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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59800 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  PICTURE-SHOW
+
+
+  BY
+
+  SIEGFRIED SASSOON
+
+  AUTHOR OF
+  "THE OLD HUNTSMAN," "COUNTER-ATTACK," ETC.
+
+
+
+  NEW YORK
+  E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
+  681 FIFTH AVENUE
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1920,
+  BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
+
+  _All Rights Reserved_
+
+
+
+  Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+  TO
+  JOHN MASEFIELD
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+  PICTURE-SHOW
+  RECONCILIATION
+  CONCERT PARTY
+  NIGHT ON THE CONVOY
+  THE DUG-OUT
+  BATTALION-RELIEF
+  IN AN UNDERGROUND DRESSING STATION
+  I STOOD WITH THE DEAD
+  MEMORIAL TABLET
+  ATROCITIES
+  TO LEONIDE MASSINE
+  MEMORY
+  TO A VERY WISE MAN
+  EARLY CHRONOLOGY
+  ELEGY
+  MIRACLES
+  THE GOLDSMITH
+  DEVOTION TO DUTY
+  ANCIENT HISTORY
+  SPORTING ACQUAINTANCES
+  WHAT THE CAPTAIN SAID AT THE POINT-TO-POINT
+  CINEMA HERO
+  FANCY DRESS
+  MIDDLE-AGES
+  THE PORTRAIT
+  BUTTERFLIES
+  WRAITHS
+  PHANTOM
+  THE DARK HOUSE
+  IDYLL
+  PARTED
+  LOVERS
+  SLUMBER-SONG
+  THE IMPERFECT LOVER
+  VISION
+  TO A CHILDLESS WOMAN
+  AFTERMATH
+  FALLING ASLEEP
+  PRELUDE TO AN UNWRITTEN MASTERPIECE
+  LIMITATIONS
+  EVERYONE SANG
+
+
+
+
+  PICTURE-SHOW
+
+
+
+
+  PICTURE-SHOW
+
+  And still they come and go: and this is all I know--
+  That from the gloom I watch an endless picture-show,
+  Where wild or listless faces flicker on their way,
+  With glad or grievous hearts I'll never understand
+  Because Time spins so fast, and they've no time to stay
+  Beyond the moment's gesture of a lifted hand.
+
+  And still, between the shadow and the blinding flame,
+  The brave despair of men flings onward, ever the same
+  As in those doom-lit years that wait them, and have been...
+  And life is just the picture dancing on a screen.
+
+
+
+
+  RECONCILIATION
+
+  When you are standing at your hero's grave,
+  Or near some homeless village where he died,
+  Remember, through your heart's rekindling pride,
+  The German soldiers who were loyal and brave.
+
+  Men fought like brutes; and hideous things were done;
+  And you have nourished hatred, harsh and blind.
+  But in that Golgotha perhaps you'll find
+  The mothers of the men who killed your son.
+
+  _November, 1918._
+
+
+
+
+  CONCERT PARTY
+
+  (EGYPTIAN BASE CAMP)
+
+  They are gathering round...
+  Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand,
+  Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound--
+  The jangle and throb of a piano ... tum-ti-tum...
+  Drawn by a lamp, they come
+  Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand.
+
+  O sing us the songs, the songs of our own land,
+  You warbling ladies in white.
+  Dimness conceals the hunger in our faces,
+  This wall of faces risen out of the night,
+  These eyes that keep their memories of the places
+  So long beyond their sight.
+
+  Jaded and gay, the ladies sing; and the chap in brown
+  Tilts his grey hat; jaunty and lean and pale,
+  He rattles the keys....  Some actor-bloke from town...
+  God send you home; and then _A long, long trail_;
+  _I hear you calling me_; and _Dixieland_....
+  Sing slowly ... now the chorus ... one by one
+  We hear them, drink them; till the concert's done.
+  Silent, I watch the shadowy mass of soldiers stand.
+  Silent, they drift away, over the glimmering sand.
+
+  KANTARA.  _April, 1918_.
+
+
+
+
+  NIGHT ON THE CONVOY
+
+  (ALEXANDRIA-MARSEILLES)
+
+  Out in the blustering darkness, on the deck
+  A gleam of stars looks down.  Long blurs of black,
+  The lean Destroyers, level with our track,
+  Plunging and stealing, watch the perilous way
+  Through backward racing seas and caverns of chill spray.
+    One sentry by the davits, in the gloom
+    Stands mute: the boat heaves onward through the night.
+    Shrouded is every chink of cabined light:
+    And sluiced by floundering waves that hiss and boom
+    And crash like guns, the troop-ship shudders ... doom.
