Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

Thou splendid girl that seemest the mother of all, Dear Ceres-Aphrodite, with every lure That draws the bee to honey, with the call Of moth-winged night to sinners, yet as pure As the white nun that counts the stars for beads; Thou blest Madonna of all broken needs, Thou Melusine, thou sister of sorrowing man, Thou wave-like laughter, thou dear sob in the throat, Thou all-enfolding mercy, and thou song That gathers up each wild and wandering note, And takes and breaks and heals and breaks the heart With the omnipotent tenderness of art; And thou Intelligence of rose-leaves made That makes that little thing the brain afraid.

For thee my Castle of the Spring prepares: On the four winds are sped my couriers, For thee the towered trees are hung with green; Once more for thee, O queen, The banquet hall with ancient tapestry Of woven vines grows fair and still more fair. And ah! how in the minstrel gallery Again there is the sudden string and stir Of music touching the old instruments, While on the ancient floor The rushes as of yore Nymphs of the house of spring plait for your feet-- Ancestral ornaments. And everywhere a hurrying to and fro, And whispers saying, "She is so sweet--so sweet"; O violets, be ye not too late to blow, O daffodils be fleet: For, when she comes, all must be in its place, All ready for her entrance at the door, All gladness and all glory for her face, All flowers for her flower-feet a floor; And, for her sleep at night in that great bed Where her great locks are spread, O be ye ready, ye young woodland streams To sing her back her dreams.

PEACE

June 28th, 1919

From the tennis lawn you can hear the guns going,
Twenty miles away,
Telling the people of the home counties
That the peace was signed to-day.
To-night there'll be feasting in the city;
They will drink deep and eat--
Keep peace the way you planned you would keep it
(If we got the Boche beat).
Oh, your plan and your word, they are broken,
For you neither dine nor dance;
And there's no peace so quiet, so lasting,
As the peace you keep in France.

You'll be needing no Covenant of Nations
To hold your peace intact.
It does not hang on the close guarding
Of a frail and wordy pact.
When ours screams, shattered and driven,
Dust down the storming years,
Yours will stand stark, like a grey fortress,
Blind to the storm's tears.

Our peace ... your peace ... I see neither.
They are a dream, and a dream.
I only see you laughing on the tennis lawn;
And brown and alive you seem,
As you stoop over the tall red foxglove,
(It flowers again this year)
And imprison within a freckled bell
A bee, wild with fear....

* * * * *

Oh, you cannot hear the noisy guns going:
You sleep too far away.
It is nothing to you, who have your own peace,
That our peace was signed to-day.

* * * * *

EUGENE MASON

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

THE CYNDUS

1

Beneath th' triumphal blue, th' riotous day,
Her silvern galley beats the black flood white,
Whilst the long sillage hoards some close delight
Of incense, flutes, and stir of silk array.
From forth the pompous poop, her royal sway,
Near where the mystic hawk stands poised for flight,
The Queen, erect, stares out, flushed, exquisite,
Like some great golden bird that spies her prey.

The tryst is kept: her spoiled warrior there: And the brown gipsy in the swooning air Spreads amber arms the purple glow stains red; Nor hath she seen, nor known with shuddering breath. Symbols of Doom, those Youths Divine who shed Rose-leaves on sombre deeps--Desire and Death.

BATTLE AT SUNSET

2

The shock was stern: the cohorts near to rout.
Staying the flight, tribune, centurion,
From heat of carnage 'neath th' enduring sun
Breathe blood, and smell its savour as they shout.
With haggard eyes, that count the dead about,
Each spearman marks the archers, all undone,
Whirl like heaped leaves before Euroclydon.
From the brown faces sweat falls gout by gout.

That fated hour--with many a shaft stuck o'er,
Streaming in burnished brass and purple weed,
Red with the scarlet flux of wounds full sore,
With trumpets shrilling forth their urgent need,
Against the sunset, on his frighted steed--
Surged, glorious, the ensanguined Emperor.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

3

From the high terrace they might see far down,
Egypt asleep, by plague of heat opprest;
Old Father Nile, in beauty manifest,
Roll his rich flood towards many a famous town.
And lo, the Roman felt 'neath mail and gown
(Captain and slave, soothing a child to rest)
Relax and fail on his triumphant breast
That body made for love, by love o'erthrown.

