Part 2

There was no star in the East the night I came With spikenard in hushed Jerusalem-- But a light in an upper chamber dimly lit Was star enough--I would have followed it Through lonelier streets unto the smaller room Where afterwards it blossomed in the tomb. Light of the world, but how much more to me The light that other women also see! No choiring angels in gold groups adored Their king that night, but searching for my Lord Unchoired, uncrowned, whose Kingdom had not come, I heard none call, but dumb, as death is dumb, The night misled his angels, or may be Night and the angels made a way for me. My footfalls in the street rang very clear As I drew on. It seemed that all must hear My coming, eyes that peered behind the grating, Cloaked hands to hold me at each corner waiting. But nothing stirred till suddenly there ran The flame of the moon in heaven for a span Less than a heart-beat, and I saw a man Steal out of Simon’s house, and pass me by With such a horror on his lips that I, Also a traitor, shrunk and knew him not-- Him that was Judas called Iscariot. Also a traitor I, because I came Not worshipping the Master in that Name That his disciples called him, not the Christ Of God for me that night. I sought a tryst With a man of men, and if my heart had won The Son of God had died in Mary’s son, And he, who, knowing the appointed evil, Sent forth Iscariot to his task, a devil, Also accepted, though this was more hard, The sweet betrayal of the spikenard. He knew me what I meant and in his eyes, That for a moment smiled, was Paradise Lost unto love, that for the greater sin Than even Judas’ might not enter in. And when the disciples would have stayed my hands, “She does but good” He said “she understands.” And I who poured the unguent understood, But good it was not, as a man means good. For I forget the Master, I but see (A woman taken in adultery With a dream and a dream) his human face I would have saved from God, and in the place Of Gospel and of resurrection I Hear him say “Mary” and behold him die. Judas, to death who sold him for a kiss, Sinned less than I, who’d buy him back for this. And Christ forgave me--How shall I forgive Jesus, my love, the man who would not live?

THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION.

To-day the Triremes sailed for Sicily With no wind stirring on a soundless sea; But a great crying of birds beat up and filled The empty caverns of the air and stilled The thrashing of the oars. The level sun Unto himself, it seemed, drew one by one With strings of gold the ships that no one heard Move on the waters, till at last one bird (Of all the wings past knowledge and past counting) Wheeled upwards on the air and mounting, mounting, Rose out of human sight, but all the rest Passed with the passing fleet into the West.

To-day the Triremes sailed--and will their sailing Prosper or fail because a gull was wailing For crumbs about the prows? Who but a fool Would find a message in a screaming gull? For if gods use such messengers as these The less gods they (or so says Socrates). They are not gods (he says) of fear and hate, A swollen type of man degenerate, Catching at flattery, at sorrow fleering And every spiteful whisper overhearing; But largely on their mountain they attend Unflinchingly the one appointed end, When what was nobly done and finely striven Will find the archetype laid up in heaven. Not these by gulls pronounce or suffer doom, Nor cries among the ships (and yet the gloom Settles about Athene’s temple. If An injured god used his prerogative Of anger, might not Hermes?)--that’s the gull Stirring the superstition of a fool! What if a week ago we, waking, found The Hermae spoiled or fallen to the ground? Shall Fate be altered or a doom be spoken Because an image was in malice broken? Or Athens, that remembers Marathon, Rock in her empire for a splintered stone? How dear she is--was never city else So loved, or lovely in her strength; like bells Pealed in the brain her beauty. This is she, Athens, whose sweeter name is liberty.

To-day the Triremes sailed--as Zeus decrees All shall be done; but hardly Socrates, As Westward in the dark our captains wear, Would frown if an Athenian spoke a prayer Even to Hermes, (even though it seem We fear the flight of birds and cries in him), Thus saying simply for the love of her-- Athens--“O Hermes, called the Messenger, God of the wings, since now the sails are set, If aught was evil, evil now forget! If aught was left undone, think not of this But her remember, Hermes, what she is, A city leaning to the sea, and shod With freedom on her feet, as thou a god With wings art poised for flight--O, if the gull Were bird of thine, Hermes, be merciful.”

