Chapter 6
As wind-drowned scents that bring to other hills Disquieting memories of silences, Broad silences beyond the memory; As feathered swaying seeds, as wings of birds Dappling the sky with honey-coloured gold; Faint murmurs, clear, keen-winged of swift ideas Break my small silences; And I must hunt and come to tire of hunting Strange laughing thoughts that roister through my mind, Hopelessly swift to flit; and so I hunt And come to tire of hunting.
* * * * *
V. SACKVILLE-WEST
A SAXON SONG
Tools with the comely names, Mattock and scythe and spade, Couth and bitter as flames, Clean, and bowed in the blade,-- A man and his tools make a man and his trade.
Breadth of the English shires, Hummock and kame and mead, Tang of the reeking byres, Land of the English breed,-- A man and his land make a man and his creed.
Leisurely flocks and herds, Cool-eyed cattle that come Mildly to wonted words, Swine that in orchards roam,-- A man and his beasts make a man and his home.
Children sturdy and flaxen Shouting in brotherly strife, Like the land they are Saxon, Sons of a man and his wife,-- For a man and his loves make a man and his life.
MARIANA IN THE NORTH
All her youth is gone, her beautiful youth outworn, Daughter of tarn and tor, the moors that were once her home No longer know her step on the upland tracks forlorn Where she was wont to roam.
All her hounds are dead, her beautiful hounds are dead, That paced beside the hoofs of her high and nimble horse, Or streaked in lean pursuit of the tawny hare that fled Out of the yellow gorse.
All her lovers have passed, her beautiful lovers have passed, The young and eager men that fought for her arrogant hand, And the only voice which endures to mourn for her at the last Is the voice of the lonely land.
FULL MOON
She was wearing the coral taffeta trousers Someone had brought her from Ispahan, And the little gold coat with pomegranate blossoms, And the coral-hafted feather fan; But she ran down a Kentish lane in the moonlight, And skipped in the pool of the moon as she ran.
She cared not a rap for all the big planets, For Betelgeuse or Aldebaran, And all the big planets cared nothing for her, That small impertinent charlatan; But she climbed on a Kentish stile in the moonlight, And laughed at the sky through the sticks of her fan.
SAILING SHIPS
Lying on Downs above the wrinkling bay I with the kestrels shared the cleanly day, The candid day; wind-shaven, brindled turf; Tall cliffs; and long sea-line of marbled surf From Cornish Lizard to the Kentish Nore Lipping the bulwarks of the English shore, While many a lovely ship below sailed by On unknown errand, kempt and leisurely; And after each, oh, after each, my heart Fled forth, as, watching from the Downs apart, I shared with ships good joys and fortunes wide That might befall their beauty and their pride;
Shared first with them the blessed void repose Of oily days at sea, when only rose The porpoise's slow wheel to break the sheen Of satin water indolently green, When for'ard the crew, caps tilted over eyes, Lay heaped on deck; slept; mumbled; smoked; threw dice; The sleepy summer days; the summer nights (The coast pricked out with rings of harbour-lights), The motionless nights, the vaulted nights of June When high in the cordage drifts the entangled moon, And blocks go knocking, and the sheets go slapping, And lazy swells against the sides come lapping; And summer mornings off red Devon rocks, Faint inland bells at dawn and crowing cocks;
Shared swifter days, when headlands into ken Trod grandly; threatened; and were lost again, Old fangs along the battlemented coast; And followed still my ship, when winds were most Night-purified, and, lying steeply over, She fled the wind as flees a girl her lover, Quickened by that pursuit for which she fretted, Her temper by the contest proved and whetted. Wild stars swept overhead; her lofty spars Reared to a ragged heaven sown with stars As leaping out from narrow English ease She faced the roll of long Atlantic seas.
Her captain then was I, I was her crew, The mind that laid her course, the wake she drew, The waves that rose against her bows, the gales,-- Nay, I was more: I was her very sails Rounded before the wind, her eager keel, Her straining mast-heads, her responsive wheel, Her pennon stiffened like a swallow's wing; Yes, I was all her slope and speed and swing, Whether by yellow lemons and blue sea She dawdled through the isles off Thessaly, Or saw the palms like sheaves of scimitars On desert's verge below the sunset bars, Or passed the girdle of the planet where The Southern Cross looks over to the Bear, And strayed, cool Northerner beneath strange skies, Flouting the lure of tropic estuaries, Down that long coast, and saw Magellan's Clouds arise.
