Part 2

And walk in Cranham lanes, By Maisemore go.... But, fool, decrepit Fool, You are SO SLOW!!!

INFLUENCES

WHEN woods of home grow dark, I grow dark too. Images of strange power Fill me and thrill me that hour, Sombre of hue.

The woods of Dunsinane I walk, and know What storms did shake Macbeth, That brought on Duncan’s death, And his own woe.

Strange whispers chill the blood Of evil breath; Such rumours as did stir Witch and foul sorcerer On the lone heath.

No power have these on me; I know too well Their weakness to condemn. Spring will exorcise them With one bluebell.

AFTER-GLOW

[_TO_ F. W. HARVEY]

OUT of the smoke and dust of the little room With tea-talk loud and laughter of happy boys, I passed into the dusk. Suddenly the noise Ceased with a shock, left me alone in the gloom, To wonder at the miracle hanging high Tangled in twigs, the silver crescent clear.-- Time passed from mind. Time died; and then we were Once more at home together, you and I.

The elms with arms of love wrapped us in shade Who watched the ecstatic West with one desire, One soul uprapt; and still another fire Consumed us, and our joy yet greater made: That Bach should sing for us, mix us in one The joy of firelight and the sunken sun.

HAIL AND FAREWELL

THE destined bullet wounded him, They brought him down to die, Far-off a bugle sounded him “Retreat,” Good-bye.

Strange, that from ways so hated, And tyranny so hard Should come this strangely fated And farewell word.

He thought, “Some Old Sweat might Have thrilled at heart to hear, Gone down into the night Too proud to fear!

But I--the fool at arms, Musician, poet to boot, Who hail release; what charms In this salute?”

He smiled--“The latest jest That time on me shall play.” And watched the dying west, Went out with the day.

PRAISE

O friends of mine, if men mock at my name, Say “Children loved him.” Since by that word you will have far removed him From any bitter shame.

WINTER BEAUTY

I CANNOT live with Beauty out of mind; I seek her and desire her all the day, Being the chiefest treasure man may find, And word most sweet his eager lips can say. She is as strong on me as though I wandered In Severn meadows some blue riotous day.

But since the trees have long since lost their green, And I, an exile, can but dream of things Grown magic in the mind, I watch the sheen Of frost and hear the song Orion sings, And hear the star-born passion of Beethoven; Man’s consolations sung on the quivering strings.

Beauty of song remembered, sunset glories, Mix in my mind, till I not care nor know Whether the stars do move me, golden stories, Or ruddy Cotswold in the sunset glow. I am uprapt, and not my own, immortal, ... In winds of Beauty swinging to and fro.

Beauty immortal, not to be hid, desire Of all men, each in his fashion, give me the strong Thirst past satisfaction for thee, and fire Not to be quenched.... O lift me, bear me along, Touch me, make me worthy that men may seek me For Beauty, Mistress Immortal, Healer of Wrong.

SONG OF PAIN AND BEAUTY

[_To_ M. M. S.]

O MAY these days of pain, These wasted-seeming days, Somewhere reflower again With scent and savour of praise. Draw out of memory all bitterness Of night with Thy sun’s rays.

And strengthen Thou in me The love of men here found, And eager charity, That, out of difficult ground, Spring like flowers in barren deserts, or Like light, or a lovely sound.

A simpler heart than mine Might have seen beauty clear Where I could see no sign Of Thee, but only fear. Strengthen me, make me to see Thy beauty always In every happening here.

IN TRENCHES, _March 1917_.

SPRING. ROUEN, MAY 1917

I AM dumb, I am dumb! And here’s a Norman orchard and here’s Spring Goading the sullen words that will not come. Romance, beating his distant magical drum, Calls to a soldier bearing alien arms, “Throw off your yoke and hear my darlings sing, Blackbirds” (by red-roofed farms) “More drunk than any poet with May’s delight, Green alive to the eye, and pink and white.”

Joy’s there, but not for me; And song, but shall I sing That live as in a dream of some bad night, Whose memories are of such ecstasy And height of passionate joy, that pain alone Is born of beauty in cloud and flower and tree; Yes, and the great Cathedral’s towering stone.

