Chapter 9
Edward Thomas, one of the little-known but most individual of modern English poets, was born in 1878. For many years before he turned to verse, Thomas had a large following as a critic and author of travel books, biographies, pot-boilers. Hating his hack-work, yet unable to get free of it, he had so repressed his creative ability that he had grown doubtful concerning his own power. It needed something foreign to stir and animate what was native in him. So when Robert Frost, the New England poet, went abroad in 1912 for two years and became an intimate of Thomas's, the English critic began to write poetry. Loving, like Frost, the _minutiae_ of existence, the quaint and casual turn of ordinary life, he caught the magic of the English countryside in its unpoeticized quietude. Many of his poems are full of a slow, sad contemplation of life and a reflection of its brave futility. It is not disillusion exactly; it is rather an absence of illusion. _Poems_ (1917), dedicated to Robert Frost, is full of Thomas's fidelity to little things, things as unglorified as the unfreezing of the "rock-like mud," a child's path, a list of quaint-sounding villages, birds' nests uncovered by the autumn wind, dusty nettles--the lines glow with a deep and almost abject reverence for the soil.
Thomas was killed at Arras, at an observatory outpost, on Easter Monday, 1917.
IF I SHOULD EVER BY CHANCE
If I should ever by chance grow rich I'll buy Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch, Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater, And let them all to my elder daughter. The rent I shall ask of her will be only Each year's first violets, white and lonely, The first primroses and orchises-- She must find them before I do, that is. But if she finds a blossom on furze Without rent they shall all for ever be hers, Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch, Roses, Pyrgo and Lapwater,-- I shall give them all to my elder daughter.
TALL NETTLES
Tall nettles cover up, as they have done These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough Long worn out, and the roller made of stone: Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.
This corner of the farmyard I like most: As well as any bloom upon a flower I like the dust on the nettles, never lost Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.
FIFTY FAGGOTS
There they stand, on their ends, the fifty faggots That once were underwood of hazel and ash In Jenny Pinks's Copse. Now, by the hedge Close packed, they make a thicket fancy alone Can creep through with the mouse and wren. Next Spring A blackbird or a robin will nest there, Accustomed to them, thinking they will remain Whatever is for ever to a bird. This Spring it is too late; the swift has come, 'Twas a hot day for carrying them up: Better they will never warm me, though they must Light several Winters' fires. Before they are done The war will have ended, many other things Have ended, maybe, that I can no more Foresee or more control than robin and wren.
COCK-CROW
Out of the wood of thoughts that grows by night To be cut down by the sharp axe of light,-- Out of the night, two cocks together crow, Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow: And bright before my eyes twin trumpeters stand, Heralds of splendour, one at either hand, Each facing each as in a coat of arms:-- The milkers lace their boots up at the farms.
_Seumas O'Sullivan_
James Starkey was born in Dublin in 1879. Writing under the pseudonym of Seumas O'Sullivan, he contributed a great variety of prose and verse to various Irish papers. His reputation as a poet began with his appearance in _New Songs_, edited by George Russell ("A. E."). Later, he published _The Twilight People_ (1905), _The Earth Lover_ (1909), and _Poems_ (1912).
PRAISE
Dear, they are praising your beauty, The grass and the sky: The sky in a silence of wonder, The grass in a sigh.
I too would sing for your praising, Dearest, had I Speech as the whispering grass, Or the silent sky.
These have an art for the praising Beauty so high. Sweet, you are praised in a silence, Sung in a sigh.
_Ralph Hodgson_
This exquisite poet was born in Northumberland about 1879. One of the most graceful of the younger word-magicians, Ralph Hodgson will retain his freshness as long as there are lovers of such rare and timeless songs as his. It is difficult to think of any anthology of English poetry compiled after 1917 that could omit "Eve," "The Song of Honor," and that memorable snatch of music, "Time, You Old Gypsy Man." One succumbs to the charm of "Eve" at the first reading; for here is the oldest of all legends told with a surprising simplicity and still more surprising freshness. This Eve is neither the conscious sinner nor the Mother of men; she is, in Hodgson's candid lines, any young, English country girl--filling her basket, regarding the world and the serpent itself with a mild and childlike wonder.
Hodgson's verses, full of the love of all natural things, a love that goes out to
"an idle rainbow No less than laboring seas,"
were originally brought out in small pamphlets, and distributed by _Flying Fame_.
EVE
Eve, with her basket, was Deep in the bells and grass, Wading in bells and grass Up to her knees. Picking a dish of sweet Berries and plums to eat, Down in the bells and grass Under the trees.
Mute as a mouse in a Corner the cobra lay, Curled round a bough of the Cinnamon tall.... Now to get even and Humble proud heaven and Now was the moment or Never at all.
