Part 2

For now comes Summer with a thousand birds. And I must add up figures all the day. And I must drive a tram the whole day long. And I must make a living out of words. For now comes Summer with a thousand birds; And in green fields the little lambs will play, Brown birds will lift so loud a storm of song, For now comes Summer with a thousand birds.

For now comes Summer with a thousand birds. And I must make munitions right away. And I must check the biscuits at the base. And I must plan to slaughter men in herds, For now comes Summer with a thousand birds. My brother's lying quiet on his face. And I must sit and wait and die to-day, For now comes Summer with a thousand birds.

HARFLEUR

THE ADVENT OF MARS

(To Thomas Moult)

Then suddenly ... A thunder was heard like the cracking of suns, A blackness blacker than blood there came To choke the world with a fume and a flame. A palsy fell on the guns. A numbness froze the hands Of the gunners in all the lands. Half-way over the parapet The limbs of the climbing infantry set Like limbs of basalt-stone. The bayonets fell from the fingers numb, The throats of the officers dried dead-dumb, For the Terror had come, the Terror had come, The Terror out of the stark Unknown! The Shadow was fallen upon the wars That had raged three centuries long To shatter the Lie and Wrong, From the ice-fanged polar jaws, With never a lull nor pause, And over the Temperate Zone, With never a moment's rest, And over the Burning Line, With never a halting sign, And over the East and West, And down to the ultimate mouth Of the white Antarctic South. From the torpid Esquimo-man Who slew his Esquimo-mate And poured his fat in a plate, And lit up a wick therein, And studied the secret plan For the poisonous new harpoon. Wherewith he was going to win The Esquimo-battle soon. From the Esquimo-man to the sinister black Cannibal-boy in his skeleton-shack, Whose ardent patriot labours Were extracting the eyes of his foes, The bones of their fingers and toes, To teach them never to violate The inter-cannibal laws of State, And the boundary-stone of his weaker neighbours.

But now ... Great God, What is the menace, Now, The shadow, the thunder, Now, Ice on my heart, Flame on my brow, The skies dispart, Lightnings rift through the obscene glooms, The thews of the darkness are rent in sunder, And a voice, a voice, a voice, A great voice booms!

"Children of Earth, Listen a moment before ye die. We have waited long, we have waited long, (Children of Mars, lift up your song, For the children of Mars shall be lords of the sky!) Long have we patiently waited In a huge red planetous hall. But never a wind of ruth or grace Blew through the marshes of your earth-face. And deeper into the hole Of your cavernous earthen soul, Deeper than God and Love and all, Boulders of evil fall. Long have we patiently waited In a huge red planetous hall, But never a grace not violated, Never a devil ye did not call! You have torn, you have torn, The flowers by their roots, consumed the seed, Wherever a flower was, planted a weed. In the pitch of your scorn Defiled the morn, Bitten deep death in the mould and the corn. You have eaten the wings Of the lily-like frail Butterfly caught in your treacherous veil. You have festered the springs With the corpses ye slew And given your children to drink of the brew. Never a grace not violated, Left God never a roof nor wall; Never a passion ye have not sated, Never a devil ye did not call. And a Word came forth from the Sun to Mars, 'Gird ye now for the final wars! For over the planet of Earth, Wooden and waste and wide, Great red wounds in his side, A shadow, a bloodless dearth Ashen-pale in the caves of his eyes, Throwing the ghost of a Cross on the skies, The body of Christ lies crucified!' We have come with a gladness terrible to behold. We have come to reclaim the Godhead that was sold. The levins we shall loosen ye have not ever known, And the breath of our singing shall fall on you like stone.

Our weapons shall be flame and the blades be keen, And they shall not rest again till the skies be clean. Our weapons shall be tides, the tide of the sea, The surgings of the tide Shall not again subside, Until the Sun's sky-ways again shall be free!"

So the voice spake, Thunderous and proud, So the voice spake, Then died in a cloud. And then again the Darkness, the Darkness gathered round, And the hushed world waited, but heard not a sound. So hushed was the world, the slaying and the weeping, So hushed was the world, the world seemed sleeping, But lo! in the West, Lo! in the West! Leaping, leaping, A tongue of fire ...