And some that beat up Channel homeward-bound I watched, and wondered what they might have found, What alien ports enriched their teeming hold With crates of fruit or bars of unwrought gold? And thought how London clerks with paper-clips Had filed the bills of lading of those ships, Clerks that had never seen the embattled sea, But wrote down jettison and barratry, Perils, Adventures, and the Act of God, Having no vision of such wrath flung broad; Wrote down with weary and accustomed pen The classic dangers of sea-faring men; And wrote 'Restraint of Princes,' and 'the Acts Of the King's Enemies,' as vacant facts, Blind to the ambushed seas, the encircling roar Of angry nations foaming into war.
TRIO
So well she knew them both! yet as she came Into the room, and heard their speech Of tragic meshes knotted with her name, And saw them, foes, but meeting each with each Closer than friends, souls bared through enmity, Beneath their startled gaze she thought that she Broke as the stranger on their conference, And stole abashed from thence.
BITTERNESS
Yes, they were kind exceedingly; most mild Even in indignation, taking by the hand One that obeyed them mutely, as a child Submissive to a law he does not understand.
They would not blame the sins his passion wrought. No, they were tolerant and Christian, saying, 'We Only deplore ...' saying they only sought To help him, strengthen him, to show him love; but he
Following them with unrecalcitrant tread, Quiet, towards their town of kind captivities, Having slain rebellion, ever turned his head Over his shoulder, seeking still with his poor eyes
Her motionless figure on the road. The song Rang still between them, vibrant bell to answering bell, Full of young glory as a bugle; strong; Still brave; now breaking like a sea-bird's cry 'Farewell!'
And they, they whispered kindly to him 'Come! Now we have rescued you. Let your heart heal. Forget! She was your lawless dark familiar.' Dumb, He listened, and they thought him acquiescent. Yet,
(Knowing the while that they were very kind) Remembrance clamoured in him: 'She was wild and free, Magnificent in giving; she was blind To gain or loss, and, loving, loved but me,--but me!
'Valiant she was, and comradely, and bold; High-mettled; all her thoughts a challenge, like gay ships Adventurous, with treasure in the hold. I met her with the lesson put into my lips,
'Spoke reason to her, and she bowed her head, Having no argument, and giving up the strife. She said I should be free. I think she said That, for the asking, she would give me all her life.'
And still they led him onwards, and he still Looked back towards her standing there; and they, content, Cheered him and praised him that he did their will. The gradual distance hid them, and she turned, and went.
EVENING
When little lights in little ports come out, Quivering down through water with the stars, And all the fishing fleet of slender spars Range at their moorings, veer with tide about;
When race of wind is stilled and sails are furled, And underneath our single riding-light The curve of black-ribbed deck gleams palely white, And slumbrous waters pool a slumbrous world;
--Then, and then only, have I thought how sweet Old age might sink upon a windy youth, Quiet beneath the riding-light of truth, Weathered through storms, and gracious in retreat.
* * * * *
EDWARD SHANKS
THE ROCK POOL
This is the sea. In these uneven walls A wave lies prisoned. Far and far away Outward to ocean, as the slow tide falls, Her sisters through the capes that hold the bay Dancing in lovely liberty recede. Yet lovely in captivity she lies, Filled with soft colours, where the wavering weed Moves gently and discloses to our eyes Blurred shining veins of rock and lucent shells Under the light-shot water; and here repose Small quiet fish and dimly glowing bells Of sleeping sea-anemones that close Their tender fronds and will not now awake Till on these rocks the waves returning break.
THE GLADE
We may raise our voices even in this still glade: Though the colours and shadows and sounds so fleeting seem, We shall not dispel them. They are not made Frailly by earth or hands, but immortal in our dream.
