Part 2

But you are June. Deep shadows, silver dew, Red roses, and the nightingale’s delight: White moonlight the essential soul of you.

And sometimes as I watch you walk arrayed In beauty of that month, a foolish fear Comes, dear, into my heart: I am afraid

That you being one with shadow-bars and roses, Birds and wild scents of June, with these will fly And I be left alone when Summer closes Her pageantry!

SONNET

That Death shall take and slay me matters not In truth: for better men are buried under, And--tut, “what can’t be cured must be endured”! But I am wild with hate, pray devil’s thunder May fall on Death though heaven itself glow hot, Hell-like, and stars be lighted stubble, and worlds Like birds drop blinded by the bloody light! O, such a bonfire do I wish for Death Or ever his insolent envy of sweet breath Should touch and soil the body of delight-- The singing flame of fragrant holy fire Which showed to me the meaning of the spring And every lovely tune musicians bring Out of the womb of innermost desire!

SONNET

But now since Death hath certain date, I fling, Strong in this manhood for a little space, Gayest defiance in his wrinkled face, And mock that envious shadowy old king: Scyther of flowers, plucker of everything In beauty fair upgrowing; so the place Thereof knoweth no more the golden grace That was the pride and savour of its spring.

Spring is not here. But spring is in this heart, Quick with the blowing buds of lovely mirth And over-brimmed with love taken and given When that is withered, let us lie apart And rock like sleeping babes in cradle of earth, Dearest, till Doomsday: we have had our heaven.

“LOCAL FATALITIES ARE REPORTED”

Dangerously sheltered they, The lovers lay Upon the great dead hill, Frail flesh and blood: Beneath a twisted thorn, Which to the heaven’s mood Died and was born Again, as lightning fell.

Two mites of trembling clay-- Ah, what cared they! The lightning flashed: They laughed. The thunder crashed: They kissed. The grey rain lashed The hill: and hid them in mist.

Did they return again To the sunny plain, To spite and scorn, The plane of mortal care? Nay, with passions of skies They mingled were ... They were made wise Beneath the twisted thorn.

MY JOY

In your impassioned loveliness I drink a wine no heel did press In vats of place or time or space, And gazing on your April face And in your dim green-shadowed eyes I glimpse green leaves of a great vine Whose roots are firm in Paradise: And you the cup and you the wine.

THE WATCHING MOON

Calm with the calm Of all old Earth has taken To her peaceful breast, And will not awaken;

Pale with the passion Of Life that never dies; You sit there watching us With clear bright eyes.

HARVEST HOME

My heart is filled with you As a field tilled which grew But couch and weed; You are my cornfield spread, Ripe to be harvested For bitter need.

You have built barns in my heart, You have become a part Of all I knew: Wherefore I dance and sing And fear not anything Sharp scythes may do.

_POEMS OF REFLECTION_

EXPERIMENTS IN VERS LIBRE

I

Not curled into rose leaves Or twisted into fantastic patterns of beauty ...

Out of my joy in the Earth, Out of my sorrow for men, Out of the love which I bore to one and another Come these rough nuggets.

Take them--they are all I can give you! Take, and make of them whatsoever you will, You who have skill, And you also who have none.

Hold them in sunlight and moonlight Till they shine back, Ponder also the dark Earth wherefrom they came!

II

He who lies dead was my father. Degradation has befallen his flesh. Why? O, why?

The palace is fouled. The king insulted, crucified, and abandoned. The slaves have fled.

And so, after certain days, you And I too shall lie.

The pride Shall pass. Our mouths shall never kiss Nor our strong arms embrace ... We too, we too shall die.

III

Lust spoils the sunlight And narrows the day; Love widens Time to Eternity which alone can hold it!

THE PHILOSOPHER VISITS THE NIGHT CLUB

Fair and worthless things that die Praising their goddess Vanity Here gather. Like a violin Many a sweetly-scented Sin Whispers. Many a bright-wreathed Folly, Finding its roses turned to holly, Seeks with Pleasure’s aid to fend That Boredom which is Folly’s end. Wherefore the violins make moan.

For these “the visible world” alone Exists; and “ah that it should pass!” They cry, and fill a trembling glass. “Here’s to Beauty!” (surnamed Lust) They cry; and e’er it falls to dust, “Love it,” they cry, “and hug it well.”

“To whatsoever heaven or hell Fate builds for fools, these surely go,” Thought the moralist watching this tinsel show. “Yet is it not difficult to know Who best deserve the name of Fool, These or those more respectable Most moral folks I know so well?... _These_ make of living a foolish sham, _These_ play a silly blind man’s game, Chasing bubbles like a fool. But the others like a sullen mule Play at nothing at all, and so Think they’re good because they’re dull-- Where, in the name of sense, will _they_ go?”