PROPHET AND FOOL

From twigs of visionary boughs I gather berries red and rare. I twine around my pallid brows An insubstantial dryad's hair.

Such song I hear in mission-halls, As Jason heard in violet seas, While bodiless birds sing madrigals In tumult round my head and knees;

The draper-shops that light their jets To blink along the lanes of mire, Weave splendours round the muddy sets And tip my feet with points of fire.

For I pursue the Golden Fleece Down slum-ways magical and cool; And there I hear the flutes of peace, Being a prophet and a fool.

WHATEVER PATH I WALK UPON

(To George Fasnacht)

Whatever path I walk upon That path itself is Avalon. Whatever woman talks to me, Venus' foamy self is she. The floors of factories are made Of jasper, porphyry and jade. All that I drink, all food I eat, Is my Lord's blood and body sweet.

But if a moth should singe his wings, The world is black with dismal things. And if a strangled sparrow fall, There is not any God at all. And if a baby moan for food, My eyes blaze red with rage for blood.

LONDON MAGDALENE

How she is careful to make manifest The budded beauty of her breast; To hint beneath her unconcealing blouse The curved seductions there that house. Would that some Christ your mournful care had seen, Unmaidened maiden, London Magdalene.

God gave you roses warm from Paradise, And they are bleaker now than ice. God gave you fountains flowing honey-sweet, And they are spilt upon the street. All your seductions are the Dead Sea Fruit, O rifled nest, blown flower, O string-snapt lute.

In those breast-seas no baby-boat will swim Through channels warm and dim; You'll not awake to a twittering in the leaves When baby bird-throat heaves. Poor London Magdalene, before you sleep, Ah weep with me, if not too late to weep.

SECRET GIRL

(To Bessie McKellen)

Thy nudity, like a white flame, I shall inviolably guard: O Secret Girl, mine eyes have yet Not in the place of mortals met. O Secret Girl whom, splendour-starred, Some lordly noon my soul shall claim.

More than the Brahman Heart of Ind, I shall be spears about thy breasts: When thou no more, O Secret Goal, Art secret from mine eyes and soul, O Mother of my waiting nests, O dew and dark, O day and wind.

Thou shalt be sheer beyond the wars, And sacred from the waste of words: O Secret Girl, O Dove, O Pard, I shall inviolably guard. For we shall crowd the trees with birds, The sky with swarms of shouting stars!

LANKY TIM

A narrow world is Lanky Tim's, The funnel and the griding lift. Never the blank walls drop or shift To show the far fields thro' a rift Where he might go and stretch his limbs.

Hour after hour the storeys rise. "First floor? Yes, round the corner just, For Madame Smirkey's Wig and Bust. Second? That way for Lawyer Thrust. Fifth?"--The quack doctor, spiders, dust ... These are his depths and these his skies.

And did Life take you unawares While you were dreaming still your dreams, And eyes were wild and shy with gleams, And heart was thick with aching themes? --But someone's pushed the bell downstairs.

And did you fly thro' boyland dells To catch the songs of youthful kings, And fly before the flight of Springs? --But there's no room in here for wings, Where Life is only these three things-- A lift, a grid, a screech of bells.

Poor Lanky Tim, the days that drift Thro' your drab dismal prison, they Have drifted all those dreams away, Till your heart's just a pumping clay. And now I often wonder, say, If you'll be nearer God some day Than the fifth storey up the lift.

MRS. BRIGGS

Her ample breasts like moons are seen Beneath her thin alpaca blouse. Mrs. Briggs of Sausage Green, She is an old Egyptian queen, And she has Cheops Briggs for spouse.

And when she shouts down Turnip Street, "Lawks! of all the dirty sights! 'Enry, quit that puddle quick!" She has the regal voice that beat The eardrums of the Israelites, And turned the tribal bosoms sick.

But when 'Enry drooped and ailed, And 'Enry from her side was torn In a hearse down Dingy Lane, O she wept the lad in vain, As that other queen bewailed The slaying of the eldest born.

