Part 2

With a full house of other folks I pass the night at Sevenoaks; And, for the air is still outside, Push the new-painted lattice wide Where night’s blue decent quilt is drawn Over the shrubs and tennis-lawn Up to the very star-lit face Of the dim unacquainted place. A yellow street-lamp, hid to me, Haloes a dusky-headed tree, And, by a hedge-row screened from sight, Paves the still road with tranquil light, Save where the path gold-parapetted Lies by a shade of leaves o’erfretted; Leaves dangle dark above the fence, Their shadowy forms sole evidence Of their sweet-breath’d nocturnal sleeping And leaves out-face the light which leaping A war with monstrous gloom to wage Spangles a den of foliage. A second lamp that burns in sight Fronts shops fast closèd for the night Whose white façades are all as mild As eye-lids of a sleeping child Which in their mute mendacity The bustle of the day belie. Among the darkling trees set back, With many a swarthy chimney-stack, The great, rich houses of the place Lie all unlit, while the slow pace Of night goes on and still lets be Their dark inert felicity. Here is all still, save when again The shuddering cries of the hid train, Deep in the cutting no one sees, Muffled below the heavy trees, Waken the sleeping shrubberies; And, with red speed and scudding spark, Disperse the arboreal-scented dark. Were’t not for these, there is no doubt But some fair daemon long cast out (The authentic goddess of the place Who far too long hath screened her face And beauty in some beechen bole Gigantic in the woods of Knole) Would choose this night for her returning, The lawns with silent footfall spurning; And such mis-shapen woodland gods As work-men with their laden hods Scattered, when Progress came with Pride And bound in brick the country-side And Sevenoaks was edified. To-night the wan demesne out-spread By star-light waits her wonted tread;— Fair! (for the dripping herb is so Fragrant and dark) forget to know That the dim grass, your sweet resort, Is branded for a tennis-court, Where silent conies scrambled through The grey-clumped fox-gloves drenched with dew In the old days so dear to you. O pardon and forget it all, The long insulting interval, Know all a dream, believe them gone, The urban race, nor having done Hurt to your oaks nor stained your streams; So stay, until the windy gleams Of dawn the occult sweet minstrels wake. Then through the gloaming by-ways take Your way bent-headed whence you stole Last night, the covert ferns of Knole, Ere the first yawning maid unbars The door and drives away the stars; Lest haply from the northern sky Smite on your ear the long-drawn sigh (There where the silence was most deep) Of London turning in her sleep.

“A PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT”

He who a mangold-patch doth hoe, Sweating beneath a sturdy sun, Clearing each weed-disguisèd row Till day-light and the task be done,

Standeth to view his labour’s scene— Where now, within the hedge-row’s girth, The little plants untrammelled green Stripes the brown fabric of the earth.

So when the absolution’s said Behind the grille, and I may go, And all the flowers of sin are dead, And all the stems of sin laid low,

And I am come to Mary’s shrine To lay my hopes within her hand— Ah, in how fair and green a line The seedling resolutions stand.

HELENA TO HERMIA (FOR WINIFRED MORGAN-BROWN)

Throw up the cinders, let the night wear through And all the dear accustomed things be said Ere up the sleepy stair-case I and you Take our warm ways to bed. Then let us loose our hands’ reluctant hold Lest the uneasy dawn behind dim groves Stir the still leaves and any hint of cold Blow on our loves.

“EFFANY”

When elm-buds turn from red to green And growing lambs more staidly graze And brighter nettle-tops are seen Along the hedge-rows’ rambling ways; When leaves unclose where late the hail Rustled in naked hawthorn twig, April comes laughing up the vale And Effany comes round to dig.

Aloof among her nursery toys From her high casement Betsey sees His vellum-coloured corduroys Stirring behind the apple-trees, Clutching her trowel she descends, With unimagined projects big, For Effany and she are friends, And she helps Effany to dig.

