PART II

Thus did he speak—this brother of mine— On Exon Wild by Dunkery Tor, Born at my birth of mother of mine, And forthwith went his way To dare the deed some coming night . . . I kept the watch with shaking sight, The moon at moments breaking bright, At others glooming gray.

For three full days I heard no sound Where Dunkery frowns on Exon Moor, I heard no sound at all around Whether his fay prevailed, Or one malign the master were, Till some afoot did tidings bear How that, for all his practised care, He had been caught and jailed.

They had heard a crash when twelve had chimed By Mendip east of Dunkery Tor, When twelve had chimed and moonlight climbed; They watched, and he was tracked By arch and aisle and saint and knight Of sculptured stonework sheeted white In the cathedral’s ghostly light, And captured in the act.

Yes; for this Love he loved too well Where Dunkery sights the Severn shore, All for this Love he loved too well He burst the holy bars, Seized golden vessels from the chest To buy her ornaments of the best, At her ill-witchery’s request And lure of eyes like stars . . .

When blustering March confused the sky In Toneborough Town by Exon Moor, When blustering March confused the sky They stretched him; and he died. Down in the crowd where I, to see The end of him, stood silently, With a set face he lipped to me— “Remember.” “Ay!” I cried.

By night and day I shadowed her From Toneborough Deane to Dunkery Tor, I shadowed her asleep, astir, And yet I could not bear— Till Wrestler Joe anon began To figure as her chosen man, And took her to his shining van— To doom a form so fair!

He made it handsome for her sake— And Dunkery smiled to Exon Moor— He made it handsome for her sake, Painting it out and in; And on the door of apple-green A bright brass knocker soon was seen, And window-curtains white and clean For her to sit within.

And all could see she clave to him As cleaves a cloud to Dunkery Tor, Yea, all could see she clave to him, And every day I said, “A pity it seems to part those two That hourly grow to love more true: Yet she’s the wanton woman who Sent one to swing till dead!”

That blew to blazing all my hate, While Dunkery frowned on Exon Moor, And when the river swelled, her fate Came to her pitilessly . . . I dogged her, crying: “Across that plank They use as bridge to reach yon bank A coat and hat lie limp and dank; Your goodman’s, can they be?”

She paled, and went, I close behind— And Exon frowned to Dunkery Tor, She went, and I came up behind And tipped the plank that bore Her, fleetly flitting across to eye What such might bode. She slid awry; And from the current came a cry, A gurgle; and no more.

How that befell no mortal knew From Marlbury Downs to Exon Moor; No mortal knew that deed undue But he who schemed the crime, Which night still covers . . . But in dream Those ropes of hair upon the stream He sees, and he will hear that scream Until his judgment-time.

THE ABBEY MASON (_Inventor of the_ “_Perpendicular_” _Style of Gothic Architecture_)

THE new-vamped Abbey shaped apace In the fourteenth century of grace;

(The church which, at an after date, Acquired cathedral rank and state.)

Panel and circumscribing wall Of latest feature, trim and tall,

Rose roundabout the Norman core In prouder pose than theretofore,

Encasing magically the old With parpend ashlars manifold.

The trowels rang out, and tracery Appeared where blanks had used to be.

Men toiled for pleasure more than pay, And all went smoothly day by day,

Till, in due course, the transept part Engrossed the master-mason’s art.

—Home-coming thence he tossed and turned Throughout the night till the new sun burned.

“What fearful visions have inspired These gaingivings?” his wife inquired;

“As if your tools were in your hand You have hammered, fitted, muttered, planned;

“You have thumped as you were working hard: I might have found me bruised and scarred.

“What then’s amiss. What eating care Looms nigh, whereof I am unaware?”

He answered not, but churchward went, Viewing his draughts with discontent;

And fumbled there the livelong day Till, hollow-eyed, he came away.

—’Twas said, “The master-mason’s ill!” And all the abbey works stood still.

Quoth Abbot Wygmore: “Why, O why Distress yourself? You’ll surely die!”

The mason answered, trouble-torn, “This long-vogued style is quite outworn!

“The upper archmould nohow serves To meet the lower tracery curves:

“The ogees bend too far away To give the flexures interplay.

“This it is causes my distress . . . So it will ever be unless

“New forms be found to supersede The circle when occasions need.

“To carry it out I have tried and toiled, And now perforce must own me foiled!

“Jeerers will say: ‘Here was a man Who could not end what he began!’”

—So passed that day, the next, the next; The abbot scanned the task, perplexed;

The townsmen mustered all their wit To fathom how to compass it,

But no raw artistries availed Where practice in the craft had failed . . .

—One night he tossed, all open-eyed, And early left his helpmeet’s side.

Scattering the rushes of the floor He wandered from the chamber door

And sought the sizing pile, whereon Struck dimly a cadaverous dawn

Through freezing rain, that drenched the board Of diagram-lines he last had scored—

Chalked phantasies in vain begot To knife the architectural knot—

In front of which he dully stood, Regarding them in hopeless mood.

