Chapter 4
Stephen, wake up! There's some one at the gate. Quick, to the window ... Oh, you'll be too late! I hear the front door opening quietly. Did you forget, last night, to turn the key? A foot is on the stairs--nay, just outside The very room--the door is opening wide... Stephen, wake up, wake up! Who's there? Who's there? I only feel a cold wind in my hair... Have I been dreaming, Stephen? Husband, wake And comfort me: I think my heart will break. I never knew you sleep so sound and still.... O my heart's love, why is your hand so chill?
PHILIP AND PHOEBE WARE
Who is that woman, Philip, standing there Before the mirror doing up her hair?
You're dreaming, Phoebe, or the morning light Mixing and mingling with the dying night Makes shapes out of the darkness, and you see Some dream-remembered phantasy maybe.
Yet it grows clearer with the growing day; And in the cold dawn light her hair is grey: Her lifted arms are naught but bone: her hands White withered claws that fumble as she stands Trying to pin that wisp into its place. O Philip, I must look upon her face There in the mirror. Nay, but I will rise And peep over her shoulder ... Oh, the eyes That burn out from that face of skin and bone, Searching my very marrow, are my own.
BY THE WEIR
A scent of Esparto grass--and again I recall That hour we spent by the weir of the paper-mill Watching together the curving thunderous fall Of frothing amber, bemused by the roar until My mind was as blank as the speckless sheets that wound On the hot steel ironing-rollers perpetually turning In the humming dark rooms of the mill: all sense and discerning By the stunning and dazzling oblivion of hill-waters drowned.
And my heart was empty of memory and hope and desire Till, rousing, I looked afresh on your face as you gazed-- Behind you an old gnarled fruit-tree in one still fire Of innumerable flame in the sun of October blazed, Scarlet and gold that the first white frost would spill With eddying flicker and patter of dead leaves falling-- looked on your face, as an outcast from Eden recalling A vision of Eve as she dallied bewildered and still
By the serpent-encircled tree of knowledge that flamed With gold and scarlet of good and evil, her eyes Rapt on the river of life: then bright and untamed By the labour and sorrow and fear of a world that dies Your ignorant eyes looked up into mine; and I knew That never our hearts should be one till your young lips had tasted The core of the bitter-sweet fruit, and wise and toil-wasted You should stand at my shoulder an outcast from Eden too.
WORLDS
Through the pale green forest of tall bracken-stalks, Whose interwoven fronds, a jade-green sky, Above me glimmer, infinitely high, Towards my giant hand a beetle walks In glistening emerald mail; and as I lie Watching his progress through huge grassy blades And over pebble boulders, my own world fades And shrinks to the vision of a beetle's eye.
Within that forest world of twilight green Ambushed with unknown perils, one endless day I travel down the beetle-trail between Huge glossy boles through green infinity ... Till flashes a glimpse of blue sea through the bracken asway, And my world is again a tumult of windy sea.
* * * * *
ROBERT GRAVES
LOST LOVE
His eyes are quickened so with grief, He can watch a grass or leaf Every instant grow; he can Clearly through a flint wall see, Or watch the startled spirit flee From the throat of a dead man. Across two counties he can hear, And catch your words before you speak. The woodlouse or the maggot's weak Clamour rings in his sad ear; And noise so slight it would surpass Credence:--drinking sound of grass, Worm-talk, clashing jaws of moth Chumbling holes in cloth: The groan of ants who undertake Gigantic loads for honour's sake-- Their sinews creak, their breath comes thin: Whir of spiders when they spin, And minute whispering, mumbling, sighs Of idle grubs and flies. This man is quickened so with grief, He wanders god-like or like thief Inside and out, below, above, Without relief seeking lost love.
MORNING PHOENIX
In my body lives a flame, Flame that burns me all the day; When a fierce sun does the same, I am charred away.
Who could keep a smiling wit, Roasted so in heart and hide, Turning on the sun's red spit, Scorched by love inside?
Caves I long for and cold rocks, Minnow-peopled country brooks, Blundering gales of Equinox, Sunless valley-nooks,
Daily so I might restore Calcined heart and shrivelled skin, A morning phoenix with proud roar Kindled new within.
A LOVER SINCE CHILDHOOD
Tangled in thought am I, Stumble in speech do I? Do I blunder and blush for the reason why? Wander aloof do I, Lean over gates and sigh, Making friends with the bee and the butterfly?
