Chapter 8

King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck (_Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck._) The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin, And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in. He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon, He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon, And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day, And death is in the phial and the end of noble work, But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk. Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed-- Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid. Gun upon gun, ha! ha! Gun upon gun, hurrah! Don John of Austria Has loosed the cannonade.

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke, (_Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke._) The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year, The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear. He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery; They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark, They veil the plumed lions on the galleys of St. Mark; And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs, And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs, Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines. They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young. They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon. And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell, And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign-- (_But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!_) Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop, Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop, Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds, Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds, Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty. _Vivat Hispania!_ _Domino Gloria!_ Don John of Austria Has set his people free!

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath (_Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath._) And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain, And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade.... (_But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade._)

A PRAYER IN DARKNESS

This much, O heaven--if I should brood or rave, Pity me not; but let the world be fed, Yea, in my madness if I strike me dead, Heed you the grass that grows upon my grave.

If I dare snarl between this sun and sod, Whimper and clamour, give me grace to own, In sun and rain and fruit in season shown, The shining silence of the scorn of God.

Thank God the stars are set beyond my power, If I must travail in a night of wrath, Thank God my tears will never vex a moth, Nor any curse of mine cut down a flower.

Men say the sun was darkened: yet I had Thought it beat brightly, even on--Calvary: And He that hung upon the Torturing Tree Heard all the crickets singing, and was glad.

THE DONKEY

"The tattered outlaw of the earth, Of ancient crooked will; Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, I keep my secret still.

"Fools! For I also had my hour; One far fierce hour and sweet: There was a shout about my ears, And palms before my feet."

FOOTNOTES:

[14] From _Poems_ by G. K. Chesterton. Copyright by the John Lane Co. and reprinted by permission of the publishers.

_Wilfrid Wilson Gibson_

Born at Hexam in 1878, Wilfrid Wilson Gibson has published almost a dozen books of verse--the first four or five (see Preface) being imitative in manner and sentimentally romantic in tone. With _The Stonefolds_ (1907) and _Daily Bread_ (1910), Gibson executed a complete right-about-face and, with dramatic brevity, wrote a series of poems mirroring the dreams, pursuits and fears of common humanity. _Fires_ (1912) marks an advance in technique and power. And though in _Livelihood_ (1917) Gibson seems to be theatricalizing and merely exploiting his working-people, his later lyrics recapture the veracity of such memorable poems as "The Old Man," "The Blind Rower," and "The Machine." _Hill-Tracks_ (1918) attempts to capture the beauty of village-names and the glamour of the English countryside.

PRELUDE

As one, at midnight, wakened by the call Of golden-plovers in their seaward flight, Who lies and listens, as the clear notes fall Through tingling silence of the frosty night-- Who lies and listens, till the last note fails, And then, in fancy, faring with the flock Far over slumbering hills and dreaming dales, Soon hears the surges break on reef and rock; And, hearkening, till all sense of self is drowned Within the mightier music of the deep, No more remembers the sweet piping sound That startled him from dull, undreaming sleep; So I, first waking from oblivion, heard, With heart that kindled to the call of song, The voice of young life, fluting like a bird, And echoed that light lilting; till, ere long, Lured onward by that happy, singing-flight, I caught the stormy summons of the sea, And dared the restless deeps that, day and night, Surge with the life-song of humanity.

THE STONE[15]

"And will you cut a stone for him, To set above his head? And will you cut a stone for him-- A stone for him?" she said.

Three days before, a splintered rock Had struck her lover dead-- Had struck him in the quarry dead, Where, careless of the warning call, He loitered, while the shot was fired-- A lively stripling, brave and tall, And sure of all his heart desired ... A flash, a shock, A rumbling fall ... And, broken 'neath the broken rock, A lifeless heap, with face of clay; And still as any stone he lay, With eyes that saw the end of all.

I went to break the news to her; And I could hear my own heart beat With dread of what my lips might say But, some poor fool had sped before; And flinging wide her father's door, Had blurted out the news to her, Had struck her lover dead for her, Had struck the girl's heart dead in her, Had struck life, lifeless, at a word, And dropped it at her feet: Then hurried on his witless way, Scarce knowing she had heard.

And when I came, she stood, alone A woman, turned to stone: And, though no word at all she said, I knew that all was known.

