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Title: Severn & Somme
Author: Gurney, Ivor
Language: English
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SEVERN & SOMME
SEVERN & SOMME
BY
IVOR GURNEY
Private, of the Gloucesters
LONDON: SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD.
3 ADAM STREET, ADELPHI, W.C.2. 1917
_First published in 1917_
_All rights reserved_
TO
MARGARET HUNT
PREFACE
This book stands dedicated to one only of my friends, but there are many
others to whom I would willingly dedicate singly and in state, if that
did not mean the writing of forty books of verse and dedications--a
terrible thing for all concerned.
So that, under the single name and sign of homage and affection, I would
desire such readers as come to me to add also:
To my father and mother; F. W. Harvey (also a Gloucestershire lad); Miss
Marion Scott, whose criticism has been so useful, and she so kind, in
spite of my continued refusal to alter a word of anything; the Vicar of
Twigworth; Herbert Howells (and this is not the last time you will hear
of him); Mr. Hilaire Belloc, whose “Path to Rome” has been my trench
companion, with “The Spirit of Man”; Mr. Wilfred Gibson, author of
“Friends,” a great little book; many others also, including Shakespeare
and Bach, both friends of mine; and, last but not least, my comrades of
two platoons of the-/-[A] Gloucesters, who so often have wondered
whether I were crazy or not. Let them draw their own conclusions now,
for the writing of this book it was that so distracted me.... This is a
long list, and even now does not include old Mrs. Poyner, who was so
jolly and long-suffering, nor my boat _Dorothy_, now idle in the mud;
though a poet sang of her full of glory at Framilode.
[A] The publication of Battalion Nos. being strictly forbidden by
the Military Authorities, we have to leave the identification of the
platoons referred to by Mr. Gurney to those whom it concerns.--S. & J.,
LTD.
Even as I write the list becomes fuller, farther extended, yet a soldier
must face pain, and so it remains shorter by far than might be.
I fear that those who buy the book (or even borrow), to get information
about the Gloucesters will be disappointed. Most of the book is
concerned with a person named Myself, and the rest with my county,
Gloucester, that whether I die or live stays always with me--being in
itself so beautiful, so full of memories; whose people are so good to be
friends with, so easy-going and so frank.
Some of the afore-mentioned people I have never had good fortune enough
to meet in the flesh, but that was not my fault. I hope they will
forgive my using their names without permission. Ah, would they only
retaliate in kind! That is, however, not likely, as I never was famous,
and a Common Private makes but little show.
All these verses were written in France, and in sound of the guns, save
only two or three earlier pieces. This should be reason enough to excuse
any roughness in the technique. If more reason is required, people of
home, and most of all, people of Gloucester, may well be indulgent to
one who thought of them so often, and whose images of beauty in the mind
were always of Gloucester, county of Cotswold and Severn, and a plain
rich, blossomy, and sweet of airs--as the wise Romans knew, who made
their homes in exile by the brown river, watching the further bank for
signs of war.
Ivor Gurney.
_Spring_, 1917.
CONTENTS
PAGE
TO CERTAIN COMRADES 13
THE FIRE KINDLED 15
TO THE POET BEFORE BATTLE 17
MAISEMORE 18
AFTERWARDS 20
CAROL 21
STRANGE SERVICE 23
SERENITY 25
THE SIGNALLER’S VISION 26
THE MOTHER 27
TO ENGLAND--A NOTE 28
BACH AND THE SENTRY 29
LETTERS 30
STRAFE 31
ACQUIESCENCE 32
THE STRONG THING 33
SCOTS 34
TO AN UNKNOWN LADY 35
SONG AND PAIN 36
PURPLE AND BLACK 37
WEST COUNTRY 38
FIRELIGHT 39
THE ESTAMINET 40
SONG 42
BALLAD OF THE THREE SPECTRES 43
COMMUNION 44
TIME AND THE SOLDIER 45
INFLUENCES 46
AFTER-GLOW 47
HAIL AND FAREWELL 48
PRAISE 49
WINTER BEAUTY 50
SONG OF PAIN AND BEAUTY 52
SPRING. ROUEN, MAY 1917 53
JUNE--TO--COME 57
“HARK, HARK, THE LARK” 59
SONG AT MORNING 60
TREES 61
REQUIEM 62
REQUIEM 63
REQUIEM 64
SONNETS 1917:
1. FOR ENGLAND 65
2. PAIN 66
3. SERVITUDE 67
4. HOME-SICKNESS 68
5. ENGLAND THE MOTHER 69
SEVERN AND SOMME
TO CERTAIN COMRADES
(E. S. AND J. H.)