Upon which curious reflection The sad and wondering sage arose, Paid for his drink and blew his nose, Brushed the confetti from his clothes, And shuffled forth in deep dejection.

MISERERE DOMINE

Three things a man can do without: Debtors, a scolding wife, and gout. First hates for what (he knows) they’ve got, Second for what (she knows) he’s not, The third of this unholy lot Hates him and all he hateth not, Brisk walking and the pewter pot, Sound sleep and jovial company. Who suffers these well may cry, God wot-- Miserere Domine!

NOW, IF I WERE RICH

Now, if I were rich, And lord of the manor, My limbs might all twitch. Now, if I were rich I might marry a--witch, And lose every tanner That made me so rich, And lord of the manor.

(_But I wish I were rich, And lord of the manor!_)

THE RABBLE FATES--TO HELL WITH THEM!

They fling at me stones and mud, My clothes are tattered and foul, My face is covered in blood; But they haven’t hurt my soul.

They have beaten me sore--in truth No part of me stands whole! They have stolen away my youth: But they could not steal my soul.

Robbed, baffled, and broken, Something lives in me whole; And I hold by that for a token That they cannot conquer my soul.

Let them thrash me with knotted sorrow, Stone me with sharp regret; I shall be their king on a morrow, My soul is a monarch yet.

THE LAUGHTER OF LITTLE BABIES

The laughter of little babies Who chuckle and crow Is the laugh of a stream Which needs must flow Into black caverns; on its way Reflecting briefly the blue of day.

The mirth of little babies Who chuckle and nod Is the mirth of a spirit Remembering odd Scraps of the tales and heavenly mirth He shall never remember again on Earth.

PETITION TO THE ALMIGHTY

My sins of scarlet I pray Thee wash away, For they were done in passion and hot blood, When youth was lord of me nor understood The glory of the beauty of Thy way. So pardon them; but, Lord, if I have stood The enemy of any destitute, Done cruelty to any man or brute, Or nailed Thy poor upon a cross of wood, Or on a cross of gold, or iron, O, smite! Smite with Thy rod and cast me from Thy sight.

LAST WORD

Let no man call me coward that I will die And dip no more my bread in living’s foul And muddy stream; but, God, accept my soul Which into air so soon must wandering fly. For I have never hated you at all, You brother men, albeit that you must Hate all such dust as is not of your dust, Content for power to strive and hate and brawl.

But to you who have laughed and holpen one another, You few gay valiant souls amid the rabble, I say--“God knows I have loved you!” Then forgive Me in whose heart is no more power to live: Who must with this poor gesture break the bubble Which held us here on Earth brother to brother.

VANITY OF VANITIES

We spend our days for things which profit not, We set our heart on things. When sense is edged and blood of youth is hot, And when stiff age like ice about us clings, We spend our days for that which profits not, We set our heart on things.

More worthy was the blasphemous disdain Of all God’s world of sense by stubborn saint, Ungrateful of the sunlight and the rain, Untouched by colours bending rainbows paint. More worthy was the pagan ignorance Of all save what a world of sense discloses: That found his soul above the starry dance, This in a sweet but fading heaven of roses. But us no heaven of saint nor flower delights; When sense is edged and blood of youth is hot We spend our days for things which profit not, And in the last cold days and lonely nights Wherewith our little span of living closes, We set our heart on things.

What profits it, you futile little men Who, furry-coated, tethering the lightning, From here to London ride and back again? What profits it, you whose fat hands are tightening Upon the lives of others? Nay, but tell What would you profit gaining all the world? (And if there were no hell) What have you seen of loveliness unfurled In heaven above or on the earth below? Speak! What have you to show?

What do you profit? If you drove a car Through Paradise you would not hear the wings! Did Michael leave the gates of God ajar (As he has done!) what would you crave but things? More houses, maybe, with a telephone, To call your own!

And you, my brothers, in the dim-lit mine, Or in the town, or on the tumbling sea, Who carry in your ears the hungry whine Of wolves which hunt the woods of Poverty: What profit you, if under that same sign As they who grind you down you too advance? If on the tide of chance You (swept away) Do even as they?

For close about us whir the angel wings, And near beside us sound the throbbing strings Of Paradise. The song of Brotherhood With flowers springs, and sings through all the air To that high place where Jacob’s ladder stood Tethered to chanting stars. We only dare Ignore God’s message, we alone of all His children scorn Love’s joyous festival, Spending our days for that which profits not, Setting our heart on things.

When sense is edged and blood of Youth is hot, And when stiff age like ice about us clings, We spend our days for things which profit not, We set our heart on things.

TRIOLET

Flesh triumphs awhile, And after, the spirit. By force and by guile Flesh triumphs awhile, Then finds but a pile Of grave-earth to inherit Flesh triumphs awhile And after, the spirit.

