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If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Judgement of Valhalla - -Author: Gilbert Frankau - -Release Date: December 17, 2016 [EBook #53756] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JUDGEMENT OF VALHALLA *** - - - - -Produced by Cindy Horton, Brian Coe, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -book was produced from images made available by the -HathiTrust Digital Library.) - - - - - - - - - - THE JUDGEMENT - OF VALHALLA - - - BY - GILBERT FRANKAU - - - NEW YORK - FEDERAL PRINTING COMPANY - 1918 - - - - - Copyright, 1918 - GILBERT FRANKAU - - _All rights reserved_ - - - - -The Judgement of Valhalla - -BY GILBERT FRANKAU - - - - -_THE DESERTER_ - - - “I’m sorry I done it, Major.” - We bandaged the livid face; - And led him out, ere the wan sun rose, - To die his death of disgrace. - - The bolt-heads locked to the cartridge; - The rifles steadied to rest, - As cold stock nestled at colder cheek - And foresight lined on the breast. - - “_Fire!_” called the Sergeant-Major. - The muzzles flamed as he spoke: - And the shameless soul of a nameless man - Went up in the cordite-smoke. - - - - -_THE EYE AND THE TRUTH_ - - - Up from the fret of the earth-world, through the Seven Circles of - Flame, - With the seven holes in Its tunic for sign of the death-in-shame, - To the little gate of Valhalla the coward-spirit came. - - Cold, It crouched in the man-strong wind that sweeps Valhalla’s - floor; - Weak, It pawed and scratched on the wood; and howled, like a dog, - at the Door - Which is shut to the souls who are sped in shame, for ever and - evermore: - - For It snuffed the Meat of the Banquet-boards where the Threefold - Killers sit, - Where the Free Beer foams to the tankard-rim, and the Endless Smokes - are lit.... - And It saw the Nakéd Eye come out above the lintel-slit. - - And now It quailed at Nakéd Eye which judges the naked dead; - And now It snarled at Nakéd Truth that broodeth overhead; - And now It looked to the earth below where the gun-flames flickered - red. - - It muttered words It had learned on earth, the words of a black-coat - priest - Who had bade It pray to a pulpit god--but ever Eye’s Wrath - increased; - And It knew that Its words were empty words, and It whined like a - homeless beast: - - Till, black above the lintel-slit, the Nakéd Eye went out; - Till, loud across the Killer-Feasts, It heard the Killer-Shout-- - The three-fold song of them that slew, and died ... and had no - doubt. - - - - -_THE SONG OF THE RED-EDGED STEEL_ - - - _Below your black priest’s heaven, - Above his tinselled hell, - Beyond the Circles Seven, - The Red-Steel Killers dwell-- - The men who drave, to blade-ring home, behind the marching shell._ - - We knew not good nor evil, - Save only right of blade; - Yet neither god nor devil - Could hold us from our trade, - When once we watched the barrage lift, and splendidly afraid - - Came scrambling out of cover, - And staggered up the hill.... - The bullets whistled over; - Our sudden dead lay still; - And the mad machine-gun chatter drove us fighting-wild to kill. - - Then the death-light lit our faces, - And the death-mist floated red - O’er the crimson cratered places - Where his outposts crouched in dread.... - And we stabbed or clubbed them as they crouched; and shot them as - they fled; - - And floundered, torn and bleeding, - Over trenches, through the wire, - With the shrapnel-barrage leading - To the prey of our desire-- - To the men who rose to meet us from the blood-soaked battle-mire; - - Met them; gave and asked no quarter; - But, where we saw the Gray, - Plunged the edged steel of slaughter, - Stabbed home, and wrenched away.... - Till red wrists tired of killing-work, and none were left to slay. - - Now--while his fresh battalions - Moved up to the attack-- - Screaming like angry stallions, - His shells came charging back, - And stamped the ground with thunder-hooves and pawed it - spouting-black - - And breathed down poison-stenches - Upon us, leaping past.... - Panting, we turned his trenches; - And heard--each time we cast - From parapet to parados--the scything bullet-blast. - - Till the whistle told his coming; - Till we flung away the pick, - Heard our Lewis guns’ crazed drumming, - Grabbed our rifles, sighted quick, - Fired ... and watched his wounded writhing back from where his dead - lay thick. - - So we laboured--while we lasted: - Soaked in rain or parched in sun; - Bullet-riddled; fire-blasted; - Poisoned: fodder for the gun: - So we perished, and our bodies rotted in the ground they won. - - It heard the song of the First of the Dead, as It couched by the - lintel-post; - And the coward-soul would have given Its soul to be back with the - Red-Steel host.... - But Eye peered down; and It quailed at the Eye; and Nakéd Truth - said: “Lost.” - - And Eye went out. But It might not move; for, droned in the dark, It - heard - The Second Song of the Killer-men--word upon awful word - Cleaving the void with a shrill, keen sound like the wings of a - pouncing bird. - - - - -_THE SONG OF THE CRASHING WING_ - - - _Higher than tinselled heaven, - Lower than angels dare, - Loop to the fray, swoop on their prey, - The Killers of the Air._ - - We scorned the Galilean, - We mocked at Kingdom-Come: - The old gods knew our pæan-- - Our dawn-loud engine-hum: - - The old red gods of slaughter, - The gods before the Jew! - We heard their cruel laughter, - Shrill round us, as we flew: - - When, deaf to earth and pity, - Blind to the guns beneath, - We loosed upon the city - Our downward-plunging death. - - The Sun-God watched our flighting; - No Christian priest could tame - Our deathly stuttered fighting:-- - The whirled drum, spitting flame; - - The roar, of blades behind her; - The banking plane up-tossed; - The swerve that sought to blind her; - Masked faces, glimpsed and lost; - - The joy-stick wrenched to guide her; - The swift and saving zoom, - What time the shape beside her - Went spinning to its doom. - - No angel-wings might follow - Where, poised behind the fray, - We spied our Lord Apollo - Stoop down to mark his prey-- - - The hidden counter-forces; - The guns upon the road; - The tethered transport-horses, - Stampeding, as we showed-- - - Dun hawks of death, loud-roaring-- - A moment to their eyes: - And slew; and passed far-soaring; - And dwindled up the skies. - - But e’en Apollo’s pinions - Had faltered where we ran, - Low through his veiled dominions, - To lead the charging van! - - The tree-tops slathered under; - The Red-Steel Killers knew, - Hard overhead, the thunder - And backwash of her screw; - - The blurred clouds raced above her; - The blurred fields streaked below, - Where waited, crouched to cover, - The