V - - Whatever moisture nourishes the Rose - The Rose of the World in laughter’s garden-bed - Where Souls of men on faith secure are fed - And spirits immortal keep their pleasure-close. - Whatever moisture nourishes the Rose, - The burning Rose of the world, for me the same - To-day for me the spring without a name - Content or Grace or Laughter overflows. - - This is that water from the Fount of Gold - Water of Youth and washer out of cares - Which Raymond of Saragossa sought of old - And finding in the mountain, unawares, - Returned to hear an ancient story told - To Bramimond, his love, beside the marble stairs. - - -VI - - Youth gave you to me, but I’ll not believe - That Youth will, taking his quick self, take you. - Youth’s all our Truth: he cannot so deceive. - He has our graces, not our ownselves too. - He still compares with time when he’ll be spent, - By human doom enhancing what we are; - Enriches us with rare experiment, - Lends arms to leagured Age in Time’s rough war. - - Look! This Youth in us is an Old Man taking - A Boy to make him wiser than his days. - So is our old Youth our young Age’s making: - So rich in time our final debt he pays. - Then with your quite young arms do you me hold - And I will still be young when all the World’s grown old. - - -VII - - Mortality is but the Stuff you wear - To show the better on the imperfect sight. - Your home is surely with the changeless light - Of which you are the daughter and the heir. - For as you pass, the natural life of things - Proclaims the Resurrection: as you pass - Remembered summer shines across the grass - And somewhat in me of the immortal sings. - - You were not made for memory, you are not - Youth’s accident I think but heavenly more; - Moulding to meaning slips my pen’s poor blot - And opening wide that long forbidden door - Where stands the Mother of God, your exemplar. - How beautiful, how beautiful you are! - - -VIII - - Not for the luckless buds our roots may bear - Now all in bloom, now seared and cankered lying - Will I entreat you, lest they should compare - Foredoomed humanity with the fall of flowers. - Hold thou with me the chaste communion rare - And touch with life this mortal case of ours: - You’re lifted up beyond the power of dying: - I die, as bounded things die everywhere. - - You’re voiced companionship, I’m silence lonely; - You’re stuff, I’m void; you’re living, I’m decay. - I fall, I think, to-night and ending only; - You rise, I know, through still advancing day. - And knowing living gift were life for me - In narrow room of rhyme I fixed it certainly. - - -IX - - That which is one they shear and make it twain - Who would Love’s light and dark discriminate: - His pleasure is one essence with his pain, - Even his desire twin brother to his hate. - With him the foiled attempt is half achieving; - And being mastered, to be armed a lord; - And doubting every chance is still believing; - And losing all one’s own is all reward. - - I am acquainted with misfortune’s fortune, - And better than herself her dowry know: - For she that is my fortune and misfortune, - Making me hapless, makes me happier so: - In which conceit, as older men may prove, - Lies manifest the very core of Love. - - - X - - Shall any man for whose strong love another - Has thrown away his wealth and name in one, - Shall he turn mocker of a more than brother - To slight his need when his adventure’s done? - Or shall a breedless boy whose mother won him - In great men’s great concerns his little place - Turn when his farthing honours come upon him - To mock her yeoman air and conscious grace? - - Then mock me as you do my narrow scope, - For you it was put out this light of mine: - Wrongfully wrecked my new adventured hope, - Wasted my wordy wealth, spilt my rich wine, - Made my square ship within a league of shore - Alas! To be entombed in seas and seen no more. - - -XI - - They that have taken wages of things done - When sense abused has blocked the doors of sense, - They that have lost their heritage of the sun, - Their laughter and their holy innocence; - They turn them now to this thing, now to t’other, - For anchor hold against swift-eddying time, - Some to that square of earth which was their mother, - And some to noisy fame, and some to rhyme. - - But I to that far morning where you stood - In fullness of the body, with your hands - Reposing on your walls, before your lands, - And all, together, making one great good: - Then did I cry “For this my birth was meant. - These are my use, and this my sacrament!” - - -XII - - Beauty that Parent is to deathless Rhyme - Was Manhood’s maker: you shall bear a Son, - Till Daughters linked adown admiring time - Fulfil the mother, handing Beauty on. - You shall by breeding make Life answer yet, - In Time’s despite, Time’s jeer that men go void; - Your stamp of heaven shall be more largely set - Than my one joy, ten thousand times enjoyed. - - The glories of our state and its achievement, - Which wait their passing, shall not pass away. - I will extend our term beyond bereavement, - And launch our date into a dateless day. - For you shall make recórd, and when that’s sealed - In Beauty made immortal, all is healed. - - -XIII - - What are the names for Beauty? Who shall praise - God’s pledge he can fulfil His creatures’ eyes? - Or what strong words of what creative phrase - Determine Beauty’s title in the skies? - But I will call you Beauty Personate, - Ambassadorial Beauty, and again - Beauty triumphant, Beauty in the Gate, - Beauty salvation of the souls of men. - - For Beauty was not Beauty till you came - And now shall Beauty mean the sign you are; - A Beacon burnt above the Dawn, a flame - Like holy Lucifer the Morning Star, - Who latest hangs in Heaven and is the gem - On all the widowéd