We may touch the faint violets with the hands of thought, Or lay the pale core of the wild arum bare; And for ever in our minds the white wild cherry is caught, Cloudy against the sky and melting into air.
This which we have seen is eternally ours, No others shall tread in the glade which now we see; Their hands shall not touch the frail tranquil flowers, Nor their hearts faint in wonder at the wild white tree.
MEMORY
In silence and in darkness memory wakes Her million sheathed buds, and breaks That day-long winter when the light and noise And hard bleak breath of the outward-looking will Made barren her tender soil, when every voice Of her million airy birds was muffled or still.
One bud-sheath breaks: One sudden voice awakes.
What change grew in our hearts, seeing one night That moth-winged ship drifting across the bay, Her broad sail dimly white On cloudy waters and hills as vague as they? Some new thing touched our spirits with distant delight, Half-seen, half-noticed, as we loitered down, Talking in whispers, to the little town, Down from the narrow hill --Talking in whispers, for the air so still Imposed its stillness on our lips, and made A quiet equal with the equal shade That filled the slanting walk. That phantom now Slides with slack canvas and unwhispering prow Through the dark sea that this dark room has made.
Or the night of the closed eyes will turn to day, And all day's colours start out of the gray. The sun burns on the water. The tall hills Push up their shady groves into the sky, And fail and cease where the intense light spills Its parching torrent on the gaunt and dry Rock of the further mountains, whence the snow That softened their harsh edges long is gone, And nothing tempers now The hot flood falling on the barren stone.
O memory, take and keep All that my eyes, your servants, bring you home-- Those other days beneath the low white dome Of smooth-spread clouds that creep As slow and soft as sleep, When shade grows pale and the cypress stands upright, Distinct in the cool light, Rigid and solid as a dark hewn stone; And many another night, That melts in darkness on the narrow quays, And changes every colour and every tone, And soothes the waters to a softer ease, When under constellations coldly bright The homeward sailors sing their way to bed On ships that motionless in harbour float. The circling harbour-lights flash green and red; And, out beyond, a steady travelling boat, Breaking the swell with slow industrious oars, At each stroke pours Pale lighted water from the lifted blade. Now in the painted houses all around Slow-darkening windows call The empty unwatched middle of the night. The tide's few inches rise without a sound. On the black promontory's windless head, The last awake, the fireflies rise and fall And tangle up their dithering skeins of light.
O memory, take and keep All that my eyes, your servants, bring you home! Thick through the changing year The unexpected, rich-charged moments come, That you twixt wake and sleep In the lids of the closed eyes shall make appear.
This is life's certain good, Though in the end it be not good at all When the dark end arises, And the stripped, startled spirit must let fall The amulets that could Prevail with life's but not death's sad devices.
Then, like a child from whom an older child Forces its gathered treasures, Its beads and shells and strings of withered flowers, Tokens of recent pleasures, The soul must lose in eyes weeping and wild Those prints of vanished hours.
WOMAN'S SONG
No more upon my bosom rest thee, Too often have my hands caressed thee, My lips thou knowest well, too well; Lean to my heart no more thine ear My spirit's living truth to hear --It has no more to tell.
In what dark night, in what strange night, Burnt to the butt the candle's light That lit our room so long? I do not know, I thought I knew How love could be both sweet and true: I also thought it strong.
Where has the flame departed? Where, Amid the empty waste of air, Is that which dwelt with us? Was it a fancy? Did we make Only a show for dead love's sake, It being so piteous?
No more against my bosom press thee, Seek no more that my hands caress thee, Leave the sad lips thou hast known so well; If to my heart thou lean thine ear, There grieving thou shalt only hear Vain murmuring of an empty shell.
