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diff --git a/9621.txt b/9621.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a9bbab2 --- /dev/null +++ b/9621.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5064 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Georgian Poetry 1918-19, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Georgian Poetry 1918-19 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Sir Edward Marsh + +Posting Date: November 17, 2011 [EBook #9621] +Release Date: January, 2006 +First Posted: October 10, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGIAN POETRY 1918-19 *** + + + + +Produced by Keren Vergon, Clytie Siddall and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + +GEORGIAN + +POETRY + + + +1918-1919 + + + +EDITED BY SIR EDWARD MARSH + + + + +TO + +THOMAS HARDY + + + + +EIGHTH THOUSAND + +THE POETRY BOOKSHOP +35 Devonshire Street +Theobalds Road +W.C.1 +MCMXX + + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + +This is the fourth volume of the present series. I hope it may be +thought to show that what for want of a better word is called Peace has +not interfered with the writing of good poetry. + +Thanks and acknowledgements are due to Messrs. Beaumont, Blackwell, +Collins, Constable, Fifield, Heinemann, Seeker, Selwyn & Blount, and +Sidgwick & Jackson; and to the Editors of 'The Anglo-French Review', +'The Athenaeum', 'The Chapbook', 'Land and Water', 'The Nation', 'The New +Statesman', 'The New Witness', 'The New World', 'The Owl', 'The +Spectator', 'To-day', 'Voices', and 'The Westminster Gazette'. + +E. M. + +September, 1919. + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE + + Witchcraft: New Style + + +GORDON BOTTOMLEY + + Littleholme + + +FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG + + Invocation (from 'Poems') + Prothalamion + February + Lochanilaun + Lettermore + Song + The Leaning Elm + + +WILLIAM H. DAVIES + + Lovely Dames (from 'Forty New Poems') + When Yon Full Moon + On Hearing Mrs. Woodhouse Play the Harpsichord + Birds + Oh, Sweet Content! + A Child's Pet + England (from 'Forty New Poems') + The Bell + + +WALTER DE LA MARE + + The Sunken Garden (from 'Motley') + Moonlight + The Tryst + The Linnet + The Veil + The Three Strangers (from 'Motley') + The Old Men + Fare Well + + +JOHN DRINKWATER + + Deer (from 'Loyalties') + Moonlit Apples (from 'Tides') + Southampton Bells (from 'Loyalties') + Chorus (from 'Lincoln') + Habitation (from 'Loyalties') + Passage + + +JOHN FREEMAN + + O Muse Divine + The Wakers (from 'Memories of Childhood') + The Body + Ten O'clock No More + The Fugitive + The Alde + Nearness + Night and Night + The Herd + + +WILFRID WILSON GIBSON + + Wings (from 'Home') + The Parrots + The Cakewalk + Driftwood + Quiet (from 'Home') + Reveille + + +ROBERT GRAVES + + A Ballad of Nursery Rhyme (from 'Country Sentiment') + A Frosty Night + True Johnny + The Cupboard + The Voice of Beauty Drowned + Rocky Acres + + +D. H. LAWRENCE + + Seven Seals (from 'New Poems') + + +HAROLD MONRO + + Gravity + Goldfish + Dog + The Nightingale Near the House + Man Carrying Bale + + +THOMAS MOULT + + For Bessie in the Garden + 'Truly he hath a Sweet Bed' + Lovers' Lane + + +ROBERT NICHOLS + + The Sprig of Lime + Seventeen + The Stranger + 'O Nightingale my Heart' + The Pilgrim + + +J. D. C. FELLOW + +The Temple + + +SIEGFRIED SASSOON + + Sick Leave (from 'War Poems') + Banishment + Repression of War Experience + Does it Matter + Concert Party + Songbooks of the War + The Portrait + Thrushes (from 'War Poems') + Everyone Sang + + +EDWARD SHANKS + + A Night-Piece (from 'The Queen of China') + In Absence + The Glow-worm + The Cataclysm + A Hollow Elm + Fete Galante (from 'The Queen of China') + Song + + +FREDEGOND SHOVE + + A Dream in Early Spring (from 'Dreams and Journeys') + The World + The New Ghost + A Man Dreams that he is the Creator + + +J. C. SQUIRE + + Rivers (from 'Poems, First Series') + Epitaph in Old Mode + Sonnet (from 'Poems, First Series') + The Birds (from 'The Birds and other Poems') + + +W. J. TURNER + + Silence (from 'The Dark Fire') + Kent in War + Talking with Soldiers + Song + The Princess + Peace + Death + + + + + +LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE + + +WITCHCRAFT: NEW STYLE + +The sun drew off at last his piercing fires. +Over the stale warm air, dull as a pond +And moveless in the grey quieted street, +Blue magic of a summer evening glowed. +The sky, that had been dazzling stone all day, +Hollowed in smooth hard brightness, now dissolved +To infinite soft depth, and smoulder'd down +Low as the roofs, dark burning blue, and soared +Clear to that winking drop of liquid silver, +The first exquisite star. Now the half-light +Tidied away the dusty litter parching +Among the cobbles, veiled in the colour of distance +Shabby slates and brickwork mouldering, turn'd +The hunchback houses into patient things +Resting; and golden windows now began. + +A little brisk grey slattern of a woman, +Pattering along in her loose-heel'd clogs, +Pushed the brass-barr'd door of a public-house; +The spring went hard against her; hand and knee +Shoved their weak best. As the door poised ajar, +Hullabaloo of talking men burst out, +A pouring babble of inflamed palaver, +And overriding it and shouted down +High words, jeering or downright, broken like +Crests that leap and stumble in rushing water. +Just as the door went wide and she stepped in, +'She cannot do it!' one was bawling out: +A glaring hulk of flesh with a bull's voice. +He finger'd with his neckerchief, and stretched +His throat to ease the anger of dispute, +Then spat to put a full stop to the matter. + +The little woman waited, with one hand +Propping the door, and smiled at the loud man. +They saw her then; and the sight was enough +To gag the speech of every drinker there: +The din fell down like something chopt off short. +Blank they all wheel'd towards her, with their mouths +Still gaping as though full of voiceless words. +She let the door slam to; and all at ease, +Amused, her smile wrinkling about her eyes, +Went forward: they made room for her quick enough. +Her chin just topt the counter; she gave in +Her bottle to the potboy, tuckt it back, +Full of bright tawny ale, under her arm, +Rapt down the coppers on the planisht zinc, +And turned: and no word spoken all the while. + +The first voice, in that silent crowd, was hers, +Her light snickering laugh, as she stood there +Pausing, scanning the sawdust at her feet. +Then she switcht round and faced the positive man +Whose strong 'She cannot do it!' all still felt +Huskily shouting in their guilty ears. + +'She can't, eh? She can't do it? '--Then she'd heard! + +The man, inside his ruddy insolent flesh, +Had hoped she did not hear. His barrel chest +Gave a slight cringe, as though the glint of her eyes +Prickt him. But he stood up to her awkwardly bold, +One elbow on the counter, gripping his mug +Like a man holding on to a post for safety. + + +The Man: + + You can't do what's not nature: nobody can. + + +The Woman: + + And louts like you have nature in your pocket? + + +The Man: + + I don't say that-- + + +The Woman: + + If you kept saying naught, No one would guess the fool you are. + + +Second Man: + + Almost + My very words! + + +The Woman: + + O you're the knowing man! + The spark among the cinders! + + +First Man: + + You can't fetch + A free man back, unless he wants to come. + + +The Woman: + + Nay, I'll be bound he doesn't want to come! + + +Third Man: + + And he won't come: he told me flat he wouldn't. + + +The Woman: + + Are you there too? + + +Third Man: + + And if he does come back + It will be devilry brought him. + + +The Woman: + + I shall bring him;-- + Tonight. + + +First Man: + + How will he come? + + +The Woman: + + Running: unless + He's broke his leg, and then he'll have to come + Crawling: but he will come. + + +First Man: + + How do you know + What he may choose to do, three counties off? + + +The Woman: + + He choose? + + +Third Man: + + You haven't got him on a lead. + + +The Woman: + + Haven't I though! + + +Second Man: + + That's right; it's what I said. + + +The Woman: + + Ay, there are brains in your family. + + +First Man: + + You have + Some sort of pull on him, to draw him home? + + +The Woman: + + You may say that: I have hold of his mind. + And I can slack it off or fetch it taut. + And make him dance a score of miles away + An answer to the least twangling thrum + I play on it. He thought he lurkt at last + Safely; and all the while, what has he been? + An eel on the end of a night line; and it's time + I haul'd him in. You'll see, to-night I'll land him. + + +Third Man: + + Bragging's a light job. + + +The Woman; + + You daren't let me take + Your eyes in mine!--Haul, did I say? no need: + I give his mind a twitch, and up he comes + Tumbling home to me. Whatever work he's at, + He drops the thing he holds like redhot iron + And runs--runs till he falls down like a beast + Pole-axt, and grunts for breath; then up and on, + No matter does he know the road or not: + The strain I put on his mind will keep him going + Right as a homing-pigeon. + + +First Man: + + Devilry I call it. + + +The Woman: + + And you're welcome. + + +Second Man: + + But the law should have a say here. + + +The Woman: + + What, isn't he mine, + My own? There's naught but what I please about it. + + +Third Man: + + Why did you let him go? + + +The Woman: + + To fetch him back! + For I enjoy this, mind. There's many a one + Would think, to see me, There goes misery! + There's a queer starveling for you!--and I do + A thing that makes me like a saint in glory, + The life of me the sound of a great tune + Your flesh could never hear: I can send power + Delighting out of me! O, the mere thought + Has made my blood go smarting in my veins, + Such a flame glowing along it!--And all the same + I'll pay him out for sidling off from me. + But I'll have supper first. + + + When she was gone, +Their talk could scarcely raise itself again +Above a grumble. But at last a cry +Sharp-pitcht came startling in from the street: at once +Their moody talk exploded into flare +Of swearing hubbub, like gunpowder dropt +On embers; mugs were clapt down, out they bolted +Rowdily jostling, eager for the event. + +All down the street the folk throng'd out of doors, +But left a narrow track clear in the middle; +And there a man came running, a tall man +Running desperately and slowly, pounding +Like a machine, so evenly, so blindly; +And regularly his trotting body wagg'd. +Only one foot clatter'd upon the stones; +The other padded in his dogged stride: +The boot was gone, the sock hung frayed in shreds +About his ankle, the foot was blood and earth; +And never a limp, not the least flinch, to tell +The wounded pulp hit stone at every step. +His clothes were tatter'd and his rent skin showed, +Harrowed with thorns. His face was pale as putty, +Thrown far back; clots of drooping spittle foamed +On his moustache, and his hair hung in tails, +Mired with sweat; and sightless in their sockets +His eyeballs turned up white, as dull as pebbles. +Evenly and doggedly he trotted, +And as he went he moaned. Then out of sight +Round a corner he swerved, and out of hearing. + +--'The law should have a say to that, by God!' + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +GORDON BOTTOMLEY + + + +LITTLEHOLME + +(To J.S. and A.W.S.) + + +In entering the town, where the bright river +Shrinks in its white stone bed, old thoughts return +Of how a quiet queen was nurtured here +In the pale, shadowed ruin on the height; +Of how, when the hoar town was new and clean +And had not grown a part of the gaunt fells +That peered down into it, the burghers wove +On their small, fireside looms green, famous webs +To cling on lissome, tower-dwelling ladies +Who rode the hills swaying like green saplings, +Or mask tall, hardy outlaws from pursuit +Down beechen caverns and green under-lights, +(The rude, vain looms are gone, their beams are broken; +Their webs are now not seen, but memory +Still tangles in their mesh the dews they swept +Like ruby sparks, the lights they took, the scents +They held, the movement of their shapes and shades); +Of how the Border burners in cold dawns +Of Summer hurried North up the high vales +Past smoking farmsteads that had lit the night +And surf of crowding cattle; and of how +A laughing prince of cursed, impossible hopes +Rode through the little streets Northward to battle +And to defeat, to be a fading thought, +Belated in dead mountains of romance. + +A carver at his bench in a high gable +Hears the sharp stream close under, far below +Tinkle and rustle, and no other sound +Arises there to him to change his thoughts +Of the changed, silent town and the dead hands +That made it and maintained it, and the need +For handiwork and happy work and work +To use and ease the mind if such sweet towns +Are to be built again or live again. + +The long town ends at Littleholme, where the road +Creeps up to hills of ancient-looking stone. +Under the hanging eaves at Littleholme +A latticed casement peeps above still gardens +Into a crown of druid-solemn trees +Upon a knoll as high as a small house, +A shapely mound made so by nameless men +Whose smoothing touch yet shows through the green hide. +When the slow moonlight drips from leaf to leaf +Of that sharp, plumy gloom, and the hour comes +When something seems awaited, though unknown, +There should appear between those leaf-thatched piles +Fresh, long-limbed women striding easily, +And men whose hair-plaits swing with their shagged arms; +Returning in that equal, echoed light +Which does not measure time to the dear garths +That were their own when from white Norway coasts +They landed on a kind, not distant shore, +And to the place where they have left their clothing, +Their long-accustomed bones and hair and beds +That once were pleasant to them, in that barrow +Their vanished children heaped above them dead: +For in the soundless stillness of hot noon +The mind of man, noticeable in that knoll, +Enhances its dark presence with a life +More vivid and more actual than the life +Of self-sown trees and untouched earth. It is seen +What aspect this land had in those first eyes: +In that regard the works of later men +Fall in and sink like lime when it is slaked, +Staid, youthful queen and weavers are unborn, +And the new crags the Northmen saw are set +About an earth that has not been misused. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG + + + +INVOCATION + +Whither, O, my sweet mistress, must I follow thee? + For when I hear thy distant footfall nearing, + And wait on thy appearing, +Lo! my lips are silent: no words come to me. + +Once I waylaid thee in green forest covers, + Hoping that spring might free my lips with gentle fingers; + Alas! her presence lingers +No longer than on the plain the shadow of brown kestrel hovers. + +Through windless ways of the night my spirit followed after; + Cold and remote were they, and there, possessed + By a strange unworldly rest, +Awaiting thy still voice heard only starry laughter. + +The pillared halls of sleep echoed my ghostly tread. + Yet when their secret chambers I essayed + My spirit sank, dismayed, +Waking in fear to find the new-born vision fled. + +Once indeed--but then my spirit bloomed in leafy rapture-- + I loved; and once I looked death in the eyes: + So, suddenly made wise, +Spoke of such beauty as I may never recapture.... + +Whither, O, divine mistress, must I then follow thee? + Is it only in love ... say, is it only in death + That the spirit blossometh, +And words that may match my vision shall come to me? + + + +PROTHALAMION + +When the evening came my love said to me: + Let us go into the garden now that the sky is cool; +The garden of black hellebore and rosemary, + Where wild woodruff spills in a milky pool. + +Low we passed in the twilight, for the wavering heat + Of day had waned; and round that shaded plot +Of secret beauty the thickets clustered sweet: + Here is heaven, our hearts whispered, but our lips spake not. + +Between that old garden and seas of lazy foam + Gloomy and beautiful alleys of trees arise +With spire of cypress and dreamy beechen dome, + So dark that our enchanted sight knew nothing but the skies: + +Veiled with a soft air, drench'd in the roses' musk + Or the dusky, dark carnation's breath of clove: +No stars burned in their deeps, but through the dusk + I saw my love's eyes, and they were brimmed with love. + +No star their secret ravished, no wasting moon + Mocked the sad transience of those eternal hours: +Only the soft, unseeing heaven of June, + The ghosts of great trees, and the sleeping flowers. + +For doves that crooned in the leafy noonday now + Were silent; the night-jar sought his secret covers, +Nor even a mild sea-whisper moved a creaking bough-- + Was ever a silence deeper made for lovers? + +Was ever a moment meeter made for love? + Beautiful are your closed lips beneath my kiss; +And all your yielding sweetness beautiful-- + Oh, never in all the world was such a night as this! + + + +FEBRUARY + +The robin on my lawn +He was the first to tell +How, in the frozen dawn, +This miracle befell, +Waking the meadows white +With hoar, the iron road +Agleam with splintered light, +And ice where water flowed: +Till, when the low sun drank +Those milky mists that cloak +Hanger and hollied bank, +The winter world awoke +To hear the feeble bleat +Of lambs on downland farms: +A blackbird whistled sweet; +Old beeches moved their arms +Into a mellow haze +Aerial, newly-born: +And I, alone, agaze, +Stood waiting for the thorn +To break in blossom white, +Or burst in a green flame.... +So, in a single night, +Fair February came, +Bidding my lips to sing +Or whisper their surprise, +With all the joy of spring +And morning in her eyes. + + + +LOCHANILAUN + +This is the image of my last content: +My soul shall be a little lonely lake, +So hidden that no shadow of man may break +The folding of its mountain battlement; +Only the beautiful and innocent +Whiteness of sea-born cloud drooping to shake +Cool rain upon the reed-beds, or the wake +Of churn'd cloud in a howling wind's descent. +For there shall be no terror in the night +When stars that I have loved are born in me, +And cloudy darkness I will hold most fair; +But this shall be the end of my delight: +That you, my lovely one, may stoop and see +Your image in the mirrored beauty there. + + + +LETTERMORE + +These winter days on Lettermore +The brown west wind it sweeps the bay, +And icy rain beats on the bare +Unhomely fields that perish there: +The stony fields of Lettermore +That drink the white Atlantic spray. + +And men who starve on Lettermore, +Cursing the haggard, hungry surf, +Will souse the autumn's bruised grains +To light dark fires within their brains +And fight with stones on Lettermore +Or sprawl beside the smoky turf. + +When spring blows over Lettermore +To bloom the ragged furze with gold, +The lovely south wind's living breath +Is laden with the smell of death: +For fever breeds on Lettermore +To waste the eyes of young and old. + +A black van comes to Lettermore; +The horses stumble on the stones, +The drivers curse,--for it is hard +To cross the hills from Oughterard +And cart the sick from Lettermore: +A stinking load of rags and bones. + +But you will go to Lettermore +When white sea-trout are on the run, +When purple glows between the rocks +About Lord Dudley's fishing box +Adown the road to Lettermore, +And wide seas tarnish in the sun. + +And so you'll think of Lettermore +As a lost island of the blest: +With peasant lovers in a blue +Dim dusk, with heather drench'd in dew, +And the sweet peace of Lettermore +Remote and dreaming in the West. + + + +SONG + +Why have you stolen my delight + In all the golden shows of Spring +When every cherry-tree is white + And in the limes the thrushes sing, + +O fickler than the April day, + O brighter than the golden broom, +O blither than the thrushes' lay, + O whiter than the cherry-bloom, + +O sweeter than all things that blow ... + Why have you only left for me +The broom, the cherry's crown of snow, + And thrushes in the linden-tree? + + + +THE LEANING ELM + +Before my window, in days of winter hoar +Huddled a mournful wood: +Smooth pillars of beech, domed chestnut, sycamore, +In stony sleep they stood: +But you, unhappy elm, the angry west +Had chosen from the rest, +Flung broken on your brothers' branches bare, +And left you leaning there +So dead that when the breath of winter cast +Wild snow upon the blast, +The other living branches, downward bowed, +Shook free their crystal shroud +And shed upon your blackened trunk beneath +Their livery of death.... + +On windless nights between the beechen bars +I watched cold stars +Throb whitely in the sky, and dreamily +Wondered if any life lay locked in thee: +If still the hidden sap secretly moved +As water in the icy winterbourne +Floweth unheard: +And half I pitied you your trance forlorn: +You could not hear, I thought, the voice of any bird, +The shadowy cries of bats in dim twilight +Or cool voices of owls crying by night ... +Hunting by night under the horned moon: +Yet half I envied you your wintry swoon, +Till, on this morning mild, the sun, new-risen +Steals from his misty prison; +The frozen fallows glow, the black trees shaken +In a clear flood of sunlight vibrating awaken: +And lo, your ravaged bole, beyond belief +Slenderly fledged anew with tender leaf +As pale as those twin vanes that break at last +In a tiny fan above the black beech-mast +Where no blade springeth green +But pallid bells of the shy helleborine. +What is this ecstasy that overwhelms +The dreaming earth? See, the embrowned elms +Crowding purple distances warm the depths of the wood: +A new-born wind tosses their tassels brown, +His white clouds dapple the down: +Into a green flame bursting the hedgerows stand. +Soon, with banners flying, Spring will walk the land.... + +There is no day for thee, my soul, like this, +No spring of lovely words. Nay, even the kiss +Of mortal love that maketh man divine +This light cannot outshine: +Nay, even poets, they whose frail hands catch +The shadow of vanishing beauty, may not match +This leafy ecstasy. Sweet words may cull +Such magical beauty as time may not destroy; +But we, alas, are not more beautiful: +We cannot flower in beauty as in joy. +We sing, our mused words are sped, and then +Poets are only men +Who age, and toil, and sicken.... This maim'd tree +May stand in leaf when I have ceased to be. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +WILLIAM H. DAVIES + + + +LOVELY DAMES + +Few are my books, but my small few have told +Of many a lovely dame that lived of old; +And they have made me see those fatal charms +Of Helen, which brought Troy so many harms; +And lovely Venus, when she stood so white +Close to her husband's forge in its red light. +I have seen Dian's beauty in my dreams, +When she had trained her looks in all the streams +She crossed to Latmos and Endymion; +And Cleopatra's eyes, that hour they shone +The brighter for a pearl she drank to prove +How poor it was compared to her rich love: +But when I look on thee, love, thou dost give +Substance to those fine ghosts, and make them live. + + + +WHEN YON FULL MOON + +When yon full moon's with her white fleet of stars, + And but one bird makes music in the grove; +When you and I are breathing side by side, + Where our two bodies make one shadow, love; + +Not for her beauty will I praise the moon, + But that she lights thy purer face and throat; +The only praise I'll give the nightingale + Is that she draws from thee a richer note. + +For, blinded with thy beauty, I am filled, + Like Saul of Tarsus, with a greater light; +When he had heard that warning voice in Heaven, + And lost his eyes to find a deeper sight. + +Come, let us sit in that deep silence then, + Launched on love's rapids, with our passions proud +That makes all music hollow--though the lark + Raves in his windy heights above a cloud. + + + +ON HEARING MRS. WOODHOUSE PLAY THE HARPSICHORD + +We poets pride ourselves on what + We feel, and not what we achieve; +The world may call our children fools, + Enough for us that we conceive. +A little wren that loves the grass +Can be as proud as any lark + That tumbles in a cloudless sky, +Up near the sun, till he becomes + The apple of that shining eye. + +So, lady, I would never dare + To hear your music ev'ry day; +With those great bursts that send my nerves + In waves to pound my heart away; +And those small notes that run like mice +Bewitched by light; else on those keys-- + My tombs of song--you should engrave: +'My music, stronger than his own, + Has made this poet my dumb slave.' + + + +BIRDS + +When our two souls have left this mortal clay + And, seeking mine, you think that mine is lost-- +Look for me first in that Elysian glade + Where Lesbia is, for whom the birds sing most. + +What happy hearts those feathered mortals have, + That sing so sweet when they're wet through in spring! +For in that month of May when leaves are young, + Birds dream of song, and in their sleep they sing. + +And when the spring has gone and they are dumb, + Is it not fine to watch them at their play: +Is it not fine to see a bird that tries + To stand upon the end of every spray? + +See how they tilt their pretty heads aside: + When women make that move they always please. +What cosy homes birds make in leafy walls + That Nature's love has ruined--and the trees. + +Oft have I seen in fields the little birds + Go in between a bullock's legs to eat; +But what gives me most joy is when I see + Snow on my doorstep, printed by their feet. + + + +OH, SWEET CONTENT! + +Oh, sweet content, that turns the labourer's sweat + To tears of joy, and shines the roughest face; +How often have I sought you high and low, + And found you still in some lone quiet place; + +Here, in my room, when full of happy dreams, + With no life heard beyond that merry sound +Of moths that on my lighted ceiling kiss + Their shadows as they dance and dance around; + +Or in a garden, on a summer's night, + When I have seen the dark and solemn air +Blink with the blind bats' wings, and heaven's bright face + Twitch with the stars that shine in thousands there. + + + +A CHILD'S PET + +When I sailed out of Baltimore + With twice a thousand head of sheep, +They would not eat, they would not drink, + But bleated o'er the deep. + +Inside the pens we crawled each day, + To sort the living from the dead; +And when we reached the Mersey's mouth + Had lost five hundred head. + +Yet every night and day one sheep, + That had no fear of man or sea, +Stuck through the bars its pleading face, + And it was stroked by me. + +And to the sheep-men standing near, + 'You see,' I said, 'this one tame sheep: +It seems a child has lost her pet, + And cried herself to sleep.' + +So every time we passed it by, + Sailing to England's slaughter-house, +Eight ragged sheep-men--tramps and thieves-- + Would stroke that sheep's black nose. + + + +ENGLAND + +We have no grass locked up in ice so fast +That cattle cut their faces and at last, +When it is reached, must lie them down and starve, +With bleeding mouths that freeze too hard to move. +We have not that delirious state of cold +That makes men warm and sing when in Death's hold. +We have no roaring floods whose angry shocks +Can kill the fishes dashed against their rocks. +We have no winds that cut down street by street, +As easy as our scythes can cut down wheat. +No mountains here to spew their burning hearts +Into the valleys, on our human parts. +No earthquakes here, that ring church bells afar, +A hundred miles from where those earthquakes are. +We have no cause to set our dreaming eyes, +Like Arabs, on fresh streams in Paradise. +We have no wilds to harbour men that tell +More murders than they can remember well. +No woman here shall wake from her night's rest, +To find a snake is sucking at her breast. +Though I have travelled many and many a mile, +And had a man to clean my boots and smile +With teeth that had less bone in them than gold-- +Give me this England now for all my world. + + + +THE BELL + +It is the bell of death I hear, +Which tells me my own time is near, +When I must join those quiet souls +Where nothing lives but worms and moles; +And not come through the grass again, +Like worms and moles, for breath or rain; +Yet let none weep when my life's through, +For I myself have wept for few. + +The only things that knew me well +Were children, dogs, and girls that fell; +I bought poor children cakes and sweets, +Dogs heard my voice and danced the streets; +And, gentle to a fallen lass, +I made her weep for what she was. +Good men and women know not me. +Nor love nor hate the mystery. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +WALTER DE LA MARE + + + +THE SUNKEN GARDEN + +Speak not--whisper not; +Here bloweth thyme and bergamot; +Softly on the evening hour, +Secret herbs their spices shower, +Dark-spiked rosemary and myrrh, +Lean-stalked, purple lavender; +Hides within her bosom, too, +All her sorrows, bitter rue. + +Breathe not--trespass not; +Of this green and darkling spot, +Latticed from the moon's beams, +Perchance a distant dreamer dreams; +Perchance upon its darkening air, +The unseen ghosts of children fare, +Faintly swinging, sway and sweep, +Like lovely sea-flowers in its deep; +While, unmoved, to watch and ward, +'Mid its gloomed and daisied sward, +Stands with bowed and dewy head +That one little leaden Lad. + + + +MOONLIGHT + +The far moon maketh lovers wise + In her pale beauty trembling down, +Lending curved cheeks, dark lips, dark eyes, + A strangeness not their own. +And, though they shut their lids to kiss, +In starless darkness peace to win, +Even on that secret world from this + Her twilight enters in. + + + +THE TRYST + +Flee into some forgotten night and be +Of all dark long my moon-bright company: +Beyond the rumour even of Paradise come, +There, out of all remembrance, make our home: +Seek we some close hid shadow for our lair, +Hollowed by Noah's mouse beneath the chair +Wherein the Omnipotent, in slumber bound, +Nods till the piteous Trump of Judgment sound. +Perchance Leviathan of the deep sea +Would lease a lost mermaiden's grot to me, +There of your beauty we would joyance make-- +A music wistful for the sea-nymph's sake: +Haply Elijah, o'er his spokes of fire, +Cresting steep Leo, or the heavenly Lyre, +Spied, tranced in azure of inanest space, +Some eyrie hostel, meet for human grace, +Where two might happy be--just you and I-- +Lost in the uttermost of Eternity. +Think! in Time's smallest clock's minutest beat +Might there not rest be found for wandering feet? +Or, 'twixt the sleep and wake of Helen's dream, +Silence wherein to sing love's requiem? + +No, no. Nor earth, nor air, nor fire, nor deep +Could lull poor mortal longingness asleep. +Somewhere there nothing is; and there lost Man +Shall win what changeless vague of peace he can. + + + +THE LINNET + +Upon this leafy bush +With thorns and roses in it, +Flutters a thing of light, +A twittering linnet. +And all the throbbing world +Of dew and sun and air +By this small parcel of life +Is made more fair; +As if each bramble-spray +And mounded gold-wreathed furze, +Harebell and little thyme, +Were only hers; +As if this beauty and grace +Did to one bird belong, +And, at a flutter of wing, +Might vanish in song. + + + +THE VEIL + +I think and think: yet still I fail-- +Why must this lady wear a veil? +Why thus elect to mask her face +Beneath that dainty web of lace? +The tip of a small nose I see, +And two red lips, set curiously +Like twin-born berries on one stem, +And yet, she has netted even them. +Her eyes, 'tis plain, survey with ease +Whate'er to glance upon they please. +Yet, whether hazel, gray, or blue, +Or that even lovelier lilac hue, +I cannot guess: why--why deny +Such beauty to the passer-by? +Out of a bush a nightingale +May expound his song; from 'neath that veil +A happy mouth no doubt can make +English sound sweeter for its sake. +But then, why muffle in like this +What every blossomy wind would kiss? +Why in that little night disguise +A daybreak face, those starry eyes? + + + +THE THREE STRANGERS + +Far are those tranquil hills, +Dyed with fair evening's rose; +On urgent, secret errand bent, + A traveller goes. + +Approach him strangers three, +Barefooted, cowled; their eyes +Scan the lone, hastening solitary + With dumb surmise. + +One instant in close speech +With them he doth confer: +God-sped, he hasteneth on, + That anxious traveller.... + +I was that man--in a dream: +And each world's night in vain +I patient wait on sleep to unveil + Those vivid hills again. + +Would that they three could know +How yet burns on in me +Love--from one lost in Paradise-- + For their grave courtesy. + + + +THE OLD MEN + +Old and alone, sit we, +Caged, riddle-rid men; +Lost to earth's 'Listen!' and 'See!' +Thought's 'Wherefore?' and 'When?' + +Only far memories stray +Of a past once lovely, but now +Wasted and faded away, +Like green leaves from the bough. + +Vast broods the silence of night, +The ruinous moon +Lifts on our faces her light, +Whence all dreaming is gone. + +We speak not; trembles each head; +In their sockets our eyes are still; +Desire as cold as the dead; +Without wonder or will. + +And One, with a lanthorn, draws near, +At clash with the moon in our eyes: +'Where art thou?' he asks: 'I am here,' +One by one we arise. + +And none lifts a hand to withhold +A friend from the touch of that foe: +Heart cries unto heart, 'Thou art old!' +Yet reluctant, we go. + + + +FARE WELL + +When I lie where shades of darkness +Shall no more assail mine eyes, +Nor the rain make lamentation + When the wind sighs; +How will fare the world whose wonder +Was the very proof of me? +Memory fades, must the remembered + Perishing be? + +Oh, when this my dust surrenders +Hand, foot, lip, to dust again, +May those loved and loving faces + Please other men! +May the rusting harvest hedgerow +Still the Traveller's Joy entwine, +And as happy children gather + Posies once mine. + +Look thy last on all things lovely, +Every hour. Let no night +Seal thy sense in deathly slumber + Till to delight +Thou have paid thy utmost blessing; +Since that all things thou wouldst praise +Beauty took from those who loved them + In other days. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +JOHN DRINKWATER + + + +DEER + +Shy in their herding dwell the fallow deer. +They are spirits of wild sense. Nobody near +Comes upon their pastures. There a life they live, +Of sufficient beauty, phantom, fugitive +Treading as in jungles free leopards do, +Printless as evelight, instant as dew. +The great kine are patient, and home-coming sheep +Know our bidding. The fallow deer keep +Delicate and far their counsels wild, +Never to be folded reconciled +To the spoiling hand as the poor flocks are; +Lightfoot, and swift, and unfamiliar, +These you may not hinder, unconfined +Beautiful flocks of the mind. + + + +MOONLIT APPLES + +At the top of the house the apples are laid in rows, +And the skylight lets the moonlight in, and those +Apples are deep-sea apples of green. There goes + A cloud on the moon in the autumn night. + +A mouse in the wainscot scratches, and scratches, and then +There is no sound at the top of the house of men +Or mice; and the cloud is blown, and the moon again + Dapples the apples with deep-sea light. + +They are lying in rows there, under the gloomy beams; +On the sagging floor; they gather the silver streams +Out of the moon, those moonlit apples of dreams, + And quiet is the steep stair under. + +In the corridors under there is nothing but sleep. +And stiller than ever on orchard boughs they keep +Tryst with the moon, and deep is the silence, deep + On moon-washed apples of wonder. + + + +SOUTHAMPTON BELLS + +I + +Long ago some builder thrust +Heavenward in Southampton town +His spire and beamed his bells, +Largely conceiving from the dust +That pinnacle for ringing down +Orisons and Noels. + +In his imagination rang, +Through generations challenging +His peal on simple men, +Who, as the heart within him sang, +In daily townfaring should sing +By year and year again. + + +II + +Now often to their ringing go +The bellmen with lean Time at heel, +Intent on daily cares; +The bells ring high, the bells ring low, +The ringers ring the builder's peal +Of tidings unawares. + +And all the bells might well be dumb +For any quickening in the street +Of customary ears; +And so at last proud builders come +With dreams and virtues to defeat +Among the clouding years. + + +III + +Now, waiting on Southampton sea +For exile, through the silver night +I hear Noel! Noel! +Through generations down to me +Your challenge, builder, comes aright, +Bell by obedient bell. + +You wake an hour with me; then wide +Though be the lapses of your sleep +You yet shall wake again; +And thus, old builder, on the tide +Of immortality you keep +Your way from brain to brain. + + + + +CHORUS FROM 'LINCOLN' + +You who have gone gathering + Cornflowers and meadowsweet, +Heard the hazels glancing down + On September eves, +Seen the homeward rooks on wing + Over fields of golden wheat, +And the silver cups that crown + Water-lily leaves; + +You who know the tenderness + Of old men at eve-tide, +Coming from the hedgerows, + Coming from the plough, +And the wandering caress + Of winds upon the woodside, +When the crying yaffle goes + Underneath the bough; + +You who mark the flowing + Of sap upon the May-time, +And the waters welling + From the watershed, +You who count the growing + Of harvest and hay-time, +Knowing these the telling + Of your daily bread; + +You who cherish courtesy + With your fellows at your gate, +And about your hearthstone sit + Under love's decrees, +You who know that death will be + Speaking with you soon or late, +Kinsmen, what is mother-wit + But the light of these? + +Knowing these, what is there more + For learning in your little years? +Are not these all gospels bright + Shining on your day? +How then shall your hearts be sore + With envy and her brood of fears, +How forget the words of light + From the mountain-way ... + +Blessed are the merciful ... + Does not every threshold seek +Meadows and the flight of birds + For compassion still? +Blessed are the merciful ... + Are we pilgrims yet to speak +Out of Olivet the words + Of knowledge and good-will? + + + +HABITATION + +High up in the sky there, now, you know, +In this May twilight, our cottage is asleep, +Tenantless, and no creature there to go +Near it but Mrs. Fry's fat cows, and sheep +Dove-coloured, as is Cotswold. No one hears +Under that cherry-tree the night-jars yet, +The windows are uncurtained; on the stairs +Silence is but by tip-toe silence met. +All doors are fast there. It is a dwelling put by +From use for a little, or long, up there in the sky. + +Empty; a walled-in silence, in this twilight of May-- +Home for lovers, and friendly withdrawing, and sleep, +With none to love there, nor laugh, nor climb from the day +To the candles and linen ... Yet in the silence creep, +This minute, I know, little ghosts, little virtuous lives, +Breathing upon that still, insensible place, +Touching the latches, sorting the napkins and knives, +And such for the comfort of being, and bowls for the grace, +That roses will brim; they are creeping from that room to this, +One room, and two, till the four are visited ... they, +Little ghosts, little lives, are our thoughts in this twilight of May, +Signs that even the curious man would miss, +Of travelling lovers to Cotswold, signs of an hour, +Very soon, when up from the valley in June will ride +Lovers by Lynch to Oakridge up in the wide +Bow of the hill, to a garden of lavender flower ... +The doors are locked; no foot falls; the hearths are dumb-- +But we are there--we are waiting ourselves who come. + + + +PASSAGE + +When you deliberate the page +Of Alexander's pilgrimage, +Or say--'It is three years, or ten, +Since Easter slew Connolly's men,' +Or prudently to judgment come +Of Antony or Absalom, +And think how duly are designed +Case and instruction for the mind, +Remember then that also we, +In a moon's course, are history. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +JOHN FREEMAN + + + +O MUSE DIVINE + +O thou, my Muse, +Beside the Kentish River running +Through water-meads where dews +Tossed flashing at thy feet +And tossing flashed again +When the timid herd +By thy swift passing stirred +Up-leapt and ran; + +Thou that didst fleet +Thy shadow over dark October hills +By Aston, Weston, Saintbury, Willersey, +Winchcombe, and all the combes and hills +Of the green lonely land; + +Thou that in May +Once when I saw thee sunning +Thyself so lovely there +Than the flushed flower more fair +Fallen from the wild apple spray, +Didst rise and sprinkling sunlight with thy hand +Shadow-like disappear in the deep-shadowy hedges +Between forsaken Buckle Street and the sparse sedges +Of young twin-breasted Honeybourne;-- + +O thou, my Muse, +Scarce longer seen than the brief hues +Of winter cloud that flames +Over the tarnished silver Thames; +So often nearing, +As often disappearing, +With thy body's shadow brushing +My brain at midnight, lightly touching; +O yield thee, Muse, to me, +No more in dream delights and morn forgettings, +But in a ferny hollow I know well +And thou know'st well, warm-proof'd 'gainst the wind's frettings. +... Bring thou thyself, and there +In that warm ferny hollow where the sun +Slants one gold beam and no light else but thine +And my eyes' happy shine-- +There, O lovely Muse, +Shall on thy shining body be begot, +Fruit of delights a many mingling in one, +Thy child and mine, a lovely shape and thought; +My child and thine, +O Muse divine! + + + +THE WAKERS + +The joyous morning ran and kissed the grass +And drew his fingers through her sleeping hair, +And cried, 'Before thy flowers are well awake +Rise, and the lingering darkness from thee shake. + +'Before the daisy and the sorrel buy +Their brightness back from that close-folding night, +Come, and the shadows from thy bosom shake, +Awake from thy thick sleep, awake, awake!' + +Then the grass of that mounded meadow stirred +Above the Roman bones that may not stir +Though joyous morning whispered, shouted, sang: +The grass stirred as that happy music rang. + +O, what a wondrous rustling everywhere! +The steady shadows shook and thinned and died, +The shining grass flashed brightness back for brightness, +And sleep was gone, and there was heavenly lightness. + +As if she had found wings, light as the wind, +The grass flew, bent with the wind, from east to west, +Chased by one wild grey cloud, and flashing all +Her dews for happiness to hear morning call.... + +But even as I stepped out the brightness dimmed, +I saw the fading edge of all delight. +The sober morning waked the drowsy herds, +And there was the old scolding of the birds. + + + +THE BODY + +When I had dreamed and dreamed what woman's beauty was, +And how that beauty seen from unseen surely flowed, +I turned and dreamed again, but sleeping saw no more: +My eyes shut and my mind with inward vision glowed. + +'I did not think!' I cried, seeing that wavering shape +That steadied and then wavered, as a cherry bough in June +Lifts and falls in the wind--each fruit a fruit of light; +And then she stood as clear as an unclouded moon. + +As clear and still she stood, moonlike remotely near; +I saw and heard her breathe, I years and years away. +Her light streamed through the years, I saw her clear and still, +Shape and spirit together mingling night with day. + +Water falling, falling with the curve of time +Over green-hued rock, then plunging to its pool +Far, far below, a falling spear of light; +Water falling golden from the sun but moonlike cool: + +Water has the curve of her shoulder and breast, +Water falls as straight as her body rose, +Water her brightness has from neck to still feet, +Water crystal-cold as her cold body flows. + +But not water has the colour I saw when I dreamed, +Nor water such strength has. I joyed to behold +How the blood lit her body with lamps of fire +And made the flesh glow that like water gleamed cold, + +A flame in her arms and in each finger flame, +And flame in her bosom, flame above, below, +The curve of climbing flame in her waist and her thighs; +From foot to head did flame into red flame flow. + +I knew how beauty seen from unseen must rise, +How the body's joy for more than body's use was made. +I knew then how the body is the body of the mind, +And how the mind's own fire beneath the cool skin played. + +O shape that once to have seen is to see evermore, +Falling stream that falls to the deeps of the mind, +Fire that once lit burns while aught burns in the world, +Foot to head a flame moving in the spirit's wind! + +If these eyes could see what these eyes have not seen-- +The inward vision clear--how should I look, for joy, +Knowing that beauty's self rose visible in the world +Over age that darkens, and griefs that destroy? + + + + +TEN O'CLOCK NO MORE [1] + +The wind has thrown +The boldest of trees down. +Now disgraced it lies, +Naked in spring beneath the drifting skies, +Naked and still. + +It was the wind +So furious and blind +That scourged half England through, +Ruining the fairest where most fair it grew +By dell and hill, + +And springing here, +The black clouds dragging near, +Against this lonely elm +Thrust all his strength to maim and overwhelm +In one wild shock. + +As in the deep +Satisfaction of dark sleep +The tree her dream dreamed on, +And woke to feel the wind's arms round her thrown +And her head rock. + +And the wind raught +Her ageing boughs and caught +Her body fast again. +Then in one agony of age, grief, pain, +She fell and died. + +Her noble height, +Branches that loved the light, +Her music and cool shade, +Her memories and all of her is dead +On the hill side. + +But the wind stooped, +With madness tired, and drooped +In the soft valley and slept, +While morning strangely round the hush'd tree crept +And called in vain. + +The birds fed where +The roots uptorn and bare +Thrust shameful at the sky; +And pewits round the tree would dip and cry +With the old pain. + +'Ten o'clock's gone!' +Said sadly every one. +And mothers looking thought +Of sons and husbands far away that fought:-- +And looked again. + + + +[Footnote 1: "Ten o'clock" is the name of a tall tree that crowned the +eastern Cotswolds.] + + + +THE FUGITIVE + +In the hush of early even +The clouds came flocking over, +Till the last wind fell from heaven + And no bird cried. + +Darkly the clouds were flocking, +Shadows moved and deepened, +Then paused; the poplar's rocking + Ceased; the light hung still + +Like a painted thing, and deadly. +Then from the cloud's side flickered +Sharp lightning, thrusting madly + At the cowering fields. + +Thrice the fierce cloud lighten'd, +Down the hill slow thunder trembled +Day in her cave grew frightened, + Crept away, and died. + + + +THE ALDE + +How near I walked to Love, +How long, I cannot tell. +I was like the Alde that flows +Quietly through green level lands, +So quietly, it knows +Their shape, their greenness and their shadows well; +And then undreamingly for miles it goes +And silently, beside the sea. + +Seamews circle over, +The winter wildfowl wings, +Long and green the grasses wave +Between the river and the sea. +The sea's cry, wild or grave, +From bank to low bank of the river rings; +But the uncertain river though it crave +The sea, knows not the sea. + +Was that indeed salt wind? +Came that noise from falling +Wild waters on a stony shore? +Oh, what is this new troubling tide +Of eager waves that pour +Around and over, leaping, parting, recalling?... +How near I moved (as day to same day wore) +And silently, beside the sea! + + + +NEARNESS + +Thy hand my hand, +Thine eyes my eyes, +All of thee +Caught and confused with me: +My hand thy hand, +My eyes thine eyes, +All of me +Sunken and discovered anew in thee.... + +No: still +A foreign mind, +A thought +By other yet uncaught; +A secret will +Strange as the wind: +The heart of thee +Bewildering with strange fire the heart in me. + +Hand touches hand, +Eye to eye beckons, +But who shall guess +Another's loneliness? +Though hand grasp hand, +Though the eye quickens, +Still lone as night +Remain thy spirit and mine, past touch and sight. + + + +NIGHT AND NIGHT + +The earth is purple in the evening light, +The grass is graver green. +The gold among the meadows darker glows, +In the quieted air the blackbird sings more loud. +The sky has lost its rose-- +Nothing more than this candle now shines bright. + +Were there but natural night, how easy were +The putting-by of sense +At the day's end, and if no heavier air +Came o'er the mind in a thick-falling cloud. +But now there is no light +Within; and to this innocent night how dark my night! + + + +THE HERD + +The roaming sheep, forbidden to roam far, +Were stayed within the shadow of his eye. +The sheep-dog on that unseen shadow's edge +Moved, halted, barked, while the tall shepherd stood +Unmoving, leaned upon a sarsen stone, +Looking at the rain that curtained the bare hills +And drew the smoking curtain near and near!-- +Tawny, bush-faced, with cloak and staff, and flask +And bright brass-ribb'd umbrella, standing stone +Against the veinless, senseless sarsen stone. +The Roman Road hard by, the green Ridge Way, +Not older seemed, nor calmer the long barrows +Of bones and memories of ancient days +Than the tall shepherd with his craft of days +Older than Roman or the oldest caveman, +When, in the generation of all living, +Sheep and kine flocked in the Aryan valley and +The first herd with his voice and skill of water +Fleetest of foot, led them into green pastures, +From perished pastures to new green. I saw +The herdsmen everywhere about the world, +And herdsmen of all time, fierce, lonely, wise, +Herds of Arabia and Syria +And Thessaly, and longer-winter'd climes; +And this lone herd, ages before England was, +Pelt-clad, and armed with flint-tipped ashen sap, +Watching his flocks, and those far flocks of stars +Slow moving as the heavenly shepherd willed +And at dawn shut into the sunny fold. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +WILFRID WILSON GIBSON + + + +WINGS + +As a blue-necked mallard alighting in a pool +Among marsh-marigolds and splashing wet +Green leaves and yellow blooms, like jewels set +In bright, black mud, with clear drops crystal-cool, +Bringing keen savours of the sea and stir +Of windy spaces where wild sunsets flame +To that dark inland dyke, the thought of her +Into my brooding stagnant being came. + +And all my senses quickened into life, +Tingling and glittering, and the salt and fire +Sang through my singing blood in eager strife +Until through crystal airs we seemed to be +Soaring together, one fleet-winged desire +Of windy sunsets and the wandering sea. + + + +THE PARROTS + +Somewhere, somewhen I've seen, +But where or when I'll never know, +Parrots of shrilly green +With crests of shriller scarlet flying +Out of black cedars as the sun was dying +Against cold peaks of snow. + +From what forgotten life +Of other worlds I cannot tell +Flashes that screeching strife; +Yet the shrill colour and shrill crying +Sing through my blood and set my heart replying +And jangling like a bell. + + + +THE CAKEWALK + +In smoky lamplight of a Smyrna Cafe, +He saw them, seven solemn negroes dancing, +With faces rapt and out-thrust bellies prancing +In a slow solemn ceremonial cakewalk, +Dancing and prancing to the sombre tom-tom +Thumped by a crookbacked grizzled negro squatting. +And as he watched ... within the steamy twilight +Of swampy forest in rank greenness rotting, +That sombre tom-tom at his heartstrings strumming +Set all his sinews twitching, and a singing +Of cold fire through his blood--and he was dancing +Among his fellows in the dank green twilight +With naked, oiled, bronze-gleaming bodies swinging +In a rapt holy everlasting cakewalk +For evermore in slow procession prancing. + + + +DRIFTWOOD + +Black spars of driftwood burn to peacock flames, +Sea-emeralds and sea-purples and sea-blues, +And all the innumerable ever-changing hues +That haunt the changeless deeps but have no names, +Flicker and spire in our enchanted sight: +And as we gaze, the unsearchable mystery, +The unfathomed cold salt magic of the sea, +Shines clear before us in the quiet night. + +We know the secret that Ulysses sought, +That moonstruck mariners since time began +Snatched at a drowning hazard---strangely brought +To our homekeeping hearts in drifting spars +We chanced to kindle under the cold stars-- +The secret in the ocean-heart of man. + + + +QUIET + +Only the footprints of the partridge run +Over the billowy drifts on the mountain-side; +And now on level wings the brown birds glide +Following the snowy curves, and in the sun +Bright birds of gold above the stainless white +They move, and as the pale blue shadows move, +With them my heart glides on in golden flight +Over the hills of quiet to my love. + +Storm-shaken, racked with terror through the long +Tempestuous night, in the quiet blue of morn +Love drinks the crystal airs, and peace newborn +Within his troubled heart, on wings aglow +Soars into rapture, as from the quiet snow +The golden birds; and out of silence, song. + + + +REVEILLE + +Still bathed in its moonlight slumber, the little white house by the + cedar +Stands silent against the red dawn; +And nothing I know of who sleeps there, to the travail of day yet + unwakened, +Behind the blue curtains undrawn: + +But I dream as we march down the roadway, ringing loud and white-rimed + in the moonlight, +Of a little dark house on a hill +Wherein when the battle is over, to the rapture of day yet unwakened, +We shall slumber as dreamless and still. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +ROBERT GRAVES + + + +A BALLAD OF NURSERY RHYME + +Strawberries that in gardens grow + Are plump and juicy fine, +But sweeter far as wise men know + Spring from the woodland vine. + +No need for bowl or silver spoon, + Sugar or spice or cream, +Has the wild berry plucked in June + Beside the trickling stream. + +One such to melt at the tongue's root, + Confounding taste with scent, +Beats a full peck of garden fruit: + Which points my argument. + +May sudden justice overtake + And snap the froward pen, +That old and palsied poets shake + Against the minds of men; + +Blasphemers trusting to hold caught + In far-flung webs of ink +The utmost ends of human thought, + Till nothing's left to think. + +But may the gift of heavenly peace + And glory for all time +Keep the boy Tom who tending geese + First made the nursery rhyme. + +By the brookside one August day, + Using the sun for clock, +Tom whiled the languid hours away + Beside his scattering flock, + +Carving with a sharp pointed stone + On a broad slab of slate +The famous lives of Jumping Joan, + Dan Fox and Greedy Kate; + +Rhyming of wolves and bears and birds, + Spain, Scotland, Babylon, +That sister Kate might learn the words + To tell to Toddling John. + +But Kate, who could not stay content + To learn her lesson pat, +New beauty to the rough lines lent + By changing this or that; + +And she herself set fresh things down + In corners of her slate, +Of lambs and lanes and London Town. + God's blessing fall on Kate! + +The baby loved the simple sound, + With jolly glee he shook, +And soon the lines grew smooth and round + Like pebbles in Tom's brook, + +From mouth to mouth told and retold + By children sprawled at ease +Before the fire in winter's cold, + In June beneath tall trees; + +Till though long lost are stone and slate, + Though the brook no more runs, +And dead long time are Tom, John, Kate, + Their sons and their sons' sons; + +Yet, as when Time with stealthy tread + Lays the rich garden waste, +The woodland berry ripe and red + Fails not in scent or taste, + +So these same rhymes shall still be told + To children yet unborn, +While false philosophy growing old + Fades and is killed by scorn. + + + +A FROSTY NIGHT + +Mother: Alice, dear, what ails you, + Dazed and white and shaken? + Has the chill night numbed you? + Is it fright you have taken? + +Alice: Mother I am very well, + I felt never better; + Mother, do not hold me so, + Let me write my letter. + +Mother: Sweet, my dear, what ails you? + +Alice: No, but I am well. + The night was cold and frosty, + There's no more to tell. + + +Mother: Ay, the night was frosty, + Coldly gaped the moon, + Yet the birds seemed twittering + Through green boughs of June. + + Soft and thick the snow lay, + Stars danced in the sky. + Not all the lambs of May-day + Skip so bold and high. + + Your feet were dancing, Alice, + Seemed to dance on air, + You looked a ghost or angel + In the starlight there. + + Your eyes were frosted starlight, + Your heart, fire, and snow. + Who was it said 'I love you?' + +Alice: Mother, let me go! + + + +TRUE JOHNNY + +Mary: Johnny, sweetheart, can you be true + To all those famous vows you've made? + Will you love me as I love you + Until we both in earth are laid? + Or shall the old wives nod and say + 'His love was only for a day, + The mood goes by, + His fancies fly, + And Mary's left to sigh.' + +Johnny: Mary, alas, you've hit the truth, + And I with grief can but admit + Hot-blooded haste controls my youth, + My idle fancies veer and flit + From flower to flower, from tree to tree, + And when the moment catches me + Oh, love goes by, + Away I fly, + And leave my girl to sigh. + +Mary: Could you but now foretell the day, + Johnny, when this sad thing must be, + When light and gay you'll turn away + And laugh and break the heart in me? + For like a nut for true love's sake + My empty heart shall crack and break, + When fancies fly + And love goes by + And Mary's left to die. + +Johnny: When the sun turns against the clock, + When Avon waters upward flow, + When eggs are laid by barn-door cock, + When dusty hens do strut and crow, + When up is down, when left is right, + Oh, then I'll break the troth I plight, + With careless eye + Away I'll fly + And Mary here shall die. + + + +THE CUPBOARD + +Mother: What's in that cupboard, Mary? + +Mary: Which cupboard, mother dear? + +Mother: The cupboard of red mahogany + With handles shining clear. + +Mary: That cupboard, dearest mother, + With shining crystal handles? + There's nought inside but rags and jags + And yellow tallow candles. + +Mother: What's in that cupboard, Mary? + +Mary: Which cupboard, mother mine? + +Mother: That cupboard stands in your sunny chamber, + The silver corners shine. + +Mary: There's nothing there inside, mother, + But wool and thread and flax, + And bits of faded silk and velvet + And candles of white wax. + +Mother: What's in that cupboard, Mary? + And this time tell me true. + +Mary: White clothes for an unborn baby, mother.. + But what's the truth to you? + + + +THE VOICE OF BEAUTY DROWNED + +'Cry from the thicket my heart's bird!' +The other birds woke all around; +Rising with toot and howl they stirred +Their plumage, broke the trembling sound, +They craned their necks, they fluttered wings, +'While we are silent no one sings, +And while we sing you hush your throat, +Or tune your melody to our note.' + +'Cry from the thicket my heart's bird!' +The screams and hootings rose again: +They gaped with raucous beaks, they whirred +Their noisy plumage; small but plain +The lonely hidden singer made +A well of grief within the glade. +'Whist, silly fool, be off,' they shout, +'Or we'll come pluck your feathers out.' + +'Cry from the thicket my heart's bird!' +Slight and small the lovely cry +Came trickling down, but no one heard; +Parrot and cuckoo, crow, magpie, +Jarred horrid notes, the jangling jay +Ripped the fine threads of song away; +For why should peeping chick aspire +To challenge their loud woodland choir? + +Cried it so sweet, that unseen bird? +Lovelier could no music be, +Clearer than water, soft as curd, +Fresh as the blossomed cherry tree. +How sang the others all around? +Piercing and harsh, a maddening sound, +With 'Pretty Poll, Tuwit-tuwoo +Peewit, Caw Caw, Cuckoo-Cuckoo.' + +How went the song, how looked the bird? +If I could tell, if I could show +With one quick phrase, one lightning word, +I'd learn you more than poets know; +For poets, could they only catch +Of that forgotten tune one snatch, +Would build it up in song or sonnet, +And found their whole life's fame upon it. + + + +ROCKY ACRES + +This is a wild land, country of my choice, + With harsh craggy mountain, moor ample and bare. +Seldom in these acres is heard any voice + But voice of cold water that runs here and there + Through rocks and lank heather growing without care. +No mice in the heath run nor no birds cry +For fear of the dark speck that floats in the sky. + +He soars and he hovers rocking on his wings, + He scans his wide parish with a sharp eye, +He catches the trembling of small hidden things, + He tears them in pieces dropping from the sky: + Tenderness and pity the land will deny, +Where life is but nourished from water and rock, +A hardy adventure, full of fear and shock. + +Time has never journeyed to this lost land, + Crakeberries and heather bloom out of date, +The rocks jut, the streams flow singing on either hand, + Careless if the season be early or late. + The skies wander overhead, now blue now slate: +Winter would be known by his cold cutting snow +If June did not borrow his armour also. + +Yet this is my country beloved by me best, + The first land that rose from Chaos and the Flood, +Nursing no fat valleys for comfort and rest, + Trampled by no hard hooves, stained with no blood + Bold immortal country whose hill-tops have stood +Strongholds for the proud gods when on earth they go, +Terror for fat burghers in far plains below. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +D.H. LAWRENCE + + + +SEVEN SEALS + +Since this is the last night I keep you home, +Come, I will consecrate you for the journey. + +Rather I had you would not go. Nay come, +I will not again reproach you. Lie back +And let me love you a long time ere you go. +For you are sullen-hearted still, and lack +The will to love me. But even so +I will set a seal upon you from my lip, +Will set a guard of honour at each door, +Seal up each channel out of which might slip +Your love for me. + + I kiss your mouth. Ah, love, +Could I but seal its ruddy, shining spring +Of passion, parch it up, destroy, remove +Its softly-stirring, crimson welling-up +Of kisses! Oh, help me, God! Here at the source +I'd lie for ever drinking and drawing in +Your fountains, as heaven drinks from out their course +The floods. + + I close your ears with kisses +And seal your nostrils; and round your neck you'll wear-- +Nay, let me work--a delicate chain of kisses. +Like beads they go around, and not one misses +To touch its fellow on either side. + + And there +Full mid-between the champaign of your breast +I place a great and burning seal of love +Like a dark rose, a mystery of rest +On the slow bubbling of your rhythmic heart. +Nay, I persist, and very faith shall keep +You integral to me. Each door, each mystic port +Of egress from you I will seal and steep +In perfect chrism. + + Now it is done. The mort +Will sound in heaven before it is undone. + +But let me finish what I have begun +And shirt you now invulnerable in the mail +Of iron kisses, kisses linked like steel. +Put greaves upon your thighs and knees, and frail +Webbing of steel on your feet. So you shall feel +Ensheathed invulnerable with me, with seven +Great seals upon your outgoings, and woven +Chain of my mystic will wrapped perfectly +Upon you, wrapped in indomitable me. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +HAROLD MONRO + + + +GRAVITY + + +I + +Fit for perpetual worship is the power +That holds our bodies safely to the earth. + +When people talk of their domestic gods, +Then privately I think of You. + +We ride through space upon your shoulders +Conveniently and lightly set, +And, so accustomed, we relax our hold, +Forget the gentle motion of your body-- +But You do not forget. + +Sometimes you breathe a little faster, +Or move a muscle: +Then we remember you, O Master. + + +II + +When people meet in reverent groups +And sing to their domestic God, +You, all the time, dear tyrant, (How I laugh!) +Could, without effort, place your hand among them, +And sprinkle them about the desert. + +But all your ways are carefully ordered, +For you have never questioned duty. +We watch your everlasting combinations; +We call them Fate; we turn them to our pleasure, +And when they most delight us, call them beauty. + + +III + +I rest my body on your grass, +And let my brain repose in you; +I feel these living moments pass, +And, from within myself to those far places +To be imagined in your times and spaces, +Deliberate the various acts you do:-- + +Sorting and re-arranging worlds of Matter +Keenly and wisely. Thus you brought our earth +Through stages, and from purpose back to purpose, +From fire to fog, to dust, to birth +Through beast to man, who led himself to brain-- +Then you invoked him back to dust again. + +By leave of you he places stone on stone; +He scatters seed: you are at once the prop +Among the long roots of his fragile crop. +You manufacture for him, and insure +House, harvest, implement and furniture, +And hold them all secure. + + +IV + +The hill ... The trees ... From underneath +I feel You pull me with your hand: +Through my firm feet up to my heart +You hold me,--You are in the land, +Reposing underneath the hill. + +You keep my balance and my growth. +I lift a foot, but where I go +You follow: you, the ever-strong, +Control the smallest thing I do. + +I have some little human power +To turn your purpose to my end, +For which I thank you every hour. +I stand at worship, while you send +Thrills up my body to my heart, +And I am all in love to know +How by your strength you keep me part +Of earth, which cannot let me go; +How everything I see around, +Whether it can or cannot move, +Is granted liberty of ground, +And freedom to enjoy your love; + +Though you are silent always, and, alone +To You yourself, your power remains unknown. + + + +GOLDFISH + +Harold Monro + +They are the angels of that watery world, +With so much knowledge that they just aspire +To move themselves on golden fins, +Or fill their paradise with fire +By darting suddenly from end to end. + +Glowing a thousand centuries behind +In pools half-recollected of the mind, +Their large eyes stare and stare, but do not see +Beyond those curtains of Eternity. + +When twilight flows into the room +And air becomes like water, you can feel +Their movements growing larger in the gloom, +And you are led +Backward to where they live beyond the dead. + +But in the morning, when the seven rays +Of London sunlight one by one incline, +They glide to meet them, and their gulping lips +Suck the light in, so they are caught and played +Like salmon on a heavenly fishing line. + +* * * * + +Ghosts on a twilight floor, +Moving about behind their watery door, +Breathing and yet not breathing day and night, +They give the house some gleam of faint delight. + + + +DOG + +You little friend, your nose is ready; you sniff, +Asking for that expected walk, +(Your nostrils full of the happy rabbit-whiff) +And almost talk. + +And so the moment becomes a moving force; +Coats glide down from their pegs in the humble dark; +The sticks grow live to the stride of their vagrant course. +You scamper the stairs, +Your body informed with the scent and the track and the mark +Of stoats and weasels, moles and badgers and hares. + +We are going OUT. You know the pitch of the word, +Probing the tone of thought as it comes through fog +And reaches by devious means (half-smelt, half-heard) +The four-legged brain of a walk-ecstatic dog. + +Out in the garden your head is already low. +(Can you smell the rose? Ah, no.) +But your limbs can draw +Life from the earth through the touch of your padded paw. + +Now, sending a little look to us behind, +Who follow slowly the track of your lovely play, +You carry our bodies forward away from mind +Into the light and fun of your useless day. + + * * * * * + +Thus, for your walk, we took ourselves, and went +Out by the hedge and the tree to the open ground. +You ran, in delightful strata of wafted scent, +Over the hill without seeing the view; +Beauty is smell upon primitive smell to you: +To you, as to us, it is distant and rarely found. + +Home ... and further joy will be surely there: +Supper waiting full of the taste of bone. +You throw up your nose again, and sniff, and stare +For the rapture known +Of the quick wild gorge of food and the still lie-down +While your people talk above you in the light +Of candles, and your dreams will merge and drown +Into the bed-delicious hours of night. + + + +THE NIGHTINGALE NEAR THE HOUSE + +Here is the soundless cypress on the lawn: +It listens, listens. Taller trees beyond +Listen. The moon at the unruffled pond + Stares. And you sing, you sing. + +That star-enchanted song falls through the air +From lawn to lawn down terraces of sound, +Darts in white arrows on the shadowed ground; + And all the night you sing. + +My dreams are flowers to which you are a bee +As all night long I listen, and my brain +Receives your song, then loses it again + In moonlight on the lawn. + +Now is your voice a marble high and white, +Then like a mist on fields of paradise, +Now is a raging fire, then is like ice, + Then breaks, and it is dawn. + + + +MAN CARRYING BALE + +The tough hand closes gently on the load; + Out of the mind, a voice +Calls 'Lift!' and the arms, remembering well their work, + Lengthen and pause for help. +Then a slow ripple flows from head to foot +While all the muscles call to one another: + 'Lift! 