LIVING we loved you, yet withheld our praises
Before your faces;
And though we had your spirits high in honour,
After the English manner
We said no word. Yet, as such comrades would,
You understood.
Such friendship is not touched by Death’s disaster,
But stands the faster;
And all the shocks and trials of time cannot
Shake it one jot.
Beside the fire at night some far December,
We shall remember
And tell men, unbegotten as yet, the story
Of your sad glory--
Of your plain strength, your truth of heart, your splendid
Coolness, all ended!
All ended, ... yet the aching hearts of lovers
Joy overcovers,
Glad in their sorrow; hoping that if they must
Come to the dust,
An ending such as yours may be their portion,
And great good fortune--
That if we may not live to serve in peace
England, watching increase--
Then death with you, honoured, and swift, and high;
And so--not die.
=IN TRENCHES, _July_ 1916=.
THE FIRE KINDLED
GOD, that I might see
Framilode once again!
Redmarley, all renewed,
Clear shining after rain.
And Cranham, Cranham trees,
And blaze of Autumn hues.
Portway under the moon,
Silvered with freezing dews.
May Hill that Gloster dwellers
’Gainst every sunset see;
And the wide Severn river
Homing again to the sea.
The star of afterglow,
Venus, on western hills;
Dymock in spring: O spring
Of home! O daffodils!
And Malvern’s matchless huge
Bastions of ancient fires--
These will not let me rest,
So hot my heart desires....
Here we go sore of shoulder,
Sore of foot, by quiet streams;
But these are not my rivers....
And these are useless dreams.
TO THE POET BEFORE BATTLE
NOW, youth, the hour of thy dread passion comes:
Thy lovely things must all be laid away;
And thou, as others, must face the riven day
Unstirred by rattle of the rolling drums,
Or bugles’ strident cry. When mere noise numbs
The sense of being, the fear-sick soul doth sway,
Remember thy great craft’s honour, that they may say
Nothing in shame of poets. Then the crumbs
Of praise the little versemen joyed to take
Shall be forgotten: then they must know we are,
For all our skill in words, equal in might
And strong of mettle as those we honoured; make
The name of poet terrible in just war,
And like a crown of honour upon the fight.
MAISEMORE
O WHEN we swung through Maisemore,
The Maisemore people cheered,
And women ran from farmyards,
And men from ricks, afeared
To lose the sight of soldiers
Who would, ’fore Christmas Day,
Blow Kaiser William’s Army
Like mist of breath away!
The war it was but young then!
And we were young, unknowing
The path we were to tread,
The way the path was going.
And not a man of all of us,
Marching across the bridge,
Had thought how Home would linger
In our hearts, as Maisemore Ridge.
When the darkness downward hovers
Making trees like German shadows,
How our souls fly homing, homing
Times and times to Maisemore meadows,
By Aubers ridge that Maisemore men
Have died in vain to hold....
The burning thought but once desires
Maisemore in morning gold!
O when we marched through Maisemore
Past many a creaking cart,
We little thought we had in us
Love so hot at heart.
AFTERWARDS
THOSE dreadful evidences of Man’s ill-doing
The kindly Mother of all shall soon hide deep,
Covering with tender fingers her children asleep,
Till Time’s slow cycle turns them to renewing
In other forms their beauty--no grief, no rueing
Irrevocable woe. They’ll lie, they’ll steep
Their hearts in peace unfathomed, till they leap
Quick to the light of the sun, as flowers strewing,
Maybe, their own friends’ paths. And that’s not all.
When men who knew them walk old ways alone,
The paths they loved together, at even-fall,
The troubled heart shall know a presence near,
Friendly, familiar, and the old grief gone,
The new keen joy shall make all darkness clear.
CAROL
WINTER now has bared the trees,
Killed with tiny swords the jolly
Leafage that mid-summer sees,
But left the ivy and the holly.
