Chapter 4
Beyond the garden heavy oaks are buoyant on the meadows, Their rugged bark No longer rough, But chastened and refined in the glowing eyes of Love. Around us the petals fulfil Their measure and fall, precious the petals are still. For Love they once were gathered, they are gathered for Love again, Whose glance is on the water, Whose whisper is in the green shadows. In the same comrade-hand whose touch is in the sunlight, They are lying again. Here Love is ... Love only of all things outstays The drift of petals, the drift of days, Petals of hours, Of white-leafed flowers, Petalled wings of the butterfly, Drifting, quietly drifting by As a breath, a sigh....
'TRULY HE HATH A SWEET BED'
Brown earth, sun-soaked, Beneath his head And over the quiet limbs.... Through time unreckoned Lay this brown earth for him. Now is he come. Truly he hath a sweet bed.
The perfume shed From invisible gardens is chaliced by kindly airs And carried for welcome to the stranger. Long seasons ere he came, this wilderness They habited.
They, and the mist of stars Down-spread About him as a hush of vespering birds. They, and the sun, the moon: Naught now denies him the moon's coming, Nor the morning trail of gold, The luminous print of evening, red At the sun's tread.
The brown earth holds him. The stars and little winds, the friendly moon And sun attend in turn his rest. They linger above him, softly moving. They are gracious, And gently-wise: as though remembering how his hunger, His kinship, knew them once but blindly In thoughts unsaid, As a dream that fled.
So is he theirs assuredly as the seasons. So is his sleep by them for ever companioned. ...And, perchance, by the voices of bright children playing And knowing not: by the echo of young laughter When their dancing is sped.
Truly he hath a sweet bed.
LOVERS' LANE
This cool quiet of trees In the grey dusk of the north, In the green half-dusk of the west, Where fires still glow; These glimmering fantasies Of foliage branching forth And drooping into rest; Ye lovers, know That in your wanderings Beneath this arching brake Ye must attune your love To hushed words. For here is the dreaming wisdom of The unmovable things... And more:--walk softly, lest ye wake A thousand sleeping birds.
* * * * *
ROBERT NICHOLS
THE SPRIG OF LIME
He lay, and those who watched him were amazed To see unheralded beneath the lids Twin tears, new-gathered at the price of pain, Start and at once run crookedly athwart Cheeks channelled long by pain, never by tears. So desolate too the sigh next uttered They had wept also, but his great lips moved, And bending down one heard, 'A sprig of lime; Bring me a sprig of lime.' Whereat she stole With dumb signs forth to pluck the thing he craved.
So lay he till a lime-twig had been snapped From some still branch that swept the outer grass Far from the silver pillar of the bole Which mounting past the house's crusted roof Split into massy limbs, crossed boughs, a maze Of close-compacted intercontorted staffs Bowered in foliage wherethrough the sun Shot sudden showers of light or crystal spars Or wavered in a green and vitreous flood. And all the while in faint and fainter tones Scarce audible on deepened evening's hush He framed his curious and last request For 'lime, a sprig of lime.' Her trembling hand Closed his loose fingers on the awkward stem Covered above with gentle heart-shaped leaves And under dangling, pale as honey-wax, Square clusters of sweet-scented starry flowers.
She laid his bent arm back upon his breast, Then watched above white knuckles clenched in prayer.
He never moved. Only at last his eyes Opened, then brightened in such avid gaze She feared the coma mastered him again ... But no; strange sobs rose chuckling in his throat, A stranger ecstasy suffused the flesh Of that just mask so sun-dried, gouged and old Which few--too few!--had loved, too many feared. 'Father!' she cried; 'Father!' He did not hear.
She knelt and kneeling drank the scent of limes, Blown round the slow blind by a vesperal gust, Till the room swam. So the lime-incense blew Into her life as once it had in his, Though how and when and with what ageless charge Of sorrow and deep joy how could she know?
