Part 3

Soon was I then to gather bitter shame Of spirit; I had been most wildly proud-- Yet in my pride had been Some little courage, formless as a cloud, Unpiloted save by a vagrant wind, But still an earnest of the bonds that tame The legionary hates, of sacred loves that lean From the high soul of man towards his kind. And all my grief Had been for those I watched go to and fro In uncompassioned woe Along that little span my unbelief Had fashioned in my vision as all life. Now even this so little virtue waned, For I became caught up into the strife That I had pitied, and my soul was stained At last by that most venomous despair, Self-pity. I no longer was aware Of any will to heal the world’s unrest, I suffered as it suffered, and I grew Troubled in all my daily trafficking, Not with the large heroic trouble known By proud adventurous men who would atone With their own passionate pity for the sting And anguish of a world of peril and snares, It was the trouble of a soul in thrall To mean despairs, Driven about a waste where neither fall Of words from lips of love, nor consolation Of grave eyes comforting, nor ministration Of hand or heart could pierce the deadly wall Of self--of self,--I was a living shame-- A broken purpose. I had stood apart With pride rebellious and defiant heart, And now my pride had perished in the flame. I cried for succour as a little child Might supplicate whose days are undefiled,-- For tutored pride and innocence are one.

_To the gloom has won_ _A gleam of the sun_ _And into the barren desolate ways_ _A scent is blown_ _As of meadows mown_ _By cooling rivers in clover days._

V

I turned me from that place in humble wise, And fingers soft were laid upon mine eyes, And I beheld the fruitful earth, with store Of odorous treasure, full and golden grain, Ripe orchard bounty, slender stalks that bore Their flowered beauty with a meek content, The prosperous leaves that loved the sun and rain, Shy creatures unreproved that came and went In garrulous joy among the fostering green. And, over all, the changes of the day And ordered year their mutable glory laid-- Expectant winter soberly arrayed, The prudent diligent spring whose eyes have seen The beauty of the roses uncreate, Imperial June, magnificent, elate Beholding all the ripening loves that stray Among her blossoms, and the golden time Of the full ear and bounty of the boughs,-- And the great hills and solemn chanting seas And prodigal meadows, answering to the chime Of God’s good year, and bearing on their brows The glory of processional mysteries From dawn to dawn, the woven leaves and light Of the high noon, the twilight secrecies, And the inscrutable wonder of the stars Flung out along the reaches of the night.

_And the ancient might_ _Of the binding bars_ _Waned as I woke to a new desire_ _For the choric song_ _Of exultant, strong_ _Earth-passionate men with souls of fire._

VI

’T was given me to hear. As I beheld-- With a new wisdom, tranquil, asking not For mystic revelation--this glory long forgot, This re-discovered triumph of the earth In high creative will and beauty’s pride Establishèd beyond the assaulting years, It came to me, a music that compelled Surrender of all tributary fears, Full-throated, fierce, and rhythmic with the wide Beat of the pilgrim winds and labouring seas, Sent up from all the harbouring ways of earth Wherein the travelling feet of men have trod, Mounting the firmamental silences And challenging the golden gates of God.

_We bear the burden of the years_ _Clean limbed, clear-hearted, open-browed,_ _Albeit sacramental tears_ _Have dimmed our eyes, we know the proud_ _Content of men who sweep unbowed_ _Before the legionary fears;_ _In sorrow we have grown to be_ _The masters of adversity._

_Wise of the storied ages we,_ _Of perils dared and crosses borne,_ _Of heroes bound by no decree_ _Of laws defiled or faiths outworn,_ _Of poets who have held in scorn_ _All mean and tyrannous things that be;_ _We prophesy with lips that sped_ _The songs of the prophetic dead._

_Wise of the brief belovèd span_ _Of this our glad earth-travelling,_ _Of beauty’s bloom and ordered plan,_ _Of love and loves compassioning,_ _Of all the dear delights that spring_ _From man’s communion with man;_ _We cherish every hour that strays_ _Adown the cataract of the days._

_We see the clear untroubled skies,_ _We see the summer of the rose_ _And laugh, nor grieve that clouds will rise_ _And wax with every wind that blows,_ _Nor that the blossoming time will close,_ _For beauty seen of humble eyes_ _Immortal habitation has_ _Though beauty’s form may pale and pass._

_Wise of the great unshapen age,_ _To which we move with measured tread_ _All girt with passionate truth to wage_ _High battle for the word unsaid,_ _The song unsung, the cause unled,_ _The freedom that no hope can gauge;_ _Strong-armed, sure-footed, iron-willed_ _We sift and weave, we break and build._

