Chapter 5
He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do, And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do, And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment, And stooped and drank a little more, Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me He must be killed, For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.
And voices in me said, If you were a man You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.
But must I confess how I liked him, How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless, Into the burning bowels of this earth?
Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel honoured? I felt so honoured.
And yet those voices: If you were not afraid you would kill him.
And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more That he should seek my hospitality From out the dark door of the secret earth.
He drank enough And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken, And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black, Seeming to lick his lips, And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air, And slowly turned his head, And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream, Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.
And as he put his head into that dreadful hole, And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered further, A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole, Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after, Overcame me now his back was turned.
I looked round, I put down my pitcher, I picked up a clumsy log And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.
I think it did not hit him, But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste, Writhed like lightning, and was gone Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front, At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.
And immediately I regretted it. I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act! I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.
And I thought of the albatross, And I wished he would come back, my snake.
For he seemed to me again like a king, Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld, Now due to be crowned again.
And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords Of life. And I have something to expiate: A pettiness.
* * * * *
HAROLD MONRO
THISTLEDOWN
This might have been a place for sleep, But, as from that small hollow there Hosts of bright thistledown begin Their dazzling journey through the air, An idle man can only stare.
They grip their withered edge of stalk In brief excitement for the wind; They hold a breathless final talk, And when their filmy cables part One almost hears a little cry.
Some cling together while they wait, And droop and gaze and hesitate, But others leap along the sky, Or circle round and calmly choose The gust they know they ought to use;
While some in loving pairs will glide, Or watch the others as they pass, Or rest on flowers in the grass, Or circle through the shining day Like silvery butterflies at play.
Some catch themselves to every mound, Then lingeringly and slowly move As if they knew the precious ground Were opening for their fertile love: They almost try to dig, they need So much to plant their thistle-seed.
REAL PROPERTY
'Tell me about that harvest field.' Oh! Fifty acres of living bread. The colour has painted itself in my heart; The form is patterned in my head.
So now I take it everywhere, See it whenever I look round; Hear it growing through every sound, Know exactly the sound it makes-- Remembering, as one must all day, Under the pavement the live earth aches.
Trees are at the farther end, Limes all full of the mumbling bee: So there must be a harvest field Whenever one thinks of a linden tree.
A hedge is about it, very tall, Hazy and cool, and breathing sweet. Round paradise is such a wall, And all the day, in such a way, In paradise the wild birds call.
You only need to close your eyes And go within your secret mind, And you'll be into paradise: I've learnt quite easily to find Some linden trees and drowsy bees, A tall sweet hedge with the corn behind.
I will not have that harvest mown: I'll keep the corn and leave the bread. I've bought that field; it's now my own: I've fifty acres in my head. I take it as a dream to bed. I carry it about all day....
Sometimes when I have found a friend I give a blade of corn away.
UNKNOWN COUNTRY
Here, in this other world, they come and go With easy dream-like movements to and fro. They stare through lovely eyes, yet do not seek An answering gaze, or that a man should speak. Had I a load of gold, and should I come Bribing their friendship, and to buy a home, They would stare harder and would slightly frown: I am a stranger from the distant town.
Oh, with what patience I have tried to win The favour of the hostess of the Inn! Have I not offered toast on frothing toast Looking toward the melancholy host; Praised the old wall-eyed mare to please the groom; Laughed to the laughing maid and fetched her broom; Stood in the background not to interfere When the cool ancients frolicked at their beer; Talked only in my turn, and made no claim For recognition or by voice or name, Content to listen, and to watch the blue Or grey of eyes, or what good hands can do?
Sun-freckled lads, who at the dusk of day Stroll through the village with a scent of hay Clinging about you from the windy hill, Why do you keep your secret from me still? You loiter at the corner of the street; I in the distance silently entreat. I know too well I'm city-soiled, but then So are today ten million other men. My heart is true: I've neither will nor charms To lure away your maidens from your arms. Trust me a little. Must I always stand Lonely, a stranger from an unknown land?
