Chapter 3

I've heard the Tories talk like fools; And the rich fool that apes the Tory. I've seen the shopmen break your rules And die like Christ, in Christ's own glory.

But, as for you, that liberal sneer Reminds me of the poor old Kaiser. He was a "socialist," my dear. Well, I'm your grandson. You'll grow wiser.

MEMORIES OF THE PACIFIC COAST

I know a land, I, too, Where warm keen incense on the sea-wind blows, And all the winter long the skies are blue, And the brown deserts blossom with the rose.

Deserts of all delight, Cactus and palm and earth of thirsty gold, Dark purple blooms round eaves of sun-washed white, And that Hesperian fruit men sought of old.

O, to be wandering there, Under the palm-trees, on that sunset shore, Where the waves break in song, and the bright air Is crystal clean; and peace is ours, once more.

There Beauty dwells, Beauty, re-born in whiteness from the foam; And Youth returns with all its magic spells, And the heart finds its long-forgotten home,--

Home--home! Where is that land? For, when I dream it found, the old hungering cry Aches in the soul, drives me from all I planned, And sets my sail to seek another sky.

NIPPON

Last night, I dreamed of Nippon.... I saw a cloud of white Drifting before the sunset On seas of opal light.

Beyond the wide Pacific I saw its mounded snow Miraculously changing In that deep evening glow,

To rosy rifts and hillocks, To orchards that I knew, To snows of peach and cherry, And feathers of bamboo.

I saw, on twisted bridges, In blue and crimson gleams, The lanterns of the fishers, Along the brook of dreams.

I saw the wreaths of incense Like little ghosts arise, From temples under Fuji, From Fuji to the skies.

I saw that fairy mountain.... I watched it form and fade. No doubt the gods were singing, When Nippon isle was made.

THE HUMMING BIRDS

Green wing and ruby throat, What shining spell, what exquisite sorcery, Lured you to float And fight with bees round this one flowering tree?

Petulant imps of light, What whisper or gleam or elfin-wild perfumes Thrilled through the night And drew you to this hive of rosy bloom?

One tree, and one alone, Of all that load this magic air with spice, Claims for its own Your brave migration out of Paradise;

Claims you, and guides you, too, Three thousand miles across the summer's waste Of blooms ye knew Less finely fit for your ethereal taste.

To poets' youthful hearts, Even so the quivering April thoughts will fly,-- Those irised darts, Those winged and tiny denizens of the sky.

Through beaks as needle-fine, They suck a redder honey than bees know. Unearthly wine Sleeps in this bloom; and, when it falls, they go.

LINES FOR A SUN-DIAL

With shadowy pen I write, Till time be done, Good news of some strange light, Some far off sun.

THE REALMS OF GOLD

(Written after hearing a line of Keats repeated by a passing stranger under the palms of Southern California.)

Under the palms of San Diego Where gold-skinned Mexicans loll at ease, And the red half-moons of their black-pipped melons Drop from their hands in the sunset seas, And an incense, out of the old brown missions, Blows through the orange trees;

I wished that a poet who died in Europe Had found his way to this rose-red West; That Keats had walked by the wide Pacific And cradled his head on its healing breast, And made new songs of the sun-burned sea-folk, New poems, perhaps his best.

I thought of him, under the ripe pomegranates At the desert's edge, where the grape-vines grow, In a sun-kissed ranch between grey-green sage-brush And amethyst mountains, peaked with snow, Or watching the lights of the City of Angels Glitter like stars below.

He should walk, at dawn, by the lemon orchards, And breathe at ease in that dry bright air; And the Spanish bells in their crumbling cloisters Of brown adobe would sing to him there; And the old Franciscans would bring him their baskets Of apple and olive and pear.

And the mandolins, in the deep blue twilight, Under that palm with the lion's mane, Would pluck, once more, at his golden heart-strings, And tell him the old sea-tales of Spain; And there should the daughters of Hesperus teach him Their mystical songs again.