If thus and thus I do, Dazed by the thought of you, Walking my sorrowful way in the early dew, My heart cut through and through In this despair of you, Starved for a word or a look will my hope renew:
Give then a thought for me Walking so miserably, Wanting relief in the friendship of flower or tree; Do but remember, we Once could in love agree, Swallow your pride, let us be as we used to be.
SULLEN MOODS
Love, do not count your labour lost Though I turn sullen, grim, retired Even at your side; my thought is crossed With fancies by old longings fired.
And when I answer you, some days Vaguely and wildly, do not fear That my love walks forbidden ways, Breaking the ties that hold it here.
If I speak gruffly, this mood is Mere indignation at my own Shortcomings, plagues, uncertainties; I forget the gentler tone.
'You,' now that you have come to be My one beginning, prime and end, I count at last as wholly 'me,' Lover no longer nor yet friend.
Friendship is flattery, though close hid; Must I then flatter my own mind? And must (which laws of shame forbid) Blind love of you make self-love blind?
... Do not repay me my own coin, The sharp rebuke, the frown, the groan; No, stir my memory to disjoin Your emanation from my own.
Help me to see you as before When overwhelmed and dead, almost, I stumbled on that secret door Which saves the live man from the ghost.
Be once again the distant light, Promise of glory not yet known In full perfection---wasted quite When on my imperfection thrown.
THE PIER-GLASS
Lost manor where I walk continually A ghost, while yet in woman's flesh and blood; Up your broad stairs mounting with outspread fingers And gliding steadfast down your corridors I come by nightly custom to this room, And even on sultry afternoons I come Drawn by a thread of time-sunk memory.
Empty, unless for a huge bed of state Shrouded with rusty curtains drooped awry (A puppet theatre where malignant fancy Peoples the wings with fear). At my right hand A ravelled bell-pull hangs in readiness To summon me from attic glooms above Service of elder ghosts; here at my left A sullen pier-glass cracked from side to side Scorns to present the face as do new mirrors With a lying flush, but shows it melancholy And pale, as faces grow that look in mirrors.
Is here no life, nothing but the thin shadow And blank foreboding, never a wainscot rat Rasping a crust? Or at the window pane No fly, no bluebottle, no starveling spider? The windows frame a prospect of cold skies Half-merged with sea, as at the first creation, Abstract, confusing welter. Face about, Peer rather in the glass once more, take note Of self, the grey lips and long hair dishevelled, Sleep-staring eyes. Ah, mirror, for Christ's love Give me one token that there still abides Remote, beyond this island mystery, So be it only this side Hope, somewhere, In streams, on sun-warm mountain pasturage, True life, natural breath; not this phantasma.
A rumour, scarcely yet to be reckoned sound, But a pulse quicker or slower, then I know My plea is granted; death prevails not yet. For bees have swarmed behind in a close place Pent up between this glass and the outer wall. The combs are founded, the queen rules her court, Bee-sergeants posted at the entrance-chink Are sampling each returning honey-cargo With scrutinizing mouth and commentary, Slow approbation, quick dissatisfaction-- Disquieting rhythm, that leads me home at last From labyrinthine wandering. This new mood Of judgment orders me my present duty, To face again a problem strongly solved In life gone by, but now again proposed Out of due time for fresh deliberation. Did not my answer please the Master's ear? Yet, I'll stay obstinate. How went the question, A paltry question set on the elements Of love and the wronged lover's obligation? _Kill or forgive?_ Still does the bed ooze blood? Let it drip down till every floor-plank rot! Yet shall I answer, challenging the judgment:-- _'Kill, strike the blow again, spite what shall come.'_ 'Kill, strike, again, again,' the bees in chorus hum.
THE TROLL'S NOSEGAY
A simple nosegay! was that much to ask? (Winter still gloomed, with scarce a bud yet showing). He loved her ill, if he resigned the task. 'Somewhere,' she cried, 'there must be blossom blowing.' It seems my lady wept and the troll swore By Heaven he hated tears: he'd cure her spleen; Where she had begged one flower, he'd shower four-score, A haystack bunch to amaze a China Queen.
