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diff --git a/old/67791-0.txt b/old/67791-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index bc3217b..0000000 --- a/old/67791-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3509 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Marlborough and Other Poems, by -Charles Hamilton Sorley - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Marlborough and Other Poems - -Author: Charles Hamilton Sorley - -Release Date: April 7, 2022 [eBook #67791] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by - University of California libraries) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARLBOROUGH AND OTHER -POEMS *** - - - - - - Marlborough - - and other poems - - CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS C. F. CLAY, MANAGER - London: FETTER LANE. E.C. Edinburgh: 100 PRINCES STREET - - [Illustration: colophon] - - New York: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS - Bombay, Calcutta and Madras: MACMILLAN AND Co., LTD. - Toronto: J. M. DENT AND SONS, LTD. - Tokyo: THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA - - - _All rights reserved_ - - [Illustration: Photo of the author] - - - - - Marlborough - - and other poems - - by - - CHARLES HAMILTON SORLEY - - LATE OF MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE - SOMETIME CAPTAIN IN THE SUFFOLK REGIMENT - - _Third edition - with illustrations in prose_ - - - Cambridge: - at the University Press - 1916 - - _Published, January 1916_ - _Second edition, slightly enlarged, February 1916_ - _Reprinted, February, April, May 1916_ - _Third edition, with illustrations in prose, October 1916_ - - - - -PREFACE - - -What was said concerning the author in the preface to the first edition -may be repeated here. He was born at Old Aberdeen on 19 May 1895. From -1900 onwards his home was in Cambridge. He was at Marlborough College -from September 1908 till December 1913, when he was elected to a -scholarship at University College, Oxford. After leaving school he spent -a little more than six months in Germany, returning home on the outbreak -of war. He was gazetted Second Lieutenant in the Seventh (Service) -Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment in August 1914, Lieutenant in -November, and Captain in the following August. His battalion was sent to -France on 30 May. He was killed in action near Hulluch on 13 October -1915. “Being made perfect in a little while, he fulfilled long years.” - -Many readers have asked for further information about the author or -contributions from his pen. I am not able to give all that is asked for; -but in this edition I have done what I can to meet the wishes of my -correspondents by appending to the poems a certain number of -illustrations in prose. With the exception of a few sentences from an -early essay, these prose passages are all taken from his letters to his -family and friends. They have been selected as illustrating some idea or -subject mentioned in the poems and prominent in his own mind. But the -relevancy is not always very close; the moods of the moment are -sometimes expressed rather than matured judgments; and it has to be -remembered that what was written was not intended for other eyes than -those of the person to whom it was addressed. - -With the poems it is different; and, had he lived, he would probably -himself have published a selection of them with such revision as he -deemed advisable. But when a suggestion about printing was made to him, -soon after he had entered upon his life in the trenches of Flanders, he -put the proposal aside as premature, adding “Besides, this is no time -for oliveyards and vineyards, more especially of the small-holdings -type. For three years or the duration of the war, let be.” His warfare -is now accomplished, and his relatives have felt themselves free to -publish. - -The original order of the poems is retained in this edition. The first -place is assigned to the title-poem; some early poems are printed at the -end; the other contents are arranged in the order of their composition, -as nearly as that order could be ascertained. When the date given -includes the day of the month, it has been taken from the author’s -manuscript; some of the other dates are approximate. Of the undated -poems, XIII to XVI were received from him in October 1914, XVII to XXIV -in April 1915, XXVII was found in his kit sent back from France, and -XXVIII (which appeared for the first time in the second edition) was -sent to a friend towards the end of July 1915. A single piece of -imaginative prose has been included amongst the poems. - -Some further information regarding them has been obtained recently. XVI -was written when he was at the Officers’ Training Camp at Churn early in -September 1914, and XVII a few days later, XV had its origin in his -journey from Churn to join his regiment at Shorncliffe on 18 September. -The first draft of it was sent to a friend soon afterwards with the -words: “enclosed the poem which eventually came out of the first day of -term at Paddington. Not much trace of the origin left; but I think it -should get a prize for being the first poem written since August 4th -that isn’t patriotic.” This draft differs slightly from the final form -of the poem, and instead of the present title (“Whom therefore we -ignorantly worship”), it is preceded by the verse “And these all, having -obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise.” The -poem called “Lost” (XXIV) was sent to the same friend in December 1914. -“I have tried for long,” he wrote, “to express in words the impression -that the land north of Marlborough must leave”; and he added, -“Simplicity, paucity of words, monotony almost, and mystery are -necessary. I think I have got it at last.” The signpost, which figures -here as well as elsewhere in the poems, stands at “the junction of the -grass tracks on the Aldbourne down--to Ogbourne, Marlborough, -Mildenhall, and Aldbourne. It stands up quite alone.” - -Three of the poems at least--II, VIII, and XII--were written entirely in -the open air. Concerning one of these he said, “‘Autumn Dawn’ has too -much copy from Meredith in it, but I value it as being (with ‘Return’) a -memento of my walk to Marlborough last September [1913].” Sending his -“occasional budget” in April 1915 he said, “You will notice that most of -what I have written is as hurried and angular as the handwriting: -written out at different times and dirty with my pocket: but I have had -no time for the final touch nor seem likely to have for some time, and -so send them as they are. Nor have I had time to think out (as I usually -do) a rigorous selection as fit for other eyes. So these are my -explanations of the fall in quality. I like ‘Le Revenant’ best, being -very interested in the previous and future experience of the character -concerned: but it sadly needs the file.” - -The letter in verse, fragments of which are given on pages 73-78, was -sent anonymously to an older friend whose connexion with Marlborough is -commemorated in the poem entitled “J. B.” J. B. discovered the -authorship of the epistle by sending the envelope to a Marlborough -master, and replied in the words which, by his permission, are printed -on the opposite page. - -RIGHT -W. R. S. - - _21 September 1916._ - - - From far away there comes a Voice, - Singing its song across the sea-- - Song to make man’s heart rejoice-- - Of Marlborough and the Odyssey. - - A voice that sings of Now and Then, - Of minstrel joys and tiny towns, - Of flowering thyme and fighting men, - Of Sparta’s sands and Marlborough’s Downs. - - God grant, dear Voice, one day again - We see those Downs in April weather, - And snuff the breeze, and smell the rain, - And stand in C House Porch together! - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - -I Marlborough 1 - -II Barbury Camp 5 - -III What you will 9 - -IV Rooks 12 - -V Rooks (II) 13 - -VI Stones 16 - -VII East Kennet Church at Evening 18 - -VIII Autumn Dawn 21 - -IX Return 25 - -X Richard Jefferies 27 - -XI J. B. 29 - -XII The Other Wise Man 31 - -XIII The Song of the Ungirt Runners 40 - -XIV German Rain 42 - -XV Whom therefore we ignorantly worship 43 - -XVI To Poets 44 - -XVII “A hundred thousand million mites we go” 46 - -XVIII Deus loquitur 48 - -XIX Two Songs from Ibsen’s Dramatic Poems 50 - -XX “If I have suffered pain” 53 - -XXI To Germany 56 - -XXII “All the hills and vales along” 57 - -XXIII Le Revenant 60 - -XXIV Lost 64 - -XXV Expectans expectavi 65 - -XXVI Two Sonnets 67 - -XXVII A Sonnet 69 - -XXVIII “There is such change in all those fields” 70 - -XXIX “I have not brought my Odyssey” 73 - -XXX In Memoriam S.C.W., V.C. 79 - -XXXI Behind the Lines 80 - - Earlier Poems: - -XXXII A Call to Action 87 - -XXXIII Rain 91 - -XXXIV A Tale of Two Careers 95 - -XXXV Peace 100 - -XXXVI The River 103 - -XXXVII The Seekers 107 - - Illustrations in prose 111 - - - - -I - -MARLBOROUGH - - -I - - Crouched where the open upland billows down - Into the valley where the river flows, - She is as any other country town, - That little lives or marks or hears or knows. - - And she can teach but little. She has not - The wonder and the surging and the roar - Of striving cities. Only things forgot - That once were beautiful, but now no more, - - Has she to give us. Yet to one or two - She first brought knowledge, and it was for her - To open first our eyes, until we knew - How great, immeasurably great, we were. - - I, who have walked along her downs in dreams, - And known her tenderness, and felt her might, - And sometimes by her meadows and her streams - Have drunk deep-storied secrets of delight, - - Have had my moments there, when I have been - Unwittingly aware of something more. - Some beautiful aspect, that I had seen - With mute unspeculative eyes before; - - Have had my times, when, though the earth did wear - Her self-same trees and grasses, I could see - The revelation that is always there, - But somehow is not always clear to me. - - -II - - So, long ago, one halted on his way - And sent his company and cattle on; - His caravans trooped darkling far away - Into the night, and he was left alone. - - And he was left alone. And, lo, a man - There wrestled with him till the break of day. - The brook was silent and the night was wan. - And when the dawn was come, he passed away. - - The sinew of the hollow of his thigh - Was shrunken, as he wrestled there alone. - The brook was silent, but the dawn was nigh. - The stranger named him Israel and was gone. - - And the sun rose on Jacob; and he knew - That he was no more Jacob, but had grown - A more immortal vaster spirit, who - Had seen God face to face, and still lived on. - - The plain that seemed to stretch away to God, - The brook that saw and heard and knew no fear, - Were now the self-same soul as he who stood - And waited for his brother to draw near. - - For God had wrestled with him, and was gone. - He looked around, and only God remained. - The dawn, the desert, he and God were one. - --And Esau came to meet him, travel-stained. - - -III - - So, there, when sunset made the downs look new - And earth gave up her colours to the sky, - And far away the little city grew - Half into sight, new-visioned was my eye. - - I, who have lived, and trod her lovely earth, - Raced with her winds and listened to her birds, - Have cared but little for their worldly worth - Nor sought to put my passion into words. - - But now it’s different; and I have no rest - Because my hand must search, dissect and spell - The beauty that is better not expressed, - The thing that all can feel, but none can tell. - - _1 March 1914_ - - - - -II - -BARBURY CAMP - - - We burrowed night and day with tools of lead, - Heaped the bank up and cast it in a ring - And hurled the earth above. And Caesar said, - “Why, it is excellent. I like the thing.” - We, who are dead, - Made it, and wrought, and Caesar liked the thing. - - And here we strove, and here we felt each vein - Ice-bound, each limb fast-frozen, all night long. - And here we held communion with the rain - That lashed us into manhood with its thong, - Cleansing through pain. - And the wind visited us and made us strong. - - Up from around us, numbers without name, - Strong men and naked, vast, on either hand - Pressing us in, they came. And the wind came - And bitter rain, turning grey all the land. - That was our game, - To fight with men and storms, and it was grand. - - For many days we fought them, and our sweat - Watered the grass, making it spring up green, - Blooming for us. And, if the wind was wet, - Our blood wetted the wind, making it keen - With the hatred - And wrath and courage that our blood had been. - - So, fighting men and winds and tempests, hot - With joy and hate and battle-lust, we fell - Where we fought. And God said, “Killed at last then? What? - Ye that are too strong for heaven, too clean for hell, - (God said) stir not. - This be your heaven, or, if ye will, your hell.” - - So again we fight and wrestle, and again - Hurl the earth up and cast it in a ring. - But when the wind comes up, driving the rain - (Each rain-drop a fiery steed), and the mists rolling - Up from the plain, - This wild procession, this impetuous thing, - - Hold us amazed. We mount the wind-cars, then - Whip up the steeds and drive through all the world. - Searching to find somewhere some brethren. - Sons of the winds and waters of the world. - We, who were men. - Have sought, and found no men in all this world. - - Wind, that has blown here always ceaselessly. - Bringing, if any man can understand, - Might to the mighty, freedom to the free; - Wind, that has caught us, cleansed us, made us grand - Wind that is we - (We that were men)--make men in all this land, - That so may live and wrestle and hate that when - They fall at last exultant, as we fell, - And come to God, God may say, “Do you come then - Mildly enquiring, is it heaven or hell? - Why! Ye were men! - Back to your winds and rains. Be these your heaven and hell!” - - _24 March 1913_ - - - - -III - -WHAT YOU WILL - - - O come and see, it’s such a sight, - So many boys all doing right: - To see them underneath