'and the bulging bale + Floats like a butterfly in June. + +So moved the earliest carrier of bales, + And the same watchful sun +Glowed through his body feeding it with light. + So will the last one move, +And halt, and dip his head, and lay his load +Down, and the muscles will relax and tremble. + Earth, you designed your man +Beautiful both in labour and repose. + + + + +THOMAS MOULT + + +FOR BESSIE, SEATED BY ME IN THE GARDEN + +To the heart, to the heart the white petals +Quietly fall. +Memory is a little wind, and magical +The dreaming hours. +As a breath they fall, as a sigh; +Green garden hours too langorous to waken, +White leaves of blossomy tree wind-shaken: +As a breath, a sigh, +As the slow white drift +Of a butterfly. +Flower-wings falling, wings of branches +One after one at wind's droop dipping; +Then with the lift +Of the air's soft breath, in sudden avalanches +Slipping. +Quietly, quietly the June wind flings +White wings, +White petals, past the footpath flowers +Adown my dreaming hours. +At the heart, at the heart the butterfly settles. +As a breath, a sigh +Fall the petals of hours, of the white-leafed flowers, +Fall the petalled wings of the butterfly. +To my heart, to my heart the white petals +Quietly fall. + +To the years, other years, old and wistful +Drifts my dream. +Petal-patined the dream, white-mistful +As the dew-sweet haunt of the dim whitebeam +Because of memory, a little wind ... +It is the gossamer-float of the butterfly +This drift of dream +From the sweet of to-day to the sweet +Of days long drifted by. +It is the drift of the butterfly, it is the fleet +Drift of petals which my noon has thinned, +It is the ebbing out of my life, of the petals of days. +To the years, other years, drifts my dream.... +Through the haze +Of summers long ago +Love's entrancements flow, +A blue-green pageant of earth, +A green-blue pageant of sky, +As a stream, +Flooding back with lovely delta to my heart. +Lo the petalled leafage is finer, under the feet +The coarse soil with a rainbow's worth +Of delicate colours lies enamelled, +Translucently glowing, shining. +Each balmy breath of the hours +From eastern gleam to westward gloam +Is meaning-full as the falling flowers: +It is a crystal syllable +For love's defining, +It is love alone can spell---- +Yea, Love remains: after this drift of days +Love is here, Love is not dumb. +The touch of a silken hand, comradely, untrammelled +Is in the sunlight, a bright glance +On every ripple of yonder waterways, +A whisper in the dance +Of green shadows; +Nor shall the sunlight be shut out even from the dark. + +Beyond the garden heavy oaks are buoyant on the meadows, +Their rugged bark +No longer rough, +But chastened and refined in the glowing eyes of Love. +Around us the petals fulfil +Their measure and fall, precious the petals are still. +For Love they once were gathered, they are gathered for Love again, +Whose glance is on the water, +Whose whisper is in the green shadows. +In the same comrade-hand whose touch is in the sunlight, +They are lying again. +Here Love is ... Love only of all things outstays +The drift of petals, the drift of days, +Petals of hours, +Of white-leafed flowers, +Petalled wings of the butterfly, +Drifting, quietly drifting by +As a breath, a sigh.... + + + +'TRULY HE HATH A SWEET BED' + +Brown earth, sun-soaked, +Beneath his head +And over the quiet limbs.... +Through time unreckoned +Lay this brown earth for him. Now is he come. +Truly he hath a sweet bed. + +The perfume shed +From invisible gardens is chaliced by kindly airs +And carried for welcome to the stranger. +Long seasons ere he came, this wilderness +They habited. + +They, and the mist of stars +Down-spread +About him as a hush of vespering birds. +They, and the sun, the moon: +Naught now denies him the moon's coming, +Nor the morning trail of gold, +The luminous print of evening, red +At the sun's tread. + +The brown earth holds him. +The stars and little winds, the friendly moon +And sun attend in turn his rest. +They linger above him, softly moving. They are gracious, +And gently-wise: as though remembering how his hunger, +His kinship, knew them once but blindly +In thoughts unsaid, +As a dream that fled. + +So is he theirs assuredly as the seasons. +So is his sleep by them for ever companioned. +...And, perchance, by the voices of bright children playing +And knowing not: by the echo of young laughter +When their dancing is sped. + +Truly he hath a sweet bed. + + + +LOVERS' LANE + +This cool quiet of trees +In the grey dusk of the north, +In the green half-dusk of the west, +Where fires still glow; +These glimmering fantasies +Of foliage branching forth +And drooping into rest; +Ye lovers, know +That in your wanderings +Beneath this arching brake +Ye must attune your love +To hushed words. +For here is the dreaming wisdom of +The unmovable things... +And more:--walk softly, lest ye wake +A thousand sleeping birds. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +ROBERT NICHOLS + + + +THE SPRIG OF LIME + +He lay, and those who watched him were amazed +To see unheralded beneath the lids +Twin tears, new-gathered at the price of pain, +Start and at once run crookedly athwart +Cheeks channelled long by pain, never by tears. +So desolate too the sigh next uttered +They had wept also, but his great lips moved, +And bending down one heard, 'A sprig of lime; +Bring me a sprig of lime.' Whereat she stole +With dumb signs forth to pluck the thing he craved. + +So lay he till a lime-twig had been snapped +From some still branch that swept the outer grass +Far from the silver pillar of the bole +Which mounting past the house's crusted roof +Split into massy limbs, crossed boughs, a maze +Of close-compacted intercontorted staffs +Bowered in foliage wherethrough the sun +Shot sudden showers of light or crystal spars +Or wavered in a green and vitreous flood. +And all the while in faint and fainter tones +Scarce audible on deepened evening's hush +He framed his curious and last request +For 'lime, a sprig of lime.' Her trembling hand +Closed his loose fingers on the awkward stem +Covered above with gentle heart-shaped leaves +And under dangling, pale as honey-wax, +Square clusters of sweet-scented starry flowers. + +She laid his bent arm back upon his breast, +Then watched above white knuckles clenched in prayer. + +He never moved. Only at last his eyes +Opened, then brightened in such avid gaze +She feared the coma mastered him again ... +But no; strange sobs rose chuckling in his throat, +A stranger ecstasy suffused the flesh +Of that just mask so sun-dried, gouged and old +Which few--too few!--had loved, too many feared. +'Father!' she cried; 'Father!' + He did not hear. + +She knelt and kneeling drank the scent of limes, +Blown round the slow blind by a vesperal gust, +Till the room swam. So the lime-incense blew +Into her life as once it had in his, +Though how and when and with what ageless charge +Of sorrow and deep joy how could she know? + +Sweet lime that often at the height of noon +Diffusing dizzy fragrance from your boughs, +Tasselled with blossoms more innumerable +Than the black bees, the uproar of whose toil +Filled your green vaults, winning such metheglyn +As clouds their sappy cells, distil, as once +Ye used, your sunniest emanations +Toward the window where a woman kneels-- +She who within that room in childish hours +Lay through the lasting murmur of blanch'd noon +Behind the sultry blind, now full now flat, +Drinking anew of every odorous breath, +Supremely happy in her ignorance +Of Time that hastens hourly and of Death +Who need not haste. Scatter your fumes, O lime, +Loose from each hispid star of citron bloom, +Tangled beneath the labyrinthine boughs, +Cloud on such stinging cloud of exhalations +As reek of youth, fierce life and summer's prime, +Though hardly now shall he in that dusk room +Savour your sweetness, since the very sprig, +Profuse of blossom and of essences, +He smells not, who in a paltering hand +Clasps it laid close his peaked and gleaming face +Propped in the pillow. Breathe silent, lofty lime, +Your curfew secrets out in fervid scent +To the attendant shadows! Tinge the air +Of the midsummer night that now begins, +At an owl's oaring flight from dusk to dusk +And downward caper of the giddy bat +Hawking against the lustre of bare skies, +With something of th' unfathomable bliss +He, who lies dying there, knew once of old +In the serene trance of a summer night +When with th' abundance of his young bride's hair +Loosed on his breast he lay and dared not sleep, +Listening for the scarce motion of your boughs, +Which sighed with bliss as she with blissful sleep, +And drinking desperately each honied wave +Of perfume wafted past the ghostly blind +Knew first th' implacable and bitter sense +Of Time that hastes and Death who need not haste. +Shed your last sweetness, limes! + But now no more. +She, fruit of that night's love, she heeds you not, +Who bent, compassionate, to the dim floor +Takes up the sprig of lime and presses it +In pain against the stumbling of her heart, +Knowing, untold, he cannot need it now. + + + +SEVENTEEN + +For Anne. + +All the loud winds were in the garden wood, +All shadows joyfuller than lissom hounds +Doubled in chasing, all exultant clouds +That ever flung fierce mist and eddying fire +Across heavens deeper than blue polar seas +Fled over the sceptre-spikes of the chestnuts, +Over the speckle of the wych-elms' green. +She shouted; then stood still, hushed and abashed +To hear her voice so shrill in that gay roar, +And suddenly her eyelashes were dimmed, +Caught in tense tears of spiritual joy; +For there were daffodils which sprightly shook +Ten thousand ruffling heads throughout the wood, +And every flower of those delighting flowers +Laughed, nodding to her, till she clapped her hands +Crying 'O daffies, could you only speak!' + +But there was more. A jay with skyblue shaft +Set in blunt wing, skimmed screaming on ahead. +She followed him. A murrey squirrel eyed +Her warily, cocked upon tail-plumed haunch, +Then, skipping the whirligig of last-year leaves, +Whisked himself out of sight and reappeared +Leering about the hole of a young beech; +And every time she thought to corner him +He scrambled round on little scratchy hands +To peek at her about the other side. +She lost him, bolting branch to branch, at last-- +The impudent brat! But still high overhead +Flight on exuberant flight of opal scud, +Or of dissolving mist, florid as flame. + +Scattered in ecstasy over the blue. And she +Followed, first walking, giving her bright locks +To the cold fervour of the springtime gale, +Whose rush bore the cloud shadow past the cloud +Over the irised wastes of emerald turf. +And still the huge wind volleyed. Save the gulls, +Goldenly in the sunny blast careering +Or on blue-shadowed underwing at plunge, +None shared with her who now could not but run +The splendour and tumult of th' onrushing spring. + +And now she ran no more: the gale gave plumes. +One with the shadows whirled along the grass, +One with the onward smother of veering gulls, +One with the pursuit of cloud after cloud, +Swept she. Pure speed coursed in immortal limbs; +Nostrils drank as from wells of unknown air; +Ears received the smooth silence of racing floods; +Light as of glassy suns froze in her eyes; +Space was given her and she ruled all space. + +Spring, author of twifold loveliness, +Who flittest in the mirth of the wild folk, +Profferest greeting in the faces of flowers, +Blowest in the firmamental glory, +Renewest in the heart of the sad human +All faiths, guard thou the innocent spirit +Into whose unknowing hands this noontide +Thou pourest treasure, yet scarce recognised, +That unashamed before man's glib wisdom, +Unabashed beneath the wrath of chance, +She accept in simplicity of homage +The hidden holiness, the created emblem +To be in her, until death shall take her, +The source and secret of eternal spring. + + + +THE STRANGER + +Never am I so alone + As when I walk among the crowd-- +Blurred masks of stern or grinning stone, + Unmeaning eyes and voices loud. + +Gaze dares not encounter gaze, ... + Humbled, I turn my head aside; +When suddenly there is a face ... + Pale, subdued and grievous-eyed. + +Ah, I know that visage meek, + Those trembling lips, the eyes that shine +But turn from that which they would seek + With an air piteous, divine! + +There is not a line or scar, + Seal of a sorrow or disgrace, +But I know like sigils are + Burned in my heart and on my face. + +Speak! O speak! Thou art the one! + But thou hast passed with sad head bowed; +And never am I so alone + As when I walk among the crowd. + + + +'O NIGHTINGALE MY HEART' + +O Nightingale my heart +How sad thou art! +How heavy is thy wing, +Desperately whirred that thy throat may fling +Song to the tingling silences remote! +Thine eye whose ruddy spark +Burned fiery of late, +How dead and dark! +Why so soon didst thou sing, +And with such turbulence of love and hate? + +Learn that there is no singing yet can bring +The expected dawn more near; +And thou art spent already, though the night +Scarce has begun; +What voice, what eyes wilt thou have for the light +When the light shall appear, +And O what wings to bear thee t'ward the Sun? + + + +THE PILGRIM + +Put by the sun my joyful soul, +We are for darkness that is whole; + +Put by the wine, now for long years +We must be thirsty with salt tears; + +Put by the rose, bind thou instead +The fiercest thorns about thy head; + +Put by the courteous tire, we need +But the poor pilgrim's blackest weed; + +Put by--a'beit with tears--thy lute, +Sing but to God or else be mute. + +Take leave of friends save such as dare +Thy love with Loneliness to share. + +It is full tide. Put by regret. +Turn, turn away. Forget. Forget. + +Put by the sun my lightless soul, +We are for darkness that is whole. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +J. D. C. FELLOW + + + +THE TEMPLE + +Between the erect and solemn trees +I will go down upon my knees; + I shall not find this day + So meet a place to pray. + +Haply the beauty of this place +May work in me an answering grace, + The stillness of the air + Be echoed in my prayer. + +The worshipping trees arise and run, +With never a swerve, towards the sun; + So may my soul's desire + Turn to its central fire. + +With single aim they seek the light, +And scarce a twig in all their height + Breaks out until the head + In glory is outspread. + +How strong each pillared trunk; the bark +That covers them, how smooth; and hark, + The sweet and gentle voice + With which the leaves rejoice! + +May a like strength and sweetness fill +Desire, and thought, and steadfast will, + When I remember these + Fair sacramental trees! + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +SIEGFRIED SASSOON + + + +SICK LEAVE + +When I'm asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,-- +They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead. +While the dim charging breakers of the storm +Bellow and drone and rumble overhead, +Out of the gloom they gather about my bed. + They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine. + 'Why are you here with all your watches ended? + From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line.' +In bitter safety I awake, unfriended; +And while the dawn begins with slashing rain +I think of the Battalion in the mud. +'When are you going out to them again? +Are they not still your brothers through our blood?' + + + +BANISHMENT + +I am banished from the patient men who fight. +They smote my heart to pity, built my pride. +Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side, +They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light. +Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sight +They went arrayed in honour. But they died,-- +Not one by one: and mutinous I cried +To those who sent them out into the night. + +The darkness tells how vainly I have striven +To free them from the pit where they must dwell +In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and riven +By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel. +Love drives me back to grope with them through hell; +And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven. + + + +REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE + +Now light the candles; one; two; there's a moth; +What silly beggars they are to blunder in +And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame-- +No, no, not that,--it's bad to think of war, +When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you; +And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad +Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts +That drive them out to jabber among the trees. + +Now light your pipe; look, what a steady hand. +Draw a deep breath; stop thinking; count fifteen, +And you're as right as rain.... + Why won't it rain?... +I wish there'd be a thunderstorm to-night, +With bucketsful of water to sluice the dark, +And make the roses hang their dripping heads. + +Books; what a jolly company they are, +Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves, +Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green, +And every kind of colour. Which will you read? +Come on; O _do_ read something; they're so wise. +I tell you all the wisdom of the world +Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet +You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out, +And listen to the silence: on the ceiling +There's one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters; +And in the breathless air outside the house +The garden waits for something that delays. +There must be crowds of ghosts among the trees,-- +Not people killed in battle,--they're in France,-- +But horrible shapes in shrouds--old men who died +Slow, natural deaths,--old men with ugly souls, +Who wore their bodies out with nasty sins. + + * * * * * + +You're quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home; +You'd never think there was a bloody war on!... +O yes, you would ... why, you can hear the guns. +Hark! Thud, thud, thud,--quite soft ... they never cease-- +Those whispering guns--O Christ, I want to go out +And screech at them to stop--I'm going crazy; +I'm going stark, staring mad because of the guns. + + + +DOES IT MATTER + +Does it matter?--losing your legs?... +For people will always be kind, +And you need not show that you mind +When the others come in after hunting +To gobble their muffins and eggs. + +Does it matter?--losing your sight?... +There's such splendid work for the blind; +And people will always be kind, +As you sit on the terrace remembering +And turning your face to the light. + +Do they matter?--those dreams from the pit?... +You can drink and forget and be glad, +And people won't say that you're mad; +For they'll know that you've fought for your country, +And no one will worry a bit. + + + +CONCERT PARTY + +(Egyptian Base Camp). + +They are gathering round ... +Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand, +Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound-- +The jangle and throb of a piano ... tum-ti-tum ... +Drawn by a lamp, they come +Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand. + +O sing us the songs, the songs of our own land, +You warbling ladies in white. +Dimness conceals the hunger in our faces, +This wall of faces risen out of the night, +These eyes that keep their memories of the places +So long beyond their sight. + +Jaded and gay, the ladies sing; and the chap in brown +Tilts his grey hat; jaunty and lean and pale, +He rattles the keys ... Some actor-bloke from town ... +'God send you home'; and then 'A long, long trail; +I hear you calling me'; and 'Dixieland'.... +Sing slowly ... now the chorus ... one by one +We hear them, drink them; till the concert's done. +Silent, I watch the shadowy mass of soldiers stand. +Silent, they drift away, over the glimmering sand. + + +KANTARA, April, 1918. + + + +SONGBOOKS OF THE WAR + +In fifty years, when peace outshines +Remembrance of the battle lines, +Adventurous lads will sigh and cast +Proud looks upon the plundered past. +On summer morn or winter's night, +Their hearts will kindle for the fight, +Reading a snatch of soldier-song, +Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong; +And through the angry marching rhymes +Of blind regret and haggard mirth, +They'll envy us the dazzling times +When sacrifice absolved our earth. + +Some ancient man with silver locks +Will lift his weary face to say: +'War was a fiend who stopped our clocks +Although we met him grim and gay.' +And then he'll speak of Haig's last drive, +Marvelling that any came alive +Out of the shambles that men built +And smashed, to cleanse the world of guilt. +But the boys, with grin and sidelong glance, +Will think, 'Poor grandad's day is done.' +And dream of those who fought in France +And lived in time to share the fun. + + + +THE PORTRAIT + +I watch you, gazing at me from the wall, +And wonder how you'd match your dreams with mine, +If, mastering time's illusion, I could call +You back to share this quiet candle-shine. + +For you were young, three hundred years ago; +And by your looks I guess that you were wise ... +Come, whisper soft, and Death will never know +You've slipped away from those calm, painted eyes. + +Strange is your voice ... Poor ninny, dead so long, +And all your pride forgotten like your name. +_'One April morn I heard a blackbird's song. +And joy was in my heart like leaves aflame.'_ + +And so you died before your songs took wing; +While Andrew Marvell followed in your wake. +_'Love thrilled me into music. I could sing +But for a moment,--but for beauty's sake.'_ + +Who passes? There's a star-lit breeze that stirs +The glimmer of white lilies in the gloom. +Who speaks? Death has his silent messengers. +And there was more than silence in this room + +While you were gazing at me from the wall +And wondering how you'd match your dreams with mine, +If, mastering time's illusion, you could call +Me back to share your vanished candle-shine. + + + +THRUSHES + +Tossed on the glittering air they soar and skim, +Whose voices make the emptiness of light +A windy palace. Quavering from the brim +Of dawn, and bold with song at edge of night, +They clutch their leafy pinnacles and sing +Scornful of man, and from his toils aloof +Whose heart's a haunted woodland whispering; +Whose thoughts return on tempest-baffled wing; +Who hears the cry of God in everything, +And storms the gate of nothingness for proof. + + + +EVERYONE SANG + +Everyone suddenly burst out singing; +And I was filled with such delight +As prisoned birds must find in freedom, +Winging wildly across the white +Orchards and dark-green fields; on--on--and out of sight. + +Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted; +And beauty came like the setting sun: +My heart was shaken with tears; and horror +Drifted away ... O, but Everyone +Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +EDWARD SHANKS + + + +A NIGHT-PIECE + +Come out and walk. The last few drops of light +Drain silently out of the cloudy blue; +The trees are full of the dark-stooping night, + The fields are wet with dew. + +All's quiet in the wood but, far away, +Down the hillside and out across the plain, +Moves, with long trail of white that marks its way, + The softly panting train. + +Come through the clearing. Hardly now we see +The flowers, save dark or light against the grass, +Or glimmering silver on a scented tree + That trembles as we pass. + +Hark now! So far, so far ... that distant song ... +Move not the rustling grasses with your feet. +The dusk is full of sounds, that all along + The muttering boughs repeat. + +So far, so faint, we lift our heads in doubt. +Wind, or the blood that beats within our ears, +Has feigned a dubious and delusive note, + Such as a dreamer hears. + +Again ... again! The faint sounds rise and fail. +So far the enchanted tree, the song so low... +A drowsy thrush? A waking nightingale? + Silence. We do not know. + + + +IN ABSENCE + +My lovely one, be near to me to-night. +For now I need you most, since I have gone +Through the sparse woodland in the fading light, +Where in time past we two have walked alone, +Heard the loud nightjar spin his pleasant note, +And seen the wild rose folded up for sleep, +And whispered, though the soft word choked my throat, +Your dear name out across the valley deep. +Be near to me, for now I need you most. +To-night I saw an unsubstantial flame +Flickering along those shadowy paths, a ghost +That turned to me and answered to your name, +Mocking me with a wraith of far delight. +... My lovely one, be near to me to-night. + + + +THE GLOW-WORM + +The pale road winds faintly upward into the dark skies, +And beside it on the rough grass that the wind invisibly stirs, +Sheltered by sharp-speared gorse and the berried junipers, +Shining steadily with a green light, the glow-worm lies. + +We regard it; and this hill and all the other hills +That fall in folds to the river, very smooth and steep, +And the hangers and brakes that the darkness thickly fills +Fade like phantoms round the light, and night is deep, so deep,-- + +That all the world is emptiness about the still flame, +And we are small shadows standing lost in the huge night. +We gather up the glow-worm, stooping with dazzled sight, +And carry it to the little enclosed garden whence we came, + +And place it on the short grass. Then the shadowy flowers fade, +The walls waver and melt and the houses disappear +And the solid town trembles into insubstantial shade +Round the light of the burning glow-worm, steady and clear. + + + +THE CATACLYSM + +When a great wave disturbs the ocean cold +And throws the bottom waters to the sky, +Strange apparitions on the surface lie, +Great battered vessels, stripped of gloss and gold, +And, writhing in their pain, sea-monsters old, +Who stain the waters with a bloody dye, +With unaccustomed mouths bellow and cry +And vex the waves with struggling fin and fold. + +And with these too come little trivial things +Tossed from the deeps by the same casual hand; +A faint sea flower, dragged from the lowest sand, +That will not undulate its luminous wings +In the slow tides again, lies dead and swings +Along the muddy ripples to the land. + + + +A HOLLOW ELM + + What hast thou not withstood, + Tempest-despising tree, + Whose bloat and riven wood + Gapes now so hollowly, +What rains have beaten thee through many years, +What snows from off thy branches dripped like tears? + + Calmly thou standest now + Upon thy sunny mound; + The first spring breezes flow + Past with sweet dizzy sound; +Yet on thy pollard top the branches few +Stand stiffly out, disdain to murmur too. + + The children at thy foot + Open new-lighted eyes, + Where, on gnarled bark and root, + The soft warm sunshine lies-- +Dost thou, upon thine ancient sides, resent +The touch of youth, quick and impermanent? + + These at the beck of spring + Live in the moment still: + Thy boughs unquivering, + Remembering winter's chill, +And many other winters past and gone, +Are mocked, not cheated, by the transient sun. + + Hast thou so much withstood, + Tempest-despising tree, + That now thy hollow wood + Stiffens disdainfully +Against the soft spring airs and soft spring rain, +Knowing too well that winter comes again? + + + +FETE GALANTE; THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE + +Aristonoe, the fading shepherdess, +Gathers the young girls round her in a ring, +Teaching them wisdom of love, +What to say, how to dress, +How frown, how smile, +How suitors to their dancing feet to bring, +How in mere walking to beguile, +What words cunningly said in what a way +Will draw man's busy fancy astray, +All the alphabet, grammar and syntax of love. + +The garden smells are sweet, +Daisies spring in the turf under the high-heeled feet, +Dense, dark banks of laurel grow +Behind the wavering row +Of golden, flaxen, black, brown, auburn heads, +Behind the light and shimmering dresses +Of these unreal, modern shepherdesses; +And gaudy flowers in formal patterned beds +Vary the dim long vistas of the park, +Far as the eye can see, +Till at the forest's edge the ground grows dark +And the flowers vanish in the obscurity. + +The young girls gather round her, +Remembering eagerly how their fathers found her +Fresh as a spring-like wind in February, +Subtler in her moving heart than sun-motes that vary +At every waft of an opening and shutting door; +They gather chattering near, +Hush, break out in laughter, whisper aside, +Grow silent more and more, +Though she will never chide. +Now through the silence sounds her voice still clear, +And all give ear. +Like a silver thread through the golden afternoon, +Equably the voice discloses +All that age-old wisdom; like an endless tune +Aristonoe's voice wavers among the roses, +Level and unimpassioned, +Telling them how of nothing love is fashioned, +How it is but a movement of the mind, +Bidding Celia mark +That light skirts fluttering in the wind, +Or white flowers stuck in dark +Glistening hair, have fired the dull beholder, +Or telling Anais +That faint indifference ere now hath bred a kiss +Denied to flaunted snowy breast or shoulder. + +The girls attend, +Each thinking on her friend, +Whether he be real or imaginary, +Whether he be loving or cold; +For each ere she grows old +Means to pursue her joy, and the whole unwary +Troop of their wishes has this wild quarry in cry, +That draws them ineluctably, +More and more as the summer slippeth by. +And Celia leans aside +To contemplate her black-silked ankle on the grass; +In remote dreaming pride, +Rosalind recalls the image in her glass; +Phillis through all her body feels +How divine energy steals, +Quiescent power and resting speed, +Stretches her arms out, feels the warm blood run +Ready for pursuit, for strife and deed, +And turns her glowing face up to the sun. +Phillida smiles, +And lazily trusts her lazy wit, +A slow arrow that hath often hit; +Chloe, bemused by many subtle wiles, +Grows not more dangerous for all of it, +But opens her red lips, yawning drowsily, +And shows her small white teeth, +Dimpling the round chin beneath, +And stretches, moving her young body deliciously. + +And still the lesson goes on, +For this is an old story that is never done; +And now the precept is of ribbon and shoe, +What with linens and silks love finds to do, +And how man's heart is tangled in a string +Or taken in gauze like a weak and helpless thing. +Chloe falls asleep; and the long summer day +Drifts slowly past the girls and the warm roses, +Giving in dreams its hours away. +Now Stella throws her head back, and Phillis disposes +Her strong brown hands quietly in her lap, +And Rose's slender feet grow restless and tap +The turf to an imaginary tune. +Now all this grace of youthful bodies and faces +Is wrought to a glow by the golden weather of June; +Now, Love, completing grace of all the graces, +Strong in these hearts thy pure streams rise, +Transmuting what they learn by heavenly alchemies. +Swift from the listeners the spell vanishes, +And through the tinkling, empty words, +True thoughts of true love press, +Flying and wheeling nearer; +As through a sunny sky a flock of birds +Against the throbbing blue grows clearer and clearer, +So closer come these thoughts and dearer. + +Helen rises with a laugh; +Chloe wakes; +All the enchantment scatters off like chaff; +The cord is loosened and the spell breaks. +Rosalind +Resolves that to-night she will be kind to her lover, +Unreflecting, warm and kind. +Celia tells the lessons over, +Counting on her fingers--one and two ... +Ribbon and shoe, +Skirts, flowers, song, dancing, laughter, eyes ... +Through the whole catalogue of formal gallantry +And studious coquetries, +Counting to herself maliciously. + +But the old, the fading shepherdess, Aristonoe, +Rises stiffly and walks alone +Down the broad path where densely the laurels grow, +And over a little lawn, not closely mown, +Where wave the flowering grass and the rich meadowsweet. +She seems to walk painfully now and slow, +And drags a little on her high-heeled feet. +She stops at last below +An old and twisted plum-tree, whose last petal is gone, +Leans on the comfortable, rugged bole, +And stares through the green leaves at the drooping sun. +The tree and the warm light comfort her ageing soul. + +On the other lawn behind her, out of sight, +The girls at play +Drive out melancholy by lively delight, +And the wind carries their songs and laughter away. +Some begin dancing and seriously tread +A modern measure up and down the