Part 2

Never the violet her own fragrance knew: Even such a flowery innocent are you.

*THE LOVER*

Under the silver thatch, where dwells my love, About her dormer window, in the straw, The sparrows build, and with their morning talk Often awaken her.

And by the lattice climbs a crimson rose, Who, if he could but see my dinky dear, Before her loveliness, so wonderful, Would pale with jealousy.

When the first glow of honeysuckle dawn Cuddles her cottage in the dayspring light, I pass upon my woodland road to work And whistle as I come.

And if she hear me and twinkle out of bed To wave a kiss, then all my toil goes well; But if she heed me not, for weariness, How long the working day!

*THE MOTOR CAR*

Owlet sat, so quiet and good, At the edge of Yarner Wood, While a mother owl hard by Sought his supper silently.

Sudden came two hideous screams, Wakened owlet from his dreams; Down the road, on unseen wing, Swept a vast and awful thing.

Twice he heard the monster shriek, Saw its head and shining beak Twixt huge eyes, that burned the night, Brighter than the moon was bright.

Hooting horribly it fled-- Where the water-meadows spread. "He will catch," thought owlet now, "That red thing they call the cow."

Came his parent presently: Heard him squeak with fearful glee, "Mother dear, I’ve seen and heard Such a devil of a bird!"

*THE SEA SCOUTS*

While all alone I wandered At even by the sea, Where winds and water pondered Of how they came to be; Where kittiwakes were crying And salty spindrift flying Through daylight slowly dying A Shape confronted me.

She faced the broad Atlantic-- That maid of stately mien, Purer than foam, gigantic As Amazonian Queen. Her billowy robe, unknowing, How wild the wind was blowing, Showed not a throb or flowing, Hung steady and serene.

It was no fellow being For she stood ten feet high, And seaward gazed, unseeing The human passer-by; But only billows roaming, And wide-winged sea-fowl homing Through crepuscule and gloaming Beneath an ashen sky.

The spectre rose before me Most woeful, wan and white Upon that foreshore stormy Between the day and night; And such an apparition In this unique position, Despite her sad condition Awoke my wild delight.

Then came three youthful creatures, And them I bade with awe Behold the mournful features Of phantom on the shore. They laughed and said she’d drifted To land with bosom rifted-- A figure-head uplifted From wreck of "Margery Dawe."

They dared, those sea-scout shavers Who watched this lonely coast, Assert in treble quavers We stood before a post; They treated as a fiction My gratified conviction That, in her pale affliction, We’d met a salt-sea ghost!

Thus hard-eyed youth advances By shadowless, stark way Our middle-aged romances To slight and scorn and slay; Our make-believe to tatter; Our gallant dreams to scatter; To flout our faiths and shatter Our twilight in their day.

*SONG FOR THE SPHERES*

A drop of fire from a flying sun-- Sing, old stars, the World’s begun.

An ocean warm where electrons strive-- Sing, old stars, the World’s alive.

Age upon age and link upon link-- Shout, old stars, the World can think.

War’s red knife hisses home to the haft-- Mourn, old stars, the World runs daft.

Reason and Love shall conquer and reign-- Sing, old stars, the World grows sane.

Liberty, Liberty, Liberty! Shout, old stars, the World is free.

*THE CIRCLE*

When shepherd darkness folds the fading day And faints the West beneath the world’s wide brim, There stands a brotherhood, remote and dim, Of cowled and hooded wights rolled up in granite grey.

Spirits of dusk from out a far-off prime Beyond the shadowy pale of bygone eld, Immutable and constant and unquelled, They hold their everlasting state and tryst with Time.

These stones have seen the red-eyed wolf pack throng To slay the fleeting elk upon the waste, And they have marked the cave bear’s clumsy haste, Shuffling great golden furse and ragged rocks among.

O cirque, what meanest thou? Sepulchral lore, Or ritual of the quick? Did thirsty god Drink blood of sacrifice upon this sod? Art thou a temple wrought for deities of yore?

What dread, what joy, what Neolithic rule, What shouts of agony or pæans of praise Awoke, ye stones, the morning of your days? They answer not, but seek the shadowy crepuscule.