To me these are but shadows Of orchards and old meadows Trodden before the dawn, Trodden after the dusk.... All loveliness of France is as a husk, The inner living spirit of beauty gone, To that familiar beauty now withdrawn From exiles hungering ever for the sight Of her day-face; England’s; Or in some orchard space Breathless to drink peace from her calm night.

How shall I sing, since she sings not to me Songs any more? High rule she holds for ever on the sea That’s hers, but dreams too might guard the shore Of France, that’s French and set apart for ever. A Spirit of Love our link of song does sever. Had it been hate (The weakest of all sworn enemies of Love) We should have broken through or passed above Its foolish barriers; Here we must bow as to established Fate, And reverently; for, comrades and high peers, Sisters in blood, Our mothers brook no rival in their state Of motherhood.

But not for ever shall our travail last, And not for ever we Be held by iron Duty over sea. The image of evil shall be overcast, And all his willing slaves and priests of evil Scattered like dust, shall lie upon the plain; That image, ground to dust utterly level With unregarded weeds and all as vain. The oppressed shall lift their hearts up once again, And we return.... Not to scarred lands and homes laid in the dust, Not with hard hearts to sights that sear and burn, But with assured longing and certain trust, To England’s royal grace and dignity, To England’s changing skies, rich greenery, High strength controlled, queenly serenity, Inviolate kept by her confederate sea And hearts resolved to every sacrifice. We shall come home, We shall come home again, Living and dead, one huge victorious host-- The dead that would not leave their comrades till The last steep were topped of the difficult hill, The last farthing paid of the Great Cost, The last thrill suffered of the Great Pain. Living and dead, we shall come home at last To her sweet breast, England’s; by one touch be paid in full For all things grey and long and terrible Of that dread night which seemed eternity.

O Mother, shall thy kisses not restore Body and life-sick soul? Yes, and set free Songs and great floods of lovelier melody Than thou didst give When we those days of half-awake did live. And joy must surely flower again more fair To us, who dwelt in shadows and foul air. We’ll breathe and drink in song.

Spring shall blot out all traces of old care; Her clouds of green and waves of gold among We shall grow free of heart, and great, and young-- Be made anew in that Great Resurrection, Perfect as is the violet’s perfection. Perfect as she Who sanctifies our memory with sorrow, Hugs, as a mother hugs, the thoughts that harrow, Watching for dawn, hungering for the morrow Lone oversea....

I am dumb now, dumb, But in that time what music shall not come? Mother of Beauty, Mistress of the Sea.

JUNE--TO--COME

WHEN the sun’s fire and gold Sets the bee humming, I will not write to tell Him that I’m coming,

But ride out unawares On that old road, Of Minsterworth, of Peace, Of Framilode,

And walk, not looked for, in That cool, dark passage. Never a single word; Myself my message.

And then; well ... O we’ll drift And stand and gaze, And wonder how we could In those Bad Days

Live without Minsterworth; Or western air Fanning the hot cheek, Stirring the hair; In land where hate of men God’s love did cover; This land.... And here’s my dream Irrevocably over.

“HARK, HARK, THE LARK”

HARK, hark, the lark to heaven’s gate uprisen, Pours out his joy ... I think of you, shut in some distant prison, O Boy, poor Boy;

Your heart grown sick with hope deferred and shadows Of prison ways; Not daring to snatch a thought of Severn meadows, Or old blue-days.

SONG AT MORNING

PRAISE for the day’s magnificent uprising! Praise for the cool Air and the blue new-old ever-surprising Face of the sky, and mirrored blue of the pool. Only the fool, bat-witted, owl-eyed fool Can hold a deaf ear while life begins The actual opening of a myriad stories.... Blindness, ingratitude, the foolishest sins! Now if this day blot out my chief desires, And leave me maimed and blind and full of hot Surges of insurrection, evil fires, Memories of joys that seem better forgot; Quiet me then. Thy Will is binding on the nearest flower As on the farthest star; and what shall put me Out of Thy power, or from Thy guidance far, Though I in hell of my self-will would shut me? But if Thy Will be joy for me to-day, Give me clear eyes, a heart open to feel Thy influence, Thy kindness: O unseal The shut, the hidden places in me, reveal Those things most precious secretly hidden away From all save children and the simply wise. Give me clear eyes! And strength to know, whatever may befall, The eternal presence of great mysteries, Glorifying Thee for all.

