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diff --git a/9640-8.txt b/9640-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f48ebd7 --- /dev/null +++ b/9640-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5482 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Georgian Poetry 1920-22, 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 1920-22 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Sir Edward Marsh + +Posting Date: November 17, 2011 [EBook #9640] +Release Date: January, 2006 +First Posted: October 12, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGIAN POETRY 1920-22 *** + + + + +Produced by Clytie Siddall, Keren Vergon and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + +GEORGIAN POETRY + + + +1920-1922 + + + + +EDITED BY SIR EDWARD MARSH + + + + +TO ALICE MEYNELL + + + + +The Poetry Bookshop +35 Devonshire St. Theobalds Rd. +London W.C.1 + +MCMXXII + + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + +When the fourth volume of this series was published three years ago, +many of the critics who had up till then, as Horace Walpole said of God, +been the dearest creatures in the world to me, took another turn. Not +only did they very properly disapprove my choice of poems: they went on +to write as if the Editor of 'Georgian Poetry' were a kind of public +functionary, like the President of the Royal Academy; and they +asked--again, on this assumption, very properly--who was E.M. that he +should bestow and withhold crowns and sceptres, and decide that this or +that poet was or was not to count. + +This, in the words of Pirate Smee, was 'a kind of a compliment', but it +was also, to quote the same hero, 'galling'; and I have wished for an +opportunity of disowning the pretension which I found attributed to me +of setting up as a pundit, or a pontiff, or a Petronius Arbiter; for I +have neither the sure taste, nor the exhaustive reading, nor the ample +leisure which would be necessary in any such role. + +The origin of these books, which is set forth in the memoir of Rupert +Brooke, was simple and humble. I found, ten years ago, that there were a +number of writers doing work which appeared to me extremely good, but +which was narrowly known; and I thought that anyone, however +unprofessional and meagrely gifted, who presented a conspectus of it in +a challenging and manageable form might be doing a good turn both to the +poets and to the reading public. So, I think I may claim, it proved to +be. The first volume seemed to supply a want. It was eagerly bought; the +continuation of the affair was at once taken so much for granted as to +be almost unavoidable; and there has been no break in the demand for the +successive books. If they have won for themselves any position, there is +no possible reason except the pleasure they have given. + +Having entered upon a course of disclamation, I should like to make a +mild protest against a further charge that Georgian Poetry has merely +encouraged a small clique of mutually indistinguishable poetasters to +abound in their own and each other's sense or nonsense. It is natural +that the poets of a generation should have points in common; but to my +fond eye those who have graced these collections look as diverse as +sheep to their shepherd, or the members of a Chinese family to their +uncle; and if there is an allegation which I would 'deny with both +hands', it is this: that an insipid sameness is the chief characteristic +of an anthology which offers--to name almost at random seven only out of +forty (oh ominous academic number!)--the work of Messrs. Abercrombie, +Davies, de la Mare, Graves, Lawrence, Nichols and Squire. + +The ideal 'Georgian Poetry'--a book which would err neither by omission +nor by inclusion, and would contain the best, and only the best poems of +the best, and only the best poets of the day--could only be achieved, if +at all, by dint of a Royal Commission. The present volume is nothing of +the kind. + +I may add one word bearing on my aim in selection. Much admired modern +work seems to me, in its lack of inspiration and its disregard of form, +like gravy imitating lava. Its upholders may retort that much of the +work which I prefer seems to them, in its lack of inspiration and its +comparative finish, like tapioca imitating pearls. Either view--possibly +both--may be right. I will only say that with an occasional exception +for some piece of rebelliousness or even levity which may have taken my +fancy, I have tried to choose no verse but such as in Wordsworth's phrase + + The high and tender Muses shall accept + With gracious smile, deliberately pleased. + +There are seven new-comers--Messrs. Armstrong, Blunden, Hughes, Kerr, +Prewett and Quennell, and Miss Sackville-West. Thanks and +acknowledgments are due to Messrs. Jonathan Cape, Chatto and Windus, R. +Cobden-Sanderson, Constable, W. Collins, Heinemann, Hodder and +Stoughton, John Lane, Macmillan, Martin Secker, Selwyn and Blount, +Sidgwick and Jackson, and the Golden Cockerel Press; and to the Editors +of 'The Cbapbook', 'The London Mercury' and 'The Westminster +Gazette'. + +E. M. + +July, 1922 + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + +LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE + + Ryton Firs + + +MARTIN ARMSTRONG + + The Buzzards (from 'The Buzzards') + Honey Harvest + Miss Thompson Goes Shopping (from 'The Buzzards') + + +EDMUND BLUNDEN + + The Poor Man's Pig (from 'The Shepherd') + Almswomen (from 'The Waggoner') + Perch-fishing " " " + The Giant Puffball (from 'The Shepherd') + The Child's Grave " " " + April Byeway " " " + + +WILLIAM H. DAVIES + + The Captive Lion (from 'The Song of Life') + A Bird's Anger " " " + The Villain " " " + Love's Caution " " " + Wasted Hours (from 'The Hour of Magic') + The Truth (from 'The Song of Life') + + +WALTER DE LA MARE + + The Moth (from 'The Veil') + 'Sotto Voce' " " + Sephina (from 'Flora ') + Titmouse (from 'The Veil') + Suppose (from 'Flora') + The Corner Stone (from 'The Veil') + + +JOHN DRINKWATER + + Persuasion (from 'Seeds of Time') + + +JOHN FREEMAN + + I Will Ask (from 'Poems New and Old') + The Evening Sky " " " + The Caves " " " + Moon-Bathers (from 'Music') + In Those Old Days (from 'Poems New and Old') + Caterpillars (from 'Music') + Change " " + + +WILFRID GIBSON + + Fire (from 'Neighbours') + Barbara Fell " " + Philip and Phoebe Ware " " + By the Weir " " + Worlds " " + + +ROBERT GRAVES + + Lost Love (from 'The Pier-Glass') + Morning Phoenix " " + A Lover Since Childhood + Sullen Moods + The Pier-Glass (from 'The Pier-Glass') + The Troll's Nosegay " " + Fox's Dingle " " + The General Elliott (from 'On English Poetry') + The Patchwork Bonnet (from 'The Pier-Glass') + + +RICHARD HUGHES + + The Singing Furies (from 'Gipsy-Night') + Moonstruck " " + Vagrancy " " + Poets, Painters, Puddings " + + +WILLIAM KERR + + In Memoriam D. O. M. + Past and Present + The Audit + The Apple Tree + Her New-Year Posy + Counting Sheep + The Trees at Night + The Dead + + +D. H. LAWRENCE + + Snake + + +HAROLD MONRO + + Thistledown (from 'Real Property') + Real Property " " " + Unknown Country " " " + + +ROBERT NICHOLS + + Night Rhapsody (from 'Aurelia') + November " " + + +J. D. C. FELLOW + + After London + On a Friend who died suddenly upon the Seashore + Tenebræ + When All is Said + + +FRANK PREWETT + + To my Mother in Canada + Voices of Women (from 'Poems') + The Somme Valley " " + Burial Stones " " + Snow-Buntings " " + The Kelso Road " " + Baldon Lane " " + Come Girl, and Embrace " + + +PETER QUENNELL + + Procne + A Man to a Sunflower + Perception + Pursuit + + +V. SACKVILLE-WEST + + A Saxon Song (from 'Orchard and Vineyard') + Mariana in the North " " " + Full Moon " " " + Sailing Ships " " " + Trio " " " + Bitterness " " " + Evening " " " + + +EDWARD SHANKS + + The Rock Pool (from 'The Island of Youth') + The Glade " " " + Memory " " " + Woman's Song + The Wind + A Lonely Place + + +J. C. SQUIRE + + Elegy (from 'Poems,' 2nd series) + Meditation in Lamplight " " + Late Snow " " + + +FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG + + Seascape + Scirocco + The Quails + Song at Santa Cruz + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE + + + +RYTON FIRS + + +'The Dream' + + All round the knoll, on days of quietest air, + Secrets are being told; and if the trees + Speak out--let them make uproar loud as drums-- + 'Tis secrets still, shouted instead of whisper'd. + + There must have been a warning given once: + No tree, on pain of withering and sawfly, + To reach the slimmest of his snaky toes + Into this mounded sward and rumple it; + All trees stand back: taboo is on this soil.-- + + The trees have always scrupulously obeyed. + The grass, that elsewhere grows as best it may + Under the larches, countable long nesh blades, + Here in clear sky pads the ground thick and close + As wool upon a Southdown wether's back; + And as in Southdown wool, your hand must sink + Up to the wrist before it find the roots. + A bed for summer afternoons, this grass; + But in the Spring, not too softly entangling + For lively feet to dance on, when the green + Flashes with daffodils. From Marcle way, + From Dymock, Kempley, Newent, Bromesberrow, + Redmarley, all the meadowland daffodils seem + Running in golden tides to Ryton Firs, + To make the knot of steep little wooded hills + Their brightest show: O bella età de l'oro! + Now I breathe you again, my woods of Ryton: + Not only golden with your daffodil-fires + Lying in pools on the loose dusky ground + Beneath the larches, tumbling in broad rivers + Down sloping grass under the cherry trees + And birches: but among your branches clinging + A mist of that Ferrara-gold I first + Loved in the easy hours then green with you; + And as I stroll about you now, I have + Accompanying me--like troops of lads and lasses + Chattering and dancing in a shining fortune-- + Those mornings when your alleys of long light + And your brown rosin-scented shadows were + Enchanted with the laughter of my boys. + + +'The Voices in the Dream' + + Follow my heart, my dancing feet, + Dance as blithe as my heart can beat. + Only can dancing understand + What a heavenly way we pass + Treading the green and golden land, + Daffodillies and grass. + + I had a song, too, on my road, + But mine was in my eyes; + For Malvern Hills were with me all the way, + Singing loveliest visible melodies + Blue as a south-sea bay; + And ruddy as wine of France + Breadths of new-turn'd ploughland under them glowed. + 'Twas my heart then must dance + To dwell in my delight; + No need to sing when all in song my sight + Moved over hills so musically made + And with such colour played.-- + And only yesterday it was I saw + Veil'd in streamers of grey wavering smoke + My shapely Malvern Hills. + That was the last hail-storm to trouble spring: + He came in gloomy haste, + Pusht in front of the white clouds quietly basking, + In such a hurry he tript against the hills + And stumbling forward spilt over his shoulders + All his black baggage held, + Streaking downpour of hail. + Then fled dismayed, and the sun in golden glee + And the high white clouds laught down his dusky ghost. + + For all that's left of winter + Is moisture in the ground. + When I came down the valley last, the sun + Just thawed the grass and made me gentle turf, + But still the frost was bony underneath. + Now moles take burrowing jaunts abroad, and ply + Their shovelling hands in earth + As nimbly as the strokes + Of a swimmer in a long dive under water. + The meadows in the sun are twice as green + For all the scatter of fresh red mounded earth, + The mischief of the moles: + No dullish red, Glostershire earth new-delved + In April! And I think shows fairest where + These rummaging small rogues have been at work. + If you will look the way the sunlight slants + Making the grass one great green gem of light, + Bright earth, crimson and even + Scarlet, everywhere tracks + The rambling underground affairs of moles: + Though 'tis but kestrel-bay + Looking against the sun. + + But here's the happiest light can lie on ground, + Grass sloping under trees + Alive with yellow shine of daffodils! + If quicksilver were gold, + And troubled pools of it shaking in the sun + It were not such a fancy of bickering gleam + As Ryton daffodils when the air but stirs. + And all the miles and miles of meadowland + The spring makes golden ways, + Lead here, for here the gold + Grows brightest for our eyes, + And for our hearts lovelier even than love. + So here, each spring, our daffodil festival. + + How smooth and quick the year + Spins me the seasons round! + How many days have slid across my mind + Since we had snow pitying the frozen ground! + Then winter sunshine cheered + The bitter skies; the snow, + Reluctantly obeying lofty winds, + Drew off in shining clouds, + Wishing it still might love + With its white mercy the cold earth beneath. + But when the beautiful ground + Lights upward all the air, + Noon thaws the frozen eaves, + And makes the rime on post and paling steam + Silvery blue smoke in the golden day. + And soon from loaded trees in noiseless woods + The snows slip thudding down, + Scattering in their trail + Bright icy sparkles through the glittering air; + And the fir-branches, patiently bent so long, + Sigh as they lift themselves to rights again. + Then warm moist hours steal in, + Such as can draw the year's + First fragrance from the sap of cherry wood + Or from the leaves of budless violets; + And travellers in lanes + Catch the hot tawny smell + Reynard's damp fur left as he sneakt marauding + + Across from gap to gap: + And in the larch woods on the highest boughs + The long-eared owls like grey cats sitting still + Peer down to quiz the passengers below. + + Light has killed the winter and all dark dreams. + Now winds live all in light, + Light has come down to earth and blossoms here, + And we have golden minds. + From out the long shade of a road high-bankt, + I came on shelving fields; + And from my feet cascading, + Streaming down the land, + Flickering lavish of daffodils flowed and fell; + Like sunlight on a water thrill'd with haste, + Such clear pale quivering flame, + But a flame even more marvellously yellow. + And all the way to Ryton here I walkt + Ankle-deep in light. + It was as if the world had just begun; + And in a mind new-made + Of shadowless delight + My spirit drank my flashing senses in, + And gloried to be made + Of young mortality. + No darker joy than this + Golden amazement now + Shall dare intrude into our dazzling lives: + Stain were it now to know + Mists of sweet warmth and deep delicious colour, + Those lovable accomplices that come + Befriending languid hours. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +MARTIN ARMSTRONG + + + +THE BUZZARDS + +When evening came and the warm glow grew deeper +And every tree that bordered the green meadows +And in the yellow cornfields every reaper +And every corn-shock stood above their shadows +Flung eastward from their feet in longer measure, +Serenely far there swam in the sunny height +A buzzard and his mate who took their pleasure +Swirling and poising idly in golden light. +On great pied motionless moth-wings borne along, + So effortless and so strong, +Cutting each other's paths, together they glided, +Then wheeled asunder till they soared divided +Two valleys' width (as though it were delight +To part like this, being sure they could unite +So swiftly in their empty, free dominion), +Curved headlong downward, towered up the sunny steep, +Then, with a sudden lift of the one great pinion, +Swung proudly to a curve and from its height +Took half a mile of sunlight in one long sweep. + +And we, so small on the swift immense hillside, +Stood tranced, until our souls arose uplifted + On those far-sweeping, wide, +Strong curves of flight,--swayed up and hugely drifted, +Were washed, made strong and beautiful in the tide +Of sun-bathed air. But far beneath, beholden +Through shining deeps of air, the fields were golden +And rosy burned the heather where cornfields ended. + +And still those buzzards wheeled, while light withdrew +Out of the vales and to surging slopes ascended, +Till the loftiest-flaming summit died to blue. + + + +HONEY HARVEST + +Late in March, when the days are growing longer + And sight of early green +Tells of the coming spring and suns grow stronger, +Round the pale willow-catkins there are seen + The year's first honey-bees +Stealing the nectar: and bee-masters know +This for the first sign of the honey-flow. + +Then in the dark hillsides the Cherry-trees +Gleam white with loads of blossom where the gleams +Of piled snow lately hung, and richer streams +The honey. Now, if chilly April days +Delay the Apple-blossom, and the May's +First week come in with sudden summer weather, +The Apple and the Hawthorn bloom together, +And all day long the plundering hordes go round +And every overweighted blossom nods. +But from that gathered essence they compound +Honey more sweet than nectar of the gods. + +Those blossoms fall ere June, warm June that brings +The small white Clover. Field by scented field, +Round farms like islands in the rolling weald, +It spreads thick-flowering or in wildness springs +Short-stemmed upon the naked downs, to yield +A richer store of honey than the Rose, +The Pink, the Honeysuckle. Thence there flows +Nectar of clearest amber, redolent + Of every flowery scent +That the warm wind upgathers as he goes. + +In mid-July be ready for the noise +Of million bees in old Lime-avenues, +As though hot noon had found a droning voice +To ease her soul. Here for those busy crews +Green leaves and pale-stemmed clusters of green strong flowers +Build heavy-perfumed, cool, green-twilight bowers +Whence, load by load, through the long summer days + They fill their glassy cells +With dark green honey, clear as chrysoprase, +Which housewives shun; but the bee-master tells +This brand is more delicious than all else. + +In August-time, if moors are near at hand, +Be wise and in the evening-twilight load +Your hives upon a cart, and take the road +By night: that, ere the early dawn shall spring +And all the hills turn rosy with the Ling, + Each waking hive may stand +Established in its new-appointed land +Without harm taken, and the earliest flights +Set out at once to loot the heathery heights. + +That vintage of the Heather yields so dense +And glutinous a syrup that it foils +Him who would spare the comb and drain from thence + Its dark, full-flavoured spoils: +For he must squeeze to wreck the beautiful +Frail edifice. Not otherwise he sacks +Those many-chambered palaces of wax. + +Then let a choice of every kind be made, +And, labelled, set upon your storehouse racks-- +Of Hawthorn-honey that of almond smacks: +The luscious Lime-tree-honey, green as jade: +Pale Willow-honey, hived by the first rover: + That delicate honey culled +From Apple-blosson, that of sunlight tastes: +And sunlight-coloured honey of the Clover. + Then, when the late year wastes, +When night falls early and the noon is dulled + And the last warm days are over, +Unlock the store and to your table bring +Essence of every blossom of the spring. +And