CAESAR AND ANTHONY.

Augustus Caesar, aging by the sea, Remembered, musingly, dead Anthony, And wondered as he thought upon his days Which had been better, laurel leaves or bays. “Bays for the victor, when his fight is over, But laurels” thought Augustus “for the lover. That brown Egyptian woman, the fierce queen Who with a serpent died--she came between Him and the world’s dominion, whispering ‘Does empire burn so, has thy crown the sting These lips have when they touch thee--thus and thus? Choose then!’ ‘I choose!’ replied Antonius.” “I wonder” thought Augustus as he lay Watching the menial clouds of conquered day Applaud with vehement reflection The cold triumphant ending of the sun. “The sun’s an emperor, and all the sky Burns to a flame for his nativity, And not less beautiful nor unattended By conquered flocks of cloud he passes splendid, Throwing his slaves this laminated gold. Master in death, but in his death how cold! But to have died astonished on a kiss Had heat to the end and Anthony had this.”

THE DANCERS.

This was the way of it, or I forget How visions end. The flaming sun was set Or setting in a sky as green as grass, Stained here and there like a window, where there was A martyr-cloud with halo dipped in gold Or red as the Sacred Heart is. From the old Low house--a country house not built with hands And of that country where the poplar stands Whose leaves have shivered in our dreams--there came With the rising moon the dancers to the same Tune we have heard we scarce remember when, Nor care so only that it sound again. Each dancer wears a fancy for a dress, This one with starlike tears is gemmed no less Than that is crowned with roses as of lips That kissed and do not kiss. There also trips Pierrot, because we all have lost, and thin, Cruelly swift, victorious Harlequin, Because some find and keep, but both entwine, Because she needs them both, with Columbine. Then lanterns on the trees to radiant fruit Burn till dawn plucks them, and the light pursuit Of dancers on the lawn is done, and laughter Of those who fled and those who followed after Dies; to a little wind the darkened trees Bend gravely and resume their silences.

BATTERSEA.

I have always known just where the river ends (Or seems to end) that I shall find my friends, Who are my friends no longer, being dead, And hear the ordinary things they said, That now seem wonderful, some evening when I take the Number Nineteen bus again To Battersea. It will, I think, be clear With stars behind the four great chimneys. Dear In the moon, young and unchanging, they Will cry me welcome in the boyish way They had before they went to France, but I, A boy no more, will greet them silently.

THE WOODCUTTERS OF HÜTTELDORF.

“The plan by which individual Viennese are allowed to obtain their own wood supplies has already been described by more than one observer. It will, however, in time to come appear so incredible, and it so completely sums up the misery of the people and the breakdown of civilization and administration, that no excuse is needed for placing it once more formally and definitely on record.

In the immediate neighbourhood of Vienna lies a forest known as the Wienerwald, the nearest point being on hills to the north, two or three miles from the centre of the city.

The two chief centres of wood collection are the suburbs of Hütteldorf and Dorhbach.

The prevalence of women and children among the collectors is the most painful feature of the proceedings.”

_From_ “Peace in Austria,” _by Sir W. Beveridge_.

Nous n’irons plus au bois: the woods are shut: Les lauriers sont coupés: the laurels cut. Thus love, when still his pitiful sweet cry For youth and spring, his play-boys, sensibly Touched at the heart. But now he does not care What woods, what trees are standing anywhere. For there’s no wood in the world to be found That does not stab his feet, and the trees wound His eyes with thorns--the eyes which did not see In joy, but find their sight in misery.

