Part 2

I stood quite dumb, sunk fast in the mire, Lonely as the first man, or the last man, Chilled to despair since evening began, Dazed for the memory of a lost desire.

But a voice said “Easily,” and a voice said “Come!” Easily I followed with no thought of doubt, Turned to the right hand, and the way stretched out; The ground held firmly; I was no more dumb.

For that was the place where I longed to be, And past all hope there the kind lamp shone, The carpet was holy that my feet were on, And logs on the fire lay hissing for me.

The cushions were friendship and the chairs were love, Shaggy with love was the great wolf skin, The clock ticked “Easily” as I entered in, “Come,” called the bullfinch from his cage above.

Love went before me; it was shining now From the eyes of a girl by the window wall, Whose beauty I knew to be fate and all By the thin red ribbon on her calm brow.

Then I was a hero and a bold boy Kissing the hand I had never yet kissed; I felt red ribbon like a snake twist In my own thick hair, so I laughed for joy.

* * * * *

I stand by the stair-head in the upper hall; The rooms to the left and right are locked as before. Once I found entrance, but now never more, And Time leans forward with his glassy wall.

IN PROCESSION

Donne (for example’s sake), Keats, Marlowe, Spenser, Blake, Shelley and Milton, Shakespeare and Chaucer, Skelton-- We love them as we know them, But who could dare outgo them At their several arts, At their particular parts Of wisdom, power and knowledge? In the Poets’ College 10 Are no degrees nor stations, Comparisons, rivals, Stern examinations, Class declarations, Senior survivals; No creeds, religions, nations Combatant together With mutual damnations. Or tell me whether Shelley’s hand could take 20 The laurel wreath from Blake? Could Shakespeare make the less Chaucer’s goodliness?

The poets of old, Each with his pen of gold Gloriously writing, Found no need for fighting, In common being so rich; None need take the ditch, Unless this Chaucer beats 30 That Chaucer, or this Keats With other Keats is flyting: See Donne deny Donne’s feats, Shelley take Shelley down, Blake snatch at his own crown. Without comparison aiming high, Watching with no jealous eye A neighbour’s renown, Each in his time contended, But with a mood late ended, 40 Some manner now put by, Or force expended, Sinking a new well when the old ran dry.

So like my masters I Voice my ambition loud, In prospect proud, Treading the poet’s road, In retrospect most humble, For I stumble and tumble, I spill my load. 50

But often, Half-way to sleep, On a mountain shagged and steep, The sudden moment on me comes With terrible roll of dream drums, Reverberations, cymbals, horns replying, When with standards flying, A cloud of horsemen behind, The coloured pomps unwind The Carnival wagons With their saints and their dragons 60 On the screen of my teeming mind, The Creation and Flood With our Saviour’s Blood And fat Silenus’ flagons, With every rare beast From the South and East, Both greatest and least, On and on, In endless variable procession. I stand at the top rungs 70 Of a ladder reared in the air, And I speak with strange tongues So the crowds murmur and stare, Then volleys again the blare Of horns, and summer flowers Fly scattering in showers, And the Sun rolls in the sky, While the drums thumping by Proclaim me.... Oh, then, when I wake Could I recovering take 80 And propose on this page The words of my rage And my blandishing speech Steadfast and sage, Could I stretch and reach The flowers and the ripe fruit Laid out at the ladder’s foot, Could I rip a silken shred From the banner tossed ahead, Could I call a double flam 90 From the drums, could the Goat Horned with gold, could the Ram With a flank like a barn-door, The dwarf, the blackamoor, Could _Jonah and the Whale_ And the _Holy Grail_ With the _Sacking of Rome_ And _Lot at his home_, The Ape with his platter, Going clitter-clatter, 100 The Nymphs and the Satyr, And every other such matter Come before me here Standing and speaking clear With a “How do ye do?” And “Who are ye, who?” Could I show them so to you That you saw them with me, Oh then, then I could be The Prince of all Poetry 110 With never a peer, Seeing my way so clear To unveil mystery.

Telling you of land and sea, Of Heaven blithe and free, How I know there to be Such and such Castles built in Spain, Telling also of Cockaigne, Of that glorious kingdom, Cand, Of the Delectable Land, 120 The land of Crooked Stiles, The Fortunate Isles, Of the more than three score miles That to Babylon lead, A pretty city indeed Built on a four-square plan, Of the land of the Gold Man Whose eager horses whinny In their cribs of gold, Of the lands of Whipperginny, 130 Of the land where none grow old.