He closelier looked; then looked again: The chalk-scratched draught-board faced the rain,

Whose icicled drops deformed the lines Innumerous of his lame designs,

So that they streamed in small white threads From the upper segments to the heads

Of arcs below, uniting them Each by a stalactitic stem.

—At once, with eyes that struck out sparks, He adds accessory cusping-marks,

Then laughs aloud. The thing was done So long assayed from sun to sun . . .

—Now in his joy he grew aware Of one behind him standing there,

And, turning, saw the abbot, who The weather’s whim was watching too.

Onward to Prime the abbot went, Tacit upon the incident.

—Men now discerned as days revolved The ogive riddle had been solved;

Templates were cut, fresh lines were chalked Where lines had been defaced and balked,

And the work swelled and mounted higher, Achievement distancing desire;

Here jambs with transoms fixed between, Where never the like before had been—

There little mullions thinly sawn Where meeting circles once were drawn.

“We knew,” men said, “the thing would go After his craft-wit got aglow,

“And, once fulfilled what he has designed, We’ll honour him and his great mind!”

When matters stood thus poised awhile, And all surroundings shed a smile,

The master-mason on an eve Homed to his wife and seemed to grieve . . .

—“The abbot spoke to me to-day: He hangs about the works alway.

“He knows the source as well as I Of the new style men magnify.

“He said: ‘You pride yourself too much On your creation. Is it such?

“‘Surely the hand of God it is That conjured so, and only His!—

“‘Disclosing by the frost and rain Forms your invention chased in vain;

“‘Hence the devices deemed so great You copied, and did not create.’

“I feel the abbot’s words are just, And that all thanks renounce I must.

“Can a man welcome praise and pelf For hatching art that hatched itself? . . .

“So, I shall own the deft design Is Heaven’s outshaping, and not mine.”

“What!” said she. “Praise your works ensure To throw away, and quite obscure

“Your beaming and beneficent star? Better you leave things as they are!

“Why, think awhile. Had not your zest In your loved craft curtailed your rest—

“Had you not gone there ere the day The sun had melted all away!”

—But, though his good wife argued so, The mason let the people know

That not unaided sprang the thought Whereby the glorious fane was wrought,

But that by frost when dawn was dim The method was disclosed to him.

“Yet,” said the townspeople thereat, “’Tis your own doing, even with that!”

But he—chafed, childlike, in extremes— The temperament of men of dreams—

Aloofly scrupled to admit That he did aught but borrow it,

And diffidently made request That with the abbot all should rest.

—As none could doubt the abbot’s word, Or question what the church averred,

The mason was at length believed Of no more count than he conceived,

And soon began to lose the fame That late had gathered round his name . . .

—Time passed, and like a living thing The pile went on embodying,

And workmen died, and young ones grew, And the old mason sank from view

And Abbots Wygmore and Staunton went And Horton sped the embellishment.

But not till years had far progressed Chanced it that, one day, much impressed,

Standing within the well-graced aisle, He asked who first conceived the style;

And some decrepit sage detailed How, when invention nought availed,

The cloud-cast waters in their whim Came down, and gave the hint to him

Who struck each arc, and made each mould; And how the abbot would not hold

As sole begetter him who applied Forms the Almighty sent as guide;

And how the master lost renown, And wore in death no artist’s crown.

—Then Horton, who in inner thought Had more perceptions than he taught,

Replied: “Nay; art can but transmute; Invention is not absolute;

“Things fail to spring from nought at call, And art-beginnings most of all.

“He did but what all artists do, Wait upon Nature for his cue.”

—“Had you been here to tell them so Lord Abbot, sixty years ago,

“The mason, now long underground, Doubtless a different fate had found.

“He passed into oblivion dim, And none knew what became of him!

“His name? ’Twas of some common kind And now has faded out of mind.”

The Abbot: “It shall not be hid! I’ll trace it.” . . . But he never did.

—When longer yet dank death had wormed The brain wherein the style had germed

From Gloucester church it flew afar— The style called Perpendicular.—

To Winton and to Westminster It ranged, and grew still beautifuller:

From Solway Frith to Dover Strand Its fascinations starred the land,

Not only on cathedral walls But upon courts and castle halls,

Till every edifice in the isle Was patterned to no other style,

And till, long having played its part, The curtain fell on Gothic art.

—Well: when in Wessex on your rounds, Take a brief step beyond its bounds,

And enter Gloucester: seek the quoin Where choir and transept interjoin,

And, gazing at the forms there flung Against the sky by one unsung—

The ogee arches transom-topped, The tracery-stalks by spandrels stopped,

Petrified lacework—lightly lined On ancient massiveness behind—

Muse that some minds so modest be As to renounce fame’s fairest fee,

(Like him who crystallized on this spot His visionings, but lies forgot,

And many a mediaeval one Whose symmetries salute the sun)

While others boom a baseless claim, And upon nothing rear a name.

