Part 2
UNDER the crags of Teiriwch, The door-sills of the Sun, Where God has left the bony earth Just as it was begun; Where clouds sail past like argosies Breasting the crested hills, With mainsail and foretop-sail That the thin breeze fills; With ballast of round thunder, And anchored with the rain; With a long shadow sounding The deep, far plain: Where rocks are broken playthings By petulant gods hurled, And Heaven sits a-straddle On the roof-ridge of the World. --Under the crags of Teiriwch Is a round pile of stones: Large stones, small stones, --White as old bones; Some from high places, Or from the lake’s shore; And every man that passes Adds one more: The years it has been growing Verge on a hundred score.
For in the cave of Teiriwch That scarce holds a sheep, Where plovers and rock-conies And wild things sleep, A woman lived for ninety years On bilberries and moss And lizards, and small creeping things, And carved herself a cross: But wild hill robbers Found the ancient saint And dragged her to the sunlight, Making no complaint: Too old was she for weeping, Too shrivelled, and too dry: She crouched and mumle-mumled And mumled to the sky. No breath had she for wailing, Her cheeks were paper-thin: She was, for all her holiness As ugly as sin. They cramped her in a barrel --All but her bobbing head. --And rolled her down from Teiriwch Until she was dead: They took her out, and buried her --Just broken bits of bone And rags and skin: and over her Set one small stone: But if you pass her sepulchre And add not one thereto The ghost of that old murdered Saint Will roll in front of you The whole night through.
The clouds sail past in argosies And cold drips the rain: The whole world is far and high Above the tilted plain. The silent mist floats eerily, And I am here alone: _Dare I pass the place by, And cast not a stone?_
THE SONG OF PROUD JAMES
(FROM "THE ENGLISHMAN.")
"If kith and kin disowned you, And all your friends were dead?" --I’d buy a spotted handkerchief To flaunt upon my head: I’d resurrect my maddest clothes, And gaily would I laugh, And climb the proud hills scornfully With swinging cherry staff.
"But when you’d crossed the sky-line, And knew you were alone?" --I’d cast away the hollow sham, I’d kick the ground, and groan, And tear my coloured handkerchief And snap my staff; and then I’d curse the God that built me up To break me down again.
_E. W. JACOT_
(_QUEEN’S_)
HERE’S A DAFFODIL
HERE’S a daffodil Nodding to the hill, Tipsy in the sunlight Drinking his fill.
Here’s a violet Pearled in dew as yet, Smiling in the wood shade, Sweet coquette!
NURSERY RHYMES
I
QUEEN Anne is dead ’Tis often said, For my part I agree. But she lived full ten score years ago And so She ought to be.
II
There was a scholar Of Oxford Town. He read till his wits were blunt. He put his gown On upside down, And his cap On back to front.
_G. H. JOHNSTONE_
(_MERTON_)
SUMMER
FULL of unearthly peace lies river-water, Glaucous and here and there with irised circles: Now subdued melody rises from the wreaths Of whirling flies, their mazy conflict driving To melancholy lamp-images in the pool: An unseen fish greyly breeds lubric rounds Up-reaching to the thrill of populous air: O hour supreme for poised and halting thought! Down colonnade on colonnade of rose The immense Symbols move augustly on; Mystery, her stony eyes revealed a little, Not cumbered longer by the veils of noise: Evening, a lithe and virginal dream-figure, Wavering between a green cloak and a blue, And, robed at length, turning with exquisite And old despair towards the gate of Dawn: And Fate, bemused awhile and half withdrawn, Charmed to short rest between grim Day and Night.
"IPSE EGO ..."
MARSILIO sighed: and drew a rough discord From his guitar, and sang so to us listeners: "I too have mounted every step of ice And dragged my bleeding ankles, hope-enthralled, To Heaven’s blessed door; when instantly From side-nooks rising tripped the outer angels, In thin, light-hammered armour, giggling boys, But muscular, and with concerted charge Seized my poor feet, and flung me laughing, laughing, Laughing, down, down among the insect men Who look up never, antwise busy--crawling: Alas! the burden of their feathery laughter, More bitter than my fall, has pried a passage Into my luckless head, and 'Ha-ha, ha-ha!' Maddens its walls and frets them ruinously: Beware my flitting pestilence: I’ll not gage That certain easier outlets may not bring The noise out and about and thick among you: O bitter, bitter days for those it visits!" And murmuring "bitter" with a fading sadness Marsilio went: the assembly all were silent.