+
+  Now something at my feet stirs with a sigh;
+  And slowly growing used to groping dark,
+  I know that the hurricane-deck, down all its length,
+  Is heaped and spread with lads in sprawling strength--
+  Blanketed soldiers sleeping.  In the stark
+  Danger of life at war, they lie so still,
+  All prostrate and defenceless, head by head...
+  And I remember Arras, and that hill
+  Where dumb with pain I stumbled among the dead.
+
+  We are going home.  The troopship, in a thrill
+  Of fiery-chamber'd anguish, throbs and rolls.
+  We are going home ... victims ... three thousand souls.
+
+  _May, 1918_.
+
+
+
+
+  THE DUG-OUT
+
+  Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
+  And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
+  Exhausted face?  It hurts my heart to watch you,
+  Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold;
+  And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
+  Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head....
+
+  _You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
+  And when you sleep you remind me of the dead_.
+
+  ST. VENANT.  _July, 1918_.
+
+
+
+
+  BATTALION-RELIEF
+
+  '_Fall in!  Now get a move on._'  (Curse the rain.)
+  We splash away along the straggling village,
+  Out to the flat rich country, green with June....
+  And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage,
+  Blazing with splendour-patches.  (Harvest soon,
+  Up in the Line.)  '_Perhaps the War'll be done
+  'By Christmas-Day.  Keep smiling then, old son._'
+
+  Here's the Canal: it's dusk; we cross the bridge.
+  'Lead on there, by platoons.'  (The Line's a-glare
+  With shellfire through the poplars; distant rattle
+  Of rifles and machine-guns.)  '_Fritz is there!
+  'Christ, ain't it lively, Sergeant?  Is't a battle?_'
+  More rain: the lightning blinks, and thunder rumbles.
+  '_There's over-head artillery!_' some chap grumbles.
+
+  What's all this mob at the cross-roads?  Where are the guides?...
+  'Lead on with number One.'  And off they go.
+  'Three minute intervals.'  (Poor blundering files,
+  Sweating and blindly burdened; who's to know
+  If death will catch them in those two dark miles?)
+  More rain.  'Lead on, Head-quarters.'  (That's the lot.)
+
+  '_Who's that? ... Oh, Sergeant-Major, don't get shot!
+  'And tell me, have we won this war or not!_'
+
+
+
+
+  IN AN UNDERGROUND DRESSING-STATION
+
+  Quietly they set their burden down: he tried
+  To grin; moaned; moved his head from side to side.
+  * * * * * * *
+  He gripped the stretcher; stiffened; glared; and screamed,
+
+  'O put my leg down, doctor, do!'  (He'd got
+  A bullet in his ankle; and he'd been shot
+  Horribly through the guts.)  The surgeon seemed
+  So kind and gentle, saying, above that crying,
+  'You must keep still, my lad.'  But he was dying.
+
+
+
+
+  I STOOD WITH THE DEAD
+
+  I stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still:
+  When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead.
+  And my slow heart said, 'You must kill, you must kill:
+  'Soldier, soldier, morning is red.'
+
+  On the shapes of the slain in their crumpled disgrace,
+  I stared for a while through the thin cold rain....
+  'O lad that I loved, there is rain on your face,
+  'And your eyes are blurred and sick like the plain.'
+
+  I stood with the Dead....  They were dead; they were dead;
+  My heart and my head beat a march of dismay:
+  And gusts of the wind came dulled by the guns.
+  'Fall in!' I shouted; 'Fall in for your pay!'
+
+
+
+
+  MEMORIAL TABLET
+
+  (GREAT WAR)
+
+  Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight,
+  (Under Lord Derby's Scheme).  I died in hell--
+  (They called it Passchendaele).  My wound was slight,
+  And I was hobbling back; and then a shell
+  Burst slick upon the duck-boards: so I fell
+  Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light.
+
+  At sermon-time, while Squire is in his pew,
+  He gives my gilded name a thoughtful stare;
+  For, though low down upon the list, I'm there;
+  '_In proud and glorious memory_' ... that's my due.
+  Two bleeding years I fought in France, for Squire:
+  I suffered anguish that he's never guessed.
+  Once I came home on leave: and then went west...
+  What greater glory could a man desire?
+
+
+
+
+  ATROCITIES
+
+  You told me, in your drunken-boasting mood,
+  How once you butchered prisoners.  That was good!
+  I'm sure you felt no pity while they stood
+  Patient and cowed and scared, as prisoners should.