Because her heart was dead, She did not sigh nor moan, His mother wept: She could not weep. Her lover slept: She could not sleep. Three days, three nights, She did not stir: Three days, three nights, Were one to her, Who never closed her eyes From sunset to sunrise, From dawn to evenfall: Her tearless, staring eyes, That seeing naught, saw all.

The fourth night when I came from work, I found her at my door. "And will you cut a stone for him?" She said: and spoke no more: But followed me, as I went in, And sank upon a chair; And fixed her grey eyes on my face, With still, unseeing stare. And, as she waited patiently, I could not bear to feel Those still, grey eyes that followed me, Those eyes that plucked the heart from me, Those eyes that sucked the breath from me And curdled the warm blood in me, Those eyes that cut me to the bone, And pierced my marrow like cold steel.

And so I rose, and sought a stone; And cut it, smooth and square: And, as I worked, she sat and watched, Beside me, in her chair. Night after night, by candlelight, I cut her lover's name: Night after night, so still and white, And like a ghost she came; And sat beside me in her chair; And watched with eyes aflame.

She eyed each stroke; And hardly stirred: She never spoke A single word: And not a sound or murmur broke The quiet, save the mallet-stroke.

With still eyes ever on my hands, With eyes that seemed to burn my hands, My wincing, overwearied hands, She watched, with bloodless lips apart, And silent, indrawn breath: And every stroke my chisel cut, Death cut still deeper in her heart: The two of us were chiselling, Together, I and death.

And when at length the job was done, And I had laid the mallet by, As if, at last, her peace were won, She breathed his name; and, with a sigh, Passed slowly through the open door: And never crossed my threshold more.

Next night I laboured late, alone, To cut her name upon the stone.

SIGHT[16]

By the lamplit stall I loitered, feasting my eyes On colours ripe and rich for the heart's desire-- Tomatoes, redder than Krakatoa's fire, Oranges like old sunsets over Tyre, And apples golden-green as the glades of Paradise.

And as I lingered, lost in divine delight, My heart thanked God for the goodly gift of sight And all youth's lively senses keen and quick ... When suddenly, behind me in the night, I heard the tapping of a blind man's stick.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] From _Fires_ by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. Copyright, 1912, by The Macmillan Co. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

[16] From _Borderlands and Thoroughfares_ by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. Copyright, 1915, by The Macmillan Company. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

_John Masefield_

John Masefield was born June 1, 1878, in Ledbury, Hertfordshire. He was the son of a lawyer but, being of a restless disposition, he took to the sea at an early age and became a wanderer for several years. At one time, in 1895, to be exact, he worked for a few months as a sort of third assistant barkeeper and dish-washer in Luke O'Connor's saloon, the Columbia Hotel, in New York City. The place is still there on the corner of Sixth and Greenwich Avenues.

The results of his wanderings showed in his early works, _Salt-Water Ballads_ (1902), _Ballads_ (1903), frank and often crude poems of sailors written in their own dialect, and _A Mainsail Haul_ (1905), a collection of short nautical stories. In these books Masefield possibly overemphasized passion and brutality but, underneath the violence, he captured that highly-colored realism which is the poetry of life.

It was not until he published _The Everlasting Mercy_ (1911) that he became famous. Followed quickly by those remarkable long narrative poems, _The Widow in the Bye Street_ (1912), _Dauber_ (1912), and _The Daffodil Fields_ (1913), there is in all of these that peculiar blend of physical exulting and spiritual exaltation that is so striking, and so typical of Masefield. Their very rudeness is lifted to a plane of religious intensity. (See Preface.) Pictorially, Masefield is even more forceful. The finest moment in _The Widow in the Bye Street_ is the portrayal of the mother alone in her cottage; the public-house scene and the passage describing the birds following the plough are the most intense touches in _The Everlasting Mercy_. Nothing more vigorous and thrilling than the description of the storm at sea in _Dauber_ has appeared in current literature.

The war, in which Masefield served with the Red Cross in France and on the Gallipoli peninsula (of which campaign he wrote a study for the government), softened his style; _Good Friday and Other Poems_ (1916) is as restrained and dignified a collection as that of any of his contemporaries. _Reynard the Fox_ (1919) is the best of his new manner with a return of the old vivacity.