The Stone Man lifted them; his hairy hand They felt and knew, when Night’s eternal brow Gleamed with another diadem than now Ere Egypt’s mountain graves pressed on the desert sand.

Bowed but enduring, Time hath failed to break That emblem of eternity they trace Upon the bosom of this desolate place; And holy shall it be for their most ancient sake.

They have withdrawn upon the unseen light Of immemorial time; the vanished past Receives them once again to haunt her vast-- A sanctity beyond wild Chaos and old Night.

*TO ANTHEA’S BOSOM*

When that I went, a little lad, to school-- One half a cherub and one half a fool-- The weary pedant dinned upon my ears That all the world is but two hemispheres.

Maybe I doubted then, for I was born To laugh the wisdom of the wise to scorn; But now, indeed, most surely it appears That all the world is but two hemispheres.

*DUST*

A cone of dust is dancing at the lane end, Caught from the surface of the thirsty trackway And dropped again, into annihilation, By gusts from nowhere.

Upon the wheel of little whirlwind moulded, It billows in a wreath of spiral beauty, But, swifter than the smoke of fire dislimning, Endures no longer.

So I, intrinsical one slippery moment Share with my brief, grey brother at the lane end His buffet into being, then, unfettered, A like dismissal.

Dust of the cosmos, you alone eternal Immutable behind a myriad garments, Your stars grow ripe upon the boughs of heaven; But you bate nothing.

All one to you the forms and the reforming, The fashion of the man, or mouse, or mountain: So order be declared and conquered chaos Dethroned for ever.

*YOUNG NIGHT*

When flitter-mice with zigzag flight Specked the green sky at twilight dim; When the wise bird from out the brim Of forest darkness to the light Floated and perched upon a height, With mellow voice to welcome night;

When day was stolen from the dale To leave, where little river goes, One farewell, dusky gleam of rose; When down the purple of the vale A wingèd beetle boomed his tale And night-moth drank from night-flow’r pale;

When grey churn-owl within a glade Purred through the gloaming, till the sky Throbbed with his goblin melody; When, by her stone, the glow-worm played And with an emerald lamp betrayed The new-born dew-drops on the blade;

When young Night’s self in starry dress Came timid to her throne again-- Sweet anodyne for dead day’s pain And fire and wound and fevered stress-- With heart to soothe and will to bless, Then how I loved her loveliness!

*JILL BASSETT*

Jill Bassett, she was dancing mad, And any lad Who’d win that most amazing maid Must needs be a light-footed blade.

So said the folk; but I had pelf, And when the elf Found she might reign at Chadley Wood, Though I weren’t young, she thought it good.

She danced into my arms, and then, Along of men And some harsh words I’d got to say, One autumn time she danced away.

She vanished, like a bow on rain, And, to be plain, I didn’t feel no mighty wrench Nor much bewail the giglet wench.

Then came a bit of funny news From Billy Bewes: He’d seen the wretch at Christmas time Dancing in Plymouth pantomime!

For five good year no more was heard Of the rash bird; Then danced she back; but not to I: Her mother took her in to die.

Her breathing parts was nearly gone, Her dancing done. She wilted, like a davered rose; But I forgave her at the close.

With Bassett folk they dug her pit; It wasn’t fit That she should lie where I shall go: Her mother granted that was so.

Then, passing New Year’s night, I saw Upon the hoar Of moony frost in churchyard ground The woman dancing on her mound!

I’ll take my oath afore my God She swept the sod With naked feet and showed her charms And twirled about her twinkling arms.

A brace of owls that saw her too Made their hulloo, To which she danced so wondrous brave Over the silver on her grave.

Mayhap the cold got in her bones Under the stones, And up the wilful ghostey came To warm herself at her old game.

And I was on my hoss’s back-- I’d had my whack, But only just the usual three, And no man ever doubted me.

*TAILPIECE*

At turn of night the wild geese fly And waken drowsy wonder Beneath their wingèd thunder; Then silence falls again, Until the homing barn-owls cry And ring with hollow laughter, From ivy-tod and rafter, The farm upon the plain.

The lark’s aloft, a bead of gold; While yet the earth lies darkling, His little body’s sparkling: The sun has risen for him. A dotted track on dew-grey fold The weary fox is leaving; I hear the plovers peeving; The morning star grows dim.