Hold them high
And make delight
For Christë’s joy that’s born to-night.
All green things but these have hid
Their heads, or died in melancholy,
Winter’s spite them all has rid
Save only ivy and brave holly.
Give them place
In all men’s sight
For Christë’s grace that’s born to-night.
Baby eyes are pleased to see
Bright red berries and children jolly,
So shout and dance and sing with glee,
And honour ivy and prickly holly.
Honour courage
And make delight
For Christë’s sake that’s born to-night.
Christus natus hodie!
Drink deep of joy on Christmas Day,
Join hands and sing a roundelay,
For this is Christ’s and children’s day,
Christus natus hodie!
Hodie!
STRANGE SERVICE
LITTLE did I dream, England, that you bore me
Under the Cotswold hills beside the water meadows,
To do you dreadful service, here, beyond your borders
And your enfolding seas.
I was a dreamer ever, and bound to your dear service,
Meditating deep, I thought on your secret beauty,
As through a child’s face one may see the clear spirit
Miraculously shining.
Your hills not only hills, but friends of mine and kindly,
Your tiny knolls and orchards hidden beside the river
Muddy and strongly-flowing, with shy and tiny streamlets
Safe in its bosom.
Now these are memories only, and your skies and rushy sky-pools
Fragile mirrors easily broken by moving airs....
In my deep heart for ever goes on your daily being,
And uses consecrate.
Think on me too, O Mother, who wrest my soul to serve you
In strange and fearful ways beyond your encircling waters;
None but you can know my heart, its tears and sacrifice;
None, but you, repay.
SERENITY
NOR steel nor flame has any power on me,
Save that its malice work the Almighty Will,
Nor steel nor flame has any power on me;
Through tempests of hell-fire I must go free
And unafraid; so I remember still
Nor steel nor flame has any power on me,
Save that its malice work the Almighty Will.
THE SIGNALLER’S VISION
ONE rainy winter dusk
Mending a parted cable,
Sudden I saw so clear
Home and the tea-table.
So clear it was, so sweet,
I did not start, but drew
The breath of deep content
Some minutes ere I knew
My Mother’s face that’s soother
Than autumn half-lights kind,
My softly smiling sisters
Who keep me still in mind,
Were but a dream, a vision--
That faded. And I knew
The smell of trench, trench-feeling--
And turned to work anew.
THE MOTHER
WE scar the earth with dreadful engin’ry;
She takes us to her bosom at the last;
Hiding our hate with love, who cannot see
Of any child the faults; and holds us fast.
We’ll wait in quiet till our passion’s past.
TO ENGLAND--A NOTE
I WATCHED the boys of England where they went
Through mud and water to do appointed things.
See one a stake, and one wire-netting brings,
And one comes slowly under a burden bent
Of ammunition. Though the strength be spent
They “carry on” under the shadowing wings
Of Death the ever-present. And hark, one sings
Although no joy from the grey skies be lent.
Are these the heroes--these? have kept from you
The power of primal savagery so long?
Shall break the devil’s legions? These they are
Who do in silence what they might boast to do;
In the height of battle tell the world in song
How they do hate and fear the face of War.
BACH AND THE SENTRY
WATCHING the dark my spirit rose in flood
On that most dearest Prelude of my delight.
The low-lying mist lifted its hood,
The October stars showed nobly in clear night.
When I return, and to real music-making,
And play that Prelude, how will it happen then?
Shall I feel as I felt, a sentry hardly waking,
With a dull sense of No Man’s Land again?
LETTERS
“MAIL’S UP!” The vast of night is over,
And love of friends fills all one’s mind.
(His wife, his sister, or his lover.)
Mail’s up, the vast of night is over,
The grey-faced heaven joy does cover
With love, and God once more seems kind.
“Mail’s up!” the vast of night is over,
And love of friends fills all one’s mind.
STRAFE
THE “crumps” are falling twenty to the minute.
We crouch, and wait the end of it--or us.
Just behind the trench, before, and in it,
The “crumps” are falling twenty to the minute;
(O Framilode! O Maisemore’s laughing linnet!)
Here comes a monster like a motor-bus.