Cold fog-drawn Lily, pale mist-magic Rose He conjured, and in a glassy cauldron set With elvish unsubstantial Mignonette And such vague bloom as wandering dreams enclose. But she? Awed, Charmed to tears, Distracted, Yet-- Even yet, perhaps, a trifle piqued--who knows?
FOX'S DINGLE
Take now a country mood, Resolve, distil it:-- Nine Acre swaying alive, June flowers that fill it,
Spicy sweet-briar bush, The uneasy wren Fluttering from ash to birch And back again.
Milkwort on its low stem, Spread hawthorn tree, Sunlight patching the wood, A hive-bound bee....
Girls riding nim-nim-nim, Ladies, trot-trot, Gentlemen hard at gallop, Shouting, steam-hot.
Now over the rough turf Bridles go jingle, And there's a well-loved pool, By Fox's Dingle,
Where Sweetheart, my brown mare, Old Glory's daughter, May loll her leathern tongue In snow-cool water.
THE GENERAL ELLIOTT
He fell in victory's fierce pursuit, Holed through and through with shot, A sabre sweep had hacked him deep Twixt neck and shoulderknot....
The potman cannot well recall, The ostler never knew, Whether his day was Malplaquet, The Boyne or Waterloo.
But there he hangs for tavern sign, With foolish bold regard For cock and hen and loitering men And wagons down the yard.
Raised high above the hayseed world He smokes his painted pipe, And now surveys the orchard ways, The damsons clustering ripe.
He sees the churchyard slabs beyond, Where country neighbours lie, Their brief renown set lowly down; _His_ name assaults the sky.
He grips the tankard of brown ale That spills a generous foam: Oft-times he drinks, they say, and winks At drunk men lurching home.
No upstart hero may usurp That honoured swinging seat; His seasons pass with pipe and glass Until the tale's complete.
And paint shall keep his buttons bright Though all the world's forgot Whether he died for England's pride By battle, or by pot.
THE PATCHWORK BONNET
Across the room my silent love I throw, Where you sit sewing in bed by candlelight, Your young stern profile and industrious fingers Displayed against the blind in a shadow-show, To Dinda's grave delight.
The needle dips and pokes, the cheerful thread Runs after, follow-my-leader down the seam: The patchwork pieces cry for joy together, O soon to sit as a crown on Dinda's head, Fulfilment of their dream.
Snippets and odd ends folded by, forgotten, With camphor on a top shelf, hard to find, Now wake to this most happy resurrection, To Dinda playing toss with a reel of cotton And staring at the blind.
Dinda in sing-song stretching out one hand Calls for the playthings; mother does not hear: Her mind sails far away on a patchwork Ocean, And all the world must wait till she touches land; So Dinda cries in fear,
Then Mother turns, laughing like a young fairy, And Dinda smiles to see her look so kind, Calls out again for playthings, playthings, playthings; And now the shadows make an Umbrian _Mary Adoring_, on the blind.
* * * * *
RICHARD HUGHES
THE SINGING FURIES
The yellow sky grows vivid as the sun: The sea glittering, and the hills dun.
The stones quiver. Twenty pounds of lead Fold upon fold, the air laps my head.
Both eyes scorch: tongue stiff and bitter: Flies buzz, but no birds twitter: Slow bullocks stand with stinging feet, And naked fishes scarcely stir for heat.
White as smoke, As jetted steam, dead clouds awoke And quivered on the Western rim. Then the singing started: dim And sibilant as rime-stiff reeds That whistle as the wind leads. The South whispered hard and sere, The North answered, low and clear; And thunder muffled up like drums Beat, whence the East wind comes. The heavy sky that could not weep Is loosened: rain falls steep: And thirty singing furies ride To split the sky from side to side.
They sing, and lash the wet-flanked wind: Sing, from Col to Hafod Mynd, And fling their voices half a score Of miles along the mounded shore: Whip loud music from a tree, And roll their paean out to sea Where crowded breakers fling and leap, And strange things throb five fathoms deep.
The sudden tempest roared and died: The singing furies muted ride Down wet and slippery roads to hell: And, silent in their captors' train, Two fishers, storm-caught on the main: A shepherd, battered with his flocks; A pit-boy tumbled from the rocks; A dozen back-broke gulls, and hosts Of shadowy, small, pathetic ghosts, --Of mice and leverets caught by flood; Their beauty shrouded in cold mud.
