Part 2

SHELLEY

Singer of cloud and star and rushing stream, Let me bring but one garland to thy shrine, For when a boy I drank of the dews divine That in thy rainbow-coloured chalice gleam. I scaled the silver ladder of thy dream, And dizzy with the wonder of that wine, I heard the song, and saw the eyes that shine Unveiled, within the sanctuary supreme.

Then, like Actæon I became the prey, The hunted quarry of remorseless hounds; Hark! in the distance I can hear them bay! But in my heart the vision and the voice Endure; and though they slay me, I rejoice-- I saw that light, I heard those starry sounds.

PHÈDRE

Her gesture is the soaring of a hymn, Her voice has robbed the spoil of Hybla’s bees; And like the frozen music of a frieze, Calm, as she moves majestic, every limb. Clear as a crystal beaker’s sounding rim, Her heart gives voice to sobbing melodies, And her frame trembles, swept by passion’s breeze, And sultry clouds her blazing eyes bedim.

A faery caught in her own fatal snare, A wounded eagle struggling to be free, Whose Kingdom was the snow and the sun’s flame More queenly than all empresses is she, Discrowned albeit, defeated and in despair; The stricken lily puts the rose to shame.

THE WOUNDED

The wounded lie and groan upon the plain; And one there is whom it is vain to lift; So give him water. It is the last gift, And very soon he shall not thirst again. All white and gold the Chief with a troop of horse Trots by. The soldier opens smiling eyes; And at the latest gasp of life he cries: “Long live!” with all his feeble flickering force. Before he said his say he died content. And we, the wounded on life’s battlefield, Enrolled and sent to war to fight and die, When conquered by our mortal wound, we cry “Long live!” obedient to our sacrament, When God with all His universe rides by.

Manchuria, 1904.

SONNETS: 1913-1914

I

I saw you smiling over broken flowers, Yourself a flower unbroken and more rare Than petals that make sweet the moonlit air, And load with scent the Summer’s golden hours. Your perfect head, the ripple of your hair, Like the soft sun that shines through April showers, Leans from a fairyland of twinkling towers, And beckons me to an enchanted stair.

Your eyes, your eyes, divide me from my sleep; The echo of your laughter makes me weep, You fill the measureless world, you frailest thing! And in the silence of my deepest dream, Your beauty wanders like a whispering stream, And brushes past me like an angel’s wing.

II

To-night the thoughts of you drift round my bed Like thistledown; I weave them into rhymes; And as I fall to sleep I hear their chimes Building sweet music high above my head, And prayers and poems all in praise of you; And, happy in my fading dream, I say: “There will be something ready with the day To send to her, to speak for me, to sue.”

But when the morning comes, the nimble words Have fled into the air like frightened birds, That answer my soft whistle with a scream; And only the recalcitrant thoughts remain; The baffled blind desire to find again The accents that were docile in my dream.

III

I think God made your soul for better things Than idly laughing with the noisy crew. I think He meant the spirit that is you To soar above the world with silver wings; To hear the music of celestial strings; To keep the flame within you always true Unto your own high pole; and pure as dew The fountain that within you sometimes sings.

I think you are an exile in the noise Of busy markets; alien to the toys That dazzle others, firing them with greed; And, like a seagull, lost upon the land, You long for the large breakers and the sand, The strong salt air, the surf, the drifting weed.

IV

The world was waiting for the thunder’s birth, To-day, and cloud was piled on sullen cloud: Then strong, and straight, and clean, and cool, and loud The rain came down, and drenched the stifling earth. The heavy clouds have lifted and rolled by; The riotous wet leaves with music ring, And now the nightingale begins to sing, And tender as a rose-leaf is the sky.

I wonder if some day this stifling care That weighs upon my heart will fall in showers? I wonder if the hot and heavy hours Will roll away and leave such limpid air, And if my soul will riot in the rain, And sing as gladly as that bird again?

V

I picked this cornflower in the rustling rye, These briar roses from a luscious hedge, This purple iris in the woodland sedge. It was the quaver of the dragon-fly, Dropped like a piece of azure from the sky, That led me to that pool amongst the trees-- And there I lay and listened to the bees, And murmured sadly to myself: “Good-bye.”

Good-bye! these perished petals that I send Will tell you that this truly is the end; Good-bye to you and to the golden hours. These briar roses grew beside the stream-- No, no! I shall not send you faded flowers-- I need them for the grave of my lost dream.

Sosnofka, June 1914

1914-1915

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JULIET’S OWL

Juliet has lost her little downy owl, The bird she loved more than all other birds He was a darling bird, so white, so wise, Like a monk hooded in a snowy cowl, With sun-shy scholar’s eyes, He hooted softly in diminished thirds; And when he asked for mice, He took refusal with a silent pride-- And never pleaded twice. He was a wondrous bird, as dignified As any Diplomat That ever sat By the round table of a Conference.

He was delicious, lovable and soft. He understood the meaning of the night, And read the riddle of the smiling stars. When he took flight, And roosted high aloft, Beyond the shrubbery and the garden fence, He would return and seek his safer bars, All of his own accord; and he would plead Forgiveness for the trouble and the search, And for the anxious heart he caused to bleed, And settle once again upon his perch, And utter a propitiating note, And take the heart Of Juliet by his pretty winning ways. His was the art Of pleasing without effort easily. His fluffy throat, His sage round eye, Sad with old knowledge, bright with young amaze, Where are they now? ah! where? Perchance in the pale halls of Hecate, Or in the poplars of Elysium, He wanders careless and completely free. But in the regions dumb, And in the pallid air, He will not find a sweet, caressing hand Like Juliet’s; not in all that glimmering land Shall he behold a silver planet rise As splendid as the light of Juliet’s eyes. Therefore in weeping with you, Juliet, Oh! let us not forget, To drop with sprigs of rosemary and rue, A not untimely tear Upon the bier, Of him who lost so much in losing you.

LE PRINCE ERRANT

I am the Prince of unremembered towers Destroyed before the birth of Babylon; And I was there when all the forest shone While pale Medea culled her deadly flowers. I heard the iron weeping of the King, When Orpheus sang to life his buried joy; And I beheld upon the walls of Troy The woman who made of death a little thing.

I heard the horn that shook the mountain tall, When Roland lay a-dying, and the call That fevered Tristram whispered o’er the sea, And brought Iseult of Cornwall to his side. I saw the Queen of Egypt like a bride Go glorious to her dead Mark Antony.

CENTER Printed in England at The Westminster Press 411a Harrow Road London W. 9