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Ardours and Endurances

<h3>ARDOURS AND ENDURANCES</h3> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/frontis.jpg" width-obs="100%" alt="" title="" /></div> <h1>ARDOURS AND ENDURANCES</h1> <h3>ALSO A FAUN'S HOLIDAY & POEMS AND PHANTASIES BY</h3> <h4>ROBERT NICHOLS</h4> Author of "Invocation: War Poems and Others" <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/logo.jpg" width-obs="126" height-obs="160" alt="" title="" /></div> NEW YORK <big>FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY</big> PUBLISHERS <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <h2>CONTENTS</h2> [Pg v] <div class='center'> <table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td align='center' colspan='2'>BOOK I</td></tr> <tr><td align='center' colspan='2'>ARDOURS AND ENDURANCES</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>The Summons:</td><td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>I.</td><td align='left'>To——</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>II.</td><td align='left'>The Past</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>III.</td><td align='left'>The Reckoning</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>Farewell To Place of Comfort</td><td align='right'>7</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>The Approach:</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>I.</td><td align='left'>In the Grass: Halt by Roadside</td><td align='right'>12</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>II.</td><td align='left'>The Day's March</td><td align='right'>13</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>III.</td><td align='left'>Nearer</td><td align='right'>15</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>Battle:</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>I.</td><td align='left'>Noon</td><td align='right'>18</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>II.</td><td align='left'>Night Bombardment</td><td align='right'>19</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>III.</td><td align='left'>Comrades: An Episode</td><td align='right'>22</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>IV.</td><td align='left'>Behind the Lines: Night, France</td><td align='right'>27</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>V.</td><td align='left'>At the Wars</td><td align='right'>28</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>VI.</td><td align='left'>Out of Trenches: The Barn, Twilight</td><td align='right'>30</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>VII.</td><td align='left'>Battery moving up to a New Position from Rest Camp: Dawn</td><td align='right'>32</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>VIII.</td><td align='left'>Eve of Assault: Infantry going down to Trenches</td><td align='right'>35</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>IX.</td><td align='left'>The Assault</td><td align='right'>37[Pg vi]</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>X.</td><td align='left'>The Last Morning</td><td align='right'>42</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>XI.</td><td align='left'>Fulfilment</td><td align='right'>44</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>The Dead:</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>I.</td><td align='left'>The Burial in Flanders</td><td align='right'>46</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>II.</td><td align='left'>Boy</td><td align='right'>48</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>III.</td><td align='left'>Plaint of Friendship by Death Broken</td><td align='right'>51</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>IV.</td><td align='left'>By the Wood</td><td align='right'>55</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>The Aftermath:</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>I.</td><td align='left'>At the Ebb</td><td align='right'>58</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>II.</td><td align='left'>Alone</td><td align='right'>60</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>III.</td><td align='left'>Thanksgiving</td><td align='right'>61</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>IV.</td><td align='left'>Annihilated</td><td align='right'>62</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>V.</td><td align='left'>Shut of Night</td><td align='right'>63</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>VI.</td><td align='left'>The Full Heart</td><td align='right'>65</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>VII.</td><td align='left'>Sonnet: Our Dead</td><td align='right'>66</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>VIII.</td><td align='left'>Deliverance</td><td align='right'>67</td></tr> <tr><td></td></tr> <tr><td align='center' colspan='2'>BOOK II</td></tr> <tr><td align='center' colspan='2'>A FAUN'S HOLIDAY</td><td align='right'>69</td></tr> <tr><td></td></tr> <tr><td align='center' colspan='2'>BOOK III</td></tr> <tr><td align='center' colspan='2'>POEMS AND PHANTASIES</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>A Triptych:</td></tr> <tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>First Panel: The Hill</td><td align='right'>140</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>II.</td><td align='left'>Second and Centre Panel: The Tower</td><td align='right'>146</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>III.</td><td align='left'>Third Panel: The Tree</td><td align='right'>150</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>[Pg vii]</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>Four Songs From "The Prince of Ormuz":</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>I.</td><td align='left'>The Prince of Ormuz sings to Badoura</td><td align='right'>154</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>II.</td><td align='left'>The Song of the Princess Beside the Fountain</td><td align='right'>155</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>III.</td><td align='left'>The Song of the Prince in Disguise</td><td align='right'>156</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>IV.</td><td align='left'>The Princess Badoura's Last Song to her Lover</td><td align='right'>157</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>The Gift of Song</td><td align='right'>160</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>Fragments from "Orestes":</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>I.</td><td align='left'>Warning Unheeded</td><td align='right'>164</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>II.</td><td align='left'>Orestes to the Furies</td><td align='right'>167</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>Black Songs:</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>I.</td><td align='left'>At Braydon</td><td align='right'>170</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>II.</td><td align='left'>Midday on the Edge of the Downs</td><td align='right'>172</td></tr> <tr><td class='tdr'>III.</td><td align='left'>In Dorsetshire</td><td align='right'>173</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>Man's Anacreontic</td><td align='right'>176</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>The Blackbird</td><td align='right'>179</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>Change</td><td align='right'>180</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>Transfiguration</td><td align='right'>181</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>Plaint of Pierrot Ill-Used</td><td align='right'>183</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>Girl's Song from "The Tailor"</td><td align='right'>188</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>Last Song in an Opera</td><td align='right'>190</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>Danaë: Mystery in Eight Poems</td><td align='right'>191</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>The Ecstasy</td><td align='right'>199</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>The Water-Lily</td><td align='right'>201</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>Deem You the Roses</td><td align='right'>202</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>The Passion</td><td align='right'>203</td></tr> <tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>Last Words</td><td align='right'>206</td></tr> </table></div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg viii] <div class="poem"> My thanks are due to the editor of the Times and of the Nation, to the editors of the Palatine Review, and to Messrs. Blackwell, Oxford, the publishers of "Oxford Poetry, 1915," and "Oxford Poetry, 1916," for permission to reprint certain of these poems. R. M. B. N.   1917. </div> [Pg ix] <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <h2>INTRODUCTION</h2> <div class="poem"> 1. Of the nature of the poet: "We are (often) so impressed by the power of poetry that we think of it as something made by a wonderful and unusual person: we do not realize the fact that all the wonder and marvel is in our own brains, that the poet is ourselves. He speaks our language better than we do merely because he is more skilful with it than we are; his skill is part of our skill, his power of our power; generations of English-speaking men and women have made us sensible to these things, and our sensibility comes from the same source that the poet's power of stimulating it comes from. Given a little more sensitiveness to external stimuli, a little more power of associating ideas, a co-ordination of the functions of expression somewhat more apt, a sense of rhythm somewhat keener than the average—given these things we should be poets, too, even as he is.... He is one of us." [Pg x] 2. Of what English poetry consists: "English poetry is not a rhythm of sound, but a rhythm of ideas, and the flow of attention-stresses (i.e., varying qualities of words and cadence) which determines its beauty is inseparably connected with the thought; for each of them is a judgment of identity, or a judgment of relation, or an expression of relation, and not a thing of mere empty sound.... He who would think of it as a pleasing arrangement of vocal sounds has missed all chance of ever understanding its meaning. There awaits him only the barren generalities of a foreign prosody, tedious, pedantic, fruitless. And he will flounder ceaselessly amid the scattered timbers of its iambuses, spondees, dactyls, tribrachs, never reaching the firm ground of truth." </div> "An Introduction To the Scientific Study Of English Poetry,"[1] by Mark Liddell. <div class="footnote">[1] Published by Grant Richards (1902). This remarkable book, establishing English poetry as a thing governed from within by its own necessities, and not by rules of æsthetics imposed on it from without, formulates principles which, unperceived, have governed English poetry from the earliest times, which find their greatest exemplar in Shakespeare, and which, though beginning to be realized by the less pedantic of the moderns, are in its pages for the first time lucidly expounded and—such is their adequacy—can, in the end, only be regarded as indubitably proven.—R. M. B. N., 1917. </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 1] <h1>BOOK I</h1> <h2>ARDOURS AND ENDURANCES</h2>   [Pg 2] <h4>To THE Memory of my Trusty and Gallant Friends: HAROLD STUART GOUGH (King's Royal Rifle Corps) and RICHARD PINSENT (the Worcester Regiment)</h4> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "For what is life if measured by the space, Not by the act?" </div> <div class="stanza"> Ben Jonson. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 3] <h2>THE SUMMONS</h2> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 4] <h3>I.—TO——</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Asleep within the deadest hour of night And, turning with the earth, I was aware How suddenly the eastern curve was bright, As when the sun arises from his lair. But not the sun arose: it was thy hair Shaken up heaven in tossing leagues of light. </div> <div class="stanza"> Since then I know that neither night nor day May I escape thee, O my heavenly hell! Awake, in dreams, thou springest to waylay And should I dare to die, I know full well Whose voice would mock me in the mourning bell, Whose face would greet me in hell's fiery way. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 5] <h3>II.—THE PAST</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> How to escape the bondage of the past? I fly thee, yet my spirit finds no calms Save when she deems her rocked within those arms To which, from which she ne'er was caught or cast. </div> <div class="stanza"> O sadness of a heart so spent in vain, That drank its age's fuel in an hour: For whom the whole world burning had not power To quick with life the smouldered wick again! </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 6] <h3>III.—THE RECKONING</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The whole world burns, and with it burns my flesh. Arise, thou spirit spent by sterile tears; Thine eyes were ardent once, thy looks were fresh, Thy brow shone bright amid thy shining peers. Fame calls thee not, thou who hast vainly strayed So far for her; nor Passion, who in the past Gave thee her ghost to wed and to be paid; Nor Love, whose anguish only learned to last. </div> <div class="stanza"> Honour it is that calls: canst thou forget Once thou wert strong? Listen; the solemn call Sounds but this once again. Put by regret For summons missed, or thou hast missed them all. Body is ready, Fortune pleased; O let Not the poor Past cost the proud Future's fall. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 7] <h2>FAREWELL TO PLACE OF COMFORT</h2> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 8] <h3>FAREWELL TO PLACE OF COMFORT</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> For the last time, maybe, upon the knoll I stand. The eve is golden, languid, sad.... Day like a tragic actor plays his rôle To the last whispered word, and falls gold-clad. I, too, take leave of all I ever had. </div> <div class="stanza"> They shall not say I went with heavy heart: Heavy I am, but soon I shall be free; I love them all, but O I now depart A little sadly, strangely, fearfully, As one who goes to try a Mystery. </div> <div class="stanza"> The bell is sounding down in Dedham Vale: Be still, O bell! too often standing here When all the air was tremulous, fine, and pale, Thy golden note so calm, so still, so clear, Out of my stony heart has struck a tear. </div> <div class="stanza"> And now tears are not mine. I have release From all the former and the later pain; Like the mid-sea I rock in boundless peace, Soothed by the charity of the deep sea rain.... Calm rain! Calm sea! Calm found, long sought in vain. [Pg 9]</div> <div class="stanza"> O bronzen pines, evening of gold and blue, Steep mellow slope, brimmed twilit pools below, Hushed trees, still vale dissolving in the dew, Farewell! Farewell! There is no more to do. We have been happy. Happy now I go. </div> </div> [Pg 10] <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 11] <h2>THE APPROACH</h2> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 12] <h3>I.—IN THE GRASS: HALT BY ROADSIDE</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> In my tired, helpless body I feel my sunk heart ache; But suddenly, loudly The far, the great guns shake. </div> <div class="stanza"> Is it sudden terror Burdens my heart? My hand Flies to my head. I listen.... And do not understand. </div> <div class="stanza"> Is death so near, then? From this blaze of light Do I plunge suddenly Into Vortex? Night? </div> <div class="stanza"> Guns again! the quiet Shakes at the vengeful voice.... It is terrible pleasure. I do not fear: I rejoice. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 13] <h3>II.—THE DAY'S MARCH</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The battery grides and jingles, Mile succeeds to mile; Shaking the noonday sunshine, The guns lunge out awhile, And then are still awhile. </div> <div class="stanza"> We amble along the highway; The reeking, powdery dust Ascends and cakes our faces With a striped, sweaty crust. </div> <div class="stanza"> Under the still sky's violet The heat thróbs on the air.... The white road's dusty radiance Assumes a dark glare. </div> <div class="stanza"> With a head hot and heavy, And eyes that cannot rest, And a black heart burning In a stifled breast, </div> <div class="stanza"> I sit in the saddle, I feel the road unroll, And keep my senses straightened Toward to-morrow's goal. [Pg 14]</div> <div class="stanza"> There, over unknown meadows Which we must reach at last, Day and night thunders A black and chilly blast. </div> <div class="stanza"> Heads forget heaviness, Hearts forget spleen, For by that mighty winnowing Being is blown clean. </div> <div class="stanza"> Light in the eyes again, Strength in the hand, A spirit dares, dies, forgives, And can understand! </div> <div class="stanza"> And, best! Love comes back again After grief and shame, And along the wind of death Throws a clean flame. </div> </div> <hr class="half" /> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The battery grides and jingles, Mile succeeds to mile; Suddenly battering the silence The guns burst out awhile. </div> </div> <hr class="half" /> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> I lift my head and smile. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 15] <h3>III.—NEARER</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Nearer and ever nearer.... My body, tired but tense, Hovers 'twixt vague pleasure And tremulous confidence. </div> <div class="stanza"> Arms to have and to use them And a soul to be made Worthy if not worthy; If afraid, unafraid. </div> <div class="stanza"> To endure for a little, To endure and have done: Men I love about me, Over me the sun! </div> <div class="stanza"> And should at last suddenly Fly the speeding death, The four great quarters of heaven Receive this little breath. </div> </div> [Pg 16] <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 17] <h2>BATTLE</h2> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 18] <h3>I.—NOON</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> It is midday: the deep trench glares.... A buzz and blaze of flies.... The hot wind puffs the giddy airs.... The great sun rakes the skies. </div> <div class="stanza"> No sound in all the stagnant trench Where forty standing men Endure the sweat and grit and stench, Like cattle in a pen. </div> <div class="stanza"> Sometimes a sniper's bullet whirs Or twangs the whining wire; Sometimes a soldier sighs and stirs As in hell's frying fire. </div> <div class="stanza"> From out a high cool cloud descends An aeroplane's far moan.... The sun strikes down, the thin cloud rends.... The black speck travels on. </div> <div class="stanza"> And sweating, dizzied, isolate In the hot trench beneath, We bide the next shrewd move of fate Be it of life or death. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 19] <h3>II.—NIGHT BOMBARDMENT</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Softly in the silence the evening rain descends.... The soft wind lifts the rain-mist, flurries it, and spends Its grief in mournful sighs, drifting from field to field, Soaking the draggled sprays which the low hedges wield As they labour in the wet and the load of the wind. The last light is dimming; night comes on behind. </div> <div class="stanza"> I hear no sound but the wind and the rain, And trample of horses, loud and lost again Where the waggons in the mist rumble dimly on Bringing more shell. The last gleam is gone. It is not day or night; only the mists unroll And blind with their sorrow the sight of my soul. [Pg 20]</div> <div class="stanza"> I hear the wind weeping in the hollow overhead: She goes searching for the forgotten dead Hidden in the hedges or trodden into muck Under the trenches, or maybe limply stuck Somewhere in the branches of a high lonely tree— He was a sniper once. They never found his body. </div> <div class="stanza"> I see the mist drifting. I hear the wind and rain, And on my clammy face the oozed breath of the slain Seems to be blowing. Almost I have heard In the shuddering drift the lost dead's last word: </div> <div class="stanza"> Go home, go home, go to my house; Knock at the door, knock hard, arouse My wife and the children—that you must do— What do you say?