Then, the dusk blew sweet over seas of peach-bloom; The moon sailed white in the cloudless blue; The tree-toads purred, and the crickets chirruped; And better than anything dreamed came true; For, under the murmuring palms, a shadow Passed, with the eyes I knew;

A shadow, perhaps, of the tall green fountains That rustled their fronds on that glittering sky, A hungering shadow, a lean dark shadow, A dreaming shadow that drifted by; But I heard him whisper the strange dark music That found it so "rich to die."

And the murmuring palms of San Diego Shook with stars as he passed beneath. The Paradise palms, and the wild white orchards, The night, and its roses, were all one breath, Bearing the song of a nightingale seaward, A song that had out-soared death.

COMPENSATIONS

Not with a flash that rends the blue Shall fall the avenging sword. Gently as the evening dew Descends the mighty Lord.

His dreadful balances are made To move with moon and tide; Yet shall not mercy be afraid Nor justice be denied.

The dreams that seemed to waste away, The kindliness forgot, Were singing in your heart today Although you knew them not.

The sun shall not forget his road, Nor the high stars their rhyme, The traveller with the heavier load Has one less hill to climb.

And, though a darker shadow fall On every struggling age, How shall it be if, after all, He share our pilgrimage?

The end we mourn is not the end. The dust has nimble wings. But truth and beauty have a friend At the deep heart of things.

He will not speak? What friend belies His love with idle breath? We read it in each others' eyes, And ask no more in death.

DEAD MAN'S MORRICE

There came a crowder to the Mermaid Inn, One dark May night, Fiddling a tune that quelled our motley din, With quaint delight, It haunts me yet, as old lost airs will do, A phantom strain: _Look for me once, lest I should look for you, And look in vain._

In that old wood, where ghosts of lovers walk, At fall of day, Gleaning such fragments of their ancient talk As poor ghosts may, From leaves that brushed their faces, wet with dew, Or tears, or rain,... _Look for me once, lest I should look for you, And look in vain._

Have we not seen them--pale forgotten shades That do return, Groping for those dim paths, those fragrant glades, Those nooks of fern, Only to find that, of the may they knew, No wraiths remain; _Yet they still look, as I should look for you, And look in vain._

They see those happier ghosts that waned away-- Whither, who knows?-- Ghosts that come back with music and the may, And Spring's first rose, Lover and lass, to sing the old burden through, Stave and refrain: _Look for me once, lest I should look for you, And look in vain._

So, after death, if in that starless deep, I lose your eyes, I'll haunt familiar places. I'll not keep Tryst in the skies. I'll haunt the whispering elms that found us true, The old grass-grown lane. _Look for me there, lest I should look for you, And look in vain._

There, as of old, under the dreaming moon, A phantom throng Floats through the fern, to a ghostly morrice tune, A thin sweet song, Hands link with hands, eyes drown in eyes anew, Lips meet again.... _Look for me, once, lest I should look for you, And look in vain._

THE OLD FOOL IN THE WOOD

"If I could whisper you all I know," Said the Old Fool in the Wood, "You'd never say that green leaves grow. You'd say, 'Ah, what a happy mood The Master must be in today, To think such thoughts,' That's what you'd say."

"If I could whisper you all I've heard," Said the Old Fool in the fern, "You'd never say the song of a bird. You'd say, 'I'll listen, and p'raps I'll learn One word of His joy as He passed this way, One syllable more,' That's what you'd say."

"If I could tell you all the rest," Said the Old Fool under the skies, "You'd hug your griefs against your breast And whisper with love-lit eyes, 'I am one with the sorrow that made the may, And the pulse of His heart,' That's what you'd say."

A NEW MADRIGAL TO AN OLD MELODY

(It is supposed that Shadow-of-a-Leaf uses the word "clear" in a more ancient sense of "beautiful.")

As along a dark pine-bough, in slender white mystery The moon lay to listen, above the thick fern, In a deep dreaming wood that is older than history I heard a lad sing, and I stilled me to learn; So rarely he lilted his long-forgot litany,-- _Fall, April; fall, April, in dew on our dearth! Bring balm, and bring poppy, bring deep sleepy dittany For Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth._

Then I drew back the branches. I saw him that chanted it. I saw his fool's bauble. I knew his old grief. I knew that old greenwood and the shadow that haunted it,-- My fool, my lost jester, my _Shadow-of-a-Leaf_! And "why," I said, "why, all this while, have you left me so Luckless in melody, lonely in mirth?" "Oh, why," he sang, "why has this world then bereft me so Soon of my Marian, so long laid in earth?