MOONSTRUCK
Cold shone the moon, with noise The night went by. Trees uttered things of woe: Bent grass dared not grow:
Ah, desperate man with haggard eyes And hands that fence away the skies, On rock and briar stumbling, Is it fear of the storm's rumbling, Of the hissing cold rain, Or lightning's tragic pain Drives you so madly? See, see the patient moon; How she her course keeps Through cloudy shallows and across black deeps, Now gone, now shines soon. Where's cause for fear?
'I shudder and shudder At her bright light: I fear, I fear, That she her fixt course follows So still and white Through deeps and shallows With never a tremor: Naught shall disturb her. I fear, I fear What they may be That secretly bind her: What hand holds the reins Of those sightless forces That govern her courses. Is it Setebos Who deals in her command? Or that unseen Night-Comer With tender curst hand? --I shudder, and shudder.'
Poor storm-wisp, wander! Wind shall not hurt thee, Rain not appal thee, Lightning not blast thee; Thou art worn so frail, Only the moonlight pale To an ash shall burn thee, To an invisible Pain.
VAGRANCY
When the slow year creeps hay-ward, and the skies Are warming in the summer's mild surprise, And the still breeze disturbs each leafy frond Like hungry fishes dimpling in a pond, It is a pleasant thing to dream at ease On sun-warmed thyme, not far from beechen trees.
A robin flashing in a rowan-tree, A wanton robin, spills his melody As if he had such store of golden tones That they were no more worth to him than stones: The sunny lizards dream upon the ledges: Linnets titter in and out the hedges, Or swoop among the freckled butterflies.
Down to a beechen hollow winds the track And tunnels past my twilit bivouac: Two spiring wisps of smoke go singly up And scarcely tremble in the leafy air.
--There are more shadows in this loamy cup Than God could count: and oh, but it is fair: The kindly green and rounded trunks, that meet Under the soil with twinings of their feet And in the sky with twinings of their arms: The yellow stools: the still ungathered charms Of berry, woodland herb, and bryony, And mid-wood's changeling child, Anemone.
* * * * *
Quiet as a grave beneath a spire I lie and watch the pointed climbing fire, I lie and watch the smoky weather-cock That climbs too high, and bends to the breeze's shock, And breaks, and dances off across the skies Gay as a flurry of blue butterflies.
But presently the evening shadows in, Heralded by the night-jar's solitary din And the quick bat's squeak among the trees; --Who sudden rises, darting across the air To weave her filmy web in the Sun's bright hair That slowly sinks dejected on his knees....
Now is he vanished: the bewildered skies Flame out a desperate and last surmise; Then yield to Night, their sudden conqueror.
From pole to pole the shadow of the world Creeps over heaven, till itself is lit By the very many stars that wake in it: Sleep, like a messenger of great import, Lays quiet and compelling hands athwart The easy idlenesses of my mind. --There is a breeze above me, and around: There is a fire before me, and behind: But Sleep doth hold me, and I hear no sound.
In the far West the clouds are mustering, Without hurry, noise, or blustering: And soon as Body's nightly Sentinel Himself doth nod, I open furtive eyes....
With darkling hook the Farmer of the Skies Goes reaping stars: they flicker, one by one, Nodding a little; tumble,--and are gone.
POETS, PAINTERS, PUDDINGS
Poets, painters, and puddings; these three Make up the World as it ought to be.
Poets make faces And sudden grimaces: They twit you, and spit you On words: then admit you To heaven or hell By the tales that they tell.
Painters are gay As young rabbits in May: They buy jolly mugs, Bowls, pictures, and jugs: The things round their necks Are lively with checks, (For they like something red As a frame for the head): Or they'll curse you with oaths, That tear holes in your clothes. (With nothing to mend them You'd best not offend them.)
Puddings should be Full of currants, for me: Boiled in a pail, Tied in the tail Of an old bleached shirt: So hot that they hurt, So huge that they last From the dim, distant past Until the crack o' doom Lift the roof off the room.
Poets, painters, and puddings; these three Crown the day as it crowned should be.
* * * * *
WILLIAM KERR
IN MEMORIAM D. O. M.
Chestnut candles are lit again For the dead that died in spring: Dead lovers walk the orchard ways, And the dead cuckoos sing.
Is it they who live and we who are dead? Hardly the springtime knows For which today the cuckoo calls, And the white blossom blows.