the yoke, - Blindfolded by the elder folk, - Move at a most impressive rate - Along the way that is called straight. - O, it is comforting to know - They’re in the way they ought to go. - But don’t you think it’s far more gay - To see them slowly leave the way - And limp and loose themselves and fall? - O, that’s the nicest thing of all. - I love to see this sight, for then - I know they are becoming men, - And they are tiring of the shrine - Where things are really not divine. - - I do not know if it seems brave - The youthful spirit to enslave, - And hedge about, lest it should grow. - I don’t know if it’s better so - In the long end. I only know - That when I have a son of mine, - He shan’t be made to droop and pine. - Bound down and forced by rule and rod - To serve a God who is no God. - But I’ll put custom on the shelf - And make him find his God himself. - - Perhaps he’ll find him in a tree, - Some hollow trunk, where you can see. - Perhaps the daisies in the sod - Will open out and show him God. - Or will he meet him in the roar - Of breakers as they beat the shore? - Or in the spiky stars that shine? - Or in the rain (where I found mine)? - Or in the city’s giant moan? - --A God who will be all his own, - To whom he can address a prayer - And love him, for he is so fair, - And see with eyes that are not dim - And build a temple meet for him. - - _June 1913_ - - - - -IV - -ROOKS - - - There, where the rusty iron lies, - The rooks are cawing all the day. - Perhaps no man, until he dies, - Will understand them, what they say. - - The evening makes the sky like clay. - The slow wind waits for night to rise. - The world is half-content. But they - - Still trouble all the trees with cries, - That know, and cannot put away, - The yearning to the soul that flies - From day to night, from night to day. - - _21 June 1913_ - - - - -V - -ROOKS (II) - - - There is such cry in all these birds, - More than can ever be express’d; - If I should put it into words, - You would agree it were not best - To wake such wonder from its rest. - - But since to-night the world is still - And only they and I astir, - We are united, will to will, - By bondage tighter, tenderer - Than any lovers ever were. - - And if, of too much labouring. - All that I see around should die - (There is such sleep in each green thing, - Such weariness in all the sky), - We would live on, these birds and I. - - Yet how? since everything must pass - At evening with the sinking sun, - And Christ is gone, and Barabbas, - Judas and Jesus, gone, clean gone, - Then how shall I live on? - - Yet surely, Judas must have heard - Amidst his torments the long cry - Of some lone Israelitish bird, - And on it, ere he went to die, - Thrown all his spirit’s agony. - - And that immortal cry which welled - For Judas, ever afterwards - Passion on passion still has swelled - And sweetened, till to-night these birds - Will take my words, will take my words, - - And wrapping them in music meet - Will sing their spirit through the sky, - Strange and unsatisfied and sweet-- - That, when stock-dead am I, am I, - O, these will never die! - - _July 1913_ - - - - -VI - -STONES - - - This field is almost white with stone - That cumber all its thirsty crust. - And underneath, I know, are bones. - And all around is death and dust. - - And if you love a livelier hue-- - O, if you love the youth of year, - When all is clean and green and new, - Depart. There is no summer here. - - Albeit, to me there lingers yet - In this forbidding stony dress - The impotent and dim regret - For some forgotten restlessness. - - Dumb, imperceptibly astir, - These relics of an ancient race, - These men, in whom the dead bones were, - Still fortifying their resting-place. - - Their field of life was white with stones; - Good fruit to earth they never brought. - O, in these bleached and buried bones - Was neither love nor faith nor thought. - - But like the wind in this bleak place, - Bitter and bleak and sharp they grew. - And bitterly they ran their race, - A brutal, bad, unkindly crew: - - Souls like the dry earth, hearts like stone. - Brains like that barren bramble-tree: - Stern, sterile, senseless, mute, unknown-- - But bold, O, bolder far than we! - - _14 July 1913_ - - - - -VII - -EAST KENNET CHURCH AT EVENING - - - I stood amongst the corn, and watched - The evening coming down. - The rising vale was like a queen, - And the dim church her crown. - - Crown-like it stood against the hills. - Its form was passing fair. - I almost saw the tribes go up - To offer incense there. - - And far below the long vale stretched. - As a sleeper she did seem - That after some brief restlessness - Has now begun to dream. - - (All day the wakefulness of men, - Their lives and labours brief, - Have broken her long troubled sleep. - Now, evening brings relief.) - - There was no motion there, nor sound. - She did not seem to rise. - Yet was she wrapping herself in - Her grey of night-disguise. - - For now no church nor tree nor fold - Was visible to me: - Only that fading into one - Which God must sometimes see. - - No coloured glory streaked the sky - To mark the sinking sun. - There was no redness in the west - To tell that day was done. - - Only, the greyness of the eve - Grew fuller than before. - And, in its fulness, it made one - Of what had once been more. - - There was much beauty in that sight - That man must not long see. - God dropped the kindly veil of night - Between its end and me. - - _24 July 1913_ - - - - -VIII - -AUTUMN DAWN - - - And this is morning. Would you think - That this was the morning, when the land - Is full of heavy eyes that blink - Half-opened, and the tall trees stand - Too tired to shake away the drops - Of passing night that cling around - Their branches and weigh down their tops: - And the grey sky leans on the ground? - The thrush sings once or twice, but stops - Affrighted by the silent sound. - The sheep, scarce moving, munches, moans. - The slow herd mumbles, thick with phlegm. - The grey road-mender, hacking stones, - Is now become as one of them. - Old mother Earth has rubbed her eyes - And stayed, so senseless, lying down. - Old mother is too tired to rise - And lay aside her grey nightgown, - And come with singing and with strength - In loud exuberance of day, - Swift-darting. She is tired at length, - Done up, past bearing, you would say. - She’ll come no more in lust of strife, - In hedges’ leap, and wild birds’ cries, - In winds that cut you like a knife, - In days of laughter and swift skies, - That palpably pulsate with life, - With life that kills, with life that dies. - But in a morning such as this - Is neither life nor death to see, - Only that state which some call bliss, - Grey hopeless immortality. - Earth is at length bedrid. She is - Supinest of the things that be: - And stilly, heavy with long years, - Brings forth such days in dumb regret, - Immortal days, that rise in tears, - And cannot, though they strive to, set. - - * * * * * - - The mists do move. The wind takes breath. - The sun appeareth over there, - And with red fingers hasteneth - From Earth’s grey bed the clothes to tear, - And strike the heavy mist’s dank tent. - And Earth uprises with a sigh. - She is astir. She is not spent. - And yet she lives and yet can die. - The grey road-mender from the ditch - Looks up. He has not looked before. - The stunted tree sways like the witch - It was: ’tis living witch once more. - The winds are washen. In the deep - Dew of the morn they’ve washed. The skies - Are changing dress. The clumsy sheep - Bound, and earth’s many bosoms rise, - And earth’s green tresses spring and leap - About her brow. The earth has eyes, - The earth has voice, the earth has breath, - As o’er the land and through the air, - With wingéd sandals, Life and Death - Speed hand in hand--that winsome pair! - - _16 September 1913_ - - - - -IX - -RETURN - - - Still stand the downs so wise and wide? - Still shake the trees their tresses grey? - I thought their beauty might have died - Since I had been away. - - I might have known the things I love, - The winds, the flocking birds’ full cry, - The trees that toss, the downs that move, - Were longer things than I. - - Lo, earth that bows before the wind, - With wild green children overgrown, - And all her bosoms, many-whinned, - Receive me as their own. - - The birds are hushed and fled: the cows - Have ceased at last to make long moan. - They only think to browse and browse - Until the night is grown. - - The wind is stiller than it was, - And dumbness holds the closing day. - The earth says not a word, because - It has no word to say. - - The dear soft grasses under foot - Are silent to the listening ear. - Yet beauty never can be mute, - And some will always hear. - - _18 September 1913_ - - - - -X - -RICHARD JEFFERIES - -(LIDDINGTON CASTLE) - - - I see the vision of the Vale - Rise teeming to the rampart Down, - The fields and, far below, the pale - Red-roofédness of Swindon town. - - But though I see all things remote, - I cannot see them with the eyes - With which ere now the man from Coate - Looked down and wondered and was wise. - - He knew the healing balm of night, - The strong and sweeping joy of day, - The sensible and dear delight - Of life, the pity of decay. - - And many wondrous words he wrote, - And something good to man he showed, - About the entering in of Coate, - There, on the dusty Swindon road. - - _19 September 1913_ - - - - -XI - -J. B. - - - There’s still a horse on Granham hill, - And still the Kennet moves, and still - Four Miler sways and is not still. - But where is her interpreter? - - The downs are blown into dismay, - The stunted trees seem all astray, - Looking for someone clad in grey - And carrying a golf-club thing; - - Who, them when he had lived among, - Gave them what they desired, a tongue. - Their words he gave them to be sung - Perhaps were few, but they were true. - - The trees, the downs, on either hand, - Still stand, as he said they would stand. - But look, the rain in all the land - Makes all things dim with tears of him. - - And recently the Kennet croons, - And winds are playing widowed tunes. - --He has not left our “toun o’ touns,” - But taken it away with him! - - _October 1913_ - - - - -XII - -THE OTHER WISE MAN - - - (SCENE: _A valley with a wood on one side and a road running up to - a distant hill: as it might be, the valley to the east of West - Woods, that runs up to Oare Hill, only much larger._ TIME: _Autumn. - Four wise men are marching hillward along the road._) - - ONE WISE MAN - - I wonder where the valley ends? - On, comrades, on. - - ANOTHER WISE MAN - - The rain-red road, - Still shining sinuously, bends - Leagues upwards. - - A THIRD WISE MAN - - To the hill, O friends, - To seek the star that once has glowed - Before us; turning not to right - Nor left, nor backward once looking. - Till we have clomb--and with the night - We see the King. - - ALL THE WISE MEN - - The King! The King! - - THE THIRD WISE MAN - - Long is the road but-- - - A FOURTH WISE MAN - - Brother, see, - There, to the left, a very aisle - Composed of every sort of tree-- - - THE FIRST WISE MAN - - Still onward-- - - THE FOURTH WISE MAN - - Oak and beech and birch, - Like a church, but homelier than church, - The black trunks for its walls of tile; - Its roof, old leaves; its floor, beech nuts; - The squirrels its congregation-- - - THE SECOND WISE MAN - - Tuts! - For still we journey-- - - THE FOURTH WISE MAN - - But the sun weaves - A water-web across the grass, - Binding their tops. You must not pass - The water cobweb. - - THE THIRD WISE MAN - - Hush! I say. - Onward and upward till the day-- - - THE FOURTH WISE MAN - - Brother, that tree has crimson leaves. - You’ll never see its like again. - Don’t miss it. Look, it’s bright with rain-- - - THE FIRST WISE MAN - - O prating tongue. On, on. - - THE FOURTH WISE MAN - - And there - A toad-stool, nay, a goblin stool. - No toad sat on a thing so fair. - Wait, while I pluck--and there’s--and here’s - A whole ring ... what?... berries? - -(_The Fourth Wise Man drops behind, botanizing._) - - THE WISEST OF THE REMAINING THREE WISE MEN - - O fool! - Fool, fallen in this vale of tears - His hand had touched the plough: his eyes - Looked back: no more with us, his peers, - He’ll climb the hill and front the skies - And see the Star, the King, the Prize. - But we, the seekers, we who see - Beyond the mists of transiency-- - Our feet down in the valley still - Are set, our eyes are on the hill. - Last night the star of God has shone, - And so we journey, up and on, - With courage clad, with swiftness shod, - All thoughts of earth behind us cast, - Until we see the lights of God, - --And what will be the crown at last? - - ALL THREE WISE MEN - - On, on. - -(_They pass on: it is already evening when the Other Wise Man limps -along the road, still botanizing._) - - THE OTHER WISE MAN - - A vale of tears, they said! - A valley made of woes and fears, - To be passed by with muffled head - Quickly. I have not seen the tears, - Unless they take the rain for tears, - And certainly the place is wet. - Rain laden leaves are ever licking - Your cheeks and hands ... I can’t get on. - There’s a toad-stool that wants picking. - There, just there, a little up, - What strange things to look upon - With pink hood and orange cup! - And there are acorns, yellow--green ... - They said the King was at the end. - They must have been - Wrong. For here, here, I intend - To search for him, for surely here - Are all the wares of the old year, - And all the beauty and bright prize, - And all God’s colours meetly showed, - Green for the grass, blue for the skies, - Red for the rain upon the road; - And anything you like for trees, - But chiefly yellow brown and gold, - Because the year is growing old - And loves to paint her children these. - I tried to follow ... but, what do you think? - The mushrooms here are pink! - And there’s old clover with black polls - Black-headed clover, black as coals, - And toad-stools, sleek as ink! - And there are such heaps of little turns - Off the road, wet with old rain: - Each little vegetable lane - Of moss and old decaying