_C. H. B. KITCHIN_
(_EXETER_)
OPENING SCENE FROM "AMPHITRYON"
ALCMENA. THREE ASTROLOGERS
ALCMENA
I have commanded you as often of old To ply the doctor’s trade with my disease, To cure me or to kill; for in whose veins Courses the age-long poison of despair, Seeks for himself no gentle surgery, Nor wishes for the touch of tender hands Upon his body.
FIRST ASTROLOGER
Something of your need Has been revealed us. Yet should there remain No secret hid from the physician’s eye.
ALCMENA
It has been said that from the lips of queens Should come no word more bitter than sweet honey. If you adjudge me queen, let this too pass That I must act unqueenly. In my soul Drips wine more bitter than the taste of gall.
FIRST ASTROLOGER
When roses bloom most fully, death is near.
ALCMENA
You too know this?
SECOND ASTROLOGER
We know that life glides slowly But death is quicker than a lightning stroke.
ALCMENA
Is it of me that you have gained this wisdom?
THIRD ASTROLOGER
The grand revolving spheres of heaven teach The mind that hears their music. We have learned To listen through the clamour of all noons With evening in the heart.
ALCMENA
He does not live Who hears no noon-day clamour about his ears.
FIRST ASTROLOGER
And you, Queen, that have lived and now confront Death or his shadow deep within your soul, Have you in life such wisdom garnered up As may disarm the heart’s rebellion? Wherefore then are we summoned?
SECOND ASTROLOGER
The garden of life Is barren for you, bearing little fruit, And yields no store for hungry days ahead.
THIRD ASTROLOGER
To me you seem as one that has in thought A hidden sin, and seeks an easy priest Who shall with smooth and flowing words of grace Persuade it from the heart.
ALCMENA
Nay, I am sinless.
FIRST ASTROLOGER
You are still young to be thus weary of life.
ALCMENA
There comes to every man a sudden time When he undoes the bolts that bar his heart Displaying hidden shame and scars concealed. Such season is the present. Hear me now; For I am sick and pale with lingering Over a mystery that has no clue Created idly by an idle brain. Astrologers, thrice mighty in yourselves, Say whence crept into me this discontent, This fretfulness of mine. Say whence arose My malady, so cunning in its ways, That I tormented have no skill to guide My doctors to the secret. Day by day I feel the heavy burden of the flesh Grow heavier. Your words rang true indeed. Though I am young, I am grown weary of life. The tedious cycle of each passing day Like streams of dripping tears from blinded eyes Falls in the cup of my calamity; While thoughts, such as you guess, are often here, Bringing a sweet temptation. I have tried All means of remedy. This perfumed air, This gold and ivory, these purple robes Have caused no change. The mute insistent hours Wait for me still, interminably slow. And, as in mental pain a man will crave For any fierce sensation of the flesh To rid his agony, so I have craved The frenzied lashing of tempestuous rain, The heat of flame, the sharpened fang of frost. I have gone forth at midnight with no robe, And walked bare-footed over stony ground While wind and rain have done their worst on me.
I have kissed flame and held these hands in fire; These hands have taken the scourge, that is for slaves, To beat my body. Hear then all my curse. Neither the blade of sharp-projecting flint Nor wind nor rain nor burning tongue of flame Nor knotted scourge can leave a mark on me. These lips are no less red since they were kissed By glowing coal; these hands are yet untorn. Such is my fate, with flesh insensible To suffer from a mind which has no love And no distraction. Have it as you will, I am a shipwreck far on lonely seas With neither oars aboard, nor land in sight, Nor mast, nor mast for fluttering rags of sail.
FIRST ASTROLOGER
When you have seen the solemn moon in tears With long green tresses dipped in a purple sea, And noted in each tear a breaking heart, A lump of salty crystal, then your dreams Will give you counsel which we cannot give.