Night’s expectant Diadem. - - -XIV - - Love wooing Honour, Honour’s love did win - And had his pleasure all a summer’s day. - Not understanding how the dooms begin, - Love wooing Honour, wooed her life away. - Then wandered he a full five years unrest - Until, one night, this Honour that had died - Came as he slept, in youth grown glorified - And smiling like the Saints whom God has blest. - - But when he saw her on the clear night shine - Serene with more than mortal light upon her, - The boy that careless was of things divine, - Small Love, turned penitent to worship Honour. - So Love can conquer Honour: when that’s past - Dead Honour risen outdoes Love at last. - - -XV - - Your life is like a little winter’s day - Whose sad sun rises late to set too soon; - You have just come--why will you go away, - Making an evening of what should be noon. - Your life is like a little flute complaining - A long way off, beyond the willow trees: - A long way off, and nothing left remaining - But memory of a music on the breeze. - - Your life is like a pitiful leave-taking - Wept in a dream before a man’s awaking, - A Call with only shadows to attend: - A Benediction whispered and belated - Which has no fruit beyond a consecrated, - A consecrated silence at the end. - - -XVI - - Now shall the certain purpose of my soul - By blind and empty things controlled be, - And mine audacious course to that far goal - Fall short, confessing mere mortality. - Limbs shall have movement and ignore their living, - Brain wit, that he his quickness may deny. - My promised hope forswears in act of giving, - Time eats me up and makes my words a lie. - - And mine unbounded dream has found a bar, - And I must worst deceit of best things bear. - Now dawn’s but daybreak, seas but waters are, - Night darkness only, all wide heaven just air: - And you to whom these fourteen lines I tell, - My beauty, my desire: but not my love as well. - - -XVII - - Because my faltering feet may fail to dare - The first descendant of the steps of Hell - Give me the Word in time that triumphs there. - I too must pass into the misty hollow - Where all our living laughter stops: and hark! - The tiny stuffless voices of the dark - Have called me, called me, till I needs must follow: - Give me the Word and I’ll attempt it well. - - Say it’s the little winking of an eye - Which in that issue is uncurtained quite; - A little sleep that helps a moment by - Between the thin dawn and the large daylight. - Ah! tell me more than yet was hoped of men; - Swear that’s true now, and I’ll believe it then. - - -XVIII - - When you to Acheron’s ugly water come - Where darkness is and formless mourners brood - And down the shelves of that distasteful flood - Survey the human rank in order dumb. - When the pale dead go forward, tortured more - By nothingness and longing than by fire, - Which bear their hands in suppliance with desire, - With stretched desire for the ulterior shore. - - Then go before them like a royal ghost - And tread like Egypt or like Carthage crowned; - Because in your Mortality the most - Of all we may inherit has been found-- - Children for memory: the Faith for pride. - Good land to leave: and young Love satisfied. - - -XIX - - We will not whisper, we have found the place - Of silence and the endless halls of sleep. - And that which breathes alone throughout the deep - The end and the beginning: and the face - Between the level brows of whose blind eyes - Lie plenary contentment, full surcease - Of violence, and the passionless long peace - Wherein we lose our human lullabies. - - Look up and tell the immeasurable height - Between the vault of the world and your dear head; - That’s death, my little sister, and the night - Which was our Mother beckons us to bed, - Where large oblivion in her house is laid - For us tired children, now our games are played. - - -XX - - I went to sleep at Dawn in Tuscany - Beneath a Rock and dreamt a morning dream. - I thought I stood by that baptismal stream - Whereon the bounds of our redemption lie. - And there, beyond, a radiance rose to take - My soul at passing, in which light your eyes - So filled me I was drunk with Paradise. - Then the day broadened, but I did not wake. - - Here’s the last edge of my long parchment furled - And all was writ that you might read it so. - This sleep I swear shall last the length of day; - Not noise, not chance, shall drive this dream away: - Not time, not treachery, not good fortune--no, - Not all the weight of all the wears of the world. - - -XXI - - Almighty God, whose justice like a sun - Shall coruscate along the floors of Heaven, - Raising what’s low, perfecting what’s undone, - Breaking the proud and making odd things even. - The poor of Jesus Christ along the street - In your rain sodden, in your snows unshod, - They have nor hearth, nor sword, nor human meat, - Nor even the bread of men: Almighty God. - - The poor of Jesus Christ whom no man hears - Have waited on your vengeance much too long. - Wipe out not tears but blood: our eyes bleed tears. - Come smite our damnéd sophistries so strong - That thy rude hammer battering this rude wrong - Ring down the abyss of twice ten thousand years. - - -XXII - - Mother of all my cities once there lay - About your weedy wharves an orient shower - Of spice and languorous silk and all the dower - That Ocean gave you on his bridal day. - And now the youth and age have passed away - And all the sail superb and all the power; - Your time’s a time of memory like that hour - Just after sunset, wonderful and grey. - - Too tired to rise and much too sad to weep, - With strong arm nerveless on a nerveless knee, - Still to your slumbering ears the spousal deep - Murmurs his thoughts of eld eternally; - But your soul wakes not from its holy sleep - Dreaming of dead delights beside a tideless sea. - - -XXIII - - November is that historied Emperor - Conquered in age but foot to foot with fate - Who from his refuge high has heard the roar - Of squadrons in pursuit, and now, too late, - Stirrups the storm and calls the winds to war, - And arms the garrison of his last heirloom, - And shakes the sky to its extremest shore - With battle against irrevocable doom. - - Till, driven and hurled from his strong citadels, - He flies in hurrying cloud and spurs him on, - Empty of lingerings, empty of farewells - And final benedictions and is gone. - But in my garden all the trees have shed - Their legacies of the light and all the flowers are dead. - - -XXIV - - Hoar Time about the House betakes him slow - Seeking an entry for his weariness. - And in that dreadful company distress - And the sad night with silent footsteps go. - On my poor fire the brands are scarce aglow - And in the woods without what memories press - Where, waning in the trees from less to less - Mysterious hangs the hornéd moon and low. - - For now December, full of agéd care - Comes in upon the year and weakly grieves; - Mumbling his lost desires and his despair - And with mad trembling hand still interweaves - The dank sear flower-stalks tangled in his hair, - While round about him whirl the rotten leaves. - - -XXV - - It freezes: all across a soundless sky - The birds go home. The governing dark’s begun. - The steadfast dark that waits not for a sun; - The ultimate dark wherein the race shall die. - Death with his evil finger to his lip - Leers in at human windows, turning spy - To learn the country where his rule shall lie - When he assumes perpetual generalship. - - The undefeated enemy, the chill - That shall benumb the voiceful earth at last, - Is master of our moment, and has bound - The viewless wind itself. There is no sound. - It freezes. Every friendly stream is fast. - It freezes, and the graven twigs are still. - - -XXVI - - O my companion, O my sister Sleep, - The valley is all before us, bear me on. - High through the heaven of evening, hardly gone, - Beyond the harbour lights, beyond the steep, - Beyond the land and its lost benison - To where, majestic on the darkening deep, - The night comes forward from Mount Aurion. - O my companion, O my sister Sleep. - - Above the surf-line, into the night-breeze; - Eastward above the ever-whispering seas; - Through the warm airs with no more watch to keep. - My day’s run out and all its dooms are graven. - O dear forerunner of Death and promise of Haven. - O my companion, O my sister Sleep. - - -XXVII - - Are you the end, Despair, or the poor least - Of them that cast great shadows and are lies? - That dread the simple and destroy the wise, - Fail at the tomb and triumph at the feast? - You were not found on Olivet, dull beast, - Nor in Thebaid, when the night’s agonies - Dissolved to glory on the effulgent east - And Jesus Christ was in the morning skies. - - You did not curb the indomitable crest - Of Tzerna-Gora, when the Falcon-bred - Screamed over the Adriatic, and their Lord - Went riding out, much angrier than the rest, - To summon at ban the living and the dead - And break the Mahommedan with the repeated sword. - - -XXVIII - - But oh! not Lovely Helen, nor the pride - Of that most ancient Ilium matched with doom. - Men murdered Priam in his royal room - And Troy was burned with fire and Hector died. - For even Hector’s dreadful day was more - Than all his breathing courage dared defend - The armouréd light and bulwark of the war - Trailed his great story to the accustomed end. - - He was the city’s buttress, Priam’s Son, - The Soldier born in bivouac praises great - And horns in double front of battle won. - Yet down he went: when unremembering fate - Felled him at last with all his armour on. - Hector: the horseman: in the Scæan Gate. - - -XXIX - - The world’s a stage. The light is in one’s eyes. - The Auditorium is extremely dark. - The more dishonest get the larger rise; - The more offensive make the greater mark. - The women on it prosper by their shape, - Some few by their vivacity. The men, - By tailoring in breeches and in cape. - The world’s a stage--I say it once again. - - The scenery is very much the best - Of what the wretched drama has to show, - Also the prompter happens to be dumb. - We drink behind the scenes and pass a jest - On all our folly; then, before we go - Loud cries for “Author” ... but he doesn’t come. - - -XXX - - The world’s a stage--and I’m the Super man, - And no one seems responsible for salary. - I roar my part as loudly as I can - And all I mouth I mouth it to the gallery. - I haven’t got another rhyme in “alery” - It would have made a better job, no doubt - If I had left attempt at Rhyming out, - Like Alfred Tennyson adapting Malory. - - The world’s a stage, the company of which - Has very little talent and less reading: - But many a waddling heathen painted bitch - And many a standing cad of gutter breeding. - We sweat to learn our book: for all our pains - We pass. The Chucker-out alone remains. - - -XXXI - - The world’s a stage. The trifling entrance fee - Is paid (by proxy) to the registrar. - The Orchestra is very loud and free - But plays no music in particular. - They do not print a programme, that I know. - The caste is large. There isn’t any plot. - The acting of the piece is far below - The very worst of modernistic rot. - - The only part about it I enjoy - Is what was called in English the Foyay. - There will I stand apart awhile and toy - With thought, and set my cigarette alight; - And then--without returning to the play-- - On with my coat and out into the night. - - - - -II - -LYRICAL, DIDACTIC AND GROTESQUE - - - - -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 County 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 born 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.” - - - - -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. - - - - -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. - - - - -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. - - - - -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. - - - - -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. - - - - -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 wallopped 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.