if, when wind has never ceased to blow +All night, you wake to roofs and trees becalmed + In level wastes of snow, +Bring out the Lime-tree-honey, the embalmed +Soul of a lost July, or Heather-spiced +Brown-gleaming comb wherein sleeps crystallised +All the hot perfume of the heathery slope. +And, tasting and remembering, live in hope. + + + +MISS THOMPSON GOES SHOPPING + +Miss Thompson In her lone cottage on the downs, +at Home. With winds and blizzards and great crowns + Of shining cloud, with wheeling plover + And short grass sweet with the small white clover, + Miss Thompson lived, correct and meek, + A lonely spinster, and every week + On market-day she used to go + Into the little town below, + Tucked in the great downs' hollow bowl + Like pebbles gathered in a shoal. + + +She goes So, having washed her plates and cup +a-Marketing. And banked the kitchen-fire up, + Miss Thompson slipped upstairs and dressed, + Put on her black (her second best), + The bonnet trimmed with rusty plush, + Peeped in the glass with simpering blush, + From camphor-smelling cupboard took + Her thicker jacket off the hook + Because the day might turn to cold. + Then, ready, slipped downstairs and rolled + The hearthrug back; then searched about, + Found her basket, ventured out, + Snecked the door and paused to lock it + And plunge the key in some deep pocket. + Then as she tripped demurely down + The steep descent, the little town + Spread wider till its sprawling street + Enclosed her and her footfalls beat + On hard stone pavement, and she felt + Those throbbing ecstasies that melt + Through heart and mind, as, happy, free, + Her small, prim personality + Merged into the seething strife + Of auction-marts and city life. + + +She visits Serenely down the busy stream +the Boot-maker. Miss Thompson floated in a dream. + Now, hovering bee-like, she would stop + Entranced before some tempting shop, + Getting in people's way and prying + At things she never thought of buying: + Now wafted on without an aim, + Until in course of time she came + To Watson's bootshop. Long she pries + At boots and shoes of every size-- + Brown football-boots with bar and stud + For boys that scuffle in the mud, + And dancing-pumps with pointed toes + Glossy as jet, and dull black bows; + Slim ladies' shoes with two-inch heel + And sprinkled beads of gold and steel-- + 'How anyone can wear such things!' + On either side the doorway springs + (As in a tropic jungle loom + Masses of strange thick-petalled bloom + And fruits mis-shapen) fold on fold + A growth of sand-shoes rubber-soled, + Clambering the door-posts, branching, spawning + Their barbarous bunches like an awning + Over the windows and the doors. + But, framed among the other stores, + Something has caught Miss Thompson's eye + (O worldliness! O vanity!), + A pair of slippers--scarlet plush. + Miss Thompson feels a conscious blush + Suffuse her face, as though her thought + Had ventured further than it ought. + + But O that colour's rapturous singing + And the answer in her lone heart ringing! + She turns (O Guardian Angels, stop her + From doing anything improper!) + She turns; and see, she stoops and bungles + In through the sand-shoes' hanging jungles, + Away from light and common sense, + Into the shop dim-lit and dense + With smells of polish and tanned hide. + + +Mrs. Watson. Soon from a dark recess inside + Fat Mrs. Watson comes slip-slop + To mind the business of the shop. + She walks flat-footed with a roll-- + A serviceable, homely soul, + With kindly, ugly face like dough, + Hair dull and colourless as tow. + A huge Scotch pebble fills the space + Between her bosom and her face. + One sees her making beds all day. + Miss Thompson lets her say her say: + 'So chilly for the time of year. + It's ages since we saw you here.' + Then, heart a-flutter, speech precise, + Describes the shoes and asks the price. + 'Them, Miss? Ah, them is six-and-nine.' + Miss Thompson shudders down the spine + (Dream of impossible romance). + She eyes them with a wistful glance, + Torn between good and evil. Yes, + + +Wrestles with For half-a-minute and no less +a Temptation; Miss Thompson strives with seven devils, + Then, soaring over earthly levels, + + +And is Saved. Turns from the shoes with lingering touch-- + 'Ah, six-and-nine is far too much. + Sorry to trouble you. Good day!' + + +She visits A little further down the way +the Fish-monger. Stands Miles's fish-shop, whence is shed + So strong a smell of fishes dead + That people of a subtler sense + Hold their breath and hurry thence. + Miss Thompson hovers there and gazes: + Her housewife's knowing eye appraises + Salt and fresh, severely cons + Kippers bright as tarnished bronze: + Great cods disposed upon the sill, + Chilly and wet, with gaping gill, + Flat head, glazed eye, and mute, uncouth, + Shapeless, wan, old-woman's mouth. + Next a row of soles and plaice + With querulous and twisted face, + And red-eyed bloaters, golden-grey; + Smoked haddocks ranked in neat array; + A group of smelts that take the light + Like slips of rainbow, pearly bright; + Silver trout with rosy spots, + And coral shrimps with keen black dots + For eyes, and hard and jointed sheath + And crisp tails curving underneath. + But there upon the sanded floor, + More wonderful in all that store + Than anything on slab or shelf, + Stood Miles, the fishmonger, himself. + + +Mr. Miles. Four-square he stood and filled the place. + His huge hands and his jolly face + Were red. He had a mouth to quaff + Pint after pint: a sounding laugh, + But wheezy at the end, and oft + His eyes bulged outwards and he coughed. + Aproned he stood from chin to toe. + The apron's vertical long flow + Warped grandly outwards to display + His hale, round belly hung midway, + Whose apex was securely bound + With apron-strings wrapped round and round. + Outside, Miss Thompson, small and staid, + Felt, as she always felt, afraid + Of this huge man who laughed so loud + And drew the notice of the crowd. + Awhile she paused in timid thought, + Then promptly hurried in and bought + 'Two kippers, please. Yes, lovely weather.' + 'Two kippers? Sixpence altogether:' + And in her basket laid the pair + Wrapped face to face in newspaper. + + +Relapses into Then on she went, as one half blind, +Temptation: For things were stirring in her mind; + Then turned about with fixed intent + And, heading for the bootshop, went + + +And Falls. Straight in and bought the scarlet slippers + And popped them in beside the kippers. + + +She visits So much for that. From there she tacked, +the Chemist, Still flushed by this decisive act, + Westward, and came without a stop + To Mr. Wren the chemist's shop, + And stood awhile outside to see + The tall, big-bellied bottles three-- + Red, blue, and emerald, richly bright + Each with its burning core of light. + The bell chimed as she pushed the door. + Spotless the oilcloth on the floor, + Limpid as water each glass case, + Each thing precisely in its place. + Rows of small drawers, black-lettered each + With curious words of foreign speech, + Ranked high above the other ware. + The old strange fragrance filled the air, + A fragrance like the garden pink, + But tinged with vague medicinal stink + Of camphor, soap, new sponges, blent + With chloroform and violet scent. + + +Mr. Wren. And Wren the chemist, tall and spare, + Stood gaunt behind his counter there. + Quiet and very wise he seemed, + With skull-like face, bald head that gleamed; + Through spectacles his eyes looked kind. + He wore a pencil tucked behind + His ear. And never he mistakes + The wildest signs the doctor makes + Prescribing drugs. Brown paper, string, + He will not use for any thing, + But all in neat white parcels packs + And sticks them up with sealing-wax. + Miss Thompson bowed and blushed, and then + Undoubting bought of Mr. Wren, + Being free from modern scepticism, + A bottle for her rheumatism; + Also some peppermints to take + In case of wind; an oval cake + Of scented soap; a penny square + Of pungent naphthaline to scare + The moth. And after Wren had wrapped + And sealed the lot, Miss Thompson clapped + Them in beside the fish and shoes; + 'Good day,' she says, and off she goes. + + +Is Led away Beelike Miss Thompson, whither next? +to the Pleasure Outside, you pause awhile, perplext, +of the Town, Your bearings lost. Then all comes back + + +Such as Groceries And round she wheels, hot on the track +and Millinery, Of Giles the grocer, and from there + To Emilie the milliner, + There to be tempted by the sight + Of hats and blouses fiercely bright. + (O guard Miss Thompson, Powers that Be, + From Crudeness and Vulgarity.) + + +And other Still on from shop to shop she goes +Allurements With sharp bird's-eye, enquiring nose, + Prying and peering, entering some, + Oblivious of the thought of home. + The town brimmed up with deep-blue haze, + But still she stayed to flit and gaze, + Her eyes ablur with rapturous sights, + Her small soul full of small delights, + Empty her purse, her basket filled. + + +But at length The traffic in the town was stilled. +is Convinced The clock struck six. Men thronged the inns. +of Indiscretion. Dear, dear, she should be home long since. + + + +And Returns Then as she climbed the misty downs +Home. The lamps were lighted in the town's + Small streets. She saw them star by star + Multiplying from afar; + Till, mapped beneath her, she could trace + Each street, and the wide square market-place + Sunk deeper and deeper as she went + Higher up the steep ascent. + And all that soul-uplifting stir + Step by step fell back from her, + The glory gone, the blossoming + Shrivelled, and she, a small, frail thing, + Carrying her laden basket. Till + Darkness and silence of the hill + Received her in their restful care + And stars came dropping through the air. + + But loudly, sweetly sang the slippers + In the basket with the kippers; + And loud and sweet the answering thrills + From her lone heart on the hills. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +EDMUND BLUNDEN + + +THE POOR MAN'S PIG + +Already fallen plum-bloom stars the green + And apple-boughs as knarred as old toads' backs +Wear their small roses ere a rose is seen; + The building thrush watches old Job who stacks +The bright-peeled osiers on the sunny fence, + The pent sow grunts to hear him stumping by, +And tries to push the bolt and scamper thence, + But her ringed snout still keeps her to the sty. + +Then out he lets her run; away she snorts + In bundling gallop for the cottage door, +With hungry hubbub begging crusts and orts, + Then like the whirlwind bumping round once more; +Nuzzling the dog, making the pullets run, + And sulky as a child when her play's done. + + + +ALMSWOMEN + +At Quincey's moat the squandering village ends, +And there in the almshouse dwell the dearest friends +Of all the village, two old dames that cling +As close as any trueloves in the spring. +Long, long ago they passed threescore-and-ten, +And in this doll's house lived together then; +All things they have in common, being so poor, +And their one fear, Death's shadow at the door. +Each sundown makes them mournful, each sunrise +Brings back the brightness in their failing eyes. + +How happy go the rich fair-weather days +When on the roadside folk stare in amaze +At such a honeycomb of fruit and flowers +As mellows round their threshold; what long hours +They gloat upon their steepling hollyhocks, +Bee's balsams, feathery southernwood, and stocks, +Fiery dragon's-mouths, great mallow leaves +For salves, and lemon-plants in bushy sheaves, +Shagged Esau's-hands with five green finger-tips. +Such old sweet names are ever on their lips. +As pleased as little children where these grow +In cobbled pattens and worn gowns they go, +Proud of their wisdom when on gooseberry shoots +They stuck eggshells to fright from coming fruits +The brisk-billed rascals; pausing still to see +Their neighbour owls saunter from tree to tree, +Or in the hushing half-light mouse the lane +Long-winged and lordly. + But when those hours wane, +Indoors they ponder, scared by the harsh storm +Whose pelting saracens on the window swarm, +And listen for the mail to clatter past +And church clock's deep bay withering on the blast; +They feed the fire that flings a freakish light +On pictured kings and queens grotesquely bright, +Platters and pitchers, faded calendars +And graceful hour-glass trim with lavenders. + +Many a time they kiss and cry, and pray +That both be summoned in the self-same day, +And wiseman linnet tinkling in his cage +End too with them the friendship of old age, +And all together leave their treasured room +Some bell-like evening when the may's in bloom. + + + +PERCH-FISHING + +On the far hill the cloud of thunder grew +And sunlight blurred below; but sultry blue +Burned yet on the valley water where it hoards +Behind the miller's elmen floodgate boards, +And there the wasps, that lodge them ill-concealed +In the vole's empty house, still drove afield +To plunder touchwood from old crippled trees +And build their young ones their hutched nurseries; +Still creaked the grasshoppers' rasping unison +Nor had the whisper through the tansies run +Nor weather-wisest bird gone home. + How then +Should wry eels in the pebbled shallows ken +Lightning coming? troubled up they stole +To the deep-shadowed sullen water-hole, +Among whose warty snags the quaint perch lair. +As cunning stole the boy to angle there, +Muffling least tread, with no noise balancing through +The hangdog alder-boughs his bright bamboo. +Down plumbed the shuttled ledger, and the quill +On the quicksilver water lay dead still. + +A sharp snatch, swirling to-fro of the line, +He's lost, he's won, with splash and scuffling shine +Past the low-lapping brandy-flowers drawn in, +The ogling hunchback perch with needled fin. +And there beside him one as large as he, +Following his hooked mate, careless who shall see +Or what befall him, close and closer yet-- +The startled boy might take him in his net +That folds the other. + Slow, while on the clay, +The other flounces, slow he sinks away. + +What agony usurps that watery brain +For comradeship of twenty summers slain, +For such delights below the flashing weir +And up the sluice-cut, playing buccaneer +Among the minnows; lolling in hot sun +When bathing vagabonds had drest and done; +Rootling in salty flannel-weed for meal +And river shrimps, when hushed the trundling wheel; +Snapping the dapping moth, and with new wonder +Prowling through old drowned barges falling asunder. +And O a thousand things the whole year through +They did together, never more to do. + + + +THE GIANT PUFFBALL + +From what sad star I know not, but I found + Myself new-born below the coppice rail, +No bigger than the dewdrops and as round, + In a soft sward, no cattle might assail. + +And so I gathered mightiness and grew + With this one dream kindling in me, that I +Should never cease from conquering light and dew + Till my white splendour touched the trembling sky. + +A century of blue and stilly light + Bowed down before me, the dew came again, +The moon my sibyl worshipped through the night, + The sun returned and long abode; but then + +Hoarse drooping darkness hung me with a shroud + And switched at me with shrivelled leaves in scorn. +Red morning stole beneath a grinning cloud, + And suddenly clambering over dike and thorn + +A half-moon host of churls with flags and sticks + Hallooed and hurtled up the partridge brood, +And Death clapped hands from all the echoing thicks, + And trampling envy spied me where I stood; + +Who haled me tired and quaking, hid me by, + And came again after an age of cold, +And hung me in the prison-house adry + From the great crossbeam. Here defiled and old + +I perish through unnumbered hours, I swoon, + Hacked with harsh knives to staunch a child's torn hand; +And all my hopes must with my body soon + Be but as crouching dust and wind-blown sand. + + + +THE CHILD'S GRAVE + +I came to the churchyard where pretty Joy lies + On a morning in April, a rare sunny day; +Such bloom rose around, and so many birds' cries + That I sang for delight as I followed the way. + +I sang for delight in the ripening of spring, + For dandelions even were suns come to earth; +Not a moment went by but a new lark took wing + To wait on the season with melody's mirth. + +Love-making birds were my mates all the road, + And who would wish surer delight for the eye +Than to see pairing goldfinches gleaming abroad + Or yellowhammers sunning on paling and sty? + +And stocks in the almswomen's garden were blown, + With rich Easter roses each side of the door; +The lazy white owls in the glade cool and lone + Paid calls on their cousins in the elm's chambered core. + +This peace, then, and happiness thronged me around. + Nor could I go burdened with grief, but made merry +Till I came to the gate of that overgrown ground + Where scarce once a year sees the priest come to bury. + +Over the mounds stood the nettles in pride, + And, where no fine flowers, there kind weeds dared to wave; +It seemed but as yesterday she lay by my side, + And now my dog ate of the grass on her grave. + +He licked my hand wondering to see me muse so, + And wished I would lead on the journey or home, +As though not a moment of spring were to go + In brooding; but I stood, if her spirit might come + +And tell me her life, since we left her that day + In the white lilied coffin, and rained down our tears; +But the grave held no answer, though long I should stay; + How strange that this clay should mingle with hers! + +So I called my good dog, and went on my way; + Joy's spirit shone then in each flower I went by, +And clear as the noon, in coppice and ley, + Her sweet dawning smile and her violet eye! + + + +APRIL BYEWAY + +Friend whom I never saw, yet dearest friend, + Be with me travelling on the byeway now +In April's month and mood: our steps shall bend + By the shut smithy with its penthouse brow + Armed round with many a felly and crackt plough: +And we will mark in his white smock the mill + Standing aloof, long numbed to any wind, +That in his crannies mourns, and craves him still; + But now there is not any grain to grind, + And even the master lies too deep for winds to find. + +Grieve not at these: for there are mills amain + With lusty sails that leap and drop away +On further knolls, and lads to fetch the grain. + The ash-spit wickets on the green betray + New games begun and old ones put away. +Let us fare on, dead friend, O deathless friend, + Where under his old hat as green as moss +The hedger chops and finds new gaps to mend, + And on his bonfires burns the thorns and dross, + And hums a hymn, the best, thinks he, that ever was. + +There the grey guinea-fowl stands in the way, + The young black heifer and the raw-ribbed mare, +And scorn to move for tumbril or for dray, + And feel themselves as good as farmers there. + From the young corn the prick-eared leverets stare +At strangers come to spy the land--small sirs, + We bring less danger than the very breeze +Who in great zig-zag blows the bee, and whirs + In bluebell shadow down the bright green leas; + From whom in frolic fit the chopt straw darts and flees. + +The cornel steepling up in white shall know + The two friends passing by, and poplar smile +All gold within; the church-top fowl shall glow + To lure us on, and we shall rest awhile + Where the wild apple blooms above the stile; +The yellow frog beneath blinks up half bold, + Then scares himself into the deeper green. +And thus spring was for you in days of old, + And thus will be when I too walk unseen + By one that thinks me friend, the best that there has been. + +All our lone journey laughs for joy, the hours + Like honey-bees go home in new-found light +Past the cow pond amazed with twinkling flowers + And antique chalk-pit newly delved to white, + Or idle snow-plough nearly hid from sight. +The blackbird sings us home, on a sudden peers + The round tower hung with ivy's blackened chains, +Then past the little green the byeway veers, + The mill-sweeps torn, the forge with cobwebbed panes + That have so many years looked out across the plains. + +But the old forge and mill are shut and done, + The tower is crumbling down, stone by stone falls; +An ague doubt comes creeping in the sun, + The sun himself shudders, the day appals, + The concourse of a thousand tempests sprawls +Over the blue-lipped lakes and maddening groves, + Like agonies of gods the clouds are whirled, +The stormwind like the demon huntsman roves-- + Still stands my friend, though all's to chaos hurled, + The unseen friend, the one last friend in all the world. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +WILLIAM H. DAVIES + + + +THE CAPTIVE LION + +Thou that in fury with thy knotted tail +Hast made this iron floor thy beaten drum; +That now in silence walkst thy little space-- +Like a sea-captain--careless what may come: + +What power has brought thy majesty to this, +Who gave those eyes their dull and sleepy look; +Who took their lightning out, and from thy throat +The thunder when the whole wide forest shook? + +It was that man who went again, alone, +Into thy forest dark--Lord, he was brave! +That man a fly has killed, whose bones are left +Unburied till an earthquake digs his grave. + + + +A BIRD'S ANGER + +A summer's morning that has but one voice; + Five hundred stocks, like golden lovers, lean +Their heads together, in their quiet way, + And but one bird sings, of a number seen. + +It is the lark, that louder, louder sings, + As though but this one thought possessed his mind: +'You silent robin, blackbird, thrush, and finch, + I'll sing enough for all you lazy kind!' + +And when I hear him at this daring task, + 'Peace, little bird,' I say, 'and take some rest; +Stop that wild, screaming fire of angry song, + Before it makes a coffin of your nest.' + + + +THE VILLAIN + +While joy gave clouds the light of stars, + That beamed where'er they looked; +And calves and lambs had tottering knees, + Excited, while they sucked; +While every bird enjoyed his song, +Without one thought of harm or wrong-- +I turned my head and saw the wind, + Not far from where I stood, +Dragging the corn by her golden hair, + Into a dark and lonely wood. + + + +LOVE'S CAUTION + +Tell them, when you are home again, + How warm the air was now; +How silent were the birds and leaves, + And of the moon's full glow; + And how we saw afar + A falling star: +It was a tear of pure delight +Ran down the face of Heaven this happy night. + +Our kisses are but love in flower, + Until that greater time +When, gathering strength, those flowers take wing, + And Love can reach his prime. + And now, my heart's delight, + Good night, good night; +Give me the last sweet kiss-- +But do not breathe at home one word of this! + + + +WASTED HOURS + +How many buds in this warm light + Have burst out laughing into leaves! +And shall a day like this be gone + Before I seek the wood that holds +The richest music known? + +Too many times have nightingales + Wasted their passion on my sleep, +And brought repentance soon: + But this one night I'll seek the woods, +The nightingale, and moon. + + + +THE TRUTH + +Since I have seen a bird one day, +His head pecked more than half away; +That hopped about, with but one eye, +Ready to fight again, and die-- +Ofttimes since then their private lives +Have spoilt that joy their music gives. + +So when I see this robin now, +Like a red apple on the bough, +And question why he sings so strong, +For love, or for the love of song; +Or sings, maybe, for that sweet rill +Whose silver tongue is never still-- + +Ah, now there comes this thought unkind, +Born of the knowledge in my mind: +He sings in triumph that last night +He killed his father in a fight; +And now he'll take his mother's blood-- +The last strong rival for his food. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +WALTER DE LA MARE + + + +THE MOTH + +Isled in the midnight air, +Musked with the dark's faint bloom, +Out into glooming and secret haunts + The flame cries, 'Come!' + +Lovely in dye and fan, +A-tremble in shimmering grace, +A moth from her winter swoon + Uplifts her face: + +Stares from her glamorous eyes; +Wafts her on plumes like mist; +In ecstasy swirls and sways + To her strange tryst. + + + +'SOTTO VOCE' + +(To EDWARD THOMAS) + + +The haze of noon wanned silver-grey, +The soundless mansion of the sun; +The air made visible in his ray, +Like molten glass from furnace run, +Quivered o'er heat-baked turf and stone +And the flower of the gorse burned on-- +Burned softly as gold of a child's fair hair +Along each spiky spray, and shed +Almond-like incense in the air +Whereon our senses fed. + +At foot--a few sparse harebells: blue +And still as were the friend's dark eyes +That dwelt on mine, transfixèd through +With sudden ecstatic surmise. + +'Hst!' he cried softly, smiling, and lo, +Stealing amidst that maze gold-green, +I heard a whispering music flow +From guileful throat of bird, unseen:-- +So delicate, the straining ear +Scarce carried its faint syllabling +Into a heart caught-up to hear +That inmost pondering +Of bird-like self with self. We stood, +In happy trance-like solitude, +Hearkening a lullay grieved and sweet-- +As when on isle uncharted beat +'Gainst coral at the palm-tree's root, +With brine-clear, snow-white foam afloat, +The wailing, not of water or wind-- +A husht, far, wild, divine lament, +When Prospero his wizardry bent +Winged Ariel to bind.... + +Then silence, and o'er-flooding noon. +I raised my head; smiled too. And he-- +Moved his great hand, the magic gone-- +Gently amused to see +My ignorant wonderment. He sighed. +'It was a nightingale,' he said, +'That _sotto voce_ cons the song +He'll sing when dark is spread; +And Night's vague hours are sweet and long, +And we are laid abed.' + + + +SEPHINA + +Black lacqueys at the wide-flung door + Stand mute as men of wood. +Gleams like a pool the ballroom floor-- + A burnished solitude. + A hundred waxen tapers shine + From silver sconces; softly pine + 'Cello, fiddle, mandoline, + To music deftly wooed-- +And dancers in cambric, satin, silk, +With glancing hair and cheeks like milk, + Wreathe, curtsey, intertwine. + +The drowse of roses lulls the air +Wafted up the marble stair. +Like warbling water clucks the talk. +From room to room in splendour walk +Guests, smiling in the æry sheen; +Carmine and azure, white and green, +They stoop and languish, pace and preen + Bare shoulder, painted fan, +Gemmed wrist and finger, neck of swan; +And still the pluckt strings warble on; +Still from the snow-bowered, link-lit street +The muffled hooves of horses beat; +And harness rings; and foam-fleckt bit +Clanks as the slim heads toss and stare +From deep, dark eyes. Smiling, at ease, +Mount to the porch the pomped grandees +In lonely state, by twos, and threes, +Exchanging languid courtesies, + While torches fume and flare. + +And now the banquet calls. A blare +Of squalling trumpets clots the air. +And, flocking out, streams up the rout; +And lilies nod to velvet's swish; +And peacocks prim on gilded dish, +Vast pies thick-glazed, and gaping fish, +Towering confections crisp as ice, +Jellies aglare like cockatrice, +With thousand savours tongues entice. +Fruits of all hues barbaric gloom-- +Pomegranate, quince and peach and plum, +Mandarine, grape, and cherry clear +Englobe each glassy chandelier, +Where nectarous flowers their sweets distil-- +Jessamine, tuberose, chamomill, +Wild-eye narcissus, anemone, +Tendril of ivy and vinery. + +Now odorous wines the goblets fill; +Gold-cradled meats the menials bear +From gilded chair to gilded chair: +Now roars the talk like crashing seas, +Foams upward to the painted frieze, +Echoes and ebbs. Still surges in, +To yelp of hautboy and violin, +Plumed and bedazzling, rosed and rare, +Dance-bemused, with cheek aglow, +Stooping the green-twined portal through, +Sighing with laughter, debonair, +That concourse of the proud and fair-- + And lo! 'La, la! + Mamma ... Mamma!' +Falls a small cry in the dark and calls-- + 'I see you standing there!' + +Fie, fie, Sephina! not in bed! +Crouched on the staircase overhead, +Like ghost she gloats, her lean hand laid +On alabaster balustrade, + And gazes on and on +Down on that wondrous to and fro +Till finger and foot are cold as snow, + And half the night is gone; +And dazzled eyes are sore bestead; +Nods drowsily the sleek-locked head; +And, vague and far, spins, fading out, +That rainbow-coloured, reeling rout, +And, with faint sighs, her spirit flies + Into deep sleep.... + + Come, Stranger, peep! + Was ever cheek so wan? + + + +THE TITMOUSE + +If you would happy company win, +Dangle a palm-nut from a tree, +Idly in green to sway and spin, +Its snow-pulped kernel for bait; and see, + A nimble titmouse enter in. + +Out of earth's vast unknown of air, +Out of all summer, from wave to wave, +He'll perch, and prank his feathers fair, +Jangle a glass-clear wildering stave, + And take his commons there-- + +This tiny son of life; this spright, +By momentary Human sought, +Plume will his wing in the dappling light, +Clash timbrel shrill and gay-- +And into time's enormous nought, + Sweet-fed, will flit away. + + + +SUPPOSE + +Suppose ... and suppose that a wild little Horse of Magic + Came cantering out of the sky, +With bridle of silver, and into the saddle I mounted, + To fly--and to fly; + +And we stretched up into the air, fleeting on in the sunshine, + A speck in the gleam, +On galloping hoofs, his mane in the wind out-flowing, + In a shadowy stream; + +And oh, when, all lone, the gentle star of evening + Came crinkling into the blue, +A magical castle we saw in the air, like a cloud of moonlight, + As onward we flew; + +And across the green moat on the drawbridge we foamed and we snorted, + And there was a beautiful Queen +Who smiled at me strangely; and spoke to my wild little Horse, too-- + A lovely and beautiful Queen; + +And she cried with delight--and delight--to her delicate maidens, + 'Behold my daughter--my dear!' +And they crowned me with flowers, and then to their harps sate playing, + Solemn and clear; + +And magical cakes and goblets were spread on the table; + And at window the birds came in; +Hopping along with bright eyes, pecking crumbs from the platters, + And sipped of the wine; + +And splashing up--up to the roof tossed fountains of crystal; + And Princes in scarlet and green +Shot with their bows and arrows, and kneeled with their dishes + Of fruits for the Queen; + +And we walked in a magical garden with rivers and bowers, + And my bed was of ivory and gold; +And the Queen breathed soft in my ear a song of enchantment-- + And I never grew old.... + +And I never, never came back to the earth, oh, never and never; + How mother would cry and cry! +There'd be snow on the fields then, and all these sweet flowers in the + winter + Would wither, and die.... + +Suppose ... and suppose ... + + + +THE CORNER STONE + +Sterile these stones +By time in ruin laid. +Yet many a creeping thing +Its haven has made +In these least crannies, where falls +Dark's dew, and noonday shade. + +The claw of the tender bird +Finds lodgment here; +Dye-winged butterflies poise; +Emmet and beetle steer +Their busy course; the bee +Drones, laden, near. + +Their myriad-mirrored eyes +Great day reflect. +By their exquisite farings +Is this granite specked; +Is trodden to infinite dust; +By gnawing lichens decked. + +Toward what eventual dream +Sleeps its cold on, +When into ultimate dark +These lives shall be gone, +And even of man not a shadow remain +Of all he has done? + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +JOHN DRINKWATER + + + +Then I asked: 'Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so, make it so?' + +He replied: 'All Poets believe that it does, and in ages of imagination +this firm persuasion removed mountains; but many are not capable of a +firm persuasion of anything.' + +Blake's 'Marriage of Heaven and Hell'. + + + +PERSUASION + + +I + +At any moment love unheralded +Comes, and is king. Then as, with a fall +Of frost, the buds upon the hawthorn spread +Are withered in untimely burial, +So love, occasion gone, his crown puts by, +And as a beggar walks unfriended ways, +With but remembered beauty to defy +The frozen sorrows of unsceptred days. +Or in that later travelling he comes +Upon a bleak oblivion, and tells +Himself, again, again, forgotten tombs +Are all now that love was, and blindly spells +His royal state of old a glory cursed, +Saying 'I have forgot', and that's the worst. + + +II. + +If we should part upon that one embrace, +And set our courses ever, each from each, +With all our treasure but a fading face +And little ghostly syllables of speech; +Should beauty's moment never be renewed, +And moons on moons look out for us in vain, +And each but whisper from a solitude +To hear but echoes of a lonely pain,-- +Still in a world that fortune cannot change +Should walk those two that once were you and I, +Those two that once when moon and stars were strange +Poets above us in an April sky, +Heard a voice falling on the midnight sea, +Mute, and for ever, but for you and me. + + +III. + +This nature, this great flood of life, this cheat +That uses us as baubles for her coat, +Takes love, that should be nothing but the beat +Of blood for its own beauty, by the throat, +Saying, you are my servant and shall do +My purposes, or utter bitterness +Shall be your wage, and nothing come to you +But stammering tongues that never can confess. +Undaunted then in answer here I cry, +'You wanton, that control the hand of him +Who masquerades as wisdom in a sky +Where holy, holy, sing the cherubim, +I will not pay one penny to your name +Though all my body crumble into shame.' + + +IV. + +Woman, I once had whimpered at your hand, +Saying that all the wisdom that I sought +Lay in your brain, that you were as the sand +Should cleanse the muddy mirrors of my thought; +I should have read in you the character +Of oracles that quick a thousand lays, +Looked in your eyes, and seen accounted there +Solomons legioned for bewildered praise. +Now have I learnt love as love is. I take +Your hand, and with no inquisition learn +All that your eyes can tell, and that's to make +A little reckoning and brief, then turn +Away, and in my heart I hear a call, +'I love, I love, I love'; and that is all. + + +V. + +When all the hungry pain of love I bear, +And in poor lightless thought but burn and burn, +And wit goes hunting wisdom everywhere, +Yet can no word of revelation learn; +When endlessly the scales of yea and nay +In dreadful motion fall and rise and fall, +When all my heart in sorrow I could pay +Until at last were left no tear at all; +Then if with tame or subtle argument +Companions come and draw me to a place +Where words are but the tappings of content, +And life spreads all her garments with a grace, +I curse that ease, and hunger in my heart +Back to my pain and lonely to depart. + + +VI. + +Not anything you do can make you mine, +For enterprise with equal charity +In duty as in love elect will shine, +The constant slave of mutability. +Nor can your words for all their honey breath +Outsing the speech of many an older rhyme, +And though my ear deliver them from death +One day or two, it is so little time. +Nor does your beauty in its excellence +Excel a thousand in the daily sun, +Yet must I put a period to pretence, +And with my logic's catalogue have done, +For act and word and beauty are but keys +To unlock the heart, and you, dear love, are these. + + +VII. + +Never the heart of spring had trembled so +As on that day when first in Paradise +We went afoot as novices to know +For the first time what blue was in the skies, +What fresher green than any in the grass, +And how the sap goes beating to the sun, +And tell how on the clocks of beauty pass +Minute by minute till the last is done. +But not the new birds singing in the brake, +And not the buds of our discovery, +The deeper blue, the wilder green, the ache +For beauty that we shadow as we see, +Made heaven, but we, as love's occasion brings, +Took these, and made them Paradisal things. + + +VIII. + +The lilacs offer beauty to the sun, +Throbbing with wonder as eternally +For sad and happy lovers they have done +With the first bloom of summer in the sky; +Yet they are newly spread in honour now, +Because, for every beam of beauty given +Out of that clustering heart, back to the bough +My love goes beating, from a greater heaven. +So be my love for good or sorry luck +Bound, it has virtue on this April eve +That shall be there for ever when they pluck +Lilacs for love. And though I come to grieve +Long at a frosty tomb, there still shall be +My happy lyric in the lilac tree. + + +IX. + +When they make silly question of my love, +And speak to me of danger and disdain, +And look by fond old argument to move +My wisdom to docility again; +When to my prouder heart they set the pride +Of custom and the gossip of the street, +And show me figures of myself beside +A self diminished at their judgment seat; +Then do I sit as in a drowsy pew +To hear a priest expounding th' heavenly will, +Defiling wonder that he never knew +With stolen words of measured good and ill; +For to the love that knows their counselling, +Out of my love contempt alone I bring. + + +X. + +Not love of you is most that I can bring, +Since what I am to love you is the test, +And should I love you more than any thing +You would but be of idle love possessed, +A mere love wandering in appetite, +Counting your glories and yet bringing none, +Finding in you occasions of delight, +A thief of payment for no service done. +But when of labouring life I make a song +And bring it you, as that were my reward, +To let what most is me to you belong, +Then do I come of high possessions lord, +And loving life more than my love of you +I give you love more excellently true. + + +XI. + +What better tale could any lover tell +When age or death his reckoning shall write +Than thus, 'Love taught me only to rebel +Against these things,--the thieving of delight +Without return; the gospellers of fear +Who, loving, yet deny the truth they bear, +Sad-suited lusts with lecherous hands to smear +The cloth of gold they would but dare not wear. +And love gave me great knowledge of the trees, +And singing birds, and earth with all her flowers; +Wisdom I knew and righteousness in these, +I lived in their atonement all my hours; +Love taught me how to beauty's eye alone +The secret of the lying heart is known.' + + +XII. + +This then at last; we may be wiser far +Than love, and put his folly to our measure, +Yet shall we learn, poor wizards that we are, +That love chimes not nor motions at our pleasure. +We bid him come, and light an eager fire, +And he goes down the road without debating; +We cast him from the house of our desire, +And when at last we leave he will be waiting. +And in the end there is no folly but this, +To counsel love out of our little learning. +For still he knows where rotten timber is, +And where the boughs for the long winter burning; +And when life needs no more of us at all, +Love's word will be the last that we recall. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +JOHN FREEMAN + + + +I WILL ASK + +I will ask primrose and violet to spend for you +Their smell and hue, +And the bold, trembling anemone awhile to spare +Her flowers starry fair; +Or the flushed wild apple and yet sweeter thorn +Their sweetness to keep +Longer than any fire-bosomed flower born +Between midnight and midnight deep. + +And I will take celandine, nettle and parsley, white +In its own green light, +Or milkwort and sorrel, thyme, harebell and meadow-sweet +Lifting at your feet, +And ivy-blossom beloved of soft bees; I will take +The loveliest-- +The seeding grasses that bend with the winds, and shake +Though the winds are at rest. + +'For me?' you will ask. 'Yes! surely they wave for you +Their smell and hue, +And you away all that is rare were so much less +By your missed happiness.' +Yet I know grass and weed, ivy and apple and thorn +Their whole sweet would keep, +Though in Eden no human spirit on a shining morn +Had awaked from sleep. + + + +THE EVENING SKY + +Rose-bosom'd and rose-limb'd +With eyes of dazzling bright +Shakes Venus mid the twined boughs of the night; +Rose-limb'd, soft-stepping +From low bough to bough, +Shaking the wide-hung starry fruitage--dimmed +Its bloom of snow +By that sole planetary glow. + +Venus, avers the astronomer, +Not thus idly dancing goes +Flushing the eternal orchard with wild rose. +She through ether burns +Outpacing planetary earth, +And ere two years triumphantly returns, +And again wave-like swelling flows, +And again her flashing apparition comes and goes. + +This we have not seen, +No heavenly courses set, +No flight unpausing through a void serene: +But when eve clears, +Arises Venus as she first uprose +Stepping the shaken boughs among, +And in her bosom glows +The warm light hidden in sunny snows. + +She shakes the clustered stars +Lightly, as she goes +Amid the unseen branches of the night, +Rose-limb'd, rose-bosom'd bright. + +She leaps: they shake and pale; she glows-- +And who but knows +How the rejoiced heart aches +When Venus all his starry vision shakes; + +When through his mind +Tossing with random airs of an unearthly wind, +Rose-bosom'd, rose-limb'd, +The mistress of his starry vision arises, +And the boughs glittering sway +And the stars pale away, +And the enlarging heaven glows +As Venus light-foot mid the twined branches goes. + + + +THE CAVES + +Like the tide--knocking at the hollowed cliff +And running into each green cave as if + In the cave's night to keep + Eternal motion grave and deep-- + +That, even while each broken wave repeats +Its answered knocking and with bruised hand beats + Again, again, again, + Tossed between ecstasy and pain; + +Still in the folded hollow darkness swells, +Sinks, swells, and every green-hung hollow fills, + Till there's no room for sound + Save that old anger rolled around; + +So into every hollow cliff of life, +Into this heart's deep cave so loud with strife, + In tunnels I knew not, + In lightless labyrinths of thought, + +The unresting tide has run and the dark filled, +Even the vibration of old strife is stilled; + The wave returning bears + Muted those time-breathing airs. + +--How shall the million-footed tide still tread +These hollows and in each cold void cave spread? + How shall Love here keep + Eternal motion grave and deep? + + + +MOON-BATHERS + +Falls from her heaven the Moon, and stars sink burning +Into the sea where blackness rims the sea, +Silently quenched. Faint light that the waves hold +Is only light remaining; yet still gleam +The sands where those now-sleeping young moon-bathers +Came dripping out of the sea and from their arms +Shook flakes of light, dancing on the foamy edge +Of quiet waves. They were all things of light +Tossed from the sea to dance under the Moon-- +Her nuns, dancing within her dying round, +Clear limbs and breasts silvered with Moon and waves +And quick with windlike mood and body's joy, +Withdrawn from alien vows, by wave and wind +Lightly absolved and lightly all forgetting. + +An hour ago they left. Remains the gleam +Of their late motion on the salt sea-meadow, +As loveliest hues linger when the sun's gone +And float in the heavens and die in reedy pools-- +So slowly, who shall say when light is gone? + + + +IN THOSE OLD DAYS + +In those old days you were called beautiful, +But I have worn the beauty from your face; +The flowerlike bloom has withered on your cheek +With the harsh years, and the fire in your eyes +Burns darker now and deeper, feeding on +Beauty and the remembrance of things gone. +Even your voice is altered when you speak, +Or is grown mute with old anxiety + For me. + +Even as a fire leaps into flame and burns +Leaping and laughing in its lovely flight, +And then under the flame a glowing dome +Deepens slowly into blood-like light:-- +So did you flame and in flame take delight, +So are you hollow'd now with aching fire. +But I still warm me and make there my home, +Still beauty and youth burn there invisibly + For me. + +Now my lips falling on your silver'd skull, +My fingers in the valleys of your cheeks, +Or my hands in your thin strong hands fast caught, +Your body clutched to mine, mine bent to yours: +Now love undying feeds on love beautiful, +Now, now I am but thought kissing your thought ... +--And can it be in your heart's music speaks +A deeper rhythm hearing mine: can it be + Indeed for me? + + +CATERPILLARS + +Of caterpillars Fabre tells how day after day +Around the rim of a vast earth pot they crawled, +Tricked thither as they filed shuffling out one morn +Head to tail when the common hunger called. + +Head to tail in a heaving ring day after day, +Night after slow night, the starving mommets crept, +Each following each, head to tail, day after day, +An unbroken ring of hunger--then it was snapt. + +I thought of you, long-heaving, horned green caterpillars, +As I lay awake. My thoughts crawled each after each, +Crawling at night each after each on the same nerve, +An unbroken ring of thoughts too sore for speech. + +Over and over and over and over again +The same hungry thoughts and the hopeless same regrets, +Over and over the same truths, again and again +In a heaving ring returning the same regrets. + + + +CHANGE + +I am that creature and creator who +Loosens and reins the waters of the sea, +Forming the rocky marge anon anew. +I stir the cold breasts of antiquity, +And in the soft stone of the pyramid +Move wormlike; and I flutter all those sands +Whereunder lost and soundless time is hid. +I shape the hills and valleys with these hands, +And darken forests on their naked sides, +And call the rivers from the vexing springs, +And lead the blind winds into deserts strange. +And in firm human bones the ill that hides +Is mine, the fear that cries, the hope that sings. +I am that creature and creator, Change. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +WILFRID GIBSON + + + +FIRE + +In each black tile a mimic fire's aglow, +And in the hearthlight old mahogany, +Ripe with stored sunshine that in Mexico +Poured like gold wine into the living tree +Summer on summer through a century, +Burns like a crater in the heart of night: +And all familiar things in the ingle-light +Glow with a secret strange intensity. + +And I remember hidden fires that burst +Suddenly from the midnight while men slept, +Long-smouldering rages in the darkness nursed +That to an instant ravening fury leapt, +And the old terror menacing evermore +A crumbling world with fiery molten core. + + + +BARBARA FELL + +Stephen, wake up! There's some one at the gate. +Quick, to the window ... Oh, you'll be too late! +I hear the front door opening quietly. +Did you forget, last night, to turn the key? +A foot is on the stairs--nay, just outside +The very room--the door is opening wide... +Stephen, wake up, wake up! Who's there? Who's there? +I only feel a cold wind in my hair... +Have I been dreaming, Stephen? Husband, wake +And comfort me: I think my heart will break. +I never knew you sleep so sound and still.... +O my heart's love, why is your hand so chill? + + + +PHILIP AND PHOEBE WARE + +Who is that woman, Philip, standing there +Before the mirror doing up her hair? + +You're dreaming, Phoebe, or the morning light +Mixing and mingling with the dying night +Makes shapes out of the darkness, and you see +Some dream-remembered phantasy maybe. + +Yet it grows clearer with the growing day; +And in the cold dawn light her hair is grey: +Her lifted arms are naught but bone: her hands +White withered claws that fumble as she stands +Trying to pin that wisp into its place. +O Philip, I must look upon her face +There in the mirror. Nay, but I will rise +And peep over her shoulder ... Oh, the eyes +That burn out from that face of skin and bone, +Searching my very marrow, are my own. + + + +BY THE WEIR + +A scent of Esparto grass--and again I recall +That hour we spent by the weir of the paper-mill +Watching together the curving thunderous fall +Of frothing amber, bemused by the roar until +My mind was as blank as the speckless sheets that wound +On the hot steel ironing-rollers perpetually turning +In the humming dark rooms of the mill: all sense and discerning +By the stunning and dazzling oblivion of hill-waters drowned. + +And my heart was empty of memory and hope and desire +Till, rousing, I looked afresh on your face as you gazed-- +Behind you an old gnarled fruit-tree in one still fire +Of innumerable flame in the sun of October blazed, +Scarlet and gold that the first white frost would spill +With eddying flicker and patter of dead leaves falling-- +looked on your face, as an outcast from Eden recalling +A vision of Eve as she dallied bewildered and still + +By the serpent-encircled tree of knowledge that flamed +With gold and scarlet of good and evil, her eyes +Rapt on the river of life: then bright and untamed +By the labour and sorrow and fear of a world that dies +Your ignorant eyes looked up into mine; and I knew +That never our hearts should be one till your young lips had tasted +The core of the bitter-sweet fruit, and wise and toil-wasted +You should stand at my shoulder an outcast from Eden too. + + + +WORLDS + +Through the pale green forest of tall bracken-stalks, +Whose interwoven fronds, a jade-green sky, +Above me glimmer, infinitely high, +Towards my giant hand a beetle walks +In glistening emerald mail; and as I lie +Watching his progress through huge grassy blades +And over pebble boulders, my own world fades +And shrinks to the vision of a beetle's eye. + +Within that forest world of twilight green +Ambushed with unknown perils, one endless day +I travel down the beetle-trail between +Huge glossy boles through green infinity ... +Till flashes a glimpse of blue sea through the bracken asway, +And my world is again a tumult of windy sea. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +ROBERT GRAVES + + + +LOST LOVE + +His eyes are quickened so with grief, +He can watch a grass or leaf +Every instant grow; he can +Clearly through a flint wall see, +Or watch the startled spirit flee +From the throat of a dead man. + Across two counties he can hear, +And catch your words before you speak. +The woodlouse or the maggot's weak +Clamour rings in his sad ear; +And noise so slight it would surpass +Credence:--drinking sound of grass, +Worm-talk, clashing jaws of moth +Chumbling holes in cloth: +The groan of ants who undertake +Gigantic loads for honour's sake-- +Their sinews creak, their breath comes thin: +Whir of spiders when they spin, +And minute whispering, mumbling, sighs +Of idle grubs and flies. + This man is quickened so with grief, +He wanders god-like or like thief +Inside and out, below, above, +Without relief seeking lost love. + + + +MORNING PHOENIX + +In my body lives a flame, + Flame that burns me all the day; +When a fierce sun does the same, + I am charred away. + +Who could keep a smiling wit, + Roasted so in heart and hide, +Turning on the sun's red spit, + Scorched by love inside? + +Caves I long for and cold rocks, + Minnow-peopled country brooks, +Blundering gales of Equinox, + Sunless valley-nooks, + +Daily so I might restore + Calcined heart and shrivelled skin, +A morning phoenix with proud roar + Kindled new within. + + + +A LOVER SINCE CHILDHOOD + +Tangled in thought am I, +Stumble in speech do I? +Do I blunder and blush for the reason why? +Wander aloof do I, +Lean over gates and sigh, +Making friends with the bee and the butterfly? + +If thus and thus I do, +Dazed by the thought of you, +Walking my sorrowful way in the early dew, +My heart cut through and through +In this despair of you, +Starved for a word or a look will my hope renew: + +Give then a thought for me +Walking so miserably, +Wanting relief in the friendship of flower or tree; +Do but remember, we +Once could in love agree, +Swallow your pride, let us be as we used to be. + + + +SULLEN MOODS + +Love, do not count your labour lost + Though I turn sullen, grim, retired +Even at your side; my thought is crossed + With fancies by old longings fired. + +And when I answer you, some days + Vaguely and wildly, do not fear +That my love walks forbidden ways, + Breaking the ties that hold it here. + +If I speak gruffly, this mood is + Mere indignation at my own +Shortcomings, plagues, uncertainties; + I forget the gentler tone. + +'You,' now that you have come to be + My one beginning, prime and end, +I count at last as wholly 'me,' + Lover no longer nor yet friend. + +Friendship is flattery, though close hid; + Must I then flatter my own mind? +And must (which laws of shame forbid) + Blind love of you make self-love blind? + +... Do not repay me my own coin, + The sharp rebuke, the frown, the groan; +No, stir my memory to disjoin + Your emanation from my own. + +Help me to see you as before + When overwhelmed and dead, almost, +I stumbled on that secret door + Which saves the live man from the ghost. + +Be once again the distant light, + Promise of glory not yet known +In full perfection---wasted quite + When on my imperfection thrown. + + + +THE PIER-GLASS + +Lost manor where I walk continually +A ghost, while yet in woman's flesh and blood; +Up your broad stairs mounting with outspread fingers +And gliding steadfast down your corridors +I come by nightly custom to this room, +And even on sultry afternoons I come +Drawn by a thread of time-sunk memory. + +Empty, unless for a huge bed of state +Shrouded with rusty curtains drooped awry +(A puppet theatre where malignant fancy +Peoples the wings with fear). At my right hand +A ravelled bell-pull hangs in readiness +To summon me from attic glooms above +Service of elder ghosts; here at my left +A sullen pier-glass cracked from side to side +Scorns to present the face as do new mirrors +With a lying flush, but shows it melancholy +And pale, as faces grow that look in mirrors. + +Is here no life, nothing but the thin shadow +And blank foreboding, never a wainscot rat +Rasping a crust? Or at the window pane +No fly, no bluebottle, no starveling spider? +The windows frame a prospect of cold skies +Half-merged with sea, as at the first creation, +Abstract, confusing welter. Face about, +Peer rather in the glass once more, take note +Of self, the grey lips and long hair dishevelled, +Sleep-staring eyes. Ah, mirror, for Christ's love +Give me one token that there still abides +Remote, beyond this island mystery, +So be it only this side Hope, somewhere, +In streams, on sun-warm mountain pasturage, +True life, natural breath; not this phantasma. + +A rumour, scarcely yet to be reckoned sound, +But a pulse quicker or slower, then I know +My plea is granted; death prevails not yet. +For bees have swarmed behind in a close place +Pent up between this glass and the outer wall. +The combs are founded, the queen rules her court, +Bee-sergeants posted at the entrance-chink +Are sampling each returning honey-cargo +With scrutinizing mouth and commentary, +Slow approbation, quick dissatisfaction-- +Disquieting rhythm, that leads me home at last +From labyrinthine wandering. This new mood +Of judgment orders me my present duty, +To face again a problem strongly solved +In life gone by, but now again proposed +Out of due time for fresh deliberation. +Did not my answer please the Master's ear? +Yet, I'll stay obstinate. How went the question, +A paltry question set on the elements +Of love and the wronged lover's obligation? +_Kill or forgive?_ Still does the bed ooze blood? +Let it drip down till every floor-plank rot! +Yet shall I answer, challenging the judgment:-- +_'Kill, strike the blow again, spite what shall come.'