Chapter 7

And, in that pause, a sinister whisper ran: Burial at Sea! a Portuguese official ... Poor fever-broken devil from Mozambique: Came on half tight: the doctor calls it heat-stroke. Why do they travel steerage? It's the exchange: So many million 'reis' to the pound! What did he look like? No one ever saw him: Took to his bunk, and drank and drank and died. They're ready! Silence! We clustered to the rail, Curious and half-ashamed. The well-deck spread A comfortable gulf of segregation Between ourselves and death. 'Burial at sea' ... The master holds a black book at arm's length; His droning voice comes for'ard: 'This our brother ... We therefore commit his body to the deep To be turned into corruption' ... The bo's'n whispers Hoarsely behind his hand: 'Now, all together!' The hatch-cover is tilted; a mummy of sailcloth Well ballasted with iron shoots clear of the poop; Falls, like a diving gannet. The green sea closes Its burnished skin; the snaky swell smoothes over ... While he, the man of the steerage, goes down, down, Feet foremost, sliding swiftly down the dim water, Swift to escape Those plunging shapes with pale, empurpled bellies That swirl and veer about him. He goes down Unerringly, as though he knew the way Through green, through gloom, to absolute watery darkness, Where no weed sways nor curious fin quivers: To the sad, sunless deeps where, endlessly, A downward drift of death spreads its wan mantle In the wave-moulded valleys that shall enfold him Till the sea give up its dead.

There shall he lie dispersed amid great riches: Such gold, such arrogance, so many bold hearts! All the sunken armadas pressed to powder By weight of incredible seas! That mingled wrack No livening sun shall visit till the crust Of earth be riven, or this rolling planet Reel on its axis; till the moon-chained tides, Unloosed, deliver up that white Atlantis Whose naked peaks shall bleach above the slaked Thirst of Sahara, fringed by weedy tangles Of Atlas's drown'd cedars, frowning eastward To where the sands of India lie cold, And heap'd Himalaya's a rib of coral Slowly uplifted, grain on grain....

We dream Too long! Another jangle of alarum Stabs at the engines: 'Slow. Half-speed. Full-speed!' The great bearings rumble; the screw churns, frothing Opaque water to downward-swelling plumes Milky as wood-smoke. A shoal of flying-fish Spurts out like animate spray. The warm breeze wakens; And we pass on, forgetting, Toward the solemn horizon of bronzed cumulus That bounds our brooding sea, gathering gloom That, when night falls, will dissipate in flaws Of watery lightning, washing the hot sky, Cleansing all hearts of heat and restlessness, Until, with day, another blue be born.

SCIROCCO

Out of that high pavilion Where the sick, wind-harassed sun In the whiteness of the day Ghostly shone and stole away-- Parched with the utter thirst Of unnumbered Libyan sands, Thou, cloud-gathering spirit, burst Out of arid Africa To the tideless sea, and smote On our pale, moon-cooled lands The hot breath of a lion's throat.

And that furnace-heated breath Blew into my placid dreams The heart of fire from whence it came: Haunt of beauty and of death Where the forest breaks in flame Of flaunting blossom, where the flood Of life pulses hot and stark, Where a wing'd death breeds in mud And tumult of tree-shadowed streams-- Black waters, desolately hurled Through the uttermost, lost, dark, Secret places of the world.

There, O swift and terrible Being, wast thou born; and thence, Like a demon loosed from hell, Stripped with rending wings the dense Echoing forests, till their bowed Plumes of trees like tattered cloud Were toss'd and torn, and cried aloud As the wood were rack'd with pain: Thence thou freed'st thy wings, and soon From the moaning, stricken plain In whorled eagle-soarings rose To melt the sun-defeating snows Of the Mountains of the Moon, To dull their glaciers with fierce breath, To slip the avalanches' rein, To set the laughing torrents free On the tented desert beneath, Where men of thirst must wither and die While the vultures stare in the sun's eye; Where slowly sifting sands are strown On broken cities, whose bleaching bones Whiten in moonlight stone on stone.

Over their pitiful dust thy blast Passed in columns of whirling sand, Leapt the desert and swept the strand Of the cool and quiet sea, Gathering mighty shapes, and proud Phantoms of monstrous, wave-born cloud, And northward drove this panoply Till the sky seemed charging on the land....

Yet, in that plumed helm, the most Of thy hot power was cooled or lost, So that it came to me at length, Faint and tepid and shorn of strength, To shiver an olive-grove that heaves A myriad moonlight-coloured leaves, And in the stone-pine's dome set free A murmur of the middle sea: A puff of warm air in the night So spent by its impetuous flight It scarce invades my pillar'd closes,-- To waft their fragrance from the sweet Buds of my lemon-coloured roses Or strew blown petals at my feet: To kiss my cheek with a warm sigh And in the tired darkness die.

