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<table summary="title" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td width="50%"><h1><i>Georgian Poetry</i></h1>
<br>
<br>
<b>1920-22<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
edited by<br>
<br>
Sir Edward Howard Marsh<br>
<br><br>
</b><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</td>
<td width="50%"><br>
<br>
<br>
<br><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<span style="color: #A82C28"><br>
<br>
<br>
<br><br>
The Poetry Bookshop<br>
35 Devonshire St. Theobalds Rd.<br>
London W.C.1<br><br>
MCMXXII<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<i><b>To
Alice Meynell</b></i>
</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<p><b><a name="toc">Table of Contents</a></b></p>
<table summary="Beagle" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul>
<li><a href="#introduction">Prefatory Note</a></li></ul></td><td></td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>Lascelles Abercrombie</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#rytfirs"><i>Ryton Firs</i></a></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>Martin Armstrong</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#buzzarm"><i>The Buzzards</i></a><br>
<a href="#honhar"><i>Honey Harvest</i></a><br>
<a href="#misthom"><i>Miss Thompson Goes Shopping</i></a></td>
<td>(from <i>The Buzzards</i>)<br>
<br>
(from <i>The Buzzards</i>)</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>Edmund Blunden</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#poorpig"><i>The Poor Man's Pig</i></a><br>
<a href="#almswom"><i>Almswomen</i></a> <br>
<a href="#perfish"><i>Perch-fishing</i></a><br>
<a href="#giapuff"><i>The Giant Puffball</i></a><br>
<a href="#chgrav"><i>The Child's Grave</i></a><br>
<a href="#aprbye"><i>April Byeway</i></a></td>
<td>(from <i>The Shepherd</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Shepherd</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Waggoner</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Waggoner</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Shepherd</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Shepherd</i>)</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>William H. Davies</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#caplion"><i>The Captive Lion</i></a><br>
<a href="#birdang"><i>A Bird's Anger</i></a><br>
<a href="#villaind"><i>The Villain</i></a><br>
<a href="#lovcaut"><i>Love's Caution</i></a><br>
<a href="#wasthrs"><i>Wasted Hours</i></a><br>
<a href="#truthd"><i>The Truth</i></a></td>
<td>
(from <i>The Song of Life</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Song of Life</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Song of Life</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Song of Life</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Hour of Magic</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Song of Life</i>)<br>
</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>Walter de la Mare</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#mothd"><i>The Moth</i></a><br>
<a href="#sotvoce"><i>Sotto Voce</i></a><br>
<a href="#sephina"><i>Sephina</i></a><br>
<a href="#titmse"><i>Titmouse</i></a><br>
<a href="#spose"><i>Suppose</i></a><br>
<a href="#crnrst"><i>The Corner Stone</i></a></td>
<td>(from <i>The Veil</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Veil</i>)<br>
(from <i>Flora</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Veil</i>)<br>
(from <i>Flora</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Veil</i>)</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>John Drinkwater</li>
</ul></td><td><a name="cp2"></a><a href="#persddr"><i>Persuasion</i></a></td><td><br>
(from <i>Seeds of Time</i>)</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>John Freeman</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#illask"><i>I Will Ask</i></a><br>
<a href="#evesky"><i>The Evening Sky</i></a><br>
<a href="#cavesf"><i>The Caves</i></a><br>
<a href="#mnbath"><i>Moon-Bathers</i></a><br>
<a href="#inolddays"><i>In Those Old Days</i></a><br>
<a href="#ctrplrs"><i>Caterpillars </i></a><br>
<a href="#chgef"><i>Change </i></a></td><td><br>
(from <i>Poems New and Old</i>)<br>
(from <i>Poems New and Old</i>)<br>
(from <i>Poems New and Old</i>)<br>
(from <i>Music</i>)<br>
(from <i>Poems New and Old</i>)<br>
(from <i>Music</i>)</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>Wilfrid Gibson</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#firew"><i>Fire</i></a><br>
<a href="#barbfell"><i>Barbara Fell</i></a><br>
<a href="#philphoeb"><i>Philip and Phœbe Ware </i></a><br>
<a href="#byweir"><i>By the Weir</i></a><br>
<a href="#worldsg"><i>Worlds</i></a></td><td>(from <i>Neighbours</i>)<br>
(from <i>Neighbours</i>)<br>
(from <i>Neighbours</i>)<br>
(from <i>Neighbours</i>)<br>
(from <i>Neighbours</i>)</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>Robert Graves</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#lostloveg"><i>Lost Love</i></a><br>
<a href="#mornphoex"><i>Morning Phœnix</i></a><br>
<a href="#lovchild"><i>A Lover Since Childhood</i></a><br>
<a href="#sullmoodg"><i>Sullen Moods</i></a><br>
<a href="#pierglasg"><i>The Pier-Glass</i></a><br>
<a href="#trolnoseg"><i>The Troll's Nosegay</i></a><br>
<a href="#foxding"><i>Fox's Dingle</i></a><br>
<a href="#genelliot"><i>The General Elliott</i></a><br>
<a href="#patchbong"><i>The Patchwork Bonnet</i></a><br></td>
<td>(from <i>The Pier-Glass</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Pier-Glass</i>)<br>
<br>
<br>
(from <i>The Pier-Glass</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Pier-Glass</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Pier-Glass</i>)<br>
(from <i>On English Poetry</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Pier-Glass</i>)</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>Richard Hughes</li>
</ul></td><td>
<a href="#singfurg"><i>The Singing Furies</i></a><br>
<a href="#moonstrg"><i>Moonstruck</i></a><br>
<a href="#vagrang"><i>Vagrancy</i></a><br>
<a href="#pppg"><i>Poets, Painters, Puddings</i></a></td><td>
(from <i>Gipsy-Night</i>)<br>
(from <i>Gipsy-Night</i>)<br>
(from <i>Gipsy-Night</i>)<br>
(from <i>Gipsy-Night</i>)</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>William Kerr</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#inmemk"><i>In Memoriam D. O. M.</i></a><br>
<a href="#pptk"><i>Past and Present</i></a><br>
<a name="cp3"></a><a href="#auditk"><i>The Audit </i></a><br>
<a href="#apptreek"><i>The Apple Tree</i></a><br>
<a href="#nyrposy"><i>Her New-Year Posy</i></a><br>
<a href="#cntshpk"><i>Counting Sheep</i></a><br>
<a href="#trsnghtk"><i>The Trees at Night</i></a><br>
<a href="#deadk"><i>The Dead</i></a></td><td></td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>D. H. Lawrence</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#snakelaw"><i>Snake</i></a></td><td></td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>Harold Monro</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#thstdwnm"><i>Thistledown</i></a><br>
<a href="#rlprprtm"><i>Real Property</i></a><br>
<a href="#unkwncntm"><i>Unknown Country</i></a></td><td>(from <i>Real Property</i>)<br>
(from <i>Real Property</i>)<br>
(from <i>Real Property</i>)</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>Robert Nichols</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#nightrhapsn"><i>Night Rhapsody</i></a><br>
<a href="#novnich"><i>November</i></a></td><td>(from <i>Aurelia</i>)<br>
(from <i>Aurelia</i>)</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>J. D. C. Fellow</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#afterlonf"><i>After London </i></a><br>
<a href="#frddief"><i>On a Friend who died suddenly upon the Seashore</i></a><br>
<a href="#tenebrae"><i>Tenebræ</i></a><br>
<a href="#allsaidf"><i>When All is Said</i></a></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>Frank Prewett</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#mthcanp"><i>To my Mother in Canada</i></a><br>
<a href="#vcewomp"><i>Voices of Women</i></a><br>
<a href="#sommep"><i>The Somme Valley</i></a><br>
<a href="#burialstp"><i>Burial Stones</i></a><br>
<a href="#snwbuntp"><i>Snow-Buntings</i></a><br>
<a href="#kelsop"><i>The Kelso Road</i></a><br>
<a href="#bldlnp"><i>Baldon Lane</i></a><br>
<a href="#cmegrlp"><i>Come Girl, and Embrace</i></a></td><td><br>
(from <i>Poems</i>)<br>
(from <i>Poems</i>)<br>
(from <i>Poems</i>)<br>
(from <i>Poems</i>)<br>
(from <i>Poems</i>)<br>
(from <i>Poems</i>)<br>
(from <i>Poems</i>)
</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>Peter Quennell</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#procne"><i>Procne</i></a><br>
<a href="#mansunfq"><i>A Man to a Sunflower</i></a><br>
<a href="#perceptq"><i>Perception</i></a><br>
<a name="cp4"></a><a href="#pursuitq"><i>Pursuit</i></a></td><td></td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>V. Sackville-West</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#saxonsgsw"><i>A Saxon Song</i></a><br>
<a href="#marianasw"><i>Mariana in the North</i></a><br>
<a href="#fmnsw"><i>Full Moon</i></a><br>
<a href="#sailshiopssw"><i>Sailing Ships</i></a><br>
<a href="#triosw"><i>Trio</i></a><br>
<a href="#bittersw"><i>Bitterness</i></a><br>
<a href="#evensw"><i>Evening</i></a></td>
<td>(from <i>Orchard and Vineyard</i>)<br>
(from <i>Orchard and Vineyard</i>)<br>
(from <i>Orchard and Vineyard</i>)<br>
(from <i>Orchard and Vineyard</i>)<br>
(from <i>Orchard and Vineyard</i>)<br>
(from <i>Orchard and Vineyard</i>)<br>
(from <i>Orchard and Vineyard</i>)</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>Edward Shanks</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#rckpoolsh"><i>The Rock Pool</i></a><br>
<a href="#gladesh"><i>The Glade</i></a><br>
<a href="#memshanks"><i>Memory</i></a><br>
<a href="#wmsongsh"><i>Woman's Song</i></a><br>
<a href="#windshanks"><i>The Wind</i></a><br>
<a href="#loneplsh"><i>A Lonely Place</i></a></td><td>(from <i>The Island of Youth</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Island of Youth</i>)<br>
(from <i>The Island of Youth</i>)
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>J. C. Squire</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#elegysq"><i>Elegy</i></a><br>
<a href="#medlampsq"><i>Meditation in Lamplight</i></a><br>
<a href="#latesnw"><i>Late Snow</i></a></td><td>(from <i>Poems</i>, 2nd series)<br>
(from <i>Poems</i>, 2nd series)<br>
(from <i>Poems</i>, 2nd series)
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li>Francis Brett Young</li>
</ul></td><td><a href="#cscapey"><i>Seascape</i></a><br>
<a href="#scirocco"><i>Scirocco</i></a><br>
<a href="#quailsy"><i>The Quails</i></a><br>
<a href="#sngscruz"><i>Song at Santa Cruz </i></a></td><td></tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top"><td><ul><li><a href="#biblio">Bibliography</a></li>
</ul></td><td></td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
<br>
<hr>
<br>
<br>
<h2><a name="introduction">Prefatory Note</a></h2>
<br>
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 <i>Georgian Poetry</i> 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.<br>
<br>
This, in the words of Pirate Smee, was <i>a kind of a compliment</i>,
but it was also, to quote the same hero, <i>galling</i>; 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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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 <i>deny with both
hands</i>, 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.<br>
<br>
The ideal <i>Georgian Poetry</i> — 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.<br>
<br>
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
<blockquote>The high and tender Muses shall accept<br>
With gracious smile, deliberately pleased.</blockquote>
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 <i>The Chapbook</i>, <i>The London Mercury</i> and <i>The Westminster
Gazette</i>.<br>
<br>
E. M.<br>
<br>
July, 1922
<br>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<h2><a name="rytfirs">Lascelles Abercrombie</a></h2>
<br>
<h3><i>Ryton Firs</i></h3><br>
<i>The Dream</i><br>
<blockquote>All round the knoll, on days of quietest air,<br>
Secrets are being told; and if the trees<br>
Speak out — let them make uproar loud as drums — <br>
'Tis secrets still, shouted instead of whisper'd.<br><br>
There must have been a warning given once:<br>
No tree, on pain of withering and sawfly,<br>
To reach the slimmest of his snaky toes<br>
Into this mounded sward and rumple it;<br>
All trees stand back: taboo is on this soil. — <br><br>
The trees have always scrupulously obeyed.<br>
The grass, that elsewhere grows as best it may<br>
Under the larches, countable long nesh blades,<br>
Here in clear sky pads the ground thick and close<br>
As wool upon a Southdown wether's back;<br>
And as in Southdown wool, your hand must sink<br>
Up to the wrist before it find the roots.<br>
A bed for summer afternoons, this grass;<br>
But in the Spring, not too softly entangling<br>
For lively feet to dance on, when the green<br>
Flashes with daffodils. From Marcle way,<br>
From Dymock, Kempley, Newent, Bromesberrow,<br>
Redmarley, all the meadowland daffodils seem<br>
Running in golden tides to Ryton Firs,<br>
To make the knot of steep little wooded hills<br>
Their brightest show: O bella età de l'oro!<br>
Now I breathe you again, my woods of Ryton:<br>
Not only golden with your daffodil-fires<br>
Lying in pools on the loose dusky ground<br>
Beneath the larches, tumbling in broad rivers<br>
Down sloping grass under the cherry trees<br>
And birches: but among your branches clinging<br>
A mist of that Ferrara-gold I first<br>
Loved in the easy hours then green with you;<br>
And as I stroll about you now, I have<br>
Accompanying me — like troops of lads and lasses<br>
Chattering and dancing in a shining fortune — <br>
Those mornings when your alleys of long light<br>
And your brown rosin-scented shadows were<br>
Enchanted with the laughter of my boys.</blockquote><br>
<i>The Voices in the Dream</i>
<blockquote>Follow my heart, my dancing feet,<br>
Dance as blithe as my heart can beat.<br>
Only can dancing understand<br>
What a heavenly way we pass<br>
Treading the green and golden land,<br>
Daffodillies and grass.<br><br>
I had a song, too, on my road,<br>
But mine was in my eyes;<br>
For Malvern Hills were with me all the way,<br>
Singing loveliest visible melodies<br>
Blue as a south-sea bay;<br>
And ruddy as wine of France<br>
Breadths of new-turn'd ploughland under them glowed.<br>
'Twas my heart then must dance<br>
To dwell in my delight;<br>
No need to sing when all in song my sight<br>
Moved over hills so musically made<br>
And with such colour played. — <br>
And only yesterday it was I saw<br>
Veil'd in streamers of grey wavering smoke<br>
My shapely Malvern Hills.<br>
That was the last hail-storm to trouble spring:<br>
He came in gloomy haste,<br>
Pusht in front of the white clouds quietly basking,<br>
In such a hurry he tript against the hills <br>
And stumbling forward spilt over his shoulders <br>
All his black baggage held,<br>
Streaking downpour of hail.<br>
Then fled dismayed, and the sun in golden glee<br>
And the high white clouds laught down his dusky ghost.<br><br>
For all that's left of winter<br>
Is moisture in the ground.<br>
When I came down the valley last, the sun<br>
Just thawed the grass and made me gentle turf,<br>
But still the frost was bony underneath.<br>
Now moles take burrowing jaunts abroad, and ply<br>
Their shovelling hands in earth<br>
As nimbly as the strokes<br>
Of a swimmer in a long dive under water.<br>
The meadows in the sun are twice as green<br>
For all the scatter of fresh red mounded earth,<br>
The mischief of the moles:<br>
No dullish red, Glostershire earth new-delved<br>
In April! And I think shows fairest where<br>
These rummaging small rogues have been at work.<br>
If you will look the way the sunlight slants<br>
Making the grass one great green gem of light,<br>
Bright earth, crimson and even<br>
Scarlet, everywhere tracks<br>
The rambling underground affairs of moles:<br>
Though 'tis but kestrel-bay<br>
Looking against the sun.<br><br>
But here's the happiest light can lie on ground,<br>
Grass sloping under trees<br>
Alive with yellow shine of daffodils!<br>
If quicksilver were gold,<br>
And troubled pools of it shaking in the sun<br>
It were not such a fancy of bickering gleam<br>
As Ryton daffodils when the air but stirs.<br>
And all the miles and miles of meadowland<br>
The spring makes golden ways,<br>
Lead here, for here the gold<br>
Grows brightest for our eyes,<br>
And for our hearts lovelier even than love.<br>
So here, each spring, our daffodil festival.<br><br>
How smooth and quick the year<br>
Spins me the seasons round!<br>
How many days have slid across my mind<br>
Since we had snow pitying the frozen ground!<br>
Then winter sunshine cheered<br>
The bitter skies; the snow,<br>
Reluctantly obeying lofty winds,<br>
Drew off in shining clouds,<br>
Wishing it still might love<br>
With its white mercy the cold earth beneath.<br>
But when the beautiful ground<br>
Lights upward all the air,<br>
Noon thaws the frozen eaves,<br>
And makes the rime on post and paling steam<br>
Silvery blue smoke in the golden day.<br>
And soon from loaded trees in noiseless woods<br>
The snows slip thudding down,<br>
Scattering in their trail<br>
Bright icy sparkles through the glittering air;<br>
And the fir-branches, patiently bent so long,<br>
Sigh as they lift themselves to rights again.<br>
Then warm moist hours steal in,<br>
Such as can draw the year's<br>
First fragrance from the sap of cherry wood<br>
Or from the leaves of budless violets;<br>
And travellers in lanes<br>
Catch the hot tawny smell <br>
Reynard's damp fur left as he sneakt marauding <br><br>
Across from gap to gap:<br>
And in the larch woods on the highest boughs<br>
The long-eared owls like grey cats sitting still<br>
Peer down to quiz the passengers below.<br><br>
Light has killed the winter and all dark dreams.<br>
Now winds live all in light,<br>
Light has come down to earth and blossoms here,<br>
And we have golden minds.<br>
From out the long shade of a road high-bankt,<br>
I came on shelving fields;<br>
And from my feet cascading,<br>
Streaming down the land,<br>
Flickering lavish of daffodils flowed and fell;<br>
Like sunlight on a water thrill'd with haste,<br>
Such clear pale quivering flame,<br>
But a flame even more marvellously yellow.<br>
And all the way to Ryton here I walkt<br>
Ankle-deep in light.<br>
It was as if the world had just begun;<br>
And in a mind new-made<br>
Of shadowless delight<br>
My spirit drank my flashing senses in,<br>
And gloried to be made<br>
Of young mortality.<br>
No darker joy than this<br>
Golden amazement now<br>
Shall dare intrude into our dazzling lives:<br>
Stain were it now to know<br>
Mists of sweet warmth and deep delicious colour,<br>
Those lovable accomplices that come<br>
Befriending languid hours.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<h2><a name="buzzarm">Martin Armstrong</a></h2>
<br>
<h3>The Buzzards</h3><br>
<blockquote>When evening came and the warm glow grew deeper <br>
And every tree that bordered the green meadows<br>
And in the yellow cornfields every reaper<br>
And every corn-shock stood above their shadows<br>
Flung eastward from their feet in longer measure,<br>
Serenely far there swam in the sunny height<br>
A buzzard and his mate who took their pleasure<br>
Swirling and poising idly in golden light.<br>
On great pied motionless moth-wings borne along,<br>
So effortless and so strong,<br>
Cutting each other's paths, together they glided,<br>
Then wheeled asunder till they soared divided<br>
Two valleys' width (as though it were delight<br>
To part like this, being sure they could unite<br>
So swiftly in their empty, free dominion),<br>
Curved headlong downward, towered up the sunny steep,<br>
Then, with a sudden lift of the one great pinion,<br>
Swung proudly to a curve and from its height<br>
Took half a mile of sunlight in one long sweep.<br><br>
And we, so small on the swift immense hillside,<br>
Stood tranced, until our souls arose uplifted<br>
On those far-sweeping, wide,<br>
Strong curves of flight, — swayed up and hugely drifted,<br>
Were washed, made strong and beautiful in the tide<br>
Of sun-bathed air. But far beneath, beholden<br>
Through shining deeps of air, the fields were golden<br>
And rosy burned the heather where cornfields ended.<br><br>
And still those buzzards wheeled, while light withdrew<br>
Out of the vales and to surging slopes ascended,<br>
Till the loftiest-flaming summit died to blue.</blockquote>
<br><p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="honhar"></a><h3>Honey Harvest</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Late in March, when the days are growing longer<br>
And sight of early green<br>
Tells of the coming spring and suns grow stronger,<br>
Round the pale willow-catkins there are seen<br>
The year's first honey-bees<br>
Stealing the nectar: and bee-masters know<br>
This for the first sign of the honey-flow.<br><br>
Then in the dark hillsides the Cherry-trees<br>
Gleam white with loads of blossom where the gleams<br>
Of piled snow lately hung, and richer streams<br>
The honey. Now, if chilly April days<br>
Delay the Apple-blossom, and the May's<br>
First week come in with sudden summer weather,<br>
The Apple and the Hawthorn bloom together,<br>
And all day long the plundering hordes go round<br>
And every overweighted blossom nods.<br>
But from that gathered essence they compound<br>
Honey more sweet than nectar of the gods.<br><br>
Those blossoms fall ere June, warm June that brings<br>
The small white Clover. Field by scented field,<br>
Round farms like islands in the rolling weald,<br>
It spreads thick-flowering or in wildness springs<br>
Short-stemmed upon the naked downs, to yield<br>
