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diff --git a/77636-0.txt b/77636-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cca5721 --- /dev/null +++ b/77636-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3041 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77636 *** + + + + +SONNETS FROM A PRISON CAMP + + + + + SONNETS + FROM A PRISON CAMP + + BY ARCHIBALD ALLAN BOWMAN + + LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD, W. + NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXIX + + + + + _Printed in Great Britain + by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh_ + + + + +FOREWORD + + +For allowing this slight volume to see the light of day I have but one +excuse to offer. The situation to which these verses are the emotional +reaction represents a very real and serious piece of experience. It +is no mere poetical exaggeration to say that in the first days of +captivity at least, the writing of the sonnets was a labour that “stood +between my soul and madness,” and I cannot help feeling that what, +under one of the heaviest blows that can befall a soldier, has meant so +much to me, may have in it something that will raise it at times above +the personal to the level of general human interest. + +It ought to be a pleasure to acknowledge generosity in an enemy; and +I wish to express my indebtedness to Captain Hohnholz, Commandant of +the Prison-Camp at Hesepe, to whose kindness I owe it that I am able to +offer the sonnets as they stand for publication. + + + Offizier--Gefangenenlager + HESEPE, _17th August 1918_ + + + + +PROEM + + + He who hath never from behind toothed wire + Glimpsed, helpless, freedom’s waiting amplitude, + Hath never watched, fast rooted where he stood + The embers of another day expire + In glory welling westward, like the pyre + Of some spent viking whom the Atlantic flood + Bears dwindling into that infinitude + That great souls end in; then around the fire + Of his own musings, lodering through the bars + Of a shrunk life, hath sought awhile to limn + His lost felicity--can ne’er divine + The vastness of the common things that line + Life’s banked horizon, nor hath learned to rim + Infinity with galaxies of stars. + + RASTATT, _26th April 1918_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + IN THE FIELD 1 + + THE NADIR 19 + + ON THE MARCH 23 + + RASTATT 33 + + HESEPE 45 + + THOUGHTS OF HOME 55 + + INFLUENCES 63 + + WATCHWORDS AND MAXIMS 91 + + ENGLAND AND OXFORD 107 + + HOME THOUGHTS ONCE MORE 117 + + INTERLUDE 123 + + ENGLAND 129 + + + + +SONNETS FROM A PRISON CAMP + + + + +IN THE FIELD + + + + +I + + + Two hours before the mist of morning paled + Beneath a sun that never showed his flame, + And spectral day stole on the world with shame, + Into the night unsentinelled there sailed + The whistling murder, sudden. Sudden wailed + Shrapnel, and breaking cloud, began to claim + Window and tile down clattering from the frame + Into the littered causeway. Dreamers quailed, + And propped themselves to listen, or rising, crept + From corridors by fitful candle; then + Gathered scared children down the winding stair, + And only whispers passed where no one slept. + And thought drew rein, surmising wildly, when + The guns spoke murder over doomed Estaires. + + RASTATT, _27th April_ + + + + +II + + + “Stand to!” The warning word was hardly said, + And had not moved a man, when round and round + Forthwith the steaming kettles came to ground, + And the men swarmed to dip their hasty bread, + A soldier’s morning bite. Still overhead + Murder flew hurtling, shell by shell, and found + Earth in some rearward purlieu, quenched in sound. + Breakfast began, but not a man was fed + Ere the growled “Fall in” menacingly proved + The dog’s bone kinsman to a soldier’s meal. + We mustered, lowering, hungry. The ranks grew; + And it was seen the world again had moved, + As at the impulse of a groaning wheel, + Unto some issue, from that first “Stand to!” + + RASTATT, _27th April_ + + + + +III + + + Unto some issue, Whither? No one dreamed + What menace crouched behind that bankèd mist, + Massing to bear down on us. No one wist + What power that shrapnel covered as it screamed + Futilely overhead. Scarce more it seemed + Than many a day had happed, of trials the least, + Vexatious interruption of a feast, + A broken night, a day spoiled ere it gleamed. + But still the thickening barrage combed the air; + Still whistling shrapnel sputtered into smoke; + And momently the cobbled roadway shook + With sickening thud where freighted monsters took + The earth with double thunder. Here and there + Blood trickled into hollows. No one spoke. + + RASTATT, _27th April_ + + + + +IV + + + The bridge across the Lys! A slender thread + To bind or bar thy holders to their own; + But one span, small and narrow, lightly thrown + Over these sullen waters, lightly shed. + Upon thy planks the heavy-booted tread + Of men who seemed with sudden trouble grown + Haggard. “What are you?” “Durhams.” “What is known?” + “Our billet down, our officers are dead. + We seek a new position further on.” + Position! Little recked they then how steep + The way, how sure the ending. They were gone, + And the keen harvester prepared to reap + In fresh fields. The mourne blanket of the dawn + Gathered the Durhams to eternal sleep. + + RASTATT, _28th April_ + + + + +V + + + The Church of Nouveau Monde! Lead on. ’Tis there + We concentrate. There hung in the void street + A local silence, which our sudden feet + With lesser clangour startled in its lair, + While, strangely, not the brood that racked the air + Could break the boding hush of that retreat. + So in a thunder-storm the quickened beat + Of one’s own startled pulses may impair + The silence of a room which the onfall + Of shafted noise o’erhead left deadly still. + Perchance the mind doth place as on some plan + The figured sounds which figured space do fill, + Far or more near. ’Tis sure the hodding van + Broke forward into silence virginal. + + RASTATT, _29th April_ + + + + +VI + + + Waiting! A soldier’s sacrament of strain, + The eager cup of poising destiny, + That may not pass from him till it is dry, + And Death with peace, or Life unveils with pain. + Full many in this demented play must drain + That cup but once. Full many a soul must try + Its sharpness, till numbed sense hath lost the lie + Of a life’s landscape, smitten from the brain. + Then in a falling twilight of the mind + Their way into that temple oft they grope, + Where from the true, strong human hand doth slip + Life’s vesture of live colours, meaning, hope, + Purpose and fear, leaving dumb wont behind, + While the word “Fate” drops dreaming from the lip. + + RASTATT, _29th April_ + + + + +VII + + + What of our comrades in the forward post? + The fog of war but deepened with the day. + We knew that in that troubled ocean lay + Uncharted shoals, blind rocks, and treacherous coast. + And what of yonder never-ending host + Of wan, unwounded Portuguese? Ah, stay, + Pale sergeant. Do you bleed? You came that way? + What is the tidings? Is the front line lost? + “Nothing is known of posts that lie before + Laventie. At the cross-roads hellish fire + Has cut them off who shouldered the first load.” + Can they live through it? “They can not retire, + Nor can you reinforce. I know no more + But this. No living thing comes down that road.” + + RASTATT, _30th April_ + + + + +VIII + + + Still waiting! And the oozing hours have crept + The morning out in vapour shot with fire, + That struck now here now there in random ire + Bloodily something human down, yet kept + Alone stagnation at arm’s length. Men leapt + Suddenly to their feet, smit with a dire + Surmise, collapsed, and huddled in the mire. + No whisper passed. Some seemed as though they slept. + Only the stolid bearers wound about, + Shouldering their still and dabbled burdens white; + Or sharply a familiar voice rang out, + Comfortingly peremptory: “All right? + Then keep together. Lie low. Do not doubt. + The hour will surely come when we shall fight.” + + RASTATT, _29th April_ + + + + +IX + + + Does the first softening of the season break + The winter of Glenogle? Do the sighs + Of wooing spring bid curling brackens rise + On hillsides out of nothing for love’s sake? + How sweet it is to think that harebells shake + Over Green Lowther, where the shadow lies + Far in the Enterkin, beneath blue skies; + In trance to see the catkined willows quake, + Where April stirs along Loch Lomond side; + To watch the sands of Morar gently take + The Atlantic swell that softly combs the Isles; + And through the gorgeous portals of the Clyde + To hear at dawn the thudding paddle wake + The ever-brooding silence of the Kyles. + + RASTATT, _29th April_ + + + + +X + + + There is a stillness in the heart of sound, + How dire soever, if unloosed too long. + There is a time for pause in every song, + And in the whirling cyclone’s heady round + A core of peace. So the taut soul is bound + With iron girdle, and with leathern thong + To the acute wheel of the sense’s wrong + Only until the creaking spring is wound. + Then softening come sweet phantoms of far things, + Peopling the vacancy with joys unspent, + And visions of fair spaces left behind, + As if the genius of the place had wings, + And in the migratory hour were sent + To haunt awhile the silence of the mind. + + RASTATT, _30th April_ + + + + +XI + + + Back from it, back! The quelling mandate rang, + As the mad moment swooped upon the dream. + Straight heathered hillside, mountain, loch, and stream + Flashed out of sight, and but the shrapnel sang, + And greater guns with stunning double clang + Rocked the earth under us. It well might seem + All hell was in the air--not without gleam + Of hope, the worst might prove the final pang. + Men crouched together, shaken as they took + That presence far too massive for their fear, + A quivering sense that something tidal welled + Over their perfect helplessness, and shook + The core of being; yet that being held. + We knew a limber clattered to the rear. + + RASTATT, _30th April_ + + + + +XII + + + ’Twixt Nouveau Monde and Laventie there lies + A breastwork, where the clearing tempest found + Tossed remnants of the cyclone come to ground, + Part English, Portuguese in part. The skies + Brightened, the housing spirit to entice + Into the air; the string its length unwound, + And nightmare, having pinioned, now unbound + Our helplessness. The hour had come to rise. + Alas, the lifting battle-fog proclaimed + The line was gone, with those who bore the brunt. + Our comrades, whom the fierce Valkyries claimed, + Closing upon them in the bloody hunt; + And Verey lights at hand too well explained + The long and boding silence