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diff --git a/9506.txt b/9506.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bb05454 --- /dev/null +++ b/9506.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8332 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Georgian Poetry 1913-15, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Georgian Poetry 1913-15 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Sir Edward Howard Marsh + +Posting Date: February 16, 2013 [EBook #9506] +Release Date: December, 2005 +First Posted: October 7, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGIAN POETRY 1913-15 *** + + + + +Produced by Clytie Siddall, Jon Ingram, Keren Vergon, and +PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + +GEORGIAN POETRY + + + +1913-1915 + + + +IN MEMORIAM + + +R.B. + + +J.E.F. + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + +The object of 'Georgian Poetry' 1911-1912 was to give a convenient +survey of the work published within two years by some poets of the newer +generation. The book was welcomed; and perhaps, even in a time like +this, those whom it interested may care to have a corresponding volume +for the three years which have since passed. + +Two of the poets--I think the youngest, and certainly not the least +gifted--are dead. Rupert Brooke, who seemed to have everything that is +worth having, died last April in the service of his country. James Elroy +Flecker, to whom life and death were less generous, died in January +after a long and disabling illness. + +A few of the contributors to the former volume are not represented in +this one, either because they have published nothing which comes within +its scope, or because they belong in fact to an earlier poetic +generation, and their inclusion must be allowed to have been an +anachronism. Two names are added. + +The alphabetical arrangement of the writers has been modified in order +to recognize the honour which Mr Gordon Bottomley has done to the book +by allowing his play to be first published here. + +My thanks for permission to print the poems are due to Messrs Constable, +Duckworth, Heinemann, Herbert Jenkins, Macmillan, Elkin Mathews, +Methuen, Martin Seeker, and Sidgwick and Jackson; and to the Editors of +'Country Life', the 'English Review, Flying Fame, New Numbers', the 'New +Statesman', and the 'Westminster Gazette'. + +E. M. + +Oct. 1915. + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + +GORDON BOTTOMLEY + +King Lear's Wife + + +RUPERT BROOKE + +Tiare Tahiti (from '1914 and Other Poems') +The Great Lover " " " +Beauty and Beauty " " " +Heaven " " " +Clouds " " " +Sonnet " " " +The Soldier " " " + + +WILLIAM H. DAVIES + +Thunderstorms (from 'Foliage') +The Mind's Liberty (from 'The Bird of Paradise') +The Moon " " " +When on a Summer's Morn " " " +A Great Time " " " +The Hawk " " " +Sweet Stay-at-Home (from 'Foliage') +A Fleeting Passion (from 'The Bird of Paradise') +The Bird of Paradise + + +WALTER DE LA MARE + +Music +Wanderers (from 'Peacock Pie') +Melmillo " " " +Alexander +The Mocking Fairy " " " +Full Moon " " " +Off the Ground " " " + + +JOHN DRINKWATER + +A Town Window (from 'Swords and Plough-shares') +Of Greatham " " " +The Carver in Stone " " " + + +JAMES ELROY FLECKER + +The Old Ships +A Fragment (from 'The Old Ships') +Santorin (from 'The Golden Journey to Samarkand') +Yasmin " " " +Gates of Damascus " " " +The Dying Patriot " " " + + +WILFRID WILSON GIBSON + +The Gorse (from 'Thoroughfares') +Hoops (from 'Borderlands') +The Going + + +RALPH HODGSON + +The Bull +The Song of Honour + + +D.H. LAWRENCE + +Service of all the Dead +Meeting among the Mountains +Cruelty and Love (from 'Love Poems and Others') + + +FRANCIS LEDWIDGE + +The Wife of Llew (from 'Songs of the Fields') +A Rainy Day in April " " " +The Lost Ones " " " + + +JOHN MASEFIELD + +The Wanderer (from 'Philip the King') + + +HAROLD MONRO + +Milk for the Cat (from 'Children of Love') +Overheard on a Saltmarsh " " +Children of Love + + +JAMES STEPHENS + +The Rivals (from 'Songs from the Clay') +The Goatpaths " " " +The Snare " " " +In Woods and Meadows " " " +Deirdre " " " + + +LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE + +The End of the World + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +GORDON BOTTOMLEY + + + +KING LEAR'S WIFE [1] + + +(To T.S.M.) + + +DRAMATIS PERSONAE: + +LEAR, King of Britain. +HYGD, his Queen. +GONERIL, daughter to King Lear. +CORDEIL, daughter to King Lear. +GORMFLAITH, waiting-woman to Queen Hygd. +MERRYN, waiting-woman to Queen Hygd. +A PHYSICIAN. +TWO ELDERLY WOMEN. + + + +KING LEAR'S WIFE. + + +[The scene is a bedchamber in a one-storied house. The walls consist of +a few courses of huge irregular boulders roughly squared and fitted +together; a thatched roof rises steeply from the back wall. In the +centre of the back wall is a doorway opening on a garden and covered by +two leather curtains; the chamber is partially hung with similar +hangings stitched with bright wools. There is a small window on each +side of this door. + +Toward the front a bed stands with its head against the right wall; it +has thin leather curtains hung by thongs and drawn back. Farther forward +a rich robe and a crown hang on a peg in the same wall. There is a +second door beyond the bed, and between this and the bed's head stands a +small table with a bronze lamp and a bronze cup on it. Queen HYGD, an +emaciated woman, is asleep in the bed; her plenteous black hair, veined +with silver, spreads over the pillow. Her waiting-woman, MERRYN, +middle-aged and hard-featured, sits watching her in a chair on the +farther side of the bed. The light of early morning fills the room.] + + +Merryn: + + Many, many must die who long to live, + Yet this one cannot die who longs to die: + Even her sleep, come now at last, thwarts death, + Although sleep lures us all half way to death ... + I could not sit beside her every night + If I believed that I might suffer so: + I am sure I am not made to be diseased, + I feel there is no malady can touch me-- + Save the red cancer, growing where it will. + + +[Taking her beads from her girdle, she kneels at the foot of the bed.] + + + O sweet Saint Cleer, and sweet Saint Elid too, + Shield me from rooting cancers and from madness: + Shield me from sudden death, worse than two death-beds; + Let me not lie like this unwanted queen, + Yet let my time come not ere I am ready-- + Grant space enow to relish the watchers' tears + And give my clothes away and calm my features + And streek my limbs according to my will, + Not the hard will of fumbling corpse-washers. + + +[She prays silently.] + +[KING LEAR, a great, golden-bearded man in the full maturity of life, +enters abruptly by the door beyond the bed, followed by the PHYSICIAN.] + + +Lear: + + Why are you here? Are you here for ever? + Where is the young Scotswoman? Where is she? + + +Merryn: + + O, Sire, move softly; the Queen sleeps at last. + + +Lear (continuing in an undertone): + + Where is the young Scotswoman? Where is Gormflaith? + It is her watch ... I know; I have marked your hours. + Did the Queen send her away? Did the Queen + Bid you stay near her in her hate of Gormflaith? + You work upon her yeasting brain to think + That she's not safe except when you crouch near her + To spy with your dropt eyes and soundless presence. + + +Merryn: + + Sire, midnight should have ended Gormflaith's watch, + But Gormflaith had another kind of will + And ended at a godlier hour by slumber, + A letter in her hand, the night-lamp out. + She loitered in the hall when she should sleep. + My duty has two hours ere she returns. + + +Lear: + + The Queen should have young women about her bed, + Fresh cool-breathed women to lie down at her side + And plenish her with vigour; for sick or wasted women + Can draw a virtue from such abounding presence, + When night makes life unwary and looses the strings of being, + Even by the breath, and most of all by sleep. + Her slumber was then no fault: go you and find her. + + +Physician: + + It is not strange that a bought watcher drowses; + What is most strange is that the Queen sleeps + Who would not sleep for all my draughts of sleep + In the last days. When did this change appear? + + +Merryn: + + We shall not know--it came while Gormflaith nodded. + When I awoke her and she saw the Queen + She could not speak for fear: + When the rekindling lamp showed certainly + The bed-clothes stirring about our lady's neck, + She knew there was no death, she breathed, she said + She had not slept until her mistress slept + And lulled her; but I asked her how her mistress + Slept, and her utterance faded. + She should be blamed with rods, as I was blamed + For slumber, after a day and a night of watching, + By the Queen's child-bed, twenty years ago. + + +Lear: + She does what she must do: let her alone. + I know her watch is now: get gone and send her. + + + [MERRYN goes out by the door beyond the bed.] + + Is it a portent now to sleep at night? + What change is here? What see you in the Queen? + Can you discern how this disease will end? + + +Physician: + + Surmise might spring and healing follow yet, + If I could find a trouble that could heal; + But these strong inward pains that keep her ebbing + Have not their source in perishing flesh. + I have seen women creep into their beds + And sink with this blind pain because they nursed + Some bitterness or burden in the mind + That drew the life, sucklings too long at breast. + Do you know such a cause in this poor lady? + + +Lear: + + There is no cause. How should there be a cause? + + +Physician: + + We cannot die wholly against our wills; + And in the texture of women I have found + Harder determination than in men: + The body grows impatient of enduring, + The harried mind is from the body estranged, + And we consent to go: by the Queen's touch, + The way she moves--or does not move--in bed, + The eyes so cold and keen in her white mask, + I know she has consented. + The snarling look of a mute wounded hawk, + That would be let alone, is always hers-- + Yet she was sorely tender: it may be + Some wound in her affection will not heal. + We should be careful--the mind can so be hurt + That nought can make it be unhurt again. + Where, then, did her affection most persist? + + +Lear: + + Old bone-patcher, old digger in men's flesh, + Doctors are ever itching to be priests, + Meddling in conduct, natures, life's privacies. + We have been coupled now for twenty years, + And she has never turned from me an hour-- + She knows a woman's duty and a queen's: + Whose, then, can her affection be but mine? + How can I hurt her--she is still my queen? + If her strong inward pain is a real pain + Find me some certain drug to medicine it: + When common beings have decayed past help, + There must be still some drug for a king to use; + For nothing ought to be denied to kings. + + +Physician: + + For the mere anguish there is such a potion. + The gum of warpy juniper shoots is seethed + With the torn marrow of an adder's spine; + An unflawed emerald is pashed to dust + And mingled there; that broth must cool in moonlight. + I have indeed attempted this already, + But the poor emeralds I could extort + From wry-mouthed earls' women had no force. + In two more dawns it will be late for potions ... + There are not many emeralds in Britain, + And there is none for vividness and strength + Like the great stone that hangs upon your breast: + If you will waste it for her she shall be holpen. + + +Lear (with rising voice): + Shatter my emerald? My emerald? My emerald? + A High King of Eire gave it to his daughter + Who mothered generations of us, the kings of Britain; + It has a spiritual influence; its heart + Burns when it sees the sun ... Shatter my emerald! + Only the fungused brain and carious mouth + Of senile things could shape such thought ... + My emerald! + + +[HYGD stirs uneasily in her sleep.] + + +Physician: + + Speak lower, low; for your good fame, speak low-- + If she should waken thus ... + + +Lear: + + There is no wise man + Believes that medicine is in a jewel. + It is enough that you have failed with one. + Seek you a common stone. I'll not do it. + Let her eat heartily: she is spent with fasting. + Let her stand up and walk: she is so still + Her blood can never nourish her. Come away. + + +Physician: + + I must not leave her ere the woman comes-- + Or will some other woman ... + + +Lear: + + No, no, no, no; + The Queen is not herself; she speaks without sense; + Only Merryn and Gormflaith understand. + She is better quiet. Come ... + + +[He urges the PHYSICIAN roughly away by the shoulder.] + + My emerald! + +[He follows the PHTSICIAN out by the door at the back. + Queen HYGD awakes at his last noisy words as he disappears.] + + +Hygd: + + I have not slept; I did but close mine eyes + A little while--a little while forgetting ... + Where are you, Merryn? ... Ah, it is not Merryn ... + Bring me the cup of whey, woman; I thirst ... + Will you speak to me if I say your name? + Will you not listen, Gormflaith? ... Can you hear? + I am very thirsty--let me drink ... + Ah, wicked woman, why did I speak to you? + I will not be your suppliant again ... + Where are you? O, where are you? ... Where are you? + + +[She tries to raise herself to look about the room, but sinks back +helplessly. The curtains of the door at the back are parted, and GONERIL +appears in hunting dress,--her kirtle caught up in her girdle, a light +spear over her shoulder--stands there a moment, then enters noiselessly +and, approaches the bed. She is a girl just turning to woman-hood, proud +in her poise, swift and cold, an almost gleaming presence, a virgin +huntress.] + + +Goneril: + + Mother, were you calling? + Have I awakened you? + They said that you were sleeping. + Why are you left alone, mother, my dear one? + + +Hygd: + + Who are you? No, no, no! Stand farther off! + You pulse and glow; you are too vital; your presence hurts ... + Freshness of hill-swards, wind and trodden ling, + I should have known that Goneril stands here. + It is yet dawn, but you have been afoot + Afar and long: where could you climb so soon? + + +Goneril: + + Dearest, I am an evil daughter to you: + I never thought of you--O, never once-- + Until I heard a moor-bird cry like you. + I am wicked, rapt in joys of breath and life, + And I must force myself to think of you. + I leave you to caretakers' cold gentleness; + But O, I did not think that they dare leave you. + What woman should be here? + + +Hygd: + + I have forgot ... + I know not ... She will be about some duty. + I do not matter: my time is done ... nigh done ... + Bought hands can well prepare me for a grave, + And all the generations must serve youth. + My girls shall live untroubled while they may, + And learn happiness once while yet blind men + Have injured not their freedom; + For women are not meant for happiness. + Where have you been, my falcon? + + +Goneril: + + I dreamt that I was swimming, shoulder up, + And drave the bed-clothes spreading to the floor: + Coldness awoke me; through the waning darkness + I heard far hounds give shivering aery tongue, + Remote, withdrawing, suddenly faint and near; + I leapt and saw a pack of stretching weasels + Hunt a pale coney in a soundless rush, + Their elfin and thin yelping pierced my heart + As with an unseen beauty long awaited; + Wolf-skin and cloak I buckled over this night-gear, + And took my honoured spear from my bed-side + Where none but I may touch its purity, + And sped as lightly down the dewy bank + As any mothy owl that hunts quick mice. + They went crying, crying, but I lost them + Before I stept, with the first tips of light, + On Raven Crag near by the Druid Stones; + So I paused there and, stooping, pressed my hand + Against the stony bed of the clear stream; + Then entered I the circle and raised up + My shining hand in cold stern adoration + Even as the first great gleam went up the sky. + + +Hygd: + + Ay, you do well to worship on that height: + Life is free to the quick up in the wind, + And the wind bares you for a god's descent-- + For wind is a spirit immediate and aged. + And you do well to worship harsh men-gods, + God Wind and Those who built his Stones with him: + All gods are cruel, bitter, and to be bribed, + But women-gods are mean and cunning as well. + That fierce old virgin, Cornish Merryn, prays + To a young woman, yes and even a virgin-- + The poorest kind of woman--and she says + That is to be a Christian: avoid then + Her worship most, for men hate such denials, + And any woman scorns her unwed daughter. + Where sped you from that height? Did Regan join you there? + + +Goneril: + + Does Regan worship anywhere at dawn? + The sweaty half-clad cook-maids render lard + Out in the scullery, after pig-killing, + And Regan sidles among their greasy skirts, + Smeary and hot as they, for craps to suck. + I lost my thoughts before the giant Stones ... + And when anew the earth assembled round me + I swung out on the heath and woke a hare + And speared it at a cast and shouldered it, + Startled another drinking at a tarn + And speared it ere it leapt; so steady and clear + Had the god in his fastness made my mind. + Then, as I took those dead things in my hands, + I felt shame light my face from deep within, + And loathing and contempt shake in my bowels, + That such unclean coarse blows from me had issued + To crush delicate things to bloody mash + And blemish their fur when I would only kill. + My gladness left me; I careered no more + Upon the morning; I went down from there + With empty hands: + But under the first trees and without thought + I stole on conies at play and stooped at one; + I hunted it, I caught it up to me + As I outsprang it, and with this thin knife + Pierced it from eye to eye; and it was dead, + Untorn, unsullied, and with flawless fur. + Then my untroubled mind came back to me. + + +Hygd: + + Leap down the glades with a fawn's ignorance; + Live you your fill of a harsh purity; + Be wild and calm and lonely while you may. + These are your nature's joys, and it is human + Only to recognise our natures' joys + When we are losing them for ever. + + +Goneril: + + But why +Do you say this to me with a sore heart? +You are a queen, and speak from the top of life, +And when you choose to wish for others' joys +Those others must have woe. + + +Hygd: + + The hour comes for you to turn to a man + And give yourself with the high heart of youth + More lavishly than a queen gives anything. + But when a woman gives herself + She must give herself for ever and have faith; + For woman is a thing of a season of years, + She is an early fruit that will not keep, + She can be drained and as a husk survive + To hope for reverence for what has been; + While man renews himself into old age, + And gives himself according to his need, + And women more unborn than his next child + May take him yet with youth + And lose him with their potence. + + +Goneril: + + But women need not wed these men. + + +Hygd: + + We are good human currency, like gold, + For men to pass among them when they choose. + + +[A child's hands beat on the outside of the door beyond the bed.] + + +Cordeil's Voice (a child's voice, outside): + + Father ... Father ... Father ... Are you here? + Merryn, ugly Merryn, let me in ... + I know my father is here ... I want him ... Now ... + Mother, chide Merryn, she is old and slow ... + + +Hygd (softly): + + My little curse. Send her away--away ... + + +Cordeil's Voice: + + Father... O, father, father... I want my father. + + +Goneril (opening the door a little way): + + Hush; hush--you hurt your mother with your voice. + You cannot come in, Cordeil; you must go away: + Your father is not here ... + + +Cordeil's Voice: + + He must be here: + He is not in his chamber or the hall, + He is not in the stable or with Gormflaith: + He promised I should ride with him at dawn + And sit before his saddle and hold his hawk, + And ride with him and ride to the heron-marsh; + He said that he would give me the first heron, + And hang the longest feathers in my hair. + + +Goneril: + + Then you must haste to find him; + He may be riding now ... + + +Cordeil's Voice: + +But Gerda said she saw him enter here. + + +Goneril: + +Indeed, he is not here ... + + +Cordeil's Voice: + + Let me look ... + + +Goneril: + + You are too noisy. Must I make you go? + + +Cordeil's Voice: + + Mother, Goneril is unkind to me. + + +Hygd (raising herself in bed excitedly, and speaking so vehemently that +her utterance strangles itself): + + Go, go, thou evil child, thou ill-comer. + + +[GONERIL, with a sudden strong movement, shuts the resisting door and +holds it rigidly. The little hands beat on it madly for a moment, then +the child's voice is heard in a retreating wail.] + + +Goneril: + + Though she is wilful, obeying only the King, + She is a very little child, mother, + To be so bitterly thought of. + + +Hygd: + + Because a woman gives herself for ever + Cordeil the useless had to be conceived + (Like an after-thought that deceives nobody) + To keep her father from another woman. + And I lie here. + + +Goneril (after a silence): + + Hard and unjust my father has been to me; + Yet that has knitted up within my mind + A love of coldness and a love of him + Who makes me firm, wary, swift and secret, + Until I feel if I become a mother + I shall at need be cruel to my children, + And ever cold, to string their natures harder + And make them able to endure men's deeds; + But now I wonder if injustice + Keeps house with baseness, taught by kinship-- + I never thought a king could be untrue, + I never thought my father was unclean ... + O mother, mother, what is it? Is this dying? + + +Hygd: + +I think I am only faint ... +Give me the cup of whey ... + + +[GONERIL takes the cup and, supporting HYGD lets her drink.] + + +Goneril: + + There is too little here. When was it made? + + +Hygd: + + Yester-eve ... Yester-morn ... + + +Goneril: + + Unhappy mother, + You have no daughter to take thought for you-- + No servant's love to shame a daughter with, + Though I am shamed--you must have other food, + Straightway I bring you meat ... + + +Hygd: + + It is no use ... + Plenish the cup for me ... Not now, not now, + But in a while; for I am heavy now ... + Old Wynoc's potions loiter in my veins, + And tides of heaviness pour over me + Each time I wake and think. I could sleep now. + + +Goneril: + + Then I shall lull you, as you once lulled me. + +[Seating herself on the bed, she sings.] + + The owlets in roof-holes + Can sing for themselves; + The smallest brown squirrel + Both scampers and delves; + But a baby does nothing-- + She never knows how-- + She must hark to her mother + Who sings to her now. + Sleep then, ladykin, peeping so; + Hide your handies and ley lei lo. + + +[She bends over HYGD and kisses her; they laugh softly together. LEAR +parts the curtains of the door at the back, stands there a moment, then +goes away noiselessly.] + + The lish baby otter + Is sleeky and streaming, + With catching bright fishes + Ere babies learn dreaming; + But no wet little otter + Is ever so warm + As the fleecy-wrapt baby + 'Twixt me and my arm. + Sleep big mousie... + + +Hygd (suddenly irritable): + + Be quiet ... I cannot bear it. + + +[She turns her head away from GONERIL and closes her eyes.] + +[As GONERIL watches her in silence GORMFLAITH enters by the door beyond +the bed. She is young and tall and fresh-coloured; her red hair coils +and crisps close to her little head, showing its shape. Her movements +are soft and unhurried; her manner is quiet and ingratiating and a +little too agreeable; she speaks a little too gently.] + + +Goneril (meeting her near the door and speaking in a low voice): + + Why did you leave the Queen? Where have you been? + Why have you so neglected this grave duty? + + +Gormflaith: + + This is the instant of my duty, Princess: + From midnight until now was Merryn's watch. + I thought to find her here: is she not here? + + +[HYGD turns to look at the speakers; then, turning back, closes her eyes +again and lies as if asleep.] + + +Goneril: + + I found the Queen alone. I heard her cry your name. + + +Gormflaith: + + Your anger is not too great, Madam; I grieve + That one so old as Merryn should act thus-- + So old and trusted and favoured, and so callous. + + +Goneril: + + The Queen has had no food since yester-night. + + +Gormflaith: + + Madam, that is too monstrous to conceive: + I will seek food. I will prepare it now. + + +Goneril: + + Stay here: and know, if the Queen is left again, + You shall be beaten with two rods at once. + + +[She picks up the cup and goes out by the door beyond the bed.] + +[GORMFLAITH turns the chair a little away from the bed so that she can +watch the jar door, and, seating herself, draws a letter from her bosom.] + + +Gormflaith (to herself, reading): + + "Open your window when the moon is dead, + And I will come again. + The men say everywhere that you are faithless, + The women say your face is a false face + And your eyes shifty eyes. Ah, but I love you, Gormflaith. + Do not forget your window-latch to-night, + For when the moon is dead the house is still." + + +[LEAR again parts the door-curtains at the back, and, seeing GORMFLAITH, +enters. At the first slight rustle of the curtains GORMFLAITH stealthily +slips the letter back into her bosom before turning gradually, a finger +to her lips, to see who approaches her.] + + +Lear (leaning over the side of her chair): + + Lady, what do you read? + + +Gormflaith: + + I read a letter, Sire. + + +Lear: + + A letter--a letter--what read you in a letter? + + +Gormflaith (taking another letter from her girdle): + + Your words to me--my lonely joy your words ... + "If you are steady and true as your gaze "-- + + +Lear (tearing the letter from her, crumpling it, and flinging it to the +back of the room): + + Pest! + You should not carry a king's letters about, + Nor hoard a king's letters. + + +Gormflaith: + + No, Sire. + + +Lear: + + Must the King also stand in the presence now? + + +Gormflaith (rising): + + Pardon my troubled mind; you have taken my letter from me. + + +[LEAR seats himself and takes GORMFLAITH'S hand.] + + +Gormflaith: + + Wait, wait--I might be seen. The Queen may waken yet. + + +[Stepping lightly to the led, she noiselessly slips the curtain on that +side as far forward as it will come. Then she returns to LEAR, who draws +her to him and seats her on his knee.] + + +Lear: + + You have been long in coming: + Was Merryn long in finding you? + + +Gormflaith (playing with Lear's emerald): + + Did Merryn ... + Has Merryn been ... She loitered long