foremost of our foe; - - Banking, we saw his furrows - Leap at us, open wide: - Hell-raked the man-packed burrows; - And crashed--and crashing, died. - - It heard the song of the Dead in Air, as It huddled against the - gate; - And once again the Eye peered down--red-rimmed with scorn and hate - For the shameless soul of the nameless one who had neither foe nor - mate. - - And Eye was shut. But Nakéd Truth bent down to mock the Thing:-- - “Thou hast heard the Song of the Red-edged Steel, and the Song of - the Crashing Wing: - Shall the word of a black-coat priest avail at Valhalla’s - harvesting? - - Shalt _thou_ pass free to the Seven Halls--whose life in shame was - sped?” - And Truth was dumb. But the brooding word still echoed overhead, - As roaring down the void outburst the last loud song of the dead. - - - - -_THE SONG OF THE GUNNER-DEAD_ - - - _In Thor’s own red Valhalla, - Which priest may not unbar; - But only Nakéd Truth and Eye, - Last arbiters of War; - Feast, by stark right of courage, - The Killers from Afar._ - - We put no trust in heaven, - We had no fear of hell; - But lined, and ranged, and timed to clock, - Our barrage-curtains fell, - When guns gave tongue and breech-blocks swung - And palms rammed home the shell. - - The Red-Steel ranks edged forward, - And vanished in our smoke; - Back from his churning craters, - The Gray Man reeled and broke; - While, fast as sweat could lay and set, - Our rocking muzzles spoke. - - We blew him from the village; - We chased him through the wood: - Till, tiny on the crest-line - Where once his trenches stood, - We watched the wag of sending flag - That told our work was good: - - Till, red behind the branches, - The death-sun sank to blood; - And the Red-Steel Killers rested.... - But we, by swamp and flood, - Through mirk and night--his shells for light-- - Blaspheming, choked with mud, - - Roped to the tilting axles, - Man-handled up the crest; - And wrenched our plunging gun-teams - Foam-flecked from jowl to breast, - Downwards, and on, where trench-lights shone-- - For _we_, we might not rest! - - Shell-deafened; soaked and sleepless; - Short-handed; under fire; - Days upon nights unending, - We wrought, and dared not tire-- - With whip and bit from dump to pit, - From pit to trench with wire. - - The Killers in the Open, - The Killers down the Wind, - They saw the Gray Man eye to eye-- - But _we_, we fought him blind, - Nor knew whence came the screaming flame - That killed us, miles behind. - - Yet, when the triple rockets - Flew skyward, blazed and paled, - For sign the lines were broken; - When the Red Steel naught availed; - When, through the smoke, on shield and spoke - His rifle bullets hailed; - - When we waited, dazed and hopeless, - Till the layer’s eye could trace - Helmets, bobbing just above us - Like mad jockeys in a race.... - Then--loaded, laid, and unafraid, - We met him face to face; - - Jerked the trigger; felt the trunnions - Rock and quiver; saw the flail - Of our zero-fuses blast him; - Saw his gapping ranks turn tail; - Heard the charging-cheer behind us ... - And dropped dead across the trail. - - - - -_VALHALLA’S VERDICT_ - - - It heard the Song of the Gunner-Dead die out to a sullen roar: - But Nakéd Truth said never a word; and Eye peered down no more. - For Eye had seen; and Truth had judged ... and It might not pass - the Door! - - And now, like a dog in the dark, It shrank from the voice of a man - It knew:-- - “There are empty seats at the Banquet-board, but there’s never a - seat for you; - For they will not drink with a coward soul, the stark red men who - slew. - - There’s meat and to spare, at the Killer-Feasts where Thor’s swung - hammer twirls; - There’s beer and enough, in the Free Canteen where the Endless Smoke - upcurls; - There are lips and lips, for the Killer-Men, in the Hall of the - Dancing-Girls. - - There’s a place for any that passes clean--but for you there’s never - a place: - The Endless Smoke would blacken your lips, and the Girls would spit - in your face; - And the Beer and the Meat go sour on your guts--for you died the - death of disgrace. - - We were pals on earth: but by God’s brave Son and the bomb that I - reached too late, - I damn the day and I blast the hour when first I called you mate; - And I’d sell my soul for one of my feet, to hack you from the gate-- - - To hack you hence to the lukewarm hells that the priest-made ovens - heat, - Or the faked-pearl heaven of pulpit gods, where the sheep-faced - angels bleat - And the halo’s rim is as hard to the head as the gilded floor to - the feet.” - - * * * * * - - It heard the stumps of Its one-time mate go waddling back to the - Feast. - And, once and again, It whined for the Meat; ere It slunk, like a - tongue-lashed beast, - To the tinselled heaven of pulpit gods and the tinselled hell of - their priest. - - - - -Aimée - - - - -_WIFE AND COUNTRY_ - - - Dear, let me thank you for this: - That you made me remember, in fight, - England--all mine at your kiss, - At the touch of your hands in the night: - England--your giving’s delight. - - - - -_MOTHER AND MATE_ - - - Lightly she slept, that splendid mother mine - Who faced death, undismayed, two hopeless years.... - (“Think of me sometimes, son, but not with tears - Lest my soul grieve,” she writes. Oh, this divine - Unselfishness!) ... - Her favourite print smiled down-- - The stippled Cupid, Bartolozzi-brown-- - Upon my sorrow. Fire-gleams, fitful, played - Among her playthings--Toby mugs and jade.... - - And then I dreamed that--suddenly, strangely clear-- - A voice I knew not, faltered at my ear: - “Courage!” ... Your own dear voice, loved since, and known! - - And now that she sleeps well, come times _her_ voice - Whispers in day-dreams: “Courage, son! Rejoice - That, leaving you, I left you not alone.” - - - - -_MEETING_ - - - I came from the City of Fear, - From the scarred brown land of pain, - Back into life again ... - And I thought, as the leave-boat rolled - Under the veering stars-- - Wind a-shriek in her spars-- - Shivering there, and cold, - Of music, of warmth, and of wine-- - To be mine - For a whole short week ... - And I thought, adrowse in the train, - Of London, suddenly near; - And of how--small doubt--I should find - There, as of old, - Some woman--foolishly kind: - Fingers to hold, - A cheek, - A mouth to kiss--and forget, - Forget in a little while, - Forget - When I came again - To the scarred brown land of pain, - To the sodden things and the vile, - And the tedious battle-fret. - - My dear, - I cannot forget! - Not even here - In this City of Fear. - - I remember the poise of your head, - And your look, and the words you said - When we met, - And the waxen bloom at your breast, - And the sable fur that caressed - Your smooth