diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:33:35 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:33:35 -0700 |
| commit | 79be31d60bb4905f43372fc96cc1c410db5c25d4 (patch) | |
| tree | ba0778f8a882b6f62071993e36b17391946b91c1 /9652.txt | |
Diffstat (limited to '9652.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 9652.txt | 4883 |
1 files changed, 4883 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/9652.txt b/9652.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b752b13 --- /dev/null +++ b/9652.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4883 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Miscellany of Poetry, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Miscellany of Poetry + 1919 + +Author: Various + +Editor: W. Kean Seymour + +Illustrator: Doris Palmer + Cecil Palmer + Hayward + +Posting Date: December 5, 2011 [EBook #9652] +Release Date: January, 2006 +First Posted: October 13, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MISCELLANY OF POETRY *** + + + + +Produced by Clytie Siddall, Keren Vergon and the online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + + +A MISCELLANY OF POETRY + +1919 + + +Edited by W. Kean Seymour. + + + +With decorations by Doris Palmer, Cecil Palmer and Hayward. + + + +To + +SIR ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH + + + + +1919 + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + + +This 'Miscellany of Poetry, 1919', is issued to the public as a truly +catholic anthology of contemporary poetry. The poems here printed are +new, in the sense that they have not previously been issued by their +authors in book form--a fact which surely gives the Miscellany an unique +place among modern collections. My deep thanks are due to my +fellow-contributors for their generous and hearty co-operation, and to +the editors of the 'English Review', 'To-day', 'Voices', 'New Witness', +'Observer', 'Saturday Westminster', 'Art and Letters', 'Cambridge +Magazine' and the 'Nation' for permission to reprint certain poems. + +W. K. S. + +'September, 1919' + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +BINYON, LAURENCE + + Song + Commercial + Numbers + The Children Dancing + + +BRANFORD, F. V. + + Farewell to Mathematics + Return + Over the Dead + + +CHESTERTON, GILBERT KEITH + + Elegy in a Country Churchyard + The Ballad of St. Barbara + + +CHURCH, RICHARD + Psyche goes forth to Life + + +DAVIES, WILLIAM H. + + The Villain + Bird and Brook + Passion's Hounds + The Truth + The Force of Love + April's Lambs + + +DEARMER, GEOFFREY + + Nous Autres + She to Him + + +DRINKWATER, JOHN + + Malediction + Spectral + + +GIBSON, WILFRED WILSON + + IN WAR-TIME + 1. Troopship + 2. The Conscript + 3. Air-Raid + 4. In War-Time + 5. Ragtime + 6. Leave + 7. Bacchanal + + +GOLDING, Louis + + Shepherd Singing Ragtime + The Singer of High State + + +GOULD, GERALD + + Freedoms (Eight Sonnets) + + +HOUSMAN, LAURENCE + + Summer Night + + +LE GALLIENNE, RICHARD + + The Palaces of The Rose + + +MACAULAY, ROSE + + Peace, June 28th, 1919 + + +MASON, EUGENE + + Antony and Cleopatra + + +MAYNARD, THEODORE + + Dirge + Desideravi + Laus Deo! + +MOORE, T. STURGE + + Aforetime + + +MOULT, THOMAS + + Down here the Hawthorn + Invocation + + +NICHOLS, ROBERT + + On Seeing a Portrait of Blake + + +PHILLPOTTS, EDEN + + The Fall + Ghosties at the Wedding + + +SABIN, ARTHUR K. + + Four Lyrics + + +SACKVILLE, LADY MARGARET + + The Return + To-- + + +SEYMOUR, WILLIAM KEAN + + Fruitage + In the Wood + Siesta + To One who Eats Larks + If Beauty Came to You + + +SHIPP, HORACE + + Prison + The Sixth Day + + +SITWELL, EDITH + + Eventail + The Lady with the Sewing Machine + Portrait of a Barmaid + Solo for Ear-Trumpet + + +STUART, MURIEL + + The Father + The Shore + Thelus Wood + The Thief of Beauty + + +TITTERTON, W. R. + + The High Wall + The Broken Sword + Night-Shapes + The Silent People + + +VISIAK, E. H. + + Lamps and Lanterns + Stranded + + +WAUGH, ALEC. + + Rubble + + +WILLIAMS, CHARLES + + Christmas + Briseis + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +LAURENCE BINYON + + +A SONG + +For Mercy, Courage, Kindness, Mirth, +There is no measure upon earth. +Nay, they wither, root and stem, +If an end be set to them. + +Overbrim and overflow, +If your own heart you would know; +For the spirit born to bless +Lives but in its own excess. + + + +COMMERCIAL + +Gross, with protruding ears, +Sleek hair, brisk glance, fleshy and yet alert, +Red, full, and satisfied, +Cased in obtuseness confident not to be hurt, + +He sits at a little table +In the crowded congenial glare and noise, jingling +Coin in his pocket; sips +His glass, with hard eye impudently singling + +A woman here and there:-- +Women and men, they are all priced in his thought, +All commodities staked +In the market, sooner or later sold and bought. + +"Were I he," you are thinking, +You with the dreamer's forehead and pure eyes, +"What should I lose?--All, +All that is worthy the striving for, all my prize, + +"All the truth of me, all +Life that is wonder, pity, and fear, requiring +Utter joy, utter pain, +From the heart that the infinite hurts with deep desiring + +"Why is it I am not he? +Chance? The grace of God? The mystery's plan? +He, too, is human stuff, +A kneading of the old, brotherly slime of man. + +"Am I a lover of men, +And turn abhorring as from fat slug or snake? +Lives obstinate in me too +Something the power of angels could not unmake?" + +O self-questioner! None +Unlocks your answer. Steadily look, nor flinch. +This belongs to your kind, +And knows its aim and fails not itself at a pinch. + +It is here in the world and works, +Not done with yet.--Up, then, let the test be tried! +Dare your uttermost, be +Completely, and of your own, like him, be justified. + + + +NUMBERS + +Trefoil and Quatrefoil! +What shaped those destinied small silent leaves +Or numbered them under the soil? +I lift my dazzled sight +From grass to sky, +From humming and hot perfume +To scorching, quivering light, +Empty blue!--Why, +As I bury my face afresh +In a sunshot vivid gloom-- +Minute infinity's mesh, +Where spearing side by side +Smooth stalk and furred uplift +Their luminous green secrets from the grass, +Tower to a bud and delicately divide-- +Do I think of the things unthought +Before man was? + +Bodiless Numbers! +When there was none to explore +Your winding labyrinths occult, +None to delve your ore +Of strange virtue, or do +Your magical business, you +Were there, never old nor new, +Veined in the world and alive:-- +Before the Planets, Seven; +Before these fingers, Five! + +You that are globed and single, +Crystal virgins, and you that part, +Melt, and again mingle! +We have hoisted sail in the night +On the oceans that you chart: +Dark winds carry us onward, on; +But you are there before us, silent Answers, +Beyond the bounds of the sun. +You body yourselves in the stars, inscrutable dancers, +Native where we are none. + +O inhuman Numbers! +All things change and glide, +Corrupt and crumble, suffer wreck and decay, +But, obstinate dark Integrities, you abide, +And obey but them who obey. +All things else are dyed +In the colours of man's desire: +But you no bribe nor prayer +Avails to soften or sway. +Nothing of me you share, +Yet I cannot think you away. +And if I seek to escape you, still you are there +Stronger than caging pillars of iron +Not to be passed, in an air +Where human wish and word +Fall like a frozen bird. + +Music asleep +In pulses of sound, in the waves! +Hidden runes rubbed bright! +Dizzy ladders of thought in the night! +Are you masters or slaves-- +Subtlest of man's slaves,-- +Shadowy Numbers? + +In a vision I saw +Old vulture Time, feeding +On the flesh of the world; I saw +The home of our use undated-- +Seasons of fruiting and seeding +Withered, and hunger and thirst +Dead, with all they fed on: +Till at last, when Time was sated, +Only you persisted, +Daedal Numbers, sole and same, +Invisible skeleton frame +Of the peopled earth we tread on-- +Last, as first. + +Because naught can avail +To wound or to tarnish you; +Because you are neither sold nor bought, +Because you have not the power to fail +But live beyond our furthest thought, +Strange Numbers, of infinite clue, +Beyond fear, beyond ruth, +You strengthen also me +To be in my own truth. + + + +THE CHILDREN DANCING + +Away, sad thoughts, and teasing +Perplexities, away! +Let other blood go freezing, +We will be wise and gay; +For here is all heart-easing, +An ecstasy at play! + +The children dancing, dancing, +Light upon happy feet, +Both eye and heart entrancing, +Mingle, escape, and meet, +Come joyous-eyed advancing +And floatingly retreat. + +Now slow, now swifter treading +Their paces timed and true, +An instant poised, then threading +A maze of printless clue, +The music smoothly wedding +To motions ever new. + +They launch in chime, and scatter +In looping ripples; they +Are Music's airy matter, +And their feet move, the way +The raindrops shine and patter +On tossing flowers in May. + +As if those flowers were singing +For joy of the bright air, +As if you saw them springing +To dance the breeze--so fair +The lissom bodies swinging, +So light the flung-back hair. + +And through the mind enchanted +A happy river goes, +By its own young carol haunted +And bringing, where it flows, +What all the world has wanted +But who in this world knows? + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +F. V. BRANFORD + + + +FAREWELL TO MATHEMATICS + +I laboured on the anvil of my brain +And beat a metal out of pageantry. +Figure and form I carry in my train +To load the scaffolds of Eternity. + Where the masters are + Building star on star; + Where, in solemn ritual, + The great Dead Mathematical + Wait and wait and wait for me. + +To the deliberate presence of the Sun +(Bright cynosure of every darkling sign, +Wherein all numbers consummate in One,) +Poised on the bolt of an Un-finite line, + As one whose spirit's state, + Is unafraid but desperate, + Through far unfathomed fears, + Through Time to timeless years, + I soar, through Shade to Shine. + +They say that on a night there came to Euler, +As eager-eyed he stared upon a star, +And fought the far infinitude, a toiler +Like to himself and me, for things that are + Buried from the eyes alone + Of men whose sight is made of stone, + And led him out in ecstasy, + Over the dim boundary + By the pale gleam of a scimitar. + +Then Euler, mindful of thy lesser need, +Be thou my pilot in this treacherous hour, +That I be less unworth thy greater meed, +O my strong brother in the halls of power; + For here and hence I sail + Alone beyond the pale. + Where square and circle coincide, + And the parallels collide, + And perfect pyramids flower. + + + +RETURN + +The hearts of the mountains were void, +The sea spake foreign tongues, +From the speed of the wind I gat me no breath, +And the temples of Time were as sepulchres. +I walked about the world in the midnight, +I stood under water, and over stars, +I cast Life from me, +I handled Death, +I walked naked into lightning, +I had so great a thirst for God. + + * * * * * + +The heart of the Mountain overfloweth, +The sea speaketh clear words, +The Ark is brought to the Tabernacle. +Lightnings, that withered in the sky, +Are become great beacons roaring in a wind +I see Death, lying in the arms of Life, +And, in the womb of Death, I see Joy. +I had said 'The spirit of the Earth is white, +But lo! He is red with joy. +He devoureth the meat of many nations, +He absorbeth a vintage of scarlet. +Though my head be with the stars, +All the flowers of Earth are singing in mine ears. +Though my foot be planted on the sea-bed. +Yet is it shod with the thunder. +Sorrow for Earth Transient is passed away, +Pain of martyr'd splendour is no more. +They have left a fair child in my lap-- +A lusty infant shouting to the dawn. + +The Ogre of midnight hath perished. +He shivered in the glare of the mountain, +He screamed upon the sea-swords, +His bowels rushed out upon the lances of the Wind. +I shall look through the eye of Mountain, +I shall set in my scabbard the sabre of Sea, +And the spear of Wind shall be my hand's delight. +I shall not descend from the Hill. +Never go down to the Valley; + For I see, on a snow-crowned peak, + The glory of the Lord, + Erect as Orion, + Belted as to his blade. +But the roots of the mountains mingle with mist. +And raving skeletons run thereon. + I shall not go hence, + For here is my Priest, +Who hath broken me in the waters of Disdain. + Here is my Jester, +Who hath mended me on the wheels of Mirth. + Here is my Champion, +Who hath confounded mine ancient Enemy + Ardgay--the slayer of Giants. + + + +OVER THE DEAD + +Who in the splendour of a simple thought, +Whether for England or her enemies, +Went in the night, and in the morning died; +Each bleeding piece of human earth that lies +Stark to the carrion wind, and groaning cries +For burial--each Jesu crucified-- +Hath surely won the thing he dearly bought, +For wrong is right, when wrong is greatly wrought. + +Yet is the Nazarene no thigh of Thor, +To play on partial fields the puppet king +Bearing the battle down with bloody hand. +Serene he towers above the gods of war, +A naked man where shells go thundering-- +The great unchallenged Lord of No-Man's Land. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON + + + +ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD + +The men that worked for England +They have their graves at home; +And bees and birds of England +About the cross can roam. + +But they that fought for England, +Following a falling star, +Alas, alas, for England +They have their graves afar. + +And they that rule in England +In stately conclave met, +Alas, alas, for England, +They have no graves as yet. + + + +THE BALLAD OF ST. BARBARA + +(St. Barbara is the patroness of artillery, and of those who are in fear +of sudden death.) + +When the long grey lines came flooding upon Paris in the plain, +We stood and drank of the last free air we never could love again; +They had led us back from a lost battle, to halt we knew not where, +And stilled us; and our gaping guns were dumb with our despair. +The grey tribes flowed for ever from the infinite lifeless lands, +And a Norman to a Breton spoke, his chin upon his hands: + +"There was an end to Ilium; and an end came to Rome; +And a man plays on a painted stage in the land that he calls home. +Arch after arch of triumph, but floor beyond falling floor, +That lead to a low door at last: and beyond there is no door." + +The Breton to the Norman spoke, like a little child spake he, +But his sea-blue eyes were empty as his home beside the sea: +"There are more windows in one house than there are eyes to see; +There are more doors in a man's house, but God has hid the key; +Ruin is a builder of windows; her legend witnesseth +Barbara, the saint of gunners, and a stay in sudden death." + +It seemed the wheel of the worlds stood still an instant in its turning, + More than the kings of the earth that turned with the turning of Valmy + mill, +While trickled the idle tale and the sea-blue eyes were burning, + Still as the heart of a whirlwind, the heart of the world stood still. + +"Barbara the beautiful had praise of lute and pen, +Her hair was like a summer night, dark and desired of men, +Her feet like birds from far away that linger and light in doubt, +And her face was like a window where a man's first love looked out. + +"Her sire was master of many slaves, a hard man of his hands; +They built a tower about her in the desolate golden lands, +Sealed as the tyrants sealed their tombs, planned with an ancient plan, +And set two windows in the tower, like the two eyes of a man." + +Our guns were set towards the foe; we had no word for firing; + Grey in the gateways of St. Gond the Guard of the tyrant shone; +Dark with the fate of a falling star, retiring and retiring, + The Breton line went backwards and the Breton tale went on. + +"Her father had sailed across the sea from the harbour of Africa, +When all the slaves took up their tools for the bidding of Barbara; +She smote the bare wall with her hand, and bade them smite again, +She poured them wealth of wine and meat to stay them in their pain, +And cried through the lifted thunder of thronging hammer and hod: +'Throw open the third window in the third name of God!' +Then the hearts failed and the tools fell; and far towards the foam +Men saw a shadow on the sands; and her father coming home." + + Speak low and low, along the line the whispered word is flying, + Before the touch, before the time, we may not lose a breath. + Their guns must mash us to the mire and there be no replying + Till the hand is raised to fling us for the final dice to Death. + +"'There were two windows in your tower, Barbara, Barbara, +For all between the sun and moon in the lands of Africa. +Hath a man three eyes, Barbara, a bird three wings, +That you have riven roof and wall to look upon vain things?' +Her voice was like a wandering thing that falters, yet is free, +Whose soul has drunk in a distant land of the rivers of liberty. + +"'There are more wings than the wind knows, or eyes than see the sun, +In the light of the lost window and the wind of the doors undone; +For out of the first lattice are the red lands that break +And out of the second lattice, sea like a green snake, +But out of the third lattice, under low eaves like wings +Is a new corner of the sky and the other side of things.'" + +It opened in the inmost place an instant beyond uttering, + A casement and a chasm and a thunder of doors undone, +A seraph's strong wing shaken out the shock of its unshuttering + That split the shattered sunlight from a light behind the sun. + + "Then he drew sword and drave her where the judges sat and said: +'Caesar sits above the Gods, Barbara the maid, +Caesar hath made a treaty with the moon and with the sun +All the gods that men can praise, praise him every one. +There is peace with the anointed of the scarlet oils of Bel, +With the Fish God, where the whirlpool is a winding stair to hell, +With the pathless pyramids of slime, where the mitred negro lifts +To his black cherub in the cloud abominable gifts, +With the leprous silver cities where the dumb priests dance and nod, +But not with the three windows and the last name of God.'" + + They are firing, we are falling, and the red skies rend and shiver us + ... + Barbara, Barbara, we may not loose a breath-- + Be at the bursting doors of doom, and in the dark deliver us, + Who loosen the last window on the sun of sudden death. + +"Barbara, the beautiful, stood up as a queen set free. +Whose mouth is set to a terrible cup and the trumpet of liberty; +'I have looked forth from a window that no man now shall bar, +Caesar's toppling battle towers shall never stretch so far; +The slaves are dancing in their chains, the child laughs at the rod, +Because of the bird of the three wings, and the third face of God.' +The sword upon his shoulder shifted and shone and fell, +And Barbara lay very small and crumpled like a shell." + + What wall upon what hinges turned stands open like a door? + Too simple for the sight of faith, too huge for human eyes, + What light upon what ancient way shines to a far off floor, + The line of the lost land of France or the plains of Paradise? + +"Caesar smiled above the gods, his lip of stone was curled, +His iron armies wound like chains round and round the world. +And the strong slayer of his own that cut down flesh for grass, +Smiled, too, and went to his own tower like a walking tower of brass, +And the songs ceased and the slaves were dumb: and far towards the foam +Men saw a shadow on the sands; and her father coming home.... + +"Blood of his blood upon the sword stood red but never dry, +He wiped it slowly, till the blade was blue as the blue sky: +But the blue sky split with a thunder-crack, spat down a blinding brand, +And all of him lay back and flat as his shadow on the sand." + +The touch and the tornado; all our guns give tongue together, +St. Barbara for the gunnery and God defend the right-- +They are stopped and gapped and battered as we blast away the weather, +Building window upon window to our lady of the light; +For the light is come on Liberty, her foes are falling, falling, +They are reeling, they are running, as the shameful years have run, +She is risen for all the humble, she has heard the conquered calling, +St. Barbara of the Gunners, with her hand upon the gun. + +They are burst asunder in the midst that eat of their own flatteries, +Whose lip is curled to order as its barbered hair is curled ... +--Blast of the beauty of sudden death, St. Barbara of the batteries! +That blew the new white window in the wall of all the world. + +For the hand is raised behind us, and the bolt smites hard +Through the rending of the doorways, through the death-gap of the Guard, +For the shout of the Three Colours is in Conde and beyond, +And the Guard is flung for carrion in the graveyard of St. Gond; +Through Mondemont and out of it, through Morin marsh and on, +With earthquake of salutation the impossible thing is gone; +Gaul, charioted and charging, great Gaul upon a gun, +Tiptoe on all her thousand years, and trumpeting to the sun, +As day returns, as death returns, swung backward for a span, +Back on the barbarous reign returns the battering-ram of Man. + +While that the east held hard and hot like pincers in a forge, +Came like the west wind roaring up the cannon of St. George, +Where the hunt is up and racing over stream and swamp and tarn, +And their batteries, black with battle, hold the bridge-heads of the + Marne; +And across the carnage of the Guard by Paris in the plain +The Normans to the Bretons cried; and the Bretons cheered again; +But he that told the tale went home to his house beside the sea +And burned before St. Barbara, the light of the windows three. +Three candles for an unknown thing, never to come again, +That opened like the eye of God on Paris in the plain. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +RICHARD CHURCH + + + +PSYCHE GOES FORTH TO LIFE + +What are these tears of loneliness to-night? +Hark! In my neighbour's house the music swells, +Joins with the wind and fills the empty skies +And dies away, like echo of old age +Sighing and dying in the heart that fails. +Ah! the cruel beauty ... how it creeps +Into my home, into my waiting heart! +Who am I that I wait to-night?... Alas, +Where is the old content of maidenhood, +The calmness and the laughter and the song, +The patient hands unshaken as the needle +Plied to the gentle rhythm that my lips +Murmured, untroubled girlhood at their brink? + +Was that but yesterday?... How long ago, +How the swift moments flow along the flood. +For yesterday was sweet indifference; +These little drooping breasts had never known +This pain that swells them out and makes them ache +For Love to touch them, for the nestling lips +To trouble them as a warm lifting wind +Murmurs between two swelled and ripening grapes +Whispering of future wines of mad delight. +Ah, let me learn of this! A rapture fills +My limbs, and in my womb there stirs a craving +For life ... life! Oh, wonderful, the vision that glows +About me in such radiance, the light, the strife +Of music, hue and perfume of the rose. +Oh garden of desire, where one awaits +My coming with the sudden knowledge glowing +Deep in my eyes, made sombre as the day +Is somber in the summer noon of light. +Now I perceive I am a sacred temple +Long closed about the hidden flame of life, +Closed with white ivories and gliding shapes +Of river waves, and waves upon the sea +Rising and gliding. Every magic curve +Of these unheeded arms, this supple waist-- +So are my eyes set on the infinite-- +Are ministering music unto life +Calling love forth to worship in my shrine, +To fill this temple with the prophecy +Of further, wider, deeper life to come. + +Hark! The music of the night is rising up! +My neighbour's house is all a flame of song. +I must abide until the prelude closes, +Until his heart has ceased its preparation +And he comes forth into the dying year, +Leaves his house of inspiration empty, +And with a loneliness of heart creeps forth +Eagerly into the night, and gropes his way +With outstretched nerveless hands unto my home, +Where I wait, alone! I hear his lips +Murmur again, and moan, and murmur again +Tones of the broken prelude, vainly trying +To call me forth, who am waiting in my home, +Waiting in sweet imprisonment, the bonds +Of love restraining me from running forth +To greet him and to lead him to my soul. + +Oh the swift pain, the agony of waiting, +Galled with these terrible sweet bonds of love +That will not let me rise, though my cold hands +Are wrung with grief ... for do I not behold +Upon the outer night the rising fire, +The danger and the terror of love's flight; +Do I not know my lover; that his eyes +Are blinded by this madness of the skies. +Do I not hear him moaning in the night +For one to lead him to his waiting love, +To lead him to the temple of delight, +To the white ivory casket where his soul +Is set with lovely secrets? Do I not hear +The little echoes roll, and fade, and fret +About the murmuring foliage of the garden +Wherein the temple lies? Do I not fear +Lest in the outer glories he be lost +And thwarted of his heart's desire, that flies +Like a dove before his coming, and alights +Within the inner courtyard of my soul +Bearing such messages of him who comes +That all the altars of my love are kindled +To flame ere he approaches, which fades away +And counterfeits the sweetest death that ever +Sighed the approach of day, and left the stars +More bright to be entranced of the dawn? + +Be patient, Oh, my heart! A little while +And he shall pierce the darkness of the night +That flows between my home and his. The song +The youth, the early light that he has lost +Are as a little strength submerged and drowned +In this fierce rage that bids him seek me out +And take me in the darkness of my home, +And change, and fill me, as the virgin night +Is changed to day, and as the moonlight sky +Is emptied of her sterile ray, and filled +With overflooding light that spills to earth +A golden augury of later fruits +And a diviner birth. + + Hark! Hark!... He comes +He has found the temple of his soul's desire ..., +Be still, Oh beating heart, be still ... be still, +Lest he be troubled now his sacred fire +Creeps through this temple to your inmost shrine. +And I at last am his, and he is mine! + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +WILLIAM H. DAVIES + + + +THE VILLAIN + +While joy gave clouds the light of stars, + That beamed where'er they looked; +And calves and lambs had tottering knees, + Excited, while they sucked; +While every bird enjoyed his song, +Without one thought of harm or wrong-- +I turned my head and saw the wind, + Not far from where I stood, +Dragging the corn by her golden hair, + Into a dark and lonely wood. + + + +BIRD AND BROOK + +My song, that's bird-like in its kind, +Is in the mind, +Love--in the mind; +And in my season I am moved +No more or less from being loved; +No woman's love has power to bring +My song back when I cease to sing; +Nor can she, when my season's strong, +Prevent my mind from song. + +But where I feel your woman's part, +Is in the heart, +Love--in the heart; +For when that bird of mine broods long, +And I'd be sad without my song, +Your love then makes my heart a brook +That dreams in many a quiet nook, +And makes a steady, murmuring sound +Of joy the whole year round. + + + +PASSION'S HOUNDS + +With mighty leaps and bounds, +I followed Passion's hounds, + My hot blood had its day; +Lust, Gluttony, and Drink, +I chased to Hell's black brink, + Both night and day. + +I ate like three strong men, +I drank enough for ten, + Each hour must have its glass +Yes, Drink and Gluttony +Have starved more brains, say I, + Than Hunger has. + +And now, when I grow old, +And my slow blood is cold, + And feeble is my breath-- +I'm followed by those hounds, +Whose mighty leaps and bounds + Hunt me to death. + + + +THE TRUTH + +Since I have seen a bird one day, +His head pecked more than half away; +That hopped about, with but one eye, +Ready to fight again, and die-- +Ofttimes since then their private lives +Have spoilt that joy their music gives. + +So, when I see this robin now, +Like a red apple on the bough, +And question why he sings so strong, +For love, or for the love of song; +Or sings, maybe, for that sweet rill +Whose silver tongue is never still-- + +Ah, now there comes this thought unkind, +Born of the knowledge in my mind: +He sings in triumph that last night +He killed his father in a fight; +And now he'll take his mother's blood-- +The last strong rival for his food. + + + +THE FORCE OF LOVE + +Have I now found an angel in Unrest, + That wakeful Love is more desired than sleep: +Though you seem calm and gentle, you shall show + The force of this strong love in me so deep. + +Yes, I will make you, though you seem so calm, + Look from your blue eyes that divinest joy +As was in Juno's, when she made great Jove + Forget the war and half his heaven in Troy. + +And I will press your lips until they mix + With my poor quality their richer wine: +Be my Parnassus now, and grow more green + Each upward step towards your top divine. + + + +APRIL'S LAMBS + +Though I was born in April's prime, + With many another lamb, +Yet, thinking now of all my years, + What am I but a tough old ram? + +"No woman thinks of years," said she, + "Or any tough old rams, +When she can hear a voice that bleats + As tenderly as any lamb's." + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +GEOFFREY DEARMER + + + +NOUS AUTRES + +We never feel the lust of steel +Or fury-woken blood, +We live and die and wonder why +In mud, and mud, and mud, +And horror first and horror last +And Phantom Terror riding past. +We hear and hear the hounds of Fear +Nearer and more near. +We feel their breath.... +Only the nights befriend +And mitigate the hell; +Of those who ponder, see and hear, +Too well. +The nights, and Death-- +The end. +We feel but never fear +His breath. + +Day after weary day, +In vain, in vain, in vain, +We turn to Thee and pray, +We cry and cry again-- +"O lord of Battle, why +Should we alone be sane?" + +We stifle cries with lightless eyes +And face eternal night; +We stifle cries to sacrifice +Our eyes for Human Sight. +And many give that men may live, +A life, a limb, a brain, +That fellow men may understand +And be for ever sane. +What matter if we lose a hand +If others wander hand in hand; +Or lose a foot if others greet +The dawn of peace with dancing feet; +What matter if we die unheard +If others hear the Poet's Word? + +Because we pay from day to day +The price of sacrifice; +Because we face each dreary place +Again, again, again. +Lord, set us free from Sanity-- +Who feel no fighting thrill; +Must we remain for ever sane +And never learn to kill? +No answer came. In very shame +Our long-unheeded cry +Grew bitterly more bitterly, +"O why, O why, O why. +May we not feel the lust of steel +The fury-woken thrill-- +For men may learn to live and die +And never learn to kill?" + + + October, 1918 + + + +SHE TO HIM + +The day you died, my Share of All +My soul was tossed +Hither and thither, like a leaf, +And lost, lost, lost, +From sounds and sight, +Beneath the night +Of gloom and grief. + +But-- +(Hush, for the wind may hear) +Soon, soon you came in solitude: +And we renewed +All happiness. +Now, who shall guess +How close we are, my dear? +(Hush, for the wind may hear.) + +Yet-- +Other women wait +Their doors ajar; +And listen, listen, listen, +For the gate, +And murmur, "Soon, the war +Will seem a far, +Dim agony of sleep." + +May I be joyful, too, +That day, +For love of you +May I not turn away +Nor--weep. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +JOHN DRINKWATER + + + +MALEDICTION + +Thrush, across the twilight +Here in the abbey close, +Pouring from your lilac-bough +Note on pebbled note, +Why do you sing so, +Making your song so bright. +Swelling to a throbbing curve +That brave little throat? + +Soon, but a season brief, +The lice among your feathers, +Stiff-winged and aimless-eyed, +With song dead you shall fall; +Refuse of some clotted ditch, +Seeking no more berries; +Why with lyric numbers now +Do you the twilight call? + +Proud in your tawny plumes +Mottled in devising, +Singing as though never sang +Bird in close till now-- +Sharp are the javelins +Of death that are seeking, +Seeking even simple birds +On a lilac-bough. + +Crushed, forlorn, a frozen thing, +For no more nesting, +For no more speckled eggs +In pattered cup of clay,-- +Soon your song shall come to this +You who make the twilight yours, +And echoes of the abbey, +At the end of day. + +In the song I hear it, +The thud of a poor feathered death, +In the swelling throat I see +The splintering of song-- +What demon then has worked in me +To tease my brain to bitterness-- +In me who have loved bird and tree +So long, so long? + +Until I come to charity, +Until I find peace again, +My curse upon the fiend or god +That will not let me hear +A bird in song upon the bough +But, hovering about the notes, +There chimes the maniac beating +Of black-winged fear. + + + +SPECTRAL + +What will the years tell? +Hush! If it would but speak-- +That shadow athwart the stream, +In the gloom of a dream; + +Could my brain but spell +The thought in the brain of that weak +Old ghost that hides in the gloom, +Over there, of the chestnut bloom. + +I sit in the broad June light +On the open bank of the river, +In the summer of manhood, young; +And over the water bright +Is a lair that is overhung +With coned pink blooms that quiver +And droop, till the water's breast +Is of petal and leaf caressed. + +And the June sky glares on my prime-- +But there in the gloom, with Time, +Huddled, with Time on its back, +Is a shadow that is my wrack. +Yes, it is I in the lair, +Peering and watching me there. + +Under the chestnut bloom +My old age hides in the gloom. +And the years to be have been, +Could I spell the lore of that brain. +But the river flows between, +Over the weeds of pain, +Over the snares of death, +Maybe, should I leap to hold, +With myself grown old, +Council there in the gloom +Under the chestnut bloom. + +And so, with instruction none, +I go, and leave it there, +My ghost with Time in its lair, +And the things that must yet be done +Tear at my heart unknown, +And the years have tongues of stone +With no syllable to make +For consolation's sake. + +But peradventure yet +I shall return +To dare the weeds of death, +And plunge through the coned pink bloom, +And cry on that spectre set +In its silent ring of gloom, +And stay my youth to learn +The thing that my old age saith. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +WILFRED WILSON GIBSON + + + +IN WAR TIME + + +1 + +TROOPSHIP, (s.s. Baltic: Mid-Atlantic: July, 1917) + +Dark waters into crystalline brilliance break +About the keel, as through the moonless night +The dark ship moves in its own moving lake +Of phosphorescent cold moon-coloured light; +And to the clear horizon, all around +Drift pools of fiery beryl flashing bright +As though, still flashing, quenchless, cold and white, +A million moons in the dark green waters drowned. + +And staring at the magic with eyes adream, +That never till now have looked upon the sea, +Boys from the Middle-West lounge listlessly +In the unlanterned darkness, boys who go +Beckoned by some unchallengeable gleam +To unknown lands to fight an unknown foe. + + +2 + +THE CONSCRIPT. + +Indifferent, flippant, earnest, but all bored, +The doctors sit in the glare of electric light +Watching the endless stream of naked white +Bodies of men for whom their hasty award +Means life or death, maybe, or the living death +Of mangled limbs, blind eyes or darkened brain: +And the chairman, as his monocle falls again, +Pronounces each doom with easy, indifferent breath. + +Then suddenly they all shudder as they see +A young man move before them wearily, +Pallid and gaunt as one already dead; +And they are strangely troubled as he stands +With arms outstretched and drooping, thorn-crowned head, +The nail-marks glowing in his feet and hands. + + +3 + +AIR-RAID. + +Night shatters in mid-heaven: the bark of guns, +The roar of planes, the crash of bombs, and all +The unshackled skiey pandemonium stuns +The senses to indifference, when a fall +Of masonry near by startles awake, +Tingling wide-eyed, prick-eared, with bristling hair, +Each sense within the body crouched aware +Like some sore-hunted creature in the brake. + +Yet side by side we lie in the little room, +Just touching hands, with eyes and ears that strain +Keenly, yet dream-bewildered, through tense gloom, +Listening in helpless stupor of insane +Drugged nightmare panic fantastically wild, +To the quiet breathing of our sleeping child. + + +4 + +IN WAR-TIME. + +As gaudy flies across a pewter plate, +On the grey disk of the unrippling sea, +Beneath an airless, sullen sky of slate +Dazzled destroyers zig-zag restlessly, +While underneath the sleek and livid tide, +Blind monsters nosing through the soundless deep, +Lean submarines among blind fishes glide +And through primeval weedy forests sweep. + +Over the hot grey surface of my mind +Glib, motley rumours zig-zag without rest, +While deep within the darkness of my breast +Monstrous desires, lean, sinister and blind, +Slink through unsounded night and stir the slime +And ooze of oceans of forgotten time. + + +5 + +RAGTIME. + +A minx in khaki struts the limelit boards: +With false moustache, set smirk and ogling eyes +And straddling legs and swinging hips she tries +To swagger it like a soldier, while the chords +Of rampant ragtime jangle, clash, and clatter; +And over the brassy blare and drumming din +She strains to squirt her squeaky notes and thin +Spirtle of sniggering lascivious patter. + +Then out into the jostling Strand I turn, +And down a dark lane to the quiet river, +One stream of silver under the full moon, +And think of how cold searchlights flare and burn +Over dank trenches where men crouch and shiver. +Humming, to keep their hearts up, that same tune. + +6 + +LEAVE. + +Crouched on the crowded deck, we watch the sun +In naked gold leap out of a cold sea +Of shivering silver; and stretching drowsily +Crampt legs and arms, relieved that night is done +And the slinking, deep-sea peril past, we turn +Westward to see the chilly, sparkling light +Quicken the Wicklow Hills, till jewel-bright +In their Spring freshness of dewy green they burn. + +And silent on the deck beside me stands +A soldier, lean and brown, with restless hands, +And eyes that stare unkindling on the life +And rapture of green hills and glistening morn: +He comes from Flanders home to his dead wife, +And I, from England, to my son newborn. + + +7 + +BACCHANAL + +(November, 1918) + +Into the twilight of Trafalgar Square +They pour from every quarter, banging drums +And tootling penny trumpets: to a blare +Of tin mouth-organs, while a sailor strums +A solitary banjo, lads and girls, +Locked in embraces, in a wild dishevel +Of flags and streaming hair, with curdling skirls +Surge in a frenzied, reeling, panic revel. + +Lads who so long have looked death in the face, +Girls who so long have tended death's machines, +Released from the long terror shriek and prance: +And watching them, I see the outrageous dance, +The frantic torches and the tambourines +Tumultuous on the midnight hills of Thrace. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +LOUIS GOLDING + + + +SHEPHERD SINGING RAGTIME + +The shepherd sings:-- + "_Way down in Dixie, + Way down in Dixie, +Where the hens are dog-gone glad to lay_ ..." + +With shaded eyes he stands to look +Across the hills where the clouds swoon, +He singing, leans upon his crook, + He sings, he sings no more. +The wind is muffled in the tangled hairs +Of sheep that drift along the noon. + One mild sheep stares +With amber eyes about the pearl-flecked June. + Two skylarks soar + With singing flame +Into the sun whence first they came. +All else is only grasshoppers +Or a brown wing the shepherd stirs, +Who, like a tall tree moving, goes +Where the pale tide of sheep-drift flows. + + See! the sun smites + With sea-drawn lights +The turned wing of a gull that glows +Aslant the violet, the profound +Dome of the mid-June heights. + +Alas! again the grasshoppers, +The birds, the slumber-winging bees, +Alas! again for those and these +Demure and sweet things drowned; +Drowned in vain raucous words men made +Where no lark rose with swift and sweet +Ascent and where no dim sheep strayed +About the stone immensities, +Where no sheep strayed and where no bees +Probed any flowers nor swung a blade + Of grass with pollened feet. + +He sings:-- + "_In Dixie, + Way down in Dixie, +Where the hens are dog-gone glad to lay +Scrambled eggs in the new-mown hay_..." + +The herring-gulls with peevish cries +Rebuke the man who sings vain words; +His sheep-dog growls a low complaint, +Then turns to chasing butterflies. +But when the indifferent singing-birds +From midmost down to dimmest shore +Innumerably confirm their songs, +And grasshoppers make summer rhyme +And solemn bees in the wild thyme +Clash cymbals and beat gongs, +The shepherd's words once more are faint, +The shepherd's song once more is thinned +Upon the long course of the wind, + He sings, he sings no more. + +Ah, now the sweet monotonies +Of bells that jangle on the sheep +To the low limit of the hills! +Till the blue cup of music spills +Into the boughs of lowland trees; +Till thence the lowland singings creep +Into the silenced shepherd's head, + Creep drowsily through his blood: +The young thrush fluting all he knows, +The ring-dove moaning his false woes, +Almost the rabbit's tiny tread, + The last unfolding bud. + + But now, +Now a cool word spreads out along the sea. +Now the day's violet is cloud-tipped with gold. + Now dusk most silently +Fills the hushed day with other wings than birds'. +Now where on foam-crest waves the seagulls rock, +To their cliff-haven go the seagulls thence. +So too the shepherd gathers in his flock, + Because birds journey to their dens, + Tired sheep to their still fold. +A dark first bat swoops low and dips +About the shepherd who now sings +A song of timeless evenings; +For dusk is round him with wide wings, +Dusk murmurs on his moving lips. + +_There is not mortal man who knows +From whence the, shepherd's song arose: + It came a thousand years ago. + +Once the world's shepherds woke to lead +The folded sheep that they might feed + On green downs where winds blow. + +One shepherd sang a golden word. +A thousand miles away one heard. + One sang it swift, one sang it slow._ + + +_Three skylarks heard, three skylarks told +All shepherds this same song of gold + On all downs where winds blow. + +This is the song that shepherds must +Sing till the green downlands be dust + And tide of sheep-drift no more flow: + +The song three skylarks told again +To all the sheep and shepherd men + On green downs where winds blow._ + + + +THE SINGER OF HIGH STATE + +On hills too harsh for firs to climb, + Where eagle dare not hatch her brood, + Upon the peak of solitude, + With anvils of black granite crude +I forge austerities of rhyme. + +Such godlike stuff my spirit drinks + I make grand odes of tempests there. + The steel-winged eagle, if he dare + To cleave these tracts of frozen air, +Hearing such music, swoops and sinks. + +Stark clangours of forgotten wars, + Tumults of primal love and hate, + Through crags of song reverberate. + Held by the Singer of High State, +Battalions of the midnight pause. + +On hills uplift from Space and Time, + Upon the peak of Solitude, + With stars to give my furnace food, + On anvils of black granite crude +I forge austerities of rhyme. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +GERALD GOULD + + + +FREEDOMS + + +1 + +Those were our freedoms, and we come to this: + The climbing road that lures the climbing feet + Is lost: there lies no mist above the wheat, +Where-thro' to glimpse the silver precipice, +Far off, about whose base the white seas hiss + In spray; the world grows narrow and complete; + We have lost our perils in the certain sweet; +We have sold our great horizon for a kiss. + +To every hill there is a lowly slope, + But some have heights beyond all height--so high + They make new worlds for the adventuring eye. +We for achievement have forgone our hope, +And shall not see another morning ope, + Nor the new moon come into the new sky. + + +2 + +Where is our freedom sought, and where to seek? + The voices of the various world agree + The future's ours: to hope is to be free: +Only to doubt, to fear, is to be weak. +Have you not felt upon your calm clear cheek + The kiss of the bright wind of liberty? + What more is there to ask, what more to be? +Peace, peace, my soul, and let the silence speak! + +To hope is to be free? Nay, hope's a slave + To every chance; hope is the same as fear; +Hope trembles at the wind, the star, the wave, + The voice, the mood, the music; hope stands near +The chilly threshold of the waiting grave, + And when the silence speaks, hope does not hear. + + +3 + +In the old days came freedom with a sword. + Ev'n so; but also freedom came with wings + Fanning the faint and purple bloom that clings +To the great twilight where our dreams are stored. +Freedom was what the waters would afford + That yet obeyed the white moon's whisperings, + And freedom leapt and listened in the strings +Of dulcimer and lute and clavichord. + +In the old days? But those old days are now. +O merciful, O bright, O valiant brow, +Can you seek freedom that way and I this? +Not in the single note is music free, +But where creation's climbing fires agree +In multitudes, in nights, in silences. + + +4 + +Shall we mark off our little patch of power + From time's compulsive process? Shall we sit + With memory, warming our weak hands at it, +And say: "So be it; we have had one hour"? +Surely the mountains are a better dower, + With their dark scope and cloudy infinite, + Than small perfection, trivial exquisite; +'Mid all that dark the brightness of a flower! + +Lovers are not themselves: they are more, they are all: + For them are past and future spread together + Like a green landscape lit by golden weather: +For them the rhythmic change conjectural + Of time and place is but the question whether +Their God shall stand (as stand he must) or fall. + + +5 + +O cold remembrance, careful-careless kiss, + That does not wake to hope with waking day, + And at the hour of bed-time does not say: +"That was for rapture, that for peace, but this +Burns for the night's more terrible auspices, + And pangs and sweets of doubt and disarray!"