before she came, + For I was at the women's bathing-place ere dawn ... + No jewel in all the land excites me and enthralls + Like this strong source of light that lives upon your breast. + + +Lear (taking the jewel chain from his neck and slipping it over +Gormflaith's head while she still holds the emerald): + + Wear it within your breast to fill the gentle place + That cherished the poor letter lately torn from you. + + +Gormflaith: + + Did Merryn at your bidding, then, forsake her Queen? + +[LEAR nods.] + + You must not, ah, you must not do these masterful things, + Even to grasp a precious meeting for us two; + For the reproach and chiding are so hard to me, + And even you can never fight the silent women + In hidden league against me, all this house of women. + Merryn has left her Queen in unwatched loneliness, + And yet your daughter Princess Goneril has said + (With lips that scarce held back the spittle for my face) + That if the Queen is left again I shall be whipt. + + +Lear: + + Children speak of the punishments they know. + Her back is now not half so white as yours, + And you shall write your will upon it yet. + + +Gormflaith: + + Ah, no, my King, my faithful.. Ah, no.. no.. + The Princess Goneril is right; she judges me: + A sinful woman cannot steadily gaze reply + To the cool, baffling looks of virgin untried force. + She stands beside that crumbling mother in her hate, + And, though we know so well--she and I, O we know-- + That she could love no mother nor partake in anguish, + Yet she is flouted when the King forsakes her dam, + She must protect her very flesh, her tenderer flesh, + Although she cannot wince; she's wild in her cold brain, + And soon I must be made to pay a cruel price + For this one gloomy joy in my uncherished life. + Envy and greed are watching me aloof + (Yes, now none of the women will walk with me), + Longing to see me ruined, but she'll do it ... + It is a lonely thing to love a king ... + + +[She puts her cheek gradually closer and closer to LEAR'S cheek as she +speaks: at length he kisses her suddenly and vehemently, as if he would +grasp her lips with his: she receives it passively, her head thrown +back, her eyes closed.] + + +Lear: + + Goldilocks, when the crown is couching in your hair + And those two mingled golds brighten each other's wonder, + You shall produce a son from flesh unused-- + Virgin I chose you for that, first crops are strongest-- + A tawny fox with your high-stepping action, + With your untiring power and glittering eyes, + To hold my lands together when I am done, + To keep my lands from crumbling into mouthfuls + For the short jaws of my three mewling vixens. + Hatch for me such a youngster from my seed, + And I and he shall rein my hot-breathed wenches + To let you grind the edges off their teeth. + + +Gormflaith (shaking her head sadly): + + Life holds no more than this for me; this is my hour. + When she is dead I know you'll buy another Queen-- + Giving a county for her, gaining a duchy with her-- + And put me to wet nursing, leashing me with the thralls. + It will not be unbearable--I've had your love. + Master and friend, grant then this hour to me: + Never again, maybe, can we two sit + At love together, unwatched, unknown of all, + In the Queen's chamber, near the Queen's crown + And with no conscious Queen to hold it from us: + Now let me wear the Queen's true crown on me + And snatch a breathless knowledge of the feeling + Of what it would have been to sit by you + Always and closely, equal and exalted, + To be my light when life is dark again. + + +Lear: + + Girl, by the black stone god, I did not think + You had the nature of a chambermaid, + Who pries and fumbles in her lady's clothes + With her red hands, or on her soily neck + Stealthily hangs her lady's jewels or pearls. + You shall be tiring-maid to the next queen + And try her crown on every day o' your life + In secrecy, if that is your desire: + If you would be a queen, cleanse yourself quickly + Of menial fingering and servile thought. + + +Gormflaith: + +You need not crown me. Let me put it on +As briefly as a gleam of Winter sun. +I will not even warm it with my hair. + + +Lear: + +You cannot have the nature of a queen +If you believe that there are things above you: +Crowns make no queens, queens are the cause of crowns. + + +Gormflaith (slipping from his knee): + +Then I will take one. Look. + + +[She tip-toes lightly round the front of the bed to where the crown +hangs on the wall.] + + +Lear: + + Come here, mad thing--come back! + Your shadow will wake the Queen. + + +Gormflaith: + +Hush, hush! That angry voice +Will surely wake the Queen. + + +[She lifts the crown from the peg, and returns with it.] + + +Lear: + + Go back; bear back the crown: + Hang up the crown again. + We are not helpless serfs + To think things are forbidden + And steal them for our joy. + + +Gormflaith: + + Hush, hush! It is too late; + I dare not go again. + + +Lear: + + Put down the crown: your hands are base hands yet. + Give it to me: it issues from my hands. + + +Gormflaith (seating herself on his knee again, and crowning herself): + + Let anger keep your eyes steady and bright + To be my guiding mirror: do not move. + You have received two queens within your eyes. + + +[She laughs clearly, like a bird's sudden song. HYGD awakes and, after +an instant's bewilderment, turns her head toward the sound; finding the +bed-curtain dropt, she moves it aside a little with her fingers; she +watches LEAR and GORMFLAITH for a short time, then the curtain slips +from her weak grasp and she lies motionless.] + + +Lear (continuing meanwhile): + +Doff it ... (GORMFLAITH kisses him.) +Enough ... (Kiss) Unless you do ... +(Kiss) my will ... (Kiss) +I shall----(Kiss) I shall----(Kiss) I'll have you + ... (Kiss) sent ... (Kiss) to ...(Kiss.) + + +Gormflaith: + + Hush. + + +Lear: + + Come to the garden: you shall hear me there. + + +Gormflaith: + + I dare not leave the Queen ... Yes, yes, I come. + + +Lear: + + No, you are better here: the guard would see you. + + +Gormflaith: + + Not when we reach the pathway near the apple-yard. + + +[They rise.] + + +Lear: + + Girl, you are changed: you yield more beauty so. + + +[They go out hand in hand by the doorway at the back. As they pass the +crumpled letter GORMFLAITH drops her handkerchief on it, then picks up +handkerchief and letter together and thrusts them into her bosom as she +passes out.] + + +Hygd (fingering back the bed-curtain again): + + How have they vanished? What are they doing now? + + +Gormflaith (singing outside): + + If you have a mind to kiss me + You shall kiss me in the dark: + Yet rehearse, or you might miss me-- + Make my mouth your noontide mark. + See, I prim and pout it so; + Now take aim and ... No, no, no. + Shut your eyes, or you'll not learn + Where the darkness soon shall hide me: + If you will not, then, in turn, + I'll shut mine. Come, have you spied me? + + +[GORMFLAITH'S voice grows fainter as the song closes.] + + +Hygd: + + Does he remember love-ways used with me? + Shall I never know? Is it too near? + I'll watch him at his wooing once again, + Though I peer up at him across my grave-sill. + + +[She gets out of bed and takes several steps toward the garden doorway; +she totters and sways, then, turning, stumbles back to the bed for +support.] + + Limbs, will you die? It is not yet the time. + I know more discipline: I'll make you go. + + +[She fumbles along the bed to the head, then, clinging against the wall, +drags herself toward the back of the room.] + + + It is too far. I cannot see the wall. + I will go ten more steps: only ten more. + One. Two. Three. Four. Five. + Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. + Sundown is soon to-day: it is cold and dark. + Now ten steps more, and much will have been done. + One. Two. Three. Four. Ten. + Eleven. Twelve. Sixteen. Nineteen. Twenty. + Twenty-one. Twenty-three. Twenty-eight. Thirty. Thirty-one. + At last the turn. Thirty-six. Thirty-nine. Forty. + Now only once again. Two. Three. + What do the voices say? I hear too many. + The door: but here there is no garden ... Ah! + + +[She holds herself up an instant by the door-curtains; then she reels +and falls, her body in the room, her head and shoulders beyond the +curtains.] + +[GONERIL enters by the door beyond the bed, carrying the filled cup +carefully in both hands.] + + +Goneril: + + Where are you? What have you done? Speak to me. + + +[Turning and seeing HYGD, she lets the cup fall and leaps to the open +door by the bed.] + + Merryn, hither, hither ... Mother, O mother! + + +[She goes to HYGD. MERRYN enters.] + + +Merryn: + + Princess, what has she done? Who has left her? + She must have been alone. + + +Goneril: + + Where is Gormflaith? + + +Merryn: + + Mercy o' mercies, everybody asks me + For Gormflaith, then for Gormflaith, then for Gormflaith, + And I ask everybody else for her; + But she is nowhere, and the King will foam. + Send me no more; I am old with running about + After a bodiless name. + + +Goneril: + + She has been here, + And she has left the Queen. This is her deed. + + +Merryn: + +Ah, cruel, cruel! The shame, the pity-- + +Goneril: + + Lift. + + +[Together they raise HYGD, and carry her to bed.] + + + She breathes, but something flitters under her flesh: + Wynoc the leech must help us now. Go, run, + Seek him, and come back quickly, and do not dare + To come without him. + + +Merryn: + + It is useless, lady: + There's fever at the cowherd's in the marsh, + And Wynoc broods above it twice a day, + And I have lately seen him hobble thither. + + +Goneril: + + I never heard such scornful wickedness + As that a king's physician so should choose + To watch and even heal base men and poor-- + And, more than all, when there's a queen a-dying ... + + +Hygd (recovering consciousness): + + Whence come you, dearest daughter? What have I done? + Are you a dream? I thought I was alone. + Have you been hunting on the Windy Height? + Your hands are not thus gentle after hunting. + Or have I heard you singing through my sleep? + Stay with me now: I have had piercing thoughts + Of what the ways of life will do to you + To mould and maim you, and I have a power + To bring these to expression that I knew not. + Why do you wear my crown? Why do you wear + My crown I say? Why do you wear my crown? + I am falling, falling! Lift me: hold me up. + + +[GONERIL climbs on the bed and supports HYGD against her shoulder.] + + + It is the bed that breaks, for still I sink. + Grip harder: I am slipping! + + +Goneril: + + Woman, help! + + +[MERRYN hurries round to the front of the bed and supports HYGD on her +other side. HYGD points at the far corner of the room.] + + +Hygd: + + Why is the King's mother standing there? + She should not wear her crown before me now. + Send her away, she had a savage mind. + Will you not hang a shawl across the corner + So that she cannot stare at me again? + + +[With a rending sob she buries her face in GONERIL'S bosom.] + + Ah, she is coming! Do not let her touch me! + Brave splendid daughter, how easily you save me: + But soon will Gormflaith come, she stays for ever. + O, will she bring my crown to me once more? + Yes, Gormflaith, yes ... Daughter, pay Gormflaith well. + + +Goneril: + + Gormflaith has left you lonely: + 'Tis Gormflaith who shall pay. + + +Hygd: + +No, Gormflaith; Gormflaith ... Not my loneliness ... +Everything ... Pay Gormflaith ... + + +[Her head falls back over GONERIL'S shoulder and she dies.] + + +Goneril (laying Hygd down in bed again): + + Send horsemen to the marshes for the leech, + And let them bind him on a horse's back + And bring him swiftlier than an old man rides. + + +Merryn: + + This is no leech's work: she's a dead woman. + I'd best be finding if the wisdom-women + Have come from Brita's child-bed to their drinking + By the cook's fire, for soon she'll be past handling. + + +Goneril: + + This is not death: death could not be like this. + She is quite warm--though nothing moves in her. + I did not know death could come all at once: + If life is so ill-seated no one is safe. + Cannot we leave her like herself awhile? + Wait awhile, Merryn ... No, no, no; not yet! + + +Merryn: + + Child, she is gone and will not come again + However we cover our faces and pretend + She will be there if we uncover them. + I must be hasty, or she'll be as stiff + As a straw mattress is. + + +[She hurries out by the door near the bed.] + + +Goneril (throwing the whole length of her body along Hygd's body, and + embracing it): + + Come back, come back; the things I have not done + Beat in upon my brain from every side: + I know not where to put myself to bear them: + If I could have you now I could act well. + My inward life, deeds that you have not known, + I burn to tell you in a sudden dread + That now your ghost discovers them in me. + Hearken, mother; between us there's a bond + Of flesh and essence closer than love can cause: + It cannot be unknit so soon as this, + And you must know my touch, + And you shall yield a sign. + Feel, feel this urging throb: I call to you ... + + +[GORMFLAITH, still crowned, enters by the garden doorway.] + +Gormflaith: + + Come back! Help me and shield me! + + +[She disappears through the curtains. GONERIL has sprung to her feet at +the first sound of GORMFLAITH'S voice. + +LEAR enters through the garden doorway, leading GORMFLAITH by the hand.] + + +Lear: What is to do? + + +Goneril (advancing to meet them with a deep obeisance): + + O, Sir, the Queen is dead: long live the Queen, + You have been ready with the coronation. + + +Lear: + + What do you mean? Young madam, will you mock? + + +Goneril: + + But is not she your choice? + The old Queen thought so, for I found her here, + Lipping the prints of her supplanter's feet, + Prostrate in homage, on her face, silent. + I tremble within to have seen her fallen down. + I must be pardoned if I scorn your ways: + You cannot know this feeling that I know, + You are not of her kin or house; but I + Share blood with her, and, though she grew too worn + To be your Queen, she was my mother, Sir. + + +Gormflaith: + + The Queen has seen me. + + +Lear: + + She is safe in bed. + + +Goneril: + + Do not speak low: your voice sounds guilty so; + And there is no more need--she will not wake. + + +Lear: + + She cannot sleep for ever. When she wakes + I will announce my purpose in the need + Of Britain for a prince to follow me, + And tell her that she is to be deposed ... + What have you done? She is not breathing now. + She breathed here lately. Is she truly dead? + + +Goneril: + +Your graceful consort steals from us too soon: +Will you not tell her that she should remain-- +If she can trust the faith you keep with a queen? + + +[She steps to GORMFLAITH, who is sidling toward the garden door-way, +and, taking her hand, leads her to the foot of the bed.] + + + Lady, why will you go? The King intends + That you shall soon be royal, and thereby + Admitted to our breed: then stay with us + In this domestic privacy to mourn + The grief here fallen on our family. + Kneel now; I yield the eldest daughter's place. + Why do you fumble in your bosom so? + Put your cold hands together; close your eyes, + In inward isolation to assemble + Your memories of the dead, your prayers for her. + + +[She turns to LEAR, who has approached the bed and drawn back the +curtain.] + + + What utterance of doom would the king use + Upon a watchman in the castle garth + Who left his gate and let an enemy in? + The watcher by the Queen thus left her station: + The sick bruised Queen is dead of that neglect. + And what should be the doom on a seducer + Who drew that sentinel from his fixt watch? + + +Lear: + + She had long been dying, and she would have died + Had all her dutiful daughters tended her bed. + + +Goneril: + + Yes, she had long been dying in her heart. + She lived to see you give her crown away; + She died to see you fondle a menial: + These blows you dealt now, but what elder wounds + Received them to such purpose suddenly? + What had you caused her to remember most? + What things would she be like to babble over + In the wild helpless hour when fitful life + No more can choose what thoughts it shall encourage + In the tost mind? She has suffered you twice over, + Your animal thoughts and hungry powers, this day, + Until I knew you unkingly and untrue. + + +Lear: + + Punishment once taught you daughterly silence; + It shall be tried again ... What has she said? + + +Goneril: + + You cannot touch me now I know your nature: + Your force upon my mind was only terrible + When I believed you a cruel flawless man. + Ruler of lands and dreaded judge of men, + Now you have done a murder with your mind + Can you see any murderer put to death? + Can you-- + + +Lear: + + What has she said? + + +Goneril: + + Continue in your joy of punishing evil, + Your passion of just revenge upon wrong-doers, + Unkingly and untrue? + + +Lear: + +Enough: what do you know? + +Goneril: + + That which could add a further agony + To the last agony, the daily poison + Of her late, withering life; but never word + Of fairer hours or any lost delight. + Have you no memory, either, of her youth, + While she was still to use, spoil, forsake, + That maims your new contentment with a longing + For what is gone and will not come again? + + +Lear: + + I did not know that she could die to-day. + She had a bloodless beauty that cheated me: + She was not born for wedlock. She shut me out. + She is no colder now ... I'll hear no more. + You shall be answered afterward for this. + Put something over her: get her buried: + I will not look on her again. + + +[He breaks from GONERIL and flings abruptly out by the door near the bed.] + + +Gormflaith: + + My king, you leave me! + + +Goneril: + + Soon we follow him: + But, ah, poor fragile beauty, you cannot rise + While this grave burden weights your drooping head. + + +[Laying her hand caressingly on GORMFLAITH'S neck, she gradually forces +her head farther and farther down.] + + + You were not nurtured to sustain a crown, + Your unanointed parents could not breed + The spirit that ten hundred years must ripen. + Lo, how you sink and fail. + + +Gormflaith: + + You had best take care, + For where my neck has bruises yours shall have wounds. + The King knows of your wolfish snapping at me: + He will protect me. + + +Goneril: + + Ay, if he is in time. + + +Gormflaith (taking off the crown and holding it up blindly toward +Goneril with one hand): + + Take it and let me go! + + +Goneril: + + Nay, not to me: + You are the Queen's, to serve her even in death. + Yield her her own. Approach her: do not fear; + She will not chide you or forgive you now. + Go on your knees; the crown still holds you down. + + +[GORMFLAITH stumbles forward on her knees and lays the crown on the bed, +then crouches motionlessly against the bedside.] + + +Goneril (taking the crown and putting it on the dead Queen's head): + + Mother and Queen, to you this holiest circlet + Returns, by you renews its purpose and pride; + Though it is sullied with a menial warmth, + Your august coldness shall rehallow it, + And when the young lewd blood that lent it heat + Is also cooler we can well forget. + + +[She steps to GORMFLAITH.] + + + Rise. Come, for here there is no more to do, + And let us seek your chamber, if you will, + There to confer in greater privacy; + For we have now interment to prepare. + + +[She leads GORMFLAITH to the door near the bed.] + + + You must walk first, you are still the Queen elect. + + +[When GORMFLAITH has passed before her GONERIL unsheathes her hunting +knife.] + + +Gormflaith (turning in the doorway): + + What will you do? + + +Goneril (thrusting her forward with the haft of the knife): + + On. On. On. Go in. + + +[She follows GORMFLAITH out. After a moment's interval two elderly +women, one a little younger than the other, enter by the same door: they +wear black hoods and shapeless black gowns with large sleeves that flap +like the wings of ungainly birds: between them they carry a heavy +cauldron of hot water.] + + +The Younger Woman: + + We were listening. We were listening. + + +The Elder Woman: + + We were both listening. + + +The Younger Woman: + + Did she struggle? + + +The Elder Woman: + + She could not struggle long. + + +[They set down the cauldron at the foot of the bed.] + + +The Elder Woman (curtseying to the Queen's body): + + Saving your presence, Madam, we are come + To make you sweeter than you'll be hereafter, + And then be done with you. + + +The Younger Woman (curtseying in turn): + + Three days together, my Lady, y'have had me ducked + For easing a foolish maid at the wrong time; + But now your breath is stopped and you are colder, + And you shall be as wet as a drowned rat + Ere I have done with you. + + +The Elder Woman (fumbling in the folds of the robe that hangs on the +wall): + + Her pocket is empty; Merryn has been here first. + Hearken, and then begin: + You have not touched a royal corpse before, + But I have stretched a king and an old queen, + A king's aunt and a king's brother too, + Without much boasting of a still-born princess; + So that I know, as a priest knows his prayers, + All that is written in the chamberlain's book + About the handling of exalted corpses, + Stripping them and trussing them for the grave: + And there it says that the chief corpse-washer + Shall take for her own use by sacred right + The coverlid, the upper sheet, the mattress + Of any bed in which a queen has died, + And the last robe of state the body wore; + While humbler helpers may divide among them + The under sheet, the pillow, and the bed-gown + Stript from the cooling queen. + Be thankful, then, and praise me every day + That I have brought no other women with me + To spoil you of your share. + + +The Younger Woman: + + Ah, you have always been a friend to me: + Many's the time I have said I did not know + How I could even have lived but for your kindness. + + +[The ELDER WOMAN draws down the bedclothes from the Queen's body, +loosens them from the bed, and throws them on the floor.] + + +The Elder Woman: + + Pull her feet straight: is your mind wandering? + + +[She commences to fold the bedclothes, singing as she moves about.] + + + A louse crept out of my lady's shift-- + Ahumm, Ahumm, Ahee-- + Crying "Oi! Oi! We are turned adrift; + The lady's bosom is cold and stiffed, + And her arm-pit's cold for me." + + +[While the ELDER WOMAN sings, the YOUNGER WOMAN straightens the Queen's +feet and ties them together, draws the pillow from under her head, +gathers her hair in one hand and knots it roughly; then she loosens her +nightgown, revealing a jewel hung on a cord round the Queen's neck.] + + +The Elder Woman (running to the vacant side of the bed): + + What have you there? Give it to me. + + +The Younger Woman: + + It is mine: + I found it. + + +The Elder Woman: + + Leave it. + + +The Younger Woman: + + Let go. + + +The Elder Woman: + + Leave it, I say. + Will you not? Will you not? An eye for a jewel, then! + + +[She attacks the face of the YOUNGER WOMAN with her disengaged hand.] + + +The Younger Woman (starting back): + + Oh! + + +[The ELDER WOMAN breaks the cord and thrusts the jewel into her pocket.] + + +The Younger Woman: + + Aie! Aie! Aie! Old thief! You are always thieving! + You stole a necklace on your wedding day: + You could not bear a child, you stole your daughter: + You stole a shroud the morn your husband died: + Last week you stole the Princess Regan's comb ... + + +[She stumbles into the chair by the bed, and, throwing her loose sleeves +over her head, rocks herself and moans.] + + +The Elder Woman (resuming her clothes-folding and her song): + + "The lady's linen's no longer neat;"-- + Ahumm, Ahumm, Ahee-- + "Her savour is neither warm nor sweet; + It's close for two in a winding sheet, + And lice are too good for worms to eat; + So here's no place for me." + + +[GONERIL enters by the door near the bed: her knife and the hand that +holds it are bloody. She pauses a moment irresolutely.] + + +The Elder Woman: + + Still work for old Hrogneda, little Princess? + + +[GONERIL goes straight to the cauldron, passing the women as if they +were not there: she kneels and washes her knife and her hand in it. The +women retire to the back of the chamber.] + + +Goneril (speaking to herself): + + The way is easy: and it is to be used. + How could this need have been conceived slowly? + In a keen mind it should have leapt and burnt: + What I have done would have been better done + When my sad mother lived and could feel joy. + This striking without thought is better than hunting; + She showed more terror than an animal, + She was more shiftless ... + A little blood is lightly washed away, + A common stain that need not be remembered; + And a hot spasm of rightness quickly born + Can guide me to kill justly and shall guide. + + +[LEAR enters by the door near the bed.] + + +Lear: + + Goneril, Gormflaith, Gormflaith ... Have you seen Gormflaith? + + +Goneril: + + I led her to her chamber lately, Sir. + + +Lear: + + Ay, she is in her chamber. She is there. + + +Goneril: + + Have you been there already? Could you not wait? + + +Lear: + + Daughter, she is bleeding: she is slain. + + +Goneril (rising from the cauldron with dripping hands): + + Yes, she is slain: I did it with a knife: + And in this water is dissolved her blood, + + +(Raising her arms and sprinkling the Queen's body) + + + That now I scatter on the Queen of death + For signal to her spirit that I can slake + Her long corrosion of misery with such balm-- + Blood for weeping, terror for woe, death for death, + A broken body for a broken heart. + What will you say against me and my deed? + + +Lear: + + That now you cannot save yourself from me. + While your blind virgin power still stood apart + In an unused, unviolated life, + You judged me in my weakness, and because + I felt you unflawed I could not answer you; + But you have mingled in mortality + And violently begun the common life + By fault against your fellows; and the state, + The state of Britain that inheres in me + Not touched by my humanity or sin, + Passions or privy acts, shall be as hard + And savage to you as to a murderess. + + +Goneril (taking a letter from her girdle): + + I found a warrant in her favoured bosom, King: + She wore this on her heart when you were crowning her. + + +Lear: + + But this is not my hand: + + +(Looking about him on the floor) + + + Where is the other letter? + + +Goneril: + + Is there another letter? What should it say? + + +Lear: + + There is no other letter if you have none. + (Reading) + "Open your window when the moon is dead, + And