Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

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COLLECTED POEMS

ALFRED NOYES

VOLUME TWO

NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS

_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. All dramatic and acting rights, both professional and amateur, are reserved. Application for the right of performing should be made to the publishers._

_October, 1913_

CONTENTS

PAGE

MIST IN THE VALLEY 1

A SONG OF THE PLOUGH 4

THE BANNER 6

RANK AND FILE 6

THE SKY-LARK CAGED 11

THE LOVERS' FLIGHT 13

THE ROCK POOL 16

THE ISLAND HAWK 20

THE ADMIRAL'S GHOST 26

EDINBURGH 29

IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE 30

AN EAST-END COFFEE-STALL 32

RED OF THE DAWN 33

THE DREAM-CHILD'S INVITATION 35

THE TRAMP TRANSFIGURED 37

ON THE DOWNS 50

A MAY-DAY CAROL 52

THE CALL OF THE SPRING 53

A DEVONSHIRE DITTY 55

BACCHUS AND THE PIRATES 56

THE NEWSPAPER BOY 64

THE TWO WORLDS 66

GORSE 68

FOR THE EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY OF GEORGE MEREDITH 69

IN MEMORY OF SWINBURNE 70

ON THE DEATH OF FRANCIS THOMPSON 72

IN MEMORY OF MEREDITH 74

THE TESTIMONY OF ART 76

THE SCHOLARS 76

RESURRECTION 77

A JAPANESE LOVE-SONG 78

THE TWO PAINTERS 79

THE ENCHANTED ISLAND 88

UNITY 92

THE HILL-FLOWER 93

ACTAEON 95

LUCIFER'S FEAST 101

VETERANS 107

THE QUEST RENEWED 108

THE LIGHTS OF HOME 109

'TWEEN THE LIGHTS 110

CREATION 113

THE PEACEMAKER 115

THE SAILOR-KING 117

THE FIDDLER'S FAREWELL 118

TO A PESSIMIST 119

MOUNT IDA 120

THE ELECTRIC TRAM 127

SHERWOOD 128

TALES OF THE MERMAID TAVERN

I A KNIGHT OF THE OCEAN-SEA 274

II A COINER OF ANGELS 285

III BLACK BILL'S HONEY-MOON 303

IV THE SIGN OF THE GOLDEN SHOE 322

V THE COMPANION OF A MILE 340

VI BIG BEN 351

VII THE BURIAL OF A QUEEN 361

VIII FLOS MERCATORUM 386

IX RALEIGH 411

A WATCHWORD OF THE FLEET 434

NEW WARS FOR OLD 435

THE PRAYER FOR PEACE 436

THE SWORD OF ENGLAND 438

THE DAWN OF PEACE 438

THE BRINGERS OF GOOD NEWS 440

THE LONELY SHRINE 442

TO A FRIEND OF BOYHOOD LOST AT SEA 443

OUR LADY OF THE TWILIGHT 444

THE HILL-FLOWERS 445

THE CAROL OF THE FIR-TREE 447

LAVENDER 450

COLLECTED POEMS

THE ENCHANTED ISLAND AND OTHER POEMS

MIST IN THE VALLEY

Mist in the valley, weeping mist
Beset my homeward way.
No gleam of rose or amethyst
Hallowed the parting day;
A shroud, a shroud of awful grey
Wrapped every woodland brow,
And drooped in crumbling disarray
Around each wintry bough.

And closer round me now it clung
Until I scarce could see
The stealthy pathway overhung
By silent tree and tree
Which floated in that mystery
As--poised in waveless deeps--
Branching in worlds below the sea,
The grey sea-forest sleeps.

III

Mist in the valley, mist no less
Within my groping mind!
The stile swam out: a wilderness
Rolled round it, grey and blind.
A yard in front, a yard behind,
So strait my world was grown,
I stooped to win once more some kind
Glimmer of twig or stone.

I crossed and lost the friendly stile
And listened. Never a sound
Came to me. Mile on mile on mile
It seemed the world around
Beneath some infinite sea lay drowned
With all that e'er drew breath;
Whilst I, alone, had strangely found
A moment's life in death.

A universe of lifeless grey
Oppressed me overhead.
Below, a yard of clinging clay
With rotting foliage red
Glimmered. The stillness of the dead,
Hark!--was it broken now
By the slow drip of tears that bled
From hidden heart or bough.

Mist in the valley, mist no less
That muffled every cry
Across the soul's grey wilderness
Where faith lay down to die;
Buried beyond all hope was I,
Hope had no meaning there:
A yard above my head the sky
Could only mock at prayer.

VII

E'en as I groped along, the gloom
Suddenly shook at my feet!
O, strangely as from a rending tomb
In resurrection, sweet
Swift wings tumultuously beat
Away! I paused to hark--
O, birds of thought, too fair, too fleet
To follow across the dark!

VIII

Yet, like a madman's dream, there came
One fair swift flash to me
Of distances, of streets a-flame
With joy and agony,
And further yet, a moon-lit sea
Foaming across its bars,
And further yet, the infinity
Of wheeling suns and stars,

And further yet ... O, mist of suns
I grope amidst your light,
O, further yet, what vast response
From what transcendent height?
Wild wings that burst thro' death's dim night
I can but pause and hark;
For O, ye are too swift, too white,
To follow across the dark!

Mist in the valley, yet I saw,
And in my soul I knew
The gleaming City whence I draw
The strength that then I drew,
My misty pathway to pursue
With steady pulse and breath
Through these dim forest-ways of dew
And darkness, life and death.

A SONG OF THE PLOUGH

(_Morning._)

Idle, comfortless, bare,
The broad bleak acres lie:
The ploughman guides the sharp ploughshare
Steadily nigh.

The big plough-horses lift
And climb from the marge of the sea,
And the clouds of their breath on the clear wind drift
Over the fallow lea.

Streaming up with the yoke,
Brown as the sweet-smelling loam,
Thro' a sun-swept smother of sweat and smoke
The two great horses come.

Up thro' the raw cold morn
They trample and drag and swing;
And my dreams are waving with ungrown corn
In a far-off spring.

It is my soul lies bare
Between the hills and the sea:
Come, ploughman Life, with thy sharp ploughshare,
And plough the field for me.