Masefield has also written several novels of which _Multitude and Solitude_ (1909) is the most outstanding; half a dozen plays, ranging from the classical solemnity of _Pompey the Great_ to the hot and racy _Tragedy of Nan_; and one of the freshest, most creative critiques of _Shakespeare_ (1911) in the last generation.

A CONSECRATION

Not of the princes and prelates with periwigged charioteers Riding triumphantly laurelled to lap the fat of the years,-- Rather the scorned--the rejected--the men hemmed in with the spears;

The men of the tattered battalion which fights till it dies, Dazed with the dust of the battle, the din and the cries. The men with the broken heads and the blood running into their eyes.

Not the be-medalled Commander, beloved of the throne, Riding cock-horse to parade when the bugles are blown, But the lads who carried the koppie and cannot be known.

Not the ruler for me, but the ranker, the tramp of the road, The slave with the sack on his shoulders pricked on with the goad, The man with too weighty a burden, too weary a load.

The sailor, the stoker of steamers, the man with the clout, The chantyman bent at the halliards putting a tune to the shout, The drowsy man at the wheel and the tired look-out.

Others may sing of the wine and the wealth and the mirth, The portly presence of potentates goodly in girth;-- Mine be the dirt and the dross, the dust and scum of the earth!

Theirs be the music, the colour, the glory, the gold; Mine be a handful of ashes, a mouthful of mould. Of the maimed, of the halt and the blind in the rain and the cold-- Of these shall my songs be fashioned, my tales be told.

AMEN.

SEA-FEVER

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the seagulls crying.

I must down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life. To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

ROUNDING THE HORN

(_From "Dauber"_)[17]

Then came the cry of "Call all hands on deck!" The Dauber knew its meaning; it was come: Cape Horn, that tramples beauty into wreck, And crumples steel and smites the strong man dumb. Down clattered flying kites and staysails; some Sang out in quick, high calls: the fair-leads skirled, And from the south-west came the end of the world....

"Lay out!" the Bosun yelled. The Dauber laid Out on the yard, gripping the yard, and feeling Sick at the mighty space of air displayed Below his feet, where mewing birds were wheeling. A giddy fear was on him; he was reeling. He bit his lip half through, clutching the jack. A cold sweat glued the shirt upon his back.

The yard was shaking, for a brace was loose. He felt that he would fall; he clutched, he bent, Clammy with natural terror to the shoes While idiotic promptings came and went. Snow fluttered on a wind-flaw and was spent; He saw the water darken. Someone yelled, "Frap it; don't stay to furl! Hold on!" He held.

Darkness came down--half darkness--in a whirl; The sky went out, the waters disappeared. He felt a shocking pressure of blowing hurl The ship upon her side. The darkness speared At her with wind; she staggered, she careered; Then down she lay. The Dauber felt her go, He saw her yard tilt downwards. Then the snow

Whirled all about--dense, multitudinous, cold-- Mixed with the wind's one devilish thrust and shriek, Which whiffled out men's tears, defeated, took hold, Flattening the flying drift against the cheek. The yards buckled and bent, man could not speak. The ship lay on her broadside; the wind's sound Had devilish malice at having got her downed.

* * * * *

How long the gale had blown he could not tell, Only the world had changed, his life had died. A moment now was everlasting hell. Nature an onslaught from the weather side, A withering rush of death, a frost that cried, Shrieked, till he withered at the heart; a hail Plastered his oilskins with an icy mail....

"Up!" yelled the Bosun; "up and clear the wreck!" The Dauber followed where he led; below He caught one giddy glimpsing of the deck Filled with white water, as though heaped with snow. He saw the streamers of the rigging blow Straight out like pennons from the splintered mast, Then, all sense dimmed, all was an icy blast.

Roaring from nether hell and filled with ice, Roaring and crashing on the jerking stage, An utter bridle given to utter vice, Limitless power mad with endless rage Withering the soul; a minute seemed an age. He clutched and hacked at ropes, at rags of sail, Thinking that comfort was a fairy tale,

Told long ago--long, long ago--long since Heard of in other lives--imagined, dreamed-- There where the basest beggar was a prince. To him in torment where the tempest screamed, Comfort and warmth and ease no longer seemed Things that a man could know; soul, body, brain, Knew nothing but the wind, the cold, the pain.