I will come again. + The men say everywhere that you are faithless ... + And your eyes shifty eyes. Ah, but I love you, Gormflaith." ... + This is not hers: she'd not receive such words. + + +Goneril: + + Her name stands twice therein: her perfume fills it: + My knife went through it ere I found it on her. + + +Lear: + + The filth is suitably dead. You are my true daughter. + + +Goneril: + + I do not understand how men can govern, + Use craft and exercise the duty of cunning, + Anticipate treason, treachery meet with treachery, + And yet believe a woman because she looks + Straight in their eyes with mournful, trustful gaze, + And lisps like innocence, all gentleness. + Your Gormflaith could not answer a woman's eyes. + I did not need to read her in a letter; + I am not woman yet, but I can feel + What untruths are instinctive in my kind, + And how some men desire deceit from us. + Come; let these washers do what they must do: + Or shall your Queen be wrapped and coffined awry? + + +[She goes out by the garden doorway.] + + +Lear: + + I thought she had been broken long ago: + She must be wedded and broken, I cannot do it. + + +[He follows GONERIL out. The two women return to the bedside.] + + +The Elder Woman: + + Poor, masterful King, he is no easier, + Although his tearful wife is gone at last: + A wilful girl shall prick and thwart him now. + Old gossip, we must hasten; the Queen is setting. + Lend me a pair of pennies to weight her eyes. + + +The Younger Woman: + + Find your own pennies: then you can steal them safely. + + +The Elder Woman: + + Praise you the gods of Britain, as I do praise them, + That I have been sweet-natured from my birth, + And that I lack your unforgiving mind. + Friend of the worms, help me to lift her clear + And draw away the under sheet for you; + Then go and spread the shroud by the hall fire-- + I never could put damp linen on a corpse. + + +[She sings.] + + + The louse made off unhappy and wet;-- + Ahumm, Ahumm, Ahee-- + He's looking for us, the little pet; + So haste, for her chin's to tie up yet, + And let us be gone with what we can get-- + Her ring for thee, her gown for Bet, + Her pocket turned out for me. + + + +CURTAIN. + + + +[Footnote 1: Copyright by Gordon Bottomley, 1915, in the United States +of America.] + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +RUPERT BROOKE + + + +TIARE TAHITI + + +Mamua, when our laughter ends, +And hearts and bodies, brown as white, +Are dust about the doors of friends, +Or scent ablowing down the night, +Then, oh! then, the wise agree, +Comes our immortality. +Mamua, there waits a land +Hard for us to understand. +Out of time, beyond the sun, +All are one in Paradise, +You and Pupure are one, +And Tau, and the ungainly wise. +There the Eternals are, and there +The Good, the Lovely, and the True, +And Types, whose earthly copies were +The foolish broken things we knew; +There is the Face, whose ghosts we are; +The real, the never-setting Star; +And the Flower, of which we love +Faint and fading shadows here; +Never a tear, but only Grief; +Dance, but not the limbs that move; +Songs in Song shall disappear; +Instead of lovers, Love shall be; +For hearts, Immutability; +And there, on the Ideal Reef, +Thunders the Everlasting Sea! + +And my laughter, and my pain, +Shall home to the Eternal Brain; +And all lovely things, they say, +Meet in Loveliness again; +Miri's laugh, Teipo's feet, +And the hands of Matua, +Stars and sunlight there shall meet, +Coral's hues and rainbows there, +And Teilra's braided hair; +And with the starred 'tiare's' white, +And white birds in the dark ravine, +And 'flamboyants' ablaze at night, +And jewels, and evening's after-green, +And dawns of pearl and gold and red, +Mamua, your lovelier head! +And there'll no more be one who dreams +Under the ferns, of crumbling stuff, +Eyes of illusion, mouth that seems, +All time-entangled human love. +And you'll no longer swing and sway +Divinely down the scented shade, +Where feet to Ambulation fade, +And moons are lost in endless Day. +How shall we wind these wreaths of ours, +Where there are neither heads nor flowers? +Oh, Heaven's Heaven!--but we'll be missing +The palms, and sunlight, and the south; +And there's an end, I think, of kissing, +When our mouths are one with Mouth ... + +'Tau here', Mamua, +Crown the hair, and come away! +Hear the calling of the moon, +And the whispering scents that stray +About the idle warm lagoon. +Hasten, hand in human hand, +Down the dark, the flowered way, +Along the whiteness of the sand, +And in the water's soft caress, +Wash the mind of foolishness, +Mamua, until the day. +Spend the glittering moonlight there +Pursuing down the soundless deep +Limbs that gleam and shadowy hair, +Or floating lazy, half-asleep. +Dive and double and follow after, +Snare in flowers, and kiss, and call, +With lips that fade, and human laughter, +And faces individual, +Well this side of Paradise! ... +There's little comfort in the wise. + + + +THE GREAT LOVER + + +I have been so great a lover: filled my days +So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise, +The pain, the calm, and the astonishment, +Desire illimitable, and still content, +And all dear names men use, to cheat despair, +For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear +Our hearts at random down the dark of life. +Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife +Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far, +My night shall be remembered for a star +That outshone all the suns of all men's days. +Shall I not crown them with immortal praise +Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me +High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see +The inenarrable godhead of delight? +Love is a flame;--we have beaconed the world's night. +A city:--and we have built it, these and I. +An emperor:--we have taught the world to die. +So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence, +And the high cause of Love's magnificence, +And to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names +Golden for ever, eagles, crying flames, +And set them as a banner, that men may know, +To dare the generations, burn, and blow +Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming ... + +These I have loved: + White plates and cups, clean-gleaming, +Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust; +Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust +Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food; +Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood; +And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers; +And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours, +Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon; +Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon +Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss +Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is +Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen +Unpassioned beauty of a great machine; +The benison of hot water; furs to touch; +The good smell of old clothes; and other such-- +The comfortable smell of friendly fingers, +Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers +About dead leaves and last year's ferns ... + Dear names, +And thousand other throng to me! Royal flames; +Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring; +Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing; +Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain, +Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train; +Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam +That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home; +And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold +Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould; +Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew; +And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new; +And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass;-- +All these have been my loves. And these shall pass, +Whatever passes not, in the great hour, +Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power +To hold them with me through the gate of Death. +They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath, +Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust +And sacramented covenant to the dust. +--Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake, +And give what's left of love again, and make +New friends, now strangers... + But the best I've known, +Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown +About the winds of the world, and fades from brains +Of living men, and dies. + Nothing remains. + +O dear my loves, O faithless, once again +This one last gift I give: that after men +Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed, +Praise you, 'All these were lovely'; say, 'He loved.' + + + +BEAUTY AND BEAUTY + + +When Beauty and Beauty meet +All naked, fair to fair, +The earth is crying-sweet, +And scattering-bright the air, +Eddying, dizzying, closing round, +With soft and drunken laughter; +Veiling all that may befall +After--after-- + +Where Beauty and Beauty met, +Earth's still a-tremble there, +And winds are scented yet, +And memory-soft the air, +Bosoming, folding glints of light, +And shreds of shadowy laughter; +Not the tears that fill the years +After--after-- + + + +HEAVEN + + +Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June, +Dawdling away their wat'ry noon) +Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear, +Each secret fishy hope or fear. +Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; +But is there anything Beyond? +This life cannot be All, they swear, +For how unpleasant, if it were! +One may not doubt that, somehow, Good +Shall come of Water and of Mud; +And, sure, the reverent eye must see +A Purpose in Liquidity. +We darkly know, by Faith we cry, +The future is not Wholly Dry. +Mud unto mud!--Death eddies near-- +Not here the appointed End, not here! +But somewhere, beyond Space and Time, +Is wetter water, slimier slime! +And there (they trust) there swimmeth One +Who swam ere rivers were begun, +Immense, of fishy form and mind, +Squamous, omnipotent, and kind; +And under that Almighty Fin, +The littlest fish may enter in. +Oh! never fly conceals a hook, +Fish say, in the Eternal Brook, +But more than mundane weeds are there, +And mud, celestially fair; +Fat caterpillars drift around, +And Paradisal grubs are found; +Unfading moths, immortal flies, +And the worm that never dies. +And in that Heaven of all their wish, +There shall be no more land, say fish. + + + +CLOUDS + + +Down the blue night the unending columns press + In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow, + Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow +Up to the white moon's hidden loveliness. +Some pause in their grave wandering comradeless, + And turn with profound gesture vague and slow, + As who would pray good for the world, but know +Their benediction empty as they bless. + +They say that the Dead die not, but remain + Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth. + I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these, +In wise majestic melancholy train, + And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas, + And men, coming and going on the earth. + + + +SONNET + + +(Suggested by some of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical +Research) + +Not with vain tears, when we're beyond the sun, + We'll beat on the substantial doors, nor tread + Those dusty high-roads of the aimless dead +Plaintive for Earth; but rather turn and run +Down some close-covered by-way of the air, + Some low sweet alley between wind and wind, + Stoop under faint gleams, thread the shadows, find +Some whispering ghost-forgotten nook, and there + +Spend in pure converse our eternal day; + Think each in each, immediately wise; +Learn all we lacked before; hear, know, and say + What this tumultuous body now denies; +And feel, who have laid our groping hands away; + And see, no longer blinded by our eyes. + + + +THE SOLDIER + +If I should die, think only this of me: + That there's some corner of a foreign field +That is for ever England. There shall be + In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; +A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, + Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, +A body of England's, breathing English air, + Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. + +And think, this heart, all evil shed away, + A pulse in the eternal mind, no less + Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; +Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; + And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, + In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +WILLIAM H. DAVIES + + + +THUNDERSTORMS + +My mind has thunderstorms, + That brood for heavy hours: +Until they rain me words, + My thoughts are drooping flowers +And sulking, silent birds. + +Yet come, dark thunderstorms, + And brood your heavy hours; +For when you rain me words + My thoughts are dancing flowers +And joyful singing birds. + + + +THE MIND'S LIBERTY + +The mind, with its own eyes and ears, + May for these others have no care; +No matter where this body is, + The mind is free to go elsewhere. +My mind can be a sailor, when + This body's still confined to land; +And turn these mortals into trees, + That walk in Fleet Street or the Strand. + +So, when I'm passing Charing Cross, + Where porters work both night and day, +I ofttimes hear sweet Malpas Brook, + That flows thrice fifty miles away. +And when I'm passing near St Paul's, + I see, beyond the dome and crowd, +Twm Barlum, that green pap in Gwent, + With its dark nipple in a cloud. + + + +THE MOON + +Thy beauty haunts me heart and soul, + Oh thou fair Moon, so close and bright; +Thy beauty makes me like the child + That cries aloud to own thy light: +The little child that lifts each arm +To press thee to her bosom warm. + +Though there are birds that sing this night + With thy white beams across their throats, +Let my deep silence speak for me + More than for them their sweetest notes: +Who worships thee till music fails, +Is greater than thy nightingales. + + + +WHEN ON A SUMMER'S MORN + +When on a summer's morn I wake, + And open my two eyes, +Out to the clear, born-singing rills + My bird-like spirit flies, + +To hear the Blackbird, Cuckoo, Thrush, + Or any bird in song; +And common leaves that hum all day, + Without a throat or tongue. + +And when Time strikes the hour for sleep, + Back in my room alone, +My heart has many a sweet bird's song-- + And one that's all my own. + + + +A GREAT TIME + +Sweet Chance, that led my steps abroad, + Beyond the town, where wild flowers grow-- +A rainbow and a cuckoo, Lord, + How rich and great the times are now! + Know, all ye sheep + And cows, that keep +On staring that I stand so long + In grass that's wet from heavy rain-- +A rainbow and a cuckoo's song + May never come together again; + May never come + This side the tomb. + + + +THE HAWK + +Thou dost not fly, thou art not perched, + The air is all around: +What is it that can keep thee set, + From falling to the ground? +The concentration of thy mind + Supports thee in the air; +As thou dost watch the small young birds, + With such a deadly care. + +My mind has such a hawk as thou, + It is an evil mood; +It comes when there's no cause for grief, + And on my joys doth brood. +Then do I see my life in parts; + The earth receives my bones, +The common air absorbs my mind-- + It knows not flowers from stones. + + + +SWEET STAY-AT-HOME + +Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Well-content, +Thou knowest of no strange continent: +Thou hast not felt thy bosom keep +A gentle motion with the deep; +Thou hast not sailed in Indian seas, +Where scent comes forth in every breeze. +Thou hast not seen the rich grape grow +For miles, as far as eyes can go; +Thou hast not seen a summer's night +When maids could sew by a worm's light; +Nor the North Sea in spring send out +Bright hues that like birds flit about +In solid cages of white ice-- +Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Love-one-place. +Thou hast not seen black fingers pick +White cotton when the bloom is thick, +Nor heard black throats in harmony; +Nor hast thou sat on stones that lie +Flat on the earth, that once did rise +To hide proud kings from common eyes. +Thou hast not seen plains full of bloom +Where green things had such little room +They pleased the eye like fairer flowers-- +Sweet Stay-at-Home, all these long hours. +Sweet Well-content, sweet Love-one-place, +Sweet, simple maid, bless thy dear face; +For thou hast made more homely stuff +Nurture thy gentle self enough; +I love thee for a heart that's kind-- +Not for the knowledge in thy mind. + + + +A FLEETING PASSION + +Thou shalt not laugh, thou shalt not romp, + Let's grimly kiss with bated breath; +As quietly and solemnly + As Life when it is kissing Death. +Now in the silence of the grave, + My hand is squeezing that soft breast; +While thou dost in such passion lie, + It mocks me with its look of rest. + +But when the morning comes at last, + And we must part, our passions cold, +You'll think of some new feather, scarf + To buy with my small piece of gold; +And I'll be dreaming of green lanes, + Where little things with beating hearts +Hold shining eyes between the leaves, + Till men with horses pass, and carts. + + + +THE BIRD OF PARADISE + +Here comes Kate Summers, who, for gold, + Takes any man to bed: +"You knew my friend, Nell Barnes," she said; + "You knew Nell Barnes--she's dead. + +"Nell Barnes was bad on all you men, + Unclean, a thief as well; +Yet all my life I have not found + A better friend than Nell. + +"So I sat at her side at last, + For hours, till she was dead; +And yet she had no sense at all + Of any word I said. + +"For all her cry but came to this-- + 'Not for the world! Take care: +Don't touch that bird of paradise, + Perched on the bed-post there!' + +"I asked her would she like some grapes, + Some damsons ripe and sweet; +A custard made with new-laid eggs, + Or tender fowl to eat. + +"I promised I would follow her, + To see her in her grave; +And buy a wreath with borrowed pence, + If nothing I could save. + +"Yet still her cry but came to this-- + 'Not for the world! Take care: +Don't touch that bird of paradise, + Perched on the bed-post there!'" + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +WALTER DE LA MARE + + + +MUSIC + +When music sounds, gone is the earth I know, +And all her lovely things even lovelier grow; +Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees +Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies. + +When music sounds, out of the water rise +Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes, +Rapt in strange dream burns each enchanted face, +With solemn echoing stirs their dwelling-place. + +When music sounds, all that I was I am +Ere to this haunt of brooding dust I came; +And from Time's woods break into distant song +The swift-winged hours, as I hasten along. + + + +WANDERERS + +Wide are the meadows of night, +And daisies are shining there, +Tossing their lovely dews, +Lustrous and fair; +And through these sweet fields go, +Wanderers amid the stars-- +Venus, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune, +Saturn, Jupiter, Mars. + +'Tired in their silver, they move, +And circling, whisper and say, +Fair are the blossoming meads of delight +Through which we stray. + + + +MELMILLO + +Three and thirty birds there stood +In an elder in a wood; +Called Melmillo--flew off three, +Leaving thirty in the tree; +Called Melmillo--nine now gone, +And the boughs held twenty-one; +Called Melmillo--and eighteen +Left but three to nod and preen; +Called Melmillo--three--two--one-- +Now of birds were feathers none. + +Then stole slim Melmillo in +To that wood all dusk and green, +And with lean long palms outspread +Softly a strange dance did tread; +Not a note of music she +Had for echoing company; +All the birds were flown to rest +In the hollow of her breast; +In the wood--thorn, elder, willow-- +Danced alone--lone danced Melmillo. + + + +ALEXANDER + +It was the Great Alexander, +Capped with a golden helm, +Sate in the ages, in his floating ship, + In a dead calm. + +Voices of sea-maids singing +Wandered across the deep: +The sailors labouring on their oars + Rowed as in sleep. + +All the high pomp of Asia, +Charmed by that siren lay, +Out of their weary and dreaming minds + Faded away. + +Like a bold boy sate their Captain, +His glamour withered and gone, +In the souls of his brooding manners, + While the song pined on. + +Time like a falling dew, +Life like the scene of a dream +Laid between slumber and slumber + Only did seem ... + +O Alexander, then, +In all us mortals too, +Wax not so overbold + On the wave dark-blue! + +Come the calm starry night, +Who then will hear +Aught save the singing + Of the sea-maids clear? + + + +THE MOCKING FAIRY + +'Won't you look out of your window, Mrs Gill?' +Quoth the Fairy, nidding, nodding in the garden; +'CAN'T you look out of your window, Mrs Gill?' +Quoth the Fairy, laughing softly in the garden; +But the air was still, the cherry boughs were still, +And the ivy-tod 'neath the empty sill, +And never from her window looked out Mrs Gill +On the Fairy shrilly mocking in the garden. + +'What have they done with you, you poor Mrs Gill?' +Quoth the Fairy brightly glancing in the garden; +'Where have they hidden you, you poor old Mrs Gill?' +Quoth the Fairy dancing lightly in the garden; +But night's faint veil now wrapped the hill, +Stark 'neath the stars stood the dead-still Mill, +And out of her cold cottage never answered Mrs Gill +The Fairy mimbling mambling in the garden. + + + +FULL MOON + +One night as Dick lay half asleep, +Into his drowsy eyes +A great still light began to creep +From out the silent skies. +It was the lovely moon's, for when +He raised his dreamy head, +Her surge of silver filled the pane +And streamed across his bed. +So, for awhile, each gazed at each-- +Dick and the solemn moon-- +Till, climbing slowly on her way, +She vanished, and was gone. + + + +OFF THE GROUND + +Three jolly Farmers +Once bet a pound +Each dance the others would +Off the ground. +Out of their coats +They slipped right soon, +And neat and nicesome +Put each his shoon. +One--Two--Three! +And away they go, +Not too fast, +And not too slow; +Out from the elm-tree's +Noonday shadow, +Into the sun +And across the meadow. +Past the schoolroom, +With knees well bent, +Fingers a-flicking, +They dancing went. +Up sides and over, +And round and round, +They crossed click-clacking +The Parish bound; +By Tupman's meadow +They did their mile, +Tee-to-tum +On a three-barred stile. +Then straight through Whipham, +Downhill to Week, +Footing it lightsome, +But not too quick, +Up fields to Watchet, +And on through Wye, +Till seven fine churches +They'd seen skip by-- +Seven fine churches, +And five old mills, +Farms in the valley, +And sheep on the hills; +Old Man's Acre +And Dead Man's Pool +All left behind, +As they danced through Wool. +And Wool gone by, +Like tops that seem +To spin in sleep +They danced in dream: +Withy--Wellover-- +Wassop--Wo-- +Like an old clock +Their heels did go. +A league and a league +And a league they went, +And not one weary, +And not one spent. +And lo, and behold! +Past Willow-cum-Leigh +Stretched with its waters +The great green sea. +Says Farmer Bates, +'I puffs and I blows, +What's under the water, +Why, no man knows!' +Says Farmer Giles, +'My mind comes weak, +And a good man drowned +Is far to seek.' +But Farmer Turvey, +On twirling toes, +Up's with his gaiters, +And in he goes: +Down where the mermaids +Pluck and play +On their twangling harps +In a sea-green day; +Down where the mermaids, +Finned and fair, +Sleek with their combs +Their yellow hair ... +Bates and Giles-- +On the shingle sat, +Gazing at Turvey's +Floating hat. +But never a ripple +Nor bubble told +Where he was supping +Off plates of gold. +Never an echo +Rilled through the sea +Of the feasting and dancing +And minstrelsy. +They called--called--called: +Came no reply: +Nought but the ripples' +Sandy sigh. +Then glum and silent +They sat instead, +Vacantly brooding +On home and bed, +Till both together +Stood up and said:-- +'Us knows not, dreams not, +Where you be, +Turvey, unless +In the deep blue sea; +But axcusing silver-- +And it comes most willing-- +Here's us two paying +Our forty shilling; +For it's sartin sure, Turvey, +Safe and sound, +You danced us square, Turvey, +Off the ground!' + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +JOHN DRINKWATER + + + +A TOWN WINDOW + +Beyond my window in the night +Is but a drab inglorious street, +Yet there the frost and clean starlight +As over Warwick woods are sweet. + +Under the grey drift of the town +The crocus works among the mould +As eagerly as those that crown +The Warwick spring in flame and gold. + +And when the tramway down the hill +Across the cobbles moans and rings, +There is about my window-sill +The tumult of a thousand wings. + + + +OF GREATHAM + +(To those who live there) + +For peace, than knowledge more desirable, + Into your Sussex quietness I came, +When summer's green and gold and azure fell + Over the world in flame. + +And peace upon your pasture-lands I found, + Where grazing flocks drift on continually, +As little clouds that travel with no sound + Across a windless sky. + +Out of your oaks the birds call to their mates + That brood among the pines, where hidden deep +From curious eyes a world's adventure waits + In columned choirs of sleep. + +Under the calm ascension of the night + We heard the mellow lapsing and return +Of night-owls purring in their groundling flight + Through lanes of darkling fern. + +Unbroken peace when all the stars were drawn + Back to their lairs of light, and ranked along +From shire to shire the downs out of the dawn + Were risen in golden song. + + * * * * * + +I sing of peace who have known the large unrest + Of men bewildered in their travelling, +And I have known the bridal earth unblest + By the brigades of spring. + +I have known that loss. And now the broken thought +Of nations marketing in death I know, +The very winds to threnodies are wrought +That on your downlands blow. + +I sing of peace. Was it but yesterday +I came among your roses and your corn? +Then momently amid this wrath I pray +For yesterday reborn. + + + +THE CARVER IN STONE + +He was a man with wide and patient eyes, +Grey, like the drift of twitch-fires blown in June, +That, without fearing, searched if any wrong +Might threaten from your heart. Grey eyes he had +Under a brow was drawn because he knew +So many seasons to so many pass +Of upright service, loyal, unabased +Before the world seducing, and so, barren +Of good words praising and thought that mated his. +He carved in stone. Out of his quiet life +He watched as any faithful seaman charged +With tidings of the myriad faring sea, +And thoughts and premonitions through his mind +Sailing as ships from strange and storied lands +His hungry spirit held, till all they were +Found living witness in the chiselled stone. +Slowly out of the dark confusion, spread +By life's innumerable venturings +Over his brain, he would triumph into the light +Of one clear mood, unblemished of the blind +Legions of errant thought that cried about +His rapt seclusion: as a pearl unsoiled, +Nay, rather washed to lonelier chastity, +In gritty mud. And then would come a bird, +A flower, or the wind moving upon a flower, +A beast at pasture, or a clustered fruit, +A peasant face as were the saints of old, +The leer of custom, or the bow of the moon +Swung in miraculous poise--some stray from the world +Of things created by the eternal mind +In joy articulate. And his perfect mood +Would dwell about the token of God's mood, +Until in bird or flower or moving wind +Or flock or shepherd or the troops of heaven +It sprang in one fierce moment of desire +To visible form. +Then would his chisel work among the stone, +Persuading it of petal or of limb +Or starry curve, till risen anew there sang +Shape out of chaos, and again the vision +Of one mind single from the world was pressed +Upon the daily custom of the sky +Or field or the body of man. + His people +Had many gods for worship. The tiger-god, +The owl, the dewlapped bull, the running pard, +The camel, and the lizard of the slime, +The ram with quivering fleece and fluted horn, +The crested eagle and the doming bat +Were sacred. And the king and his high priests +Decreed a temple, wide on columns huge, +Should top the cornlands to the sky's far line. +They bade the carvers carve along the walls +Images of their gods, each one to carve +As he desired, his choice to name his god ... +And many came; and he among them, glad +Of three leagues' travel through the singing air +Of dawn among the boughs yet bare of green, +The eager flight of the spring leading his blood +Into swift lofty channels of the air, +Proud as an eagle riding to the sun ... +An eagle, clean of pinion--there's his choice. + +Daylong they worked under the growing roof, +One at his leopard, one the staring ram, +And he winning his eagle from the stone, +Until each man had carved one image out, +Arow beyond the portal of the house. + +They stood arow, the company of gods, +Camel and bat, lizard and bull and ram, +The pard and owl, dead figures on the wall, +Figures of habit driven on the stone +By chisels governed by no heat of the brain +But drudges of hands that moved by easy rule. +Proudly recorded mood was none, no thought +Plucked from the dark battalions of the mind +And throned in everlasting sight. But one +God of them all was witness of belief +And large adventure dared. His eagle spread +Wide pinions on a cloudless ground of heaven, +Glad with the heart's high courage of that dawn +Moving upon the ploughlands newly sown, +Dead stone the rest. He looked, and knew it so. + +Then came the king with priests and counsellors +And many chosen of the people, wise +With words weary of custom, and eyes askew +That watched their neighbour face for any news +Of the best way of judgment, till, each sure +None would determine with authority, +All spoke in prudent praise. One liked the owl +Because an owl blinked on the beam of his barn. +One, hoarse with crying gospels in the street, +Praised most the ram, because the common folk +Wore breeches made of ram's wool. One declared +The tiger pleased him best,--the man who carved +The tiger-god was halt out of the womb-- +A man to praise, being so pitiful. +And one, whose eyes dwelt in a distant void, +With spell and omen pat upon his lips, +And a purse for any crystal prophet ripe, +A zealot of the mist, gazed at the bull-- +A lean ill-shapen bull of meagre lines +That scarce the steel had graved upon the stone-- +Saying that here was very mystery +And truth, did men but know. And one there was +Who praised his eagle, but remembering +The lither pinion of the swift, the curve +That liked him better of the mirrored swan. +And they who carved the tiger-god and ram, +The camel and the pard, the owl and bull, +And lizard, listened greedily, and made +Humble denial of their worthiness, +And when the king his royal judgment gave +That all had fashioned well, and bade that each +Re-shape his chosen god along the walls +Till all the temple boasted of their skill, +They bowed themselves in token that as this +Never had carvers been so fortunate. + +Only the man with wide and patient eyes +Made no denial, neither bowed his head. +Already while they spoke his thoughts had gone +Far from his eagle, leaving it for a sign +Loyally wrought of one deep breath of life, +And played about the image of a toad +That crawled among his ivy leaves. A queer +Puff-bellied toad, with eyes that always stared +Sidelong at heaven and saw no heaven there, +Weak-hammed, and with a throttle somehow twisted +Beyond full wholesome draughts of air, and skin +Of wrinkled lips, the only zest or will +The little flashing tongue searching the leaves. +And king and priest, chosen and counsellor, +Babbling out of their thin and jealous brains, +Seemed strangely one; a queer enormous toad +Panting under giant leaves of dark, +Sunk in the loins, peering into the day. + +Their judgment wry he counted not for wrong +More than the fabled poison of the toad +Striking at simple wits; how should their thought +Or word in praise or blame come near the peace +That shone in seasonable hours above +The patience of his spirit's husbandry? +They foolish and not seeing, how should he +Spend anger there or fear--great ceremonies +Equal for none save great antagonists? +The grave indifference of his heart before them +Was moved by laughter innocent of hate, +Chastising clean of spite, that moulded them +Into the antic likeness of his toad +Bidding for laughter underneath the leaves. + +He bowed not, nor disputed, but he saw +Those ill-created joyless gods, and loathed, +And saw them creeping, creeping round the walls, +Death breeding death, wile witnessing to wile, +And sickened at the dull iniquity +Should be rewarded, and for ever breathe +Contagion on the folk gathered in prayer. +His truth should not be doomed to march among +This falsehood to the ages. He was called, +And he must labour there; if so the king +Would grant it, where the pillars bore the roof +A galleried way of meditation nursed +Secluded time, with wall of ready stone +In panels for the carver set between +The windows--there his chisel should be set,-- +It was his plea. And the king spoke of him, +Scorning, as one lack-fettle, among all these +Eager to take the riches of renown; +One fearful of the light or knowing nothing +Of light's dimension, a witling who would throw +Honour aside and praise spoken aloud +All men of heart should covet. Let him go +Grubbing out of the sight of those who knew +The worth of substance; there was his proper trade. + +A squat and curious toad indeed ... The eyes, +Patient and grey, were dumb as were the lips, +That, fixed and governed, hoarded from them all +The larger laughter lifting in his heart. +Straightway about his gallery he moved, +Measured the windows and the virgin stone, +Till all was weighed and patterned in his brain. +Then first where most the shadows struck the wall, +Under the sills, and centre of the base, +From floor to sill out of the stone was wooed +Memorial folly, as from the chisel leapt +His chastening laughter searching priest and king-- +Huge and wrinkled toad, with legs asplay, +And belly loaded, leering with great eyes +Busily fixed upon the void. + + All days +His chisel was the first to ring across +The temple's quiet; and at fall of dusk +Passing among the carvers homeward, they +Would speak of him as mad, or weak against +The challenge of the world, and let him go +Lonely, as was his will, under the night +Of stars or cloud or summer's folded sun, +Through crop and wood and pasture-land to sleep. +None took the narrow stair as wondering +How did his chisel prosper in the stone, +Unvisited his labour and forgot. +And times when he would lean out of his height +And watch the gods growing along the walls, +The row of carvers in their linen coats +Took in his vision a virtue that alone +Carving they had not nor the thing they carved. +Knowing the health that flowed about his close +Imagining, the daily quiet won +From process of his clean and supple craft, +Those carvers there, far on the floor below, +Would haply be transfigured in his thought +Into a gallant company of men +Glad of the strict and loyal reckoning +That proved in the just presence of the brain +Each chisel-stroke. How surely would he prosper +In pleasant talk at easy hours with men +So fashioned if it might be--and his eyes +Would pass again to those dead gods that grew +In spreading evil round the temple walls; +And, one dead pressure made, the carvers moved +Along the wall to mould and mould again +The self-same god, their chisels on the stone +Tapping in dull precision as before, +And he would turn, back to his lonely truth. + +He carved apace. And first his people's gods, +About the toad, out of their sterile time, +Under his hand thrilled and were recreate. +The bull, the pard, the camel and the ram, +Tiger and owl and bat--all were the signs +Visibly made body on the stone +Of sightless thought adventuring the host +That is mere spirit; these the bloom achieved +By secret labour in the flowing wood +Of rain and air and wind and continent sun ... +His tiger, lithe, immobile in the stone, +A swift destruction for a moment leashed, +Sprang crying from the jealous stealth of men +Opposed in cunning watch, with engines hid +Of torment and calamitous desire. +His leopard, swift on lean and paltry limbs, +Was fear in flight before accusing faith. +His bull, with eyes that often in the dusk +Would lift from the sweet meadow grass to watch +Him homeward passing, bore on massy beam +The burden of the patient of the earth. +His camel bore the burden of the damned, +Being gaunt, with eyes aslant along the nose. +He had a friend, who hammered bronze and iron +And cupped the moonstone on a silver ring, +One constant like himself, would come at night +Or bid him as a guest, when they would make +Their poets touch a starrier height, or search +Together with unparsimonious mind +The crowded harbours of mortality. +And there were jests, wholesome as harvest ale, +Of homely habit, bred of hearts that dared +Judgment of laughter under the eternal eye: +This frolic wisdom was his carven owl. +His ram was lordship on the lonely hills, +Alert and fleet, content only to know +The wind mightily pouring on his fleece, +With yesterday and all unrisen suns +Poorer than disinherited ghosts. His bat +Was ancient envy made a mockery, +Cowering below the newer eagle carved +Above the arches with wide pinion spread, +His faith's dominion of that happy dawn. + +And so he wrought the gods upon the wall, +Living and crying out of his desire, +Out of his patient incorruptible thought, +Wrought them in joy was wages to his faith. +And other than the gods he made. The stalks +Of bluebells heavy with the news of spring, +The vine loaded with plenty of the year, +And swallows, merely tenderness of thought +Bidding the stone to small and fragile flight; +Leaves, the thin relics of autumnal boughs, +Or massed in June ... +All from their native pressure bloomed and sprang +Under his shaping hand into a proud +And governed image of the central man,-- +Their moulding, charts of all his travelling. +And all were deftly ordered, duly set +Between the windows, underneath the sills, +And roofward, as a motion rightly planned, +Till on the wall, out of the sullen stone, +A glory blazed, his vision manifest, +His wonder captive. And he was content. + +And when the builders and the carvers knew +Their labours done, and high the temple stood +Over the cornlands, king and counsellor +And priest and chosen of the people came +Among a ceremonial multitude +To dedication. And, below the thrones +Where king and archpriest ruled above the throng, +Highest among the ranked artificers +The carvers stood. And when, the temple vowed +To holy use, tribute and choral praise +Given as was ordained, the king looked down +Upon the gathered folk, and bade them see +The comely gods fashioned about the walls, +And keep in honour men whose precious skill +Could so adorn the sessions of their worship, +Gravely the carvers bowed them to the ground. +Only the man with wide and patient eyes +Stood not among them; nor did any come +To count his labour, where he watched alone +Above the coloured throng. He heard, and looked +Again upon his work, and knew it good, +Smiled on his toad, passed down the stair unseen, +And sang across the teeming meadows home. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +JAMES ELROY FLECKER + + + +THE OLD SHIPS + +I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep +Beyond the village which men still call Tyre, +With leaden age o'ercargoed, dipping deep +For Famagusta and the hidden sun +That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire; +And all those ships were certainly so old-- +Who knows how oft with squat and noisy gun, +Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges, +The pirate Genoese +Hell-raked them till they rolled +Blood, water, fruit and corpses up the hold. +But now through friendly seas they softly run, +Painted the mid-sea blue or shore-sea green, +Still patterned with the vine and grapes in gold. + +But I have seen +Pointing her shapely shadows from the dawn +And image tumbled on a rose-swept bay +A drowsy ship of some yet older day; +And, wonder's breath indrawn, +Thought I--who knows--who knows--but in that same +(Fished up beyond AEaea, patched up new +--Stern painted brighter blue--) +That talkative, bald-headed seaman came +(Twelve patient comrades sweating at the oar) +From Troy's doom-crimson shore, +And with great lies about his wooden horse +Set the crew laughing, and forgot his course. + +It was so old a ship--who knows, who knows? +--And yet so beautiful, I watched in vain +To see the mast burst open with a rose, +And the whole deck put on its leaves again. + + + +A FRAGMENT + +O pouring westering streams +Shouting that I have leapt the mountain bar, +Down curve on curve my journey's white way gleams-- +My road along the river of return. + +I know the countries where the white moons burn, +And heavy star on star +Dips on the pale and crystal desert hills. +I know the river of the sun that fills +With founts of gold the lakes of Orient sky. + + * * * * * + +And I have heard a voice of broken seas +And from the cliffs a cry. +Ah still they learn, those cave-eared Cyclades, +The Triton's friendly or his fearful horn, +And why the deep sea-bells but seldom chime, +And how those waves and with what spell-swept rhyme +In years of morning, on a summer's morn +Whispering round his castle on the coast, +Lured young Achilles from his haunted sleep +And drave him out to dive beyond those deep +Dim purple windows of the empty swell, +His ivory body flitting like a ghost +Over the holes where flat blind fishes dwell, +All to embrace his mother throned in her shell. + + + +SANTORIN + +(A Legend of the AEgean) + +'Who are you, Sea Lady, +And where in the seas are we? +I have too long been steering +By the flashes in your eyes. +Why drops the moonlight through my heart, +And why so quietly +Go the great engines of my boat +As if their souls were free?' +'Oh ask me not, bold sailor; +Is not your ship a magic ship +That sails without a sail: +Are not these isles the Isles of Greece +And dust upon the sea? +But answer me three questions +And give me answers three. +What is your ship?" 'A British.' +'And where may Britain be?' +'Oh it lies north, dear lady; +It is a small country.' +'Yet you will know my lover, +Though you live far away: +And you will whisper where he has gone, +That lily boy to look upon +And whiter than the spray.' +'How should I know your lover, +Lady of the sea?' +'Alexander, Alexander, +The King of the World was he.' +'Weep not for him, dear lady, +But come aboard my ship. +So many years ago he died, +He's dead as dead can be.' +'O base and brutal sailor +To lie this lie to me. +His mother was the foam-foot +Star-sparkling Aphrodite; +His father was Adonis +Who lives away in Lebanon, +In stony Lebanon, where blooms +His red anemone. +But where is Alexander, +The soldier Alexander, +My golden love of olden days +The King of the world and me?' + +She sank into the moonlight +And the sea was only sea. + + + +YASMIN + +(A Ghazel) + +How splendid in the morning glows the lily: with what grace he throws +His supplication to the rose: do roses nod the head, Yasmin? + +But when the silver dove descends I find the little flower of friends +Whose very name that sweetly ends I say when I have said, Yasmin. + +The morning light is clear and cold: I dare not in that light behold +A whiter light, a deeper gold, a glory too far shed, Yasmin. + +But when the deep red eye of day is level with the lone highway, +And some to Mecca turn to pray, and I toward thy bed, Yasmin; + +Or when the wind beneath the moon is drifting like a soul aswoon, +And harping planets talk love's tune with milky wings outspread, Yasmin, + +Shower down thy love, O burning bright! For one night or the other night +Will come the Gardener in white, and gathered flowers are dead, Yasmin. + + + +GATES OF DAMASCUS + + + Four great gates has the city of Damascus, + And four Grand Wardens, on their spears reclining, + All day long stand like tall stone men + And sleep on the towers when the moon is shining. + + 'This is the song of the East Gate Warden + When he locks the great gate and smokes in his garden'. + +Postern of Fate, the Desert Gate, Disaster's Cavern, Fort of Fear, +The Portal of Bagdad am I, the Doorway of Diarbekir. + +The Persian dawn with new desires may net the flushing mountain spires, +But my gaunt buttress still rejects the suppliance of those mellow +fires. + +Pass not beneath, O Caravan, or pass not singing. Have you heard +That silence where the birds are dead yet something pipeth like a bird? + +Pass not beneath! Men say there blows in stony deserts still a rose +But with no scarlet to her leaf--and from whose heart no perfume flows. + +Wilt thou bloom red where she buds pale, thy sister rose? Wilt thou not +fail +When noonday flashes like a flail? Leave, nightingale, the Caravan! + +Pass then, pass all! Bagdad! ye cry, and down the billows of blue sky +Ye beat the bell that beats to hell, and who shall thrust ye back? Not +I. + +The Sun who flashes through the head and paints the shadows green and +red-- +The Sun shall eat thy fleshless dead, O Caravan, O Caravan! + +And one who licks his lips for thirst with fevered eyes shall face in +fear +The palms that wave, the streams that burst, his last mirage, O Caravan! + +And one--the bird-voiced Singing-man--shall fall behind thee, Caravan! +And God shall meet him in the night, and he shall sing as best he can. + +And one the Bedouin shall slay, and one, sand-stricken on the way, +Go dark and blind; and one shall say--'How lonely is the Caravan!' + +Pass out beneath, O Caravan, Doom's Caravan, Death's Caravan! +I had not told ye, fools, so much, save that I heard your Singing-man. + + 'This was sung by the West Gate's keeper + When heaven's hollow dome grew deeper'. + +I am the gate toward the sea: O sailor men, pass out from me! +I hear you high on Lebanon, singing the marvels of the sea. + +The dragon-green, the luminous, the dark, the serpent-haunted sea, +The snow-besprinkled wine of earth, the white-and-blue-flower foaming +sea. + +Beyond the sea are towns with towers, carved with lions and lily +flowers, +And not a soul in all those lonely streets to while away the hours. + +Beyond the towns, an isle where, bound, a naked giant bites the ground: +The shadow of a monstrous wing looms on his back: and still no sound. + +Beyond the isle a rock that screams like madmen shouting in their +dreams, +From whose dark issues night and day blood crashes in a thousand +streams. + +Beyond the rock is Restful Bay, where no wind breathes or ripple stirs, +And there on Roman ships, they say, stand rows of metal mariners. + +Beyond the bay in utmost West old Solomon the Jewish King +Sits with his beard upon his breast, and grips and guards his magic +ring: + +And when that ring is stolen, he will rise in outraged majesty, +And take the World upon his back, and fling the World beyond the sea. + +'This is the song of the North Gate's master, +Who singeth fast, but drinketh faster.' + +I am the gay Aleppo Gate: a dawn, a dawn and thou art there: +Eat not thy heart with fear and care, O brother of the beast we hate! + +Thou hast not many miles to tread, nor other foes than fleas to dread; +Homs shall behold thy morning meal, and Hama see thee safe in bed. + +Take to Aleppo filigrane, and take them paste of apricots, +And coffee tables botched with pearl, and little beaten brassware pots: + +And thou shalt sell thy wares for thrice the Damascene retailers' price, +And buy a fat Armenian slave who smelleth odorous and nice. + +Some men of noble stock were made: some glory in the murder-blade: +Some praise a Science or an Art, but I like honourable Trade! + +Sell them the rotten, buy the ripe! Their heads are weak; their pockets +burn. +Aleppo men are mighty fools. Salaam Aleikum! Safe return! + +'This is the song of the South Gate Holder, +A silver man, but his song is older.' + +I am the Gate that fears no fall: the Mihrab of Damascus wall, +The bridge of booming Sinai: the Arch of Allah all in all. + +O spiritual pilgrim, rise: the night has grown her single horn: +The voices of the souls unborn are half adream with Paradise. + +To Meccah thou hast turned in prayer with aching heart and eyes that +burn: +Ah, Hajji, whither wilt thou turn when thou art there, when thou art +there? + +God be thy guide from camp to camp: God be thy shade from well to well; +God grant beneath the desert stars thou hear the Prophet's camel bell. + +And God shall make thy body pure, and give thee knowledge to endure +This ghost-life's piercing phantom-pain, and bring thee out to Life +again. + +And God shall make thy soul a Glass where eighteen thousand AEons pass, +And thou shalt see the gleaming Worlds as men see dew upon the grass. + +And son of Islam, it may be that thou shalt learn at journey's end +Who walks thy garden eve on eve, and bows his head, and calls thee +Friend. + + + +THE DYING PATRIOT + +Day breaks on England down the Kentish hills, +Singing in the silence of the meadow-footing rills, +Day of my dreams, O day! + I saw them march from Dover, long ago, + With a silver cross before them, singing low, +Monks of Rome from their home where the blue seas break in foam, + Augustine with his feet of snow. + +Noon strikes on England, noon on Oxford town, +--Beauty she was statue cold--there's blood upon her gown: +Noon of my dreams, O noon! + Proud and godly kings had built her, long ago, + With her towers and tombs and statues all arow, +With her fair and floral air and the love that lingers there, + And the streets where the great men go. + +Evening on the olden, the golden sea of Wales, +When the first star shivers and the last wave pales: +O evening dreams! + There's a house that Britons walked in, long ago, + Where now the springs of ocean fall and flow, +And the dead robed in red and sea-lilies overhead + Sway when the long winds blow. + +Sleep not, my country: though night is here, afar +Your children of the morning are clamorous for war: +Fire in the night, O dreams! + + Though she send you as she sent you, long ago, + South to desert, east to ocean, west to snow, +West of these out to seas colder than the Hebrides I must go +Where the fleet of stars is anchored, and the young Star-captains glow. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +WILFRID WILSON GIBSON + + + +THE GORSE + +In dream, again within the clean, cold hell +Of glazed and aching silence he was trapped; +And, closing in, the blank walls of his cell +Crushed stifling on him ... when the bracken snapped, +Caught in his clutching fingers; and he lay +Awake upon his back among the fern, +With free eyes travelling the wide blue day, +Unhindered, unremembering; while a burn +Tinkled and gurgled somewhere out of sight, +Unheard of him; till suddenly aware +Of its cold music, shivering in the light, +He raised himself, and with far-ranging stare +Looked all about him: and with dazed eyes wide +Saw, still as in a numb, unreal dream, +Black figures scouring a far hill-side, +With now and then a sunlit rifle's gleam; +And knew the hunt was hot upon his track: +Yet hardly seemed to mind, somehow, just then ... +But kept on wondering why they looked so black +On that hot hillside, all those little men +Who scurried round like beetles--twelve, all told ... +He counted them twice over; and began +A third time reckoning them, but could not hold +His starved wits to the business, while they ran +So brokenly, and always stuck at 'five' ... +And 'One, two, three, four, five,' a dozen times +He muttered ... 