Listen and hear the happy wind Whisper and lightly pass: 'Your love is sweet as hawthorn is, Your hope green as the grass.
'The hawthorn's faint and quickly gone, The grass in autumn dies; Put by your life, and see the spring With everlasting eyes.'
PAST AND PRESENT
Daisies are over Nyren, and Hambledon Hardly remembers any summer gone: And never again the Kentish elms shall see Mynn, or Fuller Pilch, or Colin Blythe. --Nor shall I see them, unless perhaps a ghost Watching the elder ghosts beyond the moon. But here in common sunshine I have seen George Hirst, not yet a ghost, substantial, His off-drives mellow as brown ale, and crisp Merry late cuts, and brave Chaucerian pulls; Waddington's fury and the patience of Dipper; And twenty easy artful overs of Rhodes, So many stanzas of the Faerie Queen.
THE AUDIT
Mere living wears the most of life away: Even the lilies take thought for many things, For frost in April and for drought in May, And from no careless heart the skylark sings.
Those cheap utilities of rain and sun Describe the foolish circle of our years, Until death takes us, doing all undone, And there's an end at last to hopes and fears.
Though song be hollow and no dreams come true, Still songs and dreams are better than the truth: But there's so much to get, so much to do, Mary must drudge like Martha, dainty Ruth
Forget the morning music in the corn, And Rachel grudge when Leah's boys are born.
THE APPLE TREE
Secret and wise as nature, like the wind Melancholy or light-hearted without reason, And like the waxing or the waning moon Ever pale and lovely: you are like these Because you are free and live by your own law; While I, desiring life and half alive, Dream, hope, regret and fear and blunder on. Your beauty is your life and my content, And I will liken you to an apple-tree, Mary and Margaret playing under the branches, And everywhere soft shadows like your eyes, And scattered blossom like your little smiles.
HER NEW-YEAR POSY
When I seek the world through For images of you, Though apple-blossom is glad And the lily stately-sad, Gilliflowers kind of breath, Rosemary true till death; Though the wind can stir the grass To memories as you pass. And the soft-singing streams Are music like your dreams; Though constant stars embrace The quiet of your face, Your smile lights up sunrise, And evening's in your eyes-- Each so shadows its part, All cannot show your heart; And weighing the beauty of earth I see it so little worth, When reckoned beside you, That I hold heaven for true --But all my heaven is you.
COUNTING SHEEP
Half-awake I walked A dimly-seen sweet hawthorn lane Until sleep came; I lingered at a gate and talked A little with a lonely lamb. He told me of the great still night, Of calm starlight, And of the lady moon, who'd stoop For a kiss sometimes; Of grass as soft as sleep, of rhymes The tired flowers sang: The ageless April tales Of how, when sheep grew old, As their faith told, They went without a pang To far green fields, where fall Perpetual streams that call To deathless nightingales. And then I saw, hard by, A shepherd lad with shining eyes, And round him gathered one by one Countless sheep, snow-white; More and more they crowded With tender cries, Till all the field was full Of voices and of coming sheep. Countless they came, and I Watched, until deep As dream-fields lie I was asleep.
THE TREES AT NIGHT
Under vague silver moonlight The trees are lovely and ghostly, In the pale blue of the night There are few stars to see.
The leaves are green still, but brown-blent: They stir not, only known By a poignant delicate scent To the lonely moon blown.
The lonely lovely trees sigh For summer spent and gone: A few homing leaves drift by, Poor souls bewildered and wan.
THE DEAD
How shall the living be comforted for the dead When they are gone, and nothing's left behind But a vague music of the words they said And a fast-fading image in the mind?
Let no forgetting sully that dim grace; Our heart's infirmity is too easily won To set a new love in the old love's place And seek fresh vanity under the sun.
Time brings to us at last, as night the stars, The starry silence of eternity: For there is no discharge in our long wars, Nor balm for wounds, nor love's security.
Be patient to the end, and you shall sleep Pillowed on heartsease and forget to weep.
* * * * *
D.H. LAWRENCE
SNAKE
A snake came to my water-trough On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat, To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob tree I came down the steps with my pitcher And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before me.
He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of the stone trough And rested his throat upon the stone bottom, And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness, He sipped with his straight mouth, Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body, Silently.
Someone was before me at my water-trough, And I, like a second-comer, waiting.