(_Evening._)

Over the darkening plain
As the stars regain the sky,
Steals the chime of an unseen rein
Steadily nigh.

Lost in the deepening red
The sea has forgotten the shore:
The great dark steeds with their muffled tread
Draw near once more.

To the furrow's end they sweep
Like a sombre wave of the sea,
Lifting its crest to challenge the deep
Hush of Eternity.

Still for a moment they stand,
Massed on the sun's red death,
A surge of bronze, too great, too grand,
To endure for more than a breath.

Only the billow and stream
Of muscle and flank and mane
Like darkling mountain-cataracts gleam
Gripped in a Titan's rein.

Once more from the furrow's end
They wheel to the fallow lea,
And down the muffled slope descend
To the sleeping sea.

And the fibrous knots of clay,
And the sun-dried clots of earth
Cleave, and the sunset cloaks the grey
Waste and the stony dearth!

O, broad and dusky and sweet,
The sunset covers the weald;
But my dreams are waving with golden wheat
In a still strange field.

My soul, my soul lies bare,
Between the hills and the sea;
Come, ploughman Death, with thy sharp ploughshare,
And plough the field for me.

THE BANNER

Who in the gorgeous vanguard of the years
With winged helmet glistens, let him hold
Ere he pluck down this banner, crying "It bears
An old device"; for, though it seem the old,

It is the new! No rent shroud of the past,
But its transfigured spirit that still shines
Triumphantly before the foremost lines,
Even from the first prophesying the last.

And whoso dreams to pluck it down shall stand
Bewildered, while the great host thunders by;
And he shall show the rent shroud in his hand
And "Lo, I lead the van!" he still shall cry;

While leagues away, the spirit-banner shines
Rushing in triumph before the foremost lines.

RANK AND FILE

Drum-taps! Drum-taps! Who is it marching,
Marching past in the night? Ah, hark,
Draw your curtains aside and see
Endless ranks of the stars o'er-arching
Endless ranks of an army marching,
Marching out of the measureless dark,
Marching away to Eternity.

See the gleam of the white sad faces
Moving steadily, row on row,
Marching away to their hopeless wars:
Drum-taps, drum-taps, where are they marching?
Terrible, beautiful, human faces,
Common as dirt, but softer than snow,
Coarser than clay, but calm as the stars.

III

Is it the last rank readily, steadily
Swinging away to the unknown doom?
Ere you can think it, the drum-taps beat
Louder, and here they come marching, marching,
Great new level locked ranks of them readily
Steadily swinging out of the gloom
Marching endlessly down the street.

Unregarded imperial regiments
White from the roaring intricate places
Deep in the maw of the world's machine,
Well content, they are marching, marching,
Unregarded imperial regiments,
Ay, and there are those terrible faces
Great world-heroes that might have been.

Hints and facets of One--the Eternal,
Faces of grief, compassion and pain,
Faces of hunger, faces of stone,
Faces of love and of labour, marching,
Changing facets of One--the Eternal,
Streaming up thro' the wind and the rain,
All together and each alone.

You that doubt of the world's one Passion,
You for whose science the stars are a-stray,
Hark--to their orderly thunder-tread!
These, in the night, with the stars are marching
One to the end of the world's one Passion!
You that have taken their Master away,
Where have you laid Him, living or dead?

VII

You whose laws have hidden the One Law,
You whose searchings obscure the goal,
You whose systems from chaos begun,
Chance-born, order-less, hark, they are marching,
Hearts and tides and stars to the One Law,
Measured and orderly, rhythmical, whole,
Multitudinous, welded and one.

VIII

Split your threads of the seamless purple,
Round you marches the world-wide host,
Round your skies is the marching sky,
Out in the night there's an army marching,
Clothed with the night's own seamless purple,
Making death for the King their boast,
Marching straight to Eternity.

What do you know of the shot-riddled banners
Royally surging out of the gloom,
You whose denials their souls despise?
Out in the night they are marching, marching!
Treasure your wisdom, and leave them their banners!
Then--when you follow them down to the tomb
Pray for one glimpse of the faith in their eyes.

Pray for one gleam of the white sad faces,
Moving steadily, row on row,
Marching away to their hopeless wars,
Doomed to be trodden like dung, but marching,
Terrible, beautiful human faces,
Common as dirt, but softer than snow,
Coarser than clay, but calm as the stars.

What of the end? Will your knowledge escape it?
What of the end of their dumb dark tears?
You who mock at their faith and sing,
Look, for their ragged old banners are marching
Down to the end--will your knowledge escape it?--
Down to the end of a few brief years!
What should they care for the wisdom you bring.

XII

Count as they pass, their hundreds, thousands,
Millions, marching away to a doom
Younger than London, older that Tyre!
Drum-taps, drum-taps, where are they marching,
Regiments, nations, empires, marching?
Down thro' the jaws of a world-wide tomb,
Doomed or ever they sprang from the mire!

XIII

Doomed to be shovelled like dung to the midden,
Trodden and kneaded as clay in the road,
Father and little one, lover and friend,
Out in the night they are marching, marching,
Doomed to be shovelled like dung to the midden,
Bodies that bowed beneath Christ's own load,
Love that--marched to the self-same end.

XIV

What of the end?--O, not of your glory,
Not of your wealth or your fame that will live
Half as long as this pellet of dust!--
Out in the night there's an army marching,
Nameless, noteless, empty of glory,
Ready to suffer and die and forgive,
Marching onward in simple trust,

Wearing their poor little toy love-tokens
Under the march of the terrible skies!
Is it a jest for a God to play?--
Whose is the jest of these millions marching,
Wearing their poor little toy love-tokens,
Waving their voicelessly grand good-byes,
Secretly trying, sometimes, to pray.

XVI

Dare you dream their trust in Eternity
Broken, O you to whom prayers are vain,
You who dream that their God is dead?
Take your answer--these millions marching
Out of Eternity, into Eternity,
These that smiled "We shall meet again,"
Even as the life from their loved one fled.