SECOND ASTROLOGER
We are empowered to tell you what has been And what shall be, but this created image Of your own thought eludes our groping hand.
THIRD ASTROLOGER
Soon he shall come to you! That stung your heart?
ALCMENA
O wailing winds, scatter these words away As chaff unfruitful to unfruitful soil.
FIRST ASTROLOGER
As glints the jewel in the toad’s brown head----
SECOND ASTROLOGER
As lurks a bitter sting in honeyed words----
THIRD ASTROLOGER
As a foul plague lies hid beneath the skin----
ALCMENA
You wrong me.
THIRD ASTROLOGER
Nay, your heart has uttered it. When the strong arms of young Amphitryon----
FIRST ASTROLOGER
I hear a voice.
ALCMENA
O God! the dream returns.
THIRD ASTROLOGER
The dream was not, then, of Amphitryon?
ALCMENA
May the royal hand of Zeus deliver me.
[ZEUS _enters in the form of Amphitryon_.
ZEUS
Your task is ended. Go, astrologers, Taking your admonition to such ears As are in need of it. Go silently.
[_The_ ASTROLOGERS _go out_.
ZEUS
Still you pursue their empty sorceries?
ALCMENA
Will you now weary me again? You drive My friends away like dogs. I follow them.
ZEUS
A sullen greeting to the traveller.
ALCMENA
Have I not told you often how it is With me and you? Or must you ask again And hear me through unreasoned reasonings To the last drop of bitterness? And yet----
ZEUS
Why gaze so strangely on me?
ALCMENA
I had thought Your journey would be longer.
ZEUS
No, alas!
ALCMENA
What brings you here to probe the core of my heart With your unspoken question?
ZEUS
We have need No longer of these lamps. Quench them. The dawn Arises in the East.
ALCMENA
Since when am I Become your slave?
ZEUS
Since you obeyed my word.
ALCMENA
I was no friend to such obedience In the dead days that were my life’s design.
ZEUS
You tremble. Speak your fear.
ALCMENA
Heart’s utterance Were mockery, if spoken by the tongue.
ZEUS
Yet, be assured, nothing is hid from me.
ALCMENA
Unmoving figure of Amphitryon I knew and hated, when you crossed the threshold, Hope seemed to step beside you.
ZEUS
Hope is mine.
ALCMENA
Then say, where have you found the keys of life, That you unlock its portals suddenly?
ZEUS
At my command all doors are set ajar.
ALCMENA
The miserable forebodings of the night Have fallen from me like the gossamer Which spiders weave until a master-hand Sweeps clean their tracery. Mark you a change In me, as I in you?
ZEUS
I am unchanging, But, till this moment, me you have not known.
ALCMENA
Or known myself save as a falling leaf, The toy of winds, uncherished and unloved, Gliding to earth and slow decay in earth Of what was green and young.
ZEUS
When you were younger And guarded still the pitiable illusion That life is good and destiny exalted, Did you not dream perhaps of sacrifice In which yourself as immolated victim Should satisfy delirious desire, Wedded at last in death with strength,--which marriage Humanly shaped has never learned to yield?
ALCMENA
Your voice has in it the power of new command To pierce my secret.
ZEUS
Naught is hid from me.
ALCMENA
My soul is weak with longing for your counsel.
ZEUS
When Semele, with lightning-darted flame Engirdled, woke with knowledge she must die, Having aspired to touch the majesty Of the omnipotent, in no wise dismayed Was she consumed with that unquenchable fire Which burns all veils that overspread the flesh.
ALCMENA
Whence came the thought of Semele to you? And why this chain of words now coiled on me As a predestined victim?
ZEUS
I myself Blaze with the fire of Semele. This hand Shall rend the veil once more. Myself am hope, Sole arbiter of germinating life, The driver of the lusty winds of morning, The cloud-compeller, dancer of the dance Wherein the sea is festive and the hills Nod musical assent, the charioteer That drags the world behind his flashing wheels, Bringer of life and change that is called death And vibrant longing, setter of an end To fear and doubt, a darting two-edged sword That heals the wounds created of itself, The crystal-veined one, in whose blood there flows The flame of life--in such wise apprehend Me standing here, and in such wise remark The honour I have done you.