[A] - - 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.[B] - - 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 racing autumn sky. - He sniffs a lively autumn 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 life their crumbling 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....[C] - 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:[D] - 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 boast 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 stone, - 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.” - - - - -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. - - - - -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, but still they burn - To write some more about the Don - That dared attack my Chesterton. - - - - -NEWDIGATE POEM - - A PRIZE POEM SUBMITTED BY MR LAMBKIN, THEN SCHOLAR AND LATER FELLOW - OF BURFORD COLLEGE, 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[E] I sing. - Under the kind Examiners’ direction[F] - 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.[G] - 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,[H] - 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! - A 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.[I] - 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[J] - 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. - - - - -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! - - - - -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. - - - - -THE LOSER - - - He lost his money first of all - --And losing that is half the story-- - And later on he tried a fall - With Fate, in things less transitory. - - He lost his heart--and found it dead-- - (His one and only true discovery), - And after that he lost his head, - And lost his chances of recovery. - - He lost his honour bit by bit - Until the thing was out of question. - He worried so at losing it, - He lost his sleep and his digestion. - - He lost his temper--and for good-- - The remnants of his reputation, - His taste in wine, his choice of food, - And then, in rapid culmination, - - His certitudes, his sense of truth, - His memory, his self-control, - The love that graced his early youth, - And lastly his immortal soul. - - - - -III - -SONGS - - - - -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 Nostre 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 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. - - - - -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. - - - - -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 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. - - - - -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 the 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). - - - - -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_. - - - - -HA’NACKER MILL - - - Sally is gone that was so kindly - Sally is gone from Ha’nacker Hill. - And the Briar grows ever since then so blindly - And ever since then the clapper is still, - And the sweeps have fallen from Ha’nacker Mill - - Ha’nacker Hill is in Desolation: - Ruin a-top and a field unploughed. - And Spirits that call on a fallen nation - Spirits that loved her calling aloud: - Spirits abroad in a windy cloud. - - Spirits that call and no one answers; - Ha’nacker’s down and England’s done. - Wind and Thistle for pipe and dancers - And never a ploughman under the Sun. - Never a ploughman. Never a one. - - - - -TARANTELLA - - - Do you remember an Inn, - Miranda? - Do you remember an Inn? - And the tedding and the spreading - Of the straw for a bedding, - And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees, - And the wine that tasted of the tar? - And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers - (Under the vine of the dark verandah)? - Do you remember an Inn, Miranda, - Do you remember an Inn? - And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers - Who hadn’t got a penny, - And who weren’t paying any, - And the hammer at the doors and the Din? - And the Hip! Hop! Hap! - Of the clap - Of the hands to the twirl and the swirl - Of the girl gone chancing, - Glancing, - Dancing, - Backing and advancing, - Snapping of the clapper to the spin - Out and in---- - And the Ting, Tong, Tang of the Guitar! - Do you remember an Inn, - Miranda? - Do you remember an Inn? - - Never more; - Miranda, - Never more. - Only the high peaks hoar: - And Aragon a torrent at the door. - No sound - In the walls of the Halls where falls - The tread - Of the feet of the dead to the ground - No sound: - But the boom - Of the far Waterfall like Doom. - - - - -THE CHAUNTY OF THE “NONA” - - - I - - Come list all ye Cullies and Doxies so dear, - You shall hearken to the tale of the Bold Marineer - That took ship out of Holyhead and drove her so hard - Past Bardsey, Pwlheli, Port Madoc, and Fishguard-- - _Past Bardsey, Pwlheli, Port Madoc, and Fishguard_. - - -II - - Then he dropped out of Fishguard on a calm Summer’s day, - By St David’s and Strumbles and across St Bride’s Bay; - Circumnavigating Skomer, that Island, around, - With the heart of a Lion he threaded Jack Sound-- - _With the heart of a Lion he threaded Jack Sound_. - - -III - - But from out the Main Ocean there rolled a