Part 1
POEMS
POEMS
BY THEODORE MAYNARD
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY G. K. CHESTERTON
TORONTO McCLELLAND AND STEWART, LTD. PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1917, 1918, by Daniel E. Hudson; Copyright, 1917, 1918, by The Sisters of Mercy; Copyright, 1917, 1919, by The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle in the State of New York._
_Copyright, 1919, by_ FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
_All Rights Reserved_
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
TO
MY WIFE
_We two have seen with our own eyes God’s multitudinous disguise; Waylaid Him in His voyaging Among the buttercups of Spring; In valleys where the lilies shone More glorious than Solomon We met a poet passing by, And learned his lyric--you and I!_
_But oh! did kindly Heaven not bless Our lives with more than loveliness, When, cast on every sapling-rod, Was seen the motley of our God; When having picked our way with craft Up cliffs to hear Him when He laughed, We felt, uplifted on the wind, His folly blown into our mind?_
_What doubt can touch us? We have heard The baby laughter of the Word! We mingle with solemnity A Catholic note of revelry In hypostatic union. From love’s carved choir-stalls we con The plain-song of the Breviary Illumined by hilarity. For as each cleansing sacrament To our soul’s comforting was sent (Through water and oil and wheat and wine, Bringing to human the divine), So shall we find on lovers’ lips The splendour of apocalypse, And through the body’s five gates come To all the good of Christendom._
_We have no fear that we shall lose This joyous Gospel of good news, For our symbolic love has stood By virtue of its fortitude-- Knowing a bitter Lenten fast, Satan discomforted at last, A bowed back scalding with great scars, Gethsemane of tears and stars, A journey of the cross, and ah, Its part and lot in Golgotha!_
_We know--let the marvellous thing be said!-- Love’s resurrection from the dead ... For as Magdalen came with cinnamon And aloes to smear Love’s limbs upon, But met alone on the Easter grass Life’s Lord, though she wist not Who He was-- So we, till He spoke as He spoke to her, Mistook Him for the gardener._
_April 14th, 1918._
NOTE
This edition of Theodore Maynard’s poems represents the author’s own selection of such of his published verse as he wishes included in a permanent collection. With few omissions, it represents the contents of the three volumes issued in Great Britain under the titles, “_Laughs and Whifts of Song_,” 1915; “_Drums of Defeat_,” 1917; “_Folly_,” 1918, none of which has hitherto been published in this country.
ON THEODORE MAYNARD’S POEMS
In the case of any poet who has caught and held our recollection, there is generally a particular piece of work which remains in our mind, not as the crown, but as the key. And ever since I saw in _The New Witness_ some lines called “A Song of Colours,” by Theodore Maynard, they have remained to me as a sort of simplification, or permanent element, of the rest of the poet’s writings; and I have felt him especially as a poet of colour. They are not by any means the best of his lines. They are direct, as is appropriate to a ballad; and they have none of the fine whimsicality or the frank humour to be found elsewhere in his work. Among these others the choice is hard: but I should say that the finest poetry as such is to be found in the images, and even in the very title, of “The World’s Miser”: and even more in the poem called “Apocalypse.” In this latter the poet imagines a new world which shall be supernatural in the strongest sense of the word; that of being more vivid and positive than the natural; and not (as it is so often imagined) more tenuous and void.
“Or what empurpled blooms to oust the rose Or what strange grass to glow like angels’ hair!”
The last line has the touch of the true mystic, which changes a thing and yet leaves it familiar. True artistic pugnacity, a thing that generally goes with true artistic pleasure, is well-expressed in the shrewd lines of the poem printed as a sequel to another poem called “To a Good Atheist.” The sequel is called “To a Bad Atheist,” with the charming explanation: “Who wrote what he called a trinity of meek retorts to the preceding poem, which were not meek, but full of pride and abominable heresy.” He describes the bad atheist’s mind as containing nothing but sawdust, sun and sand; which is accurate and exhaustive. And in so far as poetry appeals to particular temperaments, I myself find enjoyment expecially in the part of the collection properly to be called “Laughs”; in the ballads of feasting and fellowship; and especially in that sublime absolution gravely offered to the Duke of Norfolk.