-- + Yet in one kiss two hearts found once the way +From perfect ignorance to perfect bliss. + +Love has so many voices, low and high. + Such range of reason, such delight of rhyme! + Yet when I asked love such a simple thing + As why the autumn comes where came the spring, +The only soul that answered me was I, + And love was silent then for the first time. + + +6 + +Our love is hurt, and the bad world goes on + Moving to its conclusion: in a year + This corn now reaped will come again to ear, +The moon will shine as last night the moon shone; +The tide, whose thought is the moon's thought, will don + The silver livery of subjection. Dear, + Is it not strange that hearts will hope and fear +And break, when our hearts, broken now, are gone? + +If this were true, life's movement would rebel, + And curdle to its source, as blood to the heart + When the cold fires of indignation start +From their obscure lair in the body.--Well, + If for us two to part were just to part +All years would have one pointless tale to tell. + + +7 + +The little things, the little restless things, + The base and barren things, the things that spite + The day, and trail processions through the night +Of sad remembrances and questionings; +The poverties, stupidities and stings, + The silted misery, the hovering blight; + The things that block the paths of sound and sight; +The things that snare our thought and break its wings-- + +How shall we bear these?--we who suffer so + The shattering sacrifice, the huge despair, + The terrors loosed like lightnings on the air, + To leave all nature blackened from that curse! +The big things are the enemies we know, + The little things the traitors. Which are worse? + + +8 + +Now must we gather up and comprehend + The volume of vicissitude, and take + Account of loving, for each other's sake, +And ask how love began and how will end +(If there be any end of love, O friend + Of my worst hours and best desires!)--and stake + Our all upon the sweetness and the ache +Of what men's stories and God's stars intend. + +You have my all: you are my all: you give, + Out of your bounty and content of soul, +The only strength that makes me fit to live-- + Since earth of spirit takes such heavy toll: +Yet I, the weak, the faint, the fugitive, + Stand here, an equal part of the great whole. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +LAURENCE HOUSMAN + + + +SUMMER NIGHT + +Light, like a closing flower, covers to earth her herds, + Out of the world we only watch for the rise of moon; +Darker the twilight glimmers, dulls the warble of birds, + Over the silent field travels the night-jar's tune. + +Here, at my side, so close that even your breath I hear, + Face and form that I love, now with the night made one, +Pray not for any star! Come not, O moon, for fear + Lest in thy light we lose our way ere the dream be done. + +Touch, and clasp, and be close! Kiss, oh kiss, and be warm! + What is here, O beloved, so like a sea without sound? +Under the swathe at our feet, swifter than wings of storm, + Summer speeds on his way: Spring lies dead in the ground. + +How like a closing flower, clasped by a sleeping bee, + Life folds over us now:--and here in the midst love lies. +O beloved, O flower of night, no morrow's moon shall we see: + Between a dusk and a day we meet, and at dawn Time dies! + + + +THE PALACES OF THE ROSE + +(A VALENTINE) + +Which of my palaces? Gold one by one, +Of all the splendid houses of my throne, +This day in grave thought have I over-gone: +Those roofs of stars where I have lived alone +Gladly with God; those blue-encompassed bowers +Hushed round with lakes, and guarded with still flowers, +Where I have watched a face from eve till morn, +Wondering at being born-- +Then on from morn again till the next eve, +Still with strange eyes, unable to believe; +And yet, though week and month and year went by. +Incredulous of my ensorcelled eye. +O had I thus in trance for ever stayed, +Still were she there in the reed-girdled isle, +And I there still--I who go treading now +Eternity, a-hungered mile by mile: +Because I pressed one kiss upon her brow,-- +After a thousand years that seemed an hour +Of looking on my flower, +After that patient planetary fast, +One kiss at last; +One kiss--and then strange dust that once was she. + +Sayest thou, Rose, "What is all this to me?" +This would I answer, if it pleaseth thee, +Thou Rose and Nightingale so strangely one: +That of my palaces, gold one by one, +I fell a-thinking, pondering which to-day, +The day of the Blessed Saint, Saint Valentine, +Which of those many palaces of mine, +I, with bowed head and lowly bended knee, +Might bring to thee. +O which of all my lordly roofs that rise +To kiss the starry skies +May with great beams make safe that golden head, +With all that treasure of hair showered and spread. +Careless as though it were not gold at all-- +Yet in the midnight lighting the black hall; +And all that whiteness lying there as though +It were but driven snow. +Pondering on all these pinnacles and towers, +That, as I come with trumpets, call me lord, +And crown their battlements with girlhood flowers, +I can but think of one. 'Twas not my sword +That won it, nor was it aught I did or dreamed, +But O it is a palace worthy thee! +For all about it flows the eternal sea, +A blue moat guarding an immortal queen; +And over it an everlasting crown +That, as the moon comes and the sun goes down, +Adds jewel after jewel, gem on gem, +To the august appropriate diadem +Of her, in whom all potencies that are +Wield sceptres and with quiet hands control, +Kind as that fairy wand the evening star, +Or the strong angel that we call the soul. + +Thou splendid girl that seemest the mother of all, +Dear Ceres-Aphrodite, with every lure +That draws the bee to honey, with the call +Of moth-winged night to sinners, yet as pure +As the white nun that counts the stars for beads; +Thou blest Madonna of all broken needs, +Thou Melusine, thou sister of sorrowing man, +Thou wave-like laughter, thou dear sob in the throat, +Thou all-enfolding mercy, and thou song +That gathers up each wild and wandering note, +And takes and breaks and heals and breaks the heart +With the omnipotent tenderness of art; +And thou Intelligence of rose-leaves made +That makes that little thing the brain afraid. + +For thee my Castle of the Spring prepares: +On the four winds are sped my couriers, +For thee the towered trees are hung with green; +Once more for thee, O queen, +The banquet hall with ancient tapestry +Of woven vines grows fair and still more fair. +And ah! how in the minstrel gallery +Again there is the sudden string and stir +Of music touching the old instruments, +While on the ancient floor +The rushes as of yore +Nymphs of the house of spring plait for your feet-- +Ancestral ornaments. +And everywhere a hurrying to and fro, +And whispers saying, "She is so sweet--so sweet"; +O violets, be ye not too late to blow, +O daffodils be fleet: +For, when she comes, all must be in its place, +All ready for her entrance at the door, +All gladness and all glory for her face, +All flowers for her flower-feet a floor; +And, for her sleep at night in that great bed +Where her great locks are spread, +O be ye ready, ye young woodland streams +To sing her back her dreams. + + + +PEACE + +June 28th, 1919 + +From the tennis lawn you can hear the guns going, + Twenty miles away, +Telling the people of the home counties + That the peace was signed to-day. +To-night there'll be feasting in the city; + They will drink deep and eat-- +Keep peace the way you planned you would keep it + (If we got the Boche beat). +Oh, your plan and your word, they are broken, + For you neither dine nor dance; +And there's no peace so quiet, so lasting, + As the peace you keep in France. + +You'll be needing no Covenant of Nations + To hold your peace intact. +It does not hang on the close guarding + Of a frail and wordy pact. +When ours screams, shattered and driven, + Dust down the storming years, +Yours will stand stark, like a grey fortress, + Blind to the storm's tears. + +Our peace ... your peace ... I see neither. + They are a dream, and a dream. +I only see you laughing on the tennis lawn; + And brown and alive you seem, +As you stoop over the tall red foxglove, + (It flowers again this year) +And imprison within a freckled bell + A bee, wild with fear.... + + * * * * * + +Oh, you cannot hear the noisy guns going: + You sleep too far away. +It is nothing to you, who have your own peace, + That our peace was signed to-day. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +EUGENE MASON + + + +ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA + + +THE CYNDUS + +1 + +Beneath th' triumphal blue, th' riotous day, + Her silvern galley beats the black flood white, + Whilst the long sillage hoards some close delight +Of incense, flutes, and stir of silk array. +From forth the pompous poop, her royal sway, + Near where the mystic hawk stands poised for flight, + The Queen, erect, stares out, flushed, exquisite, +Like some great golden bird that spies her prey. + +The tryst is kept: her spoiled warrior there: +And the brown gipsy in the swooning air + Spreads amber arms the purple glow stains red; +Nor hath she seen, nor known with shuddering breath. + Symbols of Doom, those Youths Divine who shed +Rose-leaves on sombre deeps--Desire and Death. + + +BATTLE AT SUNSET + +2 + +The shock was stern: the cohorts near to rout. + Staying the flight, tribune, centurion, + From heat of carnage 'neath th' enduring sun +Breathe blood, and smell its savour as they shout. +With haggard eyes, that count the dead about, + Each spearman marks the archers, all undone, + Whirl like heaped leaves before Euroclydon. +From the brown faces sweat falls gout by gout. + +That fated hour--with many a shaft stuck o'er, + Streaming in burnished brass and purple weed, +Red with the scarlet flux of wounds full sore, + With trumpets shrilling forth their urgent need, + Against the sunset, on his frighted steed-- +Surged, glorious, the ensanguined Emperor. + + +ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA + +3 + +From the high terrace they might see far down, + Egypt asleep, by plague of heat opprest; + Old Father Nile, in beauty manifest, +Roll his rich flood towards many a famous town. +And lo, the Roman felt 'neath mail and gown + (Captain and slave, soothing a child to rest) + Relax and fail on his triumphant breast +That body made for love, by love o'erthrown. + +Lifting her silken head and blanched face +To him whose senses reel at such rare grace + And piercing sweetness, she prefers her lips; +But stooping close, his ardent eyes behold +In those deep eyes, sewn thick with points of gold, + A hazardous sea bestrewn with fleeing ships. + + +_From the French of Jose Maria de Heredia_ + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +THEODORE MAYNARD + + + +DIRGE + +If on a day it should befall +That love must have her funeral; +And men weep tears that love is dead, +That never more her gracious head +Can turn to meet their eyes and hold +Their hearts with chains of silky gold; +That never more her hands can be +As dear as was virginity; +That in her coffin there is laid +Beauty, the body of a maid, +The body of one so piteous-sweet, +With candles burning at her feet +And cowled monks singing requiem.... + +I think I would not go with them, +Her lordly lovers, to the place +Where lies that lovely mournful face, +That curving throat and marvellous hair +Under the sconces' yellow flare-- +How shall a man be comforted +When love is dead, when love is dead? + +But I would make my moan apart, +Keeping my dreams within my heart-- +For guarded as a sepulchre +Shall be the house I built for her +Of silver spires and pinnacles +With carillons of mellow bells, +A house of song for her delight +Whose joy was as the strong sunlight-- +But now love's ultimate word is said, +For love is dead, for love is dead! + +But even should all hope be lost +Some memory, like a thin white ghost, +Might stealthily move in midnight hours +Among those silent sacred towers, +And glimmer on the moonlit lawn +Until the cold ironic dawn +Arises from her saffron bed-- +When love is dead, when love is dead. + + + +DESIDERAVI + +Lest, tortured by the world's strong sin, + Her little bruised heart should die-- +Give her your heart to shelter in, + O earth and sky! + +Kneel, sun, to clothe her round about + With rays to keep her body warm; +And, kind moon, shut the shadows out + That work her harm. + +Yes, even shield her from my will's + Wild folly--hold her safe and close!-- +For my rough hand in touching spills + Life from the rose. + +But teach me, too, that I may learn + Your passion classical and cool; +To me, who tremble so and burn, + Be pitiful! + + + +LAUS DEO! + +Praise! that when thick night circled over me + In chaos ere my time or world began, +Thy finger shaped my body cunningly, + Thy thought conceived me ere I was a man! +Thy Spirit breathed upon me in the dark + Wherein I strangely grew, +Bestowing glowing powers to the spark + The mouth of heaven blew! + +Praise! that a babe I leapt upon the world + Spread at my feet in its magnificence, +With trees as giants, flowers as flags unfurled. + And rains as diamonds in their excellence! +Praise! for the solemn splendour of surprise + That came with breaking day; +For all the ranks of stars that met my eyes + When sunset burned away! + +Praise! that there burst on my unfolding heart + The coloured radiance of leafy June, +With choirs of song-birds perfected in art, + And nightingales beneath the summer moon-- +Praise! that this beauty, an unravished bride + Doth hold her lover still; +Doth hide and beckon, laugh at me, and hide + Upon each grassy hill. + +Praise! that I know the dear capricious sky + In every infinitely varied mood-- +Yet under her maternal wings can lie + The smallest chick among her countless brood! +Praise! that I hear the strong winds wildly race + Their chariots on the sea, +But feel them lift my hair and stroke my face + Softly and tenderly! + +Praise! for the joy and gladness thou didst send, + When I have sat in gracious fellowship +In firelight for an evening with a friend. + When wine and magic entered at the lip! +For laughter which the fates can overthrow + Thy mercy doth accord-- +To Thee, who didst my godlike joy bestow, + I lift my glass, O Lord! + +Praise! that a lady leaning from her height, + A lady pitiful, a tender maid, +A queen majestical unto my sight, + Spoke words of love to me, and sweetly laid +Her hand within my own unworthy hand! + (Rise, soul, to greet thy guest, +Mysterious love, whom none shall understand, + Though love be all confessed!) + +Praise! that upon my bent and bleeding back + Was stretched some share of Thy redeeming cross, +Some poverty as largess for my lack, + Some loss that shall prevent my utter loss! +Praise! that thou gavest me to keep joy sweet + The sanguine salt of pain! +Praise! for the weariness of questing feet + That else might quest in vain! + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +T. STURGE MOORE + + + +AFORETIME + +TO GORDON BOTTOMLEY + +Dear exile from the hurrying crowd, +At work I muse to you aloud; +Thought on my