The “crumps” are falling twenty to the minute:
We crouch and wait the end of it--or us.
ACQUIESCENCE
SINCE I can neither alter my destiny
By one hair’s breadth from its appointed course;
Since bribes nor prayers nor any earthly force
May from its pathway move a life not free--
I must gather together the whole strength of me.
My senses make my willing servitors;
Cherish and feed the better, starve the worse;
Turn all my pride to proud humility.
Meeting the daily shocks and frozen, stony,
Cynical face of doubt with smiles and joy--
As a battle with autumn winds delights a boy,
Before the smut of the world and the lust of money,
Power, and fame, can yet his youth destroy;
Ere he has scorned his Father’s patrimony.
THE STRONG THING
I HAVE seen Death and the faces of men in fear
Of Death, and shattered, terribly ruined flesh,
Appalled; but through the horror, coloured and clear
The love of my county, Gloster, rises afresh.
And on the Day of Days, the Judgment Day,
The Word of Doom awaiting breathless and still,
I’ll marvel how sweet’s the air down Framilode way,
And take my sentence on sheer-down Crickley Hill.
SCOTS
THE boys who laughed and jested with me but yesterday,
So fit for kings to speak to, so blithe and proud and gay ...
Are now but thoughts of blind pain, and best hid away....
(Over the top this morning at the dawn’s first grey.)
O, if we catch the Kaiser his dirty hide to flay,
We’ll hang him on a tall tree his pride to allay.
That will not bring the boys again to mountain and brae....
(Over the top this morning at the dawn’s first grey.)
To think--earth’s best and dearest turned to red broken clay
By one devil’s second! What words can we say?
Or what gift has God their mothers’ anguish to repay?...
(Over the top this morning at the first flush of day.)
TO AN UNKNOWN LADY
YOU that were once so sweet, are sweeter now
That an even leaden greyness clouds my days;
A pain it is to think on your sweet ways,
Your careless-tender speaking, tender and low.
When the hills enclosed us, hid in happy valleys,
Greeting a thousand times the things most dear,
We wasted thoughts of love in laughter clear,
And told our passion out in mirthful sallies.
But in me now a burning impulse rages
To praise our love in words like flaming gold,
Molten and live for ever; not fit for cold
And coward like-to-passions Time assuages.
Nor do I fear you are lovely only in dreams,
Being as the sky reflected in clear streams.
SONG AND PAIN
OUT of my sorrow have I made these songs,
Out of my sorrow;
Though somewhat of the making’s eager pain
From Joy did borrow.
Some day, I trust, God’s purpose of Pain for me
Shall be complete,
And then--to enter in the House of Joy....
Prepare, my feet.
PURPLE AND BLACK
THE death of princes is
Honoured most greatly,
Proud kings put purple on
In manner stately.
Though they have lived such life
As God offends,
Gone fearful down to death,
Sick, without friends.
And in the temple dim,
Trumpets of gold
Proclaim their glory; so
Their story is told.
In sentimental hymns
Weeping her dolour,
The mother of heroes wears
Vile black--Death’s colour,
Who should walk proudly with
The noblest one
Of all that purple throng--
“This was my son.”
WEST COUNTRY
SPRING comes soon to Maisemore
And spring comes sweet,
With bird-songs and blue skies,
On gay dancing feet;
But she is such a shy lady
I fear we’ll never meet.
Yet some day round a corner
Where the hedge foams white,
I’ll find Spring sleeping
In the young-crescent night,
And seize her and make her
Yield all her delight.
But yon’s a glad story
That’s yet to be told.
Here’s grey winter’s bareness
And no-shadowed cold.
O Spring, with your music,
Your blue, green, and gold,
Come shame his hard wisdom
With laughter and gold!
FIRELIGHT
SILENT, bathed in firelight, in dusky light and gloom
The boys squeeze together in the smoky dirty room,
Crowded round the fireplace, a thing of bricks and tin,
They watch the shifting embers till the good dreams enter in,
That fill the low hovel with blossoms fresh with dew,
And blue sky and white clouds that sail the clear air through.
They talk of daffodillies and the bluebells’ skiey bed,
Till silence thrills and murmurs at the things they have said.