ferns, - Beautiful in decay, - Snatching a beauty from whatever may - Be their lot, dark-red and luscious: till there pass’d - Over the many-coloured earth a grey - Film. It was evening coming down at last. - And all things hid their faces, covering up - Their peak or hood or bonnet or bright cup - In greyness, and the beauty faded fast, - With all the many-coloured coat of day. - Then I looked up, and lo! the sunset sky - Had taken the beauty from the autumn earth. - Such colour, O such colour, could not die. - The trees stood black against such revelry - Of lemon-gold and purple and crimson dye. - And even as the trees, so I - Stood still and worshipped, though by evening’s birth - I should have capped the hills and seen the King. - The King? The King? - I must be miles away from my journey’s end; - The others must be now nearing - The summit, glad. By now they wend - Their way far, far, ahead, no doubt. - I wonder if they’ve reached the end. - If they have, I have not heard them shout. - - _1 December 1913_ - - - - -XIII - -THE SONG OF THE UNGIRT RUNNERS - - - We swing ungirded hips, - And lightened are our eyes, - The rain is on our lips, - We do not run for prize. - We know not whom we trust - Nor whitherward we fare, - But we run because we must - Through the great wide air. - - The waters of the seas - Are troubled as by storm. - The tempest strips the trees - And does not leave them warm. - Does the tearing tempest pause? - Do the tree-tops ask it why? - So we run without a cause - ’Neath the big bare sky. - - The rain is on our lips, - We do not run for prize. - But the storm the water whips - And the wave howls to the skies. - The winds arise and strike it - And scatter it like sand, - And we run because we like it - Through the broad bright land. - - - - -XIV - -GERMAN RAIN - - - The heat came down and sapped away my powers. - The laden heat came down and drowned my brain, - Till through the weight of overcoming hours - I felt the rain. - - Then suddenly I saw what more to see - I never thought: old things renewed, retrieved. - The rain that fell in England fell on me, - And I believed. - - - - -XV - -WHOM THEREFORE WE IGNORANTLY WORSHIP - - - These things are silent. Though it may be told - Of luminous deeds that lighten land and sea, - Strong sounding actions with broad minstrelsy - Of praise, strange hazards and adventures bold, - We hold to the old things that grow not old: - Blind, patient, hungry, hopeless (without fee - Of all our hunger and unhope are we), - To the first ultimate instinct, to God we hold. - - They flicker, glitter, flicker. But we bide, - We, the blind weavers of an intense fate, - Asking but this--that we may be denied: - Desiring only desire insatiate, - Unheard, unnamed, unnoticed, crucified - To our unutterable faith, we wait. - - - - -XVI - -TO POETS - - - We are the homeless, even as you, - Who hope and never can begin. - Our hearts are wounded through and through - Like yours, but our hearts bleed within. - We too make music, but our tones - ’Scape not the barrier of our bones. - - We have no comeliness like you. - We toil, unlovely, and we spin. - We start, return: we wind, undo: - We hope, we err, we strive, we sin, - We love: your love’s not greater, but - The lips of our love’s might stay shut. - - We have the evil spirits too - That shake our soul with battle-din. - But we have an eviller spirit than you - We have a dumb spirit within: - The exceeding bitter agony - But not the exceeding bitter cry. - - - - -XVII - - - A hundred thousand million mites we go - Wheeling and tacking o’er the eternal plain, - Some black with death--and some are white with woe. - Who sent us forth? Who takes us home again? - - And there is sound of hymns of praise--to whom? - And curses--on whom curses?--snap the air. - And there is hope goes hand in hand with gloom. - And blood and indignation and despair. - - And there is murmuring of the multitude - And blindness and great blindness, until some - Step forth and challenge blind Vicissitude - Who tramples on them: so that fewer come. - - And nations, ankle-deep in love or hate, - Throw darts or kisses all the unwitting hour - Beside the ominous unseen tide of fate; - And there is emptiness and drink and power. - - And some are mounted on swift steeds of thought - And some drag sluggish feet of stable toil. - Yet all, as though they furiously sought, - Twist turn and tussle, close and cling and coil. - - A hundred thousand million mites we sway - Writhing and tossing on the eternal plain, - Some black with death--but most are bright with Day! - Who sent us forth? Who brings us home again? - - - - -XVIII - -DEUS LOQUITUR - - - That’s what I am: a thing of no desire, - With no path to discover and no plea - To offer up, so be my altar fire - May burn before the hearth continuously, - To be - For wayward men a steadfast light to see. - - They know me in the morning of their days, - But ere noontide forsake me, to discern - New lore and hear new riddles. But moonrays - Bring them back footsore, humble, bent, a-burn - To turn - And warm them by my fire which they did spurn. - - They flock together like tired birds. “We sought - Full many stars in many skies to see. - But ever knowledge disappointment brought. - Thy light alone, Lord, burneth steadfastly.” - Ah me! - Then it is I who fain would wayward be. - - - - -XIX - -TWO SONGS FROM IBSEN’S DRAMATIC POEMS - - -I BRAND - - Thou trod’st the shifting sand path where man’s race is. - The print of thy soft sandals is still clear. - I too have trodden it those prints a-near, - But the sea washes out my tired foot-traces. - And all that thou hast healed and holpen here - I yearned to heal and help and wipe the tear - Away. But still I trod unpeopled spaces. - I had no twelve to follow my pure paces. - For I had thy misgivings and thy fear, - Thy crown of scorn, thy suffering’s sharp spear, - Thy hopes, thy longings--only not thy dear - Love (for my crying love would no man hear), - Thy will to love, but not thy love’s sweet graces, - That deep firm foothold which no sea erases. - I think that thou wast I in bygone places - In an intense eliminated year. - Now born again in days that are more drear - I wander unfulfilled: and see strange faces. - - -II PEER GYNT - - When he was young and beautiful and bold - We hated him, for he was very strong. - But when he came back home again, quite old, - And wounded too, we could not hate him long. - - For kingliness and conquest pranced he forth - Like some high-stepping charger bright with foam. - And south he strode and east and west and north - With need of crowns and never need of home. - - Enraged we heard high tidings of his strength - And cursed his long forgetfulness. We swore - That should he come back home some eve at length. - We would deny him, we would bar the door! - - And then he came. The sound of those tired feet! - And all our home and all our hearts are his, - Where bitterness, grown weary, turns to sweet, - And envy, purged by longing, pity is. - - And pillows rest beneath the withering cheek, - And hands are laid the battered brows above, - And he whom we had hated, waxen weak, - First in his weakness learns a little love. - - - - -XX - - - If I have suffered pain - It is because I would. - I willed it. ’Tis no good - To murmur or complain. - I have not served the law - That keeps the earth so fair - And gives her clothes to wear - Raiment of joy and awe. - - For all that bow to bless - That law shall sure abide. - But man shall not abide, - And hence his gloriousness. - Lo, evening earth doth lie - All-beauteous and all peace. - Man only does not cease - From striving and from cry. - - Sun sets in peace: and soon - The moon will shower her peace. - O law-abiding moon, - You hold your peace in fee! - Man, leastways, will not be - Down-bounden to these laws. - Man’s spirit sees no cause - To serve such laws as these. - - There yet are many seas - For man to wander in. - He yet must find out sin, - If aught of pleasance there - Remain for him to store, - His rovings to increase, - In quest of many a shore - Forbidden still to fare. - - Peace sleeps the earth upon, - And sweet peace on the hill. - The waves that whimper still - At their long law-serving - (O flowing sad complaint!) - Come on and are back drawn. - Man only owns no king, - Man only is not faint. - - You see, the earth is bound. - You see, the man is free. - For glorious liberty - He suffers and would die. - Grudge not then suffering - Or chastisemental cry. - O let his pain abound, - Earth’s truant and earth’s king! - - - - -XXI - -TO GERMANY - - - You are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed, - And no man claimed the conquest of your land. - But gropers both through fields of thought confined - We stumble and we do not understand. - You only saw your future bigly planned, - And we, the tapering paths of our own mind, - And in each other’s dearest ways we stand, - And hiss and hate. And the blind fight the blind. - - When it is peace, then we may view again - With new-won eyes each other’s truer form - And wonder. Grown more loving-kind and warm - We’ll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain, - When it is peace. But until peace, the storm - The darkness and the thunder and the rain. - - - - -XXII - - - All the hills and vales along - Earth is bursting into song, - And the singers are the chaps - Who are going to die perhaps. - O sing, marching men, - Till the valleys ring again. - Give your gladness to earth’s keeping, - So be glad, when you are sleeping. - - Cast away regret and rue, - Think what you are marching to. - Little live, great pass. - Jesus Christ and Barabbas - Were found the same day. - This died, that went his way. - So sing with joyful breath. - For why, you are going to death. - Teeming earth will surely store - All the gladness that you pour. - - Earth that never doubts nor fears, - Earth that knows of death, not tears, - Earth that bore with joyful ease - Hemlock for Socrates, - Earth that blossomed and was glad - ’Neath the cross that Christ had, - Shall rejoice and blossom too - When the bullet reaches you. - Wherefore, men marching - On the road to death, sing! - Pour your gladness on earth’s head, - So be merry, so be dead. - - From the hills and valleys earth - Shouts back the sound of mirth, - Tramp of feet and lilt of song - Ringing all the road along. - All the music of their going, - Ringing swinging glad song-throwing, - Earth will echo still, when foot - Lies numb and voice mute. - On, marching men, on - To the gates of death with song, - Sow your gladness for earth’s reaping, - So you may be glad, though sleeping, - Strew your gladness on earth’s bed, - So be merry, so be dead. - - - - -XXIII - -LE REVENANT - - - He trod the oft-remembered lane - (Now smaller-seeming than before - When first he left his father’s door - For newer things), but still quite plain - - (Though half-benighted now) upstood - Old landmarks, ghosts across the lane - That brought the Bygone back again: - Shorn haystacks and the rooky wood; - The guide post, too, which once he clomb - To read the figures: fourteen miles - To Swindon, four to Clinton Stiles, - And only half a mile to home: - - And far away the one homestead, where-- - Behind the day now not quite set - So that he saw in silhouette - Its chimneys still stand black and bare-- - - He noticed that the trees were not - So big as when he journeyed last - That way. For greatly now he passed - Striding above the hedges, hot - - With hopings, as he passed by where - A lamp before him glanced and stayed - Across his path, so that his shade - Seemed like a giant’s moving there. - - The dullness of the sunken sun - He marked not, nor how dark it grew, - Nor that strange flapping bird that flew - Above: he thought but of the One.... - - He topped the crest and crossed the fence, - Noticed the garden that it grew - As erst, noticed the hen-house too - (The kennel had been altered since). - - It seemed so unchanged and so still. - (Could it but be the past arisen - For one short night from out of prison?) - He reached the big-bowed window-sill, - - Lifted the window sash with care, - Then, gaily throwing aside the blind, - Shouted. It was a shock to find - That he was not remembered there. - - At once he felt not all his pain, - But murmuringly apologised, - Turned, once more sought the undersized - Blown trees, and the long lanky lane, - - Wondering and pondering on, past where - A lamp before him glanced and stayed - Across his path, so that his shade - Seemed like a giant’s moving there. - - - - -XXIV - -LOST - - - Across my past imaginings - Has dropped a blindness silent and slow. - My eye is bent on other things - Than those it once did see and know. - - I may not think on those dear lands - (O far away and long ago!) - Where the old battered signpost stands - And silently the four roads go - - East, west, south and north, - And the cold winter winds do blow. - And what the evening will bring forth - Is not for me nor you to know. - - - - -XXV - -EXPECTANS EXPECTAVI - - - From morn to midnight, all day through, - I laugh and play as others do, - I sin and chatter, just the same - As others with a different name. - - And all year long upon the stage - I dance and tumble and do rage - So vehemently, I scarcely see - The inner and eternal me. - - I have a temple I do not - Visit, a heart I have forgot, - A self that I have never met, - A secret shrine--and yet, and yet - This sanctuary of my soul - Unwitting I keep white and whole - Unlatched and lit, if Thou should’st care - To enter or to tarry there. - - With parted lips and outstretched hands - And listening ears Thy servant stands, - Call Thou early, call Thou late, - To Thy great service dedicate. - - _May 1915_ - - - - -XXVI - -TWO SONNETS - - -I - - Saints have adored the lofty soul of you. - Poets have whitened at your high renown. - We stand among the many millions who - Do hourly wait to pass your pathway down. - You, so familiar, once were strange: we tried - To live as of your presence unaware. - But now in every road on every side - We see your straight and steadfast signpost there. - - I