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Title: Farewell
Author: Harvey, F. W. (Frederick William)
Language: English
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FAREWELL
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A GLOUCESTERSHIRE LAD AT HOME AND ABROAD.
[_Sixth Impression._
GLOUCESTERSHIRE FRIENDS: Poems from a German Prison Camp.
[_Third Impression._
DUCKS, AND OTHER VERSES.
COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY: A Record of Life in Seven German Prisons.
Illustrated by C. E. B. Bernard.
SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD.
FAREWELL
BY
F. W. HARVEY
AUTHOR OF “A GLOUCESTERSHIRE LAD”
“GLOUCESTERSHIRE FRIENDS”
ETC., ETC.
LONDON
SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD.
1921
PREFACE
In spite of all the soulful utterances of people comfortably off,
economic independence remains the first condition of happiness.
This is not to say that people aren’t great fools for preferring law to
literature. It is rather to imply that a poet who can do both is a fool
if _he_ does not.
I am not a fool.
Farewell!
F. W. H.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author desires to acknowledge gratefully permissions to reprint
certain of these poems granted by the editors of _The Spectator_, _The
Athenæum_, _The London Mercury_, _The Nation_, _The Woman’s Leader_,
_The Gloucestershire Chronicle_ and _The Gloucestershire Journal_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 5
NATURE POEMS
PRAYERS: I. 11
” II. 12
” III. 13
” IV. 14
THE HOLLOW LAND 15
ON BIRDLIP 16
OUT OF THE CITY 17
A SONG 18
MAY-FLOOD 18
BIG THINGS AND SMALL 19
AFTER LONG WANDERING 20
THE MOON 22
THE WIND’S GRIEF 23
A WINDY NIGHT 24
RIDDLE CUM RUDDLE 25
GLOUCESTERSHIRE FROM THE TRAIN 26
LASSINGTON 27
JEALOUSY 28
ELVERS 29
JOHN HELPS 32
LOVE POEMS
THE GOLDEN SNAKE 33
IN A CATHEDRAL 34
THE LANTHORN 35
SONNET: “MY NATIVE LAND IS ONLY WHERE YOU ARE” 36
SINCE I HAVE LOVED 37
SAFETY 38
HAPPY SINGING 39
SONG 40
IDENTITY 41
JUNE 42
SONNET: “THAT DEATH SHALL TAKE AND SLAY ME MATTERS NOT” 43
SONNET: “BUT NOW SINCE DEATH HATH CERTAIN DATE” 44
“LOCAL FATALITIES ARE REPORTED” 45
MY JOY 46
THE WATCHING MOON 46
HARVEST HOME 47
POEMS OF REFLECTION
EXPERIMENTS IN VERS LIBRE 48
THE PHILOSOPHER VISITS THE NIGHT CLUB 50
MISERERE DOMINE 52
NOW, IF I WERE RICH 53
THE RABBLE FATES--TO HELL WITH THEM! 54
THE LAUGHTER OF LITTLE BABIES 55
PETITION TO THE ALMIGHTY 56
LAST WORD 57
VANITY OF VANITIES 58
TRIOLET: “FLESH TRIUMPHS AWHILE” 61
FIRE (REVISED VERSION) 62
THE LIFE THAT’S UNDER THE GROUND 66
EPITAPH 67
INVOCATION--AND REPLY 68
MADNESS 70
GLOUCESTERSHIRE MEN 71
BALLADE OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE TOWNS 72
LUCKY 74
CAROL 75
GOD’S BEAUTY IN THE SKY 76
THE LOST WORLD 77
PROSE POEMS
DAWN 78
THE VISIBLE WORLD 78
FUEL 78
BLOW, INVISIBLE MOUTHS! 78
ANGRY LOVER 79
HOME 79
LOVE SONG 79
THE WINDOW 80
BROTHERS 80
HOLY BROTHERHOOD 80
_NATURE POEMS_
PRAYERS
I
THAT MY EYES MAY BE MADE TO SEE
God of bright colours: rainbows, peacocks,
And the shot-silk gleam of springing
Wind-shaken wheat
On rolling red-ribbed Earth:
Thou Who dost bring to birth
From out the womb
Of darkness golden flowers,
Filling the hollows
With daffodils in March,
Cowslips in April,
Dog-roses in May,
Who in the smouldering forest
Makes the huge
Red flare of Autumn:
God of all the colours
On Earth, and hues (too bright for mortal eyes)
In Paradise--
Unblind me to Thy glory,
That I may see!
II
THAT MY SOUL MAY BE SET TO DANCE
God of light dancing:
Waves and ripples
In foam and forest,
And shadows under leaves,
Lambs leaping, prancing,
Horses, dragon-flies,
Stars ...
Thou Whose eye perceives
How and in what dream-ecstasy tall reeds
Shake out brown hair and sway
Like dusky girls
Tranced in an Indian air;
Who knowest the way
Of clouds
Which glide o’er blue unflowered fields,
Scattering shadows
On golden meadows
And fields of dancing daisies:
Teach me, O Lord,
The rhythm of that joy which is Thy mind!
Make my soul dance!
III
THAT I MAY BE TAUGHT THE GESTURE OF HEAVEN
God of the steadfast line,
Who laid the curving Cotswolds on the sky:
God of the hills,
And of the lonely hollows in the hills,
And of the cloudy nipples of the mountains:
Teach me thy passionate austerity!
God of elm twigs
And of all winter trees
Etched ebony on sunset, or bright silver
Upon hard morning heavens;
Cunning shaper of ferns,
And ferns which whitely gleam on frosty windows
And snow-flakes:
God of the naked body beautifully snatched
To some swift-gestured loveliness of Heaven:
Master
Of stars,
And all beneath most passionately curbed
In Form: catch up my sprawling soul and fix it
In gesture of its lost divinity!
IV
THAT I MAY BE GIVEN FELLOWSHIP OF ANGELS AND A HAPPY HEART
God of fine fellowship in heaven and earth,
O let me share
A little of the gaiety of saints.
Sometimes let angels carelessly with robins
Sing in these Minsterworth trees.
Teach me that mirth,
Give me that happy heart, hating the thin
Blasphemous gravity of wicked men.
THE HOLLOW LAND
Elms on the marbled sky
Walling this hollow land,
Write something black that I
Find hard to understand.
Belshazzar in his hall,
Belshazzar and those lords
Saw suddenly on the wall
Great crooked words:
A doom, a doom of fear ...
Something our hearts forget
Is mighty still and near
To claim his debt.
Behold before it falls--
Behold the mighty hand
Of Nature on the walls
Of the hollow land!
ON BIRDLIP
I’ve tramped a score of miles to-day
And now on Cotswold stand,
Wondering if in any way
Their owners understand
How all those little gold fields I see
And the great green woods beyond
Have given themselves to me, to me
Who own not an inch of land.
Because I loved with deep desire,
Wooing all as I walked,
This noble country by tree and spire
Taught (as if music talked)
How Beauty is never bought or sold,
But freely given to them
Who worship more than crowns of gold
Her dew-bright diadem.
_Now_ all that under open heaven
I see of arable
Or pasture land to me is given,
As runs the parable--
“To him that hath not----” Even so,
For all we love is ours
While the little streams of Cotswold flow,
Swaying forget-me-not flowers.
OUT OF THE CITY
Here in the ring of the hills,
Under a cloudy sky,
Content at last I lie
Where Peace o’erspills
Like a cool rain which giveth
This brave daisy scent
And wine of sacrament
Whereby he liveth.
The big hooters may howl,
Men quarrel, whistles screech,
I will hear only the speech
Of my forgotten soul,
Which is the speech of trees,
Soft yet of clarity
And brimmed with verity
And all gay peace.
A SONG
O, Cranham ways are steep and green
And Cranham woods are high,
And if I was that black rook,
It’s there that I would fly.
But since I’m here in London town,
A silly walking man;
I’ll make this song and caw it
As loudly as I can.
MAY-FLOOD
Now the Spring’s cold
Foam-crested waves, the bright
Hedges, delay
To break and quench the light
Of golden fields with spray
Of hawthorn. As of old
Men saw the steep
Walls of the Red Sea round them,
Quiet sheep
Watch the wild hedge forbear to drown them.
BIG THINGS AND SMALL
This spinning spark in space--our Earth and all
Its vast envelopment of ancient night--
Is not a wonder greater or less than the white
Blossom now in the orchards, soon to fall.
And let men learn the secret of that bloom
And all its beauty’s wonder, they shall know
Life to the core; and they with God may go
To make a daisy or the day of doom.
AFTER LONG WANDERING
I will go back to Gloucestershire,
To the spot where I was born,
To the talk at eve with men and women
And song on the roads at morn.
And I’ll sing as I tramp by dusty hedges
Or drink my ale in the shade
How Gloucestershire is the finest home
That the Lord God ever made.
First I will go to the ancient house
Where Doomsday book was planned,
And cool my body and soul in shade
Of pillars huge which stand
Where the organ echoes thunder-like
Its paean of triumph and praise
In a temple lovely as ever the love
Of Beauty’s God did raise.
Gargoyles will thrust out heads to hearken,
A frozen forest of stone
Echo behind me as I pass
Out of the shadow alone
To buzz and bustle of Barton Fair
And its drifting droves of sheep,
To find three miles away the village
Where I will sleep.
Minsterworth, queen of riverside places
(Save Framilode, who can vie?),
To her I’ll go when day has dwindled
And the light low in the sky;
And my troubles shall fall from me, a bundle,
And youth come back again,
Seeing the smoke of her houses and hearing
The talk of Minsterworth men.
I’ll drink my perry and sing my song
Of home and home again,
Pierced with the old miraculous pleasure
Keen as sharpest pain;
And if I rise to sing on the morrow
Or if I die in my bed,
’Tis all the same: I’ll be home again,
And happy alive or dead.
THE MOON
What have you not seen,
Old White-face, looking down
Since the heavens were hollowed out
And winds were blown?
You saw white Helen
On the walls of Troy Town,
You silvered dew on the ruin
When Troy shook down.
Ulysses you saw
And the strange seas that bore him;
But all he wandered to see
You had seen before him.
Bodies black and yellow,
Gold tresses and brown,
The brown earth covers them ...
And you look down.
THE WIND’S GRIEF
The wind is grieving. Over what old woe
Howls it as though
Its very heart would break?--
The roving wind who merrily did make
A song all day in woods and meadows gay
Grieves in the night.
Is it for olden evil it hath done
’Neath moon and sun
Since first it roved the world?
Brave trees uprooted, ships and sailors hurled
To stormy death? or for the passing breath
Of flowers bright?
A WINDY NIGHT
The rain is done; and a great wind,
Filling the hollow night,
He shouts like a boy in an archway
And whistles with all his might.
He has blown the sky empty,
Except for the little stout
Stars, and they are flickering
As if they might go out.
All the black trees are crying;
The night is full of noise;
They are shouting under the arch of heaven
Like a school of rowdy boys.
RIDDLE CUM RUDDLE
The wains be unloaded, the ricks be in stack--
Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam;
An’ varmer be merry, an’ me an’ Jack
Sing Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam.
There’s wuts for the horses and hay for the cow--
Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam;
And wheat for bread, and barley for brew--
Sing Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam
Young randy lovers may praise the Spring--
Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam;
But this be the time ver to dance and sing
Riddle cum Ruddle!
Riddle cum Ruddle!
Riddle cum Ruddle!
The harvest’s whoam!
GLOUCESTERSHIRE FROM THE TRAIN
The golden fields wheel round--
Their spokes, green hedges;
And at the galloping sound
Of the train, from watery sedges
Arise familiar birds.
Pools brown, and blue, and green,
Criss-crossed with shadows,
Flash by, and in between
Gloucestershire meadows
Lie speckled red with herds.
A little flying farm,
With humped grey back
Against the rays that warm
To gold a last-year stack,
Like a friendly cat appears;
And so through gloom and gleam
Continues dwindling,
While in my heart a dream
Of home awakes to kindling
Fire, and falling tears.
LASSINGTON
To Lassington the priests went out
From Gloucester long ago
To worship oaks and fool about
With mistletoe.
Now after twenty centuries
Still men and girls do go
Lassington way. To worship trees?
You ask,--ah no!
They laugh the magic boughs beneath,
Catch hands, and kiss the while:
And the dead Druids grind their teeth
Below, or smile
To see (ah, fair beneath the bough
The fretted moonlight lies!)
How readily come the victims now
To sacrifice.
How, robed in moonlight’s ancient gold,
Another god doth reign,
Tormenting men as did their old
Grey gods of Pain.
JEALOUSY
On Zunday marn dro’ varmer’s wheat
I zeed the print and track o’ veet:
If I’d a had a rook-gun then
They vaur veet would’n a walked again.
Two on ’em--they o’ the larger zize--
I coulden praperly reckernize.
Two wer the purty-printed veet
O’ Molly--zo valse as she be sweet.
I hadn’t no bird-gun: zo it fell
As I maun laugh--ho, ho!--and tell
Here in a pub at the end o’ the street
O’ the winding--ha! ha!--o’ they vaur veet.
But may the zoul o’ him as wore
They hob-nails roast vor evermore;
And the veet wi’ the instep’s purty curve
May both on ’em get what um deserve!
ELVERS
Up the Severn River from Lent to Eastertide
Millions and millions of slithy elvers glide,
Millions, billions of glassy bright
Little wormy fish,
Chewed-string fish,
Slithery dithery fish,
In the dead of the night.
Up the gleaming river miles and miles along
Lanterns burn yellow: old joke and song
Echo as fishermen dip down a slight
Wide frail net,
Gauzy white net,
Strong long net
In the water bright.
From the Severn river at daybreak come
Hundreds of happy fishermen home
With bags full of elvers: perhaps that’s why
We all love Lent,
Lean mean Lent,
Fishy old Lent,
When the elvers fry.
When elvers fry for breakfast with egg chopped small
And bacon from the side that’s hung upon the wall.
When the dish is on the table how the children shout
“O, what funny fish,
Wormy squirmy fish,
Weeny white fish,
Our mother’s dishing out!”
Eels have a flavour (and a baddish one) of oil.
“When we have shuffled _down_ their mortal coil,
What dreams may come!” what horrid nightmares neigh,
Gallop or squat,
Trample or trot,
Vanishing not
Till break of day!
“Never start nothing,” says the motto in our pub:
“It might lead to summat”: that’s (as Shakespeare said) the rub!
So I’m not going to tell you, anyway not yet,
If the elvers are eels,
White baby eels,
Tiny shiny eels,
Caught with a net--
Or another quite separate wriggly kind of grub,
For I’ve seen more fights over that outside a pub
Than ever _you_ saw at Barton Fair when Joe
The brown gipsy man,
The tawny gipsy man,
The tipsy gipsy man,
Tried to smart up the show.
But anyway, good people, you may search the river over
Before a breakfast tastier or cheaper you discover
Than elvers, and if all the year the elver season lasted
I wouldn’t mind a bit,
I wouldn’t care a bit,
Not a little tiny bit,
_How_ long I fasted!
JOHN HELPS
John Helps a wer an honest mon;
The perry that a made
Wer crunched vrom purs as honest
As ever tree displayed.
John Helps a wer an honest mon;
The dumplings that a chewed
Wer made vrom honest apples
As Autumn ever growed.
John Helps a wer an honest mon,
And I be sorry a’s dead.
Perry and honest men be scarce
These days, ’tiz zed.
_LOVE POEMS_
THE GOLDEN SNAKE
Her body’s glory is a golden snake
Around Life’s tree
Coiled: the tree shall break
In the blast of Eternity
And the coil be crushed.
Too late! immortal poison has rushed
Through more-than-veins.
Beauty remains
Though bodies rot. The fang
(Though flesh the pang
To flesh deliver)
Strikes down more deep
Than flesh, to trouble
Even the ultimate sleep,
The eternal dream.
Though all she seem
To be, like a golden bubble
Shall break at the prick of Death,
This shall not break:
Her beauty’s sting: sharp as the sting of a snake:
The sting of Beauty failing not with breath.
IN A CATHEDRAL
From her sweet unrest and sting
Hither I come.
The cloisters like a frozen forest ring,
Echoing back more faint and faintlier
The tread of living. Home,
Home flies the spirit. Faint and faintlier
The surging waves of passion break to foam
Then like a clash of cymbals suddenly
She, slave of Time,
O’ercomes all tokens of Eternity,
Nay, rather with Eternity is made one,
One with recurrent rhyme
Of arch, with flash of window, with the sun
Yellow on lofty walls sweet echoes climb.
THE LANTHORN
“I never saw a soul save in the body.”
Haply within the woods of Paradise
We see unblinded of our earthly eyes,
Kiss with unthwarted lips, and taste our one
Desired and complete communion.
There scabbards that do sheath the gleaming blade,
There globes which muffle in the naked light
Aside being cast, naked and unafraid,
Lovers may stand in one another’s sight.
Now since through fleshly glass Thy flame, O Love,
Shines clear, and nowhere else doth visibly move;
That lanthorn bright I will bow down before,
Kneeling the crystal body to adore.
SONNET
My native land is only where you are,
You are my home, my roof-tree, hearth, and fire.
I have been home-sick for you, wandering far,
But now have reached the end of my desire.
You are my kingdom small and very fair,
Your breasts my snowy hills, my lakes your eyes,
Your face my garden, and my woods your hair,
Your breath the breeze of that sweet Paradise.
Lie fenced within the circle of these arms,
Dear country: you whose air to breathe is Peace,
Peace deeper than Death, more soft than Night--
Soother of griefs. Here, safe from wild alarms,
I’ll bide, plucking from off your sighing trees
The fruit of dreams, red apples of delight.
SINCE I HAVE LOVED
Since I have loved, I have put the world in my heart.
The great clouds scattering over Cotswold seem
But shadows of those others counterpart:
Those clouds standing over hills of dream--
Hills of dream in a country that is called
Peace--a country by my own heart walled.
Since I do love and bear you in my breast,
Who are both my beloved country and its queen,
I wonder not to see red dawn uprise.
I say no more how restful is the green
Of summer fields, for looking on your eyes
It is as though I had died and found my rest.
SAFETY
You are like a pool reflecting shadowy trees
Of green and glint of sunbeams mixed together
(And I had forgotten both) in water clear.
Full of the foulness of blood and lust and fear
Is the past now. I break its holding tether,
And stand once more with guiding Innocences.
You are like silence in which I can be myself.
You are the truth of music: something lost
Ages and ages ago, and forgotten, and found.
Ere death my feet are set upon holy ground,
I, wanderer amid a wandering host,
Come home, led by the magic of one sweet elf.
HAPPY SINGING
Men have made songs,
And I among them,
Because some hell
Of grief had wrung them.
The tolling bell
Will often bring
Torture to force
A man to sing.
But I this day
A song will make
Only for joy
And my sweet love’s sake:
And will employ
No sorrowful thing
For making of it,--
That song, I’ll sing.
But lovely laughter
Of singing thrushes
When dawn has broken
And heaven flushes,
Shall be the token
Of one whom days
Nor death can rob
Of joyous praise.
SONG
And in the evening when I walked apart
For joy of that I carry in my heart,
The song I made brave thrushes did complete,
Shouting, “O, pretty Joy!” and “Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!”
This is my glory, this the crown of me:
That I hold joy of my love, and she of me;
And though my song be but a breath of air,
Yet is it greater than death and all despair.
For howso poor and of what base estate
I be, this love shall make me proud and great.
And howso deep in care I lie, there are words
Shall build my heart a nest of singing birds.
IDENTITY
I am the blood that burns,
The flesh that dies,
The haunted heart that turns
To Paradise,
The soul that laugheth low
And whispereth
There are sweet things to know
After--Death.
Such powers am I, and more
Both good and bad;
Nor all the learnéd lore
Solomon had
Could ill and good dissever.
Yet this is true:
Naught’s me that doth not ever
Cleave to you.
JUNE
April was in your making--youth of the year,
Wild-blooded, beautiful! And May with flowers
And showers agleam went into you, my dear.
But you are June. Deep shadows, silver dew,
Red roses, and the nightingale’s delight:
White moonlight the essential soul of you.
And sometimes as I watch you walk arrayed
In beauty of that month, a foolish fear
Comes, dear, into my heart: I am afraid
That you being one with shadow-bars and roses,
Birds and wild scents of June, with these will fly
And I be left alone when Summer closes
Her pageantry!
SONNET
That Death shall take and slay me matters not
In truth: for better men are buried under,
And--tut, “what can’t be cured must be endured”!
But I am wild with hate, pray devil’s thunder
May fall on Death though heaven itself glow hot,
Hell-like, and stars be lighted stubble, and worlds
Like birds drop blinded by the bloody light!
O, such a bonfire do I wish for Death
Or ever his insolent envy of sweet breath
Should touch and soil the body of delight--
The singing flame of fragrant holy fire
Which showed to me the meaning of the spring
And every lovely tune musicians bring
Out of the womb of innermost desire!
SONNET
But now since Death hath certain date, I fling,
Strong in this manhood for a little space,
Gayest defiance in his wrinkled face,
And mock that envious shadowy old king:
Scyther of flowers, plucker of everything
In beauty fair upgrowing; so the place
Thereof knoweth no more the golden grace
That was the pride and savour of its spring.
Spring is not here. But spring is in this heart,
Quick with the blowing buds of lovely mirth
And over-brimmed with love taken and given
When that is withered, let us lie apart
And rock like sleeping babes in cradle of earth,
Dearest, till Doomsday: we have had our heaven.
“LOCAL FATALITIES ARE REPORTED”
Dangerously sheltered they,
The lovers lay
Upon the great dead hill,
Frail flesh and blood:
Beneath a twisted thorn,
Which to the heaven’s mood
Died and was born
Again, as lightning fell.
Two mites of trembling clay--
Ah, what cared they!
The lightning flashed:
They laughed.
The thunder crashed:
They kissed.
The grey rain lashed
The hill: and hid them in mist.
Did they return again
To the sunny plain,
To spite and scorn,
The plane of mortal care?
Nay, with passions of skies
They mingled were ...
They were made wise
Beneath the twisted thorn.
MY JOY
In your impassioned loveliness
I drink a wine no heel did press
In vats of place or time or space,
And gazing on your April face
And in your dim green-shadowed eyes
I glimpse green leaves of a great vine
Whose roots are firm in Paradise:
And you the cup and you the wine.
THE WATCHING MOON
Calm with the calm
Of all old Earth has taken
To her peaceful breast,
And will not awaken;
Pale with the passion
Of Life that never dies;
You sit there watching us
With clear bright eyes.
HARVEST HOME
My heart is filled with you
As a field tilled which grew
But couch and weed;
You are my cornfield spread,
Ripe to be harvested
For bitter need.
You have built barns in my heart,
You have become a part
Of all I knew:
Wherefore I dance and sing
And fear not anything
Sharp scythes may do.
_POEMS OF REFLECTION_
EXPERIMENTS IN VERS LIBRE
I
Not curled into rose leaves
Or twisted into fantastic patterns of beauty ...
Out of my joy in the Earth,
Out of my sorrow for men,
Out of the love which I bore to one and another
Come these rough nuggets.
Take them--they are all I can give you!
Take, and make of them whatsoever you will,
You who have skill,
And you also who have none.
Hold them in sunlight and moonlight
Till they shine back,
Ponder also the dark Earth wherefrom they came!
II
He who lies dead was my father.
Degradation has befallen his flesh.
Why? O, why?
The palace is fouled.
The king insulted, crucified, and abandoned.
The slaves have fled.
And so, after certain days, you
And I too shall lie.
The pride
Shall pass.
Our mouths shall never kiss
Nor our strong arms embrace ...
We too, we too shall die.
III
Lust spoils the sunlight
And narrows the day;
Love widens
Time to Eternity which alone can hold it!
THE PHILOSOPHER VISITS THE NIGHT CLUB
Fair and worthless things that die
Praising their goddess Vanity
Here gather. Like a violin
Many a sweetly-scented Sin
Whispers. Many a bright-wreathed Folly,
Finding its roses turned to holly,
Seeks with Pleasure’s aid to fend
That Boredom which is Folly’s end.
Wherefore the violins make moan.
For these “the visible world” alone
Exists; and “ah that it should pass!”
They cry, and fill a trembling glass.
“Here’s to Beauty!” (surnamed Lust)
They cry; and e’er it falls to dust,
“Love it,” they cry, “and hug it well.”
“To whatsoever heaven or hell
Fate builds for fools, these surely go,”
Thought the moralist watching this tinsel show.
“Yet is it not difficult to know
Who best deserve the name of Fool,
These or those more respectable
Most moral folks I know so well?...
_These_ make of living a foolish sham,
_These_ play a silly blind man’s game,
Chasing bubbles like a fool.
But the others like a sullen mule
Play at nothing at all, and so
Think they’re good because they’re dull--
Where, in the name of sense, will _they_ go?”
Upon which curious reflection
The sad and wondering sage arose,
Paid for his drink and blew his nose,
Brushed the confetti from his clothes,
And shuffled forth in deep dejection.
MISERERE DOMINE
Three things a man can do without:
Debtors, a scolding wife, and gout.
First hates for what (he knows) they’ve got,
Second for what (she knows) he’s not,
The third of this unholy lot
Hates him and all he hateth not,
Brisk walking and the pewter pot,
Sound sleep and jovial company.
Who suffers these well may cry, God wot--
Miserere Domine!
NOW, IF I WERE RICH
Now, if I were rich,
And lord of the manor,
My limbs might all twitch.
Now, if I were rich
I might marry a--witch,
And lose every tanner
That made me so rich,
And lord of the manor.
(_But I wish I were rich,
And lord of the manor!_)
THE RABBLE FATES--TO HELL WITH THEM!
They fling at me stones and mud,
My clothes are tattered and foul,
My face is covered in blood;
But they haven’t hurt my soul.
They have beaten me sore--in truth
No part of me stands whole!
They have stolen away my youth:
But they could not steal my soul.
Robbed, baffled, and broken,
Something lives in me whole;
And I hold by that for a token
That they cannot conquer my soul.
Let them thrash me with knotted sorrow,
Stone me with sharp regret;
I shall be their king on a morrow,
My soul is a monarch yet.
THE LAUGHTER OF LITTLE BABIES
The laughter of little babies
Who chuckle and crow
Is the laugh of a stream
Which needs must flow
Into black caverns; on its way
Reflecting briefly the blue of day.
The mirth of little babies
Who chuckle and nod
Is the mirth of a spirit
Remembering odd
Scraps of the tales and heavenly mirth
He shall never remember again on Earth.
PETITION TO THE ALMIGHTY
My sins of scarlet I pray Thee wash away,
For they were done in passion and hot blood,
When youth was lord of me nor understood
The glory of the beauty of Thy way.
So pardon them; but, Lord, if I have stood
The enemy of any destitute,
Done cruelty to any man or brute,
Or nailed Thy poor upon a cross of wood,
Or on a cross of gold, or iron, O, smite!
Smite with Thy rod and cast me from Thy sight.
LAST WORD
Let no man call me coward that I will die
And dip no more my bread in living’s foul
And muddy stream; but, God, accept my soul
Which into air so soon must wandering fly.
For I have never hated you at all,
You brother men, albeit that you must
Hate all such dust as is not of your dust,
Content for power to strive and hate and brawl.
But to you who have laughed and holpen one another,
You few gay valiant souls amid the rabble,
I say--“God knows I have loved you!” Then forgive
Me in whose heart is no more power to live:
Who must with this poor gesture break the bubble
Which held us here on Earth brother to brother.
VANITY OF VANITIES
We spend our days for things which profit not,
We set our heart on things.
When sense is edged and blood of youth is hot,
And when stiff age like ice about us clings,
We spend our days for that which profits not,
We set our heart on things.
More worthy was the blasphemous disdain
Of all God’s world of sense by stubborn saint,
Ungrateful of the sunlight and the rain,
Untouched by colours bending rainbows paint.
More worthy was the pagan ignorance
Of all save what a world of sense discloses:
That found his soul above the starry dance,
This in a sweet but fading heaven of roses.
But us no heaven of saint nor flower delights;
When sense is edged and blood of youth is hot
We spend our days for things which profit not,
And in the last cold days and lonely nights
Wherewith our little span of living closes,
We set our heart on things.
What profits it, you futile little men
Who, furry-coated, tethering the lightning,
From here to London ride and back again?
What profits it, you whose fat hands are tightening
Upon the lives of others? Nay, but tell
What would you profit gaining all the world?
(And if there were no hell)
What have you seen of loveliness unfurled
In heaven above or on the earth below?
Speak! What have you to show?
What do you profit? If you drove a car
Through Paradise you would not hear the wings!
Did Michael leave the gates of God ajar
(As he has done!) what would you crave but things?
More houses, maybe, with a telephone,
To call your own!
And you, my brothers, in the dim-lit mine,
Or in the town, or on the tumbling sea,
Who carry in your ears the hungry whine
Of wolves which hunt the woods of Poverty:
What profit you, if under that same sign
As they who grind you down you too advance?
If on the tide of chance
You (swept away)
Do even as they?
For close about us whir the angel wings,
And near beside us sound the throbbing strings
Of Paradise. The song of Brotherhood
With flowers springs, and sings through all the air
To that high place where Jacob’s ladder stood
Tethered to chanting stars. We only dare
Ignore God’s message, we alone of all
His children scorn Love’s joyous festival,
Spending our days for that which profits not,
Setting our heart on things.
When sense is edged and blood of Youth is hot,
And when stiff age like ice about us clings,
We spend our days for things which profit not,
We set our heart on things.
TRIOLET
Flesh triumphs awhile,
And after, the spirit.
By force and by guile
Flesh triumphs awhile,
Then finds but a pile
Of grave-earth to inherit
Flesh triumphs awhile
And after, the spirit.
FIRE
(REVISED VERSION[1])
I
Gold-crowned with flames
Behind its bars
The coal:
And over the chimney
In a black hole
Spark-children playing
Their mazy games
And mimic-mighty wars:
Apple-logs green
Crossed cunningly:
Smoke-veils between
Drifting and lifting....
O fire, my glee,
Poor man’s friend,
Food, company,
Warmth and wine in one:
May I never need
Shillings to spend
On apple-logs
And coals to feed
Thee,
Bright-faced wonder of children and me!
[1] First version was published in _Ducks, and other Verses_, 1919.
II
Warm at thy feet
I hear
Speech more wise, more dear
And clear than sage’s:
More sweet than pages
Of any poet,
Showing never yet
Smoke-veils of blue
In golden places,
Soot too,
And faces
In fire, and sparkling gay
Little-lived glad children of fire at play.
III
What lore forlorn,
What tale of tales,
When man’s poor stock
Of wisdom fails
In Fire’s cave,
Is born!
Here Jack shall knock,
--That hero brave
On the giant’s door ...
With rumbling snore
The monster turns
From sleep,
And yawns....
But the sheep
Of Little Bo-Peep
(By magic quick
To wolves now turning)
Are following Jack.
Hark, crackle crack!
(Is it fire burning?)
They crunch, they lick
Up “Fe, Fo, Fum.”
Sucking his thumb
Little Jack Horner
Creeps from the corner
Where he had hidden
Behind a pie
From the giant’s eye.
Now doors as bidden
Do open fly,
And in they throng--
The prisoners all
With a merry song.
Here’s Old King Cole
To lead the ball!
How merrily
His fiddlers three
Strike up the air
That pleases his soul--
A mighty sound
As of wind in chimneys
When trees are bare....
Round and round
In smoke-wreaths whirl
Prince, Shepherd-girl,
King, goose-girl, queen,
All who have been
For joy of children,
And company,
Since tales began:
All that a man
Can believe and be
Never again;
Save when in fire
(Apple-logs green
Crossed cunningly)
He sees it plain,
As I have seen,
This thronged night-fire:
Such light that shines
Through Poetry and
Small tumbling strain
Of song, or from a window-pane
As daylight fails,
As evening pales
In a sweet land
Shadowed with pines,
Peopled with children-haunted pines
Murmuring fairy-tales.
THE LIFE THAT’S UNDER THE GROUND
It’s funny to think of the life that’s under the ground.
The mole that snouted up that loose red mound
Of earth; the worm that turned those worm-casts; now,
_They_ are enough to pucker any man’s brow.
Once (I was only a boy) I caught a mole,
And he was angry, and bit a little hole
In the ball of my thumb. Worms I have often found,
Glow-worms, and ones like this that slithe around.
* * * * *
It’s funny to think of the life that’s under ground.
EPITAPH
This little girl
In brown earth lies.
She shall sweeten the sweet air
Of Paradise
With her slow lovely speech
And wondering eyes.
INVOCATION--AND REPLY
Hear me, brave words,
You who of old
Came singing birds
To a poet’s call:
“_Many have called us, yet we served not all._”
Come words of jade
To make green eyes
Of a little maid,
Come words that sing
And let her linnet speech now softly ring.
Ivory words
Denote her breasts,
Two fluttering birds
That sit and sing
For joy of some unseen delicious spring.
Dusky words weave
Her falling hair,
The world bereave
Of shadows long
And shake them in a sombre tangled throng.
Come you most durable
Shining words,
’Gainst the incurable
Drift of Time
Guard me her sweetness safe within a rhyme.
* * * * *
_Is that thy need?_--Truly the all-complete
Imperious need of every mortal lover
Since life was lived in Time and Time was rover--
To carve the image of that passing-sweet
Swift withering flower of Beauty naméd Love;
To crystallize a moment’s grace for ever.
(“_The old old plea yet that is not enough!_”
_Words whisper_); to seize Joy; to stay the river
Of ever-flowing water bearing down
To shadowy oceans all we crave to mind us
Of Beauty and her heart of perfect peace.
Words, aid me! Set your Time-defying crown
On all my heart would never more release.
Where wait ye, words? _Here._ Come! _No, poet, find us!_
MADNESS
“Nothing without a cause,”
You say. _Why did the wind
Point with a thin
Lean finger then?_
“Laws behind the laws,
And behind all a mind.”
_A mind: just so.
Somebody telling it to!_
_Bidding it point and beckon
And wave;
Bidding it blast and blacken
All life was,
With thoughts of one in a grave,
And wind stroking the grass._
GLOUCESTERSHIRE MEN
Gloucester, Glevum, and Caer Glow,
The name is nothing! Then as now
Men mowed the meadow-grass for cattle,
Died for Gloucestershire in battle,
Fought, and loved, and built, and planned,
And wrested with this kindly land.
Man’s tiny spark of mortal fire
Seems suddenly big in Gloucestershire.
The little chain of life on earth
Lengthens out round Minsterworth.
Here and in all the country round
Marks of men are on the ground.
Here no brooding iron peak,
No barren desert is, to shriek
The little loneliness of man,
Whose days are measured by a span;
But in the faces of our brothers
See we the looks of those old “others”:
The men in yonder humped-up barrow,
Crouched with their mortal joys and sorrow;
The Roman soldier sound asleep
By walls where English weeds slow creep
(A thousand years are but a span ...):
Each dead man was a Gloucestershire man!
A BALLADE OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE TOWNS
Or ever in Cheltenham town dyspeptic flaunted
His finery, or steel-clad Normans came
To build that tower at Tewkesbury bird-haunted:
Or ever rose that town of olden fame--
Ciceter, out of Roman arms and flame:
Before the older Bristol was begot
Of Keltic fathers: Caer Glow was a name.
Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!
Caer Glow, “the splendid city,” so they called it,
Those funny beggars brilliant in woad;
And then the tramping Romans came and walled it
And called it Glevum, throwing many a road
Through and around it. Dane and Saxon strode
Awhile its streets; then they whose quills did blot
That Domesday Book which every city showed,
Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!
Bristol, that blue-eyed sailor-man, who sallied
Forth to adventure, latterly has grown
A merchant-prince, respectable, pot-bellied.
Winchcombe--poor pagan queen--doth lack a throne.
Ciceter keeps her soul, but she alone:
For Tewkesbury’s soul is in a pewter-pot,
And Cheltenham never had one of her own.
Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!
L’ENVOY
Prince, you have travelled far and wide, and seen
Much nicer towns than these? “All Tommy rot!”
(“Your Royal Highness surely jests,” I mean.)
Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!
LUCKY
Lucky to live,
Lucky again
To have met and marched
With the finest men
(So I believe)
Earth ever bred
Since heaven was arched....
_But they are dead._
Lucky to love,
Most lucky to
Have loved, of all
I might have, you
Whom Time doth prove
Most tender-hearted
And beautiful....
_But we are parted._
CAROL
Sing lullaby, sing lullaby,
While snow doth softly fall,
Sing lullaby to Jesus
Born in an oxen-stall.
Sing lullaby to Jesus,
Born now in Bethlehem,
The naked blackthorn’s growing
To weave His diadem.
Sing lullaby, sing lullaby,
While thickly snow doth fall,
Sing lullaby to Jesus
The Saviour of all.
GOD’S BEAUTY IN THE SKY
God’s beauty in the sky,
And in a silver cloud:
Everywhere in the world
His beauty cries aloud.
But why should I talk of it?
Let me drink it up
As now I drink this cider
From a big blue cup!
THE LOST WORLD
What hues, what dances
Do I remember
Lighter than leaves dancing
And red November?
Why does my heart whisper
Under the trees,
“There are brighter colours and lighter
Dancers than these”?
What dream more golden
In firelight hovers
Than these faces of friends
And trusty lovers?
Why does my heart whisper
In this gay peace,
“There are bolder lovers and older
Comrades than these”?
_PROSE POEMS_
DAWN
ARISE!--ARISE!
Dew, like a thousand gems, is in the hair of the dear earth eager to
dance.
THE VISIBLE WORLD
Rub your eyes! If a man believe not in earth, how should he believe in
heaven? If he love not the visible, how should he its high symbol?
FUEL
You are burning me in a flame whereat starved men and women may warm
themselves. But you are angry that the winds blow my ashes into your
eyes.
BLOW, INVISIBLE MOUTHS!
Did God blow upon a reed (having cut it to His mind), what melodies
might not be piped!--what news of glorious birth! To you, beloved Dead,
I give my life that is but a reed. Blow, blow, invisible mouths of God!
ANGRY LOVER
Before God’s throne came the angry lover. “I am betrayed!” he cried,
and the courts of Heaven rang again with the sound of the word. “Thy
daughter Life have I wooed. For her have I given all--yea, all--since
that is the price of love, and now, behold, Thou hast given me her dark
sister, Death!”
“Yet have I but one daughter,” answered God.
“Is it possible that even yet thou dost not know me?” whispered the
veiled one.
HOME
HOME!--HOME!
All night the orchards sighing and surging.... All night the branches
tossing and gesturing against the moon.... All night the scent of the
blossom.... But why do they say that I am dead?
LOVE SONG
He sang of the strong labouring of stars that wheel in their courses,
and of passionate Suns.... Songs of courage against destiny, of
scorn against mean riches; songs of sorrow, and of dancing joy; of
childhood, old age, and life again after. But never a song sang he of
his beloved. Therefore she laughed, and knew that he was still her
slave.
THE WINDOW
Blinking at the sun, what things of horror come peering out of
me!--what ages of beasts! O that God would look out of me upon His
world--that I might be a window for the eyes of Christ!
BROTHERS
Are men only our brothers? Were not the animals and the stars at
Bethlehem?
HOLY BROTHERHOOD
O you who have found mankind for a brother, be not content! You are
brothers and sisters of angels and archangels: and your feet are on the
glimmering roadways of unimaginable stars.
_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
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