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This Copy is No. ___________

UNDERNEATH THE BOUGH

_A BOOK OF VERSES_

By GEORGE ALLAN ENGLAND

THE GRAFTON PRESS NEW YORK

This little book is offered to AGNES its inspirer, in this the tenth year of her reign.

I desire to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Titus Munson Coan, Mr. Justo Quintéro and Mr. A. B. Myrick for assistance rendered, and to acknowledge the kind permission to reprint certain of these verses given me by The Literary Digest, Harvard Illustrated Magazine, Vogue, Middletown Forum, Red Letter, Literary Review, Boston Transcript, Town Topics, Smart Set, The New York Herald and other periodicals.

G. A. E.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

I. THE RACE OF THE MIGHTY 1

II. SONGS & SONNETS. Love Beatified 9 Morning, Noon and Night 10 Dante 11 Love’s Blindness 12 Hesperides 13 My Garden 18 Erinnerungen 19 The Battle Royal 20 España 21 Love’s Fear 22 Longings 23 Horace, IV, 8 24 Ricordatevi Di Me! 26 The Tower 28 Love’s Prayer 30 Combien J’ai Douce Souvenance 31 My Little Red Devil and I 33 The College Pump 37 I Disputanti 38 Quand Vous Serez Bien Vieille 39 One Summer Night 40 A Une Fleurette 42 Blest Be the Day 43 Mignonne Allons Voir Si La Rose 44 Religion 45 The Great Woods Were Awakening 46 I-N-R-I 47 Fayre Robyn 48 Coeur de Femme 51

III. BALLADES & RONDEAUX Ballade of the Sick 54 Three Rondeaux from Charles d’Orléans 56 The Song of the Poor 59 Kyrielle 62 Rondeau 64 When I First Saw Edmée 65 My Old Coat 66 A Pantoum 68 When Doris Deigns 70

IV. THE YEAR Spring--May Evening 72 Summer--August Rain 73 Autumn--November in Cambridge 74 Winter--Hampton Holidays 75

V. MORS OMNIUM VICTOR Gunga Din in Hell 78 Cui Bono? 79 The Bride-Bed 80 Dead Loves 81 Death the Friend 82 La Jeune Fille 83 Lucie 84 Luctus in Morte Passeris 89 Death in December 90 The Royal Council 92 Carmen Mortis 93

THE RACE OF THE MIGHTY

The Race of the Mighty[A]

THE START

The appointed time at length the dials show. “Attention, both!... Now, are you ready?... Go!!” The chauffeur grips his lever with a hand Of steel.--A leap!--A flash of wheels! A grand And supple beast-like spring!--A growl of gear! As, sweeping through the multitudinous sea Of men upraising full-voiced cheer on cheer, He whirls away to promised victory!...

ON THE ROAD

The high road stretches straight and white Away To dreamy distance, on and on-- The day Dawns sharp and foggy; nips the driver’s Nose, Despite his costly furs. Zounds! How It blows! The motor purrs!--Our mobile seems To fly, Nor touch the ground... (Pneumatic Mystery!) The motor purrs!--Farewell wood, field And stream! Once on the road, we’ve scanty time To dream! The motor purrs!--Look out! A sheer Decline. Temptation whispers: Faster here! It’s fine! Faster? It’s madness! Yes, I know!-- But on! Full speed down hill! Another record Gone!... The driver plunges out of view... See, there He climbs the distant slope again. I swear He’d scale Olympus! Yet that course Is clear From many mishaps that beset Us here! We crush a curséd mongrel in The dust! Slow down to miss an English spinster, Just Graze by her on her clumsy, ancient Wheel!-- Rout ducks and chickens, set the pigs A-squeal! It’s not _our_ fault! We can’t be kept All day To clear the road!... Speed on!--Away! Away!...

THE STRUGGLE

But hark!... Behind, a trumpet-blast winds clear! Great God! Our dread competitor draws near; We’d half a minute start, and now, like Fate, He’s rushing onward to annihilate Distance and time, whirled in a hurricane! Inexorably we see him gain and gain....