ATHENS NOW

Behold Athens! What is Athens now? Cinders and weeds where the eyeballs were, filth for the marble brow. Ilissus, Ilissus of the plain? --Sardine-tins and a dead cat in a drain! Dead, dead, dead are the Caryatids Because of the horror that smote their petal-thin lids. And the Parthenon now is a jawful of yellow teeth In the snarling skull of an animal humped in death. For Athens is only a squalor of traders that hope To retire on the profits from soap. And the trousers of half of the children of Pallas are dirty with grease, And the other half ardently brush them and keep them in crease. Then pray, O London, my city, when you are dead, That none know the place where you reared your mad proud head; That there be not a mound nor a stone nor even a tree, But only the ignorant river or the desert sea!

DOWN TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD

Down Tottenham Court Road they ululate, The droning choruses of Fate. They walk the length of every wind, The women who sin, the women who have sinned. This evening's crime, all immemorial crimes, Here gather from all lands and times. Here with Orestes through the mart Walks the grey lad who stabbed his mother's heart. Gaunt Clytæmnestra stumbles round the feet Of Sarah from a Soho street, Who slew her sallow man to-night With thin-lipped poison in the street lamp-light. Pale Helen braids her legendary hair, Lurking outside a gallery-stair, While softly through the music calls Aspasia to her lover in the stalls. Here broken Orpheus searches, drunken-wild, Eurydice, the fallen child, Who, leagues down in the underworld, Flaunts her white bosom, rouged lips, and gilt hair curled. Behind the plate-glass windows drum the looms Of Destinies spinning antique dooms. The droning choruses of Fate, Down Tottenham Court Road they ululate.

IN A STATION

A station drizzling like a hymn Sung out of tune by neurasthenes, In a tin church where darkness leans Down through the windows blear and grim! A miserable oil-lamp winks Like a drab slut, and stares and stinks. The train snorts out a large disgust, And snorts again and spits out dust.

Then suddenly a lightning wakes! The fumes, the squalors dissipate. Then suddenly a young voice breaks Into the darkness like a knife; --Full of choked hopes and whipt regrets, Hungry for love, half-dumb with hate, Intense with death and sick for life, --Into the darkness like a knife! "Buy Choc-o-late and Cig-ar-ettes! Buy Cig-ar-ettes and Choc-o-late!"

LIZA

Liza sits on a three-legged stool all day beneath the railway-stairs. (Liza is a shadowy woman selling shadowy wares.) The boots that Liza wears to-day were worn a score of years ago By Dick the tramp who threw them away as far as ever he could throw. The petticoats that Liza wears around her limbs of sticks and skin Were thrown aside with tall disdain into a back-street rubbish bin. But O the bonnet that Liza wears, it is the summit of her pride; A big limp feather hangs over her nose and two more hang on either side. There's no more stately woman than Liza, be she the sought of a score of kings. (Liza is a shadowy woman, selling shadowy things.) All day long she sits upright, waiting upon her three-legged stool, Until the hosts of little children come tumbling homeward out of school. Then Liza shows her wooden tray whenever the children meet her eye. "Come along, babies, only a kiss for any little dainty you may buy. Purple figs from a Grecian garden, pomegranate blossoms blazing red. Jangle bells of langling silver to wrangle around of a wee girl's head." Liza's fingers twitch and tighten, her deep-down eyes they are flecked and starred. But her voice is like a moan in a rifted chimney and you can only hear it if you listen very hard. Never the little children hear, they toddle homeward day by day. --Who would look at a bogey-woman whispering over an empty tray? Ironically floats the bobbing feather over Liza's hungry eye. "Isn't there just one wee little baby to come to my face and kiss and buy?" ... All day long and all year round she waits, but no one pays her price. (Liza is a shadowy woman selling shadowy merchandise.)

WOMEN OF THE NIGHT

Come, I will take you, O ye empty-eyed, Into my heart as sheep into a fold Upon the waste hill-steep. For ye are weary, O unsatisfied, Whose breasts were filled for love and sell for gold; Come, I will give you sleep.