+
+  How did you do them in?  Come, don't be shy:
+  You know I love to hear how Germans die,
+  Downstairs in dug-outs.  'Kamerad!' They cry;
+  Then squeal like stoats when bombs begin to fly.
+
+  * * * * * * *
+
+  And you?  I know your record.  You went sick
+  When orders looked unwholesome: then, with trick
+  And lie, you wangled home.  And here you are,
+  Still talking big and boozing in a bar.
+
+
+
+
+  TO LEONIDE MASSINE
+
+  IN 'CLEOPATRA'
+
+  O beauty doomed and perfect for an hour,
+  Leaping along the verge of death and night,
+  You show me dauntless Youth that went to fight
+  Four long years past, discovering pride and power.
+
+  You die but in our dreams, who watch you fall
+  Knowing that to-morrow you will dance again.
+  But not to ebbing music were they slain
+  Who sleep in ruined graves, beyond recall;
+  Who, following phantom-glory, friend and foe,
+  Into the darkness that was War must go;
+  Blind; banished from desire.
+                                  O mortal heart
+  Be still; you have drained the cup; you have played your part.
+
+
+
+
+  MEMORY
+
+  When I was young my heart and head were light,
+  And I was gay and feckless as a colt
+  Out in the fields, with morning in the may,
+  Wind on the grass, wings in the orchard bloom.
+    O thrilling sweet, my joy, when life was free,
+    And all the paths led on from hawthorn-time
+    Across the carolling meadows into June.
+
+  But now my heart is heavy-laden.  I sit
+  Burning my dreams away beside the fire:
+  For death has made me wise and bitter and strong;
+  And I am rich in all that I have lost.
+    O starshine on the fields of long-ago,
+    Bring me the darkness and the nightingale;
+    Dim wealds of vanished summer, peace of home,
+    And silence; and the faces of my friends.
+
+
+
+
+  TO A VERY WISE MAN
+
+  I
+
+  Fires in the dark you build; tall quivering flames
+  In the huge midnight forest of the unknown.
+  Your soul is full of cities with dead names,
+  And blind-faced, earth-bound gods of bronze and stone
+  Whose priests and kings and lust-begotten lords
+  Watch the procession of their thundering hosts,
+  Or guard relentless fanes with flickering swords
+  And wizardry of ghosts.
+
+  II
+
+  In a strange house I woke; heard overhead
+  Hastily-thudding feet and a muffled scream...
+  (Is death like that?) ... I quaked uncomforted,
+  Striving to frame to-morrow in a dream
+  Of woods and sliding pools and cloudless day.
+  (You know how bees come into a twilight room
+  From dazzling afternoon, then sail away
+  Out of the curtained gloom.)
+
+  III
+
+  You understand my thoughts; though, when you think,
+  You're out beyond the boundaries of my brain.
+  I'm but a bird at dawn that cries, 'chink, chink'--
+  A garden-bird that warbles in the rain.
+  And you're the flying-man, the speck that steers
+  A careful course; far down the verge of day,
+  Half-way across the world.  Above the years
+  You soar ... Is death so bad? ... I wish you'd say.
+
+
+
+
+  EARLY CHRONOLOGY
+
+  Slowly the daylight left our listening faces.
+  Professor Brown, with level baritone,
+  Discoursed into the dusk.
+                      Five thousand years
+  He guided us through scientific spaces
+  Of excavated History, till the lone
+  Roads of research grew blurred, and in our ears
+  Time was the rumoured tongues of vanished races,
+  And Thought a chartless Age of Ice and Stone.
+
+  The story ended.  Then the darkened air
+  Flowered as he lit his pipe; an aureole glowed
+  Enwreathed with smoke; the moment's match-light showed
+  His rosy face, broad brow, and smooth grey hair,
+  Backed by the crowded book-shelves.
+                                        In his wake
+  An archæologist began to make
+  Assumptions about aqueducts; (he quoted
+  Professor Sandstorm's book;) and soon they floated
+  Through desiccated forests; mangled myths;
+  And argued easily round megaliths.
+  * * * * * * *
+  Beyond the college garden something glinted:
+  A copper moon climbed clear above the trees.
+  Some Lydian coin? ... Professor Brown agrees
+  That copper coins _were_ in that culture minted.
+  But, as her whitening way aloft she took,
+  I thought she had a pre-dynastic look.
+
+
+
+
+  ELEGY
+
+  (TO ROBERT ROSS)
+
+  Your dextrous wit will haunt us long
+  Wounding our grief with yesterday.
+  Your laughter is a broken song;
+  And death has found you, kind and gay.