of the front. + + RASTATT, _30th April_ + + + + +XIII + + + Gray figures stealing, and a headlong dash + From hedge to house, from house again to hedge, + And fifty rifles levelled on the ledge! + One instant on the aim, and then, the crash! + He went to earth, and vanished in a flash. + And there once more was house, and there was hedge, + With sprouting field, and farm, and ditch with sedge, + And crop-head pollard row and leafless ash-- + A cheerless landscape gray, and the profound + Loneliness of the battlefield. The next + Moment trench-mortar shells were on our head; + Another, and the day was sealed and fixed + On front and flank. Among the stricken dead, + One in the skull, behind, his summons found. + + RASTATT, _1st May_ + + + + +XIV + + + --Found it behind, while yet his soul was set + And his eyes eager with the death he planned + For his foe forward, where he stood and manned + His gun upon the roaring parapet. + We knew the sign, the closing of the net, + The baying of the pack on every hand, + Terror of isolation. Still it fanned + Some flame within. We were not conquered yet. + Circled with unseen fire, we only heard + The bullets whistle round us, only saw + The solitude of battle. Nothing stirred. + And yet, unseen, we felt his forces draw + Upon us, earthed at length where earth had lured + Treacherously to cover. We endured. + + RASTATT, _1st May_ + + + + +XV + + + A man dashed in among us and caught breath. + A sergeant, resolute and silent, one + That we who knew him trusted. He had run + As men run only in the face of death, + Yet had not fled. What is it that he saith? + “The game is all but up, the end begun. + Live men we shall not see another sun. + Laventie North has fallen, a feast of death. + ’Tis your turn, sir. Your left is in the air, + And through the breach, five hundred yards away, + His fours have marched on Sailly and Estaires.” + Column of fours? No! Then God save the day! + These breastwork trenches!--’Twas as if there snapped + Some devilish mechanism on us--trapped! + + RASTATT, _30th April_ + + + + +XVI + + + How it befel?--The overreaching arm, + Bombs; and he was among us. In his plan + Surprise completed what surprise began. + The treacherous shelter of a too-near farm, + A ditch along a road, a false alarm, + Thirty yards of the open; in the van + A desperado running--How he ran!-- + And the pack had us. Hands up and disarm! + --It is the end of all, the bitter end, + The unpardonable, though ineluctable, + A breach in life no living now will mend; + The sin that sinned not; fell not, yet a fall. + One thought burned in the brain: How dear it cost + England to gain what I this day have lost! + + RASTATT, _1st May_ + + + + +THE NADIR + + + + +I + + + There is no moment in the life of man + More potent to subdue the stuff that binds + His manhood into one than that which finds + The work the founders of his race began, + And centuries enlarged, until its span + Encompasses a nation, bodies, minds + And institutions, scattered to the winds + Out of his life, of which it held the plan. + And with the sense of something sacred sold, + His heritage, and branded with the crime + Against the ages, from the lowest pit, + Gathered for judgment meet, his eyes behold, + Tier after tier upon the banks of time, + The generations of his fathers sit. + + RASTATT, _1st May_ + + + + +II + + + One moment and his reeling world has rolled + Back into ages now no longer fit + For human dwelling. Here exalted sit + The cruel strong, and, with the cunning bold, + Possess the meek’s inheritance, and hold + The good man in subjection--ages knit + With blood and iron, and with arson lit, + Crusted with murder, wanton, fierce and cold. + And England, who so mightily championeth + That freedom forced from us (our guards were met, + And we went, speechless--to a living death) + --England--a new light breaking on me, set + My brain aworking--England lives! The breath + That moment spared I hold for England yet! + + RASTATT, _1st May_ + + + + +ON THE MARCH + + + + +I + + + Never wound cortège more exceeding slow, + Nor mourners to more melancholy tones, + Than that wan wending, musicked by the moans + Of wounded men, whom pity bade us show + That much of tenderness. Nor friend nor foe + Spoke in the heavy language of these groans, + But stark mankind, whose utter anguish owns + A common nature, in a common woe. + Full many a mile of weary footing sore, + By miry side tracks, not unkindly led; + And each unwounded man his burden bore + On stretcher or in blanket, ransacked bed, + Duck-board uprooted, hand-cart, unhinged door. + We left behind the dying and the dead. + + RASTATT, _2nd May_ + + + + +II + + + Hour followed hour, and slowly on we wound, + Till wan day turned to front the gradual west; + And with day’s waning waned the dream of rest + For the worn bearers, whom the twilight found + Voyaging no-man’s gray, wide-watered ground, + Their shoulders bowed and aching backs distressed; + Isthmused between deep pools, and sorely pressed + To foot the flanks of many a slippery mound; + While floundering convoys, till the light was gone, + Across the perilous space their drivers nurse, + Limber and gun, by frighted horses drawn, + Whose plunging swerve that bogged their burdens worse, + Provoked Teutonic fury, well laid on + With sounding whipcord and sonorous curse. + + RASTATT, _2nd May_ + + + + +III + + + And darkness fell, and a great void of space, + As if to bar our further going on, + Unfeatured, huge, gloomed o’er us. No light shone. + Strength, too, scarce held sufficient now to trace + The squalid reaches of this dismal place; + And silence settled near and far upon + That vacancy at length--our last guide gone. + Night hid each from his comrade, face from face. + As is a voyage through the uncharted waste + Of seas, unpiloted by any star, + Alone, unmooned, uncomforted, unplanned; + So forward still in silent pain we paced, + Nor light of moon nor pharos gleamed from far + Across the boding gloom of that lost land. + + RASTATT, _3rd May_ + + + + +IV + + + We came to Aubers at the dead of night, + And found the semblance of that circled hell, + Which Dante once, damnation’s pains to tell, + Paced out in darkness, agony and fright. + In that blank lazarette no kindly light + On bending form of nurse or surgeon fell, + But darkness and barred doors proclaimed too well + The piteous end of long-endured plight. + No room was there in stable or in stall, + Nor roof to shelter cattle while they eat, + Where wounded men could shelter from the blight + Of the foul dew that drizzling covered all. + But in the open and the squelching street + We left them to endure the drenching night. + + RASTATT, _3rd May_ + + + + +V + + + There is a garden where the whispering breeze + Perchance has wooed the lilacs in the spring, + Where still perchance at dawn a few birds sing, + And love goes nesting in the willow-trees. + But night’s ear now caught other sounds than these, + And darkness, bending, shrouded with his wing + What from an iceberg scalding tears might wring, + The glowing core of any furnace freeze. + Thick as the crimsoned leaves of autumn fall, + And crimsoned, too, and torn, and crushed as they + (’Twas the wet hand that told it) over all, + Moaning and writhing in their pain they lay; + And none to turn their faces to the wall, + And none to close their eyes, and none to pray. + + RASTATT, _4th May_ + + + + +VI + + + So where the wide and shallow beaches bound + The ceaseless moiling of the North Sea hoar, + And on the sands the rounding billows pour + Their majesty of waters to the ground; + As one by one the rising breakers pound + The beaten salt sands of the yeasty shore, + Their bursting charges’ momentary roar + Dies in a background of prevailing sound-- + Thus hour by hour the moaning did prevail + Over night’s stillness, rose, and swelled, and died + In the sad level of a murmuring wail, + Like ocean’s moan with voices multiplied + Along the reaches of the sounding graile, + The west wind wrestling with the flowing tide. + + RASTATT, _5th May_ + + + + +VII + + + The last march opened with the sudden blaze + Of howitzers upon the face of night, + Waving us onward ere the laggard light + Of morning broke down transport-crowded ways. + Next to the first was this the bitterest phase + Of our humiliation. Yet ’tis right + To chronicle some kindness, and requite + Our armed custodians with this word of praise. + By Fournes, by Haubourdin, the endless reel + Of marching men ran out its windings slow, + Till near day’s end, nigh broken on the wheel + Of hunger, and scarce longer fit to go, + Within the moated Citadel of Lille + The sharper pang gave place to deeper woe. + + RASTATT, _5th May_ + + + + +VIII + + + --The deep woe of the mind when prison walls + First darken it with shadow, throbbing hot + To meet the outrage, as the bolts are shot, + The locks ground home, and the long silence falls. + And next a settling helplessness appals + The sinking soul, as if that hour should blot + One’s name out of the Book, as if one caught + Of life’s retreat the hurrying last footfalls. + Where once a vision smiled of rankèd days + Drawn on life’s vista’d curtain rich and vast, + Only a gulf now yawns. Of all the plays + Played out in visions, we have played the last. + The future bankrupt, ’tis the present pays; + And of life’s triple span, remains--the Past. + + RASTATT, _5th May_ + + + + +RASTATT + + + + +I + + + Yet morning comes with pageantry of fire, + And evening falls with majesty of flame, + And every hour hath something to reclaim + The waste of life, slow wilting behind wire. + It were a doleful dungeon that could tire + Nature’s incessant carefulness to shame + Sheer stalemate from each thing that lives, and claim + All motion for her universal choir. + Thus day by dreary day the chargèd hours + Pass influence from the sweetness of the hills + Across these cages, and the scent of flowers + Is wafted, and the fragrant dew distils, + And unimaginable stir of powers + From the deep sense of woods divinely thrills. + + RASTATT, _7th May_ + + + + +II + + + Two silent influences mainly move + The captive’s mind, not wholly sunk in sloth, + Nor lost in carnal craving--dangers both + That to the core the sterling manhood prove. + One is the sense of shrinkage, of the groove + In which the soul enshuttled--O how loth!