anvil softens, glows, +And I forget our art has foes; +For life, the mother of beauty, seems +A joyous sleep with waking dreams. +Then the toy armoury of the brain +Opining, judging, looks as vain +As trowels silver gilt for use +Of mayors and kings, who have to lay +Foundation stones in hope they may +Be honoured for walls others build. +I, in amicable muse, +With fathomless wonder only filled, +Whisper over to your ear +Listening two hundred odd miles north, +And give thought chase that, were you here, +Our talk would never run to earth. + +Man can answer no momentous question: +Whence comes his spirit? Has it lived before? +Reason fails; hot springs of feeling spout +Their snowy columns high in the dim land +Of his surmise--violent divine decisions +That often rule him: and at times he views +Portraits of places he has never been to, +Yet more minute and vivid than remembrance, +Of boyhood homes, sail between sleep and waking +Like some mirage, refuting all experience +With topsy-turvy ships, +That steals by in dead calms through tropic haze: +And many a man in his climacteric years, +Thoughts and remembered words have roused from sleep +With knowledge that he lacked on lying down: +And I, lapped in a trance of reverie, doubt +Some spore of episodes +Anterior far beyond this body's birth, +Dispersed like puffs of dust impalpable, +Wind-carried round this globe for centuries, +May, breathed with common air, yet swim the blood, +And striking root in this or that brain, raise +Imaginations unaccountable; +One such seems half-implied in all I am, +And many times re-pondered shapes like this: + +A child myself I watched a woman loll +Like to a clot of seaweed thrown ashore; +Heavy and limp as cloth soaked in black dye, +She glooms the noontide dazzle where a bay +Bites into vineyarded flats close-fenced by hills, +Over whose tops lap forests of cork and fir +And reach in places half down their rough slopes. +Lower, some few cleared fields square on the thickets +Of junipers and longer thorns than furze +So clumped that they are trackless even for goats +I know two things about that woman: first +She is a slave and I am free, and next +As mothers need their sons' love she needs mine. +Longings to utter fond compassionate sounds +Stir through me, checked by knowing wiser folk +Reprobate such indulgence. Ill at ease, +Mute, yet her captive, I thrust brown toes through +Loose sand no daily large tides overwhelm +To cake and roll it firm and smooth and clean +As the Atlantic remakes shores, you know. +But there, like trailing skirts, long flaws of wind +Obliterate the prints feet during calms +Track over and over its always lonely stretch, +Till some will have, it ghosts must rove at night; +For folk by day are rare, yet a still week +Leaves hardly ten yards anywhere uncrossed; +Tempest spreads all revirginate like snow, +Half burying dead wood snapped off from tossed trees, +Since right along the foreshore, out of reach +Of furious driven waves, three hundred pines +Straggle the marches between sand and soil. +Like maps of stone-walled fields their branching roots +Hold the silt still so that thin grass grows there, +Its blades whitened with travelling powdery drift +The besom of the lightest breeze sets stirring. +That woman's gaze toils worn from remote years, +Yet forward yearns through the bright spacious noon, +Beyond the farthest isle, whose filmy shape +Floats faint on the sea-line. +I, scooping grains up with the frail half-shell +Pale green and white-lined of sea-urchin, knew +What her eyes sought as often children know +Of grief or sin they could not name or think of +Yet sooth or shrink from, so I saw and longed +To heal her tender wound and yet said naught. +The energy of bygone joy and pain +Had left her listless figure charged with magic +That caught and held my idleness near hers. +Resentful of her power, my spirit chafed +Against its own deep pity, as though it were +Raised ghost and she the witch had bid it haunt me. +What's more I knew this slave by rights should glean +And faggot drift-wood, not lounge there and waste +My father's food dreaming his time away. +For then as now the common-minded rich +Grudged ease to those whose toil brought them in means +For every waste of life. At length I spoke, +Insulting both my inarticulate soul +And her with acted anger: "Lazy wretch, +Is it for eyes like yours to watch the sea +As though you waited for a homing ship? +My father might with reason spend his hours +Scanning the far horizon; for his Swan +Whose outward lading was full half a vintage +Is now months overdue." She turned on me +Her languor knit and, through its homespun wrap, +Her muscular frame gave hints of rebel will, +While those great caves of night, her eyes, faced mine, +Dread with the silence of unuttered wrongs: +At last she spoke as one who must be heeded. +Truly I am not clear +Whether her meaning was conveyed in words +(She mingled accents of an eastern tongue +With deformed phrases of our native Latin) +Or whether thought from her gaze poured through mine. +The gravity of recollected life +Was hers, condensed and, like a vision, flashed +Suddenly on the guilty mind, a whole +Compact, no longer a mere tedious string +Of moments negligible, each so small +As they were lived, but stark like a slain man +Who would alive have been ourself with twice +The skill, the knowledge, the vitality +Actually ours. Yea, as a tree may view +With fingerless boughs and lorn pole impotent, +An elephant gorged upon its leaves depart, +Men often have reviewed an unwieldy past, +That like a feasted Mammoth, leisured and slow, +Turned its back on their warped bones. Even thus, +Momentous with reproach, her grave regard +Made me feel mean, cashiered of rank and right, +My limbs that twelve good years had nursed were numbed +And all their fidgety quicksilver grew stiff, +Novel and fevering hallucinations +Invaded my attention. So daylight +When shutters are thrown back spreads through a house; +As then the dreams and terrors of the night +Decamp, so from my mind were driven +All its own thoughts and feelings. Close she leant +Propped on a swarthy arm, while the other helped +With eloquent gesture potent as wizard wand, +Veil the world off as with an airy web, +Or flowing tent a-gleam with pictured folds. +These tauten and distend--one sea of wheat, +Islanded with black cities, borders now +The voluminous blue pavilion of day. +There-under to the nearest of those towns +This woman younger by ten years made haste +While at her side ran a small boy of six. +They neared the walls, half a huge double gate +Lay prostrate, though the other by stone hinges +Hung to its flanking tower. The path they followed +Threaded an old paved road whose flags were edged +With dry grass and dry weeds, even cactuses +Had pushed the stones up or found root in muck heaps: +The path struck up the slope of the fallen door, +Basalt like midnight, o'er which dusty feet +Had greyed a passage, for it rested on +Some debris fallen from the left-hand tower, +And from its upper edge rude blocks like steps +Led down into the straight main street, that ran +Past eyeless buildings mined as it were from coal, +And earthquake-raised to light. Palaces and +Roofless wide-flighted colonnaded temples, +The uncemented walls piled-plumb with blocks +Squared, polished, fitted with daemonic patience. +Each gaping threshold high again as need be +Waited a nine-foot lord to enter hall, +Where the least draughty corner sheltered now +Half-tented hut or improvised small home +For Arab, brown, light-footed and proud-necked +As was this woman with the compelling voice. +Their present hutched and hived within that past +As bees in the parchment chest of Samson's lion; +And all seem conscious that their life was sweet, +Like mice who clean their faces after meals +And have such grace of movement, when unscared, +As wins the admiration even of those +Whose stores they rob and soil. I saw her eyes +Young with contentment in her son +And smaller babe and in their handsome sire, +And knew that many a supper had been relished +With hearts as joyous as waited while she cooked +And served upon returning to their cot +In hall where once far other hearts caroused. +They and their tribe could never reap a tithe +Of the vast harvest rustling round those ruins, +And over which a half-moon soon set forth +From black hills mounded up both east and south, +While north-west her light played on distant summits; +All the huge interspace floored with standing corn +Which kings afar send soldiery to reap, +Who now, beside a long canal cut straight +In ancient days, have pitched their noisy camp +Which on that vast staid silence makes a bruise +Of blare and riot that its robust health +Will certainly heal in a brief lapse of time. + +One night, re-thought on after ten whole years, +Is like the condor high above the Andes, +A speck with difficulty found again +Once the attention quits it. And I next +Descried our woman under breathless noon, +Bathing in a clear lane of gliding water +Whose banks seem lonely as the path of light +Crossing mid ocean south of Capricorn. +Her son steals warily after a butterfly +And is as hushed with hope to capture it +As are the birds with heat. An insect hum +Circles the spot as round a cymbal's rim, +Long after it has clanged, tingles a throb +Which in a dream forgets the parent sound, +Oppressed by this protracted and awe-filled pause, +She hardly dares to wade the stream and moves +As though in dread to wake some sleeping god, +Yet still she nears and nears the further bank +Where there is shade under a shumac's eaves. +The brilliant surface cut her right in two, +And the reflection of her bronzed torso +Hid all beneath the polished gliding mirror; +How her face listened to that sleep divine +Whose audible breath was tuned to dreams of bliss! + +Sudden, as though the woof of heaven were torn, +A strident shout rang from some neighbour shrubs +Three Nubian soldiers ran upon her with +Delighted oily faces. Screaming first +Commands to her small son to make for home, +She laboured to recross the current as when +In nightmares the scared soul expects to die +Tortured by mutiny in limbs like lead, +But as the playful lion of the sea +Climbs the rock ledges hard by Fingal's cave +To throw himself down into deep green baths, +While others barking follow his vigorous lead, +The foremost Abyssinian threw his weight +Before her with a splash that hid them both, +As the explosion of light-filled liquid parcels +Shot forth in all directions. In his arms +She re-appeared, a tragic terrified face +Beside his coarse one laughing with success. +Squeezing her with a pantomime of love, +He turns to follow an arrow with his eyes +That his companion, still upon the bank, +Has aimed towards her son's small head that bobbed +Like a black cork across the basking corn. +But from the level of the sunk stream bed +Neither he nor she could see the target aimed at, +Yet in the pause they heard the poor child scream; +A second arrow, second scream; she fought, +But soon like bundle bound, hung o'er his shoulder, +Helpless as a mouse in cat's mouth carried off +In search of quiet, there to play with it. +Those arrows missed?--or did they not? The child +Shrieked twice, yet scarcely like a wounded thing +She thought and hoped and still but thinks and hopes. +Where is that boy? Where is her husband now? +While she submitted body to force and soul +To the great shuddering violence of despair +How had their life progressed in that far place? +Compassion fused my consciousness with hers +And second-sighted eloquence arose +To claim my mind for rostrum, +But obstinately tranced +My eyes clung to their vision; +For regions to explore allure the boy +No stretch of thought or sea of feeling tempts. +Entranced, the mind I then had, haunted +Those basalt ruins. High on sable towers +Some silky patriarchal goat appears +And ponders silent streets, or suddenly +Some nanny, her huge bag swollen with milk, +Trots out on galleries that unfenced run +Round vacant courts, there, stopped by plaintive kids, +Lets them complete their meal. While always, always, +Throughout, those mazed, sullen and sun-soaked walls, +The steady, healthy wind, +Which often blows for weeks without a lull +Across that upland plain, +Flutes staidly. Moaning +Continuously as seas +Or forests before storm, +And, gathering moment, +Articulated by her woe, begins +With second-sighted eloquence +To wail through me, +Nigh as unheeded, +As though it still had been +Meaningless wind. + +For ah! the heart is cowed +And dares not use her strength, +Hears the kind impulse plead +Against the common avaricious fear, +Grants it but life, though sovereignty was due +Or doles it sway but one day out of seven +Or one a year. + +So, so, and ever, so +In the close-curtained court +Those causes are deferred +Which most import; +These wait man's leisure. +These daily matters elbow; +Merely because +His panic meanness +Jibs blindly ere it hear +What wisdom has prepared, +Bolts headlong ere it see +Her face unfold its smile. +Man after man, race after race +Drops jaded by the iterancy +Of petty fear. +Even as horses on the green steppes grazing, +Hundreds scattered through lonely peacefulness, +If shadow of cloud or red fox breaking earth +Delude but one with dream of a stealthy foe, +All are stampeded. +Their frantic torrent draws in, +With dire attraction, cumulative force, +Stragglers grazing miles from where it started; +On it thunders quite devoid of meaning. +The tender private soul +Thus takes contagion from the sordid crowd, +And shying at mere dread of loss, +Loses the whole of life. +Thus, in the vortex of a base turmoil, +Those myriad million energies wear down +That might have raised mankind +To live the life of gods. +Had but my soul been his, +As his was mine, +Those wind-resembling accents +Had found fit auditor. +Their second-sighted eloquence, +Welcomed with acclamation, +Had fired action. +But that was ages since: he was not then +What now I am, +Who have no longer +The opportunity then mine, then missed,-- +Who still am dazed and troubled +Surmising others mine, others missed. + +Passionate, never-wearied voice, +Tombed in thy brittle shell, +This human heart +Thou croonest age on age, +"Give and ask not, +Help and blame not," +Heeded less than large and mottled cowry +The which at least some child may hold to ear +All smiles to listen. + +Thou findest parables; +With fond imagination +Adorning truth +For the successive +Unpersuaded +Generations. + +This boy, myself that was, +Musing visions by that woman raised, +Watched that land she came from, towned with ruins +Send mile-long files of laden camels out +With grain to hostile cities,-- +Knew too the blue entrancing plain of waters +Teemed with fresh shoals, buoyed up indifferently, +Fisher--trader--pirate bark,-- +Even the straight thought whispered at his ear, +"Thy lips might join with hers as with some cousin's, +Here, now, at noon, +Hugging her bereaved sadness close, +And still, to-night, with equal satisfaction, +Thy mother's blind contentment with her son." +While half-seduced, half-chafed, his mind was shaken +As with conflicting gusts a choppy sea, +His eyes, still greedy of their visions, +Fastened a swarthy town enisled in wheat, +And to the ebon threshold of each house, +Conjured forth the man that each was planned for: +Great creatures smiling with his father's smile, +Muscular, wealthy and self-satisfied, +Wearing loud-coloured raiment, earrings, chains, +Armlet and buckle, all of clanking gold. +His spirit drank from theirs great draughts of pride +And read their minds more clearly than his own; +All, with one counsel like a chorus, dinned +His soul that then was mine, +With truths well-proved in action. +"Love is chaos, +For order's sake +Whatever must be, should be," +Roared those bulls of Bashan. +Then their proud chant argued, +"How should this woman know +Her little lad again, +Who either now is bones +Under the fertile field, +Or well nigh a grown man? +Say they should cross at market +Both slaves would pass on, not a start the wiser. +What is she then to him +Or he to her +After these years? +To drag a life that might have been but is not +With toil of mind and heart, +Through dreary year on year, +Neglecting for its sake the life that is, +Spells folly and ingratitude to those +Who treat their slaves well. +Thy father's household and thyself should be +More to her now than those who may be dead, +The place she lives in dearer +Than any unattainable far land +Where she is more forgotten than old dreams. +Why make the day of evil worse +By dwelling on it after it has past? +Near things alone are real, +Now is the whole of time: +Places beyond the horizon are but pictures; +Memory cheats the eye with an illusion!" + +"Your thoughts are sound, bold builders, +I am my father's son. +Behold this home-shore, these our hills, this bay, +And this our slave!