FIRE

(REVISED VERSION[1])

I

Gold-crowned with flames Behind its bars The coal: And over the chimney In a black hole Spark-children playing Their mazy games And mimic-mighty wars: Apple-logs green Crossed cunningly: Smoke-veils between Drifting and lifting....

O fire, my glee, Poor man’s friend, Food, company, Warmth and wine in one: May I never need Shillings to spend On apple-logs And coals to feed Thee, Bright-faced wonder of children and me!

[1] First version was published in _Ducks, and other Verses_, 1919.

II

Warm at thy feet I hear Speech more wise, more dear And clear than sage’s: More sweet than pages Of any poet, Showing never yet Smoke-veils of blue In golden places, Soot too, And faces In fire, and sparkling gay Little-lived glad children of fire at play.

III

What lore forlorn, What tale of tales, When man’s poor stock Of wisdom fails In Fire’s cave, Is born! Here Jack shall knock, --That hero brave On the giant’s door ... With rumbling snore The monster turns From sleep, And yawns.... But the sheep Of Little Bo-Peep (By magic quick To wolves now turning) Are following Jack. Hark, crackle crack! (Is it fire burning?) They crunch, they lick Up “Fe, Fo, Fum.” Sucking his thumb Little Jack Horner Creeps from the corner Where he had hidden Behind a pie From the giant’s eye.

Now doors as bidden Do open fly, And in they throng-- The prisoners all With a merry song. Here’s Old King Cole To lead the ball! How merrily His fiddlers three Strike up the air That pleases his soul-- A mighty sound As of wind in chimneys When trees are bare.... Round and round In smoke-wreaths whirl Prince, Shepherd-girl, King, goose-girl, queen, All who have been For joy of children, And company, Since tales began: All that a man Can believe and be Never again; Save when in fire (Apple-logs green Crossed cunningly) He sees it plain, As I have seen, This thronged night-fire: Such light that shines Through Poetry and Small tumbling strain Of song, or from a window-pane As daylight fails, As evening pales In a sweet land Shadowed with pines, Peopled with children-haunted pines Murmuring fairy-tales.

THE LIFE THAT’S UNDER THE GROUND

It’s funny to think of the life that’s under the ground. The mole that snouted up that loose red mound Of earth; the worm that turned those worm-casts; now, _They_ are enough to pucker any man’s brow.

Once (I was only a boy) I caught a mole, And he was angry, and bit a little hole In the ball of my thumb. Worms I have often found, Glow-worms, and ones like this that slithe around.

* * * * *

It’s funny to think of the life that’s under ground.

EPITAPH

This little girl In brown earth lies. She shall sweeten the sweet air Of Paradise With her slow lovely speech And wondering eyes.

INVOCATION--AND REPLY

Hear me, brave words, You who of old Came singing birds To a poet’s call: “_Many have called us, yet we served not all._” Come words of jade To make green eyes Of a little maid, Come words that sing And let her linnet speech now softly ring.

Ivory words Denote her breasts, Two fluttering birds That sit and sing For joy of some unseen delicious spring.

Dusky words weave Her falling hair, The world bereave Of shadows long And shake them in a sombre tangled throng.

Come you most durable Shining words, ’Gainst the incurable Drift of Time Guard me her sweetness safe within a rhyme.

* * * * *

_Is that thy need?_--Truly the all-complete Imperious need of every mortal lover Since life was lived in Time and Time was rover-- To carve the image of that passing-sweet Swift withering flower of Beauty naméd Love; To crystallize a moment’s grace for ever. (“_The old old plea yet that is not enough!_” _Words whisper_); to seize Joy; to stay the river Of ever-flowing water bearing down To shadowy oceans all we crave to mind us Of Beauty and her heart of perfect peace. Words, aid me! Set your Time-defying crown On all my heart would never more release. Where wait ye, words? _Here._ Come! _No, poet, find us!_

MADNESS

“Nothing without a cause,” You say. _Why did the wind Point with a thin Lean finger then?_

“Laws behind the laws, And behind all a mind.” _A mind: just so. Somebody telling it to!_

_Bidding it point and beckon And wave; Bidding it blast and blacken All life was, With thoughts of one in a grave, And wind stroking the grass._

GLOUCESTERSHIRE MEN

Gloucester, Glevum, and Caer Glow, The name is nothing! Then as now Men mowed the meadow-grass for cattle, Died for Gloucestershire in battle, Fought, and loved, and built, and planned, And wrested with this kindly land.

Man’s tiny spark of mortal fire Seems suddenly big in Gloucestershire. The little chain of life on earth Lengthens out round Minsterworth. Here and in all the country round Marks of men are on the ground.