Sweet lime that often at the height of noon Diffusing dizzy fragrance from your boughs, Tasselled with blossoms more innumerable Than the black bees, the uproar of whose toil Filled your green vaults, winning such metheglyn As clouds their sappy cells, distil, as once Ye used, your sunniest emanations Toward the window where a woman kneels-- She who within that room in childish hours Lay through the lasting murmur of blanch'd noon Behind the sultry blind, now full now flat, Drinking anew of every odorous breath, Supremely happy in her ignorance Of Time that hastens hourly and of Death Who need not haste. Scatter your fumes, O lime, Loose from each hispid star of citron bloom, Tangled beneath the labyrinthine boughs, Cloud on such stinging cloud of exhalations As reek of youth, fierce life and summer's prime, Though hardly now shall he in that dusk room Savour your sweetness, since the very sprig, Profuse of blossom and of essences, He smells not, who in a paltering hand Clasps it laid close his peaked and gleaming face Propped in the pillow. Breathe silent, lofty lime, Your curfew secrets out in fervid scent To the attendant shadows! Tinge the air Of the midsummer night that now begins, At an owl's oaring flight from dusk to dusk And downward caper of the giddy bat Hawking against the lustre of bare skies, With something of th' unfathomable bliss He, who lies dying there, knew once of old In the serene trance of a summer night When with th' abundance of his young bride's hair Loosed on his breast he lay and dared not sleep, Listening for the scarce motion of your boughs, Which sighed with bliss as she with blissful sleep, And drinking desperately each honied wave Of perfume wafted past the ghostly blind Knew first th' implacable and bitter sense Of Time that hastes and Death who need not haste. Shed your last sweetness, limes! But now no more. She, fruit of that night's love, she heeds you not, Who bent, compassionate, to the dim floor Takes up the sprig of lime and presses it In pain against the stumbling of her heart, Knowing, untold, he cannot need it now.
SEVENTEEN
For Anne.
All the loud winds were in the garden wood, All shadows joyfuller than lissom hounds Doubled in chasing, all exultant clouds That ever flung fierce mist and eddying fire Across heavens deeper than blue polar seas Fled over the sceptre-spikes of the chestnuts, Over the speckle of the wych-elms' green. She shouted; then stood still, hushed and abashed To hear her voice so shrill in that gay roar, And suddenly her eyelashes were dimmed, Caught in tense tears of spiritual joy; For there were daffodils which sprightly shook Ten thousand ruffling heads throughout the wood, And every flower of those delighting flowers Laughed, nodding to her, till she clapped her hands Crying 'O daffies, could you only speak!'
But there was more. A jay with skyblue shaft Set in blunt wing, skimmed screaming on ahead. She followed him. A murrey squirrel eyed Her warily, cocked upon tail-plumed haunch, Then, skipping the whirligig of last-year leaves, Whisked himself out of sight and reappeared Leering about the hole of a young beech; And every time she thought to corner him He scrambled round on little scratchy hands To peek at her about the other side. She lost him, bolting branch to branch, at last-- The impudent brat! But still high overhead Flight on exuberant flight of opal scud, Or of dissolving mist, florid as flame.
Scattered in ecstasy over the blue. And she Followed, first walking, giving her bright locks To the cold fervour of the springtime gale, Whose rush bore the cloud shadow past the cloud Over the irised wastes of emerald turf. And still the huge wind volleyed. Save the gulls, Goldenly in the sunny blast careering Or on blue-shadowed underwing at plunge, None shared with her who now could not but run The splendour and tumult of th' onrushing spring.
And now she ran no more: the gale gave plumes. One with the shadows whirled along the grass, One with the onward smother of veering gulls, One with the pursuit of cloud after cloud, Swept she. Pure speed coursed in immortal limbs; Nostrils drank as from wells of unknown air; Ears received the smooth silence of racing floods; Light as of glassy suns froze in her eyes; Space was given her and she ruled all space.
Spring, author of twifold loveliness, Who flittest in the mirth of the wild folk, Profferest greeting in the faces of flowers, Blowest in the firmamental glory, Renewest in the heart of the sad human All faiths, guard thou the innocent spirit Into whose unknowing hands this noontide Thou pourest treasure, yet scarce recognised, That unashamed before man's glib wisdom, Unabashed beneath the wrath of chance, She accept in simplicity of homage The hidden holiness, the created emblem To be in her, until death shall take her, The source and secret of eternal spring.