"In the years that are gone," he said, "love was more fortunate. Grief was our minstrel of things that endure. Now, ashes and dust and this world grow importunate. Time has no sorrow that time cannot cure. Once, we could lose, and the loss was worth cherishing. Now, we may win, but, O, where is the worth? Memory and true love," he whispered, "are perishing, With Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth."

"Ah, no!" I said, "no! Since we grieve for our grief again, Touch the old strings! Let us try the old stave! And memory may wake, like my _Shadow-of-a-Leaf_ again, Singing of hope, in the dark, by a grave." So we sang it together--that long-forgot litany:-- _Fall, April; fall, April; bring new grief to birth. Bring wild herb of grace, and bring deep healing dittany, For Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth._

THE LOST BATTLE

It is not over yet-the fight Where those immortal dreamers failed. They stormed the citadels of night And the night praised them--and prevailed. So long ago the cause was lost We scarce distinguish friend from foe; But--if the dead can help it most-- The armies of the dead will grow.

The world has all our banners now, And filched our watchwords for its own. The world has crowned the "rebel's" brow And millions crowd his lordly throne. The masks have altered. Names are names; They praise the "truth" that is not true. The "rebel" that the world acclaims Is not the rebel Shelley knew.

We may not build that Commonweal. We may not reach the goal we set. But there's a flag they dare not steal. Forward! It is not over yet. We shall be dust and under dust Before we end that ancient wrong; But here's a sword that cannot rust, And where's the death can touch a song?

So, when our bodies rot in earth The singing souls that once were ours, Weaponed with light and helmed with mirth, Shall front the kingdoms and the powers. The ancient lie is on its throne, And half the living still forget; But, since the dead are all our own, Courage, it is not over yet.

RIDDLES OF MERLIN

As I was walking Alone by the sea, "_What is that whisper?_" Said Merlin to me. "Only," I answered, "The sigh of the wave"-- "_Oh, no_," replied Merlin, "_'Tis the grass on your grave_."

As I lay dreaming In churchyard ground "_Listen_," said Merlin, "_What is that sound_?" "The green grass is growing," I answered; but he Chuckled, "_Oh, no! 'Tis the sound of the sea_."

As I went homeward At dusk by the shore, "_What is that crimson?_" Said Merlin once more. "Only the sun," I said. "Sinking to rest"-- "_Sunset for East_," he said, "_Sunrise for West_."

THE SYMPHONY

Wonder in happy eyes Fades, fades away: And the angel-coloured skies Whisper farewell.

Loveliness over the strings of the heart may stray In fugitive melodies; But Oh, the hand of the Master must not stay, Even for a breath;

For to prolong one joy, or even to dwell On one rich chord of pain, Beyond the pulse of the song, would untune heaven And drown the stars in death.

So youth with its love-note dies; And beauty fades in the air, To make the master-symphony immortal, And find new life and deeper wonder there.

PEACE

Give me the pulse of the tide again And the slow lapse of the leaves, The rustling gold of a field of grain And a bird in the nested eaves;

And a fishing-smack in the old harbour Where all was happy and young; And an echo or two of the songs I knew When songs could still be sung.

For I would empty my heart of all This world's implacable roar, And I would turn to my home, and fall Asleep in my home once more;

And I would forget what the cities say, And the folly of all the wise, And turn to my own true folk this day, And the love in their constant eyes.

There is peace, peace, where the sea-birds wheel, And peace in the breaking wave; And I have a broken heart to heal, And a broken soul to save.

THE OPEN DOOR

O Mystery of life, That, after all our strife, Defeats, mistakes, Just as, at last, we see The road to victory, The tired heart breaks.

Just as the long years give Knowledge of how to live, Life's end draws near; As if, that gift being ours, God needed our new powers In worlds elsewhere.

There, if the soul whose wings Were won in suffering, springs To life anew, Justice would have some room For hope beyond the tomb, And mercy, too.