—Tell the children, too— Knock at the door, knock hard, arouse The living. Say: the dead won't come back to this house. O ... but it's cold—I soak in the rain— Shrapnel found me—I shan't come home again— No, not home again! </div> <div class="stanza"> The mourning voices trail Away into rain, into darkness ... the pale Soughing of the night drifts on in between. </div> <div class="stanza"> The Voices were as if the dead had never been. [Pg 21]</div> <div class="stanza"> O melancholy heavens, O melancholy fields, The glad, full darkness grows complete and shields Me from your appeal. With a terrible delight I hear far guns low like oxen at the night. Flames disrupt the sky. The work is begun. "Action!" My guns crash, flame, rock and stun Again and again. Soon the soughing night Is loud with their clamour and leaps with their light. </div> <div class="stanza"> The imperative chorus rises sonorous and fell: My heart glows lighted as by fires of hell. Sharply I pass the terse orders down. The guns blare and rock. The hissing rain is blown Athwart the hurtled shell that shrilling, shrilling goes Away into the dark, to burst a cloud of rose Over German trenches. A pause: I stand and see Lifting into the night like founts incessantly The pistol-lights' pale spores upon the glimmering air.... Under them furrowed trenches empty, pallid, bare.... And rain snowing trenchward ghostly and white. </div> <div class="stanza"> O dead in the hedges, sleep ye well to-night! </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 22] <h3>III.—COMRADES: AN EPISODE</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Before, before he was aware The 'Verey' light had risen ... on the air It hung glistering.... And he could not stay his hand From moving to the barbed wire's broken strand. A rifle cracked. He fell. Night waned. He was alone. A heavy shell Whispered itself passing high, high overhead. His wound was wet to his hand: for still it bled On to the glimmering ground. Then with a slow, vain smile his wound he bound, Knowing, of course, he'd not see home again— Home whose thought he put away. His men Whispered: "Where's Mister Gates?" "Out on the wire." "I'll get him," said one.... Dawn blinked, and the fire[Pg 23] Of the Germans heaved up and down the line. "Stand to!" Too late! "I'll get him." "O the swine! When we might get him in yet safe and whole!" "Corporal didn't see 'un fall out on patrol, Or he'd 'a got 'un." "Sssh!" "No talking there." A whisper: "'A went down at the last flare." Meanwhile the Maxims toc-toc-tocked; their swish Of bullets told death lurked against the wish. No hope for him! His corporal, as one shamed, Vainly and helplessly his ill-luck blamed. </div> </div> <hr class='half' /> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Then Gates slowly saw the morn Break in a rosy peace through the lone thorn By which he lay, and felt the dawn-wind pass Whispering through the pallid, stalky grass Of No-Man's Land.... And the tears came Scaldingly sweet, more lovely than a flame. He closed his eyes: he thought of home And grit his teeth. He knew no help could come.... </div> </div> <hr class='half' /> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The silent sun over the earth held sway, Occasional rifles cracked and far away[Pg 24] A heedless speck, a 'plane, slid on alone, Like a fly traversing a cliff of stone. </div> <div class="stanza"> "I must get back," said Gates aloud, and heaved At his body. But it lay bereaved Of any power. He could not wait till night.... And he lay still. Blood swam across his sight. Then with a groan: "No luck ever! Well, I must die alone." </div> <div class="stanza"> Occasional rifles cracked. A cloud that shone, Gold-rimmed, blackened the sun and then was gone.... The sun still smiled. The grass sang in its play. Someone whistled: "Over the hills and far away." Gates watched silently the swift, swift sun Burning his life before it was begun.... </div> <div class="stanza"> Suddenly he heard Corporal Timmins' voice: "Now then, 'Urry up with that tea." "Hi Ginger!" "Bill!" His men! Timmins and Jones and Wilkinson (the 'bard'), And Hughes and Simpson. It was hard Not to see them: Wilkinson, stubby, grim, With his "No, sir," "Yes, sir," and the slim[Pg 25] Simpson: "Indeed, sir?" (while it seemed he winked Because his smiling left eye always blinked) And Corporal Timmins, straight and blonde and wise, With his quiet-scanning, level, hazel eyes; And all the others ... tunics that didn't fit.... A dozen different sorts of eyes. O it Was hard to lie there! Yet he must. But no: "I've got to die. I'll get to them. I'll go." </div> <div class="stanza"> Inch by inch he fought, breathless and mute, Dragging his carcase like a famished brute.... His head was hammering, and his eyes were dim; A bloody sweat seemed to ooze out of him And freeze along his spine.... Then he'd lie still Before another effort of his will Took him one nearer yard. </div> </div> <hr class='half' /> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The parapet was reached. He could not rise to it. A lookout screeched: "Mr. Gates!" Three figures in one breath Leaped up. Two figures fell in toppling death; And Gates was lifted in. "Who's hit?" said he. "Timmins and Jones." "Why did they that for me?— [Pg 26]I'm gone already!" Gently they laid him prone And silently watched. He twitched. They heard him moan "Why for me?" His eyes roamed round, and none replied. "I see it was alone I should have died." They shook their heads. Then, "Is the doctor here?" "He's coming, sir; he's hurryin', no fear." "No good.... Lift me." They lifted him. He smiled and held his arms out to the dim, And in a moment passed beyond their ken, Hearing him whisper, "O my men, my men!" </div> <div class="stanza"> In Hospital, London, Autumn, 1915. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 27] <h3>IV.—BEHIND THE LINES: NIGHT, FRANCE</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> At the cross-roads I halt And stand stock-still.... The linked and flickering constellations climb Slowly the spread black heaven's immensity. </div> <div class="stanza"> The wind wanders like a thought at fault. </div> <div class="stanza"> Within the close-shuttered cottage nigh I hear—while its fearful, ag'd master sleeps like the dead— A slow clock chime With solemn thrill The most sombre hour of time, And see stand in the cottage's garden chill The two white crosses, one at each grave's head.... </div> <div class="stanza"> O France, France, France! I loved you, love you still; But, Oh! why took you not my life instead? </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 28] <h3>V.—AT THE WARS</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Now that I am ta'en away, And may not see another day, What is it to my eye appears? What sound rings in my stricken ears? Not even the voice of any friend Or eyes beloved-world-without-end, But scenes and sounds of the countryside In far England across the tide: An upland field when Spring's begun, Mellow beneath the evening sun.... A circle of loose and lichened wall Over which seven red pines fall.... An orchard of wizen blossoming trees Wherein the nesting chaffinches Begin again the self-same song All the late April day-time long.... Paths that lead a shelving course Between the chalk scarp and the gorse By English downs; and, O! too well I hear the hidden, clanking bell[Pg 29] Of wandering sheep.... I see the brown Twilight of the huge empty down.... Soon blotted out! for now a lane Glitters with warmth of May-time rain, And on a shooting briar I see A yellow bird who sings to me. </div> <div class="stanza"> O yellow-hammer, once I heard Thy yaffle when no other bird Could to my sunk heart comfort bring; But now I would not have thee sing, So sharp thy note is with the pain Of England I may not see again! Yet sing thy song: there answereth Deep in me a voice which saith: "The gorse upon the twilit down, The English loam so sunset brown, The bowed pines and the sheep-bells' clamour, The wet, lit lane and the yellow-hammer, The orchard and the chaffinch song, Only to the Brave belong. And he shall lose their joy for aye If their price he cannot pay, Who shall find them dearer far Enriched by blood after long War." </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 30] <h3>VI.—OUT OF TRENCHES: THE BARN, TWILIGHT</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> In the raftered barn we lie, Sprawl, scrawl postcards, laugh and speak— Just mere men a trifle weary, Worn in heart, a trifle weak: Because alway At close of day Thought steals to England far away.... "Alf!" "O ay." "Gi' us a tune, mate." "Well, wot say?" "Swipe 'The Policeman's 'Oliday'...." "Tiddle-iddle-um-tum, Tum-tum." </div> <div class="stanza"> Sprawling on my aching back, Think I nought; but I am glad— Dear, rare lads of pick and pack! Aie me too! I'm sad.... I'm sad: Some must die (Maybe I): O pray it take them suddenly![Pg 31] "Bill!" "Wot ho!" "Concertina: let it go— 'If you were the Only Girl.'" "Cheero!" "If you were the Only Girl." </div> <div class="stanza"> Damn. 'Abide with Me....' Not now!— Well ... if you must: just your way. It racks me till the tears nigh flow. The tune see-saws. I turn, I pray Behind my hand, Shaken, unmanned, In groans that God may understand: Miracle! "Let, let them all survive this hell." Hear 'Trumpeter, what are you sounding?' swell. (My God! I guess indeed too well: The broken heart, eyes front, proud knell!) Grant but mine sound with their farewell. "It's the Last Post I'm sounding." </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 32] <h3>VII.—BATTERY MOVING UP TO A NEW POSITION FROM REST CAMP: DAWN</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Not a sign of life we rouse In any square close-shuttered house That flanks the road we amble down Toward far trenches through the town. </div> <div class="stanza"> The dark, snow-slushy, empty street.... Tingle of frost in brow and feet.... Horse-breath goes dimly up like smoke. No sound but the smacking stroke </div> <div class="stanza"> Of a sergeant flings each arm Out and across to keep him warm, And the sudden splashing crack Of ice-pools broken by our track. </div> <div class="stanza"> More dark houses, yet no sign Of life.... An axle's creak and whine.... The splash of hooves, the strain of trace.... Clatter: we cross the market place. [Pg 33]</div> <div class="stanza"> Deep quiet again, and on we lurch Under the shadow of a church: Its tower ascends, fog-wreathed and grim; Within its aisles a light burns dim.... </div> <div class="stanza"> When, marvellous! from overhead, Like abrupt speech of one deemed dead, Speech-moved by some Superior Will, A bell tolls thrice and then is still. </div> <div class="stanza"> And suddenly I know that now The priest within, with shining brow, Lifts high the small round of the Host. The server's tingling bell is lost </div> <div class="stanza"> In clash of the greater overhead. Peace like a wave descends, is spread, While watch the peasants' reverent eyes.... </div> <div class="stanza"> The bell's boom trembles, hangs, and dies. </div> <div class="stanza"> O people who bow down to see The Miracle of Calvary, The bitter and the glorious, Bow down, bow down and pray for us. </div> <div class="stanza"> Once more our anguished way we take Toward our Golgotha, to make For all our lovers sacrifice.[Pg 34] Again the troubled bell tolls thrice. </div> <div class="stanza"> And slowly, slowly, lifted up Dazzles the overflowing cup. </div> <div class="stanza"> O worshipping, fond multitude, Remember us too, and our blood. </div> <div class="stanza"> Turn hearts to us as we go by, Salute those about to die, Plead for them, the deep bell toll: Their sacrifice must soon be whole. </div> <div class="stanza"> Entreat you for such hearts as break With the premonitory ache Of bodies, whose feet, hands, and side, Must soon be torn, pierced, crucified. </div> <div class="stanza"> Sue for them and all of us Who the world over suffer thus, Who have scarce time for prayer indeed, Who only march and die and bleed. </div> </div> <hr class='half' /> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The town is left, the road leads on, Bluely glaring in the sun, Toward where in the sunrise gate Death, honour, and fierce battle wait. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 35] <h3>VIII.—EVE OF ASSAULT: INFANTRY GOING DOWN TO TRENCHES</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Downward slopes the wild red sun. We lie around a waiting gun; Soon we shall load and fire and load. But, hark! a sound beats down the road. </div> <div class="stanza"> "'Ello! wot's up?" "Let's 'ave a look!" "Come on, Ginger, drop that book!" "Wot an 'ell of bloody noise!" "It's the Yorks and Lancs, meboys!" </div> <div class="stanza"> So we crowd: hear, watch them come— One man drubbing on a drum, A crazy, high mouth-organ blowing, Tin cans rattling, cat-calls, crowing.... </div> <div class="stanza"> And above their rhythmic feet A whirl of shrilling loud and sweet, Round mouths whistling in unison; Shouts: "'O's goin' to out the 'Un? [Pg 36]</div> <div class="stanza"> "Back us up, mates!" "Gawd, we will!" "'Eave them shells at Kaiser Bill!" "Art from Lancashire, melad?" "Gi' 'en a cheer, boys; make 'en glad." </div> <div class="stanza"> "'Ip 'urrah!" "Give Fritz the chuck." "Good ol' bloody Yorks!" "Good-luck!" "Cheer!" I cannot cheer or speak Lest my voice, my heart must break. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 37] <h3>IX.—THE ASSAULT</h3> <div class="poem"> Note.—(1) "Zero" is the hour agreed upon by the Staff when the infantry are to go over the parapet and advance to the assault. (2) Guns are said to "lift" when, after pounding the front line of the enemy, they lengthen their range and set up a barrier of fire behind his front line to prevent supports moving up. Our infantry then advance. <div class="stanza"> The beating of the guns grows louder. "Not long, boys, now." My heart burns whiter, fearfuller, prouder. Hurricanes grow As guns redouble their fire. Through the shaken periscope peeping, I glimpse their wire: Black earth, fountains of earth rise, leaping, Spouting like shocks of meeting waves. Death's fountains are playing. Shells like shrieking birds rush over; Crash and din rises higher. A stream of lead raves Over us from the left ... (we safe under cover!) Crash! Reverberation! Crash! Acrid smoke billowing. Flash upon flash.[Pg 38] Black smoke drifting. The German line Vanishes in confusion, smoke. Cries, and cry Of our men, "Gah, yer swine! Ye're for it" die In a hurricane of shell. </div> <div class="stanza"> One cry: "We're comin' soon! look out!" There is opened hell Over there; fragments fly, Rifles and bits of men whirled at the sky: Dust, smoke, thunder! A sudden bout Of machine guns chattering.... And redoubled battering, As if in fury at their daring!... </div> <div class="stanza"> No good staring. </div> <div class="stanza"> Time soon now ... home ... house on a sunny hill.... Gone like a flickered page: Time soon now ... zero ... will engage.... </div> <div class="stanza"> A sudden thrill— "Fix bayonets!" Gods! we have our fill Of fear, hysteria, exultation, rage, Rage to kill. [Pg 39]</div> <div class="stanza"> My heart burns hot, whiter and whiter, Contracts tighter and tighter, Until I stifle with the will Long forged, now used (Though utterly strained)— O pounding heart, Baffled, confused, Heart panged, head singing, dizzily pained— To do my part. </div> <div class="stanza"> Blindness a moment. Sick. There the men are! Bayonets ready: click! Time goes quick; A stumbled prayer ... somehow a blazing star In a blue night ... where? Again prayer. The tongue trips. Start: How's time? Soon now. Two minutes or less. The gun's fury mounting higher.... Their utmost. I lift a silent hand. Unseen I bless Those hearts will follow me. And beautifully, Now beautifully my will grips. Soul calm and round and filmed and white! </div> <div class="stanza"> A shout: "Men, no such order as retire"[Pg 40] I nod. The whistle's 'twixt my lips.... I catch A wan, worn smile at me. Dear men! The pale wrist-watch.... The quiet hand ticks on amid the din. The guns again Rise to a last fury, to a rage, a lust: Kill! Pound! Kill! Pound! Pound! Now comes the thrust! My part ... dizziness ... will ... but trust These men. The great guns rise; Their fury seems to burst the earth and skies! </div> <div class="stanza"> They lift. </div> <div class="stanza"> Gather, heart, all thoughts that drift; Be steel, soul, Compress thyself Into a round, bright whole. I cannot speak. </div> <div class="stanza"> Time. Time! </div> <div class="stanza"> I hear my whistle shriek, Between teeth set; I fling an arm up, Scramble up the grime Over the parapet![Pg 41] I'm up. Go on. Something meets us. Head down into the storm that greets us. A wail. Lights. Blurr. Gone. On, on. Leăd. Leăd. Hail. Spatter. Whirr! Whirr! "Toward that patch of brown; Direction left." Bullets a stream. Devouring thought crying in a dream. Men, crumpled, going down.... Go on. Go. Deafness. Numbness. The loudening tornado. Bullets. Mud. Stumbling and skating. My voice's strangled shout: "Steady pace, boys!" The still light: gladness. "Look, sir. Look out!" Ha! ha! Bunched figures waiting. Revolver levelled quick! Flick! Flick! Red as blood. Germans. Germans. Good! O good! Cool madness. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 42] <h3>X.—THE LAST MORNING</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Come now, O Death, While I am proud, While joy and awe are breath, And heart beats loud! </div> <div class="stanza"> While all around me stand Men that I love, The wind blares aloud, the grand Sun wheels above. </div> <div class="stanza"> Naked I stand to-day Before my doom, Welcome what comes my way, Whatever come. </div> <div class="stanza"> What is there more to ask Than that I have?— Companions, love, a task, And a deep grave! [Pg 43]</div> <div class="stanza"> Come then, Eternity, If thou my lot; Having been thus, I cannot be As if I had not. </div> <div class="stanza"> Naked I wait my doom! Earth enough shroud! Death, in thy narrow room Man can lie proud! </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 44] <h3>XI.—FULFILMENT</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Was there love once? I have forgotten her. Was there grief once? grief yet is mine. Other loves I have, men rough, but men who stir More grief, more joy, than love of thee and thine. </div> <div class="stanza"> Faces cheerful, full of whimsical mirth, Lined by the wind, burned by the sun; Bodies enraptured by the abounding earth, As whose children we are brethren: one. </div> <div class="stanza"> And any moment may descend hot death To shatter limbs! pulp, tear, blast Beloved soldiers who love rough life and breath Not less for dying faithful to the last. </div> <div class="stanza"> O the fading eyes, the grimed face turned bony, Oped mouth gushing, fallen head, Lessening pressure of a hand shrunk, clammed, and stony! O sudden spasm, release of the dead! </div> <div class="stanza"> Was there love once? I have forgotten her. Was there grief once? grief yet is mine. O loved, living, dying, heroic soldier, All, all, my joy, my grief, my love, are thine! </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 45] <h2>THE DEAD</h2> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 46] <h3>I.—THE BURIAL IN FLANDERS</h3> <h4>(H. S. G., Ypres, 1916)</h4> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Through the light rain I think I see them going, Through the light rain under the muffled skies; Across the fields a stealthy wet wind wanders, The mist bedews their tunics, dizzies their brains. </div> <div class="stanza"> Shoulder-high, khaki shoulder by shoulder, They bear my Boy upon his last journey. Night is closing. The wind sighs, ebbs, and falters.... They totter dreaming, deem they see his face. </div> <div class="stanza"> Even as Vikings of old their slaughtered leader Upon their shoulders, so now bear they on All that remains of Boy, my friend, their leader, An officer who died for them under the dawn. </div> <div class="stanza"> O that I were there that I might carry, Might share that bitter load in grief, in pride!... I see upon bronze faces love, submission, And a dumb sorrow for that cheerful Boy. [Pg 47]</div> <div class="stanza"> Now they arrive. The priest repeats the service. The drifting rain obscures. They are dispersed. The dying sun streams out: a moment's radiance; The still, wet, glistening grave; the trod sward steaming. </div> </div> <hr class='half' /> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Sudden great guns startle, echoing on the silence. Thunder. Thunder. He has Fallen in battle. (O Boy! Boy!) Lessening now. The rain Patters anew. Far guns rumble and shudder And night descends upon the desolate plain. </div> </div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Lawford, September, 1916. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 48] <h3>II.—BOY</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> In a far field, away from England, lies A Boy I friended with a care like love; All day the wide earth aches, the cold wind cries, The melancholy clouds drive on above. </div> <div class="stanza"> There, separate from him by a little span, Two eagle cousins, generous, reckless, free, Two Grenfells, lie, and my Boy is made man, One with these elder knights of chivalry. </div> <div class="stanza"> Boy, who expected not this dreadful day, Yet leaped, a soldier, at the sudden call, Drank as your fathers, deeper though than they, The soldier's cup of anguish, blood, and gall, </div> <div class="stanza"> Not now as friend, but as a soldier, I Salute you fallen; for the Soldier's name Our greatest honour is, if worthily These wayward hearts assume and bear the same: [Pg 49]</div> <div class="stanza"> The Soldier's is a name none recognize, Saving his fellows. Deeds are all his flower. He lives, he toils, he suffers, and he dies, And if not all in vain this is his dower: </div> <div class="stanza"> The Soldier is the Martyr of a nation, Expresses but is subject to its will; His is the Pride ennobles Resignation, As his the rebel Spirit-to-fulfil. </div> <div class="stanza"> Anonymous, he takes his country's name, Becomes its blindest vassal—though its lord By force of arms; its shame is called his shame, As its the glory gathered by his sword. </div> <div class="stanza"> Lonely he is: he has nor friend nor lover, Sith in his body he is dedicate.... His comrades only share his life, or offer Their further deeds to one more heart oblate. </div> <div class="stanza"> Living, he's made an 'Argument Beyond' For others' peace; but when hot wars have birth, For all his brothers' safety becomes bond To Fate or Whatsoever sways this Earth. </div> <div class="stanza"> Dying, his mangled body, to inter it, He doth bequeath him into comrade hands; His soul he renders to some Captain Spirit That knows, admires, pities, and understands! [Pg 50]</div> <div class="stanza"> All this you knew by that which doth reside Deeper than learning; by apprehension Of ancient, dark, and melancholy pride You were a Soldier true, and died as one. </div> <div class="stanza"> All day the cold wind cries, the clouds unroll; But to the cloud and wind I cry, "Be still!" What need of comfort has the heroic soul? What soldier finds a soldier's grave is chill? </div> </div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Lawford, September, 1916. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 51] <h3>III.—PLAINT OF FRIENDSHIP BY DEATH BROKEN</h3> <h4>(R. P., Loos, 1915)</h4> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> God, if Thou livest, Thine eye on me bend, And stay my grief and bring my pain to end: Pain for my lost, the deepest, rarest friend Man ever had, whence groweth this despair. </div> <div class="stanza"> I had a friend: but, O! he is now dead; I had a vision: for which he has bled: I had happiness: but it is fled. God help me now, for I must needs despair. </div> <div class="stanza"> His eyes were dark and sad, yet never sad; In them moved sombre figures sable-clad; They were the deepest eyes man ever had, They were my solemn joy—now my despair. </div> <div class="stanza"> In my perpetual night they on me look, Reading me slowly; and I cannot brook Their silent beauty, for nor crack nor nook Can cover me but they shall find me there. [Pg 52]</div> <div class="stanza"> His face was straight, his mouth was wide yet trim; His hair was tangled black, and through its dim Softness his perplexed hand would writhe and swim— Hands that were small on arms strong-knit yet spare. </div> <div class="stanza"> He stood no taller than our common span, Swam but nor farther leaped nor faster ran; I know him spirit now, who seemed a man. God help me now, for I must needs despair. </div> <div class="stanza"> His voice was low and clear, yet it could rise And beat in indignation at the skies; Then no man dared to meet his fire-filled eyes, And even I, his own friend, did not dare. </div> <div class="stanza"> With humorous wistfulness he spoke to us, Yet there was something more mysterious, Beyond his words or silence, glorious: I know not what, but we could feel it there. </div> <div class="stanza"> I mind now how we sat one winter night While past his open window raced the bright Snow-torrent golden in the hot firelight.... I see him smiling at the streamered air. [Pg 53]</div> <div class="stanza"> I watched him to the open window go, And lean long smiling, whispering to the snow, Play with his hands amid the fiery flow And when he turned it flamed amid his hair. </div> <div class="stanza"> Without arose a sudden bell's huge clang Until a thousand bells in answer rang And midnight Oxford hummed and reeled and sang Under the whitening fury of the air. </div> <div class="stanza"> His figure standing in the fiery room.... Behind him the snow seething through the gloom.... The great bells shaking, thundering out their doom.... Soft Fiery Snow and Night his being were. </div> <div class="stanza"> Yet he could be simply glad and take his choice, Walking spring woods, mimicking each bird voice; When he was glad we learned how to rejoice: If the birds sing, 'tis to my spite they dare. </div> <div class="stanza"> All women loved him, yet his mother won His tenderness alone, for Moon and Sun And Rain were for him sister, brother, lovèd one, And in their life he took an equal share. [Pg 54]</div> <div class="stanza"> Strength he had, too; strength of unrusted will Buttressed his natural charity, and ill Fared it with him who sought his good to kill: He was its Prince and Champion anywhere. </div> <div class="stanza"> Yet he had weakness, for he burned too fast; And his unrecked-of body at the last He in impatience on the bayonets cast, Body whose spirit had outsoared them there. </div> <div class="stanza"> I had a friend, but, O! he is now dead. Fate would not let me follow where he led. In him I had happiness. But he is dead. God help me now, for I must needs despair. </div> <div class="stanza"> God, if Thou livest, and indeed didst send Thine only Son to be to all a Friend, Bid His dark, pitying eyes upon me bend, And His hand heal, or I must needs despair. </div> <div class="stanza"> In Hospital, Autumn, 1915. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 55] <h3>IV.—BY THE WOOD</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> How still the day is, and the air how bright! A thrush sings and is silent in the wood; The hillside sleeps dizzy with heat and light; A rhythmic murmur fills the quietude; A woodpecker prolongs his leisured flight, Rising and falling on the solitude. </div> <div class="stanza"> But there are those who far from yon wood lie, Buried within the trench where all were found. A weight of mould oppresses every eye, Within that cabin close their limbs are bound, And there they rot amid the long profound, Disastrous silence of grey earth and sky. </div> <div class="stanza"> These once, too, rested where now rests but one, Who scarce can lift his panged and heavy head, Who drinks in grief the hot light of the sun, Whose eyes watch dully the green branches spread, Who feels his currents ever slowlier run, Whose lips repeat a silent '... Dead! all dead!' [Pg 56]</div> <div class="stanza"> O youths to come shall drink air warm and bright, Shall hear the bird cry in the sunny wood, All my Young England fell to-day in fight: That bird, that wood, was ransomed by our blood! </div> <div class="stanza"> I pray you when the drum rolls let your mood Be worthy of our deaths and your delight. </div> <div class="stanza"> 1916. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 57] <h2>THE AFTERMATH</h2> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 58] <h3>I.—AT THE EBB</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Alone upon the monotonous ocean's verge I take my stand, and view with heavy eye The grey wave rise. I hear its sullen surge, Its bubbling rush and sudden downward sigh.... </div> <div class="stanza"> My friends are dead ... there fades from me the light Of her warm face I loved; upon me stare In the dull noon or deadest hour of night The smiling lips and chill eyes of Despair. </div> <div class="stanza"> A light wind blows.... I hear the low wave steal In and collapse like a despondent breath. My life has ebbed: I neither see nor feel: I am suspended between life and death. </div> <div class="stanza"> Again the wave caves in. O, I am worn Smoother than any pebble on the beach! I would dissolve to that whence I was born, Or alway bide beyond the long wave's reach. [Pg 59]</div> <div class="stanza"> O Will, thou only strengthener of man's heart When all is gone—love and the love of friends, When even Earth's comfort has become a part Of that futility nor breaks nor mends: </div> <div class="stanza"> Strengthen me now against these utmost wrongs; Stay my wrecked spirit within thy control, That men may find some fury in my songs Which, like strong wine, shall fortify the soul. </div> <div class="stanza"> Beneath Gold Cap, June, 1916. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 60] <h3>II.—ALONE</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The grey wind and the grey sea Tossing under the long grey sky.... My heart is lonelier than the wind; My heart is emptier than the sky, And beats more heavily Than the cold surge beneath the gull, Wheeling with his reiterant cry Of loneliness.... All, all is lone: Alone!... And so am I. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 61] <h3>III.—THANKSGIVING</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Amazement fills my heart to-night, Amaze and awful fears; I am a ship that sees no light, But blindly onward steers. </div> <div class="stanza"> Flung toward heaven's toppling rage, Sunk between steep and steep, A lost and wondrous fight I wage With the embattled deep. </div> <div class="stanza"> I neither know nor care at length Where drives the storm about; Only I summon all my strength And swear to ride it out. </div> <div class="stanza"> Yet give I thanks; despite these wars, My ship—though blindly blown, Long lost to sun or moon or stars— Still stands up alone. I need no trust in borrowed spars; My strength is yet my own. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 62] <h3>IV.—ANNIHILATED</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Upon the sweltering sea's enormous round, Asmoke, adazzle, brown and brown and gold, A hushed light falls.... Then clouds without a sound Darken the sea within their curtain's fold. </div> <div class="stanza"> The sombre clouds through which the sick sun climbs Smoke slowly on. Below there is no breath. The long black beach turns livid. The sea chimes. I taste the fulness of my spirit's death. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 63] <h3>V.—SHUT OF NIGHT</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The sea darkens. Waves roar and rush. The wind rises. The last birds haste. One star over eve's bitter flush Spills on the spouting waste. </div> <div class="stanza"> Loud and louder the darkened sea. The wind shrills on a monotone. Sky and deep, wrecked confusedly, Travail and cry as one. </div> <div class="stanza"> Long I look on the deepening sky, The chill star, the forlorn sea breaking; For what does my spirit cry? For what is my heart so aching? </div> <div class="stanza"> Is it home? but I have no home. Is it tears? but I no more weep. Is it love? love went by dumb. Is it sleep? but I would not sleep. [Pg 64]</div> <div class="stanza"> Must I fare, then, in fear and fever On a journey become thrice far— Whose sun has gone down for ever, Whose night brings no guiding star? </div> <div class="stanza"> The wind roars, and an ashen beam Waving up shrinks away in haste. The waves crash. The star's trickling gleam Travels the warring waste. </div> <div class="stanza"> I look up. In the windy height The lone orb, serene and afar, Shakes with excess of her light.... </div> <div class="stanza"> Beauty, be thou my star! </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 65] <h3>VI.—THE FULL HEART</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Alone on the shore in the pause of the night-time I stand and I hear the long wind blow light; I view the constellations quietly, quietly burning; I hear the wave fall in the hush of the night. </div> <div class="stanza"> Long after I am dead, ended this bitter journey, Many another whose heart holds no light Shall your solemn sweetness, hush, awe, and comfort, O my companions, Wind, Waters, Stars, and Night. </div> <div class="stanza"> Near Gold Cap, 1916. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 66] <h3>VII.—SONNET: OUR DEAD</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> They have not gone from us. O no! they are The inmost essence of each thing that is Perfect for us; they flame in every star; The trees are emerald with their presences. They are not gone from us; they do not roam The flaw and turmoil of the lower deep, But have now made the whole wide world their home, And in its loveliness themselves they steep. </div> <div class="stanza"> They fail not ever; theirs is the diurn Splendour of sunny hill and forest grave; In every rainbow's glittering drop they burn; They dazzle in the massed clouds' architrave; They chant on every wind, and they return In the long roll of any deep blue wave. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 67] <h3>VIII.—DELIVERANCE</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Out of the Night! out of the Night I come: Free at last: the whole world is my home: I have lost self: I look not on myself again, But if I do I see a man among men. </div> <div class="stanza"> Out of the Night! out of the Night, O Flesh: Soul I know not from Body within thy mesh: Accepting all that is, I cannot divide the same: I accept the smoke because I accept the flame. </div> <div class="stanza"> Out of the Night! out of the Night, O Friends: O all my dead, think ye our friendship ends? Harold, Kenneth, Dick, many hearts that were true, While I breathe breath, I am breathing you. </div> <div class="stanza"> Out of the Night! out of the Night, O Power: Many a fight to be won, many an awful hour; Many an hour to wish death ere I go to death, Many an hour to bless breath ere I cease from breath. [Pg 68]</div> <div class="stanza"> Out of the Night! out of the Night, O Soul: Give thanks to the Night: Night and Day are the Whole. I count mere life-breath nothing now I know Life's worth Lies all in spending! that known, love Life and Earth. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 69] <h1>BOOK II</h1> <h2>A FAUN'S HOLIDAY</h2>   [Pg 70] <h4>To my Brother PHILIP NICHOLS</h4> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 71] <div class="poem"> 'O Fantaisie, emporte-moi sur tes ailes pour désennuyer ma tristesse!' Flaubert.   [Pg 72] Roughly planned in Spring, 1914, at Oxford. "Midday in Arcadia" composed July, 1914; "Catch for Spring" adapted from version of 1912 during the same month: both at Grayshott. Taken up again in February, 1916, continued at the Hut, Bray, and, after being frequently interrupted, finished on February 18, 1917, at Ilsington. The author intends the "hulli" and the "lulli" of the Faun's call in 'Faun's Rally' to be pronounced as if they rhymed with such a word as "fully." </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 73] <h2>A FAUN'S HOLIDAY</h2> I <div class="sidenote">Of the Faun's Awakening.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Hark! a sound. Is it I sleep? Wake I? or do my senses keep Commune yet with thoughtful night And dream they feel, not see, the light That, with a chord as if a lyre Were upward swept by tongues of fire, Spreads in all-seeing majesty Over crag, dale, curved shore, and sea? </div> <div class="stanza"> If this be sleep, I do not sleep. I hear the little woodnote weep Of a shy, darkling bird which cries In a sweet-fluted, sharp surprise At glimpse of me, the faun-beast, sleeping Nigh under her. My crook'd leg, sweeping Some dream away, perhaps, awoke her, For dew shook from a bough doth soak her. </div> <div class="stanza"> And all elsewhere how still it is!— The mist beyond the precipice [Pg 74]Smokes gently up. The bushes hang Over the gulph 'cross which I sprang Last midnight,—though the unicorn, Who with clanged hooves and lowered horn Raging pursued, now hidden lies Amid the cragside dewberries And sweats his frosty flanks in sleep, Dreaming he views again my leap Thrice hazardous. The silver chasm Sighs, and many a blithe phantasm Turns in the sunlight's quivering ray. I couch in peace. Thoughts fond and gay Feed on my sense of maiden hours And earth refreshed by suns and showers Of nightly dew and heavy quiet.— Though last night rang with dinning riot: Dionysos in headlong mood Ranged through the labyrinthine wood; Fleet maids sped, yelping, on with him, Brandishing a torn heifer's limb, Dissonant cymbals, or black bowl Of wine and blood; a wolfish howl Fled ululant with them.... Now there is Depth, the white mist, the great sun, peace. </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">Of the Faun's Descent from the Mountain.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Too numb such sunshine!—Let me hence Out of the solemn imminence [Pg 75]Of yon chill spire whose shadow creeps Toward me from the stagnant deeps Of the ravine. For now I will Descend and take again my fill Of fancy wild and musing joy, Such as each dawn brings to alloy The long affliction of a spirit Who a complete world did inherit, And feels it crumbling. I will down Whither twin bluffs of sheer stone frown Over sunk seas of billowing pine Terrace on terrace, line on line, Below whose heads the broad downs slope Away, away till senses grope At something rather felt than seen: The sea,—not wave-tops, but a sheen Under the dazed and distant sky.... Curled on a cliff-top let me lie. (For yonder, hap, a breeze is blowing, And the sun's first gleam is showing Under far wreckage: since our height Inherits day while yet their light Quakes gold under the low clouds' rift.) Down, then! Miraculously swift These limbs the gods have given me!... Couched mid the gorse, anon I see, Opposing this my bluff, the face Of the sheer rock, and 'long it trace [Pg 76]A sill scarce ample for a goat, Yet midway in the ledge-path note A cave's mouth, which thick creepers hide Fallen in a silvery tide From a slant crevice overhead. And, lo! the creeper stirs, is shed— And all falls quiet. Till at last Issues a voice deep, young and vast: </div> </div> II <div class="sidenote">THE CENTAUR'S MORNING SONG.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Centaur. Up! the ag'd centaurs lie yet sleeping, While crouch I palled of this cavern lair And watch the stretched sea-eagle sweeping Down the grey-blue drizzling air. The sea-nymphs, too, will now be waking, If sickle-eyed they have not played Across the moonlight sets me aching, Longing and slinking, half afraid, Down the feathery, tawny sand On sighing tread Deep into banks of glistering shell, To halt in dread Lest my hoof-scrunch break the spell Of the syren-chants that swell From the dim shoals toward the land. </div> <div class="stanza"> But this morn the breeze is blowing Freshly: I hear lightly flowing [Pg 77]From the bending giant beam Bars the forehead of our door The golden raindrops in a stream Pattering on the steamy floor. </div> <div class="stanza"> Faun. It is the Centaur's voice I hear! Young and lusty, deep and clear: And the Panisks at his voice In their fastnesses rejoice, Emerging from the creviced crag Or cave beneath the mountain's jag, Merry, shaggy, light of hoof, To run along the narrow roof, And upon the shelvèd height Dance before the swimming light. </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">THE CENTAUR'S MORNING SONG (continued)</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Centaur. And I see upon the ledge, Astir over the hanging edge, A russet briar cold with dew And beyond, forlornly pent In a grey cloud's gliding rent, A pure pool of the brightest blue: So near it seems I've but to cast A flint out on the forward vast To mark it flashing blithely through! </div> <div class="stanza"> And now at last! At last The great Sun, The Sudden One, [Pg 78]Stamps upon the cloudy floor; The heavens are split, and through the floor Heaven's golden treasures tumbling pour.... And the Sun himself, divine, Doth descend In such a bursting blaze of shine That his glorious hair is shook Over the wide world's craggiest end! And, even I, I dare not look. </div> </div> <hr class="half" /> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> I will shout! I will ramp! Just three bounds: then out and stamp Where the air like water is Eddying up over the precipice;— Wind with an edge to it, sea-damp, Blowing from the canyon's race Where the dripping sea-wind heaves Through a tunnel of the rocks Sea-water up in thunderous sheaves Against the precipitous water-rapids, To whip from off th' high-hurtled shocks Bursts of mist which soak the leaves Of each scented bush that cleaves To the cliffs. Till Fauns and Lapiths Dance in the sun-bewildered brakes, Till even flushed Silenus wakes, And—with a short deep-throated troll To the wind and to the wine, [Pg 79]Both delirious, both divine!