grass, +Turn, slide with bending knees, and pass +With dipping hand and poising head, +Float through the sun in pairs, like newly shed +And golden leaves astray +Upon the warm wind of an autumn day, +When the Indian summer rules the air. +Others, having found, +Lying idly on the sun-hot ground, +Shuttlecocks and battledores, +Play with the buoyant feathers and stare +Dazzled at the plaything as it soars, +Vague against the shining sky, +Where light yet throbs and confuses the eye, +Then see it again, white and clear, +As slowly, poisedly it falls by +The dark green foliage and floats near. +But Celia, apart, is pensive and must sigh, +And Anais but faintly pursues the game. +An encroaching, inner flame +Burns in their hearts with the acrid smoke of unrest; +But gaiety runs like quicksilver in Rose's breast, +And Phillis, rising, +Walks by herself with high and springy tread, +All her young blood racing from heels to head, +Breeding new desires and a new surprising +Strength and determination, +Whereof are bred +Confidence and joy and exultation. + +The long day closes; +Rosalind's hour draws near, and Chloe's and Rose's, +The hour that Celia has prayed, +The hour for which Anais and Stella have stayed, +When Helen shall forget her wit, +And Phillida by a sure arrow at length be hit, +And Phillis, the fleet runner, be at length overtaken; +When this bough of young blossoms +By the rough, eager gatherers shall be shaken. +Their eyes grow dim, +Their hearts flutter like taken birds in their bosoms, +As the light dies out of heaven, +And a faint, delicious tremor runs through every limb, +And faster the volatile blood through their veins is driven. + +The long day closes; +The last light fades in the amber sky; +Warm through the warm dusk glow the roses, +And a heavier shade drops slowly from the trees, +While through the garden as all colours die +The scents come livelier on the quickening breeze. +The world grows larger, vaguer, dimmer, +Over the dark laurels a few faint stars glimmer; +The moon, that was a pallid ghost, +Hung low on the horizon, faint and lost, +Comes up, a full and splendid golden round +By black and sharp-cut foliage overcrossed. +The girls laugh and whisper now with hardly a sound +Till all sound vanishes, dispersed in the night, +Like a wisp of cloud that fades in the moon's light, +And the garden grows silent and the shadows grow +Deeper and blacker below +The mysteriously moving and murmuring trees, +That stand out darkly against the star-luminous sky; +Huge stand the trees, +Shadowy, whispering immensities, +That rain down quietude and darkness on heart and eye. +None move, none speak, none sigh +But from the laurels comes a leaping voice +Crying in tones that seem not man's nor boy's, +But only joy's, +And hard behind a loud tumultuous crying, +A tangled skein of noise, +And the girls see their lovers come, each vying +Against the next in glad and confident poise, +Or softly moving +To the side of the chosen with gentle words and loving +Gifts for her pleasure of sweetmeats and jewelled toys. + +Dear Love, whose strength no pedantry can stir, +Whether in thine iron enemies, +Or in thine own strayed follower +Bemused with subtleties and sophistries, +Now dost thou rule the garden, now +The gatherers' hands have grasped the scented bough. + +Slow the sweet hours resolve, and one by one are sped. +The garden lieth empty. Overhead +A nightjar rustles by, wing touching wing, +And passes, uttering +His hoarse and whirring note. +The daylight birds long since are fled, +Nor has the moon yet touched the brown bird's throat. + +All's quiet, all is silent, all around +The day's heat rises gently from the ground, +And still the broad moon travels up the sky, +Now glancing through the trees and now so high +That all the garden through her rays are shed, +And from the laurels one can just descry +Where in the distance looms enormously +The old house, with all its windows black and dead. + + + +SONG + +As I lay in the early sun, +Stretched in the grass, I thought upon +My true love, my dear love, +Who has my heart for ever, +Who is my happiness when we meet, +My sorrow when we sever. +She is all fire when I do burn, +Gentle when I moody turn, +Brave when I am sad and heavy +And all laughter when I am merry. +And so I lay and dreamed and dreamed, +And so the day wheeled on, +While all the birds with thoughts like mine +Were singing to the sun. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +FREDEGOND SHOVE + + + +A DREAM IN EARLY SPRING + +Now when I sleep the thrush breaks through my dreams +With sharp reminders of the coming day: +After his call, one minute I remain +Unwaked, and on the darkness which is Me +There springs the image of a daffodil, +Growing upon a grassy bank alone, +And seeming with great joy his bell to fill +With drops of golden dew, which on the lawn +He shakes again, where they lie bright and chill. + +His head is drooped; the shrouded winds that sing +Bend him which way they will: never on earth +Was there before so beautiful a ghost. +Alas! he had a less than flower-birth, +And like a ghost indeed must shortly glide +From all but the sad cells of memory, +Where he will linger, an imprisoned beam, +Or fallen shadow of the golden world, +Long after this and many another dream. + + + +THE WORLD + +I wish this world and its green hills were mine, +But it is not; the wandering shepherd star +Is not more distant, gazing from afar +On the unreaped pastures of the sea, +Than I am from the world, the world from me. +At night the stars on milky way that shine +Seem things one might possess, but this round green +Is for the cows that rest, these and the sheep: +To them the slopes and pastures offer sleep; +My sleep I draw from the far fields of blue, +Whence cold winds come and go among the few +Bright stars we see and many more unseen. + +Birds sing on earth all day among the flowers, +Taking no thought of any other thing +But their own hearts, for out of them they sing: +Their songs are kindred to the blossom heads, +Faint as the petals which the blackthorn sheds, +And like the earth--not alien songs as ours. +To them this greenness and this island peace +Are life and death and happiness in one; +Nor are they separate from the white sun, +Or those warm winds which nightly wash the deep +Or starlight in the valleys, or new sleep; +And from these things they ask for no release. + +But we can never call this world our own, +Because we long for it, and yet we know +That should the great winds call us, we should go; +Should they come calling out across the cold, +We should rise up and leave the sheltered fold +And follow the great road to the unknown, +We should pass by the barns and haystacks brown, +Should leave the wild pool and the nightingale; +Across the ocean we should set a sail +And, coming to the world's pale brim, should fly +Out to the very middle of the sky, +On past the moon; nor should we once look down. + + + +THE NEW GHOST + +'And he, casting away his garment, rose and came to Jesus.' + + +And he cast it down, down, on the green grass, +Over the young crocuses, where the dew was-- +He cast the garment of his flesh that was full of death, +And like a sword his spirit showed out of the cold sheath. + +He went a pace or two, he went to meet his Lord, +And, as I said, his spirit looked like a clean sword, +And seeing him the naked trees began shivering, +And all the birds cried out aloud as it were late spring. + +And the Lord came on, He came down, and saw +That a soul was waiting there for Him, one without flaw, +And they embraced in the churchyard where the robins play, +And the daffodils hang down their heads, as they burn away. + +The Lord held his head fast, and you could see +That he kissed the unsheathed ghost that was gone free-- +As a hot sun, on a March day, kisses the cold ground; +And the spirit answered, for he knew well that his peace was found. + +The spirit trembled, and sprang up at the Lord's word-- +As on a wild, April day, springs a small bird-- +So the ghost's feet lifting him up, he kissed the Lord's cheek, +And for the greatness of their love neither of them could speak. + +But the Lord went then, to show him the way, +Over the young crocuses, under the green may +That was not quite in flower yet--to a far-distant land; +And the ghost followed, like a naked cloud holding the sun's hand. + + + +A MAN DREAMS THAT HE IS THE CREATOR + +I sat in heaven like the sun + Above a storm when winter was: + I took the snowflakes one by one +And turned their fragile shapes to glass: +I washed the rivers blue with rain +And made the meadows green again. + +I took the birds and touched their springs, + Until they sang unearthly joys: +They flew about on golden wings + And glittered like an angel's toys: +I filled the fields with flowers' eyes, +As white as stars in Paradise. + +And then I looked on man and knew + Him still intent on death--still proud; +Whereat into a rage I flew + And turned my body to a cloud: +In the dark shower of my soul +The star of earth was swallowed whole. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +J. C. SQUIRE + + + +RIVERS + +Rivers I have seen which were beautiful, +Slow rivers winding in the flat fens, +With bands of reeds like thronged green swords + Guarding the mirrored sky; +And streams down-tumbling from the chalk hills +To valleys of meadows and watercress-beds, +And bridges whereunder, dark weed-coloured shadows, + Trout flit or lie, + +I know those rivers that peacefully glide +Past old towers and shaven gardens, +Where mottled walls rise from the water + And mills all streaked with flour; +And rivers with wharves and rusty shipping, +That flow with a stately tidal motion +Towards their destined estuaries + Full of the pride of power; + +Noble great rivers, Thames and Severn, +Tweed with his gateway of many grey arches, +Clyde, dying at sunset westward + In a sea as red as blood; +Rhine and his hills in close procession, +Placid Elbe, Seine slaty and swirling, +And Isar, son of the Alpine snows, + A furious turquoise flood. + +All these I have known, and with slow eyes +I have walked on their shores and watched them, +And softened to their beauty and loved them + Wherever my feet have been; + +And a hundred others also +Whose names long since grew into me, +That, dreaming in light or darkness, + I have seen, though I have not seen. + +Those rivers of thought: cold Ebro, +And blue racing Guadiana, +Passing white houses, high-balconied + That ache in a sun-baked land, +Congo, and Nile and Colorado, +Niger, Indus, Zambesi, +And the Yellow River, and the Oxus, + And the river that dies in sand. + +What splendours are theirs, what continents, +What tribes of men, what basking plains, +Forests and lion-hided deserts, + Marshes, ravines and falls: +All hues and shapes and tempers +Wandering they take as they wander +From those far springs that endlessly + The far sea calls. + +O in reverie I know the Volga +That turns his back upon Europe, +And the two great cities on his banks, + Novgorod and Astrakhan; +Where the world is a few soft colours, +And under the dove-like evening +The boatmen chant ancient songs, + The tenderest known to man. + +And the holy river Ganges, +His fretted cities veiled in moonlight, +Arches and buttresses silver-shadowy + In the high moon, +And palms grouped in the moonlight +And fanes girdled with cypresses, +Their domes of marble softly shining + To the high silver moon. + +And that aged Brahmapootra +Who beyond the white Himalayas +Passes many a lamassery + On rocks forlorn and frore, +A block of gaunt grey stone walls +With rows of little barred windows, +Where shrivelled young monks in yellow silk + Are hidden for evermore.... + +But O that great river, the Amazon, +I have sailed up its gulf with eyelids closed, +And the yellow waters tumbled round, + And all was rimmed with sky, +Till the banks drew in, and the trees' heads, +And the lines of green grew higher +And I breathed deep, and there above me + The forest wall stood high. + +Those forest walls of the Amazon +Are level under the blazing blue +And yield no sound but the whistles and shrieks + Of the swarming bright macaws; +And under their lowest drooping boughs +Mud-banks torpidly bubble, +And the water drifts, and logs in the water + Drift and twist and pause. + +And everywhere, tacitly joining, +Float noiseless tributaries, +Tall avenues paved with water: + And as I silent fly +The vegetation like a painted scene, +Spars and spikes and monstrous fans +And ferns from hairy sheaths up-springing, + Evenly passes by. + +And stealthier stagnant channels +Under low niches of drooping leaves +Coil into deep recesses: + And there have I entered, there +To heavy, hot, dense, dim places +Where creepers climb and sweat and climb, +And the drip and splash of oozing water + Loads the stifling air. + +Rotting scrofulous steaming trunks, +Great horned emerald beetles crawling, +Ants and huge slow butterflies + That had strayed and lost the sun; +Ah, sick I have swooned as the air thickened +To a pallid brown ecliptic glow, +And on the forest, fallen with languor, + Thunder has begun. + +Thunder in the dun dusk, thunder +Rolling and battering and cracking, +The caverns shudder with a terrible glare + Again and again and again, +Till the land bows in the darkness, +Utterly lost and defenceless, +Smitten and blinded and overwhelmed + By the crashing rods of rain. + +And then in the forests of the Amazon, +When the rain has ended, and silence come, +What dark luxuriance unfolds + From behind the night's drawn bars: +The wreathing odours of a thousand trees +And the flowers' faint gleaming presences, +And over the clearings and the still waters + Soft indigo and hanging stars. + + * * * * * + +O many and many are rivers, +And beautiful are all rivers, +And lovely is water everywhere + That leaps or glides or stays; +Yet by starlight, moonlight, or sunlight, +Long, long though they look, these wandering eyes, +Even on the fairest waters of dream, + Never untroubled gaze. + +For whatever stream I stand by, +And whatever river I dream of, +There is something still in the back of my mind + From very far away; +There is something I saw and see not, +A country full of rivers +That stirs in my heart and speaks to me + More sure, more dear than they. + +And always I ask and wonder +(Though often I do not know it): +Why does this water not smell like water? + Where is the moss that grew +Wet and dry on the slabs of granite +And the round stones in clear brown water? +--And a pale film rises before them + Of the rivers that first I knew. + +Though famous are the rivers of the great world, +Though my heart from those alien waters drinks +Delight however pure from their loveliness, + And awe however deep, +Would I wish for a moment the miracle, +That those waters should come to Chagford, +Or gather and swell in Tavy Cleave + Where the stones cling to the steep? + +No, even were they Ganges and Amazon +In all their great might and majesty, +League upon league of wonders, + I would lose them all, and more, +For a light chiming of small bells, +A twisting flash in the granite, +The tiny thread of a pixie waterfall + That lives by Vixen Tor. + +Those rivers in that lost country, +They were brown as a clear brown bead is +Or red with the earth that rain washed down, + Or white with china-clay; +And some tossed foaming over boulders, +And some curved mild and tranquil, +In wooded vales securely set + Under the fond warm day. + +Okement and Erme and Avon, +Exe and his ruffled shallows, +I could cry as I think of those rivers + That knew my morning dreams; +The weir by Tavistock at evening +When the circling woods were purple, +And the Lowman in spring with the lent-lilies, + And the little moorland streams. + +For many a hillside streamlet +There falls with a broken tinkle, +Falling and dying, falling and dying, + In little cascades and pools, +Where the world is furze and heather +And flashing plovers and fixed larks, +And an empty sky, whitish blue, + That small world rules. + +There, there, where the high waste bog-lands +And the drooping slopes and the spreading valleys, +The orchards and the cattle-sprinkled pastures + Those travelling musics fill, +There is my lost Abana, +And there is my nameless Pharphar +That mixed with my heart when I was a boy, + And time stood still. + +And I say I will go there and die there: +But I do not go there, and sometimes +I think that the train could not carry me there, + And it's possible, maybe, +That it's farther than Asia or Africa, +Or any voyager's harbour, +Farther, farther, beyond recall.... + O even in memory! + + + +EPITAPH IN OLD MODE + +The leaves fall gently on the grass, +And all the willow trees and poplar trees and elder trees +That bend above her where she sleeps, +O all the willow trees, the willow trees +Breathe sighs above her tomb. + +O pause and pity as you pass. +She loved so tenderly, so quietly, so hopelessly; +And sometimes comes one here and weeps-- +She loved so tenderly, so tenderly, +And never told them whom. + + + +SONNET + +There was an Indian, who had known no