ALCMENA
Open-eyed At last, I see a spirit stands beside me. For this cause I grew pale and bent my head In sweet confusion. Bringer of release, Even if it should be my worship falls Before a devil from hell, behold I kneel To kiss the fragrance of your garment’s hem.
_V. DE S. PINTO_
(_CHRIST CHURCH_)
ART
FATE from an unimaginable throne Scatters a million roses on the world; They fall like shooting stars across the sky Glittering: Under a dark clump of trees Man, a gaunt creature, squats upon the ground Ape-like, and grins to see those brilliant flowers Raining through the dark foliage: He tries Sometimes to clutch at them, but in his hands They melt like snow. Then in despair he turns Back to his wigwam, stirs the embers, pats His blear-eyed dog, and smokes a pipe, and soon, Wrapped in his blankets, drowses off to sleep.
But all his dreams are full of flying flowers.
_ALAN PORTER_
(_QUEEN’S_)
LIFE AND LUXURY
I held imagination’s candle high To thread the pitchy cavern, life. A whisper Dazed all the dark with sweetness oversweet, A lithe body languished around my neck. "Do out this unavailing light;" she pleaded. "Soother is darkness. How may candle strive With topless, bleak, obdurate blanks of space? It can but cold the darkness else were warm. Leave, leave to search so bitter-toilfully Unthroughgone silence, leave and follow me; For I will lead where many riches lie, Where rippling silks and snow-soft cushions, rare Cool wines, and delicates unearthly sweet, And all the comfort flesh of man craves more. We two shall dallying uncurl the long And fragrant hours." She reached a slender arm Slowly along mine to the light. I flung her Off, down. My candle showed her cheeks raddled, Her bindweed pressure made me sick and mad; I flung her back to the gloom. Her further hand Clanked; hidden gyves fell ringing to the rock. Peering behind her barely I could discern Outstretching bodies clamped along the floor, Unmoving most and silent, some uneasy, Stirring and moaning. Smothery clutches came Of slothful scents and fingered at my throat; But, brushing by them, unaccompanied I held aloft my rushlight in the cave And searched for beauty through the cleaner air. Thus far in parable. Laugh loud, O world, Laugh loud and hollow. There are those would spurn Your joys unjoyous and your acid fruits. They would not tread the corpsy paths of commerce Nor juggle with men’s bones; they would not chaffer Their souls for strumpet pleasure. Cast them out, Deny what little they would ask of life, Assail, starve, torture, murder them, and laugh. Shall it be war between us? Better war Than faint submission--better death. And yet I would not, no, nor shall not die. How weaponed Shall I go passionate against your host? How, cautelous, elude your calm blockade?
Of older days heart-free the poet roved Along the furrowed lanes, and watched the robin Squat in a puddle, whir his stumpy wings, And tweet amid the tempest he aroused; A hare would hirple on ahead (keep back, Let her get out of sight; quick, cross yourself), Or taper weasel slink past over the road; And, seeing native blossoms, breathing air From English hills, what recked the wanderer That barons threw no penny to his song? Should he be hungered, he would seek some rill And, scrambling down the hazel scarp, would walk Wet-ankled up the stream until he found A larger pool of cold, colourless water, Full two-foot deep, scooped out of solid stone By a chuckling trickle spated after rains. There he would rest upon the bank, while slowly His fingers crept along the crannied rock. Poor starveling belly!--No, that lower fissure, Straight, lipless grin like an unholy god’s, Reach out for that. The water stings to his armpit, He hangs above the pool from head to waist, His legs push tautly back for body’s poise, And careful, careful creep the sensitive fingers.