XVII

This is the answer, not of the sages,
Not of the loves that are ready to part,
Ready to find their oblivion sweet!
Out in the night there's an army marching,
Men that have toiled thro' the endless ages,
Men of the pit and the desk and the mart,
Men that remember, the men in the street,

XVIII

These that into the gloom of Eternity
Stream thro' the dream of this lamp-starred town
London, an army of clouds to-night!
These that of old came marching, marching,
Out of the terrible gloom of Eternity,
Bowing their heads at Rameses' frown,
Streaming away thro' Babylon's light;

XIX

These that swept at the sound of the trumpet
Out thro' the night like gonfaloned clouds,
Exiled hosts when the world was Rome,
Tossing their tattered old eagles, marching
Down to sleep till the great last trumpet,
London, Nineveh, rend your shrouds,
Rally the legions and lead them home,

Lead them home with their glorious faces
Moving steadily, row on row
Marching up from the end of wars,
Out of the Valley of Shadows, marching,
Terrible, beautiful, human faces,
Common as dirt, but softer than snow,
Coarser than clay, but calm as the stars,

XXI

Marching out of the endless ages,
Marching out of the dawn of time,
Endless columns of unknown men,
Endless ranks of the stars o'er-arching
Endless ranks of an army marching
Numberless out of the numberless ages,
Men out of every race and clime,
Marching steadily, now as then.

THE SKY-LARK CAGED

Beat, little breast, against the wires.
Strive, little wings and misted eyes
Which one wild gleam of memory fires
Beseeching still the unfettered skies,
Whither at dewy dawn you sprang
Quivering with joy from this dark earth and sang.

And still you sing--your narrow cage
Shall set at least your music free!
Its rapturous wings in glorious rage
Mount and are lost in liberty,
While those who caged you creep on earth
Blind prisoners from the hour that gave them birth.

III

Sing! The great City surges round.
Blinded with light, thou canst not know.
Dream! 'Tis the fir-woods' windy sound
Rolling a psalm of praise below.
Sing, o'er the bitter dust and shame,
And touch us with thine own transcendent flame.

Sing, o'er the City dust and slime;
Sing, o'er the squalor and the gold,
The greed that darkens earth with crime,
The spirits that are bought and sold.
O, shower the healing notes like rain,
And lift us to the height of grief again.

Sing! The same music swells your breast,
And the wild notes are still as sweet
As when above the fragrant nest
And the wide billowing fields of wheat
You soared and sang the livelong day,
And in the light of heaven dissolved away.

The light of heaven! Is it not here?
One rapture, one ecstatic joy,
One passion, one sublime despair,
One grief which nothing can destroy,
You--though your dying eyes are wet
Remember, 'tis our blunted hearts forget.

VII

Beat, little breast, still beat, still beat,
Strive, misted eyes and tremulous wings;
Swell, little throat, your _Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!_
Thro' which such deathless memory rings:
Better to break your heart and die,
Than, like your gaolers, to forget your sky.

THE LOVERS' FLIGHT

Come, the dusk is lit with flowers!
Quietly take this guiding hand:
Little breath to waste is ours
On the road to lovers' land.
Time is in his dungeon-keep!
Ah, not thither, lest he hear,
Starting from his old grey sleep,
Rosy feet upon the stair.

Ah, not thither, lest he heed
Ere we reach the rusty door!
Nay, the stairways only lead
Back to his dark world once more:
There's a merrier way we know
Leading to a lovelier night--
See, your casement all a-glow
Diamonding the wonder-light.

III

Fling the flowery lattice wide,
Let the silken ladder down,
Swiftly to the garden glide
Glimmering in your long white gown,
Rosy from your pillow, sweet,
Come, unsandalled and divine;
Let the blossoms stain your feet
And the stars behold them shine.

Swift, our pawing palfreys wait,
And the page--Dan Cupid--frets,
Holding at the garden gate
Reins that chime like castanets,
Bits a-foam with fairy flakes
Flung from seas whence Venus rose:
Come, for Father Time awakes
And the star of morning glows.

Swift--one satin foot shall sway
Half a heart-beat in my hand,
Swing to stirrup and swift away
Down the road to lovers' land:
Ride--the moon is dusky gold,
Ride--our hearts are young and warm,
Ride--the hour is growing old,
And the next may break the charm.

Swift, ere we that thought the song
Full--for others--of the truth,
We that smiled, contented, strong,
Dowered with endless wealth of youth,
Find that like a summer cloud
Youth indeed has crept away,
Find the robe a clinging shroud
And the hair be-sprent with grey.

VII

Ride--we'll leave it all behind,
All the turmoil and the tears,
All the mad vindictive blind
Yelping of the heartless years!
Ride--the ringing world's in chase,
Yet we've slipped old Father Time,
By the love-light in your face
And the jingle of this rhyme.

VIII

Ride--for still the hunt is loud!
Ride--our steeds can hold their own!
Yours, a satin sea-wave, proud,
Queen, to be your living throne,
Glittering with the foam and fire
Churned from seas whence Venus rose,
Tow'rds the gates of our desire
Gloriously burning flows.

He, with streaming flanks a-smoke,
Needs no spur of blood-stained steel:
Only that soft thudding stroke
Once, o' the little satin heel,
Drives his mighty heart, your slave,
Bridled with these bells of rhyme,
Onward, like a crested wave
Thundering out of hail of Time.

On, till from a rosy spark
Fairy-small as gleams your hand,
Broadening as we cleave the dark,
Dawn the gates of lovers' land,
Nearing, sweet, till breast and brow
Lifted through the purple night
Catch the deepening glory now
And your eyes the wonder-light.

E'en as tow'rd your face I lean
Swooping nigh the gates of bliss,
I the king and you the queen
Crown each other with a kiss.
Riding, soaring like a song
Burn we tow'rds the heaven above,
You the sweet and I the strong
And in both the fire of love.

XII

Ride--though now the distant chase
Knows that we have slipped old Time,
Lift the love-light of your face,
Shake the bridle of this rhyme,
See, the flowers of night and day
Streaming past on either hand,
Ride into the eternal May,
Ride into the lovers' land.

THE ROCK POOL

Bright as a fallen fragment of the sky,
Mid shell-encrusted rocks the sea-pool shone,
Glassing the sunset-clouds in its clear heart,
A small enchanted world enwalled apart
In diamond mystery,
Content with its own dreams, its own strict zone
Of urchin woods, its fairy bights and bars,
Its daisy-disked anemones and rose-feathered stars.