A richer store of honey than the Rose,<br>
The Pink, the Honeysuckle. Thence there flows<br>
Nectar of clearest amber, redolent<br>
Of every flowery scent<br>
That the warm wind upgathers as he goes.<br><br>
In mid-July be ready for the noise<br>
Of million bees in old Lime-avenues,<br>
As though hot noon had found a droning voice<br>
To ease her soul. Here for those busy crews <br>
Green leaves and pale-stemmed clusters of green strong flowers<br>
Build heavy-perfumed, cool, green-twilight bowers<br>
Whence, load by load, through the long summer days<br>
They fill their glassy cells<br>
With dark green honey, clear as chrysoprase,<br>
Which housewives shun; but the bee-master tells<br>
This brand is more delicious than all else.<br><br>
In August-time, if moors are near at hand,<br>
Be wise and in the evening-twilight load<br>
Your hives upon a cart, and take the road<br>
By night: that, ere the early dawn shall spring<br>
And all the hills turn rosy with the Ling,<br>
Each waking hive may stand<br>
Established in its new-appointed land<br>
Without harm taken, and the earliest flights<br>
Set out at once to loot the heathery heights.<br><br>
That vintage of the Heather yields so dense<br>
And glutinous a syrup that it foils<br>
Him who would spare the comb and drain from thence<br>
Its dark, full-flavoured spoils:<br>
For he must squeeze to wreck the beautiful<br>
Frail edifice. Not otherwise he sacks<br>
Those many-chambered palaces of wax.<br><br>
Then let a choice of every kind be made,<br>
And, labelled, set upon your storehouse racks — <br>
Of Hawthorn-honey that of almond smacks:<br>
The luscious Lime-tree-honey, green as jade:<br>
Pale Willow-honey, hived by the first rover:<br>
That delicate honey culled<br>
From Apple-blossom, that of sunlight tastes:<br>
And sunlight-coloured honey of the Clover.<br>
Then, when the late year wastes,<br>
When night falls early and the noon is dulled<br>
And the last warm days are over,<br>
Unlock the store and to your table bring<br>
Essence of every blossom of the spring.<br>
And if, when wind has never ceased to blow<br>
All night, you wake to roofs and trees becalmed<br>
In level wastes of snow,<br>
Bring out the Lime-tree-honey, the embalmed<br>
Soul of a lost July, or Heather-spiced<br>
Brown-gleaming comb wherein sleeps crystallised<br>
All the hot perfume of the heathery slope.<br>
And, tasting and remembering, live in hope.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p><hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="misthom"></a><h3>Miss Thompson Goes Shopping</h3>
<br>
<table summary="Miss Thompson" cellspacing="50" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>Miss Thompson at Home</i></td>
<td>In her lone cottage on the downs, <br>
With winds and blizzards and great crowns<br>
Of shining cloud, with wheeling plover <br>
And short grass sweet with the small white clover, <br>
Miss Thompson lived, correct and meek,<br>
A lonely spinster, and every week<br>
On market-day she used to go<br>
Into the little town below,<br>
Tucked in the great downs' hollow bowl<br>
Like pebbles gathered in a shoal.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>She goes a-Marketing</i></td>
<td>So, having washed her plates and cup <br>
And banked the kitchen-fire up, <br>
Miss Thompson slipped upstairs and dressed,<br>
Put on her black (her second best),<br>
The bonnet trimmed with rusty plush,<br>
Peeped in the glass with simpering blush,<br>
From camphor-smelling cupboard took<br>
Her thicker jacket off the hook<br>
Because the day might turn to cold.<br>
Then, ready, slipped downstairs and rolled<br>
The hearthrug back; then searched about,<br>
Found her basket, ventured out,<br>
Snecked the door and paused to lock it<br>
And plunge the key in some deep pocket.<br>
Then as she tripped demurely down<br>
The steep descent, the little town<br>
Spread wider till its sprawling street<br>
Enclosed her and her footfalls beat<br>
On hard stone pavement, and she felt<br>
Those throbbing ecstasies that melt<br>
Through heart and mind, as, happy, free,<br>
Her small, prim personality<br>
Merged into the seething strife<br>
Of auction-marts and city life.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>She visits the Boot-maker.</i></td>
<td>Serenely down the busy stream<br>
Miss Thompson floated in a dream.<br>
Now, hovering bee-like, she would stop<br>
Entranced before some tempting shop,<br>
Getting in people's way and prying<br>
At things she never thought of buying:<br>
Now wafted on without an aim,<br>
Until in course of time she came<br>
To Watson's bootshop. Long she pries<br>
At boots and shoes of every size — <br>
Brown football-boots with bar and stud<br>
For boys that scuffle in the mud,<br>
And dancing-pumps with pointed toes<br>
Glossy as jet, and dull black bows;<br>
Slim ladies' shoes with two-inch heel<br>
And sprinkled beads of gold and steel — <br>
'How anyone can wear such things!'<br>
On either side the doorway springs<br>
(As in a tropic jungle loom<br>
Masses of strange thick-petalled bloom<br>
And fruits mis-shapen) fold on fold<br>
A growth of sand-shoes rubber-soled,<br>
Clambering the door-posts, branching, spawning<br>
Their barbarous bunches like an awning<br>
Over the windows and the doors.<br>
But, framed among the other stores,<br>
Something has caught Miss Thompson's eye<br>
(O worldliness! O vanity!),<br>
A pair of slippers — scarlet plush.<br>
Miss Thompson feels a conscious blush<br>
Suffuse her face, as though her thought<br>
Had ventured further than it ought.<br><br>
But O that colour's rapturous singing<br>
And the answer in her lone heart ringing!<br>
She turns (O Guardian Angels, stop her<br>
From doing anything improper!)<br>
She turns; and see, she stoops and bungles<br>
In through the sand-shoes' hanging jungles,<br>
Away from light and common sense,<br>
Into the shop dim-lit and dense<br>
With smells of polish and tanned hide.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>Mrs. Watson.</i></td>
<td>Soon from a dark recess inside <br>
Fat Mrs. Watson comes slip-slop <br>
To mind the business of the shop.<br>
She walks flat-footed with a roll — <br>
A serviceable, homely soul,<br>
With kindly, ugly face like dough,<br>
Hair dull and colourless as tow.<br>
A huge Scotch pebble fills the space<br>
Between her bosom and her face.<br>
One sees her making beds all day.<br>
Miss Thompson lets her say her say:<br>
'So chilly for the time of year.<br>
It's ages since we saw you here.'<br>
Then, heart a-flutter, speech precise,<br>
Describes the shoes and asks the price.<br>
'Them, Miss? Ah, them is six-and-nine.'<br>
Miss Thompson shudders down the spine<br>
(Dream of impossible romance).<br>
She eyes them with a wistful glance,<br>
Torn between good and evil. Yes,</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>Wrestles with a Temptation;</i></td>
<td>For half-a-minute and no less <br>
Miss Thompson strives with seven devils, <br>
Then, soaring over earthly levels</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>And is Saved. </i></td>
<td>Turns from the shoes with lingering touch — <br>
'Ah, six-and-nine is far too much.<br>
Sorry to trouble you. Good day!'</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>She visits the Fish-monger.</i></td>
<td>A little further down the way<br>
Stands Miles's fish-shop, whence is shed<br>
So strong a smell of fishes dead<br>
That people of a subtler sense<br>
Hold their breath and hurry thence.<br>
Miss Thompson hovers there and gazes:<br>
Her housewife's knowing eye appraises<br>
Salt and fresh, severely cons<br>
Kippers bright as tarnished bronze:<br>
Great cods disposed upon the sill,<br>
Chilly and wet, with gaping gill,<br>
Flat head, glazed eye, and mute, uncouth,<br>
Shapeless, wan, old-woman's mouth.<br>
Next a row of soles and plaice<br>
With querulous and twisted face,<br>
And red-eyed bloaters, golden-grey;<br>
Smoked haddocks ranked in neat array;<br>
A group of smelts that take the light<br>
Like slips of rainbow, pearly bright;<br>
Silver trout with rosy spots,<br>
And coral shrimps with keen black dots<br>
For eyes, and hard and jointed sheath<br>
And crisp tails curving underneath.<br>
But there upon the sanded floor,<br>
More wonderful in all that store<br>
Than anything on slab or shelf,<br>
Stood Miles, the fishmonger, himself.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>Mr. Miles.</i></td>
<td>Four-square he stood and filled the place.<br>
His huge hands and his jolly face<br>
Were red. He had a mouth to quaff<br>
Pint after pint: a sounding laugh,<br>
But wheezy at the end, and oft<br>
His eyes bulged outwards and he coughed. <br>
Aproned he stood from chin to toe. <br>
The apron's vertical long flow<br>
Warped grandly outwards to display<br>
His hale, round belly hung midway,<br>
Whose apex was securely bound<br>
With apron-strings wrapped round and round.<br>
Outside, Miss Thompson, small and staid,<br>
Felt, as she always felt, afraid<br>
Of this huge man who laughed so loud<br>
And drew the notice of the crowd.<br>
Awhile she paused in timid thought,<br>
Then promptly hurried in and bought<br>
'Two kippers, please. Yes, lovely weather.'<br>
'Two kippers? Sixpence altogether:'<br>
And in her basket laid the pair<br>
Wrapped face to face in newspaper.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>Relapses into Temptation:</i></td>
<td>Then on she went, as one half blind, <br>
For things were stirring in her mind; <br>
Then turned about with fixed intent<br>
And, heading for the bootshop, went</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>And Falls.</i></td>
<td>Straight in and bought the scarlet slippers <br>
And popped them in beside the kippers.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>She visits the Chemist,</i></td>
<td>So much for that. From there she tacked, <br>
Still flushed by this decisive act, <br>
Westward, and came without a stop <br>
To Mr. Wren the chemist's shop,<br>
And stood awhile outside to see<br>
The tall, big-bellied bottles three — <br>
Red, blue, and emerald, richly bright<br>
Each with its burning core of light.<br>
The bell chimed as she pushed the door.<br>
Spotless the oilcloth on the floor,<br>
Limpid as water each glass case,<br>
Each thing precisely in its place.<br>
Rows of small drawers, black-lettered each<br>
With curious words of foreign speech,<br>
Ranked high above the other ware.<br>
The old strange fragrance filled the air,<br>
A fragrance like the garden pink,<br>
But tinged with vague medicinal stink<br>
Of camphor, soap, new sponges, blent<br>
With chloroform and violet scent.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>Mr. Wren.</i></td>
<td>And Wren the chemist, tall and spare,<br>
Stood gaunt behind his counter there.<br>
Quiet and very wise he seemed,<br>
With skull-like face, bald head that gleamed;<br>
Through spectacles his eyes looked kind.<br>
He wore a pencil tucked behind<br>
His ear. And never he mistakes<br>
The wildest signs the doctor makes<br>
Prescribing drugs. Brown paper, string,<br>
He will not use for any thing,<br>
But all in neat white parcels packs<br>
And sticks them up with sealing-wax.<br>
Miss Thompson bowed and blushed, and then<br>
Undoubting bought of Mr. Wren,<br>
Being free from modern scepticism,<br>
A bottle for her rheumatism;<br>
Also some peppermints to take<br>
In case of wind; an oval cake<br>
Of scented soap; a penny square<br>
Of pungent naphthaline to scare<br>
The moth. And after Wren had wrapped<br>
And sealed the lot, Miss Thompson clapped<br>
Them in beside the fish and shoes;<br>
'Good day,' she says, and off she goes.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>Is Led away to the Pleasure of the Town,</i></td>
<td>Beelike Miss Thompson, whither next?<br>
Outside, you pause awhile, perplext, <br>
Your bearings lost. Then all comes back </td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>Such as Groceries and Millinery,</i></td>
<td>And round she wheels, hot on the track<br>
Of Giles the grocer, and from there<br>
To Emilie the milliner,<br>
There to be tempted by the sight<br>
Of hats and blouses fiercely bright. <br>
(O guard Miss Thompson, Powers that Be, <br>
From Crudeness and Vulgarity.) </td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>And other Allurements</i></td>
<td>Still on from shop to shop she goes <br>
With sharp bird's-eye, enquiring nose, <br>
Prying and peering, entering some, <br>
Oblivious of the thought of home.<br>
The town brimmed up with deep-blue haze,<br>
But still she stayed to flit and gaze,<br>
Her eyes ablur with rapturous sights,<br>
Her small soul full of small delights,<br>
Empty her purse, her basket filled. </td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>But at length is Convinced of Indiscretion.</i></td>
<td>The traffic in the town was stilled. <br>
The clock struck six. Men thronged the inns. <br>
Dear, dear, she should be home long since. </td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><i>And Returns Home.</i></td>
<td>Then as she climbed the misty downs <br>
The lamps were lighted in the town's <br>
Small streets. She saw them star by star<br>
Multiplying from afar;<br>
Till, mapped beneath her, she could trace<br>
Each street, and the wide square market-place<br>
Sunk deeper and deeper as she went<br>
Higher up the steep ascent.<br>
And all that soul-uplifting stir<br>
Step by step fell back from her,<br>
The glory gone, the blossoming<br>
Shrivelled, and she, a small, frail thing,<br>
Carrying her laden basket. Till<br>
Darkness and silence of the hill<br>
Received her in their restful care<br>
And stars came dropping through the air.<br><br>
But loudly, sweetly sang the slippers<br>
In the basket with the kippers;<br>
And loud and sweet the answering thrills<br>
From her lone heart on the hills.</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<br>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p><hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<h2><a name="poorpig">Edmund Blunden</a></h2>
<br>
<h3>The Poor Man's Pig</h3>
<blockquote>Already fallen plum-bloom stars the green<br>
And apple-boughs as knarred as old toads' backs<br>
Wear their small roses ere a rose is seen;<br>
The building thrush watches old Job who stacks<br>
The bright-peeled osiers on the sunny fence,<br>
The pent sow grunts to hear him stumping by,<br>
And tries to push the bolt and scamper thence,<br>
But her ringed snout still keeps her to the sty.<br><br>
Then out he lets her run; away she snorts<br>
In bundling gallop for the cottage door,<br>
With hungry hubbub begging crusts and orts,<br>
Then like the whirlwind bumping round once more;<br>
Nuzzling the dog, making the pullets run,<br>
And sulky as a child when her play's done.</blockquote><br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br>
<a name="almswom"></a><h3>Almswomen</h3><br>
<blockquote>At Quincey's moat the squandering village ends,<br>
And there in the almshouse dwell the dearest friends<br>
Of all the village, two old dames that cling<br>
As close as any trueloves in the spring.<br>
Long, long ago they passed threescore-and-ten,<br>
And in this doll's house lived together then;<br>
All things they have in common, being so poor,<br>
And their one fear, Death's shadow at the door.<br>
Each sundown makes them mournful, each sunrise<br>
Brings back the brightness in their failing eyes.<br><br>
How happy go the rich fair-weather days<br>
When on the roadside folk stare in amaze<br>
At such a honeycomb of fruit and flowers<br>
As mellows round their threshold; what long hours<br>
They gloat upon their steepling hollyhocks,<br>
Bee's balsams, feathery southernwood, and stocks,<br>
Fiery dragon's-mouths, great mallow leaves<br>
For salves, and lemon-plants in bushy sheaves,<br>
Shagged Esau's-hands with five green finger-tips.<br>
Such old sweet names are ever on their lips.<br>
As pleased as little children where these grow<br>
In cobbled pattens and worn gowns they go,<br>
Proud of their wisdom when on gooseberry shoots<br>
They stuck eggshells to fright from coming fruits<br>
The brisk-billed rascals; pausing still to see<br>
Their neighbour owls saunter from tree to tree,<br>
Or in the hushing half-light mouse the lane<br>
Long-winged and lordly.<br>
But when those hours wane,<br>
Indoors they ponder, scared by the harsh storm<br>
Whose pelting saracens on the window swarm,<br>
And listen for the mail to clatter past<br>
And church clock's deep bay withering on the blast;<br>
They feed the fire that flings a freakish light <br>
On pictured kings and queens grotesquely bright,<br>
Platters and pitchers, faded calendars<br>
And graceful hour-glass trim with lavenders.<br><br>
Many a time they kiss and cry, and pray<br>
That both be summoned in the self-same day,<br>
And wiseman linnet tinkling in his cage<br>
End too with them the friendship of old age,<br>
And all together leave their treasured room<br>
Some bell-like evening when the may's in bloom.</blockquote><br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="perfish"></a><h3>Perch-Fishing</h3>
<blockquote>On the far hill the cloud of thunder grew<br>
And sunlight blurred below; but sultry blue<br>
Burned yet on the valley water where it hoards<br>
Behind the miller's elmen floodgate boards,<br>
And there the wasps, that lodge them ill-concealed<br>
In the vole's empty house, still drove afield<br>
To plunder touchwood from old crippled trees<br>
And build their young ones their hutched nurseries;<br>
Still creaked the grasshoppers' rasping unison<br>
Nor had the whisper through the tansies run<br>
Nor weather-wisest bird gone home.<br>
How then<br>
Should wry eels in the pebbled shallows ken<br>
Lightning coming? troubled up they stole<br>
To the deep-shadowed sullen water-hole,<br>
Among whose warty snags the quaint perch lair.<br>
As cunning stole the boy to angle there,<br>
Muffling least tread, with no noise balancing through<br>
The hangdog alder-boughs his bright bamboo.<br>
Down plumbed the shuttled ledger, and the quill<br>
On the quicksilver water lay dead still.<br><br>
A sharp snatch, swirling to-fro of the line,<br>
He's lost, he's won, with splash and scuffling shine<br>
Past the low-lapping brandy-flowers drawn in,<br>
The ogling hunchback perch with needled fin.<br>
And there beside him one as large as he,<br>
Following his hooked mate, careless who shall see<br>
Or what befall him, close and closer yet — <br>
The startled boy might take him in his net<br>
That folds the other.<br>
Slow, while on the clay,<br>
The other flounces, slow he sinks away.<br>
What agony usurps that watery brain<br>
For comradeship of twenty summers slain, <br>
For such delights below the flashing weir<br>
And up the sluice-cut, playing buccaneer<br>
Among the minnows; lolling in hot sun<br>
When bathing vagabonds had drest and done;<br>
Rootling in salty flannel-weed for meal<br>
And river shrimps, when hushed the trundling wheel;<br>
Snapping the dapping moth, and with new wonder<br>
Prowling through old drowned barges falling asunder.<br>
And O a thousand things the whole year through<br>
They did together, never more to do.</blockquote><br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="giapuff"></a><h3>The Giant Puffball</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>From what sad star I know not, but I found<br>
Myself new-born below the coppice rail,<br>
No bigger than the dewdrops and as round,<br>
In a soft sward, no cattle might assail.<br><br>
And so I gathered mightiness and grew<br>
With this one dream kindling in me, that I<br>
Should never cease from conquering light and dew<br>
Till my white splendour touched the trembling sky.<br><br>
A century of blue and stilly light<br>
Bowed down before me, the dew came again,<br>
The moon my sibyl worshipped through the night,<br>
The sun returned and long abode; but then<br><br>
Hoarse drooping darkness hung me with a shroud<br>
And switched at me with shrivelled leaves in scorn.<br>
Red morning stole beneath a grinning cloud,<br>
And suddenly clambering over dike and thorn<br><br>
A half-moon host of churls with flags and sticks<br>
Hallooed and hurtled up the partridge brood,<br>
And Death clapped hands from all the echoing thicks,<br>
And trampling envy spied me where I stood;<br><br>
Who haled me tired and quaking, hid me by,<br>
And came again after an age of cold,<br>
And hung me in the prison-house adry<br>
From the great crossbeam. Here defiled and old<br><br>
I perish through unnumbered hours, I swoon,<br>
Hacked with harsh knives to staunch a child's torn hand;<br>
And all my hopes must with my body soon<br>
Be but as crouching dust and wind-blown sand.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="chgrav"></a><h3>The Child's Grave</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>I came to the churchyard where pretty Joy lies<br>
On a morning in April, a rare sunny day;<br>
Such bloom rose around, and so many birds' cries<br>
That I sang for delight as I followed the way.<br><br>
I sang for delight in the ripening of spring,<br>
For dandelions even were suns come to earth;<br>
Not a moment went by but a new lark took wing<br>
To wait on the season with melody's mirth.<br><br>
Love-making birds were my mates all the road,<br>
And who would wish surer delight for the eye<br>
Than to see pairing goldfinches gleaming abroad<br>
Or yellowhammers sunning on paling and sty?<br><br>
And stocks in the almswomen's garden were blown,<br>
With rich Easter roses each side of the door;<br>
The lazy white owls in the glade cool and lone<br>
Paid calls on their cousins in the elm's chambered core.<br><br>
This peace, then, and happiness thronged me around.<br>
Nor could I go burdened with grief, but made merry<br>
Till I came to the gate of that overgrown ground<br>
Where scarce once a year sees the priest come to bury.<br><br>
Over the mounds stood the nettles in pride,<br>
And, where no fine flowers, there kind weeds dared to wave;<br>