_Into one hour we gather all_ _The years gone down, the years unwrought_ _Upon our ears brave measures fall_ _Across uncharted spaces brought,_ _Upon our lips the words are caught_ _Wherewith the dead the unborn call;_ _From love to love, from height to height_ _We press and none may curb our might._

VII

O blessed voices, O compassionate hands, Calling and healing, O great-hearted brothers! I come to you. Ring out across the lands Your benediction, and I too will sing With you, and haply kindle in another’s Dark desolate hour the flame you stirred in me. O bountiful earth, in adoration meet I bow to you; O glory of years to be, I too will labour to your fashioning. Go down, go down, unweariable feet, Together we will march towards the ways Wherein the marshalled hosts of morning wait In sleepless watch, with banners wide unfurled Across the skies in ceremonial state, To greet the men who lived triumphant days, And stormed the secret beauty of the world.

CHALLENGE

You fools behind the panes who peer At the strong black anger of the sky, Come out and feel the storm swing by, Aye, take its blow on your lips, and hear The wind in the branches cry.

No. Leave us to the day’s device, Draw to your blinds and take your ease, Grow peak’d in the face and crook’d in the knees; Your sinews could not pay the price When the storm goes through the trees.

TRAVEL TALK

LADYWOOD, 1912. (TO E. DE S.)

To the high hills you took me, where desire, Daughter of difficult life, forgets her lures, And hope’s eternal tasks no longer tire, And only peace endures. Where anxious prayer becomes a worthless thing Subdued by muted praise, And asking nought of God and life we bring The conflict of long days Into a moment of immortal poise Among the scars and proud unbuilded spires, Where, seeking not the triumphs and the joys So treasured in the world, we kindle fires That shall not burn to ash, and are content To read anew the eternal argument.

Nothing of man’s intolerance we know Here, far from man, among the fortressed hills, Nor of his querulous hopes. To what may we attain? What matter, so We feel the unwearied virtue that fulfils These cloudy crests and rifts and heathered slopes With life that is and seeks not to attain, For ever spends nor ever asks again?

To the high hills you took me. And we saw The everlasting ritual of sky And earth and the waste places of the air, And momently the change of changeless law Was beautiful before us, and the cry Of the great winds was as a distant prayer From a massed people, and the choric sound Of many waters moaning down the long Veins of the hills was as an undersong; And in that hour we moved on holy ground.

To the high hills you took me. Far below Lay pool and tarn locked up in shadowy sleep; Above we watched the clouds unhasting go From hidden crest to crest; the neighbour sheep Cropped at our side, and swift on darkling wings The hawks went sailing down the valley wind, The rock-bird chattered shrilly to its kind; And all these common things were holy things.

From ghostly Skiddaw came the wind in flight. By Langdale Pikes to Coniston’s broad brow, From Coniston to proud Helvellyn’s height, The eloquent wind, the wind that even now Whispers again its story gathered in For seasons of much traffic in the ways Where men so straitly spin The garment of unfathomable days.

To the high hills you took me. And we turned Our feet again towards the friendly vale, And passed the banks whereon the bracken burned And the last foxglove bells were spent and pale, Down to a hallowed spot of English land Where Rotha dreams its way from mere to mere, Where one with undistracted vision scanned Life’s far horizons, he who sifted clear Dust from the grain of being, making song Memorial of simple men and minds Not bowed to cunning by deliberate wrong, And conversed with the spirit of the winds, And knew the guarded secrets that were sealed In pool and pine, petal and vagrant wing, Throning the shepherd folding from the field, Robing anew the daffodils of spring.

We crossed the threshold of his home and stood Beside his cottage hearth where once was told The day’s adventure drawn from fell and wood, And wisdom’s words and love’s were manifold, Where, in the twilight, gossip poets met To read again their peers of older time, And quiet eyes of gracious women set A bounty to the glamour of the rhyme.

There is a wonder in a simple word That reinhabits fond and ghostly ways, And when within the poet’s walls we heard One white with ninety years recall the days When he upon his mountain paths was seen, We answered her strange bidding and were made One with the reverend presence who had been Steward of kingly charges unbetrayed.

And to the little garden-close we went, Where he at eventide was wont to pass To watch the willing day’s last sacrament, And the cool shadows thrown along the grass, To read again the legends of the flowers, Lighten with song th’ obscure heroic plan, To contemplate the process of the hours, And think on that old story which is man. The lichened apple-boughs that once had spent Their blossoms at his feet, in twisted age Yet knew the wind, and the familiar scent Of heath and fern made sweet his hermitage. And, moving so beneath his cottage-eaves, His song upon our lips, his life a star, A sign, a storied peace among the leaves, Was he not with us then? He was not far.