Forsaken for awhile by that deep roar
Which works in storm and calm the eternal will,
Drags down the cliffs, bids the great hills go by
And shepherds their multitudinous pageantry,--
Here, on this ebb-tide shore
A jewelled bath of beauty, sparkling still,
The little sea-pool smiled away the sea,
And slept on its own plane of bright tranquillity.

III

A self-sufficing soul, a pool in trance,
Un-stirred by all the spirit-winds that blow
From o'er the gulfs of change, content, ere yet
On its own crags, which rough peaked limpets fret
The last rich colours glance,
Content to mirror the sea-bird's wings of snow,
Or feel in some small creek, ere sunset fails,
A tiny Nautilus hoist its lovely purple sails;

And, furrowing into pearl that rosy bar,
Sail its own soul from fairy fringe to fringe,
Lured by the twinkling prey 'twas born to reach
In its own pool, by many an elfin beach
Of jewels, adventuring far
Through the last mirrored cloud and sunset-tinge
And past the rainbow-dripping cave where lies
The dark green pirate-crab at watch with beaded eyes,

Or fringed Medusa floats like light in light,
Medusa, with the loveliest of all fays
Pent in its irised bubble of jellied sheen,
Trailing long ferns of moonlight, shot with green
And crimson rays and white,
Waving ethereal tendrils, ghostly sprays,
Daring the deep, dissolving in the sun,
The vanishing point of life, the light whence life begun.

Poised between me, light, time, eternity,
So tinged with all, that in its delicate brain
Kindling it as a lamp with her bright wings
Day-long, night-long, young Ariel sits and sings
Echoing the lucid sea,
Listening it echo her own unearthly strain,
Watching through lucid walls the world's rich tide,
One light, one substance with her own, rise and subside.

VII

And over soft brown woods, limpid, serene,
Puffing its fans the Nautilus went its way,
And from a hundred salt and weedy shelves
Peered little horned faces of sea-elves:
The prawn darted, half-seen,
Thro' watery sunlight, like a pale green ray,
And all around, from soft green waving bowers,
Creatures like fruit out-crept from fluted shells like flowers.

VIII

And, over all, that glowing mirror spread
The splendour of its heaven-reflecting gleams,
A level wealth of tints, calm as the sky
That broods above our own mortality:
The temporal seas had fled,
And ah, what hopes, what fears, what mystic dreams
Could ruffle it now from any deeper deep?
Content in its own bounds it slept a changeless sleep.

Suddenly, from that heaven beyond belief,
Suddenly, from that world beyond its ken,
Dashing great billows o'er its rosy bars,
Shivering its dreams into a thousand stars,
Flooding each sun-dried reef
With waves of colour, (as once, for mortal men
Bethesda's angel) with blue eyes, wide and wild,
Naked into the pool there stepped a little child.

Her red-gold hair against the far green sea
Blew thickly out: her slender golden form
Shone dark against the richly waning West
As with one hand she splashed her glistening breast,
Then waded up to her knee
And frothed the whole pool into a fairy storm!...
So, stooping through our skies, of old, there came
Angels that once could set this world's dark pool a-flame,

From which the seas of faith have ebbed away,
Leaving the lonely shore too bright, too bare,
While mirrored softly in the smooth wet sand
A deeper sunset sees its blooms expand
But all too phantom-fair,
Between the dark brown rocks and sparkling spray
Where the low ripples pleaded, shrank and sighed,
And tossed a moment's rainbow heavenward ere they died.

XII

Stoop, starry souls, incline to this dark coast,
Where all too long, too faithlessly, we dream.
Stoop to the world's dark pool, its crags and scars,
Its yellow sands, its rosy harbour-bars,
And soft green wastes that gleam
But with some glorious drifting god-like ghost
Of cloud, some vaguely passionate crimson stain:
Rend the blue waves of heaven, shatter our sleep again!

THE ISLAND HAWK

(A SONG FOR THE FIRST LAUNCHING OF HIS MAJESTY'S AERIAL NAVY)

_Chorus_--
_Ships have swept with my conquering name
Over the waves of war,
Swept thro' the Spaniards' thunder and flame
To the splendour of Trafalgar:
On the blistered decks of their great renown,
In the wind of my storm-beat wings,
Hawkins and Hawke went sailing down
To the harbour of deep-sea kings!
By the storm-beat wings of the hawk, the hawk,
Bent beak and pitiless breast,
They clove their way thro' the red sea-fray:
Who wakens me now to the quest?_

Hushed are the whimpering winds on the hill,
Dumb is the shrinking plain,
And the songs that enchanted the woods are still
As I shoot to the skies again!
Does the blood grow black on my fierce bent beak,
Does the down still cling to my claw?
Who brightened these eyes for the prey they seek?
Life, I follow thy law!
_For I am the hawk, the hawk, the hawk!
Who knoweth my pitiless breast?
Who watcheth me sway in the wild wind's way?
Flee--flee--for I quest, I quest._

III

As I glide and glide with my peering head,
Or swerve at a puff of smoke,
Who watcheth my wings on the wind outspread,
Here--gone--with an instant stroke?
Who toucheth the glory of life I feel
As I buffet this great glad gale,
Spire and spire to the cloud-world, wheel,
Loosen my wings and sail?
_For I am the hawk, the island hawk,
Who knoweth my pitiless breast?
Who watcheth me sway in the sun's bright way?
Flee--flee--for I quest, I quest._

Had they given me "Cloud-cuckoo-city" to guard
Between mankind and the sky,
Tho' the dew might shine on an April sward,
Iris had ne'er passed by!
Swift as her beautiful wings might be
From the rosy Olympian hill,
Had Epops entrusted the gates to me
Earth were his kingdom still.
_For I am the hawk, the archer, the hawk!
Who knoweth my pitiless breast?
Who watcheth me sway in the wild wind's way?
Flee--flee--for I quest, I quest._

My mate in the nest on the high bright tree
Blazing with dawn and dew,
She knoweth the gleam of the world and the glee
As I drop like a bolt from the blue;
She knoweth the fire of the level flight
As I skim, close, close to the ground,
With the long grass lashing my breast and the bright
Dew-drops flashing around.
_She watcheth the hawk, the hawk, the hawk,
(O, the red-blotched eggs in the nest!)
Watcheth him sway in the sun's bright way;
Flee--flee--for I quest, I quest._