+
+  We may forget those transient things
+  That made your charm and our delight:
+  But loyal love has deathless wings
+  That rise and triumph out of night.
+
+  So, in the days to come, your name
+  Shall be as music that ascends
+  When honour turns a heart from shame...
+  O heart of hearts! ... O friend of friends!
+
+
+
+
+  MIRACLES
+
+  I dreamt I saw a huge grey boat in silence steaming
+  Down a canal; it drew the dizzy landscape after;
+  The solemn world was sucked along with it--a streaming
+  Land-slide of loveliness.  O, but I rocked with laughter,
+  Staring, and clinging to my tree-top.  For a lake
+  Of gleaming peace swept on behind.  (I mustn't wake.)
+
+  And then great clouds gathered and burst in spumes of green
+  That plunged into the water; and the sun came out
+  On glittering islands thronged with orchards scarlet-bloomed;
+  And rosy-plumed flamingoes flashed across the scene...
+  O, but the beauty of their freedom made me shout...
+  And when I woke I wondered where on earth I'd been.
+
+
+
+
+  THE GOLDSMITH
+
+  '_This job's the best I've done._'  He bent his head
+  Over the golden vessel that he'd wrought.
+  A bird was singing.  But the craftsman's thought
+  Is a forgotten language, lost and dead.
+
+  He sigh'd and stretch'd brown arms.  His friend came in
+  And stood beside him in the morning sun.
+  The goldwork glitter'd....  '_That's the best I've done._
+  '_And now I've got a necklace to begin._'
+
+  This was at Gnossos, in the isle of Crete...
+  A girl was selling flowers along the street.
+
+
+
+
+  DEVOTION TO DUTY
+
+  I was near the King that day.  I saw him snatch
+  And briskly scan the G.H.Q. dispatch.
+  Thick-voiced, he read it out.  (His face was grave.)
+  'This officer advanced with the first wave,
+  'And when our first objective had been gained,
+  '(Though wounded twice), reorganized the line:
+  'The spirit of the troops was by his fine
+  'Example most effectively sustained.'
+
+  He gripped his beard; then closed his eyes and said,
+  'Bathsheba must be warned that he is dead.
+  'Send for her.  I will be the first to tell
+  'This wife how her heroic husband fell.'
+
+
+
+
+  ANCIENT HISTORY
+
+  Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain,
+  Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees;
+  Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees,
+  He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain;
+  '_He was the grandest of them all--was Cain!_
+  'A lion laired in the hills, that none could tire;
+  'Swift as a stag; a stallion of the plain,
+  'Hungry and fierce with deeds of huge desire.'
+
+  Grimly he thought of Abel, soft and fair--
+  A lover with disaster in his face,
+  And scarlet blossom twisted in bright hair.
+  'Afraid to fight; was murder more disgrace? ...
+  '_God always hated Cain._' ... He bowed his head--
+  The gaunt wild man whose lovely sons were dead.
+
+
+
+
+  SPORTING ACQUAINTANCES
+
+  I watched old squatting Chimpanzee: he traced
+  His painful patterns in the dirt: I saw
+  Red-haired Ourang-Utang, whimsical-faced,
+  Chewing a sportsman's meditative straw.
+  I'd met them years ago, and half-forgotten
+  They'd come to grief.  (But how, I'd never heard,
+  Poor beggars!)  Still, it seemed so rude and rotten
+  To stand and gape at them with never a word.
+
+  I ventured 'Ages since we met,' and tried
+  My candid smile of friendship.  No success.
+  One scratched his hairy thigh, while t'other sighed
+  And glanced away.  I saw they liked me less
+  Than when, on Epsom Downs, in cloudless weather,
+  We backed The Tetrarch and got drunk together.
+
+
+
+
+  WHAT THE CAPTAIN SAID
+  AT THE
+  POINT-TO-POINT
+
+  I've had a good bump round; my little horse
+  Refused the brook first time,
+  Then jumped it prime;
+  And ran out at the double,
+  But of course
+  There's always trouble at a double:
+  And then--I don't know how
+  It was--he turned it up
+  At that big, hairy fence before the plough;
+  And some young silly pup,
+  (I don't know which),
+  Near as a toucher knocked me into the ditch;
+  But we finished full of running, and quite sound:
+  And anyhow I've had a good bump round.
+
+
+
+
+  CINEMA HERO
+
+  O, this is more than fiction!  It's the truth
+  That somehow never happened.  Pay your bob,
+  And walk straight in, abandoning To-day.
+  (To-day's a place outside the picture-house;
+  Forget it, and the film will do the rest.)