To the high hills you took me. We had seen Much marvellous traffic in the cloudy ways, Had laughed with the white waters and the green, Had praised and heard the choric chant of praise, Communed anew with the undying dead, Resung old songs, retold old fabulous things, And, stripped of pride, had lost the world and led A world refashioned as unconquered kings.

And the good day was done, and there again Where in your home of quietness we stood, Far from the sight and sound of travelling men, And watched the twilight climb from Lady-wood Above the pines, above the visible streams, Beyond the hidden sources of the rills, Bearing the season of uncharted dreams Into the silent fastness of the hills.

Peace on the hills, and in the valleys peace; And Rotha’s moaning music sounding clear; The passing-song of wearied winds that cease, Moving among the reeds of Rydal Mere; The distant gloom of boughs that still unscarred Beside their poet’s grave due vigil keep-- With us were these, till night was throned and starred And bade us to the benison of sleep.

THE VAGABOND

I know the pools where the grayling rise, I know the trees where the filberts fall, I know the woods where the red fox lies, The twisted elms where the brown owls call. And I’ve seldom a shilling to call my own, And there’s never a girl I’d marry, I thank the Lord I’m a rolling stone With never a care to carry.

I talk to the stars as they come and go On every night from July to June, I’m free of the speech of the winds that blow, And I know what weather will sing what tune. I sow no seed and I pay no rent, And I thank no man for his bounties, But I’ve a treasure that’s never spent, I’m lord of a dozen counties.

OLD WOMAN IN MAY

“Old woman by the hedgerow In gown of withered black, With beads and pins and buttons And ribbons in your pack-- How many miles do you go? To Dumbleton and back?”

“To Dumbleton and back, sir, And round by Cotsall Hill, I count the miles at morning, At night I count them still, A Jill without a Jack, sir, I travel with a will.”

“It’s little men are paying For such as you can do, You with the grey dust in your hair And sharp nails in your shoe, The young folks go a-Maying, But what is May to you?”

“I care not what they pay me While I can hear the call Of cattle on the hillside, And watch the blossoms fall In a churchyard where maybe There’s company for all.”

THE FECKENHAM MEN

The jolly men at Feckenham Don’t count their goods as common men, Their heads are full of silly dreams From half-past ten to half-past ten, They’ll tell you why the stars are bright, And some sheep black and some sheep white.

The jolly men at Feckenham Draw wages of the sun and rain, And count as good as golden coin The blossoms on the window-pane, And Lord! they love a sinewy tale Told over pots of foaming ale.

Now here’s a tale of Feckenham Told to me by a Feckenham man, Who, being only eighty years, Ran always when the red fox ran, And looked upon the earth with eyes As quiet as unclouded skies.

These jolly men of Feckenham One day when summer strode in power Went down, it seems, among their lands And saw their bean fields all in flower-- “Wheat-ricks,” they said, “be good to see; What would a rick of blossoms be?”

So straight they brought the sickles out And worked all day till day was done, And builded them a good square rick Of scented bloom beneath the sun. And was not this I tell to you A fiery-hearted thing to do?

THE TRAVELLER

When March was master of furrow and fold, And the skies kept cloudy festival And the daffodil pods were tipped with gold And a passion was in the plover’s call, A spare old man went hobbling by With a broken pipe and a tapping stick, And he mumbled--“Blossom before I die, Be quick, you little brown buds, be quick.

“I ’ve weathered the world for a count of years-- Good old years of shining fire-- And death and the devil bring no fears, And I ’ve fed the flame of my last desire; I ’m ready to go, but I ’d pass the gate On the edge of the world with an old heart sick If I missed the blossoms. I may not wait-- The gate is open--be quick, be quick.”

IN LADY STREET

All day long the traffic goes In Lady Street by dingy rows Of sloven houses, tattered shops-- Fried fish, old clothes and fortune-tellers-- Tall trams on silver-shining rails, With grinding wheels and swaying tops, And lorries with their corded bales, And screeching cars. “Buy, buy!” the sellers Of rags and bones and sickening meat Cry all day long in Lady Street.

And when the sunshine has its way In Lady Street, then all the grey Dull desolation grows in state More dull and grey and desolate, And the sun is a shamefast thing, A lord not comely-housed, a god Seeing what gods must blush to see, A song where it is ill to sing, And each gold ray despiteously Lies like a gold ironic rod.

Yet one grey man in Lady Street Looks for the sun. He never bent Life to his will, his travelling feet Have scaled no cloudy continent, Nor has the sickle-hand been strong. He lives in Lady Street; a bed, Four cobwebbed walls.