She builded her nest on the high bright wold,
She was taught in a world afar,
The lore that is only an April old
Yet old as the evening star;
Life of a far off ancient day
In an hour unhooded her eyes;
In the time of the budding of one green spray
She was wise as the stars are wise.
_Brown flower of the tree of the hawk, the hawk,
On the old elm's burgeoning breast,
She watcheth me sway in the wild wind's way;
Flee--flee--for I quest, I quest._

VII

Spirit and sap of the sweet swift Spring,
Fire of our island soul,
Burn in her breast and pulse in her wing
While the endless ages roll;
Avatar--she--of the perilous pride
That plundered the golden West,
Her glance is a sword, but it sweeps too wide
For a rumour to trouble her rest.
_She goeth her glorious way, the hawk,
She nurseth her brood alone;
She will not swoop for an owlet's whoop,
She hath calls and cries of her own._

VIII

There was never a dale in our isle so deep
That her wide wings were not free
To soar to the sovran heights and keep
Sight of the rolling sea:
Is it there, is it here in the rolling skies,
The realm of her future fame?
Look once, look once in her glittering eyes,
Ye shall find her the same, the same.
_Up to the sides with the hawk, the hawk,
As it was in the days of old!
Ye shall sail once more, ye shall soar, ye shall soar
To the new-found realms of gold._

She hath ridden on white Arabian steeds
Thro' the ringing English dells,
For the joy of a great queen, hunting in state,
To the music of golden bells;
A queen's fair fingers have drawn the hood
And tossed her aloft in the blue,
A white hand eager for needless blood;
I hunt for the needs of two.
_Yet I am the hawk, the hawk, the hawk!
Who knoweth my pitiless breast?
Who watcheth me sway in the sun's bright way?
Flee--flee--for I quest, I quest._

Who fashioned her wide and splendid eyes
That have stared in the eyes of kings?
With a silken twist she was looped to their wrist:
She has clawed at their jewelled rings!
Who flung her first thro' the crimson dawn
To pluck him a prey from the skies,
When the love-light shone upon lake and lawn
In the valleys of Paradise?
_Who fashioned the hawk, the hawk, the hawk,
Bent beak and pitiless breast?
Who watcheth him sway in the wild wind's way?
Flee--flee--for I quest, I quest._

Is there ever a song in all the world
Shall say how the quest began
With the beak and the wings that have made us kings
And cruel--almost--as man?
The wild wind whimpers across the heath
Where the sad little tufts of blue
And the red-stained grey little feathers of death
Flutter! _Who fashioned us? Who?
Who fashioned the scimitar wings of the hawk,
Bent beak and arrowy breast?
Who watcheth him sway in the sun's bright way?
Flee--flee--for I quest, I quest._

XII

Linnet and woodpecker, red-cap and jay,
Shriek that a doom shall fall
One day, one day, on my pitiless way
From the sky that is over us all;
But the great blue hawk of the heavens above
Fashioned the world for his prey,--
King and queen and hawk and dove,
We shall meet in his clutch that day;
_Shall I not welcome him, I, the hawk?
Yea, cry, as they shrink from his claw,
Cry, as I die, to the unknown sky,
Life, I follow thy law!_

XIII

_Chorus--_
_Ships have swept with my conquering name ..._
Over the world and beyond,
Hark! Bellerophon, Marlborough, Thunderer,
Condor, respond!--
_On the blistered decks of their dread renown,
In the rush of my storm-beat wings,
Hawkins and Hawke went sailing down
To the glory of deep-sea kings!
By the storm-beat wings of the hawk, the hawk,
Bent beak and pitiless breast,
They clove their way thro' the red sea-fray!
Who wakens me now to the quest._

THE ADMIRAL'S GHOST

I tell you a tale to-night
Which a seaman told to me,
With eyes that gleamed in the lanthorn light
And a voice as low as the sea.

You could almost hear the stars
Twinkling up in the sky,
And the old wind woke and moaned in the spars,
And the same old waves went by,

Singing the same old song
As ages and ages ago,
While he froze my blood in that deep-sea night
With the things that he seemed to know.

A bare foot pattered on deck;
Ropes creaked; then--all grew still,
And he pointed his finger straight in my face
And growled, as a sea-dog will.

"Do' ee know who Nelson was?
That pore little shrivelled form
With the patch on his eye and the pinned-up sleeve
And a soul like a North Sea storm?

"Ask of the Devonshire men!
They know, and they'll tell you true;
He wasn't the pore little chawed-up chap
That Hardy thought he knew.

"He wasn't the man you think!
His patch was a dern disguise!
For he knew that they'd find him out, d'you see,
If they looked him in both his eyes.

"He was twice as big as he seemed;
But his clothes were cunningly made.
He'd both of his hairy arms all right!
The sleeve was a trick of the trade.

"You've heard of sperrits, no doubt;
Well, there's more in the matter than that!
But he wasn't the patch and he wasn't the sleeve,
And he wasn't the laced cocked-hat.

"_Nelson was just--a Ghost!_
You may laugh! But the Devonshire men
They knew that he'd come when England called,
And they know that he'll come again.

"I'll tell you the way it was
(For none of the landsmen know),
And to tell it you right, you must go a-starn
Two hundred years or so.

* * * *

"The waves were lapping and slapping
The same as they are to-day;
And Drake lay dying aboard his ship
In Nombre Dios Bay.

"The scent of the foreign flowers
Came floating all around;
'But I'd give my soul for the smell o' the pitch,'
Says he, 'in Plymouth Sound.'

"'What shall I do,' he says,
'When the guns begin to roar,
An' England wants me, and me not there
To shatter 'er foes once more?'

"(You've heard what he said, maybe,
But I'll mark you the p'ints again;
For I want you to box your compass right
And get my story plain.)

"'You must take my drum,' he says,
'To the old sea-wall at home;
And if ever you strike that drum,' he says,
'Why, strike me blind, I'll come!

"'If England needs me, dead
Or living, I'll rise that day!
I'll rise from the darkness under the sea
Ten thousand miles away.'