_ +'Kill, strike, again, again,' the bees in chorus hum. + + + +THE TROLL'S NOSEGAY + +A simple nosegay! was that much to ask? + (Winter still gloomed, with scarce a bud yet showing). +He loved her ill, if he resigned the task. + 'Somewhere,' she cried, 'there must be blossom blowing.' +It seems my lady wept and the troll swore + By Heaven he hated tears: he'd cure her spleen; +Where she had begged one flower, he'd shower four-score, + A haystack bunch to amaze a China Queen. + +Cold fog-drawn Lily, pale mist-magic Rose + He conjured, and in a glassy cauldron set + With elvish unsubstantial Mignonette +And such vague bloom as wandering dreams enclose. + But she? + Awed, + Charmed to tears, + Distracted, + Yet-- +Even yet, perhaps, a trifle piqued--who knows? + + + +FOX'S DINGLE + +Take now a country mood, + Resolve, distil it:-- +Nine Acre swaying alive, + June flowers that fill it, + +Spicy sweet-briar bush, + The uneasy wren +Fluttering from ash to birch + And back again. + +Milkwort on its low stem, + Spread hawthorn tree, +Sunlight patching the wood, + A hive-bound bee.... + +Girls riding nim-nim-nim, + Ladies, trot-trot, +Gentlemen hard at gallop, + Shouting, steam-hot. + +Now over the rough turf + Bridles go jingle, +And there's a well-loved pool, + By Fox's Dingle, + +Where Sweetheart, my brown mare, + Old Glory's daughter, +May loll her leathern tongue + In snow-cool water. + + + +THE GENERAL ELLIOTT + +He fell in victory's fierce pursuit, + Holed through and through with shot, +A sabre sweep had hacked him deep + Twixt neck and shoulderknot.... + +The potman cannot well recall, + The ostler never knew, +Whether his day was Malplaquet, + The Boyne or Waterloo. + +But there he hangs for tavern sign, + With foolish bold regard +For cock and hen and loitering men + And wagons down the yard. + +Raised high above the hayseed world + He smokes his painted pipe, +And now surveys the orchard ways, + The damsons clustering ripe. + +He sees the churchyard slabs beyond, + Where country neighbours lie, +Their brief renown set lowly down; + _His_ name assaults the sky. + +He grips the tankard of brown ale + That spills a generous foam: +Oft-times he drinks, they say, and winks + At drunk men lurching home. + +No upstart hero may usurp + That honoured swinging seat; +His seasons pass with pipe and glass + Until the tale's complete. + +And paint shall keep his buttons bright + Though all the world's forgot +Whether he died for England's pride + By battle, or by pot. + + + +THE PATCHWORK BONNET + +Across the room my silent love I throw, + Where you sit sewing in bed by candlelight, + Your young stern profile and industrious fingers +Displayed against the blind in a shadow-show, + To Dinda's grave delight. + +The needle dips and pokes, the cheerful thread + Runs after, follow-my-leader down the seam: + The patchwork pieces cry for joy together, +O soon to sit as a crown on Dinda's head, + Fulfilment of their dream. + +Snippets and odd ends folded by, forgotten, + With camphor on a top shelf, hard to find, + Now wake to this most happy resurrection, +To Dinda playing toss with a reel of cotton + And staring at the blind. + +Dinda in sing-song stretching out one hand + Calls for the playthings; mother does not hear: + Her mind sails far away on a patchwork Ocean, +And all the world must wait till she touches land; + So Dinda cries in fear, + +Then Mother turns, laughing like a young fairy, + And Dinda smiles to see her look so kind, + Calls out again for playthings, playthings, playthings; +And now the shadows make an Umbrian _Mary + Adoring_, on the blind. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +RICHARD HUGHES + + + +THE SINGING FURIES + +The yellow sky grows vivid as the sun: +The sea glittering, and the hills dun. + +The stones quiver. Twenty pounds of lead +Fold upon fold, the air laps my head. + +Both eyes scorch: tongue stiff and bitter: +Flies buzz, but no birds twitter: +Slow bullocks stand with stinging feet, +And naked fishes scarcely stir for heat. + +White as smoke, +As jetted steam, dead clouds awoke +And quivered on the Western rim. +Then the singing started: dim +And sibilant as rime-stiff reeds +That whistle as the wind leads. +The South whispered hard and sere, +The North answered, low and clear; +And thunder muffled up like drums +Beat, whence the East wind comes. +The heavy sky that could not weep +Is loosened: rain falls steep: +And thirty singing furies ride +To split the sky from side to side. + +They sing, and lash the wet-flanked wind: +Sing, from Col to Hafod Mynd, +And fling their voices half a score +Of miles along the mounded shore: +Whip loud music from a tree, +And roll their pæan out to sea +Where crowded breakers fling and leap, +And strange things throb five fathoms deep. + +The sudden tempest roared and died: +The singing furies muted ride +Down wet and slippery roads to hell: +And, silent in their captors' train, +Two fishers, storm-caught on the main: +A shepherd, battered with his flocks; +A pit-boy tumbled from the rocks; +A dozen back-broke gulls, and hosts +Of shadowy, small, pathetic ghosts, +--Of mice and leverets caught by flood; +Their beauty shrouded in cold mud. + + + +MOONSTRUCK + +Cold shone the moon, with noise +The night went by. +Trees uttered things of woe: +Bent grass dared not grow: + +Ah, desperate man with haggard eyes +And hands that fence away the skies, +On rock and briar stumbling, +Is it fear of the storm's rumbling, +Of the hissing cold rain, +Or lightning's tragic pain +Drives you so madly? +See, see the patient moon; +How she her course keeps +Through cloudy shallows and across black deeps, +Now gone, now shines soon. +Where's cause for fear? + +'I shudder and shudder +At her bright light: +I fear, I fear, +That she her fixt course follows +So still and white +Through deeps and shallows +With never a tremor: +Naught shall disturb her. +I fear, I fear +What they may be +That secretly bind her: +What hand holds the reins +Of those sightless forces +That govern her courses. +Is it Setebos +Who deals in her command? +Or that unseen Night-Comer +With tender curst hand? +--I shudder, and shudder.' + +Poor storm-wisp, wander! +Wind shall not hurt thee, +Rain not appal thee, +Lightning not blast thee; +Thou art worn so frail, +Only the moonlight pale +To an ash shall burn thee, +To an invisible Pain. + + + +VAGRANCY + +When the slow year creeps hay-ward, and the skies +Are warming in the summer's mild surprise, +And the still breeze disturbs each leafy frond +Like hungry fishes dimpling in a pond, +It is a pleasant thing to dream at ease +On sun-warmed thyme, not far from beechen trees. + +A robin flashing in a rowan-tree, +A wanton robin, spills his melody +As if he had such store of golden tones +That they were no more worth to him than stones: +The sunny lizards dream upon the ledges: +Linnets titter in and out the hedges, +Or swoop among the freckled butterflies. + +Down to a beechen hollow winds the track +And tunnels past my twilit bivouac: +Two spiring wisps of smoke go singly up +And scarcely tremble in the leafy air. + +--There are more shadows in this loamy cup +Than God could count: and oh, but it is fair: +The kindly green and rounded trunks, that meet +Under the soil with twinings of their feet +And in the sky with twinings of their arms: +The yellow stools: the still ungathered charms +Of berry, woodland herb, and bryony, +And mid-wood's changeling child, Anemone. + + * * * * * + +Quiet as a grave beneath a spire +I lie and watch the pointed climbing fire, +I lie and watch the smoky weather-cock +That climbs too high, and bends to the breeze's shock, +And breaks, and dances off across the skies +Gay as a flurry of blue butterflies. + +But presently the evening shadows in, +Heralded by the night-jar's solitary din +And the quick bat's squeak among the trees; +--Who sudden rises, darting across the air +To weave her filmy web in the Sun's bright hair +That slowly sinks dejected on his knees.... + +Now is he vanished: the bewildered skies +Flame out a desperate and last surmise; +Then yield to Night, their sudden conqueror. + +From pole to pole the shadow of the world +Creeps over heaven, till itself is lit +By the very many stars that wake in it: +Sleep, like a messenger of great import, +Lays quiet and compelling hands athwart +The easy idlenesses of my mind. +--There is a breeze above me, and around: +There is a fire before me, and behind: +But Sleep doth hold me, and I hear no sound. + +In the far West the clouds are mustering, +Without hurry, noise, or blustering: +And soon as Body's nightly Sentinel +Himself doth nod, I open furtive eyes.... + +With darkling hook the Farmer of the Skies +Goes reaping stars: they flicker, one by one, +Nodding a little; tumble,--and are gone. + + + +POETS, PAINTERS, PUDDINGS + +Poets, painters, and puddings; these three +Make up the World as it ought to be. + +Poets make faces +And sudden grimaces: +They twit you, and spit you +On words: then admit you +To heaven or hell +By the tales that they tell. + +Painters are gay +As young rabbits in May: +They buy jolly mugs, +Bowls, pictures, and jugs: +The things round their necks +Are lively with checks, +(For they like something red +As a frame for the head): +Or they'll curse you with oaths, +That tear holes in your clothes. +(With nothing to mend them +You'd best not offend them.) + +Puddings should be +Full of currants, for me: +Boiled in a pail, +Tied in the tail +Of an old bleached shirt: +So hot that they hurt, +So huge that they last +From the dim, distant past +Until the crack o' doom +Lift the roof off the room. + +Poets, painters, and puddings; these three +Crown the day as it crowned should be. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +WILLIAM KERR + + + +IN MEMORIAM D. O. M. + +Chestnut candles are lit again +For the dead that died in spring: +Dead lovers walk the orchard ways, +And the dead cuckoos sing. + +Is it they who live and we who are dead? +Hardly the springtime knows +For which today the cuckoo calls, +And the white blossom blows. + +Listen and hear the happy wind +Whisper and lightly pass: +'Your love is sweet as hawthorn is, +Your hope green as the grass. + +'The hawthorn's faint and quickly gone, +The grass in autumn dies; +Put by your life, and see the spring +With everlasting eyes.' + + + +PAST AND PRESENT + +Daisies are over Nyren, and Hambledon +Hardly remembers any summer gone: +And never again the Kentish elms shall see +Mynn, or Fuller Pilch, or Colin Blythe. +--Nor shall I see them, unless perhaps a ghost +Watching the elder ghosts beyond the moon. +But here in common sunshine I have seen +George Hirst, not yet a ghost, substantial, +His off-drives mellow as brown ale, and crisp +Merry late cuts, and brave Chaucerian pulls; +Waddington's fury and the patience of Dipper; +And twenty easy artful overs of Rhodes, +So many stanzas of the Faerie Queen. + + + +THE AUDIT + +Mere living wears the most of life away: +Even the lilies take thought for many things, +For frost in April and for drought in May, +And from no careless heart the skylark sings. + +Those cheap utilities of rain and sun +Describe the foolish circle of our years, +Until death takes us, doing all undone, +And there's an end at last to hopes and fears. + +Though song be hollow and no dreams come true, +Still songs and dreams are better than the truth: +But there's so much to get, so much to do, +Mary must drudge like Martha, dainty Ruth + +Forget the morning music in the corn, +And Rachel grudge when Leah's boys are born. + + + +THE APPLE TREE + +Secret and wise as nature, like the wind +Melancholy or light-hearted without reason, +And like the waxing or the waning moon +Ever pale and lovely: you are like these +Because you are free and live by your own law; +While I, desiring life and half alive, +Dream, hope, regret and fear and blunder on. +Your beauty is your life and my content, +And I will liken you to an apple-tree, +Mary and Margaret playing under the branches, +And everywhere soft shadows like your eyes, +And scattered blossom like your little smiles. + + + +HER NEW-YEAR POSY + +When I seek the world through +For images of you, +Though apple-blossom is glad +And the lily stately-sad, +Gilliflowers kind of breath, +Rosemary true till death; +Though the wind can stir the grass +To memories as you pass. +And the soft-singing streams +Are music like your dreams; +Though constant stars embrace +The quiet of your face, +Your smile lights up sunrise, +And evening's in your eyes-- +Each so shadows its part, +All cannot show your heart; +And weighing the beauty of earth +I see it so little worth, +When reckoned beside you, +That I hold heaven for true +--But all my heaven is you. + + + +COUNTING SHEEP + +Half-awake I walked +A dimly-seen sweet hawthorn lane +Until sleep came; +I lingered at a gate and talked +A little with a lonely lamb. +He told me of the great still night, +Of calm starlight, +And of the lady moon, who'd stoop +For a kiss sometimes; +Of grass as soft as sleep, of rhymes +The tired flowers sang: +The ageless April tales +Of how, when sheep grew old, +As their faith told, +They went without a pang +To far green fields, where fall +Perpetual streams that call +To deathless nightingales. + And then I saw, hard by, +A shepherd lad with shining eyes, +And round him gathered one by one +Countless sheep, snow-white; +More and more they crowded +With tender cries, +Till all the field was full +Of voices and of coming sheep. +Countless they came, and I +Watched, until deep +As dream-fields lie +I was asleep. + + + +THE TREES AT NIGHT + +Under vague silver moonlight +The trees are lovely and ghostly, +In the pale blue of the night +There are few stars to see. + +The leaves are green still, but brown-blent: +They stir not, only known +By a poignant delicate scent +To the lonely moon blown. + +The lonely lovely trees sigh +For summer spent and gone: +A few homing leaves drift by, +Poor souls bewildered and wan. + + + +THE DEAD + +How shall the living be comforted for the dead +When they are gone, and nothing's left behind +But a vague music of the words they said +And a fast-fading image in the mind? + +Let no forgetting sully that dim grace; +Our heart's infirmity is too easily won +To set a new love in the old love's place +And seek fresh vanity under the sun. + +Time brings to us at last, as night the stars, +The starry silence of eternity: +For there is no discharge in our long wars, +Nor balm for wounds, nor love's security. + +Be patient to the end, and you shall sleep +Pillowed on heartsease and forget to weep. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +D.H. LAWRENCE + + + +SNAKE + +A snake came to my water-trough +On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat, +To drink there. + +In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob tree +I came down the steps with my pitcher +And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough + before me. + +He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom +And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge + of the stone trough +And rested his throat upon the stone bottom, +And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness, +He sipped with his straight mouth, +Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body, +Silently. + +Someone was before me at my water-trough, +And I, like a second-comer, waiting. + +He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do, +And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do, +And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment, +And stooped and drank a little more, +Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth +On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking. + +The voice of my education said to me +He must be killed, +For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are + venomous. + +And voices in me said, If you were a man +You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off. + +But must I confess how I liked him, +How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my + water-trough +And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless, +Into the burning bowels of this earth? + +Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? +Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? +Was it humility, to feel honoured? +I felt so honoured. + +And yet those voices: +If you were not afraid you would kill him. + +And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, +But even so, honoured still more +That he should seek my hospitality +From out the dark door of the secret earth. + +He drank enough +And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken, +And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black, +Seeming to lick his lips, +And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air, +And slowly turned his head, +And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream, +Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round +And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face. + +And as he put his head into that dreadful hole, +And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered + further, +A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that + horrid black hole, +Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after, +Overcame me now his back was turned. + +I looked round, I put down my pitcher, +I picked up a clumsy log +And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter. + +I think it did not hit him, +But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in + undignified haste, +Writhed like lightning, and was gone +Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front, +At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination. + +And immediately I regretted it. +I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act! +I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education. + +And I thought of the albatross, +And I wished he would come back, my snake. + +For he seemed to me again like a king, +Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld, +Now due to be crowned again. + +And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords +Of life. +And I have something to expiate: +A pettiness. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +HAROLD MONRO + + + +THISTLEDOWN + +This might have been a place for sleep, +But, as from that small hollow there +Hosts of bright thistledown begin +Their dazzling journey through the air, +An idle man can only stare. + +They grip their withered edge of stalk +In brief excitement for the wind; +They hold a breathless final talk, +And when their filmy cables part +One almost hears a little cry. + +Some cling together while they wait, +And droop and gaze and hesitate, +But others leap along the sky, +Or circle round and calmly choose +The gust they know they ought to use; + +While some in loving pairs will glide, +Or watch the others as they pass, +Or rest on flowers in the grass, +Or circle through the shining day +Like silvery butterflies at play. + +Some catch themselves to every mound, +Then lingeringly and slowly move +As if they knew the precious ground +Were opening for their fertile love: +They almost try to dig, they need +So much to plant their thistle-seed. + + + +REAL PROPERTY + +'Tell me about that harvest field.' +Oh! Fifty acres of living bread. +The colour has painted itself in my heart; +The form is patterned in my head. + +So now I take it everywhere, +See it whenever I look round; +Hear it growing through every sound, +Know exactly the sound it makes-- +Remembering, as one must all day, +Under the pavement the live earth aches. + +Trees are at the farther end, +Limes all full of the mumbling bee: +So there must be a harvest field +Whenever one thinks of a linden tree. + +A hedge is about it, very tall, +Hazy and cool, and breathing sweet. +Round paradise is such a wall, +And all the day, in such a way, +In paradise the wild birds call. + +You only need to close your eyes +And go within your secret mind, +And you'll be into paradise: +I've learnt quite easily to find +Some linden trees and drowsy bees, +A tall sweet hedge with the corn behind. + +I will not have that harvest mown: +I'll keep the corn and leave the bread. +I've bought that field; it's now my own: +I've fifty acres in my head. +I take it as a dream to bed. +I carry it about all day.... + +Sometimes when I have found a friend +I give a blade of corn away. + + + +UNKNOWN COUNTRY + +Here, in this other world, they come and go +With easy dream-like movements to and fro. +They stare through lovely eyes, yet do not seek +An answering gaze, or that a man should speak. +Had I a load of gold, and should I come +Bribing their friendship, and to buy a home, +They would stare harder and would slightly frown: +I am a stranger from the distant town. + +Oh, with what patience I have tried to win +The favour of the hostess of the Inn! +Have I not offered toast on frothing toast +Looking toward the melancholy host; +Praised the old wall-eyed mare to please the groom; +Laughed to the laughing maid and fetched her broom; +Stood in the background not to interfere +When the cool ancients frolicked at their beer; +Talked only in my turn, and made no claim +For recognition or by voice or name, +Content to listen, and to watch the blue +Or grey of eyes, or what good hands can do? + +Sun-freckled lads, who at the dusk of day +Stroll through the village with a scent of hay +Clinging about you from the windy hill, +Why do you keep your secret from me still? +You loiter at the corner of the street; +I in the distance silently entreat. +I know too well I'm city-soiled, but then +So are today ten million other men. +My heart is true: I've neither will nor charms +To lure away your maidens from your arms. +Trust me a little. Must I always stand +Lonely, a stranger from an unknown land? + +There is a riddle here. Though I'm more wise +Than you, I cannot read your simple eyes. +I find the meaning of their gentle look +More difficult than any learned book. +I pass: perhaps a moment you may chaff +My walk, and so dismiss me with a laugh. +I come: you all, most grave and most polite, +Stand silent first, then wish me calm Good-Night. +When I go back to town some one will say: +'I think that stranger must have gone away.' +And 'Surely!' some one else will then reply. +Meanwhile, within the dark of London, I +Shall, with my forehead resting on my hand, +Not cease remembering your distant land; +Endeavouring to reconstruct aright +How some treed hill has looked in evening light; +Or be imagining the blue of skies +Now as in heaven, now as in your eyes; +Or in my mind confusing looks or words +Of yours with dawnlight, or the song of birds: +Not able to resist, not even keep +Myself from hovering near you in my sleep: +You still as callous to my thought and me +As flowers to the purpose of the bee. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +ROBERT NICHOLS + + + +NIGHT RHAPSODY + +How beautiful it is to wake at night, +When over all there reigns the ultimate spell +Of complete silence, darkness absolute, +To feel the world, tilted on axle-tree, +In slow gyration, with no sensible sound, +Unless to ears of unimagined beings, +Resident incorporeal or stretched +In vigilance of ecstasy among +Ethereal paths and the celestial maze. +The rumour of our onward course now brings +A steady rustle, as of some strange ship +Darkling with soundless sail all set and amply filled +By volume of an ever-constant air, +At fullest night, through seas for ever calm, +Swept lovely and unknown for ever on. + +How beautiful it is to wake at night, +Embalmed in darkness watchful, sweet, and still, +As is the brain's mood flattered by the swim +Of currents circumvolvent in the void, +To lie quite still and to become aware +Of the dim light cast by nocturnal skies +On a dim earth beyond the window-ledge, +So, isolate from the friendly company +Of the huge universe which turns without, +To brood apart in calm and joy awhile +Until the spirit sinks and scarcely knows +Whether self is, or if self only is, +For ever.... + + How beautiful to wake at night, +Within the room grown strange, and still, and sweet, +And live a century while in the dark +The dripping wheel of silence slowly turns; +To watch the window open on the night, +A dewy silent deep where nothing stirs, +And, lying thus, to feel dilate within +The press, the conflict, and the heavy pulse +Of incommunicable sad ecstasy, +Growing until the body seems outstretched +In perfect crucifixion on the arms +Of a cross pointing from last void to void, +While the heart dies to a mere midway spark. + +All happiness thou holdest, happy night, +For such as lie awake and feel dissolved +The peaceful spice of darkness and the cool +Breath hither blown from the ethereal flowers +That mist thy fields! O happy, happy wounds, +Conditioned by existence in humanity, +That have such powers to heal them! slow sweet sighs +Torn from the bosom, silent wails, the birth +Of such long-treasured tears as pain his eyes, +Who, waking, hears the divine solicitudes +Of midnight with ineffable purport charged. + +How beautiful it is to wake at night, +Another night, in darkness yet more still, +Save when the myriad leaves on full-fledged boughs, +Filled rather by the perfume's wandering flood +Than by dispansion of the still sweet air, +Shall from the furthest utter silences +In glimmering secrecy have gathered up +An host of whisperings and scattered sighs, +To loose at last a sound as of the plunge +And lapsing seethe of some Pacific wave, +Which, risen from the star-thronged outer troughs, +Rolls in to wreathe with circling foam away +The flutter of the golden moths that haunt +The star's one glimmer daggered on wet sands. + +So beautiful it is to wake at night! +Imagination, loudening with the surf +Of the midsummer wind among the boughs, +Gathers my spirit from the haunts remote +Of faintest silence and the shades of sleep, +To bear me on the summit of her wave +Beyond known shores, beyond the mortal edge +Of thought terrestrial, to hold me poised +Above the frontiers of infinity, +To which in the full reflux of the wave +Come soon I must, bubble of solving foam, +Borne to those other shores--now never mine +Save for a hovering instant, short as this +Which now sustains me ere I be drawn back-- +To learn again, and wholly learn, I trust, +How beautiful it is to wake at night. + + + +NOVEMBER + +As I walk the misty hill +All is languid, fogged, and still; +Not a note of any bird +Nor any motion's hint is heard, +Save from soaking thickets round +Trickle or water's rushing sound, +And from ghostly trees the drip +Of runnel dews or whispering slip +Of leaves, which in a body launch +Listlessly from the stagnant branch +To strew the marl, already strown, +With litter sodden as its own, + +A rheum, like blight, hangs on the briars, +And from the clammy ground suspires +A sweet frail sick autumnal scent +Of stale frost furring weeds long spent; +And wafted on, like one who sleeps, +A feeble vapour hangs or creeps, +Exhaling on the fungus mould +A breath of age, fatigue, and cold. + +Oozed from the bracken's desolate track, +By dark rains havocked and drenched black. +A fog about the coppice drifts, +Or slowly thickens up and lifts +Into the moist, despondent air. + +Mist, grief, and stillness everywhere.... + +And in me, too, there is no sound +Save welling as of tears profound, +Where in me cloud, grief, stillness reign, +And an intolerable pain +Begins. + Rolled on as in a flood there come +Memories of childhood, boyhood, home, +And that which, sudden, pangs me most, +Thought of the first-belov'd, long lost, +Too easy lost! My cold lips frame +Tremulously the familiar name, +Unheard of her upon my breath: +'Elizabeth. Elizabeth.' + +No voice answers on the hill, +All is shrouded, sad, and still ... +Stillness, fogged brakes, and fog on high. +Only in me the waters cry +Who mourn the hours now slipped for ever, +Hours of boding, joy, and fever, +When we loved, by chance beguiled, +I a boy and you a child-- +Child! but with an angel's air, +Astonished, eager, unaware, +Or elfin's, wandering with a grace +Foreign to any fireside race, +And with a gaiety unknown +In the light feet and hair backblown, +And with a sadness yet more strange, +In meagre cheeks which knew to change +Or faint or fired more swift than sight, +And forlorn hands and lips pressed white, +And fragile voice, and head downcast, +Hiding tears, lifted at the last +To speed with one pale smile the wise +Glance of the grey immortal eyes. + +How strange it was that we should dare +Compound a miracle so rare +As, 'twixt this pace and Time's next pace, +Each to discern th' elected's face! +Yet stranger that the high sweet fire, +In hearts nigh foreign to desire, +Could burn, sigh, weep, and burn again +As oh, it never has since then! +Most strange of all that we so young +Dared learn but would not speak love's tongue, +Love pledged but in the reveries +Of our sad and dreaming eyes.... + +Now upon such journey bound me, +Grief, disquiet, and stillness round me, +As bids me where I cannot tell, +Turn I and sigh, unseen, farewell. +Breathe the name as soft as mist, +Lips, which nor kissed her nor were kissed! +And again--a sigh, a death-- +'Elizabeth. Elizabeth.' + +No voice answers; but the mist +Glows for a moment amethyst +Ere the hid sun dissolves away, +And dimness, growing dimmer grey, +Hides all ... till nothing can I see +But the blind walls enclosing me, +And no sound and no motion hear +But the vague water throbbing near, +Sole voice upon the darkening hill +Where all is blank and dead and still. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +J. D. C. FELLOW + + + +AFTER LONDON + +London Bridge is broken down; + Green is the grass on Ludgate Hill; +I know a farmer in Camden Town + Killed a brock by Pentonville. + +I have heard my grandam tell + How some thousand years ago +Houses stretched from Camberwell + Right to Highbury and Bow. + +Down by Shadwell's golden meads + Tall ships' masts would stand as thick +As the pretty tufted reeds + That the Wapping children pick. + +All the kings from end to end + Of all the world paid tribute then, +And meekly on their knees would bend + To the King of the Englishmen. + +Thinks I while I dig my plot, + What if your grandam's tales be true? +Thinks I, be they true or not, + What's the odds to a fool like you? + +Thinks I, while I smoke my pipe + Here beside the tumbling Fleet, +Apples drop when they are ripe, + And when they drop are they most sweet. + + + +ON A FRIEND WHO DIED SUDDENLY UPON THE SEASHORE + +Quiet he lived, and quietly died; +Nor, like the unwilling tide, +Did once complain or strive +To stay one brief hour more alive. +But as a summer wave +Serenely for a while +Will lift a crest to the sun, +Then sink again, so he +Back to the bright heavens gave +An answering smile; +Then quietly, having run +His course, bowed down his head, +And sank unmurmuringly, +Sank back into the sea, +The silent, the unfathomable sea +Of all the happy dead. + + + +TENEBRÆ + +They say that I shall find him if I go +Along the dusty highways, or the green +Tracks of the downland shepherds, or between +The swaying corn, or where cool waters flow; +And others say, that speak as if they know, +That daily in the cities, in the mean +Dark streets, amid the crowd he may be seen, +With thieves and harlots wandering to and fro. + +But I am blind. How shall a blind man dare +Venture along the roaring crowded street, +Or branching roads where I may never hit +The way he has gone? But someday if I sit +Quietly at this corner listening, there +May come this way the slow sound of his feet. + + + +WHEN ALL IS SAID + +When all is said +And all is done +Beneath the Sun, +And Man lies dead; + +When all the earth +Is a cold grave, +And no more brave +Bright things have birth; + +When cooling sun +And stone-cold world, +Together hurled, +Flame up as one-- + +O Sons of Men, +When all is flame, +What of your fame +And splendour then? + +When all is fire +And flaming air, +What of your rare +And high desire + +To turn the clod +To a thing divine, +The earth a shrine, +And Man the God? + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +FRANK PREWETT + + + +TO MY MOTHER IN CANADA, FROM SICK-BED IN ITALY + +Dear mother, from the sure sun and warm seas +Of Italy, I, sick, remember now +What sometimes is forgot in times of ease, +Our love, the always felt but unspoken vow. +So send I beckoning hands from here to there, +And kiss your black once, now white thin-grown hair +And your stooped small shoulder and pinched brow. + +Here, mother, there is sunshine every day; +It warms the bones and breathes upon the heart; +But you I see out-plod a little way, +Bitten with cold; your cheeks and fingers smart. +Would you were here, we might in temples lie, +And look from azure into azure sky, +And paradise achieve, slipping death's part. + +But now 'tis time for sleep: I think no speech +There needs to pass between us what we mean, +For we soul-venturing mingle each with each. +So, mother, pass across the world unseen +And share in me some wished-for dream in you; +For so brings destiny her pledges true, +The mother withered, in the son grown green. + + + +VOICES OF WOMEN + +Met ye my love? +Ye might in France have met him; +He has a wooing smile, +Who sees cannot forget him! +Met ye my Love? +--We shared full many a mile. + +Saw ye my Love? +In lands far-off he has been, +With his yellow-tinted hair-- +In Egypt such ye have seen; +Ye knew my love? +--I was his brother there. + +Heard ye my love? +My love ye must have heard, +For his voice when he will +Tinkles like cry of a bird; +Heard ye my love? +--We sang on a Grecian hill. + +Behold your love, +And how shall I forget him, +His smile, his hair, his song? +Alas, no maid shall get him +For all her love, +Where he sleeps a million strong. + + + + +THE SOMME VALLEY, JUNE, 1917 + +Comrade, why do you weep? + Is it sorrow for a friend +Who fell, rifle in hand, + His last stand at an end? + +The thunder-lipped grey guns + Lament him, fierce and slow, +Where he found his dreamless bed, + Head to head with a foe. + +The sweet lark beats on high + For the peace of those who sleep +In the quiet embrace of earth: + Comrade, why do you weep? + + + +BURIAL STONES + +The blue sky arches wide +From hill to hill; +The little grasses stand +Upright and still. + +Only these stones to tell +The deadly strife, +The all-important schemes, +The greed for life. + +For they are gone, who fought; +But still the skies +Stretch blue, aloof, unchanged, +From rise to rise. + + + +SNOW-BUNTINGS + +They come fluttering helpless to the ground +Like wreaths of wind-caught snow, +Uttering a plaintive, chirping sound, +And rise and fall, and know not where they go. + +So small they are, with feathers ruffled blown, +Adrift between earth desolate and leaden sky; +Nor have they ever known +Any but frozen earth, and scudding clouds on high. + +What hand doth guide these hapless creatures small +To sweet seeds that the withered grasses hold?-- +The little children of men go hungry all, +And stiffen and cry with numbing cold. + +In a sudden gust the flock are whirled away +Uttering a frightened, chirping cry, +And are lost like a wraith of departing day, +Adrift between earth desolate and leaden sky. + + + +THE KELSO ROAD + +Morning and evening are mine, +And the bright noon-day; +But night to no man doth belong +When the sad ghosts play. + +From Kelso town I took the road +By the full-flood Tweed; +The black clouds swept across the moon +With devouring greed. + +Seek ye no peace who tread the night; +I felt above my head +Blowing the cloud's edge, faces wry +In pale fury spread. + +Twelve surly elves were digging graves +Beside black Eden brook; +Eleven dug and stared at me, +But one read in a book. + +In Birgham trees and hedges rocked, +The moon was drowned in black; +At Hirsel woods I shrieked to find +A fiend astride my back. + +His legs he closed about my breast, +His hands upon my head, +Till Coldstream lights beamed in the trees +And he wailed and fled. + +Morning and evening are mine, +And the bright noon-heat, +But at night the sad thin ghosts +For their revels meet. + + + +BALDON LANE + +As I went down the Baldon lane, +Alone I went, as oft I went, +Weighing if it were loss or gain +To give a maidenhead. +I met, just as the day was spent, +A fancy man, a gentleman, +Who smiled on me, and then began, +'Come sit with me, my maid.' + +With him had I no mind to sit +In Baldon lane for loss or gain, +Said I to him with feeble wit, +And close beside him crept; +The branches might have heard my pain, +The sudden cry, the maiden cry,-- +My fancy man departed sly, +And woman-like, I wept. + +I kept the roads until my bed, +A nine months' time, a weary time, +And then to Baldon woods I fled +In Spring-time weather mild; +The kindly trees, they fear no crime, +So back I came, to Baldon came, +Received their welcome without blame, +And moaned and dropped my child. + +The poor brat gasped an hour or so, +A goodly child, a thoughtful child; +Perceiving nought for us but woe +It stretched and sudden died; +But I, when Spring breaks fresh and mild, +To Baldon lane return again, +For there's my home, and women vain +Must hold their homes in pride. + + + +COME GIRL, AND EMBRACE + +Come girl, and embrace +And ask no more I wed thee; +Know then you are sweet of face, +Soft-limbed and fashioned lovingly;-- +Must you go marketing your charms +In cunning woman-like, +And filled with old wives' tales' alarms? + +I tell you, girl, come embrace; +What reck we of churchling and priest +With hands on paunch, and chubby face? +Behold, we are life's pitiful least, +And we perish at the first smell +Of death, whither heaves earth +To spurn us cringing into hell. + +Come girl, and embrace; +Nay, cry not, poor wretch, nor plead, +But haste, for life strikes a swift pace, +And I burn with envious greed: +Know you not, fool, we are the mock +Of gods, time, clothes, and priests? +But come, there is no time for talk. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +PETER QUENNELL + + + +PROCNE (A FRAGMENT) + +So she became a bird, and bird-like danced +On a long sloe-bough, treading the silver blossom +With a bird's lovely feet; +And shaken blossoms fell into the hands +Of Sunlight. And he held them for a moment +And let them drop. +And in the autumn Procne came again +And leapt upon the crooked sloe-bough singing, +And the dark berries winked like earth-dimmed beads, +As the branch swung beneath her dancing feet. + + + +A MAN TO A SUNFLOWER + +See, I have bent thee by thy saffron hair + --O most strange masker-- +Towards my face, thy face so full of eyes + --O almost legendary monster-- +Thee of the saffron, circling hair I bend, +Bend by my fingers knotted in thy hair + --Hair like broad flames. +So, shall I swear by beech-husk, spindleberry, +To break thee, saffron hair and peering eye, + --To have the mastery? + + + +PERCEPTION + +While I have vision, while the glowing-bodied, +Drunken with light, untroubled clouds, with all this cold sphered sky, +Are flushed above trees where the dew falls secretly, +Where no man goes, where beasts move silently, +As gently as light feathered winds that fall +Chill among hollows filled with sighing grass; +While I have vision, while my mind is borne +A finger's length above reality, +Like that small plaining bird that drifts and drops +Among these soft lapped hollows; +Robed gods, whose passing fills calm nights with sudden wind, +Whose spears still bar our twilight, bend and fill +Wind-shaken, troubled spaces with some peace, +With clear untroubled beauty; +That I may rise not chill and shrilling through perpetual day, +Remote, amazèd, larklike, but may hold +The hours as firm, warm fruit, +This finger's length above reality. + + + +PURSUIT + +As wind-drowned scents that bring to other hills +Disquieting memories of silences, +Broad silences beyond the memory; +As feathered swaying seeds, as wings of birds +Dappling the sky with honey-coloured gold; +Faint murmurs, clear, keen-winged of swift ideas +Break my small silences; +And I must hunt and come to tire of hunting +Strange laughing thoughts that roister through my mind, +Hopelessly swift to flit; and so I hunt +And come to tire of hunting. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +V. SACKVILLE-WEST + + + +A SAXON SONG + + Tools with the comely names, + Mattock and scythe and spade, + Couth and bitter as flames, + Clean, and bowed in the blade,-- +A man and his tools make a man and his trade. + + Breadth of the English shires, + Hummock and kame and mead, + Tang of the reeking byres, + Land of the English breed,-- +A man and his land make a man and his creed. + + Leisurely flocks and herds, + Cool-eyed cattle that come + Mildly to wonted words, + Swine that in orchards roam,-- +A man and his beasts make a man and his home. + + Children sturdy and flaxen + Shouting in brotherly strife, + Like the land they are Saxon, + Sons of a man and his wife,-- +For a man and his loves make a man and his life. + + + +MARIANA IN THE NORTH + +All her youth is gone, her beautiful youth outworn, +Daughter of tarn and tor, the moors that were once her home +No longer know her step on the upland tracks forlorn + Where she was wont to roam. + +All her hounds are dead, her beautiful hounds are dead, +That paced beside the hoofs of her high and nimble horse, +Or streaked in lean pursuit of the tawny hare that fled + Out of the yellow gorse. + +All her lovers have passed, her beautiful lovers have passed, +The young and eager men that fought for her arrogant hand, +And the only voice which endures to mourn for her at the last + Is the voice of the lonely land. + + + +FULL MOON + +She was wearing the coral taffeta trousers +Someone had brought her from Ispahan, +And the little gold coat with pomegranate blossoms, +And the coral-hafted feather fan; +But she ran down a Kentish lane in the moonlight, +And skipped in the pool of the moon as she ran. + +She cared not a rap for all the big planets, +For Betelgeuse or Aldebaran, +And all the big planets cared nothing for her, +That small impertinent charlatan; +But she climbed on a Kentish stile in the moonlight, +And laughed at the sky through the sticks of her fan. + + + +SAILING SHIPS + +Lying on Downs above the wrinkling bay +I with the kestrels shared the cleanly day, +The candid day; wind-shaven, brindled turf; +Tall cliffs; and long sea-line of marbled surf +From Cornish Lizard to the Kentish Nore +Lipping the bulwarks of the English shore, +While many a lovely ship below sailed by +On unknown errand, kempt and leisurely; +And after each, oh, after each, my heart +Fled forth, as, watching from the Downs apart, +I shared with ships good joys and fortunes wide +That might befall their beauty and their pride; + +Shared first with them the blessèd void repose +Of oily days at sea, when only rose +The porpoise's slow wheel to break the sheen +Of satin water indolently green, +When for'ard the crew, caps tilted over eyes, +Lay heaped on deck; slept; mumbled; smoked; threw dice; +The sleepy summer days; the summer nights +(The coast pricked out with rings of harbour-lights), +The motionless nights, the vaulted nights of June +When high in the cordage drifts the entangled moon, +And blocks go knocking, and the sheets go slapping, +And lazy swells against the sides come lapping; +And summer mornings off red Devon rocks, +Faint inland bells at dawn and crowing cocks; + +Shared swifter days, when headlands into ken +Trod grandly; threatened; and were lost again, +Old fangs along the battlemented coast; +And followed still my ship, when winds were most +Night-purified, and, lying steeply over, +She fled the wind as flees a girl her lover, +Quickened by that pursuit for which she fretted, +Her temper by the contest proved and whetted. +Wild stars swept overhead; her lofty spars +Reared to a ragged heaven sown with stars +As leaping out from narrow English ease +She faced the roll of long Atlantic seas. + +Her captain then was I, I was her crew, +The mind that laid her course, the wake she drew, +The waves that rose against her bows, the gales,-- +Nay, I was more: I was her very sails +Rounded before the wind, her eager keel, +Her straining mast-heads, her responsive wheel, +Her pennon stiffened like a swallow's wing; +Yes, I was all her slope and speed and swing, +Whether by yellow lemons and blue sea +She dawdled through the isles off Thessaly, +Or saw the palms like sheaves of scimitars +On desert's verge below the sunset bars, +Or passed the girdle of the planet where +The Southern Cross looks over to the Bear, +And strayed, cool Northerner beneath strange skies, +Flouting the lure of tropic estuaries, +Down that long coast, and saw Magellan's Clouds arise. + +And some that beat up Channel homeward-bound +I watched, and wondered what they might have found, +What alien ports enriched their teeming hold +With crates of fruit or bars of unwrought gold? +And thought how London clerks with paper-clips +Had filed the bills of lading of those ships, +Clerks that had never seen the embattled sea, +But wrote down jettison and barratry, +Perils, Adventures, and the Act of God, +Having no vision of such wrath flung broad; +Wrote down with weary and accustomed pen +The classic dangers of sea-faring men; +And wrote 'Restraint of Princes,' and 'the Acts +Of the King's Enemies,' as vacant facts, +Blind to the ambushed seas, the encircling roar +Of angry nations foaming into war. + + + +TRIO + +So well she knew them both! yet as she came +Into the room, and heard their speech +Of tragic meshes knotted with her name, +And saw them, foes, but meeting each with each +Closer than friends, souls bared through enmity, +Beneath their startled gaze she thought that she +Broke as the stranger on their conference, +And stole abashed from thence. + + + +BITTERNESS + +Yes, they were kind exceedingly; most mild +Even in indignation, taking by the hand +One that obeyed them mutely, as a child +Submissive to a law he does not understand. + +They would not blame the sins his passion wrought. +No, they were tolerant and Christian, saying, 'We +Only deplore ...' saying they only sought +To help him, strengthen him, to show him love; but he + +Following them with unrecalcitrant tread, +Quiet, towards their town of kind captivities, +Having slain rebellion, ever turned his head +Over his shoulder, seeking still with his poor eyes + +Her motionless figure on the road. The song +Rang still between them, vibrant bell to answering bell, +Full of young glory as a bugle; strong; +Still brave; now breaking like a sea-bird's cry 'Farewell!' + +And they, they whispered kindly to him 'Come! +Now we have rescued you. Let your heart heal. Forget! +She was your lawless dark familiar.' Dumb, +He listened, and they thought him acquiescent. Yet, + +(Knowing the while that they were very kind) +Remembrance clamoured in him: 'She was wild and free, +Magnificent in giving; she was blind +To gain or loss, and, loving, loved but me,--but me! + +'Valiant she was, and comradely, and bold; +High-mettled; all her thoughts a challenge, like gay ships +Adventurous, with treasure in the hold. +I met her with the lesson put into my lips, + +'Spoke reason to her, and she bowed her head, +Having no argument, and giving up the strife. +She said I should be free. I think she said +That, for the asking, she would give me all her life.' + +And still they led him onwards, and he still +Looked back towards her standing there; and they, content, +Cheered him and praised him that he did their will. +The gradual distance hid them, and she turned, and went. + + + +EVENING + +When little lights in little ports come out, +Quivering down through water with the stars, +And all the fishing fleet of slender spars +Range at their moorings, veer with tide about; + +When race of wind is stilled and sails are furled, +And underneath our single riding-light +The curve of black-ribbed deck gleams palely white, +And slumbrous waters pool a slumbrous world; + +--Then, and then only, have I thought how sweet +Old age might sink upon a windy youth, +Quiet beneath the riding-light of truth, +Weathered through storms, and gracious in retreat. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +EDWARD SHANKS + + + +THE ROCK POOL + +This is the sea. In these uneven walls + A wave lies prisoned. Far and far away +Outward to ocean, as the slow tide falls, + Her sisters through the capes that hold the bay +Dancing in lovely liberty recede. + Yet lovely in captivity she lies, +Filled with soft colours, where the wavering weed + Moves gently and discloses to our eyes +Blurred shining veins of rock and lucent shells + Under the light-shot water; and here repose +Small quiet fish and dimly glowing bells + Of sleeping sea-anemones that close +Their tender fronds and will not now awake +Till on these rocks the waves returning break. + + + +THE GLADE + +We may raise our voices even in this still glade: + Though the colours and shadows and sounds so fleeting seem, +We shall not dispel them. They are not made + Frailly by earth or hands, but immortal in our dream. + +We may touch the faint violets with the hands of thought, + Or lay the pale core of the wild arum bare; +And for ever in our minds the white wild cherry is caught, + Cloudy against the sky and melting into air. + +This which we have seen is eternally ours, + No others shall tread in the glade which now we see; +Their hands shall not touch the frail tranquil flowers, + Nor their hearts faint in wonder at the wild white tree. + + + +MEMORY + +In silence and in darkness memory wakes +Her million sheathèd buds, and breaks +That day-long winter when the light and noise +And hard bleak breath of the outward-looking will +Made barren her tender soil, when every voice +Of her million airy birds was muffled or still. + +One bud-sheath breaks: +One sudden voice awakes. + +What change grew in our hearts, seeing one night +That moth-winged ship drifting across the bay, + Her broad sail dimly white +On cloudy waters and hills as vague as they? +Some new thing touched our spirits with distant delight, +Half-seen, half-noticed, as we loitered down, +Talking in whispers, to the little town, + Down from the narrow hill + --Talking in whispers, for the air so still +Imposed its stillness on our lips, and made +A quiet equal with the equal shade +That filled the slanting walk. That phantom now +Slides with slack canvas and unwhispering prow +Through the dark sea that this dark room has made. + +Or the night of the closed eyes will turn to day, +And all day's colours start out of the gray. +The sun burns on the water. The tall hills +Push up their shady groves into the sky, +And fail and cease where the intense light spills +Its parching torrent on the gaunt and dry +Rock of the further mountains, whence the snow +That softened their harsh edges long is gone, + And nothing tempers now +The hot flood falling on the barren stone. + + O memory, take and keep +All that my eyes, your servants, bring you home-- +Those other days beneath the low white dome + Of smooth-spread clouds that creep + As slow and soft as sleep, +When shade grows pale and the cypress stands upright, + Distinct in the cool light, +Rigid and solid as a dark hewn stone; + And many another night, +That melts in darkness on the narrow quays, +And changes every colour and every tone, +And soothes the waters to a softer ease, +When under constellations coldly bright +The homeward sailors sing their way to bed +On ships that motionless in harbour float. +The circling harbour-lights flash green and red; +And, out beyond, a steady travelling boat, +Breaking the swell with slow industrious oars, + At each stroke pours +Pale lighted water from the lifted blade. +Now in the painted houses all around + Slow-darkening windows call +The empty unwatched middle of the night. +The tide's few inches rise without a sound. +On the black promontory's windless head, +The last awake, the fireflies rise and fall +And tangle up their dithering skeins of light. + + O memory, take and keep +All that my eyes, your servants, bring you home! + Thick through the changing year +The unexpected, rich-charged moments come, + That you twixt wake and sleep +In the lids of the closed eyes shall make appear. + + This is life's certain good, +Though in the end it be not good at all + When the dark end arises, +And the stripped, startled spirit must let fall + The amulets that could +Prevail with life's but not death's sad devices. + +Then, like a child from whom an older child + Forces its gathered treasures, +Its beads and shells and strings of withered flowers, + Tokens of recent pleasures, +The soul must lose in eyes weeping and wild + Those prints of vanished hours. + + + +WOMAN'S SONG + +No more upon my bosom rest thee, +Too often have my hands caressed thee, + My lips thou knowest well, too well; +Lean to my heart no more thine ear +My spirit's living truth to hear + --It has no more to tell. + +In what dark night, in what strange night, +Burnt to the butt the candle's light + That lit our room so long? +I do not know, I thought I knew +How love could be both sweet and true: + I also thought it strong. + +Where has the flame departed? Where, +Amid the empty waste of air, + Is that which dwelt with us? +Was it a fancy? Did we make +Only a show for dead love's sake, + It being so piteous? + +No more against my bosom press thee, +Seek no more that my hands caress thee, + Leave the sad lips thou hast known so well; +If to my heart thou lean thine ear, +There grieving thou shalt only hear + Vain murmuring of an empty shell. + + + +THE WIND + +Blow harder, wind, and drive +My blood from hands and face back to the heart. +Cry over ridges and down tapering coombs, +Carry the flying dapple of the clouds +Over the grass, over the soft-grained plough, +Stroke with ungentle hand the hill's rough hair + Against its usual set. +Snatch at the reins in my dead hands and push me +Out of my saddle, blow my labouring pony +Across the track. You only drive my blood +Nearer the heart from face and hands, and plant there, +Slowly burning, unseen, but alive and wonderful, + A numb, confusèd joy! +This little world's in tumult. Far away +The dim waves rise and wrestle with each other +And fall down headlong on the beach. And here +Quick gusts fly up the funnels of the valleys +And meet their raging fellows on the hill-tops, + And we are in the midst. +This beating heart, enriched with the hands' blood, +Stands in the midst and feels the warm joy burn +In solitude and silence, while all about +The gusts clamour like living, angry birds, +And the gorse seems hardly tethered to the ground. + Blow louder, wind, about +My square-set house, rattle the windows, lift +The trap-door to the loft above my head +And let it fall, clapping. Yell in the trees, +And throw a rotted elm-branch to the ground, +Flog the dry trailers of my climbing rose-- + Make deep, O wind, my rest! + + + +A LONELY PLACE + +The leafless trees, the untidy stack + Last rainy summer raised in haste, +Watch the sky turn from fair to black + And watch the river fill and waste; + +But never a footstep comes to trouble + The sea-gulls in the new-sown corn, +Or pigeons rising from late stubble + And flashing lighter as they turn. + +Or if a footstep comes, 'tis mine + Sharp on the road or soft on grass: +Silence divides along my line + And shuts behind me as I pass. + +No other comes, no labourer + To cut his shaggy truss of hay, +Along the road no traveller, + Day after day, day after day. + +And even I, when I come here, + Move softly on, subdued and still, +Lonely as death, though I can hear + Men shouting on the other hill. + +Day after day, though no one sees, + The lonely place no different seems; +The trees, the stack, still images + Constant in who can say whose dreams? + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +J.C. SQUIRE + + + +ELEGY + +I vaguely wondered what you were about, + But never wrote when you had gone away; +Assumed you better, quenched the uneasy doubt + You might need faces, or have things to say. + Did I think of you last evening? Dead you lay. + O bitter words of conscience! + I hold the simple message, +And fierce with grief the awakened heart cries out: + 'It shall not be to-day; + +It is still yesterday; there is time yet!' + Sorrow would strive backward to wrench the sun, +But the sun moves. Our onward course is set, + The wake streams out, the engine pulses run + Droning, a lonelier voyage is begun. + It is all too late for turning, + You are past all mortal signal, +There will be time for nothing but regret + And the memory of things done! + +The quiet voice that always counselled best, + The mind that so ironically played +Yet for mere gentleness forebore the jest. + The proud and tender heart that sat in shade + Nor once solicited another's aid, + Yet was so grateful always + For trifles lightly given, +The silences, the melancholy guessed + Sometimes, when your eyes strayed. + +But always when you turned, you talked the more. + Through all our literature your way you took +With modest ease; yet would you soonest pore, + Smiling, with most affection in your look, + On the ripe ancient and the curious nook. + Sage travellers, learnèd printers, + Divines and buried poets, +You knew them all, but never half your lore + Was drawn from any book. + +Stories and jests from field and town and port, + And odd neglected scraps of history +From everywhere, for you were of the sort, + Cool and refined, who like rough company: + Carter and barmaid, hawker and bargee, + Wise pensioners and boxers + With whom you drank, and listened +To legends of old revelry and sport + And customs of the sea. + +I hear you: yet more clear than all one note, + One sudden hail I still remember best, +That came on sunny days from one afloat + And drew me to the pane in certain quest + Of a long brown face, bare arms and flimsy vest, + In fragments through the branches, + Above the green reflections: +Paused by the willows in your varnished boat + You, with your oars at rest. + +Did that come back to you when you were dying? + I think it did: you had much leisure there, +And, with the things we knew, came quietly flying + Memories of things you had seen we knew not where. + + You watched again with meditative stare + Places where you had wandered, + Golden and calm in distance: +Voices from all your altering past came sighing + On the soft Hampshire air. + +For there you sat a hundred miles away, + A rug upon your knees, your hands gone frail, +And daily bade your farewell to the day, + A music blent of trees and clouds a-sail + And figures in some old neglected tale: + And watched the sunset gathering, + And heard the birdsong fading, +And went within when the last sleepy lay + Passed to a farther vale, + +Never complaining, and stepped up to bed + More and more slow, a tall and sunburnt man +Grown bony and bearded, knowing you would be dead + Before the summer, glad your life began + Even thus to end, after so short a span, + And mused a space serenely, + Then fell to easy slumber, +At peace, content. For never again your head + Need make another plan. + +Most generous, most