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diff --git a/lost_city.txt b/lost_city.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..112c0ab --- /dev/null +++ b/lost_city.txt @@ -0,0 +1,426 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77613 *** + + + + + LOST CITY + + + + + “My thanks are due to the Editors of the _Westminster Gazette_, the + _Cambridge Review_, and the _Cambridge Magazine_, for permission to + reprint some of the following poems.” + + + + + LOST CITY + + VERSES + + BY + KATHLEEN MONTGOMERY WALLACE + + CAMBRIDGE + W. HEFFER & SONS LTD + 1918 + + + + + CANTABRIGIAE + MORTUISQUE CARISSIMIS + + + + +BEFORE + + + + +THE GENTLE COUNTY + + + From north and south the counties + With hills and splendour call, + But Cambridgeshire of fenlands + Is gentlest of them all. + + Sweetness of cool gray beanfields; + May in the snow-white hedge, + And amber flame of sunsets + Against the land’s stark edge. + + Open and green and golden + It spreads before the eyes, + With roads that call to follow, + White under quiet skies; + + And under dreaming willows + The river winds and gleams, + Nor speaks above a whisper + For fear to break their dreams.... + + It winds about the township + Of gracious walls and towers, + Within whose shade is healing, + Whose years are young as hours-- + + Oh, here’s the Gentle County, + The land of hearts’ release, + In Cambridgeshire of fenlands, + Upon whose fields be peace.... + + + + +ON THE LOWER RIVER + + + Oh, when the very last is played + Of games that we have lost and won, + And out of reach of wind and sun + You are a shade; and I a shade, + + We’ll not be sociable, nor mix + With all those far heroic souls, + But slip away to where there rolls + The quiet current of the Styx. + + Charon will stand aside for us + (Fingering a coin, all amaze), + And you, whom every dog obeys, + Will swiftly deal with Cerberus, + + Who, rearing an abysmal throat + In bull-dog smile serene and bland, + With all three tongues will lick your hand + And curl round meekly in the boat. + + So, moving smoothly from the side, + You with the oars and I the lines, + Over the tide where no sun shines + That immemorial barque shall glide, + + Sheer through the weeds and sedges dank, + Disturbing ghostly rats at play, + And veering, in a well-known way + From one bank to the other bank.... + + And when the backwater we pass + Where Lethe flows but makes no sound, + We will shoot on, nor turn us round + At those faint voices from the grass; + + “Turn. Here is room for millions yet, + And here the cure for every ill....” + Be still, most piteous shades, be still. + We would remember, not forget. + + And when indignant ghosts who wait + For Charon’s boat across the stream, + Shatter with shouts his pipe-filled dream, + Demanding why the ---- he’s late-- + + He’ll call across the waters black, + “Sorry, sir! They was lookin’ so + Happy, I had to let them go-- + And Heaven knows when they’ll be back!...” + + + + +ET EGO IN ARCADIA VIXI + + + Autumn is on the fields and still November, + Here with a wide-winged flame and flooding of gold, + Here where the moist ploughed slopes rise fold on fold, + Down where the cherry-copse heart is a crimson ember, + Up where the blood red tide of the woods is rolled, + --And oh, dear God! I remember--how I remember + Autumn upon your fields in a time grown old.... + + --Shivering poplar trees on the long horizon, + Wastes of the dim deep fen, and the water’s gleam, + Rime all white on the furrow and toiling team, + Scarcely a streak of colour to rest the eyes on-- + And here, where the beechwoods blaze and the red fires stream, + The call of your far, dank fields that the dead mist lies on, + Tugs at my heart for ever, and shatters my dream.... + + + + +AFTER + + + + +MAY TERM, 1916 + + + I have come back in a rich hour of May + My heart, to this gray town of yours and mine, + To the grave gardens by the river’s line + Where scents rise softly at the end of day + --Back from hot city pavements worlds away, + Where life flows outwards in a ceaseless line, + Where soul treads hard on soul and makes no sign. + --To the dear smell of lawns, and the branches sway. + Gold of the sky, black boughs, and the rooks call + The evening stillness rises like a tide-- + Across the cobbled court I hush my tread; + There is your window, lamplight on your wall, + There is a shadow on the blind inside-- + But you are dead, my dear, but you are dead. + + + + +WALNUT-TREE COURT + + + The court below drowns in an emerald deep + Of dusk, all murmurous + With things the river whispers in its sleep; + I, leaning outward thus + From this high window, over the silence, hear + Your voice, your laugh, and know + Down in the dusk, and infinitely near + You stand below.... + + + + +CHESTNUT SUNDAY + + + From end to end of Cambridge town + The chestnut boughs move up and down, + And rain their petals on the grass + And on the busy folk who pass. + + Their foaming sweetness drops in showers + Under a sky like gentian flowers; + White as a bride’s is their array, + The chestnuts keeping holiday! + + Oh, in your dreamless sleep, my dear, + I know, I know you see me here, + Between the voices and the sun, + And petals pattering, one by one. + + I never feel you watch me weep, + Nor din of battle breaks your sleep, + But I am sure you woke this hour + To see your chestnut trees in flower! + + + + +UNRETURNING + + + Under these walls and towers + By these green water-ways, + Oh the good days were ours, + The unforgotten days! + + Too happy to be wise + When the road used to run + Under such maddening skies + Headlong to Huntingdon. + + Paths where the