TREES

(“You cannot think how ghastly these battle-fields look under a grey sky. Torn trees are the most terrible things I have ever seen. Absolute blight and curse is on the face of everything.”)

THE dead land oppressed me; I turned my thoughts away, And went where hill and meadow Are shadowless and gay.

Where Coopers stands by Cranham, Where the hill-gashes white Show golden in the sunshine, Our sunshine--God’s delight.

Beauty my feet stayed at last Where green was most cool, Trees worthy of all worship I worshipped ... then, O fool,

Let my thoughts slide unwitting To other, dreadful trees, ... And found me standing, staring Sick of heart--at these!

REQUIEM

POUR out your light, O stars, and do not hold Your loveliest shining from earth’s outworn shell-- Pure and cold your radiance, pure and cold My dead friend’s face as well.

REQUIEM

NOR grief nor tears should wrong the silent dead Save England’s, for her children fallen so far From her eager care; though by God’s justice led And fallen in such a war.

REQUIEM

POUR out your bounty, moon of radiant shining On all this shattered flesh, these quiet forms; For these were slain, so strangely still reclining, In the noblest cause was ever waged with arms.

SONNETS 1917

[_TO_ THE MEMORY OF RUPERT BROOKE]

1. FOR ENGLAND

THOUGH heaven be packed with joy-bewildering Pleasures of soul and heart and mind, yet who Would willingly let slip, freely let go Earth’s mortal loveliness; go wandering Where never the late bird is heard to sing, Nor full-sailed cloud-galleons wander slow; No pathways in the woods; no afterglow, When the air’s fire and magic with sense of spring?

So the dark horror clouds us, and the dread Of the unknown.... But if it must be, then What better passing than to go out like men For England, giving all in one white glow? Whose bodies shall lie in earth as on a bed, And as the Will directs our spirits may go

2. PAIN

PAIN, pain continual; pain unending; Hard even to the roughest, but to those Hungry for beauty.... Not the wisest knows, Nor most pitiful-hearted, what the wending Of one hour’s way meant. Grey monotony lending Weight to the grey skies, grey mud where goes An army of grey bedrenched scarecrows in rows Careless at last of cruellest Fate-sending. Seeing the pitiful eyes of men foredone, Or horses shot, too tired merely to stir, Dying in shell-holes both, slain by the mud. Men broken, shrieking even to hear a gun.-- Till pain grinds down, or lethargy numbs her, The amazed heart cries angrily out on God.

3. SERVITUDE

IF it were not for England, who would bear This heavy servitude one moment more? To keep a brothel, sweep and wash the floor Of filthiest hovels were noble to compare With this brass-cleaning life. Now here, now there Harried in foolishness, scanned curiously o’er By fools made brazen by conceit, and store Of antique witticisms thin and bare.

Only the love of comrades sweetens all, Whose laughing spirit will not be outdone. As night-watching men wait for the sun To hearten them, so wait I on such boys As neither brass nor Hell-fire may appal, Nor guns, nor sergeant-major’s bluster and noise.

4. HOME-SICKNESS

WHEN we go wandering the wide air’s blue spaces, Bare, unhappy, exiled souls of men; How will our thoughts over and over again Return to Earth’s familiar lovely places, Where light with shadow ever interlaces-- No blanks of blue, nor ways beyond man’s ken-- Where birds are, and flowers, as violet, and wren, Blackbird, bluebell, hedge-sparrow, tiny daisies.

O tiny things, but very stuff of soul To us ... so frail.... Remember what we are; Set us not on some strange outlandish star, But one caring for Love. Give us a Home. There we may wait while the long ages roll Content, unfrightened by vast Time-to-come.

5. ENGLAND THE MOTHER

WE have done our utmost, England, terrible And dear taskmistress, darling Mother and stern. The unnoticed nations praise us, but we turn Firstly, only to thee--“Have we done well? Say, are you pleased?”--and watch your eyes that tell To us all secrets, eyes sea-deep that burn With love so long denied; with tears discern The scars and haggard look of all that hell.

Thy love, thy love shall cherish, make us whole, Whereto the power of Death’s destruction is weak. Death impotent, by boys bemocked at, who Will leave unblotted in the soldier-soul Gold of the daffodil, the sunset streak, The innocence and joy of England’s blue.

THE END

PRINTED BY HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

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