Chapter II

Take from me the little flowers And the bright-eyed beasts and the birds; And the babies, oh God, take away; Hearken my praying-words; Empty my road of them, Empty my house and my arm, For black is my heart with hate, And I would not these come to harm.

STORM

Twigs of despair on the high trees uplifted, Torn cloud flying behind; Whistling wind through the dead leaves drifted; Oho! my mind With you is racked and ruined and rifted.

Waves of the angry firth high-flying, Rainstorm striping the sea, Sleet-mist shrouding the hills; day dying; Now around me Closes the darkness of night in, wild crying.

God of the storm, in thy storm's heart unmeted My shallop-soul rideth where roars The swirling water-spout--rides undefeated; No rudder, no oars; Only within, thy small image seated.

JAMES A. MACKERETH

TO A BLACKBIRD ON NEW YEAR'S DAY

Hail, truant with song-troubled breast-- Thou welcome and bewildering guest! Blithe troubadour, whose laughing note Brings Spring into a poet's throat,-- Flute, feathered joy! thy painted bill Foretells the daffodil.

Enchanter, 'gainst the evening star Singing to worlds where dreamers are, That makes upon the leafless bough A solitary vernal vow-- Sing, lyric soul! within thy song The love that lures the rose along!

The snowdrop, hearing, in the dell Doth tremble for its virgin bell; The crocus feels within its frame The magic of its folded flame; And many a listening patience lies And pushes toward its paradise.

Young love again on golden gales Scents hawthorn blown down happy dales; The phantom cuckoo calls forlorn From limits of the haunted morn;-- Sing, elfin heart! thy notes to me Are bells that ring in Faery!

Again the world is young, is young, And silence takes a silver tongue; The echoes catch the lyric mood Of laughing children in the wood: Blithe April trips in winter's way And nature, wondering, dreams of May.

Sing on, thou dusky fount of life! God love thee for a merry sprite! Sing on! for though the sun be coy I sense with thee a budding joy, And all my heart with ranging rhyme Is poet for the prime!

LA DANSEUSE

She moved like silence swathed in light,
Like mists at morning clear;
A music that enamoured sight
Yet did elude the ear.

A rapture and a spirit clad
In motion soft as sleep;
The epitome of all things glad,
The sum of all that weep;

Her form was like a poet's mind--
By all sensations sought;
She seemed the substance of the wind,
The shape of lyric thought,--

A being 'mid terrestrial things
Transcendently forlorn,
From time bound far on filmy wings
For some diviner bourne.

The rhythms of the raptured heart
Swayed to her sweet control;
Life in her keeping all was art,
And all of body soul.

Lone-shimmering in the roseate air
She seemed to ebb and flow,
A memory, perilously fair,
And pale from long ago.

She stooped to time's remembered tears,
Yearned to undawned delight.
Ah beauty, passionate from the years!
Oh body wise and white!

She vanished like an evening cloud,
A sunset's radiant gleam.
She vanished ... Life awhile endowed
The darkness with a dream.

GOD RETURNS

Dear God, before Thee many weep
And bow the solemn knee;
But I who have thy joy to keep
Will sing and dance for Thee.

Come, lilt ye, lilt ye, lightsome birds,
For ye are glad as I;
Come frisk, ye sunlit flocks and herds
And cherubs of the sky;

Sweet elfin mischief of the hill,
We'll share a laugh together--
Oh half the world is hoyden still,
And waits for whistling weather!

The God of age is staid and old,
And asks a sober tongue;
But till the heart of youth is cold
The God of youth is young!

Then kiss, blithe lass and happy lad!
The rainbow passes over,
And love and life, the leal and glad,
Must step with time the rover.

Trip buds and bells in spangled ways!
Leap, leaves in every tree!
Ye winds and waters, nights and days,
Dance, dance for Deity.

On every hand is elfin land,
And faery gifts are falling;
Across the world, a twinkling band,
The elves are calling--calling.

In welcome smile the witching skies,
And with a jocund train,
With dancing joy-light in His eyes,
God, God comes home again!

ALICE MEYNELL

TO THE BODY

Thou inmost, ultimate Council of judgment, palace of decrees, Where the high senses hold their spiritual state, Sued by earth's embassies, And sign, approve, accept, conceive, create;

Create--thy senses close With the world's pleas. The random odours reach Their sweetness in the place of thy repose, Upon thy tongue the peach, And in thy nostrils breathes the breathing rose.

To thee, secluded one, The dark vibrations of the sightless skies, The lovely inexplicit colours run; The light gropes for those eyes. O thou august! thou dost command the sun.

Music, all dumb, hath trod Into thine ear her one effectual way; And fire and cold approach to gain thy nod, Where thou call'st up the day, Where thou await'st the appeal of God.

CHRIST IN THE UNIVERSE

With this ambiguous earth
His dealings have been told us. These abide:
The signal to a maid, the human birth,
The lesson, and the young Man crucified.

But not a star of all
The innumerable host of stars has heard
How He administered this terrestrial ball.
Our race have kept their Lord's entrusted Word.

Of His earth-visiting feet
None knows the secret, cherished, perilous,
The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet,
Heart-shattering secret of His way with us.

No planet knows that this
Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,
Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss,
Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave.

Nor, in our little day,
May His devices with the heavens be guessed,
His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way
Or His bestowals there be manifest.

But in the eternities,
Doubtless we shall compare together, hear
A million alien Gospels, in what guise
He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.

O, be prepared, my soul!
To read the inconceivable, to scan
The million forms of God those stars unroll
When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.

MATERNITY

One wept whose only child was dead,
New-born, ten years ago.
"Weep not; he is in bliss," they said.
She answered, "Even so.