— Starts, as he drains the tilted bowl, At din, to rolling uproar grown, Of rocks dislodged and bounding down, With splinter of pines and flint-shocked flashes, From the ridge whereon we dance In a loud exuberance Of rattling hoofs whose echoes drown The squealing joy or reedy pining Of Pan's pipe, where Pan reclining Plays in the clouded mountain's crown! </div> </div> III <div class="sidenote">The Faun hails the Centaur.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Faun. It is the Centaur's voice I hear. The creeper tresses toss with fear, Then part before a pow'rful hand. See, see, O see the Centaur stand With ruggëd head erect and proud, Whose rounded mouth yet chants aloud The Joy of Mind fulfilled in Force: Glory of Man, glory of Horse. </div> <div class="stanza"> Hail thou, the sov'reign of the hill! Hail thou, upon whose locks distil Fresh dews when mid majestic night Thou pacest, hid, along the height. Thine are the solitudes of snow Between bare peaks, thy hooves also [Pg 80]Are heard within the dusk defile Where Titans of a sunless while Fashioned huge sphinxes in whose eyes The Kite now skulks or, girding, cries. Thine, too, the sole and sinking pine Burned by the sunset—ay, and thine The ledges whence a sudden sift Of snow sighs downward, thine the swift Uproar of avalanche and all The mountain echoes. To thee call, When the snow melts and there are seen Crocuses blazing mid the green Of the dewed grass, the Sylvan folk: The Dryads from the leafless oak Or budded elder, that at length Thou mayst release them by the strength Of thy tough fingers; 'tis on thee The nymphs cry should the runnels be Exhausted of the midsummer sun, Sith, stamping, thou canst make to run The hoarded waters of the wold. And among men thou art of old Thought's emblem: for to thee belong All gifts of deep, wise, epic song. Hail, then, whom Earth and mankind hails. And Ocean, whose high-spouting whales And dripping serpents, that arise Swinging their gold crests to the skies To drink in all thy bold descant [Pg 81]Hail, though they cannot view thee chant, As I who now behold in sooth Thy lighted eyes and singing mouth. </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">Of the Centaur's Beauty.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> O grape-hung locks! glorious face, Capacious frame, sinewy grace Of arm that lifts a skully lyre Whose dithyramb whirls ever higher! Deep breast-bone, belly, curvèd thews— Such as the tussling oak doth use Upon the crumbled scarp to grip— Striking from trunk down through the hip Into the stallion's massive shoulders Glossy as moonlit ice-bound boulders! Stiff, stalwart forelegs, heavy hoof Yet fleeter far on heights aloof Than ev'n such doubled hares as race Blue 'thwart dim fells, or, speck in space, Osprey, gale-swept across the tides! Thy man's trunk glisters; on thy sides A soft and silver shagginess, Inviting slim hands to caress, Hangs dewy—— </div> <div class="stanza"> Centaur.             Faun, Faun, art thou near? </div> <div class="stanza"> Faun. Behold me stand, proud Centaur, here Upon the bluff where 'neath me lies The sunned pool of the precipice. </div> </div> [Pg 82] <div class="sidenote"> Of the Centaur's Ardour.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Centaur. Faun, in my veins the blood 'gins race, The new sun sweats upon my face, Dazzles my pupils, golden swims Over my flushed and fervid limbs. I feel in me my spirit rise Griffon-like flogging up tall skies. Now is the Morning of the World, And through my heart a flood is hurled Of onerous joyance, of desire To clutch the sun and spill its fire Down heaven's blue bulwarks! to snatch life And drain its lusty full in strife Of all my body with the bent Wrestle of every element: Close with the whirlwind, front the tide And turn its moony press aside. </div> <div class="stanza"> But in the world I cannot find A match in strength, a foe in mind.... At dawn, at eve the waters burn; All night the constellations turn Round the dark pole, and none knows why.... None seeks to know save only I And thou, O Faun. We are alone.... Yet sometimes, when the wind is gone And all below shines sunned and still, I feel depart from me the will Merely to know, to know and wait: I would do more: I would create. [Pg 83] Though what I know not; but I would Spend this my mind and hardihood. Yet find no means save physic force:— Sing as a man, stride as a horse. Then stride I? Swift I overcome The fleetest. Sing I? All are dumb. Natheless my heart demands in grief Ardour, endurance and relief; Asks, but receives not. </div> <div class="stanza"> Faun.                     Shall not I Echo thy pain, whom Fates deny Answer to thought,—as they to thee The lust-of-action's fill? But we Accept too much, O Sire. 'Twere best, Though idly, to fulfil our zest. </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">Of the Challenge.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Four leagues this canyon runs between Us twain or ever there is seen The arch of rock whose massy grace Bridges yon gap of golden space. Deignest thou, then, to race with me From such tall eyries to the sea, If even now I upward leap? </div> <div class="stanza"> Centaur. Leap then! I catch thee e'er the steep Subsides in woodland or in down. </div> </div> [Pg 84] IV <div class="sidenote">And of the Manner of the Running.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Away! My rapping footfalls drown All but the sobbing of the wind Within my ears and loud behind The thunder of the Centaur's hooves Where, like a hailstorm, down he moves. Past me the spun pines rock and hiss, Behind my feet stones pelted whizz, Hills rise before me, backward flow, The bare downs, bright'ning, mount below.... On. On. Down. Down. But, ah, no more! My breath comes keener than the frore Indraught of age-long mountain frost; My head turns dizzy, feet are lost. Yet scamper feet! A rock—a mound: Rap! Rap! I soar it at a bound. On. On. Down. Down. A sudden brook, And now—in mid-air—lo! there look Laughingly up at me the eyes Of Hyads, and their fading cries Ring in my ears. Can they have seen The Centaur hurtle by between Them and the clouds? The downs up-fly. Now earth's bowl rocks and reels the sky And through my chilly flaming tears The molten sun swoops, bursts, and veers.... </div> </div> [Pg 85] <div class="sidenote"> The Faun falls.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Still rap my hoofs, though but the sound Tells me they yet rocket the ground. The uproar loudens more behind. My crook'd legs cross, my eyes go blind. I claw the sky: for, O! I can Scarce lurch. I feel the sudden fan Of the great Centaur's galey breath Upon my nape, and like chill death His hand descends. But, ah! he laughs Even as Bacchus when he quaffs In jest or taunt a double bowl. I, choking, reel, and, tripping, roll Wildly aside. See! as I fall A rampant shape majestical Storms vehement by, and, storming, swings Hand across rushing lyre, which rings To strains, like rolling breakers tossed High o'er an adamantine coast, In praise of elemental Mirth, Strength, Beauty and the Golden Earth! </div> </div> V <div class="sidenote">Of Downs beloved by Pan.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Beyond the rocks, below the trees, The great downs lie; nought but the breeze Is heard upon them. All day long The shadows of the great clouds throng Across their sides: a noiseless rout. Sometimes a peewit, blown about [Pg 86]By airy surge, cries a lone cry Ere hurtled down the clarid sky; Sometimes is heard a shepherd's voice Shouting, and after it the noise Of many-pattering crowded sheep Herded within the gay dog's keep, Who also, barking, shouts. Save these Nought breaks the breezy silences Of the green sun-swept, cloud-swept spaces.... </div> <div class="stanza"> Such downs Pan loves, and ofttime places His lonely altars on them. I One of such now behold. A high Mound bears it, and its nakedness Of festal fruit and fragrant dress Hints 'tis new-built. Up, then, and sound A rally to the sacred ground: </div> </div> <div class="sidenote"> FAUN'S RALLY.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Faun. Come ye, merry shepherds all, Hulli-lulli-li-lo! Listen to my piping call: Hulli-li-lo! Hasten to Pan's festival; Leave your sheep. Cannot Pan a shrewd watch keep O'er his own? [Pg 87] Safe are they as pent in stall; Safe are they, for Pan has thrown Fear about them like a wall. </div> <div class="stanza"> Wherefore, shepherds, hither run. </div> <div class="stanza"> I have set my pipes to lip; Now they cry despondingly As mid shaken locks I dip. Now shrill—as hark!—I lift them high To swirl the tune about the sky! Up and down and round the sky Till want I further force to blow.... Wherefore, shepherds, hither run, Dance behind me as I skip; Strike the tóssed támbours in únison, Dance, dance and make to dance the sun To your Hulli-li-lo! </div> <div class="stanza"> Shepherds. Faun, I come. I hear. We hear— </div> <div class="stanza"> Faun. This my Hulli-li-lo: Now afar and now anear. </div> <div class="stanza"> Shepherds. Never sped the midnight deer Half so fast 'Fore Diana's star-ringed spear As now haste we to appear At thy Hulli-li-lo! [Pg 88]</div> <div class="stanza"> Faun. Joy, O shepherds, at the sound: Hulli-lulli-li-lo! Pan's new altar I have found: Hulli-li-lo! Cowslips prank its holy mound, With ivy have I wreathed it round— But not yet Is the altar's dress complete Till with flowers its horns are bound. </div> <div class="stanza"> Shepherds. Faun, we hear, and from the brook Flags are pulled; and now we hook Honeysuckle high, low Down to us with shepherd's crook; Breathing floss, Clematis twines, rushy stook, Apple blossom, down is shook At thy Hulli-li-lo! </div> <div class="stanza"> Faun. Wreathe the pedestal anew; Hulli-lulli-li-lo! Scatter violets scattering dew; Hulli-li-lo! Honey that the brown bees brew Pour, and rosy blossoms strew; Spill such wine As in dim-bloomed clusters grew On your father's father's vine. [Pg 89]</div> <div class="stanza"> Dance you now. I my pipe cease—thus—to blow: Dance you on. Dance about the sacred mound, Dance when every sound is gone.... Now the timbrels softly, sprightly Beat, and foot it gaily, lightly; Tiptoe o'er the secret ground, Dance the round. </div> <div class="stanza"> Next, to the sole, trilling flute And your own subduèd laughter Flutter all in throngs and mazes, Chase in streams of ardent faces, With bright eyes and oped mouth mute. Now alone, One by one, Dance and dream, and dreaming float Till the multitude drifts after, And I wake a quicker note: Clap your hands aloft and cry; Surge in line tumultuously; Cry, and with a whirl of voices Fright the pigeons whickering by! Praise the God of field and fold! Shout until the hills have told, By their sudden echoes flying, Flying, crying, falling, dying, [Pg 90]That upon his name we call, Who beside the river lying Hears us keep his festival. </div> </div> VI <div class="sidenote">The Faun enters the Valley.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Wearied of solitary hills, On which the wannish sunlight spills, And which the glooms of high clouds cross, Clouds wandering ever at a loss About th' immeasurable sky, I will descend. And by-and-by Glimpse beneath the shouldered down A hamlet reeking golden-brown; Creep through a willow copse to view Under an orchard avenue, A lithe girl in a sun-splashed smock Calling her perchëd pigeon flock, And as they coo and flutter over Laughing and carolling of her lover. </div> <div class="stanza"> Girl. 'Little pigeon, grave and fleet'— All the golden grain you'd eat, Greedy! let the little bird Pick some. Sweet, your cooing's heard; You shall have this. There! Be bolder: Light you now upon my shoulder.... Cooroo? Cooroo in my ear? Darling, yes, I hear, I hear: [Pg 91]From this hand, then, you shall pluck it. Foolish love! your wings have struck it, Spilt the grain the grass among. —Flutter! Flutter!—where's my song? 'Little pigeon, grave and fleet'— Too late now your wings you beat By my face: look in the ground; There, they say, all gold is found. </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">THE PIGEON SONG.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Little pigeon, grave and fleet, Eye-of-fire, sweet Snowy-wings, Think you that you can discover On what great green down my lover Lies by his sunny sheep and sings? </div> <div class="stanza"> If you can, O go and greet Him from me; say: She is waiting.... Not for him, O no! but, sweet, Say June's nigh and doves, remating, Fill the dancing noontide heat With melodious debating. </div> <div class="stanza"> Say the swift swoops from the beam; Soon the cuckoo must cease calling; Kingcups flare beside the stream, That not glides now but runs brawling; That wet roses are asteam In the sun and will be falling. [Pg 92]</div> <div class="stanza"> Say the chestnut sheds his bloom; Honey from straw hivings oozes; There's a nightjar in the coombe; Venus nightly burns, and chooses Most to blaze above my room; That the laggard 'tis that loses. </div> <div class="stanza"> Say the nights are warm and free, And the great stars swarm above him; But soon starless night must be. Yet if all these do not move him, Tell, O tell—but not too plainly!— That I long for him and love him. </div> <div class="stanza"> Little pigeon, grave and fleet, Fly you swiftly, tell him this; And I'll give you grain so golden Midas' self has ne'er beholden Aught so gold, and—yes!—a kiss. </div> <div class="stanza"> Smiling at her eager voice, I will grant the girl her choice, Whispering to the pigeon: "Lo! Yon's the way for you to go: Over the willows, past the copse, To where a sylph-like lime-tree tops A lonely knoll; then on and on Toward where yesternight there shone A silver comet, scarce descried, Against the fainting eventide." </div> </div> [Pg 93] VII <div class="sidenote">Of the Faun's Whimseys.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Away then! crashing through the wood, Prancing in a whimsey mood, To yowl as a she-wolf does at dark Until th' infuriate watch-dogs bark; Or bid hushed tales of ghosts go round, Of warnings heard, but nothing found, By whistling at the village boor; Or poke my rogue face round a door And scare a huffy wife to fits, Who swears, "'Tis Pan himself!" or, "It's That grizzled sailor-man who slew His mate 'twixt Bogs and Dead Man's Yew!" Next through the dairy steal to slake My thirst with cream, with honeycake Cram my sweet maw; slip in the churn A farm cat, that the tub may turn And fright maid Molly. I will seek Strawberries and stain chin, mouth and cheek With nuzzling in their scarlet bowl; Then in the goodman's bed I'll roll Because he loves me not; I'll sing Until the crowded rafters ring The while about my ears I hang Bobbed cherries.... Lastly I will clang [Pg 94]Among the clattering pots and pans, Shout, cry "Oh help!" snatch up a man's Cloak, and slip out. </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">The Pursuit.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Whoop! Whoop! They run: The hare once spied, the hunt's begun!— Goodman and goodman's wife, pert Polly, Clown Colin, Wiggen and maid Molly, Pant, crying, "Thief!" The while behind Shrunk Dorcas hops, and fills the wind With apish merriment, shrill malice, And cries of—"Well run, Poll! Run, Alice! Run, child! The master's cloak and all! How sad the goodman's ta'en a fall! Mistress down, too—he! he! what pity! Run, Alice child, my bird, my pretty; Show 'em how nimble thou canst be,— Ay, but the girl runs prettily. Run, Hobbinol, thou gawky man! Thou mayest kiss if catch thou can! Odd's me! and what's it all about? A thief? That mischief Faun!" A shout Startles the pigeons from the croft: "We've circled him!" "He's in the loft." But as they, silent, crowd unto 't I jump. For am not I a goat? From out the hayloft's height I leap O'er their craned heads into the deep Grass of the orchard. Thence I run [Pg 95]Across lush meadows. One by one They fall behind.... A scarecrow I Now seek, and 'bout it carefully Enwrap the newly pilfered cloak.... Scarecrows are such poor crazy folk.... </div> </div> VIII <div class="sidenote">The Faun hides.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> So to a thorny thicket dense With rosy-coloured may-bloom, whence I can hear a torrent rumble, And, peering forth, behold it tumble Cumbrously into a pool whose white Tumult sears the giddied sight. There, half dozed, silent, smile to hear A babble of voices drawing near, Spy many a boy and laughing lass Racing hands-linked across the grass. </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">A CATCH FOR SPRING.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Boys and Girls. Now has the blue-eyed Spring Sped dancing through the plain. Girls weave a daisy chain; Boys race beside the sedge; Dust fills the blinding lane; May lies upon the hedge: All creatures love the spring! [Pg 96]</div> <div class="stanza"> The clouds laugh on, and would Dance with us if they could; The larks ascend and shrill; A woodpecker fills the wood; Jays laugh crossing the hill: All creatures love the spring! </div> <div class="stanza"> The lithe cloud-shadows chase Over the whole earth's face, And where winds ruffling veer O'er wooded streams' dark ways Mad fish upscudding steer: All creatures love the spring! </div> <div class="stanza"> Into the dairy cool Run, girls, to drink thick cream! Race, boys, to where the stream Winds through a rumbling pool, And your bright bodies fling Into the foaming cool! For we'll enjoy our spring! </div> </div> IX <div class="sidenote">Of the Faun's Journey to the Sea.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Seaward my forest way I'll take, And at a pool's lit quietude slake My thirst, and feel a dull flame creep Like the first flux of tidal sleep [Pg 97]Through all my limbs. Yet, when I sink Sleepward, start wide-eyed up to drink The sunned wood's wet deliciousness, Touch flowers, and feel the sun's caress About my locks, and wander on, Or pause to smile up at the sun, Guarding my eyes with glowing hand, Or, leaned against a beech-trunk, stand Watching between the branches' rift, As they gently wave and lift To the bland breeze softly blowing, The noiseless clouds serenely going Slowly to the hid, low sea I can hear breathing slumberously. Till from the woodland I emerge, Greeted by a louder surge, And from the bushy cliff-top spy How the hollow bay doth lie One quiver and murmur under the sun, And how the lightsome wind-puffs run Chasing each other crookedly, Over the idly heaving sea. </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">Of the Sea-Horses.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Next I will turn my eyes, perhaps, To where the languid waters lapse Glittering over a sunburned rock Round which the shrieking white gulls flock.... Thus browsing in my solitude, I may remember I've a feud [Pg 98]With the Sea-Horses, once who drave Me from the sea-light of their cave. Enough! and, crashing down, I come To find them drowsing in their home.... So creep I with a crooked stick To where a blinding pool is quick With green electric water-snakes. Sprawling across a rock which bakes I stir the molten till they boil And up my hawthorn kick and coil; Then scamper, rocketing, to the cave, Hurl the stick in. Hark! how they rave, And plunge up clattering, kicking, neighing, Till Triton on his horn 'gins braying, And each hasteneth to belabour With hooves or tear with teeth his neighbour, And from the cavern's blueness rush Into the simmering beach's hush, To stand, with heaving flanks, agaze At the hot stones and still sea's blaze: Then stampede, scattering high and wide A hail of stones and glittering tide. </div> </div> X <div class="sidenote">Of the Faun in his Meditation.