"That's what he said; and he died,
An' his pirates, listenin' roun',
With their crimson doublets and jewelled swords
That flashed as the sun went down,

"They sewed him up in his shroud
With a round-shot top and toe,
To sink him under the salt sharp sea
Where all good seamen go.

"They lowered him down in the deep,
And there in the sunset light
They boomed a broadside over his grave,
As meanin' to say 'Good-night.'

"They sailed away in the dark
To the dear little isle they knew;
And they hung his drum by the old sea-wall
The same as he told them to.

* * * *

"Two hundred years went by,
And the guns began to roar,
And England was fighting hard for her life,
As ever she fought of yore.

"'It's only my dead that count,'
She said, as she says to-day;
'It isn't the ships and it isn't the guns
'Ull sweep Trafalgar's Bay.'

"D'you guess who Nelson was?
You may laugh, but it's true as true!
There was more in that pore little chawed-up chap
Than ever his best friend knew.

"The foe was creepin' close,
In the dark, to our white-cliffed isle;
They were ready to leap at England's throat,
When--O, you may smile, you may smile;

"But--ask of the Devonshire men;
For they heard in the dead of night
The roll of a drum, and they saw _him_ pass
On a ship all shining white.

"He stretched out his dead cold face
And he sailed in the grand old way!
The fishes had taken an eye and his arm,
But he swept Trafalgar's Bay.

"Nelson--was Francis Drake!
O, what matters the uniform,
Or the patch on your eye or your pinned-up sleeve,
If your soul's like a North Sea storm?"

EDINBURGH

City of mist and rain and blown grey spaces,
Dashed with wild wet colour and gleam of tears,
Dreaming in Holyrood halls of the passionate faces
Lifted to one Queen's face that has conquered the years,
Are not the halls of thy memory haunted places?
Cometh there not as a moon (where the blood-rust sears
Floors a-flutter of old with silks and laces),
Gliding, a ghostly Queen, thro' a mist of tears?

Proudly here, with a loftier pinnacled splendour,
Throned in his northern Athens, what spells remain
Still on the marble lips of the Wizard, and render
Silent the gazer on glory without a stain!
Here and here, do we whisper, with hearts more tender,
Tusitala wandered thro' mist and rain;
Rainbow-eyed and frail and gallant and slender,
Dreaming of pirate-isles in a jewelled main.

III

Up the Canongate climbeth, cleft asunder
Raggedly here, with a glimpse of the distant sea
Flashed through a crumbling alley, a glimpse of wonder,
Nay, for the City is throned on Eternity!
Hark! from the soaring castle a cannon's thunder
Closeth an hour for the world and an aeon for me,
Gazing at last from the martial heights whereunder
Deathless memories roll to an ageless sea.

IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE

Three long isles of sunset-cloud,
Poised in an ocean of gold,
Floated away in the west
As the long train southward rolled;

And through the gleam and shade of the panes,
While meadow and wood went by,
Across the streaming earth
We watched the steadfast sky.

Dark before the westward window,
Heavy and bloated, rolled
The face of a drunken woman
Nodding against the gold;

Dark before the infinite glory,
With bleared and leering eyes,
It stupidly lurched and nodded
Against the tender skies.

_What had ye done to her, masters of men,
That her head be bowed down thus--
Thus for your golden vespers,
And deepening angelus?_

Dark, besotted, malignant, vacant,
Slobbering, wrinkled, old,
Weary and wickedly smiling,
She nodded against the gold.

Pitiful, loathsome, maudlin, lonely,
Her moist, inhuman eyes
Blinked at the flies on the window,
And could not see the skies.

As a beast that turns and returns to a mirror
And will not see its face,
Her eyes rejected the sunset,
Her soul lay dead in its place,

Dead in the furrows and folds of her flesh
As a corpse lies lapped in the shroud;
Silently floated beside her
The isles of sunset-cloud.

_What had ye done to her, years upon years,
That her head should be bowed down thus--
Thus for your golden vespers,
And deepening angelus?_

Her nails were blackened and split with labour,
Her back was heavily bowed;
Silently floated beside her
The isles of sunset-cloud.

Over their tapering streaks of lilac,
In breathless depths afar,
Bright as the tear of an angel
Glittered a lonely star.

While the hills and the streams of the world went past us,
And the long train roared and rolled
Southward, and dusk was falling,
She nodded against the gold.

AN EAST-END COFFEE-STALL

Down the dark alley a ring of orange light
Glows. God, what leprous tatters of distress,
Droppings of misery, rags of Thy loneliness
Quiver and heave like vermin, out of the night!

Like crippled rats, creeping out of the gloom,
O Life, for one of thy terrible moments there,
Lit by the little flickering yellow flare,
Faces that mock at life and death and doom,

Faces that long, long since have known the worst,
Faces of women that have seen the child
Waste in their arms, and strangely, terribly, smiled
When the dark nipple of death has eased its thirst;

Faces of men that once, though long ago,
Saw the faint light of hope, though far away,--
Hope that, at end of some tremendous day,
They yet might reach some life where tears could flow;

Faces of our humanity, ravaged, white,
Wrenched with old love, old hate, older despair,
Steal out of vile filth-dropping dens to stare
On that wild monstrance of a naphtha light.

They crowd before the stall's bright altar rail,
Grotesque, and sacred, for that light's brief span,
And all the shuddering darkness cries, "All hail,
Daughters and Sons of Man!"

See, see, once more, though all their souls be dead,
They hold it up, triumphantly hold it up,
They feel, they warm their hands upon the Cup;
Their crapulous hands, their claw-like hands break Bread!

See, with lean faces rapturously a-glow
For a brief while they dream and munch and drink;
Then, one by one, once more, silently slink
Back, back into the gulfing mist. They go,

One by one, out of the ring of light!
They creep, like crippled rats, into the gloom,
Into the fogs of life and death and doom,
Into the night, the immeasurable night.

RED OF THE DAWN

The Dawn peered in with blood-shot eyes
Pressed close against the cracked old pane.
The garret slept: the slow sad rain
Had ceased: grey fogs obscured the skies;
But Dawn peered in with haggard eyes.

All as last night? The three-legged chair,
The bare walls and the tattered bed,
All!--but for those wild flakes of red
(And Dawn, perhaps, had splashed them there!)
Round the bare walls, the bed, the chair.

