Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

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: æons 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.