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> I will walk the sunny wood, Deep and tranquil as my mood, And watch how the honeyed sunlight is Hung in the great boughs of the trees, [Pg 99]And the pattern the branchwork weaves Under the panoply of leaves, And how high up two butterflies Pass, vaulting, out into the skies. Or, entering a silent glade, Draw a sharp breath and stand dismayed At beauty which doth straight present Such a spasm of ravishment Sight is confused, and doth confess Her wreck in voiceless tenderness: Seeing the flower-decked cherry-trees— Unruffled ever by any breeze, Unburned by bright dawn's fiery chill— Standing celestially still.... </div> <div class="stanza"> Or lay me down 'neath chestnut boughs, And drowse and dream and dream and drowse, Drunk with the greenness overhead, Until a blossom of sharp red, Shook from her high and scalding place, Splash with chill scent my upturned face. </div> </div> XI <div class="sidenote">Of the Philosopher.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> But, lo! amid the woodland green What mantles of strange blue are seen? What sage is he who slowly leads Disciples on and little heeds [Pg 100]The holiness of sylvan haunt, Where even the silver bird dare chant But seldom? where the sunlight lies Here scalding gold, and yonder dies Into a humid, still, green gloom? Hath not he in the forum room To vent himself, that now with rude Rabble he scareth Solitude From her ultimate hiding-place? Now steps he forward a slow pace, And 'gins his discourse. Hear him prate, O woods, to silence consecrate; Hear him, O flowers, whose golden eyes Speak more than all Man's orat'ries!— </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">And his Oration.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Philosopher. Meanwhile, though nations in distress Cower at a comet's loveliness Shaken across the midnight sky; Though the wind roars, and Victory, A virgin fierce, on vans of gold Stoops through the cloud's white smother rolled Over the armies' shock and flow Across the broad green hills below, Yet hovers and will not circle down To cast t'ward one the leafy crown; Though men drive galleys' golden beaks To isles beyond the sunset peaks, [Pg 101]And cities on the sea behold Whose walls are glass, whose gates are gold, Whose turrets, risen in an hour, Dazzle between the sun and shower, Whose sole inhabitants are kings Six cubits high with gryphon's wings And beard and mien more glorious Than Midas or Assaracus; Though priests in many a hill-top fane Lift anguished hands—and lift in vain— Toward the sun's shaft dancing through The bright roof's square of wind-swept blue; Though 'cross the stars nightly arise The silver fumes of sacrifice; Though a new Helen bring new scars, Pyres piled upon wrecked golden cars, Stacked spears, rolled smoke, and spirits sped Like a streaked flame toward the dead: Though all these be, yet grows not old Delight of sunned and windy wold, Of soaking downs aglare, asteam, Of still tarns where the yellow gleam Of a far sunrise slowly breaks, Or sunset strews with golden flakes The deeps which soon the stars will throng. </div> <div class="stanza"> For earth yet keeps her undersong Of comfort and of ultimate peace, That whoso seeks shall never cease [Pg 102]To hear at dawn or noon or night. Joys hath she, too, joys thin and bright, Too thin, too bright, for those to hear Who listen with an eager ear, Or course about and seek to spy, Within an hour, eternity. First must the spirit cast aside This world's and next his own poor pride And learn the universe to scan More as a flower less as a man. Then shall he hear the lonely dead Sing and the stars sing overhead, And every spray upon the heath And larks above and ants beneath; The stream shall take him in her arms; Blue skies shall rest him in their calms; The wind shall be a lovely friend, And every leaf and bough shall bend Over him with a lover's grace. The hills shall bare a perfect face Full of a high solemnity; The heavenly clouds shall weep, and be Content as overhead they swim To be high brothers unto him. No more shall he feel pitched and hurled Uncomprehended into this world For every place shall be his place, And he shall recognize its face. At dawn he shall upon his path; [Pg 103]No sword shall touch him, nor the wrath Of the ranked crowd of clamorous men. At even he shall home again, And lay him down to sleep at ease, One with the Night and the Night's peace. Ev'n Sorrow, to be escaped of none, But a more deep communion Shall be to him, and Death at last No more dreaded than the Past, Whose shadow in the brain of earth Informs him now and gave him birth. </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">The Faun's Anger.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Up, O Faun, up! is he a man So dares affront the great god Pan? Creep I now close.... (Has he not heard Ever the lamb cry as the bird Descends upon its helpless head To pluck its eyes out? Blank with dread Did he ne'er press in stumbling haste Over the wide moor's tossing waste? Or, stripped to plunge, did never eye The sunned pool smiling treacherously, Despair and terror in his heart? Hate on him!) See: he draws apart That with himself he may commune The while to a low murmuring tune Wrung from a golden-stringëd lyre The young men chant. Hist! Draws he nigher? [Pg 104]</div> <div class="stanza"> Now crouch I mid a thicket where The spicy hedge-rose warms the air With giddy scent, and for an hour Woos with her open-bosomed flower The full gaze of her lord the sun, And through whose thorns the sunbeams run Spangling the cavern of the brake With chequered shade such as the snake Loves to repose in, that the heat Upon his sullen coils may beat, Breeding within his ancient heart Such malice that his tongue must dart Flickering in silence out and in, The while adown his withered skin, From horns above his murderous eyes, The cold surge shudders, ebbs, and dies. </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">And of the Trick the Faun played, thereby symbolizing the Rule of Pan in Nature.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> And now yon comes, with solemn head Sunk upon breast, with laurel spread About his thought-bewrinkled brows. All hail, philosopher! I rouse Thee by a low and single hiss. He is frozen still. A sudden bliss Seizes me, and a branch I shake As gently as an unseen snake Swinging toward him. But he stands, Clasps and unclasps his gradual hands [Pg 105]In silence save for one long sigh Of terror. And I draw more nigh. Beneath his glazèd eyes I sway Three leaves upon one stilly spray: He blenches. Ha! it was well done, That final hiss. I am alone: For with a harsh cry he has fled Hideously stumbling, and is led Speechless away. The lyre, forgot, Lies in the grass.... </div> </div> XII <div class="sidenote">Of the Spring, Frequent Haunt of the Lonely Naiads.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> I know a spot Where, to the sound of water sighing, The Naiads, when the sun is lying Heavy on mead and fronded tree, When birds are silent and the bee Swoons in the dewed heart of the rose, Sing hushedly. I will repose Upon its banks and to the spring An answer make with hands that cling Over this lost lyre's murmurous chords [Pg 106]And with their voiced quiet mingle words Such as my shrouded soul affords When the warm blood within my veins Throbs heavily, and the noon sun reigns, Who would heaven and earth unite In one blaze of arduous light, Till dark woods, fields, bronzed sky, and deep, In one maniac dull dream sleep. </div> </div> XIII <div class="sidenote">THE NAIADS' MUSIC.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The Naiads. Come, ye sorrowful, and steep Your tired brows in a nectarous sleep: For our kisses lightlier run Than the traceries of the sun By the lolling water cast Up grey precipices vast, Lifting smooth and warm and steep Out of the palely shimmering deep. </div> <div class="stanza"> Come, ye sorrowful, and take Kisses that are but half awake: For here are eyes O softer far Than the blossom of the star Upon the mothy twilit waters, And here are mouths whose gentle laughters Are but the echoes of the deep Laughing and murmuring in its sleep. [Pg 107]</div> <div class="stanza"> Come, ye sorrowful, and see The raindrops flaming goldenly On the stream's eddies overhead And dragonflies with drops of red In the crisp surface of each wing Threading slant rains that flash and sing, Or under the water-lily's cup, From darkling depths, roll slowly up The bronze flanks of an ancient bream Into the hot sun's shattered beam, Or over a sunk tree's bubbled bole The perch stream in a golden shoal: Come, ye sorrowful; our deep Holds dreams lovelier than sleep. </div> <div class="stanza"> But if ye sons of Sorrow come Only wishing to be numb: Our eyes are sad as bluebell posies, Our breasts are soft as silken roses, And our hands are tenderer Than the breaths that scarce can stir The sunlit eglantine that is Murmurous with hidden bees. Come, ye sorrowful, and steep Your tired brows in a nectarous sleep. </div> <div class="stanza"> Come, ye sorrowful, for here No voices sound but fond and clear Of mouths as lorn as is the rose That under water doth disclose, [Pg 108]Amid her crimson petals torn, A heart as golden as the morn; And here are tresses languorous As the weeds wander over us, And brows as holy and as bland As the honey-coloured sand Lying sun-entranced below The lazy water's limpid flow: Come, ye sorrowful, and steep Your tired brows in a nectarous sleep. </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">The Faun prepares to reply.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Sweet water-voices! now must I Unto your sorrowings reply. But hark! or ever there can sound On the lull air the first profound Few murmurs of my lyre's grave strings, A voice uprises. Who now sings The noon's and his own tristfulness? A slim youth—in a shepherd's dress, Yet without sheep—who careless lies Upon the hill. His shepherd guise Tokens, perhaps, a poet's heart Which joys in wandering apart From the dinned ways where chariots roll, From the shrill sophist with his shoal Of gapers, from the angry mart, From the full eyes and empty heart Of babbling women, from the neat Aridity of paven street, [Pg 109]A heart that wandering, musing, sings The joy, depth, pain of simple things: </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">MIDDAY IN ARCADIA.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The Youth. The earth is still; only the white sun climbs Through the green silence of the branching limes, Whose linked flowers hanging from the still tree-top Distil their soundless syrup drop by drop, While 'twixt the starry bracket of their lips The black bee drowsing floats and drowsing sips. The flimsy leaves hang on the bright blue air Calm-suspended. Deep peace is everywhere Filled with the murmurous rumour of high noon. Earth seems with open eyes to sink and swoon. In the sky peace: where nothing moves Save the sun that smiles and loves. A quivering peace is on the grass. Through the noon gloam butterflies pass, White and hot blue, only to where They can float flat and dream on the soft air.... The trees are asleep, beautiful, slumbrous trees! Stirred only by the passion of the breeze, That, like a warm wave welling over rocks, Loosens and lifts the mass of drowsing locks. Earth, too, under the profound grass Sleeps and sleeps, and softly heaves her slumbrous mass. [Pg 110]The earth sleeps. Sleeps the newly-buried clay Or doth divinity trouble it to live alway? </div> <div class="stanza"> No voice uplifts from under the rapt crust. The dust cries to the unregarding dust. </div> <div class="stanza"> Over the hill the stopped notes of twin reeds Speak like drops from an old wound that bleeds: A yokel's pipe an ancient pastoral sings Above the innumerable murmur of hid wings. I hear the cadence, sorrowful and sweet, The oldest burthen of the earth repeat: All love, all passion, all strife, all delight Are but the dreams that haunt earth's visioned night. In her eternal consciousness the stir Of Alexander is no more to her Than you or I: being all part of dreams, The shadowiest shadow of a thing that seems, The images the lone pipe-player sees, Sitting and playing to the lone, noon breeze. One note, one life! They sleep: soon we as these! </div> </div> XIV <div class="sidenote">Of the Satyrs' Feast.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Now plunge I into deepest woods, Where everlastingly there broods Such quiet and glamour as must be Beneath the threshing upper sea. [Pg 111] Here burns no sun, but tawny light Pervades the vistas still and bright Of mazy boles and fallen leaves.... I press yet on. At length there cleaves The twilit hush a pillared gleam. The leafed floor rises. 'Tis a beam Of sunlight fallen in a dell Beyond the mound. There will I dwell, Soothed by sunned quietude. For there A carved rock spouts and moists the air With gross-mouthed pour and rising spray.... But hark! what festive cries are they Which greet me as I top the mound? Below, dispersed and sunk around The green and golden of the glen, Lie satyrs; in a leafy den, Silenus, crowned with vines and roses, Drowses and starts, blinks, drinks, and dozes. Banqueting dishes strew the grass, Goblets of gold and peacock glass, Flagons, urns, many a brimming bowl, And horns from which the flushed fruits roll. High o'er the feast a fronded ash Hangs full of sunlight, and the splash Of the spring's leap or gurgeing flow Into the rippled pool below, Where lilies rock, shakes up a bright Eddy of golden tremulous light Over the leaves. The Oread, [Pg 112]In a hooded lynx pelt clad, Smiles where she lolls ... the while twin fauns With stamping hooves and butting horns Join combat for a dripping cup She bears. But now a shout goes up At sight of me: </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">The Invitation.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Satyr.             "We feast, we feast; For, lo! the flaming sun hath ceased To climb the curve of arid sky, And his meridian holds on high, Narrowing with his scorching beams The chestnut's shade, exhausting streams, Stilling the woodland singer's note, Piercing the eyes, shrinking the throat, Saddening the heart of man and beast. Yet grieve not we but sprawl and feast. Leap down, O Faun, then, from thy rocks, Leap down to us. Bedew thy locks With such cool spicy nards as dwell Within this ribbed and rosy shell; Around thy scalded temples twine Sprays of this fountain-wetted vine, And from this golden jorum sip Nectarous liquor—ay, and lip Smooth nectarines, thy sunk teeth clench In melon dripping sherds, and quench Thy salty thirst anew in flow Of sparkled or dark wines that glow [Pg 113]With sober warmth and merriment, Until our gladdened voices blent Awake the vigour of our feet, And up we start the grass to beat With fervent foot, drink, dance again, And, ever at the loud refrain Clashing our cups, dance on and on, Till the noontide lull is gone." </div> <div class="stanza"> So join I them, and drink and sup, And fill again the great bowl up; And, drenched thus down, spin lusty tales Of topping bouts 'twixt men and whales; Of the East's Emperor who hath A pool of wine to be his bath; Of Hercules his thirst, and how He did all Ethiopia plough, And plant with vines, his thirst to sate. We will discuss the Ideal State, Whose sky is covered by a vine, Whose hills are cheese, whose rivers wine, Whose trees bear loaves brown, crisp and sweet, Whose citizens do nought but eat, But eat and drink, drink, eat, and snore, And eat again, and wish no more Than so to drink, snore, eat; who find In this true liberty of mind And true equality, in this Fraternity, law, earthly bliss. [Pg 114]So swill again and yet again, Till a fire flushes all the brain And, trolling lustily and long, Each hearty throat bursts into song. </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">A DITHYRAMB TO DIONYSOS.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Faun and Satyrs. Avaunt, mild-eyed Melancholy! Welcome, Mirth and mænad Folly! See about the lifted bowl, Wrinkled on its bossy scroll, Ribald nymphs and satyrs jolly Tussle with a prancing goat; While Silenus, kneeling, drolly Proffers a dry bowl unto 't—— Ay, and round the mazer's brim Boisterous Mermen shouting swim, And each burly arm lifts up, Wine that o'erbrims its conchëd cup; Wherefore pour a triple potion: If such can be dry in ocean, 'Tis as Titans we must sup! </div> <div class="stanza"> Avaunt, brow and visage pious: None but Bacchus boys come nigh us! Raise the bowl and shout his name: Io, Bacchus! for a flame Chafes in our blood, O Bromios! Fire no water e'er could quench, And its heat must scorify us [Pg 115]If with wine we do not drench. Wherefore overbrim the cup: This to Jove now drink I up, Who upon thy first of days Snátched thee and cówed thy natal blaze, Even as 'tis now the merry Strength of this thy vintaged berry, That the scorching danger stays. </div> <div class="stanza"> To the vine now! let its golden Leaves about our brows be folden. To the swarthy hand that trims it! To the grape! the sun that dims it! To the pipe that doth embolden Purpled stamping feet to riot O'er the vatted winepress olden! To the cavern's depth, chill, quiet! Last to wine's own ruddy sprite, Wakes in rheumy eyes a light— Ay, and ripens youth to man; Wine which more works than wisdom can; Wine that welcomes hardy morrows; Wine that turns to song our sorrows; Wine the only magian! </div> <div class="stanza"> Deep now! every bowl enhances The world's beauty; see there dances In the sky the leaping sun! 'Nay, can thine eye catch but one?' [Pg 116]'Six now spin.' 'A seventh advances, Flares and vomits, swerves and blazes, Now bursts and countlessly it prances, Pulsing to my frantic paces!' 'I flame,—gyrate!' 'I shoot out heat!' 'My tricked speech trips, and trip my feet!' 'The earth runs round and heav'n is wheeling!' 'I sway; I reel.' 'Earth's wrecked and reeling!' 'Dance on.' 'Earth's gone.' 'All's white and clear!' 'Ah! Ah! Behind the blaze I hear The Oread's laughter pealing!' </div> <div class="stanza"> Avaunt, grief! Descend, O holy Fierce Bacchic rapture, divine folly! </div> </div> XV <div class="sidenote">Of the Faun's Further Wanderings.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Forth from the forest wend I slowly, While in my ears yet rings the holy Dithyramb. The noon is past, But the sun rages. There is cast A dumbness yet o'er earth and sky. Down to the river then will I, Slowly about its depths to swim, While the stream fondles every limb And soothes its ache. Deep I will dip, And, blowing, raise my locks, that drip Till the slim Hyads troop to see, And revel, too, and play with me, [Pg 117]Hanging my ears with humid weed Or mounting me as water steed. Then, musing I will on, and so Stray to where a silver slow River circles through the meads, Wherein the mooching great ox feeds, And turns a slow eye round the sky, Wondering if he can ever die. And there, mayhap, 'twill come to pass I'll hear a sweet voice in the grass, And yet shall mark no singer nigh, Till, gently peering, I espy A solemn, elfish child who sits Unseen mid towering grass, and knits An endless, endless daisy chain, Crooning the while some soft refrain Her mother sings her when she closes Her twilit eyes. </div> <div class="stanza"> Little Girl.       Three red, red, roses— One each for father and mother, and one, The reddest of all, for her baby son. None for wee Amoret? Oh, none! for she Some day, when she grows up, a red rose will be! </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">Of the Faun's Converse with a Small She-Child.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Then, crossed-legged mid the meadow-sweet, I will sink down, laugh low, and greet Her blue, inquiring, childish eyes With mine, sharp, merry, brown, and wise, [Pg 118]And tell her tales—of Jack who slew Ten giants; or Mirabel who flew On a white owl to find the Prince And give to him the Golden Quince Would change him from a roaring bull To a youth blithe and beautiful; Or tales of the Goblin and the Sloth, Who watched the moon and swore an oath To find out what she was: how these Explored her mines and found her—cheese. </div> <div class="stanza"> Thus will I sit and both amuse Until I rise and beg excuse: Off 'to El Raschid in Assyria' Or 'the Grand-Duchess of Illyria,' Or 'to ask the maiden moon Why one only of her shoon She left us last night in the sky, And not her silver self, and why She always climbs the self-same track? Lets no one ever see her back?' </div> </div> XVI <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> But neither to the moon go I Or to the river gliding by, But to the woods, therein to move Among the quiet glades I love, [Pg 119]Desiring nought but aye to see The beech, ash, oak, and chestnut tree.... Till I a nymph meet who persuades Me to the broadest of the glades, Around whose smooth and sunken space The far woods lie. For in this place, Deserted but for a mid-grove Of maiden trees, bower of the dove, Pan plays, and should the sylvans chance, Nymphs, fauns, and sylvans, join in dance. </div> </div> XVII <div class="sidenote">Of the Immortal Dance.