“Now!--speed her up!” the boy cries out. “More speed!” “The curséd motor’s gone to sleep!--Indeed, “We’re hardly doing fifty miles an hour. “But he won’t pass us yet awhile! More power!”... The driver heeds; he moves--the furious pace Grows frenzied! Oh, the glory of a race Like this of modern days, with steady hand To steer a whirlwind through a startled land!

THE WATCHERS

“The first is near!--Let no one cross!--Take care! “See! There they are!--Look out! The horn! Beware! “Stand back!--They’re two!... It’s Girardot! No, no; “It’s Charron! No, it’s Levegh!--How they blow “That horn!”... But who can hope to recognize Or name the shrilling bullet in its flight? And what are names when glory blinds the eyes? The towns love sport, and cheer; but, half in fright The laboring peasants stop their ploughs to see This avalanche--this hurtling mystery!

THE FINISH

Untiring, on their mounts of fire and steel, The shielded chauffeurs, watchful, hand on wheel, Have flashed through many a league;--have breathed the dust Of devious ways; have skirted wood and sea; Have traversed towns, crossed rivers, hills and dales;-- Nor halted once! To learn geography By such vast lessons, though it tire the flesh, Exalts the soul and makes the spirit free. But now must end this vast, Titanic race! (It cannot last forever!)--See! The place Lies there!... A broad, white banner bars the way, Between two lofty poles with streamers gay. The “FINISH” there we read. The end at last! All rest and glory, once that goal is passed! A final burst!--The driver grips the bar! The “FINISH!” In the road he sees afar A judge with solemn air attentive stand, Waving a crimson kerchief in his hand... “Stop!” Harshly grinds the brake--“What number’s this?” “Your name?” Recorded! Apotheosis!!

SONGS & SONNETS

Love Beatified.

Love, slain by us and buried yesterday, Rose up again, nor in his grave would stay.

On his earth-stainèd brow and sightless eyes Still shone the splendours of our Paradise.

Hushed was each dissonance, every fault made clean, And joys alone I saw, that might have been.

It never seemed our Love could shew so fair As that dead Presence, shrined in glory there.

I would not have our Love to live again, And blend each pleasure with his greater pain.--

Oh better far this blessèd death, and rest! Dead Love I clasp, I cherish to my breast And ever shall, for this I know is best!

Morning, Noon and Night.

I love thee when the gates of eastern light Are opened by the Morning-star, aflame; I love thee when the rose-red heavens proclaim The coming of their lord, to mortal sight, And cloudless, when from his imperial height He looks in glory down. I breathe thy name With thoughts of love, when drowsy Noon the same Poised, equal distance holds, twixt dawn and night.

I love thee when the West begins to glow, And when the restless winds lie still in heaven; I love thee when the deep’ning shadows fall, As comes with Tyrian dye, soft, purple even; But when, from out the waters, rises slow The noiseless Night, I love thee best of all.

Dante.

Thou’rt but a pensive, dreaming Boy, when first To thy sad eyne the sight of Love appears With blessèd Beatrice. Nine circling years Name thee the wounded Lover, whose sweet thirst Is never sated, nor whose fever less. At Campaldino thou’rt the mailèd Knight; Savage to spur thy City on toward right Thou’rt driven, its scape-goat, to the wilderness.

There, in the stranger’s house whose stairs are pain To mount, whose bread is bitter to thy mouth, Dawns thy Great Vision, mid thy soul’s last drouth; And, past Hell’s flame and Purgatory’s round, Greets thee thy love most gentle, once again, Thou frowning Florentine with laurels crowned!

Love’s Blindness.

“O Love, my Love, thou canst not know how sweet, How dear thou art!”--“Naught would I know, save this That thou wilt ever yearn to share my kiss! So being, I reck not whether years be fleet Or endless!”--“But thou canst not see thy face As others see thee! Thy deep eyes that greet Their lucent-mirrored glimmerings, melt and meet In glory there, to blind themselves a space!”

