Part 5
If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England’s, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Witter Bynner
TO CELIA
I—CONSUMMATION
There was a strangeness on your lips, Lips that had been so sure; You still were mine but in eclipse, Beside me but obscure.
There was a cloud upon your heart; For, Celia, where you lay, Death, come to break your life apart, Had led your love away.
Through the cold distance of your eyes You could no longer see. But when you died, you heard me rise And followed suddenly.
And close beside me, looking down As I did on the dead, You made of time a wedding-gown, Of space a marriage-bed.
I took, in you, death for a wife, You married death in me, Singing, “There is no other life, No other God than we!”
II—DURING A CHORALE BY CESAR FRANCK
In an old chamber softly lit We heard the Chorale played, And where you sat, an exquisite Image of Life and lover of it, Death sang a serenade.
I know now, Celia, what you heard, And why you turned and smiled. It was the white wings of a bird Offering flight, and you were stirred Like an adventurous child.
Death sang: “Oh, lie upon your bier, Uplift your countenance!” Death bade me be your cavalier, Called me to march and shed no tear, But sing to you and dance.
And when you followed, lured and led By those mysterious wings, And when I heard that you were dead, I could not weep. I sang instead, As a true lover sings.
· · · · ·
Today a room is softly lit; I hear the Chorale played. And where you come, an exquisite Image of Death and lover of it, Life sings a serenade.
III—SONGS ASCENDING
Love has been sung a thousand ways— So let it be; The songs ascending in your praise Through all my days Are three.
Your cloud-white body first I sing; Your love was heaven’s blue, And I, a bird, flew carolling In ring on ring Of you.
Your nearness is the second song; When God began to be, And bound you strongly, right or wrong, With his own thong, To me.
But oh, the song, eternal, high, That tops these two!— You live forever, you who die, I am not I But you.
GRIEVE NOT FOR BEAUTY
Grieve not for the invisible, transported brow On which like leaves the dark hair grew, Nor for the lips of laughter that are now Laughing inaudibly in sun and dew, Nor for those limbs that, fallen low And seeming faint and slow, Shall yet pursue More ways of swiftness than the swallow dips Among ... and find more winds than ever blew The straining sails of unimpeded ships! Mourn not!—yield only happy tears To deeper beauty than appears!
Joseph Campbell
AT HARVEST
Earth travails, Like a woman come to her time.
The swaying corn-haulms In the heavy places of the field Cry to be gathered. Apples redden, and drop from their rods. Out of their sheath of prickly leaves The marrows creep, fat and white. The blue pallor of ripeness Comes on the fruit of the vine-branch.
Fecund and still fecund After æons of bearing: Not old, not dry, not wearied out; But fresh as when the unseen Right Hand First moved on Brí, And the candle of day was set, And dew fell from the stars’ feet, And cloths of greenness covered thee.
Let me kiss thy breasts: I am thy son and lover.
Womb-fellow am I of the sunburnt oat, Friendly gossip of the mearings; Womb-fellow of the dark and sweet-scented apple; Womb-fellow of the gourd and of the grape: Like begotten, like born.
And yet without a lover’s knowledge Of thy secrets I would walk the ridges of the hills, Kindless and desolate.
What were the storm-driven moon to me, Seed of another father? What the overflowing Of the well of dawn? What the hollow, Red with rowan fire? What the king-fern? What the belled heath? What the drum of grouse’s wing, Or glint of spar, Caught from the pit Of a deserted quarry?
Let me kiss thy breasts: I am thy son and lover.
ON WAKING
Sleep, gray brother of death, Has touched me, And passed on.
I arise, facing the east— Pearl-doored sanctuary From which light, Hand-linked with dew and fire, Dances.
Hail, essence, hail! Fill the windows of my soul With beauty: Pierce and renew my bones: Pour knowledge into my heart As wine.
Cualann is bright before thee. Its rocks melt and swim: The secret they have kept From the ancient nights of darkness Flies like a bird.