All night your bodies move like furtive ghosts, All the black futile night, your hands and feet Heavy as sunken lead; Sad, numberless, immortal, bloodless hosts, Who haunt the hollows of the ashen street, O ye my living-dead!

Only a scent of Death, sweet and corrupt, Breathes from the false flower-gardens of your hair, O and in your eyes, No, not the light of the mad wine you supped, Not tears nor laughter, O but swaying there, Unweepable miseries!

Come, I will take you to a still green place, Where birds that hover above the laden nests, Birds shall make song. There shall ye wash with dew the painted face, Press two wild flowers against the barren breasts, There hold a vigil long.

A vigil long until the evening go, Then sleep, long sleep; till with a shout, O then, Our Lord the Sun shall rise. With hearts invincible and bodies like snow, Back ye shall turn into the place of men, Love peerless in your eyes!

_August_ 1918

I STANDING IN THE STREET

I standing in the street, I standing, Gaze on the unwashed windows, dingy walls, When lo! a clarion ... Lo! thro' the slum a spring-time trumpet calls. Lo! on the roofs a rose-leaf magic falls. Thro' all the windows dance and jewels shine. Thro' all the rooms go lissome girls with scent. The window-frames are tendrilled with the vine. (Ah, God! I weep in my content.)

I standing in the street, I standing, Gaze on my vision splendid and most dear, When lo! a chimney ... Lo! on my dreams the soot drifts dry and sere. Lo! all my flowers wilt in a reek of beer. On the drab flags squat children dusty-eyed, Cursed at by blousy women with dank hair. Just down the street there sprawls a suicide. (Ah, God! I laugh in my despair.)

SLUM EVENING

A dove-grey evening, dusk empearled By lamps along the fading slums. Out of the sky a silence comes, A honey on the wormwood world.

The flirting adolescents stand And hush their tingling turbid vows. For softly on their foolish brows The evening lays a sober hand.

Even the butcher, he who shares The corner-shop with "Boots and Shoes," Although he has no time to lose, Delays to light the naphtha flares.

A bleary woman down the road With a large twin on either arm, Her wits are stolen by the charm, She quite forgets her puling load.

I know not in what twilight stream She bathes her dropsy-swollen feet, But they were fair as dawn and fleet, In the dead girlhood of her dream.

FIRES OF CHANGE

Think you that Athens and Jerusalem Rot in the places where they builded them? This is the Temple, this the Parthenon The priests of old days laid their hands upon? No more a stream sends the same waters twice Along its channels to sea-sacrifice. Not God Himself shall bid Time stand to lock The midmost atom in the mightiest rock. Still the most secret atom shall be hurled Into the riotous wind-ways of the world. Still, the most ancient town, up wrenched, shall float Freer than flame and light as a bird's note. Still shall the crumbling globe itself be spun Into fresh ethers conquered by the sun.

So, even so, my soul shall wear no more The countless shapes my soul endued of yore. Yea, the stout granite of my soul shall range Molten across the blasting fires of change. Not this am I you saw an hour ago. Me fluid as thought your science shall not know. Hourly my conquering spirit digs and delves A grave to hold a hundred slaughtered selves. Hourly through cowering moons and stellar dins, I stride across buried virtues and slain sins.

POETRY

A star that was mute Was heard to sing. A flower took wing, A bird took root.

The Right is a Wrong, The Wrong is a Right. I fought with the Night, I sang you a song.

I slaughtered Time, For the path I trod To the feet of God Was the road of a rhyme.

A flower took wing, A bird took root. A star that was mute Was heard to sing.

THE PRISONER

If you have not a bird inside you, You have no reason to sing. But if a pent bird chide you, A beak and a bleeding wing, Then you have reason to sing.

If merely you are clever With thoughts and rhymes and words, Then always your poems sever The veins of our singing-birds, With blades of glinting words.

Yet if a Song, without ending, Inside you choke for breath, And a beak, devouring, rending, Tear through your lungs for breath, Sing--or you bleed to death.

NERVES

You are like an ebony sea with derelict ships, Cold as my lover is cold; Until Beauty rises like the moon and whips You into shivering gold.