There is a wood they named the Wienerwald. There when the spring was new the throstle called Spring to her ball-room, and the Viennese Heard her light foot provoking the grave trees, Half willingly at first, young leaves to stir, That later passionately danced with her. And here the cannon-fodder used to feed The altar-fire of the older need, And sweeter than the need of death. In spring The Austrian boys saw love awakening Here, and as English boys in English wood Have given all to love, all that they could These gave--their childhood, dawn’s relentless star That is put out with kisses. These they gave And buried childhood lightly in her grave So that a man might hear her calling yet, “Primrose farewell, good-morrow violet!”-- Might yet have heard her, but the woods are shut To those who would return: the laurels cut.

There are many go to-day to Wienerwald, But love does not go with them. He has failed In the Great War, who had so little skill In the Will to Murder, love who was the Will To live and make live, but the War has shewn His Will is treachery, and love’s alone In a great wilderness. For if he cries Aloud, they mock him in their Paradise-- The Angels of Armageddon. “This is he Who ruled us, being blind, now let him see” They say, “a prisoner, what we have done, The priests of mankind’s last religion. Let him look deep and celebrate in Hell How we reverse the Christian miracle, Stealing their spirits from the sullen swine And consecrating them as yours and mine, So that we rush together suddenly Down a steep place, where by an empty sea Our worshippers pile on a flaming wharf The trees that were the woods at Hütteldorf.”

Ares, the god of battles, has prevailed. At Hütteldorf, deep in the Wienerwald, They go to the woods for fuel, and one sees A child that beats upon the laurel trees With starved small hands that hold an axe, and how The spring returns to find a hooded crow Waiting and waiting, as the thrush once waited For childhood’s end. But this, it seems, was fated That all should change, save only that these seem Still unsubstantial as the lover’s dream, As unsubstantial, but with blossoms set That have no traffic with the violet And primrose. Here the purple flowers of Dis Burn their young foreheads and they fade with this, Who find a different end and different haven, Where the hooded crow is waiting with the raven.

In Wienerwald the starving Viennese Have spoiled the woods and cut the laurel trees, Nous n’irons plus au bois: oh love, oh love! Will you not go the more because they prove So shattered, the poor woods? and will you shut Your heart, O love, because the trees are cut? Les lauriers sont coupés, but you can heal Even the broken laurel, and reveal Where in the valley of death the children falter That, though all else doth change, love does not alter, And, though the woods were dead, there is a tree You know of, love, planted in Calvary.

Go back to the woods; replant the laurel trees. Still love than war hath greater victories, And while the devils beat the warlike drum Into their kingdom of peace the children come.

HEINE’S LAST SONG.

Life’s a blonde of whom I’m tired (Being fair is just a knack Women learn to be desired By a Jew--who answers back).

Blonde, oh blonde, ye lost princesses With the shadow in your eyes As of bodiless caresses Known ere birth in Paradise.

Little ears of alabaster, Where like ocean in a shell Gentle murmurs drown the vaster Voice of rapture or of Hell.

Tender bodies--ah too tender To be given or be lent Unto love the money-lender Who demands his cent per cent.

Thus you took a man and tricked him, Life and ladies, to a will In your favour, but the victim Cheats you with a codicil.

All I had, you thought, was given-- Life and ladies, you were wrong: In a poet’s secret heaven There is always one last song.

Even he is half afraid of, Even he but hears in part, For the stuff that it is made of, Ladies, is the poet’s heart.

Not for you, oh blonde princesses Is that final tune, but I Sing it drowning in the tresses Of a darker Lorelei.

For her hair than yours is stranger; Wilder lights are lost in hers Where the heart’s immortal danger, That you cannot know of, stirs.

Life and ladies, it is over: Blonde asks all, gives nothing back; You must find another lover, For the poet chooses black.

Where death’s raven marriage blossom Falls in clouds about her breast, On his dark beloved’s bosom Heinrick Heine is at rest.

IMPERSONALITIES.

THE SATYR.

“Hollow” he cries and “hollow, hollow.” Mark how the creeping moon is yellow On the cold stones, enmeshing feet That are not soft, with blood not sweet.