There is a riddle here. Though I'm more wise Than you, I cannot read your simple eyes. I find the meaning of their gentle look More difficult than any learned book. I pass: perhaps a moment you may chaff My walk, and so dismiss me with a laugh. I come: you all, most grave and most polite, Stand silent first, then wish me calm Good-Night. When I go back to town some one will say: 'I think that stranger must have gone away.' And 'Surely!' some one else will then reply. Meanwhile, within the dark of London, I Shall, with my forehead resting on my hand, Not cease remembering your distant land; Endeavouring to reconstruct aright How some treed hill has looked in evening light; Or be imagining the blue of skies Now as in heaven, now as in your eyes; Or in my mind confusing looks or words Of yours with dawnlight, or the song of birds: Not able to resist, not even keep Myself from hovering near you in my sleep: You still as callous to my thought and me As flowers to the purpose of the bee.
* * * * *
ROBERT NICHOLS
NIGHT RHAPSODY
How beautiful it is to wake at night, When over all there reigns the ultimate spell Of complete silence, darkness absolute, To feel the world, tilted on axle-tree, In slow gyration, with no sensible sound, Unless to ears of unimagined beings, Resident incorporeal or stretched In vigilance of ecstasy among Ethereal paths and the celestial maze. The rumour of our onward course now brings A steady rustle, as of some strange ship Darkling with soundless sail all set and amply filled By volume of an ever-constant air, At fullest night, through seas for ever calm, Swept lovely and unknown for ever on.
How beautiful it is to wake at night, Embalmed in darkness watchful, sweet, and still, As is the brain's mood flattered by the swim Of currents circumvolvent in the void, To lie quite still and to become aware Of the dim light cast by nocturnal skies On a dim earth beyond the window-ledge, So, isolate from the friendly company Of the huge universe which turns without, To brood apart in calm and joy awhile Until the spirit sinks and scarcely knows Whether self is, or if self only is, For ever....
How beautiful to wake at night, Within the room grown strange, and still, and sweet, And live a century while in the dark The dripping wheel of silence slowly turns; To watch the window open on the night, A dewy silent deep where nothing stirs, And, lying thus, to feel dilate within The press, the conflict, and the heavy pulse Of incommunicable sad ecstasy, Growing until the body seems outstretched In perfect crucifixion on the arms Of a cross pointing from last void to void, While the heart dies to a mere midway spark.
All happiness thou holdest, happy night, For such as lie awake and feel dissolved The peaceful spice of darkness and the cool Breath hither blown from the ethereal flowers That mist thy fields! O happy, happy wounds, Conditioned by existence in humanity, That have such powers to heal them! slow sweet sighs Torn from the bosom, silent wails, the birth Of such long-treasured tears as pain his eyes, Who, waking, hears the divine solicitudes Of midnight with ineffable purport charged.
How beautiful it is to wake at night, Another night, in darkness yet more still, Save when the myriad leaves on full-fledged boughs, Filled rather by the perfume's wandering flood Than by dispansion of the still sweet air, Shall from the furthest utter silences In glimmering secrecy have gathered up An host of whisperings and scattered sighs, To loose at last a sound as of the plunge And lapsing seethe of some Pacific wave, Which, risen from the star-thronged outer troughs, Rolls in to wreathe with circling foam away The flutter of the golden moths that haunt The star's one glimmer daggered on wet sands.
So beautiful it is to wake at night! Imagination, loudening with the surf Of the midsummer wind among the boughs, Gathers my spirit from the haunts remote Of faintest silence and the shades of sleep, To bear me on the summit of her wave Beyond known shores, beyond the mortal edge Of thought terrestrial, to hold me poised Above the frontiers of infinity, To which in the full reflux of the wave Come soon I must, bubble of solving foam, Borne to those other shores--now never mine Save for a hovering instant, short as this Which now sustains me ere I be drawn back-- To learn again, and wholly learn, I trust, How beautiful it is to wake at night.