THE STRANGER
Never am I so alone As when I walk among the crowd-- Blurred masks of stern or grinning stone, Unmeaning eyes and voices loud.
Gaze dares not encounter gaze, ... Humbled, I turn my head aside; When suddenly there is a face ... Pale, subdued and grievous-eyed.
Ah, I know that visage meek, Those trembling lips, the eyes that shine But turn from that which they would seek With an air piteous, divine!
There is not a line or scar, Seal of a sorrow or disgrace, But I know like sigils are Burned in my heart and on my face.
Speak! O speak! Thou art the one! But thou hast passed with sad head bowed; And never am I so alone As when I walk among the crowd.
'O NIGHTINGALE MY HEART'
O Nightingale my heart How sad thou art! How heavy is thy wing, Desperately whirred that thy throat may fling Song to the tingling silences remote! Thine eye whose ruddy spark Burned fiery of late, How dead and dark! Why so soon didst thou sing, And with such turbulence of love and hate?
Learn that there is no singing yet can bring The expected dawn more near; And thou art spent already, though the night Scarce has begun; What voice, what eyes wilt thou have for the light When the light shall appear, And O what wings to bear thee t'ward the Sun?
THE PILGRIM
Put by the sun my joyful soul, We are for darkness that is whole;
Put by the wine, now for long years We must be thirsty with salt tears;
Put by the rose, bind thou instead The fiercest thorns about thy head;
Put by the courteous tire, we need But the poor pilgrim's blackest weed;
Put by--a'beit with tears--thy lute, Sing but to God or else be mute.
Take leave of friends save such as dare Thy love with Loneliness to share.
It is full tide. Put by regret. Turn, turn away. Forget. Forget.
Put by the sun my lightless soul, We are for darkness that is whole.
* * * * *
J. D. C. FELLOW
THE TEMPLE
Between the erect and solemn trees I will go down upon my knees; I shall not find this day So meet a place to pray.
Haply the beauty of this place May work in me an answering grace, The stillness of the air Be echoed in my prayer.
The worshipping trees arise and run, With never a swerve, towards the sun; So may my soul's desire Turn to its central fire.
With single aim they seek the light, And scarce a twig in all their height Breaks out until the head In glory is outspread.
How strong each pillared trunk; the bark That covers them, how smooth; and hark, The sweet and gentle voice With which the leaves rejoice!
May a like strength and sweetness fill Desire, and thought, and steadfast will, When I remember these Fair sacramental trees!
* * * * *
SIEGFRIED SASSOON
SICK LEAVE
When I'm asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,-- They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead. While the dim charging breakers of the storm Bellow and drone and rumble overhead, Out of the gloom they gather about my bed. They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine. 'Why are you here with all your watches ended? From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line.' In bitter safety I awake, unfriended; And while the dawn begins with slashing rain I think of the Battalion in the mud. 'When are you going out to them again? Are they not still your brothers through our blood?'
BANISHMENT
I am banished from the patient men who fight. They smote my heart to pity, built my pride. Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side, They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light. Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sight They went arrayed in honour. But they died,-- Not one by one: and mutinous I cried To those who sent them out into the night.
The darkness tells how vainly I have striven To free them from the pit where they must dwell In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and riven By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel. Love drives me back to grope with them through hell; And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven.
REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE
Now light the candles; one; two; there's a moth; What silly beggars they are to blunder in And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame-- No, no, not that,--it's bad to think of war, When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you; And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts That drive them out to jabber among the trees.
Now light your pipe; look, what a steady hand. Draw a deep breath; stop thinking; count fifteen, And you're as right as rain.... Why won't it rain?... I wish there'd be a thunderstorm to-night, With bucketsful of water to sluice the dark, And make the roses hang their dripping heads.