And since, without this dream No light, no faintest gleam Answers our "why"; But earth and all its race Must pass and leave no trace On that blind sky;

Shall reason close that door On all we struggled for, Seal the soul's doom; Make of this universe One wild answering curse, One lampless tomb?

Mine be the dream, the creed That leaves for God, indeed, For God, and man, One open door whereby To prove His world no lie And crown His plan.

IMMORTAL SAILS

Now, in a breath, we'll burst those gates of gold, And ransack heaven before our moment fails. Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old, We'll mount and sing and spread immortal sails.

It is not time that makes eternity. Love and an hour may quite out-run the years, And give us more to hear and more to see Than life can wash away with all its tears.

Dear, when we part, at last, that sunset sky Shall not be touched with deeper hues than this; But we shall ride the lightning ere we die And seize our brief infinitude of bliss,

With time to spare for all that heaven can tell, While eyes meet eyes, and look their last farewell.

THE MATIN-SONG OF FRIAR TUCK

I.

If souls could sing to heaven's high King As blackbirds pipe on earth, How those delicious courts would ring With gusts of lovely mirth! What white-robed throng could lift a song So mellow with righteous glee As this brown bird that all day long Delights my hawthorn tree. Hark! That's the thrush With speckled breast From yon white bush Chaunting his best, _Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!_

II.

If earthly dreams be touched with gleams Of Paradisal air, Some wings, perchance, of earth may glance Around our slumbers there; Some breaths of may might drift our way With scents of leaf and loam, Some whistling bird at dawn be heard From those old woods of home. Hark! That's the thrush With speckled breast From yon white bush Chaunting his best, _Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!_

III.

No King or priest shall mar my feast Where'er my soul may range. I have no fear of heaven's good cheer Unless our Master change. But when death's night is dying away, If I might choose my bliss, My love should say, at break of day, With her first waking kiss:- Hark! That's the thrush With speckled breast, From yon white bush Chaunting his best, _Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!_

FIVE CRITICISMS

I.

(_On many recent novels by the conventional unconventionalists_.)

Old Pantaloon, lean-witted, dour and rich, After grim years of soul-destroying greed, Weds Columbine, that April-blooded witch "Too young" to know that gold was not her need.

Then enters Pierrot, young, rebellious, warm, With well-lined purse, to teach the fine-souled wife That the old fool's gold should aid a world-reform (Confused with sex). This wrecks the old fool's life.

O, there's no doubt that Pierrot was clever, Quick to break hearts and quench the dying flame; But why, for his own pride, does Pierrot never Choose his own mate, work for his own high aim,

Stand on his feet, and pay for his own tune? Why scold, cheat, rob and kill poor Pantaloon?

II.

(_On a certain goddess, acclaimed as "new" but known in Babylon._)

I saw the assembled artists of our day Waiting for light, for music and for song. A woman stood before them, fresh as May And beautiful; but, in that modish throng,

None heeded her. They said, "In our first youth Surely, long since, your hair was touched with grey." "I do not change," she answered. "I am Truth." "Old and banal," they sneered, and turned away.

Then came a formless thing, with breasts dyed scarlet. The roses in her hair were green and blue. "I am new," she said. "I change, and Death knows why."

Then with the eyes and gesture of a harlot She led them all forth, whinneying, "New, how new! Tell us your name!" She answered, "The New Lie."

III.

(_On Certain of the Bolsheviki "Idealists."_)

With half the force and thought you waste in rage Over your neighbor's house, or heart of stone, You might have built your own new heritage, O fools, have you no hands, then, of your own?

Where is your pride? Is this your answer still, This the red flag that burns above our strife, This the new cry that rings from Pisgah hill, "_Our neighbor's money, or our neighbor's life_"?

Be prouder. Let us build that nobler state With our own hands, with our own muscle and brain! Your very victories die in hymns of hate; And your own envies are your heaviest chain.

Is there no rebel proud enough to say "We'll stand on our own feet, and win the day"?

IV.

(_On Certain Realists._)

You with the quick sardonic eye For all the mockeries of life, Beware, in this dark masque of things that seem, Lest even that tragic irony, Which you discern in this our mortal strife, Trick you and trap you, also, with a dream.