NOVEMBER
As I walk the misty hill All is languid, fogged, and still; Not a note of any bird Nor any motion's hint is heard, Save from soaking thickets round Trickle or water's rushing sound, And from ghostly trees the drip Of runnel dews or whispering slip Of leaves, which in a body launch Listlessly from the stagnant branch To strew the marl, already strown, With litter sodden as its own,
A rheum, like blight, hangs on the briars, And from the clammy ground suspires A sweet frail sick autumnal scent Of stale frost furring weeds long spent; And wafted on, like one who sleeps, A feeble vapour hangs or creeps, Exhaling on the fungus mould A breath of age, fatigue, and cold.
Oozed from the bracken's desolate track, By dark rains havocked and drenched black. A fog about the coppice drifts, Or slowly thickens up and lifts Into the moist, despondent air.
Mist, grief, and stillness everywhere....
And in me, too, there is no sound Save welling as of tears profound, Where in me cloud, grief, stillness reign, And an intolerable pain Begins. Rolled on as in a flood there come Memories of childhood, boyhood, home, And that which, sudden, pangs me most, Thought of the first-belov'd, long lost, Too easy lost! My cold lips frame Tremulously the familiar name, Unheard of her upon my breath: 'Elizabeth. Elizabeth.'
No voice answers on the hill, All is shrouded, sad, and still ... Stillness, fogged brakes, and fog on high. Only in me the waters cry Who mourn the hours now slipped for ever, Hours of boding, joy, and fever, When we loved, by chance beguiled, I a boy and you a child-- Child! but with an angel's air, Astonished, eager, unaware, Or elfin's, wandering with a grace Foreign to any fireside race, And with a gaiety unknown In the light feet and hair backblown, And with a sadness yet more strange, In meagre cheeks which knew to change Or faint or fired more swift than sight, And forlorn hands and lips pressed white, And fragile voice, and head downcast, Hiding tears, lifted at the last To speed with one pale smile the wise Glance of the grey immortal eyes.
How strange it was that we should dare Compound a miracle so rare As, 'twixt this pace and Time's next pace, Each to discern th' elected's face! Yet stranger that the high sweet fire, In hearts nigh foreign to desire, Could burn, sigh, weep, and burn again As oh, it never has since then! Most strange of all that we so young Dared learn but would not speak love's tongue, Love pledged but in the reveries Of our sad and dreaming eyes....
Now upon such journey bound me, Grief, disquiet, and stillness round me, As bids me where I cannot tell, Turn I and sigh, unseen, farewell. Breathe the name as soft as mist, Lips, which nor kissed her nor were kissed! And again--a sigh, a death-- 'Elizabeth. Elizabeth.'
No voice answers; but the mist Glows for a moment amethyst Ere the hid sun dissolves away, And dimness, growing dimmer grey, Hides all ... till nothing can I see But the blind walls enclosing me, And no sound and no motion hear But the vague water throbbing near, Sole voice upon the darkening hill Where all is blank and dead and still.
* * * * *
J. D. C. FELLOW
AFTER LONDON
London Bridge is broken down; Green is the grass on Ludgate Hill; I know a farmer in Camden Town Killed a brock by Pentonville.
I have heard my grandam tell How some thousand years ago Houses stretched from Camberwell Right to Highbury and Bow.
Down by Shadwell's golden meads Tall ships' masts would stand as thick As the pretty tufted reeds That the Wapping children pick.
All the kings from end to end Of all the world paid tribute then, And meekly on their knees would bend To the King of the Englishmen.
Thinks I while I dig my plot, What if your grandam's tales be true? Thinks I, be they true or not, What's the odds to a fool like you?
Thinks I, while I smoke my pipe Here beside the tumbling Fleet, Apples drop when they are ripe, And when they drop are they most sweet.
ON A FRIEND WHO DIED SUDDENLY UPON THE SEASHORE
Quiet he lived, and quietly died; Nor, like the unwilling tide, Did once complain or strive To stay one brief hour more alive. But as a summer wave Serenely for a while Will lift a crest to the sun, Then sink again, so he Back to the bright heavens gave An answering smile; Then quietly, having run His course, bowed down his head, And sank unmurmuringly, Sank back into the sea, The silent, the unfathomable sea Of all the happy dead.