Especially I could tell Of the Town of Hell, A huddle of dirty woes And houses in endless rows Straggling across all space; Hell has no market-place, Nor point where four ways meet, Nor principal street, Nor barracks, nor Town Hall, 140 Nor shops at all, Nor rest for weary feet, Nor theatre, square, or park, Nor lights after dark, Nor churches nor inns, Nor convenience for sins, Hell nowhere begins, Hell nowhere ends, But over the world extends Rambling, dreary, limitless, hated well: 150 The suburbs of itself, I say, is Hell.

But back to the sweets Of Spenser and Keats And the calm joy that greets The chosen of Apollo! Here let me mope, quirk, holloa With a gesture that meets The needs that I follow In my own fierce way. Let me be grave-gay 160 Or merry-sad, Who rhyming here have had Marvellous hope of achievement And deeds of ample scope, Then deceiving and bereavement Of this same hope.

HENRY AND MARY

Henry was a worthy king, Mary was his queen, He gave to her a snowdrop, Upon a stalk of green.

Then all for his kindness And all for his care She gave him a new-laid egg In the garden there.

Love, can you sing? I cannot sing. Or story-tell? Not one I know. Then let us play at king and queen, As down the garden lawns we go.

AN ENGLISH WOOD

This valley wood is hedged With the set shape of things. Here sorrows come not edged, Here are no harpies fledged, No roc has clapped his wings, No gryphons wave their stings; Here, poised in quietude Calm elementals brood On the set shape of things, They fend away alarms From this green wood. Here nothing is that harms, No bull with lungs of brass, No toothed or spiny grass, No tree whose clutching arms Drink blood when travellers pass, No mount of Glass. No bardic tongues unfold Satires or charms. Only the lawns are soft, The tree-stems, grave and old. Slow branches sway aloft, The evening air comes cold, The sunset scatters gold. Small grasses toss and bend, Small pathways idly tend Towards no certain end.

MIRROR, MIRROR!

Mirror, Mirror, tell me, Am I pretty or plain? Or am I downright ugly And ugly to remain?

Shall I marry a gentleman? Shall I marry a clown? Or shall I marry Old Knives-and-Scissors Shouting through the town?

WHAT DID I DREAM?

What did I dream? I do not know. The fragments fly like chaff. Yet, strange, my mind was tickled so I cannot help but laugh.

Pull the curtains close again, Tuck my blanket in; Must a glorious humour wane Because birds begin

Discoursing in a restless tone, Rousing me from sleep-- The finest entertainment known, And given rag-cheap?

INTERLUDE: ON PRESERVING A POETICAL FORMULA

(I)

“There’s less and less cohesion In each collection Of my published poetries?” You are taking me to task? And “What were my last Royalties? Reckoned in pounds, were they, or shillings, Or even perhaps in pence?” No, do not ask! I’m lost, in buyings and sellings. But please permit only once more for luck Irreconcilabilities in my book....

For these are all the same stuff really, The obverse and reverse, if you look closely, Of busy Imagination’s new-coined money; And if you watch the blind Phototropisms of my fluttering mind, Whether, growing strong, I wrestle Jacob-wise With fiendish darkness blinking threatfully Its bale-fire eyes, Or whether childishly

I dart to Mother-skirts of love and peace To play with toys until those horrors leave me-- Yet note, whichever way I find release, By fight or flight By being harsh or tame, The SPIRIT’S the same, the Pen-and-Ink’s the same.

(II)

_Epitaph on an Unfortunate Artist_

He found a formula for drawing comic rabbits: This formula for drawing comic rabbits paid, So in the end he could not change the tragic habits This formula for drawing comic rabbits made.

A HISTORY OF PEACE

(Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant)

Here rest in peace the bones of Henry Reece, Dead through his bitter championship of Peace Against all eagle-nosed and cynic lords Who keep the _Pax Romana_ with their swords.

Henry was only son of Thomas Reece, Banker and sometime Justice of the Peace, And of Jane Reece whom Thomas kept in dread By _Pax Romana_ of his board and bed.

THE ROCK BELOW

Comes a muttering from the earth Where speedwell grows and daisies grow, “Pluck these weeds up, root and all, Search what hides below.”

Root and all I pluck them out; There, close under, I have found Stumps of thorn with ancient crooks Grappled in the ground.

I wrench the thorn-stocks from their hold To set a rose-bush in that place; Love has pleasure in my roses For a summer space.

Yet the bush cries out in grief: “Our lowest rootlets turn on rock, We live in terror of the drought Withering crown and stock.”

I grow angry with my creature, Tear it out and see it die; Far beneath I strike the stone, Jarring hatefully.

Impotently must I mourn Roses never to flower again? Are heart and back too slightly built For a heaving strain?

Heave shall break my proud back never, Strain shall never burst my heart: Steely fingers hook in the crack, Up the rock shall start.