change, + Who strayed content along a sunlit beach +Gathering shells. He heard a sudden strange + Commingled noise: looked up; and gasped for speech. +For in the bay, where nothing was before, + Moved on the sea, by magic, huge canoes, +With bellying cloths on poles, and not one oar, + And fluttering coloured signs and clambering crews. + +And he, in fear, this naked man alone, + His fallen hands forgetting all their shells, +His lips gone pale, knelt low behind a stone, + And stared, and saw, and did not understand, + Columbus's doom-burdened caravels + Slant to the shore, and all their seamen land. + + + +THE BIRDS + +Within mankind's duration, so they say, +Khephren and Ninus lived but yesterday. +Asia had no name till man was old +And long had learned the use of iron and gold; +And aeons had passed, when the first corn was planted, +Since first the use of syllables was granted. + +Men were on earth while climates slowly swung, +Fanning wide zones to heat and cold, and long +Subsidence turned great continents to sea, +And seas dried up, dried up interminably, +Age after age; enormous seas were dried +Amid wastes of land. And the last monsters died. + +Earth wore another face. O since that prime +Man with how many works has sprinkled time! +Hammering, hewing, digging tunnels, roads; +Building ships, temples, multiform abodes. +How, for his body's appetites, his toils +Have conquered all earth's products, all her soils; +And in what thousand thousand shapes of art +He has tried to find a language for his heart! + +Never at rest, never content or tired: +Insatiate wanderer, marvellously fired, +Most grandly piling and piling into the air +Stones that will topple or arch he knows not where. + +And yet did I, this spring, think it more strange, +More grand, more full of awe, than all that change, +And lovely and sweet and touching unto tears, +That through man's chronicled and unchronicled years, +And even into that unguessable beyond +The water-hen has nested by a pond, +Weaving dry flags, into a beaten floor, +The one sure product of her only lore. +Low on a ledge above the shadowed water +Then, when she heard no men, as nature taught her, +Plashing around with busy scarlet bill +She built that nest, her nest, and builds it still. + +O let your strong imagination turn +The great wheel backward, until Troy unburn, +And then unbuild, and seven Troys below +Rise out of death, and dwindle, and outflow, +Till all have passed, and none has yet been there: +Back, ever back. Our birds still crossed the air; +Beyond our myriad changing generations +Still built, unchanged, their known inhabitations. +A million years before Atlantis was +Our lark sprang from some hollow in the grass, +Some old soft hoof-print in a tussock's shade; +And the wood-pigeon's smooth snow-white eggs were laid, +High, amid green pines' sunset-coloured shafts, +And rooks their villages of twiggy rafts +Set on the tops of elms, where elms grew then, +And still the thumbling tit and perky wren +Popped through the tiny doors of cosy balls +And the blackbird lined with moss his high-built walls; +A round mud cottage held the thrush's young, +And straws from the untidy sparrow's hung. +And, skimming forktailed in the evening air, +When man first was were not the martens there? +Did not those birds some human shelter crave, +And stow beneath the cornice of his cave +Their dry tight cups of clay? And from each door +Peeped on a morning wiseheads three or four. + +Yes, daw and owl, curlew and crested hern, +Kingfisher, mallard, water-rail and tern, +Chaffinch and greenfinch, warbler, stonechat, ruff, +Pied wagtail, robin, fly-catcher and chough, +Missel-thrush, magpie, sparrow-hawk, and jay, +Built, those far ages gone, in this year's way. +And the first man who walked the cliffs of Rame, +As I this year, looked down and saw the same +Blotches of rusty red on ledge and cleft +With grey-green spots on them, while right and left +A dizzying tangle of gulls were floating and flying, +Wheeling and crossing and darting, crying and crying, +Circling and crying, over and over and over, +Crying with swoop and hover and fall and recover. +And below on a rock against the grey sea fretted, +Pipe-necked and stationary and silhouetted, +Cormorants stood in a wise, black, equal row +Above the nests and long blue eggs we know. + +O delicate chain over all the ages stretched, +O dumb tradition from what far darkness fetched: +Each little architect with its one design +Perpetual, fixed and right in stuff and line, +Each little ministrant who knows one thing, +One learned rite to celebrate the spring. +Whatever alters else on sea or shore, +These are unchanging: man must still explore. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +W. J. TURNER + + + +SILENCE + +It was bright day and all the trees were still +In the deep valley, and the dim Sun glowed; +The clay in hard-baked fire along the hill +Leapt through dark trunks to apples green and gold, +Smooth, hard and cold, they shone like lamps of stone: + +They were bright bubbles bursting from the trees, +Swollen and still among the dark green boughs; +On their bright skins the shadows of the leaves +Seemed the faint ghosts of summers long since gone, +Faint ghosts of ghosts, the dreams of ghostly eyes. + +There was no sound between those breathless hills. +Only the dim Sun hung there, nothing moved; +The thronged, massed, crowded multitude of leaves +Hung like dumb tongues that loll and gasp for air: +The grass was thick and still, between the trees. + +There were big apples lying on the ground, +Shining, quite still, as though they had been stunned +By some great violent spirit stalking through, +Leaving a deep and supernatural calm +Round a dead beetle upturned in a furrow. + +A valley filled with dark, quiet, leaf-thick trees, +Loaded with green, cold, faintly shining suns; +And in the sky a great dim burning disc!-- +Madness it is to watch these twisted trunks +And to see nothing move and hear no sound! + +Let's make a noise, Hey!... Hey!... Hullo! Hullo! + + + +KENT IN WAR + +The pebbly brook is cold to-night, + Its water soft as air, +A clear, cold, crystal-bodied wind + Shadowless and bare, +Leaping and running in this world + Where dark-horned cattle stare: + +Where dark-horned cattle stare, hoof-firm + On the dark pavements of the sky, +And trees are mummies swathed in sleep + And small dark hills crowd wearily; +Soft multitudes of snow-grey clouds + Without a sound march by. + +Down at the bottom of the road + I smell the woody damp +Of that cold spirit in the grass, + And leave my hill-top camp-- +Its long gun pointing in the sky-- + And take the Moon for lamp. + +I stop beside the bright cold glint + Of that thin spirit in the grass, +So gay it is, so innocent! + I watch its sparkling footsteps pass +Lightly from smooth round stone to stone, + Hid in the dew-hung grass. + +My lamp shines in the globes of dew, + And leaps into that crystal wind +Running along the shaken grass + To each dark hole that it can find-- +The crystal wind, the Moon my lamp, + Have vanished in a wood that's blind. + +High lies my small, my shadowy camp, + Crowded about by small dark hills; +With sudden small white flowers the sky + Above the woods' dark greenness fills; +And hosts of dark-browed, muttering trees + In trance the white Moon stills. + +I move among their tall grey forms, + A thin moon-glimmering, wandering Ghost, +Who takes his lantern through the world + In search of life that he has lost, +While watching by that long lean gun + Up on his small hill post. + + + +TALKING WITH SOLDIERS + +The mind of the people is like mud, +From which arise strange and beautiful things, +But mud is none the less mud, +Though it bear orchids and prophesying Kings, +Dreams, trees, and water's bright babblings. + +It has found form and colour and light, +The cold glimmer of the ice-wrapped Poles; +It has called a far-off glow Arcturus, +And some pale weeds, lilies of the valley. + +It has imagined Virgil, Helen and Cassandra; +The sack of Troy, and the weeping for Hector-- +Rearing stark up 'mid all this beauty +In the thick, dull neck of Ajax. + +There is a dark Pine in Lapland, +And the great, figured Horn of the Reindeer, +Moving soundlessly across the snow, +Is its twin brother, double-dreamed, +In the mind of a far-off people. + +It is strange that a little mud +Should echo with sounds, syllables, and letters, +Should rise up and call a mountain Popocatapetl, +And a green-leafed wood Oleander. + +These are the ghosts of invisible things; +There is no Lapland, no Helen and no Hector, +And the Reindeer is a darkening of the brain, +And Oleander is but Oleander. + +Mary Magdalena and the vine Lachryma Christi +Were like ghosts up the ghost of Vesuvius, +As I sat and drank wine with the soldiers, +As I sat in the Inn on the mountain, +Watching the shadows in my mind. + +The mind of the people is like mud, +Where are the imperishable things, +The ghosts that flicker in the brain-- +Silent women, orchids, and prophesying Kings, +Dreams, trees, and water's bright babblings! + + + +SONG + +Gently, sorrowfully sang the maid + Sowing the ploughed field over, +And her song was only: + 'Come, O my lover!' + +Strangely, strangely shone the light, + Stilly wound the river: +'Thy love is a dead man, + He'll come back never.' + +Sadly, sadly passed the maid +The fading dark hills over; + Still her song far, far away said: + 'Come, O my lover!' + + + +THE PRINCESS + +The stone-grey roses by the desert's rim +Are soft-edged shadows on the moonlit sand, +Grey are the broken walls of Khangavar, +That haunt of nightingales, whose voices are +Fountains that bubble in the dream-soft Moon. + +Shall the Gazelles with moonbeam pale bright feet +Entering the vanished gardens sniff the air-- +Some scent may linger of that ancient time, +Musician's song, or poet's passionate rhyme, +The Princess dead, still wandering love-sick there. + +A Princess pale and cold as mountain snow, +In cool, dark chambers sheltered from the sun, +With long dark lashes and small delicate hands: +All Persia sighed to kiss her small red mouth +Until they buried her in shifting sand. + +And the Gazelles shall flit by in the Moon +And never shake the frail Tree's lightest leaves, +And moonlight roses perfume the pale Dawn +Until the scarlet life that left her lips +Gathers its shattered beauty in the sky. + + + +PEACE + +In low chalk hills the great King's body lay, +And bright streams fell, tinkling like polished tin, +As though they carried off his armoury, +And spread it glinting through his wide domain. + +Old bearded soldiers sat and gazed dim-eyed +At the strange brightness flowing under trees, +And saw his sword flashing in ancient battles, +And drank, and swore, and trembled helplessly. + +And bright-haired maidens dipped their cold white arms, +And drew them glittering colder, whiter, still; +The sky sparkled like the dead King's blue eye +Upon the sentries that were dead as trees. + +His shining shield lay in an old grey town, +And white swans sailed so still and dreamfully, +They seemed the thoughts of those white, peaceful hills +Mirrored that day within his glazing eyes. + +And in the square the pale cool butter sold, +Cropped from the daisies sprinkled on the downs, +And old wives cried their wares, like queer day owls, +Piercing the old men's sad and foolish dreams. + +And Time flowed on till all the realm forgot +The great King lying in the low chalk hills; +Only the busy water dripping through +His hard white bones knew of him lying there. + + + +DEATH + +When I am dead a few poor souls shall grieve +As I grieved for my brother long ago. + Scarce did my eyes grow dim, + I had forgotten him; +I was far-off hearing the spring winds blow, + And many summers burned +When, though still reeling with my eyes aflame, + I heard that faded name +Whispered one Spring amid the hurrying world + From which, years gone, he turned. + +I looked up at my windows and I saw +The trees, thin spectres sucked forth by the moon. + The air was very still + Above a distant hill; +It was the hour of night's full silver moon. + 'O are thou there my brother?' my soul cried; +And all the pale stars down bright rivers wept, + As my heart sadly crept +About the empty hills, bathed in that light + That lapped him when he died. + +Ah! it was cold, so cold; do I not know +How dead my heart on that remembered day! + Clear in a far-away place + I see his delicate face +Just as he called me from my solitary play, + Giving into my hands a tiny tree. +We planted it in the dark, blossomless ground + Gravely, without a sound; +Then back I went and left him standing by + His birthday gift to me. + +In that far land perchance it quietly grows +Drinking the rain, making a pleasant shade; + Birds in its branches fly + Out of the fathomless sky +Where worlds of circling light arise and fade. + Blindly it quivers in the bright flood of day, +Or drowned in multitudinous shouts of rain + Glooms o'er the dark-veiled plain-- +Buried below, the ghost that's in his bones + Dreams in the sodden clay. + +And, while he faded, drunk with beauty's eyes +I kissed bright girls and laughed deep in dumb trees, + That stared fixt in the air + Like madmen in despair +Gaped up from earth with the escaping breeze. + I saw earth's exaltation slowly creep +Out of their myriad sky-embracing veins. + I laughed along the lanes, +Meeting Death riding in from the hollow seas + Through black-wreathed woods asleep. + +I laughed, I swaggered on the cold hard ground-- +Through the grey air trembled a falling wave-- + 'Thou'rt pale, O Death!' I cried, + Mocking him in my pride; +And passing I dreamed not of that lonely grave, +But of leaf-maidens whose pale, moon-like hands +Above the tree-foam waved in the icy air, + Sweeping with shining hair +Through the green-tinted sky, one moment fled + Out of immortal lands. + +One windless Autumn night the Moon came out +In a white sea of cloud, a field of snow; + In darkness shaped of trees, + I sank upon my knees +And watched her shining, from the small wood below-- + Faintly Death flickered in an owl's far cry--- +We floated soundless in the great gulf of space, + Her light upon my face-- +Immortal, shining in that dark wood I knelt + And knew I could not die. + +And knew I could not die--O Death, didst thou +Heed my vain glory, standing pale by thy dead? + There is a spirit who grieves + Amid earth's dying leaves; +Was't thou that wept beside my brother's bed? + For I did never mourn nor heed at all +Him passing on his temporal elm-wood bier; + I never shed a tear. +The drooping sky spread grey-winged through my soul, + While stones and earth did fall. + +That sound rings down the years--I hear it yet-- +All earthly life's a winding funeral-- + And though I never wept, + But into the dark coach stept, +Dreaming by night to answer the blood's sweet call, + She who stood there, high-breasted, with small, wise lips, +And gave me wine to drink and bread to eat, + Has not more steadfast feet, +But fades from my arms as fade from mariners' eyes + The sea's most beauteous ships. + +The trees and hills of earth were once as close +As my own brother, they are becoming dreams + And shadows in my eyes; + More dimly lies +Guaya deep in my soul, the coastline gleams + Faintly along the darkening crystalline seas. +Glimmering and lovely still, 'twill one day go; + The surging dark will flow +Over my hopes and joys, and blot out all + Earth's hills and skies and trees. + +I shall look up one night and see the Moon +For the last time shining above the hills, + And thou, silent, wilt ride + Over the dark hillside. +'Twill be, perchance, the time of daffodils-- + _'How come those bright immortals in the woods? +Their joy being young, didst thou not drag them all + Into dark graves ere Fall?'_ +Shall life thus haunt me, wondering, as I go + To thy deep solitudes? + +There is a figure with a down-turned torch +Carved on a pillar in an olden time, + A calm and lovely boy + Who comes not to destroy +But to lead age back to its golden prime. + Thus did an antique sculptor draw thee, Death, +With smooth and beauteous brow and faint sweet smile, + Not haggard, gaunt and vile, +And thou perhaps art thus to whom men may, + Unvexed, give up their breath. + +But in my soul thou sittest like a dream +Among earth's mountains, by her dim-coloured seas; + A wild unearthly Shape + In thy dark-glimmering cape, +Piping a tune of wavering melodies, + Thou sittest, ay, thou sittest at the feast +Of my brief life among earth's bright-wreathed flowers, + Staining the dancing hours +With sombre gleams until, abrupt, thou risest +And all, at once, is ceased. + + +END OF TEXT. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Georgian Poetry 1918-19, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGIAN POETRY 1918-19 *** + +***** This file should be named 9621.txt or 9621.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/6/2/9621/ + +Produced by Keren Vergon, Clytie Siddall and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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