great cloud, - So he clawed into Milford Haven by the Fog Blast so loud, - Until he dropped anchor in a deep-wooded bay, - Where all night with Old Sleep and Quiet Sadness he lay-- - _Where all night with Old Sleep and Quiet Sadness he lay_. - - -IV - - Next morning was a Doldrum, and he whistled for a breeze, - Which came from the N.N.W.’ard all across the high seas; - And in passing St Govan’s lightship he gave them good night, - But before it was morning he raised Lundy Light-- - _Before it was morning he had raised Lundy Light_. - - - V - - Then he tossed for twelve hours in that horrible place - Which is known to the Mariner as the Great White Horse Race, - Till with a slant about three bells, or maybe near four, - He saw white water breaking upon Loud Appledore-- - _He saw white water breaking upon Loud Appledore_. - - -VI - - The Pirates of Appledore, the Wines of Instow; - But her nose is for Bideford with the tide at the flow. - Rattle anchor, batten hatches, and leave your falls curled. - The Long Bridge of Bideford is the end of the World-- - _The Long Bridge of Bideford is the end of the World_. - - - - -THE WINGED HORSE - - - I - - It’s ten years ago to-day you turned me out o’ doors - To cut my feet on flinty lands and stumble down the shores, - And I thought about the all-in-all, oh more than I can tell! - But I caught a horse to ride upon and I rode him very well, - He had flame behind the eyes of him and wings upon his side. - And I ride, and I ride! - - -II - - I rode him out of Wantage and I rode him up the hill, - And there I saw the Beacon in the morning standing still, - Inkpen and Hackpen and southward and away - High through the middle airs in the strengthening of the day, - And there I saw the channel-glint and England in her pride. - And I ride, and I ride! - - -III - - And once a-top of Lambourne down toward the hill of Clere - I saw the Host of Heaven in rank and Michael with his spear, - And Turpin out of Gascony and Charlemagne the Lord, - And Roland of the marches with his hand upon his sword - For the time he should have need of it, and forty more beside. - And I ride, and I ride! - - -IV - - For you that took the all-in-all the things you left were three. - A loud voice for singing and keen eyes to see, - And a spouting well of joy within that never yet was dried! - And I ride. - - - - -STREPHON’S SONG - - (FROM “THE CRUEL SHEPHERDESS”) - - - When I was not much older - Than Cupid, but bolder, - I asked of his Mother in passing her bower - What it was in their blindness - Men asked of her kindness - And she said it was nought but a delicate flower: - Such a delicate, delicate, delicate flower! - - This morning you kissed me, - By noon you dismissed me - As though such great things were the jest of one hour, - And you left me still wondering - If I were not too blundering - To deal with that delicate, delicate flower: - ’Tis such a delicate, delicate, delicate flower! - - For if that’s the complexion - Of Ladies’ affection - I must needs be a fool to remain in their power; - But there’s that in me burning - Which brings me returning - To beg for the delicate, delicate flower; - To implore for that delicate, delicate flower! - - - - -IV - -BALLADES - - - - -SHORT BALLADE AND POSTSCRIPT ON CONSOLS AND BOERS - - - 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 anyone 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. - - -_Last Envoi._ - - Prince, you and I were barely thirty-three, - And now I muse and wonder if it’s true, - That you were you and I myself was me, - And 3 per cents were really 82! - - - - -BALLADE OF THE UNANSWERED QUESTION - - - I - - What dwelling hath Sir Harland Pott - That died of drinking in Bungay? - Nathaniel Goacher who was shot - Towards the end of Malplaquet? - The only thing that we can say, - (The only thing that has been said) - About these gentlemen is, “Nay! - But where are the unanswering dead” - - -II - - Lord Bumplepuppy, too, that got - The knock from Messrs Dawkins’ dray? - And Jonas, whom the Cachalot - Begulphed in Esdraelon Bay? - The Calvinistic John McKay, - Who argued till his nostrils bled, - And dropped in apoplexy? Nay! - But where are the unanswering dead? - - -III - - And Heliodorus too, that hot - Defender of the Roman sway; - And He, the author of the “_Tot - Mercedes dant Victoriæ_,” - And all the armoured squadrons gay - That ever glory nourishèd - In all the world’s high charges? Nay! - But where are the unanswering dead? - - -_Envoi_ - - Prince, have you ever learnt to pray - Upon your knees beside your bed? - You miserable waxwork? Nay! - But where are the unanswering dead? - - - - -BALLADE TO OUR LADY OF CZESTOCHOWA - - - I - - Lady and Queen and Mystery manifold - And very Regent of the untroubled sky, - Whom in a dream St Hilda did behold - And heard a woodland music passing by: - You shall receive me when the clouds are high - With evening and the sheep attain the fold. - This is the faith that I have held and hold, - And this is that in which I mean to die. - - -II - - Steep are the seas and savaging and cold - In broken waters terrible to try; - And vast against the winter night the wold, - And harbourless for any sail to lie. - But you shall lead me to the lights, and I - Shall hymn you in a harbour story told. - This is the faith that I have held and hold, - And this is that in which I mean to die. - - -III - - Help of the half-defeated, House of gold, - Shrine of the Sword, and Tower of Ivory; - Splendour apart, supreme and aureoled, - The Battler’s vision and the World’s reply. - You shall restore me, O my last Ally, - To vengeance and the glories of the bold. - This is the faith that I have held and hold, - And this is that in which I mean to die. - - -_Envoi_ - - Prince of the degradations, bought