think it like that signpost in my land - Hoary and tall, which pointed me to go - Upward, into the hills, on the right hand, - Where the mists swim and the winds shriek and blow, - A homeless land and friendless, but a land - I did not know and that I wished to know. - - -II - - Such, such is Death: no triumph: no defeat: - Only an empty pail, a slate rubbed clean, - A merciful putting away of what has been. - - And this we know: Death is not Life effete, - Life crushed, the broken pail. We who have seen - So marvellous things know well the end not yet. - - Victor and vanquished are a-one in death: - Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say - “Come, what was your record when you drew breath?” - But a big blot has hid each yesterday - So poor, so manifestly incomplete. - And your bright Promise, withered long and sped, - Is touched, stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet - And blossoms and is you, when you are dead. - - _12 June 1915_ - - - - -XXVII - - - When you see millions of the mouthless dead - Across your dreams in pale battalions go, - Say not soft things as other men have said, - That you’ll remember. For you need not so. - Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know - It is not curses heaped on each gashed head? - Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow. - Nor honour. It is easy to be dead. - Say only this, “They are dead.” Then add thereto, - “Yet many a better one has died before.” - Then, scanning all the o’ercrowded mass, should you - Perceive one face that you loved heretofore, - It is a spook. None wears the face you knew. - Great death has made all his for evermore. - - - - -XXVIII - - - There is such change in all those fields, - Such motion rhythmic, ordered, free, - Where ever-glancing summer yields - Birth, fragrance, sunlight, immanency, - To make us view our rights of birth. - What shall we do? How shall we die? - We, captives of a roaming earth, - Mid shades that life and light deny. - Blank summer’s surfeit heaves in mist; - Dumb earth basks dewy-washed; while still - We whom Intelligence has kissed - Do make us shackles of our will. - And yet I know in each loud brain, - Round-clamped with laws and learning so, - Is madness more and lust of strain - Than earth’s jerked godlings e’er can know. - - The false Delilah of our brain - Has set us round the millstone going. - O lust of roving! lust of pain! - Our hair will not be long in growing. - Like blinded Samson round we go. - We hear the grindstone groan and cry. - Yet we are kings, we know, we know. - What shall we do? How shall we die? - - Take but our pauper’s gift of birth, - O let us from the grindstone free! - And tread the maddening gladdening earth - In strength close-braced with purity. - The earth is old; we ever new. - Our eyes should see no other sense - Than this, eternally to DO-- - Our joy, our task, our recompense; - Up unexploréd mountains move, - Track tireless through great wastes afar, - Nor slumber in the arms of love, - Nor tremble on the brink of war; - Make Beauty and make Rest give place, - Mock Prudence loud--and she is gone, - Smite Satisfaction on the face - And tread the ghost of Ease upon. - Light-lipped and singing press we hard - Over old earth which now is worn, - Triumphant, buffetted and scarred, - By billows howled at, tempest-torn, - Toward blue horizons far away - (Which do not give the rest we need, - But some long strife, more than this play, - Some task that will be stern indeed)-- - We ever new, we ever young, - We happy creatures of a day! - What will the gods say, seeing us strung - As nobly and as taut as they? - - - - -XXIX - - - I have not brought my Odyssey - With me here across the sea; - But you’ll remember, when I say - How, when they went down Sparta way, - To sandy Sparta, long ere dawn - Horses were harnessed, rations drawn, - Equipment polished sparkling bright, - And breakfasts swallowed (as the white - Of Eastern heavens turned to gold)-- - The dogs barked, swift farewells were told. - The sun springs up, the horses neigh, - Crackles the whip thrice--then away! - From sun-go-up to sun-go-down - All day across the sandy down - The gallant horses galloped, till - The wind across the downs more chill - Blew, the sun sank and all the road - Was darkened, that it only showed - Right at the end the town’s red light - And twilight glimmering into night. - - The horses never slackened till - They reached the doorway and stood still. - Then came the knock, the unlading; then - The honey-sweet converse of men, - The splendid bath, the change of dress, - Then--O the grandeur of their Mess, - The henchmen, the prim stewardess! - And O the breaking of old ground, - The tales, after the port went round! - (The wondrous wiles of old Odysseus, - Old Agamemnon and his misuse - Of his command, and that young chit - Paris--who didn’t care a bit - For Helen--only to annoy her - He did it really, κ.τ.λ.) - But soon they led amidst the din - The honey-sweet ἀοιδὸς in, - Whose eyes were blind, whose soul had sight, - Who knew the fame of men in fight-- - Bard of white hair and trembling foot, - Who sang whatever God might put - Into his heart. - And there he sung, - Those war-worn veterans among, - Tales of great war and strong hearts wrung, - Of clash of arms, of council’s brawl, - Of beauty that must early fall, - Of battle hate and battle joy - By the old windy walls of Troy. - They felt that they were unreal then, - Visions and shadow-forms, not men. - But those the Bard did sing and say - (Some were their comrades, some were they) - Took shape and loomed and strengthened more - Greatly than they had guessed of yore. - And now the fight begins again, - The old war-joy, the old war-pain. - Sons of one school across the sea - We have no fear to fight-- - - * * * * * - - And soon, O soon, I do not doubt it, - With the body or without it, - We shall all come tumbling down - To our old wrinkled red-capped town. - Perhaps the road up Ilsley way, - The old ridge-track, will be my way. - High up among the sheep and sky, - Look down on Wantage, passing by, - And see the smoke from Swindon town; - And then full left at Liddington, - Where the four winds of heaven meet - The earth-blest traveller to greet. - And then my face is toward the south, - There is a singing on my mouth: - Away to rightward I descry - My Barbury ensconced in sky, - Far underneath the Ogbourne twins, - And at my feet the thyme and whins, - The grasses with their little crowns - Of gold, the lovely Aldbourne downs, - And that old signpost (well I knew - That crazy signpost, arms askew, - Old mother of the four grass ways). - And then my mouth is dumb with praise, - For, past the wood and chalkpit tiny, - A glimpse of Marlborough ἐρατεινή! - So I descend beneath the rail - To warmth and welcome and wassail. - - * * * * * - - This from the battered trenches--rough, - Jingling and tedious enough. - And so I sign myself to you: - One, who some crooked pathways knew - Round Bedwyn: who could scarcely leave - The Downs on a December eve: - Was at his happiest in shorts, - And got--not many good reports! - Small skill of rhyming in his hand-- - But you’ll forgive--you’ll understand. - - _12 July 1915_ - - - - -XXX - -IN MEMORIAM - -S.C.W., V.C. - - - There is no fitter end than this. - No need is now to yearn nor sigh. - We know the glory that is his, - A glory that can never die. - - Surely we knew it long before, - Knew all along that he was made - For a swift radiant morning, for - A sacrificing swift night-shade. - - _8 September 1915_ - - - - -XXXI - -BEHIND THE LINES - - -We are now at the end of a few days’ rest, a kilometre behind the lines. -Except for the farmyard noises (new style) it might almost be the little -village that first took us to its arms six weeks ago. It has been a fine -day, following on a day’s rain, so that the earth smells like spring. I -have just managed to break off a long conversation with the farmer in -charge, a tall thin stooping man with sad eyes, in trouble about his -land: les Anglais stole his peas, trod down his corn and robbed his -young potatoes: he told it as a father telling of infanticide. There may -have been fifteen francs’ worth of damage done; he will never get -compensation out of those shifty Belgian burgomasters; but it was not -exactly the fifteen francs but the invasion of the soil that had been -his for forty years, in which the weather was his only enemy, that gave -him a kind of Niobe’s dignity to his complaint. - -Meanwhile there is the usual evening sluggishness. Close by, a -quickfirer is pounding away its allowance of a dozen shells a day. It is -like a cow coughing. Eastward there begins a sound (all sounds begin at -sundown and continue intermittently till midnight, reaching their zenith -at about 9 p.m. and then dying away as sleepiness claims their -masters)--a sound like a motor-cycle race--thousands of motor-cycles -tearing round and round a track, with cut-outs out: it is really a pair -of machine guns firing. And now one sound awakens another. The old cow -coughing has started the motor-bykes: and now at intervals of a few -minutes come express trains in our direction: you can hear them rushing -toward us; they pass going straight for the town behind us: and you hear -them begin to slow down as they reach the town: they will soon stop: but -no, every time, just before they reach it, is a tremendous railway -accident. At least, it must be a railway accident, there is so much -noise, and you can see the dust that the wreckage scatters. Sometimes -the train behind comes very close, but it too smashes on the wreckage -of its forerunners. A tremendous cloud of dust, and then the groans. So -many trains and accidents start the cow coughing again: only another cow -this time, somewhere behind us, a tremendous-sized cow, θαυμἀσιον ὄσιον, -with awful whooping-cough. It must be a buffalo: this cough must burst -its sides. And now someone starts sliding down the stairs on a tin tray, -to soften the heart of the cow, make it laugh and cure its cough. The -din he makes is appalling. He is beating the tray with a broom now, -every two minutes a stroke: he has certainly stopped the cow by this -time, probably killed it. He will leave off soon (thanks to the “shell -tragedy”): we know he can’t last. - -It is now almost dark: come out and see the fireworks. While waiting for -them to begin you can notice how pale and white the corn is in the -summer twilight: no wonder with all this whooping-cough about. And the -motor-cycles: notice how all these races have at least a hundred -entries: there is never a single cycle going. And why are there no birds -coming back to roost? Where is the lark? I haven’t heard him all to-day. -He must have got whooping-cough as well, or be staying at home through -fear of the cow. I think it will rain to-morrow, but there have been no -swallows circling low, stroking their breasts on the full ears of corn. -Anyhow, it is night now, but the circus does not close till twelve. -Look! there is the first of them! The fireworks are beginning. Red -flares shooting up high into the night, or skimming low over the ground, -like the swallows that are not: and rockets bursting into stars. See how -they illumine that patch of ground a mile in front. See it, it is deadly -pale in their searching light: ghastly, I think, and featureless except -for two big lines of eyebrows ashy white, parallel along it, raised a -little from its surface. Eyebrows. Where are the eyes? Hush, there are -no eyes. What those shooting flares illumine is a mole. A long thin -mole. Burrowing by day, and shoving a timorous enquiring snout above the -ground by night. Look, did you see it? No, you cannot see it from here. -But were you a good deal nearer, you would see behind that snout a long -and endless row of sharp shining teeth. The rockets catch the light from -these teeth and the teeth glitter: they are silently removed from the -poison-spitting gums of the mole. For the mole’s gums spit fire and, -they say, send something more concrete than fire darting into the -night. Even when its teeth are off. But you cannot see all this from -here: you can only see the rockets and then for a moment the pale ground -beneath. But it is quite dark now. - -And now for the fun of the fair! You will hear soon the riding-master -crack his whip--why, there it is. Listen, a thousand whips are cracking, -whipping the horses round the ring. At last! The fun of the circus is -begun. For the motor-cycle team race has started off again: and the -whips are cracking all: and the waresman starts again, beating his loud -tin tray to attract the customers: and the cows in the cattle-show start -coughing, coughing: and the firework display is at its best: and the -circus specials come one after another bearing the merry makers back to -town, all to the inevitable crash, the inevitable accident. It can’t -last long: these accidents are so frequent, they’ll all get soon killed -off, I hope. Yes, it is diminishing. The train service is cancelled (and -time too): the cows have stopped coughing: and the cycle race is done. -Only the kids who have bought new whips at the fair continue to crack -them: and unused rockets that lie about the ground are still sent up -occasionally. But now the children are being driven off to bed: only an -occasional whip-crack now (perhaps the child is now the sufferer): and -the tired showmen going over the ground pick up the rocket-sticks and -dead flares. At least I suppose this is what must be happening: for -occasionally they still find one that has not gone off and send it up -out of mere perversity. Else what silence! - -It must be midnight now. Yes, it is midnight. But before you go to bed, -bend down, put your ear against the ground. What do you hear? “I hear an -endless tapping and a tramping to and fro: both are muffled: but they -come from everywhere. Tap, tap, tap: pick, pick, pick: tra-mp, tra-mp, -tra-mp.” So you see the circus-goers are not all gone to sleep. There is -noise coming from the womb of earth, noise of men who tap and mine and -dig and pass to and fro on their watch. What you have seen