Books; what a jolly company they are, Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves, Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green, And every kind of colour. Which will you read? Come on; O _do_ read something; they're so wise. I tell you all the wisdom of the world Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out, And listen to the silence: on the ceiling There's one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters; And in the breathless air outside the house The garden waits for something that delays. There must be crowds of ghosts among the trees,-- Not people killed in battle,--they're in France,-- But horrible shapes in shrouds--old men who died Slow, natural deaths,--old men with ugly souls, Who wore their bodies out with nasty sins.
* * * * *
You're quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home; You'd never think there was a bloody war on!... O yes, you would ... why, you can hear the guns. Hark! Thud, thud, thud,--quite soft ... they never cease-- Those whispering guns--O Christ, I want to go out And screech at them to stop--I'm going crazy; I'm going stark, staring mad because of the guns.
DOES IT MATTER
Does it matter?--losing your legs?... For people will always be kind, And you need not show that you mind When the others come in after hunting To gobble their muffins and eggs.
Does it matter?--losing your sight?... There's such splendid work for the blind; And people will always be kind, As you sit on the terrace remembering And turning your face to the light.
Do they matter?--those dreams from the pit?... You can drink and forget and be glad, And people won't say that you're mad; For they'll know that you've fought for your country, And no one will worry a bit.
CONCERT PARTY
(Egyptian Base Camp).
They are gathering round ... Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand, Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound-- The jangle and throb of a piano ... tum-ti-tum ... Drawn by a lamp, they come Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand.
O sing us the songs, the songs of our own land, You warbling ladies in white. Dimness conceals the hunger in our faces, This wall of faces risen out of the night, These eyes that keep their memories of the places So long beyond their sight.
Jaded and gay, the ladies sing; and the chap in brown Tilts his grey hat; jaunty and lean and pale, He rattles the keys ... Some actor-bloke from town ... 'God send you home'; and then 'A long, long trail; I hear you calling me'; and 'Dixieland'.... Sing slowly ... now the chorus ... one by one We hear them, drink them; till the concert's done. Silent, I watch the shadowy mass of soldiers stand. Silent, they drift away, over the glimmering sand.
KANTARA, April, 1918.
SONGBOOKS OF THE WAR
In fifty years, when peace outshines Remembrance of the battle lines, Adventurous lads will sigh and cast Proud looks upon the plundered past. On summer morn or winter's night, Their hearts will kindle for the fight, Reading a snatch of soldier-song, Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong; And through the angry marching rhymes Of blind regret and haggard mirth, They'll envy us the dazzling times When sacrifice absolved our earth.
Some ancient man with silver locks Will lift his weary face to say: 'War was a fiend who stopped our clocks Although we met him grim and gay.' And then he'll speak of Haig's last drive, Marvelling that any came alive Out of the shambles that men built And smashed, to cleanse the world of guilt. But the boys, with grin and sidelong glance, Will think, 'Poor grandad's day is done.' And dream of those who fought in France And lived in time to share the fun.
THE PORTRAIT
I watch you, gazing at me from the wall, And wonder how you'd match your dreams with mine, If, mastering time's illusion, I could call You back to share this quiet candle-shine.
For you were young, three hundred years ago; And by your looks I guess that you were wise ... Come, whisper soft, and Death will never know You've slipped away from those calm, painted eyes.
Strange is your voice ... Poor ninny, dead so long, And all your pride forgotten like your name. _'One April morn I heard a blackbird's song. And joy was in my heart like leaves aflame.'_
And so you died before your songs took wing; While Andrew Marvell followed in your wake. _'Love thrilled me into music. I could sing But for a moment,--but for beauty's sake.'_
Who passes? There's a star-lit breeze that stirs The glimmer of white lilies in the gloom. Who speaks? Death has his silent messengers. And there was more than silence in this room
While you were gazing at me from the wall And wondering how you'd match your dreams with mine, If, mastering time's illusion, you could call Me back to share your vanished candle-shine.
THRUSHES
Tossed on the glittering air they soar and skim, Whose voices make the emptiness of light A windy palace. Quavering from the brim Of dawn, and bold with song at edge of night, They clutch their leafy pinnacles and sing Scornful of man, and from his toils aloof Whose heart's a haunted woodland whispering; Whose thoughts return on tempest-baffled wing; Who hears the cry of God in everything, And storms the gate of nothingness for proof.