and sold, - These verses, written in your crumbling sty, - Proclaim the faith that I have held and hold - And publish that in which I mean to die. - - - - -BALLADE OF HELL AND OF MRS ROEBECK - - - I - - I’m going out to dine at Gray’s - With Bertie Morden, Charles and Kit, - And Manderly who never pays, - And Jane who wins in spite of it, - And Algernon who won’t admit - The truth about his curious hair - And teeth that very nearly fit:-- - And Mrs Roebeck will be there. - - -II - - And then to-morrow someone says - That someone else has made a hit - In one of Mister Twister’s plays. - And off we go to yawn at it; - And when it’s petered out we quit - For number 20, Taunton Square, - And smoke, and drink, and dance a bit:-- - And Mrs Roebeck will be there. - - -III - - And so through each declining phase - Of emptied effort, jaded wit, - And day by day of London days - Obscurely, more obscurely, lit; - Until the uncertain shadows flit - Announcing to the shuddering air - A Darkening, and the end of it:-- - And Mrs Roebeck will be there. - - -_Envoi_ - - Prince, on their iron thrones they sit, - Impassible to our despair, - The dreadful Guardians of the Pit:-- - And Mrs Roebeck will be there. - - - - -BALLADE OF UNSUCCESSFUL MEN - - - I - - The cause of all the poor in ’93: - The cause of all the world at Waterloo: - The shouts of what was terrible and free - Behind the guns of _Vengeance_ and her crew: - The Maid that rode so straightly and so true - And broke the line to pieces in her pride-- - They had to chuck it up; it wouldn’t do; - The Devil didn’t like them, and they died. - - -II - - Cæsar and Alexander shall agree - That right athwart the world their bugles blew: - And all the lads that marched in Lombardy - Behind the young Napoleon charging through: - All that were easy swordsmen, all that slew - The Monsters, and that served our God and tried - The temper of this world--they lost the clue. - The Devil didn’t like them, and they died. - - -III - - You, the strong sons of anger and the sea, - What darkness on the wings of battle flew? - Then the great dead made answer: “Also we - With Nelson found oblivion: Nelson, who - When cheering out of port in spirit grew - To be one purpose with the wind and tide-- - Our nameless hulks are sunk and rotted through: - The Devil didn’t like us and we died.” - - -_Envoi_ - - Prince, may I venture (since it’s only you) - To speak discreetly of The Crucified? - He was extremely unsuccessful too: - The Devil didn’t like Him, and He died. - - - - -BALLADE OF THE HERESIARCHS - - - I - - John Calvin whose peculiar fad - It was to call God murderous, - Which further led that feverish cad - To burn alive the Servetus. - The horrible Bohemian Huss, - The tedious Wycliffe, where are they? - But where is old Nestorius? - The wind has blown them all away. - - -II - - The Kohen out of Novdograd - Who argued from the Roman Jus - “_Privata fasta nihil ad - Rem nisi sint de sacribus_.” - And Hume, who made a dreadful fuss - About the Resurrection Day - And said it was ridiculous-- - The wind has blown them all away. - - -III - - Of Smith the gallant Mormon lad - That took of wives an over-plus: - Johanna Southcott who was mad - And nasty Nietzsche, who was worse. - Of Tolstoy, the Eccentric Russ, - Our strong Posterity shall say: - “Lord Jesus! What are these to us? - The wind has blown them all away!” - - -_Envoi_ - - Prince, should you meet upon a bus - A man who makes a great display - Of Dr Haeckel, argue thus:-- - The wind has blown them all away. - - - - - V - -EPIGRAMS - - - I - -_On His Books_ - - When I am dead, I hope it may be said: - “His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.” - - -II - -_On Noman, a Guest_ - - Dear Mr Noman, does it ever strike you, - The more we see of you, the less we like you? - - -III - -_A Trinity_ - - Of three in One and One in three - My narrow mind would doubting be - Till Beauty, Grace and Kindness met - And all at once were Juliet - - -IV - -_On Torture, a Public Singer_ - - Torture will give a dozen pence or more - To keep a drab from bawling at his door. - The public taste is quite a different thing-- - Torture is positively paid to sing. - - - V - -_On Paunch, a Parasite_ - - Paunch talks against good liquor to excess, - And then about his raving Patroness; - And then he talks about himself. And then - We turn the conversation on to men. - - -VI - -_On Hygiene_ - - Of old when folk lay sick and sorely tried - The doctors gave them physic, and they died. - But here’s a happier age: for now we know - Both how to make men sick and keep them so. - - -VII - -_On Lady Poltagrue, a Public Peril_ - - The Devil, having nothing else to do, - Went off to tempt My Lady Poltagrue. - My Lady, tempted by a private whim, - To his extreme annoyance, tempted him. - - -VIII - -_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. - - -IX - -_The Elm_ - - This is the place where Dorothea smiled. - I did not know the reason, nor did she. - But there she stood, and turned, and smiled at me: - A sudden glory had bewitched the child. - The corn at harvest, and a single tree. - This is the place where Dorothea smiled. - - - X - -_The Telephone_ - - To-night in million-voicèd London I - Was lonely as the million-pointed sky - Until your single voice. Ah! So the Sun - Peoples all heaven, although he be but one. - - -XI - -_The Statue_ - - When we are dead, some Hunting-boy will pass - And find a stone half-hidden in tall grass - And grey with age: but having seen that stone - (Which was your image), ride more slowly on. - - -XII - -_Epitaph on the Favourite Dog of a Politician_ - - Here lies a Dog: may every Dog that dies - Lie in security--as this Dog lies. - - -XIII - -_Epitaph on the Politician Himself_ - - Here richly, with