lilac spills + Blossom too rich to bear; + Gold sheets of daffodils + Lighting the Market Square; + + Shimmer of gliding prows + Where the green shade is cool, + Tea under orchard boughs, + Smoke-rings by Byron’s Pool. + + Sunset at back of King’s + Behind the silver spire, + Talk of uncounted things + Over a college fire-- + + Red leaves above your door, + Gray walls and echoing street + Whose stones will never more + Ring to your passing feet; + + Strange! to think Term is here, + Life leads the same old dance, + While you lie dead, my dear, + Somewhere in France.... + + + + +THE DREAM + + + Through the still streets whose windows were shut down + I wandered in a dumb and unknown town, + Where streets wound on and on, and had no name, + Where unseen fingers brushed my sleeve, and came + To a walled place of trees, and a voice said, + “Seek here, seek here, and you shall find your dead!” + And stooping down beneath the boughs asway + I found your name, and knew that there you lay. + And the blue twilight fell, and the cold dew, + While I lay in the grass and spoke to you.... + So, when I rose, “Now God be thanked,” said I, + “Who set my feet to find you, where you lie. + My own, my own, I shall not dream again + You lie uncoffined in the pitiless rain....” + + And woke; and knew I dreamed; and turned, to see + There, on my pillow, the old agony.... + + + + +OLD ROADS + + + I have been glad in such unlikely places + That now I walk in the same ways alone + The very stones are thronged by vanished faces + And echoes of dead laughter’s undertone. + + Mellow stone courts, a bridge across a river, + A frosty road whose flints strike leaping fire-- + The dead days stab me till I stand and shiver, + Because of rose-light over a gray spire. + + And there’s a cliff-road with the white gulls wheeling, + Where ev’ry time, they catch me unaware; + And still the happy ghosts come stealing, stealing, + At just one corner of Trafalgar Square.... + + At city crossings and in heather spaces, + There’s not a pathway that my feet have known + But mocks me, with its throng of vanished faces + And echoes of dead laughter’s undertone. + + + + +NEW ROADS + + + Of all the winds that drive, be one to guide us + Into new roads, where we no more may be + Haunted of feet that used to walk beside us, + And now lie silently. + + Through crowded streets go treading the feet that left us, + In spray-blown lanes they follow our steps like goads; + Oh unrestoring Powers that have bereft us, + Give us, at least, new roads! + + + + +DIED OF WOUNDS + + + Because you are dead, so many words they say, + If you could hear them, how they crowd, they crowd; + “Dying for England--but you must be proud”-- + And “Greater love, honour, a debt to pay,” + And “Cry, dear,” someone says; and someone “Pray!” + What do they mean, their words that throng so loud? + + This, dearest; that for us there will not be + Laughter and joy of living dwindling cold, + Ashes of words that dropped in flame, first told; + Stale tenderness, made foolish suddenly. + This only, heart’s desire, for you and me, + We who lived love, will not see love grow old. + + We who had morning time and crest o’ the wave + Will have no twilight chill after the gleam, + Nor any ebb-tide with a sluggish stream; + No, nor clutch wisdom as a thing to save. + We keep for ever (and yet they call me brave) + Untouched, unbroken, _unrebuilt_, our dream. + + + + +INTERVAL; FRONT ROW STALLS + + + Over the footlights the ankles caper, + The grease paint glistens, the fringed eyes glance; + The last note shrills, and the curtain runs. + + The man beside me opens a paper: + “Bitter weather--three mile advance-- + Heavy losses--we take the guns.” + + And between my eyes and the crimson lights + Move the ranks of men who sat here o’ nights, + And now lie heaped in the mud together, + Stiff and still in the bitter weather. + + + + +YESTERDAY + + + The winds are out to-night, + Strange winds, blown from a far-off troublous sea, + Rending the sky over the chimney pots, + Into a writhing web of jade and pearl-- + And lashing my sedate black London trees + All into wonder and a breathless maze. + + I wonder if you hear? + From your still bed under the Flanders soil, + I wonder if you know the winds are out? + For, if you do, I know across your sleep + There comes the dream that’s tugging at my heart + Alone here with the lamplight and the fire, + And the day dying over London roofs: + + The thin white road + Leaping between the fenlands, where the sky + Swoops down to meet the fields, the flat brown fields, + With never a hill’s curve, only poplar boughs + Like spires out of the mist at the day’s edge. + And all the mad winds of the world full cry + Careering through the dusk into the town. + + And down the narrow streets, + Under the gray towers and serene gray walls, + Under the yellowing elms along the Backs, + The winds went rollicking and dancing still; + Swaying the chain of lights down King’s Parade + And driving purple cloud-wrack down the sky + Running red flame behind the spires of King’s. + + And so they came to us + Beating with wild wings in the court below, + Rocking the room, breaking the fire in gusts, + Filled with the spice of dead leaves and wet boughs, + Just as they come to me, alone, to-night. + + ... My dear, they say they will rebuild the world + Out of the soil where you and yours lie dead; + But not, I think, the free, the careless hours + That knew no shadow of purpose, but were glad, + When the glad winds raced under Cambridge walls. + + +W. HEFFER & SONS LTD., 104, Hills Road, Cambridge. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77613 *** |