white wrists, and your hands ... - Remember them yet, - Here - In the desolate lands; - Remember your shy - Strange air, - And growing aware-- - I, - Who had reckoned love - Man’s toy for an hour-- - Of love’s hidden power: - A thrill - That moved me to touch and adore - Some intimate thing that you wore-- - A glove, - Or the flower - A-glow at your breast, - The frill - Of fur that circled your wrist ... - These, had my hands caressed; - These, not you, had I kissed-- - I, - Who had thought love’s fires - Only desires. - - Dear, - That hidden power thrills in me yet. - There is never one hour-- - Not even here - In this City of Fear-- - When I quite forget. - - - - -_MUSIC AND WINE_ - - - When the ink has dried on the pen, - When the sword returns to its sheath; - When the world of women and men, - And the waters around and beneath, - Char and shrivel and burn-- - What will God give in return?... - Has He better to offer in heaven above - Than wine and music, laughter and love? - - Laughter, music and wine, - The promise of love in your eyes ... - Sleeping, I dream them mine; - Waking, my spirit cries-- - Here in the mud and the rain-- - “God, give me London again! - I would lose all earth and the heavens above - For just one banquet of laughter and love.” - - When my flesh returns to its earth, - When my pen is dust as my sword; - If one thing I wrought find worth - In the eyes of our kindly Lord, - I will only ask of His grace - That He grant us a lowly place - Where his warriors toast Him, in heaven above, - With wine and music, laughter and love. - - - - -_THE GAMBLE_ - - - If man backs horses, plays cards or dice, - Or bets on an ivory ball, - He knows the rules, and he reckons the price-- - Be it one half-crown, or his all. - (And it isn’t sense, and it isn’t pluck, - To double the stakes when you’re out of luck!) - - If he plays--with his life for a limit--here, - It’s an even-money game: - He can lay on the Red--which is Conquered Fear, - Or the Black--which is Utter Shame. - (And there isn’t much choice between Reds and Blacks, - For Death throws “zero” whichever he backs.) - - So that whether man plays for the red gold’s wealth - Where the little ball clicks and spins, - Or hazards his life in the black night’s stealth - When machine-gun fire begins-- - It’s a limited gamble; and each of us knows - What he stands to lose ere the tables close. - - But woman’s gamble--(there’s only one: - And it takes some pluck to play, - When the rules are broke ere the game’s begun; - When, lose _or_ win, you must pay!)-- - Is a double wager on human kind, - A limitless risk--and she goes it blind. - - For she stakes, at love, on a single throw, - Pride, Honour, Scruples and Fears, - And dreams no lover can hope to know, - And the gold of the after-years. - (And all for a man; and there’s no man lives - Who is worth the odds that a woman gives.) - - So that since you hazarded this for me - On the day love’s die was cast, - I’ll love you--gambler!--while “fours” beat three; - And I’ll lay on our love to last, - So long as a man will wager a price - On a horse or a card or the ball or the dice. - - - - -_NINON AND ROSES_ - - - Here, in a land where hardly a rose is, - Silkiest blossoms of broidered flowers - Brush my cheek as each tired eye closes, - Haunt my sleep through the desolate hours. - - Roses never of nature’s making, - Roses loved for a rose-red night, - Roses visioned at dawn-light’s breaking - Veiling a bosom as roses white! - - Why does the ghost of you linger and stay with me-- - Ghost of the rose-buds that perfumed our bed, - Ghost of a rose-girl who blossomed to play with me-- - Here in a land where the roses are dead? - - Day-time and night-time the death-flower blazes, - Saffron at gun-lip and orange and red, - Here where June’s rose-tree lies shattered as May’s is, - Here where I dream of the nights that are dead-- - - Nights that were sweet with the scent and the touch of you, - Rose-girl in ninon with buds at your breast, - Rose-girl who promised and granted so much of you, - All that was tender and all that was best. - - Growl of the guns cannot shatter the dream of you, - Banish the thought of one exquisite hour, - Or the scent of your hair in the dawn, or the gleam of you - White as white roses through roses a-flower. - - - - -_PARTING_ - - - Times more than once, all ways about the world, - Have I clasped hands; waved sorrowful good-bye; - Watched far cliffs fading, till my sea-wake swirled - To mingle bluely with a landless sky: - Then--even as the sea-drowned cliffs behind-- - Felt sorrow drowning into memory; - And heard, in every thrill of every wind, - New voices welcoming across the sea. - - Until it seemed nor land nor love had power - To hold my heart in any firm duress: - Grieving, I sorrowed but a little hour; - Loving, I knew desire’s sure faithfulness: - Until, by many a love dissatisfied, - Of each mistrustful and to each untrue, - I found--as one who, having long denied, - Finds faith at last--this greater Love, in you. - - Parting? We are not parted, woman mine! - Though hands have clasped, though lips have kissed good-bye; - Though towns glide past, and fields, and fields of brine-- - My body takes the warrior-way, not I. - I am still with you; you, with me; one heart; - One equal union, soul to certain soul: - Time cannot sever us, nor sorrow part, - Nor any sea, who keep our vision whole. - - How can I grieve, who know your spirit near; - Who watch with newly understanding eyes - This England of your giving, newly dear, - Sink where my sea-wake swirls to darkling skies? - Lilac, her cliffs have faded into mist.... - Yet still I hold them white in memory, - Feeling, against these lips your lips have kissed, - The home-wind thrilling down an English sea. - - - - -The Other Side - - - - -_THE OTHER SIDE_ - - - Just got your letter and the poems. Thanks. - You always were a brainy sort of chap: - Though pretty useless as a subaltern-- - Too much imagination, not enough - Of that rare quality, sound commonsense - And so you’ve managed to get on the Staff: - Influence, I suppose: a Captain, too! - How do tabs suit you? Are they blue or green? - - About your book. I’ve read it carefully, - So has Macfaddyen (you remember him, - The light-haired chap who joined us after Loos?); - And candidly, we don’t think much of it. - The piece about the horses isn’t bad; - But all the rest, excuse the word, are tripe-- - The same old tripe we’ve read a thousand times. - - My grief, but we’re fed up to the back-teeth - With war-books, war-verse, all the eye-wash stuff - That seems to please the idiots at home. - You know the kind of thing, or used to know: - “Heroes who laugh while Fritz is strafing them”-- - (I don’t remember that _you_ found it fun, - The