What mourns? Cualann’s secret flying, A lost voice In endless fields. What rejoices? My voice lifted praising thee.
Praise! Praise! Praise! Praise out of trumpets, whose brass Is the unyoked strength of bulls; Praise upon harps, whose strings Are the light movements of birds; Praise of leaf, praise of blossom, Praise of the red-fibred clay; Praise of grass, Fire-woven veil of the temple; Praise of the shapes of clouds; Praise of the shadows of wells; Praise of worms, of fetal things, And of the things in time’s thought Not yet begotten. To thee, queller of sleep, Looser of the snare of death.
THE OLD WOMAN
As a white candle In a holy place, So is the beauty Of an agèd face.
As the spent radiance Of the winter sun, So is a woman With her travail done.
Her brood gone from her, And her thoughts as still As the waters Under a ruined mill.
Nancy Campbell
THE APPLE-TREE
I saw the archangels in my apple-tree last night, I saw them like great birds in the starlight— Purple and burning blue, crimson and shining white.
And each to each they tossed an apple to and fro, And once I heard their laughter gay and low; And yet I felt no wonder that it should be so.
But when the apple came one time to Michael’s lap I heard him say: “The mysteries that enwrap The earth and fill the heavens can be read here, mayhap.”
Then Gabriel spoke: “I praise the deed, the hidden thing.” “The beauty of the blossom of the spring I praise,” cried Raphael. Uriel: “The wise leaves I sing.”
And Michael: “I will praise the fruit, perfected, round, Full of the love of God, herein being bound His mercies gathered from the sun and rain and ground.”
So sang they till a small wind through the branches stirred, And spoke of coming dawn; and at its word Each fled away to heaven, winged like a bird.
THE MONKEY
I saw you hunched and shivering on the stones, The bleak wind piercing to your fragile bones, Your shabby scarlet all inadequate: A little ape that had such human eyes They seemed to hide behind their miseries— Their dumb and hopeless bowing down to fate— Some puzzled wonder. Was your monkey soul Sickening with memories of gorgeous days, Of tropic playfellows and forest ways, Where, agile, you could swing from bole to bole In an enchanted twilight with great flowers For stars; or on a bough the long night hours Sit out in rows, and chatter at the moon? Shuffling you went, your tiny chilly hand Outstretched for what you did not understand; Your puckered mournful face begging a boon That but enslaved you more. They who passed by Saw nothing sorrowful; gave laugh or stare, Unheeding that the little antic there Played in the gutter such a tragedy.
Skipwith Cannéll
THE RED BRIDGE
The arches of the red bridge Are stronger than ever: The arches of the scarlet bridge Are of rough, bleak stone.
(Why should such massive arches be the span From cloud to tenuous cloud?)
Let us not seek omens in the guts Of newly slain fowls; Leaving such play to the children, Let us pluck wild swans From under the moon; Or, challenging strong, terrible men, Let us slay them and seek truth In their smoking entrails.
Let us fling runners Across the red bridge, Deep-lunged runners who will return to us With tidings of the far countries And the strange seas!
There be many terrible men Going out upon the bridge, Through the little door That is by the steps from the river.
THE KING
Seven full-paunched eunuchs came to me, Bearing before them upon a silver shield The secrets of my enemy.
As they crossed my threshold to stand, With stately and hypocritical gesture In a row before me, One stumbled. The dull, incurious eyes of the others Blazed into no laughter, Only a haggard malice At the discomfiture Of their companion.
Why should such _Things_ have power Not spoken for in the rules of men?
I would not receive them. With my head covered I motioned them To go forth from my presence.
Where shall I find an enemy Worthy of me as him they defaced?
As they left me, Bearing with them Lewd shield and scarlet crown, One paused upon the threshold, Insolent, To sniff a flower. Even him I permitted to go forth Safely.
· · · · ·
Therefore I have renounced my kingdom; In a little bronze boat I have set sail Out Upon the sea.