is the foam -and froth of war: but underground is labour and throbbing and long -watch. Which will one day bear their fruit. They will set the circus on -fire. Then what pandemonium! Let us hope it will not be to-morrow! - - _15 July 1915_ - - - - -EARLIER POEMS - - - - -XXXII - -A CALL TO ACTION - - -I - - A thousand years have passed away, - Cast back your glances on the scene, - Compare this England of to-day - With England as she once has been. - - Fast beat the pulse of living then: - The hum of movement, throb of war, - The rushing mighty sound of men - Reverberated loud and far. - - They girt their loins up and they trod - The path of danger, rough and high; - For Action, Action was their god, - “Be up and doing” was their cry. - - A thousand years have passed away; - The sands of life are running low; - The world is sleeping out her day; - The day is dying--be it so. - - A thousand years have passed amain; - The sands of life are running thin; - Thought is our leader--Thought is vain; - Speech is our goddess--Speech is sin. - - -II - - It needs no thought to understand, - No speech to tell, nor sight to see - That there has come upon our land - The curse of Inactivity. - - We do not see the vital point - That ’tis the eighth, most deadly, sin - To wail, “The world is out of joint”-- - And not attempt to put it in. - - We see the swollen stream of crime - Flow hourly past us, thick and wide; - We gaze with interest for a time, - And pass by on the other side. - - We see the tide of human sin - Rush roaring past our very door, - And scarcely one man plunges in - To drag the drowning to the shore. - - We, dull and dreamy, stand and blink, - Forgetting glory, strength and pride, - Half--listless watchers on the brink, - Half--ruined victims of the tide. - - -III - - We question, answer, make defence, - We sneer, we scoff, we criticize, - We wail and moan our decadence, - Enquire, investigate, surmise; - We preach and prattle, peer and pry - And fit together two and two: - We ponder, argue, shout, swear, lie-- - We will not, for we cannot, DO. - - Pale puny soldiers of the pen, - Absorbed in this your inky strife, - Act as of old, when men were men - England herself and life yet life. - - _October 1912_ - - - - -XXXIII - -RAIN - - - When the rain is coming down, - And all Court is still and bare, - And the leaves fall wrinkled, brown, - Through the kindly winter air, - And in tattered flannels I - ‘Sweat’ beneath a tearful sky, - And the sky is dim and grey, - And the rain is coming down, - And I wander far away - From the little red-capped town: - There is something in the rain - That would bid me to remain: - There is something in the wind - That would whisper, “Leave behind - All this land of time and rules, - Land of bells and early schools. - Latin, Greek and College food - Do you precious little good. - Leave them: if you would be free - Follow, follow, after me!” - - When I reach ‘Four Miler’s’ height, - And I look abroad again - On the skies of dirty white - And the drifting veil of rain, - And the bunch of scattered hedge - Dimly swaying on the edge, - And the endless stretch of downs - Clad in green and silver gowns; - There is something in their dress - Of bleak barren ugliness, - That would whisper, “You have read - Of a land of light and glory: - But believe not what is said. - ’Tis a kingdom bleak and hoary, - Where the winds and tempests call - And the rain sweeps over all. - Heed not what the preachers say - Of a good land far away. - Here’s a better land and kind - And it is not far to find.” - - Therefore, when we rise and sing - Of a distant land, so fine, - Where the bells for ever ring, - And the suns for ever shine: - Singing loud and singing grand, - Of a happy far-off land, - O! I smile to hear the song, - For I know that they are wrong, - That the happy land and gay - Is not very far away, - And that I can get there soon - Any rainy afternoon. - - And when summer comes again, - And the downs are dimpling green, - And the air is free from rain, - And the clouds no longer seen: - Then I know that they have gone - To find a new camp further on, - Where there is no shining sun - To throw light on what is done, - Where the summer can’t intrude - On the fort where winter stood: - --Only blown and drenching grasses, - Only rain that never passes, - Moving mists and sweeping wind, - And I follow them behind! - - _October 1912_ - - - - -XXXIV - -A TALE OF TWO CAREERS - - -I SUCCESS - - He does not dress as other men, - His ‘kish’ is loud and gay, - His ‘side’ is as the ‘side’ of ten - Because his ‘barnes’ are grey. - - His head has swollen to a size - Beyond the proper size for heads, - He metaphorically buys - The ground on which he treads. - - Before his face of haughty grace - The ordinary mortal cowers: - A ‘forty-cap’ has put the chap - Into another world from ours. - - The funny little world that lies - ’Twixt High Street and the Mound - Is just a swarm of buzzing flies - That aimlessly go round: - - If one is stronger in the limb - Or better able to work hard, - It’s quite amusing to watch him - Ascending heavenward. - - But if one cannot work or play - (Who loves the better part too well), - It’s really sad to see the lad - Retained compulsorily in hell. - - -II FAILURE - - We are the wasters, who have no - Hope in this world here, neither fame, - Because we cannot collar low - Nor write a strange dead tongue the same - As strange dead men did long ago. - - We are the weary, who begin - The race with joy, but early fail, - Because we do not care to win - A race that goes not to the frail - And humble: only the proud come in. - - We are the shadow-forms, who pass - Unheeded hence from work and play. - We are to-day, but like the grass - That to-day is, we pass away; - And no one stops to say ‘Alas!’ - - Though we have little, all we have - We give our School. And no return - We can expect for what we gave; - No joys; only a summons stern, - “Depart, for others entrance crave!” - - As soon as she can clearly prove - That from us is no hope of gain, - Because we only bring her love - And cannot bring her strength or brain. - She tells us, “Go: it is enough.” - - She turns us out at seventeen, - We may not know her any more, - And all our life with her has been - A life of seeing others score, - While we sink lower and are mean. - - We have seen others reap success - Full-measure. None has come to us. - Our life has been one failure. Yes, - But does not God prefer it thus? - God does not also praise success. - - And for each failure that we meet, - And for each place we drop behind, - Each toil that holds our aching feet, - Each star we seek and never find, - God, knowing, gives us comfort meet. - - The School we care for has not cared - To cherish nor keep our names to be - Memorials. God hath prepared - Some better thing for us, for we - His hopes have known, His failures shared. - - _November 1912_ - - - - -XXXV - -PEACE - - - There is silence in the evening when the long days cease, - And a million men are praying for an ultimate release - From strife and sweat and sorrow--they are praying for peace. - But God is marching on. - - Peace for a people that is striving to be free! - Peace for the children of the wild wet sea! - Peace for the seekers of the promised land--do we - Want peace when God has none? - - We pray for rest and beauty that we know we cannot earn, - And ever are we asking for a honey-sweet return; - But God will make it bitter, make it bitter, till we learn - That with tears the race is run. - - And did not Jesus perish to bring to men, not peace, - But a sword, a sword for battle and a sword that should not cease? - Two thousand years have passed us. Do we still want peace - Where the sword of Christ has shone? - - Yes, Christ perished to present us with a sword, - That strife should be our portion and more strife our reward, - For toil and tribulation and the glory of the Lord - And the sword of Christ are one. - - If you want to know the beauty of the thing called rest, - Go, get it from the poets, who will tell you it is best - (And their words are sweet as honey) to lie flat upon your chest - And sleep till life is gone. - - I know that there is beauty where the low streams run, - And the weeping of the willows and the big sunk sun, - But I know my work is doing and it never shall be done, - Though I march for ages on. - - Wild is the tumult of the long grey street, - O, is it never silent from the tramping of their feet? - Here, Jesus, is Thy triumph, and here the world’s defeat - For from here all peace has gone. - - There’s a stranger thing than beauty in the ceaseless city’s breast, - In the throbbing of its fever--and the wind is in the west, - And the rain is driving forward where there is no rest, - For the Lord is marching on. - - _December 1912_ - - - - -XXXVI - -THE RIVER - - - He watched the river running black - Beneath the blacker sky; - It did not pause upon its track - Of silent instancy. - It did not hasten, nor was slack, - But still went gliding by. - - It was so black. There was no wind - Its patience to defy. - It was not that the man had sinned, - Or that he wished to die. - Only the wide and silent tide - Went slowly sweeping by. - - The mass of blackness moving down - Filled full of dreams the eye; - The lights of all the lighted town - Upon its breast did lie. - The tall black trees were upside down - In the river’s phantasy. - - He had an envy for its black - Inscrutability; - He felt impatiently the lack - Of that great law whereby - The river never travels back - But still goes gliding by; - - But still goes gliding by, nor clings - To passing things that die, - Nor shows the secrets that it brings - From its strange source on high. - And he felt “We are two living things - And the weaker one is I.” - - He saw the town, that living stack - Piled up against the sky. - He saw the river running black - On, on and on: O, why - Could he not move along his track - With such consistency? - - He had a yearning for the strength - That comes of unity: - The union of one soul at length - With its twin-soul to lie; - To be a part of one great strength - That moves and cannot die. - - * * * * * - - He watched the river running black - Beneath the blacker sky. - He pulled his coat about his back, - He did not strive nor cry. - He put his foot upon the track - That still went gliding by - The thing that never travels back - Received him silently. - And there was left no shred, no wrack - To show the reason why: - Only the river running black - Beneath the blacker sky. - - _February 1913_ - - - - -XXXVII - -THE SEEKERS - - - The gates are open on the road - That leads to beauty and to God. - - Perhaps the gates are not so fair, - Nor quite so bright as once they were, - When God Himself on earth did stand - And gave to Abraham His hand - And led him to a better land. - - For lo! the unclean walk therein, - And those that have been soiled with sin. - The publican and harlot pass - Along: they do not stain its grass. - In it the needy has his share, - In it the foolish do not err. - Yes, spurned and fool and sinner stray - Along the highway and the way. - - And what if all its ways are trod - By those whom sin brings near to God? - This journey soon will make them clean: - Their faith is greater than their sin. - For still they travel slowly by - Beneath the promise of the sky, - Scorned and rejected utterly; - Unhonoured; things of little worth - Upon the highroads of this earth; - Afflicted, destitute and weak: - Nor find the beauty that they seek, - The God they set their trust upon: - --Yet still they march rejoicing on. - - _March 1913_ - -[Illustration] - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS IN PROSE - - -I - -RICHARD JEFFERIES (p. 27) - -I am sweatily struggling to the end of _Faust II_, where Goethe’s just -showing off his knowledge. I am also reading a very interesting book on -Goethe and Schiller; very adoring it is, but it lets out quite -unconsciously the terrible dryness of their entirely intellectual -friendship and (Goethe’s at least) entirely intellectual life. If Goethe -really died saying “more light,” it was very silly of him: what _he_ -wanted was more warmth. G. and S. apparently made friends, on their own -confession, merely because their ideas and artistic ideals were the -same, which fact ought to be the very first to make them bore one -another. - -All this is leading to the following conclusion. The Germans can act -Shakespeare, have good beer and poetry, but their prose is cobwebby -stuff. Hence I want to read some good prose again. Also it is summer. -And for a year or two I had always laid up “The Pageant of Summer” as a -treat for a hot July. In spite of all former vows of celibacy in the -way of English, now’s the time. So, unless the cost of book-postage here -is ruinous, could you send me a small volume of Essays by Richard -Jefferies called _The Life of the Fields_, the first essay in the series -being the Pageant of Summer? No particular hurry, but I should be -amazingly grateful if you’ll send it (it’s quite a little book), -especially as I presume the pageant of summer takes place in that part -of the country where I should be now had----had a stronger will than -you. In the midst of my setting up and smashing of deities--Masefield, -Hardy, Goethe--I always fall back on Richard Jefferies wandering about -in the background. I have at least the tie of locality with him. (_July -1914._) - - * * * * * - -I’ve given up German prose altogether. It’s like a stale cake compounded -of foreign elements. So I have laid in a huge store of Richard Jefferies -for the rest of July, and read him none the less voraciously because we -are countrymen. (I know it’s wrong of me, but I count myself as -Wiltshire....) When I die (in sixty years) I am going to leave all my -presumably enormous fortune to Marlborough on condition that a thorough -knowledge of Richard Jefferies is ensured by the teaching there. I think -it is only right considering we are bred upon the self-same hill. It -would also encourage Naturalists and discourage cricketers.... - -But, in any case. I’m not reading so much