And yet, they have no skill of words, whose eyes glow so deep,
They wait for night and silence and the strange power of sleep,
To lift them and drift them like sea-birds over the sea
Where some day I shall walk again, and they walk with me.
THE ESTAMINET
THE crowd of us were drinking
One night at Riez Bailleul,
The glasses were a-clinking,
The estaminet was full;
And loud with song and story
And blue with tales and smoke,--
We spoke no word of glory,
Nor mentioned “foreign yoke.”
But yarns of girls in Blighty;
Vain, jolly, ugly, fair,
Standoffish, foolish, flighty--
And O! that we were there!
Where never thuds a “Minnie,”
But Minnie smiles at you
A-meeting in the spinney,
With kisses not a few.
And of an inn that Johnson
Does keep; the “Rising Sun.”
His friends him call Jack Johnson,
He’s Gloster’s only one.
And talk of poachers’ habits
(But girls ever and again)
Of killing weasels, rabbits,
Stoats, pheasants, never men,
Although we knew to-morrow
Must take us to the line,
In beer hid thought and sorrow,
In ruddy and white wine.
When all had finished drinking,
Though still was clear each head,
We said no word--went slinking
Straight homeward (?), into bed (?).
O never lads were merrier
Nor straighter nor more fine,
Though we were only “Terrier”
And only, “Second Line.”
O I may get to Blighty,
Or hell, without a sign
Of all the love that filled me,
Leave dumb the love that filled me,
The flood of love that filled me
For these dear comrades of mine.
SONG
ONLY the wanderer
Knows England’s graces,
Or can anew see clear
Familiar faces.
And who loves joy as he
That dwells in shadows?
Do not forget me quite,
O Severn meadows.
BALLAD OF THE THREE SPECTRES
AS I went up by Ovillers
In mud and water cold to the knee,
There went three jeering, fleering spectres,
That walked abreast and talked of me.
The first said, “Here’s a right brave soldier
That walks the dark unfearingly;
Soon he’ll come back on a fine stretcher,
And laughing for a nice Blighty.”
The second, “Read his face, old comrade,
No kind of lucky chance I see;
One day he’ll freeze in mud to the marrow,
Then look his last on Picardie.”
Though bitter the word of these first twain
Curses the third spat venomously;
“He’ll stay untouched till the war’s last dawning
Then live one hour of agony.”
Liars the first two were. Behold me
At sloping arms by one--two--three;
Waiting the time I shall discover
Whether the third spake verity.
COMMUNION
BEAUTY lies so deep
On all the fields,
Nothing for the eyes
But blessing yields.
Tall elms, greedy of light,
Stand tip-toe. See
The last light linger in
Their tracery.
The guns are dumb, are still
All evil noises.
The singing heart in peace
Softly rejoices,
Only unsatisfied
With Beauty’s hunger
And sacramental thirst--
Nothing of anger.
Mist wraiths haunt the path
As daylight lessens,
The stars grow clearer, and
My dead friend’s presence.
TIME AND THE SOLDIER
HOW slow you move, old Time;
Walk a bit faster!
Old fool, I’m not your slave....
Beauty’s my master!
You hold me for a space....
What are you, Time?
A ghost, a thing of thought,
An easy rhyme.
Some day I shall again,
For all your scheming,
See Severn valley clouds
Like banners streaming.
And walk in Cranham lanes,
By Maisemore go....
But, fool, decrepit Fool,
You are SO SLOW!!!
INFLUENCES
WHEN woods of home grow dark,
I grow dark too.
Images of strange power
Fill me and thrill me that hour,
Sombre of hue.
The woods of Dunsinane
I walk, and know
What storms did shake Macbeth,
That brought on Duncan’s death,
And his own woe.
Strange whispers chill the blood
Of evil breath;
Such rumours as did stir
Witch and foul sorcerer
On the lone heath.
No power have these on me;
I know too well
Their weakness to condemn.
Spring will exorcise them
With one bluebell.
AFTER-GLOW
[_TO_ F. W. HARVEY]
OUT of the smoke and dust of the little room
With tea-talk loud and laughter of happy boys,
I passed into the dusk. Suddenly the noise
Ceased with a shock, left me alone in the gloom,
To wonder at the miracle hanging high
Tangled in twigs, the silver crescent clear.--
Time passed from mind. Time died; and then we were
Once more at home together, you and I.