There is no land, and the sea Is black like the cypresses waiting At midnight in the place of tombs; Is black like the pool of ink In the palm of a soothsayer.
My boat Fears the white-lipped waves That snatch at her, Hungrily, Furtively, As they steal past like cats Into the night: And beneath me, in their hidden places, The great fishes talk of me In a tongue I have forgotten.
Willa Sibert Cather
THE PALATINE
_In the “Dark Ages”_
“Have you been with the King to Rome, Brother, big brother?” “I’ve been there and I’ve come home. Back to your play, little brother.”
“Oh, how high is Cæsar’s house, Brother, big brother?” “Goats about the doorways browse; Night-hawks nest in the burnt roof-tree. Home of the wild bird and home of the bee, A thousand chambers of marble lie Wide to the sun and the wind and the sky. Poppies we find amongst our wheat Grow on Cæsar’s banquet seat. Cattle crop and neat-herds drowse On the floors of Cæsar’s house.”
“But what has become of Cæsar’s gold, Brother, big brother?” “The times are bad and the world is old— Who knows the where of the Cæsar’s gold? Night comes black o’er the Cæsar’s hill; The wells are deep and the tales are ill; Fireflies gleam in the damp and mold— All that is left of the Cæsar’s gold. Back to your play, little brother.”
“What has become of the Cæsar’s men, Brother, big brother?” “Dogs in the kennel and wolf in the den Howl for the fate of the Cæsar’s men, Slain in Asia, slain in Gaul, By Dacian border and Persian wall. Rhineland orchard and Danube fen Fatten their roots on Cæsar’s men.”
“Why is the world so sad and wide, Brother, big brother?” “Saxon boys by their fields that bide Need not know if the world is wide. Climb no mountain but Shere-end Hill, Cross no water but goes to mill. Ox in the stable and cow in the byre, Smell of the wood-smoke and sleep by the fire; Sun-up in seed-time—a likely lad Hurts not his head that the world is sad. Back to your play, little brother.”
SPANISH JOHNNY
The old West, the old time, The old wind singing through The red, red grass a thousand miles— And, Spanish Johnny, you! He’d sit beside the water ditch When all his herd was in, And never mind a child, but sing To his mandolin.
The big stars, the blue night, The moon-enchanted lane; The olive man who never spoke, But sang the songs of Spain. His speech with men was wicked talk— To hear it was a sin; But those were golden things he said To his mandolin.
The gold songs, the gold stars, The word so golden then; And the hand so tender to a child— Had killed so many men. He died a hard death long ago Before the Road came in— The night before he swung, he sang To his mandolin.
Padraic Colum
POLONIUS AND THE BALLAD SINGERS
A gaunt-built woman and her son-in-law— A broad-faced fellow, with such flesh as shows Nothing but easy nature—and his wife, The woman’s daughter, who spills all her talk Out of a wide mouth, but who has eyes as gray As Connemara, where the mountain-ash Shows berries red indeed: they enter now— Our country singers!
“Sing, my good woman, sing us some romance That has been round your chimney-nooks so long ’Tis nearly native; something blown here And since made racy—like yon tree, I might say, Native by influence if not by species, Shaped by our winds. You understand, I think?”
“I’ll sing the song, sir.”
To-night you see my face— Maybe nevermore you’ll gaze On the one that for you left his friends and kin; For by the hard commands Of the lord that rules these lands On a ship I’ll be borne from Cruckaunfinn!
Oh, you know your beauty bright Has made him think delight More than from any fair one he will gain; Oh, you know that all his will Strains and strives around you till As the hawk upon his hand you are as tame!
Then she to him replied: I’ll no longer you deny, And I’ll let you have the pleasure of my charms; For to-night I’ll be your bride, And whatever may betide It’s we will lie in one another’s arms!
“You should not sing With body doubled up and face aside— There is a climax here—‘It’s we will lie’— Hem—passionate! And what does your daughter sing?”
“A song I like when I do climb bare hills— ’Tis all about a hawk.”