But the sentiment of colour still ran like a thread through the whole texture; and I think there is hardly a poem that does not repeat it. And this is important; because the whole of Mr. Maynard’s inspiration is part of what is the main business of our time: the resurrection of the Middle Ages. The modern movement, with its Guild Socialism and its military reaction against the fatalism of the Barbarian, is as certainly drawing its life from the lost centuries of Catholic Europe, as the movement more commonly called the Renaissance drew its life from the lost languages and sculptures of antiquity. And, by a quaint inconsistency, Hellenists and Neo-Pagans of the school of Mr. Lowes Dickinson will call us antiquated for gathering the flowers which still grow on the graves of our mediæval ancestors, while they themselves will industriously search for the scattered ashes from the more distant pyres of the Pagans.
And the visible clue to the Middle Ages is colour. The mediæval man could paint before he could draw. In the almost startling inspiration which we call stained glass, he discovered something that is almost more coloured than colour; something that bears the same relation to mere colour that golden flame does to golden sand. He did not, like other artists, try in his pictures to paint the sun; he made the sun paint his pictures. He mixed the aboriginal light with the paints upon his palette. And it is this translucent actuality of colour which I feel in the phraseology of this writer, in a way it is not easy to analyse. We can only say that when he says--
“Among the yellow primroses He holds His summer palaces”
we have an impression, which it is the object of all poetry to produce. It can only be described by saying that a primrose by the river’s brim a _yellow_ primrose is to him, and it could not possibly be anything more. And this almost torrid directness and distinctness of tint is again connected with another quality of the poet and his poetic tradition: what many would call asceticism alternating with what many would call buffoonery. The colour conventions of the Middle Ages were copied very beautifully by the school of Rossetti and Swinburne. But they lost the exuberance of the Gothic and became a pattern rather than a plan; chiefly because they were not seriously inspired by any of the enthusiasms of the Middle Ages. Its decorative repetitions sometimes became quite dreary and artificial; as in Swinburne’s unfortunate couplet about the lilies and languors of virtue and the raptures and roses of vice. A little healthy gardening would have taught Swinburne that it takes quite as much virtue to grow a rose as to grow a lily. It might also have taught him that virtue is never languid, whatever else it may be: and that even lilies are not really languid so long as they are alive. If such decadents want an image of what it really is that holds up the heads of lilies or any other growing things, I can refer them to a couplet in this little volume, which is more beautiful and more original and means a great deal more--
“What wilful trees of any spring Than your young body are more fair?”
These lines contain a principle of life and mark the end of a pagan sterility. They contain the secret, not of gathering rosebuds while we may, but of growing them when we choose.
G. K. CHESTERTON.
CONTENTS
LAUGHS AND WHIFTS OF SONG PAGE
A SONG OF COLOURS 3
CECIDIT, CECIDIT BABYLON MAGNA 5
APOCALYPSE 7
GHOSTS 9
PROCESSIONAL 10
A SONG OF LAUGHTER 12
BALLADE IN PRAISE OF ARUNDEL 13
THE TRAMP 15
THE WORLD’S MISER 17
EASTER 19
THE GLORY OF THE ORIFLAMME 20
TO A GOOD ATHEIST 21
TO A BAD ATHEIST 23
PALM SUNDAY 25
WHEN I RIDE INTO THE TOWN 27
REQUIEM 29
AVE ATQUE VALE 30
ALADDIN 31
ADAM 32
THE ENGLISH SPRING 33
AT THE CRIB 35
THE MYSTIC 37
TO ANY SAINT 39
SUNSET ON THE DESERT 40
FOLLY
FOLLY 43
THE SHIPS 45
LAUGHTER 47
VOCATION 49
BLINDNESS 50
DRINKING SONG 52
THREE TRIOLETS 54
A NEW CANTERBURY TALE 56
IN MEMORIAM F. H. M. 62
TO THE IRISH DEAD 63
JOHN REDMOND 64