THE CHOICE

The Kings go by with jewelled crowns; Their horses gleam, their banners shake, their spears are many. The sack of many-peopled towns Is all their dream: The way they take Leaves but a ruin in the brake, And, in the furrow that the ploughmen make, A stampless penny; a tale, a dream.

The Merchants reckon up their gold, Their letters come, their ships arrive, their freights are glories: The profits of their treasures sold They tell and sum; Their foremen drive Their servants, starved to half-alive, Whose labours do but make the earth a hive Of stinking glories; a tale, a dream.

The Priests are singing in their stalls, Their singing lifts, their incense burns, their praying clamours; Yet God is as the sparrow falls, The ivy drifts; The votive urns Are all left void when Fortune turns, The god is but a marble for the kerns To break with hammers; a tale, a dream.

O Beauty, let me know again The green earth cold, the April rain, the quiet waters figuring sky, The one star risen. So shall I pass into the feast Not touched by King, Merchant, or Priest; Know the red spirit of the beast, Be the green grain; Escape from prison.

SONNET[18]

Is there a great green commonwealth of Thought Which ranks the yearly pageant, and decides How Summer's royal progress shall be wrought, By secret stir which in each plant abides? Does rocking daffodil consent that she, The snowdrop of wet winters, shall be first? Does spotted cowslip with the grass agree To hold her pride before the rattle burst? And in the hedge what quick agreement goes, When hawthorn blossoms redden to decay, That Summer's pride shall come, the Summer's rose, Before the flower be on the bramble spray? Or is it, as with us, unresting strife, And each consent a lucky gasp for life?

FOOTNOTES:

[17] From _The Story of a Round-House_ by John Masefield. Copyright, 1913, by The Macmillan Company. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

[18] From _Good Friday and Other Poems_ by John Masefield. Copyright, 1916, by The Macmillan Company. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

_Lord Dunsany_

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Lord Dunsany, was born July 24, 1878, and was educated at Eton and Sandhurst. He is best known as an author of fantastic fairy tales and even more fantastic plays. _The Gods of the Mountain_ (1911) and _The Golden Doom_ (1912) are highly dramatic and intensely poetic. _A Night at an Inn_ (1916) is that peculiar novelty, an eerie and poetical melodrama.

Dunsany's prime quality is a romantic and highly colored imagination which is rich in symbolism. After the World War, in which the playwright served as captain in the Royal Innis-killing Fusiliers, Dunsany visited America and revised the reissue of his early tales and prose poems collected in his _The Book of Wonder_.

SONGS FROM AN EVIL WOOD

I

There is no wrath in the stars, They do not rage in the sky; I look from the evil wood And find myself wondering why.

Why do they not scream out And grapple star against star, Seeking for blood in the wood As all things round me are?

They do not glare like the sky Or flash like the deeps of the wood; But they shine softly on In their sacred solitude.

To their high, happy haunts Silence from us has flown, She whom we loved of old And know it now she is gone.

When will she come again, Though for one second only? She whom we loved is gone And the whole world is lonely.

And the elder giants come Sometimes, tramping from far Through the weird and flickering light Made by an earthly star.

And the giant with his club, And the dwarf with rage in his breath, And the elder giants from far, They are all the children of Death.

They are all abroad to-night And are breaking the hills with their brood,-- And the birds are all asleep Even in Plug Street Wood!

II

Somewhere lost in the haze The sun goes down in the cold, And birds in this evil wood Chirrup home as of old;

Chirrup, stir and are still, On the high twigs frozen and thin. There is no more noise of them now, And the long night sets in.

Of all the wonderful things That I have seen in the wood I marvel most at the birds And their wonderful quietude.

For a giant smites with his club All day the tops of the hill, Sometimes he rests at night, Oftener he beats them still.

And a dwarf with a grim black mane Raps with repeated rage All night in the valley below On the wooden walls of his cage.

III

I met with Death in his country, With his scythe and his hollow eye, Walking the roads of Belgium. I looked and he passed me by.

Since he passed me by in Plug Street, In the wood of the evil name, I shall not now lie with the heroes, I shall not share their fame;

I shall never be as they are, A name in the lands of the Free, Since I looked on Death in Flanders And he did not look at me.

_Edward Thomas_