day they shelled us out of Blouwpoort Farm!) - “After the fight. Our cheery wounded. Note - The smile of victory: it won’t come off”-- - (Of course they smile; so’d you, if you’d escaped, - And saw three months of hospital ahead.... - They don’t smile, much, when they’re shipped back to France!) - “Out for the Great Adventure”--(twenty-five - Fat, smirking wasters in some O.T.C., - Who just avoided the Conscription Act!) - “A strenuous woman-worker for the Cause”-- - (Miss Trixie Toogood of the Gaiety, - Who helped to pauperize a few Belgiques - In the great cause of self-advertisement!) ... - - Lord knows, the newspapers are bad enough; - But they’ve got some excuse--the censorship-- - Helping to keep their readers’ spirits up-- - Giving the public what it wants: (besides, - One mustn’t blame the press, the press has done - More than its share to help us win this war-- - More than some other people I could name): - But what’s the good of war-books, if they fail - To give civilian-readers an idea - Of what life _is_ like in the firing-line?... - - You might have done that much; from you, at least, - I thought we’d get an inkling of the truth. - But no; you rant and rattle, beat your drum, - And blow your two-penny trumpet like the rest: - “Red battle’s glory,” “honour’s utmost task,” - “Gay jesting faces of undaunted boys,” ... - The same old Boys’-Own-Paper balderdash! - - Mind you, I don’t deny that they exist, - These abstract virtues which you gas about-- - (_We shouldn’t stop out here long, otherwise!_)-- - Honour and humour, and that sort of thing; - (Though heaven knows where you found the glory-touch, - Unless you picked it up at G.H.Q.); - But if you’d commonsense, you’d understand - That humour’s just the Saxon cloak for fear, - Our English substitute for “_Vive la France_,” - Or else a trick to keep the folk at home - From being scared to death--as we are scared; - That honour ... damn it, honour’s the one thing - No soldier yaps about, except of course - A soldier-_poet_--three-and-sixpence net. - - Honest to God, it makes me sick and tired - To think that you, who lived a year with us, - Should be content to write such tommy-rot. - I feel as though I’d sent a runner back - With news that we were being strafed like Hell ... - And he’d reported: “Everything O. K.” - Something’s the matter: either you can’t _see_, - Or else you see, and cannot write--that’s worse. - - Hang it, you can’t have clean forgotten things - You went to bed with, woke with, smelt and felt, - All those long months of boredom streaked with fear: - Mud, cold, fatigue, sweat, nerve-strain, sleeplessness, - And men’s excreta viscid in the rain, - And stiff-legged horses lying by the road, - Their bloated bellies shimmering, green with flies.... - - _Have_ you forgotten? you who dine to-night - In comfort at the Carlton or Savoy. - (Lord, but I’d like a dart at that myself-- - Oysters, _crême_ something, sole _vin blanc_, a bird, - And one cold bottle of the very best-- - A girl to share it: afterwards, a show-- - Lee White and Alfred Lester, Nelson Keys; - Supper to follow. - - ... Our Brigade’s in rest-- - The usual farm. I’ve got the only bed. - The men are fairly comfy--three good barns. - Thank God, they didn’t have to bivouac - After this last month in the Salient.) ... - - You _have_ forgotten; or you couldn’t write - This sort of stuff--all cant, no guts in it, - Hardly a single picture true to life. - - Well, here’s a picture for you: Montauban-- - Last year--the flattened village on our left-- - On our right flank, the razed Briqueterie, - Their five-nines pounding bits to dustier bits-- - Behind, a cratered slope, with batteries - Crashing and flashing, violet in the dusk, - And prematuring every now and then-- - In front, the ragged Bois de Bernafay, - Bosche whizz-bangs bursting white among its trees. - - You had been doing F.O.O. that day; - (The Staff knows why we had an F.O.O.: - One couldn’t flag-wag through Trônes Wood; the wires - Went down as fast as one could put them up; - And messages by runner took three hours.) - I got the wind up rather: you were late, - And they’d been shelling like the very deuce. - However, back you came. I see you now, - Staggering into “mess”--a broken trench, - Two chalk-walls roofed with corrugated iron, - And, round the traverse, Driver Noakes’s stove - Stinking and smoking while we ate our grub. - Your face was blue-white, streaked with dirt; your eyes - Had shrunk into your head, as though afraid - To watch more horrors; you were sodden-wet - With greasy coal-black mud--and other things. - Sweating and shivering, speechless, there you stood. - I gave you whisky, made you talk. You said: - “Major, another signaller’s been killed.” - “Who?” - “Gunner Andrews, blast them. O my Christ! - His head--split open--when his brains oozed out, - They looked like bloody sweetbreads, in the muck.” - - And you’re the chap who writes this claptrap verse! - - Lord, if I’d half _your_ brains, I’d write a book: - None of your sentimental platitudes, - But something real, vital; that should strip - The glamour from this outrage we call war, - Shewing it naked, hideous, stupid, vile-- - One vast abomination. So that they - Who, coming after, till the ransomed fields - Where our lean corpses rotted in the ooze, - Reading my written words, should understand - This stark stupendous horror, visualize - The unutterable foulness of it all.... - I’d shew them, not your glamourous “glorious game,” - Which men play “jesting” “for their honour’s sake”-- - (A kind of Military Tournament, - With just a hint of danger--bound in cloth!)-- - But War,--as war is now, and always was: - A dirty, loathsome, servile murder-job:-- - Men, lousy, sleepless, ulcerous, afraid, - Toiling their hearts out in the pulling slime - That wrenches gum-boot down from bleeding heel - And cakes in itching arm-pits, navel, ears: - Men stunned to brainlessness, and gibbering: - Men driving men to death and worse than death: - Men maimed and blinded: men against machines-- - Flesh versus iron, concrete, flame and wire: - Men choking out their souls in poison-gas: - Men squelched into the slime by trampling feet: - Men, disembowelled by guns five miles away, - Cursing, with their last breath, the living God - Because he made them, in His image, men.... - So--were your talent mine--I’d write of war - For those who, coming after, know it not. - - And if posterity should ask of me - What high, what base emotions keyed weak flesh - To face such torments, I would answer: “_You!_ - Not for themselves, O daughters, grandsons, sons, - Your tortured forebears wrought this miracle; - Not for themselves, _accomplished utterly_ - This loathliest task of murderous servitude; - But just because they realized that thus, - _And only thus_, by sacrifice, might they - Secure a world worth living in--_for you_.” ... - - Good-night, my soldier-poet. _Dormez bien!