“Hush, O my heart! Thy vain hyperbole Means naught; but take in both thy hands and turn To thee this face of mine, and kiss my brow, And after that mine eyes which cannot see But only feel thy lips that thrill, and now My mouth, and now--O God! thy kisses burn!”

Hesperides.

Now once again the angry sun Wheels up the heaven his tireless way; Once more we strangling herds of men Wake to our labours never-done, Rise up to toil another day. Down flares the heat on town and street, Wide-warping pillar, span and plinth; Once more my burning, wearied eyes Within this monstrous labyrinth Meet the mad heat that stifles me, And O, my baffled spirit flies In dreams to thy green wood and thee, To thee!... To thee!...

My pavement-wearied feet again Tread the rough streets whose ways are pain, Hot with the sun’s last sullen beam, And yet--I dream! Dream when I wake, and at high, blinding Noon, Or when the moon Mocks the sad City in her sullen night That burns too bright! So sweet my visions seem That from this sordid smoke and dust I turn, Turn where the dim Wood-world calls out to me And where the forest-virgins I half see With green mysterious fingers beckoning! Where vine-wreathed woodland altars sunlit burn, Or Dryads weave their mystic rounds and sing, Sing high, sing low, with magic cadences That once the wild oaks of Dodona heard; And every wood-note bids me burst asunder The bonds that hold me from the leaf-hid bird! I quaff thee, O Nepenthe! Ah, the wonder Grows that there be who scorn not wealth and ease, Who still will choose the street-life, rough and blurred, Who will not quest you, O Hesperides!...

III

And now, and now... I feel the forest-moss! O, on these moss-beds let me lie with Pan, Twined with the ivy-vine in tendrilled curls! And I will hold all gold that hampers man But the base ashes of a barren dross! On with the love-dance of the pagan girls! The pagan girls with lips all rosy-red, With breasts up-girt and foreheads garlanded! With fair white foreheads nobly garlanded! With sandalled feet that weave the magic ring Now ... let them sing, And I will pipe a song that all may hear, To bid them mind the time of my wild rhyme! Away! Away! Beware our mystic trees! Who will not quest you, O Hesperides?...

Great men of song, what sing ye? Woodland meadows? Rocks, trees and rills where sunlight glints to gold? Sing ye the hills adown whose sides blue shadows Creep when the westering day is growing old? Sing ye the brooks where in the purling shallows The small fish dart and gleam? Sing ye the pale green tresses of the willows That stoop to kiss the stream?

Or sing ye burning streets and sweating toil Where we spawned swarms of men, unendingly, Above, below, in mart and workshop’s moil Have quite forgot thee, O mine Arcady?...

My Garden.

With a copy of “Sonnets of this Century.”

This little book, a Garden where the bloom And fragrance of an hundred years are pent, To thee, dear girl, at Christmas-tide is sent By one who breathes with love the sweet perfume Of such frail flowers. Let aye the world consume Itself with toil and labour--such are all Without the bounds of this my garden-wall, And I, in light, feel not nor heed their gloom.

Come thou into my Garden! Let me show Thee all the treasures that do lend it grace, These goodly Sonnets, standing in a row To tell of joy, tears, love,--life’s madrigal; And, mistress of the pure enchanted place, Be thou the fairest Flower among them all!...

Erinnerungen.

Schwer ist mein Herz, und heute kann ich nicht Mehr lesen--kann nicht denken, leiden mehr. Aus jeder Ecke kommt ein Schatten her, Wie aus dem toten Himmel geht das Licht. Ich sinn’ und sinn’--ich sehe ihn noch, wie er Vor langen Jahren zartlich schaut’ mich an Eh’ unsere reine Liebe erst begann Langsam zu sterben, ich zu trauern sehr...

Schwer ist mein Herz. Aus seinen Ecken auch Kriechen die Schatten, schnell und schneller. Jetzt Vernimmt mein müdes Ohr den ersten Hauch Der Winternacht ... Es glimmert Strom und Wald In dunkler Ferne ... Dies vergeht zuletzt, Und alles endlich finster ist und kalt...

The Battle Royal.