THE WIND
Blow harder, wind, and drive My blood from hands and face back to the heart. Cry over ridges and down tapering coombs, Carry the flying dapple of the clouds Over the grass, over the soft-grained plough, Stroke with ungentle hand the hill's rough hair Against its usual set. Snatch at the reins in my dead hands and push me Out of my saddle, blow my labouring pony Across the track. You only drive my blood Nearer the heart from face and hands, and plant there, Slowly burning, unseen, but alive and wonderful, A numb, confused joy! This little world's in tumult. Far away The dim waves rise and wrestle with each other And fall down headlong on the beach. And here Quick gusts fly up the funnels of the valleys And meet their raging fellows on the hill-tops, And we are in the midst. This beating heart, enriched with the hands' blood, Stands in the midst and feels the warm joy burn In solitude and silence, while all about The gusts clamour like living, angry birds, And the gorse seems hardly tethered to the ground. Blow louder, wind, about My square-set house, rattle the windows, lift The trap-door to the loft above my head And let it fall, clapping. Yell in the trees, And throw a rotted elm-branch to the ground, Flog the dry trailers of my climbing rose-- Make deep, O wind, my rest!
A LONELY PLACE
The leafless trees, the untidy stack Last rainy summer raised in haste, Watch the sky turn from fair to black And watch the river fill and waste;
But never a footstep comes to trouble The sea-gulls in the new-sown corn, Or pigeons rising from late stubble And flashing lighter as they turn.
Or if a footstep comes, 'tis mine Sharp on the road or soft on grass: Silence divides along my line And shuts behind me as I pass.
No other comes, no labourer To cut his shaggy truss of hay, Along the road no traveller, Day after day, day after day.
And even I, when I come here, Move softly on, subdued and still, Lonely as death, though I can hear Men shouting on the other hill.
Day after day, though no one sees, The lonely place no different seems; The trees, the stack, still images Constant in who can say whose dreams?
* * * * *
J.C. SQUIRE
ELEGY
I vaguely wondered what you were about, But never wrote when you had gone away; Assumed you better, quenched the uneasy doubt You might need faces, or have things to say. Did I think of you last evening? Dead you lay. O bitter words of conscience! I hold the simple message, And fierce with grief the awakened heart cries out: 'It shall not be to-day;
It is still yesterday; there is time yet!' Sorrow would strive backward to wrench the sun, But the sun moves. Our onward course is set, The wake streams out, the engine pulses run Droning, a lonelier voyage is begun. It is all too late for turning, You are past all mortal signal, There will be time for nothing but regret And the memory of things done!
The quiet voice that always counselled best, The mind that so ironically played Yet for mere gentleness forebore the jest. The proud and tender heart that sat in shade Nor once solicited another's aid, Yet was so grateful always For trifles lightly given, The silences, the melancholy guessed Sometimes, when your eyes strayed.
But always when you turned, you talked the more. Through all our literature your way you took With modest ease; yet would you soonest pore, Smiling, with most affection in your look, On the ripe ancient and the curious nook. Sage travellers, learned printers, Divines and buried poets, You knew them all, but never half your lore Was drawn from any book.
Stories and jests from field and town and port, And odd neglected scraps of history From everywhere, for you were of the sort, Cool and refined, who like rough company: Carter and barmaid, hawker and bargee, Wise pensioners and boxers With whom you drank, and listened To legends of old revelry and sport And customs of the sea.
I hear you: yet more clear than all one note, One sudden hail I still remember best, That came on sunny days from one afloat And drew me to the pane in certain quest Of a long brown face, bare arms and flimsy vest, In fragments through the branches, Above the green reflections: Paused by the willows in your varnished boat You, with your oars at rest.
Did that come back to you when you were dying? I think it did: you had much leisure there, And, with the things we knew, came quietly flying Memories of things you had seen we knew not where.
You watched again with meditative stare Places where you had wandered, Golden and calm in distance: Voices from all your altering past came sighing On the soft Hampshire air.
For there you sat a hundred miles away, A rug upon your knees, your hands gone frail, And daily bade your farewell to the day, A music blent of trees and clouds a-sail And figures in some old neglected tale: And watched the sunset gathering, And heard the birdsong fading, And went within when the last sleepy lay Passed to a farther vale,
Never complaining, and stepped up to bed More and more slow, a tall and sunburnt man Grown bony and bearded, knowing you would be dead Before the summer, glad your life began Even thus to end, after so short a span, And mused a space serenely, Then fell to easy slumber, At peace, content. For never again your head Need make another plan.