+
+  There's nothing fine in being as large as life:
+  The splendour starts when things begin to move
+  And gestures grow enormous.  That's the way
+  To dramatise your dreams and play the part
+  As you'd have done if luck had starred your face.
+
+  I'm 'Rupert from the Mountains'!  (Pass the stout)...
+  Yes, I'm the Broncho Boy we watched to-night,
+  That robbed a ranch and galloped down the creek.
+  (Moonlight and shattering hoofs....  O moonlight of the West!
+  Wind in the gum-trees, and my swerving mare
+  Beating her flickering shadow on the post.)
+  Ah, I was wild in those fierce days!  You saw me
+  Fix that saloon?  They stared into my face
+  And slowly put their hands up, while I stood
+  With dancing eyes,--romantic to the world!
+
+  Things happened afterwards ... You know the story...
+  The sheriff's daughter, bandaging my head;
+  Love at first sight; the escape; and making good
+  (To music by Mascagni).  And at last----
+  Peace; and the gradual beauty of my smile.
+
+  But that's all finished now.  One has to take
+  Life as it comes.  I've nothing to regret.
+  For men like me, the only thing that counts
+  Is the adventure.  Lord, what times I've had!
+
+  God and King Charles!  And then my mistress's arms....
+  (To-morrow evening I'm a Cavalier.)
+
+  Well, what's the news to-night about the Strike?
+
+
+
+
+  FANCY DRESS
+
+  Some Brave, awake in you to-night,
+  Knocked at your heart: an eagle's flight
+  Stirred in the feather on your head.
+  Your wide-set Indian eyes, alight
+  Above high cheek-bones smeared with red,
+  Unveiled cragg'd centuries, and led
+  You, the snared wraith of bygone things--
+  Wild ancestries of trackless Kings--
+  Out of the past....  So men have felt
+  Strange anger move them as they knelt
+  Praying to gods serenely starred
+  In heavens where tomahawks are barred.
+
+
+
+
+  MIDDLE-AGES
+
+  I heard a clash, and a cry,
+  And a horseman fleeing the wood.
+  The moon hid in a cloud.
+  Deep in shadow I stood.
+    '_Ugly work!_' thought I,
+    Holding my breath.
+    '_Men must be cruel and proud,_
+    '_Jousting for death._'
+
+  With gusty glimmering shone
+  The moon; and the wind blew colder.
+  A man went over the hill,
+  Bent to his horse's shoulder.
+    '_Time for me to be gone_'...
+    Darkly I fled.
+    Owls in the wood were shrill,
+    And the moon sank red.
+
+
+
+
+  THE PORTRAIT
+
+  I watch you, gazing at me from the wall,
+  And wonder how you'd match your dreams with mine,
+  If, mastering time's illusion, I could call
+  You back to share this quiet candle-shine.
+
+  For you were young, three-hundred years ago;
+  And by your looks I guess that you were wise...
+  Come, whisper soft, and Death will never know
+  You've slipped away from those calm, painted eyes.
+
+  Strange is your voice ... Poor ninny, dead so long,
+  And all your pride forgotten like your name.
+  '_One April morn I heard a blackbird's song,_
+  '_And joy was in my heart like leaves aflame._'
+
+  And so you died before your songs took wing;
+  While Andrew Marvell followed in your wake.
+  '_Love thrilled me into music.  I could sing
+  But for a moment,--but for beauty's sake._'
+
+  Who passes?  There's a star-lit breeze that stirs
+  The glimmer of white lilies in the gloom.
+  Who speaks?  Death has his silent messengers:
+  And there was more than silence in this room
+
+  While you were gazing at me from the wall
+  And wondering how you'd match your dreams with mine,
+  If, mastering time's illusion, you could call
+  Me back to share your vanished candle-shine.
+
+
+
+
+  BUTTERFLIES
+
+  Frail travellers, deftly flickering over the flowers;
+  O living flowers against the heedless blue
+  Of summer days, what sends them dancing through
+  This fiery-blossom'd revel of the hours?
+
+  Theirs are the musing silences between
+  The enraptured crying of shrill birds that make
+  Heaven in the wood while summer dawns awake;
+  And theirs the faintest winds that hush the green.
+
+  And they are as my soul that wings its way
+  Out of the starlit dimness into morn:
+  And they are as my tremulous being--born
+  To know but this, the phantom glare of day.
+
+
+
+
+  WRAITHS
+
+  They know not the green leaves;
+  In whose earth-haunting dream
+  Dimly the forest heaves,
+  And voiceless goes the stream.