--Sudden touch of cold, wet silk. Now flesh be one with brain! He lightly strokes The slippery smoothness upward to the gills And throws a twiring trout upon the grass. Or where the rattle of the water slacks To low leaf-whisper, there he gropes beneath Root-knots that hug black, unctuous mould from toppling To slutch the daylit stream. His wary nerves Tell blunt teeth biting at his thumb. Stormswift He snatches a heavy hand over his head. A floundering eel flops wildly to the floor, And glides for the water. Quick the hungry poet Spins round, whips out his knife, and shears the neck How firm soever gripped, the limber body Long after wriggles headless out of hand. But if he roam across foot-tangling heath And bracken, where no burble glads the root Of juicy grasses? If along his way Never a kingcup lifted bowls of light, Nor burly watermint with bludgeon scent, Beat down the fair, mild, slumbering meadowsweet? If no nearby forgetmenot looks up With frank and modest eye, no yellow flag Plays Harold crowned and girt by fearless pikes? No more he fails of ample fare; nor famine Drains out his blood and piecemeal drags his flesh From outward-leaping bones, till wrathful death, Grudging to lose a pebble from his cairn, Bears off the pitiful orts. For, stepping soft, He finds a rabbit gazing at the world With eyes in which not many moons have gleamed; And, raising a bawl of more expended breath Than fritter your burghers in a year of gabbling, He runs and hurls himself headlong on to it. Stunned at the cry, the rabbit waits and dithers; His muscles melt beneath him; "Pluck up strength," He calls to his legs; "oh, stiffen, stiffen!" and still He waits and dithers. Now the trembling scale Of timeless pain crashes suddenly down, And life’s a puffed-out flame.
Thus the poet Of bygone England (as an alchemist After ill magics and long labours wrought Seals in the flask his magisterium, Lest volatile it waste among the winds, And all men breathe a never-ageing youth) Found way to pend within his body life And what of pain or interwoven joy Life brings to poets. Friend, I do not gulp And weep with maudlin, sentimental tears, Lacking a late lamented golden age. The more of life was ever misery’s, And Socrates won hemlock. Yet before Was man so constant enemy to man? Did earth grow bleak at all these purposeless, Rotting and blotting, roaking, smoking chimneys? Look, men are dying, women dying, children dying. They sell their souls for bread, and poison-filths Whiten their flesh, bow their bodies. Crippled, Consumption-spotted, feeble-minded, sullen, They seek, bewildered, out of black despair, The star of life; so, dying a Christian death, Lie seven a grave unheedful. "Bad as that? Put down five hundred on the Lord Mayor’s list. After the cost of organizing’s paid There’ll still be something left. Besides, it looks well, And charity brings the firm new customers. Not that I hold with all this nonsense really. When I was young I’d nothing more than they, But I climbed, and trampled other people down. Why shouldn’t they?" O murderers, look, look, look. No man but tramples, tramples on his neighbour, And these the lowest wrench and writhe and kick And crush the desperate lives of whom they can. I will not tread the corpsy path of commerce Nor juggle with men’s bones. The world shall wend Those murderous ways. Not I, no, never I. You shall not gaol me round with city walls; I will not waste among your houses; roads That indiscriminate feel a thousand footings Shall not for mine augment their insolence. But, as of old the poet, poet now Shall hold a near communion with earth, Free from all traffic or truck with worldlihood: As poet one time lived of natural bounty, So now shall I. Yet differs even this. Me no man wronging still the world shall hound With interdict of food. Gamekeepers, bailiffs, And all the manlings vail and bob to lords Shall sturdy stand on decent English Law And threat my famine with a worser fate, The seasonless monotonies of walls That straitlier cabin than the closest town. So let them threat. War stands between us. I Take peril comrade, knowing a hazel scarp That breaks down ragged to a scampering brook; Knowing a hill whose deep-slit, slanting sides Brave out the wind and shoulder the rough clouds through.
A FAR COUNTRY
THIS wood is older born than other woods: The trees are God’s imagining of trees, Anemones So pale as these Have never laughed like children in far solitudes, Shaking and breaking worldforweary moods To pure and childish glees.
The dripple from the mossed and plashing beck Has carven glassy walls of pallid stone, Where ferns have thrown Fine silks unsewn, Faint clouds unskied, that, one enchanted moment, check And chalice waterdrops. They, silver grown, With moons the darkness fleck.
_HILDA REID_
(_SOMERVILLE_)
THE MAGNANIMITY OF BEASTS