ridiculous display, - The Politician’s corpse was laid away. - While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged - I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged. - - -XIV - -_Another on the Same_ - - This, the last ornament among the peers, - Bribed, bullied, swindled and blackmailed for years: - But Death’s what even Politicians fail - To bribe or swindle, bully or blackmail. - - -XV - -_On Mundane Acquaintances_ - - Good morning, Algernon: Good morning, Percy. - Good morning, Mrs Roebeck. Christ have mercy! - - -XVI - -_On a Rose for Her Bosom_ - - Go, lovely rose, and tell the lovelier fair - That he which loved her most was never there. - - -XVII - -_On the Little God_ - - Of all the gods that gave me all their glories - To-day there deigns to walk with me but one. - I lead him by the hand and tell him stories. - It is the Queen of Cyprus’ little son. - - -XVIII - -_On a Prophet_ - - Of old ’twas Samuel sought the Lord: to-day - The Lord runs after Samuel--so they say. - - -XIX - -_On a Dead Hostess_ - - Of this bad world the loveliest and the best - Has smiled and said “Good Night,” and gone to rest. - - -XX - -_On a Great Election_ - - The accursèd power which stands on Privilege - (And goes with Women, and Champagne and Bridge) - Broke--and Democracy resumed her reign: - (Which goes with Bridge, and Women and Champagne). - - -XXI - -_On a Mistaken Mariner_ - - He whistled thrice to pass the Morning Star, - Thinking that near which was so very far. - So I, whenas I meet my Dearest Dear, - Still think that far which is so very near. - - -XXII - -_On a Sleeping Friend_ - - Lady, when your lovely head - Droops to sink among the Dead, - And the quiet places keep - You that so divinely sleep; - Then the dead shall blessèd be - With a new solemnity, - For such Beauty, so descending, - Pledges them that Death is ending. - Sleep your fill--but when you wake - Dawn shall over Lethe break. - - -XXIII - -_Fatigued_ - - I’m tired of Love: I’m still more tired of Rhyme. - But Money gives me pleasure all the time. - - -XXIV - -_On Benicia, who Wished Him Well_ - - Benicia wished me well; I wished her well. - And what I wished her more I may not tell. - - -XXV - -_The False Heart_ - - I said to Heart, “How goes it?” Heart replied: - “Right as a Ribstone Pippin!” But it lied. - - -XXVI - -_Partly from the Greek_ - - She would be as the stars in your sight - That turn in the endless hollow; - That tremble, and always follow - The quiet wheels of the Night. - - - - -VI - -THE BALLAD OF VAL-ÈS-DUNES - - THE VICTORY OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR IN HIS YOUTH OVER THE REBELS - AT VAL-ÈS-DUNES IN THE YEAR 1047 - - - [This piece of verse is grossly unhistorical. Val-ès-Dunes is not - on the sea but inland. No Norman blazoned a shield or a church - window in the middle eleventh century, still less would he frame - one in silver, and I doubt gilt spurs. It was not the young Bastard - of Falaise, but the men of the King in Paris that really won the - battle. There was nothing Scandinavian left in Normandy, and - whatever there had been five generations before was slight. The - Colentin had no more Scandinavian blood than the rest. There is no - such place as Longuevaile. There is a Hauteville, but it has no bay - and had nothing to do with the Harcourts, and the Harcourts were - not of Bloodroyal--and so forth.] - - - I - - The men that lived in Longuevaile - Came out to fight by bands. - They jangled all in welded mail, - Their shields were rimmed of silver pale - And blazoned like a church-vitrail: - Their swords were in their hands. - But the harsh raven of the Old Gods - Was on the rank sea-sands. - - _There rose a wind on heath and den:_ - _The sky went racing grey._ - _The Bastard and his wall of men_ - _Were a charger’s course away._ - - -II - - The Old Gods of the Northern Hall - Are in their narrow room. - Their thrones are flanked of spearmen tall, - The three that have them in their thrall, - Sit silently before them all, - They weave upon their loom; - And round about them as they weave - The Scalds sing doom. - - -III - - The Bastard out of Normandy - Was angry for his wrong. - His eyes were virginal to see, - For nothing in his heart had he - But a hunger for his great degree; - And his back was broad and strong - As are the oxen of the field, - That pull the ploughs along. - - -IV - - He saw that column of cavalry wheel, - Split outward, and deploy. - He heard, he heard the Oliphant peal. - He crooked an angry knee to feel - The scabbard against his gilded heel. - He had great joy: - And he stood upright in the stirrup steel. - Because he was a boy. - - * * * * * - - _We faced their ordering, all the force,_ - _And there was little sound;_ - _But Haribert-Le-Marshall’s horse_ - _Pawed heavily the ground._ - - - V - - As the broad ships out of Barbary - Come driving from the large, - With yards a-bend and courses free, - And tumbling down their decks a-lee, - The hurrahing of the exultant sea, - So drave they to the charge. - But the harsh raven of the Old Gods - Was on the rank sea-marge. - - -VI - - The Old Gods of the Northern Hall - Are crownéd for the tomb. - Their biers are flanked of torches tall, - And through the flames that leap and fall - There comes a droning and a call - To the night’s womb, - As the tide beneath a castle wall - Goes drumming through the gloom. - - -VII - - They tonsured me but Easter year, - I swore to Christ and Rome. - My name is not mine older name.... - But ah! to see them as they came, - With thundering and with points aflame, - I smelt foam. - And my heart was like a wandering man’s, - Who piles his boat on Moorna sands - And serves a slave in alien lands, - And then beneath a harper’s hands - Hears suddenly of