+    Strangely they seek a place
+    In love's night-memoried hall;
+    Peering from face to face,
+    Until some heart shall call
+    And keep them, for a breath,
+    Half-mortal ... (_Hark to the rain!_) ...
+    They are dead ... (_O hear how death
+    Gropes on the shutter'd pane!_)
+
+
+
+
+  PHANTOM
+
+  The clock has stopped; and the wind's dropped:
+  A candle burns with moon-gold flame.
+  Blank silence whispers at my ears,
+  '_Though I've been dead these coffin'd years,
+  'You'll never choke my shame._'
+
+  '_Dip your quill in clotted ink:_
+  '_Write; I'll quicken you to think_
+  '_In my old fiery alphabet._'
+  The candle-flame upon its wick
+  Staggers; the time-piece starts to tick;
+  And down the dark the wind blows wet.
+
+  * * * * * * *
+
+  Good angels, help me to forget.
+
+
+
+
+  THE DARK HOUSE
+
+  Dusk in the rain-soaked garden,
+  And dark the house within.
+  A door creaked: someone was early
+  To watch the dawn begin.
+    But he stole away like a thief
+    In the chilly, star-bright air:
+    Though the house was shuttered for slumber,
+    He had left one wakeful there.
+
+  Nothing moved in the garden.
+  Never a bird would sing,
+  Nor shake and scatter the dew from the boughs
+  With shy and startled wing.
+    But when that lover had passed the gate
+    A quavering thrush began...
+    'Come back; come back!' he shrilled to the heart
+    Of the passion-plighted man.
+
+
+
+
+  IDYLL
+
+  In the grey summer garden I shall find you
+  With day-break and the morning hills behind you.
+  There will be rain-wet roses; stir of wings;
+  And down the wood a thrush that wakes and sings.
+  Not from the past you'll come, but from that deep
+  Where beauty murmurs to the soul asleep:
+  And I shall know the sense of life re-born
+  From dreams into the mystery of morn
+  Where gloom and brightness meet.  And standing there
+  Till that calm song is done, at last we'll share
+  The league-spread, quiring symphonies that are
+  Joy in the world, and peace, and dawn's one star.
+
+
+
+
+  PARTED
+
+  Sleepless I listen to the surge and drone
+  And drifting roar of the town's undertone;
+  Till through quiet falling rain I hear the bells
+  Tolling and chiming their brief tune that tells
+  Day's midnight end.  And from the day that's over
+  No flashes of delight I can recover;
+  But only dreary winter streets, and faces
+  Of people moving in loud clanging places:
+  And I in my loneliness, longing for you...
+
+  For all I did to-day, and all I'll do
+  To-morrow, in this city of intense
+  Arteried activities that throb and strive,
+  Is but a beating down of that suspense
+  Which holds me from your arms.
+                              I am alive
+  Only that I may find you at the end
+  Of these slow-striking hours I toil to spend,
+  Putting each one behind me, knowing but this--
+  That all my days are turning toward your kiss;
+  That all expectancy awaits the deep
+  Consoling passion of your eyes, that keep
+  Their radiance for my coming, and their peace
+  For when I find in you my love's release.
+
+
+
+
+  LOVERS
+
+  You were glad to-night: and now you've gone away.
+  Flushed in the dark, you put your dreams to bed;
+  But as you fall asleep I hear you say
+  Those tired sweet drowsy words we left unsaid.
+
+  I am alone: but in the windless night
+  I listen to the gurgling rain that veils
+  The gloom with peace; and whispering of your white
+  Limbs, and your mouth that stormed my throat with bliss,
+  The rain becomes your voice, and tells me tales
+  That crowd my heart with memories of your kiss.
+
+  Sleep well: for I can follow you, to bless
+  And lull your distant beauty where you roam;
+  And with wild songs of hoarded loveliness
+  Recall you to these arms that were your home.
+
+
+
+
+  SLUMBER-SONG
+
+  Sleep; and my song shall build about your bed
+  A Paradise of dimness.  You shall feel
+  The folding of tired wings; and peace will dwell
+  Throned in your silence: and one hour shall hold
+  Summer, and midnight, and immensity
+  Lulled to forgetfulness.  For, where you dream,
+  The stately gloom of foliage shall embower
+  Your slumbering thought with tapestries of blue.
+  And there shall be no memory of the sky,
+  Nor sunlight with its cruelty of swords.
+  But, to your soul that sinks from deep to deep
+  Through drowned and glimmering colour, Time shall be
+  Only slow rhythmic swaying; and your breath;
+  And roses in the darkness; and my love.