The elms with arms of love wrapped us in shade
Who watched the ecstatic West with one desire,
One soul uprapt; and still another fire
Consumed us, and our joy yet greater made:
That Bach should sing for us, mix us in one
The joy of firelight and the sunken sun.
HAIL AND FAREWELL
THE destined bullet wounded him,
They brought him down to die,
Far-off a bugle sounded him
“Retreat,” Good-bye.
Strange, that from ways so hated,
And tyranny so hard
Should come this strangely fated
And farewell word.
He thought, “Some Old Sweat might
Have thrilled at heart to hear,
Gone down into the night
Too proud to fear!
But I--the fool at arms,
Musician, poet to boot,
Who hail release; what charms
In this salute?”
He smiled--“The latest jest
That time on me shall play.”
And watched the dying west,
Went out with the day.
PRAISE
O friends of mine, if men mock at my name,
Say “Children loved him.”
Since by that word you will have far removed him
From any bitter shame.
WINTER BEAUTY
I CANNOT live with Beauty out of mind;
I seek her and desire her all the day,
Being the chiefest treasure man may find,
And word most sweet his eager lips can say.
She is as strong on me as though I wandered
In Severn meadows some blue riotous day.
But since the trees have long since lost their green,
And I, an exile, can but dream of things
Grown magic in the mind, I watch the sheen
Of frost and hear the song Orion sings,
And hear the star-born passion of Beethoven;
Man’s consolations sung on the quivering strings.
Beauty of song remembered, sunset glories,
Mix in my mind, till I not care nor know
Whether the stars do move me, golden stories,
Or ruddy Cotswold in the sunset glow.
I am uprapt, and not my own, immortal, ...
In winds of Beauty swinging to and fro.
Beauty immortal, not to be hid, desire
Of all men, each in his fashion, give me the strong
Thirst past satisfaction for thee, and fire
Not to be quenched.... O lift me, bear me along,
Touch me, make me worthy that men may seek me
For Beauty, Mistress Immortal, Healer of Wrong.
SONG OF PAIN AND BEAUTY
[_To_ M. M. S.]
O MAY these days of pain,
These wasted-seeming days,
Somewhere reflower again
With scent and savour of praise.
Draw out of memory all bitterness
Of night with Thy sun’s rays.
And strengthen Thou in me
The love of men here found,
And eager charity,
That, out of difficult ground,
Spring like flowers in barren deserts, or
Like light, or a lovely sound.
A simpler heart than mine
Might have seen beauty clear
Where I could see no sign
Of Thee, but only fear.
Strengthen me, make me to see Thy beauty always
In every happening here.
IN TRENCHES, _March 1917_.
SPRING. ROUEN, MAY 1917
I AM dumb, I am dumb!
And here’s a Norman orchard and here’s Spring
Goading the sullen words that will not come.
Romance, beating his distant magical drum,
Calls to a soldier bearing alien arms,
“Throw off your yoke and hear my darlings sing,
Blackbirds” (by red-roofed farms)
“More drunk than any poet with May’s delight,
Green alive to the eye, and pink and white.”
Joy’s there, but not for me;
And song, but shall I sing
That live as in a dream of some bad night,
Whose memories are of such ecstasy
And height of passionate joy, that pain alone
Is born of beauty in cloud and flower and tree;
Yes, and the great Cathedral’s towering stone.
To me these are but shadows
Of orchards and old meadows
Trodden before the dawn,
Trodden after the dusk....
All loveliness of France is as a husk,
The inner living spirit of beauty gone,
To that familiar beauty now withdrawn
From exiles hungering ever for the sight
Of her day-face;
England’s;
Or in some orchard space
Breathless to drink peace from her calm night.
How shall I sing, since she sings not to me
Songs any more?
High rule she holds for ever on the sea
That’s hers, but dreams too might guard the shore
Of France, that’s French and set apart for ever.
A Spirit of Love our link of song does sever.
Had it been hate
(The weakest of all sworn enemies of Love)
We should have broken through or passed above
Its foolish barriers;
Here we must bow as to established Fate,
And reverently; for, comrades and high peers,
Sisters in blood,
Our mothers brook no rival in their state
Of motherhood.