TENEBRAE
They say that I shall find him if I go Along the dusty highways, or the green Tracks of the downland shepherds, or between The swaying corn, or where cool waters flow; And others say, that speak as if they know, That daily in the cities, in the mean Dark streets, amid the crowd he may be seen, With thieves and harlots wandering to and fro.
But I am blind. How shall a blind man dare Venture along the roaring crowded street, Or branching roads where I may never hit The way he has gone? But someday if I sit Quietly at this corner listening, there May come this way the slow sound of his feet.
WHEN ALL IS SAID
When all is said And all is done Beneath the Sun, And Man lies dead;
When all the earth Is a cold grave, And no more brave Bright things have birth;
When cooling sun And stone-cold world, Together hurled, Flame up as one--
O Sons of Men, When all is flame, What of your fame And splendour then?
When all is fire And flaming air, What of your rare And high desire
To turn the clod To a thing divine, The earth a shrine, And Man the God?
* * * * *
FRANK PREWETT
TO MY MOTHER IN CANADA, FROM SICK-BED IN ITALY
Dear mother, from the sure sun and warm seas Of Italy, I, sick, remember now What sometimes is forgot in times of ease, Our love, the always felt but unspoken vow. So send I beckoning hands from here to there, And kiss your black once, now white thin-grown hair And your stooped small shoulder and pinched brow.
Here, mother, there is sunshine every day; It warms the bones and breathes upon the heart; But you I see out-plod a little way, Bitten with cold; your cheeks and fingers smart. Would you were here, we might in temples lie, And look from azure into azure sky, And paradise achieve, slipping death's part.
But now 'tis time for sleep: I think no speech There needs to pass between us what we mean, For we soul-venturing mingle each with each. So, mother, pass across the world unseen And share in me some wished-for dream in you; For so brings destiny her pledges true, The mother withered, in the son grown green.
VOICES OF WOMEN
Met ye my love? Ye might in France have met him; He has a wooing smile, Who sees cannot forget him! Met ye my Love? --We shared full many a mile.
Saw ye my Love? In lands far-off he has been, With his yellow-tinted hair-- In Egypt such ye have seen; Ye knew my love? --I was his brother there.
Heard ye my love? My love ye must have heard, For his voice when he will Tinkles like cry of a bird; Heard ye my love? --We sang on a Grecian hill.
Behold your love, And how shall I forget him, His smile, his hair, his song? Alas, no maid shall get him For all her love, Where he sleeps a million strong.
THE SOMME VALLEY, JUNE, 1917
Comrade, why do you weep? Is it sorrow for a friend Who fell, rifle in hand, His last stand at an end?
The thunder-lipped grey guns Lament him, fierce and slow, Where he found his dreamless bed, Head to head with a foe.
The sweet lark beats on high For the peace of those who sleep In the quiet embrace of earth: Comrade, why do you weep?
BURIAL STONES
The blue sky arches wide From hill to hill; The little grasses stand Upright and still.
Only these stones to tell The deadly strife, The all-important schemes, The greed for life.
For they are gone, who fought; But still the skies Stretch blue, aloof, unchanged, From rise to rise.
SNOW-BUNTINGS
They come fluttering helpless to the ground Like wreaths of wind-caught snow, Uttering a plaintive, chirping sound, And rise and fall, and know not where they go.
So small they are, with feathers ruffled blown, Adrift between earth desolate and leaden sky; Nor have they ever known Any but frozen earth, and scudding clouds on high.
What hand doth guide these hapless creatures small To sweet seeds that the withered grasses hold?-- The little children of men go hungry all, And stiffen and cry with numbing cold.
In a sudden gust the flock are whirled away Uttering a frightened, chirping cry, And are lost like a wraith of departing day, Adrift between earth desolate and leaden sky.