But all day long A time is singing in his head Of youth in Gloucester lanes. He hears The wind among the barley-blades, The tapping of the woodpeckers On the smooth beeches, thistle-spades Slicing the sinewy roots; he sees The hooded filberts in the copse Beyond the loaded orchard trees, The netted avenues of hops; He smells the honeysuckle thrown Along the hedge. He lives alone, Alone--yet not alone, for sweet Are Gloucester lanes in Lady Street.

Aye, Gloucester lanes. For down below The cobwebbed room this grey man plies A trade, a coloured trade. A show Of many-coloured merchandise Is in his shop. Brown filberts there, And apples red with Gloucester air, And cauliflowers he keeps, and round Smooth marrows grown on Gloucester ground, Fat cabbages and yellow plums, And gaudy brave chrysanthemums. And times a glossy pheasant lies Among his store, not Tyrian dyes More rich than are the neck-feathers; And times a prize of violets, Or dewy mushrooms satin-skinned And times an unfamiliar wind Robbed of its woodland favour stirs Gay daffodils this grey man sets Among his treasure.

All day long In Lady Street the traffic goes By dingy houses, desolate rows Of shops that stare like hopeless eyes. Day long the sellers cry their cries, The fortune-tellers tell no wrong Of lives that know not any right, And drift, that has not even the will To drift, toils through the day until The wage of sleep is won at night. But this grey man heeds not at all The hell of Lady Street. His stall Of many-coloured merchandise He makes a shining paradise, As all day long chrysanthemums He sells, and red and yellow plums And cauliflowers. In that one spot Of Lady Street the sun is not Ashamed to shine and send a rare Shower of colour through the air; The grey man says the sun is sweet On Gloucester lanes in Lady Street.

ANTHONY CRUNDLE

CENTER _Here lies the body of ANTHONY CRUNDLE, Farmer, of this parish, Who died in 1849 at the age of 82. “He delighted in music.” R. I. P. And of SUSAN, For fifty-three years his wife, Who died in 1860, aged 86._

ANTHONY CRUNDLE of Dorrington Wood Played on a piccolo. Lord was he, For seventy years, of sheaves that stood Under the perry and cider tree; _Anthony Crundle, R.I.P._

And because he prospered with sickle and scythe, With cattle afield and labouring ewe, Anthony was uncommonly blithe, And played of a night to himself and Sue; _Anthony Crundle, eighty-two_.

The earth to till, and a tune to play, And Susan for fifty years and three, And Dorrington Wood at the end of day ... May providence do no worse by me; _Anthony Crundle, R.I.P._

MAD TOM TATTERMAN

“Old man, grey man, good man scavenger, Bearing is it eighty years upon your crumpled back? What is it you gather in the frosty weather, Is there any treasure here to carry in your sack?”

* * * * *

“I’ve a million acres and a thousand head of cattle, And a foaming river where the silver salmon leap; But I’ve left fat valleys to dig in sullen alleys Just because a twisted star rode by me in my sleep.

“I’ve a brain is dancing to an old forgotten music Heard when all the world was just a crazy flight of dreams, And don’t you know I scatter in the dirt along the gutter Seeds that little ladies nursed by Babylonian streams?

“Mad Tom Tatterman, that is how they call me. Oh, they know so much, so much, all so neatly dressed; I’ve a tale to tell you--come and listen, will you?-- One as ragged as the twigs that make a magpie’s nest.

“Ragged, oh, but very wise. You and this and that man, All of you are making things that none of you would lack, And so your eyes grow dusty, and so your limbs grow rusty-- But mad Tom Tatterman puts nothing in his sack.

“Nothing in my sack, sirs, but the Sea of Galilee Was walked for mad Tom Tatterman, and when I go to sleep They’ll know that I have driven through the acres of broad heaven Flocks are whiter than the flocks that all your shepherds keep.”

FOR CORIN TO-DAY

Old shepherd in your wattle cote, I think a thousand years are done Since first you took your pipe of oat And piped against the risen sun, Until his burning lips of gold Sucked up the drifting scarves of dew And bade you count your flocks from fold And set your hurdle stakes anew.

And then as now at noon you ’ld take The shadow of delightful trees, And with good hands of labour break Your barley bread with dairy cheese, And with some lusty shepherd mate Would wind a simple argument, And bear at night beyond your gate A loaded wallet of content.

O Corin of the grizzled eye, A thousand years upon your down You’ve seen the ploughing teams go by Above the bells of Avon’s town; And while there’s any wind to blow Through frozen February nights, About your lambing pens will go The glimmer of your lanthorn lights.

THE CARVER IN STONE