+
+
+
+
+  THE IMPERFECT LOVER
+
+  I never asked you to be perfect--did I?--
+  Though often I've called you sweet, in the invasion
+  Of mastering love.  I never prayed that you
+  Might stand, unsoiled, angelic and inhuman,
+  Pointing the way toward Sainthood like a sign-post.
+
+  Oh yes, I know the way to heaven was easy.
+  We found the little kingdom of our passion
+  That all can share who walk the road of lovers.
+  In wild and secret happiness we stumbled;
+  And gods and demons clamoured in our senses.
+
+  But I've grown thoughtful now.  And you have lost
+  Your early-morning freshness of surprise
+  At being so utterly mine: you've learned to fear
+  The gloomy, stricken places in my soul,
+  And the occasional ghosts that haunt my gaze.
+
+  You made me glad; and I can still return
+  To you, the haven of my lonely pride:
+  But I am sworn to murder those illusions
+  That blossom from desire with desperate beauty:
+  And there shall be no falsehood in our failure;
+  Since, if we loved like beasts, the thing is done,
+  And I'll not hide it, though our heaven be hell.
+
+  You dream long liturgies of our devotion.
+  Yet, in my heart, I dread our love's destruction.
+  But, should you grow to hate me, I would ask
+  No mercy of your mood: I'd have you stand
+  And look me in the eyes, and laugh, and smite me.
+
+  Then I should know, at least, that truth endured,
+  Though love had died of wounds.  And you could leave me
+  Unvanquished in my atmosphere of devils.
+
+
+
+
+  VISION
+
+  I love all things that pass: their briefness is
+  Music that fades on transient silences.
+  Winds, birds, and glittering leaves that flare and fall--
+  They fling delight across the world; they call
+  To rhythmic-flashing limbs that rove and race...
+    A moment in the dawn for Youth's lit face;
+    A moment's passion, closing on the cry--
+    'O Beauty, born of lovely things that die!'
+
+
+
+
+  TO A CHILDLESS WOMAN
+
+  You think I cannot understand.  Ah, but I do ...
+  I have been wrung with anger and compassion for you.
+  I wonder if you'd loathe my pity, if you knew.
+
+  But you _shall_ know.  I've carried in my heart too long
+  This secret burden.  Has not silence wrought _your_ wrong--
+  Brought you to dumb and wintry middle-age, with grey
+  Unfruitful withering?--Ah, the pitiless things I say...
+
+  What do you ask your God for, at the end of day,
+  Kneeling beside your bed with bowed and hopeless head?
+  What mercy can He give you?--Dreams of the unborn
+  Children that haunt your soul like loving words unsaid--
+  Dreams, as a song half-heard through sleep in early morn?
+
+  I see you in the chapel, where you bend before
+  The enhaloed calm of everlasting Motherhood
+  That wounds your life; I see you humbled to adore
+  The painted miracle you've never understood.
+  Tender, and bitter-sweet, and shy, I've watched you holding
+  Another's child.  O childless woman, was it then
+  That, with an instant's cry, your heart, made young again,
+  Was crucified for ever--those poor arms enfolding
+  The life, the consummation that had been denied you?
+  I too have longed for children.  Ah, but you must not weep.
+  Something I have to whisper as I kneel beside you...
+  And you must pray for me before you fall asleep.
+
+
+
+
+  AFTERMATH
+
+  _Have you forgotten yet?_ ...
+  For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
+  Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of city-ways:
+  And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
+  Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you're a man
+      reprieved to go,
+  Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
+  _But the past is just the same--and War's a bloody game...
+  Have you forgotten yet? ...
+  Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that
+      you'll never forget._
+
+  Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--
+  The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled
+      sandbags on parapets?
+  Do you remember the rats; and the stench
+  Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench--
+  And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
+  Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'
+
+  Do you remember that hour of din before the attack--
+  And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
+  As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
+  Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
+  With dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-grey
+  Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?
+
+  _Have you forgotten yet? ...
+  Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that
+      you'll never forget._
+
+  _March, 1919_.
+
+
+
+
+  FALLING ASLEEP
+
+  Voices moving about in the quiet house:
+  Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors:
+  Everyone yawning ... only the clocks are alert.
+
+  Out in the night there's autumn-smelling gloom
+  Crowded with whispering trees,--looming of oaks
+  That roared in wild wet gales: across the park
+  The hollow cry of hounds like lonely bells:
+  And I know that the clouds are moving across the moon,
+  The low, red, rising moon.
+                      The herons call
+  And wrangle by their pool; and hooting owls
+  Sail from the wood across pale stocks of wheat.