THE QUAILS

(In the south of Italy the peasants put out the eyes of a captured quail so that its cries may attract the flocks of spring migrants into their nets.)

All through the night I have heard the stuttering call of a blind quail, A caged decoy, under a cairn of stones, Crying for light as the quails cry for love.

Other wanderers, Northward from Africa winging on numb pinions, dazed With beating winds and the sobbing of the sea, Hear, in a breath of sweet land-herbage, the call Of the blind one, their sister.... Hearing, their fluttered hearts Take courage, and they wheel in their dark flight, Knowing that their toil is over, dreaming to see The white stubbles of Abruzzi smitten with dawn, And spilt grain lying in the furrows, the squandered gold That is the delight of quails in their spring mating.

Land-scents grow keener, Penetrating the dank and bitter odour of brine That whitens their feathers; Far below, the voice of their sister calls them To plenty, and sweet water, and fulfilment. Over the pallid margin of dim seas breaking, Over the thickening in the darkness that is land, They fly. Their flight is ended. Wings beat no more. Downward they drift, one by one, like dark petals, Slowly, listlessly falling Into the mouth of horror: The nets....

Where men come trampling and crying with bright lanterns, Plucking their weak, entangled claws from the meshes of net, Clutching the soft brown bodies mottled with olive, Crushing the warm, fluttering flesh, in hands stained with blood, Till their quivering hearts are stilled, and the bright eyes, That are like a polished agate, glaze in death.

But the blind one, in her wicker cage, without ceasing Haunts this night of spring with her stuttering call, Knowing nothing of the terror that walks in darkness, Knowing only that some cruelty has stolen the light That is life, and that she must cry until she dies.

I, in the darkness, Heard, and my heart grew sick. But I know that to-morrow A smiling peasant will come with a basket of quails Wrapped in vine-leaves, prodding them with blood-stained fingers, Saying, 'Signore, you must cook them thus, and thus, With a sprig of basil inside them.' And I shall thank him, Carrying the piteous carcases into the kitchen Without a pang, without shame.

'Why should I be ashamed? Why should I rail Against the cruelty of men? Why should I pity, Seeing that there is no cruelty which men can imagine To match the subtle dooms that are wrought against them By blind spores of pestilence: seeing that each of us, Lured by dim hopes, flutters in the toils of death On a cold star that is spinning blindly through space Into the nets of time?'

So cried I, bitterly thrusting pity aside, Closing my lids to sleep. But sleep came not, And pity, with sad eyes, Crept to my side, and told me That the life of all creatures is brave and pityful Whether they be men, with dark thoughts to vex them, Or birds, wheeling in the swift joys of flight, Or brittle ephemerids, spinning to death in the haze Of gold that quivers on dim evening waters; Nor would she be denied. The harshness died Within me, and my heart Was caught and fluttered like the palpitant heart Of a brown quail, flying To the call of her blind sister, And death, in the spring night.

SONG AT SANTA CRUZ

Were there lovers in the lanes of Atlantis: Meeting lips and twining fingers In the mild Atlantis springtime? How should I know If there were lovers in the lanes of Atlantis When the dark sea drowned her mountains Many ages ago?

Were there poets in the paths of Atlantis: Eager poets, seeking beauty To adorn the women they worshipped? How can I say If there were poets in the paths of Atlantis? For the waters that drowned her mountains Washed their beauty away.

Were there women in the ways of Atlantis: Foolish women, who loved, as I do, Dreaming that mortal love was deathless? Ask me not now If there were women in the ways of Atlantis: There was no woman in all her mountains Wonderful as thou!

* * * * *

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(Some of these lists are incomplete. They include poetical works only.)

LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE

Interludes and Poems. John Lane. 1908 Mary and the Bramble. ('Out of print'.) 1910 The Sale of St. Thomas. [1] " " 1911 Emblems of Love. John Lane. 1912 Deborah (play). " " 1913 Four Short Plays. Martin Seeker. 1922

MARTIN ARMSTRONG

Exodus and Other Poems. Lynwood and Co. 1912 Thirty New Poems. Chapman and Hall. 1918 The Buzzards. Martin Seeker. 1921

EDMUND BLUNDEN

The Waggoner. Sidgwick and Jackson. 1920 The Shepherd. R. Cobden-Sanderson. 1922

WILLIAM H. DAVIES

The Soul's Destroyer. Jonathan Cape. 1906 New Poems. " " 1907 Nature Poems. " " 1908 Farewell to Poesy. " " 1910 Songs of Joy. " " 1911 Foliage. " " 1913 The Bird of Paradise. Methuen. 1914 Child Lovers. Jonathan Cape. 1916 Collected Poems. " " 1916 Raptures. [2] Beaumont Press. 1918 Forty New Poems. Jonathan Cape. 1918 The Song of Life. " " 1920 The Hour of Magic. " " 1922