"Eva!" Each syllable Light as a flower fell, "Eva!" he whispered the Wondering maid, Soft as a bubble sung Out of a linnet's lung, Soft and most silverly "Eva!" he said.
Picture that orchard sprite; Eve, with her body white, Supple and smooth to her Slim finger tips; Wondering, listening, Listening, wondering, Eve with a berry Half-way to her lips.
Oh, had our simple Eve Seen through the make-believe! Had she but known the Pretender he was! Out of the boughs he came, Whispering still her name, Tumbling in twenty rings Into the grass.
Here was the strangest pair In the world anywhere, Eve in the bells and grass Kneeling, and he Telling his story low.... Singing birds saw them go Down the dark path to The Blasphemous Tree.
Oh, what a clatter when Titmouse and Jenny Wren Saw him successful and Taking his leave! How the birds rated him, How they all hated him! How they all pitied Poor motherless Eve!
Picture her crying Outside in the lane, Eve, with no dish of sweet Berries and plums to eat, Haunting the gate of the Orchard in vain.... Picture the lewd delight Under the hill to-night-- "Eva!" the toast goes round, "Eva!" again.
TIME, YOU OLD GIPSY MAN
Time, you old gipsy man, Will you not stay, Put up your caravan Just for one day?
All things I'll give you Will you be my guest, Bells for your jennet Of silver the best, Goldsmiths shall beat you A great golden ring, Peacocks shall bow to you, Little boys sing, Oh, and sweet girls will Festoon you with may. Time, you old gipsy, Why hasten away?
Last week in Babylon, Last night in Rome, Morning, and in the crush Under Paul's dome; Under Paul's dial You tighten your rein-- Only a moment, And off once again; Off to some city Now blind in the womb, Off to another Ere that's in the tomb.
Time, you old gipsy man, Will you not stay, Put up your caravan Just for one day?
THE BIRDCATCHER
When flighting time is on, I go With clap-net and decoy, A-fowling after goldfinches And other birds of joy;
I lurk among the thickets of The Heart where they are bred, And catch the twittering beauties as They fly into my Head.
THE MYSTERY
He came and took me by the hand Up to a red rose tree, He kept His meaning to Himself But gave a rose to me.
I did not pray Him to lay bare The mystery to me, Enough the rose was Heaven to smell, And His own face to see.
_Harold Monro_
The publisher of the various anthologies of Georgian Poetry, Harold Monro, was born in Brussels in 1879. He describes himself as "author, publisher, editor and book-seller." Monro founded The Poetry Bookshop in London in 1912, a unique establishment having as its object a practical relation between poetry and the public, and keeping in stock nothing but poetry, the drama, and books connected with these subjects. His quarterly _Poetry and Drama_ (discontinued during the war and revived in 1919 as _The Monthly Chapbook_), was in a sense the organ of the younger men; and his shop, in which he has lived for the last seven years except while he was in the army, became a genuine literary center.
Of Monro's books, the two most important are _Strange Meetings_ (1917) and _Children of Love_ (1919). "The Nightingale Near the House," one of the loveliest of his poems, is also one of his latest and has not yet appeared in any of his volumes.
THE NIGHTINGALE NEAR THE HOUSE
Here is the soundless cypress on the lawn: It listens, listens. Taller trees beyond Listen. The moon at the unruffled pond Stares. And you sing, you sing.
That star-enchanted song falls through the air From lawn to lawn down terraces of sound, Darts in white arrows on the shadowed ground; And all the night you sing.
My dreams are flowers to which you are a bee As all night long I listen, and my brain Receives your song; then loses it again In moonlight on the lawn.
Now is your voice a marble high and white, Then like a mist on fields of paradise, Now is a raging fire, then is like ice, Then breaks, and it is dawn.
EVERY THING
Since man has been articulate, Mechanical, improvidently wise, (Servant of Fate), He has not understood the little cries And foreign conversations of the small Delightful creatures that have followed him Not far behind; Has failed to hear the sympathetic call Of Crockery and Cutlery, those kind Reposeful Teraphim Of his domestic happiness; the Stool He sat on, or the Door he entered through: He has not thanked them, overbearing fool! What is he coming to?
But you should listen to the talk of these. Honest they are, and patient they have kept; Served him without his Thank you or his Please ... I often heard The gentle Bed, a sigh between each word, Murmuring, before I slept. The Candle, as I blew it, cried aloud, Then bowed, And in a smoky argument Into the darkness went.
The Kettle puffed a tentacle of breath:-- "Pooh! I have boiled his water, I don't know Why; and he always says I boil too slow. He never calls me 'Sukie, dear,' and oh, I wonder why I squander my desire Sitting submissive on his kitchen fire."