'Can you catch a fish alive?' +Sang mocking echoes of old nursery rhymes +Through the strained, tingling hollow of his head. +And now, almost remembering, he was stirred +To pity them; and wondered if they'd fed +Since he had, or if, ever since they'd heard +Two nights ago the sudden signal-gun +That raised alarm of his escape, they too +Had fasted in the wilderness, and run +With nothing but the thirsty wind to chew, +And nothing in their bellies but a fill +Of cold peat-water, till their heads were light ... + +The crackling of a rifle on the hill +Rang in his ears: and stung to headlong flight, +He started to his feet; and through the brake +He plunged in panic, heedless of the sun +That burned his cropped head to a red-hot ache +Still racked with crackling echoes of the gun. + +Then suddenly the sun-enkindled fire +Of gorse upon the moor-top caught his eye: +And that gold glow held all his heart's desire, +As, like a witless, flame-bewildered fly, +He blundered towards the league-wide yellow blaze, +And tumbled headlong on the spikes of bloom; +And rising, bruised and bleeding and adaze, +Struggled through clutching spines; the dense, sweet fume +Of nutty, acrid scent like poison stealing +Through his hot blood; the bristling yellow glare +Spiking his eyes with fire, till he went reeling, +Stifled and blinded, on--and did not care +Though he were taken--wandering round and round, +'Jerusalem the Golden' quavering shrill, +Changing his tune to 'Tommy Tiddler's Ground': +Till, just a lost child on that dazzling hill, +Bewildered in a glittering golden maze +Of stinging scented fire, he dropped, quite done, +A shrivelling wisp within a world ablaze +Beneath a blinding sky, one blaze of sun. + + + + + +HOOPS + + +[Scene: The big tent-stable of a travelling circus. On the ground near +the entrance GENTLEMAN JOHN, stableman and general odd-job man, lies +smoking beside MERRY ANDREW, the clown. GENTLEMAN JOHN is a little +hunched man with a sensitive face and dreamy eyes. MERRY ANDREW, who is +resting between the afternoon and evening performances, with his clown's +hat lying beside him, wears a crimson wig, and a baggy suit of +orange-coloured cotton, patterned with purple cats. His face is chalked +dead-white, and painted with a set grin, so that it is impossible to see +what manner of man he is. In the back-ground are camels and elephants +feeding, dimly visible in the steamy dusk of the tent.] + + +Gentleman John: + + And then consider camels: only think + Of camels long enough, and you'ld go mad-- + With all their humps and lumps; their knobbly knees, + Splay feet, and straddle legs; their sagging necks, + Flat flanks, and scraggy tails, and monstrous teeth. + I've not forgotten the first fiend I met: + 'Twas in a lane in Smyrna, just a ditch + Between the shuttered houses, and so narrow + The brute's bulk blocked the road; the huge green stack + Of dewy fodder that it slouched beneath + Brushing the yellow walls on either hand, + And shutting out the strip of burning blue: + And I'd to face that vicious bobbing head + With evil eyes, slack lips, and nightmare teeth, + And duck beneath the snaky, squirming neck, + Pranked with its silly string of bright blue beads, + That seemed to wriggle every way at once, + As though it were a hydra. Allah's beard! + But I was scared, and nearly turned and ran: + I felt that muzzle take me by the scruff, + And heard those murderous teeth crunching my spine, + Before I stooped--though I dodged safely under. + I've always been afraid of ugliness. + I'm such a toad myself, I hate all toads; + And the camel is the ugliest toad of all, + To my mind; and it's just my devil's luck + I've come to this--to be a camel's lackey, + To fetch and carry for original sin, + For sure enough, the camel's old evil incarnate. + Blue beads and amulets to ward off evil! + No eye's more evil than a camel's eye. + The elephant is quite a comely brute, + Compared with Satan camel,--trunk and all, + His floppy ears, and his inconsequent tail. + He's stolid, but at least a gentleman. + It doesn't hurt my pride to valet him, + And bring his shaving-water. He's a lord. + Only the bluest blood that has come down + Through generations from the mastodon + Could carry off that tail with dignity, + That tail and trunk. He cannot look absurd, + For all the monkey tricks you put him through, + Your paper hoops and popguns. He just makes + His masters look ridiculous, when his pomp's + Butchered to make a bumpkin's holiday. + He's dignity itself, and proper pride, + That stands serenely in a circus-world + Of mountebanks and monkeys. He has weight + Behind him: aeons of primeval power + Have shaped that pillared bulk; and he stands sure, + Solid, substantial on the world's foundations. + And he has form, form that's too big a thing + To be called beauty. Once, long since, I thought + To be a poet, and shape words, and mould + A poem like an elephant, huge, sublime, + To front oblivion; and because I failed, + And all my rhymes were gawky, shambling camels, + Or else obscene, blue-buttocked apes, I'm doomed + To lackey it for things such as I've made, + Till one of them crunches my backbone with his teeth, + Or knocks my wind out with a forthright kick + Clean in the midriff, crumpling up in death + The hunched and stunted body that was me-- + John, the apostle of the Perfect Form! + Jerusalem! I'm talking like a book-- + As you would say: and a bad book at that, + A maundering, kiss-mammy book--The Hunch-back's End + Or The Camel-Keeper's Reward--would be its title. + I froth and bubble like a new-broached cask. + No wonder you look glum, for all your grin. + What makes you mope? You've naught to growse about. + You've got no hump. Your body's brave and straight-- + So shapely even that you can afford + To trick it in fantastic shapelessness, + Knowing that there's a clean-limbed man beneath + Preposterous pantaloons and purple cats. + I would have been a poet, if I could: + But better than shaping poems 'twould have been + To have had a comely body and clean limbs + Obedient to my bidding. + + +Merry Andrew: + + I missed a hoop + This afternoon. + + +Gentleman John: + + You missed a hoop? You mean ... + + +Merry Andrew: + + That I am done, used up, scrapped, on the shelf, + Out of the running--only that, no more. + + +Gentleman John: + + Well, I've been missing hoops my whole life long; + Though, when I come to think of it, perhaps + There's little consolation to be chewed + From crumbs that I can offer. + + +Merry Andrew: + + I've not missed + A hoop since I was six. I'm forty-two. + This is the first time that my body's failed me: + But 'twill not be the last. And ... + + +Gentleman John: + + Such is life! + You're going to say. You see I've got it pat, + Your jaded wheeze. Lord, what a wit I'ld make + If I'd a set grin painted on my face. + And such is life, I'ld say a hundred times, + And each time set the world aroar afresh + At my original humour. Missed a hoop! + Why, man alive, you've naught to grumble at. + I've boggled every hoop since I was six. + I'm fifty-five; and I've run round a ring + Would make this potty circus seem a pinhole. + I wasn't born to sawdust. I'd the world + For circus ... + + +Merry Andrew: + + It's no time for crowing now. + I know a gentleman, and take on trust + The silver spoon and all. My teeth were cut + Upon a horseshoe: and I wasn't born + To purple and fine linen--but to sawdust, + To sawdust, as you say--brought up on sawdust. + I've had to make my daily bread of sawdust: + Ay, and my children's,--children's, that's the rub, + As Shakespeare says ... + + +Gentleman John: + + Ah, there you go again! + What a rare wit to set the ring aroar-- + As Shakespeare says! Crowing? A gentleman? + Man, didn't you say you'd never missed a hoop? + It's only gentlemen who miss no hoops, + Clean livers, easy lords of life who take + Each obstacle at a leap, who never fail. + You are the gentleman. + + +Merry Andrew: + + Now don't you try + Being funny at my expense; or you'll soon find + I'm not quite done for yet--not quite snuffed out. + There's still a spark of life. You may have words: + But I've a fist will be a match for them. + Words slaver feebly from a broken jaw. + I've always lived straight, as a man must do + In my profession, if he'ld keep in fettle: + But I'm no gentleman, for I fail to see + There's any sport in baiting a poor man + Because he's losing grip at forty-two, + And sees his livelihood slipping from his grasp-- + Ay, and his children's bread. + + +Gentleman John: + + Why, man alive, + Who's baiting you? This winded, broken cur, + That limps through life, to bait a bull like you! + You don't want pity, man! The beaten bull, + Even when the dogs are tearing at his gullet, + Turns no eye up for pity. I myself, + Crippled and hunched and twisted as I am, + Would make a brave fend to stand up to you + Until you swallowed your words, if you should slobber + Your pity over me. A bull! Nay, man, + You're nothing but a bear with a sore head. + A bee has stung you--you who've lived on honey. + Sawdust, forsooth! You've had the sweet of life: + You've munched the honeycomb till-- + + +Merry Andrew: + + Ay! talk's cheap. + But you've no children. You don't understand. + + +Gentleman John: + + + I have no children: I don't understand! + + +Merry Andrew: + + It's children make the difference. + + +Gentleman John: + + Man alive-- + Alive and kicking, though you're shamming dead-- + You've hit the truth at last. It's that, just that, + Makes all the difference. If you hadn't children, + I'ld find it in my heart to pity you, + Granted you'ld let me. I don't understand! + I've seen you stripped. I've seen your children stripped. + You've never seen me naked; but you can guess + The misstitched, gnarled, and crooked thing I am. + Now, do you understand? I may have words. + But you, man, do you never burn with pride + That you've begotten those six limber bodies, + Firm flesh, and supple sinew, and lithe limb-- + Six nimble lads, each like young Absalom, + With red blood running lively in his veins, + Bone of your bone, your very flesh and blood? + It's you don't understand. God, what I'ld give + This moment to be you, just as you are, + Preposterous pantaloons, and purple cats, + And painted leer, and crimson curls, and all-- + To be you now, with only one missed hoop, + If I'd six clean-limbed children of my loins, + Born of the ecstasy of life within me, + To keep it quick and valiant in the ring + When I ... but I ... Man, man, you've missed a hoop; + But they'll take every hoop like blooded colts: + And 'twill be you in them that leaps through life, + And in their children, and their children's children. + God! doesn't it make you hold your breath to think + There'll always be an Andrew in the ring, + The very spit and image of you stripped, + While life's old circus lasts? And I ... at least + There is no twisted thing of my begetting + To keep my shame alive: and that's the most + That I've to pride myself upon. But, God, + I'm proud, ay, proud as Lucifer, of that. + Think what it means, with all the urge and sting, + When such a lust of life runs in the veins. + You, with your six sons, and your one missed hoop, + Put that thought in your pipe and smoke it. Well, + And how d'you like the flavour? Something bitter? + And burns the tongue a trifle? That's the brand + That I must smoke while I've the breath to puff. + (Pause.) + I've always worshipped the body, all my life-- + The body, quick with the perfect health which is beauty, + Lively, lissom, alert, and taking its way + Through the world with the easy gait of the early gods. + The only moments I've lived my life to the full + And that live again in remembrance unfaded are those + When I've seen life compact in some perfect body, + The living God made manifest in man: + A diver in the Mediterranean, resting, + With sleeked black hair, and glistening salt-tanned skin, + Gripping the quivering gunwale with tense hands, + His torso lifted out of the peacock sea, + Like Neptune, carved in amber, come to life: + A stark Egyptian on the Nile's edge poised + Like a bronze Osiris against the lush, rank green: + A fisherman dancing reels, on New Year's Eve, + In a hall of shadowy rafters and flickering lights, + At St Abbs on the Berwickshire coast, to the skirl of the pipes, + The lift of the wave in his heels, the sea in his veins: + A Cherokee Indian, as though he were one with his horse, + His coppery shoulders agleam, his feathers aflame + With the last of the sun, descending a gulch in Alaska; + A brawny Cleveland puddler, stripped to the loins, + On the cauldron's brink, stirring the molten iron + In the white-hot glow, a man of white-hot metal: + A Cornish ploughboy driving an easy share + Through the grey, light soil of a headland, against a sea + Of sapphire, gay in his new white corduroys, + Blue-eyed, dark-haired, and whistling a careless tune: + Jack Johnson, stripped for the ring, in his swarthy pride + Of sleek and rippling muscle ... + + +Merry Andrew: + + Jack's the boy! + Ay, he's the proper figure of a man. + But he'll grow fat and flabby and scant of breath. + He'll miss his hoop some day. + + +Gentleman John: + + But what are words + To shape the joy of form? The Greeks did best + To cut in marble or to cast in bronze + Their ecstasy of living. I remember + A marvellous Hermes that I saw in Athens, + Fished from the very bottom of the deep + Where he had lain two thousand years or more, + Wrecked with a galleyful of Roman pirates, + Among the white bones of his plunderers + Whose flesh had fed the fishes as they sank-- + Serene in cold, imperishable beauty, + Biding his time, till he should rise again, + Exultant from the wave, for all men's worship, + The morning-spring of life, the youth of the world, + Shaped in sea-coloured bronze for everlasting. + Ay, the Greeks knew: but men have forgotten now. + Not easily do we meet beauty walking + The world to-day in all the body's pride. + That's why I'm here--a stable-boy to camels-- + For in the circus-ring there's more delight + Of seemly bodies, goodly in sheer health, + Bodies trained and tuned to the perfect pitch, + Eager, blithe, debonair, from head to heel + Aglow and alive in every pulse, than elsewhere + In this machine-ridden land of grimy, glum + Round-shouldered, coughing mechanics. Once I lived + In London, in a slum called Paradise, + Sickened to see the greasy pavements crawling + With puny flabby babies, thick as maggots. + Poor brats! I'ld soon go mad if I'd to live + In London, with its stunted men and women + But little better to look on than myself. + + Yet, there's an island where the men keep fit-- + St Kilda's, a stark fastness of high crag: + They must keep fit or famish: their main food + The Solan goose; and it's a chancy job + To swing down a sheer face of slippery granite + And drop a noose over the sentinel bird + Ere he can squawk to rouse the sleeping flock. + They must keep fit--their bodies taut and trim-- + To have the nerve: and they're like tempered steel, + Suppled and fined. But even they've grown slacker + Through traffic with the mainland, in these days. + A hundred years ago, the custom held + That none should take a wife till he had stood, + His left heel on the dizziest point of crag, + His right leg and both arms stretched in mid air, + Above the sea: three hundred feet to drop + To death, if he should fail--a Spartan test. + But any man who could have failed, would scarce + Have earned his livelihood or his children's bread + On that bleak rock. + + +Merry Andrew (drowsily): + + Ay, children--that's it, children! + + +Gentleman John: + + St Kilda's children had a chance, at least, + With none begotten idly of weakling fathers. + A Spartan test for fatherhood! Should they miss + Their hoop, 'twas death, and childless. You have still + Six lives to take unending hoops for you, + And you yourself are not done yet ... + + +Merry Andrew (more drowsily): + + Not yet. + And there's much comfort in the thought of children. + They're bonnie boys enough; and should do well, + If I can but keep going a little while, + A little longer till ... + + +Gentleman John: + + Six strapping sons! + And I have naught but camels. + (Pause.) + Yet, I've seen + A vision in this stable that puts to shame + Each ecstasy of mortal flesh and blood + That's been my eyes' delight. I never breathed + A word of it to man or woman yet: + I couldn't whisper it now to you, if you looked + Like any human thing this side of death. + 'Twas on the night I stumbled on the circus. + I'd wandered all day, lost among the fells, + Over snow-smothered hills, through blinding blizzard, + Whipped by a wind that seemed to strip and skin me, + Till I was one numb ache of sodden ice. + Quite done, and drunk with cold, I'ld soon have dropped + Dead in a ditch; when suddenly a lantern + Dazzled my eyes. I smelt a queer warm smell; + And felt a hot puff in my face; and blundered + Out of the flurry of snow and raking wind + Dizzily into a glowing Arabian night + Of elephants and camels having supper. + I thought that I'd gone mad, stark, staring mad; + But I was much too sleepy to mind just then-- + Dropped dead asleep upon a truss of hay; + And lay, a log, till--well, I cannot tell + How long I lay unconscious. I but know + I slept, and wakened, and that 'twas no dream. + I heard a rustle in the hay beside me, + And opening sleepy eyes, scarce marvelling, + I saw her, standing naked in the lamplight, + Beneath the huge tent's cavernous canopy, + Against the throng of elephants and camels + That champed unwondering in the golden dusk, + Moon-white Diana, mettled Artemis-- + Her body, quick and tense as her own bowstring, + Her spirit, an arrow barbed and strung for flight-- + White snowflakes melting on her night-black hair, + And on her glistening breasts and supple thighs: + Her red lips parted, her keen eyes alive + With fierce, far-ranging hungers of the chase + Over the hills of morn--The lantern guttered + And I was left alone in the outer darkness + Among the champing elephants and camels. + And I'll be a camel-keeper to the end: + Though never again my eyes... + (Pause.) + So you can sleep, + You Merry Andrew, for all you missed your hoop. + It's just as well, perhaps. Now I can hold + My secret to the end. Ah, here they come! + + +[Six lads, between the ages of three and twelve, clad in pink tights +covered with silver spangles, tumble into the tent.] + + +The Eldest Boy: + + Daddy, the bell's rung, and-- + + +Gentleman John: + + He's snoozing sound. + (to the youngest boy) + You just creep quietly, and take tight hold + Of the crimson curls, and tug, and you will hear + The purple pussies all caterwaul at once. + + + +THE GOING + +(R.B.) + + +He's gone. +I do not understand. +I only know +That as he turned to go +And waved his hand, +In his young eyes a sudden glory shone, +And I was dazzled with a sunset glow, +And he was gone. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +RALPH HODGSON + + + +THE BULL + + +See an old unhappy bull, +Sick in soul and body both, +Slouching in the undergrowth +Of the forest beautiful, +Banished from the herd he led, +Bulls and cows a thousand head. + +Cranes and gaudy parrots go +Up and down the burning sky; +Tree-top cats purr drowsily +In the dim-day green below; +And troops of monkeys, nutting, some, +All disputing, go and come; + +And things abominable sit +Picking offal buck or swine, +On the mess and over it +Burnished flies and beetles shine, +And spiders big as bladders lie +Under hemlocks ten foot high; + +And a dotted serpent curled +Round and round and round a tree, +Yellowing its greenery, +Keeps a watch on all the world, +All the world and this old bull +In the forest beautiful. + +Bravely by his fall he came: +One he led, a bull of blood +Newly come to lustihood, +Fought and put his prince to shame, +Snuffed and pawed the prostrate head +Tameless even while it bled. + +There they left him, every one, +Left him there without a lick, +Left him for the birds to pick, +Left him there for carrion, +Vilely from their bosom cast +Wisdom, worth and love at last. + +When the lion left his lair +And roared his beauty through the hills, +And the vultures pecked their quills +And flew into the middle air, +Then this prince no more to reign +Came to life and lived again. + +He snuffed the herd in far retreat, +He saw the blood upon the ground, +And snuffed the burning airs around +Still with beevish odours sweet, +While the blood ran down his head +And his mouth ran slaver red. + +Pity him, this fallen chief, +All his splendour, all his strength, +All his body's breadth and length +Dwindled down with shame and grief, +Half the bull he was before, +Bones and leather, nothing more. + +See him standing dewlap-deep +In the rushes at the lake, +Surly, stupid, half asleep, +Waiting for his heart to break +And the birds to join the flies +Feasting at his bloodshot eyes,-- + +Standing with his head hung down +In a stupor, dreaming things: +Green savannas, jungles brown, +Battlefields and bellowings, +Bulls undone and lions dead +And vultures flapping overhead. + +Dreaming things: of days he spent +With his mother gaunt and lean +In the valley warm and green, +Full of baby wonderment, +Blinking out of silly eyes +At a hundred mysteries; + +Dreaming over once again +How he wandered with a throng +Of bulls and cows a thousand strong, +Wandered on from plain to plain, +Up the hill and down the dale, +Always at his mother's tail; + +How he lagged behind the herd, +Lagged and tottered, weak of limb, +And she turned and ran to him +Blaring at the loathly bird +Stationed always in the skies, +Waiting for the flesh that dies. + +Dreaming maybe of a day +When her drained and drying paps +Turned him to the sweets and saps, +Richer fountains by the way, +And she left the bull she bore +And he looked to her no more; + +And his little frame grew stout, +And his little legs grew strong, +And the way was not so long; +And his little horns came out, +And he played at butting trees +And boulder-stones and tortoises, + +Joined a game of knobby skulls +With the youngsters of his year, +All the other little bulls, +Learning both to bruise and bear, +Learning how to stand a shock +Like a little bull of rock. + +Dreaming of a day less dim, +Dreaming of a time less far, +When the faint but certain star +Of destiny burned clear for him, +And a fierce and wild unrest +Broke the quiet of his breast, + +And the gristles of his youth +Hardened in his comely pow, +And he came to fighting growth, +Beat his bull and won his cow, +And flew his tail and trampled off +Past the tallest, vain enough, + +And curved about in splendour full +And curved again and snuffed the airs +As who should say Come out who dares! +And all beheld a bull, a Bull, +And knew that here was surely one +That backed for no bull, fearing none. + +And the leader of the herd +Looked and saw, and beat the ground, +And shook the forest with his sound, +Bellowed at the loathly bird +Stationed always in the skies, +Waiting for the flesh that dies. + +Dreaming, this old bull forlorn, +Surely dreaming of the hour +When he came to sultan power, +And they owned him master-horn, +Chiefest bull of all among +Bulls and cows a thousand strong. + +And in all the tramping herd +Not a bull that barred his way, +Not a cow that said him nay, +Not a bull or cow that erred +In the furnace of his look +Dared a second, worse rebuke; + +Not in all the forest wide, +Jungle, thicket, pasture, fen, +Not another dared him then, +Dared him and again defied; +Not a sovereign buck or boar +Came a second time for more. + +Not a serpent that survived +Once the terrors of his hoof +Risked a second time reproof, +Came a second time and lived, +Not a serpent in its skin +Came again for discipline; + +Not a leopard bright as flame, +Flashing fingerhooks of steel, +That a wooden tree might feel, +Met his fury once and came +For a second reprimand, +Not a leopard in the land. + +Not a lion of them all, +Not a lion of the hills, +Hero of a thousand kills, +Dared a second fight and fall, +Dared that ram terrific twice, +Paid a second time the price ... + +Pity him, this dupe of dream, +Leader of the herd again +Only in his daft old brain, +Once again the bull supreme +And bull enough to bear the part +Only in his tameless heart. + +Pity him that he must wake; +Even now the swarm of flies +Blackening his bloodshot eyes +Bursts and blusters round the lake, +Scattered from the feast half-fed, +By great shadows overhead. + +And the dreamer turns away +From his visionary herds +And his splendid yesterday, +Turns to meet the loathly birds +Flocking round him from the skies, +Waiting for the flesh that dies. + + + +THE SONG OF HONOUR + + +I climbed a hill as light fell short, +And rooks came home in scramble sort, +And filled the trees and flapped and fought +And sang themselves to sleep; +An owl from nowhere with no sound +Swung by and soon was nowhere found, +I heard him calling half-way round, +Holloing loud and deep; +A pair of stars, faint pins of light, +Then many a star, sailed into sight, +And all the stars, the flower of night, +Were round me at a leap; +To tell how still the valleys lay +I heard a watchdog miles away ... +And bells of distant sheep. + +I heard no more of bird or bell, +The mastiff in a slumber fell, +I stared into the sky, +As wondering men have always done +Since beauty and the stars were one, +Though none so hard as I. + +It seemed, so still the valleys were, +As if the whole world knelt at prayer, +Save me and me alone; +So pure and wide that silence was +I feared to bend a blade of grass, +And there I stood like stone. + +There, sharp and sudden, there I heard-- +'Ah! some wild lovesick singing bird +Woke singing in the trees?' +'The nightingale and babble-wren +Were in the English greenwood then, +And you heard one of these?' + +The babble-wren and nightingale +Sang in the Abyssinian vale +That season of the year! +Yet, true enough, I heard them plain, +I heard them both again, again, +As sharp and sweet and clear +As if the Abyssinian tree +Had thrust a bough across the sea, +Had thrust a bough across to me +With music for my ear! + +I heard them both, and oh! I heard +The song of every singing bird +That sings beneath the sky, +And with the song of lark and wren +The song of mountains, moths and men +And seas and rainbows vie! + +I heard the universal choir +The Sons of Light exalt their Sire +With universal song, +Earth's lowliest and loudest notes, +Her million times ten million throats +Exalt Him loud and long, +And lips and lungs and tongues of Grace +From every part and every place +Within the shining of His face, +The universal throng. + +I heard the hymn of being sound +From every well of honour found +In human sense and soul: +The song of poets when they write +The testament of Beautysprite +Upon a flying scroll, +The song of painters when they take +A burning brush for Beauty's sake +And limn her features whole-- + +The song of men divinely wise +Who look and see in starry skies +Not stars so much as robins' eyes, +And when these pale away +Hear flocks of shiny pleiades +Among the plums and apple trees +Sing in the summer day-- +The song of all both high and low +To some blest vision true, +The song of beggars when they throw +The crust of pity all men owe +To hungry sparrows in the snow, +Old beggars hungry too-- +The song of kings of kingdoms when +They rise above their fortune men, +And crown themselves anew,-- + +The song of courage, heart and will +And gladness in a fight, +Of men who face a hopeless hill +With sparking and delight, +The bells and bells of song that ring +Round banners of a cause or king +From armies bleeding white-- + +The