Deep in the flowering currant-rows The robin twitters gentle mirth Where Effany with Betsey goes Triumphant o’er the new-turned earth; And the wind wanders out and in As doubting which it loves the best— The grizzly stubble round his chin, Or her be-ruffled golden crest.

His coat, lined with carnation red, Hangs in the plum-tree’s forkèd boughs, Till sun is low and the day sped And Betsey called into the house— He scrapes his spade, her trowel she, She looks and lingers loath to start With little earth-bound feet to tea, He takes his coat down to depart.

Half musing on the little maid He trudges towards the coming night, Stooping beneath his shouldered spade, To where across the curtained light With leaves upon its fiery fold His wife’s thin shadow falls alone— For she and Effany are old And all their little ones are gone.

THE ARK

Vainly, my Betsey, to the weeping day You sing the rhyme that drives the rain away; And from your window mourn the patient trees Buffeted by the peevish Hyades. Come, let us shut the lattice, do you slide From your old Ark the gaudy-painted side And let the enlargèd captives walk about; For though a deluge be at work without, Secure within we’ve no concern for that, And all the nursery is Ararat. Not on the rug,—a space of oaken boards A firmer footing for the crew affords: Softly, my Betsey, lest your fervour harm The extreme frailness of a leg or arm— Poor limbs, so often and so rudely tossed And rattled down, no wonder some be lost Beyond the aid of glue! What skill did cram Into the hold vermilion-hatted Ham And Shem with the green top-knot and the slim Contours of Japheth, Noah (somewhat grim With buttons) and his consort after him! The wives are at the bottom, dear, but now Come the black pig and terra-cotta cow, Three foxes, this a purple collar round His rigid neck proclaims the faithful hound; The birds are not so nice, tradition fails To account for such a quantity of quails, But the old weary crow that flew and flew Away from Noah has come back for you. Where is the dove? For if my memory speak The truth there _was_ a dove and in his beak The olive leaves he plucked upon the day When, as you know, the waters ebbed away; Who perched on Noah’s window with pink feet, And without whom no Ark is thought complete. Where is the missing dove? For now I see, Standing or prone the whole menagerie, And the rain’s stopped without and all above Beams the benignant sky; and still no dove, Of the same beautiful fact the feathered proof! Why here—upon the ripples of the roof— Here is your truant painted, to abide When Shem and Ham are scattered far and wide, And all the beasts are broke, to brood with furled Pacific wings over the new-washed world.

AN UPLAND STATION

O the trucks that leave Southampton bring a smell of twine and tar, And fishy like the asphalt ways that front the glittering bar, And they steam into the station where the laurel bushes are;

And the trucks be wet and slippery as sea-weed on the rocks With their cumbrous coils of cordage from the ships beside the docks, And they creak along the platform like the clank of ogres’ locks.

What send we to Southampton for our upland valley’s freight? Comes a band of armoured milk-cans through the level-crossing’s gate And cabbages with leaves a-curl and sprouting through the crate.

And ducklings in a wicker coop and gilly-flowers to fall, Dusty-petalled in a bucket under some Southampton stall, And sons who sail for ’Meriky and bid good-bye to all.

Then it’s “Forward for Southampton!” They are gone and we turn back, Past the river and the orchard and the warm dishevelled stack, And again the silent barriers are swung across the track;

Again the platform is at peace, the idle metals shine, And the tendrils are untroubled on the station-master’s vine, And the sun is on the laurels and the sparrows on the line.

THE WORSHIPPERS

When the young Spring in Betsey’s fingers sets The first white violets, And she hath reared them in her soft brown fist, Ev’n to my stooping mouth till they be kist:— Shall I allow my kiss more fainly lingers Among her baby fingers, Where (for all pride of perfume that they shed), The very violets be out-violetted?

Great is her portion whose auriferous mines Yield new-coin’d celandines, Her dowry hoarded in the hedge-row’s heart Till the March wind hath blown the buds apart; For her delight these gay-wrought tassels be By name Dog’s Mercury, For her delight I scour from wood to wood, Lured by one lode-star with her Babyhood.