-- + Feels stoppage of life’s pulse, arrested growth, + Heart-sickness which no medicine can remove. + The other wakens when departing night + Throws up the windows of the spacious morn + Upon a new day pulsing with new light; + And from the hill the hunter with his horn + Sends down imagined valleys strains that smite + The spirit with the sense of something born. + + RASTATT, _7th May_ + + + + +III + + + Within these cages day by day we pace + The bitter shortness of the meted span; + And this and that way variously we plan + Our poor excursions over the poor place, + Cribbed to extinction. Yet remains one grace. + For neither bars nor tented wire can ban + Full many a roving glance that dares to scan + The roomy hill, and wanders into space. + Yea, and remains for ever unrepealed + And unimpaired the free impetuous quest + Of the mind’s soaring eye, at length unsealed + To the full measure of a life possessed + Awhile, but never counted, now revealed + Inestimable, wonderful, unguessed. + + RASTATT, _7th May_ + + + + +IV + + + The long day waned beneath refulgent skies, + And evening sunshine bathed the hilltops round, + Where on the sudden from the level ground + Pine-vestured, solemn, summit by summit rise + The tops of the Black Forest. Wistful eyes + Wandered from peak to peak, as if to sound + Their mystery, if perchance there might be found + Some healing essence there, some glad surprise. + Long strove the puzzled spirit, vainly yearned + Into that alien soul to force its way; + When suddenly--the mystic rune was learned! + And in an upland glen remote and gray + There moved a presence known and last discerned + In Glendaruel on a morn of May. + + RASTATT, _7th May_ + + + + +V + + + O May! O month of months divinely dear, + Which severest, amidst the toil and strife + Of Nature’s round, as with a glittering knife, + A perfect segment from the varying year! + Month of entrancing spaces, wide and clear, + Calling us to the open, thick with life, + All leaf and lamb and freshness, welling, rife + With blossom--can it be that thou art here? + O that it were in some sweet Scottish strath, + Backed by the mountains, watered, green and wide, + Where the Tay laves in shallow crystal bath + His pebbles, or the Forth’s meandering tide + Receives Dumyat’s shadow o’er his path, + And young light breaks down Ochill’s mottled side. + + RASTATT, _8th May_ + + + + +VI + + + As the lone searcher, crouching o’er his glass, + Beside the window while the light is high, + Doth moved therein the forms of things descry + Invisible else to common vision crass; + Spirilla, the amœba’s sprawling mass, + With gliding infusoria sailing by-- + And marks each vestige with entranced eye, + Glimmer, emerge and clear, dissolve and pass; + So in that optic lens, where never yet + The sun prevailed, beneath my prison wall, + One-windowed to the past, but brightly lit + By the eye’s own pure light, a swarm of small + And fleeting memories, else forgotten, flit, + Trivial, yet entrancing to recall. + + RASTATT, _9th May_ + + + + +VII + + + Oft at the hour when night’s aërial spring + Waters with dew the beauty of the morn, + What time another rosy day is born, + Along these lanes the echoing footsteps ring + Of marching men, who to their marching sing, + Deep-voiced, light-hearted. Yet they do not scorn + Due pause and measure, and the theme well-worn + From the full heart of Germany they bring. + But we, whose fathers once in songs as fine + Unburdened hearts as full, and with the power + Of our dear country pulsing in each line, + Scorn to remember England, and to our + Incomparable heritage of song + Prefer the tinkle of some mean ding-dong. + + RASTATT, _9th May_ + + + + +VIII + + + All is not well with England. Her great heart + Beats faultily and to no music set. + She hath her moods, suspicions, and doth fret + The daylong hour, by night doth toss and start. + Oft she stands dreaming in the crowded mart. + ’Tis true that this distemper doth not yet + The deeper functions of her life beset, + And mightily she plays her mighty part. + Yet sometimes in this tempest the heart fears + Whether, so faulted, the old anchor grips. + And shall we find, we ask, when the sky clears, + England still mightier than England’s slips? + Let our own past proclaim it. Let the years + Advance and set their trumpets to their lips. + + RASTATT, _9th May_ + + + + +IX + + + The root of our infirmity is found + In English liberty, grandly achieved, + Yet little understood and ill conceived, + And sprouting rank from the uncultured ground. + Too much the thought prevails that man unbound + Is man made free, a life oft unretrieved + From chaos by a content; undeceived + Only when licence runs the ship aground. + O England! Mother! whom thine every child + Loves, surely, to the last, forgive that some + Must fear the loss of thy benignant strength + Through the mind’s error--lest, too freely wild, + Thy liberty of indifference become + A liberty of impotence at length. + + RASTATT, _9th May_ + + + + +X + + + There is no single foot of English soil, + Howe’er defaced, that is not holy ground. + There is no spot where great souls more abound, + Or where man’s greatness is more truly royal. + Who hath o’ertopped our Shakespeare? Who by toil + Of kingly thought more lofty, more profound, + Than Newton e’er from heaven’s majestic round + Brought home at night a more stupendous spoil? + One thing I find not well. In our reserve + We oft-times cloak our excellence, ashamed + Not of our imperfections, but our Best; + And what is finest, most our own, we serve + In some mean dish, or pass it by unclaimed, + Leaving the noble in us unexpressed. + + RASTATT, _9th May_ + + + + +HESEPE + + + + +I + + + A lonely camp and small amidst the miles + Of the Westphalian plain, where islanded + In the green waste our simple lives are led + Out of the troubled world. Here morning smiles + Splendidly, and the mustering twilight wiles + To a strange sense of peace consummated + Over these low-hung woods, where setting red + And oval the sun the yearning eye beguiles. + Then as the white and sheeted vapour steals + Along the flats lagoon-like, comes a breath + Of anguish from the void, where still is hurled + Nation on nation; and the spirit feels + A tidal presence of o’erwhelming death + Stir through this weird backwater of the world. + + HESEPE, _19th May_ + + + + +II + + + How hard it is to think upon this shoal + Of Inanition that the world’s ablaze. + How hard to link these lazy summer days + With ends and issues that will not unroll + Their length in æons--mankind’s furthest goal, + Perpending in the thick and murderous haze + Of yonder battle-hurricane that lays + Legions to rest till the last tattoo roll. + On sun-beat sand the busy ants deploy; + Industrious spiders ply their little looms; + With brush and pencil or with book we toy. + The quiet evening nears; the beetle booms. + God blazes at the world. Hell gapes for joy. + And Europe whitens with those nameless tombs. + + HESEPE, _30th May_ + + + + +III + + + Scanted of life and vented on this shore, + Where but the salt and sailless ocean plies + His tide of time with soulless fall and rise, + We conn the unfeatured waste from pole to pole. + Daily the gray remorseless waters roll + Out of the blank of gray remorseless skies, + And nothing happens. Then we close sick eyes, + And sadly the soul communes with the soul-- + When often o’er night’s face a sudden glow + Of Boreal splendour palpitating plays, + And the long runners, shaking tress-like, show + Our life’s plan in a vision which betrays + Our secrets to our pillows; and we know + Our selves more clearly than in happier days. + + HESEPE, _4th June_ + + + + +IV + + + When in this deep Re-entrant’s sullen shade, + What hour night’s middle watches change reliefs, + The mind compiles the roster of its griefs, + Before the inward eye there oft parade + Life’s serried loves, appointed and arrayed + For high inspection, potentates and chiefs, + And armed retainers whom some bond enfeoffs, + And all precisely marshalled grade by grade. + Then we discern at length where each doth stand, + In front or rear, and what the rank they bear; + The acquainted Mass, the Intimates, the band + Of such as do the forward stations share. + And last the One with none on either hand. + And thou art She, whose ring and seal I wear. + + HESEPE, _4th June_ + + + + +V + + + What time in empty hour awhile relaxed, + Around my cage’s circuit I have paced, + Sunk in myself, and broodingly have traced + These late appalling issues, I have taxed + My country with a weakening will: “Thou slack’st + Thy effort, England.” Then some sight hath braced + My soul, and from my mind the doubt effaced. + England, it is not energy thou lack’st! + I felt it when one morn there sudden flew + Around the camp new life and boisterous cheer, + Unlike the mood of those who hitherto + Our wants supplied, and something did endear + The noise of labour to us, and we knew + That English orderlies at length were here. + + HESEPE, _20th June_ + + + + +VI + + + My Countrymen! The years that have gone by + Since Hengist came with Horsa from the sea, + Find the same substance in you, fiercely free, + Yet of that fundamental liberty, + The soul’s state, oft unable to descry + The deeper import, your simplicity, + Your limit, only natural chivalry + Redeeming what your insight doth deny. + Unskilled to conn the inwardness of things, + There is a health about you keeps you clean, + Derisive of all high pretence that chimes + Not with your plainness, sound. Your laughter rings + Over hard toil, and all things grandly mean + Your humour shatters, punctures, or sublimes. + + HESEPE, _22nd June_ + + + + +VII + + + With little tasks we wile the hours away, + Each bringing shyly forth his piteous store + Of erudition, oft-times dubious lore, + Since memory cupboards all we dare to say. + One tells us how to mine, one how to lay + A crop of good Rhodesian maize. Nay more, + The skirts of metaphysics we explore, + And touch the dread fringe of psychology. + O to be hidden here amongst the seams + Of History’s garment, while the whole world rocks + Upon its base! When every day that gleams + Tells us that England still against all shocks + Raises her front; and starting from our dreams, + Each morning Hesepe the lonely mocks! + + HESEPE, _30th May_ + + + + +THOUGHTS OF HOME + + + + +I + + + As are the features of some well-loved face, + On which a life’s prolixity is writ + In moving characters much conned and fit + Across a single soulful ground to trace + Feeling and thought and purpose, like the grace + Which motion adds to loveliness (there flit + The spirit’s shades, and there the lamp is lit + That lights twin souls to a lifelong embrace); + So to the city-dweller hath the town, + Much conned, its moving physiognomy, + Which oft in exile, as the sun goes down, + Teams in the caverned dusk of memory + With haunting visions of dear streets, that crown + Night’s sorrow with entrancing imagery. + + HESEPE, _19th May_ + + + + +II + + + Does the slant touch of early light awake + The sirens on the Clyde, and fling the door + Wide on the city’s rousing all-day roar? + Are the streets well a-clatter? Do they break + From tram and train, that travelling host, and take + The town by storm? Does gathering traffic pour + Over the tide-line of night’s silent shore, + Into the spaces, till the cobbles quake? + While down the river, crowded to the brink + With huddled shipyards, many a loaded quay, + Ten hundred thousand volleying hammers clink; + And the slow homing liner booms to see + The ever-coiling waters still a-wink + With mirrored shipping freighted for the sea. + + HESEPE, _19th May_ + + + + +III + + + Ah me, I dream of what they do at home + This Sabbath sunrise of the early prime! + The slumbering city waking to the chime + Of opening church-bells, when the sun hath clomb + Full half-way up the hollow of heaven’s dome; + The leisured family muster, the sublime + Jollity and the uplift of the time + That sets the week-worn spirit free to roam; + The walking to the kirk, the solemn hour + With the Creator, lapsing at the close + Into the sweet expansiveness that plays + Round the church door, when from the too tense power + Of prayer and praise the natural spirit flows + Back to its level.--That was in past days. + + HESEPE, _19th May_ + + + + +IV + + + What do they do _to-day_? What form of fear + Haunts the now voided chambers of their life, + Troubling its ancient tenor, parent, wife, + Survivors of the broken circle dear + In the old home enisled, as in some drear + Interspace of existence, till the strife + Is overblown, and but the echoes rife + Volley adown the days still left them here? + How they must suffer!--Yet these later shocks + Displace not from my brain the life it knew + Before the Power that our planned journey mocks, + Over our faring war’s dark glory drew; + And when my miser mind its store unlocks, + It takes out treasures rather old than new. + + HESEPE, _20th May_ + + + + +V + + + So thus I picture it, not as life lies + Now writhing, but as when the days and nights + Followed each other in unmarked delights; + Nor noted we the measure of the prize + Till all was over. Now the spirit cries, + What time encroaching Inanition blights, + For but the phantom of its past, and fights + Extinction with its memories. Let them rise! + Let me dissemble that as in past days + The crystal fountain with delicious flow + Of bursting social joy unconscious plays + Over the garden close, where row by row + The flowers of life in such profusion blaze + That their own loveliness they do not know. + + HESEPE, _20th May_ + + + + +VI + + + Day follows night, and night returns to day + Through all the enchanting stages of the spring; + And exile lengthens out to months that fling + Their shadow further, and my life grows gray; + Grays even with the sun’s increasing ray; + While forward still the heading heats do wing + Into the year, that softly rounds his ring + To midsummer, and June is on the way: + The perfect season, when the hawthorn blows + Down cream-white Scottish hedges, and the spent + Airs of the evening gently swaying close + Tired eyes upon it, heavy with its scent; + While on the Downs the beating sunlight glows, + And sends the wildering roses over Kent. + + HESEPE, _21st May_ + + + + +INFLUENCES + + + + +I + + + When in the waking visions of the night + I travel back the miles my feet have worn + Since with a cry my spirit was reborn, + There stirs again the anguish and delight + Felt first as each new vista on the sight + Swam in the luminous duskiness of morn, + And the soul quested down the long leagues, torn + With its own thirst for vision and more light. + One realm in thought I near with awe profound, + Where hangs the Slav for ever on his tree, + Bedewed with sorrow, with contrition crowned, + And thorns of perfected humility, + The holy flowering of that cursed ground; + And at the mighty portals Titans three. + + HESEPE, _21st May_ + + + + +II + + + Russia, thy bitter sorrows partly spring + From the deep cleavage which, as with a knife, + Severs what is most native in thy life + From what thy troubled history doth bring + Out of dark days that threatened once to wring + That life itself from thee. The very strife + That heals our Europe through thy pains, is rife + With thine own Tragedy, still on the wing. + Here stand thine institutes, designed to sway + A local life within thee, Zemstvo, Mir, + And Duma, people’s parliaments; and here + The iron empire with the feet of clay, + That froward issue of the Olden day + When Ivan’s legions laid the Tartar spear. + + HESEPE, _22nd May_ + + + + +III + + + The other cause behind the ages lies, + A-swelter in the elemental yeast, + Where yet thou lay’st fermenting for the feast + Of nationality, thine opening eyes + Turned longingly to where the sun doth rise, + And thy great spirit, when the ferment ceased, + For ever oriented to the East, + Mysterious, helpless, beautiful and wise. + Thence while the bitter ages onward run, + And the fierce West doth rend a path through time, + Thou for the nations from the healing sun + Draw’st healing still, and in the teeth of crime + Provest by many a bloodless victory won, + Than this world’s pride of power Love more sublime. + + HESEPE, _22nd May_ + + + + +IV + + + Who is it loometh o’er the Steppes at e’en, + A giant from the sunrise of man’s race, + Statured of eld, that immemorial face + Hewn out of Ararat, in which we glean, + And in the froward, patriarchal mien, + An old tale told in many a furrowed trace, + Moulded before the Sphynx crouched in her place, + By passion uncontrollable and clean. + For he hath sat with Abram in the tent, + And gazed on Hebron, till the blue heaven broke + Over them into stars. Then he went on + Down all the ages ageless and unbent, + Till in this later world of lesser folk + ’Mongst men he towers the eternal Mastodon. + + HESEPE, _23rd May_ + + + + +V + + + And all that man hath felt since man hath known + Life first within him, aye, and woman too, + Conceived and manifolded in him, drew + To limitless creation, widely sown + On teaming soil o’er which his breath had blown. + Magnificently carnal, through and through. + Each taste of the green earth, the brown, he knew, + And tasted deep, and joyed, and made his own: + The boundless steppe, to which the sky bends down, + The forest where the eternal shadows sleep, + The sowing and the mowing and the frost; + The village and the pleasures of the town, + And birth and death and love, and the starred deep + Of heaven by night; and here his soul was lost! + + HESEPE, _23rd May_ + + + + +VI + + + Tolstoy is great in art, in thought not great. + Yet his thought troubles, oft-times shivering through + With icy barb the best that thought can do. + And when we ponder o’er his latter state, + And note its argument, backed by the fate + That marked his greatness down, we feel here too + That Something elemental, vast and true + To which all things at length capitulate. + And ye who sadly ponder to behold + The ruin of such greatness, grieved to see + How the child in him acted, thought and spoke, + Perchance will wonder, when the tale is told, + Whether ’twas not a mightier Thing than he + On which the Titan stumbled when he broke. + + HESEPE, _24th May_ + + + + +VII + + + So Tolstoy passed, and passing left behind + Not great themes only, but himself a great + And tragic Theme. Another shares his state, + Supreme within the kingdom of the mind, + As he where soul and body meet, combined + In lovely earth-forms. Dostoievsky, late + Thou cam’st into thine own, thy bitter fate + To be an exile; for the world is blind. + But in thy mantic cavern, undismayed + Amongst thy spirits, named and known so well, + Each a familiar, and thyself a shade, + By whitest light of heaven, by reddest hell, + Unscorched, unblinded, wrapt yet unafraid, + And true to thine own Passion, thou dost dwell. + + HESEPE, _26th May_ + + + + +VIII + + + Deep-sounding, subtle, pitiful, profound, + Dredger of human nature, versed in crime, + Mated with every grief, who in the slime + Divinest well where purest pearls abound; + Where darkness mostly reigneth thou dost found + A kingdom of the light, O soul sublime, + Most pure, most Christ-like spirit of thy time; + And where thy feet have trod is holy ground-- + Holy, yet haunted, and a realm of fright, + Not to be traversed but with flying feet, + And beating heart and racing brain alight + With fire from hell, and heated with hell’s heat, + Till in the cooler spaces of the night + The o’erwrought spirit finds a safe retreat. + + HESEPE, _27th May_ + + + + +IX + + + Here is thy limit, mightiest of thine age + An under- and an over-world to paint, + Peopled with epileptic and with saint, + The murderer’s, ogre’s, and the gambler’s rage: + Too much of fever in thee to assuage + Our average human restlessness, the taint + Of a charmed subtlety oft rendering faint + The sense of man’s salvation in thy page. + Perchance in thy heroic spirit, fraught + With too much tragedy, the causes lie; + That spirit unembittered, overwrought, + In which a something fitful we descry, + A fretfulness, as in thine image caught + By Sonia Kovalevsky’s soulful eye. + + HESEPE, _28th May_ + + + + +X + + + Turgenev, gentlest of the sons of pain, + Who in a line, as Homer wont, distillest + The essence of all pathos, thou who fillest + A human place ’twixt the Cyclopean twain, + ’Tis not with hell-fire driven o’er the brain, + Nor stretched titanic canvas that thou thrillest, + But by the plotted garden-space thou tillest, + Making man’s middle courses thy domain. + Here once more we discern how still great art + Meets nature greatly. Elemental powers + Pulse in thy perfect pages. Souls depart + With awe upon them to the silent bowers. + The world is ever with thee, its great heart + Laid to thy beating own, as thine to ours. + + HESEPE, _21st May_ + + + + +XI + + + Wordsworth, above all poets in thee I find + What in the greatest we too seldom see, + The crowning virtue of tranquillity, + Effectual o’er the sorrows of the mind. + Others to gain such peace have left behind + This hard world for the realm of fantasie, + Or in a past remote found sanctuary, + Or in the end thought’s burden have resigned. + One above all by daily struggle rose + Into a blue empyrean of the brain, + Self-mastering might, yet such as never knows + The deeper calm that masters. There remain + Nature’s anointed dynasts. Only those + Whose peace is fundamental truly reign. + + HESEPE, _30th May_ + + + + +XII + + + Of these thou art. And, Wordsworth, it is not + That thou hast missed man’s feverish heritage. + Strange passions thou hast known, and noble rage, + Nor in Romance an anodyne