home. - - * * * * * - - _For their cavalry came in a curling leaf,_ - _They shouted as they drave,_ - _And the Bastard’s line was like a reef_ - _But theirs was like a wave._ - - -VIII - - As the broad ships out of Barbary - Strike rock. - And the stem shatters, and the sail flaps; - Streaming seaward; and the taut shroud snaps, - And the block - Clatters to the deck of the wreck. - So did the men of Longuevaile - Take the shock. - - -IX - - Our long line quivered but it did not break, - It countered and was strong. - The first bolt went through the wind with a wail, - And another and a-many with a thudding on the mail; - Pattered all the arrows in an April hail; - Whistled the ball and thong: - And I, the priest, with that began - The singing of my song. - - - X - - Press inward, inward, Normandy; - Press inward, Cleres and Vaux; - Press inward, Mons and Valery; - Press inward, Yvetot. - Stand hard the men of the Beechen Ford - (Oh! William of Falaise, my lord!) - Battle is a net and a struggle in a cord. - Battle is a wrestler’s throw. - The middle holding as the wings made good, - The far wings closing as the centre stood. - Battle is a mist and battle is a wood, - And battle is won so. - - -XI - - The fishermen fish in the River of Seine, - They haul the long nets in. - They haul them in and they haul again, - (The fishermen fish in the River of Seine) - They haul them in and they haul again, - A million glittering fin: - With the hauling in of our straining ends - That Victory did begin. - - -XII - - The tall son of the Seven Winds - Galloped hot-foot from the Hither Hithe. - So strongly went he down the press, - Almost he did that day redress - With his holping and his hardiness, - For his sword was like a scythe - In Arques when the grass is high, - And all the swaithes in order lie, - And there’s the bailiff standing by-- - A gathering of the tithe. - - -XIII - - And now, go forward, Normandy, - Go forward all in one. - The press was caught and trampled and it broke - From the sword and its swinger and the axe’s stroke, - Pouring through the gap in a whirl of smoke - As a blinded herd will run. - And so fled many and a very few - With mounts all spent would staggering pursue, - But the race fell scattered as the evening grew: - The battle was over and done. - - * * * * * - - _Like birds against the reddening day_ - _They dwindled one by one,_ - _And I heard a trumpet far away_ - _At the setting of the sun._ - - * * * * * - - -XIV - - The stars were in the Eternal Sky, - It was calm in Massared; - Richard, Abbot of Leclair, and I - And a Picard Priest that held on high - A Torch above his head; - We stumbled through the darkening land - Assoiling with anointed hand - The dying and the dead. - - -XV - - How many in the tufted grass, - How many dead there lay. - For there was found the Fortenbras - And young Garain of Hault, alas! - And the Wardens of the Breton pass - Who were lords of his array, - And Hugh that trusted in his glass - But came not home the day. - - -XVI - - I saw the miller of Martindall, - I saw that archer die. - The blunt quarrel caught him at the low white wall, - And he tossed up his arrow to the Lord God of all, - But long before the first could fall - His soul was in the sky. - - -XVII - - The last of all the lords that sprang - From Harcourt of the Crown, - He parried with the shield and the silver rang, - But the axe fell heavy on the helm with a clang - And the girths parted and the saddle swang, - And he went down: - He never more sang winter songs - In his high town. - - -XVIII - - In his high town that Faëry is, - And stands on Harcourt bay, - The fisher surging through the night - Takes bearing by that castle height, - And moors him harboured in the bight, - And watches for the day. - But with the broadening of the light, - It vanishes away. - - -XIX - - In his high town that Faëry is, - And stands on Harcourt Lea. - To summon him up his arrier-ban, - His writ beyond the mountains ran; - My father was his serving man, - Although the farm was free. - Before the angry wars began - He was a friend to me. - - -XX - - The night before the boy was born - There came a Priest who said - That he had seen red Aldeborn, - The star of hate in Taurus’ horn, - Which glared above a field of corn, - And covered him with dread. - I wish to God I had not held - The cloth in which he bled. - - * * * * * - - -XXI - - The Horse from Cleres and Valery, - The foot from Yvetot, - And all the men of the Harbour Towns - That live by fall and flow. - And all the men of the Beechen Ford - --Oh! William of Falaise, my lord!-- - And all the sails in Michael’s ward, - And all the shields of Caux, - Shall follow you out across the world, - With sword and lance and bow, - To Beachy and to Pevensey Bar, - To Chester through the snow, - With sack and pack and camping tent, - A-grumbling as they go: - My lord is William of Falaise. - Haro! - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[A] - - 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. - - -[B] - - And least of all can you complain, - Reviewers, whose unholy trade is, - To puff with all your might and main - Biographers of single ladies. - - -[C] Never mind. - -[D] - - 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. - - -[E] To be pronounced as a monosyllable in the Imperial fashion. - -[F] Mr Punt, Mr Howl, and Mr Grewcock (now, alas, deceased). - -[G] A neat rendering of “Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.” - -[H] To the Examiners: These facts (of which I guarantee the accuracy) -were given me by a Director. - -[I] A reminiscence of Milton: “Fas est et ab hoste docere.” - -[J] Lambkin told me he regretted this line, which was for the sake of -Rhyme. 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