"Ten years ago was born in pain
A child, not now forlorn.
But oh, ten years ago, in vain,
A mother, a mother was born."

WILL H. OGILVIE

THERE'S A CLEAN WIND BLOWING

There's a clean wind blowing
Over hill-flower and peat,
Where the bell heather's growing,
And the brown burn flowing,
And the ghost-shadows going
Down the glen on stealthy feet.
There's a clean wind blowing,
And the breath of it is sweet.

There's a clean wind blowing,
And the world holds but three:
The purple peak against the sky,
The master wind, and me.
The moor birds are tossing
Like ships upon the sea;
There's a clean wind blowing
Free.

There's a clean wind blowing,
Untainted of the town,
A fair-hitting foeman
With his glove flung down.
Will ye take his lordly challenge
And the gauntlet that he throws,
And come forth among the heather
Where the clean wind blows!

THE GARDEN OF THE NIGHT

The Night is a far-spreading garden, and all through the hours Glisten and glitter and sparkle her wonderful flowers. First the great moon-rose full blooming; the great bed of stars Touching with restful gold petals the woodland's dark bars; Then arc-lights like asters that blossom in street and in square, And lamps like primroses beyond them in planted parterre; Great tulips of crimson that rise from the factory towers; White lilies that drop from deep windows: all flowers, the Night's flowers!

Blooms on the highway that twinkle and fade like the stars, Golden and red on the vans and the carts and the cars; Clusters of bloom in the village; lone homesteads a-light, Decking the lawns of the darkness, the plots of the Night. Then the bright blossoms of platform and signal that shine By the iron-paved path of the garden--the lights of the Line; The gold flowers of comfort and caution; the buds of dull red, Sombre with warning; the green leaves that say "Right ahead!"

Then the flowers in the harbour that low to the tide of it lean; The lights on the port and the starboard, the red and the green, Mixing and mingling with mast lights that move in the air, And deck lights and wharf lights and lights upon pier-head and stair; An edging of gold where a liner steals by like a thief; The giant grey gleam of a searchlight that swings like a leaf; And far out to seaward faint petals that flutter and fall Against the white flower of the Lighthouse that gathers them all.

Then flower lights all golden with welcome--the lights of the inn; And poisonous hell-flowers, lit doorways that beckon to sin; Soft vesper flowers of the Churches with dark stems above; Gold flowers of court and of cottage made one flower by love; Beacons of windows on hillside and cliff to recall Some wanderer lost for a season--Night's flowers one and all! In the street, in the lane, on the Line, on the ships and the towers, In the windows of cottage and palace--all flowers, the Night's flowers!

THE CROSSING SWORDS

As I lay dreaming in the grass I saw a Knight of Tourney pass-- All conquering Summer. Twilit hours Made soft light round him, rainbow flowers Hung on his harness.

Down the dells The fairy heralds rang blue-bells, And even as they rocked and rang Into the lists, full-armed, there sprang Autumn, his helm the harvest moon, His sword a sickle, the gleaner's tune His hymn of battle.

Each bowed full low, Knight to knight as to worthy foe, Then Autumn tossed as his gauntlet down-- A leaf of the lime tree, golden brown-- And Summer bound it above the green Of his shining breast-plate's verdant sheen.

--They closed. Above them the driving mists Stooped and feathered--and hid the lists. Later the cloud mist rolled away But dead in his harness the Green Knight lay.

STEPHEN PHILLIPS

LURES IMMORTAL

Sadly, apparently frustrate, life hangs above us,
Cruel, dark unexplained;
Yet still the immortal through mortal incessantly pierces
With calls, with appeals, and with lures.
Lure of the sinking sun, into undreamed islands,
Fortunate, far in the West;
Lure of the star, with speechless news o'er brimming,
With language of darted light;
Of the sea-glory of opening lids of Aurora,
Ushering eyes of the dawn;
Of the callow bird in the matin darkness calling,
Chorus of drowsy charm;
Of the wind, south-west, with whispering leaves illumined,
Solemn gold of the woods;
Of the intimate breeze of noon, deep-charged with a message,
How near, at times, unto speech!
Of the sea, that soul of a poet a-yearn for expression,
For ever yearning in vain!
Hoarse o'er the shingle with loud, unuttered meanings,
Hurling on caverns his heart.
Of the summer night, what to communicate, eager?
Perchance the secret of peace.
The lure of the silver to gold, of the pale unto colour,
Of the seen to the real unseen;
Of voices away to the voiceless, of sound unto silence,
Of words to a wordless calm;
Of music doomed unto wandering, still returning,
Ever to heaven and home.
The lure of the beautiful woman through flesh unto spirit,
Through a smile unto endless light;
Of the flight of a bird thro' evening over the marsh-land,
Lingering in Heaven alone;
Of the vessel disappearing over the sea-marge,
With him or with her that we love;
Of the sudden touch in the hand of a friend or a maiden,
Thrilling up to the stars.
The appealing death of a soldier, the moon just rising,
Kindling the battle-field;
Of the cup of water, refused by the thirsting Sidney,
Parched with the final pang:
Of the crucified Christ, yet lo, those arms extended,
Wide, as a world to embrace;
And last, and grandest, the lure, the invitation,
And sacred wooing of death;
Unto what regions, or heavens, or solemn spaces,
Who, but by dying, can tell?

BEAUTIFUL LIE THE DEAD

Beautiful lie the dead;
Clear comes each feature;
Satisfied not to be,
Strangely contented.

Like ships, the anchor dropped,
Furled every sail is
Mirrored with all their masts
In a deep water.

A LYRIC FROM "THE SIN OF DAVID"