Now from the deep and frightful pit Shoots forth the spiring phœnix-tree Long despaired in this bleak land, Holds the air with boughs, with bland Fragrance welcome to the bee, With fruits of immortality.

AN IDYLL OF OLD AGE

Two gods once visited a hermit couple, Philemon and his Baucis, old books tell; They sampled elder-wine and called it nectar, Though nectar is the tastier drink by far. They made ambrosia of pot-herb and lentil, They ate pease-porridge even, with a will. Why, and so forth.... But that night in the spare bedroom Where they lay shivering in the musty gloom, Hermes and Zeus overheard conversation, Behind the intervening wall, drag on In thoughtful snatches through the night. They idly Listened, and first they heard Philemon sigh:--

_Phi._ “Since two souls meet and merge at time of marriage, Conforming to one stature and one age, An honest token each with each exchanging Of Only Love unbroken as a ring-- What signified my boyhood’s ideal friendship That stared its ecstasy at eye and lip, But dared not touch because love seemed too holy For flesh with flesh in real embrace to lie?”

_Bau._ Then Baucis sighed in answer to Philemon, “Many’s the young man that my eye rests on (Our younger guest to-night provides the instance) Whose body brings my heart hotter romance Than your dear face could ever spark within me; Often I wish my heart from yours set free.”

_Phi._ “In this wild medley round us of Bought Love, Free Love and Forced Love and pretentious No-Love, Let us walk upright, yet with care consider Whether, in living thus, we do not err. Why might we not approve adulterous licence Increasing pleasurable experience? What could the soul lose through the body’s rapture With a body not its mate, where thought is pure?”

_Bau._ “Are children bonds of love? But even children Grow up too soon as women and as men, And in the growing find their own love private, Meet parent-love with new suspicious hate. Our favourites run the surest to the Devil In spite of early cares and all good will.”

_Phi._ “Sweetheart, you know that you have my permission To go your own way and to take love on Wherever love may signal.”

She replying _Bau._ Said, “I allow you, dearest, the same thing.”

Zeus was struck dumb at this unholy compact, But Hermes knew the shadow from the fact And took an oath that for whole chests of money Neither would faithless to the other be, Would not and could not, being twined together In such close love that he for want of her Removed one night-time from his side, would perish, And she was magnet-drawn by his least wish.

Eternal Gods deny the sense of humour, That well might prejudice their infallible power, So Hermes and King Zeus not once considered, In treating of this idyll overheard, That love rehearses after life’s defeat Remembered conflicts of an earlier heat, Baucis, kind soul, was palsied, withered and bent, Philemon, too, was ten years impotent.

THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN TELLS OF A FAMOUS MEETING

Unknown to each other in a hostile camp, Spies of two empire nations unallied, These heroes met, princes of East and West, Over a ragged pack of cards, by chance. Never believe what credulous annalists Record you in good faith of that encounter. I was there myself, East’s man, and witnessed all. In the main camp of the Middle Kingdom’s army At a soldier’s mess, shortly before Retreat, East, a pretended trooper, stepping in 10 Glanced round the room, shortly discerning West, Who sat dejected at a corner table. East moved by curiosity or compassion Pulled out his cards, offering West the cut, And West, disguised as a travelling ballad-man, Took and cut; they played together then For half an hour or more; then went their ways.

Never believe such credulous annalists As tell you, West for sign of recognition, Greatness to greatness, wit to dexterous wit, 20 With sleight of magic most extraordinary Alters the Duty on his Ace of Spades, Making three-pence three-halfpence; East, it’s said, For a fantastic sly acknowledgment, While his grave eyes betoken no surprise, Makes magic too; presto, the Knave of Hearts Nims the Queen’s rose and cocks it in his cap Furtively, so that only West remarks it. But such was not the fact; contrariwise, When Proteus meets with Proteus, each annuls 30 The variability of the other’s mind. Single they stand, casting their mutable cloaks. So for this present chance, I take my oath That leaning across and watching the cards close I caught no hint of prestidigitation.

Never believe approved biographers Who’ll show a sequence of the games then played, Explaining that the minds of these two princes Were of such subtlety and such nimbleness That Whipperginny on the fall of a card 40 Changed to Bézique or Cribbage or Piquet, Euchre or Écarté, then back once more, Each comprehending with no signal shown The opposing fancies of the other’s mind. It’s said, spectators of this play grew dazed, They turned away, thinking the gamesters drunk. But I, who sat there watching, keeping score, Say they observed the rules of but one game The whole bout, playing neither well nor ill But slowly, with their thoughts in other channels, 50 Serene and passionless like wooden men.