hast sought. + And if to souls in trouble thou hast brought + Strength and relief, ’tis not thy sauntering page, + Nor oft-times common theme that doth assuage + The anguish of the spirit overwrought. + Rather it is that, deeply moved, thou sink’st + Deeply in nature’s homeliness, thy rime + Plain as her face; but, stooping as thou drink’st, + The eternal from beyond the hills of Time + Is on thee ere thou know’st it, and thou link’st + Thy being with it, suddenly sublime. + + HESEPE, _31st May_ + + + + +XIII + + + Herein is thy celestial wisdom shown, + That thou, divining Godhead scarce concealed + In nature’s plain immediacy, dost yield + To her the soul of poetry and thine own. + Until thou cam’st no son of time had known + The measure of the glory now revealed + In common things, the beauty of the field, + The moving grace of planet and of stone. + What bliss it was to feel as at the first, + But with that insight now supremely thine, + The trailing clouds upon a world accurst + In all their fresh and pristine splendour shine; + While into that familiar face there burst + The expression of the Countenance divine. + + HESEPE, _31st May_ + + + + +XIV + + + Sweetly at length, like faithful love abused + By cold neglect, in this domed interval + Of silent time returns with soft footfall + The echo of a music long disused. + Ah me, before such strains I stand accused, + So early known, and then my all in all, + And with the magic of the morning’s call + And ethos of my children interfused-- + A nameless sense of youth that will not die, + While Homer’s volleying dactyls surging send + The music of the wind-entangled seas + Around the world, and as the billows fly, + Shouldering each other shorewards, metely blend + His harping with the thunderous centuries. + + HESEPE, _8th June_ + + + + +XV + + + Oft have I risen before the night hath flown, + To catch the hour of deepest silence sweet, + And through that hush to list in my retreat + The solemn voice of Æschylus intone, + His great Iambic, till the tale hath grown + Into a passion over me, where meet + Huge forms archaic, and on stately feet + Move to swift doom in Æginetan stone. + High over all in simple grandeur bold, + With crest on crest against the morning skies, + Yet in eternal shadow, I behold + The massif of the _Agamemnon_ rise, + And through its marble caverns shuddering hear + The haunting voice of Clytæmnestra’s fear. + + HESEPE, _9th June_ + + + + +XVI + + + --Infatuate queen, who oft as lingering day + Rounds to his close, and passion’s hour is nigh, + Through Atreus’ halls on soundless foot doth hie, + And from the tower the purpling east survey-- + Lest in the still and fearful night’s thick play, + While by her beating side doth sweltering lie + Sallow Ægisthus with the hawking eye, + Swift Fate prepare a swifter stroke than they; + And while love’s maddening vintage they partake, + A sudden flame should redden all the land, + And beacon call to beacon, where they break + From the lone watchman on the Ægean strand. + “The ship! the ship! His ship comes tossing o’er + The wine-dark sea. The King is at the door.” + + HESEPE, _9th June_ + + + + +XVII + + + I paced entranced the mourne, melodious shore + Where Sophocles unwinds with matchless art + Life’s tangled error, pondering in my heart + The tragic theme that middle diction bore-- + The end not hopeless, when, all wanderings o’er, + By still Colonus in that place apart + The thunder rolled, and while the earth did start, + The old man of the sorrows was no more. + And I have felt the moving of the strings + Beneath the fingers of that troubled soul, + Third in the triple dynasty of kings, + Whose tenderness, beyond his art’s control, + Over life’s mutilated torso wrings + Fierce protest, agonizing for the Whole. + + HESEPE, _10th June_ + + + + +XVIII + + + One scene, Euripides, throughout the years + Clings to the moving skirts of memory, + Among the images of things that lie + In beauty perfected, too deep for tears. + ’Tis where, to still his faithful matron’s fears + Through lonely days and nights of agony, + Having fulfilled his roving chivalry, + At length the Paladin of eld appears, + Thy Herakles; and wife and children stand + ’Neath that majestic manhood pure from blame; + The basket circulates from hand to hand. + When of a sudden--_He was not the same_. + There could no more, but with the dripping sword. + And all that ruth impounded in a word! + + HESEPE, _10th June_ + + + + +XIX + + + While still that music pealed an alien strain + Broke boisterous into sudden interplay, + Troubling the soul with laughter and dismay; + And chattering drolls appeared, expressly plain, + And tingling to the immemorial vein + Of the obscene in all things formed of clay. + There pausing on the turmoiled scene that lay + Before my eyes, a light broke on my brain, + And vast Aristophanic laughter shook + Each nerve within me, and a hand did part + Some far-back curtain of the soul, and took + A portion of my years; and I did start, + Divining art’s new purport, to rebuke + And humanize the stiffly pure of heart. + + HESEPE, _11th June_ + + + + +XX + + + It were not well with man did he not feel + At home with his own nature, all we are + Conspiring with our angel and our star + To keep our being whole, or, broken, heal, + Lest in some faulted mould the soul congeal. + And oft-times ’tis the Highest that doth mar + The Perfect in us, straining us too far, + And overreaching Justice. Hence the peal + Of that great cachinnation echoing woke + Appreciation of the lofty use + Of comedy, to shake the settling soul + Out of itself. The Elemental spoke, + And something broadened in me. The recluse + Unstiffened, and I felt my nature whole. + + HESEPE, _11th June_ + + + + +XXI + + + Justice! the very sound brings back the throes + Of that tremendous season when Youth sees + His world collapse, and beaten to his knees + He takes the bolt of doubt, all that he knows, + That he knows nothing. Underneath the blows + Of thought I laboured long in labouring seas, + Pledging my soul to martyred Socrates; + And o’er night’s face the star of Plato rose. + This much of truth I still divined, that here + Was internecine conflict; only doubt + Strained to the uttermost a path could clear + To that last Deep where wind and tide give out, + And freighted Time drops softly out to sea, + A moving image of Eternity. + + HESEPE, _12th June_ + + + + +XXII + + + Who to the visions of immortal Thought, + Engendered by the music of the mind-- + First in that place where our poor human kind + Sit in the cave and watch the shadows wrought + By firelight on the wall, obscurely caught; + Then luring on to where the soul, half blind, + Turns from the Splendour which itself divined-- + With kinglier toil a loftier art hath brought, + Than Plato? Who more haunted by the light + Hath ever yet gone coasting with the sun, + Or in the deep and constellated night, + Claimed from the spheres their voices as they run? + Or soaring where the Eternal Glories shine + Hath stretched to earth a more majestic line? + + HESEPE, _13th June_ + + + + +XXIII + + + As deeply versed in that infinitude + Where man his doom within himself doth find + By no strait pedagogy, but divined + Through some more massive sense of True and Good, + A kind of Inspiration, the soul’s food, + Derived from far, and working still behind + All conscious reason, till the labouring mind + ’Neath that profounder suasion sinks subdued. + So Plato’s thought grows cosmic, by its own + Illumination led and mystified, + And haunted by a voice of purer tone + Than reason’s groping motion e’er supplied; + The beam refracted by the Forms and shown + As coloured light wherein the soul is dyed. + + HESEPE, _14th June_ + + + + +XXIV + + + Thus do the greatest ever by sheer might + Of natural penetration find their way + Into the Innermost, where Being’s ray + Burns unendurable, and in that light + Their own with nature’s majesty unite + To one high rhythm, stupendous interplay + Of Thought and Being, perioded, gray + With shadow, with serenest sunshine bright. + So that old man of Koenigsberg profound, + By night revolving two infinities, + And so Spinoza, when his spirit found + Intellect into Intuition rise, + Envisaging creation from above, + Where knowledge takes the perfect form of Love.[1] + + HESEPE, _14th June_ + +[1] The “Amor Dei intellectualis.” + + + + +XXV + + + But thy peculiar greatness more than these, + By thinking pregnant with creative art, + Subduing chance and moulding part to part, + Hath Cosmic in it, Plato, harmonies + That wake the dim immortal memories + We bring from the Eternal, whence we start + The round of Being, bearing in our heart + The echoes of the everlasting seas. + Here stands no accidental word. And so, + While theme with theme grows twisted and entwined, + Is freedom perfected. We gaze, and lo, + The argument is off before the wind, + Like some great trireme tacking endlessly, + Yet ever headed for Eternity. + + HESEPE, _14th June_ + + + + +WATCHWORDS AND MAXIMS + + + + +I + + + “Live dangerously.” No braver mandate yet, + Nietzsche, nor charged with finer lightning ran + Around the world. And true it is the man + Who hath no menace in him, nor hath met + A threatening Universe with counter-threat + Is caitiff still. In those who lead the van + The Headlong is the guide to each new plan, + While lances leap, spears break, the ground is wet. + One prayer I prayed: “Lord, if Thou hast discerned + Within me ought of manliness, enroll + Thy servant with the fighters, who have earned + Their manhood’s charter where the thunders roll + Over the field, that so I may have learned + To taste this Element, and know my soul.” + + HESEPE, _6th June_ + + + + +II + + + There comes to me a memorable thought + Borne on that voice, which like some wandering gleam + Brings freshness into Hegel’s well-worn theme + From Naples lately, Croce, he who taught + That Art’s true nature is not to be sought + In what is fitted only to redeem + By strict initiation souls who dream + Of beauty in some crafty pattern wrought, + But in the apt Expression, wheresoe’er + Expression apt is found, the Inward still + Externalizing till the soul declare + The thing within it, and divinely fill + With sound or sign the habitable air-- + A language universal as man’s will. + + HESEPE, _18th June_ + + + + +III + + + Thus language is the type wherein revealed + Art’s universal function we behold, + In sensuous forms appropriate to unfold + Whate’er of meaning Individuals yield: + A doctrine this which doth enlarge the field + To every man who in himself doth hold + But speech enough a simple thought to mould + In words well wedded to the sense concealed. + --Doubtless