Thou Battle Royal! Kings and gentlemen At arms, and lords have fought thee since the mists Of time, back-rolling, show’d thy mimic lists And pigmy warriors, mazed and harried then As now in meshes of thy checkered strife-- Unshielded Pawns, trim Knights and frowning Rooks Stolid yet quick, and Bishops smug, with looks A-squint, and King with lame yet endless life.

Thou Battle Royal! Years unnumbered soil Cards, draughts and dice with myriad grime-worn hands. Thou, lov’d by dames and lords in all the lands Of this broad world art still the world’s best play; Where, as in life, whilst others struggle, toil, And die, the imperious Queen controls the day!

España.

“Que era, decidme, la nación que un día Reina del mundo proclamó el destino?...”

_Quintana--Oda a España._

Where now that Nation proud which Destiny Once did proclaim this world’s all conquering queen? Where now that sceptre, that bright blazon seen That mark’d her mistress over land and sea? A lost emprise, a shattered galleon she, Sails rent and hull agape that once have been World-powerful; her rotting masts careen With each dark surge of long-pent enmity.

On through sea’s salty wastes the tempests spurn, The waves rebuff her; lights no more there gleam Nor vergies wave on her high carven beam. Stilled is the sailor’s jest, the skipper’s song; In swirling fogs of night she drives along With Helmsman Death stark-frozen at the stern!...

Love’s Fear.

Virgin art thou and pure, amid a throng Of such sweet hallowed names as all men praise. (Grown all too scant in these our latter days!) To holy hours of old dost thou belong; Saint Agnès then had heard thine even-song, Nor left thee, darkling, in Earth’s devious ways. Thou’rt one with that sweet sisterhood which raise To “untouched Dian,” all clear streams along, Their full-voiced anthem. Thou a Vestal art At true-love’s altar. Atala, and the Maid, And Mary all are sisters of thy blood! Thy very name is virgin!... I, afraid, How shall I press my kisses on thy heart, Or loose the girdle of thy maidenhood?...

Longings.

“... Nessun maggior dolore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria...” _Inferno, V, 121._

Far from the sea-girt City that I love, My wandering ways by care attended lie; Cold is the azure of this foreign sky, And strange these clustered stars that burn above. Out from this loveless land would I remove To seek thy spring Pierian, never-dry, Thou thrice-crowned City! Hear my fainting cry. Let not my passionate longing fruitless prove! Would I once more might see the dome of gold Burning aloft, beneath my native sky! The river, winding near my home of old, And once again to breathe before I die, The evening breeze, may it be granted me, In that fair city by the distant sea!...

The Eighth Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace.

TO C. MARTIUS CENSORINUS.

“Donarem pateras grataque commodus...”

Freely to my companions would I give Beautiful bronzes, Censorinus, bowls And tripods, once a guerdon to the souls Of hardy Greeks; nor should’st thou bear away The meanest of my gifts, could I but live Possessed of arts like those Parrhasius plied, Or Skopas, now depicting human clay And now a god, in liquid colors one In solid stone the other. But denied To me are equal powers; need hast thou none In mind or state for treasures like to these. Thou dost delight in songs, and such are mine To give, and fix a value to each song. Not marbles carved with public elegies, Whence to illustrious leaders still belong In dreamless death their praises half divine, Not the precipitate flights of Hannibal Nor those retorted threats that wrought him shame, Not impious Carthage and her flaming fall More highly show, than the Calabrian Muse, Glories of him who, having gained a name From prostrate conquered Africa, returned. Neither if writings should perchance refuse To herald forth what thou so well hast earned Wouldst thou have fitting praise. What were the son Of Mars and Ilia, if in jealousy Silence had drowned those lofty merits won By Romulus? Through eloquence, through strength And favor of all poets loved of fame, Aeacus hallowed is, from Stygian floods, To the fair Islands of the Blest at length.

The Muse forbids the worthy man to die; She blesseth him with Heaven. Thus Hercules, Untiring victor, finds a place on high At Jove’s desired feasts. Tyndareus’ sons, Clear-shining stars, thus from the deepest seas Rescue the shattered ships. Thus Bacchus fair, Twining his temples with fresh vine-leaves green, To fruitful issue brings the votaries’ prayer.