German as I did ought to. I -dabble in their modern poetry, which is mostly of the morbidly religious -kind. The language is massively beautiful, the thought is rich and -sleek, the air that of the inside of a church. Magnificent artists they -are, with no inspiration, who take religion up as a very responsive -subject for art, and mould it in their hands like sticky putty. There -are magnificent parts in it, but you can imagine what a relief it was to -get back to Jefferies and Liddington Castle. (_July 1914._) - - -II - -IBSEN (pp. 50-52) - -Ibsen’s last, _John Gabriel Borkman_, is a wonderfully fine play, far -better than any others by Ibsen that I have read or seen, but I can -imagine it would lose a good deal in an English translation. The acting -of the two middle-aged sisters who are the protagonists was marvellous. -The men were a good deal more difficult to hear, but also very striking. -Next to the fineness of the play (which has far more poetry in it than -any others of his I’ve read, though of course there’s a bank in the -background, as there always seems to be in Ibsen)--the apathy of the -very crowded house struck me most. There was very little clapping at the -end at the acts: at the end of the play none, which was just as well -because one of them was dead and would have had to jump up again. So -altogether I am very much struck by my first German theatre, though the -fineness of the play may have much to do with it. It was just a little -spoilt by the last Act being in a pine forest on a hill with sugar that -was meant to look like snow. This rather took away from the effect of -the scene, which in the German is one of the finest things I have ever -heard, possessing throughout a wonderful rhythm which may or may not -exist in the original. What a beautiful language it can be! (_13 -February 1914._) - - * * * * * - -I have been reading many criticisms of _John Gabriel Borkman_, and it -strikes me more and more that it is the most remarkable play I have ever -read. It is head and shoulders above the others of Ibsen’s I know: a -much broader affair. John Gabriel Borkman is a tremendous character. His -great desire, which led him to overstep the law for one moment, and of -course he was caught and got eight years, was “Menschenglück zu -schaffen.” One moment Ibsen lets you see one side of his character (the -side he himself saw) and you see the Perfect Altruist: the next moment -the other side is turned, and you see the Complete Egoist. The play all -takes place in the last three hours of J. G. B.’s life, and in these -three hours his real love, whom he had rejected for business reasons -and married her twin-sister, shows him for the first time the Egoist -that masqueraded all its life as Altruist. The technique is perfect and -it bristles with minor problems. It is absolutely fair, for if J. G. B. -had sacrificed his ideals and married the right twin, he would not have -been deserted after his disgrace. And the way that during the three -hours the whole past history of the man comes out is marvellous. The -brief dialogue between the sisters which closes the piece is fine, and -suddenly throws a new light on the problem of how the tragedy could have -been evaded, when you thought all that could be said had been said. (_20 -February 1914._) - - * * * * * - -I feel that this visit to Schwerin will spoil me for the theatre for the -rest of my life. I have never ceased to see _John Gabriel Borkman_ -mentally since my second visit to it (when the acting was even liner -than before and struck me as a perfect presentation of a perfect play). -My only regret was that the whole family wasn’t there as well. I should -so like to talk it over with you, and the way that at the very end of -his last play Ibsen sums up the object against which all his battle was -directed: “Es war viel mehr die Kälte die ihn tötete.” “Die Kälte, sagst -du, die Kälte! die hat ihn schon längst getötet.”... “Ja, die -Herzenskälte.” (_10 April 1914._) - - * * * * * - -[The play] at the Königliches Schauspielhaus [Berlin] was Ibsen’s _Peer -Gynt_ with Grieg’s incidental music--the Northern Faust, as it is -called: though the mixture of allegory and reality is not carried off so -successfully as in the Southern Faust. Peer Gynt has the advantage of -being a far more human and amiable creature, and not a cold fish like -Faust. I suppose that difference is also to be found in the characters -of the respective authors. I always wanted to know why Faust had no -relations to make demands on him. Peer Gynt is a charmingly light piece, -with an irresistible mixture of fantastical poetry and a very racy -humour. The scene where Peer returns to his blind and dying mother and, -like a practical fellow, instead of sentimentalizing, sits himself on -the end of her bed, persuades her it is a chariot and rides her up to -heaven, describing the scenes on the way, the surliness of St Peter at -the gate, the appearance of God the Father, who “put Peter quite in the -shade” and decided to let mother Aasa in, was delightful. The acting was -of course perfect. (_5 June 1914._) - - -III - -THE ODYSSEY (p. 73) - -The _Odyssey_ is a great joy when once you can read it in big chunks and -not a hundred lines at a time, being [forced] to note all the silly -grammatical strangenesses. I could not read it in better surroundings -for the whole tone of the book is so thoroughly German and domestic. A -friend of sorts of the ----s died lately; and when the Frau attempted -to break the news to Karl at table, he immediately said “Don’t tell me -anything sad while I’m eating.” That very afternoon I came across -someone in the _Odyssey_ who made, under the same circumstances, -precisely the same remark[1]. In the _Odyssey_ and in Schwerin alike -they are perfectly unaffected about their devotion to good food. In both -too I find the double patriotism which suffers not a bit from its -duplicity--in the _Odyssey_ to their little Ithaca as well as to Achaea -as a whole; here equally to the Kaiser and the pug-nosed Grand Duke. In -both is the habit of longwinded anecdotage in the same rambling -irrelevant way, and the quite unquenchable hospitality. And the Helen of -the _Odyssey_ bustling about a footstool for Telemachus or showing off -her new presents (she had just returned from a jaunt to Egypt)--a -washing-tub, and a work-basket that ran on wheels (think!)--is the -perfect German Hausfrau. (_27 March 1914._) - - * * * * * - -If I had the smallest amount of patience, steadiness or concentrative -faculty, I could write a brilliant book comparing life in Ithaca, Sparta -and holy Pylos in the time of Odysseus with life in -Mecklenburg-Schwerin in the time of Herr Dr ----. In both you get the -same unquenchable hospitality and perfectly unquenchable anecdotage -faculty. In both whenever you make a visit or go into a house, they are -“busying themselves with a meal.” Du lieber Karl (I mean Herr Dr ----) -has three times, when his wife has tried to talk of death, disease or -crime by table, unconsciously given a literal translation of -Peisistratus’s sound remark οὐ γὰρ ἐγώ γε τέρπουʹ ὀδυρόμενος -μεταδόρπιοσ[2]--and that is their attitude to meals throughout. Need I -add the ἀγλαὰ δῶρα they insist on giving their guests, with the opinion -that it is the host that is the indebted party and the possession of a -guest confers honour and responsibility: and their innate patriotism, -the οὔ τοι ἐγώ γε ἦς γαίης δύναμαι γλυκερώτερον ἄλλο ἰδέσθαι[3] spirit -(however dull it is)--to complete the parallel? So I am really reading -it in sympathetic surroundings, and when I have just got past the part -where Helen shows off to Menelaus her new work-basket that runs on -wheels, and the Frau rushes in to show me her new water-can with a spout -designed to resemble a pig--I see the two are made from the same stuff -(I mean, of course, Helen and Frau ----, not Frau ---- and the pig). Also, -I enjoy being able to share in a quiet amateur way with Odysseus his -feelings about “were it but the smoke leaping up from his own land.” -(_23 April 1914._) - - * * * * * - -Good luck to Helen of Troy. As you say, she loved her own sex as well. -Her last appearance in Homer is when Telemachus was just leaving her and -Menelaus after paying them a visit in Sparta, and she stood on the -doorstep with a robe in her hand and spoke a word and called him ‘I also -am giving thee a gift, dear child,--this, a memorial of Helen’s -handiwork, against the day of thy marriage to which we all look forward, -that thou mayest give it to thy wife: till then, let it be stored in thy -palace under thy mother’s care.’” But she never gives to me the -impression in Homer of being quite happy. I’m sure she was always dull -down in Sparta with fatherly old Menelaus--though she never showed it of -course. But there is always something a little wistful in her way of -speaking. She only made other people happy and consequently another set -of other people miserable. One of the best things in the _Iliad_ is the -way you are made to feel (without any statement) that Helen fell really -in love with Hector--and this shows her good taste, for of all the -Homeric heroes Hector is the only unselfish man. She seems to me only to -have loved to please Menelaus and Paris but to have really loved -Hector--and naturally for Hector and Achilles, the altruist and the -egoist, were miles nobler than any one else on either side--but Hector -never gave any sign that he regarded her as anything more than his -distressed sister-in-law. But after Hector’s death she must have left -part of her behind her, and made a real nice wife to poor pompous -Menelaus in his old age. She seems to have had a marvellous power of -adaptability. (_April 1914._) - - * * * * * - -I made my pilgrimage on Saturday, when, though I had to get up with the -lark to hear the energetic old Eucken lecture at 7 a.m., I had no -lecture after 10, and went straight off to Weimar. I spent the rest of -the morning (actually) in the museum, inspecting chiefly Preller’s -wall-paintings of the _Odyssey_. They are the best criticism of the book -I have seen and gave me a new and more pleasant idea of Odysseus. Weimar -does not give the same impression of musty age as parts of Jena. It -seems a flourishing well-watered town, and I should like very much to -live there, chiefly for the sake of the park. The name “Park” puts one -off, but it is really a beautiful place like a college garden on an -extensive scale. After I had wandered about there very pleasantly for an -hour or so, I noticed a statue in a prominent position above me. -“Another Goethe,” thought I; but I looked at it again, and it had not -that look of self-confident self-conscious greatness that all the -Goethes have. So I went up to it and recognised a countryman--looking -down from this height on Weimar, with one eye half-closed and an -attitude of head expressing amused and tolerant but penetrating -interest. It was certainly the first satisfactory representation of -Shakespeare I have ever seen. It appears quite new, but I could not -discover the sculptor’s name. The one-eye-half-closed trick was most -effective; you thought “this is a very humorous kindly human -gentleman”--then you went round to the other side and saw the open eye! - -The blot in Weimar is the Schiller-Goethe statue in front of the -theatre. They are both embracing rather stupidly--and O so fat! (_8 May -1914._) - - -IV - -GERMANY (p. 56) - -In the evening I am generally to be found avoiding a certain insincere -type of German student, who hunts me down ostensibly to “tie a bond of -good-comradeship,” but really to work up facts about what “England” -thinks. Such people of undeveloped individuality tell me in return what -“wir Deutschen” think, in a touching national spirit, which would have -charmed Plato. But they don’t charm me. Indeed I see in them the very -worst result of 1871. They have no idea beyond the “State,” and have -put me off Socialism for the rest of my life. They are not the kind of -people, as [the Irish R.M.] puts it, “you could borrow half-a-crown to -get drunk with.” But such is only a small proportion and come from the -north and west; they just show how Sedan has ruined one type of German, -for I’m sure the German nature is the nicest in the world, as far as it -is not warped by the German Empire. I like their lack of reserve and -self-consciousness, our two national virtues. They all write poetry and -recite it with gusto to any three hours’ old acquaintance. We all write -poetry too in England, but we write it on the bedroom wash-stand and -lock the bedroom door, and disclaim it vehemently in public. (_2 June -1914._) - - * * * * * - -The two great sins people impute to Germany are that she says that might -is right and bullies the little dogs. But I don’t think she means that -might _qua_ might is right, but that confidence of superiority is right, -and by superiority she means spiritual superiority. She said to Belgium, -“We enlightened thinkers see that it is necessary to the world that all -opposition to Deutsche Kultur should be crushed. As citizens of the -world you must assist us in our object and assert those higher ideas of -world citizenship which are not bound by treaties. But if you oppose us, -we have only one alternative.” That, at least, is what the best of them -would have said; only the diplomats put it rather more brusquely, She -was going on a missionary voyage with all the zest of Faust-- - - Er wandle so den Erdentag entlang; - Wenn Geister spuken, geh’ er seinen Gang; - Im Weiterschreiten find’ er Qual und Glück, - Er, unbefriedigt jeden Augenblick![4] - ---and missionaries know no law.... - -So it seems to me that Germany’s only fault (and I think you often -commented on it in those you met) is a lack of real insight and sympathy -with those who differ from her. We are not fighting a bully, but a -bigot. They are a young nation and don’t yet see that what they consider -is being done for the good of the world may be really being done for -self-gratification--like X. who, under pretence of informing the form, -dropped into the habit of parading his own knowledge. X. incidentally -did the form a service by creating great amusement for it, and so is -Germany incidentally doing the world a service (though not in the way it -meant) by giving them something to live and die for, which no country -but Germany had before. If the bigot conquers he will learn in time his -mistaken methods (for it is only of the methods and not of the goal of -Germany that one can disapprove)--just as the early Christian bigots -conquered by bigotry and grew larger in sympathy and tolerance after -conquest. I regard the war as one between sisters, between Martha and -Mary, the efficient and intolerant against the casual and sympathetic. -Each side has a virtue for which it is fighting, and each that virtue’s -supplementary vice. And I hope that whatever the material result of the -conflict, it will purge these two virtues of their vices, and efficiency -and tolerance will no longer be incompatible. - -But I think that tolerance is the larger virtue of the two, and -efficiency must be her servant. So I am quite glad to fight against this -rebellious servant. In fact I look at it this way. Suppose my platoon -were the world. Then my platoon sergeant would represent efficiency and -I would represent tolerance. And I always take the sternest measures to -keep my platoon sergeant in check! I fully appreciate the wisdom of the -War Office when they put inefficient officers to rule sergeants. Adsit -omen. - -Now you know what Sorley thinks about it. And do excuse all his gassing. -I know I already overdosed you on those five splendid days between -Coblenz and Neumagen. But I’ve seen the Fatherland (I like to call it -the Fatherland, for in many families Papa represents efficiency and -Mamma tolerance ... but don’t think I’m W.S.P.U.) so horribly -misrepresented that I’ve been burning to put in my case for them to a -sympathetic ear. Wir sind gewiss Hamburger Jungen, as that lieber -besoffener Österreicher told us. And so we must stand up for them, even -while trying to knock them down. (_October 1914._) - - * * * * * - -On return to England, by the way, I renewed my acquaintance with Robert -Browning. The last line of _Mr Sludge the Medium_--“yet there is -something in it, tricks and all”--converted me, and since then I have -used no other. I wish we could recall him from the stars and get him to -write a Dramatic Idyll or something, giving a soliloquy of the feelings -and motives and quick changes of heat and cold that must be going -through the poor Kaiser’s mind at present. He would really show that -impartial sympathy for him, which the British press and public so -doltishly deny him, when in talk and comment they deny him even the -rights of a human being. R. B. could do it perfectly--or Shakespeare. I -think the Kaiser not unlike Macbeth, with the military clique in Prussia -as his Lady Macbeth, and the court flatterers as the three weird -sisters. He’ll be a splendid field for dramatists and writers in days to -come. (_October 1914._) - - * * * * * - -It [a magazine article] brought back to me that little crooked old -fellow that Hopkinson and I met at the fag-end of our hot day’s walk as -we swung into Neumagen. His little face was lit with a wild uncertain -excitement he had not known since 1870, and he advanced towards us -waving his stick and yelling at us “Der Krieg ist los, Junge,” just as -we might be running to watch a football match and he was come to tell us -we must hurry up for the game had begun. And then the next night on the -platform at Trier, train after train passing crowded with soldiers bound -for Metz: varied once or twice by a truck-load of “swarthier alien -crews,” thin old women like wineskins, with beautiful and piercing -faces, and big heavy men and tiny aged-looking children: Italian -colonists exiled to their country again. Occasionally one of the men -would jump out to fetch a glass of water to relieve their thirst in all -that heat and crowding. The heat of the night is worse than the heat of -the day, and geistige Getränke were verboten. Then the train would -slowly move out into the darkness that led to Metz and an exact -reproduction of it would steam in and fill its place: and we watched the -signal on the southward side of Trier, till the lights should give a -jump and the finger drop and let in the train which was to carry us out -of that highly-strung and thrilling land. - -At Cologne I saw a herd of some thirty American school-pmarms whom I had -assisted to entertain at Eucken’s just a fortnight before. I shouted out -to them, but they were far too upset to take any notice, but went -bobbing into one compartment and out again and into another like people -in a cinematograph. Their haste anxiety and topsyturviness were caused -by thoughts of their own safety and escape, and though perfectly natural -contrasted so strangely with all the many other signs of haste -perturbation and distress that I had seen, which were much quieter and -stronger and more full-bodied than that of those Americans, because it -was the Vaterland and not the individual that was darting about and -looking for the way and was in need: and the silent submissive -unquestioning faces of the dark uprooted Italians peering from the -squeaking trucks formed a fitting background--Cassandra from the -backmost car looking steadily down on Agamemnon as he stepped from his -triumphal purple chariot and Clytemnestra offered him her hand. (_23 -November 1914._) - - * * * * * - -It is surprising how very little difference a total change of -circumstances and prospects makes in the individual. The German (I know -from the 48 hours of the war that I spent there) is radically changed, -and until he is sent to the front, his one dream and thought will be how -quickest to die for his country. He is able more clearly to see the -tremendous issues, and changes accordingly. I don’t know whether it is -because the English are more phlegmatic or more shortsighted or more -egoistic or what, that makes them inwardly and outwardly so far less -shaken by the war than at first seemed probable. The German, I am sure, -during the period of training “dies daily” until he is allowed to die. -We go there with our eyes shut. (_28 November 1914._) - - * * * * * - -We had a very swinging Christmas--one that makes one realize (in common -with other incidents of the war) how near savages we are and how much -the stomach (which Nietzsche calls the Father of Melancholy) is also the -best procurer of enjoyment. We gave the men a good church--plenty of -loud hymns--, a good dinner--plenty of beer--, and the rest of the day -was spent in sleep. I saw then very clearly that whereas for the upper -classes Christmas is a spiritual debauch in which one remembers for a -day to be generous and cheerful and open-handed, it is only a more or -less physical debauch for the poorer classes, who need no reminder, -since they are generous and cheerful and open-handed all the year round. -One has fairly good chances of observing the life of the barrack-room, -and what a contrast to the life of a house in a public school! The -system is roughly the same: the house-master or platoon-commander -entrusts the discipline of his charge to prefects or corporals, as the -case may be. They never open their mouths in the barrack-room without -the introduction of the unprintable swear-words and epithets: they have -absolutely no “morality” (in the narrower, generally accepted sense): -yet the public school boy should live among them to learn a little -Christianity: for they are so extraordinarily nice to one another. They -live in and for the present: we in and for the future. So they are -cheerful and charitable always: and we often niggardly and unkind and -spiteful. In the gymnasium at Marlborough, how the few clumsy specimens -are ragged and despised and jeered at by the rest of the squad; in the -gymnasium here you should hear the sounding cheer given to the man who -has tried for eight weeks to make a long-jump of eight feet and at last -by the advice and assistance of others has succeeded. They seem -instinctively to regard a man singly, at his own rate, by his own -standards and possibilities, not in comparison with themselves or -others: that’s why they are so far ahead of us in their treatment and -sizing up of others. - -It’s very interesting, what you say about Athens and Sparta, and England -and Germany. Curious, isn’t it, that in old days a nation fought another -for land or money: now we are fighting Germany for her spiritual -qualities--thoroughness, and fearlessness of effort, and effacement of -the individual. I think that Germany, in spite of her vast bigotry and -blindness, is in a kind of way living up to the motto that Goethe left -her in the closing words of Faust, before he died. - - Ay, in this thought is my whole life’s persistence. - This is the whole conclusion of the true: - He only earns his Freedom, owns Existence, - Who every day must conquer her anew! - So let him journey through his earthly day, - Mid hustling spirits, go his self-found way, - Find torture, bliss, in every forward stride, - He, every moment still unsatisfied![5] - -A very close parallel may be drawn between Faust and present history -(with Belgium as Gretchen). And Faust found spiritual salvation in the -end! (_27 December 1914._) - - -V - -“MANY A BETTER ONE” (p. 69) - -----’s death was a shock. Still, since Achilles’ κάτθανε καί Πάτροκλος -ὄ περ σέο πολλὸυ ἀμείνων[6], which should be read at the grave of every -corpse in addition to the burial service, no saner and splendider -comment on death has been made, especially, as here, where it seemed a -cruel waste. (_28 November 1914._) - - -VI - -“BLANK SUMMER’S SURFEIT” (p. 70) - -From the time that the May blossom is scattered till the first frosts of -September, one is always at one’s worst. Summer is stagnating: there is -no more spring (in both senses) anywhere. When the corn is grown and the -autumn seed not yet sown, it has only to bask in the sun, to fatten and -ripen: a damnable time for man; heaven for the vegetables. And so I am -sunk deep in “Denkfaulheit,” trying to catch in the distant but -incessant upper thunder of the air promise of October rainstorms: long -runs clad only in jersey and shorts over the Marlborough downs, cloked -in rain, as of yore: likewise, in the aimless toothless grumbling of the -guns, promise of a great advance to come: hailstones and coals of fire. -(_July 1915._) - - -VII - -“ETERNALLY TO DO” (p. 71) - -Masefield has founded a new school of poetry and given a strange example -to future poets; and this is wherein his greatness and originality lies: -that he is a man of action not imagination. For he has one of the -fundamental qualities of a great poet--a thorough enjoyment of life. He -has it in a more pre-eminent degree than even Browning, perhaps the -stock instance of a poet who was great because he liked life. Everyone -has read the latter’s lines about “the wild joys of living, the leaping -from rock up to rock.” These are splendid lines: but one somehow does -not feel that Browning ever leapt from rock up to rock himself. He saw -other people doing it, doubtless, and thought it fine. But I don’t think -he did it himself ever.... - -Masefield writes that he knows and testifies that he has seen. -Throughout his poems there are lines and phrases so instinct with life, -that they betoken a man who writes of what he has experienced, not of -what he thinks he can imagine: who has braved the storm, who has walked -in the hells, who has seen the reality of life: who does not, like -Tennyson, shut off the world he has to write about, attempting to -imagine shipwrecks from the sofa, or battles in his bed. Compare for -instance _Enoch Arden_ and _Dauber_. One is a dream: the other, life.... - -The sower, who reaps not, has found a voice at last--a harsh rough -voice, compelling, strong, triumphant. Let us, the reapers where we have -not sown, give ear to it. Are they not much better than we? The voice of -our poets and men of letters is finely trained and sweet to hear; it -teems with sharp saws and rich sentiment: it is a marvel of delicate -technique: it pleases, it flatters, it charms, it soothes: it is a -living lie. The voice of John Masefield rings rough and ill trained: it -tells a story, it leaves the thinking to the reader, it gives him no -dessert of sentiment, cut, dried,--and ready made to go to sleep on: it -jars, it grates, it makes him wonder; it is full of hope and faith and -power and strife and God. Till Mr Masefield came on earth, the poetry -of the world had been written by the men who lounged, who looked on. It -is sin in a man to write of the world before he has known the world, and -the failing of every poet up till now has been that he has written of -what he loved to imagine but dared not to experience. But Masefield -writes that he knows and testifies that he has seen; with him expression -is the fruit of action, the sweat of a body that has passed through the -fire. - -We stand by the watershed of English poetry; for the vastness and wonder -of modern life has demanded that men should know what they write about. -Behind us are the poets of imagination; before us are the poets of fact. -For Masefield as a poet may be bad or good: I think him good, but you -may think him bad: but, good or bad, he has got this quality which no -one can deny and few belittle. He is the first of a multitude of coming -poets (so I trust and pray) who are men of action before they are men of -speech and men of speech because they are men of action. Those whom, -because they do not live in our narrow painted groove, we call the Lower -Classes, it is they who truly know what life is: so to them let us look -for the true expression of life. One has already arisen, and his name is -Masefield. We await the coming of others in his train. (_Essay on -Masefield_, _3 November 1912_.) - -The war is a chasm in time.... In a job like this, one lives in times a -year ago--and a year hence, alternately. Keine Nachricht. A large amount -of organized disorderliness, killing the spirit. A vagueness and a -dullness everywhere: an unromantic sitting still 100 yards from