Most generous, most gentle, most discreet, Who left us ignorant to spare us pain: We went our ways with too forgetful feet And missed the chance that would not come again, Leaving with thoughts on pleasure bent, or gain, Fidelity unattested And services unrendered: The ears are closed, the heart has ceased to beat, And now all proof is vain.
Too late for other gifts, I give you this, Who took from you so much, so carelessly, On your far brows a first and phantom kiss, On your far grave a careful elegy. For one who loved all life and poetry, Sorrow in music bleeding, And friendship's last confession. But even as I speak that inner hiss Softly accuses me,
Saying: Those brows are senseless, deaf that tomb, This is the callous, cold resort of art. 'I give you this.' What do I give? to whom? Words to the air, and balm to my own heart, To its old luxurious and commanded smart. An end to all this tuning, This cynical masquerading; What comfort now in that far final gloom Can any song impart?
O yet I see you dawning from some heaven, Who would not suffer self-reproach to live In one to whom your friendship once was given. I catch a vision, faint and fugitive, Of a dark face with eyes contemplative, Deep eyes that smile in silence, And parted lips that whisper, 'Say nothing more, old friend, of being forgiven, There is nothing to forgive.'
MEDITATION IN LAMPLIGHT
What deaths men have died, not fighting but impotent. Hung on the wire, between trenches, burning and freezing, Groaning for water with armies of men so near; The fall over cliff, the clutch at the rootless grass, The beach rushing up, the whirling, the turning headfirst; Stiff writhings of strychnine, taken in error or haste, Angina pectoris, shudders of the heart; Failure and crushing by flying weight to the ground, Claws and jaws, the stink of a lion's breath; Swimming, a white belly, a crescent of teeth, Agony, and a spirting shredded limb, And crimson blood staining the green water; And, horror of horrors, the slow grind on the rack, The breaking bones, the stretching and bursting skin, Perpetual fainting and waking to see above The down-thrust mocking faces of cruel men, With the power of mercy, who gloat upon shrieks for mercy.
O pity me, God! O God, make tolerable, Make tolerable the end that awaits for me, And give me courage to die when the time comes, When the time comes as it must, however it comes, That I shrink not nor scream, gripped by the jaws of the vice; For the thought of it turns me sick, and my heart stands still, Knocks and stands still. O fearful, fearful Shadow, Kill me, let me die to escape the terror of thee!
A tap. Come in! Oh, no, I am perfectly well, Only a little tired. Take this one, it's softer. How are things going with you? Will you have some coffee? Well, of course it's trying sometimes, but never mind, It will probably be all right. Carry on, and keep cheerful. I shouldn't, if I were you, meet trouble half-way, It is always best to take everything as it comes.
LATE SNOW
The heavy train through the dim country went rolling, rolling, Interminably passing misty snow-covered plough-land ridges That merged in the snowy sky; came turning meadows, fences, Came gullies and passed, and ice-coloured streams under frozen bridges.
Across the travelling landscape evenly drooped and lifted The telegraph wires, thick ropes of snow in the windless air; They drooped and paused and lifted again to unseen summits, Drawing the eyes and soothing them, often, to a drowsy stare.
Singly in the snow the ghosts of trees were softly pencilled, Fainter and fainter, in distance fading, into nothingness gliding, But sometimes a crowd of the intricate silver trees of fairyland Passed, close and intensely clear, the phantom world hiding.
O untroubled these moving mantled miles of shadowless shadows, And lovely the film of falling flakes; so wayward and slack; But I thought of many a mother-bird screening her nestlings, Sitting silent with wide bright eyes, snow on her back.
* * * * *
FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG
SEASCAPE
Over that morn hung heaviness, until, Near sunless noon, we heard the ship's bell beating A melancholy staccato on dead metal; Saw the bare-footed watch come running aft; Felt, far below, the sudden telegraph jangle Its harsh metallic challenge, thrice repeated: 'Stand to. Half-speed ahead. Slow. Stop her!' They stopped. The plunging pistons sank like a stopped heart: She held, she swayed, a hulk, a hollow carcass Of blistered iron that the grey-green, waveless, Unruffled tropic waters slapped languidly.