_ - - - - -“One of Them” - -_Being in Some Respects a Sequel to “One of Us”_ - - -I. - - _Wherein the bard--released from War’s confusions-- - Preludes with egotistical allusions._ - - Six years ago--or is it six-and-twenty? - (How vast the gulf from those ecstatic days!)-- - When the whole earth snored on in slothful plenty - (Tho’ poets cashed small pittance for their lays); - When war appeared less real than G. A. Henty, - And Oxo’s snaky signs were yet ablaze; - When all seemed peaceful as the press of Cadbury, - And no one dreamed of bombs, or bet a Bradbury; - - Or e’er stern Mars had roped us in his tether, - Ere British guns had thundered at Le Câteau: - We fitted out--my Muse and I together-- - And launched adown the galley-slips of Chatto - A barque of verse, full-rigged for halcyon weather, - Which many a critic judged to take the _gâteau_: - (Though some there were, high pundits of disparity, - Who wept at our unscholarly vulgarity). - - We have sailed far since then; crossed our horizon; - Published our loves and travels in a novel - (A tale, men say, that Peckham’s flapper cries on, - So that both Boots and Smith’s before us grovel); - And eaten ration bully-beef--with flies on; - And sheltered gratefully in many a hovel, - What time we sang of guns and gore and trenches-- - Instead of oysters, tango-teas and wenches. - - For times have changed since we wrote “One of Us”: - _Et nos mutamus_--more or less--_in illis_. - Muse finds herself _in urbe_ somewhat _rus_; - And I--if I disport with Amaryllis-- - Where once my motor flashed, prefer a ’bus; - And shuddering note how vast the supper-bill is; - And signing, sigh in secret for the calm, - Chaste, cheap seclusion of my Chiltern farm. - - Yes, Muse and I are tired, and super-serious: - Her damask cheek is lined a bit, and wrinkled. - We are grown old, and London’s late nights weary us: - While the gold wine that erst in ice-pail tinkled, - Her doctor finds extremely deleterious; - And mine forbids me red lips, passion-crinkled: - So now we cultivate domestic habits - Amongst our pigs, our poultry, and our rabbits. - - Yet sometimes, as we trench our stubborn soil, - Or feed our sows, or strow the peat-moss litter, - Or set the morrow’s chicken-mash to boil, - Or wander out where our young turkeys twitter, - Or read by mellow candle-light--since oil - Is dear and scarce; or talk--a little bitter - Because we find that Food Control Committees - Are all composed of men brought up in cities; - - Sometimes, in this five-acre paradise - Whither my nerve-racked spirit fled the battle - Deferring to sound Harley Street advice-- - A silver badge its only martial chattel, - I hear a voice, loud as the market price - That butchers bid for Rhondda’s missing cattle, - Voice of my Muse, still vibrant with old passion, - Telling how poetry is now the fashion. - - “Look you,” she cries, “the Wheels are turning, turning. - Though Pegasus long since wore out his pinions, - Somehow his shod hooves keep the bread-mills churning. - Shrill, night and day, sing Marsh Georgian minions: - Each sinking sun sets some new Noyes a-burning, - Each rising moon reveals fresh hordes of Binyons; - Who batten fat on unsuspecting editors, - And--unlike you--contrive to pay their creditors. - - “Poet, forsooth! You agricultural brute! - Have you no soul above the weight of porkers? - Was it for this I hearkened to your suit, - Gave you my metres and my rhymes--some, corkers? - Up, Gilbert! rummage out your rusty lute: - Polish it blacker than your black Minorcas: - And let its notes once more, in refluent stanzas, - Dower the Income-tax with glad Bonanzas.” - - So she; and--since I loathe to disappoint - The least illusion of the equal sex-- - Let Byron’s oil once more these locks anoint, - Once more let honour meet these Cox-drawn cheques ... - Though well I know that times are spare of joint, - And satire’s song less like to please than vex; - Now small beer, Smallwood, raids and strikes and rations, - Have near eclipsed the gaiety of nations: - - Still, let me sing. Yet not as once I sung: - Love, fear, and death have chastened, sobered, saddened, - One who knew life’s full burden-time too young; - Whom never youth’s unhampered freedom gladdened, - But only envy and ambition stung, - And fickle passions--in love’s semblance maddened; - So that he needs must tumble now, poor clown, - On this Pindaric stage for half-a-crown: - - Yet one who, ’spite a past that shocked St. Tony - And paid recording angels overtime, - Still holds his own at sonnet or _canzone_. - As some shall know who follow this, my rhyme-- - Some few: for gladly would I lay a pony, - Or larger sum, against a ten-cent dime, - That most of those who read this metred tract’ll - Not know a spondee from a pterodactyl. - - -II. - - _Explains--a task few modern penmen shirk-- - The sociology of this great work._ - - God bless Democracy, George Bernard Shaw, - And William Dunn, our sanest, saintliest hatter! - God bless that great anomaly, the Law; - Aye, may our knights on hoarded tea wax fatter! - God bless Sir Arthur Yapp’s unfailing jaw, - Lord Lansdowne’s pen, and brave Horatio’s chatter! - And--lest in England Bolos quite prevail-- - God bless King Northcliffe and his “Daily Mail!” - - Long live the old Press--“Times,” “D. T.,” “Spectator”! - Long live the New--“Age,” “Europe,” “Statesman,” “Witness”! - Long live each _acti temporis laudator_! - Long live Lloyd George in unmolested Pitt-ness! - Long live “The Nation,” facile demonstrator - Of everybody’s--save its own--unfitness! - Long live Valera, Carson, Devlin, Plunkett! - Long live the lads who fight, the cads who funk it! - - Long live our German banks, _sub duce_ Plender! - Long may our railways rule our bounding sea! - Long may impatient Cuthberts paw their fender, - What time their patient Phyllis pours their tea! - Long life to each investor and each spender! - Long live the Staff! Long live the A.S.E.! - So long as England’s in the melting-pot, - A prudent bard must sing, “Long live the lot!” - - For who shall say--at close of Armageddon, - When the world’s finished beggaring its neighbour, - When the last shell’s been fired, the last pig fed on-- - If we’ll be ruled by Capital or Labour: - If a Welsh harp shall twang part-songs of Seddon, - While Simon pipes a compromising tabor: - Or whether every stalwart War-Loan-lender’s son - Will find his Empire dividends signed “Henson”? - - Not I: not all the better men who fought - While dilutees preserved their precious skin: - Not those great early dead, whose single thought - Ran--“England: Germany: we’ve got to _win_.” - Poor simple souls, of H. G. Wells untaught, - They never realized their next-of-kin - Would read how they had died to make life cheerier - For the dear blacks in Briningized Nigeria. - - Public, forgive your fool; if now and then-- - Black bubbles on the verse’s stream--appear - Thoughts of our worn, unlettered fighting-men; - If sometimes, through the grease-paint’s gay veneer, - Truth shews--a wrinkled hag. The traitor pen - Forgets how blood is cheap and paper dear: - And I’m no more the blithe, nut-loving squirrel - Who frisked it in the consulship of Birrell. - - Which is, perchance, the reason why my mind - Turns oft to those dear days, now dead as mutton; - When Haldane’s soul with Bethmann-Hollweg dined; - And no one ploughed up golf-greens, sown by Sutton, - To bed the humble tuber’s sprouting rind; - Or dashed off shorthand _billets-doux_ in Dutton, - Or changed a blear-eyed pauper to a swell man - In six short weeks of concentrated Pelman: - - Why now--sad minstrel in un-Sandoned sack-cloth-- - I sing the twilight of the times I knew. - No more our glaring footlights blurr a back-cloth - Woven of misery and hung askew; - For Time, stern judge of Us, has donned his black cloth, - And to the Mob delivered up the Few ... - Unless, of course, the Mob’s but swapped its Peers - For a worse dynasty--of profiteers. - - God knows, _we_ had our faults--greed, blindness, pride. - God also knows we had a dashed good time. - Were they the worse for that--our boys who died, - By earth and air and sea in every clime? - God knows! But if ghost-feet still strut and side - About their clubs, if ghost-eyes read this rhyme, - I think they’d like their vanished epoch’s swan-song - To be a merry tune, and not a wan song. - - So clear the stage, and ring the curtain up! - Once more--ere Empires yield to Leagues of Nations, - And bayonets to Socialistic gup-- - Let Beauty, in diaphanous creations, - Ogle the stalls, and subsequently sup - Off iced champagne and ortolan collations.... - Whereafter, if my pen won’t bring me pelf, - Damned if I don’t turn Socialist myself! - - -III. - - _Sets forth, despite the Law’s dull interference, - A lady’s birth, age, family, and appearance._ - - Arms have I sung full oft, both steel and white ones; - Guns have I sung till I can sing no more; - Men have I sung, both common and polite ones: - Yet never sang _one_ heroine before. - Come, then, my ghost-girls, dark, fair, plump, and slight ones, - Come in the finest, flimsiest frocks ye wore.... - Alas, not one of you quite fills the bill-- - A life-size model for my Lady Jill. - - Pardon, then, Magda, Gladys, Nancy, Florence, - Doris, Patricia, Mollie, Celandine, - Nor hold your erstwhile suitor in abhorrence - Because, from one, he takes eyes subtly green; - From other, hands a Sargent or a Lawrence - Had envied for his canvas; here, the sheen - Of gold hair, auburn-shot, in whose abundance, - What time Jill dreamed, young Cupids watched the sun dance; - - There a smooth throat, an arched, attractive ankle, - Soft cheek, curved back in bloom to close-set ear, - Red mouth full-lipped, a voice whose love-tones rankle - Still in this heart of mine,--a voice so dear - That ... But no more! In fear this rhyming prank’ll - Offend some damozel whom I revere, - I state: Jill’s just an ordinary blonde, - Fair, frail, flirtatious, rather fast than fond. - - You know the type--aristo-plutocratic, - Out of blue blood by hard North Country cash; - A self-assertive sire; a dam, lymphatic - (Since rarely strawberry leaves and sovereigns clash); - Their sole son, daring in the diplomatic - (Thumping his Underwood while kingdoms crash); - Their daughter ... Is there a man alive can swear - Exactly what she did or did not dare? - - For Jill was one of those astounding females, - Born in a chaster, pre-Edwardian day; - When lone Lucindas dared not dine nor tea males - For dread lest scandal dub them “_coryphée_”; - When none drank deep of D’Abernonian dream-ales, - But quietly our Empire went its way, - Nor realised that subalterns on horses - Monopolized the brain-power of its Forces: - - One who was yet a span from flapperhood, - Still puzzling o’er the simplest of equations; - What time in robe of saffron Phoebus stood, - And all our Lanes were gay with green carnations, - And private hansoms sought the Johnian Wood, - And the shrill cycle-bell’s first tintillations - Resounded from the dawning to the dark - In a Rolls-Royceless, Peter Panless Park: - - One who attained the pig-tail’s ribboned dowry, - And helped to pass a Kipling tambourine, - When first from lands of wattle, maple, Maori, - Men came at summons of a dying Queen: - One who, at Auteuil, Dresden, and Rathgowrie, - Acquired that polish reft of which, I ween, - It is not possible for our Dianas - To emulate a modern _grande dame’s_ manners: - - One on whose head the ostrich-feathers nodded - In Alexandrine courts--and _chez_ Bassano; - In whose young ears, song’s angels disembodied. - Rang the last notes of Melbourne’s own soprano; - Whose lithe feet, Moykoff-shod, the grouse-moors plodded, - Or danced the new Machiché Brasiliano, - In times before, unchaperoned of skinny ma, - Suburbia’s daughters sought the darkling kinema: - - To put the matter briefly--One of Them. - Bear witness, Muses Nine, how most unworthy - Is my gold nib to touch their garment’s hem. - Say, Byron (for as bard I still prefer thee - To all whose pallid minor stars be-gem - These Gotha nights) would not such task deter thee - From the rhymed octave--sometime known as Whistlecraft-- - In which, poor ass, I ply this weekly thistlecraft? - - Οίμοι! that I can never be a poet - Modelled on spoon-fed college Adonäises, - Whose metres reek of Porson, Jebb, and Jowett, - Whose very thoughts derive from donnish däises. - Alas! for us who, writing life, must know it-- - Its sights, its scents, its ladies, lords, and Läises. - Alas! for my refusal to disseminate-- - Even in verse--the scholarly-effeminate. - - And oh! ten thousand times alas, should Jill - Be recognised in these Parnassian pages. - Woe for the libel action, and the bill - Which he must face who in the law engages. - And ah! thank Heaven for a metric skill - That shields this head from Justice Darling’s rages ... - Safeguarded by thy last experience, G. Moore, - I maiden-name my lady--Lewis-Seymour. - - -IV. - - _In which the author, contrary to custom, - Goes for the gloves--as Sohrab went for Rustum._ - - I have discovered, after much perusal - Of Cannan, George Mackenzie, Walpole, Bennett, - A Law whose discipline brooks no refusal,-- - A neo-rheo-literary tenet - Which runs: “In art, forbear to pick and choose. All - That happens, happens. Wherefore, up and pen it! - Let the scribe’s tale be casual and