BEAUTY 65
FAITH’S DIFFICULTY 67
CHRISTMAS ON CRUSADE 69
THE ASCETIC 71
SONNET FOR THE FIFTH OF OCTOBER 75
WARFARE 76
TREASON 77
THERE WAS AN HOUR 78
NOCTURNE 79
PRIDE 80
BALLADE OF SHEEP BELLS 82
BALLADE OF A FEROCIOUS CATHOLIC 84
DAWN 86
SUNSET 87
PEACE 88
CARRION 89
THE BUILDING OF THE CITY 91
EDEN RE-OPENED 93
THE HOLY SPRING 95
VIATICUM 97
PUNISHMENT 98
AFTER COMMUNION 99
THE UNIVERSAL MOTHER 100
THE BOASTER 102
UNWED 104
WED 105
ENGLAND 106
LYRIC LOVE 108
DRUMS OF DEFEAT
THE FOOL 113
DON QUIXOTE 115
IRELAND 118
IN MEMORIAM 119
MATER DESOLATA 120
THE STIRRUP CUP 121
THE ENSIGN 122
BALLADE OF ORCHARDS 124
A GREAT WIND 126
BIRTHDAY SONNET 128
SILENCE 129
AT YELVERTON 130
THE JOY OF THE WORLD 132
GRATITUDE 135
IN DOMO JOHANNIS 139
AT WOODCHESTER 140
“FOR THEY SHALL POSSESS THE EARTH” 142
BALLADE OF THE BEST SONG IN THE WORLD 144
TAIL-PIECE 146
AVE 147
A REPLY 149
JOB 151
THE SOIL OF SOLACE 153
TO THE DEAD 154
SPRING, 1916 156
THE RETURN 157
FULFILMENT 158
PROPHECY 159
THE SINGER TO HIS LADY 160
CERTAINTIES 161
FEAR 162
CHARITY 163
SIGHT AND INSIGHT 164
CHRISTMAS CAROL 166
A GARDEN ENCLOSED 167
THE LOVER 169
POEMS
LAUGHS AND WHIFTS OF SONG
A SONG OF COLOURS
Gold for the crown of Mary, Blue for the sea and sky, Green for the woods and meadows Where small white daisies lie, And red for the colour of Christ’s blood When He came to the cross to die.
These things the high God gave us And left in the world He made-- Gold for the hilt’s enrichment, And blue for the sword’s good blade, And red for the roses a youth may set On the white brows of a maid.
Green for the cool, sweet gardens Which stretch about the house, And the delicate new frondage The winds of Spring arouse, And red for the wine which a man may drink With his fellows in carouse.
Blue and green for the comfort Of tired hearts and eyes, And red for that sudden hour which comes With danger and great emprise, And white for the honour of God’s throne When the dead shall all arise.
Gold for the cope and chalice, For kingly pomp and pride, And red for the feathers men wear in their caps When they win a war or a bride, And red for the robe which they dressed God in On the bitter day He died.
CECIDIT, CECIDIT BABYLON MAGNA!
The aimless business of your feet, Your swinging wheels and piston rods, The smoke of every sullen street Have passed away with all your Gods.
For in a meadow far from these A hodman treads across the loam, Bearing his solid sanctities To that strange altar called his home.
I watch the tall, sagacious trees Turn as the monks do, every one; The saplings, ardent novices, Turning with them towards the sun,
That Monstrance held in God’s strong hands, Burnished in amber and in red; God, His Own priest, in blessing stands; The earth, adoring, bows her head.
The idols of your market place, Your high debates, where are they now? Your lawyers’ clamour fades apace-- A bird is singing on the bough!
Three fragile, sacramental things Endure, though all your pomps shall pass-- A butterfly’s immortal wings, A daisy and a blade of grass.
APOCALYPSE
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.”--APOC.. xxi, I.
Shall summer woods where we have laughed our fill; Shall all your grass so good to walk upon; Each field which we have loved, each little hill Be burnt like paper--as hath said Saint John?
Then not alone they die! For God hath told How all His plains of mingled fire and glass, His walls of hyacinth, His streets of gold, His aureoles of jewelled light shall pass,
That He may make us nobler things than these, And in her royal robes of blazing red Adorn His bride. Yea, with what mysteries And might and mirth shall she be diamonded!
And what new secrets shall our God disclose; Or set what suns of burnished brass to flare; Or what empurpled blooms to oust the rose; Or what strange grass to glow like angels’ hair!
What pinnacles of silver tracery, What dizzy rampired towers shall God devise Of topaz, beryl and chalcedony To make Heaven pleasant to His children’s eyes!