Neither believe those elegant essayists Who reconstruct the princes’ conversation From grotesque fabrics of their own vain brains. I only know that East gave West a nod, Asking him careless questions about trade; West gave the latest rumours from the front, Raising of sieges, plots and pillages. He told a camp-fire yarn to amuse the soldiers Whereat they all laughed emptily (East laughed too). 60 He sang a few staves of the latest catch, And pulling out his roll of rhymes, unfurled it, Ballads and songs, measured by the yard-rule. But do not trust the elegant essayists Who’d have you swallow all they care to tell Of the riddling speech in painful _double entendre_ That West and East juggled across the cards, So intricate, so exquisitely resolved In polished antithetical periods That by comparison, as you must believe, 70 Solomon himself faced with the Queen of Sheba And Bishop Such, preaching before the King, Joined in one person would have seemed mere trash. I give my testimony beyond refutal, Nailing the lie for all who ask the facts.

Pay no heed to those vagabond dramatists Who, to present this meeting on the stage, Would make my Prince, stealthily drawing out A golden quill and stabbing his arm for blood, Scratch on a vellum slip some hasty sentence 80 And pass it under the table; which West signs With _his_ blood, so the treaty’s made between them All unobserved and two far nations wedded While enemy soldiers loll, yawning, around. I was there myself, I say, seeing everything. Truly, this is what passed, that East regarding West with a steady look and knowing him well, For an instant let the heavy soldier-mask, His best protection, a dull cast of face, Light up with joy, and his eyes shoot out mirth. 90 West then knew East, checked, and misdealt the cards. Nothing at all was said, on went the game. But East bought from West’s bag of ballads, after, Two sombre histories, and some songs for dancing.

Also distrust those allegorical Painters who treating of this famous scene Are used to splash the skies with lurching Cupids, Goddesses with loose hair, and broad-cheeked Zephyrs; They burnish up the soldiers’ breastplate steel Rusted with languor of their long campaign, 100 To twinkling high-lights of unmixed white paint, Giving them buskins and tall plumes to wear, While hard by, in a wanton imagery, Aquatic Triton thunders on his conch And Satyrs gape from behind neighbouring trees. I who was there, sweating in my shirt-sleeves, Felt no divinity brooding in that mess, For human splendour gave the gods rebuff.

Do not believe them, seem they never so wise, Credibly posted with all new research, 110 Those elegant essayists, vagabond dramatists, Authentic and approved biographers, Solemn annalists, allegorical Painters, each one misleading or misled. One thing is true, that of all sights I have seen In any quarter of this world of men, By night, by day, in court, field, tavern, or barn, That was the noblest, East encountering West, Their silent understanding and restraint, Meeting and parting like the Kings they were 120 With plain indifference to all circumstance; Saying no good-bye, no handclasp and no tears, But letting speech between them fade away In casual murmurs and half compliments, East sauntering out for fresh intelligence, And West shuffling away, not looking back, Though each knew well that this chance meeting stood For turning movement of world history. And I? I trembled, knowing these things must be.

THE SEWING BASKET

(Accompanying a wedding present from Jenny Nicholson to Winifred Roberts)

To Winifred The day she’s wed (Having no gold) I send instead This sewing basket, And lovingly Demand that she, If ever wanting help from me, Will surely ask it.

Which being gravely said, Now to go straight ahead With a cutting of string, An unwrapping of paper, With a haberdasher’s flourish, The airs of a draper, To review And search this basket through.

Here’s one place full Of coloured wool, And various yarn With which to darn; A sampler, too, I’ve worked for you, Lettered from A to Z, The text of which In small cross-stitch Is _Love to Winifred_.

Here’s a rag-doll wherein To thrust the casual pin. His name is Benjamin For his ingenuous face; Be sure I’ve not forgotten Black thread or crochet cotton; While Brussels lace Has found a place Behind the needle-case. (But the case for the scissors? Empty, as you see; Love must never be sundered Between you and me.)

Winifred Roberts, Think of me, do, When the friends I am sending Are working for you. The song of the thimble Is, “Oh, forget her not.” Says the tape-measure, “Absent but never forgot.”

Benjamin’s song He sings all day long, Though his voice is not strong: He hoarsely holloas More or less as follows:--

_Button boxes Never have locks-es, For the keys would soon disappear. But here’s a linen button With a smut on, And a big bone button With a cut on, A pearly and a fancy Of small significancy, And the badges of a Fireman and a Fusilier._ Which song he’ll alternate With sounds like a Turkish hubble-bubble Smoked at a furious rate, The words are scarcely intelligible:--

(_Prestissimo_) _Needles and ribbons and packets of pins, Prints and chintz and odd bodikins, They’d never mind whether You laid ’em together Or one from the other in pockets and tins._

_For packets of pins and ribbons and needles Or odd bodikins and chintz and prints, Being birds of a feather. Would huddle together Like minnows on billows or pennies in mints._