Now the old Copper Basin suddenly Rattled and tumbled from the shelf, Bumping and crying: "I can fall by myself; Without a woman's hand To patronize and coax and flatter me, I understand The lean and poise of gravitable land." It gave a raucous and tumultuous shout, Twisted itself convulsively about, Rested upon the floor, and, while I stare, It stares and grins at me.
The old impetuous Gas above my head Begins irascibly to flare and fret, Wheezing into its epileptic jet, Reminding me I ought to go to bed.
The Rafters creak; an Empty-Cupboard door Swings open; now a wild Plank of the floor Breaks from its joist, and leaps behind my foot. Down from the chimney, half a pound of Soot Tumbles and lies, and shakes itself again. The Putty cracks against the window-pane.
A piece of Paper in the basket shoves Another piece, and toward the bottom moves. My independent Pencil, while I write, Breaks at the point: the ruminating Clock Stirs all its body and begins to rock, Warning the waiting presence of the Night, Strikes the dead hour, and tumbles to the plain Ticking of ordinary work again.
You do well to remind me, and I praise Your strangely individual foreign ways. You call me from myself to recognize Companionship in your unselfish eyes. I want your dear acquaintances, although I pass you arrogantly over, throw Your lovely sounds, and squander them along My busy days. I'll do you no more wrong.
Purr for me, Sukie, like a faithful cat. You, my well trampled Boots, and you, my Hat, Remain my friends: I feel, though I don't speak, Your touch grow kindlier from week to week. It well becomes our mutual happiness To go toward the same end more or less. There is not much dissimilarity, Not much to choose, I know it well, in fine, Between the purposes of you and me, And your eventual Rubbish Heap, and mine.
STRANGE MEETINGS
If suddenly a clod of earth should rise, And walk about, and breathe, and speak, and love, How one would tremble, and in what surprise Gasp: "Can you move?"
I see men walking, and I always feel: "Earth! How have you done this? What can you be?" I can't learn how to know men, or conceal How strange they are to me.
_T. M. Kettle_
Thomas M. Kettle was born at Artane County, Dublin, in 1880 and was educated at University College, where he won the Gold Medal for Oratory. His extraordinary faculty for grasping an intricate problem and crystallizing it in an epigram, or scoring his adversaries with one bright flash, was apparent even then. He was admitted to the bar in 1905 but soon abandoned the law to devote himself to journalism, which, because of his remarkable style, never remained journalism in his hands. In 1906 he entered politics; in 1910 he was re-elected for East Tyrone. Even his bitterest opponents conceded that Tom Kettle (as he was called by friend and enemy) was the most honorable of fighters; they acknowledged his honesty, courage and devotion to the cause of a United Ireland--and respected his penetrating wit. He once spoke of a Mr. Healy as "a brilliant calamity" and satirized a long-winded speaker by saying, "Mr. Long knows a sentence should have a beginning, but he quite forgets it should also have an end."
"An Irish torch-bearer" (so E. B. Osborn calls him), Kettle fell in action at Ginchy, leading his Fusiliers in September, 1916. The uplifted poem to his daughter was written shortly before his death.
TO MY DAUGHTER BETTY, THE GIFT OF GOD
In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown To beauty proud as was your mother's prime, In that desired, delayed, incredible time, You'll ask why I abandoned you, my own, And the dear heart that was your baby throne, To dice with death. And oh! they'll give you rhyme And reason: some will call the thing sublime, And some decry it in a knowing tone. So here, while the mad guns curse overhead, And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor, Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead, Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,-- But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed, And for the secret Scripture of the poor.
_Alfred Noyes_
Alfred Noyes was born at Staffordshire, September 16, 1880. He is one of the few contemporary poets who have been fortunate enough to write a kind of poetry that is not only saleable but popular with many classes of people.
His first book, _The Loom of Years_ (1902), was published when he was only 22 years old, and _Poems_ (1904) intensified the promise of his first publication. Swinburne, grown old and living in retirement, was so struck with Noyes's talent that he had the young poet out to read to him. Unfortunately, Noyes has not developed his gifts as deeply as his admirers have hoped. His poetry, extremely straightforward and rhythmical, has often degenerated into cheap sentimentalities and cheaper tirades; it has frequently attempted to express programs and profundities far beyond Noyes's power.
What is most appealing about his best verse is its ease and heartiness; this singer's gift lies in the almost personal bond established between the poet and his public. People have such a good time reading his vivacious lines because Noyes had such a good time writing them. Rhyme in a thumping rhythm seems to be not merely his trade but his morning exercise. Noyes's own relish filled and quickened glees and catches like _Forty Singing Seamen_ (1907), the lusty choruses in _Tales of the Mermaid Tavern_ (1913), and the genuinely inspired nonsense of the earlier _Forest of Wild Thyme_ (1905).