And in what cataclysms of flame and foam Shall the first Heaven sink--as red as sin-- When God hath Cast aside His ancient home As far too mean to house His Children in!
GHOSTS
Some dismal nights there are when spirits walk Who lived and died unhappy in their time, To waste the air with vows and whispered talk Of tarnished love or hate or secret crime-- But now the moon moves splendid through the sky; The night is brilliant like a silver shield; And in their cavalcades come riding by The mighty dead of many a tented field. On this one night at least of all the year The lists are set again, the lines are drawn; Again resounds the clang of horse and spear; The sweet applause of ladies, till the dawn Makes glad the souls of vizored knights--then they, Hearing that seneschal, the cock, all troop away.
PROCESSIONAL
See how the plated gates unfold, How swing the creaking doors of brass! With drums and gleaming arms, behold Christ’s regal cohorts pass!
Shall Christ not have His chosen men, Nor lead His crested knights so tall, Superb upon their horses, when The world’s last cities fall?
Ah, no! These few, the maimed, the dumb, The saints of every lazar’s den, The earth’s off-scourings--they come From desert and from fen
To break the terror of the night, Black dreams and dreadful mysteries, And proud, lost empires in their might, And chains and tyrannies.
There ride no gold-encinctured kings Against the potentates of earth; God chooses all the weakest things, And gives Himself in birth With beaten slaves to draw His breath, And sleeps with foxes on the moor, With malefactors shares His death, Tattered and worn and poor.
See how the plated gates unfold, How swing the creaking doors of brass! Victorious in defeat--behold, Christ and His cohorts pass!
A SONG OF LAUGHTER
The stars with their laughter are shaken; The long waves laugh at sea; And the little Imp of Laughter Laughs in the soul of me.
I know the guffaw of a tempest, The mirth of a blossom and bud-- But I laugh when I think of Cuchulain[A] who laughed At the Crows with their bills in his blood.
The mother laughs low at her baby, The bridegroom with joy in his bride-- And I think that Christ laughed when they took Him with staves On the night before He died.
[A] Pronounced Cuhúlain.
BALLADE IN PRAISE OF ARUNDEL
(Made after a walk through Surrey and Sussex.)
I’ve trudged along the Pilgrims’ Way, And from St. Martha’s Hill looked down O’er Surrey woods and fields which lay Green in the sunlight. On the crown Of Hindhead and the Punchbowl’s brink Of no good thing I’ve been bereaven: But Arundel’s the place for drink-- _The pubs keep open till eleven._
White chalk-cliffs and the stubborn clay Are thrown about, and many a town Breaks on the sight like breaking day; But after all, who but a clown Could Arundel with Midhurst link, Where men go dry from two till seven? In _Arundel_ (no truth I’ll shrink) _The pubs keep open till eleven._
A great cool church where men can pray Secure from misbelieving frown; And in the Square, I beg to say, The beer is strong and rich and brown. Some poor, misguided people think Petworth’s the spot that’s nearest Heaven: In _Arundel_ the ale-pots clink-- _The pubs keep open till eleven._
_L’Envoi_
Duke, at the dreadful Judgment Day Your soul will surely be well shriven, For then all angel trumps shall bray, _He kept pubs open till eleven!_
THE TRAMP
My brothers stay in cities To gather shame and gold, But I am for the highway And the wind upon the wold.
They take the train each morning To a dull, bricked-up place; I trudge the living country With the sunlight on my face.
I know no home or shelter, No bed but good green grass, Nor any friends but hedgerows To greet me as I pass.
But though the road still calls me To places wild and steep, I find the going heavy; My eyes are full of sleep.
The fields lie all about me; The trees are gay with sap-- As I go weary, weary To my great mother’s lap,
To rest me with my mother, The kindly earth so brown. And Lord! But well contented I’ll lay my carcase down.
THE WORLD’S MISER
I
A miser with an eager face Sees that each roseleaf is in place.
He keeps beneath strong bolts and bars The piercing beauty of the stars.
The colours of the dying day He hoards as treasure--well He may!--
And saves with care (lest they be lost) The dainty diagrams of frost.
He counts the hairs of every head, And grieves to see a sparrow dead.