THE JUBILEE OF A MAGAZINE (_To the Editor_)

YES; your up-dated modern page— All flower-fresh, as it appears— Can claim a time-tried lineage,

That reaches backward fifty years (Which, if but short for sleepy squires, Is much in magazines’ careers).

—Here, on your cover, never tires The sower, reaper, thresher, while As through the seasons of our sires

Each wills to work in ancient style With seedlip, sickle, share and flail, Though modes have since moved many a mile!

The steel-roped plough now rips the vale, With cog and tooth the sheaves are won, Wired wheels drum out the wheat like hail;

But if we ask, what has been done To unify the mortal lot Since your bright leaves first saw the sun,

Beyond mechanic furtherance—what Advance can rightness, candour, claim? Truth bends abashed, and answers not.

Despite your volumes’ gentle aim To straighten visions wry and wrong, Events jar onward much the same!

—Had custom tended to prolong, As on your golden page engrained, Old processes of blade and prong,

And best invention been retained For high crusades to lessen tears Throughout the race, the world had gained! . . . But too much, this, for fifty years.

THE SATIN SHOES

“IF ever I walk to church to wed, As other maidens use, And face the gathered eyes,” she said, “I’ll go in satin shoes!”

She was as fair as early day Shining on meads unmown, And her sweet syllables seemed to play Like flute-notes softly blown.

The time arrived when it was meet That she should be a bride; The satin shoes were on her feet, Her father was at her side.

They stood within the dairy door, And gazed across the green; The church loomed on the distant moor, But rain was thick between.

“The grass-path hardly can be stepped, The lane is like a pool!”— Her dream is shown to be inept, Her wish they overrule.

“To go forth shod in satin soft A coach would be required!” For thickest boots the shoes were doffed— Those shoes her soul desired . . .

All day the bride, as overborne, Was seen to brood apart, And that the shoes had not been worn Sat heavy on her heart.

From her wrecked dream, as months flew on, Her thought seemed not to range. “What ails the wife?” they said anon, “That she should be so strange?” . . .

Ah—what coach comes with furtive glide— A coach of closed-up kind? It comes to fetch the last year’s bride, Who wanders in her mind.

She strove with them, and fearfully ran Stairward with one low scream: “Nay—coax her,” said the madhouse man, “With some old household theme.”

“If you will go, dear, you must fain Put on those shoes—the pair Meant for your marriage, which the rain Forbade you then to wear.”

She clapped her hands, flushed joyous hues; “O yes—I’ll up and ride If I am to wear my satin shoes And be a proper bride!”

Out then her little foot held she, As to depart with speed; The madhouse man smiled pleasantly To see the wile succeed.

She turned to him when all was done, And gave him her thin hand, Exclaiming like an enraptured one, “This time it will be grand!”

She mounted with a face elate, Shut was the carriage door; They drove her to the madhouse gate, And she was seen no more . . .

Yet she was fair as early day Shining on meads unmown, And her sweet syllables seemed to play Like flute-notes softly blown.

EXEUNT OMNES

I

EVERYBODY else, then, going, And I still left where the fair was? . . . Much have I seen of neighbour loungers Making a lusty showing, Each now past all knowing.

II

There is an air of blankness In the street and the littered spaces; Thoroughfare, steeple, bridge and highway Wizen themselves to lankness; Kennels dribble dankness.

III

Folk all fade. And whither, As I wait alone where the fair was? Into the clammy and numbing night-fog Whence they entered hither. Soon do I follow thither!

_June_ 2, 1913.

A POET

ATTENTIVE eyes, fantastic heed, Assessing minds, he does not need, Nor urgent writs to sup or dine, Nor pledges in the roseate wine.

For loud acclaim he does not care By the august or rich or fair, Nor for smart pilgrims from afar, Curious on where his hauntings are.

But soon or later, when you hear That he has doffed this wrinkled gear, Some evening, at the first star-ray, Come to his graveside, pause and say:

“Whatever the message his to tell, Two bright-souled women loved him well.” Stand and say that amid the dim: It will be praise enough for him.

_July_ 1914.

POSTSCRIPT “MEN WHO MARCH AWAY” (SONG OF THE SOLDIERS)

WHAT of the faith and fire within us Men who march away Ere the barn-cocks say Night is growing gray, To hazards whence no tears can win us; What of the faith and fire within us Men who march away?

Is it a purblind prank, O think you, Friend with the musing eye, Who watch us stepping by With doubt and dolorous sigh? Can much pondering so hoodwink you! Is it a purblind prank, O think you, Friend with the musing eye?

Nay. We well see what we are doing, Though some may not see— Dalliers as they be— England’s need are we; Her distress would leave us rueing: Nay. We well see what we are doing, Though some may not see!

In our heart of hearts believing Victory crowns the just, And that braggarts must Surely bite the dust, Press we to the field ungrieving, In our heart of hearts believing Victory crowns the just.

Hence the faith and fire within us Men who march away Ere the barn-cocks say Night is growing gray, To hazards whence no tears can win us: Hence the faith and fire within us Men who march away.

_September_ 5, 1914.