a truth, though strained beyond the Norm, + If still the theme, with varying purport fraught, + Loses itself entirely in the Form, + And ugliness and beauty count for naught; + And yet a truth, although a truth in part, + All art expression, not all expression art. + + HESEPE, _18th June_ + + + + +IV + + + The Import counts. All great art greatly deals + With themes not insignificant. The less + Gives lesser art, howe’er the form express + The sense of that the artist thinks or feels. + And wonderful it is how life reveals + The great theme near at hand, did we but press + Our lives less fiercely, and our souls possess, + When stirred, until the fitting word congeals. + Art should not fail among us. All have eyes + Which bring the star-sown heavens nightly home, + And there are ever winds about the world. + And no man but hath felt the mysteries + Of birth and wedlock and death’s solemn gloam, + Or seen the petals of a rose uncurled. + + HESEPE, _19th June_ + + + + +V + + + Of Tragedy the essence and the goal + Is Vindication. Fear and pity close + The tale with mourning, but the issue shows + The moral order master of man’s soul. + And as its slow and solemn waters roll + Thunderingly through the scenes, a sense there grows + Of some high Presence working in these throes, + Whose Being is the topic and the whole. + Thus not these personal griefs alone comprise + The theme of Tragedy, that theme more vast + Than its own content, deeper than the sighs + Of the doomed Titan hounded home at last-- + The Universe in action, and the cries + Of Cosmic Vengeance closing with the Past. + + HESEPE, _25th May_ + + + + +VI + + + “Gehorsam.” It is seldom that one hears + The German tongue commended. Yet I find + No spell more swift, more potent to unbind + The spirit’s shades in some fine phrase that clears + An entrance to the import of the years, + Where speech, unwinding as thought’s coils unwind, + Makes landfall, and companioning man’s mind, + Ends in the Innermost, whereto he steers. + And many a haunting solitary sound + In that strange tongue, with doubling content fraught, + Booms at the ear of conscience, whose profound + Responses in that energy are caught, + And Teuton loyalty, that holds its ground, + Sweeps Europe still, and sets a world at naught. + + HESEPE, _4th July_ + + + + +VII + + + Two other words contrasting well distil + In two clear drops of sound significant, + And flavoured to the thought, the crowning want + That mars our enterprise--the English will, + Steadfast of purpose, but unsteady still + In the particular. Strange humours haunt + The earnestness of battle, and we flaunt + The eccentric in us even as we kill. + A nobly erring pride is here, disdain + Of death--and duty, when that duty chimes + Not with our liking; and our stubbornness + Wants sternness in it to perfect the grain. + Of late to tragic heights the contrast climbs, + Which “Ernst” and “Eigensinnigkeit” express. + + HESEPE, _5th July_ + + + + +VIII + + + Compel them to be free! A true word there + Thou minted’st, Rousseau--half the human race + Still unaspiring to that crowning grace, + Still disinclined the easy yoke to wear. + Oh, that at length our people would but dare + To look their cancer fiercely in the face, + Consenting on the foul and rotting place + The short sharp anguish of the knife to bear. + For there are powers upon us that still sap + Our liberty and drain our manhood dry, + Which if we clear not speedily, mayhap + Our twilight follows and the end is nigh; + Or else there rise a Strong One who will clap + The Teuton iron on us, and we die. + + HESEPE, _7th July_ + + + + +IX + + + As when along a level land we pace, + The scene, from where our forward-moving feet + Touch ground, to where the earth and heaven greet, + Seems to revolve in some vast wheel’s embrace, + Whose spoke-wise turning slow the eye can trace + From near-by hedges, wayside trees, that fleet + With rick and steading by, till all lines meet + And motion dwindles in far distant space-- + There haply some majestic mountain mass + By contrast travels with us as we go, + And doth across the spirit, as we pass, + The feeling of its omnipresence throw-- + So o’er man’s fleeting and particular fate + For ever omnipresent broods the State. + + HESEPE, _30th June_ + + + + +X + + + Unto man’s spirit thou art closely bound + By natural drift and consanguinity, + But more by long companionship, the tie + That holds you twain together tightly wound + First in his infancy, where thou art found + Like some great watchdog that doth panting lie + Stretched by his infant master, his dull eye + Wakeful, his sharp ear cocked at every sound. + Nay, for the bond is closer, ’twas thy face + Bent over him at birth; thy kindly pains + Steadied his childish feet. Nor can we trace + What in his blood derives not from thy veins + By long transfusion unprecipitate, + Alive, organically intimate. + + HESEPE, _19th July_ + + + + +XI + + + Suppose a race (the vision first I saw + Among the dark stern reasonings of Kant) + Resolved its past for ever to recant, + And from its island borders to withdraw: + No man shall move--I heard that doom with awe-- + Until the wretched, last, lorn miscreant + By shameful death full reparation grant + To the offended majesty of Law. + So as man’s coming race prepares to leave + The Island of its Present, where to-day + Europe in crime lies sweltering, and to cleave + A fresh path through the portals of the Day, + At History’s bar the nations duly lined + Await their judgment. Some remain behind. + + HESEPE, _7th July_ + + + + +XII + + + One thing upon the tablet of the mind + By fire should be imprinted. Nations stand + Only as to the touch of that great Hand + Their substance answers, which when it outlined + A cosmos on the waters, and designed + Earth’s granite frame, and sundered sea and land, + Laid in man’s heart a Law, more deeply planned + Than that of nations, compassing his kind. + And in that Law eternal stands revealed + How by self-abnegation man at length + Comes to himself, how to the meek is sealed + The habitable earth, how human strength + Is perfected in weakness, into dross + Earth’s glory sinks confronted with Christ’s cross. + + HESEPE, _25th July_ + + + + +XIII + + + Protector of the spirit, who by night + With hands bent round it lanthorn-like dost frame + Against the wind a shelter for its flame, + Thyself a thing of spirit and a light, + The Commonwealth! Yet in thy sovereign right + Thou may’st not unrebuked, unchallenged claim + To be the First and Last, a holier Name + Than thine intoning from a higher height. + For blood is on thy hand and on thy head, + And war’s black cloud upon thy deep dark brow; + And in thy shadow Socrates lies dead. + And though awhile it needs must be that thou + For man’s unrighteousness shalt legislate, + Man’s righteousness will yet become thy Fate. + + HESEPE, _17th July_ + + + + +ENGLAND AND OXFORD + + + + +I + + + Line after line the tale beneath the pen + Moves on, and rodent Time with tireless tooth + Works o’er our portion, till one day forsooth + We tread the cool gray shadow, ageing men. + This change I mark, and sadly pondering then + Catch the soul’s murmur, accented with ruth: + “Oh, let me hear upon the lips of youth + ‘Eothen’ and ‘Eothen’ once again!” + And Oxford, oh, do thou with soulful toil, + While o’er our folk tumultuous ages throng, + Mounted at night as o’er some priceless spoil, + For us the fineness of this cult prolong, + Still nurturing in our sweet English soil + That glory from the Morningland of song. + + HESEPE, _8th June_ + + + + +II + + + Yet, Oxford, it is better thou should’st know + That eyes which love thee in thy culture see + The withering curse of long sterility. + Rooted in England, thou hast ceased to grow + Together with her growth. Thy waters flow + Not with her broadening current to the sea, + But murmuring their delicious melody + They wander forth and wist not where they go. + And thus thy fine-edged spirit, which in high + Disdain hath never paltered with the pelf + Of modern rapine, doth too often fly + To endless crochets, wayward as an elf, + Self-humouring and posturing and shy, + And broods apart and lives unto itself.[2] + + HESEPE, _8th June_ + +[2] It is hoped that it may not be thought too much of a liberty in an +outsider to criticize anything so esoteric as the Oxford culture; but +if so I should reply that it is just this esoteric quality which I wish +to criticize. Admiration for Oxford and love of England alike compel me +to deplore the fact that so typical a _product_ of our national life +should be so little _representative_. + + + + +III + + + None than thyself more royally to-day + Hath given to England in her hour of need. + In every field where England’s children bleed + Thine own have there more richly bled than they. + And Oxford still incarnadines the clay + To such a sanctity as doth o’erplead + The voice of censure, silenced by the deed + Of the great heart that laid them where they lay. + ’Tis their’s, that murmur fluttering from the marge + Of thither Acheron, where their cares they ply + In deathless death: “O Mother mine, enlarge + Thy life to England’s. Thou hast learned to die. + But while thy life thou dost so grandly give, + One thing thou lackest, Oxford: learn to live!” + + HESEPE, _8th June_ + + + + +IV + + + There is one source alone which can supply + New life and impulse. ’Tis a voice that rolls + Half inarticulate in English souls, + From field and mine and factory, where they ply + The single talent Fate did not deny, + Their labour. Now they hear upon the shoals + Of a sad life that there are other goals + To man’s existence than they yet descry; + And, scarcely yet discerned, they deeply feel + A presence over them, a haunting sense + Of music in the world, whose echoes steal + Unto them from the spheres, where in the immense + Circle of night and day the planets keep + Measure and watch, while mortals toil and weep. + + HESEPE, _15th June_ + + + + +V + + + Thine be it to direct their steps aright + Unto that bourne which doth not cease to haunt. + They cry for it, not knowing what they want, + Or what for man is best--the use of sight; + Some inkling of the precious power of light, + To glorify a mean existence gaunt, + And check the bitter self-inflicted taunt + That nothing worthy calls them home at night. + And thou can’st set them questing, make them feel + The nearness of true knowledge, where it lies + In common things with which they daily deal, + Yet ending in the Splendour of the skies; + Or teach them in shunned volumes to detect + The simplicity of letters unsuspect. + + HESEPE, _16th June_ + + + + +VI + + + Yet--for the kindly Mother may not quit + Her