The least popular work of Noyes is, as a unified product, his most remarkable performance. It is an epic in twelve books of blank verse, _Drake_ (1908), a glowing pageant of the sea and England's drama upon it. It is a spirited echo of the maritime Elizabethans; a vivid and orchestral work interspersed with splendid lyric passages and brisk songs. The companion volume, an attempted reconstruction of the literary phase of the same period, is less successful; but these _Tales of the Mermaid Tavern_ (which introduce Shakespeare, Marlowe, Drayton, Raleigh, Ben Jonson, and other immortals) are alive and colorful, if somewhat too insistently rollicking and smoothly lilting.
His eight volumes were assembled in 1913 and published in two books of _Collected Poems_ (Frederick A. Stokes Company).
SHERWOOD
Sherwood in the twilight, is Robin Hood awake? Grey and ghostly shadows are gliding through the brake; Shadows of the dappled deer, dreaming of the morn, Dreaming of a shadowy man that winds a shadowy horn.
Robin Hood is here again: all his merry thieves Hear a ghostly bugle-note shivering through the leaves, Calling as he used to call, faint and far away, In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.
Merry, merry England has kissed the lips of June: All the wings of fairyland were here beneath the moon; Like a flight of rose-leaves fluttering in a mist Of opal and ruby and pearl and amethyst.
Merry, merry England is waking as of old, With eyes of blither hazel and hair of brighter gold: For Robin Hood is here again beneath the bursting spray In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.
Love is in the greenwood building him a house Of wild rose and hawthorn and honeysuckle boughs; Love it in the greenwood: dawn is in the skies; And Marian is waiting with a glory in her eyes.
Hark! The dazzled laverock climbs the golden steep: Marian is waiting: is Robin Hood asleep? Round the fairy grass-rings frolic elf and fay, In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.
Oberon, Oberon, rake away the gold, Rake away the red leaves, roll away the mould, Rake away the gold leaves, roll away the red, And wake Will Scarlett from his leafy forest bed.
Friar Tuck and Little John are riding down together With quarter-staff and drinking-can and grey goose-feather; The dead are coming back again; the years are rolled away In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.
Softly over Sherwood the south wind blows; All the heart of England hid in every rose Hears across the greenwood the sunny whisper leap, Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?
Hark, the voice of England wakes him as of old And, shattering the silence with a cry of brighter gold, Bugles in the greenwood echo from the steep, _Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?_
Where the deer are gliding down the shadowy glen All across the glades of fern he calls his merry men; Doublets of the Lincoln green glancing through the May, In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day;
Calls them and they answer: from aisles of oak and ash Rings the _Follow! Follow!_ and the boughs begin to crash; The ferns begin to flutter and the flowers begin to fly; And through the crimson dawning the robber band goes by.
_Robin! Robin! Robin!_ All his merry thieves Answer as the bugle-note shivers through the leaves: Calling as he used to call, faint and far away, In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.
THE BARREL-ORGAN
There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street In the City as the sun sinks low; And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweet And fulfilled it with the sunset glow; And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light; And they've given it a glory and a part to play again In the Symphony that rules the day and night.
And now it's marching onward through the realms of old romance, And trolling out a fond familiar tune, And now it's roaring cannon down to fight the King of France, And now it's prattling softly to the moon. And all around the organ there's a sea without a shore Of human joys and wonders and regrets; To remember and to recompense the music evermore For what the cold machinery forgets ...
Yes; as the music changes, Like a prismatic glass, It takes the light and ranges Through all the moods that pass; Dissects the common carnival Of passions and regrets, And gives the world a glimpse of all The colours it forgets.
And there _La Traviata_ sighs Another sadder song; And there _Il Trovatore_ cries A tale of deeper wrong; And bolder knights to battle go With sword and shield and lance, Than ever here on earth below Have whirled into--a dance!--
Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time; Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!) And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland; Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
The cherry-trees are seas of bloom and soft perfume and sweet perfume, The cherry-trees are seas of bloom (and oh, so near to London!) And there they say, when dawn is high and all the world's a blaze of sky The cuckoo, though he's very shy, will sing a song for London.
The nightingale is rather rare and yet they say you'll hear him there At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!) The linnet and the throstle, too, and after dark the long halloo And golden-eyed _tu-whit, tu-whoo_ of owls that ogle London.
For Noah hardly knew a bird of any kind that isn't heard At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!) And when the rose begins to pout and all the chestnut spires are out You'll hear the rest without a doubt, all chorusing for London:--
_Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time; Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!) And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland; Come down to Kew in lilac-time (is isn't far from London!)_
And then the troubadour begins to thrill the golden street, In the city as the sun sinks low; And in all the gaudy busses there are scores of weary feet Marking time, sweet time, with a dull mechanic beat, And a thousand hearts are plunging to a love they'll never meet, Through the meadows of the sunset, through the poppies and the wheat, In the land where the dead dreams go.