THE KELSO ROAD
Morning and evening are mine, And the bright noon-day; But night to no man doth belong When the sad ghosts play.
From Kelso town I took the road By the full-flood Tweed; The black clouds swept across the moon With devouring greed.
Seek ye no peace who tread the night; I felt above my head Blowing the cloud's edge, faces wry In pale fury spread.
Twelve surly elves were digging graves Beside black Eden brook; Eleven dug and stared at me, But one read in a book.
In Birgham trees and hedges rocked, The moon was drowned in black; At Hirsel woods I shrieked to find A fiend astride my back.
His legs he closed about my breast, His hands upon my head, Till Coldstream lights beamed in the trees And he wailed and fled.
Morning and evening are mine, And the bright noon-heat, But at night the sad thin ghosts For their revels meet.
BALDON LANE
As I went down the Baldon lane, Alone I went, as oft I went, Weighing if it were loss or gain To give a maidenhead. I met, just as the day was spent, A fancy man, a gentleman, Who smiled on me, and then began, 'Come sit with me, my maid.'
With him had I no mind to sit In Baldon lane for loss or gain, Said I to him with feeble wit, And close beside him crept; The branches might have heard my pain, The sudden cry, the maiden cry,-- My fancy man departed sly, And woman-like, I wept.
I kept the roads until my bed, A nine months' time, a weary time, And then to Baldon woods I fled In Spring-time weather mild; The kindly trees, they fear no crime, So back I came, to Baldon came, Received their welcome without blame, And moaned and dropped my child.
The poor brat gasped an hour or so, A goodly child, a thoughtful child; Perceiving nought for us but woe It stretched and sudden died; But I, when Spring breaks fresh and mild, To Baldon lane return again, For there's my home, and women vain Must hold their homes in pride.
COME GIRL, AND EMBRACE
Come girl, and embrace And ask no more I wed thee; Know then you are sweet of face, Soft-limbed and fashioned lovingly;-- Must you go marketing your charms In cunning woman-like, And filled with old wives' tales' alarms?
I tell you, girl, come embrace; What reck we of churchling and priest With hands on paunch, and chubby face? Behold, we are life's pitiful least, And we perish at the first smell Of death, whither heaves earth To spurn us cringing into hell.
Come girl, and embrace; Nay, cry not, poor wretch, nor plead, But haste, for life strikes a swift pace, And I burn with envious greed: Know you not, fool, we are the mock Of gods, time, clothes, and priests? But come, there is no time for talk.
* * * * *
PETER QUENNELL
PROCNE (A FRAGMENT)
So she became a bird, and bird-like danced On a long sloe-bough, treading the silver blossom With a bird's lovely feet; And shaken blossoms fell into the hands Of Sunlight. And he held them for a moment And let them drop. And in the autumn Procne came again And leapt upon the crooked sloe-bough singing, And the dark berries winked like earth-dimmed beads, As the branch swung beneath her dancing feet.
A MAN TO A SUNFLOWER
See, I have bent thee by thy saffron hair --O most strange masker-- Towards my face, thy face so full of eyes --O almost legendary monster-- Thee of the saffron, circling hair I bend, Bend by my fingers knotted in thy hair --Hair like broad flames. So, shall I swear by beech-husk, spindleberry, To break thee, saffron hair and peering eye, --To have the mastery?
PERCEPTION
While I have vision, while the glowing-bodied, Drunken with light, untroubled clouds, with all this cold sphered sky, Are flushed above trees where the dew falls secretly, Where no man goes, where beasts move silently, As gently as light feathered winds that fall Chill among hollows filled with sighing grass; While I have vision, while my mind is borne A finger's length above reality, Like that small plaining bird that drifts and drops Among these soft lapped hollows; Robed gods, whose passing fills calm nights with sudden wind, Whose spears still bar our twilight, bend and fill Wind-shaken, troubled spaces with some peace, With clear untroubled beauty; That I may rise not chill and shrilling through perpetual day, Remote, amazed, larklike, but may hold The hours as firm, warm fruit, This finger's length above reality.
PURSUIT