+
+  Waiting for sleep, I drift from thoughts like these;
+  And where to-day was dream-like, build my dreams.
+  Music ... there was a bright white room below,
+  And someone singing a song about a soldier,--
+  One hour, two hours ago; and soon the song
+  Will be 'last night': but now the beauty swings
+  Across my brain, ghost of remember'd chords
+  Which still can make such radiance in my dream
+  That I can watch the marching of my soldiers,
+  And count their faces; faces; sunlit faces.
+
+  Falling asleep ... the herons, and the hounds...
+  September in the darkness; and the world
+  I've known; all fading past me into peace.
+
+
+
+
+  PRELUDE TO AN UNWRITTEN MASTERPIECE
+
+  You like my bird-sung gardens: wings and flowers;
+  Calm landscapes for emotion; star-lit lawns;
+  And Youth against the sun-rise ...  '_Not profound;_
+  '_But such a haunting music in the sound:_
+  '_Do it once more; it helps us to forget._'
+
+  Last night I dreamt an old recurring scene--
+  Some complex out of childhood; (sex, of course!)
+  I can't remember how the trouble starts;
+  And then I'm running blindly in the sun
+  Down the old orchard, and there's something cruel
+  Chasing me; someone roused to a grim pursuit
+  Of clumsy anger ...  Crash!  I'm through the fence
+  And thrusting wildly down the wood that's dense
+  With woven green of safety; paths that wind
+  Moss-grown from glade to glade; and far behind,
+  One thwarted yell; then silence.  I've escaped.
+
+  That's where it used to stop.  Last night I went
+  Onward until the trees were dark and huge,
+  And I was lost, cut off from all return
+  By swamps and birdless jungles.  I'd no chance
+  Of getting home for tea.  I woke with shivers,
+  And thought of crocodiles in crawling rivers.
+
+  Some day I'll build (more ruggedly than Doughty)
+  A dark tremendous song you'll never hear.
+  My beard will be a snow-storm, drifting whiter
+  On bowed, prophetic shoulders, year by year.
+  And some will say, 'His work has grown so dreary.'
+  Others, 'He used to be a charming writer.'
+  And you, my friend, will query--
+  'Why can't you cut it short, you pompous blighter?'
+
+
+
+
+  LIMITATIONS
+
+  If you could crowd them into forty lines!
+  Yes; you can do it, once you get a start:
+  All that you want is waiting in your head,
+  For long-ago you've learnt it off by heart.
+
+  * * * * * * *
+
+  Begin: your mind's the room where you must sleep,
+  (Don't pause for rhymes), till twilight wakes you early.
+  The window stands wide-open, as it stood
+  When tree-tops loomed enchanted for a child
+  Hearing the dawn's first thrushes through the wood
+  Warbling (you know the words) serene and wild.
+
+    You've said it all before: you dreamed of Death,
+    A dim Apollo in the bird-voiced breeze
+    That drifts across the morning veiled with showers,
+    While golden weather shines among dark trees.
+
+  You've got your limitations; let them sing,
+  And all your life will waken with a cry:
+  Why should you halt when rapture's on the wing
+  And you've no limit but the cloud-flocked sky?...
+
+    But some chap shouts, 'Here, stop it; that's been done!'--
+    As God might holloa to the rising sun,
+    And then relent, because the glorying rays
+    Reminded Him of glinting Eden days,
+    And Adam's trustful eyes as he looks up
+    From carving eagles on his beechwood cup.
+
+  Young Adam knew his job; he could condense
+  Life to an eagle from the unknown immense ...
+  Go on, whoever you are; your lines can be
+  A whisper in the music from the weirs
+  Of song that plunge and tumble toward the sea
+  That is the uncharted mercy of our tears.
+
+  * * * * * * *
+
+  I told you it was easy: words are fools
+  Who follow blindly, once they get a lead.
+  But thoughts are kingfishers that haunt the pools
+  Of quiet; seldom-seen; and all you need
+  Is just that flash of joy above your dream.
+  So, when those forty platitudes are done,
+  You'll hear a bird-note calling from the stream
+  That wandered through your childhood; and the sun
+  Will strike the old flaming wonder from the waters ...
+  And there'll be forty lines not yet begun.
+
+
+
+
+  EVERYONE SANG
+
+  Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
+  And I was filled with such delight
+  As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
+  Winging wildly across the white
+  Orchards and dark-green fields; on--on--and out of sight.
+
+  Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
+  And beauty came like the setting sun:
+  My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
+  Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
+  Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing
+        will never be done.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Picture-Show, by Siegfried Sassoon
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59800 ***