EVERYONE SANG
Everyone suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom, Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; on--on--and out of sight.
Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted; And beauty came like the setting sun: My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away ... O, but Everyone Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
* * * * *
EDWARD SHANKS
A NIGHT-PIECE
Come out and walk. The last few drops of light Drain silently out of the cloudy blue; The trees are full of the dark-stooping night, The fields are wet with dew.
All's quiet in the wood but, far away, Down the hillside and out across the plain, Moves, with long trail of white that marks its way, The softly panting train.
Come through the clearing. Hardly now we see The flowers, save dark or light against the grass, Or glimmering silver on a scented tree That trembles as we pass.
Hark now! So far, so far ... that distant song ... Move not the rustling grasses with your feet. The dusk is full of sounds, that all along The muttering boughs repeat.
So far, so faint, we lift our heads in doubt. Wind, or the blood that beats within our ears, Has feigned a dubious and delusive note, Such as a dreamer hears.
Again ... again! The faint sounds rise and fail. So far the enchanted tree, the song so low... A drowsy thrush? A waking nightingale? Silence. We do not know.
IN ABSENCE
My lovely one, be near to me to-night. For now I need you most, since I have gone Through the sparse woodland in the fading light, Where in time past we two have walked alone, Heard the loud nightjar spin his pleasant note, And seen the wild rose folded up for sleep, And whispered, though the soft word choked my throat, Your dear name out across the valley deep. Be near to me, for now I need you most. To-night I saw an unsubstantial flame Flickering along those shadowy paths, a ghost That turned to me and answered to your name, Mocking me with a wraith of far delight. ... My lovely one, be near to me to-night.
THE GLOW-WORM
The pale road winds faintly upward into the dark skies, And beside it on the rough grass that the wind invisibly stirs, Sheltered by sharp-speared gorse and the berried junipers, Shining steadily with a green light, the glow-worm lies.
We regard it; and this hill and all the other hills That fall in folds to the river, very smooth and steep, And the hangers and brakes that the darkness thickly fills Fade like phantoms round the light, and night is deep, so deep,--
That all the world is emptiness about the still flame, And we are small shadows standing lost in the huge night. We gather up the glow-worm, stooping with dazzled sight, And carry it to the little enclosed garden whence we came,
And place it on the short grass. Then the shadowy flowers fade, The walls waver and melt and the houses disappear And the solid town trembles into insubstantial shade Round the light of the burning glow-worm, steady and clear.
THE CATACLYSM
When a great wave disturbs the ocean cold And throws the bottom waters to the sky, Strange apparitions on the surface lie, Great battered vessels, stripped of gloss and gold, And, writhing in their pain, sea-monsters old, Who stain the waters with a bloody dye, With unaccustomed mouths bellow and cry And vex the waves with struggling fin and fold.
And with these too come little trivial things Tossed from the deeps by the same casual hand; A faint sea flower, dragged from the lowest sand, That will not undulate its luminous wings In the slow tides again, lies dead and swings Along the muddy ripples to the land.
A HOLLOW ELM
What hast thou not withstood, Tempest-despising tree, Whose bloat and riven wood Gapes now so hollowly, What rains have beaten thee through many years, What snows from off thy branches dripped like tears?
Calmly thou standest now Upon thy sunny mound; The first spring breezes flow Past with sweet dizzy sound; Yet on thy pollard top the branches few Stand stiffly out, disdain to murmur too.
The children at thy foot Open new-lighted eyes, Where, on gnarled bark and root, The soft warm sunshine lies-- Dost thou, upon thine ancient sides, resent The touch of youth, quick and impermanent?
These at the beck of spring Live in the moment still: Thy boughs unquivering, Remembering winter's chill, And many other winters past and gone, Are mocked, not cheated, by the transient sun.
Hast thou so much withstood, Tempest-despising tree, That now thy hollow wood Stiffens disdainfully Against the soft spring airs and soft spring rain, Knowing too well that winter comes again?