gentle, most discreet, + Who left us ignorant to spare us pain: +We went our ways with too forgetful feet + And missed the chance that would not come again, + Leaving with thoughts on pleasure bent, or gain, + Fidelity unattested + And services unrendered: +The ears are closed, the heart has ceased to beat, + And now all proof is vain. + +Too late for other gifts, I give you this, + Who took from you so much, so carelessly, +On your far brows a first and phantom kiss, + On your far grave a careful elegy. + For one who loved all life and poetry, + Sorrow in music bleeding, + And friendship's last confession. +But even as I speak that inner hiss + Softly accuses me, + +Saying: Those brows are senseless, deaf that tomb, + This is the callous, cold resort of art. +'I give you this.' What do I give? to whom? + Words to the air, and balm to my own heart, + To its old luxurious and commanded smart. + An end to all this tuning, + This cynical masquerading; +What comfort now in that far final gloom + Can any song impart? + +O yet I see you dawning from some heaven, + Who would not suffer self-reproach to live +In one to whom your friendship once was given. + I catch a vision, faint and fugitive, +Of a dark face with eyes contemplative, + Deep eyes that smile in silence, + And parted lips that whisper, +'Say nothing more, old friend, of being forgiven, + There is nothing to forgive.' + + + +MEDITATION IN LAMPLIGHT + +What deaths men have died, not fighting but impotent. +Hung on the wire, between trenches, burning and freezing, +Groaning for water with armies of men so near; +The fall over cliff, the clutch at the rootless grass, +The beach rushing up, the whirling, the turning headfirst; +Stiff writhings of strychnine, taken in error or haste, +Angina pectoris, shudders of the heart; +Failure and crushing by flying weight to the ground, +Claws and jaws, the stink of a lion's breath; +Swimming, a white belly, a crescent of teeth, +Agony, and a spirting shredded limb, +And crimson blood staining the green water; +And, horror of horrors, the slow grind on the rack, +The breaking bones, the stretching and bursting skin, +Perpetual fainting and waking to see above +The down-thrust mocking faces of cruel men, +With the power of mercy, who gloat upon shrieks for mercy. + +O pity me, God! O God, make tolerable, +Make tolerable the end that awaits for me, +And give me courage to die when the time comes, +When the time comes as it must, however it comes, +That I shrink not nor scream, gripped by the jaws of the vice; +For the thought of it turns me sick, and my heart stands still, +Knocks and stands still. O fearful, fearful Shadow, +Kill me, let me die to escape the terror of thee! + +A tap. Come in! Oh, no, I am perfectly well, +Only a little tired. Take this one, it's softer. +How are things going with you? Will you have some coffee? +Well, of course it's trying sometimes, but never mind, +It will probably be all right. Carry on, and keep cheerful. +I shouldn't, if I were you, meet trouble half-way, +It is always best to take everything as it comes. + + + +LATE SNOW + +The heavy train through the dim country went rolling, rolling, +Interminably passing misty snow-covered plough-land ridges +That merged in the snowy sky; came turning meadows, fences, +Came gullies and passed, and ice-coloured streams under frozen bridges. + +Across the travelling landscape evenly drooped and lifted +The telegraph wires, thick ropes of snow in the windless air; +They drooped and paused and lifted again to unseen summits, +Drawing the eyes and soothing them, often, to a drowsy stare. + +Singly in the snow the ghosts of trees were softly pencilled, +Fainter and fainter, in distance fading, into nothingness gliding, +But sometimes a crowd of the intricate silver trees of fairyland +Passed, close and intensely clear, the phantom world hiding. + +O untroubled these moving mantled miles of shadowless shadows, +And lovely the film of falling flakes; so wayward and slack; +But I thought of many a mother-bird screening her nestlings, +Sitting silent with wide bright eyes, snow on her back. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG + + +SEASCAPE + +Over that morn hung heaviness, until, +Near sunless noon, we heard the ship's bell beating +A melancholy staccato on dead metal; +Saw the bare-footed watch come running aft; +Felt, far below, the sudden telegraph jangle +Its harsh metallic challenge, thrice repeated: +'Stand to. Half-speed ahead. Slow. Stop her!' + They stopped. +The plunging pistons sank like a stopped heart: +She held, she swayed, a hulk, a hollow carcass +Of blistered iron that the grey-green, waveless, +Unruffled tropic waters slapped languidly. + +And, in that pause, a sinister whisper ran: +Burial at Sea! a Portuguese official ... +Poor fever-broken devil from Mozambique: +Came on half tight: the doctor calls it heat-stroke. +Why do they travel steerage? It's the exchange: +So many million 'reis' to the pound! +What did he look like? No one ever saw him: +Took to his bunk, and drank and drank and died. +They're ready! Silence! + We clustered to the rail, +Curious and half-ashamed. The well-deck spread +A comfortable gulf of segregation +Between ourselves and death. 'Burial at sea' ... +The master holds a black book at arm's length; +His droning voice comes for'ard: 'This our brother ... +We therefore commit his body to the deep +To be turned into corruption' ... The bo's'n whispers +Hoarsely behind his hand: 'Now, all together!' +The hatch-cover is tilted; a mummy of sailcloth +Well ballasted with iron shoots clear of the poop; +Falls, like a diving gannet. The green sea closes +Its burnished skin; the snaky swell smoothes over ... +While he, the man of the steerage, goes down, down, +Feet foremost, sliding swiftly down the dim water, +Swift to escape +Those plunging shapes with pale, empurpled bellies +That swirl and veer about him. He goes down +Unerringly, as though he knew the way +Through green, through gloom, to absolute watery darkness, +Where no weed sways nor curious fin quivers: +To the sad, sunless deeps where, endlessly, +A downward drift of death spreads its wan mantle +In the wave-moulded valleys that shall enfold him +Till the sea give up its dead. + +There shall he lie dispersed amid great riches: +Such gold, such arrogance, so many bold hearts! +All the sunken armadas pressed to powder +By weight of incredible seas! That mingled wrack +No livening sun shall visit till the crust +Of earth be riven, or this rolling planet +Reel on its axis; till the moon-chained tides, +Unloosed, deliver up that white Atlantis +Whose naked peaks shall bleach above the slaked +Thirst of Sahara, fringed by weedy tangles +Of Atlas's drown'd cedars, frowning eastward +To where the sands of India lie cold, +And heap'd Himalaya's a rib of coral +Slowly uplifted, grain on grain.... + + We dream +Too long! Another jangle of alarum +Stabs at the engines: 'Slow. Half-speed. Full-speed!' +The great bearings rumble; the screw churns, frothing +Opaque water to downward-swelling plumes +Milky as wood-smoke. A shoal of flying-fish +Spurts out like animate spray. The warm breeze wakens; +And we pass on, forgetting, +Toward the solemn horizon of bronzed cumulus +That bounds our brooding sea, gathering gloom +That, when night falls, will dissipate in flaws +Of watery lightning, washing the hot sky, +Cleansing all hearts of heat and restlessness, +Until, with day, another blue be born. + + + +SCIROCCO + +Out of that high pavilion +Where the sick, wind-harassed sun +In the whiteness of the day +Ghostly shone and stole away-- +Parchèd with the utter thirst +Of unnumbered Libyan sands, +Thou, cloud-gathering spirit, burst +Out of arid Africa +To the tideless sea, and smote +On our pale, moon-coolèd lands +The hot breath of a lion's throat. + +And that furnace-heated breath +Blew into my placid dreams +The heart of fire from whence it came: +Haunt of beauty and of death +Where the forest breaks in flame +Of flaunting blossom, where the flood +Of life pulses hot and stark, +Where a wing'd death breeds in mud +And tumult of tree-shadowed streams-- +Black waters, desolately hurled +Through the uttermost, lost, dark, +Secret places of the world. + +There, O swift and terrible +Being, wast thou born; and thence, +Like a demon loosed from hell, +Stripped with rending wings the dense +Echoing forests, till their bowed +Plumes of trees like tattered cloud +Were toss'd and torn, and cried aloud +As the wood were rack'd with pain: +Thence thou freed'st thy wings, and soon +From the moaning, stricken plain +In whorled eagle-soarings rose +To melt the sun-defeating snows +Of the Mountains of the Moon, +To dull their glaciers with fierce breath, +To slip the avalanches' rein, +To set the laughing torrents free +On the tented desert beneath, +Where men of thirst must wither and die +While the vultures stare in the sun's eye; +Where slowly sifting sands are strown +On broken cities, whose bleaching bones +Whiten in moonlight stone on stone. + +Over their pitiful dust thy blast +Passed in columns of whirling sand, +Leapt the desert and swept the strand +Of the cool and quiet sea, +Gathering mighty shapes, and proud +Phantoms of monstrous, wave-born cloud, +And northward drove this panoply +Till the sky seemed charging on the land.... + +Yet, in that plumèd helm, the most +Of thy hot power was cooled or lost, +So that it came to me at length, +Faint and tepid and shorn of strength, +To shiver an olive-grove that heaves +A myriad moonlight-coloured leaves, +And in the stone-pine's dome set free +A murmur of the middle sea: +A puff of warm air in the night +So spent by its impetuous flight +It scarce invades my pillar'd closes,-- +To waft their fragrance from the sweet +Buds of my lemon-coloured roses +Or strew blown petals at my feet: +To kiss my cheek with a warm sigh +And in the tired darkness die. + + + +THE QUAILS + +(In the south of Italy the peasants put out the eyes of a captured quail +so that its cries may attract the flocks of spring migrants into their +nets.) + + +All through the night +I have heard the stuttering call of a blind quail, +A caged decoy, under a cairn of stones, +Crying for light as the quails cry for love. + +Other wanderers, +Northward from Africa winging on numb pinions, dazed +With beating winds and the sobbing of the sea, +Hear, in a breath of sweet land-herbage, the call +Of the blind one, their sister.... +Hearing, their fluttered hearts +Take courage, and they wheel in their dark flight, +Knowing that their toil is over, dreaming to see +The white stubbles of Abruzzi smitten with dawn, +And spilt grain lying in the furrows, the squandered gold +That is the delight of quails in their spring mating. + +Land-scents grow keener, +Penetrating the dank and bitter odour of brine +That whitens their feathers; +Far below, the voice of their sister calls them +To plenty, and sweet water, and fulfilment. +Over the pallid margin of dim seas breaking, +Over the thickening in the darkness that is land, +They fly. Their flight is ended. Wings beat no more. +Downward they drift, one by one, like dark petals, +Slowly, listlessly falling +Into the mouth of horror: +The nets.... + +Where men come trampling and crying with bright lanterns, +Plucking their weak, entangled claws from the meshes of net, +Clutching the soft brown bodies mottled with olive, +Crushing the warm, fluttering flesh, in hands stained with blood, +Till their quivering hearts are stilled, and the bright eyes, +That are like a polished agate, glaze in death. + +But the blind one, in her wicker cage, without ceasing +Haunts this night of spring with her stuttering call, +Knowing nothing of the terror that walks in darkness, +Knowing only that some cruelty has stolen the light +That is life, and that she must cry until she dies. + +I, in the darkness, +Heard, and my heart grew sick. But I know that to-morrow +A smiling peasant will come with a basket of quails +Wrapped in vine-leaves, prodding them with blood-stained fingers, +Saying, 'Signore, you must cook them thus, and thus, +With a sprig of basil inside them.' And I shall thank him, +Carrying the piteous carcases into the kitchen +Without a pang, without shame. + +'Why should I be ashamed? Why should I rail +Against the cruelty of men? Why should I pity, +Seeing that there is no cruelty which men can imagine +To match the subtle dooms that are wrought against them +By blind spores of pestilence: seeing that each of us, +Lured by dim hopes, flutters in the toils of death +On a cold star that is spinning blindly through space +Into the nets of time?' + +So cried I, bitterly thrusting pity aside, +Closing my lids to sleep. But sleep came not, +And pity, with sad eyes, +Crept to my side, and told me +That the life of all creatures is brave and pityful +Whether they be men, with dark thoughts to vex them, +Or birds, wheeling in the swift joys of flight, +Or brittle ephemerids, spinning to death in the haze +Of gold that quivers on dim evening waters; +Nor would she be denied. +The harshness died +Within me, and my heart +Was caught and fluttered like the palpitant heart +Of a brown quail, flying +To the call of her blind sister, +And death, in the spring night. + + + +SONG AT SANTA CRUZ + +Were there lovers in the lanes of Atlantis: +Meeting lips and twining fingers +In the mild Atlantis springtime? + How should I know +If there were lovers in the lanes of Atlantis +When the dark sea drowned her mountains + Many ages ago? + +Were there poets in the paths of Atlantis: +Eager poets, seeking beauty +To adorn the women they worshipped? + How can I say +If there were poets in the paths of Atlantis? +For the waters that drowned her mountains + Washed their beauty away. + +Were there women in the ways of Atlantis: +Foolish women, who loved, as I do, +Dreaming that mortal love was deathless? + Ask me not now +If there were women in the ways of Atlantis: +There was no woman in all her mountains + Wonderful as thou! + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + + +(Some of these lists are incomplete. They include poetical works only.) + + + +LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE + + Interludes and Poems. John Lane. 1908 + Mary and the Bramble. ('Out of print'.) 1910 + The Sale of St. Thomas. [1] " " 1911 + Emblems of Love. John Lane. 1912 + Deborah (play). " " 1913 + Four Short Plays. Martin Seeker. 1922 + + +MARTIN ARMSTRONG + + Exodus and Other Poems. Lynwood and Co. 1912 + Thirty New Poems. Chapman and Hall. 1918 + The Buzzards. Martin Seeker. 1921 + + +EDMUND BLUNDEN + + The Waggoner. Sidgwick and Jackson. 1920 + The Shepherd. R. Cobden-Sanderson. 1922 + + +WILLIAM H. DAVIES + + The Soul's Destroyer. Jonathan Cape. 1906 + New Poems. " " 1907 + Nature Poems. " " 1908 + Farewell to Poesy. " " 1910 + Songs of Joy. " " 1911 + Foliage. " " 1913 + The Bird of Paradise. Methuen. 1914 + Child Lovers. Jonathan Cape. 1916 + Collected Poems. " " 1916 + Raptures. [2] Beaumont Press. 1918 + Forty New Poems. Jonathan Cape. 1918 + The Song of Life. " " 1920 + The Hour of Magic. " " 1922 + + +WALTER DE LA MARE + + Poems. Murray. 1906 + The Listeners. Constable. 1912 + A Child's Day. " 1912 + Peacock Pie. " 1913 + Songs of Childhood. (New Edition.) Longmans. 1916 + The Sunken Garden. [3] Beaumont Press. 1917 + Motley. Constable. 1917 + Poems, 1901-1918. " 1920 + Flora. Heinemann. 1919 + The Veil. Constable. 1921 + + +JOHN DRINKWATER + + Poems of Men and Hours. (Out of print.) 1911 + Cophetua (play). " " 1911 + Poems of Love and Earth. " " 1912 + Cromwell, and Other Poems. David Nutt. 1913 + Rebellion (play). (Out of-print.) 1914 + Swords and Ploughshares. Sidgwick and Jackson. 1915 + Olton Pools. " " 1916 + Poems, 1908-1914. " " 1917 + Tides. Beaumont Press. 1917 + Tides (with additions). Sidgwick and Jackson. 1917 + Loyalties. Beaumont Press. 1918 + Loyalties (with additions). Sidgwick and Jackson. 1918 + Abraham Lincoln (Prose Play with Chorus). Sidgwick and Jackson. 1918 + Seeds of Time. " " 1921 + Selected Poems. " " 1922 + Pawns and Cophetua + (Four Poetic Plays).(New Edition.) Sidgwick and Jackson. 1922 + Preludes, 1921-1922 (in preparation) + + +JOHN FREEMAN + + Twenty Poems. Gay and Hancock. 1909 + Fifty Poems. (New Edition.) Selwyn and Blount. 1916 + Stone Trees. " " 1916 + Presage of Victory. " " 1916 + Memories of Childhood. Morland Press. 1918 + Memories, and Other Poems. Selwyn and Blount. 1919 + Poems New and Old. " " 1920 + Music. " " 1921 + Two Poems. " " 1921 + + +WILFRID GIBSON + + Stonefolds. Elkin Mathews. 1907 + Akra the Slave. " " 1910 + Daily Bread. " " 1910 + Fires. " " 1913 + Borderlands. " " 1914 + Thoroughfares. " " 1914 + Battle. " " 1915 + Friends. " " 1916 + Livelihood. Macmillan. 1917 + Collected Poems. New York: Macmillan Co. 1917 + Whin. Macmillan. 1918 + Home. Beaumont Press. 1919 + Neighbours. Macmillan. 1920 + Krindlesyke (play). " 1922 + + +ROBERT GRAVES + + Over the Brazier. Poetry Bookshop. 1916 + Fairies and Fusiliers. Heinemann. 1917 + Country Sentiment. Martin Seeker. 1919 + The Pier-glass. " " 1921 + On English Poetry + (Critical work containing new poems) Heinemann. 1922 + Whipperginny (in preparation) + + +RICHARD HUGHES + + Gipsy-Night. Golden Cockerel Press. 1922 + + +D. H. LAWRENCE + + Love Poems. Duckworth. 1913 + Amores. " 1916 + Look! We have Come Through! (Out of print.) 1917 + New Poems. Martin Seeker. 1918 + + +HAROLD MONRO + + Judas. Sampson Low. 1908 + Before Dawn. (Out of print.) 1911 + Children of Love. Poetry Bookshop. 1914 + Strange Meetings. " " 1917 + Real Property. {London " " + {New York: Macmillan Co. 1922 + + +ROBERT NICHOLS. + + Invocation. Elkin Mathews. 1915 + Ardours and Endurances. Chatto and Windus. 1917 + The Budded Branch. Beaumont Press. 1918 + Aurelia. Chatto and Windus. 1920 + + +FRANK PREWETT + + Poems. Hogarth Press. 1921 + + +PETER QUENNELL + + Masques and Poems (in preparation). Golden Cockerel Press + + +V. SACKVILLE-WEST + + Orchard and Vineyard. John Lane. 1921 + + +EDWARD SHANKS + + Songs. (Out of print.) 1915 + Poems. Sidgwick and Jackson. 1916 + The Queen of China. Martin Seeker. 1919 + The Island of Youth. Collins. 1921 + + +J.C. SQUIRE + + Steps to Parnassus. Allen and Unwin. 1913 + The Three Hills. " " 1913 + The Survival of the Fittest. " " 1916 + Tricks of the Trade. Hodder and Stoughton. 1917 + Poems: First Series. " " 1918 + The Birds, and Other Poems. Hodder and Stoughton. 1919 + Poems: Second Series. " " 1922 + + +FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG + + Five Degrees South. Martin Seeker. 1917 + Poems, 1916-1918. Collins. 1919 + + + +[Footnote 1: Reprinted in 'Georgian Poetry, 1911-1912'.] + + +[Footnote 2: Reprinted, with additions, in 'Forty New Poems'.] + + +[Footnote 3: Reprinted, with additions, in 'Motley'.] + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Georgian Poetry 1920-22, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGIAN POETRY 1920-22 *** + +***** This file should be named 9640-8.txt or 9640-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/6/4/9640/ + +Produced by Clytie Siddall, Keren Vergon 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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