cloistered sanctuary, where from the height + Of scholarship’s remoteness day and night + She strains truth’s fabric--it is those who sit + A season at her feet, and learn to fit + Their spirits to her own, who must requite + These lofty cares, and carry out the light, + And serve it round, and tend its burning, lit. + But thine, O Kindly Mother, first to prove + Thy ministers, and having chosen, tune, + Bringing thy spirit o’er them, till they move + Like one at thy behest--as to the moon, + Passing soft influence from the quiet skies, + The oceans with their weight of waters rise. + + HESEPE, _16th June_ + + + + +VII + + + One thing must be thine instant, anxious care, + Which on thine honour thou dar’st not refuse. + Long time our people now the habit lose + Of speech consecutive (which man should wear + Upon him like a garment, fit and fair) + And through some faulting of the brain abuse + Thought’s flowing vesture of a thousand hues, + Oft shorn to shreds, all fluttering in the air. + I mark and grieve; for in this lost control + We trace the weakness of these breathless times, + When man no longer keeps his nature whole, + Nor governs his spirit; and it chimes + With the unruly in us, deadliest threat + Our English liberty hath fronted yet. + + HESEPE, _17th June_ + + + + +VIII + + + It is not for art’s sake this precious dower + Of speech must be renewed, but for the sake + Of life within. The expression doth not break + Silence in vain, but with reflexive power + To vitalize its source, and parting shower + New riches on the donor. Thus we take + Life’s counterthrust upon our souls, and shake + The vessel, lest by standing Being sour. + All life’s a language; but ’tis not enough + To launch forth with it wildly into space, + Adding one atom to the blinding drain, + A pitiable froth-bell in the trough + Of each new cause, wherein the striving race + Tries issue with stern time--perchance in vain. + + HESEPE, _20th June_ + + + + +HOME THOUGHTS ONCE MORE + + + + +I + + + A week of nights and days once more brings round + The Sabbath tide; and once again the heart + Sets yearningly to homewards. Do they part + At the church door to-day, as when the stound + Of disillusioned fancy last unbound + Memory’s deep wound, and in the bitter smart + The vision vanished? Ah, the shadows start + To life again across the haunted ground; + The kindly farewells said, the sauntering walk + Home through the sun-baked streets, by twos and twos, + The friendly flow of pleasant secular talk, + And personalities and trivial news. + And the long winding prospect of the day, + The feast of children yet shall wile away. + + HESEPE, _26-27th May_ + + + + +II + + + ’Tis July, and a sunny stillness broods + On our magnificent England. Misty skies + Break into blue, and ripening harvests rise + Over her bosom. Her majestic woods + Ripple and sway before the varying moods + Of the west wind. The roses sacrifice + In every garden to the sun. There lies + Deep peace o’er all: no sound profane intrudes. + Far in the north the solemn mountains keep + A sanctuary amongst the shades that dwell + In the deep gloom of haunted Highland glens, + Where silence awes, and where for ever sleep + In lochs unfathomed and inscrutable + The shadows of the everlasting Bens. + + HESEPE, _2nd July_ + + + + +III + + + There is another England, that which feeds + Our sinews where the champing engines chide + Beneath the settled darkness that doth hide + Earth’s stricken face from Rotherham to Leeds. + Deep in that gloom the blinding furnace bleeds + A molten treasure: England is supplied; + A million hammers roar along the Clyde; + The transport of a million men proceeds. + And all this horror of the work of man, + Effacing God, I magnify and bless-- + The way that leads out leading also through, + While God goes round to compass His great plan, + And out of ashes and of hideousness + By curse of toil Creation blooms anew. + + HESEPE, _3rd July_ + + + + +INTERLUDE + + + + +I + + + My hundredth sonnet! Here I pause to brood + A little by myself upon the theme + Ere once again with the meandering stream + Of my own thoughts I move. And it were good + To give thanks for the labour that hath stood + Between my soul and madness, like a gleam + Of sunlight in the darkness of the dream + Which passes over me, else scarce withstood. + Wonderful is it how the heart o’erwrought + Unloads in song, life’s passionate rebound + ’Gainst agonies whose barb alone hath brought + This bird of sorrows fluttering to the ground, + And with these wild and wandering flowers of thought + The portion of a prisoner metely crowned. + + HESEPE, _23rd June_ + + + + +II + + + I ponder on the form, and truth to tell, + ’Twere scarcely to be deemed a sonnet chain + Which did not in its forged length contain + Some turn contemplative, where for a spell + The smith might lay his hammer by, to dwell + Upon the pattern, lest the octet strain + The content, or the sextet court in vain + A bigger thought than it can compass well. + And oft when to the varying interplay + Of partnered sounds I strive thought’s flower to train + Upon this trellis, the perplexing way + By lucky chance of rime lies sudden plain, + And I cry out with Agathon: τέχνη + τύχην ἔστερξε καὶ τύχη τέχνην. + + HESEPE, _23rd June_ + + + + +III + + + Yet the sport wind that doubling oft blows home + Some welcome unforeseen felicity, + Is but, within the dreams of poesie, + Life’s average accident, which all who roam + The spacious earth, or try the beckoning foam + Of some unvisited soul-haunting sea, + May count on as their portion--even as we + Who chance a star or two in this weird gloam. + Hence as in all high toil which must be traced + In long-drawn sequence, linking part to part, + Not chance nor inspiration can fulfil + The welded whole, nor vanquish that distaste + Which ever comes with pause; but sovereign Art + Herself must bow to man’s more sovereign Will. + + HESEPE, _24th June_ + + + + +IV + + + So forward still, might but my strength avail + Out of the brooding darkness of my plight, + Each day to bring one glimmering shaft of light, + Each night to add some fragment to the tale, + That so I sleep. Else o’er my dreams prevail + These sorrows, or within me hour-long smite + The hammers of the brain, and turn the night + Into a thing to make man’s reason fail. + --A little further; for the thoughts still rise + Over me like a soughing wind, that blows + From where the surges boom along the graile + Of the world’s misery under lowering skies, + --A little further and my task I close, + Lest twilight overtake me and I stale. + + HESEPE, _25th June_ + + + + +ENGLAND + + + + +I + + + England, the strain of weakness in thee shows + Like to some fell distemper which doth threat + Thy noble life with blight, and doth beget + Many malignant sores. The evil flows + Not from one source, but gradually grows + With thine own growth of years, wherein are met + All the deep instincts that did ever fret + The soul of freedom against freedom’s foes. + But whatsoe’er the form, the effect is one; + Some great cause grandly tried and bravely lost, + Some work of beauty marred upon the loom, + And at the final reckoning, something done, + Yet at a bitter and a fearful cost-- + In broken hearts and many a needless tomb. + + HESEPE, _25th June_ + + + + +II + + + I heard it in the strife of other days; + It reached me in my home across the sea, + That the great soul that made my England free, + And now must make her perfect, idly plays + With the tremendous issue; that they raise + Sedition’s banner with impunity, + And legislators, hot with laboured plea, + Pile law on law, while Law herself decays. + It is the everlasting cloud that dwells + Upon the summit, compassed in one word, + Disruption, whose deep thunder as it swells + Unnerves us, and arrests the falling sword, + Even to this hour, when but to differ spells + Lese-majesty, and loyalty means accord. + + HESEPE, _25th June_ + + + + +III + + + Man lives by love. The state subsists by Law. + And in these sacred islands east and west, + Constant of late the Beast its scaly breast + Half rears from earth, and with its unclean paw + And bloody fang a-work, and dripping jaw, + Offers at England. It is time this pest + Were exorcised, and Unrest laid to rest, + With all that dares to hold thee not in awe. + So thou deal’st faithfully with God and man; + With man, who prays thee, England, but to place + Thy heavy hand on all that doth immerse + The god-like in him, and distort his plan; + With God, who made thee regent for a space + Over a portion of His Universe. + + HESEPE, _1st July_ + + + + +IV + + + England, I trust thee. What thy soul hath planned + Will be performed; and towards that last long end + Thou hast not wavered since thou first did’st send + Ship hot on ship, by freemen freely manned, + Over the sea to France’s sacred strand. + Faithful thou art, and knowest well to blend + Patience with resolution, and to lend + To thy heart’s aim thy gauntleted right hand. + This in the main. And yet the enterprise + Articulated, mocks the purposed whole + With fitful effort; and the dread doth loom, + As each fresh crisis darkens all the skies, + That the Disruptive in thy restless soul, + Become habitual, is become thy doom. + + HESEPE, _28th June_ + + + + +V + + + Forget it, England, that this Tempest finds + Thy life at home with troubles overrun, + Issues unsettled, justice to be done, + And dark distrust corrupting all men’s minds. + Trust England, all her sons. Her millstone grinds + Slowly perchance; but while in heaven the sun + Endureth, while their rounds the planets run, + Her word is bond, and what she binds she binds. + And England, see thou that these debts are paid! + Be firmly true to thine own children. Stand + For justice. Let these arms aside be laid. + And in our dear inviolable land + None but thyself go armed--the only blade + Out of its sheath, that flashing in thy hand. + + HESEPE, _28th June_ + + + + +VI + + + Until the day that England’s sons shall learn + Not in that instant only when there burst + Thunders upon her to place England first, + But steadily, and in her face discern + The hunger-look of one who still doth yearn + Over the children whom her breast hath nursed; + The long look of a mother, and her thirst + To see her children’s eyes that look return-- + Not till the day when o’er our local strife + The feeling of our nationality + Shall rise spontaneous as our English Life, + Outsoaring every animosity + By sheer force of its grandeur--shall we see + The truth come home and our free England free. + + HESEPE, _29th June_ + + + + +VII + + + Have you e’er thought, you people, have you thought + How great a thing it is in these