Dare I avow then, Betsey, that your grove Hath not mine only love? Have we not quit a brave and bustling world For catkins and the cuckoo-pint uncurl’d? So, while your wind-blown cheek to mine you press, I know you’ll never guess Whereto my woodland incense I prefer— And that I worship you, dear worshipper.

LINES TO A JOURNALIST, ON HIS PRAISING A NOBLE LORD RECENTLY CREATED

[“Finally it is proof of his faith in his race and his country that he owns twenty thousand acres in England and fifteen thousand in Scotland; and he has no terrors even of Mr. Lloyd George’s budgets.”]

Permit, Dear Sir, that the judicious grieve Hearing you thus old Mammon’s faith profess And the career of commerce interweave With terms of more than standard unctuousness;

For (you yourself have said it) what reward Hope you enrolled among the sworn defenders Of one who, while you tender your regard, Remains impassive and regards his tenders?

True he has great possessions, well they might Stagger your brain and sway your understanding, His English leagues—while English paupers fight To hang their washing on a London landing;

Also (’tis as you say) while they the facts Deplore of governmental tolls, his rest Is still secure, nor any Georgian Acts Rouse panic terror in that sturdy breast.

And yet, and yet, Dear Sir, it would not do For all of us to kiss the feet that Fate Has set upon our necks although (with you) We own they are superlatively great;—

Here is a rule to save the like mistakes And sift the patriots from the money-makers, These take an interest in their country’s aches, And those an interest on their country’s acres.

THE BELGIAN PINAFORE

’Twas bought in Bruges, the shop was poor, One read “Au Bébé” flourished o’er The ancient lintel; to that door No English guinea Had ever come nor travelled gold Gladdened her gaze, that woman old, Who tottered from the gloom and sold The Belgian “pinny.”

I mind me choosing in the place A cap with frills of little lace; “That too,” I said, “shall come to grace My Small and Sweet.” Prim in her pinafore arrayed I pictured Betsey while I strayed Where, all the time, the proud bells played Above the street.

Now, Betsey, on the roguish back That stalks around the sunny stack The turkey’s truculence or the track Of stable cats The Belgian “pinny” flaunts its hue, Still the same stripe of white and blue As when ’twas dyed, no doubt for you, In Flemish vats.

Still of its old lost life it tells And alien provenance, there are spells And glamour of the Town of Bells About it shed; And when my Belgian Betsey climbs My knee I’ve heard a hundred times The clash and ripple of the chimes Around her head.

As though the child herself did play Without some white estaminet Shuttered and silent where, all day In sun and shower, Two little lions with stone grins Hold ’scutcheons under paws and chins And their divine appellant dins The honoured hour.

THE WIND

The sun sank, and the wind uprist whose note Piped on amid the stubble melodies Of such appeal as ’scape the limber throat Of robin singing under saffron skies;— Then did he breathe like winding of a horn, Whereat some sable flock of clouds affrighted Huddled across their rosy pasturage Behind the troubled leaves,— Larger he loomed, a traveller benighted, Hinting of menace and insurgent rage Around the placid twilight of our eaves.

The sun was gone; beneath the steady stars That watched the spectral anticks of the oak The plumèd elm-tops met in savage wars, The smitten pools in argent splinters broke; While, as a labourer among the boughs Cudgels a harvest from the branches crooked, Within the orchard fence one plied a flail That woke the sleeping house, Till from the shivered lattice faces looked Whitely, because the apples fell like hail.

The sun uprose, serenely gold and fair, And Morning in a little ruffled pond Scanned her sweet face and prinkt her yellow hair. Around her mirror lapped the leaves, beyond Jetsam of mast and acorn hid the strand, Thick in the orchard was the wreckage piled Of twig and fruit, the pitifullest noise Of sobbing filled the land:— The wind was sleeping sadly as a child Littered about by all its broken toys.