-- +Up, work, look sharp about it!" +Bounding a foot and fast retiring from her, +I stoop for stones strewn thick about the sand, +Aim them, fling them, +And, as my idle arm resumes the knack, +Score a hit and laugh +To see her stumble hurt, behind the pine trunks. +"Unless you work, I throw again, +To it and steady at it. +Mark me, drab, we Camilli +Mean what we say." +Stone after stone still flies, +But aimed to knock chips from the pine-boles now; +For she is busy gathering sticks, increasing +Her distance as she may. The noon is sultry, +Heated and clammy, I, +Towards the live waves turning, slip my tunic, +Then run in naked. +Cooled and soothed by swimming, +Both mind and heart from their late tumult tuned +To placid acquiescent health, +I float, suspended in the limpid water, +Passive, rhythmically governed; +So tranced worlds travel the dark shoreless ether. + +"Where should this stream of pictures tend?" +No, Bottomley, you will not ask; +To you I am quite free to send +The unexpected, unexplained, +You will not take me thus to task. + +So they be painted well, they live; +If ill, they yet may cling to fame +Associated with your name. +In which case you, and not I, give +That we are both contented with. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +THOMAS MOULT + + + +DOWN HERE THE HAWTHORN + +Down here the hawthorn.... +And a stir of wings, +Spring-lit wings that wake +Sudden tumult in the brake, +Tumult of blossom tide, tumult of foaming mist +Where the bright bird's tumultuous feathers kissed. +White mists are blinding me, +White mist of hedgerow, white mist of wings. +Down here the hawthorn +And a stir of wings.... +Softly swishing, swift with spray +All along the green laneway +Dewdimmed, sunwashed, windsweet and winter-free +They flash upon the light, +They swing across the sight, +I cannot see, I cannot see!... + +Down here the flowering hawthorn flings +Sleet of petals, petalled shells +Spread the coloured air that sings +Magic and a myriad spells +Spun by my count of Springs. +Down here the hawthorn.... +And the flower-foam stirred +By a Spring-lit bird. +White hawthorn mist is blinding me. +I lower my gaze, and on this old +Brown bridle road +Crusted with golden moss and mould +The hedgerow flings +Lush carpetings, +Blossom woven carpetings light lain +Under the farmer's lumbering load; +And, floating past the spent March wrack, +The footstep trail, the traveller's track. + Down here the hawthorn.... +White mists are blinding me, +White mists that rime the fresh green bank +Where fernleaf-fall +And sorrel tall +Upwaving, rank on rank, +Shall flush the bed whereon the windflowers sank. + +I turn these Spring-bewildered eyes of mine, +I seek above the surf of hedgerow line +Where peeping branches reach, and reaching twine +Faint cherry or plum or eglantine. +But with pretence of whisperings +The year's young mischief-wind shall take +By storm these shy striplings, +And soon or later shake +Their slender limbs, and make +Free with their clinging may-- +Strip from them in a single boisterous day +Their first and last vesture of pale bloom spray. +So, as to meet such lack +In bush or brack, +The kindly hedgerows make +Sure of a Springtime for these frailer things, +Shedding on each the lavish creamthorn flake. + Down here the hawthorn.... +On all the green leaf-clusters round me clings +Thickly a spray of gentle blossomings +Everywhere as with many bells +The young year with white magic swells. +The morning rings. +White mist is blinding me, +I cannot see, I cannot see! + +Blind grows the coloured air that sings +The marvel of a myriad spells +Spun by my count of Springs. +Sleet of petals, petalled shells +Falling with sudden poignancy +(As the sleet stings) +Upon the lightheart-hope which only clear sight knows. +And slowly drifts, +Lingering among the snows +Nor, though the snow lifts, +Ever goes +The wistful heartache as the fresh Spring flows +With slipping sureness to the time of the rose, and the withered rose. + Down here the hawthorn.... +And heaping blossom stirred +By a joy-swift bird. +White mists are blinding me, +White mist of hedgerow, white mist of wings. +The bird's flight flings +Deep carpetings +Over the wrack +Of my life's track. + Down here the hawthorn.... +The air of coloured years is blurred +By the Spring, by a bird. +White mists are blinding me, +White mists on the years to be. +I cannot see, I cannot see.... + + + +INVOCATION + +Hurl down, harsh hills, your bitterness +Of wind and storm. +Stem ye the drift of herded men + With your uncouthness +So, tasting of your power, they press +Back shrinking where upon their warm + Safe ways of smoothness +They feed their various lusts again. + +Guard ye, wild hills, with scar and whip +Your outlawry +Lest alien-hearted pigmies tame + Your trackless boulders, +And with their unclean cunning slip +The leash of civilry + Fast round your shoulders. +O keep ye from that shame. + +Or they shall surely come, black hordes +Swarming as lice +With their obscenities and greed + Across your fastness, +Even your peaks that swing white swords, +Rent, splintered ice + Into the vastness +Of skies where fanged winds feed. + +Hurl down, harsh hills, your bitterness, +Guard ye with flail +Of shattering wind and thong of sleet + Your pride uplifting +To the impaled stars; be pitiless +Before this unquiet trail + Of man-herds drifting +Against your stone still feet. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +ROBERT NICHOLS + + + +PAEAN + +ON SEEING A PORTRAIT OF BLAKE. + + +Something moves in his dust, +Flame sleeps beneath the crust; +O whence had he those eyes +Lit with celestial surprise? +From what world blew that gust? +Are we near to Paradise? + +Gather a chaplet of five stars +And the opalescent hue +Of the aureole brightness cast-- +Red, hardly red, and blue, scarce blue,-- +Round th' immaculate frosty moon, +Splintering light in glacial spars, +When November's loudening blast +Sweeps heaven's floor till burnished +More crystal than at August noon, +So we fit radiance may cast +Before his feet, around his head. + +How visits he an earthly place, +Wanders among a mortal race? +How were his footsteps led +That still about his face +Lingers a ghostly trace +Of a secret influence shed +By a Hand the world denies, +In a land her most son flies, +As a gift upon him thrust +For an end he knoweth not, +Yet will shine because he must, +Shine and sing because he must +Reap a wrong he soweth not +Of contempt anger and distrust +For a world which boweth not +To the Flame which binds our dust. + +Go net the moon, go snare the sun, +Set them upon his either hand! +Beneath his heels Leviathan +Roll your thick coils! His head be spanned +By rainbows tripled! Set a gem +At the Cross-scabbard of his sword +Whiter than lambwool or lilystem! +Place on his brow the diadem +Given the warrior of the Lord, +The crown-turrets of Jerusalem! + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +EDEN PHILPOTTS + + + +THE FALL + +I'll sing a song of kings and queens +And falling leaves and flying rain, +With Time to mow, and Fate who gleans +Their good and evil, boon and bane. + +I'll sing a song of leaves and rains +And flying queens and falling kings. +Yet doubt not reason still remains +Snug hidden at the core of things. + +For every year an autumn brings +To round the root and fat the sheaves +And haply garner queens and kings +With falling rain and flying leaves. + +The rain is salt with tears of queens +The leaves are red with blood of kings; +Unknowing what the mystery means +We puzzle at these splendid things. + +For why great kings and rains should fall, +And wherefore leaves and queens should fly, +Or such rare wonders be at all, +You cannot tell; no more can I. + +Yet this we know: new leaves and rain +Anon shall crown the vernal scene, +But dust of dynasts not again +Blows up into a king or queen. + + + +GHOSTIES AT THE WEDDING. + +Turn down a glass afore his place; +Draw up the dog-eared chair; +For though we shall not see his face, +I think he will be here +Our wedding day to share. + +Turn up the glass where she would be +And put a red rose there. +Her quick, grey eyes we cannot see, +But weren't they everywhere, +And shall not they be here? + +Though them old blids are in the grave +And their good light's gone out, +We'd sooner their kind ghosties have +Than all the living rout +As will be there no doubt. + +For some are dead as cannot die. +Some flown as cannot flee. +You still do fancy 'em near by. +'Tis so with him and she, +At any rate to we. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +ARTHUR K. SABIN + + + +FOUR LYRICS + +I. + +When old Anacreon sang the wine +Which made his utterance divine, +Perchance the eyes he gazed into +Were lucent as the sun-touched dew-- +Brighter, perchance, than yours; and yet +Eyes like yours, smoulderingly lit +With the calm passion of the spirit. +No young Greek maid did e'er inherit.... +Ah! twenty years are not enough +To mould to such celestial stuff +A soul, my dear, as yours is moulded, +Wherein all dreams of life lie folded, +And through whose doors a friend may slip +Into serene companionship. + + +II. + +She came, as one who in the light +Of many a sunset hour had grown +Half sad, half glad, because the night +So soon about her would be thrown. +With melancholy ages old, +And laughter fragrant as the Spring, +She came, and in her low voice told +Tales of rich joy and sorrowing. +She led me to her garden, fair +With flowers I love and whispering trees, +And to her arbour sheltered there +In peace, all redolent of peace. +With rapt delight of halting speech, +And commune, such as those have felt +Whose minds move silent each by each. +Whose hopes are kindred hopes, we dwelt. +But though with love and dreams of gold +She wove rare charms about that nest, +My heart lay aching still, and cold: +I could not rest, I could not rest. + + +III. + +The birds are quiet on the boughs, +And quiet are my slumbering trees.... +O come a short while to my house +And share these evening silences. + +Come! for the sunset's weary smile +Has faded; night is failing deep: +And we will rest a little while +And talk together ere we sleep. + + +IV. + +It may be that in future years, +When life serenely yields its best +Of steadfast joy and fleeting tears, +And, blessing, you move on, thrice blest,-- + +Amid glad tasks of love and home, +And fond caresses every day, +A softened thought of me shall come +And fly to reach me when you pray; + +Then I shall tremble where I sit +Unhelped through those gray years to be, +As, like a benediction, it +Shall flood in sweetness over me. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +MARGARET SACKVILLE + + + +THE RETURN + +Last night, within our little town + The Dead came marching through; +In a long line, like living men, + Just as they used to do. + +Only, so long a line it seemed + You'd think the Judgment Day +Had dawned, to see them slowly pass, + With faces turned one way. + +They walked no longer foe and foe + But brother bound to brother; +Poor men, common men they walked + Friendly to one another. + +Just as in life they might have done + Who stabbed and slew instead.... +So quietly and evenly they walked + These million gentle dead. + + + +TO---- + + + I. + +1 + +Was it for you the aching past alone +Lived, that on you might fall the shadow of it? +For you, for you kings climbed a ravished throne, +And all these menacing, quenched fires were lit. +Wars that have left no more than a grey trace, +Where are they? Scattered foam, blown dust--ah, me! +How have they found their way into your face? +The new day is not yours, you only see +A battle raging in a desert place, +And blood-stained warriors seeking Sanctuary. + + +2 + +I cannot love you in the street; I met +You in the street once and turned my head away, +But I will meet you where the red sunset +With forlorn fire flashes the leaping spray. +We are too old, too old for all this noise, +No wine of such new vintage shall control +Us who have known, what passionate joys +Once in some far, dark City of the Soul. +We are kings still and have, as kings, the choice +To spurn the proffered half and claim the whole. + + +3 + +Let us find out a new way; for it is plain +That all these old, worn, trodden roads suffice +Only those who will return again +Seeking shelter in their homes from Paradise. +Oh! let us find some solitary, green +Forgotten garden, where the sunrays fall +All blind and blurred and indistinct between +Cypresses lofty as earth's boundary wall; +Beneath whose shade shall glimmer forth half seen +Your face through the soft darkness when I call. + + + + II. + + +1 + +If one, with visionary pen, should write +The love which might be ours, how would he call +These strange, perplexing fires veiled servants light +Down the dark vistas of our empty hall? +That love which might be ours, how would he name +That love? No bitter leaving of the brine, +No white or fading blossom twined like flame +Round any brow, Christian or Erycine, +Not all those loves blown to a windy fame +Shall find their counterpart in yours and mine. + + +2 + +Not Tristram, not Isolde, wild shades which dip +Their pinions like blown gulls in a waste sea, +Nor those mute lovers, who still, lip on lip, +Float on for ever, though they have ceased to be, +Not any of those who loved once;--far apart +We wander; the years have made us weak, we fail +To rush together with a single heart, +And we shall meet at last, only as pale +Autumnal mists no sun's shaft cleaves apart +When all the winds are still and no ships sail. + + + III. + + +1 + +Yet we shall meet--it may be we shall meet +And count our days up-gathered, one by one, +Like poppies plucked among the burnished wheat, +Beneath the red gaze of the August sun; +And all our scattered dreams shall flutter home +At last. Oh! silent, age-long wandering +What since your setting forth have ye become? +What gift from those far waters do ye bring?