Ricordatevi Di Me!

(_Terza Rima._)

If ever thou shouldst cease to think of me With love, and turn thy soul’s sweet warmth to ice-- (Stop not my mouth with kisses! Change may be,

As all do know who take for their device A bleeding heart!)--If any change should seal To me the gates of uttermost Paradise,

And I should darkling fare, with no repeal, In company of them, that, love forsaken, Before cold shrines and at dead altars kneel,

Remember this--I bade thy heart awaken; Here in this hand it lay a prisoner! Thy first wild love-kiss from my lips was taken,

And with my breath thy first sighs mingled were! Remember this--I loved thee well and long, Thou haven to me, a time-worn wanderer!

Then, though my voice be drowned in that clear song Of thy new love, and I forgotten be Or all-despisèd, think thou in my wrong

Some good there was, some truth akin with thee, Some light half-seen, since I could tune a soul Virgin as thine to perfect harmony, And crown thy brow with Love’s pure aureole!

The Tower.

There lies a City of Unnumbered Dead Where paths entwine, where hills and valleys be, And still, black pools; the cypress mystically Shrouds those dark ways. There living souls may tread With but slow steps and rare. With slow steps, led By Love two lovers passed; they spake, and she Cast down her mystic eyes lest he might see In their vague depths the image of her dread.

A great round-tower of granite crowns that land. Thither they came, and now her starry eyes Were raised to his; that dread which wrought them ill Behind them with the frozen dead lay chill. Up the enchanted stairway hand in hand They passed, and issued forth to see the skies.

And yet their sweetest moment did not seem That dizzying issue into tenuous light, Where the keen salt-sea wind that lashed their height Drowned their love-quickened breath as in a stream Of chill, on-rushing æther; not the gleam Of multitudinous Ocean, nor the bright Expanse of Earth could draw their dazzled sight From the new glory of their passionate dream.

It was upon the tower’s midmost stair At one dim diamond-window; both beguiled Paused in the gloom; she trembled like a child; His hot mouth found her mouth, her gold-twined hair, And in her milk-white breast her heart beat wild Beneath one burning kiss he printed there.

Love’s Prayer.

When thy ripe lips in kisses mould to meet Mine eager mouth--when thy full pulsing throat Throbs with thy quickening life-breath--when the float And tangle of thine ungirt hair, oh Sweet, Entwines us, breast to breast, the perfumed heat Of each wild sigh fans all my face aflame, And beat to beat our passionate hearts the same Responses cry, as we Love’s creed repeat.

When in each other’s arms, love-wearied, we Both nested safe in silken cushions warm

At Winter-evenfall entrancèd lie, Kissing but closer as we list the storm, Then pray we, midst our sweet antiphony But this--that love like ours may never die!...

“Combien J’ai Douce Souvenance...!”

(_After Chateaubriand_)

Oh sweet, how sweet old memories be Of one most lovely place, to me-- My birthplace! Sister, fair those days And free! Oh France, be thou my love, my praise Always!

Our mother--hath thy memory flown?-- Beside our humble chimney-stone Pressed us against her heart, whilst you, Dear one, And I her white hair kissed anew, We two.

Sweet little sister, dost recall The stream that bathed the castle-wall? The old round-tower whence came alway The call Of bells to banish night away At day?

Dost thou recall the lake--how still!-- Where swallows skimmed at their sweet will? The reeds, swayed by the gentle air Until The sun set on the waters there, So fair?

Oh, who will give me my Helène? My mountains, my great oak again? Their memory brings with all my days Fresh pain; My land shall be my love, my praise Always!

My Little Red Devil and I.

“The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman.”

_Twelfth Night._

My little Red Devil upon my desk With a smile sardonic stands. He holds my pen with a patient air In his crooked, outstretched hands; The paint is worn from his hoof and horn And scratched is his curving tail, Yet he still holds on with a right good grace, A knowing look on his crafty face, And spirits that never fail.