Though in the night one cry his Name The shuddering air shrinks from the aim; And failing eddies will not stir To let him through to Lucifer.

What answers where no echoes fly? None where the moon looks balefully. Unheard, far-off “O hollow, hollow” The satyr crieth to his fellow.

BALDER’S SONG.

It may be raining now, that first warm rain That melts the heart of earth beneath the snows, Our Northland snows (she feels the swimmer’s pain Who catches breath, half-drowned, when the blood flows Shuddering back into the frozen vein). And did ye think I should not come again At the long last in spring-time with the rain?

Or may be there is singing in the air At building-time where the tall windy trees, By sap and young leaves hurt, can hardly bear The spring’s reiterated urgencies That at the woods with actual fingers tear. And did ye, when these songs are everywhere, Of Balder, who first taught them song, despair?

Or it may be where once my altar stood And where my worshipped name in prayer ascended, Blue, like a trumpet, in the solitude Harebells, that ring before the winter’s ended, Have with the wind my litanies renewed. Did ye forget (alas! that any could) That I, the god of flowers, found these good?

And may be where the dog-rose remedies With her wild flush the hedge, and spring begins, Born of all these there trembles the first kiss That from Valhalla brings the Paladins And ladies, who for all the immortal bliss Of heaven, have no joy as sharp as this. Did ye not know in your own memories That where are love and spring there Balder is?

It may be raining now, that first warm rain That melts the heart of earth beneath the snows, Our Northland snows (she feels the swimmer’s pain Who catches breath, half-drowned, when the blood flows Shuddering back into the frozen vein). And did ye think I should not come again At the long last in spring-time with the rain?

MARY THE MOTHER.

(Cradle Song.)

So great a lady, so dear is she, Princess in heaven, but mother to me! When little Jesus lay in her arm It was enough for him that he was warm.

When the small head at her bosom did nod Did she remember that He was the God? Or when she sang to Him low in His ear, Did she say “Master” or did she sob “Dear”?

Was it the star on the manger that shone Crowned her an empress, or was it her Son? So great a lady to lie in a stall-- But only a mother (she thought) after all.

So great a lady, so dear is she, Princess in heaven! but who does not see How against Godhead, in spite of the Cross, She holds to her bosom her Jesus that was?

APPLES.

When there is no more sea and no more sailing Will God go vintaging the wine-dark seas, Reaping gold apples of the storm and trailing To harvest home the lost Hesperides?

Will God, the gates that guard the river breaking, Annul the blinding gesture of the sword, And find the Tree, all other dreams forsaking, Whose apples are the knowledge of the Lord?

Forsaking dreams--forgiveness and salvation, Sins that were needless needlessly forgiven, Hell where he knew vicarious damnation And ghosts of rapture in a ghost of heaven?

No longer from self-knowledge then exempted Shall God the apple tasting Eve repeat Thus altered, saying, “By the devil tempted Through all these years I could and did not eat.”

Thus at the last shall Man and Maker pardon Eve’s ancient wrong, seeing that, though He cursed, Knowledge, alone of those who used the Garden God was afraid of apples from the first.

Thereafter as it was in the beginning, Before the spirit moved upon the deep, There shall be no more sea and no more sinning And God will share with his beloved sleep.

THE SKIES.

Though the world tumble tier by tier, Down, down the broken galleries, By day the sun would shine as clear By night the moon would ride her seas.

Though man and all was meant by men Upon the empty air were spent, Irrevocably Charles’s Wain Would swing across the firmament.

So large they are and cool the skies; God’s frozen breath in dreams, or worse: Beautiful unsupported lies That simulate a universe.

THREE EPITAPHS.

I. FLECKER.

You have made the golden journey. Samarkand Is all about you, Flecker, and where you lie How youth and her beauty perish in the sand They are singing in the caravanserai.

II. EDITH CAVELL.

Who died for love, we use to nourish hate: Who was all tenderness, our hearts to harden; And who of mercy had the high estate By us escheated of her right of pardon.

III. THE LITTLE SLEEPER.

This little sleeper, who was overtaken By death, as one child overtakes another, Dreams by his side all night and will not waken Till the dawn comes in heaven with his mother.

TO HIM WHOM THE CAP FITS.

_“What sword is left?” sighs England. Answer her_ _(For you must answer) “This--Excalibur.”_

I.

That is the sword of England. Arthur drew The blade at that last battle when he failed, (Shadow among the shadows, who prevailed Victorious in disaster). Harold knew Its point in his heart at Hastings, and it flew Out of the scabbard when King Richard sailed And did not reach Jerusalem. It wailed In the false hand that on the scaffold slew Charles, and proud Balliol saw the light on it Shining for Ridley through the flame; was seen When Mary, Queen of Scotland, was a queen On earth no longer, and when William Pitt “England! O how I leave thee,” failing cried, The sword, the sword, was with him when he died.

II.

The line at Mons were privy to the blade, When God and England seemed together lost, And riding by the far Pacific coast Admiral Cradock took its accolade. These are its victories--to be afraid, To hear thin bugles sounding “The Last Post,” Until the blood creeps noiseless as a ghost And cold, and all we cherished is betrayed. That is the sword’s way. Those who lose shall have; And only those who in defeat have known The bitterness of death, and stood alone In darkness, shall have worship in the grave. Swordsman, go into battle, and record How one more English knight has found his sword!

FRANCE.

To-day you’ll find by field and ditch The small invasion of the vetch: And where they sleep rest-harrow will Follow upon the daffodil.

These in their soft disordered ranks Withstand and overcome the Tanks; And the small unconsidered grass Cries to the gunner “On ne passe.”

The corn outlasts the bayonet, Whose blades no blood nor rust can fret, Or only the immortal rust Of poppies failing in their thrust.

The line these hold no force can break, Nor their platoons advancing shake, Whose wide offensive wave on wave Doth make a garden of a grave.

These with the singing lark conspire To veil with loveliness the wire, While he ascending cleans the stain In heaven of the aeroplane.

These in the fields and open sky Reverse the errors of Versailles, Who with a natural increase From year to year establish peace.

For all the living these will cloak The things they spoiled, the hearts they broke; And where these heal the earth will be For all the dead indemnity.

ALCHEMY.

When Kew found spring, and we found Kew, Gold was the London that we knew-- The gold of gold whose metal is As yellow as the primroses.

London’s Lord Mayor, Dick Whittington, In heaven heard the carillon “Turn again;” London after all Is paved with gold by Chiswick Mall.

But afterwards the town was sold To a mad alchemist for gold, Who used his art to change, instead Of lead to gold, the gold to lead.

If where the streets to Hampstead twist You meet a doting alchemist Seeking lost gold, refuse him pity; He changed us when he changed the city!

ORPHEUS.

What Orpheus whistled for Eurydice (While all the shades were silent, achingly Holding out hands, and hands stretched evermore In a vain longing for the further shore).

The blue smoke floats Lazily in the dawn above the white Flat roof you knew, and somewhere out of sight A child is singing the old Linus song, Sweeter because the baby voice goes wrong --The little goatherd calling to her goats.

There’s a small hill On which the olive trees you used to call Athene’s little sisters, now grown tall, Watch all day long the coming of the child, And you’ll remember how the brook, else wild, About these pastures suddenly grows still.

There’s such a peace, Save where a wandering beast shakes on its bell, You’d almost think the trees had learned a spell From their wise sister (or from you) to bless A baby frightened of the loneliness, Tending her herd and waiting by the trees.

Ah! certainly There are two things are stronger than the fates-- A lover’s song in Hell, a child that waits. The shadows lengthen. Ere the night descend On earth, O sweetheart, Mother, friend Win out of Hell! Return Eurydice!

THE WIND.