-- +_A splash of rain, salt taste of frozen foam, +Green sea-weed trailing from a broken wing_. + + +2 + +Or we shall find each other--on the brink +Of sleep some day, when the cool evening airs +Blow bubbles round the pool where wood-birds drink; +Or in the common Inn of wayfarers: +Both weary, both beside the wide fireplace +Drowsing, till at some sudden spark up-blown +Shall each awake to find there face to face +You and I very tired and alone; +And lo! your welcome from my eyes shall gaze +And in your eyes there shall I find my own. + + +3 + +I will pursue thee down these solitudes +Therefore, and thou shalt yet escape me not. +I will set traps for thee of subtle moods +And wound thee with the arrows of my thought. +In thickest forest ways though thou lie hid, +Or in some autumn vale of Brocelinde, +Or in whatever place of magic forbid, +I will pierce through the woven branches like a wind, +And drag thee from thy hiding-place amid +The secret laughter of the fairy-kind. + +4 + +Oh, triumph still delaying! I must pass +Lonely a long time yet, for I know well +No fugitive fair dream that ever was +Left anywhere traces where her footprints fell. +I, lonely hunter in the woods of sleep. +The hunt is up--away! I ride, I ride +On a white steed, where black-boughed fir-trees keep +Watch and the kindly world is shut outside. +I am afraid, the haunted woods are deep! +I am afraid--afraid! Where dost thou hide? + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +W. KEAN SEYMOUR + + + +FRUITAGE + +For her the proud stars bend, she sees, +As never yet, dim sorceries +Breaking in silver magic wide +On the blue midnight's swirling tide, +With arrowy mist and spearing flame +That out of central beauty came. +The innumerate splendours of the skies +Are thronging in her shining eyes; +Her body is a fount of light +In the plumed garden of the night; +Her lily breasts have known the bliss +Of the cool air's unfaltering kiss. +She is made one with loveliness, +Enfranchised from the world's distress, +Given utterly to joy, a bride +With a bride's hunger satisfied. +Now, though she heavily walk, and know +The sharp premonitory throe +And the life leaping in the gloom +Of her most blessed and chosen womb, +It is as though foot never was +So light upon the glimmering grass. +She is shot through with the stars' light, +Helped by their calm, unwavering might. +In tall, lone-swaying gravity +Stoops to her there the eternal tree +Whose myriad fruitage ripens on +Beneath the light of moon and sun. + + + +IN THE WOOD + +Lone shadows move, +The night air stirs; +This hour of dying +Dreams was hers. + +In this dusk place +Her throat gleamed white +In glimmering beauty +Of starlight. + +Nightingales sang +Exultant bliss; +The snared stars saw us +Sway, and kiss. + +Now the bats whirr, +The barn owls hoot, +Her loveliness +Is dust, is mute. + +Peace comes not here, +No dream-bird trills: +They haunt her lodging +In the hills. + + + +SIESTA + +Bring me some oranges on blue china, + With a jade-and-silver spoon, +And drowse on your silken mats beside me + In the burning noon. + +Bring me red wine in cups of crystal, + With melons on chrysoprase, +And place them softly with jewelled fingers + Before my gaze. + +Hasten, my dove of scented whisperings, + My lily, my Xacan! +Bring bubbling pipes for the cool shadows, + And my peacock fan. + +And bid Isarrib, my chief musician, + Weave quiet songs within, +That my soul in the circles of a great glamour + May float and spin. + +And O, you gaudy and whistling parrots + In your high, flowered maze, +Still your harsh, petulant quarrelling + With the mocking jays. + + + +TO ONE WHO EATS LARKS + +Ah, my brave Vitellius! +Ah, your tastes are marvellous! +When you eat your singing birds +Do you leave the bones--and words, +The proud music in the throat?... +Not a note, not a note? +Doubtless they were not so pleasant +As the brains of a young pheasant, +Or flamingoes' tongues, whose duty +Never was to utter beauty. +But they sang, but they fluted +And your rasping lies confuted, +And your ugliness laid bare +With a lyric in the air. +So you bought them on a string, +Dangling balls that used to sing, +And you gave them to the cook +With a fat and happy look. + +But you ask me why this fuss! +Ah, my brave Vitellius, +I am never sure your stringers +May not string you other singers, +May not tire of lark and wren +And attempt to sell you men. +Please forgive me, but I've made +Certain songs ... and I'm afraid! + + + +IF BEAUTY CAME TO YOU + +If Beauty came to you, + Ah, would you know her grace, +And could you in your shadowed prison view + Unscathed her face? + +Stepping as noiselessly + As moving moth-wings, so +Might she come suddenly to you or me + And we not know. + +Amid these clangs and cries, + Alas, how should we hear +The shy, dim-woven music of her sighs + As she draws near. + +Threading through monstrous, black, + Uncharitable hours, +Where the soul shapes its own abhorred rack + Of wasted powers? + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +HORACE SHIPP + + + +PRISON + + +I. + +The dreadful days go up and up, to fall +Through twilight to the sleepless dusk again, +Like tortured flies upon a window pane. +Wingless or broken-winged, +They crawl and crawl ... +Meaningless, striving--nowhere after all, +Till one is tired of heeding. +Tired. +A stain of drab unloveliness the days remain +Unmoving now, save that across the wall, +A patch of sun behind a shadow of bars, +Creeps in a stupor. +Greys, +Grins bloodily, +Falters and dies. + +Outside a day may slip +From noon-glow to a miracle of stars +With hours that flush and flood eternity; +Whilst here +The stagnant waters drip ... and drip. + + +II. + +They tell me I have sinned; that long ago +(Weeks--or a cycle of eternity) +This thing of dead desire lived lustily, +Was stirred with passion, and sinned. +It may be so; +As seas or hills may be. +I only know God's world has shrunken, +And that misery, +Shrinking my heart, has closed her walls on me, +Till in the dead, still soul the senses grow +Carious as the ulcer of thought eats deep. +Heavy, the slow lusts pace the barren mind +From end to end. +Barred door and window, +Wall inexorable. +And the horrors creep on padded feet like warders. +Then the blind, pitiful night +When hot tears scald and fall. + + +III. + +Grey day-break and the silence of the cell: +The dull, numb pain of waking, +Stillness ... +Fear clutching oblivion; +And then to hear +The brazen, blasphemous tolling of the bell, +A crash of doors, +Loud-clanging tins, +The swell of brutal voices nearer and more near, +Bursts at the last about you. +Clangour. +Queer delight of movement. +Then ... the door shuts. +Hell darkens about you with the turning key, +The silence burns and sears you like a flame; +It battens as the worm that never dies; +Crawls back from distant noises; palpably +Lurks through the rhythm of the feet of shame, +Watching and watching out of hooded eyes. + + + +THE SIXTH DAY + +"And God said 'Let us make man in our image and let him have +dominion'...." + +God made you in His image, yet I saw +You stoop and seize a blind mole from the snare. +Blind. +Blind with terror ... Blind +Your teeth gleamed bare behind the taut, white lips. +The trapper's law knows neither hate nor love. +You watched it paw, +Frantic with lust of life, the yielding air +And were amused. +God's Image! +Did you care, pitying one moment, see the swift hands claw +For life and darkness, know and hate your trap? +I saw your knuckles gleam, your hand swing free; +A cry; +The blind face crashed against the wall. +Then death and stillness and---- +You grinned. +Mayhap, +Snaring the blind mole of humanity, +God made you in His image after all. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +EDITH SITWELL + + + +EVENTAIL + +Lovely Semiramis +Closes her slanting eyes: +Dead is she long ago, +From her fan sliding slow +Parrot-bright fire's feathers +Gilded as June weathers, +Plumes like the greenest grass +Twinkle down; as they pass +Through the green glooms in Hell, +Fruits with a tuneful smell-- +Grapes like an emerald rain +Where the full moon has lain, +Greengages bright as grass, +Melons as cold as glass +Piled on each gilded booth +Feel their cheeks growing smooth; +Apes in plumed head-dresses +Whence the bright heat hisses, +Nubian faces sly, +Pursing mouth, slanting eye, +Feel the Arabian +Winds floating from that fan: +See how each gilded face +Paler grows, nods apace: +"Oh, the fan's blowing +Cold winds.... It is snowing!" + + + +THE LADY WITH THE SEWING-MACHINE + +Across the fields as green as spinach, +Cropped as close as Time to Greenwich, + +Stands a high house; if at all, +Spring comes like a Paisley shawl-- + +Patternings meticulous +And youthfully ridiculous. + +In each room the yellow sun +Shakes like a canary, run + +On run, roulade, and watery trill-- +Yellow, meaningless, and shrill. + +Face as white as any clock's, +Cased in parsley-dark curled locks-- + +All day long you sit and sew, +Stitch life down for fear it grow, + +Stitch life down for fear we guess +At the hidden ugliness. + +Dusty voice that throbs with heat, +Hoping with your steel-thin beat + +To put stitches in my mind, +Make it tidy, make it kind, + +You shall not: I'll keep it free +Though you turn earth, sky and sea + +To a patchwork quilt to keep +Your mind snug and warm in sleep! + + + +PORTRAIT OF A BARMAID + +Metallic waves of people jar +Through crackling green toward the bar + +Where on the tables chattering-white +The sharp drinks quarrel with the light. + +Those coloured muslin blinds the smiles, +Shroud wooden faces in their wiles-- + +Sometimes they splash like water (you +Yourself reflected in their hue). + +The conversation loud and bright +Seems spinal bars of shunting light + +In firework-spurting greenery. +O complicate machinery + +For building Babel, iron crane +Beneath your hair, that blue-ribbed mane + +In noise and murder like the sea +Without its mutability! + +Outside the bar where jangling heat +Seems out of tune and off the beat-- + +A concertina's glycerine +Exudes, and mirrors in the green + +Your soul: pure glucose edged with hints +Of tentative and half-soiled tints. + + + +SOLO FOR EAR-TRUMPET + +The carriage brushes through the bright +Leaves (violent jets from life to light); +Strong polished speed is plunging, heaves +Between the showers of bright hot leaves +The window-glasses glaze our faces +And jar them to the very basis-- +But they could never put a polish +Upon my manners or abolish +My most distinct disinclination +For calling on a rich relation! +In her house--(bulwark built between +The life man lives and visions seen)-- +The sunlight hiccups white as chalk, +Grown drunk with emptiness of talk, +And silence hisses like a snake-- +Invertebrate and rattling ache.... +Then suddenly Eternity +Drowns all the houses like a sea +And down the street the Trump of Doom +Blares madly--shakes the drawing-room +Where raw-edged shadows sting forlorn +As dank dark nettles. Down the horn +Of her ear-trumpet I convey +The news that "It is Judgment Day!" +"Speak louder: I don't catch, my dear." +I roared: "_It is the Trump we hear!_" +"The _What?_" "_THE TRUMP!_" "I shall complain! +.... the boy-scouts practising again." + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +MURIEL STUART + + + +THE FATHER + +The evening found us whom the day had fled, +Once more in bitter anger, you and I, +Over some small, some foolish, trivial thing +Our anger would not decently let die, +But dragged between us, shamed and shivering +Until each other's taunts we scarcely heard, +Until we lost the sense of all we said, +And knew not who first spoke the fatal word. +It seemed that even every kiss we wrung +We killed at birth with shuddering and hate, +As if we feared a thing too passionate. +However close we clung +One hour the next hour found us separate, +Estranged, and Love most bitter on our tongue. + +To-night we quarrelled over one small head, +Our fruit of last year's maying, the white bud +Blown from our stormy kisses and the dead +First rapture of our wild, estranging blood. +You clutched him: there was panther in your eyes, +We breathed like beasts in thickets, on the wall +Our shadows in huge challenge seemed to rise, +The room grew dark with anger. Yet through all +The shame and hurt and pity of it you were +Still strangely and imperishably dear, +As one who loves the wild day none the less +That breaks in bitter hands the buds of Spring, +Whose cold hand stops the breath of loveliness, +And drives the wailing ghost of beauty past, +Making the rose,--even the rose, a thing +For pain to be remembered by at last. + +I said: "My son shall wear his father's sword." +You said: "Shall hands once blossoms at my breast +Be stained with blood?" I answered with a word +More bitter, and your own, the bitterest +Stung me to sullen anger, and I said: +"My son shall be no coward of his line +Because his mother choose"; you turned your head +And your eyes grew implacable in mine. +And like a trodden snake you turned to meet +The foe with sudden hissing ... then you smiled, +And broke our life in pieces at my feet, +"Your child?" you said: "_Your_ child?" + + + +THE SHORE + +The low bay melts into a ring of silver, +And slips it on the shore's reluctant finger +Though in an hour the tide will turn, will tremble, +Forsaking her because the moon persuades him. +But the black wood that leans and sighs above her +No tide can turn, no moon can slave nor summon. +Then comes the dark: on sleepy, shell-strewn beaches, +O'er long pale leagues of sand and cold, clear water +She hears the tide go out towards the moonlight. +The wood still leans ... weeping she turns to seek him, +And his black hair all night is on her bosom. + + + +THELUS WOOD + +I came by night to Thelus wood, +And though in dark and desperate places +Stubborned with wire and brown with blood +Undaunted April crept and sewed +Her violets in dead men's faces, +And in a soft and snowy shroud +Drew the scarred fields with gentle stitch; +Though in the valley where the ditch +Was hoarse with nettles, blind with mud, +She stroked the golden-headed bud, +And loosed the fern, she dared not here +To touch nor tend this murdered thing; +The wind went wide of it, the year +Upon this breast stopped short of Spring: +Beauty turned back from Thelus Wood. + +From broken brows the dim eyes stared, +Blistered and maimed the wide stumps grinned +From the black mouth of Thelus bared +In laughter at some monstrous jest. +No creature moved there, weed nor wind. +Huge arms, half-torn from savage breast, +Hung wide, and tangled limbs and faces +Lay, as if giants blind and stark +With violent, with perverse embraces +Groped for each other in the dark. +A moaning rose--not of the wind, +--There was no wind, but hollowly +From its dim bed of mud each tree +Gave forth a sound, till trees and mud +Seemed but a single, sighing mouth, +A wound that spoke with lips uncouth, +And cried to me from Thelus Wood. + +I heard one tree say: "This was I +Who drew great clouds across the sky +To weep against me." This one said: +"I made a gloom where love might lie +All day and dream it night, a bed +Secret and soft, the birds' song had +A twilight sound the whole day there." +One said: "Last night I shook my hair +Before the mirror of the moon." +"I saw a corpse to-day," said one +"That was but buried yester-year." +And one, the smallest, sweetest thing-- +A fair child-tree made never stir, +Dead before God had tended her +In the green nurseries of Spring. +She lay, the loveliest, loneliest, +Among the old and ruined trees, +And at each small and broken wrist +The white flowers grew like bandages. + +Then from the ruined churchyard where +Old vaults and graves lay turned and tossed +And earth from earth was shaken bare, +Came murmurings of a tongueless host +That to each ghastly brother said: +"Who raised us from our sleep? Is this +The resurrection of the dead? +Upon our bodies no flesh grows, +No bright blood through our temples springs, +No glory spreads, no trumpet blows, +The air is not white and blind with wings. +And yet dragged up before us lie +The woods of Thelus at our feet, +And strange hills sentinel the sky, +And where the road went yawns a pit. +The world is finished: let us sleep. +God has forgotten: we shall keep +Here a sweet, safe Eternity. +There is no other end than this, +And this is death, and that is peace." +But even as they ceased the stones +Were loosed, the earth shook where I stood, +And from far off the crouching guns +Swung slowly round on Thelus Wood. + + + + +THE THIEF OF BEAUTY + + +I. + +The mind is Beauty's thief, the poet takes +The golden spendthrift's trail among the blooms +Where she stands tossing silver in the lakes, +And twisting bright swift threads on airy looms. +Her ring the poppy snatches, and the rose +With laughter plunders all her gusty plumes. +The poet gleans and gathers as she goes +Heedless of summer's end certain and soon, +Of winter rattling at the door of June. + + +II. + +When Beauty lies hand-folded, pale and still, +Forsaken of her lovers and her lords, +And winter keeps cold watch upon the hill, +Then he lets fall his bale of coloured words. +At frosty midnight June shall rise in flame, +Move at his magic with her bells and birds, +The rose will redden as he speaks her name. +He shall release earth's frozen bosom there, +And with great words shall cuff the whining air. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +W. R. TITTERTON + + + +THE HIGH WALL + +I will build up a wall for Freedom to dwell therein, +A high wall with towers +And steel fangs for a gate. +For Freedom that lacks a home falleth by pit and gin, +A prey to the alien powers +That lie in wait. + +I will build up a house for her where the ways divide, +A house set on a hill, +With a lamp in the topmost tower, +And a trumpet calling to arms, and a flag like a flame blown wide, +And a sword to save and to kill +As her bridal dower. + +I will take her to wife, she that is life and death; +Life--for a trumpet calls; +Death--for it calls me still, +And I shall know love--a star, and a fluttering breath +Till the shadow of silence falls +In the house on the hill. + +I will build up a house for her where the ways divide, +Four-square on the rock, +A high house and a great; +So, when I fly, spent, back from a broken ride, +Her key shall cry in the lock, +She shall stand in the gate. + +She shall stand in the gate--the prize of the world to win, +Stand steel-shod, +Crowned with a cloud of flowers. +I will build up a wall, a wall, for Freedom to dwell therein +In the name of the most high God, +A wall with towers. + + + +THE BROKEN SWORD + +Soldier, soldier, burnishing your sword, +Is there no place for a wayfaring man in the courts of your lord? +A couch, and a crust, and a song, and a flagon of wine? +Haggard, begrimed though I be, and out at heel, +A lean, grey hop-and-go-one with a crutch of steel, +Brother-at-arms with death? Behold the sign: + +I have tasted great weather on high, white, green-turreted cliffs by the + sea. +I have tramped the tough heather, the purple, the brown, +By pools of peat water; from the night to the day, +Till the moon has dropped down: the ghost of a minim, low down, +In a high-piping treble of grey. + +In shy, dim recesses, mid tresses, green tresses. +Slow dipping, caressing, I've heard +A whisper, a chuckle of laughter, a scamper; and high, +High up in the air the cry, the call of a bird. +And when the night came with a flicker of wings +I have heard the earth breathing quiet and slow +Like a pulse in the tiny, wild tumult of things. + +I have sung to the sun, and the moon and the stars, +In valleys uncharted of tumbled sea meadows +I have shouted aloud 'neath a sky whipped to smoke in the fret of my + spars +And I fought as I fared; and my couch was a camp; and my songs were my + scars. + +Soldier! Soldier! Cosetting your sword! +Have you no place for a harper-at-arms in the courts of your lord-- +Prim fountains, clipped trees, and trim gardens, and music, and rest? +Nay, keep your sugared delights and your margents embroidered! My life + is the best. +In my ears is the sound of a bugle blown, and my pulses like + kettle-drums beat +For the hungry blind onset, the rally, the stubborn defeat. +I, too, could have polished, and polished, and jeered at the wayfaring + man who passed by. +But I follow the fighting Apollo. +And I stand unashamed; and I raise up my shard of a sword; and I cry the + old cry. +Please God they shall find but a hilt in my hand when I die! + + + +NIGHT-SHAPES + +Dark hurrying shapes beset my path that night-- +Pushing and buffeting; and in my brain +Dark hurrying shapes beset my soul. In vain +I struggled; as a fevered dreamer might; +Or some spent, breathless swimmer, in despite +Of desperate stroke, thrust headlong to the main. +The waking nightmare, monstrous and inane, +Whirled, rushed, and huddled in its random flight. + +Like a spent swimmer, battling with a swoon, +Silent I fought, yet seemed to cry aloud. +When, at the challenge of a marching tune, +Heard in a sudden stillness of the crowd, +I looked aloft, and saw the great round moon +Steadfast behind her ragged rout of cloud. + + + +THE SILENT PEOPLE + +The Silent People of No Man's Land +Calm they lie, +With a stare and vacant smile +At the vacant sky. +Over them swept the battle, +And stirred them not. +Armies passed over, beyond them. +They are forgot. + +Calmly the earth deals with them, +Melts them away. +Nothing is left of them now but bones, +Bones and clay. +Bones of the Valley of Judgment, +Bones stripped clean. +We fought, day in, day out, and the others, +With this between. + +Dawn comes white and finds them +Stark and cold. +Twilight creeps over and covers them, +Fold on fold. +Night cannot hide them from us. +In the dark, again, +We see the Silent People +Who once were men. + +The Silent People of No Man's Land, +They rise, they rise, +With the glory of utter loss +In their stary eyes. +Beckoning, beckoning, calling, +Pointing the way. +But the dawn comes white, and finds them +Bones and clay. + +Winds of the world blow o'er them +Your serenade! +Touch like a lute the broken earth +Where our dead are laid! +Broken bones of the martyrs, +Reliques of pain, +Anoint them, anoint them with sunlight, +Robe them in rain. + +The Silent People of No Man's Land +Calm they lie, +Bones, broken and bleached, +Under the sky. +Over them sweeps the tempest, +And stirs them not. +We pass over, beyond them, +They are forgot. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +E. H. VISIAK + + + +LAMPS AND LANTERNS + +When I had sight, great glamour was +In myriad lamps of coloured glass: +Old lamps for new I never sold; +For old were new, and new were old. + +And Chinese lanterns, paper globes, +Were Dragon Gods in tissue robes +That stood on air with squat, round shoon, +Beneath the thin, receded Moon. + + + +STRANDED + +_Dusk gathers. On the seaward hedge +The wild hops, hanging bright, +Gleam as a foam-spray flung on sedge +From a sea of golden light_. + +A ship lies heavy on the sands +Above the warped, wan tide, +Whose waves thrust ineffectual hands +Beneath its murmuring side. + +They cannot lift the monstrous hulk, +Nor break the ghostly spell; +The ship lies dreaming, all her bulk +Racked on a shoal of hell. + +I hear the sullen timbers creak, +With echoings deep and numb; +No other sound: nor groan nor shriek; +For agony is dumb! + +But at the seams, in every crack, +A beaded sweat appears: +The soul that's stretched on such a rack +Can shed no other tears! + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +ALEC WAUGH + + + +RUBBLE + +We may fill the daytime with friendship + And laughter and song; +But however the laughter may trip + And the words break in song +On a loved one's lip; +And however gaily the road may bend + Into the sky, +It must come to this in the end, + That we stand +And watch the last friend + Turn with a half-felt sigh + And a wave of the hand; +And silence is over the day, + Shadows fall, +And our happiness crumbles away + Like a wall +That nobody cares for, + That falls stone by stone +Till its grandeur is rubble once more, + And we are alone. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +CHARLES WILLIAMS + + + +CHRISTMAS + +Word through the world went + On Christmas morn,-- +'Tidings! behold, a + Townsman is born!' + +Then in their council + Smiled the high lords: +'Sword for world-conquest + 'Mid a world's swords. +Need shall our armies + Have of each birth, +In that last battle + Wins us the earth.' + +Still were the priesthood, + Singing the Mass: +'Lo, is our creed come + Truly to pass? +Blessed and broken + Crumbs that we give, +Say! say, O chalice, + Can a creed live? + +Then to lord Shakespeare, + Brooding alone, +While in a vision + Lear was shown, +While his just loathing + Hung over men, +Lo, from the darkness + Came Imogen. + +Then said a free maid, + Heart against mine,-- +Take me, lord governor, + Who am all thine! +Thou that hast blessed me + With a new light, +Ah, is thy handmaid + Fair in thy sight?' + +Then said our Lady,-- + 'Clean is the hut, +Filled are the platters, + And the door shut. +Sit, O son Jesus! + Sit thou, sweet friend! +Poor folk have supper + And their woes end.' + +'Now,' said our Father, + 'All things are won: +Welcome, O Saviour! + Welcome, O Son! +More than creation + Lives now again, +God hath borne Godhead + Nowise in vain.' + +Word went through Sarras + On Easter morn,-- +'Tidings! behold a + Townsman is born!' + + + +BRISEIS + +The footfalls of the parting Myrmidons + And counter-cries of leaguer and of town + Are hushed behind her as the silks drop down; +Alone she stands, and wonderingly cons +Heads circleted with gold or helmed with bronze; + Higher her eyes from crown to loftier crown + Creep, till they fall, nigh-blasted, at the frown +Of Argos, throned in his pavilions + +And mid his captains wrathfully aware + How the plague smites the host, how by the sea +Beyond the ships, with vengeful prayer and oath, +Rages the young Achilles, of whose wrath + Innocent, ignorant, a captive, she +Sees but the dropped staff on the voided chair. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + +(This list includes poetical works only). + + +BINYON, LAURENCE. + + Persephone (1890) + Lyric Poems (1894) + Poems (1895) + Porphyrion and other poems (1898) + The Supper (1897) + Odes (1901) + Death of Adam and other poems (1904) + Penthesilea (1905) + Dream come true (1905) + Paris and Oenone (1906) + Attila, a tragedy (1907) + England and other poems (1909) + Auguries (1913) + The Winnowing-fan (1914) + Bombastes in the Shades, a play (1915) + The Anvil and other poems (1916) + The Cause: poems of the war (1917) + For the Fallen and other poems (1917) + The New World (1918) + The Four Years: Collected War Poems (1919) + + +CHESTERTON, G.K. + + Ballad of the White Horse (1911) + The Wild Knight and other poems (1914) + Poems (1915) + Wine, Water and Song (1915) + + +CHURCH, RICHARD. + + Flood of Life and other poems (1917) + Hurricane (1919) + + +DAVIES, W.H. + + New Poems (1907) + Nature Poems and others (1908) + Farewell to Poesy and other poems (1910) + Songs of Joy and Others (1911) + Foliage (1913) + Bird of Paradise and other poems (1914) + Child Lovers and other poems (1916) + Collected Poems (1916) + Forty Poems (1918) + + +DRINKWATER, JOHN. + + Poems (1903) + Death of Leander and other poems (1906) + Lyrical and other poems (1908) + Cophetua, a play (1911) + Poems of Men and Hours (1911) + Poems of Love and Earth (1912) + Cromwell and other poems (1913) + Rebellion (1914) + Swords and Ploughshares (1915) + Olton Pools and other poems (1916) + Pawns (1917) + Poems (1908-14) (1917) + Tides (1917) + Abraham Lincoln (1918) + Loyalties (1919) + + +GIBSON, WILFRED WILSON. + + Golden Helm (1903) + On the Threshold and Other Plays (1907) + Stonefolds (1907) + Web of Life (1908) + Akra the Slave (1910) + Daily Bread (1910) + Womenkind (1912) + Fires (1912) + Thorough-fares (1914) + Borderlands (1914) + Battle (1915) + Friends (1916) + Livelihood (1917) + + +GOLDING, LOUIS. + + Sorrow of War (1919) + + +GOULD, GERALD. + + Lyrics (1906) + Poems (1911) + My Lady's Book (1913) + Monogamy (1918) + + +HOUSMAN, LAURENCE. + + Mendicant Rhymes (1906) + Selected Poems (1908) + The Winners (1915) + Heart of Peace (1918) + + +LE GALLIENNE, RICHARD. + + My Ladies' Sonnets (1887) + R. L. S., An Elegy (1895) + Omar Repentant (1908) + Orestes (1910) + The Lonely Dancer and other poems (1914) + The Silk Hat Soldier and other poems (1915) + + +MACAULAY, ROSE. + + The Two Blind Countries (1914) + Three Days (1919) + + +MASON, EUGENE. + + Flamma Vestalis and other poems (1890) + The Field Floridus and other poems (1899) + Vitrail and other Poems (1916) + + +MAYNARD, THEODORE. + + Laughs and Whifts of Song (1915) + Drums of Defeat (1917) + Folly and other poems (1918) + + +MOORE, T. STURGE. + + The Vinedresser and other poems (1899) + Aphrodite against Artemis (1901) + Absalom (1903) + The Centaur's Booty (1903) + Danaee (1903) + Rout of the Amazons (1903) + Pan's Prophecy (1904) + Theseus, Medea and Lyrics (1904) + To Leda and other odes (1904) + The Gazelles and other poems (1904) + A Sicilian Idyll and Judith (1911) + Mariamne (1911) + Collected Poems (1916) + + +NICHOLS, ROBERT. + + Ardours and Endurances (1917) + Invocation (1919) + + +PHILLPOTTS, EDEN. + + Up-Along and Down-Along (1905) + Wild Fruit (1911) + Demeter's Daughter (1911) + The Iscariot (1912) + Delight and other poems (1916) + Plain Song (1917) + + +SABIN, ARTHUR K. + + Typhon and other poems (1902) + Death of Icarus (1906) + The Wayfarers (1907) + Dante and Beatrice (1908) + Medea and Circe and other poems (1911) + New Poems (1914) + War Harvest (1914) + Five Poems (1914) + Christmas (1914) + + +SACKVILLE, LADY MARGARET. + + Poems (1901) + A Hymn to Dionysus and other poems (1905) + Hildris the Queen, a play (1908) + Lyrics (1912) + Songs of Aphrodite and other poems (1913) + Pageant of War (1916) + + +SEYMOUR, WILLIAM KEAN. + + Street of Dreams (1914) + To Verhaeren and other poems (1917) + Twenty-four Poems (1918) + Swords and Flutes (1919) + + +SITWELL, EDITH. + + The Mother and other poems (1915) + Clowns' Houses (1918) +(With Osbert Sitwell) + Twentieth Century Harlequinade and other poems. + + +STUART, MURIEL. + + Christ at Carnival and other poems (1916) + The Cockpit of Idols (1918) + + +TITTERTON, W. R. + + River Music and other poems (1900) + Guns and Guitars (1918) + + +VISIAK, E.H. + + Buccaneer Ballads (1910) + Flints and Flashes (1911) + The Phantom Ship (1912) + Battle Fiends and other poems (1916) + Brief Poems (1919) + + +WAUGH, ALEC. + + Resentment (1918) + + +WILLIAMS, CHARLES. + + The Silver Stair (1912) + Poems of Conformity (1917) + Divorce (In preparation) + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Miscellany of Poetry, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MISCELLANY OF POETRY *** + +***** This file should be named 9652.txt or 9652.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/6/5/9652/ + +Produced by Clytie Siddall, Keren Vergon and the online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |