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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/21029-8.txt b/21029-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..576a65a --- /dev/null +++ b/21029-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4113 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The New Morning, by Alfred Noyes + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The New Morning + Poems + + +Author: Alfred Noyes + + + +Release Date: April 11, 2007 [eBook #21029] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW MORNING*** + + +E-text prepared by K. Nordquist, Jacqueline Jeremy, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +THE NEW MORNING + +ALFRED NOYES + + + * * * * * + + +WORKS OF ALFRED NOYES + +COLLECTED POEMS--_2 Vols._ +THE LORD OF MISRULE +A BELGIAN CHRISTMAS EVE +THE WINE-PRESS +WALKING SHADOWS--_Prose_ +TALES OF THE MERMAID TAVERN +SHERWOOD +THE ENCHANTED ISLAND AND OTHER POEMS +DRAKE: AN ENGLISH EPIC +POEMS +THE FLOWER OF OLD JAPAN +THE GOLDEN HYNDE +THE NEW MORNING + + + * * * * * + + +THE NEW MORNING + +Poems + +by + +ALFRED NOYES + + + + + + + +[Illustration (publisher's logo)] + + +New York +Frederick A. Stokes Company +Publishers + +Copyright, 1918, by +Alfred Noyes +Copyright, 1919, by +Frederick A. Stokes Company +All rights reserved, including that of translation +into foreign languages + + + + +DEDICATION + +TO THE MEMORY OF SIR CECIL +SPRING-RICE + + +I. + +Steadfast as any soldier of the line + He served his England, with the imminent death +Poised at his heart. Nor could the world divine + The constant peril of each burdened breath. + +England, and the honour of England, he still served + Walking the strict path, with the old high pride +Of those invincible knights who never swerved + One hair's breadth from the way until they died. + +Quietness he loved, and books, and the grave beauty + Of England's Helicon, whose eternal light +Shines like a lantern on that road of duty, + Discerned by few in this chaotic night. + +And his own pen, foretelling his release, +Told us that he foreknew "the end was peace." + + +II. + +Soldier of England, he shall live unsleeping + Among his friends, with the old proud flag above; +For even today her honour is in his keeping. + He has joined the hosts that guard her with their love. + +They shine like stars, unnumbered happy legions, + In that high realm where all our darkness dies. +He moves, with honour, in those loftier regions, + Above this "world of passion and of lies": + +For so he called it, keeping his own pure passion + A silent flame before the true and good; +Not fawning on the throng in this world's fashion + To come and see what all might see who would. + +Soldier of England, brave and gentle knight, +The soul of Sidney welcomes you tonight. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + +DEDICATION: TO THE MEMORY OF SIR CECIL +SPRING-RICE v + + "THE AVENUE OF THE ALLIES" 3 + + ON THE WESTERN FRONT 8 + + VICTORY 10 + + + + +AMERICAN POEMS, 1912-1917 + + REPUBLIC AND MOTHERLAND 19 + + THE UNION 22 + + GHOSTS OF THE NEW WORLD 24 + + THE OLD MEETING HOUSE 27 + + PRINCETON 30 + + BEETHOVEN IN CENTRAL PARK 34 + + + + +SONGS OF THE TRAWLERS AND SEA POEMS + + THE PEOPLE'S FLEET 37 + + KILMENY 38 + + CAP'N STORM-ALONG 40 + + THE BIG BLACK TRAWLER 42 + + NAMESAKES 44 + + WIRELESS 46 + + FISHERS OF MEN 48 + + AN OPEN BOAT 50 + + PEACE IN A PALACE 52 + + THE VINDICTIVE 55 + + + + +MISCELLANEOUS POEMS + + THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPS OF CHELTENHAM 61 + + TO A SUCCESSFUL MAN 66 + + THE OLD GENTLEMAN WITH THE AMBER SNUFFBOX 68 + + WHAT GRANDFATHER SAID 71 + + MEMORIES OF THE PACIFIC COAST 75 + + NIPPON 77 + + THE HUMMING BIRDS 79 + + LINES FOR A SUN-DIAL 81 + + THE REALMS OF GOLD 82 + + COMPENSATIONS 85 + + DEAD MAN'S MORRICE 87 + + THE OLD FOOL IN THE WOOD 90 + + A NEW MADRIGAL TO AN OLD MELODY 91 + + THE LOST BATTLE 94 + + RIDDLES OF MERLIN 96 + + THE SYMPHONY 98 + + PEACE 99 + + THE OPEN DOOR 100 + + IMMORTAL SAILS 102 + + THE MATIN-SONG OF FRIAR TUCK 103 + + FIVE CRITICISMS 105 + + THE COMPANIONS 114 + + THE LITTLE ROADS 116 + + SUNLIGHT AND SEA 118 + + THE ROAD THROUGH CHAOS 121 + + THE NIGHT OF THE LION 123 + + THE WAR WIDOW 126 + + THE BELL 128 + + SLAVE AND EMPEROR 132 + + ON A MOUNTAIN-TOP 134 + + + + +EARLY POEMS + + THE PHANTOM FLEET 139 + + MICHAEL OAKTREE 147 + + + + +TOUCHSTONE ON A BUS + + TOUCHSTONE ON A BUS 159 + + I THE NEW DUCKLING 160 + + II THE MAN WHO DISCOVERED THE USE A CHAIR 161 + + III COTTON-WOOL 164 + + IV FASHIONS 166 + + + + +EPILOGUE + + THE REWARD OF SONG 171 + + + + + + + + +THE NEW MORNING + + +"THE AVENUE OF THE ALLIES" + + +This is the song of the wind as it came +Tossing the flags of the nations to flame: + + _I am the breath of God. I am His laughter. +I am His Liberty. That is my name._ + +So it descended, at night, on the city. +So it went lavishing beauty and pity, +Lighting the lordliest street of the world +With half of the banners that earth has unfurled; +Over the lamps that are brighter than stars. +Laughing aloud on its way to the wars, +Proud as America, sweeping along +Death and destruction like notes in a song, +Leaping to battle as man to his mate, +Joyous as God when he moved to create,-- + Never was voice of a nation so glorious, +Glad of its cause and afire with its fate! +Never did eagle on mightier pinion +Tower to the height of a brighter dominion, +Kindling the hope of the prophets to flame, +Calling aloud on the deep as it came, + + _Cleave me a way for an army with banners. +I am His Liberty. That is my name._ + +Know you the meaning of all they are doing? +Know you the light that their soul is pursuing? +Know you the might of the world they are making, +This nation of nations whose heart is awaking? +What is this mingling of peoples and races? +Look at the wonder and joy in their faces! +Look how the folds of the union are spreading! +Look, for the nations are come to their wedding. +How shall the folk of our tongue be afraid of it? +England was born of it. England was made of it, +Made of this welding of tribes into one, +This marriage of pilgrims that followed the sun! +Briton and Roman and Saxon were drawn +By winds of this Pentecost, out of the dawn, +Westward, to make her one people of many; +But here is a union more mighty than any. +Know you the soul of this deep exultation? +Know you the word that goes forth to this nation? + + _I am the breath of God. I am His Liberty. +Let there be light over all His creation._ + +Over this Continent, wholly united, +They that were foemen in Europe are plighted. +Here, in a league that our blindness and pride +Doubted and flouted and mocked and denied, +Dawns the Republic, the laughing, gigantic +Europe, united, beyond the Atlantic. +That is America, speaking one tongue, +Acting her epics before they are sung, +Driving her rails from the palms to the snow, +Through States that are greater than Emperors know, +Forty-eight States that are empires in might, +But ruled by the will of one people tonight, +Nerved as one body, with net-works of steel, +Merging their strength in the one Commonweal, +Brooking no poverty, mocking at Mars, +Building their cities to talk with the stars. +Thriving, increasing by myriads again +Till even in numbers old Europe may wane. +How shall a son of the England they fought +Fail to declare the full pride of his thought, +Stand with the scoffers who, year after year, +Bring the Republic their half-hidden sneer? +Now, as in beauty she stands at our side, +Who shall withhold the full gift of his pride? +Not the great England who knows that her son, +Washington, fought her, and Liberty won. +England, whose names like the stars in their station, +Stand at the foot of that world's Declaration,-- +Washington, Livingston, Langdon, she claims them, +It is her right to be proud when she names them, +Proud of that voice in the night as it came, +Tossing the flags of the nations to flame: + + _I am the breath of God. I am His laughter. +I am His Liberty. That is my name._ + +Flags, in themselves, are but rags that are dyed. +Flags, in that wind, are like nations enskied. +See, how they grapple the night as it rolls +And trample it under like triumphing souls. +Over the city that never knew sleep, +Look at the riotous folds as they leap. +Thousands of tri-colors, laughing for France, +Ripple and whisper and thunder and dance; +Thousands of flags for Great Britain aflame +Answer their sisters in Liberty's name. +Belgium is burning in pride overhead. +Poland is near, and her sunrise is red. +Under and over, and fluttering between, +Italy burgeons in red, white, and green. +See, how they climb like adventurous flowers, +Over the tops of the terrible towers.... +_There, in the darkness, the glories are mated. +There, in the darkness, a world is created. +There, in this Pentecost, streaming on high. +There, with a glory of stars in the sky. +There the broad flag of our union and liberty +Rides the proud night-wind and tyrannies die._ + + + + +ON THE WESTERN FRONT +(_1916_) + + +I. + +I found a dreadful acre of the dead, + Marked with the only sign on earth that saves. +The wings of death were hurrying overhead, + The loose earth shook on those unquiet graves; + +For the deep gun-pits, with quick stabs of flame, + Made their own thunders of the sunlit air; +Yet, as I read the crosses, name by name, + _Mort pour la France_, it seemed that peace was there; +Sunlight and peace, a peace too deep for thought, + The peace of tides that underlie our strife, +The peace with which the moving heavens are fraught, + The peace that is our everlasting life. + +The loose earth shook. The very hills were stirred. +The silence of the dead was all I heard. + + +II. + +We, who lie here, have nothing more to pray. + To all your praises we are deaf and blind. +We may not even know if you betray + Our hope, to make earth better for mankind. + +Only our silence, in the night, shall grow + More silent, as the stars grow in the sky; +And, while you deck our graves, you shall not know + How many scornful legions pass you by. + +For we have heard you say (when we were living) + That some small dream of good would "cost too much." +But when the foe struck, we have watched you giving, + And seen you move the mountains with one touch. + +What can be done, we know. But, have no fear! +If you fail now, we shall not see or hear. + + + + +VICTORY + +(Written after the British Service at Trinity Church, New York) + + +I. + +Before those golden altar-lights we stood, + Each one of us remembering his own dead. +A more than earthly beauty seemed to brood + On that hushed throng, and bless each bending head. + +Beautiful on that gold, the deep-sea blue + Of those young seamen, ranked on either side, +Blent with the khaki, while the silence grew + Deep, as for wings--Oh, deep as England's pride. + +Beautiful on that gold, two banners rose-- + Two flags that told how Freedom's realm was made, +One fair with stars of hope, and one that shows + The glorious cross of England's long crusade; + +Two flags, now joined, till that high will be done +Which sent them forth to make the whole world one. + + +II. + +There were no signs of joy that eyes could see. + Our hearts were all three thousand miles away. +There were no trumpets blown for victory. + A million dead were calling us that day. + +And eyes grew blind, at times; but grief was deep, + Deeper than any foes or friends have known; +For Oh, my country's lips are locked to keep + Her bitterest loss her own, and all her own. + +Only the music told what else was dumb, + The funeral march to which our pulses beat; +For all our dead went by, to a muffled drum + We heard the tread of all those phantom feet. + +Yes. There was victory! Deep in every soul. +We heard them marching to their unseen goal. + + +III. + +There, once again, we saw the Cross go by, + The Cross that fell with all those glorious towers, +Burnt black in France or mocked on Calvary, + Till--in one night--the crosses rose like flowers, +Legions of small white crosses, mile on mile, + Pencilled with names that had outfought all pain, +Where every shell-torn acre seems to smile-- + _Who shall destroy the cross that rose again?_ + +Out of the world's Walpurgis, where hope perished, + Where all the forms of faith in ruin fell, +Where every sign of heaven that earth had cherished + Shrivelled among the lava-floods of hell, + +The eternal Cross that conquers might with right +Rose like a star to lead us through the night. + + +IV. + +How shall the world remember? Men forget: + Our dead are all too many even for Fame! +Man's justice kneels to kings, and pays no debt + To those who never courted her acclaim. + +Cheat not your heart with promises to pay + For gifts beyond all price so freely given. +Where is the heart so rich that it can say + To those who mourn, "I will restore your heaven"? + +But these, with their own hands, laid up their treasure + Where never an emperor can break in and steal, +Treasure for those that loved them past all measure + In those high griefs that earth can never heal, + +Proud griefs, that walk on earth, yet gaze above, +Knowing that sorrow is but remembered love. + + +V. + +Love that still holds us with immortal power, + Yet cannot lift us to His realm of light; +Love that still shows us heaven for one brief hour + Only to daunt the heart with that sheer height; + +Love that is made of loveliness entire + In form and thought and act; and still must shame us +Because we ever acknowledge and aspire, + And yet let slip the shining hands that claim us. + +O, if this Love might cloak with rags His glory, + Laugh, eat and drink, and dwell with suffering men, +Sit with us at our hearth, and hear our story, + This world--we thought--might be transfigured then. + +"But Oh," Love answered, with swift human tears, +"All these things have I done, these many years." + + +VI. + +"This day," Love said, "if ye will hear my voice; + I mount and sing with birds in all your skies. +I am the soul that calls you to rejoice. + And every wayside flower is my disguise. + +"Look closely. Are the wings too wide for pity? + Look closely. Do these tender hues betray? +How often have I sought my Holy City? + How often have ye turned your hearts away? + +"Is there not healing in the beauty I bring you? + Am I not whispering in green leaves and rain, +Singing in all that woods and seas can sing you? + Look, once, on Love, and earth is heaven again. + +"O, did your Spring but once a century waken, +The heaven of heavens for this would be forsaken." + + +VII. + +There's but one gift that all our dead desire, + One gift that men can give, and that's a dream, +Unless we, too, can burn with that same fire + Of sacrifice; die to the things that seem; + +Die to the little hatreds; die to greed; + Die to the old ignoble selves we knew; +Die to the base contempts of sect and creed, + And rise again, like these, with souls as true. + +Nay (since these died before their task was finished) + Attempt new heights, bring even their dreams to birth:-- +Build us that better world, Oh, not diminished + By one true splendor that they planned on earth. + +And that's not done by sword, or tongue, or pen, +There's but one way. God make us better men. + + + + + + + + +AMERICAN POEMS 1912-1917 + + + + +REPUBLIC AND MOTHERLAND +(_1912_) + +(Written after entering New York Harbor at Daybreak) + + +Up the vast harbor with the morning sun + The ship swept in from sea; +Gigantic towers arose, the night was done, + And--there stood Liberty. + +Silent, the great torch lifted in one hand, + The dawn in her proud eyes, +Silent, for all the shouts that vex her land, + Silent, hailing the skies; + +Hailing that mightier Kingdom of the Blest + Our seamen sought of old, +The dream that lured the nations through the West, + The city of sunset gold. + +Saxon and Norman in one wedded soul + Shook out one flag like fire; +But westward, westward, moved the gleaming goal, + Westward, the vast desire. + +Westward and ever westward ran the call, + They followed the pilgrim sun, +Seeking that land which should enfold them all, + And weld all hearts in one. + +Here on this mightier continent apart, + Here on these rolling plains, +Swells the first throb of that immortal heart, + The pulse of those huge veins. + +Still, at these towers, our Old-World cities jest, + And neither hear nor see +The brood of gods at that gigantic breast, + The conquering race to be. + +Chosen from many--for no sluggard soul + Confronts that night of stars-- +The trumpets of the last Republic roll + Far off, an end to wars; + +An end, an end to that wild blood-red age, + That made and keeps us blind; +A mightier realm shall be her heritage, + The kingdom of mankind. + +Chosen from many nations, and made one; + But first, O Mother, from thee, +When, following, following on that Pilgrim sun, + Thy Mayflower crossed the sea. + + + + +THE UNION +(_1917_) + + +You that have gathered together the sons of all races, + And welded them into one, +Lifting the torch of your Freedom on hungering faces + That sailed to the setting sun; + +You that have made of mankind in your own proud regions + The music of man to be, +How should the old earth sing of you, now, as your legions + Rise to set all men free? + +How should the singer that knew the proud vision and loved it, + In the days when not all men knew, +Gaze through his tears, on the light, now the world has approved it; + Or dream, when the dream comes true? + +How should he sing when the Spirit of Freedom in thunder + Speaks, and the wine-press is red; +And the sea-winds are loud with the chains that are broken asunder + And nations that rise from the dead? + +Flag of the sky, proud flag of that wide communion, + Too mighty for thought to scan; +Flag of the many in one, and that last world-union + That kingdom of God in man; + +Ours was a dream, in the night, of that last federation, + But yours is the glory unfurled-- +The marshalled nations and stars that shall make one nation + One singing star of the world. + + + + +GHOSTS OF THE NEW WORLD + +"_There are no ghosts in America._" + + +There are no ghosts, you say, + To haunt her blaze of light; +No shadows in her day, + No phantoms in her night. +Columbus' tattered sail +Has passed beyond our hail. + +What? On that magic coast, + Where Raleigh fought with fate, +Or where that Devon ghost + Unbarred the Golden Gate, +No dark, strange, ear-ringed men +Beat in from sea again? + +No ghosts in Salem town + With silver buckled shoon? +No lovely witch to drown + Or burn beneath the moon? +Not even a whiff of tea, +On Boston's glimmering quay. + +O, ghostly Spanish walls, + Where brown Franciscans glide, +Is there no voice that calls + Across the Great Divide, +To pilgrims on their way +Along the Santa Fe? + +Then let your Pullman cars + Go roaring to the West, +Till, watched by lonelier stars, + The cactus lifts its crest. +There, on that painted plain, +One ghost will rise again. + +Majestic and forlorn, + Wreck of a dying race, +The Red Man, half in scorn, + Shall raise his haughty face, +Inscrutable as the sky, +To watch our ghosts go by. + +What? Is earth dreaming still? + Shall not the night disgorge +The ghosts of Bunker Hill + The ghosts of Valley Forge, +Or, England's mightiest son, +The ghost of Washington? + +No ghosts where Lincoln fell? + No ghosts for seeing eyes? +I know an old cracked bell + Shall make ten million rise +When one immortal ghost +Calls to the slumbering host. + + + + +THE OLD MEETING HOUSE + +(_New Jersey, 1918_) + + +Its quiet graves were made for peace till Gabriel blows his horn. + Those wise old elms could hear no cry + Of all that distant agony-- +Only the red-winged blackbird, and the rustle of thick ripe corn. + +The blue jay, perched upon that bronze, with bright unweeting eyes, + Could never read the names that signed + The noblest charter of mankind; +But all of them were names we knew beneath our English skies. + +And on the low gray headstones, with their crumbling weather-stains, + --Though cardinal birds, like drops of blood, + Flickered across the haunted wood,-- +The names you'd see were names that woke like flowers in English lanes. + +John Applegate was fast asleep; and Temperance Olden, too. + And David Worth had quite forgot + If Hannah's lips were red or not; +And Prudence veiled her eyes at last, as Prudence ought to do. + +And when, across that patch of heaven, that small blue leaf-edged space + At times, a droning airplane went, + No flicker of astonishment +Could lift the heavy eyelids on one gossip's up-turned face. + +For William Speakman could not tell--so thick the grasses grow-- + If that strange humming in the sky + Meant that the Judgment Day were nigh, +Or if 'twas but the summer bees that blundered to and fro. + +And then, across the breathless wood, a Bell began to sound, + The only Bell that wakes the dead, + And Stockton Signer raised his head, +And called to all the deacons in the ancient burial-ground. + +"The Bell, the Bell is ringing! Give me back my rusty sword. + Though I thought the wars were done, + Though I thought our peace was won, +Yet I signed the Declaration, and the dead must keep their word. + +"There's only one great ghost I know could make that 'larum ring. + It's the captain that we knew + In the ancient buff and blue, +It's our Englishman, George Washington, who fought the German king!" + +So the sunset saw them mustering beneath their brooding boughs, + Ancient shadows of our sires, + Kindling with the ancient fires, +While the old cracked Bell to southward shook the ancient meeting house. + + + + +PRINCETON +(_1917_) + +The first four lines of this poem were written for inscription on the +first joint memorial to the American and British soldiers who fell in +the Revolutionary War. This memorial was recently dedicated at +Princeton. + + +I. + +_Here Freedom stood, by slaughtered friend and foe, + And ere the wrath paled or that sunset died, +Looked through the ages: then, with eyes aglow, + Laid them, to wait that future, side by side._ + + +II. + +Now lamp-lit gardens in the blue dusk shine + Through dog-wood red and white, +And round the gray quadrangles, line by line, + The windows fill with light, +Where Princeton calls to Magdalen, tower to tower, + Twin lanthorns of the law, +And those cream-white magnolia boughs embower + The halls of old Nassau. + + +III. + +The dark bronze tigers crouch on either side + Where red-coats used to pass, +And round the bird-loved house where Mercer died + And violets dusk the grass, +By Stony Brook that ran so red of old, + But sings of friendship now, +To feed the old enemy's harvest fifty-fold + The green earth takes the plough. + + +IV. + +Through this May night if one great ghost should stray + With deep remembering eyes, +Where that old meadow of battle smiles away + Its blood-stained memories, +If Washington should walk, where friend and foe + Sleep and forget the past, +Be sure his unquenched heart would leap to know + Their hosts are joined at last. + + +V. + +Be sure he walks, in shadowy buff and blue, + Where those dim lilacs wave, +He bends his head to bless, as dreams come true, + The promise of that grave, +Then with a vaster hope than thought can scan, + Touching his ancient sword, +Prays for that mightier realm of God in man, + "Hasten Thy Kingdom, Lord." + + +VI. + +"Land of new hope, land of the singing stars, + Type of the world to be, +The vision of a world set free from wars + Takes life, takes form, from thee, +Where all the jarring nations of this earth, + Beneath the all-blessing sun, +Bring the new music of mankind to birth, + And make the whole world one." + + +VII. + +And those old comrades rise around him there, + Old foemen, side by side, +With eyes like stars upon the brave night-air, + And young as when they died, +To hear your bells, O beautiful Princeton towers, + Ring for the world's release. +They see you, piercing like gray swords through flowers, + And smile from hearts at peace. + + + + +BEETHOVEN IN CENTRAL PARK + +(After a glimpse of a certain monument in New York, during the +Victory Celebration) + + +The thousand-windowed towers were all alight. + Throngs of all nations filled that glittering way; +And, rich with dreams of the approaching day, +Flags of all nations trampled down the night. +No clouds, at sunset, die in airs as bright. + No clouds, at dawn, awake in winds as gay; + For Freedom rose in that august array, +Crowned with the stars and weaponed for the right. + +Then, in a place of whispering leaves and gloom, + I saw, too dark, too dumb for bronze or stone, + One tragic head that bowed against the sky; +O, in a hush too deep for any tomb + I saw Beethoven, dreadfully alone + With his own grief, and his own majesty. + + + + + + + + +SONGS OF THE TRAWLERS AND SEA POEMS + + +THE PEOPLE'S FLEET + + +Out of her darkened fishing-ports they go, + A fleet of little ships, whose every name-- +_Daffodil_, _Sea-lark_, _Rose_ and _Surf_ and _Snow_, + Burns in this blackness like an altar-flame; + +Out of her past they sail, three thousand strong, + The people's fleet that never knew its worth, +And every name is a broken phrase of song + To some remembered loveliness on earth. + +There's _Barbara Cowie_, _Comely Bank_ and _May_, + Christened, at home, in worlds of dawn and dew: +There's _Ruth_ and _Kindly Light_ and _Robin Gray_ + With _Mizpah_. (May that simple prayer come true!) + +Out of old England's inmost heart they sail, + A fleet of memories that can never fail. + + + + +KILMENY + + +Dark, dark lay the drifters against the red West, + As they shot their long meshes of steel overside; +And the oily green waters were rocking to rest + When Kilmeny went out, at the turn of the tide; +And nobody knew where that lassie would roam, + For the magic that called her was tapping unseen. +It was well-nigh a week ere Kilmeny came home, + And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been. + +She'd a gun at her bow that was Newcastle's best, + And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde, +And a secret her skipper had never confessed, + Not even at dawn, to his newly-wed bride; +And a wireless that whispered above, like a gnome, + The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin.... +O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home; + But nobody knew where Kilmeny had been. + +It was dark when Kilmeny came home from her quest + With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died; +But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast, + And _Well done Kilmeny!_ the Admiral cried. + +Now, at sixty-four fathom a conger may come + And nose at the bones of a drowned submarine; +But--late in the evening Kilmeny came home, + And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been. + +There's a wandering shadow that stares at the foam, + Though they sing all the night to old England, their queen. +Late, late in the evening, Kilmeny came home; + And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been. + + + + +CAP'N STORM-ALONG + + +They are buffeting out in the bitter grey weather, + _Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!_ +_Sea-lark_ singing to _Golden Feather_, + And burly blue waters all swelling aroun'. +There's _Thunderstone_ butting ahead as they wallow, + With death in the mesh of their deep-sea trawl; +There's _Night-Hawk_ swooping by wild _Sea-swallow_; + And old Cap'n Storm-along leading 'em all. + + _Bashing the seas to a welter of white, + Look at the fleet that he leads to the fight. + O, they're dancing like witches to open the ball; + And old Cap'n Storm-along's lord of 'em all._ + +Now, where have you seen such a bully old sailor? + His eyes are as blue as the scarf at his throat; +And he rolls on the bridge of his broad-beamed whaler, + In yellow sou'wester and oil-skin coat. +In trawler and drifter, in dinghy and dory, + Wherever he signals, they leap to his call; +They batter the seas to a lather of glory, + With old Cap'n Storm-along leading 'em all. + + _You'll find he's from Devon, the sailor I mean, + Look at his whaler now, shipping it green. + O, Fritz and his "U" boat must crab it and crawl + When old Cap'n Storm-along sails to the ball._ + +Ay, there is the skipper that knows how to scare 'em. + _Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!_ +Look at the sea-wives he keeps in his harem, + Wicked young merry-maids, buxom and brown: +There's _Rosalind_, the sea-witch, and _Gipsy_ so lissom, + All dancing like ducks in the teeth of the squall, +With a bright eye for Huns, and a Hotchkiss to kiss 'em; + For old Cap'n Storm-along's lord of 'em all. + + _Look at him, battering darkness to light! + Look at the fleet that he leads to the fight! + O, hearts that are mighty, in ships that are small, + Your old Cap'n Storm-along's lord of us all._ + + + + +THE BIG BLACK TRAWLER + + +The very best ship that ever I knew, + --_Ah-way O, to me O_-- +Was a big black trawler with a deep-sea crew-- + _Sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run._ + +There was one old devil with a broken nose + --_Ah-way O, to me O_-- +He was four score years, as I suppose-- + _But, sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run._ + +We was wrecked last March, in a Polar storm + --_Ah-way O, to me O_-- +And we asked the old cripple if his feet was warm-- + _Sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run._ + +And the old, old devil (he was ninety at the most) + --_Ah-way O, to me O_-- +Roars, "Ay, warm as a lickle piece of toast"-- + _So sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run._ + +"For I soaked my sea-boots and my dungarees + --_Ah-way O, to me O_-- +In the good salt water that the Lord don't freeze"-- + _Oh, sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run._ + + + + +NAMESAKES + + +But where's the brown drifter that went out alone? + --_Roll and go, and fare you well_-- +Was her name Peggy Nutten? That name is my own. + _Fare you well, my sailor._ +They sang in the dark, "Let her go! Let her go!" +And she sailed to the West, where the broad waters flow; +And the others come back, but ... the bitter winds blow. + _Ah, fare you well, my sailor._ + +The women, at evening, they wave and they cheer. + --_Roll and go, and fare you well_-- +They're waiting to welcome their lads at the pier. + _Fare you well, my sailor._ +They're all coming home in the twilight below; +But there's one little boat.... Let her go! Let her go! +She carried my heart, and a heart for the foe. + _Ah, fare you well, my sailor._ + +The _Nell_ and the _Maggie_, the _Ruth_ and the _Joan_, + --_Roll and go, and fare you well_-- +They come to their namesakes, and leave me alone. + _Fare you well, my sailor._ +And names are kep' dark, for the spies mustn't know; +But they'll look in my face, an' I think it will show; +Peggy Nutten's my name. Let her go! let her go! + _Ah, fare you well, my sailor._ + + + + +WIRELESS + + +Now to those who search the deep, + _Gleam of Hope_ and _Kindly Light_, +Once, before you turn to sleep, + Breathe a message through the night. +Never doubt that they'll receive it. +Send it, once, and you'll believe it. + +Wrecks that burn against the stars, + Decks where death is wallowing green, +Snare the breath among their spars, + Hear the flickering threads between, +Quick, through all the storms that blind them, +Quick with words that rush to find them. + +Think you these aërial wires + Whisper more than spirits may? +Think you that our strong desires + Touch no distance when we pray? +Think you that no wings are flying +'Twixt the living and the dying? + +Inland, here, upon your knees, + You shall breathe from urgent lips, +Round the ships that guard your seas, + Fleet on fleet of angel ships; +Yea, the guarded may so bless them +That no terrors can distress them. + +You shall guide the darkling prow, + Kneeling thus--and far inland-- +You shall touch the storm-beat brow + Gently as a spirit-hand. +Even a blindfold prayer may speed them, +And a little child may lead them. + + + + +FISHERS OF MEN + + +Long, long ago He said, +He who could wake the dead, + And walk upon the sea-- + "_Come, follow Me._ + +"Leave your brown nets and bring +Only your hearts to sing, + Only your souls to pray, + Rise, come away. + +"Shake out your spirit-sails, +And brave those wilder gales, + And I will make you then + Fishers of men." + +Was this, then, what He meant? +Was this His high intent, + After two thousand years + Of blood and tears? + +God help us, if we fight +For right, and not for might. + God help us if we seek + To shield the weak. + +Then, though His heaven be far +From this blind welter of war, + He'll bless us, on the sea + From Calvary. + + + + +AN OPEN BOAT + + +O what is that whimpering there in the darkness? + _"Let him lie in my arms. He is breathing, I know. +Look. I'll wrap all my hair round his neck."--"The sea's rising, + The boat must be lightened. He's dead. He must go."_ + +See--quick--by that flash, where the bitter foam tosses, + The cloud of white faces, in the black open boat, +And the wild pleading woman that clasps her dead lover + And wraps her loose hair round his breast and his throat. + +_"Come, lady, he's dead." "No, I feel his heart beating. + He's living, I know. But he's numbed with the cold. +See, I'm wrapping my hair all around him to warm him"---- + --"No. We can't keep the dead, dear. Come, loosen your hold._ + +_"Come. Loosen your fingers."--"O God, let me keep him!"_ + O, hide it, black night! Let the winds have their way! +For there are no voices or ghosts from that darkness, + To fret the bare seas at the breaking of day. + + + + +PEACE IN A PALACE + + +"You were weeping in the night," said the Emperor, + "Weeping in your sleep, I am told." +"It was nothing but a dream," said the Empress; + But her face grew gray and old. +"You thought you saw our German God defeated?" + "Oh, no!" she said. "I saw no lightnings fall. +I dreamed of a whirlpool of green water, + Where something had gone down. That was all. + +_"All but the whimper of the sea gulls flying, + Endlessly round and round, +Waiting for the faces, the faces from the darkness, + The dreadful rising faces of the drowned._ + +"It was nothing but a dream," said the Empress. + "I thought I was walking on the sea; +And the foam rushed up in a wild smother, + And a crowd of little faces looked at me. + +They were drowning! They were drowning," said the Empress, + "And they stretched their feeble arms to the sky; +But the worst was--they mistook me for their mother, + And cried as my children used to cry. + +_"Nothing but a whimper of the sea-gulls flying, + Endlessly round and round, +With the cruel yellow beaks that were waiting for the faces, + The little floating faces of the drowned."_ + +"It was nothing but a dream," said the Emperor, + "So why should you weep, dear, eh?"-- +"Oh, I saw the red letters on a life belt + That the green sea washed my way!"-- +"What were they?" said the Emperor. "What were they?"-- + "Some of them were hidden," said the Empress, + "But I plainly saw the L and the U!" +"In God's name, stop!" said the Emperor. + "You told me that it was not true! + +_"Told me that you dreamed of the sea gulls flying, + Endlessly round and round, +Waiting for the faces, and the eyes in the faces, + The eyes of the children that we drowned._ + +"Kiss me and forget it," said the Emperor, + "Dry your tears on the tassel of my sword. +I am going to offer peace to my people, + And abdicate, perhaps, as overlord. +I shall now take up My Cross as Count of Prussia-- + Which is not a heavy burden, you'll agree. +Why, before the twenty million dead are rotten + There'll be yachting days again for you and me. + Cheer up! +It would mean a rope for anyone but Me." + +_"Oh, take care!" said the Empress. "They are flying, + Endlessly round and round. +They have finished with the faces, the dreadful little faces, + The little eyeless faces of the drowned."_ + + + + +THE VINDICTIVE + + +How should we praise those lads of the old _Vindictive_ + Who looked Death straight in the eyes, + Till his gaze fell, + In those red gates of hell? + +England, in her proud history, proudly enrolls them, + And the deep night in her remembering skies + With purer glory + Shall blazon their grim story. + +There were no throngs to applaud that hushed adventure. + They were one to a thousand on that fierce emprise. + The shores they sought + Were armoured, past all thought. + +O, they knew fear, be assured, as the brave must know it, + With youth and its happiness bidding their last good-byes; + Till thoughts, more dear + Than life, cast out all fear. + + For if, as we think, they remembered the brown-roofed homesteads, +And the scent of the hawthorn hedges when daylight dies, + Old happy places, + Young eyes and fading faces; + +One dream was dearer that night than the best of their boyhood, + One hope more radiant than any their hearts could prize. + The touch of your hand, + The light of your face, England! + +So, age to age shall tell how they sailed through the darkness + Where, under those high, austere, implacable stars, + Not one in ten + Might look for a dawn again. + +They saw the ferry-boats, _Iris_ and _Daffodil_, creeping + Darkly as clouds to the shimmering mine-strewn bars, + Flash into light! + Then thunder reddened the night. + +The wild white swords of the search-lights blinded and stabbed them, + The sharp black shadows fought in fantastic wars. + Black waves leapt whitening, + Red decks were washed with lightning. + +But, under the twelve-inch guns of the black land-batteries + The hacked bright hulk, in a glory of crackling spars, + Moved to her goal + Like an immortal soul; + +That, while the raw rent flesh in a furnace is tortured, + Reigns by a law no agony ever can shake, + And shines in power + Above all shocks of the hour. + +O, there, while the decks ran blood, and the star-shells lightened + The old broken ship that the enemy never could break, + Swept through the fire + And grappled her heart's desire. + +There, on a wreck that blazed with the soul of England, + The lads that died in the dark for England's sake + Knew, as they died, + Nelson was at their side; + +Nelson, and all the ghostly fleets of his island, + Fighting beside them there, and the soul of Drake!-- + Dreams, as we knew, + Till these lads made them true. + +_How should we praise you, lads of the old Vindictive, + Who looked death straight in the eyes, + Till his gaze fell + In those red gates of hell?_ + + + + + + + + +MISCELLANEOUS POEMS + + +THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPS OF CHELTENHAM + + +When hawthorn buds are creaming white, + And the red foolscap all stuck with may, +Then lasses walk with eyes alight, + And it's chimney-sweepers' dancing day. + +For the chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham town, + Sooty of face as a swallow of wing, +Come whistling, singing, dancing down + With white teeth flashing as they sing. + +And Jack-in-the green, by a clown in blue, + Walks like a two-legged bush of may, +With the little wee lads that wriggled up the flue + Ere Cheltenham town cried "dancing day." + +For brooms were short and the chimneys tall, + And the gipsies caught 'em these blackbirds cheap, +So Cheltenham bought them, spry and small, + And shoved them up in the dark to sweep. + +For Cheltenham town was cruel of old, + But she has been gathering garlands gay, +And the little wee lads are in green and gold, + For it's chimney-sweepers' dancing day. + +And red as a rose, and blue as the sky, + With teeth as white as their faces are black, +The master-sweeps go dancing by, + With a gridiron painted on every back. + +But when they are ranged in the market-place, + The clown's wife comes with an iron spoon, +And cozens a penny for her sweet face + To keep their golden throats in tune. + +Then, hushing the riot of that mad throng, + And sweet as the voice of a long-dead May, +A wandering pedlar lifts 'em a song, + Of chimney-sweepers' dancing day; + +And the sooty faces, they try to recall.... + As they gather around in their spell-struck rings.... +But nobody knows that singer at all + Or the curious old-time air he sings:-- + +Why are you dancing, O chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham, + And where did you win you these may-coats so fine; +For some are red as roses, and some are gold as daffodils, + But who, ah, who remembers, now, a little lad of mine? + +Lady, we are dancing, as we danced in old England + When the may was more than may, very long ago: +As for our may-coats, it was your white hands, lady, + Filled our sooty hearts and minds with blossom, white as snow. + +It was a beautiful face we saw, wandering through Cheltenham. + It was a beautiful song we heard, very far away, +Weeping for a little lad stolen by the gipsies, + Broke our hearts and filled 'em with the glory of the may. + +Many a little lad had we, chirruping in the chimney-tops, + Twirling out a sooty broom, a blot against the blue. +Ah, but when we called to him, and when he saw and ran to her, + All our winter ended, and our world was made anew. + +Then she gave us may-coats of gold and green and crimson, + Then, with a long garland, she led our hearts away, +Whispering, "Remember, though the boughs forget the hawthorn, + Yet shall I return to you, that was your lady May."-- + +But why are you dancing now, O chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham, + And why are you singing of a May that is fled?-- +O, there's music to be born, though we pluck the old fiddle-strings, + And a world's May awaking where the fields lay dead. + +And we dance, dance, dreaming of a lady most beautiful + That shall walk the green valleys of this dark earth one day, +And call to us gently, "O chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham, + I am looking for my children. Awake, and come away." + + + + +TO A SUCCESSFUL MAN + +(_What the Ghosts Said_) + + +And after all the labour and the pains, + After the heaping up of gold on gold, +After success that locked your feet in chains, + And left you with a heart so tired and old, + +Strange--is it not?--to find your chief desire + Is what you might have had for nothing then-- +The face of love beside a cottage fire + And friendly laughter with your fellow-men? + +You were so rich when fools esteemed you poor. + You ruled a field that kings could never buy; +The glory of the sea was at your door; + And all those quiet stars were in your sky. + +The nook of ferns below the breathless wood + Where one poor book could unlock Paradise ... +What will you give us now for that lost good? + Better forget. You cannot pay the price. + +You left them for the fame in which you trust. + But youth, and hope--did you forsake them, too? +Courage! When dust at length returns to dust, + In your last dreams they may come back to you. + + + + +THE OLD GENTLEMAN WITH THE AMBER SNUFF-BOX + + +_The old gentleman, tapping his amber snuff-box +(A heart-shaped snuff-box with a golden clasp) +Stared at the dying fire. "I'd like them all +To understand, when I am gone," he muttered. +"But how to do it delicately! I can't +Apologize. I'll hint at it ... in verse; +And, to be sure that Rosalind reads it through, +I'll make it an appendix to my will!" +--Still cynical, you see. He couldn't help it. +He had seen much, felt much. He snapped the snuff box, +Shook his white periwig, trimmed a long quill pen, +And then began to write, most carefully, +These couplets, in the old heroic style:--_ + +O, had I known in boyhood, only known +The few sad truths that time has made my own, +I had not lost the best that youth can give, +Nay, life itself, in learning how to live. +This laboring heart would not be tired so soon, +This jaded blood would jog to a livelier tune: +And some few friends, could I begin again, +Should know more happiness, and much less pain. +I should not wound in ignorance, nor turn +In foolish pride from those for whom I yearn. +I should have kept nigh half the friends I've lost, +And held for dearest those I wronged the most. + +Yet, when I see more cunning men evade +With colder tact, the blunders that I made; +Sometimes I wonder if the better part +Is not still mine, who lacked their subtle art. +For I have conned my book in harsher schools, +And learned from struggling what they worked by rules; +Learned--with some pain--more quickly to forgive +My fellow-blunderers, while they learn to live; +Learned--with some tears--to keep a steadfast mind, +And think more kindly of my own poor kind. + +_He read the verses through, shaking his wig. +"Perhaps ... perhaps"--he whispered to himself, +"I'd better leave it to the will of God. +They might upset my own. I do not think +They'd understand. Jocelyn might, perhaps; +And Dick, if only they were left alone. +But Rosalind never; nor that nephew of mine, +The witty politician. No. No. No. +They'd say my mind was wandering, I'm afraid." +So, with a frozen face, reluctantly, +He tossed his verses into the dying fire, +And watched the sparks fly upward. + There, at dawn, +They found him, cold and stiff by the cold hearth, +His amber snuff-box in his ivory hand. +"You see," they said, "he never needed friends. +He had that curious antique frozen way. +He had no heart--only an amber snuff-box. +He died quite happily, taking a pinch of snuff." + +His nephew, that engaging politician, +Inherited the snuff-box, and remarked +His epitaph should be "Snuffed Out." The clubs +Laughed, and the statesman's reputation grew._ + + + + +WHAT GRANDFATHER SAID + +(_An epistle from a narrow-minded old gentleman to a young artist of +superior intellect and intense realism._) + + +Your thoughts are for the poor and weak? + Ah, no, the picturesque's your passion! +Your tongue is always in your cheek + At poverty that's not in fashion. + +You like a ploughman's rugged face, + Or painted eyes in Piccadilly; +But bowler hats are commonplace, + And thread-bare tradesmen simply silly. + +The clerk that sings "God save the King," + And still believes his Tory paper,-- +You hate the anæmic fool? I thought + You loved the weak! Was that all vapour? + +Ah, when you sneer, dear democrat, + At such a shiny-trousered Tory +Because he doffs his poor old hat + To what he thinks his country's glory, + +To you it's just a coloured rag. + You hate the "patriots" that bawl so. +Well, my Ulysses, there's a flag + That lifts men in Republics also. + +No doubt his thoughts are cruder far; + And, where those linen folds are shaking, +Perhaps he sees a kind of star + Because his eyes are tired and aching. + +Banal enough! Banal as truth! + But I'm not thinking of his banners. +I'm thinking of his pinched white youth + And your disgusting "new art" manners. + +His meek submission stirs your hate? + Better, my lad, if you're so fervent, +Turn your cold steel against the State + Instead of sneering at the servant. + +He does his job. He draws his pay. + You sneer, and dine with those that pay him; +And then you write a snobbish play + For democrats, in which you play him. + +Ah, yes, you like simplicity + That sucks its cheeks to make the dimple. +But this domestic bourgeoisie + You hate,--because it's all too simple. + +You hate the hearth, the wife, the child, + You hate the heavens that bend above them. +Your simple folk must all run wild + Like jungle-beasts before you love them. + +You own a house in Cheyne Walk, + (You say it costs three thousand fully) +Where subtle snobs can talk and talk + And play the intellectual bully. + +Yes. I say "snobs." Are names alone + Free from all change? Your word "Victorian" +Could bite and sting in ninety one + But now--it's deader than the saurian. + +You think I live in yesterday, + Because I think your way the wrong one; +But I have hewed and ploughed my way, + And--unlike yours--it's been a long one. + +I let Victoria toll her bell, + And went with Strindberg for a ride, sir. +I've fought through your own day as well, + And come out on the other side, sir,-- + +The further side, the morning side, + I read free verse (the Psalms) on Sunday. +But I've decided (you'll decide) + That there is room for song on Monday. + +I've seen the new snob on his way, + The intellectual snob I mean, sir, +The artist snob, in book and play, + Kicking his mother round the scene, sir. + +I've heard the Tories talk like fools; + And the rich fool that apes the Tory. +I've seen the shopmen break your rules + And die like Christ, in Christ's own glory. + +But, as for you, that liberal sneer + Reminds me of the poor old Kaiser. +He was a "socialist," my dear. + Well, I'm your grandson. You'll grow wiser. + + + + +MEMORIES OF THE PACIFIC COAST + + +I know a land, I, too, + Where warm keen incense on the sea-wind blows, +And all the winter long the skies are blue, + And the brown deserts blossom with the rose. + +Deserts of all delight, + Cactus and palm and earth of thirsty gold, +Dark purple blooms round eaves of sun-washed white, + And that Hesperian fruit men sought of old. + +O, to be wandering there, + Under the palm-trees, on that sunset shore, +Where the waves break in song, and the bright air + Is crystal clean; and peace is ours, once more. + +There Beauty dwells, + Beauty, re-born in whiteness from the foam; +And Youth returns with all its magic spells, + And the heart finds its long-forgotten home,-- + +Home--home! Where is that land? + For, when I dream it found, the old hungering cry +Aches in the soul, drives me from all I planned, + And sets my sail to seek another sky. + + + + +NIPPON + + +Last night, I dreamed of Nippon.... + I saw a cloud of white +Drifting before the sunset + On seas of opal light. + +Beyond the wide Pacific + I saw its mounded snow +Miraculously changing + In that deep evening glow, + +To rosy rifts and hillocks, + To orchards that I knew, +To snows of peach and cherry, + And feathers of bamboo. + +I saw, on twisted bridges, + In blue and crimson gleams, +The lanterns of the fishers, + Along the brook of dreams. + +I saw the wreaths of incense + Like little ghosts arise, +From temples under Fuji, + From Fuji to the skies. + +I saw that fairy mountain.... + I watched it form and fade. +No doubt the gods were singing, + When Nippon isle was made. + + + + +THE HUMMING BIRDS + + +Green wing and ruby throat, + What shining spell, what exquisite sorcery, +Lured you to float + And fight with bees round this one flowering tree? + +Petulant imps of light, + What whisper or gleam or elfin-wild perfumes +Thrilled through the night + And drew you to this hive of rosy bloom? + +One tree, and one alone, + Of all that load this magic air with spice, +Claims for its own + Your brave migration out of Paradise; + +Claims you, and guides you, too, + Three thousand miles across the summer's waste +Of blooms ye knew + Less finely fit for your ethereal taste. + +To poets' youthful hearts, + Even so the quivering April thoughts will fly,-- +Those irised darts, + Those winged and tiny denizens of the sky. + +Through beaks as needle-fine, + They suck a redder honey than bees know. +Unearthly wine + Sleeps in this bloom; and, when it falls, they go. + + + + +LINES FOR A SUN-DIAL + + +With shadowy pen I write, + Till time be done, + Good news of some strange light, +Some far off sun. + + + + +THE REALMS OF GOLD + +(Written after hearing a line of Keats repeated by a passing stranger +under the palms of Southern California.) + + +Under the palms of San Diego + Where gold-skinned Mexicans loll at ease, +And the red half-moons of their black-pipped melons + Drop from their hands in the sunset seas, +And an incense, out of the old brown missions, + Blows through the orange trees; + +I wished that a poet who died in Europe + Had found his way to this rose-red West; +That Keats had walked by the wide Pacific + And cradled his head on its healing breast, +And made new songs of the sun-burned sea-folk, + New poems, perhaps his best. + +I thought of him, under the ripe pomegranates + At the desert's edge, where the grape-vines grow, +In a sun-kissed ranch between grey-green sage-brush + And amethyst mountains, peaked with snow, +Or watching the lights of the City of Angels + Glitter like stars below. + +He should walk, at dawn, by the lemon orchards, + And breathe at ease in that dry bright air; +And the Spanish bells in their crumbling cloisters + Of brown adobe would sing to him there; +And the old Franciscans would bring him their baskets + Of apple and olive and pear. + +And the mandolins, in the deep blue twilight, + Under that palm with the lion's mane, +Would pluck, once more, at his golden heart-strings, + And tell him the old sea-tales of Spain; +And there should the daughters of Hesperus teach him + Their mystical songs again. + +Then, the dusk blew sweet over seas of peach-bloom; + The moon sailed white in the cloudless blue; +The tree-toads purred, and the crickets chirruped; + And better than anything dreamed came true; +For, under the murmuring palms, a shadow + Passed, with the eyes I knew; + +A shadow, perhaps, of the tall green fountains + That rustled their fronds on that glittering sky, +A hungering shadow, a lean dark shadow, + A dreaming shadow that drifted by; +But I heard him whisper the strange dark music + That found it so "rich to die." + +And the murmuring palms of San Diego + Shook with stars as he passed beneath. +The Paradise palms, and the wild white orchards, + The night, and its roses, were all one breath, +Bearing the song of a nightingale seaward, + A song that had out-soared death. + + + + +COMPENSATIONS + + +Not with a flash that rends the blue + Shall fall the avenging sword. +Gently as the evening dew + Descends the mighty Lord. + +His dreadful balances are made + To move with moon and tide; +Yet shall not mercy be afraid + Nor justice be denied. + +The dreams that seemed to waste away, + The kindliness forgot, +Were singing in your heart today + Although you knew them not. + +The sun shall not forget his road, + Nor the high stars their rhyme, +The traveller with the heavier load + Has one less hill to climb. + +And, though a darker shadow fall + On every struggling age, +How shall it be if, after all, + He share our pilgrimage? + +The end we mourn is not the end. + The dust has nimble wings. +But truth and beauty have a friend + At the deep heart of things. + +He will not speak? What friend belies + His love with idle breath? +We read it in each others' eyes, + And ask no more in death. + + + + +DEAD MAN'S MORRICE + + +There came a crowder to the Mermaid Inn, + One dark May night, +Fiddling a tune that quelled our motley din, + With quaint delight, +It haunts me yet, as old lost airs will do, + A phantom strain: +_Look for me once, lest I should look for you, + And look in vain._ + +In that old wood, where ghosts of lovers walk, + At fall of day, +Gleaning such fragments of their ancient talk + As poor ghosts may, +From leaves that brushed their faces, wet with dew, + Or tears, or rain,... +_Look for me once, lest I should look for you, + And look in vain._ + +Have we not seen them--pale forgotten shades + That do return, +Groping for those dim paths, those fragrant glades, + Those nooks of fern, +Only to find that, of the may they knew, + No wraiths remain; +_Yet they still look, as I should look for you, + And look in vain._ + +They see those happier ghosts that waned away-- + Whither, who knows?-- +Ghosts that come back with music and the may, + And Spring's first rose, +Lover and lass, to sing the old burden through, + Stave and refrain: +_Look for me once, lest I should look for you, + And look in vain._ + +So, after death, if in that starless deep, + I lose your eyes, +I'll haunt familiar places. I'll not keep + Tryst in the skies. +I'll haunt the whispering elms that found us true, + The old grass-grown lane. +_Look for me there, lest I should look for you, + And look in vain._ + +There, as of old, under the dreaming moon, + A phantom throng +Floats through the fern, to a ghostly morrice tune, + A thin sweet song, +Hands link with hands, eyes drown in eyes anew, + Lips meet again.... +_Look for me, once, lest I should look for you, + And look in vain._ + + + + +THE OLD FOOL IN THE WOOD + + +"If I could whisper you all I know," + Said the Old Fool in the Wood, +"You'd never say that green leaves grow. + You'd say, 'Ah, what a happy mood +The Master must be in today, + To think such thoughts,' +That's what you'd say." + +"If I could whisper you all I've heard," + Said the Old Fool in the fern, +"You'd never say the song of a bird. + You'd say, 'I'll listen, and p'raps I'll learn +One word of His joy as He passed this way, + One syllable more,' +That's what you'd say." + +"If I could tell you all the rest," + Said the Old Fool under the skies, +"You'd hug your griefs against your breast + And whisper with love-lit eyes, +'I am one with the sorrow that made the may, + And the pulse of His heart,' +That's what you'd say." + + + + +A NEW MADRIGAL TO AN OLD MELODY + +(It is supposed that Shadow-of-a-Leaf uses the word "clear" in a +more ancient sense of "beautiful.") + + +As along a dark pine-bough, in slender white mystery + The moon lay to listen, above the thick fern, +In a deep dreaming wood that is older than history + I heard a lad sing, and I stilled me to learn; +So rarely he lilted his long-forgot litany,-- + _Fall, April; fall, April, in dew on our dearth! +Bring balm, and bring poppy, bring deep sleepy dittany + For Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth._ + +Then I drew back the branches. I saw him that chanted it. + I saw his fool's bauble. I knew his old grief. +I knew that old greenwood and the shadow that haunted it,-- + My fool, my lost jester, my _Shadow-of-a-Leaf_! +And "why," I said, "why, all this while, have you left me so + Luckless in melody, lonely in mirth?" +"Oh, why," he sang, "why has this world then bereft me so + Soon of my Marian, so long laid in earth? + +"In the years that are gone," he said, "love was more fortunate. + Grief was our minstrel of things that endure. +Now, ashes and dust and this world grow importunate. + Time has no sorrow that time cannot cure. +Once, we could lose, and the loss was worth cherishing. + Now, we may win, but, O, where is the worth? +Memory and true love," he whispered, "are perishing, + With Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth." + +"Ah, no!" I said, "no! Since we grieve for our grief again, + Touch the old strings! Let us try the old stave! +And memory may wake, like my _Shadow-of-a-Leaf_ again, + Singing of hope, in the dark, by a grave." +So we sang it together--that long-forgot litany:-- + _Fall, April; fall, April; bring new grief to birth. +Bring wild herb of grace, and bring deep healing dittany, + For Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth._ + + + + +THE LOST BATTLE + + +It is not over yet-the fight + Where those immortal dreamers failed. +They stormed the citadels of night + And the night praised them--and prevailed. +So long ago the cause was lost + We scarce distinguish friend from foe; +But--if the dead can help it most-- + The armies of the dead will grow. + +The world has all our banners now, + And filched our watchwords for its own. +The world has crowned the "rebel's" brow + And millions crowd his lordly throne. +The masks have altered. Names are names; + They praise the "truth" that is not true. +The "rebel" that the world acclaims + Is not the rebel Shelley knew. + +We may not build that Commonweal. + We may not reach the goal we set. +But there's a flag they dare not steal. + Forward! It is not over yet. +We shall be dust and under dust + Before we end that ancient wrong; +But here's a sword that cannot rust, + And where's the death can touch a song? + +So, when our bodies rot in earth + The singing souls that once were ours, +Weaponed with light and helmed with mirth, + Shall front the kingdoms and the powers. +The ancient lie is on its throne, + And half the living still forget; +But, since the dead are all our own, + Courage, it is not over yet. + + + + +RIDDLES OF MERLIN + + +As I was walking + Alone by the sea, +"_What is that whisper?_" + Said Merlin to me. +"Only," I answered, + "The sigh of the wave"-- +"_Oh, no_," replied Merlin, + "_'Tis the grass on your grave_." + +As I lay dreaming + In churchyard ground +"_Listen_," said Merlin, + "_What is that sound_?" +"The green grass is growing," + I answered; but he +Chuckled, "_Oh, no! + 'Tis the sound of the sea_." + +As I went homeward + At dusk by the shore, +"_What is that crimson?_" + Said Merlin once more. +"Only the sun," I said. +"Sinking to rest"-- +"_Sunset for East_," he said, + "_Sunrise for West_." + + + + +THE SYMPHONY + + +Wonder in happy eyes + Fades, fades away: +And the angel-coloured skies + Whisper farewell. + +Loveliness over the strings of the heart may stray + In fugitive melodies; +But Oh, the hand of the Master must not stay, + Even for a breath; + +For to prolong one joy, or even to dwell + On one rich chord of pain, +Beyond the pulse of the song, would untune heaven + And drown the stars in death. + +So youth with its love-note dies; + And beauty fades in the air, +To make the master-symphony immortal, + And find new life and deeper wonder there. + + + + +PEACE + + +Give me the pulse of the tide again + And the slow lapse of the leaves, +The rustling gold of a field of grain + And a bird in the nested eaves; + +And a fishing-smack in the old harbour + Where all was happy and young; +And an echo or two of the songs I knew + When songs could still be sung. + +For I would empty my heart of all + This world's implacable roar, +And I would turn to my home, and fall + Asleep in my home once more; + +And I would forget what the cities say, + And the folly of all the wise, +And turn to my own true folk this day, + And the love in their constant eyes. + +There is peace, peace, where the sea-birds wheel, + And peace in the breaking wave; +And I have a broken heart to heal, + And a broken soul to save. + + + + +THE OPEN DOOR + + +O Mystery of life, +That, after all our strife, + Defeats, mistakes, +Just as, at last, we see +The road to victory, + The tired heart breaks. + +Just as the long years give +Knowledge of how to live, + Life's end draws near; +As if, that gift being ours, +God needed our new powers + In worlds elsewhere. + +There, if the soul whose wings +Were won in suffering, springs + To life anew, +Justice would have some room +For hope beyond the tomb, + And mercy, too. + +And since, without this dream +No light, no faintest gleam + Answers our "why"; +But earth and all its race +Must pass and leave no trace + On that blind sky; + +Shall reason close that door +On all we struggled for, + Seal the soul's doom; +Make of this universe +One wild answering curse, + One lampless tomb? + +Mine be the dream, the creed +That leaves for God, indeed, + For God, and man, +One open door whereby +To prove His world no lie + And crown His plan. + + + + +IMMORTAL SAILS + + +Now, in a breath, we'll burst those gates of gold, + And ransack heaven before our moment fails. +Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old, + We'll mount and sing and spread immortal sails. + +It is not time that makes eternity. + Love and an hour may quite out-run the years, +And give us more to hear and more to see + Than life can wash away with all its tears. + +Dear, when we part, at last, that sunset sky + Shall not be touched with deeper hues than this; +But we shall ride the lightning ere we die + And seize our brief infinitude of bliss, + +With time to spare for all that heaven can tell, +While eyes meet eyes, and look their last farewell. + + + + +THE MATIN-SONG OF FRIAR TUCK + + +I. + +If souls could sing to heaven's high King + As blackbirds pipe on earth, +How those delicious courts would ring + With gusts of lovely mirth! +What white-robed throng could lift a song + So mellow with righteous glee +As this brown bird that all day long + Delights my hawthorn tree. + Hark! That's the thrush + With speckled breast + From yon white bush + Chaunting his best, + _Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!_ + + +II. + +If earthly dreams be touched with gleams + Of Paradisal air, +Some wings, perchance, of earth may glance + Around our slumbers there; +Some breaths of may might drift our way + With scents of leaf and loam, +Some whistling bird at dawn be heard + From those old woods of home. + Hark! That's the thrush + With speckled breast + From yon white bush + Chaunting his best, + _Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!_ + + +III. + +No King or priest shall mar my feast + Where'er my soul may range. +I have no fear of heaven's good cheer + Unless our Master change. +But when death's night is dying away, + If I might choose my bliss, +My love should say, at break of day, + With her first waking kiss:- + Hark! That's the thrush + With speckled breast, + From yon white bush + Chaunting his best, + _Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!_ + + + + +FIVE CRITICISMS + + +I. + +(_On many recent novels by the conventional unconventionalists_.) + +Old Pantaloon, lean-witted, dour and rich, + After grim years of soul-destroying greed, +Weds Columbine, that April-blooded witch + "Too young" to know that gold was not her need. + +Then enters Pierrot, young, rebellious, warm, + With well-lined purse, to teach the fine-souled wife +That the old fool's gold should aid a world-reform + (Confused with sex). This wrecks the old fool's life. + +O, there's no doubt that Pierrot was clever, + Quick to break hearts and quench the dying flame; +But why, for his own pride, does Pierrot never + Choose his own mate, work for his own high aim, + +Stand on his feet, and pay for his own tune? +Why scold, cheat, rob and kill poor Pantaloon? + + +II. + +(_On a certain goddess, acclaimed as "new" but known in Babylon._) + +I saw the assembled artists of our day + Waiting for light, for music and for song. +A woman stood before them, fresh as May + And beautiful; but, in that modish throng, + +None heeded her. They said, "In our first youth + Surely, long since, your hair was touched with grey." +"I do not change," she answered. "I am Truth." + "Old and banal," they sneered, and turned away. + +Then came a formless thing, with breasts dyed scarlet. + The roses in her hair were green and blue. + "I am new," she said. "I change, and + Death knows why." + +Then with the eyes and gesture of a harlot + She led them all forth, whinneying, "New, how new! + Tell us your name!" She answered, "The + New Lie." + + +III. + +(_On Certain of the Bolsheviki "Idealists."_) + +With half the force and thought you waste in rage + Over your neighbor's house, or heart of stone, +You might have built your own new heritage, + O fools, have you no hands, then, of your own? + +Where is your pride? Is this your answer still, + This the red flag that burns above our strife, +This the new cry that rings from Pisgah hill, + "_Our neighbor's money, or our neighbor's life_"? + +Be prouder. Let us build that nobler state + With our own hands, with our own muscle and brain! +Your very victories die in hymns of hate; + And your own envies are your heaviest chain. + +Is there no rebel proud enough to say + "We'll stand on our own feet, and win the day"? + + +IV. + +(_On Certain Realists._) + +You with the quick sardonic eye +For all the mockeries of life, +Beware, in this dark masque of things that seem, +Lest even that tragic irony, +Which you discern in this our mortal strife, +Trick you and trap you, also, with a dream. + +Last night I saw a dead man borne along +The city streets, passing a boisterous throng +That never ceased to laugh and shout and dance: +And yet, and yet, +For all the poison bitter minds might brew +From themes like this, I knew +That the stern Truth would not permit her glance +Thus to be foiled by flying straws of chance, +For her keen eyes on deeper skies are set, +And laws that tragic ironists forget. + +She saw the dead man's life, from birth to death,-- +All that he knew of love and sin and pain, +Success and failure (not as this world sees), +His doubts, his passions, inner loss and gain, +And borne on darker tides of constant law +Beyond the margin of this life she saw +All that had left his body with the breath. +These things, to her, were still realities. + +If any mourned for him unseen, +She saw them, too. +If none, she'd not pretend +His clay were colder, or his God less true, +Or that his grave, at length, would be less green. +She'd not deny +The boundless depths of her eternal sky +Brooding above a boundless universe, +Because he seemed to man's unseeing eye +Going a little further to fare worse; +Nor would she assume he lacked that unseen friend +Whom even the tragic ironists declare +Were better than the seen, in his last end. + +Oh, then, beware, beware, +Lest in the strong name of "reality" +You mock yourselves anew with shapes of air, +Lest it be you, agnostics, who re-write +The fettering creeds of night, +Affirm you know your own Unknowable, +And lock the wingéd soul in a new hell; +Lest it be you, lip-worshippers of Truth, +Who break the heart of youth; +Lest it be you, the realists, who fight +With shadows, and forget your own pure light; +Lest it be you who, with a little shroud +Snatched from the sightless faces of the dead, +Hoodwink the world, and keep the mourner bowed +In dust, real dust, with stones, real stones, for bread; +Lest, as you look one eighth of an inch beneath +The yellow skin of death, +You dream yourselves discoverers of the skull +That old _memento mori_ of our faith; +Lest it be you who hunt a flying wraith +Through this dissolving stuff of hill and cloud; +Lest it be you, who, at the last, annul +Your covenant with your kind; +Lest it be you who darken heart and mind, +Sell the strong soul in bondage to a dream, +And fetter us once more to things that seem. + + +V + +(_An Answer_) + +[After reading an article in a leading London journal by an +"intellectual" who attacked one of the noblest poets and greatest +artists of a former century (or any century) on the ground that his +high ethical standards were incompatible with the new lawlessness. +This vicious lawlessness the writer described definitely, and he paid +his tribute to dishonour as openly and brutally as any of the Bolsheviki +could have done. I had always known that this was the real +ground of the latter-day onslaught on some of the noblest literature +of the past; but I had never seen it openly confessed before. The +time has now surely come when, if our civilization is to make any +fight at all against the new "red ruin and breaking up of laws," we +must cease to belaud our slack-minded, latter-day "literature of +rebellion" for its cleverness in making scraps of paper out of the +plain laws of right and wrong. It has been doing this for more than +twenty-five years, and the same has become fashionable among +those who are too busy to read carefully or understand fully what +pitfalls are being prepared for their own feet and the feet of their +children.] + + +I + +If this were true, England indeed were dead. + If the wild fashion of that poisonous hour + Wherein the new Salome, clothed with power, +Wriggled and hissed, with hands and feet so red, +Should even now demand that glorious head, + Whose every word was like an English flower, + Whose every song an English April shower, +Whose every thought immortal wine and bread; +If this were true, if England should prefer + Darkness, corruption, and the adulterous crew, +Shakespeare and Browning would cry shame on her, + And Milton would deny the land he knew; +And those who died in Flanders yesterday +Would thank their God they sleep in cleaner clay. + + +II + +It is not true. Only these "rebel" wings, + These glittering clouds of "intellectual" flies + Out of the stagnant pools of midnight rise +From the old dead creeds, with carrion-poisoned stings + They strike at noble and ignoble things, + Immortal Love with the old world's out-worn lies, + But even now, a wind from clearer skies +Dissolves in smoke their coteries and wings. + +See, their divorced idealist re-divorces + The wife he stole from his own stealing friend! +And _these_ would pluck the high stars from their courses, + And mock the fools that praise them, till the end! +Well, let the whole world praise them. Truth can wait +Till our new England shall unlock the gate. + + +III + +Yes. Let the fools go paint themselves with woad, + For we've a jest between us, Truth and I. + We know that those who live by fashion die +Also by fashion, and that mode kills mode. +We know the great new age is on the road, + And death is at the heart of every lie. + But we've a jest between us, Truth and I. +And we have locked the doors to our abode. + +Yet if some great new "rebel" in his pride + Should pass that way and hear us laughing low +Like lovers, in the darkness, side by side, + He might catch this:--"The dullards do not know +That names are names. New 'rebel' is old 'thrall.'" +And we're the lonely dreamers after all. + + + + +THE COMPANIONS + + +How few are they that voyage through the night + On that eternal quest, +For that strange light beyond our light, + That rest beyond our rest. + +And they who, seeking beauty, once descry + Her face, to most unknown; +Thenceforth like changelings from the sky + Must walk their road alone. + +So once I dreamed. So idle was my mood; + But now, before these eyes, +From those foul trenches, black with blood, + What radiant legions rise! + +And loveliness over the wounded earth awakes + Like wild-flowers in the Spring. +Out of the mortal chrysalis breaks + Immortal wing on wing. + +They rise like flowers, they wander on wings of light, + Through realms beyond our ken. +The loneliest soul is companied tonight + By hosts of unknown men. + + + + +THE LITTLE ROADS + + +The great roads are all grown over + That seemed so firm and white. +The deep black forests have covered them. + How should I walk aright? +How should I thread these tangled mazes, + Or grope to that far off light? +I stumble round the thickets, and they turn me + Back to the thickets and the night. + +Yet, sometimes, at a word, an elfin pass-word, + (O, thin, deep, sweet with beaded rain!) +There shines, through a mist of ragged-robins, + The old lost April-coloured lane, +That leads me from myself; for, at a whisper, + Where the strong limbs thrust in vain, +At a breath, if my heart help another heart, + The path shines out for me again. + +A thin thread, a rambling lane for lovers + To the light of the world's one May, +Where the white dropping flakes may wet our faces + As we lift them to the bloom-bowed spray: +O Master, shall we ask Thee, then, for high-roads, + Or down upon our knees and pray +That Thou wilt ever lose us in Thy little lanes, + And lead us by a wandering way. + + + + +SUNLIGHT AND SEA + + +Give me the sunlight and the sea +And who shall take my heaven from me? + +Light of the Sun, Life of the Sun, +O happy, bold companion, +Whose golden laughters round me run, +Making wine of the blue air +With wild-rose kisses everywhere, +Browning the limb, flushing the cheek, +Apple-fragrant, leopard-sleek, +Dancing from thy red-curtained East +Like a Nautch-girl to my feast, +Proud because her lord, the Spring, +Praised the way those anklets ring; +Or wandering like a white Greek maid +Leaf-dappled through the dancing shade, +Where many a green-veined leaf imprints +Breast and limb with emerald tints, +That softly net her silken shape +But let the splendour still escape, +While rosy ghosts of roses flow +Over the supple rose and snow. + +But sweetest, fairest is thy face, +When we meet, when we embrace, +Where the white sand sleeps at noon +Round that lonely blue lagoon, +Fringed with one white reef of coral +Where the sea-birds faintly quarrel +And the breakers on the reef +Fade into a dream of grief, +And the palm-trees overhead +Whisper that all grief is dead. + +Sister Sunlight, lead me then +Into thy healing seas again.... +For when we swim out, side by side, +Like a lover with his bride, +When thy lips are salt with brine, +And thy wild eyes flash in mine, +The music of a mightier sea +Beats with my blood in harmony. +I breast the primal flood of being, +Too clear for speech, too near for seeing; +And to his heart, new reconciled, +The Eternal takes his earth-bound child. + +Who the essential secret spells +In those gigantic syllables,-- +Flowing, ebbing, ebbing, flowing,-- +Gathers wisdom past all knowing. +Song of the Sea, I hear, I hear, +That deeper music of the sphere, +Catch the rhythm of sun and star, +And know what light and darkness are; +Ay, faint beginnings of a rhyme +That swells beyond the tides of time; +Beat with thy rhythm in blood and breath, +And make one song of life and death. +I hear, I hear, and rest content, +Merged in the primal element, +The old element whence life arose, +The fount of youth, to which it goes. + +Give me the sunlight and the sea +And who shall take my heaven from me? + + + + +THE ROAD THROUGH CHAOS + + +I. + +There is one road, one only, to the Light: + A narrow way, but Freedom walks therein; +A straight, firm road through Chaos and old Night, + And all these wandering Jack-o-Lents of Sin. + +It is the road of Law, where Pilate stays + To hear, at last, the answer to his cry; +And mighty sages, groping through their maze + Of eager questions, hear a child reply. + +_Truth? What is Truth?_ Come, look upon my tables. + Begin at your beginnings once again. +_Twice one is two!_ Though all the rest be fables, + Here's one poor glimpse of Truth to keep you sane. + +For Truth, at first, is clean accord with fact, +Whether in line or thought, or word, or act. + + +II. + +Then, by those first, those clean, precise, accords, + Build to the Lord your temples and your song; +The curves of beauty, music's wedded chords + Resolving into heaven all hate and wrong. + +Let harmonies of colour marry and follow + And breaking waves in a rhythmic dance ensue; +And all your thought fly free as the wings of the swallow, + Whose arrowy curves obey their measure, too. + +Then shall the marching stars and tides befriend you, + And your own heart, and the world's heart, pulse in rhyme; +Then shall the mob of the passions that would rend you + Crown you their Captain and march on in time. + +So shall you repossess your struggling soul, +Conquer your world, and find the eternal goal. + + + + +THE NIGHT OF THE LION + +"_And that a reply be received before midnight._" +_British Ultimatum_. + + +Their Day was at twelve of the night, + When the graves give up their dead. +And still, from the City, no light + Yellows the clouds overhead. +Where the Admiral stands there's a star, + But his column is lost in the gloom; +For the brazen doors are ajar, + And the Lion awakes, and the doom. + +_He is not of a chosen race. + His strength is the strength of the skies, +In whose glory all nations have place, + In whose downfall Liberty dies. +He is mighty, but he is just. + He shall live to the end of years. +He shall bring the proud to the dust. + He shall raise the weak to the spheres._ + +It is night on the world's great mart, + But the brooding hush is awake +With the march of a steady heart + That calls like the drum of Drake, +_Come!_ And a muttering deep + As the pulse of the distant guns, +Or the thunder before the leap + Thro' the rolling thoroughfare runs. + +And the wounded men go by + Like thoughts in the Lion's brain. +And the clouds lift on high + Like the slow waves of his mane +And the narrowing lids conceal + The furnaces of his eyes. +Their gold is gone out. They reveal +Only two search-lights of steel + Steadily sweeping the skies. + +And we hoped he had peace in his lair + Where the bones of old tyrannies lay, +And the skulls that his cubs have stripped bare, + The old skulls they still toss in their play. +But the tyrants are risen again, + And the last light dies from their path; +For the midnight of his mane + Lifts to the stars with his wrath. + +From the East to the West he is crouching. + He snuffs at the North-East wind. +His breast upon Britain is couching. + His haunches quiver on Ind. +It is night, black night, where he lies; + But a kingdom and a fleet +Shall burn in his terrible eyes +When he leaps, and the darkness dies + With the War-gods under his feet. + +_Till the day when a little child, + Shall lay but a hand on his mane, +And his eyes grow golden and mild + And he stands in the heavens again; +Till the day of the seventh seal, + Which the Lion alone shall rend, +When the stars from their courses reel, + His Freedom shall not end._ + + + + +THE WAR WIDOW + + +I. + +Black-veiled, black-gowned, she rides in bus and train, + With eyes that fill too listlessly for tears. +Her waxen hands clasp and unclasp again. + _Good News_, they cry. She neither sees nor hears. + +Good News, perhaps, may crown some far-off king. + Good News may peal the glory of the state-- +Good News may cause the courts of heaven to ring. + She sees a hand waved at a garden gate. + +For her dull ears are tuned to other themes; + And her dim eyes can never see aright. +She glides--a ghost--through all her April dreams, + To meet his eyes at dawn, his lips at night. + +Wraiths of a truth that others never knew; +And yet--for her--the only truth that's true. + + +II. + +_Good News! Good News!_ There is no way but this. + Out of the night a star begins to rise. +I know not where my soul's deep Master is; + Nor can I hear those angels in the skies; + +Nor follow him, as childhood used of old, + By radiant seas, in those time-hallowed tales. +Only, at times, implacable and cold, + From this blind gloom, stand out the iron nails. + +Yet, at this world's heart stands the Eternal Cross, + The ultimate frame of moon and star and sun, +Where Love with out-stretched arms, in utter loss, + Points East and West and makes the whole world one. + +_Good News! Good News!_ There is no hope, no way, +No truth, no life, but leads through Christmas Day. + + + + +THE BELL + + +The Temple Bell was out of tune, +That once out-melodied sun and moon. + +Instead of calling folk to prayer +It spread an evil in the air. + +Instead of a song, from north to south, +It put a lie in the wind's mouth. + +The very palms beneath it died, +So harsh it jarred, so loud it lied. + +Then the gods told the blue-robed bonze: +"_Your Bell is only wrought of bronze._ + +_Lower it down, cast it again, +Or you shall shake the heavens in vain._" + +Then, as the mighty cauldron hissed, +Men brought the wealth that no man missed. + +Yea, they brought silver, they brought gold, +And melted them into the seething mould. + +The miser brought his greening hoard, +And the king cast in his sword. + +Yet, when the Bell in the Temple swung, +It jarred the stars with its harsh tongue. + +"_Is this your best?_" the oracle said, +"_Then were you better drunk or dead._" + +Once again they melted it down, +And the king cast in his crown. + +Then they poured wine, and bullock's blood, +Into the hot, grey, seething flood. + +They gave it mellowing fruits to eat, +And honey-combs to make it sweet. + +Yet, when they hauled it to the sky, +The Bell was one star-shattering lie. + +So, for the third time and the last, +They lowered it down to be re-cast. + +The white-hot metal seethed anew, +And the crowd shrank as the heat grew; + +But a white-robed woman, queenly and tall, +Pressed to the brink before them all, + +One breast, like a golden fruit lay bare; +She held her small son feeding there. + +She plucked him off, she lifted him high, +Like rose-red fruit on the blue sky. + +She pressed her lips to the budded feet, +And murmured softly, "_Oh, sweet, my sweet._" + +She whispered, "_Gods, that my land may live, +I give the best that I have to give!_" + +Then, then, before the throng awoke, +Before one cry from their white lips broke, + +She tossed him into the fiery flood, +Her child, her baby, her flesh and blood. + +And the crisp hissing waves closed round +And melted him through without a sound. + +"_Too quick for pain_," they heard her say, +And she sobbed, once, and she turned away. + + * * * * * + +The Temple Bell, in peace and war, +Keeps the measure of sun and star. + +But sometimes, in the night it cries +Faintly, and a voice replies: + +_Mother, Oh, mother, the Bell rings true!-- + You were all that I had!--Oh, mother, my mother!-- +With the land and the Bell it is well. Is it well, + Is it well with the heart that had you and none other?_ + + + + +SLAVE AND EMPEROR + +"Our cavalry have rescued Nazareth from the enemy whose supermen +described Christianity as a creed for slaves." + + +The Emperor mocked at Nazareth + In his almighty hour. +The Slave that bowed himself to death +And walked with slaves in Nazareth, +What were his words but wasted breath + Before that "will to power"? + +Yet, in the darkest hour of all, + When black defeat began, +The Emperor heard the mountains quake, +He felt the graves beneath him shake, +He watched his legions rally and break, + And he whimpered as they ran. + +"I hear a shout that moves the earth, + A cry that wakes the dead! +Will no one tell me whence they come, +For all my messengers are dumb? +What power is this that comes to birth + And breaks my power?" he said. + +Then, all around his foundering guns, + Though dawn was now not far, +The darkness filled with a living fear +That whispered at the Emperor's ear, +"_The armies of the dead draw near + Beneath an eastern star._" + +_The trumpet blows in Nazareth. + The Slave is risen again. +Across the bitter wastes of death +The horsemen ride from Nazareth, +And the Power we mocked as wasted breath + Returns, in power, to reign; +Rides on, in white, through Nazareth, + To save His world again._ + + + + +ON A MOUNTAIN TOP + + +On this high altar, fringed with ferns + That darken against the sky, +The dawn in lonely beauty burns + And all our evils die. + +The struggling sea that roared below + Is quieter than the dew, +Quieter than the clouds that flow + Across the stainless blue. + +On this bare crest, the angels kneel + And breathe the sweets that rise +From flowers too little to reveal + Their beauty to our eyes. + +I have seen Edens on the earth + With queenly blooms arrayed; +But here the fairest come to birth, + The smallest flowers He made. + +O, high above the sounding pine, + And richer, sweeter far, +The wild thyme wakes. The celandine + Looks at the morning star. + +They may not see the heavens unfold. + They breathe no out-worn prayer; +But, on a mountain, as of old, + His glory fills the air. + + + + + + + + +EARLY POEMS + +(_Not Published Hitherto in America_) + + + + +THE PHANTOM FLEET +(1904) + + +The sunset lingered in the pale green West: + In rosy wastes the low soft evening star +Woke; while the last white sea-mew sought for rest; + And tawny sails came stealing o'er the bar. + +But, in the hillside cottage, through the panes + The light streamed like a thin far trumpet-call, +And quickened, as with quivering battle-stains, + The printed ships that decked the parlour wall. + +From oaken frames old admirals looked down: + They saw the lonely slumberer at their feet: +They saw the paper, headed _Talk from Town; + Our rusting trident, and our phantom fleet_: + +And from a neighbouring tavern surged a song + Of England laughing in the face of war, +With eyes unconquerably proud and strong, + And lips triumphant from her Trafalgar. + +But he, the slumberer in that glimmering room, + Saw distant waters glide and heave and gleam; +Around him in the softly coloured gloom + The pictures clustered slowly to a dream. + +He saw how England, resting on her past, + Among the faded garlands of her dead, +Woke; for a whisper reached her heart at last, + And once again she raised her steel-clad head. + +Her eyes were filled with sudden strange alarms; + She heard the westering waters change and chime; +She heard the distant tumult of her arms + Defeated, not by courage, but by Time. + +Knowledge had made a deadlier pact with death, + Nor strength nor steel availed against that bond: +Slowly approached--and Britain held her breath-- + The battle booming from the deeps beyond. + +O, then what darkness rolled upon the wind, + Threatening the torch that Britain held on high? +Where all her navies, baffled, broken, blind, + Slunk backward, snarling in their agony! + _Who guards the gates of Freedom now?_ The cry +Stabbed heaven! _England, the shattered ramparts fall!_ + Then, like a trumpet shivering through the sky +O, like white lightning rending the black pall +Of heaven, an answer pealed: _Her dead shall hear that call._ + +Then came a distant light of great waves breaking + That brought the sunset on each crumbling crest, +A rumour as of buried ages waking, + And mighty spirits rising from their rest; + Then ghostly clouds arose, with billowing breast, +White clouds that turned to sails upon their way, + Red clouds that burned like flags against the West, +Till even the conquering fleet in silence lay +Dazed with that strange old light, and night grew bright as day. + +_We come to fight for Freedom!_ The great East + Heard, and was rent asunder like a veil. +Host upon host out of the night increased + Its towering clouds and crowded zones of sail: + _England, our England, canst thou faint or fail? +We come to fight for Freedom yet once more!_ + This, this is ours at least! Count the great tale +Of all these dead that rise to guard thy shore +By right of the red life they never feared to pour. + +_We come to fight for Freedom!_ On they came, + One cloud of beauty sweeping the wild sea; +And there, through all their thousands, flashed like flame + That star-born signal of the Victory: + _Duty_, that deathless lantern of the free; +_Duty_, that makes a god of every man. + And there was Nelson, watching silently +As through the phantom fleet the message ran; +And his tall frigate rushed before the stormy van. + +Nelson, our Nelson, frail and maimed and blind, + Stretched out his dead cold face against the foe: +And England's Raleigh followed hard behind, + With all his eager fighting heart aglow; + Glad, glad for England's sake once more to know +The old joy of battle and contempt of pain; + Glad, glad to die, if England willed it so, +The traitor's and the coward's death again; +But hurl the world back now as once he hurled back Spain. + +And there were all those others, Drake and Blake, + Rodney and Howard, Byron, Collingwood; +With deathless eyes aflame for England's sake, + As on their ancient decks they proudly stood,-- + Decks washed of old with England's purplest blood; +And there, once more, each rushing oaken side + Bared its dark-throated, thirsty, gleaming brood +Of cannon, watched by laughing lads who died +Long, long ago for England and her ancient pride. + +_We come to fight for England!_ The great sea + In a wild light of song began to break +Round that tall phantom of the Victory + And all the foam was music in her wake: + Ship after phantom ship, with guns a-rake +And shot-rent flags a-stream from every mast + Moved in a deepening splendour, not to make +A shield for England of her own dead past; +But, with a living dream to arm her soul at last. + +_We come to die for England_: through the hush + Of gathered nations rose that regal cry, +From naked oaken walls one word could crush + If those vast armoured throats dared to reply: + But there the most implacable enemy +Felt his eyes fill with gladder, prouder tears, + As Nelson's calm eternal face went by, +Gazing beyond all perishable fears +To some diviner goal above the waste of years. + +Through the hushed fleets the vision streamed away, + Then slowly turned once more to that deep West, +While voices cried, O, England, the new day + Is dawning, but thy soul can take no rest. + +Thy freedom and thy peace are only thine + By right of toil on every land and sea +And by that crimson sacrificial wine + Of thine own heart and thine own agony. + +Peace is not slumber. Peace, in every hour, + Throbs like the heart of music. This alone +Can save thy heritage and confirm that power + Whereof the past is but the cushioned throne. + +Look to the fleet! Again and yet again, + Hear us who storm thy heart with this one cry. +Hear us, who cannot help, though fair and fain, + To hold thy seas before thee, and to die. + +Look to the fleet! Thy fleet, the first, last line: + The sword of Liberty, her strength, her shield, +Her food, her life-blood! Britain, it is thine, + Here, now, to hold that birth-right, or to yield. + +So, through the dark, those phantom ships of old + Faded, it seemed, through mists of blood and tears. +Sails turned to clouds, and slowly westward rolled + The sad returning pageant of the years. +On tides of light, where all our tumults cease, + Through that rich West, the Victory returned; +And all the waves around her whispered "peace," + And from her mast no battle-message burned. + +Like clouds, like fragments of those fading skies, + The pageant passed, with all its misty spars, +While the hushed nations raised their dreaming eyes + To that great light which brings the end of wars. + +Ship after ship, in some strange glory drowned, + Cloud after cloud, was lost in that deep light +Each with a sovran stillness haloed round. + Then--that high fleet of stars led on the night. + + + + +MICHAEL OAKTREE + + +Under an arch of glorious leaves I passed +Out of the wood and saw the sickle moon +Floating in daylight o'er the pale green sea. + +It was the quiet hour before the sun +Gathers the clouds to prayer and silently +Utters his benediction on the waves +That whisper round the death-bed of the day. +The labourers were returning from the farms +And children danced to meet them. From the doors +Of cottages there came a pleasant clink +Where busy hands laid out the evening meal. +From smouldering elms around the village spire +There soared and sank the caw of gathering rooks. +The faint-flushed clouds were listening to the tale +The sea tells to the sunset with one sigh. +The last white wistful sea-bird sought for peace, +And the last fishing-boat stole o'er the bar, +And fragrant grasses, murmuring a prayer, +Bowed all together to the holy west, +Bowed all together thro' the golden hush, +The breathing hush, the solemn scented hush, +The holy, holy hush of eventide. + +And, in among the ferns that crowned the hill +With waving green and whispers of the wind, +A boy and girl, carelessly linking hands, +Into their golden dream drifted away. +On that rich afternoon of scent and song +Old Michael Oaktree died. It was not much +He wished for; but indeed I think he longed +To see the light of summer once again +Blossoming o'er the far blue hills. I know +He used to like his rough-hewn wooden bench +Placed in the sun outside the cottage door +Where in the listening stillness he could hear, +Across the waving gilly-flowers that crowned +His crumbling garden wall, the long low sigh +Of supreme peace that whispers to the hills +The sacred consolation of the sea. +He did not hope for much: he longed to live +Until the winter came again, he said; +But on the last sweet eve of May he died. + +I wandered sadly through the dreaming lanes +Down to the cottage on that afternoon; +For I had known old Michael Oaktree now +So many years, so many happy years. +When I was little he had carried me +High on his back to see the harvest home, +And given me many a ride upon his wagon +Among the dusty scents of sun and hay. +He showed me how to snare the bulky trout +That lurked under the bank of yonder brook. +Indeed, he taught me many a country craft, +For I was apt to learn, and, as I learnt, +I loved the teacher of that homely lore. +Deep in my boyish heart he shared the glad +Influence of the suns and winds and waves, +Giving my childhood what it hungered for-- +The rude earth-wisdom of the primal man. + +He had retained his childhood: Death for him +Had no more terror than his bed. He walked +With wind and sunlight like a brother, glad +Of their companionship and mutual aid. +We, toilers after truth, are weaned too soon +From earth's dark arms and naked barbarous breast. +Too soon, too soon, we leave the golden feast, +Fetter the dancing limbs and pluck the crown +Of roses from the dreaming brow. We pass +Our lives in most laborious idleness. +For we have lost the meaning of the world; +We have gone out into the night too soon; +We have mistaken all the means of grace +And over-rated our small power to learn. +And the years move so swiftly over us: +We have so little time to live in worlds +Unrealised and unknown realms of joy, +We are so old before we learn how vain +Our effort was, how fruitlessly we cast +Our Bread upon the waters, and how weak +Our hearts were, but our chance desires how strong! +Then, in the dark, our sense of light decays; +We cannot cry to God as once we cried! +Lost in the gloom, our faith, perhaps our love, +Lies dead with years that never can return. + +But Michael Oaktree was a man whose love +Had never waned through all his eighty years. +His faith was hardly faith. He seemed a part +Of all that he believed in. He had lived +In constant conversation with the sun, +The wind, the silence and the heart of peace; +In absolute communion with the Power +That rules all action and all tides of thought, +And all the secret courses of the stars; +The Power that still establishes on earth +Desire and worship, through the radiant laws +Of Duty, Love and Beauty; for through these +As through three portals of the self-same gate +The soul of man attains infinity, +And enters into Godhead. So he gained +On earth a fore-taste of Nirvana, not +The void of eastern dream, but the desire +And goal of all of us, whether thro' lives +Innumerable, by slow degrees, we near +The death divine, or from this breaking body +Of earthly death we flash at once to God. +Through simple love and simple faith, this man +Attained a height above the hope of kings. + +Yet, as I softly shut the little gate +And walked across the garden, all the scents +Of mingling blossom ached like inmost pain +Deep in my heart, I know not why. They seemed +Distinct, distinct as distant evening bells +Tolling, over the sea, a secret chime +That breaks and breaks and breaks upon the heart +In sorrow rather than in sound, a chime +Strange as a streak of sunset to the moon, +Strange as a rose upon a starlit grave, +Strange as a smile upon a dead man's lips; +A chime of melancholy, mute as death +But strong as love, uttered in plangent tones +Of honeysuckle, jasmine, gilly-flowers, +Jonquils and aromatic musky leaves, +Lilac and lilies to the rose-wreathed porch. + +At last I tapped and entered and was drawn +Into the bedroom of the dying man, +Who lay, propped up with pillows, quietly +Gazing; for through his open casement far +Beyond the whispers of the gilly-flowers +He saw the mellow light of eventide +Hallow the west once more; and, as he gazed, +I think I never saw so great a peace +On any human face. There was no sound +Except the slumbrous pulsing of a clock, +The whisper of the garden and, far off, +The sacred consolation of the sea. + +His wife sat at his bed-side: she had passed +Her eightieth year; her only child was dead. +She had been wedded more than sixty years, +And she sat gazing with the man she loved +Quietly, out into that unknown Deep. + +A butterfly floated into the room +And back again, pausing awhile to bask +And wink its painted fans on the warm sill; +A bird piped in the roses and there came +Into the childless mother's ears a sound +Of happy laughing children, far away. + +Then Michael Oaktree took his wife's thin hand +Between his big rough hands. His eyes grew dark, +And, as he turned to her and died, he spoke +Two words of perfect faith and love--_Come soon_! + +O then in all the world there was no sound +Except the slumbrous pulsing of a clock, +The whisper of the leaves and far away, +The infinite compassion of the sea. +But, as I softly passed out of the porch +And walked across the garden, all the scents +Of mingling blossoms ached like inmost joy, +Distinct no more, but like one heavenly choir +Pealing one mystic music, still and strange +As voices of the holy Seraphim, +One voice of adoration, mute as love, +Stronger than death, and pure with wedded tones +Of honeysuckle, jasmine, gilly-flowers, +Jonquils and aromatic musky leaves, +Lilac and lilies to the garden gate. + +O then indeed I knew how closely knit +To stars and flowers we are, how many means +Of grace there are for those that never lose +Their sense of membership in this divine +Body of God; for those that all their days +Have walked in quiet communion with the Life +That keeps the common secret of the sun, +The wind, the silence and the heart of man. +There is one God, one Love, one everlasting +Mystery of Incarnation, one creative +Passion behind the many-coloured veil. + +We have obscured God's face with partial truths, +The cause of all our sorrow and sin, our wars +Of force and thought, in this unheavened world. +Yet, by the battle of our partial truths, +The past against the present and the swift +Moment of passing joy against the deep +Eternal love, ever the weaker truth +Falls to the stronger, till once more we near +The enfolding splendour of the whole. Our God +Has been too long a partial God. We are all +Made in His image, men and birds and beasts, +Mountains and clouds and cataracts and suns, +With those great Beings above our little world, +A height beyond for every depth below, +Those long-forgotten Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, +Existences that live and move in realms +As far beyond our thought as Europe lies +With all its little arts and sciences +Beyond the comprehension of the worm. +We are all partial images, we need +What lies beyond us to complete our souls; +Therefore our souls are filled with a desire +And love which lead us towards the Infinity +Of Godhead that awaits us each and all. + +Peacefully through the dreaming lanes I went. +The sun sank, and the birds were hushed. The stars +Trembled like blossoms in the purple trees. +But, as I paused upon the whispering hill +The mellow light still lingered in the west, +And dark and soft against that rosy depth +A boy and girl stood knee-deep in the ferns. +Dreams of the dead man's youth were in my heart, +Yet I was very glad; and as the moon +Brightened, they kissed; and, linking hand in hand, +Down to their lamp-lit home drifted away. + +Under an arch of leaves, into the gloom +I went along the little woodland road, +And through the breathless hedge of hawthorn heard +Out of the deepening night, the long low sigh +Of supreme peace that whispers to the hills +The sacrament and sabbath of the sea. + + + + + + + + +TOUCHSTONE ON A BUS + + +Last night I rode with Touchstone on a bus +From Ludgate Hill to World's End. It was he! +Despite the broadcloth and the bowler hat, +I knew him, Touchstone, the wild flower of folly, +The whetstone of his age, the scourge of kings, +The madcap morning star of elfin-land, +Who used to wrap his legs around his neck +For warmth on winter nights. He had slipped back, +To see what men were doing in a world +That should be wiser. He had watched a play, +Read several books, heard men discourse of art +And life; and he sat bubbling like a spring +In Arden. Never did blackbird, drenched with may, +Chuckle as Touchstone chuckled on that ride. +_Lord, what a world! Lord, what a mad, mad world!_ +Then, to the jolt and jingle of the engine, +He burst into this bunch of madcap rhymes:-- + + + + +THE NEW DUCKLING + + +I + +THE NEW DUCKLING + +"I want to be new," said the duckling. + "O, ho!" said the wise old owl, +While the guinea-hen cluttered off chuckling + To tell all the rest of the fowl. + +"I should like a more elegant figure," + That child of a duck went on. +"I should like to grow bigger and bigger, + Until I could swallow a swan. + +"I _won't_ be the bond slave of habit, + I _won't_ have these webs on my toes. +I want to run round like a rabbit, + A rabbit as red as a rose. + +"I _don't_ want to waddle like mother, + Or quack like my silly old dad. +I want to be utterly other, + And _frightfully_ modern and mad." + +"Do you know," said the turkey, "you're quacking! + There's a fox creeping up thro' the rye; +And, if you're not utterly lacking, + You'll make for that duck-pond. Good-bye!" + +"I won't," said the duckling. "I'll lift him + A beautiful song, like a sheep; +And when I have--as it were--biffed him, + I'll give him my feathers to keep." + +Now the curious end of this fable, + So far as the rest ascertained, +Though they searched from the barn to the stable, + Was that _only his feathers remained_. + +So he _wasn't_ the bond slave of habit, + And he _didn't_ have webs on his toes; +And _perhaps_ he runs round like a rabbit, + A rabbit as red as a rose. + + +II + +THE MAN WHO DISCOVERED THE USE OF A CHAIR + +The man who discovered the use of a chair, + _Odds--bobs-- + What a wonderful man!_ +He used to sit down on it, tearing his hair, + Till he thought of a highly original plan. +For years he had sat on his chair, like you, + _Quite--still! + But his looks were grim_ +For he wished to be famous (as great men do) + And nobody ever would listen to him. + +Now he went one night to a dinner of state + _Hear! hear! + In the proud Guildhall!_ +And he sat on his chair, and he ate from a plate; + But nobody heard his opinions at all; + +There were ten fat aldermen down for a speech + (_Grouse! Grouse! + What a dreary bird!_) +With five fair minutes allotted to each, + But never a moment for him to be heard. + +But, each being ready to talk, I suppose, + _Order! Order!_ + They cried, _for the Chair!_ +And, much to their wonder, our friend arose + And fastened his eye on the eye of the Mayor. + +"We have come," he said, "to the fourteenth course! + "_High--time, + for the Chair_," he said. +Then, with both of his hands, and with all of his force, + He hurled his chair at the Lord Mayor's head. + +It missed that head by the width of a hair. + _Gee--whizz! + What a horrible squeak!_ +But it crashed through the big bay-window there + And smashed a bus into Wednesday week. + +And the very next day, in the decorous Times + (_Great--Guns-- + How the headlines ran!_) +In spite of the kings and the wars and the crimes, + There were five full columns about that man. + + +ENVOI + +Oh, if you get dizzy when authors write + (_My stars! + And you very well may!_) +That white is black and that black is white, + You should sit, quite still, in your chair and say: + +It is easy enough to be famous now, + (_Puff--Puff! + How the trumpets blare!_) +Provided, of course, that you don't care how, + Like the man who discovered the use of a chair. + + +III + +COTTON-WOOL + +Shun the brush and shun the pen, +Shun the ways of clever men, +When they prove that black is white, +Whey they swear that wrong is right, +When they roast the singing stars +Like chestnuts, in between the bars, + _Children, let a wandering fool + Stuff your ears with cotton-wool._ + +When you see a clever man +Run as quickly as you can. +You must never, never, never +Think that Socrates was clever. +The cleverest thing I ever knew +Now cracks walnuts at the Zoo. + _Children, let a wandering fool + Stuff your ears with cotton-wool._ + +Homer could not scintillate. +Milton, too, was merely great. +That's a very different matter +From talking like a frantic hatter. +Keats and Shelley had no tricks. +Wordsworth never climbed up sticks. + _Children, let a wandering fool + Stuff your ears with cotton-wool._ + +Lincoln would create a gloom +In many a London drawing-room; +He'd be silent at their wit, +He would never laugh at it. +When they kissed Salome's toes, +I think he'd snort and blow his nose. + _Children, let a wandering fool + Stuff your ears with cotton-wool._ + +They'd curse him for a silly clown, +They'd drum him out of London town. +Professor Flunkey, the historian, +Would say he was a dull Victorian. +Matthew, Mark, and Luke and John, +Bless the bed I rest upon. + _Children, let a wandering fool + Stuff your ears with cotton-wool._ + Amen. + + +IV + +FASHIONS + +Fashion on fashion on fashion, + (With only the truth growing old!) +And here's the new purple of passion, + (And love waiting out in the cold) + Who'll buy? + +They are crying new lamps for Aladdin, + New worlds for the old and the true; +And no one remembers the story + _The magic was not in the new._ + +They are crying a new rose for Eden, + A rose of green glass. I suppose +The only thing wrong with their rose is + The fact that it isn't a rose. + Who'll buy? + +And here is a song without metre; + And, here again, nothing is wrong; +(For nothing on earth could be neater) + Except that--it isn't a song. + +Well. Walk on your hands. It's the latest! + And feet are Victorian now; +And even our best and our greatest + Before that dread epithet bow. + Who'll buy? + +The furniture goes for a song, now. + The sixties had horrible taste. +But the trouble is this--they've included + Some better things, too, in their haste. + +Were they wrapped in the antimacassars, + Or sunk in a sofa of plush? +Did an Angelican bishop forget them, + And leave them behind in the crush? + Who'll buy? + +Here's a turnex. It's going quite cheaply. + (It lived with stuffed birds in the hall! +And, of course, to a mind that thinks deeply + That settles it, once and for all.) + +Here's _item_, a ring (very plain, sirs!), + And _item_, a God (but He's dead!); +They say we shall need Him again, sirs, + So--_item_, a cross for His head. + Who'll buy? + +Yes, you'll need it again, though He's dead, sirs. + It is only the fashions that fly. +So here are the thorns for His head, sirs. + They'll keep till you need 'em. Who'll buy? + + + + + + + + +EPILOGUE + + +THE REWARD OF SONG + + +_Why do we make our music?_ + Oh, blind dark strings reply: +Because we dwell in a strange land + And remember a lost sky. +We ask no leaf of the laurel, + We know what fame is worth; +But our songs break out of our winter + As the flowers break out on the earth. + +And we dream of the unknown comrade, + In the days when we lie dead, +Who shall open our book in the sunlight, + And read, as ourselves have read, +On a lonely hill, by a firwood, + With whispering seas below, +And murmur a song we made him + Ages and ages ago. + +If making his may-time sweeter + With dews of our own dead may, +One pulse of our own dead heart-strings + Awake in his heart that day, +We would pray for no richer guerdon, + No praise from the careless throng; +For song is the cry of a lover + In quest of an answering song. + +As a child might run to his elders + With news of an opening flower +We should walk with our young companion + And talk to his heart for an hour, +As once by my own green firwood, + And once by a Western sea, +Thank God, my own good comrades + Have walked and talked with me. + +Too mighty to make men sorrow, + Too weak to heal their pain +(Though they that remember the hawthorn + May find their heaven again), +We are moved by a deeper hunger; + We are bound by a stronger cord; +For love is the heart of our music, + And love is its one reward. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW MORNING*** + + +******* This file should be named 21029-8.txt or 21029-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/0/2/21029 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The New Morning</p> +<p> Poems</p> +<p>Author: Alfred Noyes</p> +<p>Release Date: April 11, 2007 [eBook #21029]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW MORNING***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3 class="pg">E-text prepared by K. Nordquist, Jacqueline Jeremy,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<div id="auto"> + +<h1 class="nob">THE NEW MORNING</h1> + +<hr style="margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 3em; width: 45%;" /> + +<h2>ALFRED NOYES</h2> + + + +<div class="bbox"> +<h4 class="nob"><i>WORKS OF ALFRED NOYES</i></h4> + +<hr style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; width: 25%;" /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Collected Poems</span>—<i>2 Vols</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">The Lord of Misrule</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">A Belgian Christmas Eve</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">The Wine-press</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">Walking Shadows</span>—<i>Prose</i></p> +<p><span class="smcap">Tales of the Mermaid Tavern</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">Sherwood</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">The Enchanted Island and Other Poems</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">Drake: an English Epic</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">Poems </span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">The Flower of Old Japan</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">The Golden Hynde</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">The New Morning</span></p> +</div> + + + +<h1>THE<br /> +NEW MORNING</h1> + +<h3><i>POEMS</i></h3> + +<h4>BY</h4> +<h2>ALFRED NOYES</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;"> +<img src="images/logo.png" width="200" height="245" alt="logo" title="logo" /> +</div> + + +<h5 class="nob">NEW YORK</h5> +<h4 class="nob not">FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY</h4> +<h5 class="not" style="margin-bottom: 100px;">PUBLISHERS</h5> + + +<h6><i>Copyright, 1918, by</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">Alfred Noyes</span></h6> +<hr style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; width: 25%;" /> +<h6>Copyright, 1919, by<br /> +<span class="smcap">Frederick A. Stokes Company</span></h6> +<hr style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; width: 25%;" /> +<h6><i>All rights reserved, including that of translation<br /> +into foreign languages</i></h6> + + + + + +<h1 style="margin-top: 300px;"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span>DEDICATION</h1> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span><br /></p> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span><a href="#contents">TO THE MEMORY OF<br /> +SIR CECIL SPRING-RICE</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p><span class="cap">S</span>TEADFAST as any soldier of the line</p> +<p class="large">He served his England, with the imminent death</p> +<p>Poised at his heart. Nor could the world divine</p> +<p class="large b">The constant peril of each burdened breath.</p> + +<p>England, and the honour of England, he still served</p> +<p class="large">Walking the strict path, with the old high pride</p> +<p>Of those invincible knights who never swerved</p> +<p class="large b">One hair's breadth from the way until they died.</p> + +<p>Quietness he loved, and books, and the grave beauty</p> +<p class="large">Of England's Helicon, whose eternal light</p> +<p>Shines like a lantern on that road of duty,</p> +<p class="large b">Discerned by few in this chaotic night.</p> + +<p>And his own pen, foretelling his release,</p> +<p class="b">Told us that he foreknew "the end was peace."</p> +</div> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>II.</h3> + +<div class="ml"> +<p>Soldier of England, he shall live unsleeping</p> +<p class="large">Among his friends, with the old proud flag above;</p> +<p>For even today her honour is in his keeping.</p> +<p class="large b">He has joined the hosts that guard her with their love.</p> + +<p>They shine like stars, unnumbered happy legions,</p> +<p class="large">In that high realm where all our darkness dies.</p> +<p>He moves, with honour, in those loftier regions,</p> +<p class="b">Above this "world of passion and of lies":</p> + +<p>For so he called it, keeping his own pure passion</p> +<p class="large">A silent flame before the true and good;</p> +<p>Not fawning on the throng in this world's fashion</p> +<p class="b">come and see what all might see who would.</p> + +<p>Soldier of England, brave and gentle knight,</p> +<p class="b">The soul of Sidney welcomes you tonight.</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span><a name="contents" id="contents">CONTENTS</a></h2> + +<table summary="table of contents" style="width: 500px;"> +<colgroup span="4"> +<col width="20px"></col> +<col width="10px"></col> +<col width="420px"></col> +<col width="50px"></col> +</colgroup> +<tr> +<th class="tdc" colspan="4" style="padding-bottom: 5px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Page</span></th> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb" colspan="3">DEDICATION: <span class="smcap">To the Memory of Sir Cecil Spring-Rice</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_v">v</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2">"<span class="smcap">The Avenue of the Allies</span>"</td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">On the Western Front</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Victory</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb" colspan="4">AMERICAN POEMS, <span class="smcap">1912–1917</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Republic and Motherland</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Union</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Ghosts of the New World</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Old Meeting House</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Princeton</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Beethoven in Central Park</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_34">34</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb" colspan="4">SONGS OF THE TRAWLERS AND SEA POEMS</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The People's Fleet</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Kilmeny</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Cap'n Storm-along</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Big Black Trawler</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Namesakes</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Wireless</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Fishers of Men</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">An Open Boat</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span><span class="smcap">Peace in a Palace</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Vindictive</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb" colspan="4">MISCELLANEOUS POEMS</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">To a Successful Man</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Old Gentleman With the Amber Snuffbox</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">What Grandfather Said</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Memories of the Pacific Coast</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Nippon</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Humming Birds</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Lines for a Sun-dial</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Realms of Gold</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Compensations</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Dead Man's Morrice</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Old Fool in the Wood</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">A New Madrigal To an Old Melody</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_91"> 91</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Lost Battle</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Riddles of Merlin</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Symphony</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_98"> 98</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Peace</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_99"> 99</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Open Door</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Immortal Sails</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_102">102</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Matin-song of Friar Tuck</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Five Criticisms</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Companions</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Little Roads</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Sunlight and Sea</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Road Through Chaos</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Night of the Lion</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The War Widow</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Bell</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Slave and Emperor</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">On a Mountain-top</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb" colspan="4">EARLY POEMS</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Phantom Fleet</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Michael Oaktree</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb" colspan="4">TOUCHSTONE ON A BUS</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Touchstone on a Bus</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tda">I</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The New Duckling</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tda">II</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Man Who Discovered the Use a Chair</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tda">III</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Cotton-wool</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_164">164</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tda">IV</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Fashions</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_166">166</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb" colspan="4">EPILOGUE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Reward of Song</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>THE NEW MORNING</h1> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span><a href="#contents">"THE AVENUE OF THE ALLIES"</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">T</span>HIS is the song of the wind as it came</p> +<p class="b">Tossing the flags of the nations to flame:</p> + +<p class="large"><i>I am the breath of God. I am His laughter.</i></p> +<p class="b"><i>I am His Liberty. That is my name.</i></p> + +<p>So it descended, at night, on the city.</p> +<p>So it went lavishing beauty and pity,</p> +<p>Lighting the lordliest street of the world</p> +<p>With half of the banners that earth has unfurled;</p> +<p>Over the lamps that are brighter than stars.</p> +<p>Laughing aloud on its way to the wars,</p> +<p>Proud as America, sweeping along</p> +<p>Death and destruction like notes in a song,</p> +<p>Leaping to battle as man to his mate,</p> +<p>Joyous as God when he moved to create,—</p> +<p class="large">Never was voice of a nation so glorious,</p> +<p>Glad of its cause and afire with its fate!</p> +<p>Never did eagle on mightier pinion</p> +<p>Tower to the height of a brighter dominion,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p> +<p>Kindling the hope of the prophets to flame,</p> +<p class="b">Calling aloud on the deep as it came,</p> + +<p class="large"><i>Cleave me a way for an army with banners.</i></p> +<p class="b"><i>I am His Liberty. That is my name.</i></p> + +<p>Know you the meaning of all they are doing?</p> +<p>Know you the light that their soul is pursuing?</p> +<p>Know you the might of the world they are making,</p> +<p>This nation of nations whose heart is awaking?</p> +<p>What is this mingling of peoples and races?</p> +<p>Look at the wonder and joy in their faces!</p> +<p>Look how the folds of the union are spreading!</p> +<p>Look, for the nations are come to their wedding.</p> +<p>How shall the folk of our tongue be afraid of it?</p> +<p>England was born of it. England was made of it,</p> +<p>Made of this welding of tribes into one,</p> +<p>This marriage of pilgrims that followed the sun!</p> +<p>Briton and Roman and Saxon were drawn</p> +<p>By winds of this Pentecost, out of the dawn,</p> +<p>Westward, to make her one people of many;</p> +<p>But here is a union more mighty than any.</p> +<p>Know you the soul of this deep exultation?</p> +<p class="b">Know you the word that goes forth to this nation?</p> + +<p class="large"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span><i>I am the breath of God. I am His Liberty.</i></p> +<p class="b"><i>Let there be light over all His creation.</i></p> + +<p>Over this Continent, wholly united,</p> +<p>They that were foemen in Europe are plighted.</p> +<p>Here, in a league that our blindness and pride</p> +<p>Doubted and flouted and mocked and denied,</p> +<p>Dawns the Republic, the laughing, gigantic</p> +<p>Europe, united, beyond the Atlantic.</p> +<p>That is America, speaking one tongue,</p> +<p>Acting her epics before they are sung,</p> +<p>Driving her rails from the palms to the snow,</p> +<p>Through States that are greater than Emperors know,</p> +<p>Forty-eight States that are empires in might,</p> +<p>But ruled by the will of one people tonight,</p> +<p>Nerved as one body, with net-works of steel,</p> +<p>Merging their strength in the one Commonweal,</p> +<p>Brooking no poverty, mocking at Mars,</p> +<p>Building their cities to talk with the stars.</p> +<p>Thriving, increasing by myriads again</p> +<p>Till even in numbers old Europe may wane.</p> +<p>How shall a son of the England they fought</p> +<p>Fail to declare the full pride of his thought,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>Stand with the scoffers who, year after year,</p> +<p>Bring the Republic their half-hidden sneer?</p> +<p>Now, as in beauty she stands at our side,</p> +<p>Who shall withhold the full gift of his pride?</p> +<p>Not the great England who knows that her son,</p> +<p>Washington, fought her, and Liberty won.</p> +<p>England, whose names like the stars in their station,</p> +<p>Stand at the foot of that world's Declaration,—</p> +<p>Washington, Livingston, Langdon, she claims them,</p> +<p>It is her right to be proud when she names them,</p> +<p>Proud of that voice in the night as it came,</p> +<p class="b">Tossing the flags of the nations to flame:</p> + +<p class="large"><i>I am the breath of God. I am His laughter.</i></p> +<p class="b"><i>I am His Liberty. That is my name.</i></p> + +<p>Flags, in themselves, are but rags that are dyed.</p> +<p>Flags, in that wind, are like nations enskied.</p> +<p>See, how they grapple the night as it rolls</p> +<p>And trample it under like triumphing souls.</p> +<p>Over the city that never knew sleep,</p> +<p>Look at the riotous folds as they leap.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>Thousands of tri-colors, laughing for France,</p> +<p>Ripple and whisper and thunder and dance;</p> +<p>Thousands of flags for Great Britain aflame</p> +<p>Answer their sisters in Liberty's name.</p> +<p>Belgium is burning in pride overhead.</p> +<p>Poland is near, and her sunrise is red.</p> +<p>Under and over, and fluttering between,</p> +<p>Italy burgeons in red, white, and green.</p> +<p>See, how they climb like adventurous flowers,</p> +<p>Over the tops of the terrible towers....</p> +<p><i>There, in the darkness, the glories are mated.</i></p> +<p><i>There, in the darkness, a world is created.</i></p> +<p><i>There, in this Pentecost, streaming on high.</i></p> +<p><i>There, with a glory of stars in the sky.</i></p> +<p><i>There the broad flag of our union and liberty</i></p> +<p><i>Rides the proud night-wind and tyrannies die.</i></p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span><a href="#contents">ON THE WESTERN FRONT</a></h2> + +<h4>(<i>1916</i>)</h4> + + +<h3>I.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">I</span> FOUND a dreadful acre of the dead,</p> +<p class="large">Marked with the only sign on earth that saves.</p> +<p>The wings of death were hurrying overhead,</p> +<p class="large b">The loose earth shook on those unquiet graves;</p> + +<p>For the deep gun-pits, with quick stabs of flame,</p> +<p class="large">Made their own thunders of the sunlit air;</p> +<p>Yet, as I read the crosses, name by name,</p> +<p class="large"><i>Mort pour la France</i>, it seemed that peace was there;</p> +<p>Sunlight and peace, a peace too deep for thought,</p> +<p class="large">The peace of tides that underlie our strife,</p> +<p>The peace with which the moving heavens are fraught,</p> +<p class="large b">The peace that is our everlasting life.</p> + +<p>The loose earth shook. The very hills were stirred.</p> +<p class="b">The silence of the dead was all I heard.</p> +</div> + + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>II.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">W</span>E, who lie here, have nothing more to pray.</p> +<p class="large">To all your praises we are deaf and blind.</p> +<p>We may not even know if you betray</p> +<p class="large b">Our hope, to make earth better for mankind.</p> + +<p>Only our silence, in the night, shall grow</p> +<p class="large">More silent, as the stars grow in the sky;</p> +<p>And, while you deck our graves, you shall not know</p> +<p class="large b">How many scornful legions pass you by.</p> + +<p>For we have heard you say (when we were living)</p> +<p class="large">That some small dream of good would "cost too much."</p> +<p>But when the foe struck, we have watched you giving,</p> +<p class="large b">And seen you move the mountains with one touch.</p> + +<p>What can be done, we know. But, have no fear!</p> +<p class="b">If you fail now, we shall not see or hear.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span><a href="#contents">VICTORY</a></h2> + +<h5>(Written after the British Service at Trinity Church, New York)</h5> + +<h3>I.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">B</span>EFORE those golden altar-lights we stood,</p> +<p class="large">Each one of us remembering his own dead.</p> +<p>A more than earthly beauty seemed to brood</p> +<p class="large b">On that hushed throng, and bless each bending head.</p> + +<p>Beautiful on that gold, the deep-sea blue</p> +<p class="large">Of those young seamen, ranked on either side,</p> +<p>Blent with the khaki, while the silence grew</p> +<p class="large b">Deep, as for wings—Oh, deep as England's pride.</p> + +<p>Beautiful on that gold, two banners rose—</p> +<p class="large">Two flags that told how Freedom's realm was made,</p> +<p>One fair with stars of hope, and one that shows</p> +<p class="large b">The glorious cross of England's long crusade;</p> + +<p>Two flags, now joined, till that high will be done</p> +<p class="b">Which sent them forth to make the whole world one.</p> +</div> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>II.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p>There were no signs of joy that eyes could see.</p> +<p class="large">Our hearts were all three thousand miles away.</p> +<p>There were no trumpets blown for victory.</p> +<p class="large b">A million dead were calling us that day.</p> + +<p>And eyes grew blind, at times; but grief was deep,</p> +<p class="large">Deeper than any foes or friends have known;</p> +<p>For Oh, my country's lips are locked to keep</p> +<p class="large b">Her bitterest loss her own, and all her own.</p> + +<p>Only the music told what else was dumb,</p> +<p class="large">The funeral march to which our pulses beat;</p> +<p>For all our dead went by, to a muffled drum</p> +<p class="large b">We heard the tread of all those phantom feet.</p> + +<p>Yes. There was victory! Deep in every soul.</p> +<p class="b">We heard them marching to their unseen goal.</p> +</div> + +<h3>III.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p>There, once again, we saw the Cross go by,</p> +<p class="large">The Cross that fell with all those glorious towers,</p> +<p>Burnt black in France or mocked on Calvary,</p> +<p class="large">Till—in one night—the crosses rose like flowers,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>Legions of small white crosses, mile on mile,</p> +<p class="large">Pencilled with names that had outfought all pain,</p> +<p>Where every shell-torn acre seems to smile—</p> +<p class="large b"><i>Who shall destroy the cross that rose again?</i></p> + +<p>Out of the world's Walpurgis, where hope perished,</p> +<p class="large">Where all the forms of faith in ruin fell,</p> +<p>Where every sign of heaven that earth had cherished</p> +<p class="large b">Shrivelled among the lava-floods of hell,</p> + +<p>The eternal Cross that conquers might with right</p> +<p class="b">Rose like a star to lead us through the night.</p> +</div> +<h3>IV.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p>How shall the world remember? Men forget:</p> +<p class="large">Our dead are all too many even for Fame!</p> +<p>Man's justice kneels to kings, and pays no debt</p> +<p class="large b">To those who never courted her acclaim.</p> + +<p>Cheat not your heart with promises to pay</p> +<p class="large">For gifts beyond all price so freely given.</p> +<p>Where is the heart so rich that it can say</p> +<p class="large b">To those who mourn, "I will restore your heaven"?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>But these, with their own hands, laid up their treasure</p> +<p class="large">Where never an emperor can break in and steal,</p> +<p>Treasure for those that loved them past all measure</p> +<p class="large b">In those high griefs that earth can never heal,</p> + +<p>Proud griefs, that walk on earth, yet gaze above,</p> +<p class="b">Knowing that sorrow is but remembered love.</p> +</div> +<h3>V.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p>Love that still holds us with immortal power,</p> +<p class="large">Yet cannot lift us to His realm of light;</p> +<p>Love that still shows us heaven for one brief hour</p> +<p class="large b">Only to daunt the heart with that sheer height;</p> + +<p>Love that is made of loveliness entire</p> +<p class="large">In form and thought and act; and still must shame us</p> +<p>Because we ever acknowledge and aspire,</p> +<p class="large b">And yet let slip the shining hands that claim us.</p> + +<p>O, if this Love might cloak with rags His glory,</p> +<p>Laugh, eat and drink, and dwell with suffering men,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>Sit with us at our hearth, and hear our story,</p> +<p class="large b">This world—we thought—might be transfigured then.</p> + +<p>"But Oh," Love answered, with swift human tears,</p> +<p class="b">"All these things have I done, these many years."</p> +</div> +<h3>VI.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p>"This day," Love said, "if ye will hear my voice;</p> +<p class="large">I mount and sing with birds in all your skies.</p> +<p>I am the soul that calls you to rejoice.</p> +<p class="large b">And every wayside flower is my disguise.</p> + +<p>"Look closely. Are the wings too wide for pity?</p> +<p class="large">Look closely. Do these tender hues betray?</p> +<p>How often have I sought my Holy City?</p> +<p class="large b">How often have ye turned your hearts away?</p> + +<p>"Is there not healing in the beauty I bring you?</p> +<p class="large">Am I not whispering in green leaves and rain,</p> +<p>Singing in all that woods and seas can sing you?</p> +<p class="large b">Look, once, on Love, and earth is heaven again.</p> + +<p>"O, did your Spring but once a century waken,</p> +<p class="b">The heaven of heavens for this would be forsaken."</p> +</div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>There's but one gift that all our dead desire,</p> +<p class="large">One gift that men can give, and that's a dream,</p> +<p>Unless we, too, can burn with that same fire</p> +<p class="large b">Of sacrifice; die to the things that seem;</p> + +<p>Die to the little hatreds; die to greed;</p> +<p class="large">Die to the old ignoble selves we knew;</p> +<p>Die to the base contempts of sect and creed,</p> +<p class="large b">And rise again, like these, with souls as true.</p> + +<p>Nay (since these died before their task was finished)</p> +<p class="large">Attempt new heights, bring even their dreams to birth:—</p> +<p>Build us that better world, Oh, not diminished</p> +<p class="large b">By one true splendor that they planned on earth.</p> + +<p>And that's not done by sword, or tongue, or pen,</p> +<p>There's but one way. God make us better men.</p> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>AMERICAN POEMS 1912–1917</h1> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span><br /></p> + + +<h2 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span><a href="#contents">REPUBLIC AND MOTHERLAND</a></h2> + +<h4 class="nob">(<i>1912</i>)</h4> + +<h5>(Written after entering New York Harbor at Daybreak)</h5> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">U</span>P the vast harbor with the morning sun</p> +<p class="large">The ship swept in from sea;</p> +<p>Gigantic towers arose, the night was done,</p> +<p class="large b">And—there stood Liberty.</p> + +<p>Silent, the great torch lifted in one hand,</p> +<p class="large">The dawn in her proud eyes,</p> +<p>Silent, for all the shouts that vex her land,</p> +<p class="large b">Silent, hailing the skies;</p> + +<p>Hailing that mightier Kingdom of the Blest</p> +<p class="large">Our seamen sought of old,</p> +<p>The dream that lured the nations through the West,</p> +<p class="large b">The city of sunset gold.</p> + +<p>Saxon and Norman in one wedded soul</p> +<p class="large">Shook out one flag like fire;</p> +<p>But westward, westward, moved the gleaming goal,</p> +<p class="large b">Westward, the vast desire.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>Westward and ever westward ran the call,</p> +<p class="large">They followed the pilgrim sun,</p> +<p>Seeking that land which should enfold them all,</p> +<p class="large b">And weld all hearts in one.</p> + +<p>Here on this mightier continent apart,</p> +<p class="large">Here on these rolling plains,</p> +<p>Swells the first throb of that immortal heart,</p> +<p class="large b">The pulse of those huge veins.</p> + +<p>Still, at these towers, our Old-World cities jest,</p> +<p class="large">And neither hear nor see</p> +<p>The brood of gods at that gigantic breast,</p> +<p class="large b">The conquering race to be.</p> + +<p>Chosen from many—for no sluggard soul</p> +<p class="large">Confronts that night of stars—</p> +<p>The trumpets of the last Republic roll</p> +<p class="large b">Far off, an end to wars;</p> + +<p>An end, an end to that wild blood-red age,</p> +<p class="large">That made and keeps us blind;</p> +<p>A mightier realm shall be her heritage,</p> +<p class="large b">The kingdom of mankind.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>Chosen from many nations, and made one;</p> +<p class="large">But first, O Mother, from thee,</p> +<p>When, following, following on that Pilgrim sun,</p> +<p class="large">Thy Mayflower crossed the sea.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE UNION</a></h2> + +<h4>(<i>1917</i>)</h4> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">Y</span>OU that have gathered together the sons of all races,</p> +<p class="large">And welded them into one,</p> +<p>Lifting the torch of your Freedom on hungering faces</p> +<p class="large b">That sailed to the setting sun;</p> + +<p>You that have made of mankind in your own proud regions</p> +<p class="large">The music of man to be,</p> +<p>How should the old earth sing of you, now, as your legions</p> +<p class="large b">Rise to set all men free?</p> + +<p>How should the singer that knew the proud vision and loved it,</p> +<p class="large">In the days when not all men knew,</p> +<p>Gaze through his tears, on the light, now the world has approved it;</p> +<p class="large b">Or dream, when the dream comes true?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>How should he sing when the Spirit of Freedom in thunder</p> +<p class="large">Speaks, and the wine-press is red;</p> +<p>And the sea-winds are loud with the chains that are broken asunder</p> +<p class="large b">And nations that rise from the dead?</p> + +<p>Flag of the sky, proud flag of that wide communion,</p> +<p class="large">Too mighty for thought to scan;</p> +<p>Flag of the many in one, and that last world-union</p> +<p class="large b">That kingdom of God in man;</p> + +<p>Ours was a dream, in the night, of that last federation,</p> +<p class="large">But yours is the glory unfurled—</p> +<p>The marshalled nations and stars that shall make one nation</p> +<p class="large">One singing star of the world.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span><a href="#contents">GHOSTS OF THE NEW WORLD</a></h2> + +<h4>"<i>There are no ghosts in America.</i>"</h4> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">T</span>HERE are no ghosts, you say,</p> +<p class="large">To haunt her blaze of light;</p> +<p>No shadows in her day,</p> +<p class="large">No phantoms in her night.</p> +<p>Columbus' tattered sail</p> +<p class="b">Has passed beyond our hail.</p> + +<p>What? On that magic coast,</p> +<p class="large">Where Raleigh fought with fate,</p> +<p>Or where that Devon ghost</p> +<p class="large">Unbarred the Golden Gate,</p> +<p>No dark, strange, ear-ringed men</p> +<p class="b">Beat in from sea again?</p> + +<p>No ghosts in Salem town</p> +<p class="large">With silver buckled shoon?</p> +<p>No lovely witch to drown</p> +<p class="large">Or burn beneath the moon?</p> +<p>Not even a whiff of tea,</p> +<p class="b">On Boston's glimmering quay.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>O, ghostly Spanish walls,</p> +<p class="large">Where brown Franciscans glide,</p> +<p>Is there no voice that calls</p> +<p class="large">Across the Great Divide,</p> +<p>To pilgrims on their way</p> +<p class="b">Along the Santa Fe?</p> + +<p>Then let your Pullman cars</p> +<p class="large">Go roaring to the West,</p> +<p>Till, watched by lonelier stars,</p> +<p class="large">The cactus lifts its crest.</p> +<p>There, on that painted plain,</p> +<p class="b">One ghost will rise again.</p> + +<p>Majestic and forlorn,</p> +<p class="large">Wreck of a dying race,</p> +<p>The Red Man, half in scorn,</p> +<p class="large">Shall raise his haughty face,</p> +<p>Inscrutable as the sky,</p> +<p class="b">To watch our ghosts go by.</p> + +<p>What? Is earth dreaming still?</p> +<p class="large">Shall not the night disgorge</p> +<p>The ghosts of Bunker Hill</p> +<p class="large">The ghosts of Valley Forge,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>Or, England's mightiest son,</p> +<p class="b">The ghost of Washington?</p> + +<p>No ghosts where Lincoln fell?</p> +<p class="large">No ghosts for seeing eyes?</p> +<p>I know an old cracked bell</p> +<p class="large">Shall make ten million rise</p> +<p>When one immortal ghost</p> +<p class="b">Calls to the slumbering host.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE OLD MEETING HOUSE</a></h2> + +<h4>(<i>New Jersey, 1918</i>)</h4> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">I</span>TS quiet graves were made for peace till Gabriel blows his horn.</p> +<p class="large">Those wise old elms could hear no cry</p> +<p class="large">Of all that distant agony—</p> +<p class="b">Only the red-winged blackbird, and the rustle of thick ripe corn.</p> + +<p>The blue jay, perched upon that bronze, with bright unweeting eyes,</p> +<p class="large">Could never read the names that signed</p> +<p class="large">The noblest charter of mankind;</p> +<p class="b">But all of them were names we knew beneath our English skies.</p> + +<p>And on the low gray headstones, with their crumbling weather-stains,</p> +<p class="large">—Though cardinal birds, like drops of blood,</p> +<p class="large">Flickered across the haunted wood,—</p> +<p class="b">The names you'd see were names that woke like flowers in English lanes.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>John Applegate was fast asleep; and Temperance Olden, too.</p> +<p class="large">And David Worth had quite forgot</p> +<p class="large">If Hannah's lips were red or not;</p> +<p class="b">And Prudence veiled her eyes at last, as Prudence ought to do.</p> + +<p>And when, across that patch of heaven, that small blue leaf-edged space</p> +<p class="large">At times, a droning airplane went,</p> +<p class="large">No flicker of astonishment</p> +<p class="b">Could lift the heavy eyelids on one gossip's up-turned face.</p> + +<p>For William Speakman could not tell—so thick the grasses grow—</p> +<p class="large">If that strange humming in the sky</p> +<p class="large">Meant that the Judgment Day were nigh,</p> +<p class="b">Or if 'twas but the summer bees that blundered to and fro.</p> + +<p>And then, across the breathless wood, a Bell began to sound,</p> +<p class="large">The only Bell that wakes the dead,</p> +<p class="large">And Stockton Signer raised his head,</p> +<p class="b">And called to all the deacons in the ancient burial-ground.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>"The Bell, the Bell is ringing! Give me back my rusty sword.</p> +<p class="large">Though I thought the wars were done,</p> +<p class="large">Though I thought our peace was won,</p> +<p class="b">Yet I signed the Declaration, and the dead must keep their word.</p> + +<p>"There's only one great ghost I know could make that 'larum ring.</p> +<p class="large">It's the captain that we knew</p> +<p class="large">In the ancient buff and blue,</p> +<p class="b">It's our Englishman, George Washington, who fought the German king!"</p> + +<p>So the sunset saw them mustering beneath their brooding boughs,</p> +<p class="large">Ancient shadows of our sires,</p> +<p class="large">Kindling with the ancient fires,</p> +<p class="b">While the old cracked Bell to southward shook the ancient meeting house.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span><a href="#contents">PRINCETON</a></h2> + +<h4>(<i>1917</i>)</h4> + + +<p class="none" style="font-size: 95%; text-align: left; text-indent: 2em; text-align: justify;">The first four lines of this poem were written for inscription on the +first joint memorial to the American and British soldiers who fell in +the Revolutionary War. This memorial was recently dedicated at +Princeton.</p> + + +<h3>I.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p><i><span class="cap">H</span>ERE Freedom stood, by slaughtered friend and foe,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>And ere the wrath paled or that sunset died,</i></p> +<p><i>Looked through the ages: then, with eyes aglow,</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>Laid them, to wait that future, side by side.</i></p> +</div> + +<h3>II.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p>Now lamp-lit gardens in the blue dusk shine</p> +<p class="large">Through dog-wood red and white,</p> +<p>And round the gray quadrangles, line by line,</p> +<p class="large">The windows fill with light,</p> +<p>Where Princeton calls to Magdalen, tower to tower,</p> +<p class="large">Twin lanthorns of the law,</p> +<p>And those cream-white magnolia boughs embower</p> +<p class="large b">The halls of old Nassau.</p> +</div> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>III.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p>The dark bronze tigers crouch on either side</p> +<p class="large">Where red-coats used to pass,</p> +<p>And round the bird-loved house where Mercer died</p> +<p class="large">And violets dusk the grass,</p> +<p>By Stony Brook that ran so red of old,</p> +<p class="large">But sings of friendship now,</p> +<p>To feed the old enemy's harvest fifty-fold</p> +<p class="large b">The green earth takes the plough.</p> +</div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p>Through this May night if one great ghost should stray</p> +<p class="large">With deep remembering eyes,</p> +<p>Where that old meadow of battle smiles away</p> +<p class="large">Its blood-stained memories,</p> +<p>If Washington should walk, where friend and foe</p> +<p class="large">Sleep and forget the past,</p> +<p>Be sure his unquenched heart would leap to know</p> +<p class="large b">Their hosts are joined at last.</p> +</div> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>V.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p>Be sure he walks, in shadowy buff and blue,</p> +<p class="large">Where those dim lilacs wave,</p> +<p>He bends his head to bless, as dreams come true,</p> +<p class="large">The promise of that grave,</p> +<p>Then with a vaster hope than thought can scan,</p> +<p class="large">Touching his ancient sword,</p> +<p>Prays for that mightier realm of God in man,</p> +<p class="large b">"Hasten Thy Kingdom, Lord."</p> +</div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p>"Land of new hope, land of the singing stars,</p> +<p class="large">Type of the world to be,</p> +<p>The vision of a world set free from wars</p> +<p class="large">Takes life, takes form, from thee,</p> +<p>Where all the jarring nations of this earth,</p> +<p class="large">Beneath the all-blessing sun,</p> +<p>Bring the new music of mankind to birth,</p> +<p class="large b">And make the whole world one."</p> +</div> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>VII.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p>And those old comrades rise around him there,</p> +<p class="large">Old foemen, side by side,</p> +<p>With eyes like stars upon the brave night-air,</p> +<p class="large">And young as when they died,</p> +<p>To hear your bells, O beautiful Princeton towers,</p> +<p class="large">Ring for the world's release.</p> +<p>They see you, piercing like gray swords through flowers,</p> +<p class="large">And smile from hearts at peace.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span><a href="#contents">BEETHOVEN IN CENTRAL PARK</a></h2> + +<h5>(After a glimpse of a certain monument in New York, during the Victory Celebration)</h5> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">T</span>HE thousand-windowed towers were all alight.</p> +<p class="large">Throngs of all nations filled that glittering way;</p> +<p>And, rich with dreams of the approaching day,</p> +<p>Flags of all nations trampled down the night.</p> +<p>No clouds, at sunset, die in airs as bright.</p> +<p class="large">No clouds, at dawn, awake in winds as gay;</p> +<p class="large">For Freedom rose in that august array,</p> +<p class="b">Crowned with the stars and weaponed for the right.</p> + +<p>Then, in a place of whispering leaves and gloom,</p> +<p class="large">I saw, too dark, too dumb for bronze or stone,</p> +<p class="large">One tragic head that bowed against the sky;</p> +<p>O, in a hush too deep for any tomb</p> +<p class="large">I saw Beethoven, dreadfully alone</p> +<p class="indent2">With his own grief, and his own majesty.</p> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>SONGS OF THE TRAWLERS AND SEA POEMS</h1> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE PEOPLE'S FLEET</a></h2> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">O</span>UT of her darkened fishing-ports they go,</p> +<p class="large">A fleet of little ships, whose every name—</p> +<p><i>Daffodil</i>, <i>Sea-lark</i>, <i>Rose</i> and <i>Surf</i> and <i>Snow</i>,</p> +<p class="large b">Burns in this blackness like an altar-flame;</p> + +<p>Out of her past they sail, three thousand strong,</p> +<p class="large">The people's fleet that never knew its worth,</p> +<p>And every name is a broken phrase of song</p> +<p class="large b">To some remembered loveliness on earth.</p> + +<p>There's <i>Barbara Cowie</i>, <i>Comely Bank</i> and <i>May</i>,</p> +<p class="large">Christened, at home, in worlds of dawn and dew:</p> +<p>There's <i>Ruth</i> and <i>Kindly Light</i> and <i>Robin Gray</i></p> +<p class="large b">With <i>Mizpah</i>. (May that simple prayer come true!)</p> + +<p>Out of old England's inmost heart they sail,</p> +<p class="large">A fleet of memories that can never fail.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span><a href="#contents">KILMENY</a></h2> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">D</span>ARK, dark lay the drifters against the red West,</p> +<p class="large">As they shot their long meshes of steel overside;</p> +<p>And the oily green waters were rocking to rest</p> +<p class="large">When Kilmeny went out, at the turn of the tide;</p> +<p>And nobody knew where that lassie would roam,</p> +<p class="large">For the magic that called her was tapping unseen.</p> +<p>It was well-nigh a week ere Kilmeny came home,</p> +<p class="large b">And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.</p> + +<p>She'd a gun at her bow that was Newcastle's best,</p> +<p class="large">And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde,</p> +<p>And a secret her skipper had never confessed,</p> +<p class="large">Not even at dawn, to his newly-wed bride;</p> +<p>And a wireless that whispered above, like a gnome,</p> +<p class="large">The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin....</p> +<p>O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home;</p> +<p class="b">But nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>It was dark when Kilmeny came home from her quest</p> +<p class="large">With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died;</p> +<p>But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast,</p> +<p class="large b">And <i>Well done Kilmeny!</i> the Admiral cried.</p> + +<p>Now, at sixty-four fathom a conger may come</p> +<p class="large">And nose at the bones of a drowned submarine;</p> +<p>But—late in the evening Kilmeny came home,</p> +<p class="large b">And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.</p> + +<p>There's a wandering shadow that stares at the foam,</p> +<p class="large">Though they sing all the night to old England, their queen.</p> +<p>Late, late in the evening, Kilmeny came home;</p> +<p class="large">And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span><a href="#contents">CAP'N STORM-ALONG</a></h2> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">T</span>HEY are buffeting out in the bitter grey weather,</p> +<p class="large"><i>Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!</i></p> +<p><i>Sea-lark</i> singing to <i>Golden Feather</i>,</p> +<p class="large">And burly blue waters all swelling aroun'.</p> +<p>There's <i>Thunderstone</i> butting ahead as they wallow,</p> +<p class="large">With death in the mesh of their deep-sea trawl;</p> +<p>There's <i>Night-Hawk</i> swooping by wild <i>Sea-swallow</i>;</p> +<p class="large b">And old Cap'n Storm-along leading 'em all.</p> + +<p class="large"><i>Bashing the seas to a welter of white,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>Look at the fleet that he leads to the fight.</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>O, they're dancing like witches to open the ball;</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>And old Cap'n Storm-along's lord of 'em all.</i></p> + +<p>Now, where have you seen such a bully old sailor?</p> +<p class="large">His eyes are as blue as the scarf at his throat;</p> +<p>And he rolls on the bridge of his broad-beamed whaler,</p> +<p class="large">In yellow sou'wester and oil-skin coat.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>In trawler and drifter, in dinghy and dory,</p> +<p class="large">Wherever he signals, they leap to his call;</p> +<p>They batter the seas to a lather of glory,</p> +<p class="large b">With old Cap'n Storm-along leading 'em all.</p> + +<p class="large"><i>You'll find he's from Devon, the sailor I mean,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>Look at his whaler now, shipping it green.</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>O, Fritz and his "U" boat must crab it and crawl</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>When old Cap'n Storm-along sails to the ball.</i></p> + +<p>Ay, there is the skipper that knows how to scare 'em.</p> +<p class="large"><i>Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!</i></p> +<p>Look at the sea-wives he keeps in his harem,</p> +<p class="large">Wicked young merry-maids, buxom and brown:</p> +<p>There's <i>Rosalind</i>, the sea-witch, and <i>Gipsy</i> so lissom,</p> +<p class="large">All dancing like ducks in the teeth of the squall,</p> +<p>With a bright eye for Huns, and a Hotchkiss to kiss 'em;</p> +<p class="large b">For old Cap'n Storm-along's lord of 'em all.</p> + +<p class="large"><i>Look at him, battering darkness to light!</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>Look at the fleet that he leads to the fight!</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>O, hearts that are mighty, in ships that are small,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>Your old Cap'n Storm-along's lord of us all.</i></p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE BIG BLACK TRAWLER</a></h2> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">T</span>HE very best ship that ever I knew,</p> +<p class="large"><i>—Ah-way O, to me O—</i></p> +<p>Was a big black trawler with a deep-sea crew—</p> +<p class="large b"><i>Sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run.</i></p> + +<p>There was one old devil with a broken nose</p> +<p class="large"><i>—Ah-way O, to me O—</i></p> +<p>He was four score years, as I suppose—</p> +<p class="large b"><i>But, sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run.</i></p> + +<p>We was wrecked last March, in a Polar storm</p> +<p class="large"><i>—Ah-way O, to me O—</i></p> +<p>And we asked the old cripple if his feet was warm—</p> +<p class="large b"><i>Sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run.</i></p> + +<p>And the old, old devil (he was ninety at the most)</p> +<p class="large"><i>—Ah-way O, to me O—</i></p> +<p>Roars, "Ay, warm as a lickle piece of toast"—</p> +<p class="large b"><i>So sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>"For I soaked my sea-boots and my dungarees</p> +<p class="large"><i>—Ah-way O, to me O—</i></p> +<p>In the good salt water that the Lord don't freeze"—</p> +<p class="large"><i>Oh, sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run.</i></p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span><a href="#contents">NAMESAKES</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">B</span>UT where's the brown drifter that went out alone?</p> +<p class="large"><i>—Roll and go, and fare you well—</i></p> +<p>Was her name Peggy Nutten? That name is my own.</p> +<p class="large"><i>Fare you well, my sailor.</i></p> +<p>They sang in the dark, "Let her go! Let her go!"</p> +<p>And she sailed to the West, where the broad waters flow;</p> +<p>And the others come back, but ... the bitter winds blow.</p> +<p class="large b"><i>Ah, fare you well, my sailor.</i></p> + +<p>The women, at evening, they wave and they cheer.</p> +<p class="large"><i>—Roll and go, and fare you well—</i></p> +<p>They're waiting to welcome their lads at the pier.</p> +<p class="large"><i>Fare you well, my sailor.</i></p> +<p>They're all coming home in the twilight below;</p> +<p>But there's one little boat.... Let her go! Let her go!</p> +<p>She carried my heart, and a heart for the foe.</p> +<p class="large b"><i>Ah, fare you well, my sailor.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>The <i>Nell</i> and the <i>Maggie</i>, the <i>Ruth</i> and the <i>Joan</i>,</p> +<p class="large"><i>—Roll and go, and fare you well—</i></p> +<p>They come to their namesakes, and leave me alone.</p> +<p class="large"><i>Fare you well, my sailor.</i></p> +<p>And names are kep' dark, for the spies mustn't know;</p> +<p>But they'll look in my face, an' I think it will show;</p> +<p>Peggy Nutten's my name. Let her go! let her go!</p> +<p class="large"><i>Ah, fare you well, my sailor.</i></p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span><a href="#contents">WIRELESS</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">N</span>OW to those who search the deep,</p> +<p class="large"><i>Gleam of Hope</i> and <i>Kindly Light</i>,</p> +<p>Once, before you turn to sleep,</p> +<p class="large">Breathe a message through the night.</p> +<p>Never doubt that they'll receive it.</p> +<p class="b">Send it, once, and you'll believe it.</p> + +<p>Wrecks that burn against the stars,</p> +<p class="large">Decks where death is wallowing green,</p> +<p>Snare the breath among their spars,</p> +<p class="large">Hear the flickering threads between,</p> +<p>Quick, through all the storms that blind them,</p> +<p class="b">Quick with words that rush to find them.</p> + +<p>Think you these aërial wires</p> +<p class="large">Whisper more than spirits may?</p> +<p>Think you that our strong desires</p> +<p class="large">Touch no distance when we pray?</p> +<p>Think you that no wings are flying</p> +<p class="b">'Twixt the living and the dying?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>Inland, here, upon your knees,</p> +<p class="large">You shall breathe from urgent lips,</p> +<p>Round the ships that guard your seas,</p> +<p class="large">Fleet on fleet of angel ships;</p> +<p>Yea, the guarded may so bless them</p> +<p class="b">That no terrors can distress them.</p> + +<p>You shall guide the darkling prow,</p> +<p class="large">Kneeling thus—and far inland—</p> +<p>You shall touch the storm-beat brow</p> +<p class="large">Gently as a spirit-hand.</p> +<p>Even a blindfold prayer may speed them,</p> +<p>And a little child may lead them.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span><a href="#contents">FISHERS OF MEN</a></h2> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">L</span>ONG, long ago He said,</p> +<p>He who could wake the dead,</p> +<p class="large">And walk upon the sea—</p> +<p class="large b"><i>"Come, follow Me.</i></p> + +<p>"Leave your brown nets and bring</p> +<p>Only your hearts to sing,</p> +<p class="large">Only your souls to pray,</p> +<p class="large b">Rise, come away.</p> + +<p>"Shake out your spirit-sails,</p> +<p>And brave those wilder gales,</p> +<p class="large">And I will make you then</p> +<p class="large b">Fishers of men."</p> + +<p>Was this, then, what He meant?</p> +<p>Was this His high intent,</p> +<p class="large">After two thousand years</p> +<p class="large b">Of blood and tears?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>God help us, if we fight</p> +<p>For right, and not for might.</p> +<p class="large">God help us if we seek</p> +<p class="large b">To shield the weak.</p> + +<p>Then, though His heaven be far</p> +<p>From this blind welter of war,</p> +<p class="large">He'll bless us, on the sea</p> +<p class="large b">From Calvary.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span><a href="#contents">AN OPEN BOAT</a></h2> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">O</span> WHAT is that whimpering there in the darkness?</p> +<p class="large"><i>"Let him lie in my arms. He is breathing, I know.</i></p> +<p><i>Look. I'll wrap all my hair round his neck."—"The sea's rising,</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>The boat must be lightened. He's dead. He must go."</i></p> + +<p>See—quick—by that flash, where the bitter foam tosses,</p> +<p class="large">The cloud of white faces, in the black open boat,</p> +<p>And the wild pleading woman that clasps her dead lover</p> +<p class="large b">And wraps her loose hair round his breast and his throat.</p> + +<p><i>"Come, lady, he's dead." "No, I feel his heart beating.</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>He's living, I know. But he's numbed with the cold.</i></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span><i>See, I'm wrapping my hair all around him to warm him"——</i></p> +<p class="large b">—<i>"No. We can't keep the dead, dear. Come, loosen your hold.</i></p> + +<p><i>"Come. Loosen your fingers."—"O God, let me keep him!"</i></p> +<p class="large">O, hide it, black night! Let the winds have their way!</p> +<p>For there are no voices or ghosts from that darkness,</p> +<p class="large">To fret the bare seas at the breaking of day.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span><a href="#contents">PEACE IN A PALACE</a></h2> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">Y</span>OU were weeping in the night," said the Emperor,</p> +<p class="large">"Weeping in your sleep, I am told."</p> +<p>"It was nothing but a dream," said the Empress;</p> +<p class="large">But her face grew gray and old.</p> +<p>"You thought you saw our German God defeated?"</p> +<p class="large">"Oh, no!" she said. "I saw no lightnings fall.</p> +<p>I dreamed of a whirlpool of green water,</p> +<p class="large b">Where something had gone down. That was all.</p> + +<p><i>"All but the whimper of the sea gulls flying,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>Endlessly round and round,</i></p> +<p><i>Waiting for the faces, the faces from the darkness,</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>The dreadful rising faces of the drowned.</i></p> + +<p>"It was nothing but a dream," said the Empress.</p> +<p class="large">"I thought I was walking on the sea;</p> +<p>And the foam rushed up in a wild smother,</p> +<p class="large b">And a crowd of little faces looked at me.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>They were drowning! They were drowning," said the Empress,</p> +<p class="large">"And they stretched their feeble arms to the sky;</p> +<p>But the worst was—they mistook me for their mother,</p> +<p class="large b">And cried as my children used to cry.</p> + +<p><i>"Nothing but a whimper of the sea-gulls flying,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>Endlessly round and round,</i></p> +<p><i>With the cruel yellow beaks that were waiting for the faces,</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>The little floating faces of the drowned."</i></p> + +<p>"It was nothing but a dream," said the Emperor,</p> +<p class="large">"So why should you weep, dear, eh?"—</p> +<p>"Oh, I saw the red letters on a life belt</p> +<p class="large">That the green sea washed my way!"—</p> +<p>"What were they?" said the Emperor. "What were they?"—</p> +<p class="large">"Some of them were hidden," said the Empress,</p> +<p class="large">"But I plainly saw the L and the U!"</p> +<p>"In God's name, stop!" said the Emperor.</p> +<p class="large b">"You told me that it was not true!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span><i>"Told me that you dreamed of the sea gulls flying,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>Endlessly round and round,</i></p> +<p><i>Waiting for the faces, and the eyes in the faces,</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>The eyes of the children that we drowned.</i></p> + +<p>"Kiss me and forget it," said the Emperor,</p> +<p class="large">"Dry your tears on the tassel of my sword.</p> +<p>I am going to offer peace to my people,</p> +<p class="large">And abdicate, perhaps, as overlord.</p> +<p>I shall now take up My Cross as Count of Prussia—</p> +<p class="large">Which is not a heavy burden, you'll agree.</p> +<p>Why, before the twenty million dead are rotten</p> +<p class="large">There'll be yachting days again for you and me.</p> +<p class="large">Cheer up!</p> +<p class="b">It would mean a rope for anyone but Me."</p> + +<p><i>"Oh, take care!" said the Empress. "They are flying,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>Endlessly round and round.</i></p> +<p><i>They have finished with the faces, the dreadful little faces,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>The little eyeless faces of the drowned."</i></p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE VINDICTIVE</a></h2> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">H</span>OW should we praise those lads of the old <i>Vindictive</i></p> +<p class="large">Who looked Death straight in the eyes,</p> +<p class="indent">Till his gaze fell,</p> +<p class="indent b">In those red gates of hell?</p> + +<p>England, in her proud history, proudly enrolls them,</p> +<p class="large">And the deep night in her remembering skies</p> +<p class="indent">With purer glory</p> +<p class="indent b">Shall blazon their grim story.</p> + +<p>There were no throngs to applaud that hushed adventure.</p> +<p class="large">They were one to a thousand on that fierce emprise.</p> +<p class="indent">The shores they sought</p> +<p class="indent b">Were armoured, past all thought.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>O, they knew fear, be assured, as the brave must know it,</p> +<p class="large">With youth and its happiness bidding their last good-byes;</p> +<p class="indent">Till thoughts, more dear</p> +<p class="indent b">Than life, cast out all fear.</p> + +<p class="large">For if, as we think, they remembered the brown-roofed homesteads,</p> +<p>And the scent of the hawthorn hedges when daylight dies,</p> +<p class="indent">Old happy places,</p> +<p class="indent b">Young eyes and fading faces;</p> + +<p>One dream was dearer that night than the best of their boyhood,</p> +<p class="large">One hope more radiant than any their hearts could prize.</p> +<p class="indent">The touch of your hand,</p> +<p class="indent b">The light of your face, England!</p> + +<p>So, age to age shall tell how they sailed through the darkness</p> +<p class="large">Where, under those high, austere, implacable stars,</p> +<p class="indent">Not one in ten</p> +<p class="indent b">Might look for a dawn again.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>They saw the ferry-boats, <i>Iris</i> and <i>Daffodil</i>, creeping</p> +<p class="large">Darkly as clouds to the shimmering mine-strewn bars,</p> +<p class="indent">Flash into light!</p> +<p class="indent b">Then thunder reddened the night.</p> + +<p>The wild white swords of the search-lights blinded and stabbed them,</p> +<p class="large">The sharp black shadows fought in fantastic wars.</p> +<p class="indent">Black waves leapt whitening,</p> +<p class="indent b">Red decks were washed with lightning.</p> + +<p>But, under the twelve-inch guns of the black land-batteries</p> +<p class="large">The hacked bright hulk, in a glory of crackling spars,</p> +<p class="indent">Moved to her goal</p> +<p class="indent b">Like an immortal soul;</p> + +<p>That, while the raw rent flesh in a furnace is tortured,</p> +<p class="large">Reigns by a law no agony ever can shake,</p> +<p class="indent">And shines in power</p> +<p class="indent b">Above all shocks of the hour.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>O, there, while the decks ran blood, and the star-shells lightened</p> +<p class="large">The old broken ship that the enemy never could break,</p> +<p class="indent">Swept through the fire</p> +<p class="indent b">And grappled her heart's desire.</p> + +<p>There, on a wreck that blazed with the soul of England,</p> +<p class="large">The lads that died in the dark for England's sake</p> +<p class="indent">Knew, as they died,</p> +<p class="indent b">Nelson was at their side;</p> + +<p>Nelson, and all the ghostly fleets of his island,</p> +<p class="large">Fighting beside them there, and the soul of Drake!—</p> +<p class="indent">Dreams, as we knew,</p> +<p class="indent b">Till these lads made them true.</p> + +<p><i>How should we praise you, lads of the old Vindictive,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>Who looked death straight in the eyes,</i></p> +<p class="indent"><i>Till his gaze fell</i></p> +<p class="indent"><i>In those red gates of hell?</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>MISCELLANEOUS POEMS</h1> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPS OF CHELTENHAM</a></h2> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">W</span>HEN hawthorn buds are creaming white,</p> +<p class="large">And the red foolscap all stuck with may,</p> +<p>Then lasses walk with eyes alight,</p> +<p class="large b">And it's chimney-sweepers' dancing day.</p> + +<p>For the chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham town,</p> +<p class="large">Sooty of face as a swallow of wing,</p> +<p>Come whistling, singing, dancing down</p> +<p class="large b">With white teeth flashing as they sing.</p> + +<p>And Jack-in-the green, by a clown in blue,</p> +<p class="large">Walks like a two-legged bush of may,</p> +<p>With the little wee lads that wriggled up the flue</p> +<p class="large b">Ere Cheltenham town cried "dancing day."</p> + +<p>For brooms were short and the chimneys tall,</p> +<p class="large">And the gipsies caught 'em these blackbirds cheap,</p> +<p>So Cheltenham bought them, spry and small,</p> +<p class="large b">And shoved them up in the dark to sweep.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>For Cheltenham town was cruel of old,</p> +<p class="large">But she has been gathering garlands gay,</p> +<p>And the little wee lads are in green and gold,</p> +<p class="large b">For it's chimney-sweepers' dancing day.</p> + +<p>And red as a rose, and blue as the sky,</p> +<p class="large">With teeth as white as their faces are black,</p> +<p>The master-sweeps go dancing by,</p> +<p class="large b">With a gridiron painted on every back.</p> + +<p>But when they are ranged in the market-place,</p> +<p class="large">The clown's wife comes with an iron spoon,</p> +<p>And cozens a penny for her sweet face</p> +<p class="large b">To keep their golden throats in tune.</p> + +<p>Then, hushing the riot of that mad throng,</p> +<p class="large">And sweet as the voice of a long-dead May,</p> +<p>A wandering pedlar lifts 'em a song,</p> +<p class="large b">Of chimney-sweepers' dancing day;</p> + +<p>And the sooty faces, they try to recall....</p> +<p class="large">As they gather around in their spell-struck rings....</p> +<p>But nobody knows that singer at all</p> +<p class="large b">Or the curious old-time air he sings:—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>Why are you dancing, O chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham,</p> +<p class="large">And where did you win you these may-coats so fine;</p> +<p>For some are red as roses, and some are gold as daffodils,</p> +<p class="large b">But who, ah, who remembers, now, a little lad of mine?</p> + +<p>Lady, we are dancing, as we danced in old England</p> +<p class="large">When the may was more than may, very long ago:</p> +<p>As for our may-coats, it was your white hands, lady,</p> +<p class="large b">Filled our sooty hearts and minds with blossom, white as snow.</p> + +<p>It was a beautiful face we saw, wandering through Cheltenham.</p> +<p class="large">It was a beautiful song we heard, very far away,</p> +<p>Weeping for a little lad stolen by the gipsies,</p> +<p class="large b">Broke our hearts and filled 'em with the glory of the may.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>Many a little lad had we, chirruping in the chimney-tops,</p> +<p class="large">Twirling out a sooty broom, a blot against the blue.</p> +<p>Ah, but when we called to him, and when he saw and ran to her,</p> +<p class="large b">All our winter ended, and our world was made anew.</p> + +<p>Then she gave us may-coats of gold and green and crimson,</p> +<p class="large">Then, with a long garland, she led our hearts away,</p> +<p>Whispering, "Remember, though the boughs forget the hawthorn,</p> +<p class="large b">Yet shall I return to you, that was your lady May."—</p> + +<p>But why are you dancing now, O chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham,</p> +<p class="large">And why are you singing of a May that is fled?—</p> +<p>O, there's music to be born, though we pluck the old fiddle-strings,</p> +<p class="large b">And a world's May awaking where the fields lay dead.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>And we dance, dance, dreaming of a lady most beautiful</p> +<p class="large">That shall walk the green valleys of this dark earth one day,</p> +<p>And call to us gently, "O chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham,</p> +<p class="large">I am looking for my children. Awake, and come away."</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span><a href="#contents">TO A SUCCESSFUL MAN</a></h2> + +<h4>(<i>What the Ghosts Said</i>)</h4> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">A</span>ND after all the labour and the pains,</p> +<p class="large">After the heaping up of gold on gold,</p> +<p>After success that locked your feet in chains,</p> +<p class="large b">And left you with a heart so tired and old,</p> + +<p>Strange—is it not?—to find your chief desire</p> +<p class="large">Is what you might have had for nothing then—</p> +<p>The face of love beside a cottage fire</p> +<p class="large b">And friendly laughter with your fellow-men?</p> + +<p>You were so rich when fools esteemed you poor.</p> +<p class="large">You ruled a field that kings could never buy;</p> +<p>The glory of the sea was at your door;</p> +<p class="large b">And all those quiet stars were in your sky.</p> + +<p>The nook of ferns below the breathless wood</p> +<p class="large">Where one poor book could unlock Paradise ...</p> +<p>What will you give us now for that lost good?</p> +<p class="large b">Better forget. You cannot pay the price.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>You left them for the fame in which you trust.</p> +<p class="large">But youth, and hope—did you forsake them, too?</p> +<p>Courage! When dust at length returns to dust,</p> +<p class="larage">In your last dreams they may come back to you.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE OLD GENTLEMAN WITH THE AMBER SNUFF-BOX</a></h2> +<div class="ml"> +<p><i><span class="cap">T</span>HE old gentleman, tapping his amber snuff-box</i></p> +<p><i>(A heart-shaped snuff-box with a golden clasp)</i></p> +<p><i>Stared at the dying fire. "I'd like them all</i></p> +<p><i>To understand, when I am gone," he muttered.</i></p> +<p><i>"But how to do it delicately! I can't</i></p> +<p><i>Apologize. I'll hint at it ... in verse;</i></p> +<p><i>And, to be sure that Rosalind reads it through,</i></p> +<p><i>I'll make it an appendix to my will!"</i></p> +<p><i>—Still cynical, you see. He couldn't help it.</i></p> +<p><i>He had seen much, felt much. He snapped the snuff box,</i></p> +<p><i>Shook his white periwig, trimmed a long quill pen,</i></p> +<p><i>And then began to write, most carefully,</i></p> +<p class="b"><i>These couplets, in the old heroic style:—</i></p> + +<p>O, had I known in boyhood, only known</p> +<p>The few sad truths that time has made my own,</p> +<p>I had not lost the best that youth can give,</p> +<p>Nay, life itself, in learning how to live.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>This laboring heart would not be tired so soon,</p> +<p>This jaded blood would jog to a livelier tune:</p> +<p>And some few friends, could I begin again,</p> +<p>Should know more happiness, and much less pain.</p> +<p>I should not wound in ignorance, nor turn</p> +<p>In foolish pride from those for whom I yearn.</p> +<p>I should have kept nigh half the friends I've lost,</p> +<p class="b">And held for dearest those I wronged the most.</p> + +<p>Yet, when I see more cunning men evade</p> +<p>With colder tact, the blunders that I made;</p> +<p>Sometimes I wonder if the better part</p> +<p>Is not still mine, who lacked their subtle art.</p> +<p>For I have conned my book in harsher schools,</p> +<p>And learned from struggling what they worked by rules;</p> +<p>Learned—with some pain—more quickly to forgive</p> +<p>My fellow-blunderers, while they learn to live;</p> +<p>Learned—with some tears—to keep a steadfast mind,</p> +<p class="b">And think more kindly of my own poor kind.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span><i>He read the verses through, shaking his wig.</i></p> +<p><i>"Perhaps ... perhaps"—he whispered to himself,</i></p> +<p><i>"I'd better leave it to the will of God.</i></p> +<p><i>They might upset my own. I do not think</i></p> +<p><i>They'd understand. Jocelyn might, perhaps;</i></p> +<p><i>And Dick, if only they were left alone.</i></p> +<p><i>But Rosalind never; nor that nephew of mine,</i></p> +<p><i>The witty politician. No. No. No.</i></p> +<p><i>They'd say my mind was wandering, I'm afraid."</i></p> +<p><i>So, with a frozen face, reluctantly,</i></p> +<p><i>He tossed his verses into the dying fire,</i></p> +<p><i>And watched the sparks fly upward.</i></p> +<p class="indent3"><i>There, at dawn,</i></p> +<p><i>They found him, cold and stiff by the cold hearth,</i></p> +<p><i>His amber snuff-box in his ivory hand.</i></p> +<p><i>"You see," they said, "he never needed friends.</i></p> +<p><i>He had that curious antique frozen way.</i></p> +<p><i>He had no heart—only an amber snuff-box.</i></p> +<p class="b"><i>He died quite happily, taking a pinch of snuff."</i></p> + +<p><i>His nephew, that engaging politician,</i></p> +<p><i>Inherited the snuff-box, and remarked</i></p> +<p><i>His epitaph should be "Snuffed Out." The clubs</i></p> +<p><i>Laughed, and the statesman's reputation grew.</i></p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span><a href="#contents">WHAT GRANDFATHER SAID</a></h2> + +<h5>(<i>An epistle from a narrow-minded old gentleman to a young artist of +superior intellect and intense realism.</i>)</h5> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">Y</span>OUR thoughts are for the poor and weak?</p> +<p class="large">Ah, no, the picturesque's your passion!</p> +<p>Your tongue is always in your cheek</p> +<p class="large b">At poverty that's not in fashion.</p> + +<p>You like a ploughman's rugged face,</p> +<p class="large">Or painted eyes in Piccadilly;</p> +<p>But bowler hats are commonplace,</p> +<p class="large b">And thread-bare tradesmen simply silly.</p> + +<p>The clerk that sings "God save the King,"</p> +<p class="large">And still believes his Tory paper,—</p> +<p>You hate the anæmic fool? I thought</p> +<p class="large b">You loved the weak! Was that all vapour?</p> + +<p>Ah, when you sneer, dear democrat,</p> +<p class="large">At such a shiny-trousered Tory</p> +<p>Because he doffs his poor old hat</p> +<p class="large b">To what he thinks his country's glory,</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>To you it's just a coloured rag.</p> +<p class="large">You hate the "patriots" that bawl so.</p> +<p>Well, my Ulysses, there's a flag</p> +<p class="large b">That lifts men in Republics also.</p> + +<p>No doubt his thoughts are cruder far;</p> +<p class="large">And, where those linen folds are shaking,</p> +<p>Perhaps he sees a kind of star</p> +<p class="large b">Because his eyes are tired and aching.</p> + +<p>Banal enough! Banal as truth!</p> +<p class="large">But I'm not thinking of his banners.</p> +<p>I'm thinking of his pinched white youth</p> +<p class="large b">And your disgusting "new art" manners.</p> + +<p>His meek submission stirs your hate?</p> +<p class="large">Better, my lad, if you're so fervent,</p> +<p>Turn your cold steel against the State</p> +<p class="large b">Instead of sneering at the servant.</p> + +<p>He does his job. He draws his pay.</p> +<p class="large">You sneer, and dine with those that pay him;</p> +<p>And then you write a snobbish play</p> +<p class="large b">For democrats, in which you play him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>Ah, yes, you like simplicity</p> +<p class="large">That sucks its cheeks to make the dimple.</p> +<p>But this domestic bourgeoisie</p> +<p class="large b">You hate,—because it's all too simple.</p> + +<p>You hate the hearth, the wife, the child,</p> +<p class="large">You hate the heavens that bend above them.</p> +<p>Your simple folk must all run wild</p> +<p class="large b">Like jungle-beasts before you love them.</p> + +<p>You own a house in Cheyne Walk,</p> +<p class="large">(You say it costs three thousand fully)</p> +<p>Where subtle snobs can talk and talk</p> +<p class="large b">And play the intellectual bully.</p> + +<p>Yes. I say "snobs." Are names alone</p> +<p class="large">Free from all change? Your word "Victorian"</p> +<p>Could bite and sting in ninety one</p> +<p class="large b">But now—it's deader than the saurian.</p> + +<p>You think I live in yesterday,</p> +<p class="large">Because I think your way the wrong one;</p> +<p>But I have hewed and ploughed my way,</p> +<p class="large b">And—unlike yours—it's been a long one.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>I let Victoria toll her bell,</p> +<p class="large">And went with Strindberg for a ride, sir.</p> +<p>I've fought through your own day as well,</p> +<p class="large b">And come out on the other side, sir,—</p> + +<p>The further side, the morning side,</p> +<p class="large">I read free verse (the Psalms) on Sunday.</p> +<p>But I've decided (you'll decide)</p> +<p class="large b">That there is room for song on Monday.</p> + +<p>I've seen the new snob on his way,</p> +<p class="large">The intellectual snob I mean, sir,</p> +<p>The artist snob, in book and play,</p> +<p class="large b">Kicking his mother round the scene, sir.</p> + +<p>I've heard the Tories talk like fools;</p> +<p class="large">And the rich fool that apes the Tory.</p> +<p>I've seen the shopmen break your rules</p> +<p class="large b">And die like Christ, in Christ's own glory.</p> + +<p>But, as for you, that liberal sneer</p> +<p class="large">Reminds me of the poor old Kaiser.</p> +<p>He was a "socialist," my dear.</p> +<p class="large">Well, I'm your grandson. You'll grow wiser.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span><a href="#contents">MEMORIES OF THE PACIFIC COAST</a></h2> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">I</span> KNOW a land, I, too,</p> +<p class="large">Where warm keen incense on the sea-wind blows,</p> +<p>And all the winter long the skies are blue,</p> +<p class="large b">And the brown deserts blossom with the rose.</p> + +<p>Deserts of all delight,</p> +<p class="large">Cactus and palm and earth of thirsty gold,</p> +<p>Dark purple blooms round eaves of sun-washed white,</p> +<p class="large b">And that Hesperian fruit men sought of old.</p> + +<p>O, to be wandering there,</p> +<p class="large">Under the palm-trees, on that sunset shore,</p> +<p>Where the waves break in song, and the bright air</p> +<p class="large b">Is crystal clean; and peace is ours, once more.</p> + +<p>There Beauty dwells,</p> +<p class="large">Beauty, re-born in whiteness from the foam;</p> +<p>And Youth returns with all its magic spells,</p> +<p class="large b">And the heart finds its long-forgotten home,—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>Home—home! Where is that land?</p> +<p class="large">For, when I dream it found, the old hungering cry</p> +<p>Aches in the soul, drives me from all I planned,</p> +<p class="large">And sets my sail to seek another sky.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span><a href="#contents">NIPPON</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">L</span>AST night, I dreamed of Nippon....</p> +<p class="large">I saw a cloud of white</p> +<p>Drifting before the sunset</p> +<p class="large b">On seas of opal light.</p> + +<p>Beyond the wide Pacific</p> +<p class="large">I saw its mounded snow</p> +<p>Miraculously changing</p> +<p class="large b">In that deep evening glow,</p> + +<p>To rosy rifts and hillocks,</p> +<p class="large">To orchards that I knew,</p> +<p>To snows of peach and cherry,</p> +<p class="large b">And feathers of bamboo.</p> + +<p>I saw, on twisted bridges,</p> +<p class="large">In blue and crimson gleams,</p> +<p>The lanterns of the fishers,</p> +<p class="large b">Along the brook of dreams.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>I saw the wreaths of incense</p> +<p class="large">Like little ghosts arise,</p> +<p>From temples under Fuji,</p> +<p class="large b">From Fuji to the skies.</p> + +<p>I saw that fairy mountain....</p> +<p class="large">I watched it form and fade.</p> +<p>No doubt the gods were singing,</p> +<p class="large">When Nippon isle was made.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE HUMMING BIRDS</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">G</span>REEN wing and ruby throat,</p> +<p class="large">What shining spell, what exquisite sorcery,</p> +<p>Lured you to float</p> +<p class="large b">And fight with bees round this one flowering tree?</p> + +<p>Petulant imps of light,</p> +<p class="large">What whisper or gleam or elfin-wild perfumes</p> +<p>Thrilled through the night</p> +<p class="large b">And drew you to this hive of rosy bloom?</p> + +<p>One tree, and one alone,</p> +<p class="large">Of all that load this magic air with spice,</p> +<p>Claims for its own</p> +<p class="large b">Your brave migration out of Paradise;</p> + +<p>Claims you, and guides you, too,</p> +<p class="large">Three thousand miles across the summer's waste</p> +<p>Of blooms ye knew</p> +<p class="large b">Less finely fit for your ethereal taste.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>To poets' youthful hearts,</p> +<p class="large">Even so the quivering April thoughts will fly,—</p> +<p>Those irised darts,</p> +<p class="large b">Those winged and tiny denizens of the sky.</p> + +<p>Through beaks as needle-fine,</p> +<p class="large">They suck a redder honey than bees know.</p> +<p>Unearthly wine</p> +<p class="large">Sleeps in this bloom; and, when it falls, they go.</p> +</div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span><a href="#contents">LINES FOR A SUN-DIAL</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">W</span>ITH shadowy pen I write,</p> +<p class="indent">Till time be done,</p> +<p class="large">Good news of some strange light,</p> +<p>Some far off sun.</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE REALMS OF GOLD</a></h2> + +<h5>(Written after hearing a line of Keats repeated by a passing stranger under the palms of Southern California.)</h5> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">U</span>NDER the palms of San Diego</p> +<p class="large">Where gold-skinned Mexicans loll at ease,</p> +<p>And the red half-moons of their black-pipped melons</p> +<p class="large">Drop from their hands in the sunset seas,</p> +<p>And an incense, out of the old brown missions,</p> +<p class="large b">Blows through the orange trees;</p> + +<p>I wished that a poet who died in Europe</p> +<p class="large">Had found his way to this rose-red West;</p> +<p>That Keats had walked by the wide Pacific</p> +<p class="large">And cradled his head on its healing breast,</p> +<p>And made new songs of the sun-burned sea-folk,</p> +<p class="large b">New poems, perhaps his best.</p> + +<p>I thought of him, under the ripe pomegranates</p> +<p class="large">At the desert's edge, where the grape-vines grow,</p> +<p>In a sun-kissed ranch between grey-green sage-brush</p> +<p class="large">And amethyst mountains, peaked with snow,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>Or watching the lights of the City of Angels</p> +<p class="large b">Glitter like stars below.</p> + +<p>He should walk, at dawn, by the lemon orchards,</p> +<p class="large">And breathe at ease in that dry bright air;</p> +<p>And the Spanish bells in their crumbling cloisters</p> +<p class="large">Of brown adobe would sing to him there;</p> +<p>And the old Franciscans would bring him their baskets</p> +<p class="large b">Of apple and olive and pear.</p> + +<p>And the mandolins, in the deep blue twilight,</p> +<p class="large">Under that palm with the lion's mane,</p> +<p>Would pluck, once more, at his golden heart-strings,</p> +<p class="large">And tell him the old sea-tales of Spain;</p> +<p>And there should the daughters of Hesperus teach him</p> +<p class="large b">Their mystical songs again.</p> + +<p>Then, the dusk blew sweet over seas of peach-bloom;</p> +<p class="large">The moon sailed white in the cloudless blue;</p> +<p>The tree-toads purred, and the crickets chirruped;</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>And better than anything dreamed came true;</p> +<p>For, under the murmuring palms, a shadow</p> +<p class="large b">Passed, with the eyes I knew;</p> + +<p>A shadow, perhaps, of the tall green fountains</p> +<p class="large">That rustled their fronds on that glittering sky,</p> +<p>A hungering shadow, a lean dark shadow,</p> +<p class="large">A dreaming shadow that drifted by;</p> +<p>But I heard him whisper the strange dark music</p> +<p class="large b">That found it so "rich to die."</p> + +<p>And the murmuring palms of San Diego</p> +<p class="large">Shook with stars as he passed beneath.</p> +<p>The Paradise palms, and the wild white orchards,</p> +<p class="large">The night, and its roses, were all one breath,</p> +<p>Bearing the song of a nightingale seaward,</p> +<p class="large">A song that had out-soared death.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span><a href="#contents">COMPENSATIONS</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">N</span>OT with a flash that rends the blue</p> +<p class="large">Shall fall the avenging sword.</p> +<p>Gently as the evening dew</p> +<p class="large b">Descends the mighty Lord.</p> + +<p>His dreadful balances are made</p> +<p class="large">To move with moon and tide;</p> +<p>Yet shall not mercy be afraid</p> +<p class="large b">Nor justice be denied.</p> + +<p>The dreams that seemed to waste away,</p> +<p class="large">The kindliness forgot,</p> +<p>Were singing in your heart today</p> +<p class="large b">Although you knew them not.</p> + +<p>The sun shall not forget his road,</p> +<p class="large">Nor the high stars their rhyme,</p> +<p>The traveller with the heavier load</p> +<p class="large b">Has one less hill to climb.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>And, though a darker shadow fall</p> +<p class="large">On every struggling age,</p> +<p>How shall it be if, after all,</p> +<p class="large b">He share our pilgrimage?</p> + +<p>The end we mourn is not the end.</p> +<p class="large">The dust has nimble wings.</p> +<p>But truth and beauty have a friend</p> +<p class="large b">At the deep heart of things.</p> + +<p>He will not speak? What friend belies</p> +<p class="large">His love with idle breath?</p> +<p>We read it in each others' eyes,</p> +<p class="large">And ask no more in death.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span><a href="#contents">DEAD MAN'S MORRICE</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">T</span>HERE came a crowder to the Mermaid Inn,</p> +<p class="large">One dark May night,</p> +<p>Fiddling a tune that quelled our motley din,</p> +<p class="large">With quaint delight,</p> +<p>It haunts me yet, as old lost airs will do,</p> +<p class="large">A phantom strain:</p> +<p><i>Look for me once, lest I should look for you,</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>And look in vain.</i></p> + +<p>In that old wood, where ghosts of lovers walk,</p> +<p class="large">At fall of day,</p> +<p>Gleaning such fragments of their ancient talk</p> +<p class="large">As poor ghosts may,</p> +<p>From leaves that brushed their faces, wet with dew,</p> +<p class="large">Or tears, or rain,...</p> +<p><i>Look for me once, lest I should look for you,</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>And look in vain.</i></p> + +<p>Have we not seen them—pale forgotten shades</p> +<p class="large">That do return,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>Groping for those dim paths, those fragrant glades,</p> +<p class="large">Those nooks of fern,</p> +<p>Only to find that, of the may they knew,</p> +<p class="large">No wraiths remain;</p> +<p><i>Yet they still look, as I should look for you,</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>And look in vain.</i></p> + +<p>They see those happier ghosts that waned away—</p> +<p class="large">Whither, who knows?—</p> +<p>Ghosts that come back with music and the may,</p> +<p class="large">And Spring's first rose,</p> +<p>Lover and lass, to sing the old burden through,</p> +<p class="large">Stave and refrain:</p> +<p><i>Look for me once, lest I should look for you,</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>And look in vain.</i></p> + +<p>So, after death, if in that starless deep,</p> +<p class="large">I lose your eyes,</p> +<p>I'll haunt familiar places. I'll not keep</p> +<p class="large">Tryst in the skies.</p> +<p>I'll haunt the whispering elms that found us true,</p> +<p class="large">The old grass-grown lane.</p> +<p><i>Look for me there, lest I should look for you,</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>And look in vain.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>There, as of old, under the dreaming moon,</p> +<p class="large">A phantom throng</p> +<p>Floats through the fern, to a ghostly morrice tune,</p> +<p class="large">A thin sweet song,</p> +<p>Hands link with hands, eyes drown in eyes anew,</p> +<p class="large">Lips meet again....</p> +<p><i>Look for me, once, lest I should look for you,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>And look in vain.</i></p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE OLD FOOL IN THE WOOD</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">"I</span>F I could whisper you all I know,"</p> +<p class="large">Said the Old Fool in the Wood,</p> +<p>"You'd never say that green leaves grow.</p> +<p class="large">You'd say, 'Ah, what a happy mood</p> +<p>The Master must be in today,</p> +<p class="large">To think such thoughts,'</p> +<p class="b">That's what you'd say."</p> + +<p>"If I could whisper you all I've heard,"</p> +<p class="large">Said the Old Fool in the fern,</p> +<p>"You'd never say the song of a bird.</p> +<p class="large">You'd say, 'I'll listen, and p'raps I'll learn</p> +<p>One word of His joy as He passed this way,</p> +<p class="large">One syllable more,'</p> +<p class="b">That's what you'd say."</p> + +<p>"If I could tell you all the rest,"</p> +<p class="large">Said the Old Fool under the skies,</p> +<p>"You'd hug your griefs against your breast</p> +<p class="large">And whisper with love-lit eyes,</p> +<p>'I am one with the sorrow that made the may,</p> +<p class="large">And the pulse of His heart,'</p> +<p class="b">That's what you'd say."</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span><a href="#contents">A NEW MADRIGAL TO AN OLD MELODY</a></h2> + +<h5>(It is supposed that Shadow-of-a-Leaf uses the word "clear" in a more ancient sense of "beautiful.")</h5> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">A</span>S along a dark pine-bough, in slender white mystery</p> +<p class="large">The moon lay to listen, above the thick fern,</p> +<p>In a deep dreaming wood that is older than history</p> +<p class="large">I heard a lad sing, and I stilled me to learn;</p> +<p>So rarely he lilted his long-forgot litany,—</p> +<p class="large"><i>Fall, April; fall, April, in dew on our dearth!</i></p> +<p><i>Bring balm, and bring poppy, bring deep sleepy dittany</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>For Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth.</i></p> + +<p>Then I drew back the branches. I saw him that chanted it.</p> +<p class="large">I saw his fool's bauble. I knew his old grief.</p> +<p>I knew that old greenwood and the shadow that haunted it,—</p> +<p class="large">My fool, my lost jester, my <i>Shadow-of-a-Leaf</i>!</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>And "why," I said, "why, all this while, have you left me so</p> +<p class="large">Luckless in melody, lonely in mirth?"</p> +<p>"Oh, why," he sang, "why has this world then bereft me so</p> +<p class="large b">Soon of my Marian, so long laid in earth?</p> + +<p>"In the years that are gone," he said, "love was more fortunate.</p> +<p class="large">Grief was our minstrel of things that endure.</p> +<p>Now, ashes and dust and this world grow importunate.</p> +<p class="large">Time has no sorrow that time cannot cure.</p> +<p>Once, we could lose, and the loss was worth cherishing.</p> +<p class="large">Now, we may win, but, O, where is the worth?</p> +<p>Memory and true love," he whispered, "are perishing,</p> +<p class="large b">With Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth."</p> + +<p>"Ah, no!" I said, "no! Since we grieve for our grief again,</p> +<p class="large">Touch the old strings! Let us try the old stave!</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>And memory may wake, like my <i>Shadow-of-a-Leaf</i> again,</p> +<p class="large">Singing of hope, in the dark, by a grave."</p> +<p>So we sang it together—that long-forgot litany:—</p> +<p class="large"><i>Fall, April; fall, April; bring new grief to birth.</i></p> +<p><i>Bring wild herb of grace, and bring deep healing dittany,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>For Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth.</i></p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE LOST BATTLE</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">I</span>T is not over yet—the fight</p> +<p class="large">Where those immortal dreamers failed.</p> +<p>They stormed the citadels of night</p> +<p class="large">And the night praised them—and prevailed.</p> +<p>So long ago the cause was lost</p> +<p class="large">We scarce distinguish friend from foe;</p> +<p>But—if the dead can help it most—</p> +<p class="large b">The armies of the dead will grow.</p> + +<p>The world has all our banners now,</p> +<p class="large">And filched our watchwords for its own.</p> +<p>The world has crowned the "rebel's" brow</p> +<p class="large">And millions crowd his lordly throne.</p> +<p>The masks have altered. Names are names;</p> +<p class="large">They praise the "truth" that is not true.</p> +<p>The "rebel" that the world acclaims</p> +<p class="large b">Is not the rebel Shelley knew.</p> + +<p>We may not build that Commonweal.</p> +<p class="large">We may not reach the goal we set.</p> +<p>But there's a flag they dare not steal.</p> +<p class="large">Forward! It is not over yet.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>We shall be dust and under dust</p> +<p class="large">Before we end that ancient wrong;</p> +<p>But here's a sword that cannot rust,</p> +<p class="large b">And where's the death can touch a song?</p> + +<p>So, when our bodies rot in earth</p> +<p class="large">The singing souls that once were ours,</p> +<p>Weaponed with light and helmed with mirth,</p> +<p class="large">Shall front the kingdoms and the powers.</p> +<p>The ancient lie is on its throne,</p> +<p class="large">And half the living still forget;</p> +<p>But, since the dead are all our own,</p> +<p class="large">Courage, it is not over yet.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span><a href ="#contents">RIDDLES OF MERLIN</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">A</span>S I was walking</p> +<p class="large">Alone by the sea,</p> +<p>"<i>What is that whisper?</i>"</p> +<p class="large">Said Merlin to me.</p> +<p>"Only," I answered,</p> +<p class="large">"The sigh of the wave"—</p> +<p>"<i>Oh, no</i>," replied Merlin,</p> +<p class="large b">"<i>'Tis the grass on your grave</i>."</p> + +<p>As I lay dreaming</p> +<p class="large">In churchyard ground</p> +<p>"<i>Listen</i>," said Merlin,</p> +<p class="large">"<i>What is that sound</i>?"</p> +<p>"The green grass is growing,"</p> +<p class="large">I answered; but he</p> +<p>Chuckled, "<i>Oh, no!</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>'Tis the sound of the sea</i>."</p> + +<p>As I went homeward</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>At dusk by the shore,</p> +<p>"<i>What is that crimson?</i>"</p> +<p class="large">Said Merlin once more.</p> +<p>"Only the sun," I said.</p> +<p>"Sinking to rest"—</p> +<p>"<i>Sunset for East</i>," he said,</p> +<p class="large">"<i>Sunrise for West</i>."</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span><a name="THE_SYMPHONY" id="THE_SYMPHONY"></a><a href="#contents">THE SYMPHONY</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">W</span>ONDER in happy eyes</p> +<p class="large">Fades, fades away:</p> +<p>And the angel-coloured skies</p> +<p class="large b">Whisper farewell.</p> + +<p>Loveliness over the strings of the heart may stray</p> +<p class="large">In fugitive melodies;</p> +<p>But Oh, the hand of the Master must not stay,</p> +<p class="large b">Even for a breath;</p> + +<p>For to prolong one joy, or even to dwell</p> +<p class="large">On one rich chord of pain,</p> +<p>Beyond the pulse of the song, would untune heaven</p> +<p class="large b">And drown the stars in death.</p> + +<p>So youth with its love-note dies;</p> +<p class="large">And beauty fades in the air,</p> +<p>To make the master-symphony immortal,</p> +<p class="large">And find new life and deeper wonder there.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span><a href="#contents">PEACE</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">G</span>IVE me the pulse of the tide again</p> +<p class="large">And the slow lapse of the leaves,</p> +<p>The rustling gold of a field of grain</p> +<p class="large b">And a bird in the nested eaves;</p> + +<p>And a fishing-smack in the old harbour</p> +<p class="large">Where all was happy and young;</p> +<p>And an echo or two of the songs I knew</p> +<p class="large b">When songs could still be sung.</p> + +<p>For I would empty my heart of all</p> +<p class="large">This world's implacable roar,</p> +<p>And I would turn to my home, and fall</p> +<p class="large b">Asleep in my home once more;</p> + +<p>And I would forget what the cities say,</p> +<p class="large">And the folly of all the wise,</p> +<p>And turn to my own true folk this day,</p> +<p class="large b">And the love in their constant eyes.</p> + +<p>There is peace, peace, where the sea-birds wheel,</p> +<p class="large">And peace in the breaking wave;</p> +<p>And I have a broken heart to heal,</p> +<p class="large">And a broken soul to save.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE OPEN DOOR</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">O</span> MYSTERY of life,</p> +<p>That, after all our strife,</p> +<p class="large">Defeats, mistakes,</p> +<p>Just as, at last, we see</p> +<p>The road to victory,</p> +<p class="large b">The tired heart breaks.</p> + +<p>Just as the long years give</p> +<p>Knowledge of how to live,</p> +<p class="large">Life's end draws near;</p> +<p>As if, that gift being ours,</p> +<p>God needed our new powers</p> +<p class="large b">In worlds elsewhere.</p> + +<p>There, if the soul whose wings</p> +<p>Were won in suffering, springs</p> +<p class="large">To life anew,</p> +<p>Justice would have some room</p> +<p>For hope beyond the tomb,</p> +<p class="large b">And mercy, too.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>And since, without this dream</p> +<p>No light, no faintest gleam</p> +<p class="large">Answers our "why";</p> +<p>But earth and all its race</p> +<p>Must pass and leave no trace</p> +<p class="large b">On that blind sky;</p> + +<p>Shall reason close that door</p> +<p>On all we struggled for,</p> +<p class="large">Seal the soul's doom;</p> +<p>Make of this universe</p> +<p>One wild answering curse,</p> +<p class="large b">One lampless tomb?</p> + +<p>Mine be the dream, the creed</p> +<p>That leaves for God, indeed,</p> +<p class="large">For God, and man,</p> +<p>One open door whereby</p> +<p>To prove His world no lie</p> +<p class="large">And crown His plan.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span><a href="#contents">IMMORTAL SAILS</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">N</span>OW, in a breath, we'll burst those gates of gold,</p> +<p class="large">And ransack heaven before our moment fails.</p> +<p>Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old,</p> +<p class="large b">We'll mount and sing and spread immortal sails.</p> + +<p>It is not time that makes eternity.</p> +<p class="large">Love and an hour may quite out-run the years,</p> +<p>And give us more to hear and more to see</p> +<p class="large b">Than life can wash away with all its tears.</p> + +<p>Dear, when we part, at last, that sunset sky</p> +<p class="large">Shall not be touched with deeper hues than this;</p> +<p>But we shall ride the lightning ere we die</p> +<p class="large b">And seize our brief infinitude of bliss,</p> + +<p>With time to spare for all that heaven can tell,</p> +<p>While eyes meet eyes, and look their last farewell.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE MATIN-SONG OF FRIAR TUCK</a></h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">I</span>F souls could sing to heaven's high King</p> +<p class="large">As blackbirds pipe on earth,</p> +<p>How those delicious courts would ring</p> +<p class="large">With gusts of lovely mirth!</p> +<p>What white-robed throng could lift a song</p> +<p class="large">So mellow with righteous glee</p> +<p>As this brown bird that all day long</p> +<p class="large">Delights my hawthorn tree.</p> +<p class="indent2">Hark! That's the thrush</p> +<p class="indent3">With speckled breast</p> +<p class="indent2">From yon white bush</p> +<p class="indent3">Chaunting his best,</p> +<p class="large b"><i>Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!</i></p> +</div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="ml"> +<p>If earthly dreams be touched with gleams</p> +<p class="large">Of Paradisal air,</p> +<p>Some wings, perchance, of earth may glance</p> +<p class="large">Around our slumbers there;</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>Some breaths of may might drift our way</p> +<p class="large">With scents of leaf and loam,</p> +<p>Some whistling bird at dawn be heard</p> +<p class="large">From those old woods of home.</p> +<p class="indent2">Hark! That's the thrush</p> +<p class="indent3">With speckled breast</p> +<p class="indent2">From yon white bush</p> +<p class="indent3">Chaunting his best,</p> +<p class="large b"><i>Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!</i></p> +</div> + + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="ml"> +<p>No King or priest shall mar my feast</p> +<p class="large">Where'er my soul may range.</p> +<p>I have no fear of heaven's good cheer</p> +<p class="large">Unless our Master change.</p> +<p>But when death's night is dying away,</p> +<p class="large">If I might choose my bliss,</p> +<p>My love should say, at break of day,</p> +<p class="large">With her first waking kiss:-</p> +<p class="indent2">Hark! That's the thrush</p> +<p class="indent3">With speckled breast,</p> +<p class="indent2">From yon white bush</p> +<p class="indent3">Chaunting his best,</p> +<p class="large"><i>Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!</i></p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span><a href="#contents">FIVE CRITICISMS</a></h2> + +<h3 class="nob">I.</h3> + +<h4>(<i>On many recent novels by the conventional unconventionalists</i>.)</h4> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">O</span>LD PANTALOON, lean-witted, dour and rich,</p> +<p class="large">After grim years of soul-destroying greed,</p> +<p>Weds Columbine, that April-blooded witch</p> +<p class="large b">"Too young" to know that gold was not her need.</p> + +<p>Then enters Pierrot, young, rebellious, warm,</p> +<p class="large">With well-lined purse, to teach the fine-souled wife</p> +<p>That the old fool's gold should aid a world-reform</p> +<p class="large b">(Confused with sex). This wrecks the old fool's life.</p> + +<p>O, there's no doubt that Pierrot was clever,</p> +<p class="large">Quick to break hearts and quench the dying flame;</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>But why, for his own pride, does Pierrot never</p> +<p class="large b">Choose his own mate, work for his own high aim,</p> + +<p>Stand on his feet, and pay for his own tune?</p> +<p class="b">Why scold, cheat, rob and kill poor Pantaloon?</p> +</div> + +<h3 class="nob">II.</h3> + +<h4>(<i>On a certain goddess, acclaimed as "new" but known in Babylon.</i>)</h4> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">I</span> SAW the assembled artists of our day</p> +<p class="large">Waiting for light, for music and for song.</p> +<p>A woman stood before them, fresh as May</p> +<p class="large b">And beautiful; but, in that modish throng,</p> + +<p>None heeded her. They said, "In our first youth</p> +<p class="large">Surely, long since, your hair was touched with grey."</p> +<p>"I do not change," she answered. "I am Truth."</p> +<p class="large b">"Old and banal," they sneered, and turned away.</p> + +<p>Then came a formless thing, with breasts dyed scarlet.</p> +<p class="large">The roses in her hair were green and blue.</p> +<p class="large">"I am new," she said. "I change, and</p> +<p class="indent3 b">Death knows why."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>Then with the eyes and gesture of a harlot</p> +<p class="large">She led them all forth, whinneying, "New, how new!</p> +<p class="indent b">Tell us your name!" She answered, "The New Lie."</p> +</div> + +<h3 class="nob">III.</h3> +<h4>(<i>On Certain of the Bolsheviki "Idealists."</i>)</h4> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">W</span>ITH half the force and thought you waste in rage</p> +<p class="large">Over your neighbor's house, or heart of stone,</p> +<p>You might have built your own new heritage,</p> +<p class="large b">O fools, have you no hands, then, of your own?</p> + +<p>Where is your pride? Is this your answer still,</p> +<p class="large">This the red flag that burns above our strife,</p> +<p>This the new cry that rings from Pisgah hill,</p> +<p class="large b">"<i>Our neighbor's money, or our neighbor's life</i>"?</p> + +<p>Be prouder. Let us build that nobler state</p> +<p class="large">With our own hands, with our own muscle and brain!</p> +<p>Your very victories die in hymns of hate;</p> +<p class="large b">And your own envies are your heaviest chain.</p> + +<p>Is there no rebel proud enough to say</p> +<p class="larage b">"We'll stand on our own feet, and win the day"?</p> +</div> + +<h3 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>IV.</h3> + +<h4>(<i>On Certain Realists.</i>)</h4> + +<div class="ml"> + +<p><span class="cap">Y</span>OU with the quick sardonic eye</p> +<p>For all the mockeries of life,</p> +<p>Beware, in this dark masque of things that seem,</p> +<p>Lest even that tragic irony,</p> +<p>Which you discern in this our mortal strife,</p> +<p class="b">Trick you and trap you, also, with a dream.</p> + +<p>Last night I saw a dead man borne along</p> +<p>The city streets, passing a boisterous throng</p> +<p>That never ceased to laugh and shout and dance:</p> +<p>And yet, and yet,</p> +<p>For all the poison bitter minds might brew</p> +<p>From themes like this, I knew</p> +<p>That the stern Truth would not permit her glance</p> +<p>Thus to be foiled by flying straws of chance,</p> +<p>For her keen eyes on deeper skies are set,</p> +<p class="b">And laws that tragic ironists forget.</p> + +<p>She saw the dead man's life, from birth to death,—</p> +<p>All that he knew of love and sin and pain,</p> +<p>Success and failure (not as this world sees),</p> +<p>His doubts, his passions, inner loss and gain,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>And borne on darker tides of constant law</p> +<p>Beyond the margin of this life she saw</p> +<p>All that had left his body with the breath.</p> +<p class="b">These things, to her, were still realities.</p> + +<p>If any mourned for him unseen,</p> +<p>She saw them, too.</p> +<p>If none, she'd not pretend</p> +<p>His clay were colder, or his God less true,</p> +<p>Or that his grave, at length, would be less green.</p> +<p>She'd not deny</p> +<p>The boundless depths of her eternal sky</p> +<p>Brooding above a boundless universe,</p> +<p>Because he seemed to man's unseeing eye</p> +<p>Going a little further to fare worse;</p> +<p>Nor would she assume he lacked that unseen friend</p> +<p>Whom even the tragic ironists declare</p> +<p class="b">Were better than the seen, in his last end.</p> + +<p>Oh, then, beware, beware,</p> +<p>Lest in the strong name of "reality"</p> +<p>You mock yourselves anew with shapes of air,</p> +<p>Lest it be you, agnostics, who re-write</p> +<p>The fettering creeds of night,</p> +<p>Affirm you know your own Unknowable,</p> +<p>And lock the wingéd soul in a new hell;</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>Lest it be you, lip-worshippers of Truth,</p> +<p>Who break the heart of youth;</p> +<p>Lest it be you, the realists, who fight</p> +<p>With shadows, and forget your own pure light;</p> +<p>Lest it be you who, with a little shroud</p> +<p>Snatched from the sightless faces of the dead,</p> +<p>Hoodwink the world, and keep the mourner bowed</p> +<p>In dust, real dust, with stones, real stones, for bread;</p> +<p>Lest, as you look one eighth of an inch beneath</p> +<p>The yellow skin of death,</p> +<p>You dream yourselves discoverers of the skull</p> +<p>That old <i>memento mori</i> of our faith;</p> +<p>Lest it be you who hunt a flying wraith</p> +<p>Through this dissolving stuff of hill and cloud;</p> +<p>Lest it be you, who, at the last, annul</p> +<p>Your covenant with your kind;</p> +<p>Lest it be you who darken heart and mind,</p> +<p>Sell the strong soul in bondage to a dream,</p> +<p class="b">And fetter us once more to things that seem.</p> +</div> + +<h3 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>V</h3> +<h4>(<i>An Answer</i>)</h4> + + +<p class="none b" style="font-size: 95%; text-align: left; text-indent: 2em; text-align: justify;">[After reading an article in a leading London journal by an +"intellectual" who attacked one of the noblest poets and greatest +artists of a former century (or any century) on the ground that his +high ethical standards were incompatible with the new lawlessness. +This vicious lawlessness the writer described definitely, and he paid +his tribute to dishonour as openly and brutally as any of the Bolsheviki +could have done. I had always known that this was the real +ground of the latter-day onslaught on some of the noblest literature +of the past; but I had never seen it openly confessed before. The +time has now surely come when, if our civilization is to make any +fight at all against the new "red ruin and breaking up of laws," we +must cease to belaud our slack-minded, latter-day "literature of +rebellion" for its cleverness in making scraps of paper out of the +plain laws of right and wrong. It has been doing this for more than +twenty-five years, and the same has become fashionable among +those who are too busy to read carefully or understand fully what +pitfalls are being prepared for their own feet and the feet of their children.]</p> + +<h3>I</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">I</span>F this were true, England indeed were dead.</p> +<p class="large">If the wild fashion of that poisonous hour</p> +<p class="large">Wherein the new Salome, clothed with power,</p> +<p>Wriggled and hissed, with hands and feet so red,</p> +<p>Should even now demand that glorious head,</p> +<p class="large">Whose every word was like an English flower,</p> +<p class="large">Whose every song an English April shower,</p> +<p>Whose every thought immortal wine and bread;</p> +<p>If this were true, if England should prefer</p> +<p class="large">Darkness, corruption, and the adulterous crew,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>Shakespeare and Browning would cry shame on her,</p> +<p class="large">And Milton would deny the land he knew;</p> +<p>And those who died in Flanders yesterday</p> +<p class="b">Would thank their God they sleep in cleaner clay.</p> +</div> + +<h3>II</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p>It is not true. Only these "rebel" wings,</p> +<p class="large">These glittering clouds of "intellectual" flies</p> +<p class="large">Out of the stagnant pools of midnight rise</p> +<p>From the old dead creeds, with carrion-poisoned stings</p> +<p class="large">They strike at noble and ignoble things,</p> +<p class="large">Immortal Love with the old world's out-worn lies,</p> +<p class="large">But even now, a wind from clearer skies</p> +<p class="b">Dissolves in smoke their coteries and wings.</p> + +<p>See, their divorced idealist re-divorces</p> +<p class="large">The wife he stole from his own stealing friend!</p> +<p>And <i>these</i> would pluck the high stars from their courses,</p> +<p class="large">And mock the fools that praise them, till the end!</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>Well, let the whole world praise them. Truth can wait</p> +<p class="b">Till our new England shall unlock the gate.</p> +</div> + +<h3>III</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p>Yes. Let the fools go paint themselves with woad,</p> +<p class="large">For we've a jest between us, Truth and I.</p> +<p class="large">We know that those who live by fashion die</p> +<p>Also by fashion, and that mode kills mode.</p> +<p>We know the great new age is on the road,</p> +<p class="large">And death is at the heart of every lie.</p> +<p class="large">But we've a jest between us, Truth and I.</p> +<p class="b">And we have locked the doors to our abode.</p> + +<p>Yet if some great new "rebel" in his pride</p> +<p class="large">Should pass that way and hear us laughing low</p> +<p>Like lovers, in the darkness, side by side,</p> +<p class="large">He might catch this:—"The dullards do not know</p> +<p>That names are names. New 'rebel' is old 'thrall.'"</p> +<p>And we're the lonely dreamers after all.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE COMPANIONS</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">H</span>OW few are they that voyage through the night</p> +<p class="large">On that eternal quest,</p> +<p>For that strange light beyond our light,</p> +<p class="large b">That rest beyond our rest.</p> + +<p>And they who, seeking beauty, once descry</p> +<p class="large">Her face, to most unknown;</p> +<p>Thenceforth like changelings from the sky</p> +<p class="large b">Must walk their road alone.</p> + +<p>So once I dreamed. So idle was my mood;</p> +<p class="large">But now, before these eyes,</p> +<p>From those foul trenches, black with blood,</p> +<p class="large b">What radiant legions rise!</p> + +<p>And loveliness over the wounded earth awakes</p> +<p class="large">Like wild-flowers in the Spring.</p> +<p>Out of the mortal chrysalis breaks</p> +<p class="large b">Immortal wing on wing.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>They rise like flowers, they wander on wings of light,</p> +<p class="large">Through realms beyond our ken.</p> +<p>The loneliest soul is companied tonight</p> +<p class="large">By hosts of unknown men.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE LITTLE ROADS</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">T</span>HE great roads are all grown over</p> +<p class="large">That seemed so firm and white.</p> +<p>The deep black forests have covered them.</p> +<p class="large">How should I walk aright?</p> +<p>How should I thread these tangled mazes,</p> +<p class="large">Or grope to that far off light?</p> +<p>I stumble round the thickets, and they turn me</p> +<p class="large b">Back to the thickets and the night.</p> + +<p>Yet, sometimes, at a word, an elfin pass-word,</p> +<p class="large">(O, thin, deep, sweet with beaded rain!)</p> +<p>There shines, through a mist of ragged-robins,</p> +<p class="large">The old lost April-coloured lane,</p> +<p>That leads me from myself; for, at a whisper,</p> +<p class="large">Where the strong limbs thrust in vain,</p> +<p>At a breath, if my heart help another heart,</p> +<p class="large b">The path shines out for me again.</p> + +<p>A thin thread, a rambling lane for lovers</p> +<p class="large">To the light of the world's one May,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>Where the white dropping flakes may wet our faces</p> +<p class="large">As we lift them to the bloom-bowed spray:</p> +<p>O Master, shall we ask Thee, then, for high-roads,</p> +<p class="large">Or down upon our knees and pray</p> +<p>That Thou wilt ever lose us in Thy little lanes,</p> +<p class="large">And lead us by a wandering way.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span><a href="#contents">SUNLIGHT AND SEA</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">G</span>IVE me the sunlight and the sea</p> +<p class="b">And who shall take my heaven from me?</p> + +<p>Light of the Sun, Life of the Sun,</p> +<p>O happy, bold companion,</p> +<p>Whose golden laughters round me run,</p> +<p>Making wine of the blue air</p> +<p>With wild-rose kisses everywhere,</p> +<p>Browning the limb, flushing the cheek,</p> +<p>Apple-fragrant, leopard-sleek,</p> +<p>Dancing from thy red-curtained East</p> +<p>Like a Nautch-girl to my feast,</p> +<p>Proud because her lord, the Spring,</p> +<p>Praised the way those anklets ring;</p> +<p>Or wandering like a white Greek maid</p> +<p>Leaf-dappled through the dancing shade,</p> +<p>Where many a green-veined leaf imprints</p> +<p>Breast and limb with emerald tints,</p> +<p>That softly net her silken shape</p> +<p>But let the splendour still escape,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>While rosy ghosts of roses flow</p> +<p class="b">Over the supple rose and snow.</p> + +<p>But sweetest, fairest is thy face,</p> +<p>When we meet, when we embrace,</p> +<p>Where the white sand sleeps at noon</p> +<p>Round that lonely blue lagoon,</p> +<p>Fringed with one white reef of coral</p> +<p>Where the sea-birds faintly quarrel</p> +<p>And the breakers on the reef</p> +<p>Fade into a dream of grief,</p> +<p>And the palm-trees overhead</p> +<p class="b">Whisper that all grief is dead.</p> + +<p>Sister Sunlight, lead me then</p> +<p>Into thy healing seas again....</p> +<p>For when we swim out, side by side,</p> +<p>Like a lover with his bride,</p> +<p>When thy lips are salt with brine,</p> +<p>And thy wild eyes flash in mine,</p> +<p>The music of a mightier sea</p> +<p>Beats with my blood in harmony.</p> +<p>I breast the primal flood of being,</p> +<p>Too clear for speech, too near for seeing;</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>And to his heart, new reconciled,</p> +<p class="b">The Eternal takes his earth-bound child.</p> + +<p>Who the essential secret spells</p> +<p>In those gigantic syllables,—</p> +<p>Flowing, ebbing, ebbing, flowing,—</p> +<p>Gathers wisdom past all knowing.</p> +<p>Song of the Sea, I hear, I hear,</p> +<p>That deeper music of the sphere,</p> +<p>Catch the rhythm of sun and star,</p> +<p>And know what light and darkness are;</p> +<p>Ay, faint beginnings of a rhyme</p> +<p>That swells beyond the tides of time;</p> +<p>Beat with thy rhythm in blood and breath,</p> +<p>And make one song of life and death.</p> +<p>I hear, I hear, and rest content,</p> +<p>Merged in the primal element,</p> +<p>The old element whence life arose,</p> +<p class="b">The fount of youth, to which it goes.</p> + +<p>Give me the sunlight and the sea</p> +<p>And who shall take my heaven from me?</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE ROAD THROUGH CHAOS</a></h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">T</span>here is one road, one only, to the Light:</p> +<p class="large">A narrow way, but Freedom walks therein;</p> +<p>A straight, firm road through Chaos and old Night,</p> +<p class="large b">And all these wandering Jack-o-Lents of Sin.</p> + +<p>It is the road of Law, where Pilate stays</p> +<p class="large">To hear, at last, the answer to his cry;</p> +<p>And mighty sages, groping through their maze</p> +<p class="large b">Of eager questions, hear a child reply.</p> + +<p><i>Truth? What is Truth?</i> Come, look upon my tables.</p> +<p class="large">Begin at your beginnings once again.</p> +<p><i>Twice one is two!</i> Though all the rest be fables,</p> +<p class="large b">Here's one poor glimpse of Truth to keep you sane.</p> + +<p>For Truth, at first, is clean accord with fact,</p> +<p class="b">Whether in line or thought, or word, or act.</p> +</div> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>II.</h3> + +<div class="ml"> +<p>Then, by those first, those clean, precise, accords,</p> +<p class="large">Build to the Lord your temples and your song;</p> +<p>The curves of beauty, music's wedded chords</p> +<p class="large b">Resolving into heaven all hate and wrong.</p> + +<p>Let harmonies of colour marry and follow</p> +<p class="large">And breaking waves in a rhythmic dance ensue;</p> +<p>And all your thought fly free as the wings of the swallow,</p> +<p class="large b">Whose arrowy curves obey their measure, too.</p> + +<p>Then shall the marching stars and tides befriend you,</p> +<p class="large">And your own heart, and the world's heart, pulse in rhyme;</p> +<p>Then shall the mob of the passions that would rend you</p> +<p class="large b">Crown you their Captain and march on in time.</p> + +<p>So shall you repossess your struggling soul,</p> +<p class="b">Conquer your world, and find the eternal goal.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE NIGHT OF THE LION</a></h2> + + +<h4 class="nob">"<i>And that a reply be received before midnight.</i>"</h4> +<h4 class="not" style="padding-left: 13em;"><i>British Ultimatum</i>.</h4> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">T</span>HEIR Day was at twelve of the night,</p> +<p class="large">When the graves give up their dead.</p> +<p>And still, from the City, no light</p> +<p class="large">Yellows the clouds overhead.</p> +<p>Where the Admiral stands there's a star,</p> +<p class="large">But his column is lost in the gloom;</p> +<p>For the brazen doors are ajar,</p> +<p class="large b">And the Lion awakes, and the doom.</p> + +<p><i>He is not of a chosen race.</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>His strength is the strength of the skies,</i></p> +<p><i>In whose glory all nations have place,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>In whose downfall Liberty dies.</i></p> +<p><i>He is mighty, but he is just.</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>He shall live to the end of years.</i></p> +<p><i>He shall bring the proud to the dust.</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>He shall raise the weak to the spheres.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>It is night on the world's great mart,</p> +<p class="large">But the brooding hush is awake</p> +<p>With the march of a steady heart</p> +<p class="large">That calls like the drum of Drake,</p> +<p><i>Come!</i> And a muttering deep</p> +<p class="large">As the pulse of the distant guns,</p> +<p>Or the thunder before the leap</p> +<p class="large b">Thro' the rolling thoroughfare runs.</p> + +<p>And the wounded men go by</p> +<p class="large">Like thoughts in the Lion's brain.</p> +<p>And the clouds lift on high</p> +<p class="large">Like the slow waves of his mane</p> +<p>And the narrowing lids conceal</p> +<p class="large">The furnaces of his eyes.</p> +<p>Their gold is gone out. They reveal</p> +<p>Only two search-lights of steel</p> +<p class="large b">Steadily sweeping the skies.</p> + +<p>And we hoped he had peace in his lair</p> +<p class="large">Where the bones of old tyrannies lay,</p> +<p>And the skulls that his cubs have stripped bare,</p> +<p class="large">The old skulls they still toss in their play.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>But the tyrants are risen again,</p> +<p class="large">And the last light dies from their path;</p> +<p>For the midnight of his mane</p> +<p class="large b">Lifts to the stars with his wrath.</p> + +<p>From the East to the West he is crouching.</p> +<p class="large">He snuffs at the North-East wind.</p> +<p>His breast upon Britain is couching.</p> +<p class="large">His haunches quiver on Ind.</p> +<p>It is night, black night, where he lies;</p> +<p class="large">But a kingdom and a fleet</p> +<p>Shall burn in his terrible eyes</p> +<p>When he leaps, and the darkness dies</p> +<p class="large b">With the War-gods under his feet.</p> + +<p><i>Till the day when a little child,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>Shall lay but a hand on his mane,</i></p> +<p><i>And his eyes grow golden and mild</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>And he stands in the heavens again;</i></p> +<p><i>Till the day of the seventh seal,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>Which the Lion alone shall rend,</i></p> +<p><i>When the stars from their courses reel,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>His Freedom shall not end.</i></p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE WAR WIDOW</a></h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">B</span>LACK-VEILED, black-gowned, she rides in bus and train,</p> +<p class="large">With eyes that fill too listlessly for tears.</p> +<p>Her waxen hands clasp and unclasp again.</p> +<p class="large b"><i>Good News</i>, they cry. She neither sees nor hears.</p> + +<p>Good News, perhaps, may crown some far-off king.</p> +<p class="large">Good News may peal the glory of the state—</p> +<p>Good News may cause the courts of heaven to ring.</p> +<p class="large b">She sees a hand waved at a garden gate.</p> + +<p>For her dull ears are tuned to other themes;</p> +<p class="large">And her dim eyes can never see aright.</p> +<p>She glides—a ghost—through all her April dreams,</p> +<p class="large b">To meet his eyes at dawn, his lips at night.</p> + +<p>Wraiths of a truth that others never knew;</p> +<p class="b">And yet—for her—the only truth that's true.</p> +</div> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>II.</h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p><i>Good News! Good News!</i> There is no way but this.</p> +<p class="large">Out of the night a star begins to rise.</p> +<p>I know not where my soul's deep Master is;</p> +<p class="large b">Nor can I hear those angels in the skies;</p> + +<p>Nor follow him, as childhood used of old,</p> +<p class="large">By radiant seas, in those time-hallowed tales.</p> +<p>Only, at times, implacable and cold,</p> +<p class="large b">From this blind gloom, stand out the iron nails.</p> + +<p>Yet, at this world's heart stands the Eternal Cross,</p> +<p class="large">The ultimate frame of moon and star and sun,</p> +<p>Where Love with out-stretched arms, in utter loss,</p> +<p class="large b">Points East and West and makes the whole world one.</p> + +<p><i>Good News! Good News!</i> There is no hope, no way,</p> +<p>No truth, no life, but leads through Christmas Day.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE BELL</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> + +<p><span class="cap">T</span>HE Temple Bell was out of tune,</p> +<p class="b">That once out-melodied sun and moon.</p> + +<p>Instead of calling folk to prayer</p> +<p class="b">It spread an evil in the air.</p> + +<p>Instead of a song, from north to south,</p> +<p class="b">It put a lie in the wind's mouth.</p> + +<p>The very palms beneath it died,</p> +<p class="b">So harsh it jarred, so loud it lied.</p> + +<p>Then the gods told the blue-robed bonze:</p> +<p class="b">"<i>Your Bell is only wrought of bronze.</i></p> + +<p><i>Lower it down, cast it again,</i></p> +<p class="b"><i>Or you shall shake the heavens in vain.</i>"</p> + +<p>Then, as the mighty cauldron hissed,</p> +<p class="b">Men brought the wealth that no man missed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>Yea, they brought silver, they brought gold,</p> +<p class="b">And melted them into the seething mould.</p> + +<p>The miser brought his greening hoard,</p> +<p class="b">And the king cast in his sword.</p> + +<p>Yet, when the Bell in the Temple swung,</p> +<p class="b">It jarred the stars with its harsh tongue.</p> + +<p>"<i>Is this your best?</i>" the oracle said,</p> +<p class="b">"<i>Then were you better drunk or dead.</i>"</p> + +<p>Once again they melted it down,</p> +<p class="b">And the king cast in his crown.</p> + +<p>Then they poured wine, and bullock's blood,</p> +<p class="b">Into the hot, grey, seething flood.</p> + +<p>They gave it mellowing fruits to eat,</p> +<p class="b">And honey-combs to make it sweet.</p> + +<p>Yet, when they hauled it to the sky,</p> +<p class="b">The Bell was one star-shattering lie.</p> + +<p>So, for the third time and the last,</p> +<p class="b">They lowered it down to be re-cast.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>The white-hot metal seethed anew,</p> +<p class="b">And the crowd shrank as the heat grew;</p> + +<p>But a white-robed woman, queenly and tall,</p> +<p class="b">Pressed to the brink before them all,</p> + +<p>One breast, like a golden fruit lay bare;</p> +<p class="b">She held her small son feeding there.</p> + +<p>She plucked him off, she lifted him high,</p> +<p class="b">Like rose-red fruit on the blue sky.</p> + +<p>She pressed her lips to the budded feet,</p> +<p class="b">And murmured softly, "<i>Oh, sweet, my sweet.</i>"</p> + +<p>She whispered, "<i>Gods, that my land may live,</i></p> +<p class="b"><i>I give the best that I have to give!</i>"</p> + +<p>Then, then, before the throng awoke,</p> +<p class="b">Before one cry from their white lips broke,</p> + +<p>She tossed him into the fiery flood,</p> +<p class="b">Her child, her baby, her flesh and blood.</p> + +<p>And the crisp hissing waves closed round</p> +<p class="b">And melted him through without a sound.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>"<i>Too quick for pain</i>," they heard her say,</p> +<p class="b">And she sobbed, once, and she turned away.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="not" style="width: 25%;" /> +<div class="ml"> +<p>The Temple Bell, in peace and war,</p> +<p class="b">Keeps the measure of sun and star.</p> + +<p>But sometimes, in the night it cries</p> +<p class="b">Faintly, and a voice replies:</p> + +<p><i>Mother, Oh, mother, the Bell rings true!—</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>You were all that I had!—Oh, mother, my mother!—</i></p> +<p><i>With the land and the Bell it is well. Is it well,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>Is it well with the heart that had you and none other?</i></p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span><a href="#contents">SLAVE AND EMPEROR</a></h2> + +<h5>"Our cavalry have rescued Nazareth from the enemy whose supermen described Christianity as a creed for slaves."</h5> + +<div class="ml"> + +<p><span class="cap">T</span>HE Emperor mocked at Nazareth</p> +<p class="large">In his almighty hour.</p> +<p>The Slave that bowed himself to death</p> +<p>And walked with slaves in Nazareth,</p> +<p>What were his words but wasted breath</p> +<p class="large b">Before that "will to power"?</p> + +<p>Yet, in the darkest hour of all,</p> +<p class="large">When black defeat began,</p> +<p>The Emperor heard the mountains quake,</p> +<p>He felt the graves beneath him shake,</p> +<p>He watched his legions rally and break,</p> +<p class="large b">And he whimpered as they ran.</p> + +<p>"I hear a shout that moves the earth,</p> +<p class="large">A cry that wakes the dead!</p> +<p>Will no one tell me whence they come,</p> +<p>For all my messengers are dumb?</p> +<p>What power is this that comes to birth</p> +<p class="large b">And breaks my power?" he said.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>Then, all around his foundering guns,</p> +<p class="large">Though dawn was now not far,</p> +<p>The darkness filled with a living fear</p> +<p>That whispered at the Emperor's ear,</p> +<p>"<i>The armies of the dead draw near</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>Beneath an eastern star.</i>"</p> + +<p><i>The trumpet blows in Nazareth.</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>The Slave is risen again.</i></p> +<p><i>Across the bitter wastes of death</i></p> +<p><i>The horsemen ride from Nazareth,</i></p> +<p><i>And the Power we mocked as wasted breath</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>Returns, in power, to reign;</i></p> +<p><i>Rides on, in white, through Nazareth,</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>To save His world again.</i></p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span><a href="#contents">ON A MOUNTAIN TOP</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">O</span>N this high altar, fringed with ferns</p> +<p class="large">That darken against the sky,</p> +<p>The dawn in lonely beauty burns</p> +<p class="large b">And all our evils die.</p> + +<p>The struggling sea that roared below</p> +<p class="large">Is quieter than the dew,</p> +<p>Quieter than the clouds that flow</p> +<p class="large b">Across the stainless blue.</p> + +<p>On this bare crest, the angels kneel</p> +<p class="large">And breathe the sweets that rise</p> +<p>From flowers too little to reveal</p> +<p class="large b">Their beauty to our eyes.</p> + +<p>I have seen Edens on the earth</p> +<p class="large">With queenly blooms arrayed;</p> +<p>But here the fairest come to birth,</p> +<p class="large b">The smallest flowers He made.</p> + +<p>O, high above the sounding pine,</p> +<p class="large">And richer, sweeter far,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>The wild thyme wakes. The celandine</p> +<p class="large b">Looks at the morning star.</p> + +<p>They may not see the heavens unfold.</p> +<p class="large">They breathe no out-worn prayer;</p> +<p>But, on a mountain, as of old,</p> +<p class="large">His glory fills the air.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>EARLY POEMS</h2> + +<h4>(<i>Not Published Hitherto in America</i>)</h4> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2 class="nob"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE PHANTOM FLEET</a></h2> + +<h4>(1904)</h4> + +<div class="ml"> + +<p><span class="cap">T</span>HE sunset lingered in the pale green West:</p> +<p class="large">In rosy wastes the low soft evening star</p> +<p>Woke; while the last white sea-mew sought for rest;</p> +<p class="large b">And tawny sails came stealing o'er the bar.</p> + +<p>But, in the hillside cottage, through the panes</p> +<p class="large">The light streamed like a thin far trumpet-call,</p> +<p>And quickened, as with quivering battle-stains,</p> +<p class="large b">The printed ships that decked the parlour wall.</p> + +<p>From oaken frames old admirals looked down:</p> +<p class="large">They saw the lonely slumberer at their feet:</p> +<p>They saw the paper, headed <i>Talk from Town;</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>Our rusting trident, and our phantom fleet</i>:</p> + +<p>And from a neighbouring tavern surged a song</p> +<p class="large">Of England laughing in the face of war,</p> +<p>With eyes unconquerably proud and strong,</p> +<p class="large b">And lips triumphant from her Trafalgar.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>But he, the slumberer in that glimmering room,</p> +<p class="large">Saw distant waters glide and heave and gleam;</p> +<p>Around him in the softly coloured gloom</p> +<p class="large b">The pictures clustered slowly to a dream.</p> + +<p>He saw how England, resting on her past,</p> +<p class="large">Among the faded garlands of her dead,</p> +<p>Woke; for a whisper reached her heart at last,</p> +<p class="large b">And once again she raised her steel-clad head.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were filled with sudden strange alarms;</p> +<p class="large">She heard the westering waters change and chime;</p> +<p>She heard the distant tumult of her arms</p> +<p class="large b">Defeated, not by courage, but by Time.</p> + +<p>Knowledge had made a deadlier pact with death,</p> +<p class="large">Nor strength nor steel availed against that bond:</p> +<p>Slowly approached—and Britain held her breath—</p> +<p class="large b">The battle booming from the deeps beyond.</p> + +<p>O, then what darkness rolled upon the wind,</p> +<p class="large">Threatening the torch that Britain held on high?</p> +<p>Where all her navies, baffled, broken, blind,</p> +<p class="large">Slunk backward, snarling in their agony!</p> +<p class="large"><i>Who guards the gates of Freedom now?</i> The cry</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>Stabbed heaven! <i>England, the shattered ramparts fall!</i></p> +<p class="large">Then, like a trumpet shivering through the sky</p> +<p>O, like white lightning rending the black pall</p> +<p class="b">Of heaven, an answer pealed: <i>Her dead shall hear that call.</i></p> + +<p>Then came a distant light of great waves breaking</p> +<p class="large">That brought the sunset on each crumbling crest,</p> +<p>A rumour as of buried ages waking,</p> +<p class="large">And mighty spirits rising from their rest;</p> +<p class="large">Then ghostly clouds arose, with billowing breast,</p> +<p>White clouds that turned to sails upon their way,</p> +<p class="large">Red clouds that burned like flags against the West,</p> +<p>Till even the conquering fleet in silence lay</p> +<p class="b">Dazed with that strange old light, and night grew bright as day.</p> + +<p><i>We come to fight for Freedom!</i> The great East</p> +<p class="large">Heard, and was rent asunder like a veil.</p> +<p>Host upon host out of the night increased</p> +<p class="large">Its towering clouds and crowded zones of sail:</p> +<p class="large"><i>England, our England, canst thou faint or fail?</i></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span><i>We come to fight for Freedom yet once more!</i></p> +<p class="large">This, this is ours at least! Count the great tale</p> +<p>Of all these dead that rise to guard thy shore</p> +<p class="b">By right of the red life they never feared to pour.</p> + +<p><i>We come to fight for Freedom!</i> On they came,</p> +<p class="large">One cloud of beauty sweeping the wild sea;</p> +<p>And there, through all their thousands, flashed like flame</p> +<p class="large">That star-born signal of the Victory:</p> +<p class="large"><i>Duty</i>, that deathless lantern of the free;</p> +<p><i>Duty</i>, that makes a god of every man.</p> +<p class="large">And there was Nelson, watching silently</p> +<p>As through the phantom fleet the message ran;</p> +<p class="b">And his tall frigate rushed before the stormy van.</p> + +<p>Nelson, our Nelson, frail and maimed and blind,</p> +<p class="large">Stretched out his dead cold face against the foe:</p> +<p>And England's Raleigh followed hard behind,</p> +<p class="large">With all his eager fighting heart aglow;</p> +<p class="large">Glad, glad for England's sake once more to know</p> +<p>The old joy of battle and contempt of pain;</p> +<p>Glad, glad to die, if England willed it so,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>The traitor's and the coward's death again;</p> +<p class="b">But hurl the world back now as once he hurled back Spain.</p> + +<p>And there were all those others, Drake and Blake,</p> +<p class="large">Rodney and Howard, Byron, Collingwood;</p> +<p>With deathless eyes aflame for England's sake,</p> +<p class="large">As on their ancient decks they proudly stood,—</p> +<p class="large">Decks washed of old with England's purplest blood;</p> +<p>And there, once more, each rushing oaken side</p> +<p class="large">Bared its dark-throated, thirsty, gleaming brood</p> +<p>Of cannon, watched by laughing lads who died</p> +<p class="b">Long, long ago for England and her ancient pride.</p> + +<p><i>We come to fight for England!</i> The great sea</p> +<p class="large">In a wild light of song began to break</p> +<p>Round that tall phantom of the Victory</p> +<p class="large">And all the foam was music in her wake:</p> +<p class="large">Ship after phantom ship, with guns a-rake</p> +<p>And shot-rent flags a-stream from every mast</p> +<p class="large">Moved in a deepening splendour, not to make</p> +<p>A shield for England of her own dead past;</p> +<p class="b">But, with a living dream to arm her soul at last.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span><i>We come to die for England</i>: through the hush</p> +<p class="large">Of gathered nations rose that regal cry,</p> +<p>From naked oaken walls one word could crush</p> +<p class="large">If those vast armoured throats dared to reply:</p> +<p class="large">But there the most implacable enemy</p> +<p>Felt his eyes fill with gladder, prouder tears,</p> +<p class="large">As Nelson's calm eternal face went by,</p> +<p>Gazing beyond all perishable fears</p> +<p class="b">To some diviner goal above the waste of years.</p> + +<p>Through the hushed fleets the vision streamed away,</p> +<p class="large">Then slowly turned once more to that deep West,</p> +<p>While voices cried, O, England, the new day</p> +<p class="large b">Is dawning, but thy soul can take no rest.</p> + +<p>Thy freedom and thy peace are only thine</p> +<p class="large">By right of toil on every land and sea</p> +<p>And by that crimson sacrificial wine</p> +<p class="large b">Of thine own heart and thine own agony.</p> + +<p>Peace is not slumber. Peace, in every hour,</p> +<p class="large">Throbs like the heart of music. This alone</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>Can save thy heritage and confirm that power</p> +<p class="large b">Whereof the past is but the cushioned throne.</p> + +<p>Look to the fleet! Again and yet again,</p> +<p class="large">Hear us who storm thy heart with this one cry.</p> +<p>Hear us, who cannot help, though fair and fain,</p> +<p class="large b">To hold thy seas before thee, and to die.</p> + +<p>Look to the fleet! Thy fleet, the first, last line:</p> +<p class="large">The sword of Liberty, her strength, her shield,</p> +<p>Her food, her life-blood! Britain, it is thine,</p> +<p class="large b">Here, now, to hold that birth-right, or to yield.</p> + +<p>So, through the dark, those phantom ships of old</p> +<p class="large">Faded, it seemed, through mists of blood and tears.</p> +<p>Sails turned to clouds, and slowly westward rolled</p> +<p class="large">The sad returning pageant of the years.</p> +<p>On tides of light, where all our tumults cease,</p> +<p class="large">Through that rich West, the Victory returned;</p> +<p>And all the waves around her whispered "peace,"</p> +<p class="large b">And from her mast no battle-message burned.</p> + +<p>Like clouds, like fragments of those fading skies,</p> +<p class="large">The pageant passed, with all its misty spars,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>While the hushed nations raised their dreaming eyes</p> +<p class="large b">To that great light which brings the end of wars.</p> + +<p>Ship after ship, in some strange glory drowned,</p> +<p class="large">Cloud after cloud, was lost in that deep light</p> +<p>Each with a sovran stillness haloed round.</p> +<p class="large">Then—that high fleet of stars led on the night.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span><a href="#contents">MICHAEL OAKTREE</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">U</span>NDER an arch of glorious leaves I passed</p> +<p>Out of the wood and saw the sickle moon</p> +<p class="b">Floating in daylight o'er the pale green sea.</p> + +<p>It was the quiet hour before the sun</p> +<p>Gathers the clouds to prayer and silently</p> +<p>Utters his benediction on the waves</p> +<p>That whisper round the death-bed of the day.</p> +<p>The labourers were returning from the farms</p> +<p>And children danced to meet them. From the doors</p> +<p>Of cottages there came a pleasant clink</p> +<p>Where busy hands laid out the evening meal.</p> +<p>From smouldering elms around the village spire</p> +<p>There soared and sank the caw of gathering rooks.</p> +<p>The faint-flushed clouds were listening to the tale</p> +<p>The sea tells to the sunset with one sigh.</p> +<p>The last white wistful sea-bird sought for peace,</p> +<p>And the last fishing-boat stole o'er the bar,</p> +<p>And fragrant grasses, murmuring a prayer,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>Bowed all together to the holy west,</p> +<p>Bowed all together thro' the golden hush,</p> +<p>The breathing hush, the solemn scented hush,</p> +<p class="b">The holy, holy hush of eventide.</p> + +<p>And, in among the ferns that crowned the hill</p> +<p>With waving green and whispers of the wind,</p> +<p>A boy and girl, carelessly linking hands,</p> +<p>Into their golden dream drifted away.</p> +<p>On that rich afternoon of scent and song</p> +<p>Old Michael Oaktree died. It was not much</p> +<p>He wished for; but indeed I think he longed</p> +<p>To see the light of summer once again</p> +<p>Blossoming o'er the far blue hills. I know</p> +<p>He used to like his rough-hewn wooden bench</p> +<p>Placed in the sun outside the cottage door</p> +<p>Where in the listening stillness he could hear,</p> +<p>Across the waving gilly-flowers that crowned</p> +<p>His crumbling garden wall, the long low sigh</p> +<p>Of supreme peace that whispers to the hills</p> +<p>The sacred consolation of the sea.</p> +<p>He did not hope for much: he longed to live</p> +<p>Until the winter came again, he said;</p> +<p class="b">But on the last sweet eve of May he died.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>I wandered sadly through the dreaming lanes</p> +<p>Down to the cottage on that afternoon;</p> +<p>For I had known old Michael Oaktree now</p> +<p>So many years, so many happy years.</p> +<p>When I was little he had carried me</p> +<p>High on his back to see the harvest home,</p> +<p>And given me many a ride upon his wagon</p> +<p>Among the dusty scents of sun and hay.</p> +<p>He showed me how to snare the bulky trout</p> +<p>That lurked under the bank of yonder brook.</p> +<p>Indeed, he taught me many a country craft,</p> +<p>For I was apt to learn, and, as I learnt,</p> +<p>I loved the teacher of that homely lore.</p> +<p>Deep in my boyish heart he shared the glad</p> +<p>Influence of the suns and winds and waves,</p> +<p>Giving my childhood what it hungered for—</p> +<p class="b">The rude earth-wisdom of the primal man.</p> + +<p>He had retained his childhood: Death for him</p> +<p>Had no more terror than his bed. He walked</p> +<p>With wind and sunlight like a brother, glad</p> +<p>Of their companionship and mutual aid.</p> +<p>We, toilers after truth, are weaned too soon</p> +<p>From earth's dark arms and naked barbarous breast.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>Too soon, too soon, we leave the golden feast,</p> +<p>Fetter the dancing limbs and pluck the crown</p> +<p>Of roses from the dreaming brow. We pass</p> +<p>Our lives in most laborious idleness.</p> +<p>For we have lost the meaning of the world;</p> +<p>We have gone out into the night too soon;</p> +<p>We have mistaken all the means of grace</p> +<p>And over-rated our small power to learn.</p> +<p>And the years move so swiftly over us:</p> +<p>We have so little time to live in worlds</p> +<p>Unrealised and unknown realms of joy,</p> +<p>We are so old before we learn how vain</p> +<p>Our effort was, how fruitlessly we cast</p> +<p>Our Bread upon the waters, and how weak</p> +<p>Our hearts were, but our chance desires how strong!</p> +<p>Then, in the dark, our sense of light decays;</p> +<p>We cannot cry to God as once we cried!</p> +<p>Lost in the gloom, our faith, perhaps our love,</p> +<p class="b">Lies dead with years that never can return.</p> + +<p>But Michael Oaktree was a man whose love</p> +<p>Had never waned through all his eighty years.</p> +<p>His faith was hardly faith. He seemed a part</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>Of all that he believed in. He had lived</p> +<p>In constant conversation with the sun,</p> +<p>The wind, the silence and the heart of peace;</p> +<p>In absolute communion with the Power</p> +<p>That rules all action and all tides of thought,</p> +<p>And all the secret courses of the stars;</p> +<p>The Power that still establishes on earth</p> +<p>Desire and worship, through the radiant laws</p> +<p>Of Duty, Love and Beauty; for through these</p> +<p>As through three portals of the self-same gate</p> +<p>The soul of man attains infinity,</p> +<p>And enters into Godhead. So he gained</p> +<p>On earth a fore-taste of Nirvana, not</p> +<p>The void of eastern dream, but the desire</p> +<p>And goal of all of us, whether thro' lives</p> +<p>Innumerable, by slow degrees, we near</p> +<p>The death divine, or from this breaking body</p> +<p>Of earthly death we flash at once to God.</p> +<p>Through simple love and simple faith, this man</p> +<p class="b">Attained a height above the hope of kings.</p> + +<p>Yet, as I softly shut the little gate</p> +<p>And walked across the garden, all the scents</p> +<p>Of mingling blossom ached like inmost pain</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>Deep in my heart, I know not why. They seemed</p> +<p>Distinct, distinct as distant evening bells</p> +<p>Tolling, over the sea, a secret chime</p> +<p>That breaks and breaks and breaks upon the heart</p> +<p>In sorrow rather than in sound, a chime</p> +<p>Strange as a streak of sunset to the moon,</p> +<p>Strange as a rose upon a starlit grave,</p> +<p>Strange as a smile upon a dead man's lips;</p> +<p>A chime of melancholy, mute as death</p> +<p>But strong as love, uttered in plangent tones</p> +<p>Of honeysuckle, jasmine, gilly-flowers,</p> +<p>Jonquils and aromatic musky leaves,</p> +<p class="b">Lilac and lilies to the rose-wreathed porch.</p> + +<p>At last I tapped and entered and was drawn</p> +<p>Into the bedroom of the dying man,</p> +<p>Who lay, propped up with pillows, quietly</p> +<p>Gazing; for through his open casement far</p> +<p>Beyond the whispers of the gilly-flowers</p> +<p>He saw the mellow light of eventide</p> +<p>Hallow the west once more; and, as he gazed,</p> +<p>I think I never saw so great a peace</p> +<p>On any human face. There was no sound</p> +<p>Except the slumbrous pulsing of a clock,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>The whisper of the garden and, far off,</p> +<p class="b">The sacred consolation of the sea.</p> + +<p>His wife sat at his bed-side: she had passed</p> +<p>Her eightieth year; her only child was dead.</p> +<p>She had been wedded more than sixty years,</p> +<p>And she sat gazing with the man she loved</p> +<p class="b">Quietly, out into that unknown Deep.</p> + +<p>A butterfly floated into the room</p> +<p>And back again, pausing awhile to bask</p> +<p>And wink its painted fans on the warm sill;</p> +<p>A bird piped in the roses and there came</p> +<p>Into the childless mother's ears a sound</p> +<p class="b">Of happy laughing children, far away.</p> + +<p>Then Michael Oaktree took his wife's thin hand</p> +<p>Between his big rough hands. His eyes grew dark,</p> +<p>And, as he turned to her and died, he spoke</p> +<p class="b">Two words of perfect faith and love—<i>Come soon</i>!</p> + +<p>O then in all the world there was no sound</p> +<p>Except the slumbrous pulsing of a clock,</p> +<p>The whisper of the leaves and far away,</p> +<p>The infinite compassion of the sea.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>But, as I softly passed out of the porch</p> +<p>And walked across the garden, all the scents</p> +<p>Of mingling blossoms ached like inmost joy,</p> +<p>Distinct no more, but like one heavenly choir</p> +<p>Pealing one mystic music, still and strange</p> +<p>As voices of the holy Seraphim,</p> +<p>One voice of adoration, mute as love,</p> +<p>Stronger than death, and pure with wedded tones</p> +<p>Of honeysuckle, jasmine, gilly-flowers,</p> +<p>Jonquils and aromatic musky leaves,</p> +<p class="b">Lilac and lilies to the garden gate.</p> + +<p>O then indeed I knew how closely knit</p> +<p>To stars and flowers we are, how many means</p> +<p>Of grace there are for those that never lose</p> +<p>Their sense of membership in this divine</p> +<p>Body of God; for those that all their days</p> +<p>Have walked in quiet communion with the Life</p> +<p>That keeps the common secret of the sun,</p> +<p>The wind, the silence and the heart of man.</p> +<p>There is one God, one Love, one everlasting</p> +<p>Mystery of Incarnation, one creative</p> +<p class="b">Passion behind the many-coloured veil.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>We have obscured God's face with partial truths,</p> +<p>The cause of all our sorrow and sin, our wars</p> +<p>Of force and thought, in this unheavened world.</p> +<p>Yet, by the battle of our partial truths,</p> +<p>The past against the present and the swift</p> +<p>Moment of passing joy against the deep</p> +<p>Eternal love, ever the weaker truth</p> +<p>Falls to the stronger, till once more we near</p> +<p>The enfolding splendour of the whole. Our God</p> +<p>Has been too long a partial God. We are all</p> +<p>Made in His image, men and birds and beasts,</p> +<p>Mountains and clouds and cataracts and suns,</p> +<p>With those great Beings above our little world,</p> +<p>A height beyond for every depth below,</p> +<p>Those long-forgotten Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,</p> +<p>Existences that live and move in realms</p> +<p>As far beyond our thought as Europe lies</p> +<p>With all its little arts and sciences</p> +<p>Beyond the comprehension of the worm.</p> +<p>We are all partial images, we need</p> +<p>What lies beyond us to complete our souls;</p> +<p>Therefore our souls are filled with a desire</p> +<p>And love which lead us towards the Infinity</p> +<p class="b">Of Godhead that awaits us each and all.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>Peacefully through the dreaming lanes I went.</p> +<p>The sun sank, and the birds were hushed. The stars</p> +<p>Trembled like blossoms in the purple trees.</p> +<p>But, as I paused upon the whispering hill</p> +<p>The mellow light still lingered in the west,</p> +<p>And dark and soft against that rosy depth</p> +<p>A boy and girl stood knee-deep in the ferns.</p> +<p>Dreams of the dead man's youth were in my heart,</p> +<p>Yet I was very glad; and as the moon</p> +<p>Brightened, they kissed; and, linking hand in hand,</p> +<p class="b">Down to their lamp-lit home drifted away.</p> + +<p>Under an arch of leaves, into the gloom</p> +<p>I went along the little woodland road,</p> +<p>And through the breathless hedge of hawthorn heard</p> +<p>Out of the deepening night, the long low sigh</p> +<p>Of supreme peace that whispers to the hills</p> +<p>The sacrament and sabbath of the sea.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span><br /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span><br /></p> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span><a href="#contents">TOUCHSTONE ON A BUS</a></h2> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">L</span>AST night I rode with Touchstone on a bus</p> +<p>From Ludgate Hill to World's End. It was he!</p> +<p>Despite the broadcloth and the bowler hat,</p> +<p>I knew him, Touchstone, the wild flower of folly,</p> +<p>The whetstone of his age, the scourge of kings,</p> +<p>The madcap morning star of elfin-land,</p> +<p>Who used to wrap his legs around his neck</p> +<p>For warmth on winter nights. He had slipped back,</p> +<p>To see what men were doing in a world</p> +<p>That should be wiser. He had watched a play,</p> +<p>Read several books, heard men discourse of art</p> +<p>And life; and he sat bubbling like a spring</p> +<p>In Arden. Never did blackbird, drenched with may,</p> +<p>Chuckle as Touchstone chuckled on that ride.</p> +<p><i>Lord, what a world! Lord, what a mad, mad world!</i></p> +<p>Then, to the jolt and jingle of the engine,</p> +<p>He burst into this bunch of madcap rhymes:—</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> +THE NEW DUCKLING</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<h3><a href="#contents">THE NEW DUCKLING</a></h3> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">"I</span> WANT to be new," said the duckling.</p> +<p class="large">"O, ho!" said the wise old owl,</p> +<p>While the guinea-hen cluttered off chuckling</p> +<p class="large b">To tell all the rest of the fowl.</p> + +<p>"I should like a more elegant figure,"</p> +<p class="large">That child of a duck went on.</p> +<p>"I should like to grow bigger and bigger,</p> +<p class="large b">Until I could swallow a swan.</p> + +<p>"I <i>won't</i> be the bond slave of habit,</p> +<p class="large">I <i>won't</i> have these webs on my toes.</p> +<p>I want to run round like a rabbit,</p> +<p class="large b">A rabbit as red as a rose.</p> + +<p>"I <i>don't</i> want to waddle like mother,</p> +<p class="large">Or quack like my silly old dad.</p> +<p>I want to be utterly other,</p> +<p class="large b">And <i>frightfully</i> modern and mad."</p> + +<p>"Do you know," said the turkey, "you're quacking!</p> +<p class="larage">There's a fox creeping up thro' the rye;</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>And, if you're not utterly lacking,</p> +<p class="large b">You'll make for that duck-pond. Good-bye!"</p> + +<p>"I won't," said the duckling. "I'll lift him</p> +<p class="large">A beautiful song, like a sheep;</p> +<p>And when I have—as it were—biffed him,</p> +<p class="large b">I'll give him my feathers to keep."</p> + +<p>Now the curious end of this fable,</p> +<p class="large">So far as the rest ascertained,</p> +<p>Though they searched from the barn to the stable,</p> +<p class="large b">Was that <i>only his feathers remained</i>.</p> + +<p>So he <i>wasn't</i> the bond slave of habit,</p> +<p class="large">And he <i>didn't</i> have webs on his toes;</p> +<p>And <i>perhaps</i> he runs round like a rabbit,</p> +<p class="large b">A rabbit as red as a rose.</p> +</div> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<h3><a href="#contents">THE MAN WHO DISCOVERED THE USE OF A CHAIR</a></h3> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">T</span>HE man who discovered the use of a chair,</p> +<p class="large"><i>Odds</i>—<i>bobs</i>—</p> +<p class="indent3"><i>What a wonderful man!</i></p> +<p>He used to sit down on it, tearing his hair,</p> +<p class="large">Till he thought of a highly original plan.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>For years he had sat on his chair, like you,</p> +<p class="large"><i>Quite</i>—<i>still!</i></p> +<p class="indent3"><i>But his looks were grim</i></p> +<p>For he wished to be famous (as great men do)</p> +<p class="large b">And nobody ever would listen to him.</p> + +<p>Now he went one night to a dinner of state</p> +<p class="large"><i>Hear! hear!</i></p> +<p class="indent3"><i>In the proud Guildhall!</i></p> +<p>And he sat on his chair, and he ate from a plate;</p> +<p class="large b">But nobody heard his opinions at all;</p> + +<p>There were ten fat aldermen down for a speech</p> +<p class="large">(<i>Grouse! Grouse!</i></p> +<p class="indent3"><i>What a dreary bird!</i>)</p> +<p>With five fair minutes allotted to each,</p> +<p class="large b">But never a moment for <i>him</i> to be heard.</p> + +<p>But, each being ready to talk, I suppose,</p> +<p class="large"><i>Order! Order!</i></p> +<p class="indent3">They cried, <i>for the Chair</i>!</p> +<p>And, much to their wonder, our friend arose</p> +<p class="large b">And fastened his eye on the eye of the Mayor.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>"We have come," he said, "to the fourteenth course!</p> +<p class="large">"<i>High—time,</i></p> +<p class="indent3"><i>for the Chair</i>," he said.</p> +<p>Then, with both of his hands, and with all of his force,</p> +<p class="large b">He hurled his chair at the Lord Mayor's head.</p> + +<p>It missed that head by the width of a hair.</p> +<p class="large"><i>Gee—whizz!</i></p> +<p class="indent3"><i>What a horrible squeak!</i></p> +<p>But it crashed through the big bay-window there</p> +<p class="large b">And smashed a bus into Wednesday week.</p> + +<p>And the very next day, in the decorous Times</p> +<p class="large">(<i>Great—Guns—</i></p> +<p class="indent3"><i>How the headlines ran!</i>)</p> +<p>In spite of the kings and the wars and the crimes,</p> +<p class="large b">There were five full columns about that man.</p> +</div> + +<h3>ENVOI</h3> + +<div class="ml"> +<p>Oh, if you get dizzy when authors write</p> +<p class="large">(<i>My stars!</i></p> +<p class="indent3"><i>And you very well may!</i>)</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>That white is black and that black is white,</p> +<p class="large b"><i>You should sit, quite still, in your chair and say:</i></p> + +<p>It is easy enough to be famous now,</p> +<p class="large">(<i>Puff—Puff!</i></p> +<p class="indent3"><i>How the trumpets blare!</i>)</p> +<p>Provided, of course, that you don't care how,</p> +<p class="large b">Like the man who discovered the use of a chair.</p> +</div> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<h3><a href="#contents">COTTON-WOOL</a></h3> +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">S</span>HUN the brush and shun the pen,</p> +<p>Shun the ways of clever men,</p> +<p>When they prove that black is white,</p> +<p>Whey they swear that wrong is right,</p> +<p>When they roast the singing stars</p> +<p>Like chestnuts, in between the bars,</p> +<p class="large"><i>Children, let a wandering fool</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.</i></p> + +<p>When you see a clever man</p> +<p>Run as quickly as you can.</p> +<p>You must never, never, never</p> +<p>Think that Socrates was clever.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>The cleverest thing I ever knew</p> +<p>Now cracks walnuts at the Zoo.</p> +<p class="large"><i>Children, let a wandering fool</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.</i></p> + +<p>Homer could not scintillate.</p> +<p>Milton, too, was merely great.</p> +<p>That's a very different matter</p> +<p>From talking like a frantic hatter.</p> +<p>Keats and Shelley had no tricks.</p> +<p>Wordsworth never climbed up sticks.</p> +<p class="large"><i>Children, let a wandering fool</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.</i></p> + +<p>Lincoln would create a gloom</p> +<p>In many a London drawing-room;</p> +<p>He'd be silent at their wit,</p> +<p>He would never laugh at it.</p> +<p>When they kissed Salome's toes,</p> +<p>I think he'd snort and blow his nose.</p> +<p class="large"><i>Children, let a wandering fool</i></p> +<p class="large b"><i>Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.</i></p> + +<p>They'd curse him for a silly clown,</p> +<p>They'd drum him out of London town.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>Professor Flunkey, the historian,</p> +<p>Would say he was a dull Victorian.</p> +<p>Matthew, Mark, and Luke and John,</p> +<p>Bless the bed I rest upon.</p> +<p class="large"><i>Children, let a wandering fool</i></p> +<p class="large"><i>Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.</i></p> +<p class="indent7 b">Amen.</p> +</div> + + +<h3 class="nob">IV</h3> + +<h3><a href="#contents">FASHIONS</a></h3> + +<div class="ml"> +<p><span class="cap">F</span>ASHION on fashion on fashion,</p> +<p class="large">(With only the truth growing old!)</p> +<p>And here's the new purple of passion,</p> +<p class="large">(And love waiting out in the cold)</p> +<p class="indent2 b">Who'll buy?</p> + +<p>They are crying new lamps for Aladdin,</p> +<p class="large">New worlds for the old and the true;</p> +<p>And no one remembers the story</p> +<p class="large b"><i>The magic was not in the new.</i></p> + +<p>They are crying a new rose for Eden,</p> +<p class="large">A rose of green glass. I suppose</p> +<p>The only thing wrong with their rose is</p> +<p class="large">The fact that it isn't a rose.</p> +<p class="indent2 b">Who'll buy?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>And here is a song without metre;</p> +<p class="large">And, here again, nothing is wrong;</p> +<p>(For nothing on earth could be neater)</p> +<p class="large b">Except that—it isn't a song.</p> + +<p>Well. Walk on your hands. It's the latest!</p> +<p class="large">And feet are Victorian now;</p> +<p>And even our best and our greatest</p> +<p class="large">Before that dread epithet bow.</p> +<p class="indent2 b">Who'll buy?</p> + +<p>The furniture goes for a song, now.</p> +<p class="large">The sixties had horrible taste.</p> +<p>But the trouble is this—they've included</p> +<p class="large b">Some better things, too, in their haste.</p> + +<p>Were they wrapped in the antimacassars,</p> +<p class="large">Or sunk in a sofa of plush?</p> +<p>Did an Angelican bishop forget them,</p> +<p class="large">And leave them behind in the crush?</p> +<p class="indent2 b">Who'll buy?</p> + +<p>Here's a turnex. It's going quite cheaply.</p> +<p class="large">(It lived with stuffed birds in the hall!</p> +<p>And, of course, to a mind that thinks deeply</p> +<p class="large b">That settles it, once and for all.)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>Here's <i>item</i>, a ring (very plain, sirs!),</p> +<p class="large">And <i>item</i>, a God (but He's dead!);</p> +<p>They say we shall need Him again, sirs,</p> +<p class="large">So—<i>item</i>, a cross for His head.</p> +<p class="indent2 b">Who'll buy?</p> + +<p>Yes, you'll need it again, though He's dead, sirs.</p> +<p class="large">It is only the fashions that fly.</p> +<p>So here are the thorns for His head, sirs.</p> +<p class="large">They'll keep till you need 'em. Who'll buy?</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span><a href="#contents">EPILOGUE</a></h2> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span><a href="#contents">THE REWARD OF SONG</a></h2> + +<div class="ml" style="margin-bottom: 3em;"> +<p><i><span class="cap">W</span>HY do we make our music?</i></p> +<p class="large">Oh, blind dark strings reply:</p> +<p>Because we dwell in a strange land</p> +<p class="large">And remember a lost sky.</p> +<p>We ask no leaf of the laurel,</p> +<p class="large">We know what fame is worth;</p> +<p>But our songs break out of our winter</p> +<p class="large b">As the flowers break out on the earth.</p> + +<p>And we dream of the unknown comrade,</p> +<p class="large">In the days when we lie dead,</p> +<p>Who shall open our book in the sunlight,</p> +<p class="large">And read, as ourselves have read,</p> +<p>On a lonely hill, by a firwood,</p> +<p class="large">With whispering seas below,</p> +<p>And murmur a song we made him</p> +<p class="large b">Ages and ages ago.</p> + +<p>If making his may-time sweeter</p> +<p class="large">With dews of our own dead may,</p> +<p>One pulse of our own dead heart-strings</p> +<p class="large">Awake in his heart that day,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>We would pray for no richer guerdon,</p> +<p class="large">No praise from the careless throng;</p> +<p>For song is the cry of a lover</p> +<p class="large b">In quest of an answering song.</p> + +<p>As a child might run to his elders</p> +<p class="large">With news of an opening flower</p> +<p>We should walk with our young companion</p> +<p class="large">And talk to his heart for an hour,</p> +<p>As once by my own green firwood,</p> +<p class="large">And once by a Western sea,</p> +<p>Thank God, my own good comrades</p> +<p class="large b">Have walked and talked with me.</p> + +<p>Too mighty to make men sorrow,</p> +<p class="large">Too weak to heal their pain</p> +<p>(Though they that remember the hawthorn</p> +<p class="large">May find their heaven again),</p> +<p>We are moved by a deeper hunger;</p> +<p class="large">We are bound by a stronger cord;</p> +<p>For love is the heart of our music,</p> +<p class="large">And love is its one reward.</p> +</div> + + +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW MORNING***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 21029-h.txt or 21029-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/0/2/21029">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/0/2/21029</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The New Morning + Poems + + +Author: Alfred Noyes + + + +Release Date: April 11, 2007 [eBook #21029] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW MORNING*** + + +E-text prepared by K. Nordquist, Jacqueline Jeremy, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +THE NEW MORNING + +ALFRED NOYES + + + * * * * * + + +WORKS OF ALFRED NOYES + +COLLECTED POEMS--_2 Vols._ +THE LORD OF MISRULE +A BELGIAN CHRISTMAS EVE +THE WINE-PRESS +WALKING SHADOWS--_Prose_ +TALES OF THE MERMAID TAVERN +SHERWOOD +THE ENCHANTED ISLAND AND OTHER POEMS +DRAKE: AN ENGLISH EPIC +POEMS +THE FLOWER OF OLD JAPAN +THE GOLDEN HYNDE +THE NEW MORNING + + + * * * * * + + +THE NEW MORNING + +Poems + +by + +ALFRED NOYES + + + + + + + +[Illustration (publisher's logo)] + + +New York +Frederick A. Stokes Company +Publishers + +Copyright, 1918, by +Alfred Noyes +Copyright, 1919, by +Frederick A. Stokes Company +All rights reserved, including that of translation +into foreign languages + + + + +DEDICATION + +TO THE MEMORY OF SIR CECIL +SPRING-RICE + + +I. + +Steadfast as any soldier of the line + He served his England, with the imminent death +Poised at his heart. Nor could the world divine + The constant peril of each burdened breath. + +England, and the honour of England, he still served + Walking the strict path, with the old high pride +Of those invincible knights who never swerved + One hair's breadth from the way until they died. + +Quietness he loved, and books, and the grave beauty + Of England's Helicon, whose eternal light +Shines like a lantern on that road of duty, + Discerned by few in this chaotic night. + +And his own pen, foretelling his release, +Told us that he foreknew "the end was peace." + + +II. + +Soldier of England, he shall live unsleeping + Among his friends, with the old proud flag above; +For even today her honour is in his keeping. + He has joined the hosts that guard her with their love. + +They shine like stars, unnumbered happy legions, + In that high realm where all our darkness dies. +He moves, with honour, in those loftier regions, + Above this "world of passion and of lies": + +For so he called it, keeping his own pure passion + A silent flame before the true and good; +Not fawning on the throng in this world's fashion + To come and see what all might see who would. + +Soldier of England, brave and gentle knight, +The soul of Sidney welcomes you tonight. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + +DEDICATION: TO THE MEMORY OF SIR CECIL +SPRING-RICE v + + "THE AVENUE OF THE ALLIES" 3 + + ON THE WESTERN FRONT 8 + + VICTORY 10 + + + + +AMERICAN POEMS, 1912-1917 + + REPUBLIC AND MOTHERLAND 19 + + THE UNION 22 + + GHOSTS OF THE NEW WORLD 24 + + THE OLD MEETING HOUSE 27 + + PRINCETON 30 + + BEETHOVEN IN CENTRAL PARK 34 + + + + +SONGS OF THE TRAWLERS AND SEA POEMS + + THE PEOPLE'S FLEET 37 + + KILMENY 38 + + CAP'N STORM-ALONG 40 + + THE BIG BLACK TRAWLER 42 + + NAMESAKES 44 + + WIRELESS 46 + + FISHERS OF MEN 48 + + AN OPEN BOAT 50 + + PEACE IN A PALACE 52 + + THE VINDICTIVE 55 + + + + +MISCELLANEOUS POEMS + + THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPS OF CHELTENHAM 61 + + TO A SUCCESSFUL MAN 66 + + THE OLD GENTLEMAN WITH THE AMBER SNUFFBOX 68 + + WHAT GRANDFATHER SAID 71 + + MEMORIES OF THE PACIFIC COAST 75 + + NIPPON 77 + + THE HUMMING BIRDS 79 + + LINES FOR A SUN-DIAL 81 + + THE REALMS OF GOLD 82 + + COMPENSATIONS 85 + + DEAD MAN'S MORRICE 87 + + THE OLD FOOL IN THE WOOD 90 + + A NEW MADRIGAL TO AN OLD MELODY 91 + + THE LOST BATTLE 94 + + RIDDLES OF MERLIN 96 + + THE SYMPHONY 98 + + PEACE 99 + + THE OPEN DOOR 100 + + IMMORTAL SAILS 102 + + THE MATIN-SONG OF FRIAR TUCK 103 + + FIVE CRITICISMS 105 + + THE COMPANIONS 114 + + THE LITTLE ROADS 116 + + SUNLIGHT AND SEA 118 + + THE ROAD THROUGH CHAOS 121 + + THE NIGHT OF THE LION 123 + + THE WAR WIDOW 126 + + THE BELL 128 + + SLAVE AND EMPEROR 132 + + ON A MOUNTAIN-TOP 134 + + + + +EARLY POEMS + + THE PHANTOM FLEET 139 + + MICHAEL OAKTREE 147 + + + + +TOUCHSTONE ON A BUS + + TOUCHSTONE ON A BUS 159 + + I THE NEW DUCKLING 160 + + II THE MAN WHO DISCOVERED THE USE A CHAIR 161 + + III COTTON-WOOL 164 + + IV FASHIONS 166 + + + + +EPILOGUE + + THE REWARD OF SONG 171 + + + + + + + + +THE NEW MORNING + + +"THE AVENUE OF THE ALLIES" + + +This is the song of the wind as it came +Tossing the flags of the nations to flame: + + _I am the breath of God. I am His laughter. +I am His Liberty. That is my name._ + +So it descended, at night, on the city. +So it went lavishing beauty and pity, +Lighting the lordliest street of the world +With half of the banners that earth has unfurled; +Over the lamps that are brighter than stars. +Laughing aloud on its way to the wars, +Proud as America, sweeping along +Death and destruction like notes in a song, +Leaping to battle as man to his mate, +Joyous as God when he moved to create,-- + Never was voice of a nation so glorious, +Glad of its cause and afire with its fate! +Never did eagle on mightier pinion +Tower to the height of a brighter dominion, +Kindling the hope of the prophets to flame, +Calling aloud on the deep as it came, + + _Cleave me a way for an army with banners. +I am His Liberty. That is my name._ + +Know you the meaning of all they are doing? +Know you the light that their soul is pursuing? +Know you the might of the world they are making, +This nation of nations whose heart is awaking? +What is this mingling of peoples and races? +Look at the wonder and joy in their faces! +Look how the folds of the union are spreading! +Look, for the nations are come to their wedding. +How shall the folk of our tongue be afraid of it? +England was born of it. England was made of it, +Made of this welding of tribes into one, +This marriage of pilgrims that followed the sun! +Briton and Roman and Saxon were drawn +By winds of this Pentecost, out of the dawn, +Westward, to make her one people of many; +But here is a union more mighty than any. +Know you the soul of this deep exultation? +Know you the word that goes forth to this nation? + + _I am the breath of God. I am His Liberty. +Let there be light over all His creation._ + +Over this Continent, wholly united, +They that were foemen in Europe are plighted. +Here, in a league that our blindness and pride +Doubted and flouted and mocked and denied, +Dawns the Republic, the laughing, gigantic +Europe, united, beyond the Atlantic. +That is America, speaking one tongue, +Acting her epics before they are sung, +Driving her rails from the palms to the snow, +Through States that are greater than Emperors know, +Forty-eight States that are empires in might, +But ruled by the will of one people tonight, +Nerved as one body, with net-works of steel, +Merging their strength in the one Commonweal, +Brooking no poverty, mocking at Mars, +Building their cities to talk with the stars. +Thriving, increasing by myriads again +Till even in numbers old Europe may wane. +How shall a son of the England they fought +Fail to declare the full pride of his thought, +Stand with the scoffers who, year after year, +Bring the Republic their half-hidden sneer? +Now, as in beauty she stands at our side, +Who shall withhold the full gift of his pride? +Not the great England who knows that her son, +Washington, fought her, and Liberty won. +England, whose names like the stars in their station, +Stand at the foot of that world's Declaration,-- +Washington, Livingston, Langdon, she claims them, +It is her right to be proud when she names them, +Proud of that voice in the night as it came, +Tossing the flags of the nations to flame: + + _I am the breath of God. I am His laughter. +I am His Liberty. That is my name._ + +Flags, in themselves, are but rags that are dyed. +Flags, in that wind, are like nations enskied. +See, how they grapple the night as it rolls +And trample it under like triumphing souls. +Over the city that never knew sleep, +Look at the riotous folds as they leap. +Thousands of tri-colors, laughing for France, +Ripple and whisper and thunder and dance; +Thousands of flags for Great Britain aflame +Answer their sisters in Liberty's name. +Belgium is burning in pride overhead. +Poland is near, and her sunrise is red. +Under and over, and fluttering between, +Italy burgeons in red, white, and green. +See, how they climb like adventurous flowers, +Over the tops of the terrible towers.... +_There, in the darkness, the glories are mated. +There, in the darkness, a world is created. +There, in this Pentecost, streaming on high. +There, with a glory of stars in the sky. +There the broad flag of our union and liberty +Rides the proud night-wind and tyrannies die._ + + + + +ON THE WESTERN FRONT +(_1916_) + + +I. + +I found a dreadful acre of the dead, + Marked with the only sign on earth that saves. +The wings of death were hurrying overhead, + The loose earth shook on those unquiet graves; + +For the deep gun-pits, with quick stabs of flame, + Made their own thunders of the sunlit air; +Yet, as I read the crosses, name by name, + _Mort pour la France_, it seemed that peace was there; +Sunlight and peace, a peace too deep for thought, + The peace of tides that underlie our strife, +The peace with which the moving heavens are fraught, + The peace that is our everlasting life. + +The loose earth shook. The very hills were stirred. +The silence of the dead was all I heard. + + +II. + +We, who lie here, have nothing more to pray. + To all your praises we are deaf and blind. +We may not even know if you betray + Our hope, to make earth better for mankind. + +Only our silence, in the night, shall grow + More silent, as the stars grow in the sky; +And, while you deck our graves, you shall not know + How many scornful legions pass you by. + +For we have heard you say (when we were living) + That some small dream of good would "cost too much." +But when the foe struck, we have watched you giving, + And seen you move the mountains with one touch. + +What can be done, we know. But, have no fear! +If you fail now, we shall not see or hear. + + + + +VICTORY + +(Written after the British Service at Trinity Church, New York) + + +I. + +Before those golden altar-lights we stood, + Each one of us remembering his own dead. +A more than earthly beauty seemed to brood + On that hushed throng, and bless each bending head. + +Beautiful on that gold, the deep-sea blue + Of those young seamen, ranked on either side, +Blent with the khaki, while the silence grew + Deep, as for wings--Oh, deep as England's pride. + +Beautiful on that gold, two banners rose-- + Two flags that told how Freedom's realm was made, +One fair with stars of hope, and one that shows + The glorious cross of England's long crusade; + +Two flags, now joined, till that high will be done +Which sent them forth to make the whole world one. + + +II. + +There were no signs of joy that eyes could see. + Our hearts were all three thousand miles away. +There were no trumpets blown for victory. + A million dead were calling us that day. + +And eyes grew blind, at times; but grief was deep, + Deeper than any foes or friends have known; +For Oh, my country's lips are locked to keep + Her bitterest loss her own, and all her own. + +Only the music told what else was dumb, + The funeral march to which our pulses beat; +For all our dead went by, to a muffled drum + We heard the tread of all those phantom feet. + +Yes. There was victory! Deep in every soul. +We heard them marching to their unseen goal. + + +III. + +There, once again, we saw the Cross go by, + The Cross that fell with all those glorious towers, +Burnt black in France or mocked on Calvary, + Till--in one night--the crosses rose like flowers, +Legions of small white crosses, mile on mile, + Pencilled with names that had outfought all pain, +Where every shell-torn acre seems to smile-- + _Who shall destroy the cross that rose again?_ + +Out of the world's Walpurgis, where hope perished, + Where all the forms of faith in ruin fell, +Where every sign of heaven that earth had cherished + Shrivelled among the lava-floods of hell, + +The eternal Cross that conquers might with right +Rose like a star to lead us through the night. + + +IV. + +How shall the world remember? Men forget: + Our dead are all too many even for Fame! +Man's justice kneels to kings, and pays no debt + To those who never courted her acclaim. + +Cheat not your heart with promises to pay + For gifts beyond all price so freely given. +Where is the heart so rich that it can say + To those who mourn, "I will restore your heaven"? + +But these, with their own hands, laid up their treasure + Where never an emperor can break in and steal, +Treasure for those that loved them past all measure + In those high griefs that earth can never heal, + +Proud griefs, that walk on earth, yet gaze above, +Knowing that sorrow is but remembered love. + + +V. + +Love that still holds us with immortal power, + Yet cannot lift us to His realm of light; +Love that still shows us heaven for one brief hour + Only to daunt the heart with that sheer height; + +Love that is made of loveliness entire + In form and thought and act; and still must shame us +Because we ever acknowledge and aspire, + And yet let slip the shining hands that claim us. + +O, if this Love might cloak with rags His glory, + Laugh, eat and drink, and dwell with suffering men, +Sit with us at our hearth, and hear our story, + This world--we thought--might be transfigured then. + +"But Oh," Love answered, with swift human tears, +"All these things have I done, these many years." + + +VI. + +"This day," Love said, "if ye will hear my voice; + I mount and sing with birds in all your skies. +I am the soul that calls you to rejoice. + And every wayside flower is my disguise. + +"Look closely. Are the wings too wide for pity? + Look closely. Do these tender hues betray? +How often have I sought my Holy City? + How often have ye turned your hearts away? + +"Is there not healing in the beauty I bring you? + Am I not whispering in green leaves and rain, +Singing in all that woods and seas can sing you? + Look, once, on Love, and earth is heaven again. + +"O, did your Spring but once a century waken, +The heaven of heavens for this would be forsaken." + + +VII. + +There's but one gift that all our dead desire, + One gift that men can give, and that's a dream, +Unless we, too, can burn with that same fire + Of sacrifice; die to the things that seem; + +Die to the little hatreds; die to greed; + Die to the old ignoble selves we knew; +Die to the base contempts of sect and creed, + And rise again, like these, with souls as true. + +Nay (since these died before their task was finished) + Attempt new heights, bring even their dreams to birth:-- +Build us that better world, Oh, not diminished + By one true splendor that they planned on earth. + +And that's not done by sword, or tongue, or pen, +There's but one way. God make us better men. + + + + + + + + +AMERICAN POEMS 1912-1917 + + + + +REPUBLIC AND MOTHERLAND +(_1912_) + +(Written after entering New York Harbor at Daybreak) + + +Up the vast harbor with the morning sun + The ship swept in from sea; +Gigantic towers arose, the night was done, + And--there stood Liberty. + +Silent, the great torch lifted in one hand, + The dawn in her proud eyes, +Silent, for all the shouts that vex her land, + Silent, hailing the skies; + +Hailing that mightier Kingdom of the Blest + Our seamen sought of old, +The dream that lured the nations through the West, + The city of sunset gold. + +Saxon and Norman in one wedded soul + Shook out one flag like fire; +But westward, westward, moved the gleaming goal, + Westward, the vast desire. + +Westward and ever westward ran the call, + They followed the pilgrim sun, +Seeking that land which should enfold them all, + And weld all hearts in one. + +Here on this mightier continent apart, + Here on these rolling plains, +Swells the first throb of that immortal heart, + The pulse of those huge veins. + +Still, at these towers, our Old-World cities jest, + And neither hear nor see +The brood of gods at that gigantic breast, + The conquering race to be. + +Chosen from many--for no sluggard soul + Confronts that night of stars-- +The trumpets of the last Republic roll + Far off, an end to wars; + +An end, an end to that wild blood-red age, + That made and keeps us blind; +A mightier realm shall be her heritage, + The kingdom of mankind. + +Chosen from many nations, and made one; + But first, O Mother, from thee, +When, following, following on that Pilgrim sun, + Thy Mayflower crossed the sea. + + + + +THE UNION +(_1917_) + + +You that have gathered together the sons of all races, + And welded them into one, +Lifting the torch of your Freedom on hungering faces + That sailed to the setting sun; + +You that have made of mankind in your own proud regions + The music of man to be, +How should the old earth sing of you, now, as your legions + Rise to set all men free? + +How should the singer that knew the proud vision and loved it, + In the days when not all men knew, +Gaze through his tears, on the light, now the world has approved it; + Or dream, when the dream comes true? + +How should he sing when the Spirit of Freedom in thunder + Speaks, and the wine-press is red; +And the sea-winds are loud with the chains that are broken asunder + And nations that rise from the dead? + +Flag of the sky, proud flag of that wide communion, + Too mighty for thought to scan; +Flag of the many in one, and that last world-union + That kingdom of God in man; + +Ours was a dream, in the night, of that last federation, + But yours is the glory unfurled-- +The marshalled nations and stars that shall make one nation + One singing star of the world. + + + + +GHOSTS OF THE NEW WORLD + +"_There are no ghosts in America._" + + +There are no ghosts, you say, + To haunt her blaze of light; +No shadows in her day, + No phantoms in her night. +Columbus' tattered sail +Has passed beyond our hail. + +What? On that magic coast, + Where Raleigh fought with fate, +Or where that Devon ghost + Unbarred the Golden Gate, +No dark, strange, ear-ringed men +Beat in from sea again? + +No ghosts in Salem town + With silver buckled shoon? +No lovely witch to drown + Or burn beneath the moon? +Not even a whiff of tea, +On Boston's glimmering quay. + +O, ghostly Spanish walls, + Where brown Franciscans glide, +Is there no voice that calls + Across the Great Divide, +To pilgrims on their way +Along the Santa Fe? + +Then let your Pullman cars + Go roaring to the West, +Till, watched by lonelier stars, + The cactus lifts its crest. +There, on that painted plain, +One ghost will rise again. + +Majestic and forlorn, + Wreck of a dying race, +The Red Man, half in scorn, + Shall raise his haughty face, +Inscrutable as the sky, +To watch our ghosts go by. + +What? Is earth dreaming still? + Shall not the night disgorge +The ghosts of Bunker Hill + The ghosts of Valley Forge, +Or, England's mightiest son, +The ghost of Washington? + +No ghosts where Lincoln fell? + No ghosts for seeing eyes? +I know an old cracked bell + Shall make ten million rise +When one immortal ghost +Calls to the slumbering host. + + + + +THE OLD MEETING HOUSE + +(_New Jersey, 1918_) + + +Its quiet graves were made for peace till Gabriel blows his horn. + Those wise old elms could hear no cry + Of all that distant agony-- +Only the red-winged blackbird, and the rustle of thick ripe corn. + +The blue jay, perched upon that bronze, with bright unweeting eyes, + Could never read the names that signed + The noblest charter of mankind; +But all of them were names we knew beneath our English skies. + +And on the low gray headstones, with their crumbling weather-stains, + --Though cardinal birds, like drops of blood, + Flickered across the haunted wood,-- +The names you'd see were names that woke like flowers in English lanes. + +John Applegate was fast asleep; and Temperance Olden, too. + And David Worth had quite forgot + If Hannah's lips were red or not; +And Prudence veiled her eyes at last, as Prudence ought to do. + +And when, across that patch of heaven, that small blue leaf-edged space + At times, a droning airplane went, + No flicker of astonishment +Could lift the heavy eyelids on one gossip's up-turned face. + +For William Speakman could not tell--so thick the grasses grow-- + If that strange humming in the sky + Meant that the Judgment Day were nigh, +Or if 'twas but the summer bees that blundered to and fro. + +And then, across the breathless wood, a Bell began to sound, + The only Bell that wakes the dead, + And Stockton Signer raised his head, +And called to all the deacons in the ancient burial-ground. + +"The Bell, the Bell is ringing! Give me back my rusty sword. + Though I thought the wars were done, + Though I thought our peace was won, +Yet I signed the Declaration, and the dead must keep their word. + +"There's only one great ghost I know could make that 'larum ring. + It's the captain that we knew + In the ancient buff and blue, +It's our Englishman, George Washington, who fought the German king!" + +So the sunset saw them mustering beneath their brooding boughs, + Ancient shadows of our sires, + Kindling with the ancient fires, +While the old cracked Bell to southward shook the ancient meeting house. + + + + +PRINCETON +(_1917_) + +The first four lines of this poem were written for inscription on the +first joint memorial to the American and British soldiers who fell in +the Revolutionary War. This memorial was recently dedicated at +Princeton. + + +I. + +_Here Freedom stood, by slaughtered friend and foe, + And ere the wrath paled or that sunset died, +Looked through the ages: then, with eyes aglow, + Laid them, to wait that future, side by side._ + + +II. + +Now lamp-lit gardens in the blue dusk shine + Through dog-wood red and white, +And round the gray quadrangles, line by line, + The windows fill with light, +Where Princeton calls to Magdalen, tower to tower, + Twin lanthorns of the law, +And those cream-white magnolia boughs embower + The halls of old Nassau. + + +III. + +The dark bronze tigers crouch on either side + Where red-coats used to pass, +And round the bird-loved house where Mercer died + And violets dusk the grass, +By Stony Brook that ran so red of old, + But sings of friendship now, +To feed the old enemy's harvest fifty-fold + The green earth takes the plough. + + +IV. + +Through this May night if one great ghost should stray + With deep remembering eyes, +Where that old meadow of battle smiles away + Its blood-stained memories, +If Washington should walk, where friend and foe + Sleep and forget the past, +Be sure his unquenched heart would leap to know + Their hosts are joined at last. + + +V. + +Be sure he walks, in shadowy buff and blue, + Where those dim lilacs wave, +He bends his head to bless, as dreams come true, + The promise of that grave, +Then with a vaster hope than thought can scan, + Touching his ancient sword, +Prays for that mightier realm of God in man, + "Hasten Thy Kingdom, Lord." + + +VI. + +"Land of new hope, land of the singing stars, + Type of the world to be, +The vision of a world set free from wars + Takes life, takes form, from thee, +Where all the jarring nations of this earth, + Beneath the all-blessing sun, +Bring the new music of mankind to birth, + And make the whole world one." + + +VII. + +And those old comrades rise around him there, + Old foemen, side by side, +With eyes like stars upon the brave night-air, + And young as when they died, +To hear your bells, O beautiful Princeton towers, + Ring for the world's release. +They see you, piercing like gray swords through flowers, + And smile from hearts at peace. + + + + +BEETHOVEN IN CENTRAL PARK + +(After a glimpse of a certain monument in New York, during the +Victory Celebration) + + +The thousand-windowed towers were all alight. + Throngs of all nations filled that glittering way; +And, rich with dreams of the approaching day, +Flags of all nations trampled down the night. +No clouds, at sunset, die in airs as bright. + No clouds, at dawn, awake in winds as gay; + For Freedom rose in that august array, +Crowned with the stars and weaponed for the right. + +Then, in a place of whispering leaves and gloom, + I saw, too dark, too dumb for bronze or stone, + One tragic head that bowed against the sky; +O, in a hush too deep for any tomb + I saw Beethoven, dreadfully alone + With his own grief, and his own majesty. + + + + + + + + +SONGS OF THE TRAWLERS AND SEA POEMS + + +THE PEOPLE'S FLEET + + +Out of her darkened fishing-ports they go, + A fleet of little ships, whose every name-- +_Daffodil_, _Sea-lark_, _Rose_ and _Surf_ and _Snow_, + Burns in this blackness like an altar-flame; + +Out of her past they sail, three thousand strong, + The people's fleet that never knew its worth, +And every name is a broken phrase of song + To some remembered loveliness on earth. + +There's _Barbara Cowie_, _Comely Bank_ and _May_, + Christened, at home, in worlds of dawn and dew: +There's _Ruth_ and _Kindly Light_ and _Robin Gray_ + With _Mizpah_. (May that simple prayer come true!) + +Out of old England's inmost heart they sail, + A fleet of memories that can never fail. + + + + +KILMENY + + +Dark, dark lay the drifters against the red West, + As they shot their long meshes of steel overside; +And the oily green waters were rocking to rest + When Kilmeny went out, at the turn of the tide; +And nobody knew where that lassie would roam, + For the magic that called her was tapping unseen. +It was well-nigh a week ere Kilmeny came home, + And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been. + +She'd a gun at her bow that was Newcastle's best, + And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde, +And a secret her skipper had never confessed, + Not even at dawn, to his newly-wed bride; +And a wireless that whispered above, like a gnome, + The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin.... +O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home; + But nobody knew where Kilmeny had been. + +It was dark when Kilmeny came home from her quest + With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died; +But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast, + And _Well done Kilmeny!_ the Admiral cried. + +Now, at sixty-four fathom a conger may come + And nose at the bones of a drowned submarine; +But--late in the evening Kilmeny came home, + And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been. + +There's a wandering shadow that stares at the foam, + Though they sing all the night to old England, their queen. +Late, late in the evening, Kilmeny came home; + And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been. + + + + +CAP'N STORM-ALONG + + +They are buffeting out in the bitter grey weather, + _Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!_ +_Sea-lark_ singing to _Golden Feather_, + And burly blue waters all swelling aroun'. +There's _Thunderstone_ butting ahead as they wallow, + With death in the mesh of their deep-sea trawl; +There's _Night-Hawk_ swooping by wild _Sea-swallow_; + And old Cap'n Storm-along leading 'em all. + + _Bashing the seas to a welter of white, + Look at the fleet that he leads to the fight. + O, they're dancing like witches to open the ball; + And old Cap'n Storm-along's lord of 'em all._ + +Now, where have you seen such a bully old sailor? + His eyes are as blue as the scarf at his throat; +And he rolls on the bridge of his broad-beamed whaler, + In yellow sou'wester and oil-skin coat. +In trawler and drifter, in dinghy and dory, + Wherever he signals, they leap to his call; +They batter the seas to a lather of glory, + With old Cap'n Storm-along leading 'em all. + + _You'll find he's from Devon, the sailor I mean, + Look at his whaler now, shipping it green. + O, Fritz and his "U" boat must crab it and crawl + When old Cap'n Storm-along sails to the ball._ + +Ay, there is the skipper that knows how to scare 'em. + _Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!_ +Look at the sea-wives he keeps in his harem, + Wicked young merry-maids, buxom and brown: +There's _Rosalind_, the sea-witch, and _Gipsy_ so lissom, + All dancing like ducks in the teeth of the squall, +With a bright eye for Huns, and a Hotchkiss to kiss 'em; + For old Cap'n Storm-along's lord of 'em all. + + _Look at him, battering darkness to light! + Look at the fleet that he leads to the fight! + O, hearts that are mighty, in ships that are small, + Your old Cap'n Storm-along's lord of us all._ + + + + +THE BIG BLACK TRAWLER + + +The very best ship that ever I knew, + --_Ah-way O, to me O_-- +Was a big black trawler with a deep-sea crew-- + _Sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run._ + +There was one old devil with a broken nose + --_Ah-way O, to me O_-- +He was four score years, as I suppose-- + _But, sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run._ + +We was wrecked last March, in a Polar storm + --_Ah-way O, to me O_-- +And we asked the old cripple if his feet was warm-- + _Sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run._ + +And the old, old devil (he was ninety at the most) + --_Ah-way O, to me O_-- +Roars, "Ay, warm as a lickle piece of toast"-- + _So sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run._ + +"For I soaked my sea-boots and my dungarees + --_Ah-way O, to me O_-- +In the good salt water that the Lord don't freeze"-- + _Oh, sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run._ + + + + +NAMESAKES + + +But where's the brown drifter that went out alone? + --_Roll and go, and fare you well_-- +Was her name Peggy Nutten? That name is my own. + _Fare you well, my sailor._ +They sang in the dark, "Let her go! Let her go!" +And she sailed to the West, where the broad waters flow; +And the others come back, but ... the bitter winds blow. + _Ah, fare you well, my sailor._ + +The women, at evening, they wave and they cheer. + --_Roll and go, and fare you well_-- +They're waiting to welcome their lads at the pier. + _Fare you well, my sailor._ +They're all coming home in the twilight below; +But there's one little boat.... Let her go! Let her go! +She carried my heart, and a heart for the foe. + _Ah, fare you well, my sailor._ + +The _Nell_ and the _Maggie_, the _Ruth_ and the _Joan_, + --_Roll and go, and fare you well_-- +They come to their namesakes, and leave me alone. + _Fare you well, my sailor._ +And names are kep' dark, for the spies mustn't know; +But they'll look in my face, an' I think it will show; +Peggy Nutten's my name. Let her go! let her go! + _Ah, fare you well, my sailor._ + + + + +WIRELESS + + +Now to those who search the deep, + _Gleam of Hope_ and _Kindly Light_, +Once, before you turn to sleep, + Breathe a message through the night. +Never doubt that they'll receive it. +Send it, once, and you'll believe it. + +Wrecks that burn against the stars, + Decks where death is wallowing green, +Snare the breath among their spars, + Hear the flickering threads between, +Quick, through all the storms that blind them, +Quick with words that rush to find them. + +Think you these aerial wires + Whisper more than spirits may? +Think you that our strong desires + Touch no distance when we pray? +Think you that no wings are flying +'Twixt the living and the dying? + +Inland, here, upon your knees, + You shall breathe from urgent lips, +Round the ships that guard your seas, + Fleet on fleet of angel ships; +Yea, the guarded may so bless them +That no terrors can distress them. + +You shall guide the darkling prow, + Kneeling thus--and far inland-- +You shall touch the storm-beat brow + Gently as a spirit-hand. +Even a blindfold prayer may speed them, +And a little child may lead them. + + + + +FISHERS OF MEN + + +Long, long ago He said, +He who could wake the dead, + And walk upon the sea-- + "_Come, follow Me._ + +"Leave your brown nets and bring +Only your hearts to sing, + Only your souls to pray, + Rise, come away. + +"Shake out your spirit-sails, +And brave those wilder gales, + And I will make you then + Fishers of men." + +Was this, then, what He meant? +Was this His high intent, + After two thousand years + Of blood and tears? + +God help us, if we fight +For right, and not for might. + God help us if we seek + To shield the weak. + +Then, though His heaven be far +From this blind welter of war, + He'll bless us, on the sea + From Calvary. + + + + +AN OPEN BOAT + + +O what is that whimpering there in the darkness? + _"Let him lie in my arms. He is breathing, I know. +Look. I'll wrap all my hair round his neck."--"The sea's rising, + The boat must be lightened. He's dead. He must go."_ + +See--quick--by that flash, where the bitter foam tosses, + The cloud of white faces, in the black open boat, +And the wild pleading woman that clasps her dead lover + And wraps her loose hair round his breast and his throat. + +_"Come, lady, he's dead." "No, I feel his heart beating. + He's living, I know. But he's numbed with the cold. +See, I'm wrapping my hair all around him to warm him"---- + --"No. We can't keep the dead, dear. Come, loosen your hold._ + +_"Come. Loosen your fingers."--"O God, let me keep him!"_ + O, hide it, black night! Let the winds have their way! +For there are no voices or ghosts from that darkness, + To fret the bare seas at the breaking of day. + + + + +PEACE IN A PALACE + + +"You were weeping in the night," said the Emperor, + "Weeping in your sleep, I am told." +"It was nothing but a dream," said the Empress; + But her face grew gray and old. +"You thought you saw our German God defeated?" + "Oh, no!" she said. "I saw no lightnings fall. +I dreamed of a whirlpool of green water, + Where something had gone down. That was all. + +_"All but the whimper of the sea gulls flying, + Endlessly round and round, +Waiting for the faces, the faces from the darkness, + The dreadful rising faces of the drowned._ + +"It was nothing but a dream," said the Empress. + "I thought I was walking on the sea; +And the foam rushed up in a wild smother, + And a crowd of little faces looked at me. + +They were drowning! They were drowning," said the Empress, + "And they stretched their feeble arms to the sky; +But the worst was--they mistook me for their mother, + And cried as my children used to cry. + +_"Nothing but a whimper of the sea-gulls flying, + Endlessly round and round, +With the cruel yellow beaks that were waiting for the faces, + The little floating faces of the drowned."_ + +"It was nothing but a dream," said the Emperor, + "So why should you weep, dear, eh?"-- +"Oh, I saw the red letters on a life belt + That the green sea washed my way!"-- +"What were they?" said the Emperor. "What were they?"-- + "Some of them were hidden," said the Empress, + "But I plainly saw the L and the U!" +"In God's name, stop!" said the Emperor. + "You told me that it was not true! + +_"Told me that you dreamed of the sea gulls flying, + Endlessly round and round, +Waiting for the faces, and the eyes in the faces, + The eyes of the children that we drowned._ + +"Kiss me and forget it," said the Emperor, + "Dry your tears on the tassel of my sword. +I am going to offer peace to my people, + And abdicate, perhaps, as overlord. +I shall now take up My Cross as Count of Prussia-- + Which is not a heavy burden, you'll agree. +Why, before the twenty million dead are rotten + There'll be yachting days again for you and me. + Cheer up! +It would mean a rope for anyone but Me." + +_"Oh, take care!" said the Empress. "They are flying, + Endlessly round and round. +They have finished with the faces, the dreadful little faces, + The little eyeless faces of the drowned."_ + + + + +THE VINDICTIVE + + +How should we praise those lads of the old _Vindictive_ + Who looked Death straight in the eyes, + Till his gaze fell, + In those red gates of hell? + +England, in her proud history, proudly enrolls them, + And the deep night in her remembering skies + With purer glory + Shall blazon their grim story. + +There were no throngs to applaud that hushed adventure. + They were one to a thousand on that fierce emprise. + The shores they sought + Were armoured, past all thought. + +O, they knew fear, be assured, as the brave must know it, + With youth and its happiness bidding their last good-byes; + Till thoughts, more dear + Than life, cast out all fear. + + For if, as we think, they remembered the brown-roofed homesteads, +And the scent of the hawthorn hedges when daylight dies, + Old happy places, + Young eyes and fading faces; + +One dream was dearer that night than the best of their boyhood, + One hope more radiant than any their hearts could prize. + The touch of your hand, + The light of your face, England! + +So, age to age shall tell how they sailed through the darkness + Where, under those high, austere, implacable stars, + Not one in ten + Might look for a dawn again. + +They saw the ferry-boats, _Iris_ and _Daffodil_, creeping + Darkly as clouds to the shimmering mine-strewn bars, + Flash into light! + Then thunder reddened the night. + +The wild white swords of the search-lights blinded and stabbed them, + The sharp black shadows fought in fantastic wars. + Black waves leapt whitening, + Red decks were washed with lightning. + +But, under the twelve-inch guns of the black land-batteries + The hacked bright hulk, in a glory of crackling spars, + Moved to her goal + Like an immortal soul; + +That, while the raw rent flesh in a furnace is tortured, + Reigns by a law no agony ever can shake, + And shines in power + Above all shocks of the hour. + +O, there, while the decks ran blood, and the star-shells lightened + The old broken ship that the enemy never could break, + Swept through the fire + And grappled her heart's desire. + +There, on a wreck that blazed with the soul of England, + The lads that died in the dark for England's sake + Knew, as they died, + Nelson was at their side; + +Nelson, and all the ghostly fleets of his island, + Fighting beside them there, and the soul of Drake!-- + Dreams, as we knew, + Till these lads made them true. + +_How should we praise you, lads of the old Vindictive, + Who looked death straight in the eyes, + Till his gaze fell + In those red gates of hell?_ + + + + + + + + +MISCELLANEOUS POEMS + + +THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPS OF CHELTENHAM + + +When hawthorn buds are creaming white, + And the red foolscap all stuck with may, +Then lasses walk with eyes alight, + And it's chimney-sweepers' dancing day. + +For the chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham town, + Sooty of face as a swallow of wing, +Come whistling, singing, dancing down + With white teeth flashing as they sing. + +And Jack-in-the green, by a clown in blue, + Walks like a two-legged bush of may, +With the little wee lads that wriggled up the flue + Ere Cheltenham town cried "dancing day." + +For brooms were short and the chimneys tall, + And the gipsies caught 'em these blackbirds cheap, +So Cheltenham bought them, spry and small, + And shoved them up in the dark to sweep. + +For Cheltenham town was cruel of old, + But she has been gathering garlands gay, +And the little wee lads are in green and gold, + For it's chimney-sweepers' dancing day. + +And red as a rose, and blue as the sky, + With teeth as white as their faces are black, +The master-sweeps go dancing by, + With a gridiron painted on every back. + +But when they are ranged in the market-place, + The clown's wife comes with an iron spoon, +And cozens a penny for her sweet face + To keep their golden throats in tune. + +Then, hushing the riot of that mad throng, + And sweet as the voice of a long-dead May, +A wandering pedlar lifts 'em a song, + Of chimney-sweepers' dancing day; + +And the sooty faces, they try to recall.... + As they gather around in their spell-struck rings.... +But nobody knows that singer at all + Or the curious old-time air he sings:-- + +Why are you dancing, O chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham, + And where did you win you these may-coats so fine; +For some are red as roses, and some are gold as daffodils, + But who, ah, who remembers, now, a little lad of mine? + +Lady, we are dancing, as we danced in old England + When the may was more than may, very long ago: +As for our may-coats, it was your white hands, lady, + Filled our sooty hearts and minds with blossom, white as snow. + +It was a beautiful face we saw, wandering through Cheltenham. + It was a beautiful song we heard, very far away, +Weeping for a little lad stolen by the gipsies, + Broke our hearts and filled 'em with the glory of the may. + +Many a little lad had we, chirruping in the chimney-tops, + Twirling out a sooty broom, a blot against the blue. +Ah, but when we called to him, and when he saw and ran to her, + All our winter ended, and our world was made anew. + +Then she gave us may-coats of gold and green and crimson, + Then, with a long garland, she led our hearts away, +Whispering, "Remember, though the boughs forget the hawthorn, + Yet shall I return to you, that was your lady May."-- + +But why are you dancing now, O chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham, + And why are you singing of a May that is fled?-- +O, there's music to be born, though we pluck the old fiddle-strings, + And a world's May awaking where the fields lay dead. + +And we dance, dance, dreaming of a lady most beautiful + That shall walk the green valleys of this dark earth one day, +And call to us gently, "O chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham, + I am looking for my children. Awake, and come away." + + + + +TO A SUCCESSFUL MAN + +(_What the Ghosts Said_) + + +And after all the labour and the pains, + After the heaping up of gold on gold, +After success that locked your feet in chains, + And left you with a heart so tired and old, + +Strange--is it not?--to find your chief desire + Is what you might have had for nothing then-- +The face of love beside a cottage fire + And friendly laughter with your fellow-men? + +You were so rich when fools esteemed you poor. + You ruled a field that kings could never buy; +The glory of the sea was at your door; + And all those quiet stars were in your sky. + +The nook of ferns below the breathless wood + Where one poor book could unlock Paradise ... +What will you give us now for that lost good? + Better forget. You cannot pay the price. + +You left them for the fame in which you trust. + But youth, and hope--did you forsake them, too? +Courage! When dust at length returns to dust, + In your last dreams they may come back to you. + + + + +THE OLD GENTLEMAN WITH THE AMBER SNUFF-BOX + + +_The old gentleman, tapping his amber snuff-box +(A heart-shaped snuff-box with a golden clasp) +Stared at the dying fire. "I'd like them all +To understand, when I am gone," he muttered. +"But how to do it delicately! I can't +Apologize. I'll hint at it ... in verse; +And, to be sure that Rosalind reads it through, +I'll make it an appendix to my will!" +--Still cynical, you see. He couldn't help it. +He had seen much, felt much. He snapped the snuff box, +Shook his white periwig, trimmed a long quill pen, +And then began to write, most carefully, +These couplets, in the old heroic style:--_ + +O, had I known in boyhood, only known +The few sad truths that time has made my own, +I had not lost the best that youth can give, +Nay, life itself, in learning how to live. +This laboring heart would not be tired so soon, +This jaded blood would jog to a livelier tune: +And some few friends, could I begin again, +Should know more happiness, and much less pain. +I should not wound in ignorance, nor turn +In foolish pride from those for whom I yearn. +I should have kept nigh half the friends I've lost, +And held for dearest those I wronged the most. + +Yet, when I see more cunning men evade +With colder tact, the blunders that I made; +Sometimes I wonder if the better part +Is not still mine, who lacked their subtle art. +For I have conned my book in harsher schools, +And learned from struggling what they worked by rules; +Learned--with some pain--more quickly to forgive +My fellow-blunderers, while they learn to live; +Learned--with some tears--to keep a steadfast mind, +And think more kindly of my own poor kind. + +_He read the verses through, shaking his wig. +"Perhaps ... perhaps"--he whispered to himself, +"I'd better leave it to the will of God. +They might upset my own. I do not think +They'd understand. Jocelyn might, perhaps; +And Dick, if only they were left alone. +But Rosalind never; nor that nephew of mine, +The witty politician. No. No. No. +They'd say my mind was wandering, I'm afraid." +So, with a frozen face, reluctantly, +He tossed his verses into the dying fire, +And watched the sparks fly upward. + There, at dawn, +They found him, cold and stiff by the cold hearth, +His amber snuff-box in his ivory hand. +"You see," they said, "he never needed friends. +He had that curious antique frozen way. +He had no heart--only an amber snuff-box. +He died quite happily, taking a pinch of snuff." + +His nephew, that engaging politician, +Inherited the snuff-box, and remarked +His epitaph should be "Snuffed Out." The clubs +Laughed, and the statesman's reputation grew._ + + + + +WHAT GRANDFATHER SAID + +(_An epistle from a narrow-minded old gentleman to a young artist of +superior intellect and intense realism._) + + +Your thoughts are for the poor and weak? + Ah, no, the picturesque's your passion! +Your tongue is always in your cheek + At poverty that's not in fashion. + +You like a ploughman's rugged face, + Or painted eyes in Piccadilly; +But bowler hats are commonplace, + And thread-bare tradesmen simply silly. + +The clerk that sings "God save the King," + And still believes his Tory paper,-- +You hate the anaemic fool? I thought + You loved the weak! Was that all vapour? + +Ah, when you sneer, dear democrat, + At such a shiny-trousered Tory +Because he doffs his poor old hat + To what he thinks his country's glory, + +To you it's just a coloured rag. + You hate the "patriots" that bawl so. +Well, my Ulysses, there's a flag + That lifts men in Republics also. + +No doubt his thoughts are cruder far; + And, where those linen folds are shaking, +Perhaps he sees a kind of star + Because his eyes are tired and aching. + +Banal enough! Banal as truth! + But I'm not thinking of his banners. +I'm thinking of his pinched white youth + And your disgusting "new art" manners. + +His meek submission stirs your hate? + Better, my lad, if you're so fervent, +Turn your cold steel against the State + Instead of sneering at the servant. + +He does his job. He draws his pay. + You sneer, and dine with those that pay him; +And then you write a snobbish play + For democrats, in which you play him. + +Ah, yes, you like simplicity + That sucks its cheeks to make the dimple. +But this domestic bourgeoisie + You hate,--because it's all too simple. + +You hate the hearth, the wife, the child, + You hate the heavens that bend above them. +Your simple folk must all run wild + Like jungle-beasts before you love them. + +You own a house in Cheyne Walk, + (You say it costs three thousand fully) +Where subtle snobs can talk and talk + And play the intellectual bully. + +Yes. I say "snobs." Are names alone + Free from all change? Your word "Victorian" +Could bite and sting in ninety one + But now--it's deader than the saurian. + +You think I live in yesterday, + Because I think your way the wrong one; +But I have hewed and ploughed my way, + And--unlike yours--it's been a long one. + +I let Victoria toll her bell, + And went with Strindberg for a ride, sir. +I've fought through your own day as well, + And come out on the other side, sir,-- + +The further side, the morning side, + I read free verse (the Psalms) on Sunday. +But I've decided (you'll decide) + That there is room for song on Monday. + +I've seen the new snob on his way, + The intellectual snob I mean, sir, +The artist snob, in book and play, + Kicking his mother round the scene, sir. + +I've heard the Tories talk like fools; + And the rich fool that apes the Tory. +I've seen the shopmen break your rules + And die like Christ, in Christ's own glory. + +But, as for you, that liberal sneer + Reminds me of the poor old Kaiser. +He was a "socialist," my dear. + Well, I'm your grandson. You'll grow wiser. + + + + +MEMORIES OF THE PACIFIC COAST + + +I know a land, I, too, + Where warm keen incense on the sea-wind blows, +And all the winter long the skies are blue, + And the brown deserts blossom with the rose. + +Deserts of all delight, + Cactus and palm and earth of thirsty gold, +Dark purple blooms round eaves of sun-washed white, + And that Hesperian fruit men sought of old. + +O, to be wandering there, + Under the palm-trees, on that sunset shore, +Where the waves break in song, and the bright air + Is crystal clean; and peace is ours, once more. + +There Beauty dwells, + Beauty, re-born in whiteness from the foam; +And Youth returns with all its magic spells, + And the heart finds its long-forgotten home,-- + +Home--home! Where is that land? + For, when I dream it found, the old hungering cry +Aches in the soul, drives me from all I planned, + And sets my sail to seek another sky. + + + + +NIPPON + + +Last night, I dreamed of Nippon.... + I saw a cloud of white +Drifting before the sunset + On seas of opal light. + +Beyond the wide Pacific + I saw its mounded snow +Miraculously changing + In that deep evening glow, + +To rosy rifts and hillocks, + To orchards that I knew, +To snows of peach and cherry, + And feathers of bamboo. + +I saw, on twisted bridges, + In blue and crimson gleams, +The lanterns of the fishers, + Along the brook of dreams. + +I saw the wreaths of incense + Like little ghosts arise, +From temples under Fuji, + From Fuji to the skies. + +I saw that fairy mountain.... + I watched it form and fade. +No doubt the gods were singing, + When Nippon isle was made. + + + + +THE HUMMING BIRDS + + +Green wing and ruby throat, + What shining spell, what exquisite sorcery, +Lured you to float + And fight with bees round this one flowering tree? + +Petulant imps of light, + What whisper or gleam or elfin-wild perfumes +Thrilled through the night + And drew you to this hive of rosy bloom? + +One tree, and one alone, + Of all that load this magic air with spice, +Claims for its own + Your brave migration out of Paradise; + +Claims you, and guides you, too, + Three thousand miles across the summer's waste +Of blooms ye knew + Less finely fit for your ethereal taste. + +To poets' youthful hearts, + Even so the quivering April thoughts will fly,-- +Those irised darts, + Those winged and tiny denizens of the sky. + +Through beaks as needle-fine, + They suck a redder honey than bees know. +Unearthly wine + Sleeps in this bloom; and, when it falls, they go. + + + + +LINES FOR A SUN-DIAL + + +With shadowy pen I write, + Till time be done, + Good news of some strange light, +Some far off sun. + + + + +THE REALMS OF GOLD + +(Written after hearing a line of Keats repeated by a passing stranger +under the palms of Southern California.) + + +Under the palms of San Diego + Where gold-skinned Mexicans loll at ease, +And the red half-moons of their black-pipped melons + Drop from their hands in the sunset seas, +And an incense, out of the old brown missions, + Blows through the orange trees; + +I wished that a poet who died in Europe + Had found his way to this rose-red West; +That Keats had walked by the wide Pacific + And cradled his head on its healing breast, +And made new songs of the sun-burned sea-folk, + New poems, perhaps his best. + +I thought of him, under the ripe pomegranates + At the desert's edge, where the grape-vines grow, +In a sun-kissed ranch between grey-green sage-brush + And amethyst mountains, peaked with snow, +Or watching the lights of the City of Angels + Glitter like stars below. + +He should walk, at dawn, by the lemon orchards, + And breathe at ease in that dry bright air; +And the Spanish bells in their crumbling cloisters + Of brown adobe would sing to him there; +And the old Franciscans would bring him their baskets + Of apple and olive and pear. + +And the mandolins, in the deep blue twilight, + Under that palm with the lion's mane, +Would pluck, once more, at his golden heart-strings, + And tell him the old sea-tales of Spain; +And there should the daughters of Hesperus teach him + Their mystical songs again. + +Then, the dusk blew sweet over seas of peach-bloom; + The moon sailed white in the cloudless blue; +The tree-toads purred, and the crickets chirruped; + And better than anything dreamed came true; +For, under the murmuring palms, a shadow + Passed, with the eyes I knew; + +A shadow, perhaps, of the tall green fountains + That rustled their fronds on that glittering sky, +A hungering shadow, a lean dark shadow, + A dreaming shadow that drifted by; +But I heard him whisper the strange dark music + That found it so "rich to die." + +And the murmuring palms of San Diego + Shook with stars as he passed beneath. +The Paradise palms, and the wild white orchards, + The night, and its roses, were all one breath, +Bearing the song of a nightingale seaward, + A song that had out-soared death. + + + + +COMPENSATIONS + + +Not with a flash that rends the blue + Shall fall the avenging sword. +Gently as the evening dew + Descends the mighty Lord. + +His dreadful balances are made + To move with moon and tide; +Yet shall not mercy be afraid + Nor justice be denied. + +The dreams that seemed to waste away, + The kindliness forgot, +Were singing in your heart today + Although you knew them not. + +The sun shall not forget his road, + Nor the high stars their rhyme, +The traveller with the heavier load + Has one less hill to climb. + +And, though a darker shadow fall + On every struggling age, +How shall it be if, after all, + He share our pilgrimage? + +The end we mourn is not the end. + The dust has nimble wings. +But truth and beauty have a friend + At the deep heart of things. + +He will not speak? What friend belies + His love with idle breath? +We read it in each others' eyes, + And ask no more in death. + + + + +DEAD MAN'S MORRICE + + +There came a crowder to the Mermaid Inn, + One dark May night, +Fiddling a tune that quelled our motley din, + With quaint delight, +It haunts me yet, as old lost airs will do, + A phantom strain: +_Look for me once, lest I should look for you, + And look in vain._ + +In that old wood, where ghosts of lovers walk, + At fall of day, +Gleaning such fragments of their ancient talk + As poor ghosts may, +From leaves that brushed their faces, wet with dew, + Or tears, or rain,... +_Look for me once, lest I should look for you, + And look in vain._ + +Have we not seen them--pale forgotten shades + That do return, +Groping for those dim paths, those fragrant glades, + Those nooks of fern, +Only to find that, of the may they knew, + No wraiths remain; +_Yet they still look, as I should look for you, + And look in vain._ + +They see those happier ghosts that waned away-- + Whither, who knows?-- +Ghosts that come back with music and the may, + And Spring's first rose, +Lover and lass, to sing the old burden through, + Stave and refrain: +_Look for me once, lest I should look for you, + And look in vain._ + +So, after death, if in that starless deep, + I lose your eyes, +I'll haunt familiar places. I'll not keep + Tryst in the skies. +I'll haunt the whispering elms that found us true, + The old grass-grown lane. +_Look for me there, lest I should look for you, + And look in vain._ + +There, as of old, under the dreaming moon, + A phantom throng +Floats through the fern, to a ghostly morrice tune, + A thin sweet song, +Hands link with hands, eyes drown in eyes anew, + Lips meet again.... +_Look for me, once, lest I should look for you, + And look in vain._ + + + + +THE OLD FOOL IN THE WOOD + + +"If I could whisper you all I know," + Said the Old Fool in the Wood, +"You'd never say that green leaves grow. + You'd say, 'Ah, what a happy mood +The Master must be in today, + To think such thoughts,' +That's what you'd say." + +"If I could whisper you all I've heard," + Said the Old Fool in the fern, +"You'd never say the song of a bird. + You'd say, 'I'll listen, and p'raps I'll learn +One word of His joy as He passed this way, + One syllable more,' +That's what you'd say." + +"If I could tell you all the rest," + Said the Old Fool under the skies, +"You'd hug your griefs against your breast + And whisper with love-lit eyes, +'I am one with the sorrow that made the may, + And the pulse of His heart,' +That's what you'd say." + + + + +A NEW MADRIGAL TO AN OLD MELODY + +(It is supposed that Shadow-of-a-Leaf uses the word "clear" in a +more ancient sense of "beautiful.") + + +As along a dark pine-bough, in slender white mystery + The moon lay to listen, above the thick fern, +In a deep dreaming wood that is older than history + I heard a lad sing, and I stilled me to learn; +So rarely he lilted his long-forgot litany,-- + _Fall, April; fall, April, in dew on our dearth! +Bring balm, and bring poppy, bring deep sleepy dittany + For Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth._ + +Then I drew back the branches. I saw him that chanted it. + I saw his fool's bauble. I knew his old grief. +I knew that old greenwood and the shadow that haunted it,-- + My fool, my lost jester, my _Shadow-of-a-Leaf_! +And "why," I said, "why, all this while, have you left me so + Luckless in melody, lonely in mirth?" +"Oh, why," he sang, "why has this world then bereft me so + Soon of my Marian, so long laid in earth? + +"In the years that are gone," he said, "love was more fortunate. + Grief was our minstrel of things that endure. +Now, ashes and dust and this world grow importunate. + Time has no sorrow that time cannot cure. +Once, we could lose, and the loss was worth cherishing. + Now, we may win, but, O, where is the worth? +Memory and true love," he whispered, "are perishing, + With Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth." + +"Ah, no!" I said, "no! Since we grieve for our grief again, + Touch the old strings! Let us try the old stave! +And memory may wake, like my _Shadow-of-a-Leaf_ again, + Singing of hope, in the dark, by a grave." +So we sang it together--that long-forgot litany:-- + _Fall, April; fall, April; bring new grief to birth. +Bring wild herb of grace, and bring deep healing dittany, + For Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth._ + + + + +THE LOST BATTLE + + +It is not over yet-the fight + Where those immortal dreamers failed. +They stormed the citadels of night + And the night praised them--and prevailed. +So long ago the cause was lost + We scarce distinguish friend from foe; +But--if the dead can help it most-- + The armies of the dead will grow. + +The world has all our banners now, + And filched our watchwords for its own. +The world has crowned the "rebel's" brow + And millions crowd his lordly throne. +The masks have altered. Names are names; + They praise the "truth" that is not true. +The "rebel" that the world acclaims + Is not the rebel Shelley knew. + +We may not build that Commonweal. + We may not reach the goal we set. +But there's a flag they dare not steal. + Forward! It is not over yet. +We shall be dust and under dust + Before we end that ancient wrong; +But here's a sword that cannot rust, + And where's the death can touch a song? + +So, when our bodies rot in earth + The singing souls that once were ours, +Weaponed with light and helmed with mirth, + Shall front the kingdoms and the powers. +The ancient lie is on its throne, + And half the living still forget; +But, since the dead are all our own, + Courage, it is not over yet. + + + + +RIDDLES OF MERLIN + + +As I was walking + Alone by the sea, +"_What is that whisper?_" + Said Merlin to me. +"Only," I answered, + "The sigh of the wave"-- +"_Oh, no_," replied Merlin, + "_'Tis the grass on your grave_." + +As I lay dreaming + In churchyard ground +"_Listen_," said Merlin, + "_What is that sound_?" +"The green grass is growing," + I answered; but he +Chuckled, "_Oh, no! + 'Tis the sound of the sea_." + +As I went homeward + At dusk by the shore, +"_What is that crimson?_" + Said Merlin once more. +"Only the sun," I said. +"Sinking to rest"-- +"_Sunset for East_," he said, + "_Sunrise for West_." + + + + +THE SYMPHONY + + +Wonder in happy eyes + Fades, fades away: +And the angel-coloured skies + Whisper farewell. + +Loveliness over the strings of the heart may stray + In fugitive melodies; +But Oh, the hand of the Master must not stay, + Even for a breath; + +For to prolong one joy, or even to dwell + On one rich chord of pain, +Beyond the pulse of the song, would untune heaven + And drown the stars in death. + +So youth with its love-note dies; + And beauty fades in the air, +To make the master-symphony immortal, + And find new life and deeper wonder there. + + + + +PEACE + + +Give me the pulse of the tide again + And the slow lapse of the leaves, +The rustling gold of a field of grain + And a bird in the nested eaves; + +And a fishing-smack in the old harbour + Where all was happy and young; +And an echo or two of the songs I knew + When songs could still be sung. + +For I would empty my heart of all + This world's implacable roar, +And I would turn to my home, and fall + Asleep in my home once more; + +And I would forget what the cities say, + And the folly of all the wise, +And turn to my own true folk this day, + And the love in their constant eyes. + +There is peace, peace, where the sea-birds wheel, + And peace in the breaking wave; +And I have a broken heart to heal, + And a broken soul to save. + + + + +THE OPEN DOOR + + +O Mystery of life, +That, after all our strife, + Defeats, mistakes, +Just as, at last, we see +The road to victory, + The tired heart breaks. + +Just as the long years give +Knowledge of how to live, + Life's end draws near; +As if, that gift being ours, +God needed our new powers + In worlds elsewhere. + +There, if the soul whose wings +Were won in suffering, springs + To life anew, +Justice would have some room +For hope beyond the tomb, + And mercy, too. + +And since, without this dream +No light, no faintest gleam + Answers our "why"; +But earth and all its race +Must pass and leave no trace + On that blind sky; + +Shall reason close that door +On all we struggled for, + Seal the soul's doom; +Make of this universe +One wild answering curse, + One lampless tomb? + +Mine be the dream, the creed +That leaves for God, indeed, + For God, and man, +One open door whereby +To prove His world no lie + And crown His plan. + + + + +IMMORTAL SAILS + + +Now, in a breath, we'll burst those gates of gold, + And ransack heaven before our moment fails. +Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old, + We'll mount and sing and spread immortal sails. + +It is not time that makes eternity. + Love and an hour may quite out-run the years, +And give us more to hear and more to see + Than life can wash away with all its tears. + +Dear, when we part, at last, that sunset sky + Shall not be touched with deeper hues than this; +But we shall ride the lightning ere we die + And seize our brief infinitude of bliss, + +With time to spare for all that heaven can tell, +While eyes meet eyes, and look their last farewell. + + + + +THE MATIN-SONG OF FRIAR TUCK + + +I. + +If souls could sing to heaven's high King + As blackbirds pipe on earth, +How those delicious courts would ring + With gusts of lovely mirth! +What white-robed throng could lift a song + So mellow with righteous glee +As this brown bird that all day long + Delights my hawthorn tree. + Hark! That's the thrush + With speckled breast + From yon white bush + Chaunting his best, + _Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!_ + + +II. + +If earthly dreams be touched with gleams + Of Paradisal air, +Some wings, perchance, of earth may glance + Around our slumbers there; +Some breaths of may might drift our way + With scents of leaf and loam, +Some whistling bird at dawn be heard + From those old woods of home. + Hark! That's the thrush + With speckled breast + From yon white bush + Chaunting his best, + _Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!_ + + +III. + +No King or priest shall mar my feast + Where'er my soul may range. +I have no fear of heaven's good cheer + Unless our Master change. +But when death's night is dying away, + If I might choose my bliss, +My love should say, at break of day, + With her first waking kiss:- + Hark! That's the thrush + With speckled breast, + From yon white bush + Chaunting his best, + _Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!_ + + + + +FIVE CRITICISMS + + +I. + +(_On many recent novels by the conventional unconventionalists_.) + +Old Pantaloon, lean-witted, dour and rich, + After grim years of soul-destroying greed, +Weds Columbine, that April-blooded witch + "Too young" to know that gold was not her need. + +Then enters Pierrot, young, rebellious, warm, + With well-lined purse, to teach the fine-souled wife +That the old fool's gold should aid a world-reform + (Confused with sex). This wrecks the old fool's life. + +O, there's no doubt that Pierrot was clever, + Quick to break hearts and quench the dying flame; +But why, for his own pride, does Pierrot never + Choose his own mate, work for his own high aim, + +Stand on his feet, and pay for his own tune? +Why scold, cheat, rob and kill poor Pantaloon? + + +II. + +(_On a certain goddess, acclaimed as "new" but known in Babylon._) + +I saw the assembled artists of our day + Waiting for light, for music and for song. +A woman stood before them, fresh as May + And beautiful; but, in that modish throng, + +None heeded her. They said, "In our first youth + Surely, long since, your hair was touched with grey." +"I do not change," she answered. "I am Truth." + "Old and banal," they sneered, and turned away. + +Then came a formless thing, with breasts dyed scarlet. + The roses in her hair were green and blue. + "I am new," she said. "I change, and + Death knows why." + +Then with the eyes and gesture of a harlot + She led them all forth, whinneying, "New, how new! + Tell us your name!" She answered, "The + New Lie." + + +III. + +(_On Certain of the Bolsheviki "Idealists."_) + +With half the force and thought you waste in rage + Over your neighbor's house, or heart of stone, +You might have built your own new heritage, + O fools, have you no hands, then, of your own? + +Where is your pride? Is this your answer still, + This the red flag that burns above our strife, +This the new cry that rings from Pisgah hill, + "_Our neighbor's money, or our neighbor's life_"? + +Be prouder. Let us build that nobler state + With our own hands, with our own muscle and brain! +Your very victories die in hymns of hate; + And your own envies are your heaviest chain. + +Is there no rebel proud enough to say + "We'll stand on our own feet, and win the day"? + + +IV. + +(_On Certain Realists._) + +You with the quick sardonic eye +For all the mockeries of life, +Beware, in this dark masque of things that seem, +Lest even that tragic irony, +Which you discern in this our mortal strife, +Trick you and trap you, also, with a dream. + +Last night I saw a dead man borne along +The city streets, passing a boisterous throng +That never ceased to laugh and shout and dance: +And yet, and yet, +For all the poison bitter minds might brew +From themes like this, I knew +That the stern Truth would not permit her glance +Thus to be foiled by flying straws of chance, +For her keen eyes on deeper skies are set, +And laws that tragic ironists forget. + +She saw the dead man's life, from birth to death,-- +All that he knew of love and sin and pain, +Success and failure (not as this world sees), +His doubts, his passions, inner loss and gain, +And borne on darker tides of constant law +Beyond the margin of this life she saw +All that had left his body with the breath. +These things, to her, were still realities. + +If any mourned for him unseen, +She saw them, too. +If none, she'd not pretend +His clay were colder, or his God less true, +Or that his grave, at length, would be less green. +She'd not deny +The boundless depths of her eternal sky +Brooding above a boundless universe, +Because he seemed to man's unseeing eye +Going a little further to fare worse; +Nor would she assume he lacked that unseen friend +Whom even the tragic ironists declare +Were better than the seen, in his last end. + +Oh, then, beware, beware, +Lest in the strong name of "reality" +You mock yourselves anew with shapes of air, +Lest it be you, agnostics, who re-write +The fettering creeds of night, +Affirm you know your own Unknowable, +And lock the winged soul in a new hell; +Lest it be you, lip-worshippers of Truth, +Who break the heart of youth; +Lest it be you, the realists, who fight +With shadows, and forget your own pure light; +Lest it be you who, with a little shroud +Snatched from the sightless faces of the dead, +Hoodwink the world, and keep the mourner bowed +In dust, real dust, with stones, real stones, for bread; +Lest, as you look one eighth of an inch beneath +The yellow skin of death, +You dream yourselves discoverers of the skull +That old _memento mori_ of our faith; +Lest it be you who hunt a flying wraith +Through this dissolving stuff of hill and cloud; +Lest it be you, who, at the last, annul +Your covenant with your kind; +Lest it be you who darken heart and mind, +Sell the strong soul in bondage to a dream, +And fetter us once more to things that seem. + + +V + +(_An Answer_) + +[After reading an article in a leading London journal by an +"intellectual" who attacked one of the noblest poets and greatest +artists of a former century (or any century) on the ground that his +high ethical standards were incompatible with the new lawlessness. +This vicious lawlessness the writer described definitely, and he paid +his tribute to dishonour as openly and brutally as any of the Bolsheviki +could have done. I had always known that this was the real +ground of the latter-day onslaught on some of the noblest literature +of the past; but I had never seen it openly confessed before. The +time has now surely come when, if our civilization is to make any +fight at all against the new "red ruin and breaking up of laws," we +must cease to belaud our slack-minded, latter-day "literature of +rebellion" for its cleverness in making scraps of paper out of the +plain laws of right and wrong. It has been doing this for more than +twenty-five years, and the same has become fashionable among +those who are too busy to read carefully or understand fully what +pitfalls are being prepared for their own feet and the feet of their +children.] + + +I + +If this were true, England indeed were dead. + If the wild fashion of that poisonous hour + Wherein the new Salome, clothed with power, +Wriggled and hissed, with hands and feet so red, +Should even now demand that glorious head, + Whose every word was like an English flower, + Whose every song an English April shower, +Whose every thought immortal wine and bread; +If this were true, if England should prefer + Darkness, corruption, and the adulterous crew, +Shakespeare and Browning would cry shame on her, + And Milton would deny the land he knew; +And those who died in Flanders yesterday +Would thank their God they sleep in cleaner clay. + + +II + +It is not true. Only these "rebel" wings, + These glittering clouds of "intellectual" flies + Out of the stagnant pools of midnight rise +From the old dead creeds, with carrion-poisoned stings + They strike at noble and ignoble things, + Immortal Love with the old world's out-worn lies, + But even now, a wind from clearer skies +Dissolves in smoke their coteries and wings. + +See, their divorced idealist re-divorces + The wife he stole from his own stealing friend! +And _these_ would pluck the high stars from their courses, + And mock the fools that praise them, till the end! +Well, let the whole world praise them. Truth can wait +Till our new England shall unlock the gate. + + +III + +Yes. Let the fools go paint themselves with woad, + For we've a jest between us, Truth and I. + We know that those who live by fashion die +Also by fashion, and that mode kills mode. +We know the great new age is on the road, + And death is at the heart of every lie. + But we've a jest between us, Truth and I. +And we have locked the doors to our abode. + +Yet if some great new "rebel" in his pride + Should pass that way and hear us laughing low +Like lovers, in the darkness, side by side, + He might catch this:--"The dullards do not know +That names are names. New 'rebel' is old 'thrall.'" +And we're the lonely dreamers after all. + + + + +THE COMPANIONS + + +How few are they that voyage through the night + On that eternal quest, +For that strange light beyond our light, + That rest beyond our rest. + +And they who, seeking beauty, once descry + Her face, to most unknown; +Thenceforth like changelings from the sky + Must walk their road alone. + +So once I dreamed. So idle was my mood; + But now, before these eyes, +From those foul trenches, black with blood, + What radiant legions rise! + +And loveliness over the wounded earth awakes + Like wild-flowers in the Spring. +Out of the mortal chrysalis breaks + Immortal wing on wing. + +They rise like flowers, they wander on wings of light, + Through realms beyond our ken. +The loneliest soul is companied tonight + By hosts of unknown men. + + + + +THE LITTLE ROADS + + +The great roads are all grown over + That seemed so firm and white. +The deep black forests have covered them. + How should I walk aright? +How should I thread these tangled mazes, + Or grope to that far off light? +I stumble round the thickets, and they turn me + Back to the thickets and the night. + +Yet, sometimes, at a word, an elfin pass-word, + (O, thin, deep, sweet with beaded rain!) +There shines, through a mist of ragged-robins, + The old lost April-coloured lane, +That leads me from myself; for, at a whisper, + Where the strong limbs thrust in vain, +At a breath, if my heart help another heart, + The path shines out for me again. + +A thin thread, a rambling lane for lovers + To the light of the world's one May, +Where the white dropping flakes may wet our faces + As we lift them to the bloom-bowed spray: +O Master, shall we ask Thee, then, for high-roads, + Or down upon our knees and pray +That Thou wilt ever lose us in Thy little lanes, + And lead us by a wandering way. + + + + +SUNLIGHT AND SEA + + +Give me the sunlight and the sea +And who shall take my heaven from me? + +Light of the Sun, Life of the Sun, +O happy, bold companion, +Whose golden laughters round me run, +Making wine of the blue air +With wild-rose kisses everywhere, +Browning the limb, flushing the cheek, +Apple-fragrant, leopard-sleek, +Dancing from thy red-curtained East +Like a Nautch-girl to my feast, +Proud because her lord, the Spring, +Praised the way those anklets ring; +Or wandering like a white Greek maid +Leaf-dappled through the dancing shade, +Where many a green-veined leaf imprints +Breast and limb with emerald tints, +That softly net her silken shape +But let the splendour still escape, +While rosy ghosts of roses flow +Over the supple rose and snow. + +But sweetest, fairest is thy face, +When we meet, when we embrace, +Where the white sand sleeps at noon +Round that lonely blue lagoon, +Fringed with one white reef of coral +Where the sea-birds faintly quarrel +And the breakers on the reef +Fade into a dream of grief, +And the palm-trees overhead +Whisper that all grief is dead. + +Sister Sunlight, lead me then +Into thy healing seas again.... +For when we swim out, side by side, +Like a lover with his bride, +When thy lips are salt with brine, +And thy wild eyes flash in mine, +The music of a mightier sea +Beats with my blood in harmony. +I breast the primal flood of being, +Too clear for speech, too near for seeing; +And to his heart, new reconciled, +The Eternal takes his earth-bound child. + +Who the essential secret spells +In those gigantic syllables,-- +Flowing, ebbing, ebbing, flowing,-- +Gathers wisdom past all knowing. +Song of the Sea, I hear, I hear, +That deeper music of the sphere, +Catch the rhythm of sun and star, +And know what light and darkness are; +Ay, faint beginnings of a rhyme +That swells beyond the tides of time; +Beat with thy rhythm in blood and breath, +And make one song of life and death. +I hear, I hear, and rest content, +Merged in the primal element, +The old element whence life arose, +The fount of youth, to which it goes. + +Give me the sunlight and the sea +And who shall take my heaven from me? + + + + +THE ROAD THROUGH CHAOS + + +I. + +There is one road, one only, to the Light: + A narrow way, but Freedom walks therein; +A straight, firm road through Chaos and old Night, + And all these wandering Jack-o-Lents of Sin. + +It is the road of Law, where Pilate stays + To hear, at last, the answer to his cry; +And mighty sages, groping through their maze + Of eager questions, hear a child reply. + +_Truth? What is Truth?_ Come, look upon my tables. + Begin at your beginnings once again. +_Twice one is two!_ Though all the rest be fables, + Here's one poor glimpse of Truth to keep you sane. + +For Truth, at first, is clean accord with fact, +Whether in line or thought, or word, or act. + + +II. + +Then, by those first, those clean, precise, accords, + Build to the Lord your temples and your song; +The curves of beauty, music's wedded chords + Resolving into heaven all hate and wrong. + +Let harmonies of colour marry and follow + And breaking waves in a rhythmic dance ensue; +And all your thought fly free as the wings of the swallow, + Whose arrowy curves obey their measure, too. + +Then shall the marching stars and tides befriend you, + And your own heart, and the world's heart, pulse in rhyme; +Then shall the mob of the passions that would rend you + Crown you their Captain and march on in time. + +So shall you repossess your struggling soul, +Conquer your world, and find the eternal goal. + + + + +THE NIGHT OF THE LION + +"_And that a reply be received before midnight._" +_British Ultimatum_. + + +Their Day was at twelve of the night, + When the graves give up their dead. +And still, from the City, no light + Yellows the clouds overhead. +Where the Admiral stands there's a star, + But his column is lost in the gloom; +For the brazen doors are ajar, + And the Lion awakes, and the doom. + +_He is not of a chosen race. + His strength is the strength of the skies, +In whose glory all nations have place, + In whose downfall Liberty dies. +He is mighty, but he is just. + He shall live to the end of years. +He shall bring the proud to the dust. + He shall raise the weak to the spheres._ + +It is night on the world's great mart, + But the brooding hush is awake +With the march of a steady heart + That calls like the drum of Drake, +_Come!_ And a muttering deep + As the pulse of the distant guns, +Or the thunder before the leap + Thro' the rolling thoroughfare runs. + +And the wounded men go by + Like thoughts in the Lion's brain. +And the clouds lift on high + Like the slow waves of his mane +And the narrowing lids conceal + The furnaces of his eyes. +Their gold is gone out. They reveal +Only two search-lights of steel + Steadily sweeping the skies. + +And we hoped he had peace in his lair + Where the bones of old tyrannies lay, +And the skulls that his cubs have stripped bare, + The old skulls they still toss in their play. +But the tyrants are risen again, + And the last light dies from their path; +For the midnight of his mane + Lifts to the stars with his wrath. + +From the East to the West he is crouching. + He snuffs at the North-East wind. +His breast upon Britain is couching. + His haunches quiver on Ind. +It is night, black night, where he lies; + But a kingdom and a fleet +Shall burn in his terrible eyes +When he leaps, and the darkness dies + With the War-gods under his feet. + +_Till the day when a little child, + Shall lay but a hand on his mane, +And his eyes grow golden and mild + And he stands in the heavens again; +Till the day of the seventh seal, + Which the Lion alone shall rend, +When the stars from their courses reel, + His Freedom shall not end._ + + + + +THE WAR WIDOW + + +I. + +Black-veiled, black-gowned, she rides in bus and train, + With eyes that fill too listlessly for tears. +Her waxen hands clasp and unclasp again. + _Good News_, they cry. She neither sees nor hears. + +Good News, perhaps, may crown some far-off king. + Good News may peal the glory of the state-- +Good News may cause the courts of heaven to ring. + She sees a hand waved at a garden gate. + +For her dull ears are tuned to other themes; + And her dim eyes can never see aright. +She glides--a ghost--through all her April dreams, + To meet his eyes at dawn, his lips at night. + +Wraiths of a truth that others never knew; +And yet--for her--the only truth that's true. + + +II. + +_Good News! Good News!_ There is no way but this. + Out of the night a star begins to rise. +I know not where my soul's deep Master is; + Nor can I hear those angels in the skies; + +Nor follow him, as childhood used of old, + By radiant seas, in those time-hallowed tales. +Only, at times, implacable and cold, + From this blind gloom, stand out the iron nails. + +Yet, at this world's heart stands the Eternal Cross, + The ultimate frame of moon and star and sun, +Where Love with out-stretched arms, in utter loss, + Points East and West and makes the whole world one. + +_Good News! Good News!_ There is no hope, no way, +No truth, no life, but leads through Christmas Day. + + + + +THE BELL + + +The Temple Bell was out of tune, +That once out-melodied sun and moon. + +Instead of calling folk to prayer +It spread an evil in the air. + +Instead of a song, from north to south, +It put a lie in the wind's mouth. + +The very palms beneath it died, +So harsh it jarred, so loud it lied. + +Then the gods told the blue-robed bonze: +"_Your Bell is only wrought of bronze._ + +_Lower it down, cast it again, +Or you shall shake the heavens in vain._" + +Then, as the mighty cauldron hissed, +Men brought the wealth that no man missed. + +Yea, they brought silver, they brought gold, +And melted them into the seething mould. + +The miser brought his greening hoard, +And the king cast in his sword. + +Yet, when the Bell in the Temple swung, +It jarred the stars with its harsh tongue. + +"_Is this your best?_" the oracle said, +"_Then were you better drunk or dead._" + +Once again they melted it down, +And the king cast in his crown. + +Then they poured wine, and bullock's blood, +Into the hot, grey, seething flood. + +They gave it mellowing fruits to eat, +And honey-combs to make it sweet. + +Yet, when they hauled it to the sky, +The Bell was one star-shattering lie. + +So, for the third time and the last, +They lowered it down to be re-cast. + +The white-hot metal seethed anew, +And the crowd shrank as the heat grew; + +But a white-robed woman, queenly and tall, +Pressed to the brink before them all, + +One breast, like a golden fruit lay bare; +She held her small son feeding there. + +She plucked him off, she lifted him high, +Like rose-red fruit on the blue sky. + +She pressed her lips to the budded feet, +And murmured softly, "_Oh, sweet, my sweet._" + +She whispered, "_Gods, that my land may live, +I give the best that I have to give!_" + +Then, then, before the throng awoke, +Before one cry from their white lips broke, + +She tossed him into the fiery flood, +Her child, her baby, her flesh and blood. + +And the crisp hissing waves closed round +And melted him through without a sound. + +"_Too quick for pain_," they heard her say, +And she sobbed, once, and she turned away. + + * * * * * + +The Temple Bell, in peace and war, +Keeps the measure of sun and star. + +But sometimes, in the night it cries +Faintly, and a voice replies: + +_Mother, Oh, mother, the Bell rings true!-- + You were all that I had!--Oh, mother, my mother!-- +With the land and the Bell it is well. Is it well, + Is it well with the heart that had you and none other?_ + + + + +SLAVE AND EMPEROR + +"Our cavalry have rescued Nazareth from the enemy whose supermen +described Christianity as a creed for slaves." + + +The Emperor mocked at Nazareth + In his almighty hour. +The Slave that bowed himself to death +And walked with slaves in Nazareth, +What were his words but wasted breath + Before that "will to power"? + +Yet, in the darkest hour of all, + When black defeat began, +The Emperor heard the mountains quake, +He felt the graves beneath him shake, +He watched his legions rally and break, + And he whimpered as they ran. + +"I hear a shout that moves the earth, + A cry that wakes the dead! +Will no one tell me whence they come, +For all my messengers are dumb? +What power is this that comes to birth + And breaks my power?" he said. + +Then, all around his foundering guns, + Though dawn was now not far, +The darkness filled with a living fear +That whispered at the Emperor's ear, +"_The armies of the dead draw near + Beneath an eastern star._" + +_The trumpet blows in Nazareth. + The Slave is risen again. +Across the bitter wastes of death +The horsemen ride from Nazareth, +And the Power we mocked as wasted breath + Returns, in power, to reign; +Rides on, in white, through Nazareth, + To save His world again._ + + + + +ON A MOUNTAIN TOP + + +On this high altar, fringed with ferns + That darken against the sky, +The dawn in lonely beauty burns + And all our evils die. + +The struggling sea that roared below + Is quieter than the dew, +Quieter than the clouds that flow + Across the stainless blue. + +On this bare crest, the angels kneel + And breathe the sweets that rise +From flowers too little to reveal + Their beauty to our eyes. + +I have seen Edens on the earth + With queenly blooms arrayed; +But here the fairest come to birth, + The smallest flowers He made. + +O, high above the sounding pine, + And richer, sweeter far, +The wild thyme wakes. The celandine + Looks at the morning star. + +They may not see the heavens unfold. + They breathe no out-worn prayer; +But, on a mountain, as of old, + His glory fills the air. + + + + + + + + +EARLY POEMS + +(_Not Published Hitherto in America_) + + + + +THE PHANTOM FLEET +(1904) + + +The sunset lingered in the pale green West: + In rosy wastes the low soft evening star +Woke; while the last white sea-mew sought for rest; + And tawny sails came stealing o'er the bar. + +But, in the hillside cottage, through the panes + The light streamed like a thin far trumpet-call, +And quickened, as with quivering battle-stains, + The printed ships that decked the parlour wall. + +From oaken frames old admirals looked down: + They saw the lonely slumberer at their feet: +They saw the paper, headed _Talk from Town; + Our rusting trident, and our phantom fleet_: + +And from a neighbouring tavern surged a song + Of England laughing in the face of war, +With eyes unconquerably proud and strong, + And lips triumphant from her Trafalgar. + +But he, the slumberer in that glimmering room, + Saw distant waters glide and heave and gleam; +Around him in the softly coloured gloom + The pictures clustered slowly to a dream. + +He saw how England, resting on her past, + Among the faded garlands of her dead, +Woke; for a whisper reached her heart at last, + And once again she raised her steel-clad head. + +Her eyes were filled with sudden strange alarms; + She heard the westering waters change and chime; +She heard the distant tumult of her arms + Defeated, not by courage, but by Time. + +Knowledge had made a deadlier pact with death, + Nor strength nor steel availed against that bond: +Slowly approached--and Britain held her breath-- + The battle booming from the deeps beyond. + +O, then what darkness rolled upon the wind, + Threatening the torch that Britain held on high? +Where all her navies, baffled, broken, blind, + Slunk backward, snarling in their agony! + _Who guards the gates of Freedom now?_ The cry +Stabbed heaven! _England, the shattered ramparts fall!_ + Then, like a trumpet shivering through the sky +O, like white lightning rending the black pall +Of heaven, an answer pealed: _Her dead shall hear that call._ + +Then came a distant light of great waves breaking + That brought the sunset on each crumbling crest, +A rumour as of buried ages waking, + And mighty spirits rising from their rest; + Then ghostly clouds arose, with billowing breast, +White clouds that turned to sails upon their way, + Red clouds that burned like flags against the West, +Till even the conquering fleet in silence lay +Dazed with that strange old light, and night grew bright as day. + +_We come to fight for Freedom!_ The great East + Heard, and was rent asunder like a veil. +Host upon host out of the night increased + Its towering clouds and crowded zones of sail: + _England, our England, canst thou faint or fail? +We come to fight for Freedom yet once more!_ + This, this is ours at least! Count the great tale +Of all these dead that rise to guard thy shore +By right of the red life they never feared to pour. + +_We come to fight for Freedom!_ On they came, + One cloud of beauty sweeping the wild sea; +And there, through all their thousands, flashed like flame + That star-born signal of the Victory: + _Duty_, that deathless lantern of the free; +_Duty_, that makes a god of every man. + And there was Nelson, watching silently +As through the phantom fleet the message ran; +And his tall frigate rushed before the stormy van. + +Nelson, our Nelson, frail and maimed and blind, + Stretched out his dead cold face against the foe: +And England's Raleigh followed hard behind, + With all his eager fighting heart aglow; + Glad, glad for England's sake once more to know +The old joy of battle and contempt of pain; + Glad, glad to die, if England willed it so, +The traitor's and the coward's death again; +But hurl the world back now as once he hurled back Spain. + +And there were all those others, Drake and Blake, + Rodney and Howard, Byron, Collingwood; +With deathless eyes aflame for England's sake, + As on their ancient decks they proudly stood,-- + Decks washed of old with England's purplest blood; +And there, once more, each rushing oaken side + Bared its dark-throated, thirsty, gleaming brood +Of cannon, watched by laughing lads who died +Long, long ago for England and her ancient pride. + +_We come to fight for England!_ The great sea + In a wild light of song began to break +Round that tall phantom of the Victory + And all the foam was music in her wake: + Ship after phantom ship, with guns a-rake +And shot-rent flags a-stream from every mast + Moved in a deepening splendour, not to make +A shield for England of her own dead past; +But, with a living dream to arm her soul at last. + +_We come to die for England_: through the hush + Of gathered nations rose that regal cry, +From naked oaken walls one word could crush + If those vast armoured throats dared to reply: + But there the most implacable enemy +Felt his eyes fill with gladder, prouder tears, + As Nelson's calm eternal face went by, +Gazing beyond all perishable fears +To some diviner goal above the waste of years. + +Through the hushed fleets the vision streamed away, + Then slowly turned once more to that deep West, +While voices cried, O, England, the new day + Is dawning, but thy soul can take no rest. + +Thy freedom and thy peace are only thine + By right of toil on every land and sea +And by that crimson sacrificial wine + Of thine own heart and thine own agony. + +Peace is not slumber. Peace, in every hour, + Throbs like the heart of music. This alone +Can save thy heritage and confirm that power + Whereof the past is but the cushioned throne. + +Look to the fleet! Again and yet again, + Hear us who storm thy heart with this one cry. +Hear us, who cannot help, though fair and fain, + To hold thy seas before thee, and to die. + +Look to the fleet! Thy fleet, the first, last line: + The sword of Liberty, her strength, her shield, +Her food, her life-blood! Britain, it is thine, + Here, now, to hold that birth-right, or to yield. + +So, through the dark, those phantom ships of old + Faded, it seemed, through mists of blood and tears. +Sails turned to clouds, and slowly westward rolled + The sad returning pageant of the years. +On tides of light, where all our tumults cease, + Through that rich West, the Victory returned; +And all the waves around her whispered "peace," + And from her mast no battle-message burned. + +Like clouds, like fragments of those fading skies, + The pageant passed, with all its misty spars, +While the hushed nations raised their dreaming eyes + To that great light which brings the end of wars. + +Ship after ship, in some strange glory drowned, + Cloud after cloud, was lost in that deep light +Each with a sovran stillness haloed round. + Then--that high fleet of stars led on the night. + + + + +MICHAEL OAKTREE + + +Under an arch of glorious leaves I passed +Out of the wood and saw the sickle moon +Floating in daylight o'er the pale green sea. + +It was the quiet hour before the sun +Gathers the clouds to prayer and silently +Utters his benediction on the waves +That whisper round the death-bed of the day. +The labourers were returning from the farms +And children danced to meet them. From the doors +Of cottages there came a pleasant clink +Where busy hands laid out the evening meal. +From smouldering elms around the village spire +There soared and sank the caw of gathering rooks. +The faint-flushed clouds were listening to the tale +The sea tells to the sunset with one sigh. +The last white wistful sea-bird sought for peace, +And the last fishing-boat stole o'er the bar, +And fragrant grasses, murmuring a prayer, +Bowed all together to the holy west, +Bowed all together thro' the golden hush, +The breathing hush, the solemn scented hush, +The holy, holy hush of eventide. + +And, in among the ferns that crowned the hill +With waving green and whispers of the wind, +A boy and girl, carelessly linking hands, +Into their golden dream drifted away. +On that rich afternoon of scent and song +Old Michael Oaktree died. It was not much +He wished for; but indeed I think he longed +To see the light of summer once again +Blossoming o'er the far blue hills. I know +He used to like his rough-hewn wooden bench +Placed in the sun outside the cottage door +Where in the listening stillness he could hear, +Across the waving gilly-flowers that crowned +His crumbling garden wall, the long low sigh +Of supreme peace that whispers to the hills +The sacred consolation of the sea. +He did not hope for much: he longed to live +Until the winter came again, he said; +But on the last sweet eve of May he died. + +I wandered sadly through the dreaming lanes +Down to the cottage on that afternoon; +For I had known old Michael Oaktree now +So many years, so many happy years. +When I was little he had carried me +High on his back to see the harvest home, +And given me many a ride upon his wagon +Among the dusty scents of sun and hay. +He showed me how to snare the bulky trout +That lurked under the bank of yonder brook. +Indeed, he taught me many a country craft, +For I was apt to learn, and, as I learnt, +I loved the teacher of that homely lore. +Deep in my boyish heart he shared the glad +Influence of the suns and winds and waves, +Giving my childhood what it hungered for-- +The rude earth-wisdom of the primal man. + +He had retained his childhood: Death for him +Had no more terror than his bed. He walked +With wind and sunlight like a brother, glad +Of their companionship and mutual aid. +We, toilers after truth, are weaned too soon +From earth's dark arms and naked barbarous breast. +Too soon, too soon, we leave the golden feast, +Fetter the dancing limbs and pluck the crown +Of roses from the dreaming brow. We pass +Our lives in most laborious idleness. +For we have lost the meaning of the world; +We have gone out into the night too soon; +We have mistaken all the means of grace +And over-rated our small power to learn. +And the years move so swiftly over us: +We have so little time to live in worlds +Unrealised and unknown realms of joy, +We are so old before we learn how vain +Our effort was, how fruitlessly we cast +Our Bread upon the waters, and how weak +Our hearts were, but our chance desires how strong! +Then, in the dark, our sense of light decays; +We cannot cry to God as once we cried! +Lost in the gloom, our faith, perhaps our love, +Lies dead with years that never can return. + +But Michael Oaktree was a man whose love +Had never waned through all his eighty years. +His faith was hardly faith. He seemed a part +Of all that he believed in. He had lived +In constant conversation with the sun, +The wind, the silence and the heart of peace; +In absolute communion with the Power +That rules all action and all tides of thought, +And all the secret courses of the stars; +The Power that still establishes on earth +Desire and worship, through the radiant laws +Of Duty, Love and Beauty; for through these +As through three portals of the self-same gate +The soul of man attains infinity, +And enters into Godhead. So he gained +On earth a fore-taste of Nirvana, not +The void of eastern dream, but the desire +And goal of all of us, whether thro' lives +Innumerable, by slow degrees, we near +The death divine, or from this breaking body +Of earthly death we flash at once to God. +Through simple love and simple faith, this man +Attained a height above the hope of kings. + +Yet, as I softly shut the little gate +And walked across the garden, all the scents +Of mingling blossom ached like inmost pain +Deep in my heart, I know not why. They seemed +Distinct, distinct as distant evening bells +Tolling, over the sea, a secret chime +That breaks and breaks and breaks upon the heart +In sorrow rather than in sound, a chime +Strange as a streak of sunset to the moon, +Strange as a rose upon a starlit grave, +Strange as a smile upon a dead man's lips; +A chime of melancholy, mute as death +But strong as love, uttered in plangent tones +Of honeysuckle, jasmine, gilly-flowers, +Jonquils and aromatic musky leaves, +Lilac and lilies to the rose-wreathed porch. + +At last I tapped and entered and was drawn +Into the bedroom of the dying man, +Who lay, propped up with pillows, quietly +Gazing; for through his open casement far +Beyond the whispers of the gilly-flowers +He saw the mellow light of eventide +Hallow the west once more; and, as he gazed, +I think I never saw so great a peace +On any human face. There was no sound +Except the slumbrous pulsing of a clock, +The whisper of the garden and, far off, +The sacred consolation of the sea. + +His wife sat at his bed-side: she had passed +Her eightieth year; her only child was dead. +She had been wedded more than sixty years, +And she sat gazing with the man she loved +Quietly, out into that unknown Deep. + +A butterfly floated into the room +And back again, pausing awhile to bask +And wink its painted fans on the warm sill; +A bird piped in the roses and there came +Into the childless mother's ears a sound +Of happy laughing children, far away. + +Then Michael Oaktree took his wife's thin hand +Between his big rough hands. His eyes grew dark, +And, as he turned to her and died, he spoke +Two words of perfect faith and love--_Come soon_! + +O then in all the world there was no sound +Except the slumbrous pulsing of a clock, +The whisper of the leaves and far away, +The infinite compassion of the sea. +But, as I softly passed out of the porch +And walked across the garden, all the scents +Of mingling blossoms ached like inmost joy, +Distinct no more, but like one heavenly choir +Pealing one mystic music, still and strange +As voices of the holy Seraphim, +One voice of adoration, mute as love, +Stronger than death, and pure with wedded tones +Of honeysuckle, jasmine, gilly-flowers, +Jonquils and aromatic musky leaves, +Lilac and lilies to the garden gate. + +O then indeed I knew how closely knit +To stars and flowers we are, how many means +Of grace there are for those that never lose +Their sense of membership in this divine +Body of God; for those that all their days +Have walked in quiet communion with the Life +That keeps the common secret of the sun, +The wind, the silence and the heart of man. +There is one God, one Love, one everlasting +Mystery of Incarnation, one creative +Passion behind the many-coloured veil. + +We have obscured God's face with partial truths, +The cause of all our sorrow and sin, our wars +Of force and thought, in this unheavened world. +Yet, by the battle of our partial truths, +The past against the present and the swift +Moment of passing joy against the deep +Eternal love, ever the weaker truth +Falls to the stronger, till once more we near +The enfolding splendour of the whole. Our God +Has been too long a partial God. We are all +Made in His image, men and birds and beasts, +Mountains and clouds and cataracts and suns, +With those great Beings above our little world, +A height beyond for every depth below, +Those long-forgotten Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, +Existences that live and move in realms +As far beyond our thought as Europe lies +With all its little arts and sciences +Beyond the comprehension of the worm. +We are all partial images, we need +What lies beyond us to complete our souls; +Therefore our souls are filled with a desire +And love which lead us towards the Infinity +Of Godhead that awaits us each and all. + +Peacefully through the dreaming lanes I went. +The sun sank, and the birds were hushed. The stars +Trembled like blossoms in the purple trees. +But, as I paused upon the whispering hill +The mellow light still lingered in the west, +And dark and soft against that rosy depth +A boy and girl stood knee-deep in the ferns. +Dreams of the dead man's youth were in my heart, +Yet I was very glad; and as the moon +Brightened, they kissed; and, linking hand in hand, +Down to their lamp-lit home drifted away. + +Under an arch of leaves, into the gloom +I went along the little woodland road, +And through the breathless hedge of hawthorn heard +Out of the deepening night, the long low sigh +Of supreme peace that whispers to the hills +The sacrament and sabbath of the sea. + + + + + + + + +TOUCHSTONE ON A BUS + + +Last night I rode with Touchstone on a bus +From Ludgate Hill to World's End. It was he! +Despite the broadcloth and the bowler hat, +I knew him, Touchstone, the wild flower of folly, +The whetstone of his age, the scourge of kings, +The madcap morning star of elfin-land, +Who used to wrap his legs around his neck +For warmth on winter nights. He had slipped back, +To see what men were doing in a world +That should be wiser. He had watched a play, +Read several books, heard men discourse of art +And life; and he sat bubbling like a spring +In Arden. Never did blackbird, drenched with may, +Chuckle as Touchstone chuckled on that ride. +_Lord, what a world! Lord, what a mad, mad world!_ +Then, to the jolt and jingle of the engine, +He burst into this bunch of madcap rhymes:-- + + + + +THE NEW DUCKLING + + +I + +THE NEW DUCKLING + +"I want to be new," said the duckling. + "O, ho!" said the wise old owl, +While the guinea-hen cluttered off chuckling + To tell all the rest of the fowl. + +"I should like a more elegant figure," + That child of a duck went on. +"I should like to grow bigger and bigger, + Until I could swallow a swan. + +"I _won't_ be the bond slave of habit, + I _won't_ have these webs on my toes. +I want to run round like a rabbit, + A rabbit as red as a rose. + +"I _don't_ want to waddle like mother, + Or quack like my silly old dad. +I want to be utterly other, + And _frightfully_ modern and mad." + +"Do you know," said the turkey, "you're quacking! + There's a fox creeping up thro' the rye; +And, if you're not utterly lacking, + You'll make for that duck-pond. Good-bye!" + +"I won't," said the duckling. "I'll lift him + A beautiful song, like a sheep; +And when I have--as it were--biffed him, + I'll give him my feathers to keep." + +Now the curious end of this fable, + So far as the rest ascertained, +Though they searched from the barn to the stable, + Was that _only his feathers remained_. + +So he _wasn't_ the bond slave of habit, + And he _didn't_ have webs on his toes; +And _perhaps_ he runs round like a rabbit, + A rabbit as red as a rose. + + +II + +THE MAN WHO DISCOVERED THE USE OF A CHAIR + +The man who discovered the use of a chair, + _Odds--bobs-- + What a wonderful man!_ +He used to sit down on it, tearing his hair, + Till he thought of a highly original plan. +For years he had sat on his chair, like you, + _Quite--still! + But his looks were grim_ +For he wished to be famous (as great men do) + And nobody ever would listen to him. + +Now he went one night to a dinner of state + _Hear! hear! + In the proud Guildhall!_ +And he sat on his chair, and he ate from a plate; + But nobody heard his opinions at all; + +There were ten fat aldermen down for a speech + (_Grouse! Grouse! + What a dreary bird!_) +With five fair minutes allotted to each, + But never a moment for him to be heard. + +But, each being ready to talk, I suppose, + _Order! Order!_ + They cried, _for the Chair!_ +And, much to their wonder, our friend arose + And fastened his eye on the eye of the Mayor. + +"We have come," he said, "to the fourteenth course! + "_High--time, + for the Chair_," he said. +Then, with both of his hands, and with all of his force, + He hurled his chair at the Lord Mayor's head. + +It missed that head by the width of a hair. + _Gee--whizz! + What a horrible squeak!_ +But it crashed through the big bay-window there + And smashed a bus into Wednesday week. + +And the very next day, in the decorous Times + (_Great--Guns-- + How the headlines ran!_) +In spite of the kings and the wars and the crimes, + There were five full columns about that man. + + +ENVOI + +Oh, if you get dizzy when authors write + (_My stars! + And you very well may!_) +That white is black and that black is white, + You should sit, quite still, in your chair and say: + +It is easy enough to be famous now, + (_Puff--Puff! + How the trumpets blare!_) +Provided, of course, that you don't care how, + Like the man who discovered the use of a chair. + + +III + +COTTON-WOOL + +Shun the brush and shun the pen, +Shun the ways of clever men, +When they prove that black is white, +Whey they swear that wrong is right, +When they roast the singing stars +Like chestnuts, in between the bars, + _Children, let a wandering fool + Stuff your ears with cotton-wool._ + +When you see a clever man +Run as quickly as you can. +You must never, never, never +Think that Socrates was clever. +The cleverest thing I ever knew +Now cracks walnuts at the Zoo. + _Children, let a wandering fool + Stuff your ears with cotton-wool._ + +Homer could not scintillate. +Milton, too, was merely great. +That's a very different matter +From talking like a frantic hatter. +Keats and Shelley had no tricks. +Wordsworth never climbed up sticks. + _Children, let a wandering fool + Stuff your ears with cotton-wool._ + +Lincoln would create a gloom +In many a London drawing-room; +He'd be silent at their wit, +He would never laugh at it. +When they kissed Salome's toes, +I think he'd snort and blow his nose. + _Children, let a wandering fool + Stuff your ears with cotton-wool._ + +They'd curse him for a silly clown, +They'd drum him out of London town. +Professor Flunkey, the historian, +Would say he was a dull Victorian. +Matthew, Mark, and Luke and John, +Bless the bed I rest upon. + _Children, let a wandering fool + Stuff your ears with cotton-wool._ + Amen. + + +IV + +FASHIONS + +Fashion on fashion on fashion, + (With only the truth growing old!) +And here's the new purple of passion, + (And love waiting out in the cold) + Who'll buy? + +They are crying new lamps for Aladdin, + New worlds for the old and the true; +And no one remembers the story + _The magic was not in the new._ + +They are crying a new rose for Eden, + A rose of green glass. I suppose +The only thing wrong with their rose is + The fact that it isn't a rose. + Who'll buy? + +And here is a song without metre; + And, here again, nothing is wrong; +(For nothing on earth could be neater) + Except that--it isn't a song. + +Well. Walk on your hands. It's the latest! + And feet are Victorian now; +And even our best and our greatest + Before that dread epithet bow. + Who'll buy? + +The furniture goes for a song, now. + The sixties had horrible taste. +But the trouble is this--they've included + Some better things, too, in their haste. + +Were they wrapped in the antimacassars, + Or sunk in a sofa of plush? +Did an Angelican bishop forget them, + And leave them behind in the crush? + Who'll buy? + +Here's a turnex. It's going quite cheaply. + (It lived with stuffed birds in the hall! +And, of course, to a mind that thinks deeply + That settles it, once and for all.) + +Here's _item_, a ring (very plain, sirs!), + And _item_, a God (but He's dead!); +They say we shall need Him again, sirs, + So--_item_, a cross for His head. + Who'll buy? + +Yes, you'll need it again, though He's dead, sirs. + It is only the fashions that fly. +So here are the thorns for His head, sirs. + They'll keep till you need 'em. Who'll buy? + + + + + + + + +EPILOGUE + + +THE REWARD OF SONG + + +_Why do we make our music?_ + Oh, blind dark strings reply: +Because we dwell in a strange land + And remember a lost sky. +We ask no leaf of the laurel, + We know what fame is worth; +But our songs break out of our winter + As the flowers break out on the earth. + +And we dream of the unknown comrade, + In the days when we lie dead, +Who shall open our book in the sunlight, + And read, as ourselves have read, +On a lonely hill, by a firwood, + With whispering seas below, +And murmur a song we made him + Ages and ages ago. + +If making his may-time sweeter + With dews of our own dead may, +One pulse of our own dead heart-strings + Awake in his heart that day, +We would pray for no richer guerdon, + No praise from the careless throng; +For song is the cry of a lover + In quest of an answering song. + +As a child might run to his elders + With news of an opening flower +We should walk with our young companion + And talk to his heart for an hour, +As once by my own green firwood, + And once by a Western sea, +Thank God, my own good comrades + Have walked and talked with me. + +Too mighty to make men sorrow, + Too weak to heal their pain +(Though they that remember the hawthorn + May find their heaven again), +We are moved by a deeper hunger; + We are bound by a stronger cord; +For love is the heart of our music, + And love is its one reward. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW MORNING*** + + +******* This file should be named 21029.txt or 21029.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/0/2/21029 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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