song of sailors every one +When monstrous tide and tempest run +At ships like bulls at red, +When stately ships are twirled and spun +Like whipping tops and help there's none +And mighty ships ten thousand ton +Go down like lumps of lead-- + +And song of fighters stern as they +At odds with fortune night and day, +Crammed up in cities grim and grey +As thick as bees in hives, +Hosannas of a lowly throng +Who sing unconscious of their song, +Whose lips are in their lives-- + +And song of some at holy war +With spells and ghouls more dread by far +Than deadly seas and cities are, +Or hordes of quarrelling kings--- +The song of fighters great and small, +The song of pretty fighters all, +And high heroic things-- + +The song of lovers--who knows how +Twitched up from place and time +Upon a sigh, a blush, a vow, +A curve or hue of cheek or brow, +Borne up and off from here and now +Into the void sublime! + +And crying loves and passions still +In every key from soft to shrill +And numbers never done, +Dog-loyalties to faith and friend, +And loves like Ruth's of old no end, +And intermission none-- +And burst on burst for beauty and +For numbers not behind, +From men whose love of motherland +Is like a dog's for one dear hand, +Sole, selfless, boundless, blind-- +And song of some with hearts beside +For men and sorrows far and wide, +Who watch the world with pity and pride +And warm to all mankind-- + +And endless joyous music rise +From children at their play, +And endless soaring lullabies +From happy, happy mothers' eyes, +And answering crows and baby cries, +How many who shall say! +And many a song as wondrous well +With pangs and sweets intolerable +From lonely hearths too gray to tell, +God knows how utter gray! +And song from many a house of care +When pain has forced a footing there +And there's a Darkness on the stair +Will not be turned away-- + +And song--that song whose singers come +With old kind tales of pity from +The Great Compassion's lips, +That makes the bells of Heaven to peal +Round pillows frosty with the feel +Of Death's cold finger tips-- + +The song of men all sorts and kinds, +As many tempers, moods and minds +As leaves are on a tree, +As many faiths and castes and creeds, +As many human bloods and breeds +As in the world may be; + +The song of each and all who gaze +On Beauty in her naked blaze, +Or see her dimly in a haze, +Or get her light in fitful rays +And tiniest needles even, +The song of all not wholly dark, +Not wholly sunk in stupor stark +Too deep for groping Heaven-- + +And alleluias sweet and clear +And wild with beauty men mishear, +From choirs of song as near and dear +To Paradise as they, +The everlasting pipe and flute +Of wind and sea and bird and brute, +And lips deaf men imagine mute +In wood and stone and clay; + +The music of a lion strong +That shakes a hill a whole night long, +A hill as loud as he, +The twitter of a mouse among +Melodious greenery, +The ruby's and the rainbow's song, +The nightingale's--all three, +The song of life that wells and flows +From every leopard, lark and rose +And everything that gleams or goes +Lack-lustre in the sea. + +I heard it all, each, every note +Of every lung and tongue and throat, +Ay, every rhythm and rhyme +Of everything that lives and loves +And upward, ever upward moves +From lowly to sublime! +Earth's multitudinous Sons of Light, +I heard them lift their lyric might +With each and every chanting sprite +That lit the sky that wondrous night +As far as eye could climb! + +I heard it all, I heard the whole +Harmonious hymn of being roll +Up through the chapel of my soul +And at the altar die, +And in the awful quiet then +Myself I heard, Amen, Amen, +Amen I heard me cry! +I heard it all, and then although +I caught my flying senses, oh, +A dizzy man was I! +I stood and stared; the sky was lit, +The sky was stars all over it, +I stood, I knew not why, +Without a wish, without a will, +I stood upon that silent hill +And stared into the sky until +My eyes were blind with stars and still +I stared into the sky. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +D.H. LAWRENCE + + + +SERVICE OF ALL THE DEAD + + +Between the avenues of cypresses, +All in their scarlet cloaks, and surplices +Of linen, go the chaunting choristers, +The priests in gold and black, the villagers. + +And all along the path to the cemetery +The round, dark heads of men crowd silently, +And black-scarved faces of women-folk, wistfully +Watch at the banner of death, and the mystery. + +And at the foot of a grave a father stands +With sunken head, and forgotten, folded hands; +And at the foot of a grave a woman kneels +With pale shut face, and neither hears nor feels + +The coming of the chaunting choristers +Between the avenues of cypresses, +The silence of the many villagers, +The candle-flames beside the surplices. + + + +MEETING AMONG THE MOUNTAINS + + +The little pansies by the road have turned +Away their purple faces and their gold, +And evening has taken all the bees from the thyme, +And all the scent is shed away by the cold. + +Against the hard and pale blue evening sky +The mountain's new-dropped summer snow is clear +Glistening in steadfast stillness: like transcendent +Clean pain sending on us a chill down here. + +Christ on the Cross!--his beautiful young man's body +Has fallen dead upon the nails, and hangs +White and loose at last, with all the pain +Drawn on his mouth, eyes broken at last by his pangs. + +And slowly down the mountain road, belated, +A bullock wagon comes; so I am ashamed +To gaze any more at the Christ, whom the mountain snows +Whitely confront; I wait on the grass, am lamed. + +The breath of the bullock stains the hard, chill air, +The band is across its brow, and it scarcely seems +To draw the load, so still and slow it moves, +While the driver on the shaft sits crouched in dreams. + +Surely about his sunburnt face is something +That vexes me with wonder. He sits so still +Here among all this silence, crouching forward, +Dreaming and letting the bullock take its will. + +I stand aside on the grass to let them go; +--And Christ, I have met his accusing eyes again, +The brown eyes black with misery and hate, that look +Full in my own, and the torment starts again. + +One moment the hate leaps at me standing there, +One moment I see the stillness of agony, +Something frozen in the silence that dare not be +Loosed, one moment the darkness frightens me. + +Then among the averted pansies, beneath the high +White peaks of snow, at the foot of the sunken Christ +I stand in a chill of anguish, trying to say +The joy I bought was not too highly priced. + +But he has gone, motionless, hating me, +Living as the mountains do, because they are strong, +With a pale, dead Christ on the crucifix of his heart, +And breathing the frozen memory of his wrong. + +Still in his nostrils the frozen breath of despair, +And heart like a cross that bears dead agony +Of naked love, clenched in his fists the shame, +And in his belly the smouldering hate of me. + +And I, as I stand in the cold, averted flowers, +Feel the shame-wounds in his hands pierce through my own, +And breathe despair that turns my lungs to stone +And know the dead Christ weighing on my bone. + + + +CRUELTY AND LOVE + + +What large, dark hands are those at the window +Lifted, grasping in the yellow light +Which makes its way through the curtain web + At my heart to-night? + +Ah, only the leaves! So leave me at rest, +In the west I see a redness come +Over the evening's burning breast-- + For now the pain is numb. + + The woodbine creeps abroad + Calling low to her lover: + The sunlit flirt who all the day + Has poised above her lips in play + And stolen kisses, shallow and gay + Of dalliance, now has gone away + --She woos the moth with her sweet, low word, + And when above her his broad wings hover + Then her bright breast she will uncover + And yield her honey-drop to her lover. + + Into the yellow, evening glow + Saunters a man from the farm below, + Leans, and looks in at the low-built shed + Where hangs the swallow's marriage bed. + The bird lies warm against the wall. + She glances quick her startled eyes + Towards him, then she turns away + Her small head, making warm display + Of red upon the throat. Her terrors sway + Her out of the nest's warm, busy ball, + + Whose plaintive cries start up as she flies + In one blue stoop from out the sties + Into the evening's empty hall. + + Oh, water-hen, beside the rushes + Hide your quaint, unfading blushes, + Still your quick tail, and lie as dead, + Till the distance covers his dangerous tread. + +The rabbit presses back her ears, +Turns back her liquid, anguished eyes +And crouches low: then with wild spring +Spurts from the terror of the oncoming +To be choked back, the wire ring +Her frantic effort throttling: +Piteous brown ball of quivering fears! + +Ah soon in his large, hard hands she dies, +And swings all loose to the swing of his walk. +Yet calm and kindly are his eyes +And ready to open in brown surprise +Should I not answer to his talk +Or should he my tears surmise. + +I hear his hand on the latch, and rise from my chair +Watching the door open: he flashes bare +His strong teeth in a smile, and flashes his eyes +In a smile like triumph upon me; then careless-wise +He flings the rabbit soft on the table board +And comes towards me: ah, the uplifted sword +Of his hand against my bosom, and oh, the broad +Blade of his hand that raises my face to applaud +His coming: he raises up my face to him +And caresses my mouth with his fingers, smelling grim +Of the rabbit's fur! God, I am caught in a snare +I know not what fine wire is round my throat, +I only know I let him finger there +My pulse of life, letting him nose like a stoat +Who sniffs with joy before he drinks the blood: +And down his mouth comes to my mouth, and down +His dark bright eyes descend like a fiery hood +Upon my mind: his mouth meets mine, and a flood +Of sweet fire sweeps across me, so I drown +Within him, die, and find death good. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +FRANCIS LEDWIDGE + + + +THE WIFE OF LLEW + + +And Gwydion said to Math, when it was Spring: +"Come now and let us make a wife for Llew." +And so they broke broad boughs yet moist with dew, +And in a shadow made a magic ring: +They took the violet and the meadow-sweet +To form her pretty face, and for her feet +They built a mound of daisies on a wing, +And for her voice they made a linnet sing +In the wide poppy blowing for her mouth. +And over all they chanted twenty hours. +And Llew came singing from the azure south +And bore away his wife of birds and flowers. + + + +A RAINY DAY IN APRIL + + +When the clouds shake their hyssops, and the rain +Like holy water falls upon the plain, +'Tis sweet to gaze upon the springing grain + And see your harvest born. + +And sweet the little breeze of melody +The blackbird puffs upon the budding tree, +While the wild poppy lights upon the lea + And blazes 'mid the corn. + +The skylark soars the freshening shower to hail, +And the meek daisy holds aloft her pail, +And Spring all radiant by the wayside pale + Sets up her rock and reel. + +See how she weaves her mantle fold on fold, +Hemming the woods and carpeting the wold. +Her warp is of the green, her woof the gold, + The spinning world her wheel. + + + +THE LOST ONES + + +Somewhere is music from the linnets' bills, +And thro' the sunny flowers the bee-wings drone, +And white bells of convolvulus on hills +Of quiet May make silent ringing, blown +Hither and thither by the wind of showers, +And somewhere all the wandering birds have flown; +And the brown breath of Autumn chills the flowers. + +But where are all the loves of long ago? +O little twilight ship blown up the tide, +Where are the faces laughing in the glow +Of morning years, the lost ones scattered wide. +Give me your hand, O brother, let us go +Crying about the dark for those who died. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +JOHN MASEFIELD + + + +THE 'WANDERER' + + +All day they loitered by the resting ships, +Telling their beauties over, taking stock; +At night the verdict left my messmates' lips, +'The 'Wanderer' is the finest ship in dock.' + +I had not seen her, but a friend, since drowned, +Drew her, with painted ports, low, lovely, lean, +Saying, ''The Wanderer', clipper, outward bound, +The loveliest ship my eyes have ever seen-- + +'Perhaps to-morrow you will see her sail. +She sails at sunrise': but the morrow showed +No 'Wanderer' setting forth for me to hail; +Far down the stream men pointed where she rode, + +Rode the great trackway to the sea, dim, dim, +Already gone before the stars were gone. +I saw her at the sea-line's smoky rim +Grow swiftly vaguer as they towed her on. + +Soon even her masts were hidden in the haze +Beyond the city; she was on her course +To trample billows for a hundred days; +That afternoon the norther gathered force, + +Blowing a small snow from a point of east. +'Oh, fair for her,' we said, 'to take her south.' +And in our spirits, as the wind increased, +We saw her there, beyond the river mouth, + +Setting her side-lights in the wildering dark, +To glint upon mad water, while the gale +Roared like a battle, snapping like a shark, +And drunken seamen struggled with the sail; + +While with sick hearts her mates put out of mind +Their little children left astern, ashore, +And the gale's gathering made the darkness blind, +Water and air one intermingled roar. + +Then we forgot her, for the fiddlers played, +Dancing and singing held our merry crew; +The old ship moaned a little as she swayed. +It blew all night, oh, bitter hard it blew! + +So that at midnight I was called on deck +To keep an anchor-watch: I heard the sea +Roar past in white procession filled with wreck; +Intense bright frosty stars burned over me, + +And the Greek brig beside us dipped and dipped +White to the muzzle like a half-tide rock, +Drowned to the mainmast with the seas she shipped; +Her cable-swivels clanged at every shock. + +And like a never-dying force, the wind +Roared till we shouted with it, roared until +Its vast vitality of wrath was thinned, +Had beat its fury breathless and was still. + +By dawn the gale had dwindled into flaw, +A glorious morning followed: with my friend +I climbed the fo'c's'le-head to see; we saw +The waters hurrying shorewards without end. + +Haze blotted out the river's lowest reach; +Out of the gloom the steamers, passing by, +Called with their sirens, hooting their sea-speech; +Out of the dimness others made reply. + +And as we watched there came a rush of feet +Charging the fo'c's'le till the hatchway shook. +Men all about us thrust their way, or beat, +Crying, 'The 'Wanderer'! Down the river! Look!' + +I looked with them towards the dimness; there +Gleamed like a spirit striding out of night +A full-rigged ship unutterably fair, +Her masts like trees in winter, frosty-bright. + +Foam trembled at her bows like wisps of wool; +She trembled as she towed. I had not dreamed +That work of man could be so beautiful, +In its own presence and in what it seemed. + +'So she is putting back again,' I said. +'How white with frost her yards are on the fore!' +One of the men about me answer made, +'That is not frost, but all her sails are tore, + +'Torn into tatters, youngster, in the gale; +Her best foul-weather suit gone.' It was true, +Her masts were white with rags of tattered sail +Many as gannets when the fish are due. + +Beauty in desolation was her pride, +Her crowned array a glory that had been; +She faltered tow'rds us like a swan that died, +But although ruined she was still a queen. + +'Put back with all her sails gone,' went the word; +Then, from her signals flying, rumour ran, +'The sea that stove her boats in killed her third; +She has been gutted and has lost a man.' + +So, as though stepping to a funeral march, +She passed defeated homewards whence she came +Ragged with tattered canvas white as starch, +A wild bird that misfortune had made tame. + +She was refitted soon: another took +The dead man's office; then the singers hove +Her capstan till the snapping hawsers shook; +Out, with a bubble at her bows, she drove. + +Again they towed her seawards, and again +We, watching, praised her beauty, praised her trim, +Saw her fair house-flag flutter at the main, +And slowly saunter seawards, dwindling dim; + +And wished her well, and wondered, as she died, +How, when her canvas had been sheeted home, +Her quivering length would sweep into her stride, +Making the greenness milky with her foam. + +But when we rose next morning, we discerned +Her beauty once again a shattered thing; +Towing to dock the 'Wanderer' returned, +A wounded sea-bird with a broken wing. + +A spar was gone, her rigging's disarray +Told of a worse disaster than the last; +Like draggled hair dishevelled hung the stay, +Drooping and beating on the broken mast. + +Half-mast upon her flagstaff hung her flag; +Word went among us how the broken spar +Had gored her captain like an angry stag, +And killed her mate a half-day from the bar. + +She passed to dock upon the top of flood. +An old man near me shook his head and swore: +'Like a bad woman, she has tasted blood-- +There'll be no trusting in her any more.' + +We thought it truth, and when we saw her there +Lying in dock, beyond, across the stream, +We would forget that we had called her fair, +We thought her murderess and the past a dream. + +And when she sailed again we watched in awe, +Wondering what bloody act her beauty planned, +What evil lurked behind the thing we saw, +What strength was there that thus annulled man's hand, + +How next its triumph would compel man's will +Into compliance with external Fate, +How next the powers would use her to work ill +On suffering men; we had not long to wait. + +For soon the outcry of derision rose, +'Here comes the 'Wanderer'!' the expected cry. +Guessing the cause, our mockings joined with those +Yelled from the shipping as they towed her by. + +She passed us close, her seamen paid no heed +To what was called: they stood, a sullen group, +Smoking and spitting, careless of her need, +Mocking the orders given from the poop. + +Her mates and boys were working her; we stared. +What was the reason of this strange return, +This third annulling of the thing prepared? +No outward evil could our eyes discern. + +Only like someone who has formed a plan +Beyond the pitch of common minds, she sailed, +Mocked and deserted by the common man, +Made half divine to me for having failed. + +We learned the reason soon; below the town +A stay had parted like a snapping reed, +'Warning,' the men thought, 'not to take her down.' +They took the omen, they would not proceed. + +Days passed before another crew would sign. +The 'Wanderer' lay in dock alone, unmanned, +Feared as a thing possessed by powers malign, +Bound under curses not to leave the land. + +But under passing Time fear passes too; +That terror passed, the sailors' hearts grew bold. +We learned in time that she had found a crew +And was bound out and southwards as of old. + +And in contempt we thought, 'A little while +Will bring her back again, dismantled, spoiled. +It is herself; she cannot change her style; +She has the habit now of being foiled.' + +So when a ship appeared among the haze +We thought, 'The 'Wanderer' back again'; but no, +No 'Wanderer' showed for many, many days, +Her passing lights made other waters glow. + +But we would often think and talk of her, +Tell newer hands her story, wondering, then, +Upon what ocean she was 'Wanderer', +Bound to the cities built by foreign men. + +And one by one our little conclave thinned, +Passed into ships, and sailed, and so away, +To drown in some great roaring of the wind, +Wanderers themselves, unhappy fortune's prey. + +And Time went by me making memory dim. +Yet still I wondered if the 'Wanderer' fared +Still pointing to the unreached ocean's rim, +Brightening the water where her breast was bared. + +And much in ports abroad I eyed the ships, +Hoping to see her well-remembered form +Come with a curl of bubbles at her lips +Bright to her berth, the sovereign of the storm. + +I never did, and many years went by; +Then, near a Southern port, one Christmas Eve, +I watched a gale go roaring through the sky, +Making the cauldrons of the clouds upheave. + +Then the wrack tattered and the stars appeared, +Millions of stars that seemed to speak in fire; +A byre-cock cried aloud that morning neared, +The swinging wind-vane flashed upon the spire. + +And soon men looked upon a glittering earth, +Intensely sparkling like a world new-born; +Only to look was spiritual birth, +So bright the raindrops ran along the thorn. + +So bright they were, that one could almost pass +Beyond their twinkling to the source, and know +The glory pushing in the blade of grass, +That hidden soul which makes the flowers grow. + +That soul was there apparent, not revealed; +Unearthly meanings covered every tree; +That wet grass grew in an immortal field; +Those waters fed some never-wrinkled sea. + +The scarlet berries in the hedge stood out +Like revelations, but the tongue unknown; +Even in the brooks a joy was quick; the trout +Rushed in a dumbness dumb to me alone. + +All of the valley was aloud with brooks; +I walked the morning, breasting up the fells, +Taking again lost childhood from the rooks, +Whose cawing came above the Christmas bells. + +I had not walked that glittering world before, +But up the hill a prompting came to me, +'This line of upland runs along the shore: +Beyond the hedgerow I shall see the sea.' + +And on the instant from beyond away +That long familiar sound, a ship's bell, broke +The hush below me in the unseen bay. +Old memories came: that inner prompting spoke. + +And bright above the hedge a seagull's wings +Flashed and were steady upon empty air. +'A Power unseen,' I cried, 'prepares these things; +'Those are her bells, the 'Wanderer' is there.' + +So, hurrying to the hedge and looking down, +I saw a mighty bay's wind-crinkled blue +Ruffling the image of a tranquil town, +With lapsing waters glittering as they grew. + +And near me in the road the shipping swung, +So stately and so still in such great peace +That like to drooping crests their colours hung, +Only their shadows trembled without cease. + +I did but glance upon those anchored ships. +Even as my thought had told, I saw her plain; +Tense, like a supple athlete with lean hips, +Swiftness at pause, the 'Wanderer' come again-- + +Come as of old a queen, untouched by Time, +Resting the beauty that no seas could tire, +Sparkling, as though the midnight's rain were rime, +Like a man's thought transfigured into fire. + +And as I looked, one of her men began +To sing some simple tune of Christmas Day; +Among her crew the song spread, man to man, +Until the singing rang across the bay; + +And soon in other anchored ships the men +Joined in the singing with clear throats, until +The farm-boy heard it up the windy glen, +Above the noise of sheep-bells on the hill. + +Over the water came the lifted song-- +Blind pieces in a mighty game we swing; +Life's battle is a conquest for the strong; +The meaning shows in the defeated thing. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +HAROLD MONRO + + + +MILK FOR THE CAT + + +When the tea is brought at five o'clock, +And all the neat curtains are drawn with care, +The little black cat with bright green eyes +Is suddenly purring there. + +At first she pretends, having nothing to do, +She has come in merely to blink by the grate, +But, though tea may be late or the milk may be sour, +She is never late. + +And presently her agate eyes +Take a soft large milky haze, +And her independent casual glance +Becomes a stiff, hard gaze. + +Then she stamps her claws or lifts her ears, +Or twists her tail and begins to stir, +Till suddenly all her lithe body becomes +One breathing, trembling purr. + +The children eat and wriggle and laugh, +The two old ladies stroke their silk: +But the cat is grown small and thin with desire, +Transformed to a creeping lust for milk. + +The white saucer like some full moon descends +At last from the clouds of the table above; +She sighs and dreams and thrills and glows, +Transfigured with love. + +She nestles over the shining rim, +Buries her chin in the creamy sea; +Her tail hangs loose; each drowsy paw +Is doubled under each bending knee. + +A long, dim ecstasy holds her life; +Her world is an infinite shapeless white, +Till her tongue has curled the last holy drop, +Then she sinks back into the night, + +Draws and dips her body to heap +Her sleepy nerves in the great arm-chair, +Lies defeated and buried deep +Three or four hours unconscious there. + + + +OVERHEARD ON A SALTMARSH + + +Nymph, nymph, what are your beads? + +Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them? + +Give them me. + + No. + +Give them me. Give them me. + + No. + +Then I will howl all night in the reeds, +Lie in the mud and howl for them. + +Goblin, why do you love them so? + +They are better than stars or water, +Better than voices of winds that sing, +Better than any man's fair daughter, +Your green glass beads on a silver ring. + +Hush, I stole them out of the moon. + +Give me your beads, I want them. + + No. + +I will howl in a deep lagoon +For your green glass beads, I love them so. +Give them me. Give them. + + No. + + + +CHILDREN OF LOVE + + +The holy boy +Went from his mother out in the cool of the day +Over the sun-parched fields +And in among the olives shining green and shining grey. + +There was no sound, +No smallest voice of any shivering stream. +Poor sinless little boy, +He desired to play and to sing; he could only sigh and dream. + +Suddenly came +Running along to him naked, with curly hair, +That rogue of the lovely world, +That other beautiful child whom the virgin Venus bare. + +The holy boy +Gazed with those sad blue eyes that all men know. +Impudent Cupid stood +Panting, holding an arrow and pointing his bow. + +(Will you not play? +Jesus, run to him, run to him, swift for our joy. +Is he not holy, like you? +Are you afraid of his arrows, O beautiful dreaming boy?) + +And now they stand +Watching one another with timid gaze; +Youth has met youth in the wood, +But holiness will not change its melancholy ways. + +Cupid at last +Draws his bow and softly lets fly a dart. +Smile for a moment, sad world!-- +It has grazed the white skin and drawn blood from the sorrowful heart. + +Now, for delight, +Cupid tosses his locks and goes wantonly near; +But the child that was born to the cross +Has let fall on his cheek, for the sadness of life, a compassionate tear. + +Marvellous dream! +Cupid has offered his arrows for Jesus to try; +He has offered his bow for the game. +But Jesus went weeping away, and left him there wondering why. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +JAMES STEPHENS + + + +THE RIVALS + + +I heard a bird at dawn + Singing sweetly on a tree, +That the dew was on the lawn, + And the wind was on the lea; +But I didn't listen to him, + For he didn't sing to me. + +I didn't listen to him, + For he didn't sing to me +That the dew was on the lawn + And the wind was on the lea; +I was singing at the time + Just as prettily as he. + +I was singing all the time, + Just as prettily as he, +About the dew upon the lawn + And the wind upon the lea; +So I didn't listen to him + And he sang upon a tree. + + + +THE GOAT PATHS + + +The crooked paths go every way + Upon the hill--they wind about + Through the heather in and out +Of the quiet sunniness. +And there the goats, day after day, + Stray in sunny quietness, +Cropping here and cropping there, + As they pause and turn and pass, +Now a bit of heather spray, + Now a mouthful of the grass. + +In the deeper sunniness, + In the place where nothing stirs, +Quietly in quietness, + In the quiet of the furze, +For a time they come and lie +Staring on the roving sky. + +If you approach they run away, + They leap and stare, away they bound, + With a sudden angry sound, +To the sunny quietude; + Crouching down where nothing stirs + In the silence of the furze, +Couching down again to brood +In the sunny solitude. + +If I were as wise as they + I would stray apart and brood, +I would beat a hidden way +Through the quiet heather spray + To a sunny solitude; + +And should you come I'd run away, + I would make an angry sound, + I would stare and turn and bound +To the deeper quietude, + To the place where nothing stirs + In the silence of the furze. + +In that airy quietness + I would think as long as they; +Through the quiet sunniness + I would stray away to brood +By a hidden beaten way + In a sunny solitude. + +I would think until I found + Something I can never find, +Something lying on the ground, + In the bottom of my mind. + + + +THE SNARE + +(To A.E.) + + +I hear a sudden cry of pain! + There is a rabbit in a snare: +Now I hear the cry again, + But I cannot tell from where. + +But I cannot tell from where + He is calling out for aid; +Crying on the frightened air, + Making everything afraid. + +Making everything afraid, + Wrinkling up his little face, +As he cries again for aid; + And I cannot find the place! + +And I cannot find the place + Where his paw is in the snare: +Little one! Oh, little one! + I am searching everywhere. + + + +IN WOODS AND MEADOWS + + +Play to the tender stops, though cheerily: + Gently, my soul, my song: let no one hear: +Sing to thyself alone; thine ecstasy + Rising in silence to the inward ear +That is attuned to silence: do not tell + A friend, a bird, a star, lest they should say-- + _He danced in woods and meadows all the day, +Waving his arms, and cried as evening fell, + 'O, do not come,' and cried, 'O, come, thou queen, + And walk with me unwatched upon the green + Under the sky.'_ + + + +DEIRDRE + + +Do not let any woman read this verse; +It is for men, and after them their sons +And their sons' sons. + +The time comes when our hearts sink utterly; +When we remember Deirdre and her tale, +And that her lips are dust. + +Once she did tread the earth: men took her hand;. +They looked into her eyes and said their say, +And she replied to them. + +More than a thousand years it is since she +Was beautiful: she trod the waving grass; +She saw the clouds. + +A thousand years! The grass is still the same, +The clouds as lovely as they were that time +When Deirdre was alive. + +But there has never been a woman born +Who was so beautiful, not one so beautiful +Of all the women born. + +Let all men go apart and mourn together; +No man can ever love her; not a man +Can ever be her lover. + +No man can bend before her: no man say-- +What could one say to her? There are no words +That one could say to her! + +Now she is but a story that is told +Beside the fire! No man can ever be +The friend of that poor queen. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE + + +THE END OF THE WORLD + + +PERSONS + +HUFF, the Farmer. +SOLLERS, the Wainwright. +MERRICK, the Smith. +VINE, the Publican. +SHALE, the Labourer. +A DOWSER. +MRS HUFF. +WARP, the Molecatcher. +Men and Women of the Village.' + + + +ACT I + +[Scene: A public-house kitchen. HUFF the Farmer and SOLLERS the +Wainwright talking; another man, a stranger, sitting silent.] + + +Huff: + + Ay, you may think we're well off-- + + +Sollers: + + Now for croaks, + Old toad! who's trodden on you now?--Go on; + But if you can, croak us a new tune. + + +Huff: + + Ay, + You think you're well off--and don't grab my words + Before they're spoken--but some folks, I've heard, + Pity us, living quiet in the valley. + + +Sollers: + + Well, I suppose 'tis their affair. + + +Huff: + + Is it? +But what I mean to say,--if they think small +Of us that live in the valley, mayn't it show +That we aren't all so happy as we think? + + +[MERRICK the Smith comes in.] + + +Merrick: + + Quick, cider! I believe I've swallowed a coal. + + +Sollers: + + Good evening. True, the heat's a wonder to-night. + + +[Smith draws himself cider.] + + +Huff: + + Haven't you brought your flute? We've all got room + For music in our minds to-night, I'll swear. + Working all day in the sun do seem to push + The thought out of your brain. + + +Sollers: + + O, 'tis the sun + Has trodden on you? That's what makes you croak? + Ay, whistle him somewhat: put a tune in his brain; + He'll else croak us out of pleasure with drinking. + + +Merrick: + + 'Tis quenching, I believe.--A tune? Too hot. + You want a fiddler. + + +Huff: + + Nay, I want your flute. +I like a piping sound, not scraping o' guts. + + +Merrick: + + This is no weather for a man to play + Flutes or music at all that asks him spend + His breath and spittle: you want both yourself + These oven days. Wait till a fiddler comes. + + +Huff: + + Who ever comes down here? + + +Sollers: + + There's someone come. + + +[Pointing with his pipe to the stranger.] + + +Merrick: + + Good evening, mister. Are you a man for tunes? + + +Stranger: + + And if I was I'ld give you none to-night. + + +Merrick: + + Well, no offence: there's no offence, I hope, + In taking a dummy for a tuneful man. + Is it for can't or won't you are? + + +Stranger: + + You wouldn't, if you carried in your mind + What I've been carrying all day. + + +Sollers: + + What's that? + + +Stranger: + + You wait; you'll know about it soon; O yes, + Soon enough it will find you out and rouse you. + + +Huff: + + Now ain't that just the way we go down here? + Here in the valley we're like dogs in a yard, + Chained to our kennels and wall'd in all round, + And not a sound of the world jumps over our hills. + And when there comes a passenger among us, + One who has heard what's stirring out beyond, + 'Tis a grutchy mumchance fellow in the dismals! + + +Stranger: + + News, is it, you want? I could give you news!-- + I wonder, did you ever hate to feel + The earth so fine and splendid? + + +Huff: + + Oh, you're one + Has stood in the brunt of the world's wickedness, + Like me? But listen, and I'll give you a tale + Of wicked things done in this little valley, + Done against me, will surely make you think + The Devil here fetcht up his masterpiece. + + +Sollers: + + Ah, but it's hot enough without you talking + Your old hell fire about that pair of sinners. + Leave them alone and drink. + + +Huff: + + I'll smell them grilling + One of these days. + + +Merrick: + + But there'll be nought to drink + When that begins! Best keep your skin full now. + + +Stranger: + + What do I care for wickedness? Let those + Who've played with dirt, and thought the game was bold, + Make much of it while they can: there's a big thing + Coming down to us, ay, well on its road, + Will make their ploys seem mighty piddling sport. + + +Huff: + + This is a fool; or else it's what I think,-- + The world now breeds such crowd that they've no room + For well-grown sins: they hatch 'em small as flies. + But you stay here, out of the world awhile, + Here where a man's mind, and a woman's mind, + Can fling out large in wickedness: you'll see + Something monstrous here, something dreadful. + + +Stranger: + + I've seen enough of that. Though it was only + Fancying made me see it, it was enough: + I've seen the folk of the world yelling aghast, + Scurrying to hide themselves. I want nought else + Monstrous and dreadful.-- + + +Merrick: + + What had roused 'em so? + Some house afire? + + +Huff: + + A huzzy flogged to death + For her hard-faced adultery? + + +Stranger (too intent to hear them): + + Oh to think of it! + Talk, do, chatter some nonsense, else I'll think: + And then I'm feeling like a grub that crawls + All abroad in a dusty road; and high + Above me, and shaking the ground beneath me, come + Wheels of a thundering wain, right where I'm plodding. + + +Sollers: + + Queer thinking, that. + + +Stranger: + + And here's a queerer thing. + I have a sort of lust in me, pushing me still + Into that terrible way of thinking, like + Black men in India lie them down and long + To feel their holy wagon crack their spines. + + +Merrick: + + Do you mean beetles? I've driven over scores, + They sprawling on their backs, or standing mazed. + I never knew they liked it. + + +Sollers: + + He means frogs. + I know what's in his mind. When I was young + My mother would catch us frogs and set them down, + Lapt in a screw of paper, in the ruts, + And carts going by would quash 'em; and I'ld laugh, + And yet be thinking, 'Suppose it was myself + Twisted stiff in huge paper, and wheels + Big as the wall of a barn treading me flat!' + + +Huff: + + I know what's in his mind: just madness it is. + He's lookt too hard at his fellows in the world; + Sight of their monstrous hearts, like devils in cages, + Has jolted all the gearing of his wits. + It needs a tough brain, ay, a brain like mine, + To pore on ugly sin and not go mad. + + +Stranger: + + Madness! You're not far out.--I came up here + To be alone and quiet in my thoughts, + Alone in my own dreadful mind. The path, + Of red sand trodden hard, went up between + High hedges overgrown of hawthorn blowing + White as clouds; ay it seemed burrowed through + A white sweet-smelling cloud,--I walking there + Small as a hare that runs its tunnelled drove + Thro' the close heather. And beside my feet + Blue greygles drifted gleaming over the grass; + And up I climbed to sunlight green in birches, + And the path turned to daisies among grass + With bonfires of the broom beside, like flame + Of burning straw: and I lookt into your valley. + I could scarce look. + Anger was smarting in my eyes like grit. + O the fine earth and fine all for nothing! + Mazed I walkt, seeing and smelling and hearing: + The meadow lands all shining fearfully gold,-- + Cruel as fire the sight of them toucht my mind; + Breathing was all a honey taste of clover + And bean flowers: I would have rather had it + Carrion, or the stink of smouldering brimstone. + And larks aloft, the happy piping fools, + And squealing swifts that slid on hissing wings, + And yellowhammers playing spry in hedges. + I never noted them before; but now-- + Yes, I was mad, and crying mad, to see + The earth so fine, fine all for nothing! + + +Sollers (spits): + + Pst! yellowhammers! He talks gentry talk. + That's worse than being mad. + + +Stranger: + + I tell you, you'll be feeling them to-morn + And hating them to be so wonderful. + + +Merrick: + + Let's have some sense. Where do you live? + + +Stranger: + + Nowhere. + I'm always travelling. + + +Huff: + + Why, what's your trade? + +Stranger: + + A dowser. + + +Huff: + + You're the man for me! + + +Stranger: + + Not I. + + +Huff: + + Ho, this is better than a fiddler now! + One of those fellows who have nerves so clever + That they can feel the waters of underground + Tingling in their fingers. + You find me a spring in my high grazing-field, + I'll give you what I save in trundling water. + + +Stranger: + + I find you water now!---No, but I'll find you + Fire and fear and unbelievable death. + + +[VINE the Publican comes in.] + + +Vine: + + Are ye all served? Ay, seems so; what's your score? + + +Merrick: + + Two ciders. + + +Huff: + + Three. + + +Sollers: + + And two for me. + + +Vine (to Dowser): + + And you? + + +Dowser: + + Naught. I was waiting on you. + + +Vine: + + Will you drink? + + +Dowser: + + Ay! Drink! what else is left for a man to do + Who knows what I know? + + +Vine: + + Good. What is't you know? + You tell it out and set my trade a-buzzing. + + +Sollers: + + He's queer. Give him his mug and ease his tongue. + + +Vine: + + I had to swill the pigs: else I'd been here; + But we've the old fashion in this house; you draw, + I keep the score. Well, what's the worry on you? + + +Sollers: + + Oh he's in love. + + +Dowser: + + You fleering grinning louts, + I'll give it you now; now have it in your faces! + + +Sollers: + + Crimini, he's going to fight! + + +Dowser: + + You try and fight with the thing that's on my side! + + +Merrick: + + A ranter! + + +Huff: + + A boozy one then. + + +Dowser: + + Open yon door; +'Tis dark enough by now. Open it, you. + + +Vine: + + Hold on. Have you got something fierce outside? + + +Merrick: + + A Russian bear? + + +Sollers: + + Dowsers can play strange games. + + +Huff: + + No tricks! + + +Dowser: + + This is a trick to rouse the world. + + +[He opens the door.] + + + Look out! Between the elms! There's my fierce thing. + + +Merrick: + + He means the star with the tail like a feather of fire. + + +Sollers: + + Comet, it's called. + + +Huff: + + Do you mean the comet, mister? + + +Dowser: + + What do you think of it? + + +Huff: + + Pretty enough. + But I saw a man loose off a rocket once; + It made more stir and flare of itself; though yon + Does better at steady burning. + + +Dowser: + + Stir and flare! + You'll soon forget your rocket. + + +Merrick: + + Tell you what + I thought last night, now, going home. Says I, + 'Tis just like the look of a tadpole: if I saw + A tadpole silver as a dace that swam + Upside-down towards me through black water, + I'ld see the plain spit of that star and his tail. + + +Sollers: + + And how does your thought go? + + +Dowser: + + It's what I know!-- + A tadpole and a rocket!--My dear God, + And I can still laugh out!--What do you think + Your tadpole's made of? What lets your rocket fling + Those streaming sparks across the half of night, + Splashing the burning spray of its haste among + The quiet business of the other stars? + Ay, that's a fiery jet it leaves behind + In such enormous drift! What sort of fire + Is spouted so, spouted and never quenching?-- + There is no name for that star's fire: it is + The fire that was before the world was made, + The fire that all the things we live among + Remember being; and whitest fire we know + Is its poor copy in their dreaming trance! + + +Huff: + + That would be hell fire. + + +Dowser: + + Ay, if you like, hell fire, + Hell fire flying through the night! 'Twould be + A thing to blink about, a blast of it + Swept in your face, eh? and a thing to set + The whole stuff of the earth smoking rarely? + Which of you said 'the heat's a wonder to-night'? + You have not done with marvelling. There'll come + A night when all your clothes are a pickle of sweat, + And, for all that, the sweat on your salty skin + Shall dry and crack, in the breathing of a wind + That's like a draught come through an open'd furnace. + The leafage of the trees shall brown and faint, + All sappy growth turning to brittle rubbish + As the near heat of the star strokes the green earth; + And time shall brush the fields as visibly + As a rough hand brushes against the nap + Of gleaming cloth--killing the season's colour, + Each hour charged with the wasting of a year; + And sailors panting on their warping decks + Will watch the sea steam like broth about them. + You'll know what I know then!--That towering star + Hangs like a fiery buzzard in the night + Intent over our earth--Ay, now his journey + Points, straight as a plummet's drop, down to us! + + +Huff: + + Why, that's the end of the world! + + +Dowser: + + You've said it now. + + +Sollers: + + What, soon? In a day or two? + + +Merrick: + + You can't mean that! + + +Vine: + + End of the World! Well now, I never thought + To hear the news of that. If you've the truth + In what you say, likely this is an evening + That we'll be talking over often and often. + 'How was it, Sellers?' I'll say; 'or you, Merrick, + Do you mind clearly how he lookt?'--And then-- + "End of the world" he said, and drank--like that, + Solemn!'--And right he was: he had it all + As sure as I have when my sow's to farrow. + + +Dowser: + +Are you making a joke of me? Keep your mind +For tippling while you can. + + +Vine: + + Was that a joke? + I'm always bad at seeing 'em, even my own. + + +Dowser: + + A fool's! 'Twill cheer you when the earth blows up. + Like as it were all gunpowder. + + +Vine: + + You mean + The star will butt his burning head against us? + 'Twill knock the world to flinders, I suppose? + + +Dowser: + + Ay, or with that wild, monstrous tail of his + Smash down upon the air, and make it bounce + Like water under the flukes of a harpooned whale, + And thrash it to a poisonous fire; and we + And all the life of the world drowned in blazing! + + +Vine: + + 'Twill be a handsome sight. If my old wife + Were with me now! This would have suited her. + 'I do like things to happen!' she would say; + Never shindy enough for her; and now + She's gone, and can't be seeing this! + + +Dowser: + + You poor fool. + How will it be a sight to you, when your eyes + Are scorcht to little cinders in your head? + + +Vine: + + Whether or no, there must be folks outside + Willing to know of this. I'll scatter your news. + + +[He goes.] + +[A short-pause: then SOLLERS breaks out.] + + +Sollers: + + No, no; it wouldn't do for me at all; + Nor for you neither, Merrick? End of the World? + Bogy! A parson's tale or a bairn's! + + +Merrick: + + That's it. + Your trade's a gift, easy as playing tunes. + But Sollers here and I, we've had to drill + Sinew and muscle into their hard lesson, + Until they work in timber and glowing iron + As kindly as I pick up my pint: your work + Grows in your nature, like plain speech in a child, + But we have learnt to think in a foreign tongue; + And something must come out of all our skill! + We shan't go sliding down as glib as you + Into notions of the End of the World. + + +Sollers: + + Give me a tree, you may say, and give me steel, + And I'll put forth my shapely mind; I'll make, + Out of my head like telling a well-known tale, + A wain that goes as comely on the roads + As a ship sailing, the lines of it true as gospel. + Have I learnt that all for nothing?--O no! + End of the World? It wouldn't do at all. + No more making of wains, after I've spent + My time in getting the right skill in my hands? + + +Dowser: + + Ay, you begin to feel it now, I think; + But you complain like boys for a game spoilt: + Shaping your carts, forging your iron! But Life, + Life, the mother who lets her children play + So seriously busy, trade and craft,-- + Life with her skill of a million years' perfection + To make her heart's delighted glorying + Of sunlight, and of clouds about the moon, + Spring lighting her daffodils, and corn + Ripening gold to ruddy, and giant seas, + And mountains sitting in their purple clothes-- + Life I am thinking of, life the wonder, + All blotcht out by a brutal thrust of fire + Like a midge that a clumsy thumb squashes and smears. + + +Huff: + + Let me but see the show beginning, though! + You'ld mind me then! O I would like you all + To watch how I should figure, when the star + Brandishes over the whole air its flame + Of thundering fire; and naught but yellow rubbish + Parcht on the perishing ground, and there are tongues + Chapt with thirst, glad to lap stinking ponds, + And pale glaring faces spying about + On the earth withering, terror the only speech! + Look for me then, and see me stand alone + Easy and pleasant in the midst of it all. + Did you not make your merry scoff of me? + Was it your talk, that when yon shameless pair + Threw their wantoning in my face like dirt, + I had no heart against them but to grumble? + You would be saying that, I know! But now, + Now I believe it's time for you to see + My patient heart at last taking its wages. + + +Sollers: + + Pull up, man! Screw the brake on your running tongue, + Else it will rattle you down the tumbling way + This fellow's gone. + + +Merrick: + + And one man's enough + With brain quagged axle-deep in crazy mire. + We won't have you beside him in his puddles, + And calling out with him on the End of the World + To heave you out with a vengeance. + + +Huff: + + What you want! + Have I not borne enough to make me know + I must be righted sometime?--And what else + Would break the hardy sin in them, which lets + Their souls parade so daring and so tall + Under God's hate and mine? What else could pay + For all my wrong but a blow of blazing anger + Striking down to shiver the earth, and change + Their strutting wickedness to horror and crying? + + +Merrick: + + Be quiet, Huff! If you mean to believe + This dowser's stuff, and join him in his bedlam, + By God, you'll have to reckon with my fist. + + +[SHALE comes in. HUFF glares at him speechless, but with wrath evidently +working.] + + +Shale: + + Where's the joker? You, is it? Here's hot news + You've brought us; all the valley's hissing aloud, + And makes as much of you falling into it + As a pail of water would of a glowing coal. + + +Sollers: + + Don't you start burbling too, Shale. + + +Shale: + + That's the word! + Burbling, simmering, ay and bumpy-boiling: + All the women are mobbed together close + Under the witan-trees, and their full minds + Boil like so many pans slung on a fire. + Why, starlings trooping in a copse in fall + Could make no scandal like it. + + +Merrick: + + What is it, man? + + +Shale: + + End of the World! The flying star! End of the World! + + +Sollers: + + They don't believe it though? + + +Shale: + + What? the whole place + Has gone just randy over it! + + +Merrick: + + Hold your noise! + + +Sollers: + + I shall be daft if this goes on. + + +Shale: + + Ay, so? + The End of the World's been here? You look as though + You'd startled lately. And there's the virtuous man! + How would End of the World suit our good Huff, + Our old crab-verjuice Huff? + + +HUFF (seizing the DOWSER and bringing him up in front of SHALE): + + Look at him there! + This is the man I told you of when you + Were talking small of sin. You made it out, + Did you, a fool's mere nasty game, like dogs + That snuggle in muck, and grin and roll themselves + With snorting pleasure? Ah, but you are wrong. + 'Tis something that goes thrusting dreadfully + Its wilful bravery of evil against + The worth and right of goodness in the world: + Ay, do you see how his face still brags at me? + And long it has been, the time he's had to walk + Lording about me with his wickedness. + Do you know what he dared? I had a wife, + A flighty pretty linnet-headed girl, + But mine: he practised on her with his eyes; + He knew of luring glances, and she went + After his calling lust: and all since then + They've lived together, fleering in my face, + Pleased in sight of the windows of my house + With doing wrong, and making my disgrace. + O but wait here with me; wait till your news + Is not to be mistaken, for the way + The earth buckles and singes like hot boards: + You'll surely see how dreadful sin can be + Then, when you mark these two running about, + With raging fear for what they did against me + Buzzing close to their souls, stinging their hearts, + And they like scampering beasts when clegs are fierce, + Or flinging themselves low as the ground to writhe, + Their arms hugging their desperate heads. And then + You'll see what 'tis to be an upright man, + Who keeps a patient anger for his wrongs + Thinking of judgment coming--you will see that + When you mark how my looks hunt these wretches, + And smile upon their groans and posturing anguish. + O watch how calm I'll be, when the blazing air + Judges their wickedness; you watch me then + Looking delighted, like a nobleman + Who sees his horse winning an easy race. + + +Merrick: + + You fool, Huff, you believe it now! + + +Huff: + + You fool, + Merrick, how should I not believe a thing + That calls aloud on my mind and spirit, and they + Answer to it like starving conquering soldiers + Told to break out and loot? + + +Shale: + + You vile old wasp! + + +Sollers: + + We've talkt enough: let's all go home and sleep; + There might be a fiend in the air about us, one + Who pours his will into our minds to see + How we can frighten one another. + + +Huff: + + A fiend! + Shale will soon have the flapping wings of a fiend, + And flaming wings, beating about his head. + There'll be no air for Shale, very soon now, + But the breathing of a fiend: the star's coming! + The star that breathes a horrible fury of fire + Like glaring fog into the empty night; + And in the gust of its wrath the world will soon + Shrivel and spin like paper in a furnace. + I knew they both would have to pay me at last + With sight of their damned souls for all my wrong! + + +Shale: + + Somebody stop his gab. + + +Merrick (seizing the DOWSER and shaking him): + + Is it the truth? + Is it the truth we're in the way of the star? + + +Sollers: + + O let us go home; let us go home and sleep! + + +[A crowd, of men and women burst in and shout confusedly.] + + + 1. Look out for the star! + 2. 