III

'Twas here, last night, when winds were loud,
A ragged singing-girl, she came
Out of the tavern's glare and shame,
With some few pence--for she was proud--
Came home to sleep, when winds were loud.

And she sleeps well; for she was tired!
That huddled shape beneath the sheet
With knees up-drawn, no wind or sleet
Can wake her now! Sleep she desired;
And she sleeps well, for she was tired.

And there was one that followed her
With some unhappy curse called "love":
Last night, though winds beat loud above,
She shrank! Hark, on the creaking stair,
What stealthy footstep followed her?

But now the Curse, it seemed, had gone!
The small tin-box, wherein she hid
Old childish treasures, had burst its lid.
Dawn kissed her doll's cracked face. It shone
Red-smeared, but laughing--_the Curse is gone_.

VII

So she sleeps well: she does not move;
And on the wall, the chair, the bed,
Is it the Dawn that splashes red,
High as the text where _God is Love_
Hangs o'er her head? She does not move.

VIII

The clock dictates its old refrain:
All else is quiet; or, far away,
Shaking the world with new-born day,
There thunders past some mighty train:
The clock dictates its old refrain.

The Dawn peers in with blood-shot eyes:
The crust, the broken cup are there!
She does not rise yet to prepare
Her scanty meal. God does not rise
And pluck the blood-stained sheet from her;
But Dawn peers in with haggard eyes.

THE DREAM-CHILD'S INVITATION

_Once upon a time!_--Ah, now the light is burning dimly.
Peterkin is here again: he wants another tale!
Don't you hear him whispering--_The wind is in the chimley,
The ottoman's a treasure-ship, we'll all set sail?_

All set sail? No, the wind is very loud to-night:
The darkness on the waters is much deeper than of yore.
Yet I wonder--hark, he whispers--if the little streets are still as bright
In old Japan, in old Japan, that happy haunted shore.

III

I wonder--hush, he whispers--if perhaps the world will wake again
When Christmas brings the stories back from where the skies are blue,
Where clouds are scattering diamonds down on every cottage window-pane,
And every boy's a fairy prince, and every tale is true.

There the sword Excalibur is thrust into the dragon's throat,
Evil there is evil, black is black, and white is white:
There the child triumphant hurls the villain spluttering into the moat;
There the captured princess only waits the peerless knight.

Fairyland is gleaming there beyond the Sherwood Forest trees,
There the City of the Clouds has anchored on the plain
All her misty vistas and slumber-rosy palaces
(_Shall we not, ah, shall we not, wander there again?_)

"Happy ever after" there, the lights of home a welcome fling
Softly thro' the darkness as the star that shone of old,
Softly over Bethlehem and o'er the little cradled King
Whom the sages worshipped with their frankincense and gold.

VII

_Once upon a time_--perhaps a hundred thousand years ago--
Whisper to me, Peterkin, I have forgotten when!
Once upon a time there was a way, a way we used to know
For stealing off at twilight from the weary ways of men.

VIII

Whisper it, O whisper it--the way, the way is all I need!
All the heart and will are here and all the deep desire!
_Once upon a time_--ah, now the light is drawing near indeed,
I see the fairy faces flush to roses round the fire.

_Once upon a time_--the little lips are on my cheek again,
Little fairy fingers clasped and clinging draw me nigh,
Dreams, no more than dreams, but they unloose the weary prisoner's chain
And lead him from his dungeon! "What's a thousand years?" they cry.

A thousand years, a thousand years, a little drifting dream ago,
All of us were hunting with a band of merry men,
The skies were blue, the boughs were green, the clouds were crisping
isles of snow ...
... So Robin blew his bugle, and the Now became the Then.

THE TRAMP TRANSFIGURED

(AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF A CORN-FLOWER MILLIONAIRE)

All the way to Fairyland across the thyme and heather,
Round a little bank of fern that rustled on the sky,
Me and stick and bundle, sir, we jogged along together,--
(Changeable the weather? Well--it ain't all pie!)
Just about the sunset--Won't you listen to my story?--
Look at me! I'm only rags and tatters to your eye!
Sir, that blooming sunset crowned this battered hat with glory!
Me that was a crawling worm became a butterfly--
(Ain't it hot and dry?
Thank you, sir, thank you, sir!) a blooming butterfly.

Well, it happened this way! I was lying loose and lazy,
Just as, of a Sunday, you yourself might think no shame,
Puffing little clouds of smoke, and picking at a daisy,
Dreaming of your dinner, p'raps, or wishful for the same:
Suddenly, around that ferny bank there slowly waddled--
Slowly as the finger of a clock her shadow came--
Slowly as a tortoise down that winding path she toddled,
Leaning on a crooked staff, a poor old crooked dame,
Limping, but not lame,
_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, a poor old crooked dame.

III

Slowly did I say, sir? Well, you've heard that funny fable
Consekint the tortoise and the race it give an 'are?
This was curiouser than that! At first I wasn't able
Quite to size the memory up that bristled thro' my hair:
Suddenly, I'd got it, with a nasty shivery feeling,
While she walked and walked and yet was not a bit more near,--
Sir, it was the tread-mill earth beneath her feet a-wheeling
Faster than her feet could trot to heaven or anywhere,
Earth's revolvin' stair
Wheeling, while my wayside clump was kind of anchored there.

_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, and just a little nearer,
Inch and 'arf an inch she went, but never gained a yard:
Quiet as a fox I lay; I didn't wish to scare 'er,
Watching thro' the ferns, and thinking "What a rum old card!"
Both her wrinkled tortoise eyes with yellow resin oozing,
Both her poor old bony hands were red and seamed and scarred!
Lord, I felt as if myself was in a public boozing,
While my own old woman went about and scrubbed and charred!
Lord, it seemed so hard!
_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, she never gained a yard.

Yus, and there in front of her--I hadn't seen it rightly--
Lurked that little finger-post to point another road,
Just a tiny path of poppies twisting infi-nite-ly
Through the whispering seas of wheat, a scarlet thread that showed
White with ox-eye daisies here and there and chalky cobbles,
Blue with waving corn-flowers: far and far away it glowed,
Winding into heaven, I thinks; but, Lord, the way she hobbles,
Lord, she'll never reach it, for she bears too great a load;
Yus, and then I knowed,
If she did, she couldn't, for the board was marked _No Road_.