But not for ever shall our travail last,
And not for ever we
Be held by iron Duty over sea.
The image of evil shall be overcast,
And all his willing slaves and priests of evil
Scattered like dust, shall lie upon the plain;
That image, ground to dust utterly level
With unregarded weeds and all as vain.
The oppressed shall lift their hearts up once again,
And we return....
Not to scarred lands and homes laid in the dust,
Not with hard hearts to sights that sear and burn,
But with assured longing and certain trust,
To England’s royal grace and dignity,
To England’s changing skies, rich greenery,
High strength controlled, queenly serenity,
Inviolate kept by her confederate sea
And hearts resolved to every sacrifice.
We shall come home,
We shall come home again,
Living and dead, one huge victorious host--
The dead that would not leave their comrades till
The last steep were topped of the difficult hill,
The last farthing paid of the Great Cost,
The last thrill suffered of the Great Pain.
Living and dead, we shall come home at last
To her sweet breast,
England’s; by one touch be paid in full
For all things grey and long and terrible
Of that dread night which seemed eternity.
O Mother, shall thy kisses not restore
Body and life-sick soul? Yes, and set free
Songs and great floods of lovelier melody
Than thou didst give
When we those days of half-awake did live.
And joy must surely flower again more fair
To us, who dwelt in shadows and foul air.
We’ll breathe and drink in song.
Spring shall blot out all traces of old care;
Her clouds of green and waves of gold among
We shall grow free of heart, and great, and young--
Be made anew in that Great Resurrection,
Perfect as is the violet’s perfection.
Perfect as she
Who sanctifies our memory with sorrow,
Hugs, as a mother hugs, the thoughts that harrow,
Watching for dawn, hungering for the morrow
Lone oversea....
I am dumb now, dumb,
But in that time what music shall not come?
Mother of Beauty, Mistress of the Sea.
JUNE--TO--COME
WHEN the sun’s fire and gold
Sets the bee humming,
I will not write to tell
Him that I’m coming,
But ride out unawares
On that old road,
Of Minsterworth, of Peace,
Of Framilode,
And walk, not looked for, in
That cool, dark passage.
Never a single word;
Myself my message.
And then; well ... O we’ll drift
And stand and gaze,
And wonder how we could
In those Bad Days
Live without Minsterworth;
Or western air
Fanning the hot cheek,
Stirring the hair;
In land where hate of men
God’s love did cover;
This land.... And here’s my dream
Irrevocably over.
“HARK, HARK, THE LARK”
HARK, hark, the lark to heaven’s gate uprisen,
Pours out his joy ...
I think of you, shut in some distant prison,
O Boy, poor Boy;
Your heart grown sick with hope deferred and shadows
Of prison ways;
Not daring to snatch a thought of Severn meadows,
Or old blue-days.
SONG AT MORNING
PRAISE for the day’s magnificent uprising!
Praise for the cool
Air and the blue new-old ever-surprising
Face of the sky, and mirrored blue of the pool.
Only the fool, bat-witted, owl-eyed fool
Can hold a deaf ear while life begins
The actual opening of a myriad stories....
Blindness, ingratitude, the foolishest sins!
Now if this day blot out my chief desires,
And leave me maimed and blind and full of hot
Surges of insurrection, evil fires,
Memories of joys that seem better forgot;
Quiet me then.
Thy Will is binding on the nearest flower
As on the farthest star; and what shall put me
Out of Thy power, or from Thy guidance far,
Though I in hell of my self-will would shut me?
But if Thy Will be joy for me to-day,
Give me clear eyes, a heart open to feel
Thy influence, Thy kindness: O unseal
The shut, the hidden places in me, reveal
Those things most precious secretly hidden away
From all save children and the simply wise.
Give me clear eyes!
And strength to know, whatever may befall,
The eternal presence of great mysteries,
Glorifying Thee for all.
TREES
(“You cannot think how ghastly these battle-fields look under a
grey sky. Torn trees are the most terrible things I have ever seen.
Absolute blight and curse is on the face of everything.”)
THE dead land oppressed me;
I turned my thoughts away,
And went where hill and meadow
Are shadowless and gay.