Brother -Bosch. There’s something rotten in the state of something. One feels it -but cannot be definite of what. Not even is there the premonition of -something big impending: gathering and ready to burst. None of that -feeling of confidence, offensiveness, “personal ascendancy,” with which -the reports so delight our people at home. Mutual helplessness and -lassitude, as when two boxers who have battered each other crouch -dancing two paces from each other, waiting for the other to hit. -Improvised organization, with its red hat, has muddled out romance. It -is not the strong god of the Germans--that makes their Prussian Beamter -so bloody and their fight against fearful odds so successful. Our -organization is like a nasty fat old frowsy cook dressed up in her -mistress’s clothes: fussy, unpopular, and upstart: trailing the scent of -the scullery behind her. In periods of rest we are billeted in a town of -sewage farms, mean streets, and starving cats: delightful population: -but an air of late June weariness. For Spring again! This is not Hell as -I hoped, but Limbo Lake with green growths on the water, full of -minnows. - -So one lives in a year ago--and a year hence. What are your feet doing, -a year hence?... where, while riding in your Kentish lanes, are you -riding twelve months hence? I am sometimes in Mexico, selling cloth: or -in Russia, doing Lord knows what: in Serbia or the Balkans: in England, -never. England remains the dream, the background: at once the memory and -the ideal. Sorley is the Gaelic for wanderer. I have had a conventional -education: Oxford would have corked it. But this has freed the spirit, -glory be. Give me the _Odyssey_, and I return the New Testament to -store. Physically as well as spiritually, give me the road. - -Only sometimes the horrible question of bread and butter shadows the -dream: it has shadowed many, I should think. It must be tackled. But I -always seek to avoid the awkward, by postponing it. - -You figure in these dreams as the pioneer-sergeant. Perhaps _you_ are -the Odysseus, I am but one of the dog-like έταῖροι.... But however that -may be, our lives will be πολύπλαγκτοι, though our paths may be -different. And we will be buried by the sea-- - - Timon will make his everlasting mansion - Upon beachéd verge of a salt flood, - Which twice a day with hid embosséd froth - The turbulent surge shall cover. - -Details can wait--perhaps for ever. These are the plans. I sometimes -almost forgive Tennyson his other enormities for having written -_Ulysses_. (_16 June 1915._) - - -VIII - -“THE GRANDEUR OF THEIR MESS” (p. 74) - -I am bleached with chalk and grown hairy. And I think exultantly and -sweetly of the one or two or three outstandingly admirable meals of my -life. One in Yorkshire, in an inn upon the moors, with a fire of logs -and ale and tea and every sort of Yorkshire bakery, especially bears me -company. And yet another in Mecklenburg-Schwerin (where they are very -English) in a farm-house utterly at peace in broad fields sloping to the -sea. I remember a tureen of champagne in the middle of the table to -which we helped ourselves with ladles! I remember my hunger after three -hours’ ride over the country: and the fishing-town of Wismar lying like -an English town on the sea. In that great old farm-house where I dined -at 3 p.m. as the May day began to cool, fruit of sea and of land joined -hands together, fish fresh caught and ducks fresh killed: it was a -wedding of the elements. It was perhaps the greatest meal I have had -ever, for everything we ate had been alive that morning--the champagne -was alive yet. We feasted like kings till the sun sank, for it was -impossible to overeat. ’Twas Homeric and its memory fills many hungry -hours. (_5 October 1915._) - - -IX - -“THE OLD WAR-JOY, THE OLD WAR-PAIN” (p. 76) - -This is a little hamlet, smelling pleasantly of manure. I have never -felt more restful. We arrived at dawn: white dawn across the plane trees -and coming through the fields of rye. After two hours in an oily ship -and ten in a grimy train, the “war area” was a haven of relief. These -French trains shriek so: there is no sight more desolating than -abandoned engines passing up and down the lines, hooting in their -loneliness. There is something eerie in a railway by night. - -But this is perfect. The other officers have heard the heavy guns and -perhaps I shall soon. They make perfect cider in this valley: still, -like them. There are clouds of dust along the roads, and in the leaves: -but the dust here is native and caressing and pure, not like the dust of -Aldershot, gritted and fouled by motors and thousands of feet. ’Tis a -very Limbo lake: set between the tireless railways behind and twenty -miles in front the fighting. Drink its cider and paddle in its rushy -streams: and see if you care whether you die to-morrow. It brings out a -new part of oneself, the loiterer, neither scorning nor desiring -delights, gliding listlessly through the minutes from meal-time to -meal-time, like the stream through the rushes: or stagnant and smooth -like their cider, unfathomably gold: beautiful and calm without mental -fear. And in four-score hours we will pull up our braces and fight. -These hours will have slipt over me, and I shall march hotly to the -firing-line, by turn critic, actor, hero, coward, and soldier of -fortune: perhaps even for a moment Christian, humble, with “Thy will be -done.” Then shock, combustion, the emergence of one of these: death or -life: and then return to the old rigmarole. I imagine that this, while -it may or may not knock about your body, will make very little -difference to you otherwise. - -A speedy relief from Chatham. There is vibration in the air when you -hear “The Battalion will move across the water on....” - -The moon won’t rise till late, but there is such placid weariness in all -the bearing earth, that I must go out to see. I have not been “auf dem -Lande” for many years: man muss den Augenblick geniessen. (_1 June -1915._) - - * * * * * - -Your letter arrived and awoke the now drifting ME to consciousness. I -had understood and acquiesced in your silence. The re-creation of that -self which one is to a friend is an effort: repaying if it succeeds, -but not to be forced. Wherefore, were it not for the dangers dancing -attendance on the adjourning type of mind--which a year’s military -training has not been able to efface from me--I should not be writing to -you now. For it is just after breakfast--and you know what breakfast is: -putter to sleep of all mental energy and discontent: charmer, sedative, -leveller: maker of Britons. I should wait till after tea when the -undiscriminating sun has shown his back--a fine back--on the world, and -oneself by the aid of tea has thrown off the mental sleep of heat. But -after tea I am on duty. So with bacon in my throat and my brain like a -poached egg I will try to do you justice.... - -I wonder how long it takes the King’s Pawn, who so proudly initiates the -game of chess, to realize that he is a pawn. Same with us. We are -finding out that we play the unimportant if necessary part. At present a -dam, untested, whose presence not whose action stops the stream from -approaching: and then--a mere handle to steel: dealers of death which we -are not allowed to plan. But I have complained enough before of the -minion state of the “damned foot.” It is something to have no -responsibility--an inglorious ease of mind.... - -Health--and I don’t know what ill-health is--invites you so much to -smooth and shallow ways: where a happiness may only be found by -renouncing the other happiness of which one set out in search. Yet here -there is enough to stay the bubbling surface stream. Looking into the -future one sees a holocaust somewhere: and at present there is--thank -God--enough of “experience” to keep the wits edged (a callous way of -putting it, perhaps). But out in front at night in that no-man’s land -and long graveyard there is a freedom and a spur. Rustling of the -grasses and grave tap-tapping of distant workers: the tension and -silence of encounter, when one struggles in the dark for moral victory -over the enemy patrol: the wail of the exploded bomb and the animal -cries of wounded men. Then death and the horrible thankfulness when one -sees that the next man is dead: “We won’t have to _carry_ him in under -fire, thank God; dragging will do”: hauling in of the great resistless -body in the dark: the smashed head rattling: the relief, the relief that -the thing has ceased to groan: that the bullet or bomb that made the man -an animal has now made the animal a corpse. One is hardened by now: -purged of all false pity: perhaps more selfish than before. The -spiritual and the animal get so much more sharply divided in hours of -encounter, taking possession of the body by swift turns. (_26 August -1915._) - - * * * * * - -The chess players are no longer waiting so infernal long between their -moves. And the patient pawns are all in movement, hourly expecting -further advances--whether to be taken or reach the back lines and be -queened. ’Tis sweet, this pawn-being: there are no cares, no doubts: -wherefore no regrets. The burden which I am sure is the parent of -ill-temper drunkenness and premature old age--to wit, the making up of -one’s own mind--is lifted from our shoulders. I can now understand the -value of dogma, which is the General Commander-in-chief of the mind. I -am now beginning to think that free thinkers should give their minds -into subjection, for we who have given our actions and volitions into -subjection gain such marvellous rest thereby. Only of course it is the -subjecting of their powers of will and deed to a wrong master on the -part of a great nation that has led Europe into war. Perhaps afterwards, -I and my likes will again become indiscriminate rebels. For the present -we find high relief in making ourselves soldiers. (_5 October 1915._) - - -X - - “PERHAPS THE ROAD UP ILSLEY WAY, - THE OLD RIDGE-TRACK, WILL BE MY WAY” (p. 76) - -When I next come down to Marlborough it shall be an entry worthy of the -place and of the enterer. Not in khaki, with gloves and a little cane, -with creased trousers from Aldershot--“dyed garments from Bozrah”--but -in grey bags, an old coat and a knapsack, coming over the downland from -Chiseldon, putting up at the Sun! Then after a night there and a -tattered stroll through the High Street, feeling perhaps the minor -inconveniences of complete communion with Nature, I should put on a -gentlemanly suit and crave admittance at your door, talk old scandal, -search old Housebooks, swank in Court and sing in Chapel and be a -regular O.M.: retaining always the right on Monday afternoon (it always -rains on Mondays in Marlborough) to sweat round Barbury and Totter Down, -what time you dealt out nasty little oblong unseens to the Upper VI. -This would be my Odyssey. At present I am too cornered by my uniform for -any such luxuries. (_May 1915._) - - * * * * * - -There is really very little to say about the life here. Change of -circumstance, I find, means little compared to change of company. And as -one has gone out and is still with the same officers with whom one had -rubbed shoulders unceasingly for the last nine months, and of whom one -had acquired that extraordinarily intimate knowledge which comes of -constant συυουσία, one does not notice the change: until one or two or -three drop off. And one wonders why. - -They are extraordinarily close, really, these friendships of -circumstance, distinct as they remain from friendships of choice.... -Only, I think, once or twice does one stumble across that person into -whom one fits at once: to whom one can stand naked, all disclosed. But -circumstance provides the second best: and I’m sure that any gathering -of men will in time lead to a very very close half-friendship between -them all (I only say half-friendship because I wish to distinguish it -from the other). So there has really been no change in coming over here: -the change is to come when half of this improvised “band of brothers” -are wiped away in a day. We are learning to be soldiers slowly--that is -to say, adopting the soldierly attitude of complete disconnection with -our job during odd hours. No shop. So when I think I should tell you -“something about the trenches,” I find I have neither the inclination -nor the power. - -This however. On our weekly march from the trenches back to our old -farmhouse a mile or two behind, we leave the communication-trench for a -road, hedged on one side only, with open ploughland to the right. It -runs a little down hill till the road branches. Then half left up over -open country goes our track, with the ground shelving away to the right -of us. Can you see it? The Toll House to the First Post on Trainers Down -on a small scale. There is something in the way that at the end of the -hedge the road leaps up to the left into the beyond that puts me in mind -of Trainers Down. It is what that turn into unhedged country and that -leap promises, not what it achieves, that makes the likeness. It is -nothing when you get up, no wildness, no openness. But there it remains -to cheer me on each relief.... - -I hear that a _very_ select group of public schools will by this time be -enjoying the Camp “somewhere in England.” May they not take it too -seriously! Seein’ as ’ow all training is washed out as soon as you turn -that narrow street corner at Boulogne, where some watcher with a lantern -is always up for the English troops arriving, with a “Bon courage” for -every man. - -A year ago to-day--but that way madness lies. (_4 August 1915._) - - - CAMBRIDGE: - PRINTED BY J. B. PEACE, M. A., AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] _Odyssey_, IV, 193, 194. - -[2] _Odyssey_, IV, 193, 194. - -[3] _Ibid._, IX, 27, 28. - -[4] _Faust_, II, 6820-3. - -[5] _Faust_, II, 6944-7, 6820-3. - -[6] _Iliad_, XXI, 107. - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARLBOROUGH AND OTHER -POEMS *** - -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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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