You are like a tree-top at the bleak last hour When birds to the tombs belong; Until Beauty blows like the dawn, and you flower Into buds of innumerable song.

You are like a virginal and a most pale Girl in a secret mead; Until Beauty, like the indomitable Male, Enflames you with innermost seed.

You are like a corpse with worms in the holes of the head, Between a board and a board; Until Beauty shouts like the Trump that convulses the dead, And you enter the House of the Lord.

A POET

He has a voice so exquisite You can hardly hear it at all: Tragedy's there and there is wit, Both faint as a leaf's fall.

His feet pass hardly like human feet, Five-toed and leathern-shod, But more with the sound of bended wheat, Swayed by the skirts of God.

His eyes are a wistful and grey sea, Till a song stir his blood. Then are they flowers that suddenly Open from the pent bud.

But when at the shutting of the day, He sings faint songs for me, Then is it very hard to say If the wind sings or he.

FOR MY FRIEND

(F. V. B.)

Go forth and conquer with the wind for a sword, O scorching might; Go forth and blaze through the jungles of night, Lead in the tameless stars with a cord; Go forth, Lover of Right!

Make moons thy pebbles and suns thy coins, And thy language light. Fill highest space with thy depth and height; Gather the nebulæ round thy loins; Go forth and fight!

Go forth and conquer--return, return, When the hawthorn's white. Encompass the void; then turn and learn The veins of the grass and the bee's delight; Return, Lover of Right!

"I SHALL BE SPLENDIDLY AND TENSELY YOUNG"

I shall be splendidly and tensely young, While yet my limbs are mine. Each of them shall be strung As a bowstring by an archer With fingers strict and fine.

I shall be splendidly and tensely young, My heart being whole, my brain Keen as a hawk's flight flung Against my victim seen securely From my austere Inane.

But when my limbs no more are mine, My feet to walk, my hands to hold, I shall be most supremely young. Then shall my flawless songs be sung, My brow be sealed with a proud sign: When I am deaf and blind and fleshless, I shall be most supremely young, When I am old.

"I"

I shall slough my self as a snake its skin, My white spots of virtue, my black spots of sin. I shall abandon my sex, my brain, My scheming for pleasure, escaping from pain. I shall dig roots deep down and be A weed or a reed, a flower, a tree. I shall lose body and miry feet, Float with the clouds and sway with the wheat. I am a fool and foolisher than Anything else that is not a man. For of all the things that I see or feel, The I-that-is-I is far the least real. And only when I shall learn at the last That a stream-bed pebble is far more vast In the scale of Mind and its secret schemes Than all my passion and blunders and dreams; Then only that I that shall not be I Shall play due part beneath sun and sky, Ranked below sparrow, just above sod, I shall take my place in the Self of God.

I KNOW NOT WHENCE MY POEMS COME

I know not why nor whence you come, My poems. Only this I know. You fall like petals failing down Upon the dustbins of a town. You fall like flakes of doubtful snow. Like fairy flutes your musics flow. _You thunder like a madman's drum._

You falter on my worthless lips. You give me grapes to press for wine. Unasked, you bring me balm and spice, You lead me into fields of kine, With tinted dreams and anodyne. _You freeze my flesh with flames of ice. You scorch my shrieking soul with whips._

LYRRIA

Lyrria is an old country. Lost travellers tremble and call. A very white, wan, weird country Where never came traveller at all.

I am an old, old poet. Lost poems tremble and call. A very white, wan, weird poet Who never wrote poems at all.

FARINGDON FROM SALONICA

There's a far road off to Faringdon, Under the downs it goes; Into the fine wood, the beech, the pine wood The dim road shadows and glows.

My cycle hums to Faringdon, Hums like a joyful bee, Through dropping shy light of green tree twilight, Music of wind and tree.

Springtime, bluebells, Faringdon, And a cycle through all three; Great shadow reaches of English beeches, Downs far down to the sea.

There's a far road down to Faringdon. There no more I ride. The boys hear mostly a rider ghostly, The girls they run and hide.