cursory; - End where you like--but start us in the nursery.” - - And so I fain had traced, through many a canto, - My heroine; all dimples in her cot; - Bored with her lessons; laughing at the panto.; - Immersed in “Fauntleroy” or Walter Scott: - But, since green herbs from memory’s _campo santo_ - Provide no flavouring for satire’s pot, - For seething, bubbling cauldron such as this is, - I’ll skip the skipping-rope and jump to kisses. - - * * * * * - - ’Tis such a night as only London knew - In the full seasons of our heart’s content-- - When, like some fairy pageant in review, - Love, Pleasure, Luxury together blent, - Made life not all too boring for the Few; - And Unemployment, fix’t at ten per cent., - Furnished--by all means of charity bazaars-- - Right many a dame with perquisites and “pars.” - - London, in London’s June! Above, the starshine: - Below, against the rails of Berkeley Square, - The patient lights of brougham, or rarer car, shine-- - Waiting stiff-shirted squires and ladies fair: - Music, from high French windows that afar shine, - Thrills, till a dancer well might curse and swear, - And call himself a “dashed unlucky fella” - To miss the Lewis-Seymour’s Cinderella. - - Within those halls, where plush-breeched flunkeys stand, - What sounds, what scents, what visions of delight! - How--to the bluest Blue Hungarian band-- - Youth whirls away the unreturning night! - How--perfumed as the blooms of Samarcand-- - The dying flow’rets whisper, “Carlton White!” - But, oh! to weary war-time ration-hunters, - How like a dream, this stand-up supper--Gunter’s! - - For here, in reach of every slender hand which is - Scarce languidly outstretched to porcelain plate, - Are dainties drawn from each vale, stream, or strand which is - Most famed for fruit or fish or fowl or cate: - Creamed strawberries; thin, lavish-buttered sandwiches - Of livered geese (that now squawk Hymns of Hate), - Of priceless hams and tongues and caviar; ices; - And sugared sweets in myriad strange devices.... - - Yet sweeter far than all these sweet things, Jill is: - Queen of my verse and this “Young People’s Dance”: - Fairer than fairest of Mayfairy fillies! - Sweet, is the smile that lights a countenance - Bright as moon-dappled, pink-tipped lotus-lilies; - Sweet, are her jade-green eyes that gleam and glance-- - And give no hint of yester-tea-time’s flare-up - When stern mamma forbade her bind her hair up. - - Jill’s hair! How beautiful it is; the tresses - Warm-golden, soft as cygnet’s earliest downing. - Jill’s foot! How slim the arch the flounce caresses. - Jill’s brow! How pure; how yet uncreased in frowning. - (My Muse! How easily the jade impresses - On this base coin a stamp of pseudo-Browning.) - Jill’s youth! Jill’s dreams! These luxuries that lap her!... - Don’t they present a most alluring flapper? - - So thinks, at least, this lad in evening raiment-- - Shoes, shirt-front, collar, waistcoat-buttons, glowing; - This sub. of other days--when soldier’s payment - Scarcely sufficed each monthly mess-bill’s owing, - And triple stars full fifteen years delay meant; - He, who presents the goblet, over-flowing - With icy rubies to its crinkled brim, - And asks if Jill won’t “sit this out” with him.... - - And there it hangs, word-carven, my last image. - (Browning again! now Keats!) O hapless pair, - Loth lover and bold maiden of a dim age-- - Lost to us now, and dead, but still most fair. - O Attic shapes! Arcadian girlhood’s slim age, - And silken youth with brilliantined hair! - What climaxes must I not sacrifice, - Who write this epic at a weekly price? - - For--as long melodies are sweet, but sweeter - Poems in short instalments, such as mine-- - Seven full days, teased puppet of this metre, - Must thy parched tongue await that roseate wine; - Seven full nights, fond boy, must thou entreat her; - Whilst mantle to her cheeks, incarnadine, - Youth’s beauty, beauty’s youth--and readers vex’t - Know, need know, nothing more till Tuesday next. - - -V. - - _Brings life to week-old statues; makes them prance - To love’s light tune--and ends the Seymours’ dance._ - - Pale shapes I locked in memory’s studio, - Your draperies stir. From vein to marble vein - The life-blood leaps. Eyes gleam, and pulses glow. - Once more my octaves rap their old refrain - To re-create the weekly puppet-show. - Fond boy, to work! My Jill’s herself again, - And answers your entreaty--sideways glancing-- - “Perhaps I will. It’s jolly hot for dancing.” - - So they twain pass--smart sub. and flapper stately-- - From the high halls of Gunter’s prank’t refection. - And out across the waxèd boards, where lately - Twirled the swift waltz to _La Poupée’s_ “Selection.” - And on, past couples gossiping sedately; - And on, past couples screened against detection; - To a dim-shaded, fairy-lighted alcove, - Fit haunt for single maid and single tall cove:-- - - Such as--in land of Taj Mahal and mugger, - Where girls book weeks ahead their supper dances-- - Screens some pale flirt, some lad who yearns to hug her, - From the brown _khitmatghar’s_ averted glances. - (Who knows thy secrets, darkling _Kala-juggah_-- - The orbs downcast, the fingers’ coy advances, - The swiftly stifled sob that hooks the stripling-- - Save I, Victoria Cross, and Rudyard Kipling!) - - And there, beneath the new-sponged potted palm-tree, - That mid-day brought and morning shall remove-- - Mayfair’s own wind-unruffled, ever-calm tree, - Whose drooping branches shield Mayfairies’ love-- - She lisps of Waller parts, and thy dead charm, Tree - (Twin stars now shining in the “flies” above!); - While he admits he has or hasn’t seen them ... - Till a shy sudden silence falls between them, - A cloud across the sun of lightling banter. - - O Jill, my gold-spoon cake-and-Moët miss! - Hast thou not dreamed, since thy first tam-o’-shanter, - Of soldier boy, of dance-night such as this? - Faintly they catch the polka’s throb, the canter - Of homing hansom-cab where lovers kiss: - And “Oh,” thinks he, “what eyes, what lips, what hair, too!” - And “Oh,” thinks she “the ninny doesn’t dare to.” - - Voiceless, they sit: but now her eyes, upturning, - Seek his: and now, beneath the lashes’ veil, - Leaps a quick flame to set youth’s pulses burning; - And now she feels her resolution fail: - And now gains strength anew the curious yearning - For love’s adventure: now, her fingers frail - Tighten about the kerchief’s lacy tissue: - And now, at last, he says, “Jill, I _must_ kiss you.” - - “Bobbie, you mustn’t.” “Jill--just one.” Her shoulder - Stiffens; resists the half-encircling arm. - Hands fend away the hand that seeks to hold her. - Lips murmur. Lashes flutter in alarm. - “No, Bobbie. No.” My foolish boy, be bolder; - The moment’s fear is half the moment’s charm.... - Alas! His missed and amateurish peck - Grazes the ear-lobe; lands upon the neck. - - Readers, both kissed and kissless, chide not; pity - These withered fruits from Jill’s dead seas of dreaming. - Think--or in France, or in this barraged city, - How many a dear one owes his brass hat’s gleaming, - How many a husband thanks his safe Committee, - To some fond woman’s sound strategic scheming! - Ponder--can crafts which men from want to plenty ship, - Be steered without an arduous apprenticeship? - - Ponder! Nor blame my Jill if she disguises - Love’s disappointment in disapprobation. - If, Artemis in judgment now, she rises-- - The outraged goddess, armed for flagellation-- - And, with a voice whose every note comprises - Disgust, revolt, pain, virtue, indignation, - Drives from her father’s chaste, offended portals - The meekest of apologising mortals. - - And blame not me, her bard--whose verses weave her - This coronal of memory’s budding-hours, - Who loved her long ago, yet now must leave her - Lorn ’mid the dance’s _débris_, and the flowers - Which fade as day-dreams of that first deceiver-- - Because, while War yet ravens and devours, - While still the blind guns thunder out in Flanders, - I sing the type which cozens and philanders. - - For, young as Spring and old as Cleopatra, - Certain as Nature’s self, this type endureth: - On Skindles’ lawn, in jungles of Sumatra, - She blooms--a wax-white weed that no rake cureth: - From Westminster to _wats_ of Pura Chatra, - Her false lips smile, her gladsome optic lureth: - WAAC’s may be WREN’s; wars, peace; to-day’s full Colonel, - To-morrow’s clerk ... but Jill is sempiternal. - - -VI. - - _Continues--symptomatically terse-- - This first of serials in doggerel verse._ - - O Jill, my peerless, perfumed, powdered darling; - Quintessence of all fairies I’ve adored - In London’s lanes, by Devon Budleigh’s farling, - At Berkeley’s, Kettner’s, Ritz’s, Carlton’s board; - Jill whose white hands ne’er knew roughhouse-work’s gnarling; - Whose clothes not twenty Coxes could afford! - How shall man sing the seasoned cee-sprung carriage - In which you rolled from that first kiss to marriage? - - What days they were! What noon-times and what twilights! - The whole wide earth seemed fashioned for your pleasure; - Its very heavens, gold-and-crystal skylights - Whereunder you picked orchid blooms at leisure. - For others, shadowed gloom; for you, the high lights-- - The pomp, the pride, the dance’s twanging measure ... - And if one begged: “Take coin,” you’d say, “and toss it her. - Poor thing! That skirt was never cut by Rossiter.” - - Dear, _rotten_ days! And yet, a Jack grows wistful - At thoughts of all the Jills whom he remembers, - In times when he had boodle by the fist-full - And fires of youth--where now are only embers. - - Jack’s Jills! Why, Muse possesses quite a list full, - May’s Jill, and June’s Jill, August’s, and September’s ... - Yet dares no more than skim each light adventure - Which followed on flirtationship’s indenture. - - For there’s a tide in the affairs of flappers, - Of those, at least, that West End mothers breed-- - (Your Wapping matron’s more inclined to slap _hers_: - A vulgar trick--yet one which serves some need!)-- - A spring-time blood-tide, mounting to young nappers, - Heady as wine, a mischief-making mead, - Which--though a man find every known excuse for ’em-- - To put it mildly, does the very deuce for ’em. - - And shall my sweetest Muse, than whom none chaster - E’er fluttered to console the middle-age-time - Of any neurasthenic poetaster, - Ope her full throat to sing Jill’s ’prentice rage-time?-- - The unnerving doubts, the certainties which braced her, - The follied moments and the ensuing sage time, - The major and the minor bards who sung to her, - The men who knelt, the “little friends” who clung to her; - - The last strange morning-dreams, the tea-tray’s rattle, - The letters--opened, skimmed, and tossed aside; - The leisured getting-up, the breakfast-prattle, - The summoning ’phone-bell and the mid-day ride; - The lunch; the afternoons of tittle-tattle-- - Town’s latest scandal, dance, divorce or bride; - The “dear boys,” climbers, _partis_, portion-stalkers; - The furtive teas at Charbonnel and Walker’s; - - The Morny-scented bath before the dinner; - The deft maid’s fingers in the unruly hair; - The _risqué_ talk of some sweet social sinner, - Half-heard across the table’s candle-glare; - The Bridge, so much too high for a beginner; - The Ball; the moment’s whisper on the stair: - The thousand faces, phases, thoughts, books, travellings, - Which whirl youth’s silk cocoon in its unravellings. - - Ah no! not ours with huckstering pen to retail - How slumb’rous beauties wake from girl-time’s dozing. - Let Hubert Wales and D. H. Lawrence detail - The purfled passion-blossom’s slow unclosing. - No rainbow’s purple e’er shall tinge our she-tale, - No censor’s yoke restrain its swift composing. - Moreover--quite apart from Muse’s purity-- - There’s nothing half so dull as immaturity. - - So please imagine--(though I know it’s risky - To trust in Britons for imagination, - Save those rare few whom peace-time’s hoarded whisky - Still fires to spiritual exaltation, - Or such as stand, when questioning House grows frisky, - Pat on their first inspired asseveration)-- - Jill as she was in times of sugared plenty: - The Bond Street goddess, _ætat_ three-and-twenty. - - Goddess, indeed! These meagre days that skimp us, - Poor mortals, bullied, badged, and bombed and rationed, - Scarce knows that breed which once on high Olympus - Flaunted in radiant raiment, Poiret-fashioned. - Goddess indeed! A self-sure, jade-eyed, slim puss-- - Of life’s each latest luxury impassioned; - Sleek; mateless; restless; rampant; supple-sinewed; - Sharp-clawed; capricious; and ... _to be continued_. - - - - - * * * * * - -Transcriber’s Notes - -The following apparent typographical errors were corrected. - -Page 15, “enver” changed to “never.” (but for you there’s never a place) - -Page 43, "cazone" changed to "canzone." (Still holds his own at sonnet -or _canzone_) - -Page 63, “mornnig” changed to “morning.” (That mid-day brought and -morning shall remove) - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Judgement of Valhalla, by Gilbert Frankau - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JUDGEMENT OF VALHALLA *** - -***** This file should be named 53756-0.txt or 53756-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/7/5/53756/ - -Produced by Cindy Horton, Brian Coe, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -book was produced from images made available by the -HathiTrust Digital Library.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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