'Tis moving, moving. + 3. Grows as you stare at it. + 4. Bigger than ever. + 1. Down it comes with a diving pounce, + As though it had lookt for us and at last found us. + 2. O so near and coming so quick! + 3. And how the burning hairs of its tail + Do seem surely to quiver for speed. + 4. We saw its great tail twitch behind it. + 'Tis come so near, so gleaming near. + 1. The tail is wagging! + 2. Come out and see! + 3. The star is wagging its tail and eyeing us-- + 4. Like a cat huncht to leap on a bird. + + +Merrick: + + Out of my way and let me see for myself. + + +[They all begin to hustle out: HUFF speaks in midst of the turmoil.] + + +Huff: + + Ay, now begins the just man's reward; + And hatred of the evil thing + Now is to be satisfied. + Wrong ventured out against me and braved: + And I'll be glad to see all breathing pleasure + Burn as foolishly to naught + As a moth in candle flame, + If I but have my will to watch over those + Who injured me bawling hoarse heartless fear. + + +[They are all gone but HUFF, SHALE and the DOWSER.] + + +Shale: + + As for you, let you and the women make + Your howling scare of this; I'll stand and laugh. + But if it truly were the End of the World, + I'ld be the man to face it out, not you: + I who have let life go delighted through me, + Not you, who've sulkt away your chance of life + In mumping about being paid for goodness. + + +[Going.] + + +Huff (after him): + + You wait, you wait! + +[He follows the rest.] + + +Dowser (alone): + + Naught but a plague of flies! + I cannot do with noises, and light fools + Terrified round me; I must go out and think + Where there is quiet and no one near. O, think! + Life that has done such wonders with its thinking, + And never daunted in imagining; + That has put on the sun and the shining night, + The flowering of the earth and tides of the sea, + And irresistible rage of fate itself, + All these as garments for its spirit's journey-- + O now this life, in the brute chance of things, + Murder'd, uselessly murder'd! And naught else + For ever but senseless rounds of hurrying motion + That cannot glory in itself. O no! + I will not think of that; I'll blind my brain + With fancying the splendours of destruction; + When like a burr in the star's fiery mane + The crackling earth is caught and rusht along, + The forests on the mountains blazing so, + That from the rocks of ore beneath them come + White-hot rivers of smelted metal pouring + Across the plains to roar into the sea ... + + +[The curtain is lowered for a few moments only.] + + + +ACT II + + +[As before, a little while after. The room is empty when the curtain +goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces about, but stops short when he +catches sight of a pot dog on the mantelpiece.] + + +Sollers: + + The pace it is coming down!--What to do now?-- + My brain has stopt: it's like a clock that's fallen + Out of a window and broke all its cogs.--Where's + That old cider, Vine would have us pay + Twopence a glass for? Let's try how it smells: + Old Foxwhelp, and a humming stingo it is! + (To the pot dog) + Hullo, you! What are you grinning at?-- + I know! + There'll be no score against me for this drink! + O that score! I've drunk it down for a week + With every gulp of cider, and every gulp + Was half the beauty it should have been, the score + So scratcht my swallowing throat, like a wasp in the drink! + And I need never have heeded it!-- + Old grinning dog! You've seen me happy here; + And now, all's done! But do you know this too, + That I can break you now, and never called + To pay for you? + [Throwing the dog on the floor] + I shall be savage soon! + We're leaving all this!--O, and it was so pleasant + Here, in here, of an evening.----Smash! + [He sweeps a lot of crockery on to the floor.] + It's all no good! Let's make a wreck of it all! + [Picking up a chair and swinging it.] + Damn me! Now I'm forgetting to drink, and soon + 'Twill be too late. Where's there a mug not shivered? + + +[He goes to draw himself cider. MERRICK rushes in.] + + +Merrick: + + You at the barrels too? Out of the road! + + +[He pushes SOLLERS away and spills his mug.] + + +Sollers: + + Go and kick out of doors, you black donkey. + + +Merrick: + + Let me come at the vessel, will you? + + +[They wrestle savagely.] + + +Sollers: + + Keep off; + I'm the first here. Lap what you've spilt of mine. + + +Merrick: + + You with your chiselling and screw-driving, + Your wooden work, you bidding me, the man + Who hammers a meaning into red hot iron? + + +[VINE comes in slowly. He is weeping; the two wrestlers stop and stare +at him, as he sits down, and holds his head in his hands, sobbing.] + + +Vine: + + O this is a cruel affair! + + +Sollers: + + Here's Vine crying! + + +Vine: + + I've seen the moon. + + +Merrick: + + The moon? 'Tisn't the moon + That's tumbling on us, but yon raging star. + What notion now is clotted in your head? + + +Vine: + + I've seen the moon; it has nigh broke my heart. + + +Sollers: + + Not the moon too jumping out of her ways? + + +Vine: + + No, no;--but going quietly and shining, + Pushing away a flimsy gentle cloud + That would drift smoky round her, fending it off + With steady rounds of blue and yellow light. + It was not much to see. She was no more + Than a curved bit of silver rind. But I + Never before so noted her-- + + +Sollers: + + What he said, + The dowser! + + +Merrick: + + Ay, about his yellowhammers. + + +Sollers: + + And there's a kind of stifle in the air + Already! + + +Merrick: + + It seems to me, my breathing goes + All hot down my windpipe, hot as cider + Mulled and steaming travels down my swallow. + + +Sollers: + + And a queer racing through my ears of blood. + + +Merrick: + + I wonder, is the star come closer still? + + +Sollers: + + O, close, I know, and viciously heading down. + + +Vine: + + She was so silver! and the sun had left + A kind of tawny red, a dust of fine + Thin light upon the blue where she was lying,-- + Just a curled paring of the moon, amid + The faint grey cloud that set the gleaming wheel + Around the tilted slip of shining silver. + O it did seem to me so safe and homely, + The moon quietly going about the earth; + It's a rare place we have to live in, here; + And life is such a comfortable thing-- + And what's the sense of it all? Naught but to make + Cruel as may be the slaughtering of it. + + +[He breaks down again.] + + +Sollers: + + It heats my mind! + + +[He begins to walk up and down desperately.] + + +Merrick: + + 'Twas bound to come sometime, + Bound to come, I suppose. 'Tis a poor thing + For us, to fall plumb in the chance of it; + But, now or another time, 'twas bound to be.-- + I have been thinking back. When I was a lad + I was delighted with my life: there seemed + Naught but things to enjoy. Say we were bathing: + There'ld be the cool smell of the water, and cool + The splashing under the trees: but I did loathe + The sinking mud slithering round my feet, + And I did love to loathe it so! And then + We'ld troop to kill a wasp's nest; and for sure + I would be stung; and if I liked the dusk + And singing and the game of it all, I loved + The smart of the stings, and fleeing the buzzing furies. + And sometimes I'ld be looking at myself + Making so much of everything; there'ld seem + A part of me speaking about myself: + 'You know, this is much more than being happy. + 'Tis hunger of some power in you, that lives + On your heart's welcome for all sorts of luck, + But always looks beyond you for its meaning.' + And that's the way the world's kept going on, + I believe now. Misery and delight + Have both had liking welcome from it, both + Have made the world keen to be glad and sorry. + For why? It felt the living power thrive + The more it made everything, good and bad, + Its own belonging, forged to its own affair,-- + The living power that would do wonders some day. + I don't know if you take me? + + +Sollers: + + I do, fine; + I've felt the very thought go through my mind + When I was at my wains; though 'twas a thing + Of such a flight I could not read its colour.-- + Why was I like a man sworn to a thing + Working to have my wains in every curve, + Ay, every tenon, right and as they should be? + Not for myself, not even for those wains: + But to keep in me living at its best + The skill that must go forward and shape the world, + Helping it on to make some masterpiece. + + +Merrick: + + And never was there aught to come of it! + The world was always looking to use its life + In some great handsome way at last. And now-- + We are just fooled. There never was any good + In the world going on or being at all. + The fine things life has plotted to do are worth + A rotten toadstool kickt to flying bits. + End of the World? Ay, and the end of a joke. + + +Vine: + + Well, Huff's the man for this turn. + + +Merrick: + + Ay, the good man! + He could but grunt when times were pleasant; now + There's misery enough to make him trumpet. + And yet, by God, he shan't come blowing his horn + Over my misery! + We are just fooled, did I say?--We fooled ourselves, + Looking for worth in what was still to come; + And now there's a stop to our innings. Well, that's fair: + I've been a living man, and might have been + Nothing at all! I've had the world about me, + And felt it as my own concern. What else + Should I be crying for? I've had my turn. + The world may be for the sake of naught at last, + But it has been for my sake: I've had that. + + +[He sits again, and broods.] + + +Sollers: + + I can't stay here. I must be where my sight + May silence with its business all my thinking-- + Though it will be the star plunged down so close + It puffs its flaming vengeance in my face. + + +[He goes.] + + +Vine: + + I wish there were someone who had done me wrong, + Like Huff with his wife and Shale; I wish there were + Somebody I would like to see go crazed + With staring fright. I'ld have my pleasure then + Of living on into the End of the World. + But there is no one at all for me, no one + Now my poor wife is gone. + + +Merrick: + + Why, what did she + To harm you? + + +Vine: + + Didn't she marry me?--It's true + She made it come all right. She died at last. + Besides, it would be wasting wishes on her, + To be in hopes of her weeping at this. + She'ld have her hands on her hips and her tongue jumping + As nimble as a stoat, delighting round + The way the world's to be terrible and tormented.-- + Ay, but I'll have a thing to tell her now + When she begins to ask the news! I'll say + 'You've misst such a show as never was nor will be, + A roaring great affair of death and ruin; + And I was there--the world smasht to sparkles!' + O, I can see her vext at that! + + +[MERRICK has been sunk in thought during this, but VINE seems to +brighten at his notion, and speaks quite cheerfully to HUFF, who now +comes in, looking mopish, and sits down.] + + +Vine: + + We've all been envying you, Huff. You're well off, + You with your goodness and your enemies + Showing you how to relish it with their terror. + When do you mean the gibing is to start? + + +Huff: + + There's time enough. + + +Vine: + + O, do they still hold out? + If they should be for spiting you to the last! + You'ld best keep on at them: think out a list + Of frantic things for them to do, when air + Is scorching smother and the sin they did + Frightens their hearts. You'll shout them into fear, + I undertake, if you find breath enough. + + +Huff: + + You have the breath. What's all your pester for? + You leave me be. + + +Vine: + + Why, you're to do for me + What I can't do myself.--And yet it's hard + To make out where Shale hurt you. What's the sum + Of all he did to you? Got you quit of marriage + Without the upset of a funeral. + + +Huff: + + Why need you blurt your rambling mind at me? + Let me bide quiet in my thought awhile, + And it's a little while we have for thought. + + +Merrick: + + I know your thought. Paddling round and around, + Like a squirrel working in a spinning cage + With his neck stretcht to have his chin poke up, + And silly feet busy and always going; + Paddling round the story of your good life, + Your small good life, and how the decent men + Have jeered at your wry antic. + + +Huff: + + My good life! + And what good has my goodness been to me? + You show me that! Somebody show me that! + A caterpillar munching a cabbage-heart, + Always drudging further and further from + The sounds and lights of the world, never abroad + Nor flying free in warmth and air sweet-smelling: + A crawling caterpillar, eating his life + In a deaf dark--that's my gain of goodness! + And it's too late to hatch out now!-- + I can but fancy what I might have been; + I scarce know how to sin!--But I believe + A long while back I did come near to it. + + +Merrick: + + Well done!--O but I should have guesst all this! + + +Huff: + + I was in Droitwich; and the sight of the place + Is where they cook the brine: a long dark shed, + Hot as an oven, full of a grey steam + And ruddy light that leaks out of the furnace; + And stirring the troughs, ladling the brine that boils + As thick as treacle, a double standing row, + Women--boldly talking in wicked jokes + All day long. I went to see 'em. It was + A wonderful rousing sight. Not one of them + Was really wearing clothes: half of a sack + Pinned in an apron was enough for most, + And here and there might be a petticoat; + But nothing in the way of bodices.-- + O, they knew words to shame a carter's face! + + +Merrick: + + This is the thought you would be quiet in! + + +Huff: + + Where else can I be quiet? Now there's an end + Of daring, 'tis the one place my life has made + Where I may try to dare in thought. I mind, + When I stood in the midst of those bare women, + All at once, outburst with a rising buzz, + A mob of flying thoughts was wild in me: + Things I might do swarmed in my brain pell-mell, + Like a heap of flies kickt into humming cloud. + I beat them down; and now I cannot tell + For certain what they were. I can call up + Naught venturesome and darting like their style; + Very tame braveries now!--O Shale's the man + To smile upon the End of the World; 'tis Shale + Has lived the bold stiff fashion, and filled himself + With thinking pride in what a man may do.-- + I wish I had seen those women more than once! + + +Vine: + + Well, here's an upside down! This is old Huff! + What have you been in your heart all these years? + The man you were or the new man you are? + + +Huff: + + Just a dead flesh! + + +Merrick: + + Nay, Huff the good man at least + Was something alive, though snarling like trapt vermin. + But this? What's this for the figure of a man? + 'Tis a boy's smutty picture on a wall. + + +Huff: + + I was alive, was I? Like a blind bird + That flies and cannot see the flight it takes, + Feeling it with mere rowing of its wings. + But Shale--he's had a stirring sense of what he is. + + +[Shouting outside. Then SOLLERS walks in again, very quiet and steady. +He stands in the middle, looking down on the floor.] + + +Vine: + + What do they holla for there? + + +Sollers: + + The earth. + + +Merrick: + + The earth? + + +Sollers: + + The earth's afire. + + +Huff: + + The earth blazing already? + + +[Shouts again.] + + + O, not so soon as this? + + +Vine: + + What sort of a fire? + + +Sollers: + + The earth has caught the heat of the star, you fool. + + +Merrick: + + I know: there's come some dazzle in your eyes + From facing to the star; a lamp would do it. + + +Huff: + + It will be that. Your sight, being so strained, + Is flashing of itself. + + +Sollers: + + Say what you like. + There's a red flare out of the land beyond + Looking over the hills into our valley. + The thing's begun, 'tis certain. Go and see. + + +Vine: + + I won't see that. I will stay here. + + +Sollers: + + Ay, creep + Into your oven. You'll be cooler there.-- + O my God, we'll all be coals in an hour! + + +[Shouts again.] + + +Huff: + + And I have naught to stand in my heart upright, + And vow it made my living time worth more + Than if my time had been death in a grave! + + +[Several persons run in.] + + +The Crowd: + + 1. The river's the place! + 2. The only safe place now! + 3. Best all charge down to the river! + 4. For there's a blaze, + A travelling blaze comes racing along the earth. + + +Sollers: + + 'Tis true. The air's red-hot above the hills. + + +The Crowd: + + 1. Ay, but the burning now crests the hill-tops + In quiver of yellow flame. + 2. And a great smoke + Waving and tumbling upward. + 3. The river now! + 4. The only place we have, not to be roasted! + + +Merrick: + + And what will make us water-rats or otters, + To keep our breath still living through a dive + That lasts until the earth's burnt out? Or how + Would that trick serve, when we stand up to gasp, + And find the star waiting for our plunged heads + To knock them into pummy? + + +Vine: + + Scarce more dazed + I'ld be with that than now. I shall be bound, + When I'm to give my wife the tale of it all, + To be devising: more of this to-do + My mind won't carry. + + +Huff: + + O ashamed I am, + Ashamed!--It needn't have been downright feats, + Such as the braving men, the like of Shale, + Do easily, and smile, keeping them up. + If I could look back to one manful hour + Of romping in the face of all my goodness!-- + + +[SHALE comes in, dragging Mrs HUFF by the hand.] + + +Shale: + + Huff! Where's Huff?--Huff, you must take her back! + You'll take her back? She's yours: I give her up. + + +Merrick: + + Belike here's something bold again. + + +Mrs Huff (to SHALE): + + Once more, + Listen. + + +Shale: + + I will not listen. There's no time + For aught but giving you back where you belong; + And that's with you, Huff. Take her. + + +Huff: + + Here is depth + I cannot see to. Is it your last fling?-- + The dolt I am in these things!--What's this way + You've found of living wickedly to the end? + + +Shale: + + Scorn as you please, but take her back, man, take her. + + +Huff: + + But she's my wife! Take her back now? What for? + + +Mrs Huff: + + What for? Have you not known of thieves that throw + Their robbery down, soon as they hear a step + Sounding behind them on the road, and run + A long way off, and pull an honest face? + Ay, see Shale's eyes practising baby-looks! + He never stole, not he! + + +Shale: + + Don't hear her talk. + + +Mrs Huff: + + But he was a talker once! Love was the thing; + And love, he swore, would make the wrong go right, + And Huff was a kind of devil--and that's true---- + + +Huff: + + What? I've been devilish and never knew? + + +Mrs Huff: + + The devil in the world that hates all love. + But Shale said, he'd the love in him would hold + If the world's frame and the fate of men were crackt. + + +Shale: + + What I said! + Whoever thought the world was going to crack? + + +Mrs Huff: + +And now he hears someone move behind him.-- +They'll say, perhaps, 'You stole this!'--Down it goes, +Thrown to the dirty road--thrown to Huff! + + +Shale: + + Yes, to the owner. + + +Mrs Huff: + + It was not such brave thieving. + You did not take me from my owner, Shale: + There's an old robber will do that some day, + Not you. + + +Vine: + + Were you thinking of me then, missis? + + +Mrs Huff (still to SHALE): + +You found me lost in the dirt: I was with Huff. +You lifted me from there; and there again, +Like a frightened urchin, you're for throwing me. + + +Shale: + + Let it be that! I'm firm + Not to have you about me, when the thing, + Whatever it is, that's standing now behind + The burning of the world, comes out on us. + + +Huff: + + The way men cheat! This windle-stalk was he + Would hold a show of spirit for the world + To study while it ruined!--Make what you please + Of your short wrangle here, but leave me out. + I have my thoughts--O far enough from this. + + +[Turning away.] + + +Shale (seizing him): + + You shall not put me off. I tell you, Huff, + You are to take her back now. + + +Huff: + + Take her back! + And what has she to do with what I want? + + +Shale: + + Isn't she yours? I must be quit of her; + I'll not be in the risk of keeping her. + She's yours! + + +Huff: + + And what's the good of her now to me? + What's the good of a woman whom I've married? + + +[During this, WARP the molecatcher has come in.] + + +Warp: + + Shale and Huff at their old pother again! + + +Merrick: + + The molecatcher. + + +Sollers: + + Warp, have you travelled far? + Is it through frenzy and ghastly crowds you've come? + + +Vine: + + Have you got dreadful things to tell us, Warp? + + +Warp: + + Why, no. + But seemingly you'ld have had news for me, + If I'd come later. Is Huff to murder Shale, + Or Shale for murdering Huff? One way or 'tother, + 'Tis time 'twas settled surely.--Mrs Huff, + They're neither of them worth you: here's your health. + + +[Draws and drinks.] + + +Huff: + + Where have you been? Are you not new from folk + That throng together in a pelting horror? + + +Warp: + + Do you think the whole land hearkens to the flurry + Of an old dog biting at a young dog's throat? + + +Merrick: + +No, no! Not their shrill yapping; you've not heard +The world's near to be blasted? + + +Warp: + + No mutter of it. + I am from walking the whole ground I trap, + And there's no likeness of it, but the moles + I've turned up dead and dried out of three counties. + + +Sollers: + +Why, but the fire that's eating the whole earth; +The breath of it is scarlet in the sky! +You must have seen that? + + +Warp: + + But what's taken you? + You are like boys that go to hunt for ghosts, + And turn the scuttle of rats to a roused demon + Crawling to shut the door of the barn they search. + Fire? Yes, fire is playing a pretty game + Yonder, and has its golden fun to itself, + Seemingly. + + +Sollers: + + You don't know what 'tis that burns? + + +Warp: + + Call me a mole and not a molecatcher + If I do not. It is a rick that burns; + And a strange thing I'll count it if the rick + Be not old Huff's. + + +Sollers: + + That flare a fired stack? + + +Huff: + + Only one of my ricks alight? O Glory! + There may be chance for me yet. + + +Merrick: + + Best take the train + To Droitwich, Huff. + + +Vine (at the door): + + It would be like a stack, + But for the star. + + +Sollers (to WARP): + +Yes, as you're so clever, +You can talk down maybe yon brandishing star! + + +Warp: + + O, 'tis the star has flickt your brains? Indeed, + The tail swings long enough to-night for that. + Well, look your best at it; 'tis off again + To go its rounds, they tell me, from now on; + And the next time it swaggers in our sky, + The moles a long while will have tired themselves + Of having their easy joke with me. + +[A pause.] + + +Merrick: + + You mean + The flight of the star is from us? + + +Sollers: + + But the world, +The whole world reckons on it battering us! + + +Warp: + + Who told you that? + + +Sollers: + + A dowser. + + +Merrick: + + Where's he gone? + + +Warp: + + A dowser! say a tramping conjurer. + You'll believe aught, if you believe a dowser. + + +Sollers: + + I had it in me to be doubting him. + + +Merrick: + + The noise you made was like that! But I knew + You'ld laugh at me, so sure you were the world + Would shiver like a bursting grindlestone: + Else I'ld have said out loud, 'twas a fool's whimsy. + + +Vine: + + Where are you now? What am I now to think? + Your minds run round in puzzles, like chased hares. + I cannot sight them. + + +Merrick: + + Think of going to bed. + + +Sollers: + + And dreaming prices for your pigs. + + +Merrick: + + O Warp, + You should have seen Vine crying! The moon, he said, + The silver moon! Just like an onion 'twas + To stir the water in his eyes. + + +Sollers: + + He's left + A puddle of his tears where he was droopt + Over the table. + + +Vine: + + There's to be no ruin?-- + But what's the word of a molecatcher, to crow + So ringing over a dowser's word? + + +Warp: + + I'll tell you. + These dowsers live on lies: my trade's the truth. + I can read moles, and the way they've dug their journeys, + Where you'ld not see a wrinkle. + + +Vine: + + And he knows +The buried water. + + +Warp: + + There's always buried water, + If you prod deep enough. A dowser finds + Because the whole earth's floating, like a raft. + What does he know? A twitching in his thews; + A dog asleep knows that much. What I know + I've learnt, and if I'd learnt it wrong, I'ld starve. + And if I'm right about the grubbing moles, + Won't I be right for news of walking men? + + +Merrick: + +Of course you're right. Let's put the whole thing by, +And have a pleasant drink. + + +Shale (to Mrs HUFF): + + You must be tired + With all this story. Shall we be off for home? + + +Huff: + + You brass! You don't go now with her! She's mine: + You gave her up. + + +Shale: + + And you made nothing of her. + +(To Mrs Huff) + + Come on. + + +Mrs Huff: + + Warp, will you do a thing for me? + + +Warp: + + A hundred things. + + +Mrs Huff: + + Then slap me these cur-dogs. + + +Warp: + + I will. Where will I slap them, and which first? + + +Mrs Huff: + + Maybe 'twill do if you but laugh at them. + + +Warp: + +I'll try for that; but they are not good jokes; +Though there's a kind of monkey-look about them. + + +Mrs Huff: + + They thinking I'ld be near one or the other + After this night! Will I be made no more + Than clay that children puddle to their minds, + Moulding it what they fancy?--Shale was brave: + He made a bogy and defied it, till + He frightened of his work and ran away. + But Huff!--Huff was for modelling wickedly. + + +Huff: + + Who told you that? + + +Mrs Huff: + + I need no one's telling. + I was your wife once. Don't I know your goodness? + A stupid heart gone sour with jealousy, + To feel its blood too dull and thick for sinning.-- + Yes, Huff would figure a wicked thought, but had + No notion how, and flung the clay aside.-- + O they were gaudy colours both! But now + Fear has bleacht their swagger and left them blank, + Fear of a loon that cried, End of the World! + + +Huff: + + Shale, do you know what we're to do? + + +Shale: + + I'ld like + To have the handling of that dowser-man. + + +Huff: + + Just that, my lad, just that! + + +Warp: + + And your fired rick. + + +Huff: + + Let it be blazes! Quick, Shale, after him! + I'll tramp the night out, but I'll take the rogue. + + +Shale (to the others): + +You wait, and see us haul him by the ears, +And swim the blatherer in Huff's farm-yard pond. + + +[As HUFF and SHALE go out, they see the comet before them.] + + +Huff: + + The devil's own star is that! + + +Shale: + + And floats as calm + As a pike basking. + + +Huff: + + There shouldn't be such stars! + + +Shale: + + Neither such dowsers, and we'll learn him that. + + +[They go off together.] + + +Sollers: + + Why, the star's dwindling now, surely! + + +Merrick: + + O, small + And dull now to the glowing size it was. + + +Vine: + + But is it certain there'll be nothing smasht? + Not even a house knockt roaring down in crumbles? + --And I did think, I'ld open my wife's mouth + With envy of the dreadful things I'd seen! + + + +CURTAIN. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Georgian Poetry 1913-15, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGIAN POETRY 1913-15 *** + +***** This file should be named 9506.txt or 9506.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/5/0/9506/ + +Produced by Clytie Siddall, Jon Ingram, Keren Vergon, and +PG Distributed Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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