great days + But to belong to England? The world stays + Upon the event. ’Twas English armies caught + The onfall of the Cyclone. While they fought, + The world forbore to breathe. Stern Fate delays + The issue; but that service and its praise + While England lives will never be forgot. + There was an honour that the ages kept + For English arms from immemorial time, + While yet the chivalry of nations slept + With mastodon and mammoth in the slime. + The æons rolled. Fate nodded. England woke. + The hour boomed forth. ’Twas England took the stroke. + + HESEPE, _1st July_ + + + + +VIII + + + Let every child of England every day, + While o’er the world these battle-thunders roll, + Enter into the silence of his soul, + And there communing with his conscience say: + “I am a child of England, and I pray + That with a single eye and one fixed goal, + Thou grant me, God, to give my being whole + To England in her hour of agony. + Chasten me to the greatness of my fate; + And, self-divided, make me one again, + That, as to this last rally congregate + The last stern remnants of my countrymen, + Thou may’st behold Thy England move as one, + Swift, final, justified of every son.” + + HESEPE, _2nd July_ + + + + +IX + + + There have been moments haunted by the sound + Of riot in our midst and foul rapine, + Which, with more wealth, still makes our lives more mean, + When I have asked: “If one who strove to ground + Our life afresh should cast his eyes around + Amongst the people, one great class to glean + Out of the whole, that should keep England clean, + Where should this pure, effectual class be found?” + No answer came from those who still divide + The old tradition of a worn-out past. + I asked the Church: the labouring lost replied; + For these the Publican. And at the last + I looked into the honest eyes of youth, + And knew--the exceeding bitterness of truth. + + HESEPE, _5th July_ + + + + +X + + + My countrymen, if while upon the brink + Of this Penultimate of Destiny, + The world with gathered sinews, anxiously + Craning upon the plunge, awaits the wink + Of swithering Mars, I could but make you think + A wildish thought on purpose, it would be + That England in a night beneath the sea + Should like some greater Krakatoa sink. + Then while to water and oblivion + The great ship heels majestically down, + Ask ye what world it were in which the dawn + Sparkled no more on Ocean’s jewelled crown, + But in that place where England used to be + Spouted and plashed the insufferable sea. + + HESEPE, _9th July_ + + + + +XI + + + Can it be thought, or can the thought be borne, + That for a single hour beneath the sun + Earth shall endure, when England’s day is done? + A world without an England! Yea, but shorn + Of the divinest gem her breast hath worn, + What most she makes for--doomed thenceforth to run + Blind, lost, and calling for that treasured One, + Through star-sown space, unfathomably mourne! + Never again the liquid air to breathe + On a May morn among the Mendip Hills; + Never to watch the green Atlantic seethe + Around the Lizard, while the Severn fills; + Never to hear the quivering strings that hung + The speech of Chatham on the English tongue! + + HESEPE, _10th July_ + + + + +XII + + + ’Tis not these Islands sundered from the Deep + By many a winding and melodious strand, + Lovely as when they issued from the Hand + That bade the Shannon from his cradle leap; + That smoothed the Cotswolds to the wandering sheep, + And spread the waters o’er the Solway sand, + And motioned where Ben Cruachan should stand, + And in his shadow laid Loch Awe to sleep; + ’Tis not these shimmering woods of oak and beech, + Nor these green shires, each in its golden frame, + Like pictures hanging side by side, and each + Entangled with the music of its name-- + Not all this weight of glory passing speech + Full measure of the English soul can claim. + + HESEPE, _11th July_ + + + + +XIII + + + England is England’s history, that great dome + Which ever us and our immortal dead + Draws shadow, while men’s common lives are led, + Strange thought! in that superb half-light, half-gloam. + And all who dwell in England, all who roam + The seas on great emprise inherited, + Gazing into that fulness overhead, + Behold a sanctuary and a home. + England’s a spirit that doth interfuse + Whate’er is of her, every form wherein + Herself she reincarnates, all that strews + Her bosom and her years, and works within, + And spreads, and wells, and sinks, and overflows; + And how to know her only Spirit knows. + + HESEPE, _12th July_ + + + + +XIV + + + And in that spirit interpenetrate + The numberless appealing strains that bring + The look of England into everything + That she hath looked on till the night grew late; + Where, as amongst the four gray seas she sate, + And mused upon it, she hath felt the ring + That bound her to her narrow island spring, + And something passed, and passing made her great. + And Empire mustered round her. Ere she knew + Her state, her hour was on her once again. + Herseemed that something winged from her flew. + Herseemed as though the feet of marching men + Bore past her to a music never mute + While England proudly takes that proud salute. + + HESEPE, _12th July_ + + + + +XV + + + It is her destiny. She seems to sleep. + She dreams; and nodding, world on world is born. + For her the splendour of an eastern morn + The Coromandel sands profusely steep; + The rocks of Aden sentinel the deep. + Her paths are round the Cape and round the Horn. + And where the sun goes down in seas of corn + Across the West their way her children reap. + Thus ere she hath outdreamt herself, the wheels + Of her achievement on their axle-trees + Have turned without her; and upon her steals + A sense of waking amidst unknown seas; + And wondering at her motherhood, she feels + The greatness of the Thing upon her knees. + + HESEPE, _13th July_ + + + + +XVI + + + Soul of an empire that hath far outrun + Thy purpose, England! thou who in the shade + Of thy maturing years thyself had’st laid + To rest amongst thy flocks--and lo! the sun + Set never more upon thee! One by one + The nations place them at those feet which strayed + Into the Innermost, where worlds are made, + And bless the Mother saw their race begun. + England, it must be that thou hast been sent + Some quest beyond thy vision to fulfil; + That, Mother of the Mighty, thou art meant + To be the Organ of a Mightier still; + And, while the final End we may not see, + We feel ’tis holier than or they or thee. + + HESEPE, _14th July_ + + + + +XVII + + + My country! To the height of this great thought, + With all that in thee is, with all the weight + Of thy self-consciousness, though born full late, + Upon thee, and thy thronging memories fraught + With germinating dreams, still to be brought + Unto fruition--chastened, consecrate + To the high calling of the Perfect State, + Thou must arise, or, failing, come to naught. + The Organ of the Highest! pre-ordained + To execute the fateful judgment, planned + From the Beginning by the Power that deigned + First to create in air and sea and land + Each thing that breathes and seeks its daily food, + And having formed, pronounced Creation good. + + HESEPE, _15th July_ + + + + +XVIII + + + Not to prevail by measure of thy might + O’er might that measures scarcely less than thine, + Bathing the naked world in blood and brine, + Till nature turns and sickens at the sight + --All but her vultures, gloating o’er the fight; + And the sun rages daily down the line + That doth compel his radiancy divine + So fair a world to such a doom to light-- + Nay, be thy function rather to disperse + The shouldering elements, that so the core + Of pure light in this glimmering universe + May by its motion kindling more and more + The look and loveliness of Spirit bring + Into the face of every living thing. + + HESEPE, _16th July_ + + + + +XIX + + + The Hittite is no longer. Babylon + Has gone into the silence of the sand. + Mirage-like in the Syrian desert stand + The pillars of Palmyra. Greece is gone. + And where for generations softly shone + The drowsy Pax Romana, sea and land + Mouth at the fragile landmarks Hadrian planned. + The State departs for ever: Man lives on. + And England, would’st thou live, it can but be + As thou, a spirit, in the restlessness + Of thine abundant strength on land and sea + Becom’st the spirit’s vehicle and dress, + Attaining in the measure of thy span + The spirit’s measure in the Perfect Man. + + HESEPE, _21st July_ + + + + +XX + + + Man, little man, whose sun hath not declined, + Pale man with spirit written on his face, + Punched out of clay, and pitched on some mean place, + A breath of being battling with the wind, + A prisoner on Time’s floating isle confined, + Yet in himself encompassing all space, + While with the regal gesture of his race + He sweeps Eternity into his mind! + The Spirit! The Encompasser! O thou, + England my country, could I but behold + The steadiness of spirit on thy brow, + Could’st thou _encompass_ spirit, I should hold + Thee master of the Future as the Past, + The immortal, perfect nation--and the last. + + HESEPE, _21st July_ + + + + +XXI + + + Thou hast vast life in thee, howe’er uncouth, + And, unenlightened, dost possess the art + To feel the fairway home without the chart, + And erring still, inclinest still to truth. + The sense of justice and the sense of ruth + Are not yet dead within thee, and thy part + It is to be magnanimous. Thy heart + Bounds to the fulness of perpetual youth. + And while the shadows deepen into gloam, + And while the long years whiten on thy head, + Thy freshness fails not. Thou bring’st nightly home + The sense that thou hast earned a dreamless bed. + The solemn Abbey, and the whispering Dome + Open to-day to take thy Immortal Dead. + + HESEPE, _22nd July_ + + + + +XXII + + + --Our own Immortals! Ours while we can keep + An isle of quiet for you ’neath the hoar + Shade of the Minster, where the Nation bore + Your mortal relics weeping. Rest you deep! + Rest! And while children’s children softly weep + Over you, and the great rose windows pour + A glory round, at peace for evermore + In marble and in alabaster sleep! + --Knowing your England! Knowing that while Time + Tries men by fire, these men will not recede + From where their fathers of the early prime + Led them by generations great in deed + To deeds still greater, where on fields sublime + The freeborn sons of England bled--and bleed! + + HESEPE, _25th July_ + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + +Influences, XX: spelling error in “cachinnation” corrected. + +England, XIV: stray period removed. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77636 *** |