_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, I couldn't wait no longer!
Up I gets and bows polite and pleasant as a toff--
"Arternoon," I says, "I'm glad your boots are going stronger;
Only thing I'm dreading is your feet 'ull both come off."
_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, she didn't stop to answer,
"Arternoon," she says, and sort o' chokes a little cough,
"I must get to Piddinghoe to-morrow if I can, sir!"
"Demme, my good woman! Haw! Don't think I mean to loff,"
Says I, like a toff,
"Where d'you mean to sleep to-night? God made this grass for go'ff."

VII

_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, and smilingly she eyed me
(Dreadful the low cunning of these creechars, don't you think?)
"That's all right! The weather's bright. Them bushes there 'ull hide me.
Don't the gorse smell nice?" I felt my derned old eyelids blink!
"Supper? I've a crust of bread, a big one, and a bottle,"
(Just as I expected! Ah, these creechars always drink!)
"Sugar and water and half a pinch of tea to rinse my throttle,
Then I'll curl up cosy!"--"If you're cotched it means the clink!"
--"Yus, but don't you think
If a star should see me, God 'ull tell that star to wink?"

VIII

"Now, look here," I says, "I don't know what your blooming age is!"
"Three-score years and five," she says, "that's five more years to go
_Tick, tack, tick tack_, before I gets my wages!"
"Wages all be damned," I says, "there's one thing that I know--
Gals that stay out late o' nights are sure to meet wi' sorrow.
Speaking as a toff," I says, "it isn't _comme il faut_!
Tell me why you want to get to Piddinghoe to-morrow."--
"That was where my son worked, twenty years ago!"--
"Twenty years ago?
Never wrote? May still be there? Remember you?... Just so!"

Yus, it was a drama; but she weren't my long-lost parent!
_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, she trotted all the while,
Never getting forrarder, and not the least aware on't,
Though I stood beside her with a sort of silly smile
Stock-still! _Tick, tack_! This blooming world's a bubble:
There I stood and stared at it, mile on flowery mile,
Chasing o' the sunset,--"Gals are sure to meet wi' trouble
Staying out o' nights," I says, once more, and tries to smile,
"Come, that ain't your style,
Here's a shilling, mother, for to-day I've made my pile!"

Yus, a dozen coppers, all my capital, it fled, sir,
Representin' twelve bokays that cost me nothink each,
Twelve bokays o' corn-flowers blue that grew beside my bed, sir,
That same day, at sunrise, when the sky was like a peach:
Easy as a poet's dreams they blossomed round my head, sir,
All I had to do was just to lift my hand and reach:
So, upon the roaring waves I cast my blooming bread, sir,
Bread I'd earned with nose-gays on the bare-foot Brighton beach,
Nose-gays _and_ a speech,
All about the bright blue eyes they matched on Brighton beach.

Still, you've only got to hear the bankers on the budget,
Then you'll know the giving game is hardly "high finance";
Which no more it wasn't for that poor old dame to trudge it,
_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, on such a devil's dance:
Crumbs, it took me quite aback to see her stop so humble,
Casting up into my face a sort of shiny glance,
_Bless you, bless you_, that was what I thought I heard her mumble;
Lord, a prayer for poor old Bill, a rummy sort of chance!
Crumbs, that shiny glance
Kinder made me king of all the sky from here to France.

XII

_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, but now she toddled faster:
Soon she'd reach the little twisted by-way through the wheat.
"Look 'ee here," I says, "young woman, don't you court disaster!
Peepin' through yon poppies there's a cottage trim and neat
White as chalk and sweet as turf: wot price a bed for sorrow,
Sprigs of lavender between the pillow and the sheet?"
"No," she says, "I've got to get to Piddinghoe to-morrow!
P'raps they'd tell the work'us! And I've lashings here to eat:
Don't the gorse smell sweet?"...
Well, I turned and left her plodding on beside the wheat.

XIII

Every cent I'd given her like a hero in a story;
Yet, alone with leagues of wheat I seemed to grow aware
Solomon himself, arrayed in all his golden glory,
Couldn't vie with Me, the corn-flower king, the millionaire!
How to cash those bright blue cheques that night? My trouser pockets
Jingled sudden! Six more pennies, crept from James knew where!
Crumbs! I hurried back with eyes just bulging from their sockets,
Pushed 'em in the old dame's fist and listened for the prayer,
Shamming not to care,
Bill--the blarsted chicken-thief, the corn-flower millionaire.

XIV

_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, and faster yet she clattered!
Ay, she'd almost gained a yard! I left her once again.
Feeling very warm inside and sort of 'ighly flattered,
On I plodded, all alone, with hay-stacks in my brain.
Suddenly, with _chink--chink--chink_, the old sweet jingle
Startled me! 'TWAS THRUPPENCE MORE! Three coppers round and plain!
Lord, temptation struck me and I felt my gullet tingle.
Then--I hurried back, beside them seas of golden grain:
No, I can't explain;
There I thrust 'em in her fist, and left her once again.

Tinkle-chink! THREE HA'PENCE! If the vulgar fractions followed,
Big fleas have little fleas! It flashed upon me there,--
Like the snakes of Pharaoh which the snakes of Moses swallowed
All the world was playing at the tortoise and the hare:
Half the smallest atom is--my soul was getting tipsy--
Heaven is one big circle and the centre's everywhere,
Yus, and that old woman was an angel and a gipsy,
Yus, and Bill, the chicken-thief, the corn-flower millionaire,
Shamming not to care,
What was he? A seraph on the misty rainbow-stair!

XVI

Don't you make no doubt of it! The deeper that you look, sir,
All your ancient poets tell you just the same as me,--
What about old Ovid and his most indecent book, sir,
Morphosizing females into flower and star and tree?
What about old Proteus and his 'ighly curious 'abits,
Mixing of his old grey beard into the old grey sea?
What about old Darwin and the hat that brought forth rabbits,
Mud and slime that growed into the pomp of Ninevey?
What if there should be
One great Power beneath it all, one God in you and me?

XVII

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Collected Poems: Volume TwoChapter I: Front Matter (1)

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