WALTER DE LA MARE

Poems. Murray. 1906 The Listeners. Constable. 1912 A Child's Day. " 1912 Peacock Pie. " 1913 Songs of Childhood. (New Edition.) Longmans. 1916 The Sunken Garden. [3] Beaumont Press. 1917 Motley. Constable. 1917 Poems, 1901-1918. " 1920 Flora. Heinemann. 1919 The Veil. Constable. 1921

JOHN DRINKWATER

Poems of Men and Hours. (Out of print.) 1911 Cophetua (play). " " 1911 Poems of Love and Earth. " " 1912 Cromwell, and Other Poems. David Nutt. 1913 Rebellion (play). (Out of-print.) 1914 Swords and Ploughshares. Sidgwick and Jackson. 1915 Olton Pools. " " 1916 Poems, 1908-1914. " " 1917 Tides. Beaumont Press. 1917 Tides (with additions). Sidgwick and Jackson. 1917 Loyalties. Beaumont Press. 1918 Loyalties (with additions). Sidgwick and Jackson. 1918 Abraham Lincoln (Prose Play with Chorus). Sidgwick and Jackson. 1918 Seeds of Time. " " 1921 Selected Poems. " " 1922 Pawns and Cophetua (Four Poetic Plays).(New Edition.) Sidgwick and Jackson. 1922 Preludes, 1921-1922 (in preparation)

JOHN FREEMAN

Twenty Poems. Gay and Hancock. 1909 Fifty Poems. (New Edition.) Selwyn and Blount. 1916 Stone Trees. " " 1916 Presage of Victory. " " 1916 Memories of Childhood. Morland Press. 1918 Memories, and Other Poems. Selwyn and Blount. 1919 Poems New and Old. " " 1920 Music. " " 1921 Two Poems. " " 1921

WILFRID GIBSON

Stonefolds. Elkin Mathews. 1907 Akra the Slave. " " 1910 Daily Bread. " " 1910 Fires. " " 1913 Borderlands. " " 1914 Thoroughfares. " " 1914 Battle. " " 1915 Friends. " " 1916 Livelihood. Macmillan. 1917 Collected Poems. New York: Macmillan Co. 1917 Whin. Macmillan. 1918 Home. Beaumont Press. 1919 Neighbours. Macmillan. 1920 Krindlesyke (play). " 1922

ROBERT GRAVES

Over the Brazier. Poetry Bookshop. 1916 Fairies and Fusiliers. Heinemann. 1917 Country Sentiment. Martin Seeker. 1919 The Pier-glass. " " 1921 On English Poetry (Critical work containing new poems) Heinemann. 1922 Whipperginny (in preparation)

RICHARD HUGHES

Gipsy-Night. Golden Cockerel Press. 1922

D. H. LAWRENCE

Love Poems. Duckworth. 1913 Amores. " 1916 Look! We have Come Through! (Out of print.) 1917 New Poems. Martin Seeker. 1918

HAROLD MONRO

Judas. Sampson Low. 1908 Before Dawn. (Out of print.) 1911 Children of Love. Poetry Bookshop. 1914 Strange Meetings. " " 1917 Real Property. {London " " {New York: Macmillan Co. 1922

ROBERT NICHOLS.

Invocation. Elkin Mathews. 1915 Ardours and Endurances. Chatto and Windus. 1917 The Budded Branch. Beaumont Press. 1918 Aurelia. Chatto and Windus. 1920

FRANK PREWETT

Poems. Hogarth Press. 1921

PETER QUENNELL

Masques and Poems (in preparation). Golden Cockerel Press

V. SACKVILLE-WEST

Orchard and Vineyard. John Lane. 1921

EDWARD SHANKS

Songs. (Out of print.) 1915 Poems. Sidgwick and Jackson. 1916 The Queen of China. Martin Seeker. 1919 The Island of Youth. Collins. 1921

J.C. SQUIRE

Steps to Parnassus. Allen and Unwin. 1913 The Three Hills. " " 1913 The Survival of the Fittest. " " 1916 Tricks of the Trade. Hodder and Stoughton. 1917 Poems: First Series. " " 1918 The Birds, and Other Poems. Hodder and Stoughton. 1919 Poems: Second Series. " " 1922

FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG

Five Degrees South. Martin Seeker. 1917 Poems, 1916-1918. Collins. 1919

[Footnote 1: Reprinted in 'Georgian Poetry, 1911-1912'.]

[Footnote 2: Reprinted, with additions, in 'Forty New Poems'.]

[Footnote 3: Reprinted, with additions, in 'Motley'.]