TO BETSEY-JANE, ON HER DESIRING TO GO INCONTINENTLY TO HEAVEN

My Betsey-Jane it would not do, For what would Heaven make of you, A little honey-loving bear, Among the Blessèd Babies there?

Nor do you dwell with us in vain Who tumble and get up again And try, with bruisèd knees, to smile— Sweet, you are blessèd all the while

And we in you: so wait, they’ll come To take your hand and fetch you home, In Heavenly leaves to play at tents With all the Holy Innocents.

IN BETHLEHEM TOWN

In Bethlehem Town by lantern light Installèd is our King to-night Who for us men shall come to weep Our sins alone while very deep In shade of leaves His comrades sleep. To-night we rise with Thee to pray, O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town the shepherds spread Their fairest fleeces for Thy head Which for us men with buffets broke Shall stain the mockery of Thy cloak For the rude scorn of sinful folk. No scorn know we who sing and say, O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town soft linens wrap Thy limbs upon Thy Mother’s lap Which for us men shall soon be bound Fast to the pillar whilst around The plying scourges fall and wound. Alas, our sins be sharp as they, O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town Thou scarce couldst hold The three Kings’ gift of myrrh and gold Who for us men shall come to groan Beneath a guerdon not Thine own, Thy most dispiteous cross, alone. Now Simon’s part be ours to play, O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town Thy Mother’s knee Bore Bliss Itself in bearing Thee Who for us men with arms outspanned The Cross shall bear while she doth stand With pardon at Thy piercèd hand. So may we stand with her alway, O parve Jesu Domine.

THE MOON

Playthings my Betsey hath, the snail’s cast shell, Pebbles and small unripened pears, she dotes On gentle things with furred or feathered coats, A bunch of keys, a little brazen bell; But none of these enticements please so well, Nor pouring tea nor sailing paper boats, As the rare moon that of an evening floats In anchorages inaccessible. On frost-bound nights a portly yellow moon She kissed her hand to him before she slept, The slim white stripling of an afternoon In summer, still she longed for him and wept Seeking to coax him down an elder wand, For once, that she might hold him in her hand.

A LADY OF FASHION ON THE DEATH OF HER DOG

“Amongst the many others that were present that Cup Day were ... Mr. and Mrs. W.—— L.—— (the latter by the way has just lost a dear dog in London).”—_The Lady._

I am not lightly moved, my grief was dumb At Great-Aunt Cohen’s death, nor did I whine When Uncle Monty did at last succumb, Aged close on sixty-nine.

Dear are my friends, and yet my heart still light is, Undimmed the eyes that see our set depart, Snatched from the Season by appendicitis Or something quite as smart.

But when my Chin-Chin drew his latest breath On Marie’s out-spread apron, slow and wheezily, I simply sniffed, I could not take _his_ death So Pekineasily.

All day at Goodwood, where I planned to go, Superb in pink and Coronation-blue, I mourned, until my husband sought to know What good would mourning do?

“Fool,” I replied, “grief courts these sad ovations, And many press my sable-suèded hand, Noting the blackest of Lucile’s creations, Inquire, and understand:

And he who lies among the plane-trees shady, May rest in peace below the fallen leaf, For one, the Correspondent of ‘The Lady,’ Shares and respects my grief.”

TO A LITTLE GIRL

You taught me ways of gracefulness and fashions of address, The mode of plucking pansies and the art of sowing cress, And how to handle puppies, with propitiatory pats For mother dogs, and little acts of courtesy to cats.

O connoisseur of pebbles, coloured leaves and trickling rills, Whom seasons fit as do the sheaths that wrap the daffodils, Whose eyes’ divine expectancy foretells some starry goal, You taught me here docility—and how to save my soul.

LINES WRITTEN FOR D. E.