Last night I saw a dead man borne along The city streets, passing a boisterous throng That never ceased to laugh and shout and dance: And yet, and yet, For all the poison bitter minds might brew From themes like this, I knew That the stern Truth would not permit her glance Thus to be foiled by flying straws of chance, For her keen eyes on deeper skies are set, And laws that tragic ironists forget.

She saw the dead man's life, from birth to death,-- All that he knew of love and sin and pain, Success and failure (not as this world sees), His doubts, his passions, inner loss and gain, And borne on darker tides of constant law Beyond the margin of this life she saw All that had left his body with the breath. These things, to her, were still realities.

If any mourned for him unseen, She saw them, too. If none, she'd not pretend His clay were colder, or his God less true, Or that his grave, at length, would be less green. She'd not deny The boundless depths of her eternal sky Brooding above a boundless universe, Because he seemed to man's unseeing eye Going a little further to fare worse; Nor would she assume he lacked that unseen friend Whom even the tragic ironists declare Were better than the seen, in his last end.

Oh, then, beware, beware, Lest in the strong name of "reality" You mock yourselves anew with shapes of air, Lest it be you, agnostics, who re-write The fettering creeds of night, Affirm you know your own Unknowable, And lock the wingéd soul in a new hell; Lest it be you, lip-worshippers of Truth, Who break the heart of youth; Lest it be you, the realists, who fight With shadows, and forget your own pure light; Lest it be you who, with a little shroud Snatched from the sightless faces of the dead, Hoodwink the world, and keep the mourner bowed In dust, real dust, with stones, real stones, for bread; Lest, as you look one eighth of an inch beneath The yellow skin of death, You dream yourselves discoverers of the skull That old _memento mori_ of our faith; Lest it be you who hunt a flying wraith Through this dissolving stuff of hill and cloud; Lest it be you, who, at the last, annul Your covenant with your kind; Lest it be you who darken heart and mind, Sell the strong soul in bondage to a dream, And fetter us once more to things that seem.

V

(_An Answer_)

[After reading an article in a leading London journal by an "intellectual" who attacked one of the noblest poets and greatest artists of a former century (or any century) on the ground that his high ethical standards were incompatible with the new lawlessness. This vicious lawlessness the writer described definitely, and he paid his tribute to dishonour as openly and brutally as any of the Bolsheviki could have done. I had always known that this was the real ground of the latter-day onslaught on some of the noblest literature of the past; but I had never seen it openly confessed before. The time has now surely come when, if our civilization is to make any fight at all against the new "red ruin and breaking up of laws," we must cease to belaud our slack-minded, latter-day "literature of rebellion" for its cleverness in making scraps of paper out of the plain laws of right and wrong. It has been doing this for more than twenty-five years, and the same has become fashionable among those who are too busy to read carefully or understand fully what pitfalls are being prepared for their own feet and the feet of their children.]

I

If this were true, England indeed were dead. If the wild fashion of that poisonous hour Wherein the new Salome, clothed with power, Wriggled and hissed, with hands and feet so red, Should even now demand that glorious head, Whose every word was like an English flower, Whose every song an English April shower, Whose every thought immortal wine and bread; If this were true, if England should prefer Darkness, corruption, and the adulterous crew, Shakespeare and Browning would cry shame on her, And Milton would deny the land he knew; And those who died in Flanders yesterday Would thank their God they sleep in cleaner clay.

II

It is not true. Only these "rebel" wings, These glittering clouds of "intellectual" flies Out of the stagnant pools of midnight rise From the old dead creeds, with carrion-poisoned stings They strike at noble and ignoble things, Immortal Love with the old world's out-worn lies, But even now, a wind from clearer skies Dissolves in smoke their coteries and wings.

See, their divorced idealist re-divorces The wife he stole from his own stealing friend! And _these_ would pluck the high stars from their courses, And mock the fools that praise them, till the end! Well, let the whole world praise them. Truth can wait Till our new England shall unlock the gate.

III

Yes. Let the fools go paint themselves with woad, For we've a jest between us, Truth and I. We know that those who live by fashion die Also by fashion, and that mode kills mode. We know the great new age is on the road, And death is at the heart of every lie. But we've a jest between us, Truth and I. And we have locked the doors to our abode.