Here no brooding iron peak, No barren desert is, to shriek The little loneliness of man, Whose days are measured by a span; But in the faces of our brothers See we the looks of those old “others”:

The men in yonder humped-up barrow, Crouched with their mortal joys and sorrow; The Roman soldier sound asleep By walls where English weeds slow creep (A thousand years are but a span ...): Each dead man was a Gloucestershire man!

A BALLADE OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE TOWNS

Or ever in Cheltenham town dyspeptic flaunted His finery, or steel-clad Normans came To build that tower at Tewkesbury bird-haunted: Or ever rose that town of olden fame-- Ciceter, out of Roman arms and flame: Before the older Bristol was begot Of Keltic fathers: Caer Glow was a name. Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!

Caer Glow, “the splendid city,” so they called it, Those funny beggars brilliant in woad; And then the tramping Romans came and walled it And called it Glevum, throwing many a road Through and around it. Dane and Saxon strode Awhile its streets; then they whose quills did blot That Domesday Book which every city showed, Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!

Bristol, that blue-eyed sailor-man, who sallied Forth to adventure, latterly has grown A merchant-prince, respectable, pot-bellied. Winchcombe--poor pagan queen--doth lack a throne. Ciceter keeps her soul, but she alone: For Tewkesbury’s soul is in a pewter-pot, And Cheltenham never had one of her own. Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!

L’ENVOY

Prince, you have travelled far and wide, and seen Much nicer towns than these? “All Tommy rot!” (“Your Royal Highness surely jests,” I mean.) Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!

LUCKY

Lucky to live, Lucky again To have met and marched With the finest men (So I believe) Earth ever bred Since heaven was arched.... _But they are dead._

Lucky to love, Most lucky to Have loved, of all I might have, you Whom Time doth prove Most tender-hearted And beautiful.... _But we are parted._

CAROL

Sing lullaby, sing lullaby, While snow doth softly fall, Sing lullaby to Jesus Born in an oxen-stall.

Sing lullaby to Jesus, Born now in Bethlehem, The naked blackthorn’s growing To weave His diadem.

Sing lullaby, sing lullaby, While thickly snow doth fall, Sing lullaby to Jesus The Saviour of all.

GOD’S BEAUTY IN THE SKY

God’s beauty in the sky, And in a silver cloud: Everywhere in the world His beauty cries aloud.

But why should I talk of it? Let me drink it up As now I drink this cider From a big blue cup!

THE LOST WORLD

What hues, what dances Do I remember Lighter than leaves dancing And red November? Why does my heart whisper Under the trees, “There are brighter colours and lighter Dancers than these”?

What dream more golden In firelight hovers Than these faces of friends And trusty lovers? Why does my heart whisper In this gay peace, “There are bolder lovers and older Comrades than these”?

_PROSE POEMS_

DAWN

ARISE!--ARISE!

Dew, like a thousand gems, is in the hair of the dear earth eager to dance.

THE VISIBLE WORLD

Rub your eyes! If a man believe not in earth, how should he believe in heaven? If he love not the visible, how should he its high symbol?

FUEL

You are burning me in a flame whereat starved men and women may warm themselves. But you are angry that the winds blow my ashes into your eyes.

BLOW, INVISIBLE MOUTHS!

Did God blow upon a reed (having cut it to His mind), what melodies might not be piped!--what news of glorious birth! To you, beloved Dead, I give my life that is but a reed. Blow, blow, invisible mouths of God!

ANGRY LOVER

Before God’s throne came the angry lover. “I am betrayed!” he cried, and the courts of Heaven rang again with the sound of the word. “Thy daughter Life have I wooed. For her have I given all--yea, all--since that is the price of love, and now, behold, Thou hast given me her dark sister, Death!”

“Yet have I but one daughter,” answered God.

“Is it possible that even yet thou dost not know me?” whispered the veiled one.

HOME

HOME!--HOME!

All night the orchards sighing and surging.... All night the branches tossing and gesturing against the moon.... All night the scent of the blossom.... But why do they say that I am dead?

LOVE SONG

He sang of the strong labouring of stars that wheel in their courses, and of passionate Suns.... Songs of courage against destiny, of scorn against mean riches; songs of sorrow, and of dancing joy; of childhood, old age, and life again after. But never a song sang he of his beloved. Therefore she laughed, and knew that he was still her slave.

THE WINDOW

Blinking at the sun, what things of horror come peering out of me!--what ages of beasts! O that God would look out of me upon His world--that I might be a window for the eyes of Christ!

BROTHERS

Are men only our brothers? Were not the animals and the stars at Bethlehem?

HOLY BROTHERHOOD

O you who have found mankind for a brother, be not content! You are brothers and sisters of angels and archangels: and your feet are on the glimmering roadways of unimaginable stars.

_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.