No bird that sits on rock or bough Has such a front as thine; No king that has made war his trade Such conquest in his eyne! I mark thee rock-like on the rock Where none can see a shape. I climb, but thou dost climb with wings, And like a wish escape, She said— And like a wish escape!
No maid that kissed his bonny mouth Of another mouth was glad; Such pride was in our chieftain’s eyes, Such countenance he had! But since they made him fly the rocks, Thou, creature, art my quest. Then lift me with thy steady eyes. If then to tear my breast, She said— If then to tear my breast!
“The songs they have Are the last relics of the feudal world: Women will keep them—byzants, doubloons, When men will take up songs that are as new As dollar bills. What song have you, young man?”
“A song my father had, sir. It was sent him From across the sea, and there was a letter with it, Asking my father to put it to a tune And sing it all roads. He did that, in troth, And five pounds of tobacco were sent with the song To fore-reward him. I’ll sing it for you now— _The Baltimore Exile_.”
The house I was bred in—ah, does it remain? Low walls and loose thatch standing lone in the rain, With the clay of the walls coming through with its stain, Like the blackbird’s left nest in the briar!
Does a child there give heed to the song of the lark, As it lifts and it drops till the fall of the dark, When the heavy-foot kine trudge home from the paurk, Or do none but the red-shank now listen?
The sloe-bush, I know, grows close to the well, And its long-lasting blossoms are there, I can tell, When the kid that was yeaned when the first ones befell Can jump to the ditch that they grow on!
But there’s silence on all. Then do none ever pass On the way to the fair or the pattern or mass? Do the gray-coated lads drive the ball through the grass And speed to the sweep of the hurl?
O youths of my land! Then will no Bolivar Ever muster your ranks for delivering war? Will your hopes become fixed and beam like a star? Will they pass like the mists from your fields?
The swan and the swallows, the cuckoo and crake, May visit my land and find hillside and lake. And I send my song. I’ll not see her awake— I’m too old a bird to uncage now!
“Silver’s but lead in exchange for songs, But take it and spend it.”
“We will. And may we meet your honor’s like Every day’s end.”
“A tune is more lasting than the voice of the birds.”
“A song is more lasting than the riches of the world.”
NOTE. _The last stanza in the first ballad sung is a fragment of an old country song; the rest of it, with the other two ballads, is invented. But they are all in the convention of songs still sung by strolling ballad-singers. I have written the common word for pasture-field “paurk” so as not to give a wrong association: it might be written “park,” as Burns, using the word in the same sense, writes it. “Paurk” or “park” is Gaelic for pasture field, and is always used in Irish country speech in that sense. The two last lines spoken are translations of a Gaelic phrase which has been used by Dr. Douglas Hyde as a motto for his collection of Connacht love songs. P. C._
THE SEA BIRD TO THE WAVE
On and on, O white brother! Thunder does not daunt thee! How thou movest! By thine impulse— With no wing! Fairest thing The wide sea shows me! On and on O white brother! Art thou gone!
OLD MEN COMPLAINING
_First Old Man_ _He threw his crutched stick down: there came Into his face the anger flame, And he spoke viciously of one Who thwarted him—his son’s son. He turned his head away._—“I hate Absurdity of language, prate From growing fellows. We’d not stay About the house the whole of a day When we were young, Keeping no job and giving tongue!
“Not us in troth! We would not come For bit or sup, but stay from home If we gave answers, or we’d creep Back to the house, and in we’d peep Just like a corncrake.
“My grandson and his comrades take A piece of coal from you, from me A log, or sod of turf, maybe; And in some empty place they’ll light A fire, and stay there all night, A wisp of lads! Now understand The blades of grass under my hand Would be destroyed by company! There’s no good company: we go With what is lowest to the low! He stays up late, and how can he Rise early? Sure he lags in bed, And she is worn to a thread With calling him—his grandmother. She’s an old woman, and she must make Stir when the birds are half awake In dread he’d lose this job like the other!”