It seemed but as yesterday she lay by my side,<br>
And now my dog ate of the grass on her grave.<br><br>
He licked my hand wondering to see me muse so,<br>
And wished I would lead on the journey or home,<br>
As though not a moment of spring were to go<br>
In brooding; but I stood, if her spirit might come<br><br>
And tell me her life, since we left her that day<br>
In the white lilied coffin, and rained down our tears;<br>
But the grave held no answer, though long I should stay;<br>
How strange that this clay should mingle with hers!<br><br>
So I called my good dog, and went on my way;<br>
Joy's spirit shone then in each flower I went by,<br>
And clear as the noon, in coppice and ley,<br>
Her sweet dawning smile and her violet eye!</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="aprbye"></a><h3>April Byeway</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Friend whom I never saw, yet dearest friend,<br>
Be with me travelling on the byeway now<br>
In April's month and mood: our steps shall bend<br>
By the shut smithy with its penthouse brow<br>
Armed round with many a felly and crackt plough:<br>
And we will mark in his white smock the mill<br>
Standing aloof, long numbed to any wind,<br>
That in his crannies mourns, and craves him still;<br>
But now there is not any grain to grind,<br>
And even the master lies too deep for winds to find.<br><br>
Grieve not at these: for there are mills amain<br>
With lusty sails that leap and drop away<br>
On further knolls, and lads to fetch the grain.<br>
The ash-spit wickets on the green betray<br>
New games begun and old ones put away.<br>
Let us fare on, dead friend, O deathless friend,<br>
Where under his old hat as green as moss<br>
The hedger chops and finds new gaps to mend,<br>
And on his bonfires burns the thorns and dross,<br>
And hums a hymn, the best, thinks he, that ever was.<br><br>
There the grey guinea-fowl stands in the way,<br>
The young black heifer and the raw-ribbed mare,<br>
And scorn to move for tumbril or for dray,<br>
And feel themselves as good as farmers there.<br>
From the young corn the prick-eared leverets stare<br>
At strangers come to spy the land — small sirs,<br>
We bring less danger than the very breeze<br>
Who in great zig-zag blows the bee, and whirs<br>
In bluebell shadow down the bright green leas;<br>
From whom in frolic fit the chopt straw darts and flees.<br><br>
The cornel steepling up in white shall know<br>
The two friends passing by, and poplar smile<br>
All gold within; the church-top fowl shall glow<br>
To lure us on, and we shall rest awhile<br>
Where the wild apple blooms above the stile;<br>
The yellow frog beneath blinks up half bold,<br>
Then scares himself into the deeper green.<br>
And thus spring was for you in days of old,<br>
And thus will be when I too walk unseen<br>
By one that thinks me friend, the best that there has been.<br><br>
All our lone journey laughs for joy, the hours<br>
Like honey-bees go home in new-found light<br>
Past the cow pond amazed with twinkling flowers<br>
And antique chalk-pit newly delved to white,<br>
Or idle snow-plough nearly hid from sight.<br>
The blackbird sings us home, on a sudden peers<br>
The round tower hung with ivy's blackened chains,<br>
Then past the little green the byeway veers,<br>
The mill-sweeps torn, the forge with cobwebbed panes<br>
That have so many years looked out across the plains.<br><br>
But the old forge and mill are shut and done,<br>
The tower is crumbling down, stone by stone falls;<br>
An ague doubt comes creeping in the sun,<br>
The sun himself shudders, the day appals,<br>
The concourse of a thousand tempests sprawls<br>
Over the blue-lipped lakes and maddening groves,<br>
Like agonies of gods the clouds are whirled,<br>
The stormwind like the demon huntsman roves — <br>
Still stands my friend, though all's to chaos hurled,<br>
The unseen friend, the one last friend in all the world.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<h2><a name="caplion">William H. Davies</a></h2>
<br>
<h3>The Captive Lion</h3><br>
<blockquote>Thou that in fury with thy knotted tail<br>
Hast made this iron floor thy beaten drum;<br>
That now in silence walkst thy little space — <br>
Like a sea-captain — careless what may come:<br><br>
What power has brought thy majesty to this,<br>
Who gave those eyes their dull and sleepy look;<br>
Who took their lightning out, and from thy throat<br>
The thunder when the whole wide forest shook?<br><br>
It was that man who went again, alone,<br>
Into thy forest dark — Lord, he was brave!<br>
That man a fly has killed, whose bones are left<br>
Unburied till an earthquake digs his grave.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="birdang"></a><h3>A Bird's Anger</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>A summer's morning that has but one voice;<br>
Five hundred stocks, like golden lovers, lean<br>
Their heads together, in their quiet way,<br>
And but one bird sings, of a number seen.<br><br>
It is the lark, that louder, louder sings,<br>
As though but this one thought possessed his mind:<br>
'You silent robin, blackbird, thrush, and finch,<br>
I'll sing enough for all you lazy kind!'<br><br>
And when I hear him at this daring task,<br>
'Peace, little bird,' I say, 'and take some rest;<br>
Stop that wild, screaming fire of angry song,<br>
Before it makes a coffin of your nest.'</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="villaind"></a><h3>The Villain</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>While joy gave clouds the light of stars,<br>
That beamed where'er they looked;<br>
And calves and lambs had tottering knees,<br>
Excited, while they sucked;<br>
While every bird enjoyed his song,<br>
Without one thought of harm or wrong — <br>
I turned my head and saw the wind,<br>
Not far from where I stood,<br>
Dragging the corn by her golden hair,<br>
Into a dark and lonely wood.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="lovcaut"></a><h3>Love's Caution</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Tell them, when you are home again,<br>
How warm the air was now;<br>
How silent were the birds and leaves,<br>
And of the moon's full glow;<br>
And how we saw afar<br>
A falling star:<br>
It was a tear of pure delight<br>
Ran down the face of Heaven this happy night.<br><br>
Our kisses are but love in flower,<br>
Until that greater time<br>
When, gathering strength, those flowers take wing,<br>
And Love can reach his prime.<br>
And now, my heart's delight,<br>
Good night, good night;<br>
Give me the last sweet kiss — <br>
But do not breathe at home one word of this!</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="wasthrs"></a><h3>Wasted Hours</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>How many buds in this warm light<br>
Have burst out laughing into leaves!<br>
And shall a day like this be gone<br>
Before I seek the wood that holds<br>
The richest music known?<br><br>
Too many times have nightingales<br>
Wasted their passion on my sleep,<br>
And brought repentance soon:<br>
But this one night I'll seek the woods,<br>
The nightingale, and moon.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="truthd"></a><h3>The Truth</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Since I have seen a bird one day,<br>
His head pecked more than half away;<br>
That hopped about, with but one eye,<br>
Ready to fight again, and die — <br>
Ofttimes since then their private lives<br>
Have spoilt that joy their music gives.<br><br>
So when I see this robin now,<br>
Like a red apple on the bough,<br>
And question why he sings so strong,<br>
For love, or for the love of song;<br>
Or sings, maybe, for that sweet rill<br>
Whose silver tongue is never still — <br><br>
Ah, now there comes this thought unkind,<br>
Born of the knowledge in my mind:<br>
He sings in triumph that last night<br>
He killed his father in a fight;<br>
And now he'll take his mother's blood — <br>
The last strong rival for his food.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<h2><a name="mothd">Walter de la Mare</a></h2>
<br>
<h3>The Moth</h3>
<blockquote>Isled in the midnight air, <br>
Musked with the dark's faint bloom,<br>
Out into glooming and secret haunts<br>
The flame cries, 'Come!'<br><br>
Lovely in dye and fan,<br>
A-tremble in shimmering grace,<br>
A moth from her winter swoon<br>
Uplifts her face:<br><br>
Stares from her glamorous eyes;<br>
Wafts her on plumes like mist;<br>
In ecstasy swirls and sways<br>
To her strange tryst.</blockquote><br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p><hr width="50%" align="right"><br>
<a name="sotvoce"></a><h3><i>Sotto Voce</i></h3><br>
<br>
<i>To Edward Thomas</i><br>
<br>
<blockquote>The haze of noon wanned silver-grey,<br>
The soundless mansion of the sun;<br>
The air made visible in his ray,<br>
Like molten glass from furnace run,<br>
Quivered o'er heat-baked turf and stone<br>
And the flower of the gorse burned on — <br>
Burned softly as gold of a child's fair hair<br>
Along each spiky spray, and shed<br>
Almond-like incense in the air<br>
Whereon our senses fed.<br><br>
At foot — a few sparse harebells: blue<br>
And still as were the friend's dark eyes<br>
That dwelt on mine, transfixèd through<br>
With sudden ecstatic surmise.<br><br>
'Hst!' he cried softly, smiling, and lo,<br>
Stealing amidst that maze gold-green,<br>
I heard a whispering music flow<br>
From guileful throat of bird, unseen: — <br>
So delicate, the straining ear<br>
Scarce carried its faint syllabling<br>
Into a heart caught-up to hear<br>
That inmost pondering<br>
Of bird-like self with self. We stood,<br>
In happy trance-like solitude,<br>
Hearkening a lullay grieved and sweet — <br>
As when on isle uncharted beat<br>
'Gainst coral at the palm-tree's root,<br>
With brine-clear, snow-white foam afloat,<br>
The wailing, not of water or wind — <br>
A husht, far, wild, divine lament, <br>
When Prospero his wizardry bent <br>
Winged Ariel to bind....<br>
Then silence, and o'er-flooding noon.<br>
I raised my head; smiled too. And he — <br>
Moved his great hand, the magic gone — <br>
Gently amused to see<br>
My ignorant wonderment. He sighed.<br>
'It was a nightingale,' he said,<br>
'That <i>sotto voce</i> cons the song<br>
He'll sing when dark is spread;<br>
And Night's vague hours are sweet and long,<br>
And we are laid abed.'</blockquote><br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p><hr width="50%" align="right"><br>
<a name="sephina"></a><h3>Sephina</h3><br>
<blockquote>Black lacqueys at the wide-flung door<br>
Stand mute as men of wood.<br>
Gleams like a pool the ballroom floor — <br>
A burnished solitude.<br>
A hundred waxen tapers shine<br>
From silver sconces; softly pine<br>
'Cello, fiddle, mandoline,<br>
To music deftly wooed — <br>
And dancers in cambric, satin, silk,<br>
With glancing hair and cheeks like milk,<br>
Wreathe, curtsey, intertwine.<br><br>
The drowse of roses lulls the air<br>
Wafted up the marble stair.<br>
Like warbling water clucks the talk.<br>
From room to room in splendour walk<br>
Guests, smiling in the æry sheen;<br>
Carmine and azure, white and green,<br>
They stoop and languish, pace and preen<br>
Bare shoulder, painted fan,<br>
Gemmed wrist and finger, neck of swan;<br>
And still the pluckt strings warble on;<br>
Still from the snow-bowered, link-lit street<br>
The muffled hooves of horses beat;<br>
And harness rings; and foam-fleckt bit<br>
Clanks as the slim heads toss and stare<br>
From deep, dark eyes. Smiling, at ease,<br>
Mount to the porch the pomped grandees<br>
In lonely state, by twos, and threes,<br>
Exchanging languid courtesies,<br>
While torches fume and flare.<br><br>
And now the banquet calls. A blare<br>
Of squalling trumpets clots the air. <br>
And, flocking out, streams up the rout; <br>
And lilies nod to velvet's swish;<br>
And peacocks prim on gilded dish,<br>
Vast pies thick-glazed, and gaping fish,<br>
Towering confections crisp as ice,<br>
Jellies aglare like cockatrice,<br>
With thousand savours tongues entice.<br>
Fruits of all hues barbaric gloom — <br>
Pomegranate, quince and peach and plum,<br>
Mandarine, grape, and cherry clear<br>
Englobe each glassy chandelier,<br>
Where nectarous flowers their sweets distil — <br>
Jessamine, tuberose, chamomill,<br>
Wild-eye narcissus, anemone,<br>
Tendril of ivy and vinery.<br><br>
Now odorous wines the goblets fill;<br>
Gold-cradled meats the menials bear<br>
From gilded chair to gilded chair:<br>
Now roars the talk like crashing seas,<br>
Foams upward to the painted frieze,<br>
Echoes and ebbs. Still surges in,<br>
To yelp of hautboy and violin,<br>
Plumed and bedazzling, rosed and rare,<br>
Dance-bemused, with cheek aglow,<br>
Stooping the green-twined portal through,<br>
Sighing with laughter, debonair,<br>
That concourse of the proud and fair — <br>
And lo! 'La, la!<br>
Mamma ... Mamma!'<br>
Falls a small cry in the dark and calls — <br>
'I see you standing there!'<br><br>
Fie, fie, Sephina! not in bed!<br>
Crouched on the staircase overhead,<br>
Like ghost she gloats, her lean hand laid<br>
On alabaster balustrade,<br>
And gazes on and on<br>
Down on that wondrous to and fro<br>
Till finger and foot are cold as snow,<br>
And half the night is gone;<br>
And dazzled eyes are sore bestead;<br>
Nods drowsily the sleek-locked head;<br>
And, vague and far, spins, fading out,<br>
That rainbow-coloured, reeling rout,<br>
And, with faint sighs, her spirit flies<br>
Into deep sleep....<br><br>
Come, Stranger, peep!<br>
Was ever cheek so wan?</blockquote><br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p><hr width="50%" align="right"><br>
<a name="titmse"></a><h3>The Titmouse</h3><br><br>
<blockquote>If you would happy company win, <br>
Dangle a palm-nut from a tree,<br>
Idly in green to sway and spin,<br>
Its snow-pulped kernel for bait; and see,<br>
A nimble titmouse enter in.<br><br>
Out of earth's vast unknown of air,<br>
Out of all summer, from wave to wave,<br>
He'll perch, and prank his feathers fair,<br>
Jangle a glass-clear wildering stave,<br>
And take his commons there — <br><br>
This tiny son of life; this spright,<br>
By momentary Human sought,<br>
Plume will his wing in the dappling light,<br>
Clash timbrel shrill and gay — <br>
And into time's enormous nought,<br>
Sweet-fed, will flit away.</blockquote><br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p><hr width="50%" align="right"><br>
<br>
<a name="spose"></a><h3>Suppose</h3><br>
<blockquote>Suppose ... and suppose that a wild little Horse of Magic<br>
Came cantering out of the sky,<br>
With bridle of silver, and into the saddle I mounted,<br>
To fly — and to fly;<br><br>
And we stretched up into the air, fleeting on in the sunshine,<br>
A speck in the gleam,<br>
On galloping hoofs, his mane in the wind out-flowing,<br>
In a shadowy stream;<br><br>
And oh, when, all lone, the gentle star of evening<br>
Came crinkling into the blue,<br>
A magical castle we saw in the air, like a cloud of moonlight,<br>
As onward we flew;<br><br>
And across the green moat on the drawbridge we foamed and we snorted,<br>
And there was a beautiful Queen<br>
Who smiled at me strangely; and spoke to my wild little Horse, too — <br>
A lovely and beautiful Queen;<br><br>
And she cried with delight — and delight — to her delicate maidens,<br>
'Behold my daughter — my dear!'<br>
And they crowned me with flowers, and then to their harps sate playing,<br>
Solemn and clear;<br><br>
And magical cakes and goblets were spread on the table; <br>
And at window the birds came in; <br>
Hopping along with bright eyes, pecking crumbs from the platters,<br>
And sipped of the wine;<br><br>
And splashing up — up to the roof tossed fountains of crystal;<br>
And Princes in scarlet and green<br>
Shot with their bows and arrows, and kneeled with their dishes<br>
Of fruits for the Queen;<br><br>
And we walked in a magical garden with rivers and bowers,<br>
And my bed was of ivory and gold;<br>
And the Queen breathed soft in my ear a song of enchantment — <br>
And I never grew old....<br><br>
And I never, never came back to the earth, oh, never and never;<br>
How mother would cry and cry!<br>
There'd be snow on the fields then, and all these sweet flowers in the winter<br>
Would wither, and die....<br><br>
Suppose ... and suppose ...</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a></p><hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="crnrst"></a><h3>The Corner Stone</h3><br>
<blockquote>Sterile these stones<br>
By time in ruin laid.<br>
Yet many a creeping thing<br>
Its haven has made<br>
In these least crannies, where falls<br>
Dark's dew, and noonday shade.<br><br>
The claw of the tender bird<br>
Finds lodgment here;<br>
Dye-winged butterflies poise;<br>
Emmet and beetle steer<br>
Their busy course; the bee<br>
Drones, laden, near.<br><br>
Their myriad-mirrored eyes<br>
Great day reflect.<br>
By their exquisite farings<br>
Is this granite specked;<br>
Is trodden to infinite dust;<br>
By gnawing lichens decked.<br><br>
Toward what eventual dream<br>
Sleeps its cold on,<br>
When into ultimate dark<br>
These lives shall be gone,<br>
And even of man not a shadow remain<br>
Of all he has done?</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp2">Contents, p. 2</a></p><hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<h2><a name="persddr">John Drinkwater</a></h2>
<br>
<i>Then I asked: 'Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so, make it so?'<br>
<br>
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.'<br>
<br>
Blake's <b>Marriage of Heaven and Hell</b>.</i><br>
<br>
<h3>Persuasion</h3><br>
<table summary="Persuasion" cellspacing="50" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><span style="font-size: 150%;">I</span</td>
<td>At any moment love unheralded<br>
Comes, and is king. Then as, with a fall<br>
Of frost, the buds upon the hawthorn spread<br>
Are withered in untimely burial,<br>
So love, occasion gone, his crown puts by,<br>
And as a beggar walks unfriended ways,<br>
With but remembered beauty to defy<br>
The frozen sorrows of unsceptred days.<br>
Or in that later travelling he comes<br>
Upon a bleak oblivion, and tells<br>
Himself, again, again, forgotten tombs<br>
Are all now that love was, and blindly spells<br>
His royal state of old a glory cursed,<br>
Saying 'I have forgot', and that's the worst.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><span style="font-size: 150%;">II</span</td>
<td>If we should part upon that one embrace,<br>
And set our courses ever, each from each,<br>
With all our treasure but a fading face<br>
And little ghostly syllables of speech;<br>
Should beauty's moment never be renewed,<br>
And moons on moons look out for us in vain,<br>
And each but whisper from a solitude<br>
To hear but echoes of a lonely pain, — <br>
Still in a world that fortune cannot change<br>
Should walk those two that once were you and I,<br>
Those two that once when moon and stars were strange<br>
Poets above us in an April sky,<br>
Heard a voice falling on the midnight sea,<br>
Mute, and for ever, but for you and me.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><span style="font-size: 150%;">III</span</td>
<td>This nature, this great flood of life, this cheat<br>
That uses us as baubles for her coat,<br>
Takes love, that should be nothing but the beat<br>
Of blood for its own beauty, by the throat,<br>
Saying, you are my servant and shall do<br>
My purposes, or utter bitterness<br>
Shall be your wage, and nothing come to you<br>
But stammering tongues that never can confess.<br>
Undaunted then in answer here I cry,<br>
'You wanton, that control the hand of him<br>
Who masquerades as wisdom in a sky<br>
Where holy, holy, sing the cherubim,<br>
I will not pay one penny to your name<br>
Though all my body crumble into shame.'</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><span style="font-size: 150%;">IV</span</td>
<td>Woman, I once had whimpered at your hand,<br>
Saying that all the wisdom that I sought<br>
Lay in your brain, that you were as the sand<br>
Should cleanse the muddy mirrors of my thought;<br>
I should have read in you the character<br>
Of oracles that quick a thousand lays,<br>
Looked in your eyes, and seen accounted there<br>
Solomons legioned for bewildered praise.<br>
Now have I learnt love as love is. I take<br>
Your hand, and with no inquisition learn<br>
All that your eyes can tell, and that's to make<br>
A little reckoning and brief, then turn<br>
Away, and in my heart I hear a call,<br>
'I love, I love, I love'; and that is all.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><span style="font-size: 150%;">V</span</td>
<td>When all the hungry pain of love I bear, <br>
And in poor lightless thought but burn and burn,<br>
And wit goes hunting wisdom everywhere,<br>
Yet can no word of revelation learn;<br>
When endlessly the scales of yea and nay<br>
In dreadful motion fall and rise and fall,<br>
When all my heart in sorrow I could pay<br>
Until at last were left no tear at all;<br>
Then if with tame or subtle argument<br>
Companions come and draw me to a place<br>
Where words are but the tappings of content,<br>
And life spreads all her garments with a grace,<br>
I curse that ease, and hunger in my heart<br>
Back to my pain and lonely to depart.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><span style="font-size: 150%;">VI</span</td>
<td>Not anything you do can make you mine,<br>
For enterprise with equal charity<br>
In duty as in love elect will shine,<br>
The constant slave of mutability.<br>
Nor can your words for all their honey breath<br>
Outsing the speech of many an older rhyme,<br>
And though my ear deliver them from death<br>
One day or two, it is so little time.<br>
Nor does your beauty in its excellence<br>
Excel a thousand in the daily sun,<br>
Yet must I put a period to pretence,<br>
And with my logic's catalogue have done,<br>
For act and word and beauty are but keys<br>
To unlock the heart, and you, dear love, are these.