IN A COPY OF “THE CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES”

You that have fenced about my storm-swept ways With a green hedge-row of your hard-won bays And set the flints with flowers such as start Deep in the dear Child’s Garden of your heart— Take this small gift from her to whom ’tis life To be your Dearest Debtor and your Wife.

EPISTLE TO THOMAS BLACK, CAT TO THE SOANE MUSEUM

Pardon, Dear Sir, if with intrusive pen I would remind you that we met last week; Not that you showed me any favour then Nor that I have forgot the infernal cheek You tendered to your fellow-citizen, Veiling your yellow eyes, where black and sleek You graced the hearth-rug in the glittering gloom Of Sir John Soane’s be-mirrored breakfast-room.

Which snub to soften, an official leant Hinting, behind his tactful fingers, that It was but seldom that you _quite_ unbent Being almost a Statutory cat; If not retained by Act of Parliament (As is your noble shrine) at least you sat, Kept up by twenty shillings and tradition, As part and parcel of the exhibition.

For when (he added in an undertone) Each Reynolds, Fuseli, and Bartolozzi, Hogarth and Lawrence were bequeathed by Soane With Roman marbles and Athenian pots, he Begrudged to leave them lifeless and alone, So, having ranged them in appropriate spots, he Said—“There shall be a Cat,” and, in effect, you’re His last word in Domestic Architecture.

Thus far Authority. Now, might I ask it,— How came you, Thomas, by this lofty station From kitten-hood and the maternal basket? Was there, perchance, some stiff examination Such as tests candidates whose pleasant task it Is to advance the cause of education, In places advertised, you often see ’em, On outside pages of the _Athenæum_?

Or how were you appointed? Was it Fate or The cat before, some mid-Victorian mouser, Left you the seat Death bade him abdicate or Did hirelings kidnap you like Kaspar Hauser? Did rich relations canvass the Curator And the Trustees on your behalf? Allow, Sir, Some little light to play upon the mystery Of Thomas Black his entrance into History.

O happy he for whom does not exist Our later London—that superb disaster, Who in his Georgian hermitage has missed Our schemes of girders overlaid with plaster, Who has not met a Post-Impressionist Nor heard a maniac acclaimed a master, But sits with those who draw their weekly salary Soothed by dim models of the Dulwich Gallery.

For, be their outlook dull, at least ’tis clean. Not so the cat’s whose whole existence spent is In some half-lighted haunt of the obscene— The studio of that modern idle ’prentice Who thinks he has the trick of Hogarth’s spleen (Of course he’s twice the draughtsman) if his bent is To paint that vice with intimate elation Which Hogarth limned, apart, with detestation.

All this you’re spared; and so you might have paid Some courtesy to those, a very few, Who come withdrawn from that exterior shade To spend an hour with sanity and you,— And, when you saw that I had gladly stayed, Not closed your eye-lids and our interview But told me what the contents of each case meant And let me come with you to see the basement.

Yet, after all, you know your part, doze on; You are no common cat, you rather seem, If not the incarnation of Sir John, To be at least the creature of his dream; Visitors enter, sign their names, are gone— You stay, the centre of his classic scheme. Blink not an ear for me—t’were not expedient— But let me rest, Dear Sir, your most obedient.

FOR MY MOTHER, WITH A NEW BUTTON-BOX

When I was small, great joy it was to see Your button-box: the deathless comedy Of blowing on the lid enacted, wide It flew, I scanned the treasure-trove tongue-tied, Cassim in caves of Haberdashery! The small pearl “glove” evoked essential glee, The large white linen was an ecstasy And each gilt hook was covetously eyed When I was small. Lost are the clothes whereon those buttons be— But not the love that planned the stitchery, The button-baby is herself a bride— But sends you this with love, and writes inside “You are far dearer than you were to me When I was small.”

A CHILD BEFORE THE CRIB

We came on Christmas Day Within the church to pray And lit by candle-ray I Mary saw And Joseph and the mild Ox and that little Child With open arms who smiled Amid the straw.