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> On either hand the slender trees Bow to the caressing breeze, And shake their shocks of silver light Against skies marbled greenish-white, Save where, within a rent of blue, The tilted slip of moon glints through, Glittering upon us as we dance With a soft extravagance Of limbs as blonde as autumn boughs, And gold locks floating from moony brows. While anguished Pan the pipes doth blow Fond and tremulous and low, And anon the timbrel shakes. —It is his sudden heart that breaks For springs before the world grew old, Rich vales, and hill-tops fiery cold!— [Pg 120]He watches the scarce moving skies, The trees, the glittering revelries, The moon, the dancers lemon-clad: The world fantastical and sad. </div> <div class="stanza"> The high-flung timbrels pulse and knock; We follow in a dancing flock, Touching each other's finger-tips, While from between our parted lips The solemn melodies repeat The rhythm of our shaken feet. Then faster! and the round we trace, Hair flowing from elated face, Eyes lit, breast bare, with lifted knees, And hands that toss as toss the trees.... And slow again ... with cumulate motion, As the long draw and plunge of ocean Bursting in a cloud of spray Up a white, deserted bay Of the sun-circled green Bermooths, Whose blistering sands the cool foam soothes.... Next the bewildering pipes may sing Some simple melody of spring, Whose cadences remember yet Sadly lost springs that we forget. To which as dances April rain On a still pool where leans no stain, Save of the cloud's pure splendour spread Gloriously overhead, [Pg 121]Our fast-flickering feet shall twinkle, And our golden anklets tinkle, While fair arms in aery sleeves Shiver as the poplar's leaves. </div> <div class="stanza"> And all the while shall Pan sit by And play, and pause, perhaps, to sigh, Viewing the scarce-moving skies, The hushed and glittering revelries, The infant moon, the slender trees Silvering to the shivery breeze, The fair, lorn dancers lemon-clad: The world fantastical and sad. </div> </div> XVIII <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Thus may we dance the light away Of yet one more unmemoried day. But, the dance ended, I will go Beyond the reach of pipes that blow A sadness thrilling through my veins.... </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">The Faun's Sadness.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> For now within my spirit reigns Shadow: before whose brooding face, Silent, there trail on gliding pace A multitude of restless Fears, Obscure Griefs and obscurer Tears, Bewildered Sighs, waned Phantasies, And all disastrous Presences, [Pg 122]Mutely prophetic of a Woe I know not yet, but I shall know. </div> <div class="stanza"> Such power Pan's grief hath to oppress, And Memory!—since now I guess Only too well that there must come Twilight, Calamity, and Doom. </div> <div class="stanza"> For once I saw beneath an oak A bard so aged it seemed he woke That moment from a sleep of years And in his voice were sleep and tears.... Till, wide-eyed, he, raging, spake, Rocking as when woodlands shake Under the first urge of the wind, Whose roaring murk lightens behind. </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">The Prophecy.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Prophetic Bard. "Be warned! I feel the world grow old, And off Olympus fades the gold Of the simple passionate sun; And the Gods wither one by one: Proud-eyed Apollo's bow is broken, And throned Zeus nods nor may be woken But by the song of spirits seven Quiring in the midnight heaven Of a new world no more forlorn, Sith unto it a Babe is born, That in a propped, thatched stable lies, While with darkling, reverend eyes [Pg 123]Dusky Emperors, coifed in gold, Kneel mid the rushy mire, and hold Caskets of rubies, urns of myrrh, Whose fumes enwrap the thurifer And coil toward the high dim rafters Where, with lutes and warbling laughters, Clustered cherubs of rainbow feather, Fanning the fragrant air together, Flit in jubilant holy glee, And make heavenly minstrelsy To the Child their Sun, whose glow Bathes them His cloudlets from below.... Long shall this chimed accord be heard, Yet all earth hushed at His first word: Then shall be seen Apollo's car Blaze headlong like a banished star; And the Queen of heavenly Loves Dragged downward by her dying doves; Vulcan, spun on a wheel, shall track The circle of the zodiac; Silver Artemis be lost, To the polar blizzards tossed; Heaven shall curdle as with blood; The sun be swallowed in the flood; The universe be silent save For the low drone of winds that lave The shadowed great world's ashen sides As through the rustling void she glides. Then shall there be a whisper heard [Pg 124]Of the Grave's Secret and its Word, Where in black silence none shall cry Save those who, dead-affrighted, spy How from the murmurous graveyards creep The figures of eternal sleep. Last: when 'tis light men shall behold, Beyond the crags, a flower of gold Blossoming in a golden haze, And, while they guess Zeus' halls now blaze Shall in the blossom's heart descry The saints of a new hierarchy!" </div> <div class="stanza"> He ceased ... and in the morning sky Zeus' anger threatened murmurously. I sped away. The lightning's sword Stabbed on the forest. But the word Abides with me. I feel its power Most darkly in the twilit hour, When Night's eternal shadow, cast Over earth hushed and pale and vast, Darkly foretells the soundless Night In which this orb, so green, so bright, Now spins, and which shall compass her When on her rondure nought shall stir But snow-whorls which the wind shall roll From the Equator to the Pole.... </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">Of the Final Nature of Pan.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> For everlastingly there is Something Beyond, Behind: I wis [Pg 125]All Gods are haunted, and there clings, As hound behind fled sheep, the things Beyond the Universe's ken: Gods haunt the Half-Gods, Half-Gods men, And Man the brute. Gods, born of Night, Feel a blacker appetite Gape to devour them; Half-Gods dread But jealous Gods; and mere men tread Warily lest a Half-God rise And loose on them from empty skies Amazement, thunder, stark affright, Famine and sudden War's thick night, In which loud Furies hunt the Pities Through smoke above wrecked, flaming cities. </div> <div class="stanza"> For Pan, the Unknown God, rules all. He shall outlive the funeral, Change, and decay, of many Gods, Until he, too, lets fall his rods Of viewless power upon that minute When Universe cowers at Infinite! </div> </div> XIX <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> So far my mind runs, yet I see How little faun-philosophy Repays my heart would learn, not teach.... Better laugh long, lie, suck a peach [Pg 126]Couched under tiger-lily flowers Which daze the low hot sun with showers Of fragrance, while the dusty bee Drones, fumbles, falls luxuriantly Within their throats; couched, turn a song Of flowers all the flowers among: </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">THE FAUN'S AFTERNOON SONG.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> There is a vale beyond blue Ida's mount, And thither often would I, piping, stray To listen to the music of a fount That spelt her tears out in a Dorian lay. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Long, long ago," she wept, "Narcissus came Wandering down the sunny-shafted glade; Full weary was he of the lamp's gold flame Wavering beneath the dusky colonnade. </div> <div class="stanza"> "For at the fall of night forth from the dim Gardens stole Echo; kneeling by his bed, With small sweet love-words she importuned him Who watched the lamp flame idle overhead. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Dry was her hot flushed cheek and dark the fire In her great eyes; her lips roamed warm and light Over his arm; her murmurs of desire Mixed with the many murmurs of the night. [Pg 127]</div> <div class="stanza"> "In vain! He came to rest and sing with me And loll his fingers in the liquid cool, And drop slow tears, slow tears luxuriously Into the shadowy motion of the pool. </div> <div class="stanza"> "With tongue scarce audible I wooed the lad, Whispering how beneath the drumming fall Slumbers a rapt, deep lake, so blue, so sad, That no fish swim it, nor about it call </div> <div class="stanza"> "Delighting birds from green-bowered shore to shore, Nor doth the nightingale, when June begins And the moon mounts a pattin of bright or, Hymn her long sorrows and her lord's black sins. </div> <div class="stanza"> "And the boy answered, answered me, and mourned The loveliness of Echo. 'Yet,' sighed he, 'My soul is fled, and long, thou knowest, bourned In what far dell none knoweth, love, but thee </div> <div class="stanza"> "'Who farest thither! Sweeter to my ears Are thy quiet voices and the gentle breast Of rambling water sweeter than my dear's.' Then murmured I, 'Lean lower, love, and rest.' [Pg 128]</div> <div class="stanza"> "There was no sound through all the sleeping wood, Save one sharp cry from Echo, open-lipped, Who, as she followed, from afar did spy How to my arms my lover downward slipped. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Softly I rocked him down into the pool, Shutting his ears to the loud torrents' din, And kissed and bore him through the portals cool, And laid him sleeping the blue halls within. </div> <div class="stanza"> "So I returned; but never to me came Another as beautiful, nor shall come. Lonely I flow, and, flowing, lisp his name, Till the sky waste and all the earth be dumb." </div> <div class="stanza"> So sang the spring, and, answering my look, Through the dark wood from the spring's fountain-head Flock upon flock of eyed narcissi shook, And the brook wept in sorrow for the dead. </div> <div class="stanza"> Ah, Death again! nothing can fend Us from the Sibyl of the End, Whose delight 'tis to find new forms, Now in dull sighs, anon in storms, Singing, and ever of the same: The trusting heart betrayed; the flame [Pg 129]Whirled in a night on cities proud; Lightnings from skies undimmed by cloud; The wide grave yawned before swift feet; The small success that brings defeat; The smiling lips and deadly eyes Of Destiny walking in disguise. </div> </div> XX <div class="sidenote">Of the Evening River.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> But now the sun sinks I will go Whither two full streams meet and flow, Murmuring as in wedded sleep Through evening meadows dim and deep. There will I watch the slow trout rise At the myriad simmering flies, And listen to the water flowing With such faint sounds there is no knowing Whether its spirit laughs or weeps Among the dreams wherein it sleeps. </div> <div class="stanza"> Sunken amid the twilight grass, I will watch the water pass, Weaving ever dimmer tales And dimmer as the evening pales.... Till from the calm the silent lark Drops to the meadows hushed and dark, While in the stagnant silver west, Above the tranquil poplars' crest, [Pg 130]There glimmers through the murky bar The slowly climbing Hesperal Star. </div> <div class="stanza"> Thus brooding by the hazy stream, I shall hear the water dream Tinkily on, and I shall see, As my eyes close quietly. Into a soft and long repose, The lone star like a silver rose Fade with me on the drifting stream Into the quiet night of dream. </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">Of Night's Rhapsodist.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Yet sleep I not; for lo! there wakes From the dim water-meadow brakes A quiring: voice as if a star, Fallen to earth from midnight far Beyond the haze of highest cloud, Bewailed her errëd path aloud. It is the nightingale who sings, Fanning soft air with whirrëd wings, Probing the dark with jewelled eyes. How oft, how sad, how loud she cries! And all the echoes answer her; The night airs through the close wood stir The stars that through the eddies climb Glitter; the silver waters chime; The lily bows her dewy head.... [Pg 131]</div> <div class="stanza"> I, too, a sudden tear have shed. For, ah! what voice is this can make The vagrant heart within me ache? That stirs an ancient tenderness, A new need to console, love, bless All things that 'neath this warm night sky Rejoice and suffer, age and die? Hunger is in my heart like bliss,— I stretch my arms out and I kiss, Gathered in sad and sweet embrace, The whole world's dark and simple face. </div> </div> XXI <div class="sidenote">Of the Second Singer.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> I wander forth. About my feet The sward is fresh and doubly sweet The loved air on my salvëd brow. Be still. Be still. For hearken: now A second voice behind the grove Uprises tremulous with love. How hushed, how moody is the strain! Pleading—O, surely, not in vain! Sombrely rises every note, Lingers, and in dark dells remote Echoes until another come. </div> <div class="stanza"> Philomel herself falls dumb. </div> <div class="stanza"> Philomel herself falls dumb, Mindful of her shadowy home; [Pg 132]Of a slowly falling surge Sounding its unending dirge On an alien ocean's verge; Of a rain-smitten tower that stood Fronting the calm, pale rolling flood; Of a slim sister's beauty glows, Fatefuller than a midnight rose; Of the birth, growth, and scheming dire, Of an accursëd King's desire; Of night-long vigil, tongueless wrack, And the last exultation black O'er loathly offering, feasting sour, A fell cry in the lonely tower, Raging pursuit, flight's vain endeavour, And Vengeance stilling all for ever.— Save the voice that nightly cries To the slowly wheeling skies Of unrest resolved in calm, Time's tears fallen like a balm, Sorrows that dead hearts have wrung, By the sad Enthusiast sung, Sweeter than Euphrosyne's tongue. </div> <div class="stanza"> O tremulous voice! who is 't that shakes The night with fervour? Through the brakes Softly I thread ... emerge, and now Across the rising meadow's brow [Pg 133]I glimpse, beside the farther wood, Under the shadow of its hood, A glimmering shape that does not move. It is the shepherd and his love: Close, close they stand, swooning and dim; Her shadowed face looks up at him, Her sighing breath his forehead warms; He sings, she leans within his arms. </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">THE SHEPHERD'S NIGHT SONG.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The Shepherd. Now arched dark boughs hang dim and still; The deep dew glistens up the hill; Silence trembles. All is still. </div> <div class="stanza"> Now the sweet siren of the woods, Philomel, passionately broods, Or, darkling, hymns love's wildest moods. </div> <div class="stanza"> Danaë, fainting in her tower, Feels a sudden sun swim lower, Gasps beneath the starry shower. </div> <div class="stanza"> Venus in the pomegranate grove Flutters like a fluttering dove Under young Adonis' love. </div> <div class="stanza"> Leda longs until alight In the reeds those wings of white She hears beat the upper night. [Pg 134]</div> <div class="stanza"> Golden now the glowing moon, Diana over Endymion Downward bends as in a swoon. </div> <div class="stanza"> Wherefore, since the gods agree, Youth is sweet and Night is free, And Love pleasure, should not we? </div> </div> <div class="sidenote">The Faun is struck with Sorrow.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Song whose desire her kisses bless! Song that wreaks wounds no lips redress, O wounding song! Such loneliness Falls, like a stun blow from behind, That my hands grope, my eyes go blind. I gasp.... Away, Away, O heart! Lone, wretched Faun, depart, depart; Hide thyself, wretched, utterly, Climb to the clouds where none may see And mock thy causeless misery! </div> <div class="stanza"> What joy is mine? what is 't I have: Immortal life? would 'twere a grave. Thus, thus to suffer world-without-end, No love, no hope, no goal, no friend! </div> <div class="stanza"> And the proud, morning Centaur, how Fares he? what lot doth Fate allow?— More wretched yet! to live and be Perfection's lone epitome. </div> </div> [Pg 135] <div class="sidenote">He takes Comfort in the Uncommon Gift of God.</div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> To feel in him a fecund power, And lack on which to spend that dower!... I mind me now that once I heard Wise, gentle Pan pronounce this word: "Whoever like a God would shine Must share the loneliness divine." Ah! to be Gods, then, is to be One fierce eternal agony. Yet, being Gods, such feel no pain; Their strength is equal to their bane. While I, poor half-god and half-beast, I would be man, the last and least Of men! O reasoning vain: Were I but man and one in pain, I could not by my utmost wipe One tear away. But now this pipe Hangs from my neck, god Pan's elect Gift to his children to perfect In awe, joy, grief, and loneliness. Sound, pipe, and with thy note express All this my heart! to thee I give All the long days that I must live. </div> <div class="stanza"> I wander on, I fade in mist, O peopled World, and dost thou list? Pipe on, difficult pipes of mine; There is something in me divine, [Pg 136]And it must out. For this was I Born, and I know I cannot die Until, perfected pipe, thou send My utmost: God, which is </div> </div> <h4>The End.</h4> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 137] <h1>BOOK III</h1> <h2>POEMS AND PHANTASIES</h2>   [Pg 138] <h4>To MR. and MRS. MOISEIWITSCH</h4> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 139] <h2>A TRIPTYCH</h2> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 140] <h3>I.—FIRST PANEL: THE HILL</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> On a day in Maytime mild Mary sat on a hill-top with her child. (Overhead in the calm sky's arching The curled white clouds went slowly marching.... But underneath the blue abyss All was stiller than water is Leagues under the surface of the sea.) And all about her thick and free Blossomed the dear familiar flowers. There, while her boy played through the hours, And the high sun shook gold upon her, Mary plaited a garland in his honour Who should be the King of Kings; And when 'tis done this song she sings, As Jesus, tired and happy, rests Curled in the hollow of her breasts: </div> <div class="stanza"> "In the shadow of my dress, Out of the sun And his fierce caress, Sleep, my son. [Pg 141]</div> <div class="stanza"> "Soft the air about the hill, Scented, sunny, clear, and still; Below in the woods the daffodil Nods, and the shy anemone Creeps up from the thicket to look on thee, And ten thousand daisies meet In an ocean of stars about thy feet. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Daisies have I strung for thee, Darling boy, Wee white blossoms that shall be Dappled, ah! so rosily With thy blood, When they nail thee to the wood Cleft from out the crooked tree. Can it be, Daisies innocent and good, That ye star black Calvary? </div> <div class="stanza"> "Buttercups I make thy crown, Darling boy. (Lullaby, O lullaby!) Son of sorrow, son of joy, Pain and Paradise thou art, Thou that sighest nestling down In my breast, over my heart That is a lake Where the hidden tear-drops ache [Pg 142]To be free, Till mounting upward for thy sake Out they break, Down they plash on me and thee. </div> <div class="stanza"> "And Heaven in her charity Drops seven tears on me and thee. </div> <div class="stanza"> "This thy little childhood's crown, Flower on flower, Wear thou in thy lullaby Till thou facest the soldiers' frown In thine iron hour, Till the thorn they crown thee by They press down: Ah, the sharp points in my heart! Ah, the sword, the sudden smart Flaying me as 'twere a flame! Crowned indeed, my son, thou art With red flowers of pain and shame! </div> <div class="stanza"> "Birds and butterflies and trees, And the long hush of the breeze Shimmering over the silken grass, What wouldst thou have more than these?... In the stall the ox and ass Gazed on thee with tender eyes; All things love thee; yet there lies [Pg 143]Some hid thing in thee breeds fear— Brims not falls thy mother's tear. Wherefore, baby, must thou go? Rose, to be torn in sunder so? Little bonny limbs, little bonny face, My lamb, my torment, my disgrace! </div> <div class="stanza"> "O baby, are thine eyelids closed Faster than my eyes supposed? With foxes must thy bed be maken, A beggar with beggars must thou go, To be at last forsworn, forsaken? And bear alone thy cross also Anigh to the foot of a bare hill? To hang gibbeted and abhorred, For passers-by to wish thee ill? And to thrust against thy will Through thy mother's bosom the sharpest sword? </div> <div class="stanza"> "O baby, breathing so quietly, Have thou mercy upon me! That in thy madness On thy lonely journey farest, That understandest not nor carest For me and my sadness! Woe indeed! thou dost not know Man cometh into this world in sorrow To spend in grief to-night, to-morrow In sorrow the third day to go! [Pg 144]</div> <div class="stanza"> "O sleep, dear baby, and, heart, sleep; Turn to thy slumber, golden, deep, Of present possible happiness. Let drop the daisies one by one Over his body and his dress; Afflicted eyes, see but thy son Who sleeps secure from hurt, from harm, Clasped to my breast, closed in my arm, Who murmurs as the flowers by the faint wind shaken, And, putting forth sweet, sleepy hands, Feels for the kisses he demands.... Slowly, belov'd, dost thou awaken, And sure, in heaven there is no sign: It is not true that thou shalt be taken, Who for ever, for ever art mine, art mine!" </div> <div class="stanza"> Into the west the calm white sun Floated and sank. The day was done. Mary returned, and as she went, Above her, in the firmament, The stars, that are the flowers of God, Mirrored the flowery earth she trod. Thus bore she on her destined child, And while she wept, behold! he smiled, [Pg 145]And stretched his arms seeking a kiss.... Softly she kissed him, and a bliss, Deeper than all her human tears, Flooded her and put out her fears. </div> <div class="stanza"> Oxford, Early Spring, 1914. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 146] <h3>II.—SECOND AND CENTRE PANEL: THE TOWER</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> It was deep night, and over Jerusalem's low roofs The moon floated, drifting through high vaporous woofs. The moonlight crept and glistened silent, solemn, sweet, Over dome and column, up empty, endless street; In the closed, scented gardens the rose loosed from the stem Her white showery petals; none regarded them; The starry thicket breathed odours to the sentinel palm; Silence possessed the city like a soul possessed by calm. </div> <div class="stanza"> Not a spark in the warren under the giant night, Save where in a turret's lantern beamed a grave, still light: There in the topmost chamber a gold-eyed lamp was lit— Marvellous lamp in darkness, informing, redeeming it! [Pg 147]For, set in that tiny chamber, Jesus, the blessed and doomed, Spoke to the lone apostles as light to men entombed; And spreading his hands in blessing, as one soon to be dead, He put soft enchantment into spare wine and bread. </div> <div class="stanza"> The hearts of the disciples were broken and full of tears, Because their lord, the spearless, was hedgëd about with spears; And in his face the sickness of departure had spread a gloom, At leaving his young friends friendless. They could not forget the tomb. He smiled subduedly, telling, in tones soft as voice of the dove, The endlessness of sorrow, the eternal solace of love; And lifting the earthly tokens, wine and sorrowful bread, He bade them sup and remember one who lived and was dead. And they could not restrain their weeping. But one rose up to depart, Having weakness and hate of weakness raging within his heart, [Pg 148]And bowed to the robed assembly whose eyes gleamed wet in the light. Judas arose and departed: night went out to the night. </div> <div class="stanza"> Then Jesus lifted his voice like a fountain in an ocean of tears, And comforted his disciples and calmed and allayed their fears. But Judas wound down the turret, creeping from floor to floor, And would fly; but one leaning, weeping, barred him beside the door. And he knew her by her ruddy garment and two yet-watching men: Mary of Seven Evils, Mary Magdalen. And he was frighted at her. She sighed: "I dreamed him dead. We sell the body for silver...." Then Judas cried out and fled Forth into the night!... The moon had begun to set; A drear, deft wind went sifting, setting the dust afret; Into the heart of the city Judas ran on and prayed To stern Jehovah lest his deed make him afraid. </div> <div class="stanza"> But in the tiny lantern, hanging as if on air, The disciples sat unspeaking. Amaze and peace were there. [Pg 149]For his voice, more lovely than song of all earthly birds, In accents humble and happy spoke slow, consoling words. </div> <div class="stanza"> Thus Jesus discoursed, and was silent, sitting upright, and soon Past the casement behind him slanted the sinking moon; And, rising for Olivet, all stared, between love and dread, Seeing the torrid moon a ruddy halo behind his head. </div> <div class="stanza"> Grayshott, July, 1914. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 150] <h3>III.—THIRD PANEL: THE TREE</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The crookëd tree creaked as its loaded bough dipped And suddenly jerked up. The rope had slipped, And hideously Judas fell, and all the grass Was soused and reddened where he was, And the tree creaked its mirth.... Mid the hot sky Appeared immediate dots tiny and high, Till downward wound in batlike herds Black, monstrous, gawky birds, And, narrowing their rustling rings, Alit, talons foremost. And with flat wings Flapped in the branches, and glared, and croaked and croaked, While no compassionate human came and cloaked The thing that stared up at the giddy day With pale blue eyeballs and wry-lipped display Of yellow teeth closed on the blue, bit tongue. Overhead the light in silence hung, [Pg 151]And fiercely showed the sweaty, knotted hands Clutching the rope about the swollen glands.... And the birds croaked and croaked, evilly eyeing The thing so lying, Which no commiserate pity came and cloaked, But which soaked The earth, so that the flies Dizzily swung over its winkless eyes, And in a crawling, shiny, busy brood Blackened the sticky blood, And tickled the tongue-choked mouth that sought to cry Bitterly and beseechingly Against the judgment of th' unflinching sky. </div> <div class="stanza"> The poor dead, lonely thing had not a shroud From that still, frightful glare until a cloud Of darkness, flowing like a dye Over the edges of the sky, Browned and put out the silent sun: A benison Of three hours' space. And it had power To put a shadow into that thing's face, And th' invisible birds fell silent by its grace. </div> <div class="stanza"> Thus Judas lay in shadow and all was still.... [Pg 152]Then faint light, like water, began again to fill The sky, and a whisper—came it from the grass, Whispering dry and sparse, Or from the air beyond the neighbouring hill?— Ebbed, as a spirit on a sigh Passing beyond alarm: "It is finished!" And there was calm Under the empty tree and in the brightening sky. </div> <div class="stanza"> Grayshott, July, 1914. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 153] <h2>FOUR SONGS FROM "THE PRINCE OF ORMUZ"</h2> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 154] <h3>I.—THE PRINCE OF ORMUZ SINGS TO BADOURA</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> When she kisses me with her lips, I become A Roc, that giant, that fabulous bird And over the desert, vast, yellow, and dumb, I wheel, and my jubilant screaming is heard, A voice, an echo, high up and glad, Over the domes and green pools of Bagdad. </div> <div class="stanza"> But when she kisses me with her eyes, My heart melts in me; she is my sun; She strokes my snow; I am loosed, I arise: A brook of water I run, I run, Crystal water, sunny and sweet, Laughing and weeping to fawn at her feet. </div> <div class="stanza"> Lawford, Easter, 1914. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 155] <h3>II.—THE SONG OF THE PRINCESS BESIDE THE FOUNTAIN</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> My rose, or ever the three tears were shed I wished lie in its bosom, has fallen apart; Off their knapped golden hair all my pure pearls have sped Before their mid-ruby could burn on my heart. To-day is as yesterday; as to-day so to-morrow; But fallen my rose, pearls, tears, Fallen in sorrow. Or ever I woke it was sunset to-day; As fast flows the fountain, as fast flows away, As fast fall away My rose and my tears, my pearls and my sorrow. </div> <div class="stanza"> In Hospital, January, 1916. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 156] <h3>III.—THE SONG OF THE PRINCE IN DISGUISE</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The look in thine eyes can change me utterly; Thine eyes challenge: my heart is lighted, I am thy taper, I burn straight-pointed— Ay, even so doing I waste away. </div> <div class="stanza"> Bathe me in thy calm eyes' soft glances; I am thy slave, I bow, I worship; Bid me to steal, and I will steal gladly: Ah! bid me not, thou robbest my manhood. </div> <div class="stanza"> Let thine eyes smile: change comes upon me, I put forth blossoms, flowers of my passion, Roses crimson, alas! whose petals, Once white, now blush with blood of my heart. </div> <div class="stanza"> Gaze not on me: I burn, I perish; Gaze not on me: I am thy servant; Gaze not on me: I sink a-bleeding; Yet gaze! I cannot otherwise live. </div> <div class="stanza"> Lawford, Easter, 1914. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 157] <h3>IV.—THE PRINCESS BADOURA'S LAST SONG TO HER LOVER</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> I have poured my wine into a gold cup, I have plucked my roses, unfastened the stone From my bosom. Thou mayest drink my red wine up, Or spill where my jewel and roses are thrown. </div> <div class="stanza"> The golden-globed night deepens quickly over Me, afraid under its curtains. The spheres Stare. O gather me swiftly, my lover; Make me forget and forgive me these tears. </div> <div class="stanza"> Lawford, Easter, 1914. </div> </div> [Pg 158] <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 159] <h2>THE GIFT OF SONG</h2> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 160] <h3>THE GIFT OF SONG</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Beyond a hill and a river, Within a tower of stone, A Princess by a casement Dreamed, sitting still, alone. </div> <div class="stanza"> Her golden hair hung heavy Over her kirtle green; Her eyes were blue and lonely, Her tender mouth had been </div> <div class="stanza"> A joy for splendid kisses, It was so red, so red; But it was parted in singing, And, beginning her song, she said: </div> <div class="stanza"> "Three songs in my spirit: Elusive, tremulous, light. If you can feel their tremor, This gift is spended aright." [Pg 161]</div> <div class="stanza"> Without in the silent garden The sunflowers dozed in the sun, Bees blackened their tawny faces, Their heads drooped one by one. </div> <div class="stanza"> Amid a stilly fig-tree, Hidden from sun and sight, A nightingale sang over The songs that rejoice the night. </div> <div class="stanza"> And browsing upon sweet grasses In the fair solitude, Half in sun, half in shadow, A lordly bay stag stood. </div> <div class="stanza"> Upon earth all was silent Save when the hid bird sung; In the dark blue afternoon heavens A silent half-moon hung. </div> </div> <hr class="half" /> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> As she commenced singing, The nightingale stopped. In the dead Silence the leaves flicked softly; The great stag turned his head. </div> </div> <hr class="half" /> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Thus sung she alone, and only The stag, the fig-tree, the bird And pensive moon in the darkling heavens Her lovely singing heard. [Pg 162]</div> <div class="stanza"> And as she finished singing, She bowed her golden head Low, O low, on her shaking bosom, And, ending her song, she said: </div> <div class="stanza"> "Three songs in my spirit: Elusive, tremulous, light. You have felt their tremor; This gift is spended aright." </div> <div class="stanza"> The nightingale lifted her voice up, The moon fled out of the skies, The fig-tree split, and two tears rolled Out of the great stag's eyes. </div> <div class="stanza"> Now, when she had done singing, She closed her eyes, and her breath Went out as she lay down backward And folded her hands in death. </div> <div class="stanza"> Lyme Regis, July 6, 1916. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 163] <h2>FRAGMENTS FROM A DRAMA ON THE SUBJECT OF ORESTES</h2> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 164] <h3>I.—WARNING UNHEEDED</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Kassandra. I cried in the halls where the feast will be set; The hurrying servants whom I met Brushed me aside, asked why I tarried. On their black woolly heads gold platters they carried, Piled high with rich fruits; betwixt jewelled hands, Goblets of crystal, white blossoming wands, Urns breathing incense: all these to be set Where Truth's feast and the feasters too soon shall be met. </div> <div class="stanza"> The guest shall turn as he laughs and sups, Reaching his hand for the golden wine; His face shall change as he sees next to him A mouth that mocks, eyes that look through him, A head sink her glistening brow 'twixt the cups, Locks blackening his stoup with a liquor of brine. </div> <div class="stanza"> In the scrolls of the platter of gold there has bled The juice of fruit battered and hairy and red;[Pg 165] The goblets of crystal are fissured and cracked Like ice the bronze tyre of the chariot has wracked, And the blossoms curl withered because of the heat Of urns overset by the slip of red feet When the reveller fell forward unable to save His eyes from the torch, his groin from the glaive. </div> <div class="stanza"> Chorus. For Truth rejected returns as Pain. </div> <div class="stanza"> Kassandra. Under the trestles the guests lie slain; The curtains upon the gold cords pull Heavily, sagging like nets that are full, For curved in the trough and propped in the fold The red, red catch lies tossed and rolled; The halls and corridors reek with the flood; The pillars are trickled with cyphers of blood; Rent garlands lie trampled over the floors; Rusty footprints lead out through the high bronze doors To the starlit night and the whispering plain: </div> <div class="stanza"> Chorus. For Truth rejected returns as Pain. </div> <div class="stanza"> Kassandra. I weep for the ruin of a high, proud house; Moths fret the still curtains; down the throne runs a mouse;[Pg 166] The sun fades on the floors heaped high with dead leaves; The moon runs on the rills that run from the eaves; Brown clogs the peristyle; the air has a tang; Weeds rot on the terrace; the hanging gates clang; The wind is a weariness; man lives in vain </div> <div class="stanza"> Chorus. Where Truth rejected returns as Pain. </div> <div class="stanza"> 1914-1916. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 167] <h3>II.—ORESTES TO THE FURIES</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Ye are no madman's dreams, then!... Out sword! Backward tread O curs that circle the bright blade ye dread. Back to where dead-eyed Hate, your shameful priest, Prepares your bowl of blood, your fleshy feast: Where in the thronged and long-hushed marketplace Ten thousand faces gaze on one pale face; Where the lost victim feels the lonely ban Of death terrific loosed by man on man; Where black blood froths, where drives the whirring wheel; Where hands, ears, lips fall lopped of instant steel; Where the intent and dazzling pincher plies Till to the silent tortures Anguish cries At once for death! and when sharp death is given, Others, corded and swooned, antic and sick, are driven[Pg 168] Under the axe, whose sheeny flash and fall Bids the block ring as pile beneath the maul, Till Man's protest dies to a whisper, dumb Beneath the maddened rolling of Death's drum! </div> <div class="stanza"> 1915. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 169] <h2>BLACK SONG</h2> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 170] <h3>I.—AT BRAYDON</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Day wanes slowly; On the hill no sound Save the wind uttering Chords low ... few ... profound. </div> <div class="stanza"> How the west smokes and quivers! It sears, it blinds my sight; I am burned out wholly, Hide me from the light. </div> <div class="stanza"> Within dear arms yoke me, Gather me. I am sped Into your little bosom Press, hide my childish head. </div> <div class="stanza"> How long I have struggled I know not; but the past Seems twice livelong, Beaten at the last! [Pg 171]</div> <div class="stanza"> My soul leaps and shudders In pain none understands; With your clear voice calm it, Soothe it with your hands. </div> <div class="stanza"> I can say only —So lost am I, so distressed— "I love you: I am tired." You must guess the rest. </div> <div class="stanza"> I love you: I am tired. I give you my soul, It hurts me. Hate has lamed it. Take it; make it whole. </div> <div class="stanza"> Late Summer, 1916. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 172] <h3>II.—MIDDAY ON THE EDGE OF THE DOWNS</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Stillness falls and a glare. The woods in darkness lie. The fields are stretched and stare Under the empty sky. Vacant the ways of the air, Along which no birds fly. Only the high sun's flare Spills on the empty sky. </div> <div class="stanza"> I lift my aching eyes From the dry wilderness: Across me a peewit flies With gestures meaningless.... Mine are his piping cries At this world's emptiness! </div> <div class="stanza"> 1913. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 173] <h3>III.—IN DORSETSHIRE</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Cold and bare the sunlight Drifted across the hill, Round which the sea wind's current Unfathomable and chill, From dawn to silver sunset Poured now faint, now shrill. </div> <div class="stanza"> "How to comfort you, Share any part? Even to understand you Too deep an art! Yet I'd comfort you, Tear out my heart." </div> <div class="stanza"> "Do not look on me, Dry eyes for my sake; Do not smooth my forehead Your hands make me ache; O, and turn away your kisses Or heart must break." [Pg 174]</div> <div class="stanza"> Cold and bare the sunlight Drifted across the hill, Only the sea-wind's current, Unfathomable and chill, Heard such speech gather, Bewail itself ... fall still. </div> <div class="stanza"> Toward the hill then zigzagged One wind-harried plover— Rocked for a moment.... Cried to love and lover The top of loneliness Ere he heeled over. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 175] <h2>MAN'S ANACREONTIC AND OTHER POEMS</h2> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 176] <h3>MAN'S ANACREONTIC</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Kiss! Kiss me and kiss again, Make kissing almost pain; Close your fingers close on mine, And our grappling looks entwine; Kiss again, and when that's done Blind me with each facing sun Of your clear and golden eyes, Till my spirit in me dies, And endures a long eclipse Till rekindled at your lips. </div> <div class="stanza"> From this minute I pursue The intense Idea that's you— Your you's Being. I would draw You from Obscurity's dusk maw Into my hands—whate'er you are, Moth or spirit, gnome or star. Yet I would not filch a part, Misty soul or flaming heart, Which left but, as doth the snake, A pale tissue. I will take [Pg 177]And shut all your sweetness up In the gold walls of a cup, Sandalled feet to sweeping hair, Soul, brain, body, all you are— Curled as a mermaid coiled in brine, Now drunk one gush of giddy wine! </div> <div class="stanza"> Nay, as a strange lump of snow In my two hands you shall go, And I'll bare my browny breast, Press you there, where now you rest! Ay, and bless the frozen smart As you melt into my heart! </div> <div class="stanza"> Come, I'll twine you round my brows: A defiant diadem, Poets of your light shall sing. Satraps by you swear stout vows Eyeing my twice-marvellous gem— You: the emerald in my ring. </div> <div class="stanza"> Thus I'll keep you night and day, Since no stone can run away— And might dare a pleasure splendid: Toss my ring into the air, Watch it spinning, heart suspended, Lest it slip me unaware, Fall clean through my finger bars, Shatter in ten thousand stars! [Pg 178]Yet you shall not be my ring; You shall not be any thing, Crown or stone set cunningly, Time can separate from me. </div> <div class="stanza"> No! I'll find an alchemist, With a beard of cobwebs grey And fired eyes like moonstones kissed By the last gold beam of day, And older and gentler than a fish, And wiser than an elephant; And when I've told him what we wish, Bribe or force him work our want. </div> <div class="stanza"> We two shall opposëd stand, Each touch other's finger-tip; At a slow pass of his hand And a soft word from his lip, We will incline smilingly, And as drops together run, Shaking off the he and she, Close and be forever one. </div> <div class="stanza"> Grayshott, Summer, 1914. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 179] <h3>THE BLACKBIRD</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> I stand in a sunny garden; A blackbird sings overhead: "I'm alive ... I've a love ... the sun's shining And where's the man would be dead?" </div> <div class="stanza"> "Blackbird, make an ending of fluting That song down your orange beak: I'm alive ... I've a love ... the sun's shining, And—I am the man you seek." </div> <div class="stanza"> Stamford, May, 1913. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 180] <h3>CHANGE</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Behold, the tides are awake! Under the high moon's light, Broad bands of silver, they glitter and quake, Moving out into the night. </div> <div class="stanza"> Off from the shore they slide, Out, out into the blue: And I am turned to a shimmering tide Flooding on outward to you! </div> <div class="stanza"> Hengistbury Head, Spring, 1915. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 181] <h3>TRANSFIGURATION</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Two feet apart, straight-limbed on the heathered hill We lie, under the wavering haze Of the sun, even as two logs that lie still In the heart of a blaze. Side by side we lie through the long Late noon together; On us the light wind stoops his strong, Hot, sweet scents of heather. No word breaks the air that smothers, Lest we miss The dull heart-beat of the earth below each other's, And the soft kiss Of breathless heather upon heather, while the sun Beats on us encouraging the swiftening blood, Till up the limbs and through the ears it run, A thin, red singing flood. </div> <div class="stanza"> Love hath put in me might, That was so weak; I am strong with light, My senses seek[Pg 182] Something indefinable, afar; They go wandering, and return.... With the light drunk off a star They calmly burn, Even as the immense sun burns on us Till evening turns watery those beams of his; And, rising from that joyance onerous, I stoop a kiss Lighter than the balls of fluff The wind sways across the heath, Though each invisible, hot puff Scarce rocks a spray beneath. </div> <div class="stanza"> I sit, and it is so still, Now wind and sun have gone home, I can almost hear distil The dew in the gloam. And from the clear and cool Of the twilit air, That is still as a pool Iced over and bare, I catch at length The thought I have been searching for: Did I absorb the sun's or just your strength, Or Something More? </div> <div class="stanza"> Summer, 1914. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 183] <h3>PLAINT OF PIERROT ILL-USED</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> I am Pierrot, and was born On some February morn When through glistering rain shone down The full moon on Paris town. (Ah the moonshine in my head!) </div> <div class="stanza"> For, upon the fatal minute When the moon's heart changes in it And the tides their flow reverse, I, for better or for worse, Born was. (Better been born dead Than with moonwork in my head!) </div> <div class="stanza"> Clown stood foster, but another Got me of Clown's wife my mother, And as suited my poor station, Thieving was made my profession: Doorsteps often were my bed (Frosty moonshine in my head). [Pg 184]</div> <div class="stanza"> Yet while Pierrot was a thief— Miracle beyond belief, Chance fantastic as divine!— I fell in with Columbine: Dark eyes, lips of mournful red (Dark-bright moonshine in my head). </div> <div class="stanza"> At the corner of the street She and I by night would meet; Met, but never told our love, While th' ironic moon above In her reverie smiled, and shed Tranquil radiance round each head. </div> <div class="stanza"> Till my father by a breath Stifled at the hands of Death, "—Since no other children were— Assigned me as only heir." (Silver sequins heaped and spread: Billowing silver in my head.) </div> <div class="stanza"> So, in search of fitting knowledge, Poor Pierrot was sent to college, Where Pantaloon and Pantaloon In answerless riddles o' the moon Crammed more moonshine in his head. </div> <div class="stanza"> Home, then, Pierrot by-and-by Hurried spent, resolved to sigh[Pg 185] Headache, heartache, and the rest, Out on Columbine's white breast, White as the moon's cloudy bed (Hush the moonshine in my head). </div> <div class="stanza"> But, while gone, had entered in Spangled, smiling Harlequin; Laughter cynic and unholy: "Pah! Pierrot's poor melancholy!" Turned but not a word I said (Moons like swords within my head!) </div> <div class="stanza"> Forth: but money burns so bright! Let it burn, then, left and right: "Where, O where, is Punchinello? Scaramouch too, that gay fellow? A brisk life it is we'll lead: Drown the moonshine in my head!" </div> <div class="stanza"> Midnight: Venus by an urn, Roses and rose lanterns burn, Wine, fount's purl, and mandoline.... Pulcinella waits within, Faithless she—but in her bed: No more moonlight in my head! </div> <div class="stanza"> Ah!... yet dawns a dreary morrow: 'Spend at ease, and owe in sorrow,'[Pg 186] With light purse to her begone, If but as a hanger-on! (Dread and moonlight in my head.) </div> <div class="stanza"> Home then: catch upon the way— 'Harlequin fled yesterday. Bankruptcy of his employ.' Surging of relief and joy: Welcome then? past words unsaid? Surge of moonlight through my head. </div> <div class="stanza"> So on, beating, to her street: What sight Pierrot's eyes doth greet? One coach at her door arrives, From the back another drives.... Strange! (mere moonlight in the head). </div> <div class="stanza"> Pull the bell: is she within? 'I must see Miss Columbine.' Maid with finger laid by nose, Better not inquire too close— Such puts bullets through the head! </div> <div class="stanza"> Now I wander back and forth; Pierrot goes east, south, west, north; Shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders, Till the more acute beholders, Watching him, have hazarded,— 'Touch of something in the head?' [Pg 187]</div> <div class="stanza"> I am Pierrot, and was born On some far forgotten morn When the cold moon on the pane Struck and, signless, 'gan to wane, When the tides their flow reversed; And I bear, uncured, accursed, Aching until I am dead, Moonlight, moonlight in my head! </div> <div class="stanza"> Devonshire, November, 1916. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 188] <h3>GIRL'S SONG FROM "THE TAILOR"[2]</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> O silver bird, fly down, fly down, Bring thy fair gifts to him and me: A purse contains a minted crown, A golden ring for me. Ah! lovely bird, fly down, fly down. </div> <div class="stanza"> But upon the highest bough See amid the leaves he swings, Pipes three notes of laughter low, Flirts, and folds his flashy wings. Ah! lovely bird, fly down, fly down. </div> <div class="stanza"> What is't, bird, thy soul demands? Come, I'll rock thee in my breast; I will stroke thee with my hands; Where none rested thou shalt rest.... Ah! lovely bird, fly down, fly down. [Pg 189]</div> <div class="stanza"> Jewels wouldst thou, then, O bird? See, among the sunny grass A tear has fallen unseen, unheard, Brighter than ever diamond was. </div> <div class="stanza"> Hark! Hark! His joy my voice doth drown: See, see, he leaps, floats, dives him down! </div> <div class="stanza"> 1916. </div> </div> <div class="footnote">[2] "The Tailor," opera-buffa in three acts, being Op. 10 of Bernard van Dieren. </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 190] <h3>LAST SONG IN AN OPERA</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> From the apple bough many petals fly tossed of the wind, Yet goldenly heavy it hangs on blue autumn eves (All things come unto him whose heart believes). The dove, though the tempest-swept sun her bright eyes blind, Beats onward fast. Till with clapped, sailing wings down at the last To the loved cote she come. Ah, the long way of Love, but Love comes home! </div> <div class="stanza"> The silver river wanders and circles time out of mind, Yet turns at length where the sea tosses her smoking sheaves (All things come unto him whose heart believes). So golden-feathered Love beats his high course, though blind, Until that hour When, downward stooping through the flaming shower, Into the heart he come. Ah, the long way of Love, but Love comes home! </div> <div class="stanza"> 1916. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 191] <h2>DANAË</h2> <h3>MYSTERY IN EIGHT POEMS</h3> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 192] <h3>DANAË: MYSTERY IN EIGHT POEMS</h3> I <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "What with clangour, clangour of iron din, Do they beat till daylight ring? What heat, that I see the night air spin, And sparks dance over the scaffolding? </div> <div class="stanza"> "The birds have flown because of their strife Hammering difficult metal; Their reek has taken my roses' life, Dripping white petal on petal. </div> <div class="stanza"> "What glows gold taller than earthly tree In that maze of mast on mast Of the scaffolding? What can it be They build so secret and fast?" </div> </div> II <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "What art mooning at, fool? Some wanton boy and his limbs? Such dreams should be put to school: I'll chasten these fleshly whims!" [Pg 193]</div> <div class="stanza"> He has shot the bolts on her room In the brazen tower. "Remain there, ninny: your doom Till the sand sifts your last hour!" </div> <div class="stanza"> With eyes grieving on space, Has she sight among all these blind? Because of her dreaming face.... How harshly the great keys grind! </div> <div class="stanza"> They have gone. She clenches her hands, She struggles and makes soft moan.... Then smiles, for she understands: The soul is never alone. </div> </div> III <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Last night as I was sitting, My faint heart ceased to beat, Listening in the silence To the tread of nearing feet. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Through the tower dumb in midnight They passed from floor to floor, Till at length they halted Hard without my door. </div> <div class="stanza"> "I knew 'twas Thou who stood'st there, With but a door's divide! With a wild and longing motion I strode and flung it wide. [Pg 194]</div> <div class="stanza"> "Out into velvet darkness My whirring eyeballs stare. I whisper. Nothing answers. And there is no one there." </div> </div>       IV Canticle <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "O Day so bright, Bring thou my Love to me, In blinding, deep delight And ecstasy. </div> <div class="stanza"> "O Night so wide, So black, keep close till He, The light within my side Seen, comes to me. </div> <div class="stanza"> "O wandering Wind, Sing in His ears the sum Of longing, mad His mind, Compel He come. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Earth I adore, From whom to whom I go, Bring Him to me before I return so. [Pg 195]</div> <div class="stanza"> "Sun, nought doth let In journey or depart; Make Him, arisen, set Within my heart. </div> <div class="stanza"> "O high white Moon, Alone and glittering, As you pull ocean soon, My Belovëd bring. </div> <div class="stanza"> "O swelling Sea, Cavernous in your sweep, Make Him ingulph, drown me Far in His deep. </div> <div class="stanza"> "O Day, O Night, O Moon, O Sun, O Sea, O Wind, bring my Delight! Bring Him to me!" </div> </div> V <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> In the second watch of the night The amazed guards saw with affright Gold stars fall in a shower: Coins of gold in a sweeping flight, They silently broke on the tower. [Pg 196]</div> <div class="stanza"> And the tower's top turned a rose Of enwreathed, ruddy light, And, like men smit of their foes, The guards fell at the sight.... </div> <div class="stanza"> And the Rose possessed the tower alone All the blue, windless night. </div> </div> VI <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Soft torrential wind Falls through the vast, still deep Like thick dreams pouring behind The opened gates of sleep: Ah, not so swift, Lord, not so bright, Lest I be blown—a feather; Not so white, not so white, Lest I be withered altogether. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Earth shifts under my feet, Glory breaks over my head; Speechlessly my wings I beat, And fall mute in breathless dread: Ah, not so swift, Lord, not so bright, Lest I be blown—a feather; Not so white, not so white, Lest I be wilted altogether." [Pg 197]</div> </div> VII <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Mine is a heavenly Lover, In Him I am wholly blest; My heart it is His coffer Wherein His gold doth rest. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Dead in the metal tower I lie till night doth come, When in a golden shower He bursts the midnight dome. </div> <div class="stanza"> "And, caught beyond releasing, I yield me to His claim, And by my creature ceasing All that He is I am." </div> </div> VIII <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The silver sun looks down On the silent tower; The guards awaken, nor own To the unguarded hour. </div> <div class="stanza"> They eye each other's face, But to speak none durst; As though the night were ungraced, Silent they are dispersed. [Pg 198]</div> <div class="stanza"> The cruel King climbs, doth draw Near, then by he creeps, Marking in rage and awe The smile in which she sleeps. </div> <div class="stanza"> Stamford, Autumn, 1912, and Autumn, 1913. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 199] <h3>THE ECSTASY</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> I lay upon a headland hill: The sun spilt out his gold; The wind blew with a fluttering thrill; The skies were blue and cold. </div> <div class="stanza"> All day above the little cove I heard the long wind flow; The clouds foamed in the blue above, The blue sea foamed below. </div> <div class="stanza"> All day the bare sun fiercely burned; All day in the profound And quivering grass my body turned, One with Earth's turning round. </div> <div class="stanza"> Till, fledged amid her fluid rings, My soul began to rouse, And slowly beat her silver wings Within her darkened house. [Pg 200]</div> <div class="stanza"> Then with vans lifted up for flight, With stretched and fiery crest, Upward she leaped toward the light And drew from out my breast. </div> <div class="stanza"> How long I lay while she was fled, And on the cliff below My body lay stiff, dark, and dead, I knew not nor may know. </div> <div class="stanza"> But long it seemed. Sped beyond sight My soul enjoyed release; Beyond the clouds, within the light, She entered into peace. </div> </div> <hr class="half" /> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> To-day, amid a world of men, How often must I cry: "Happy I never was but then Nor shall be till I die!" </div> <div class="stanza"> Near Gold Cap, Late Summer, 1916. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 201] <h3>THE WATER-LILY</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The Lily floated white and red, Pouring its scent up to the sun; The rapt sun floating overhead Watched no such other one. </div> <div class="stanza"> None marked it as it spread abroad And beautifully learned to cease: But Beauty is its own reward, Being a form of Peace. </div> <div class="stanza"> 1913. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 202] <h3>DEEM YOU THE ROSES....</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Deem you the roses taste no pleasure Unfolding hour by hour Toward, through starlit peace and sunny leisure, Their sharpest moment, when they dower This great green world, this rustling place, Active in music, light, and grace, With their hid hearts, their golden treasure, Odours so deep they overpower? </div> <div class="stanza"> See how, hazed in the sunny weather, The silken roses swim, Nodding heads frail as a high cloud's feather, Expressing Joy in Beauty's Hymn. And, hark! from many a hidden face Echoes I hear through silver space: The Morning Stars that sing together, And the delighting Seraphim! </div> <div class="stanza"> Lawford, Early Summer, 1916. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 203] <h3>THE PASSION</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Those whose Love, unborn to sight, Never did itself disclose Save in water's cry; a rose; Meteor furrowing the night; </div> <div class="stanza"> Mote of any turning ray; Pipe of bird mid sunset's flush; Rain stilled, leaves flame-wet, and hush Of a rainbow's fire and spray; </div> <div class="stanza"> Any straight road leads afar 'Cross a hill-brow—What's beyond? Seven hung notes of music fond; Seven dark poplars, one white star; </div> <div class="stanza"> Cloud lifting a tower aloft; Light and play and shadowy grace Of the soul behind a face Flitting by on motion soft; [Pg 204]</div> <div class="stanza"> Lonely figure on a height; Those whose love but shines a hint Fainter than the far sea's glint To the inland gazer's sight— </div> <div class="stanza"> These alone, and but in part, Guess of what my songs are spun, And Who holds communion Subtly with my troubled heart. </div> <div class="stanza"> But the substance of my grief Scarcely can their thought surmise, Who but glimpse through these my eyes Joy as fathomless as brief. </div> <div class="stanza"> Others in this strange world flung, Orphans, too, of Destiny, Have the virtue, but not I, Keeps heart crystal, single tongue; </div> <div class="stanza"> And know not, whose hearts are whole, How—when sickened and unclean, Unfit or to see, be seen— Close thorns pack and prick the soul. </div> <div class="stanza"> Yet though here soul suffereth, Complicate by vision's light, Never would I cede this right Of a sharpened life and death. [Pg 205]</div> <div class="stanza"> For I keep in confidence In my breast a subtle faith 'Scapes alway by narrow scathe And I draw my succour thence. </div> <div class="stanza"> One Day, or maybe one Night— Living? dying?—I shall see The Rose open gloriously On its heart of living light. </div> <div class="stanza"> Know what any bird may mean, Meteor in my heart shall rest, Spelled on my brain blaze th' unguessed Words of the rainbow's dazzling sheen. </div> <div class="stanza"> O the hour for which I wait! Lovers of the Secret Love Watch with me, and we will prove Constancy can be elate. </div> <div class="stanza"> For the sigil we have now Is but echo, shadow, less Than a nothing's nothingness, To what that hour will allow: </div> <div class="stanza"> Lost and found! The Shining Ones! Music, passion, scent, delight, Light and depth and space and height: Heaven and its seven suns! </div> <div class="stanza"> Dorset Square, October, 1916. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 206] <h3>LAST WORDS</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> O let it be Just such an eve as this when I must die! To see the green bough soaking, still against a sky Washed clean after the rain. To watch the rapturous rainbow flame and fly Into the gloom where drops fall goldenly, And in my heart to feel the end of pain. The end of pain: the late, the long expected!— To see the skies clear in a sudden minute, The grey disparting on the blue within it, And on the low far sea the clouds collected. </div> <div class="stanza"> In that deep quiet die to all has been, To be renewed, to bud, to flower again: My second spring!—whose hope was nigh rejected Before I go hence and am no more seen. </div> <div class="stanza"> To hear the blackbird ring out, gay and bold, The low renewal of the ringdove's moan From among high, sheltered boughs, and ceaseless fall[Pg 207] Pitter, pitter, patter, A dribble of gold From leaves nodding each on the other one, The hush, calm piping and the slow, sweet mood! To drink the ripe warm scent of soaking matter, Wet grass, wet leaves, wet wood, Wet mould, The saddest and the grandest scent of all. </div> <div class="stanza"> So when my dying eyes have loved the trees Till with huge tears turned blind, When the vague ears for the last time have hearkened To the cool stir of the long evening breeze, The blackbird's tireless call, Having drunk deep of earth-scent strong and kind, Come then, O Death, and let my day be darkened. </div> <div class="stanza"> I shall have had my all. </div> <div class="stanza"> Lawford, April, 1916. </div> </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.