</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><span style="font-size: 150%;">VII</span</td>
<td>Never the heart of spring had trembled so<br>
As on that day when first in Paradise<br>
We went afoot as novices to know<br>
For the first time what blue was in the skies,<br>
What fresher green than any in the grass,<br>
And how the sap goes beating to the sun,<br>
And tell how on the clocks of beauty pass<br>
Minute by minute till the last is done.<br>
But not the new birds singing in the brake,<br>
And not the buds of our discovery,<br>
The deeper blue, the wilder green, the ache<br>
For beauty that we shadow as we see,<br>
Made heaven, but we, as love's occasion brings,<br>
Took these, and made them Paradisal things.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><span style="font-size: 150%;">VIII</span</td>
<td>The lilacs offer beauty to the sun,<br>
Throbbing with wonder as eternally<br>
For sad and happy lovers they have done<br>
With the first bloom of summer in the sky;<br>
Yet they are newly spread in honour now,<br>
Because, for every beam of beauty given<br>
Out of that clustering heart, back to the bough<br>
My love goes beating, from a greater heaven.<br>
So be my love for good or sorry luck<br>
Bound, it has virtue on this April eve<br>
That shall be there for ever when they pluck<br>
Lilacs for love. And though I come to grieve<br>
Long at a frosty tomb, there still shall be<br>
My happy lyric in the lilac tree.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><span style="font-size: 150%;">IX</span</td>
<td>When they make silly question of my love, <br>
And speak to me of danger and disdain,<br>
And look by fond old argument to move<br>
My wisdom to docility again;<br>
When to my prouder heart they set the pride<br>
Of custom and the gossip of the street,<br>
And show me figures of myself beside<br>
A self diminished at their judgment seat;<br>
Then do I sit as in a drowsy pew<br>
To hear a priest expounding th' heavenly will,<br>
Defiling wonder that he never knew<br>
With stolen words of measured good and ill;<br>
For to the love that knows their counselling,<br>
Out of my love contempt alone I bring.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><span style="font-size: 150%;">X</span</td>
<td>Not love of you is most that I can bring,<br>
Since what I am to love you is the test,<br>
And should I love you more than any thing <br>
You would but be of idle love possessed,<br>
A mere love wandering in appetite,<br>
Counting your glories and yet bringing none,<br>
Finding in you occasions of delight,<br>
A thief of payment for no service done.<br>
But when of labouring life I make a song<br>
And bring it you, as that were my reward,<br>
To let what most is me to you belong,<br>
Then do I come of high possessions lord,<br>
And loving life more than my love of you<br>
I give you love more excellently true.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><span style="font-size: 150%;">XI</span</td>
<td>What better tale could any lover tell<br>
When age or death his reckoning shall write<br>
Than thus, 'Love taught me only to rebel<br>
Against these things, — the thieving of delight<br>
Without return; the gospellers of fear<br>
Who, loving, yet deny the truth they bear,<br>
Sad-suited lusts with lecherous hands to smear<br>
The cloth of gold they would but dare not wear.<br>
And love gave me great knowledge of the trees,<br>
And singing birds, and earth with all her flowers;<br>
Wisdom I knew and righteousness in these,<br>
I lived in their atonement all my hours;<br>
Love taught me how to beauty's eye alone<br>
The secret of the lying heart is known.'</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td><span style="font-size: 150%;">XII</span</td>
<td>This then at last; we may be wiser far<br>
Than love, and put his folly to our measure,<br>
Yet shall we learn, poor wizards that we are, <br>
That love chimes not nor motions at our pleasure. <br>
We bid him come, and light an eager fire, <br>
And he goes down the road without debating; <br>
We cast him from the house of our desire,<br>
And when at last we leave he will be waiting.<br>
And in the end there is no folly but this,<br>
To counsel love out of our little learning.<br>
For still he knows where rotten timber is,<br>
And where the boughs for the long winter burning; <br>
And when life needs no more of us at all,<br>
Love's word will be the last that we recall.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
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<h2><a name="illask">John Freeman</a></h2>
<br>
<h3>I Will Ask</h3><br>
<blockquote>I will ask primrose and violet to spend for you <br>
Their smell and hue,<br>
And the bold, trembling anemone awhile to spare<br>
Her flowers starry fair;<br>
Or the flushed wild apple and yet sweeter thorn<br>
Their sweetness to keep<br>
Longer than any fire-bosomed flower born<br>
Between midnight and midnight deep.<br><br>
And I will take celandine, nettle and parsley, white<br>
In its own green light,<br>
Or milkwort and sorrel, thyme, harebell and meadow-sweet<br>
Lifting at your feet,<br>
And ivy-blossom beloved of soft bees; I will take<br>
The loveliest — <br>
The seeding grasses that bend with the winds, and shake<br>
Though the winds are at rest.<br><br>
'For me?' you will ask. 'Yes! surely they wave for you<br>
Their smell and hue,<br>
And you away all that is rare were so much less<br>
By your missed happiness.'<br>
Yet I know grass and weed, ivy and apple and thorn<br>
Their whole sweet would keep,<br>
Though in Eden no human spirit on a shining morn<br>
Had awaked from sleep.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp2">Contents, p. 2</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="evesky"></a><h3>The Evening Sky</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Rose-bosom'd and rose-limb'd<br>
With eyes of dazzling bright<br>
Shakes Venus mid the twined boughs of the night;<br>
Rose-limb'd, soft-stepping<br>
From low bough to bough,<br>
Shaking the wide-hung starry fruitage — dimmed<br>
Its bloom of snow<br>
By that sole planetary glow.<br><br>
Venus, avers the astronomer,<br>
Not thus idly dancing goes<br>
Flushing the eternal orchard with wild rose.<br>
She through ether burns<br>
Outpacing planetary earth,<br>
And ere two years triumphantly returns,<br>
And again wave-like swelling flows,<br>
And again her flashing apparition comes and goes.<br><br>
This we have not seen,<br>
No heavenly courses set,<br>
No flight unpausing through a void serene:<br>
But when eve clears,<br>
Arises Venus as she first uprose<br>
Stepping the shaken boughs among,<br>
And in her bosom glows<br>
The warm light hidden in sunny snows.<br><br>
She shakes the clustered stars<br>
Lightly, as she goes<br>
Amid the unseen branches of the night,<br>
Rose-limb'd, rose-bosom'd bright.<br><br>
She leaps: they shake and pale; she glows — <br>
And who but knows<br>
How the rejoiced heart aches<br>
When Venus all his starry vision shakes;<br><br>
When through his mind<br>
Tossing with random airs of an unearthly wind,<br>
Rose-bosom'd, rose-limb'd,<br>
The mistress of his starry vision arises,<br>
And the boughs glittering sway<br>
And the stars pale away,<br>
And the enlarging heaven glows<br>
As Venus light-foot mid the twined branches goes.</blockquote>
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<a name="cavesf"></a><h3>The Caves</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Like the tide — knocking at the hollowed cliff<br>
And running into each green cave as if<br>
In the cave's night to keep<br>
Eternal motion grave and deep — <br><br>
That, even while each broken wave repeats<br>
Its answered knocking and with bruised hand beats<br>
Again, again, again,<br>
Tossed between ecstasy and pain;<br><br>
Still in the folded hollow darkness swells,<br>
Sinks, swells, and every green-hung hollow fills,<br>
Till there's no room for sound<br>
Save that old anger rolled around;<br><br>
So into every hollow cliff of life,<br>
Into this heart's deep cave so loud with strife,<br>
In tunnels I knew not,<br>
In lightless labyrinths of thought,<br><br>
The unresting tide has run and the dark filled,<br>
Even the vibration of old strife is stilled;<br>
The wave returning bears<br>
Muted those time-breathing airs.<br><br>
— How shall the million-footed tide still tread<br>
These hollows and in each cold void cave spread?<br>
How shall Love here keep<br>
Eternal motion grave and deep?</blockquote>
<br>
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<a name="mnbath"></a><h3>Moon-Bathers</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Falls from her heaven the Moon, and stars sink burning<br>
Into the sea where blackness rims the sea,<br>
Silently quenched. Faint light that the waves hold<br>
Is only light remaining; yet still gleam<br>
The sands where those now-sleeping young moon-bathers<br>
Came dripping out of the sea and from their arms<br>
Shook flakes of light, dancing on the foamy edge<br>
Of quiet waves. They were all things of light<br>
Tossed from the sea to dance under the Moon — <br>
Her nuns, dancing within her dying round,<br>
Clear limbs and breasts silvered with Moon and waves<br>
And quick with windlike mood and body's joy,<br>
Withdrawn from alien vows, by wave and wind<br>
Lightly absolved and lightly all forgetting.<br><br>
An hour ago they left. Remains the gleam<br>
Of their late motion on the salt sea-meadow,<br>
As loveliest hues linger when the sun's gone<br>
And float in the heavens and die in reedy pools — <br>
So slowly, who shall say when light is gone?</blockquote>
<br>
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<a name="inolddays"></a><h3>In Those Old Days</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>In those old days you were called beautiful,<br>
But I have worn the beauty from your face;<br>
The flowerlike bloom has withered on your cheek<br>
With the harsh years, and the fire in your eyes<br>
Burns darker now and deeper, feeding on<br>
Beauty and the remembrance of things gone.<br>
Even your voice is altered when you speak,<br>
Or is grown mute with old anxiety<br>
For me.<br><br>
Even as a fire leaps into flame and burns<br>
Leaping and laughing in its lovely flight,<br>
And then under the flame a glowing dome<br>
Deepens slowly into blood-like light: — <br>
So did you flame and in flame take delight,<br>
So are you hollow'd now with aching fire.<br>
But I still warm me and make there my home,<br>
Still beauty and youth burn there invisibly<br>
For me.<br><br>
Now my lips falling on your silver'd skull,<br>
My fingers in the valleys of your cheeks,<br>
Or my hands in your thin strong hands fast caught,<br>
Your body clutched to mine, mine bent to yours:<br>
Now love undying feeds on love beautiful,<br>
Now, now I am but thought kissing your thought ...<br>
— And can it be in your heart's music speaks<br>
A deeper rhythm hearing mine: can it be<br>
Indeed for me?</blockquote>
<br>
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<a name="ctrplrs"></a><h3>Caterpillars</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Of caterpillars Fabre tells how day after day <br>
Around the rim of a vast earth pot they crawled,<br>
Tricked thither as they filed shuffling out one morn<br>
Head to tail when the common hunger called.<br><br>
Head to tail in a heaving ring day after day,<br>
Night after slow night, the starving mommets crept,<br>
Each following each, head to tail, day after day,<br>
An unbroken ring of hunger — then it was snapt.<br><br>
I thought of you, long-heaving, horned green caterpillars,<br>
As I lay awake. My thoughts crawled each after each,<br>
Crawling at night each after each on the same nerve,<br>
An unbroken ring of thoughts too sore for speech.<br><br>
Over and over and over and over again<br>
The same hungry thoughts and the hopeless same regrets,<br>
Over and over the same truths, again and again<br>
In a heaving ring returning the same regrets.</blockquote>
<br>
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<a name="chgef"></a><h3>Change</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>I am that creature and creator who<br>
Loosens and reins the waters of the sea,<br>
Forming the rocky marge anon anew.<br>
I stir the cold breasts of antiquity,<br>
And in the soft stone of the pyramid<br>
Move wormlike; and I flutter all those sands<br>
Whereunder lost and soundless time is hid.<br>
I shape the hills and valleys with these hands,<br>
And darken forests on their naked sides,<br>
And call the rivers from the vexing springs,<br>
And lead the blind winds into deserts strange.<br>
And in firm human bones the ill that hides<br>
Is mine, the fear that cries, the hope that sings.<br>
I am that creature and creator, Change.</blockquote>
<br>
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<h2><a name="firew">Wilfrid Gibson</a></h2>
<br>
<h3>Fire</h3>
<blockquote>In each black tile a mimic fire's aglow,<br>
And in the hearthlight old mahogany,<br>
Ripe with stored sunshine that in Mexico<br>
Poured like gold wine into the living tree<br>
Summer on summer through a century,<br>
Burns like a crater in the heart of night:<br>
And all familiar things in the ingle-light<br>
Glow with a secret strange intensity.<br><br>
And I remember hidden fires that burst<br>
Suddenly from the midnight while men slept,<br>
Long-smouldering rages in the darkness nursed<br>
That to an instant ravening fury leapt,<br>
And the old terror menacing evermore<br>
A crumbling world with fiery molten core.</blockquote><br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp2">Contents, p. 2</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="barbfell"></a><h3>Barbara Fell</h3>
<blockquote>Stephen, wake up! There's some one at the gate.<br>
Quick, to the window ... Oh, you'll be too late!<br>
I hear the front door opening quietly.<br>
Did you forget, last night, to turn the key?<br>
A foot is on the stairs — nay, just outside<br>
The very room — the door is opening wide...<br>
Stephen, wake up, wake up! Who's there? Who's there?<br>
I only feel a cold wind in my hair...<br>
Have I been dreaming, Stephen? Husband, wake<br>
And comfort me: I think my heart will break.<br>
I never knew you sleep so sound and still....<br>
O my heart's love, why is your hand so chill?</blockquote><br><br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp2">Contents, p. 2</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br>
<a name="philphoeb"></a><h3>Philip and Phœbe Ware</h3>
<blockquote>Who is that woman, Philip, standing there<br>
Before the mirror doing up her hair?<br><br>
You're dreaming, Phœbe, or the morning light<br>
Mixing and mingling with the dying night<br>
Makes shapes out of the darkness, and you see<br>
Some dream-remembered phantasy maybe.<br><br>
Yet it grows clearer with the growing day;<br>
And in the cold dawn light her hair is grey:<br>
Her lifted arms are naught but bone: her hands<br>
White withered claws that fumble as she stands<br>
Trying to pin that wisp into its place.<br>
O Philip, I must look upon her face<br>
There in the mirror. Nay, but I will rise<br>
And peep over her shoulder ... Oh, the eyes<br>
That burn out from that face of skin and bone,<br>
Searching my very marrow, are my own.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp2">Contents, p. 2</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="byweir"></a><h3>By the Weir</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>A scent of Esparto grass — and again I recall<br>
That hour we spent by the weir of the paper-mill<br>
Watching together the curving thunderous fall<br>
Of frothing amber, bemused by the roar until<br>
My mind was as blank as the speckless sheets that wound<br>
On the hot steel ironing-rollers perpetually turning<br>
In the humming dark rooms of the mill: all sense and discerning<br>
By the stunning and dazzling oblivion of hill-waters drowned. <br><br>
And my heart was empty of memory and hope and desire<br>
Till, rousing, I looked afresh on your face as you gazed — <br>
Behind you an old gnarled fruit-tree in one still fire<br>
Of innumerable flame in the sun of October blazed,<br>
Scarlet and gold that the first white frost would spill<br>
With eddying flicker and patter of dead leaves falling — <br>
looked on your face, as an outcast from Eden recalling<br>
A vision of Eve as she dallied bewildered and still<br><br>
By the serpent-encircled tree of knowledge that flamed<br>
With gold and scarlet of good and evil, her eyes<br>
Rapt on the river of life: then bright and untamed<br>
By the labour and sorrow and fear of a world that dies<br>
Your ignorant eyes looked up into mine; and I knew<br>
That never our hearts should be one till your young lips had tasted<br>
The core of the bitter-sweet fruit, and wise and toil-wasted<br>
You should stand at my shoulder an outcast from Eden too.</blockquote>
<br>
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<a name="worldsg"></a><h3>Worlds</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Through the pale green forest of tall bracken-stalks,<br>
Whose interwoven fronds, a jade-green sky,<br>
Above me glimmer, infinitely high,<br>
Towards my giant hand a beetle walks<br>
In glistening emerald mail; and as I lie<br>
Watching his progress through huge grassy blades<br>
And over pebble boulders, my own world fades<br>
And shrinks to the vision of a beetle's eye.<br><br>
Within that forest world of twilight green<br>
Ambushed with unknown perils, one endless day<br>
I travel down the beetle-trail between<br>
Huge glossy boles through green infinity ...<br>
Till flashes a glimpse of blue sea through the bracken asway,<br>
And my world is again a tumult of windy sea.</blockquote>
<br>
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<h2><a name="lostloveg">Robert Graves</a></h2>
<br>
<h3>Lost Love</h3>
<blockquote>His eyes are quickened so with grief,<br>
He can watch a grass or leaf<br>
Every instant grow; he can<br>
Clearly through a flint wall see,<br>
Or watch the startled spirit flee<br>
From the throat of a dead man.<br>
Across two counties he can hear,<br>
And catch your words before you speak.<br>
The woodlouse or the maggot's weak<br>
Clamour rings in his sad ear;<br>
And noise so slight it would surpass<br>
Credence: — drinking sound of grass,<br>
Worm-talk, clashing jaws of moth<br>
Chumbling holes in cloth:<br>
The groan of ants who undertake<br>
Gigantic loads for honour's sake — <br>
Their sinews creak, their breath comes thin:<br>
Whir of spiders when they spin,<br>
And minute whispering, mumbling, sighs<br>
Of idle grubs and flies.<br>
This man is quickened so with grief,<br>
He wanders god-like or like thief<br>
Inside and out, below, above,<br>
Without relief seeking lost love.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp2">Contents, p. 2</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="mornphoex"></a><h3>Morning Phœnix</h3><br>
<blockquote>In my body lives a flame,<br>
Flame that burns me all the day;<br>
When a fierce sun does the same,<br>
I am charred away.<br><br>
Who could keep a smiling wit,<br>
Roasted so in heart and hide,<br>
Turning on the sun's red spit,<br>
Scorched by love inside?<br><br>
Caves I long for and cold rocks,<br>
Minnow-peopled country brooks,<br>
Blundering gales of Equinox,<br>
Sunless valley-nooks,<br><br>
Daily so I might restore<br>
Calcined heart and shrivelled skin,<br>
A morning phœnix with proud roar<br>
Kindled new within.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp2">Contents, p. 2</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<h3><a name="lovchild">A Lover Since Childhood</a></h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Tangled in thought am I,<br>
Stumble in speech do I?<br>
Do I blunder and blush for the reason why?<br>
Wander aloof do I,<br>
Lean over gates and sigh,<br>
Making friends with the bee and the butterfly?<br><br>
If thus and thus I do,<br>
Dazed by the thought of you,<br>
Walking my sorrowful way in the early dew,<br>
My heart cut through and through<br>
In this despair of you,<br>
Starved for a word or a look will my hope renew:<br><br>
Give then a thought for me<br>
Walking so miserably,<br>
Wanting relief in the friendship of flower or tree;<br>
Do but remember, we<br>
Once could in love agree,<br>
Swallow your pride, let us be as we used to be.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp2">Contents, p. 2</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="sullmoodg"></a><h3>Sullen Moods</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Love, do not count your labour lost<br>
Though I turn sullen, grim, retired<br>
Even at your side; my thought is crossed<br>
With fancies by old longings fired.<br><br>
And when I answer you, some days<br>
Vaguely and wildly, do not fear<br>
That my love walks forbidden ways,<br>
Breaking the ties that hold it here.<br><br>
If I speak gruffly, this mood is<br>
Mere indignation at my own<br>
Shortcomings, plagues, uncertainties;<br>
I forget the gentler tone.<br><br>
'You,' now that you have come to be<br>
My one beginning, prime and end,<br>
I count at last as wholly 'me,'<br>
Lover no longer nor yet friend.<br><br>
Friendship is flattery, though close hid;<br>
Must I then flatter my own mind?<br>
And must (which laws of shame forbid)<br>
Blind love of you make self-love blind?<br><br>
... Do not repay me my own coin,<br>
The sharp rebuke, the frown, the groan;<br>
No, stir my memory to disjoin<br>
Your emanation from my own.<br><br>
Help me to see you as before<br>
When overwhelmed and dead, almost,<br>
I stumbled on that secret door<br>
Which saves the live man from the ghost.<br><br>
Be once again the distant light,<br>
Promise of glory not yet known<br>
In full perfection — -wasted quite<br>
When on my imperfection thrown.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp2">Contents, p. 2</a></p><hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="pierglasg"></a><h3>The Pier-Glass</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Lost manor where I walk continually<br>
A ghost, while yet in woman's flesh and blood;<br>
Up your broad stairs mounting with outspread fingers<br>
And gliding steadfast down your corridors<br>
I come by nightly custom to this room,<br>
And even on sultry afternoons I come<br>
Drawn by a thread of time-sunk memory.<br><br>
Empty, unless for a huge bed of state<br>
Shrouded with rusty curtains drooped awry<br>
(A puppet theatre where malignant fancy<br>
Peoples the wings with fear). At my right hand<br>
A ravelled bell-pull hangs in readiness<br>
To summon me from attic glooms above<br>
Service of elder ghosts; here at my left<br>
A sullen pier-glass cracked from side to side<br>
Scorns to present the face as do new mirrors<br>
With a lying flush, but shows it melancholy<br>
And pale, as faces grow that look in mirrors.<br><br>
Is here no life, nothing but the thin shadow<br>
And blank foreboding, never a wainscot rat<br>
Rasping a crust? Or at the window pane<br>
No fly, no bluebottle, no starveling spider?<br>
The windows frame a prospect of cold skies<br>
Half-merged with sea, as at the first creation,<br>
Abstract, confusing welter. Face about,<br>
Peer rather in the glass once more, take note<br>
Of self, the grey lips and long hair dishevelled,<br>
Sleep-staring eyes. Ah, mirror, for Christ's love<br>
Give me one token that there still abides<br>
Remote, beyond this island mystery,<br>
So be it only this side Hope, somewhere,<br>
In streams, on sun-warm mountain pasturage,<br>
True life, natural breath; not this phantasma.<br><br>
A rumour, scarcely yet to be reckoned sound,<br>
But a pulse quicker or slower, then I know<br>
My plea is granted; death prevails not yet.<br>
For bees have swarmed behind in a close place<br>
Pent up between this glass and the outer wall.<br>
The combs are founded, the queen rules her court,<br>
Bee-sergeants posted at the entrance-chink<br>
Are sampling each returning honey-cargo<br>
With scrutinizing mouth and commentary,<br>
Slow approbation, quick dissatisfaction — <br>
Disquieting rhythm, that leads me home at last<br>
From labyrinthine wandering. This new mood<br>
Of judgment orders me my present duty,<br>
To face again a problem strongly solved<br>
In life gone by, but now again proposed<br>
Out of due time for fresh deliberation.<br>
Did not my answer please the Master's ear?<br>
Yet, I'll stay obstinate. How went the question,<br>
A paltry question set on the elements<br>
Of love and the wronged lover's obligation?<br>
<i>Kill or forgive?</i> Still does the bed ooze blood?<br>
Let it drip down till every floor-plank rot!<br>
Yet shall I answer, challenging the judgment: — <br>
<i>'Kill, strike the blow again, spite what shall come.'</i><br>
'Kill, strike, again, again,' the bees in chorus hum.</blockquote>
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<a name="trolnoseg"></a><h3>The Troll's Nosegay</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>A simple nosegay! was that much to ask?<br>
(Winter still gloomed, with scarce a bud yet showing).<br>
He loved her ill, if he resigned the task.<br>
'Somewhere,' she cried, 'there must be blossom blowing.'<br>
It seems my lady wept and the troll swore<br>
By Heaven he hated tears: he'd cure her spleen;<br>
Where she had begged one flower, he'd shower four-score,<br>
A haystack bunch to amaze a China Queen.<br><br>
Cold fog-drawn Lily, pale mist-magic Rose<br>
He conjured, and in a glassy cauldron set<br>
With elvish unsubstantial Mignonette<br>
And such vague bloom as wandering dreams enclose.<br>
But she?<br>
Awed,<br>
Charmed to tears,<br>
Distracted,<br>
Yet — <br>
Even yet, perhaps, a trifle piqued — who knows?</blockquote>
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<a name="foxding"></a><h3>Fox's Dingle</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Take now a country mood,<br>
Resolve, distil it: — <br>
Nine Acre swaying alive,<br>
June flowers that fill it,<br><br>
Spicy sweet-briar bush,<br>
The uneasy wren<br>
Fluttering from ash to birch<br>
And back again.<br><br>
Milkwort on its low stem,<br>
Spread hawthorn tree,<br>
Sunlight patching the wood,<br>
A hive-bound bee....<br><br>
Girls riding nim-nim-nim,<br>
Ladies, trot-trot,<br>
Gentlemen hard at gallop,<br>
Shouting, steam-hot.<br><br>
Now over the rough turf<br>
Bridles go jingle,<br>
And there's a well-loved pool,<br>
By Fox's Dingle,<br><br>
Where Sweetheart, my brown mare,<br>
Old Glory's daughter,<br>
May loll her leathern tongue<br>
In snow-cool water.</blockquote>
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<a name="genelliot"></a><h3>The General Elliott</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>He fell in victory's fierce pursuit,<br>
Holed through and through with shot,<br>
A sabre sweep had hacked him deep<br>
Twixt neck and shoulderknot....<br><br>
The potman cannot well recall,<br>
The ostler never knew,<br>
Whether his day was Malplaquet,<br>
The Boyne or Waterloo.<br><br>
But there he hangs for tavern sign,<br>
With foolish bold regard<br>
For cock and hen and loitering men<br>
And wagons down the yard.<br><br>
Raised high above the hayseed world<br>
He smokes his painted pipe,<br>
And now surveys the orchard ways,<br>
The damsons clustering ripe.<br><br>
He sees the churchyard slabs beyond,<br>
Where country neighbours lie,<br>
Their brief renown set lowly down;<br>
<i>His</i> name assaults the sky.<br><br>
He grips the tankard of brown ale<br>
That spills a generous foam:<br>
Oft-times he drinks, they say, and winks<br>
At drunk men lurching home.<br><br>
No upstart hero may usurp<br>
That honoured swinging seat;<br>
His seasons pass with pipe and glass<br>
Until the tale's complete.<br><br>
And paint shall keep his buttons bright<br>
Though all the world's forgot<br>
Whether he died for England's pride<br>
By battle, or by pot.</blockquote>
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<a name="patchbong"></a><h3>The Patchwork Bonnet</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Across the room my silent love I throw,<br>
Where you sit sewing in bed by candlelight,<br>
Your young stern profile and industrious fingers<br>
Displayed against the blind in a shadow-show,<br>
To Dinda's grave delight.<br><br>
The needle dips and pokes, the cheerful thread<br>
Runs after, follow-my-leader down the seam:<br>
The patchwork pieces cry for joy together,<br>
O soon to sit as a crown on Dinda's head,<br>
Fulfilment of their dream.<br><br>
Snippets and odd ends folded by, forgotten,<br>
With camphor on a top shelf, hard to find,<br>
Now wake to this most happy resurrection,<br>
To Dinda playing toss with a reel of cotton<br>
And staring at the blind.<br><br>
Dinda in sing-song stretching out one hand<br>
Calls for the playthings; mother does not hear:<br>
Her mind sails far away on a patchwork Ocean,<br>
And all the world must wait till she touches land;<br>
So Dinda cries in fear,<br><br>
Then Mother turns, laughing like a young fairy,<br>
And Dinda smiles to see her look so kind,<br>
Calls out again for playthings, playthings, playthings;<br>
And now the shadows make an Umbrian <i>Mary<br>
Adoring</i>, on the blind.</blockquote>
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<h2><a name="singfurg">Richard Hughes</a></h2>
<br>
<h3>The Singing Furies</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>The yellow sky grows vivid as the sun:<br>
The sea glittering, and the hills dun.<br><br>
The stones quiver. Twenty pounds of lead<br>
Fold upon fold, the air laps my head.<br><br>
Both eyes scorch: tongue stiff and bitter:<br>
Flies buzz, but no birds twitter:<br>
Slow bullocks stand with stinging feet,<br>
And naked fishes scarcely stir for heat.<br><br>
White as smoke,<br>
As jetted steam, dead clouds awoke<br>
And quivered on the Western rim.<br>
Then the singing started: dim<br>
And sibilant as rime-stiff reeds<br>
That whistle as the wind leads.<br>
The South whispered hard and sere,<br>
The North answered, low and clear;<br>
And thunder muffled up like drums<br>
Beat, whence the East wind comes.<br>
The heavy sky that could not weep<br>
Is loosened: rain falls steep:<br>
And thirty singing furies ride<br>
To split the sky from side to side.<br><br>
They sing, and lash the wet-flanked wind:<br>
Sing, from Col to Hafod Mynd,<br>
And fling their voices half a score<br>
Of miles along the mounded shore:<br>
Whip loud music from a tree,<br>
And roll their pæan out to sea<br>
Where crowded breakers fling and leap,<br>
And strange things throb five fathoms deep.<br><br>
The sudden tempest roared and died:<br>
The singing furies muted ride<br>
Down wet and slippery roads to hell:<br>
And, silent in their captors' train,<br>
Two fishers, storm-caught on the main:<br>
A shepherd, battered with his flocks;<br>
A pit-boy tumbled from the rocks;<br>
A dozen back-broke gulls, and hosts<br>
Of shadowy, small, pathetic ghosts,<br>
— Of mice and leverets caught by flood;<br>
Their beauty shrouded in cold mud.</blockquote>
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<a name="moonstrg"></a><h3>Moonstruck</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Cold shone the moon, with noise<br>
The night went by.<br>
Trees uttered things of woe:<br>
Bent grass dared not grow:<br><br>
Ah, desperate man with haggard eyes<br>
And hands that fence away the skies,<br>
On rock and briar stumbling,<br>
Is it fear of the storm's rumbling,<br>
Of the hissing cold rain,<br>
Or lightning's tragic pain<br>
Drives you so madly?<br>
See, see the patient moon;<br>
How she her course keeps<br>
Through cloudy shallows and across black deeps,<br>
Now gone, now shines soon.<br>
Where's cause for fear?<br>
'I shudder and shudder<br>
At her bright light:<br>
I fear, I fear,<br><br>
That she her fixt course follows<br>
So still and white<br>
Through deeps and shallows<br>
With never a tremor:<br>
Naught shall disturb her.<br>
I fear, I fear<br>
What they may be<br>
That secretly bind her:<br>
What hand holds the reins<br>
Of those sightless forces<br>
That govern her courses.<br>
Is it Setebos<br>
Who deals in her command?<br>
Or that unseen Night-Comer<br>
With tender curst hand?<br>
— I shudder, and shudder.'<br><br>
Poor storm-wisp, wander!<br>
Wind shall not hurt thee,<br>
Rain not appal thee,<br>
Lightning not blast thee;<br>
Thou art worn so frail,<br>
Only the moonlight pale<br>
To an ash shall burn thee,<br>
To an invisible Pain.</blockquote>
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<a name="vagrang"></a><h3>Vagrancy</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>When the slow year creeps hay-ward, and the skies<br>
Are warming in the summer's mild surprise,<br>
And the still breeze disturbs each leafy frond<br>
Like hungry fishes dimpling in a pond,<br>
It is a pleasant thing to dream at ease<br>
On sun-warmed thyme, not far from beechen trees.<br><br>
A robin flashing in a rowan-tree,<br>
A wanton robin, spills his melody<br>
As if he had such store of golden tones<br>
That they were no more worth to him than stones:<br>
The sunny lizards dream upon the ledges:<br>
Linnets titter in and out the hedges,<br>
Or swoop among the freckled butterflies.<br><br>
Down to a beechen hollow winds the track<br>
And tunnels past my twilit bivouac:<br>
Two spiring wisps of smoke go singly up<br>
And scarcely tremble in the leafy air.<br><br>
— There are more shadows in this loamy cup<br>
Than God could count: and oh, but it is fair:<br>
The kindly green and rounded trunks, that meet<br>
Under the soil with twinings of their feet<br>
And in the sky with twinings of their arms:<br>
The yellow stools: the still ungathered charms<br>
Of berry, woodland herb, and bryony,<br>
And mid-wood's changeling child, Anemone.<br><br>
* * * * *<br><br>
Quiet as a grave beneath a spire<br>
I lie and watch the pointed climbing fire,<br>
I lie and watch the smoky weather-cock<br>
That climbs too high, and bends to the breeze's shock,<br>
And breaks, and dances off across the skies<br>
Gay as a flurry of blue butterflies.<br><br>
But presently the evening shadows in,<br>
Heralded by the night-jar's solitary din<br>
And the quick bat's squeak among the trees;<br>
— Who sudden rises, darting across the air<br>
To weave her filmy web in the Sun's bright hair<br>
That slowly sinks dejected on his knees....<br><br>
Now is he vanished: the bewildered skies<br>
Flame out a desperate and last surmise;<br>
Then yield to Night, their sudden conqueror.<br><br>
From pole to pole the shadow of the world<br>
Creeps over heaven, till itself is lit<br>
By the very many stars that wake in it:<br>
Sleep, like a messenger of great import,<br>
Lays quiet and compelling hands athwart<br>
The easy idlenesses of my mind.<br>
— There is a breeze above me, and around:<br>
There is a fire before me, and behind:<br>
But Sleep doth hold me, and I hear no sound.<br><br>
In the far West the clouds are mustering,<br>
Without hurry, noise, or blustering:<br>
And soon as Body's nightly Sentinel<br>
Himself doth nod, I open furtive eyes....<br>
With darkling hook the Farmer of the Skies<br>
Goes reaping stars: they flicker, one by one,<br>
Nodding a little; tumble, — and are gone.</blockquote>
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<a name="pppg"></a><h3>Poets, Painters, Puddings</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Poets, painters, and puddings; these three <br>
Make up the World as it ought to be.<br><br>
Poets make faces<br>
And sudden grimaces:<br>
They twit you, and spit you<br>
On words: then admit you<br>
To heaven or hell<br>
By the tales that they tell.<br><br>
Painters are gay<br>
As young rabbits in May:<br>
They buy jolly mugs,<br>
Bowls, pictures, and jugs:<br>
The things round their necks<br>
Are lively with checks,<br>
(For they like something red<br>
As a frame for the head):<br>
Or they'll curse you with oaths,<br>
That tear holes in your clothes.<br>
(With nothing to mend them<br><br>
You'd best not offend them.)<br>
Puddings should be<br>
Full of currants, for me:<br>
Boiled in a pail,<br>
Tied in the tail<br>
Of an old bleached shirt:<br>
So hot that they hurt,<br>
So huge that they last<br>
From the dim, distant past<br>
Until the crack o' doom<br>
Lift the roof off the room.<br><br>
Poets, painters, and puddings; these three<br>
Crown the day as it crowned should be.</blockquote>
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<h2><a name="inmemk">William Kerr</a></h2>
<br>
<h3>In Memoriam D. O. M</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Chestnut candles are lit again<br>
For the dead that died in spring:<br>
Dead lovers walk the orchard ways,<br>
And the dead cuckoos sing.<br><br>
Is it they who live and we who are dead?<br>
Hardly the springtime knows<br>
For which today the cuckoo calls,<br>
And the white blossom blows.<br><br>
Listen and hear the happy wind<br>
Whisper and lightly pass:<br>
'Your love is sweet as hawthorn is,<br>
Your hope green as the grass.<br><br>
'The hawthorn's faint and quickly gone,<br>
The grass in autumn dies;<br>
Put by your life, and see the spring<br>
With everlasting eyes.'</blockquote>
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<a name="pptk"></a><h3>Past and Present</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Daisies are over Nyren, and Hambledon<br>
Hardly remembers any summer gone:<br>
And never again the Kentish elms shall see<br>
Mynn, or Fuller Pilch, or Colin Blythe.<br>
— Nor shall I see them, unless perhaps a ghost<br>
Watching the elder ghosts beyond the moon.<br>
But here in common sunshine I have seen<br>
George Hirst, not yet a ghost, substantial,<br>
His off-drives mellow as brown ale, and crisp<br>
Merry late cuts, and brave Chaucerian pulls;<br>
Waddington's fury and the patience of Dipper;<br>
And twenty easy artful overs of Rhodes,<br>
So many stanzas of the Faerie Queen.</blockquote>
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<a name="auditk"></a><h3>The Audit</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Mere living wears the most of life away:<br>
Even the lilies take thought for many things,<br>
For frost in April and for drought in May,<br>
And from no careless heart the skylark sings.<br><br>
Those cheap utilities of rain and sun<br>
Describe the foolish circle of our years,<br>
Until death takes us, doing all undone,<br>
And there's an end at last to hopes and fears.<br><br>
Though song be hollow and no dreams come true,<br>
Still songs and dreams are better than the truth:<br>
But there's so much to get, so much to do,<br>
Mary must drudge like Martha, dainty Ruth<br><br>
Forget the morning music in the corn,<br>
And Rachel grudge when Leah's boys are born.</blockquote>
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<a name="apptreek"></a><h3>The Apple Tree</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Secret and wise as nature, like the wind<br>
Melancholy or light-hearted without reason,<br>
And like the waxing or the waning moon<br>
Ever pale and lovely: you are like these<br>
Because you are free and live by your own law;<br>
While I, desiring life and half alive,<br>
Dream, hope, regret and fear and blunder on.<br>
Your beauty is your life and my content,<br>
And I will liken you to an apple-tree,<br>
Mary and Margaret playing under the branches,<br>
And everywhere soft shadows like your eyes,<br>
And scattered blossom like your little smiles.<br>
</blockquote><br>
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<a name="nyrposy"></a><h3>Her New-Year Posy</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>When I seek the world through<br>
For images of you,<br>
Though apple-blossom is glad<br>
And the lily stately-sad,<br>
Gilliflowers kind of breath,<br>
Rosemary true till death;<br>
Though the wind can stir the grass<br>
To memories as you pass.<br>
And the soft-singing streams<br>
Are music like your dreams;<br>
Though constant stars embrace<br>
The quiet of your face,<br>
Your smile lights up sunrise,<br>
And evening's in your eyes — <br>
Each so shadows its part,<br>
All cannot show your heart;<br>
And weighing the beauty of earth<br>
I see it so little worth,<br>
When reckoned beside you,<br>
That I hold heaven for true<br>
— But all my heaven is you.</blockquote>
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<a name="cntshpk"></a><h3>Counting Sheep</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Half-awake I walked<br>
A dimly-seen sweet hawthorn lane<br>
Until sleep came;<br>
I lingered at a gate and talked<br>
A little with a lonely lamb.<br>
He told me of the great still night,<br>
Of calm starlight,<br>
And of the lady moon, who'd stoop<br>
For a kiss sometimes;<br>
Of grass as soft as sleep, of rhymes<br>
The tired flowers sang:<br>
The ageless April tales<br>
Of how, when sheep grew old,<br>
As their faith told,<br>
They went without a pang<br>
To far green fields, where fall<br>
Perpetual streams that call<br>
To deathless nightingales.<br>
And then I saw, hard by,<br>
A shepherd lad with shining eyes,<br>
And round him gathered one by one<br>
Countless sheep, snow-white;<br>
More and more they crowded<br>
With tender cries,<br>
Till all the field was full<br>
Of voices and of coming sheep.<br>
Countless they came, and I<br>
Watched, until deep<br>
As dream-fields lie<br>
I was asleep.</blockquote>
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<a name="trsnghtk"></a><h3>The Trees at Night</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Under vague silver moonlight<br>
The trees are lovely and ghostly,<br>
In the pale blue of the night<br>
There are few stars to see.<br><br>
The leaves are green still, but brown-blent:<br>
They stir not, only known<br>
By a poignant delicate scent<br>
To the lonely moon blown.<br><br>
The lonely lovely trees sigh<br>
For summer spent and gone:<br>
A few homing leaves drift by,<br>
Poor souls bewildered and wan.<br>
<br></blockquote>
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<a name="deadk"></a><h3>The Dead</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>How shall the living be comforted for the dead<br>
When they are gone, and nothing's left behind<br>
But a vague music of the words they said<br>
And a fast-fading image in the mind?<br><br>
Let no forgetting sully that dim grace;<br>
Our heart's infirmity is too easily won<br>
To set a new love in the old love's place<br>
And seek fresh vanity under the sun.<br><br>
Time brings to us at last, as night the stars,<br>
The starry silence of eternity:<br>
For there is no discharge in our long wars,<br>
Nor balm for wounds, nor love's security.<br><br>
Be patient to the end, and you shall sleep<br>
Pillowed on heartsease and forget to weep.</blockquote>
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<h2><a name="snakelaw">D. H. Lawrence</a></h2>
<br>
<h3>Snake</h3><br>
<blockquote>A snake came to my water-trough <br>
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,<br>
To drink there.<br><br>
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob tree<br>
I came down the steps with my pitcher<br>
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before me.<br><br>
He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom<br>
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of the stone trough<br>
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,<br>
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,<br>
He sipped with his straight mouth,<br>
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,<br>
Silently.<br><br>
Someone was before me at my water-trough,<br>
And I, like a second-comer, waiting.<br><br>
He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,<br>
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,<br>
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,<br>
And stooped and drank a little more,<br>
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth<br>
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.<br><br>
The voice of my education said to me<br>
He must be killed,<br>
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.<br><br>
And voices in me said, If you were a man<br>
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.<br><br>
But must I confess how I liked him,<br>
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough<br>
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,<br>
Into the burning bowels of this earth?<br><br>
Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him?<br>
Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him?<br>
Was it humility, to feel honoured?<br>
I felt so honoured.<br><br>
And yet those voices:<br>
If you were not afraid you would kill him.<br><br>
And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid,<br>
But even so, honoured still more<br>
That he should seek my hospitality<br>
From out the dark door of the secret earth.<br><br>
He drank enough<br>
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,<br>
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,<br>
Seeming to lick his lips,<br>
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,<br>
And slowly turned his head,<br>
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream, <br>
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round <br>
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.<br><br>
And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,<br>
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered further,<br>
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,<br>
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,<br>
Overcame me now his back was turned.<br><br>
I looked round, I put down my pitcher,<br>
I picked up a clumsy log<br>
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.<br><br>
I think it did not hit him,<br>
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste,<br>
Writhed like lightning, and was gone<br>
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,<br>
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.<br><br>
And immediately I regretted it.<br>
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!<br>
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.<br><br>
And I thought of the albatross,<br>
And I wished he would come back, my snake.<br><br>
For he seemed to me again like a king,<br>
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,<br>
Now due to be crowned again.<br><br>
And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords<br>
Of life.<br>
And I have something to expiate:<br>
A pettiness.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp3">Contents, p. 3</a></p><hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<h2><a name="thstdwnm">Harold Monro</a></h2>
<br>
<h3>Thistledown</h3>
<blockquote>This might have been a place for sleep,<br>
But, as from that small hollow there<br>
Hosts of bright thistledown begin<br>
Their dazzling journey through the air,<br>
An idle man can only stare.<br><br>
They grip their withered edge of stalk<br>
In brief excitement for the wind;<br>
They hold a breathless final talk,<br>
And when their filmy cables part<br>
One almost hears a little cry.<br><br>
Some cling together while they wait,<br>
And droop and gaze and hesitate,<br>
But others leap along the sky,<br>
Or circle round and calmly choose<br>
The gust they know they ought to use;<br><br>
While some in loving pairs will glide,<br>
Or watch the others as they pass,<br>
Or rest on flowers in the grass,<br>
Or circle through the shining day<br>
Like silvery butterflies at play.<br><br>
Some catch themselves to every mound,<br>
Then lingeringly and slowly move<br>
As if they knew the precious ground<br>
Were opening for their fertile love:<br>
They almost try to dig, they need<br>
So much to plant their thistle-seed.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp3">Contents, p. 3</a></p><hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<h3><a name="rlprprtm">Real Property</a></h3>
<br>
<blockquote><i>Tell me about that harvest field.</i><br>
Oh! Fifty acres of living bread.<br>
The colour has painted itself in my heart;<br>
The form is patterned in my head.<br><br>
So now I take it everywhere,<br>
See it whenever I look round;<br>
Hear it growing through every sound,<br>
Know exactly the sound it makes — <br>
Remembering, as one must all day,<br>
Under the pavement the live earth aches.<br><br>
Trees are at the farther end,<br>
Limes all full of the mumbling bee:<br>
So there must be a harvest field<br>
Whenever one thinks of a linden tree.<br><br>
A hedge is about it, very tall,<br>
Hazy and cool, and breathing sweet.<br>
Round paradise is such a wall,<br>
And all the day, in such a way,<br>
In paradise the wild birds call.<br><br>
You only need to close your eyes<br>
And go within your secret mind,<br>
And you'll be into paradise:<br>
I've learnt quite easily to find<br>
Some linden trees and drowsy bees,<br>
A tall sweet hedge with the corn behind.<br><br>
I will not have that harvest mown:<br>
I'll keep the corn and leave the bread.<br>
I've bought that field; it's now my own:<br>
I've fifty acres in my head.<br>
I take it as a dream to bed.<br>
I carry it about all day....<br><br>
Sometimes when I have found a friend<br>
I give a blade of corn away.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp3">Contents, p. 3</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<h3><a name="unkwncntm">Unknown Country</a></h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Here, in this other world, they come and go<br>
With easy dream-like movements to and fro.<br>
They stare through lovely eyes, yet do not seek<br>
An answering gaze, or that a man should speak.<br>
Had I a load of gold, and should I come<br>
Bribing their friendship, and to buy a home,<br>
They would stare harder and would slightly frown:<br>
I am a stranger from the distant town.<br><br>
Oh, with what patience I have tried to win<br>
The favour of the hostess of the Inn!<br>
Have I not offered toast on frothing toast<br>
Looking toward the melancholy host;<br>
Praised the old wall-eyed mare to please the groom;<br>
Laughed to the laughing maid and fetched her broom;<br>
Stood in the background not to interfere<br>
When the cool ancients frolicked at their beer;<br>
Talked only in my turn, and made no claim<br>
For recognition or by voice or name,<br>
Content to listen, and to watch the blue<br>
Or grey of eyes, or what good hands can do?<br><br>
Sun-freckled lads, who at the dusk of day<br>
Stroll through the village with a scent of hay<br>
Clinging about you from the windy hill,<br>
Why do you keep your secret from me still?<br>
You loiter at the corner of the street;<br>
I in the distance silently entreat.<br>
I know too well I'm city-soiled, but then<br>
So are today ten million other men.<br>
My heart is true: I've neither will nor charms<br>
To lure away your maidens from your arms.<br>
Trust me a little. Must I always stand<br>
Lonely, a stranger from an unknown land?<br><br>
There is a riddle here. Though I'm more wise<br>
Than you, I cannot read your simple eyes.<br>
I find the meaning of their gentle look<br>
More difficult than any learned book.<br>
I pass: perhaps a moment you may chaff<br>
My walk, and so dismiss me with a laugh.<br>
I come: you all, most grave and most polite,<br>
Stand silent first, then wish me calm Good-Night.<br>
When I go back to town some one will say:<br>
'I think that stranger must have gone away.'<br>
And 'Surely!' some one else will then reply.<br>
Meanwhile, within the dark of London, I<br>
Shall, with my forehead resting on my hand,<br>
Not cease remembering your distant land;<br>
Endeavouring to reconstruct aright<br>
How some treed hill has looked in evening light;<br>
Or be imagining the blue of skies<br>
Now as in heaven, now as in your eyes;<br>
Or in my mind confusing looks or words<br>
Of yours with dawnlight, or the song of birds:<br>
Not able to resist, not even keep<br>
Myself from hovering near you in my sleep:<br>
You still as callous to my thought and me<br>
As flowers to the purpose of the bee.</blockquote><br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp3">Contents, p. 3</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="nightrhapsn"></a><h2>Robert Nichols</h2>
<br>
<h3>Night Rhapsody</h3>
<blockquote>How beautiful it is to wake at night,<br>
When over all there reigns the ultimate spell<br>
Of complete silence, darkness absolute,<br>
To feel the world, tilted on axle-tree,<br>
In slow gyration, with no sensible sound,<br>
Unless to ears of unimagined beings,<br>
Resident incorporeal or stretched<br>
In vigilance of ecstasy among<br>
Ethereal paths and the celestial maze.<br>
The rumour of our onward course now brings<br>
A steady rustle, as of some strange ship<br>
Darkling with soundless sail all set and amply filled<br>
By volume of an ever-constant air,<br>
At fullest night, through seas for ever calm,<br>
Swept lovely and unknown for ever on.<br><br>
How beautiful it is to wake at night,<br>
Embalmed in darkness watchful, sweet, and still,<br>
As is the brain's mood flattered by the swim<br>
Of currents circumvolvent in the void,<br>
To lie quite still and to become aware<br>
Of the dim light cast by nocturnal skies<br>
On a dim earth beyond the window-ledge,<br>
So, isolate from the friendly company<br>
Of the huge universe which turns without,<br>
To brood apart in calm and joy awhile<br>
Until the spirit sinks and scarcely knows<br>
Whether self is, or if self only is,<br>
For ever....<br><br>
How beautiful to wake at night,<br>
Within the room grown strange, and still, and sweet,<br>
And live a century while in the dark<br>
The dripping wheel of silence slowly turns;<br>
To watch the window open on the night,<br>
A dewy silent deep where nothing stirs,<br>
And, lying thus, to feel dilate within<br>
The press, the conflict, and the heavy pulse<br>
Of incommunicable sad ecstasy,<br>
Growing until the body seems outstretched<br>
In perfect crucifixion on the arms<br>
Of a cross pointing from last void to void,<br>
While the heart dies to a mere midway spark.<br><br>
All happiness thou holdest, happy night,<br>
For such as lie awake and feel dissolved<br>
The peaceful spice of darkness and the cool<br>
Breath hither blown from the ethereal flowers<br>
That mist thy fields! O happy, happy wounds,<br>
Conditioned by existence in humanity,<br>
That have such powers to heal them! slow sweet sighs<br>
Torn from the bosom, silent wails, the birth<br>
Of such long-treasured tears as pain his eyes,<br>
Who, waking, hears the divine solicitudes<br>
Of midnight with ineffable purport charged.<br><br>
How beautiful it is to wake at night,<br>
Another night, in darkness yet more still,<br>
Save when the myriad leaves on full-fledged boughs,<br>
Filled rather by the perfume's wandering flood<br>
Than by dispansion of the still sweet air,<br>
Shall from the furthest utter silences<br>
In glimmering secrecy have gathered up<br>
An host of whisperings and scattered sighs,<br>
To loose at last a sound as of the plunge<br>
And lapsing seethe of some Pacific wave,<br>
Which, risen from the star-thronged outer troughs,<br>
Rolls in to wreathe with circling foam away<br>
The flutter of the golden moths that haunt<br>
The star's one glimmer daggered on wet sands. <br><br>
So beautiful it is to wake at night!<br>
Imagination, loudening with the surf<br>
Of the midsummer wind among the boughs,<br>
Gathers my spirit from the haunts remote<br>
Of faintest silence and the shades of sleep,<br>
To bear me on the summit of her wave<br>
Beyond known shores, beyond the mortal edge<br>
Of thought terrestrial, to hold me poised<br>
Above the frontiers of infinity,<br>
To which in the full reflux of the wave<br>
Come soon I must, bubble of solving foam,<br>
Borne to those other shores — now never mine<br>
Save for a hovering instant, short as this<br>
Which now sustains me ere I be drawn back — <br>
To learn again, and wholly learn, I trust,<br>
How beautiful it is to wake at night.</blockquote><br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp3">Contents, p. 3</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="novnich"></a><h3>November</h3>
<blockquote>As I walk the misty hill<br>
All is languid, fogged, and still;<br>
Not a note of any bird<br>
Nor any motion's hint is heard,<br>
Save from soaking thickets round<br>
Trickle or water's rushing sound,<br>
And from ghostly trees the drip<br>
Of runnel dews or whispering slip<br>
Of leaves, which in a body launch<br>
Listlessly from the stagnant branch<br>
To strew the marl, already strown,<br>
With litter sodden as its own,<br><br>
A rheum, like blight, hangs on the briars,<br>
And from the clammy ground suspires<br>
A sweet frail sick autumnal scent<br>
Of stale frost furring weeds long spent;<br>
And wafted on, like one who sleeps,<br>
A feeble vapour hangs or creeps,<br>
Exhaling on the fungus mould<br>
A breath of age, fatigue, and cold.<br><br>
Oozed from the bracken's desolate track,<br>
By dark rains havocked and drenched black.<br>
A fog about the coppice drifts,<br>
Or slowly thickens up and lifts<br>
Into the moist, despondent air.<br><br>
Mist, grief, and stillness everywhere....<br><br>
And in me, too, there is no sound<br>
Save welling as of tears profound,<br>
Where in me cloud, grief, stillness reign,<br>
And an intolerable pain <br>
Begins.<br>
Rolled on as in a flood there come<br>
Memories of childhood, boyhood, home,<br>
And that which, sudden, pangs me most,<br>
Thought of the first-belov'd, long lost,<br>
Too easy lost! My cold lips frame<br>
Tremulously the familiar name,<br>
Unheard of her upon my breath:<br>
'Elizabeth. Elizabeth.'<br><br>
No voice answers on the hill,<br>
All is shrouded, sad, and still ...<br>
Stillness, fogged brakes, and fog on high.<br>
Only in me the waters cry<br>
Who mourn the hours now slipped for ever,<br>
Hours of boding, joy, and fever,<br>
When we loved, by chance beguiled,<br>
I a boy and you a child — <br>
Child! but with an angel's air,<br>
Astonished, eager, unaware,<br>
Or elfin's, wandering with a grace<br>
Foreign to any fireside race,<br>
And with a gaiety unknown<br>
In the light feet and hair backblown,<br>
And with a sadness yet more strange,<br>
In meagre cheeks which knew to change<br>
Or faint or fired more swift than sight,<br>
And forlorn hands and lips pressed white,<br>
And fragile voice, and head downcast,<br>
Hiding tears, lifted at the last<br>
To speed with one pale smile the wise<br>
Glance of the grey immortal eyes.<br><br>
How strange it was that we should dare<br>
Compound a miracle so rare<br>
As, 'twixt this pace and Time's next pace,<br>
Each to discern th' elected's face!<br>
Yet stranger that the high sweet fire,<br>
In hearts nigh foreign to desire,<br>
Could burn, sigh, weep, and burn again<br>
As oh, it never has since then!<br>
Most strange of all that we so young<br>
Dared learn but would not speak love's tongue,<br>
Love pledged but in the reveries<br>
Of our sad and dreaming eyes....<br><br>
Now upon such journey bound me,<br>
Grief, disquiet, and stillness round me,<br>
As bids me where I cannot tell,<br>
Turn I and sigh, unseen, farewell.<br>
Breathe the name as soft as mist,<br>
Lips, which nor kissed her nor were kissed!<br>
And again — a sigh, a death — <br>
'Elizabeth. Elizabeth.'<br><br>
No voice answers; but the mist<br>
Glows for a moment amethyst<br>
Ere the hid sun dissolves away,<br>
And dimness, growing dimmer grey,<br>
Hides all ... till nothing can I see<br>
But the blind walls enclosing me,<br>
And no sound and no motion hear<br>
But the vague water throbbing near,<br>
Sole voice upon the darkening hill<br>
Where all is blank and dead and still.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp3">Contents, p. 3</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<h2><a name="afterlonf">J. D. C. Fellow</a></h2>
<br>
<h3>After London</h3><br>
<blockquote>London Bridge is broken down;<br>
Green is the grass on Ludgate Hill;<br>
I know a farmer in Camden Town<br>
Killed a brock by Pentonville.<br><br>
I have heard my grandam tell<br>
How some thousand years ago<br>
Houses stretched from Camberwell<br>
Right to Highbury and Bow.<br><br>
Down by Shadwell's golden meads<br>
Tall ships' masts would stand as thick<br>
As the pretty tufted reeds<br>
That the Wapping children pick.<br><br>
All the kings from end to end<br>
Of all the world paid tribute then,<br>
And meekly on their knees would bend<br>
To the King of the Englishmen.<br><br>
Thinks I while I dig my plot,<br>
What if your grandam's tales be true?<br>
Thinks I, be they true or not,<br>
What's the odds to a fool like you?<br><br>
Thinks I, while I smoke my pipe<br>
Here beside the tumbling Fleet,<br>
Apples drop when they are ripe,<br>
And when they drop are they most sweet.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp3">Contents, p. 3</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="frddief"></a><h3>On a Friend who Died Suddenly upon the Seashore</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Quiet he lived, and quietly died;<br>
Nor, like the unwilling tide,<br>
Did once complain or strive<br>
To stay one brief hour more alive.<br>
But as a summer wave<br>
Serenely for a while<br>
Will lift a crest to the sun,<br>
Then sink again, so he<br>
Back to the bright heavens gave<br>
An answering smile;<br>
Then quietly, having run<br>
His course, bowed down his head,<br>
And sank unmurmuringly,<br>
Sank back into the sea,<br>
The silent, the unfathomable sea<br>
Of all the happy dead.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp3">Contents, p. 3</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="tenebrae"></a><h3>Tenebræ</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>They say that I shall find him if I go<br>
Along the dusty highways, or the green<br>
Tracks of the downland shepherds, or between<br>
The swaying corn, or where cool waters flow;<br>
And others say, that speak as if they know,<br>
That daily in the cities, in the mean<br>
Dark streets, amid the crowd he may be seen,<br>
With thieves and harlots wandering to and fro.<br><br>
But I am blind. How shall a blind man dare<br>
Venture along the roaring crowded street,<br>
Or branching roads where I may never hit<br>
The way he has gone? But someday if I sit<br>
Quietly at this corner listening, there<br>
May come this way the slow sound of his feet.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp3">Contents, p. 3</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="allsaidf"></a><h3>When All is Said</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>When all is said<br>
And all is done<br>
Beneath the Sun,<br>
And Man lies dead;<br><br>
When all the earth<br>
Is a cold grave,<br>
And no more brave<br>
Bright things have birth;<br><br>
When cooling sun<br>
And stone-cold world,<br>
Together hurled,<br>
Flame up as one — <br><br>
O Sons of Men,<br>
When all is flame,<br>
What of your fame<br>
And splendour then?<br><br>
When all is fire<br>
And flaming air,<br>
What of your rare<br>
And high desire<br><br>
To turn the clod<br>
To a thing divine,<br>
The earth a shrine,<br>
And Man the God?</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp3">Contents, p. 3</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<h2><a name="mthcanp">Frank Prewett</a></h2><br>
<h3>To My Mother in Canada, from Sick-Bed in Italy</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Dear mother, from the sure sun and warm seas<br>
Of Italy, I, sick, remember now<br>
What sometimes is forgot in times of ease,<br>
Our love, the always felt but unspoken vow.<br>
So send I beckoning hands from here to there,<br>
And kiss your black once, now white thin-grown hair<br>
And your stooped small shoulder and pinched brow.<br><br>
Here, mother, there is sunshine every day;<br>
It warms the bones and breathes upon the heart;<br>
But you I see out-plod a little way,<br>
Bitten with cold; your cheeks and fingers smart.<br>
Would you were here, we might in temples lie,<br>
And look from azure into azure sky,<br>
And paradise achieve, slipping death's part.<br><br>
But now 'tis time for sleep: I think no speech<br>
There needs to pass between us what we mean,<br>
For we soul-venturing mingle each with each.<br>
So, mother, pass across the world unseen<br>
And share in me some wished-for dream in you;<br>
For so brings destiny her pledges true,<br>
The mother withered, in the son grown green.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp3">Contents, p. 3</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<h3><a name="vcewomp">Voices of Women</a></h3><br>
<br>
<blockquote>Met ye my love?<br>
Ye might in France have met him;<br>
He has a wooing smile,<br>
Who sees cannot forget him!<br>
Met ye my Love?<br>
— We shared full many a mile.<br><br>
Saw ye my Love?<br>
In lands far-off he has been,<br>
With his yellow-tinted hair — <br>
In Egypt such ye have seen;<br>
Ye knew my love?<br>
— I was his brother there.<br><br>
Heard ye my love?<br>
My love ye must have heard,<br>
For his voice when he will<br>
Tinkles like cry of a bird;<br>
Heard ye my love?<br>
— We sang on a Grecian hill.<br><br>
Behold your love,<br>
And how shall I forget him,<br>
His smile, his hair, his song?<br>
Alas, no maid shall get him<br>
For all her love,<br>
Where he sleeps a million strong.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp3">Contents, p. 3</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="sommep"></a><h3>The Somme Valley</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Comrade, why do you weep?<br>
Is it sorrow for a friend<br>
Who fell, rifle in hand,<br>
His last stand at an end?<br><br>
The thunder-lipped grey guns<br>
Lament him, fierce and slow,<br>
Where he found his dreamless bed,<br>
Head to head with a foe.<br><br>
The sweet lark beats on high<br>
For the peace of those who sleep<br>
In the quiet embrace of earth:<br>
Comrade, why do you weep?</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp3">Contents, p. 3</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="burialstp"></a><h3>Burial Stones</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>The blue sky arches wide<br>
From hill to hill;<br>
The little grasses stand<br>
Upright and still.<br><br>
Only these stones to tell<br>
The deadly strife,<br>
The all-important schemes,<br>
The greed for life.<br><br>
For they are gone, who fought;<br>
But still the skies<br>
Stretch blue, aloof, unchanged,<br>
From rise to rise.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp3">Contents, p. 3</a></p>
<hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="snwbuntp"></a><h3>Snow-Buntings</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>They come fluttering helpless to the ground<br>
Like wreaths of wind-caught snow,<br>
Uttering a plaintive, chirping sound,<br>
And rise and fall, and know not where they go.<br><br>
So small they are, with feathers ruffled blown,<br>
Adrift between earth desolate and leaden sky;<br>
Nor have they ever known<br>
Any but frozen earth, and scudding clouds on high.<br><br>
What hand doth guide these hapless creatures small<br>
To sweet seeds that the withered grasses hold? — <br>
The little children of men go hungry all,<br>
And stiffen and cry with numbing cold.<br><br>
In a sudden gust the flock are whirled away<br>
Uttering a frightened, chirping cry,<br>
And are lost like a wraith of departing day,<br>
Adrift between earth desolate and leaden sky.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp3">Contents, p. 3</a></p><hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="kelsop"></a><h3>The Kelso Road</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Morning and evening are mine,<br>
And the bright noon-day;<br>
But night to no man doth belong<br>
When the sad ghosts play.<br><br>
From Kelso town I took the road<br>
By the full-flood Tweed;<br>
The black clouds swept across the moon<br>
With devouring greed.<br><br>
Seek ye no peace who tread the night;<br>
I felt above my head<br>
Blowing the cloud's edge, faces wry<br>
In pale fury spread.<br><br>
Twelve surly elves were digging graves<br>
Beside black Eden brook;<br>
Eleven dug and stared at me,<br>
But one read in a book.<br><br>
In Birgham trees and hedges rocked,<br>
The moon was drowned in black;<br>
At Hirsel woods I shrieked to find<br>
A fiend astride my back.<br><br>
His legs he closed about my breast,<br>
His hands upon my head,<br>
Till Coldstream lights beamed in the trees<br>
And he wailed and fled.<br><br>
Morning and evening are mine,<br>
And the bright noon-heat,<br>
But at night the sad thin ghosts<br>
For their revels meet.</blockquote>
<br>
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<a name="bldlnp"></a><h3>Baldon Lane</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>As I went down the Baldon lane,<br>
Alone I went, as oft I went,<br>
Weighing if it were loss or gain<br>
To give a maidenhead.<br>
I met, just as the day was spent,<br>
A fancy man, a gentleman,<br>
Who smiled on me, and then began,<br>
'Come sit with me, my maid.'<br><br>
With him had I no mind to sit<br>
In Baldon lane for loss or gain,<br>
Said I to him with feeble wit,<br>
And close beside him crept;<br>
The branches might have heard my pain,<br>
The sudden cry, the maiden cry, — <br>
My fancy man departed sly,<br>
And woman-like, I wept.<br><br>
I kept the roads until my bed,<br>
A nine months' time, a weary time,<br>
And then to Baldon woods I fled<br>
In Spring-time weather mild;<br>
The kindly trees, they fear no crime,<br>
So back I came, to Baldon came,<br>
Received their welcome without blame,<br>
And moaned and dropped my child.<br><br>
The poor brat gasped an hour or so,<br>
A goodly child, a thoughtful child;<br>
Perceiving nought for us but woe<br>
It stretched and sudden died;<br>
But I, when Spring breaks fresh and mild,<br>
To Baldon lane return again,<br>
For there's my home, and women vain<br>
Must hold their homes in pride.</blockquote>
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<a name="cmegrlp"></a><h3>Come Girl, and Embrace</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Come girl, and embrace<br>
And ask no more I wed thee;<br>
Know then you are sweet of face,<br>
Soft-limbed and fashioned lovingly; — <br>
Must you go marketing your charms<br>
In cunning woman-like,<br>
And filled with old wives' tales' alarms?<br><br>
I tell you, girl, come embrace;<br>
What reck we of churchling and priest<br>
With hands on paunch, and chubby face?<br>
Behold, we are life's pitiful least,<br>
And we perish at the first smell<br>
Of death, whither heaves earth<br>
To spurn us cringing into hell.<br><br>
Come girl, and embrace;<br>
Nay, cry not, poor wretch, nor plead,<br>
But haste, for life strikes a swift pace,<br>
And I burn with envious greed:<br>
Know you not, fool, we are the mock<br>
Of gods, time, clothes, and priests?<br>
But come, there is no time for talk.</blockquote>
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<h2><a name="procne">Peter Quennell</a></h2><br>
<h3>Procne</h3>
<br>
<i>(a fragment)</i><br>
<br>
<blockquote>So she became a bird, and bird-like danced <br>
On a long sloe-bough, treading the silver blossom<br>
With a bird's lovely feet;<br>
And shaken blossoms fell into the hands<br>
Of Sunlight. And he held them for a moment<br>
And let them drop.<br>
And in the autumn Procne came again<br>
And leapt upon the crooked sloe-bough singing,<br>
And the dark berries winked like earth-dimmed beads,<br>
As the branch swung beneath her dancing feet.</blockquote>
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<a name="mansunfq"></a><h3>A Man to a Sunflower</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>See, I have bent thee by thy saffron hair<br>
— O most strange masker — <br>
Towards my face, thy face so full of eyes<br>
— O almost legendary monster — <br>
Thee of the saffron, circling hair I bend,<br>
Bend by my fingers knotted in thy hair<br>
— Hair like broad flames.<br>
So, shall I swear by beech-husk, spindleberry,<br>
To break thee, saffron hair and peering eye,<br>
— To have the mastery?</blockquote>
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<a name="perceptq"></a><h3>Perception</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>While I have vision, while the glowing-bodied,<br>
Drunken with light, untroubled clouds, with all this cold sphered sky,<br>
Are flushed above trees where the dew falls secretly,<br>
Where no man goes, where beasts move silently,<br>
As gently as light feathered winds that fall<br>
Chill among hollows filled with sighing grass;<br>
While I have vision, while my mind is borne<br>
A finger's length above reality,<br>
Like that small plaining bird that drifts and drops<br>
Among these soft lapped hollows;<br>
Robed gods, whose passing fills calm nights with sudden wind,<br>
Whose spears still bar our twilight, bend and fill<br>
Wind-shaken, troubled spaces with some peace,<br>
With clear untroubled beauty;<br>
That I may rise not chill and shrilling through perpetual day,<br>
Remote, amazèd, larklike, but may hold<br>
The hours as firm, warm fruit,<br>
This finger's length above reality.</blockquote>
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<a name="pursuitq"></a><h3>Pursuit</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>As wind-drowned scents that bring to other hills<br>
Disquieting memories of silences,<br>
Broad silences beyond the memory;<br>
As feathered swaying seeds, as wings of birds<br>
Dappling the sky with honey-coloured gold;<br>
Faint murmurs, clear, keen-winged of swift ideas<br>
Break my small silences;<br>
And I must hunt and come to tire of hunting<br>
Strange laughing thoughts that roister through my mind,<br>
Hopelessly swift to flit; and so I hunt<br>
And come to tire of hunting.</blockquote>
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<h2><a name="saxonsgsw">V. Sackville-West</a></h2><br>
<h3>A Saxon Song</h3>
<br>
<blockquote> Tools with the comely names, <br>
Mattock and scythe and spade,<br>
Couth and bitter as flames,<br>
Clean, and bowed in the blade, — <br>
A man and his tools make a man and his trade.<br><br>
Breadth of the English shires,<br>
Hummock and kame and mead,<br>
Tang of the reeking byres,<br>
Land of the English breed, — <br>
A man and his land make a man and his creed.<br><br>
Leisurely flocks and herds,<br>
Cool-eyed cattle that come<br>
Mildly to wonted words,<br>
Swine that in orchards roam, — <br>
A man and his beasts make a man and his home.<br><br>
Children sturdy and flaxen<br>
Shouting in brotherly strife,<br>
Like the land they are Saxon,<br>
Sons of a man and his wife, — <br>
For a man and his loves make a man and his life.</blockquote>
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<a name="marianasw"></a><h3>Mariana in the North</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>All her youth is gone, her beautiful youth outworn,<br>
Daughter of tarn and tor, the moors that were once her home<br>
No longer know her step on the upland tracks forlorn<br>
Where she was wont to roam.<br><br>
All her hounds are dead, her beautiful hounds are dead,<br>
That paced beside the hoofs of her high and nimble horse,<br>
Or streaked in lean pursuit of the tawny hare that fled<br>
Out of the yellow gorse.<br><br>
All her lovers have passed, her beautiful lovers have passed,<br>
The young and eager men that fought for her arrogant hand,<br>
And the only voice which endures to mourn for her at the last<br>
Is the voice of the lonely land.</blockquote>
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<a name="fmnsw"></a><h3>Full Moon</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>She was wearing the coral taffeta trousers <br>
Someone had brought her from Ispahan,<br>
And the little gold coat with pomegranate blossoms,<br>
And the coral-hafted feather fan;<br>
But she ran down a Kentish lane in the moonlight,<br>
And skipped in the pool of the moon as she ran.<br><br>
She cared not a rap for all the big planets,<br>
For Betelgeuse or Aldebaran,<br>
And all the big planets cared nothing for her,<br>
That small impertinent charlatan;<br>
But she climbed on a Kentish stile in the moonlight,<br>
And laughed at the sky through the sticks of her fan.</blockquote>
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<a name="sailshiopssw"></a><h3>Sailing Ships</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Lying on Downs above the wrinkling bay<br>
I with the kestrels shared the cleanly day,<br>
The candid day; wind-shaven, brindled turf;<br>
Tall cliffs; and long sea-line of marbled surf<br>
From Cornish Lizard to the Kentish Nore<br>
Lipping the bulwarks of the English shore,<br>
While many a lovely ship below sailed by<br>
On unknown errand, kempt and leisurely;<br>
And after each, oh, after each, my heart<br>
Fled forth, as, watching from the Downs apart,<br>
I shared with ships good joys and fortunes wide<br>
That might befall their beauty and their pride;<br><br>
Shared first with them the blessèd void repose<br>
Of oily days at sea, when only rose<br>
The porpoise's slow wheel to break the sheen<br>
Of satin water indolently green,<br>
When for'ard the crew, caps tilted over eyes,<br>
Lay heaped on deck; slept; mumbled; smoked; threw dice;<br>
The sleepy summer days; the summer nights<br>
(The coast pricked out with rings of harbour-lights),<br>
The motionless nights, the vaulted nights of June<br>
When high in the cordage drifts the entangled moon,<br>
And blocks go knocking, and the sheets go slapping,<br>
And lazy swells against the sides come lapping;<br>
And summer mornings off red Devon rocks,<br>
Faint inland bells at dawn and crowing cocks;<br><br>
Shared swifter days, when headlands into ken<br>
Trod grandly; threatened; and were lost again,<br>
Old fangs along the battlemented coast;<br>
And followed still my ship, when winds were most<br>
Night-purified, and, lying steeply over, <br>
She fled the wind as flees a girl her lover, <br>
Quickened by that pursuit for which she fretted,<br>
Her temper by the contest proved and whetted.<br>
Wild stars swept overhead; her lofty spars<br>
Reared to a ragged heaven sown with stars<br>
As leaping out from narrow English ease<br>
She faced the roll of long Atlantic seas.<br><br>
Her captain then was I, I was her crew,<br>
The mind that laid her course, the wake she drew,<br>
The waves that rose against her bows, the gales, — <br>
Nay, I was more: I was her very sails<br>
Rounded before the wind, her eager keel,<br>
Her straining mast-heads, her responsive wheel,<br>
Her pennon stiffened like a swallow's wing;<br>
Yes, I was all her slope and speed and swing,<br>
Whether by yellow lemons and blue sea<br>
She dawdled through the isles off Thessaly,<br>
Or saw the palms like sheaves of scimitars<br>
On desert's verge below the sunset bars,<br>
Or passed the girdle of the planet where<br>
The Southern Cross looks over to the Bear,<br>
And strayed, cool Northerner beneath strange skies,<br>
Flouting the lure of tropic estuaries,<br>
Down that long coast, and saw Magellan's Clouds arise.<br><br>
And some that beat up Channel homeward-bound<br>
I watched, and wondered what they might have found,<br>
What alien ports enriched their teeming hold<br>
With crates of fruit or bars of unwrought gold?<br>
And thought how London clerks with paper-clips<br>
Had filed the bills of lading of those ships,<br>
Clerks that had never seen the embattled sea,<br>
But wrote down jettison and barratry,<br>
Perils, Adventures, and the Act of God,<br>
Having no vision of such wrath flung broad;<br>
Wrote down with weary and accustomed pen<br>
The classic dangers of sea-faring men;<br>
And wrote 'Restraint of Princes,' and 'the Acts<br>
Of the King's Enemies,' as vacant facts,<br>
Blind to the ambushed seas, the encircling roar<br>
Of angry nations foaming into war.</blockquote>
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<a name="triosw"></a><h3>Trio</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>So well she knew them both! yet as she came <br>
Into the room, and heard their speech<br>
Of tragic meshes knotted with her name,<br>
And saw them, foes, but meeting each with each<br>
Closer than friends, souls bared through enmity,<br>
Beneath their startled gaze she thought that she<br>
Broke as the stranger on their conference,<br>
And stole abashed from thence.</blockquote>
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<a name="bittersw"></a><h3>Bitterness</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Yes, they were kind exceedingly; most mild<br>
Even in indignation, taking by the hand<br>
One that obeyed them mutely, as a child<br>
Submissive to a law he does not understand.<br><br>
They would not blame the sins his passion wrought.<br>
No, they were tolerant and Christian, saying, 'We<br>
Only deplore ...' saying they only sought<br>
To help him, strengthen him, to show him love; but he<br><br>
Following them with unrecalcitrant tread,<br>
Quiet, towards their town of kind captivities,<br>
Having slain rebellion, ever turned his head<br>
Over his shoulder, seeking still with his poor eyes<br><br>
Her motionless figure on the road. The song<br>
Rang still between them, vibrant bell to answering bell,<br>
Full of young glory as a bugle; strong;<br>
Still brave; now breaking like a sea-bird's cry 'Farewell!'<br><br>
And they, they whispered kindly to him 'Come!<br>
Now we have rescued you. Let your heart heal. Forget!<br>
She was your lawless dark familiar.' Dumb,<br>
He listened, and they thought him acquiescent. Yet,<br><br>
(Knowing the while that they were very kind)<br>
Remembrance clamoured in him: 'She was wild and free,<br>
Magnificent in giving; she was blind<br>
To gain or loss, and, loving, loved but me, — but me!<br><br>
'Valiant she was, and comradely, and bold;<br>
High-mettled; all her thoughts a challenge, like gay ships<br>
Adventurous, with treasure in the hold.<br>
I met her with the lesson put into my lips,<br><br>
'Spoke reason to her, and she bowed her head,<br>
Having no argument, and giving up the strife.<br>
She said I should be free. I think she said<br>
That, for the asking, she would give me all her life.'<br><br>
And still they led him onwards, and he still<br>
Looked back towards her standing there; and they, content,<br>
Cheered him and praised him that he did their will.<br>
The gradual distance hid them, and she turned, and went.</blockquote>
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<a name="evensw"></a><h3>Evening</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>When little lights in little ports come out,<br>
Quivering down through water with the stars,<br>
And all the fishing fleet of slender spars<br>
Range at their moorings, veer with tide about;<br><br>
When race of wind is stilled and sails are furled,<br>
And underneath our single riding-light<br>
The curve of black-ribbed deck gleams palely white,<br>
And slumbrous waters pool a slumbrous world;<br><br>
— Then, and then only, have I thought how sweet<br>
Old age might sink upon a windy youth,<br>
Quiet beneath the riding-light of truth,<br>
Weathered through storms, and gracious in retreat.</blockquote>
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<h2><a name="rckpoolsh">Edward Shanks</a></h2><br>
<h3>The Rock Pool</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>This is the sea. In these uneven walls<br>
A wave lies prisoned. Far and far away<br>
Outward to ocean, as the slow tide falls,<br>
Her sisters through the capes that hold the bay<br>
Dancing in lovely liberty recede.<br>
Yet lovely in captivity she lies,<br>
Filled with soft colours, where the wavering weed<br>
Moves gently and discloses to our eyes<br>
Blurred shining veins of rock and lucent shells<br>
Under the light-shot water; and here repose<br>
Small quiet fish and dimly glowing bells<br>
Of sleeping sea-anemones that close<br>
Their tender fronds and will not now awake<br>
Till on these rocks the waves returning break.</blockquote>
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<a name="gladesh"></a><h3>The Glade</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>We may raise our voices even in this still glade:<br>
Though the colours and shadows and sounds so fleeting seem,<br>
We shall not dispel them. They are not made<br>
Frailly by earth or hands, but immortal in our dream.<br><br>
We may touch the faint violets with the hands of thought,<br>
Or lay the pale core of the wild arum bare;<br>
And for ever in our minds the white wild cherry is caught,<br>
Cloudy against the sky and melting into air.<br><br>
This which we have seen is eternally ours,<br>
No others shall tread in the glade which now we see;<br>
Their hands shall not touch the frail tranquil flowers,<br>
Nor their hearts faint in wonder at the wild white tree.</blockquote>
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<a name="memshanks"></a><h3>Memory</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>In silence and in darkness memory wakes<br>
Her million sheathèd buds, and breaks<br>
That day-long winter when the light and noise<br>
And hard bleak breath of the outward-looking will<br>
Made barren her tender soil, when every voice<br>
Of her million airy birds was muffled or still.<br><br>
One bud-sheath breaks:<br>
One sudden voice awakes.<br><br>
What change grew in our hearts, seeing one night<br>
That moth-winged ship drifting across the bay,<br>
Her broad sail dimly white<br>
On cloudy waters and hills as vague as they?<br>
Some new thing touched our spirits with distant delight,<br>
Half-seen, half-noticed, as we loitered down,<br>
Talking in whispers, to the little town,<br>
Down from the narrow hill<br>
— Talking in whispers, for the air so still<br>
Imposed its stillness on our lips, and made<br><br>
A quiet equal with the equal shade<br>
That filled the slanting walk. That phantom now<br>
Slides with slack canvas and unwhispering prow<br>
Through the dark sea that this dark room has made.<br>
Or the night of the closed eyes will turn to day,<br>
And all day's colours start out of the gray.<br>
The sun burns on the water. The tall hills<br>
Push up their shady groves into the sky,<br>
And fail and cease where the intense light spills<br>
Its parching torrent on the gaunt and dry<br>
Rock of the further mountains, whence the snow<br>
That softened their harsh edges long is gone,<br>
And nothing tempers now<br>
The hot flood falling on the barren stone.<br><br>
O memory, take and keep<br>
All that my eyes, your servants, bring you home — <br>
Those other days beneath the low white dome<br>
Of smooth-spread clouds that creep<br>
As slow and soft as sleep,<br>
When shade grows pale and the cypress stands upright,<br>
Distinct in the cool light,<br>
Rigid and solid as a dark hewn stone;<br>
And many another night,<br>
That melts in darkness on the narrow quays,<br>
And changes every colour and every tone,<br>
And soothes the waters to a softer ease,<br>
When under constellations coldly bright<br>
The homeward sailors sing their way to bed<br>
On ships that motionless in harbour float.<br>
The circling harbour-lights flash green and red;<br>
And, out beyond, a steady travelling boat,<br>
Breaking the swell with slow industrious oars,<br>
At each stroke pours<br>
Pale lighted water from the lifted blade.<br>
Now in the painted houses all around<br>
Slow-darkening windows call<br>
The empty unwatched middle of the night.<br>
The tide's few inches rise without a sound.<br>
On the black promontory's windless head,<br>
The last awake, the fireflies rise and fall<br>
And tangle up their dithering skeins of light.<br><br>
O memory, take and keep<br>
All that my eyes, your servants, bring you home!<br>
Thick through the changing year<br>
The unexpected, rich-charged moments come, <br>
That you twixt wake and sleep<br>
In the lids of the closed eyes shall make appear.<br><br>
This is life's certain good,<br>
Though in the end it be not good at all<br>
When the dark end arises,<br>
And the stripped, startled spirit must let fall<br>
The amulets that could<br>
Prevail with life's but not death's sad devices.<br><br>
Then, like a child from whom an older child<br>
Forces its gathered treasures,<br>
Its beads and shells and strings of withered flowers,<br>
Tokens of recent pleasures,<br>
The soul must lose in eyes weeping and wild<br>
Those prints of vanished hours.</blockquote>
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<a name="wmsongsh"></a><h3>Woman's Song</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>No more upon my bosom rest thee,<br>
Too often have my hands caressed thee,<br>
My lips thou knowest well, too well;<br>
Lean to my heart no more thine ear<br>
My spirit's living truth to hear<br>
— It has no more to tell.<br><br>
In what dark night, in what strange night,<br>
Burnt to the butt the candle's light<br>
That lit our room so long?<br>
I do not know, I thought I knew<br>
How love could be both sweet and true:<br>
I also thought it strong.<br><br>
Where has the flame departed? Where,<br>
Amid the empty waste of air,<br>
Is that which dwelt with us?<br>
Was it a fancy? Did we make<br>
Only a show for dead love's sake,<br>
It being so piteous?<br><br>
No more against my bosom press thee,<br>
Seek no more that my hands caress thee,<br>
Leave the sad lips thou hast known so well;<br>
If to my heart thou lean thine ear,<br>
There grieving thou shalt only hear<br>
Vain murmuring of an empty shell.</blockquote>
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<a name="windshanks"></a><h3>The Wind</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Blow harder, wind, and drive<br>
My blood from hands and face back to the heart.<br>
Cry over ridges and down tapering coombs,<br>
Carry the flying dapple of the clouds<br>
Over the grass, over the soft-grained plough,<br>
Stroke with ungentle hand the hill's rough hair<br>
Against its usual set.<br>
Snatch at the reins in my dead hands and push me<br>
Out of my saddle, blow my labouring pony<br>
Across the track. You only drive my blood<br>
Nearer the heart from face and hands, and plant there,<br>
Slowly burning, unseen, but alive and wonderful,<br>
A numb, confusèd joy!<br>
This little world's in tumult. Far away<br>
The dim waves rise and wrestle with each other<br>
And fall down headlong on the beach. And here<br>
Quick gusts fly up the funnels of the valleys<br>
And meet their raging fellows on the hill-tops,<br>
And we are in the midst.<br>
This beating heart, enriched with the hands' blood,<br>
Stands in the midst and feels the warm joy burn<br>
In solitude and silence, while all about<br>
The gusts clamour like living, angry birds,<br>
And the gorse seems hardly tethered to the ground.<br>
Blow louder, wind, about<br>
My square-set house, rattle the windows, lift<br>
The trap-door to the loft above my head<br>
And let it fall, clapping. Yell in the trees,<br>
And throw a rotted elm-branch to the ground,<br>
Flog the dry trailers of my climbing rose — <br>
Make deep, O wind, my rest!</blockquote>
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<a name="loneplsh"></a><h3>A Lonely Place</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>The leafless trees, the untidy stack<br>
Last rainy summer raised in haste,<br>
Watch the sky turn from fair to black<br>
And watch the river fill and waste;<br><br>
But never a footstep comes to trouble<br>
The sea-gulls in the new-sown corn,<br>
Or pigeons rising from late stubble<br>
And flashing lighter as they turn.<br><br>
Or if a footstep comes, 'tis mine<br>
Sharp on the road or soft on grass:<br>
Silence divides along my line<br>
And shuts behind me as I pass.<br><br>
No other comes, no labourer<br>
To cut his shaggy truss of hay,<br>
Along the road no traveller,<br>
Day after day, day after day.<br><br>
And even I, when I come here,<br>
Move softly on, subdued and still,<br>
Lonely as death, though I can hear<br>
Men shouting on the other hill.<br><br>
Day after day, though no one sees,<br>
The lonely place no different seems;<br>
The trees, the stack, still images<br>
Constant in who can say whose dreams?</blockquote>
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<h2><a name="elegysq">J. C. Squire</a></h2><br>
<h3>Elegy</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>I vaguely wondered what you were about,<br>
But never wrote when you had gone away;<br>
Assumed you better, quenched the uneasy doubt<br>
You might need faces, or have things to say.<br>
Did I think of you last evening? Dead you lay.<br>
O bitter words of conscience!<br>
I hold the simple message,<br>
And fierce with grief the awakened heart cries out:<br>
'It shall not be to-day;<br><br>
It is still yesterday; there is time yet!'<br>
Sorrow would strive backward to wrench the sun,<br>
But the sun moves. Our onward course is set,<br>
The wake streams out, the engine pulses run<br>
Droning, a lonelier voyage is begun.<br>
It is all too late for turning,<br>
You are past all mortal signal,<br>
There will be time for nothing but regret<br>
And the memory of things done!<br><br>
The quiet voice that always counselled best,<br>
The mind that so ironically played<br>
Yet for mere gentleness forebore the jest.<br>
The proud and tender heart that sat in shade<br>
Nor once solicited another's aid,<br>
Yet was so grateful always<br>
For trifles lightly given,<br>
The silences, the melancholy guessed<br>
Sometimes, when your eyes strayed.<br><br>
But always when you turned, you talked the more.<br>
Through all our literature your way you took<br>
With modest ease; yet would you soonest pore,<br>
Smiling, with most affection in your look,<br>
On the ripe ancient and the curious nook.<br>
Sage travellers, learnèd printers,<br>
Divines and buried poets,<br>
You knew them all, but never half your lore<br>
Was drawn from any book.<br><br>
Stories and jests from field and town and port,<br>
And odd neglected scraps of history<br>
From everywhere, for you were of the sort,<br>
Cool and refined, who like rough company:<br>
Carter and barmaid, hawker and bargee,<br>
Wise pensioners and boxers<br>
With whom you drank, and listened<br>
To legends of old revelry and sport<br>
And customs of the sea.<br><br>
I hear you: yet more clear than all one note,<br>
One sudden hail I still remember best,<br>
That came on sunny days from one afloat<br>
And drew me to the pane in certain quest<br>
Of a long brown face, bare arms and flimsy vest,<br>
In fragments through the branches,<br>
Above the green reflections:<br>
Paused by the willows in your varnished boat<br>
You, with your oars at rest.<br><br>
Did that come back to you when you were dying?<br>
I think it did: you had much leisure there,<br>
And, with the things we knew, came quietly flying<br>
Memories of things you had seen we knew not where.<br><br>
You watched again with meditative stare<br>
Places where you had wandered,<br>
Golden and calm in distance:<br>
Voices from all your altering past came sighing<br>
On the soft Hampshire air.<br><br>
For there you sat a hundred miles away,<br>
A rug upon your knees, your hands gone frail,<br>
And daily bade your farewell to the day,<br>
A music blent of trees and clouds a-sail<br>
And figures in some old neglected tale:<br>
And watched the sunset gathering,<br>
And heard the birdsong fading,<br>
And went within when the last sleepy lay<br>
Passed to a farther vale,<br><br>
Never complaining, and stepped up to bed<br>
More and more slow, a tall and sunburnt man<br>
Grown bony and bearded, knowing you would be dead<br>
Before the summer, glad your life began<br>
Even thus to end, after so short a span,<br>
And mused a space serenely,<br>
Then fell to easy slumber,<br>
At peace, content. For never again your head<br>
Need make another plan.<br><br>
Most generous, most gentle, most discreet,<br>
Who left us ignorant to spare us pain:<br>
We went our ways with too forgetful feet<br>
And missed the chance that would not come again,<br>
Leaving with thoughts on pleasure bent, or gain,<br>
Fidelity unattested<br>
And services unrendered:<br>
The ears are closed, the heart has ceased to beat,<br>
And now all proof is vain.<br><br>
Too late for other gifts, I give you this,<br>
Who took from you so much, so carelessly,<br>
On your far brows a first and phantom kiss,<br>
On your far grave a careful elegy.<br>
For one who loved all life and poetry,<br>
Sorrow in music bleeding,<br>
And friendship's last confession.<br>
But even as I speak that inner hiss<br>
Softly accuses me,<br><br>
Saying: Those brows are senseless, deaf that tomb,<br>
This is the callous, cold resort of art.<br>
'I give you this.' What do I give? to whom?<br>
Words to the air, and balm to my own heart,<br>
To its old luxurious and commanded smart.<br>
An end to all this tuning,<br>
This cynical masquerading;<br>
What comfort now in that far final gloom<br>
Can any song impart?<br><br>
O yet I see you dawning from some heaven,<br>
Who would not suffer self-reproach to live<br>
In one to whom your friendship once was given.<br>
I catch a vision, faint and fugitive,<br>
Of a dark face with eyes contemplative,<br>
Deep eyes that smile in silence,<br>
And parted lips that whisper,<br>
'Say nothing more, old friend, of being forgiven,<br>
There is nothing to forgive.'</blockquote>
<br>
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<a name="medlampsq"></a><h3>Meditation in Lamplight</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>What deaths men have died, not fighting but impotent.<br>
Hung on the wire, between trenches, burning and freezing,<br>
Groaning for water with armies of men so near;<br>
The fall over cliff, the clutch at the rootless grass,<br>
The beach rushing up, the whirling, the turning headfirst;<br>
Stiff writhings of strychnine, taken in error or haste,<br>
Angina pectoris, shudders of the heart;<br>
Failure and crushing by flying weight to the ground,<br>
Claws and jaws, the stink of a lion's breath;<br>
Swimming, a white belly, a crescent of teeth,<br>
Agony, and a spirting shredded limb,<br>
And crimson blood staining the green water;<br>
And, horror of horrors, the slow grind on the rack,<br>
The breaking bones, the stretching and bursting skin,<br>
Perpetual fainting and waking to see above<br>
The down-thrust mocking faces of cruel men,<br>
With the power of mercy, who gloat upon shrieks for mercy.<br><br>
O pity me, God! O God, make tolerable,<br>
Make tolerable the end that awaits for me,<br>
And give me courage to die when the time comes,<br>
When the time comes as it must, however it comes,<br>
That I shrink not nor scream, gripped by the jaws of the vice;<br>
For the thought of it turns me sick, and my heart stands still,<br>
Knocks and stands still. O fearful, fearful Shadow,<br>
Kill me, let me die to escape the terror of thee!<br><br>
A tap. Come in! Oh, no, I am perfectly well,<br>
Only a little tired. Take this one, it's softer.<br>
How are things going with you? Will you have some coffee?<br>
Well, of course it's trying sometimes, but never mind,<br>
It will probably be all right. Carry on, and keep cheerful.<br>
I shouldn't, if I were you, meet trouble half-way,<br>
It is always best to take everything as it comes.</blockquote>
<br>
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<a name="latesnw"></a><h3>Late Snow</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>The heavy train through the dim country went rolling, rolling,<br>
Interminably passing misty snow-covered plough-land ridges<br>
That merged in the snowy sky; came turning meadows, fences,<br>
Came gullies and passed, and ice-coloured streams under frozen bridges.<br><br>
Across the travelling landscape evenly drooped and lifted<br>
The telegraph wires, thick ropes of snow in the windless air;<br>
They drooped and paused and lifted again to unseen summits,<br>
Drawing the eyes and soothing them, often, to a drowsy stare.<br><br>
Singly in the snow the ghosts of trees were softly pencilled,<br>
Fainter and fainter, in distance fading, into nothingness gliding,<br>
But sometimes a crowd of the intricate silver trees of fairyland<br>
Passed, close and intensely clear, the phantom world hiding.<br><br>
O untroubled these moving mantled miles of shadowless shadows,<br>
And lovely the film of falling flakes; so wayward and slack;<br>
But I thought of many a mother-bird screening her nestlings,<br>
Sitting silent with wide bright eyes, snow on her back.</blockquote>
<br>
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<h2><a name="cscapey">Francis Brett Young</a></h2><br>
<h3>Seascape</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Over that morn hung heaviness, until,<br>
Near sunless noon, we heard the ship's bell beating<br>
A melancholy staccato on dead metal;<br>
Saw the bare-footed watch come running aft;<br>
Felt, far below, the sudden telegraph jangle<br>
Its harsh metallic challenge, thrice repeated:<br>
<i>Stand to. Half-speed ahead. Slow. Stop her!</i><br>
They stopped.<br>
The plunging pistons sank like a stopped heart:<br>
She held, she swayed, a hulk, a hollow carcass<br>
Of blistered iron that the grey-green, waveless,<br>
Unruffled tropic waters slapped languidly.<br><br>
And, in that pause, a sinister whisper ran:<br>
Burial at Sea! a Portuguese official ...<br>
Poor fever-broken devil from Mozambique:<br>
Came on half tight: the doctor calls it heat-stroke.<br>
Why do they travel steerage? It's the exchange:<br>
So many million <i>reis</i> to the pound!<br>
What did he look like? No one ever saw him:<br>
Took to his bunk, and drank and drank and died.<br>
They're ready! Silence!<br>
We clustered to the rail,<br>
Curious and half-ashamed. The well-deck spread<br>
A comfortable gulf of segregation<br>
Between ourselves and death. <i>Burial at sea</i> ...<br>
The master holds a black book at arm's length;<br>
His droning voice comes for'ard: <i>This our brother ...<br>
We therefore commit his body to the deep<br>
To be turned into corruption</i> ... The bo's'n whispers<br>
Hoarsely behind his hand: <i>Now, all together!</i><br>
The hatch-cover is tilted; a mummy of sailcloth<br>
Well ballasted with iron shoots clear of the poop;<br>
Falls, like a diving gannet. The green sea closes<br>
Its burnished skin; the snaky swell smoothes over ...<br>
While he, the man of the steerage, goes down, down,<br>
Feet foremost, sliding swiftly down the dim water,<br>
Swift to escape<br>
Those plunging shapes with pale, empurpled bellies<br>
That swirl and veer about him. He goes down<br>
Unerringly, as though he knew the way<br>
Through green, through gloom, to absolute watery darkness,<br>
Where no weed sways nor curious fin quivers:<br>
To the sad, sunless deeps where, endlessly,<br>
A downward drift of death spreads its wan mantle<br>
In the wave-moulded valleys that shall enfold him<br>
Till the sea give up its dead.<br><br>
There shall he lie dispersed amid great riches:<br>
Such gold, such arrogance, so many bold hearts!<br>
All the sunken armadas pressed to powder<br>
By weight of incredible seas! That mingled wrack<br>
No livening sun shall visit till the crust<br>
Of earth be riven, or this rolling planet<br>
Reel on its axis; till the moon-chained tides,<br>
Unloosed, deliver up that white Atlantis<br>
Whose naked peaks shall bleach above the slaked<br>
Thirst of Sahara, fringed by weedy tangles<br>
Of Atlas's drown'd cedars, frowning eastward<br>
To where the sands of India lie cold,<br>
And heap'd Himalaya's a rib of coral<br>
Slowly uplifted, grain on grain....<br><br>
We dream<br>
Too long! Another jangle of alarum<br>
Stabs at the engines: <i>Slow. Half-speed. Full-speed!</i><br>
The great bearings rumble; the screw churns, frothing <br>
Opaque water to downward-swelling plumes<br>
Milky as wood-smoke. A shoal of flying-fish<br>
Spurts out like animate spray. The warm breeze wakens;<br>
And we pass on, forgetting,<br>
Toward the solemn horizon of bronzed cumulus<br>
That bounds our brooding sea, gathering gloom<br>
That, when night falls, will dissipate in flaws<br>
Of watery lightning, washing the hot sky,<br>
Cleansing all hearts of heat and restlessness,<br>
Until, with day, another blue be born.</blockquote>
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<a name="scirocco"></a><h3>Scirocco</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Out of that high pavilion<br>
Where the sick, wind-harassed sun<br>
In the whiteness of the day<br>
Ghostly shone and stole away — <br>
Parchèd with the utter thirst<br>
Of unnumbered Libyan sands,<br>
Thou, cloud-gathering spirit, burst<br>
Out of arid Africa<br>
To the tideless sea, and smote<br>
On our pale, moon-coolèd lands<br>
The hot breath of a lion's throat.<br><br>
And that furnace-heated breath<br>
Blew into my placid dreams<br>
The heart of fire from whence it came:<br>
Haunt of beauty and of death<br>
Where the forest breaks in flame<br>
Of flaunting blossom, where the flood<br>
Of life pulses hot and stark,<br>
Where a wing'd death breeds in mud<br>
And tumult of tree-shadowed streams — <br>
Black waters, desolately hurled<br>
Through the uttermost, lost, dark,<br>
Secret places of the world.<br><br>
There, O swift and terrible<br>
Being, wast thou born; and thence,<br>
Like a demon loosed from hell,<br>
Stripped with rending wings the dense<br>
Echoing forests, till their bowed<br>
Plumes of trees like tattered cloud<br>
Were toss'd and torn, and cried aloud<br>
As the wood were rack'd with pain:<br>
Thence thou freed'st thy wings, and soon<br>
From the moaning, stricken plain <br>
In whorled eagle-soarings rose <br>
To melt the sun-defeating snows<br>
Of the Mountains of the Moon,<br>
To dull their glaciers with fierce breath,<br>
To slip the avalanches' rein,<br>
To set the laughing torrents free<br>
On the tented desert beneath,<br>
Where men of thirst must wither and die<br>
While the vultures stare in the sun's eye;<br>
Where slowly sifting sands are strown<br>
On broken cities, whose bleaching bones<br>
Whiten in moonlight stone on stone.<br><br>
Over their pitiful dust thy blast<br>
Passed in columns of whirling sand,<br>
Leapt the desert and swept the strand<br>
Of the cool and quiet sea,<br>
Gathering mighty shapes, and proud<br>
Phantoms of monstrous, wave-born cloud,<br>
And northward drove this panoply<br>
Till the sky seemed charging on the land....<br><br>
Yet, in that plumèd helm, the most<br>
Of thy hot power was cooled or lost,<br>
So that it came to me at length,<br>
Faint and tepid and shorn of strength,<br>
To shiver an olive-grove that heaves<br>
A myriad moonlight-coloured leaves,<br>
And in the stone-pine's dome set free<br>
A murmur of the middle sea:<br>
A puff of warm air in the night<br>
So spent by its impetuous flight<br>
It scarce invades my pillar'd closes, — <br>
To waft their fragrance from the sweet<br>
Buds of my lemon-coloured roses<br>
Or strew blown petals at my feet:<br>
To kiss my cheek with a warm sigh<br>
And in the tired darkness die.</blockquote>
<br>
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<a name="quailsy"></a><h3>The Quails</h3>
<br>
<i>(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.)</i><br>
<br>
<blockquote>All through the night<br>
I have heard the stuttering call of a blind quail,<br>
A caged decoy, under a cairn of stones,<br>
Crying for light as the quails cry for love.<br><br>
Other wanderers,<br>
Northward from Africa winging on numb pinions, dazed<br>
With beating winds and the sobbing of the sea,<br>
Hear, in a breath of sweet land-herbage, the call<br>
Of the blind one, their sister....<br>
Hearing, their fluttered hearts<br>
Take courage, and they wheel in their dark flight,<br>
Knowing that their toil is over, dreaming to see<br>
The white stubbles of Abruzzi smitten with dawn,<br>
And spilt grain lying in the furrows, the squandered gold<br>
That is the delight of quails in their spring mating.<br><br>
Land-scents grow keener,<br>
Penetrating the dank and bitter odour of brine<br>
That whitens their feathers;<br>
Far below, the voice of their sister calls them<br>
To plenty, and sweet water, and fulfilment.<br>
Over the pallid margin of dim seas breaking,<br>
Over the thickening in the darkness that is land,<br>
They fly. Their flight is ended. Wings beat no more.<br>
Downward they drift, one by one, like dark petals,<br>
Slowly, listlessly falling<br>
Into the mouth of horror:<br>
The nets....<br><br>
Where men come trampling and crying with bright lanterns,<br>
Plucking their weak, entangled claws from the meshes of net,<br>
Clutching the soft brown bodies mottled with olive,<br>
Crushing the warm, fluttering flesh, in hands stained with blood,<br>
Till their quivering hearts are stilled, and the bright eyes,<br>
That are like a polished agate, glaze in death.<br><br>
But the blind one, in her wicker cage, without ceasing<br>
Haunts this night of spring with her stuttering call,<br>
Knowing nothing of the terror that walks in darkness,<br>
Knowing only that some cruelty has stolen the light<br>
That is life, and that she must cry until she dies.<br><br>
I, in the darkness,<br>
Heard, and my heart grew sick. But I know that to-morrow<br>
A smiling peasant will come with a basket of quails<br>
Wrapped in vine-leaves, prodding them with blood-stained fingers,<br>
Saying, 'Signore, you must cook them thus, and thus,<br>
With a sprig of basil inside them.' And I shall thank him,<br>
Carrying the piteous carcases into the kitchen<br>
Without a pang, without shame.<br><br>
'Why should I be ashamed? Why should I rail<br>
Against the cruelty of men? Why should I pity,<br>
Seeing that there is no cruelty which men can imagine<br>
To match the subtle dooms that are wrought against them<br>
By blind spores of pestilence: seeing that each of us,<br>
Lured by dim hopes, flutters in the toils of death<br>
On a cold star that is spinning blindly through space <br>
Into the nets of time?' <br><br>
So cried I, bitterly thrusting pity aside,<br>
Closing my lids to sleep. But sleep came not,<br>
And pity, with sad eyes,<br>
Crept to my side, and told me<br>
That the life of all creatures is brave and pityful<br>
Whether they be men, with dark thoughts to vex them,<br>
Or birds, wheeling in the swift joys of flight,<br>
Or brittle ephemerids, spinning to death in the haze<br>
Of gold that quivers on dim evening waters;<br>
Nor would she be denied.<br>
The harshness died<br>
Within me, and my heart<br>
Was caught and fluttered like the palpitant heart<br>
Of a brown quail, flying<br>
To the call of her blind sister,<br>
And death, in the spring night.</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp4">Contents, p. 4</a></p><hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<a name="sngscruz"></a><h3>Song at Santa Cruz</h3>
<br>
<blockquote>Were there lovers in the lanes of Atlantis:<br>
Meeting lips and twining fingers<br>
In the mild Atlantis springtime?<br>
How should I know<br>
If there were lovers in the lanes of Atlantis<br>
When the dark sea drowned her mountains<br>
Many ages ago?<br><br>
Were there poets in the paths of Atlantis:<br>
Eager poets, seeking beauty<br>
To adorn the women they worshipped?<br>
How can I say<br>
If there were poets in the paths of Atlantis?<br>
For the waters that drowned her mountains<br>
Washed their beauty away.<br><br>
Were there women in the ways of Atlantis:<br>
Foolish women, who loved, as I do,<br>
Dreaming that mortal love was deathless?<br>
Ask me not now<br>
If there were women in the ways of Atlantis:<br>
There was no woman in all her mountains<br>
Wonderful as thou!</blockquote>
<br>
<p align="right"><a href="#toc">Contents</a> / <a href="#cp4">Contents, p. 4</a></p><hr width="50%" align="right"><br><br>
<h2><a name="biblio">Bibliography</a></h2><br>
<i>These lists, which include poetical works only, are in some cases
incomplete.
</i><br><br>
<hr>
<br>
<table summary="bibliography" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>Lascelles Abercrombie</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Interludes and Poems</i></td>
<td width="40%">John Lane. 1908</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Mary and the Bramble</i></td>
<td>(<i>Out of print</i>.) 1910</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Sale of St. Thomas</i><a href="#fb1"><sup>1</sup></a></td>
<td><a name="frb1"></a>(<i>Out of print</i>.) 1911</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Emblems of Love</i></td>
<td>John Lane. 1912</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Deborah</i> (three act play) </td>
<td>John Lane. 1913</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Four Short Plays</i></td>
<td>Martin Seeker. 1922</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>Martin Armstrong</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Exodus and Other Poems</i></td>
<td width="40%">Lynwood and Co. 1912</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Thirty New Poems</i></td>
<td>Chapman and Hall. 1918</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Buzzards</i></td>
<td>Martin Seeker. 1921</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>Edmund Blunden</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>The Waggoner</i></td>
<td width="40%">Sidgwick and Jackson. 1920</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Shepherd</i></td>
<td>R. Cobden-Sanderson. 1922</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>William H. Davies</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>The Soul's Destroyer</i></td>
<td width="40%">Jonathan Cape. 1906</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>New Poems</i></td>
<td>Jonathan Cape. 1907</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Nature Poems</i></td>
<td>Jonathan Cape. 1908</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Farewell to Poesy</i></td>
<td>Jonathan Cape. 1910</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Songs of Joy</i></td>
<td>Jonathan Cape. 1911</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Foliage</i></td>
<td>Jonathan Cape. 1913</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Bird of Paradise</i></td>
<td>Methuen. 1914</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Child Lovers</i></td>
<td>Jonathan Cape. 1916</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Collected Poems</i></td>
<td>Jonathan Cape. 1916</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Raptures</i><a href="#fb2"><sup>2</sup></a></td>
<td><a name="frb2"></a>Beaumont Press. 1918</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Forty New Poems</i></td>
<td>Jonathan Cape. 1918</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Song of Life</i></td>
<td>Jonathan Cape. 1920</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Hour of Magic</i></td>
<td>Jonathan Cape. 1922</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>Walter de la Mare</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Poems</i></td>
<td width="40%">Murray. 1906</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Listeners</i></td>
<td>Constable. 1912</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>A Child's Day</i></td>
<td>Constable. 1912</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Peacock Pie</i></td>
<td>Constable. 1913</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Songs of Childhood</i>(<i>New Edition</i>.)</td>
<td>Longmans. 1916</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Sunken Garden</i><a href="#fb3"><sup>3</sup></a></td>
<td><a name="frb3"></a>Beaumont Press. 1917</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Motley</i></td>
<td>Constable. 1917</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Poems, 1901-1918</i></td>
<td>Constable. 1920</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Flora</i></td>
<td>Heinemann. 1919</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Veil</i></td>
<td>Constable. 1921</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>John Drinkwater</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Poems of Men and Hours</i></td>
<td width="40%">(<i>Out of print</i>.) 1911</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Cophetua</i> (play)</td>
<td>(<i>Out of print</i>.) 1911</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Poems of Love and Earth</i></td>
<td>(<i>Out of print</i>.) 1912</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Cromwell, and Other Poems</i></td>
<td>David Nutt. 1913</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Rebellion</i> (play)</td>
<td>(<i>Out of print</i>.) 1914</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Swords and Ploughshares</i></td>
<td>Sidgwick and Jackson. 1915</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Olton Pools</i></td>
<td>Sidgwick and Jackson. 1916</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Poems, 1908-1914</i></td>
<td>Sidgwick and Jackson. 1917</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Tides</i></td>
<td>Beaumont Press. 1917</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Tides</i> (with additions)</td>
<td>Sidgwick and Jackson. 1917</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Loyalties</i></td>
<td>Beaumont Press. 1918</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Loyalties</i> (with additions)</td>
<td>Sidgwick and Jackson. 1918</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Abraham Lincoln</i> <br>
(Prose Play with Chorus)</td>
<td>Sidgwick and Jackson. 1918</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Seeds of Time</i></td>
<td>Sidgwick and Jackson. 1921</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Selected Poems</i></td>
<td>Sidgwick and Jackson. 1922</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Pawns and Cophetua </i> <br>
(Four Poetic Plays).<br>
(New Edition.)</td>
<td>Sidgwick and Jackson. 1922</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Preludes, 1921-1922</i></td>
<td>(in preparation)</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>John Freeman</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Twenty Poems</i></td>
<td width="40%">Gay and Hancock. 1909</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Fifty Poems.</i> (New Edition.)</td>
<td>Selwyn and Blount. 1916</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Stone Trees</i></td>
<td>Selwyn and Blount. 1916</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Presage of Victory</i></td>
<td>Selwyn and Blount. 1916</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Memories of Childhood</i></td>
<td>Morland Press. 1918</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Memories, and Other Poems</i></td>
<td>Selwyn and Blount. 1919</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Poems New and Old</i></td>
<td>Selwyn and Blount. 1920</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Music</i></td>
<td>Selwyn and Blount. 1921</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Two Poems</i></td>
<td>Selwyn and Blount. 1921</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>Wilfrid Gibson</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Stonefolds</i></td>
<td width="40%">Elkin Mathews. 1907</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Akra the Slave</i></td>
<td>Elkin Mathews. 1910</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Daily Bread</i></td>
<td>Elkin Mathews. 1910</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Fires</i></td>
<td>Elkin Mathews. 1913</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Borderlands</i></td>
<td>Elkin Mathews. 1914</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Thoroughfares</i></td>
<td>Elkin Mathews. 1914</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Battle</i></td>
<td>Elkin Mathews. 1915</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Friends</i></td>
<td>Elkin Mathews. 1916</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Livelihood</i></td>
<td>Macmillan. 1917</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Collected Poems</i></td>
<td>New York: Macmillan Co. 1917</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Whin</i></td>
<td>Macmillan. 1918</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Home</i></td>
<td>Beaumont Press. 1919</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Neighbours</i></td>
<td>Macmillan. 1920</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Krindlesyke</i> (play)</td>
<td>Macmillan. 1922</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>Robert Graves</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Over the Brazier</i></td>
<td width="40%">Poetry Bookshop. 1916</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Fairies and Fusiliers</i></td>
<td>Heinemann. 1917</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Country Sentiment</i></td>
<td>Martin Seeker. 1919</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Pier-glass</i></td>
<td>Martin Seeker. 1921</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>On English Poetry</i> <br>
(Critical work containing new poems)</td>
<td>pub</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Whipperginny</i></td>
<td>(in preparation)</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>Richard Hughes</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Gipsy-Night</i></td>
<td width="40%">Golden Cockerel Press. 1922</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>D. H. Lawrence</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Love Poems</i></td>
<td width="40%">Duckworth. 1913</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Amores</i></td>
<td>Duckworth. 1916</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Look! We have Come Through!</i></td>
<td>(<i>Out of print.</i>) 1917</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>New Poems</i></td>
<td>Martin Seeker. 1918</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>Harold Monro</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Judas</i></td>
<td width="40%">Sampson Low. 1908</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Before Dawn</i></td>
<td>(<i>Out of print.</i>) 1911</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Children of Love.</i></td>
<td>Poetry Bookshop. 1914</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Strange Meetings</i></td>
<td>Poetry Bookshop. 1917</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Real Property</i></td>
<td>London: Poetry Bookshop. 1922<br>
New York: Macmillan Co. 1922</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>Robert Nichols</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Invocation</i></td>
<td width="40%">Elkin Mathews. 1915</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Ardours and Endurances</i></td>
<td>Chatto and Windus. 1917</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Budded Branch</i></td>
<td>Beaumont Press. 1918</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Aurelia</i></td>
<td>Chatto and Windus. 1920</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>Frank Prewett</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Poems</i></td>
<td width="40%">Hogarth Press. 1921</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>Peter Quennell</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Masques and Poems</i></td>
<td width="40%">(in preparation). Golden Cockerel Press</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>V. Sackville-West</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Orchard and Vineyard</i></td>
<td width="40%">John Lane. 1921</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>Edward Shanks</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Songs</i></td>
<td width="40%">(<i>Out of print</i>.) 1915</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Poems</i></td>
<td>Sidgwick and Jackson. 1916</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Queen of China</i></td>
<td>Martin Seeker. 1919</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Island of Youth</i></td>
<td>Collins. 1921</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>J. C. Squire</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Steps to Parnassus</i></td>
<td width="40%">Allen and Unwin. 1913</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Three Hills</i></td>
<td>Allen and Unwin. 1913</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Survival of the Fittest</i></td>
<td>Allen and Unwin. 1916</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Tricks of the Trade</i></td>
<td>Hodder and Stoughton. 1917</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Poems: First Series</i></td>
<td>Hodder and Stoughton. 1918</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>The Birds, and Other Poems</i></td>
<td>Hodder and Stoughton. 1919</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Poems: Second Series</i></td>
<td>Hodder and Stoughton. 1922</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br>
<table summary="bibliography2" width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="1">
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td width="30%"><b>Francis Brett Young</b></td>
<td width="30%"><i>Five Degrees South</i></td>
<td width="40%">Martin Seeker. 1917</td>
</tr>
<tr align="left" valign="top">
<td></td>
<td><i>Poems, 1916-1918</i></td>
<td>Collins. 1919</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<hr><br><br>
<a name="fb1"><span style="color: #FF0000;">Footnote 1:</span></a> Reprinted in <i>Georgian Poetry, 1911-1912</i>.<br>
<a href="#frb1">return to footnote mark</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<a name="fb2"><span style="color: #FF0000;">Footnote 2:</span></a> Reprinted, with additions, in <i>Forty New Poems</i>.<br>
<a href="#frb2">return</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<a name="fb3"><span style="color: #FF0000;">Footnote 3:</span></a> Reprinted, with additions, in <i>Motley</i>.<br>
<a href="#frb3">return</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><i>end of text</i></b>
<br>
<br>
<hr><br><br>
<br>
<pre>
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