Where Coopers stands by Cranham,
Where the hill-gashes white
Show golden in the sunshine,
Our sunshine--God’s delight.
Beauty my feet stayed at last
Where green was most cool,
Trees worthy of all worship
I worshipped ... then, O fool,
Let my thoughts slide unwitting
To other, dreadful trees, ...
And found me standing, staring
Sick of heart--at these!
REQUIEM
POUR out your light, O stars, and do not hold
Your loveliest shining from earth’s outworn shell--
Pure and cold your radiance, pure and cold
My dead friend’s face as well.
REQUIEM
NOR grief nor tears should wrong the silent dead
Save England’s, for her children fallen so far
From her eager care; though by God’s justice led
And fallen in such a war.
REQUIEM
POUR out your bounty, moon of radiant shining
On all this shattered flesh, these quiet forms;
For these were slain, so strangely still reclining,
In the noblest cause was ever waged with arms.
SONNETS 1917
[_TO_ THE MEMORY OF RUPERT BROOKE]
1. FOR ENGLAND
THOUGH heaven be packed with joy-bewildering
Pleasures of soul and heart and mind, yet who
Would willingly let slip, freely let go
Earth’s mortal loveliness; go wandering
Where never the late bird is heard to sing,
Nor full-sailed cloud-galleons wander slow;
No pathways in the woods; no afterglow,
When the air’s fire and magic with sense of spring?
So the dark horror clouds us, and the dread
Of the unknown.... But if it must be, then
What better passing than to go out like men
For England, giving all in one white glow?
Whose bodies shall lie in earth as on a bed,
And as the Will directs our spirits may go
2. PAIN
PAIN, pain continual; pain unending;
Hard even to the roughest, but to those
Hungry for beauty.... Not the wisest knows,
Nor most pitiful-hearted, what the wending
Of one hour’s way meant. Grey monotony lending
Weight to the grey skies, grey mud where goes
An army of grey bedrenched scarecrows in rows
Careless at last of cruellest Fate-sending.
Seeing the pitiful eyes of men foredone,
Or horses shot, too tired merely to stir,
Dying in shell-holes both, slain by the mud.
Men broken, shrieking even to hear a gun.--
Till pain grinds down, or lethargy numbs her,
The amazed heart cries angrily out on God.
3. SERVITUDE
IF it were not for England, who would bear
This heavy servitude one moment more?
To keep a brothel, sweep and wash the floor
Of filthiest hovels were noble to compare
With this brass-cleaning life. Now here, now there
Harried in foolishness, scanned curiously o’er
By fools made brazen by conceit, and store
Of antique witticisms thin and bare.
Only the love of comrades sweetens all,
Whose laughing spirit will not be outdone.
As night-watching men wait for the sun
To hearten them, so wait I on such boys
As neither brass nor Hell-fire may appal,
Nor guns, nor sergeant-major’s bluster and noise.
4. HOME-SICKNESS
WHEN we go wandering the wide air’s blue spaces,
Bare, unhappy, exiled souls of men;
How will our thoughts over and over again
Return to Earth’s familiar lovely places,
Where light with shadow ever interlaces--
No blanks of blue, nor ways beyond man’s ken--
Where birds are, and flowers, as violet, and wren,
Blackbird, bluebell, hedge-sparrow, tiny daisies.
O tiny things, but very stuff of soul
To us ... so frail.... Remember what we are;
Set us not on some strange outlandish star,
But one caring for Love. Give us a Home.
There we may wait while the long ages roll
Content, unfrightened by vast Time-to-come.
5. ENGLAND THE MOTHER
WE have done our utmost, England, terrible
And dear taskmistress, darling Mother and stern.
The unnoticed nations praise us, but we turn
Firstly, only to thee--“Have we done well?
Say, are you pleased?”--and watch your eyes that tell
To us all secrets, eyes sea-deep that burn
With love so long denied; with tears discern
The scars and haggard look of all that hell.
Thy love, thy love shall cherish, make us whole,
Whereto the power of Death’s destruction is weak.
Death impotent, by boys bemocked at, who
Will leave unblotted in the soldier-soul
Gold of the daffodil, the sunset streak,
The innocence and joy of England’s blue.
THE END
PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
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