Lifting her silken head and blanched face To him whose senses reel at such rare grace And piercing sweetness, she prefers her lips; But stooping close, his ardent eyes behold In those deep eyes, sewn thick with points of gold, A hazardous sea bestrewn with fleeing ships.

_From the French of Jose Maria de Heredia_

* * * * *

THEODORE MAYNARD

DIRGE

If on a day it should befall That love must have her funeral; And men weep tears that love is dead, That never more her gracious head Can turn to meet their eyes and hold Their hearts with chains of silky gold; That never more her hands can be As dear as was virginity; That in her coffin there is laid Beauty, the body of a maid, The body of one so piteous-sweet, With candles burning at her feet And cowled monks singing requiem....

I think I would not go with them, Her lordly lovers, to the place Where lies that lovely mournful face, That curving throat and marvellous hair Under the sconces' yellow flare-- How shall a man be comforted When love is dead, when love is dead?

But I would make my moan apart, Keeping my dreams within my heart-- For guarded as a sepulchre Shall be the house I built for her Of silver spires and pinnacles With carillons of mellow bells, A house of song for her delight Whose joy was as the strong sunlight-- But now love's ultimate word is said, For love is dead, for love is dead!

But even should all hope be lost Some memory, like a thin white ghost, Might stealthily move in midnight hours Among those silent sacred towers, And glimmer on the moonlit lawn Until the cold ironic dawn Arises from her saffron bed-- When love is dead, when love is dead.

DESIDERAVI

Lest, tortured by the world's strong sin,
Her little bruised heart should die--
Give her your heart to shelter in,
O earth and sky!

Kneel, sun, to clothe her round about
With rays to keep her body warm;
And, kind moon, shut the shadows out
That work her harm.

Yes, even shield her from my will's
Wild folly--hold her safe and close!--
For my rough hand in touching spills
Life from the rose.

But teach me, too, that I may learn
Your passion classical and cool;
To me, who tremble so and burn,
Be pitiful!

LAUS DEO!

Praise! that when thick night circled over me
In chaos ere my time or world began,
Thy finger shaped my body cunningly,
Thy thought conceived me ere I was a man!
Thy Spirit breathed upon me in the dark
Wherein I strangely grew,
Bestowing glowing powers to the spark
The mouth of heaven blew!

Praise! that a babe I leapt upon the world
Spread at my feet in its magnificence,
With trees as giants, flowers as flags unfurled.
And rains as diamonds in their excellence!
Praise! for the solemn splendour of surprise
That came with breaking day;
For all the ranks of stars that met my eyes
When sunset burned away!

Praise! that there burst on my unfolding heart
The coloured radiance of leafy June,
With choirs of song-birds perfected in art,
And nightingales beneath the summer moon--
Praise! that this beauty, an unravished bride
Doth hold her lover still;
Doth hide and beckon, laugh at me, and hide
Upon each grassy hill.

Praise! that I know the dear capricious sky
In every infinitely varied mood--
Yet under her maternal wings can lie
The smallest chick among her countless brood!
Praise! that I hear the strong winds wildly race
Their chariots on the sea,
But feel them lift my hair and stroke my face
Softly and tenderly!

Praise! for the joy and gladness thou didst send,
When I have sat in gracious fellowship
In firelight for an evening with a friend.
When wine and magic entered at the lip!
For laughter which the fates can overthrow
Thy mercy doth accord--
To Thee, who didst my godlike joy bestow,
I lift my glass, O Lord!

Praise! that a lady leaning from her height,
A lady pitiful, a tender maid,
A queen majestical unto my sight,
Spoke words of love to me, and sweetly laid
Her hand within my own unworthy hand!
(Rise, soul, to greet thy guest,
Mysterious love, whom none shall understand,
Though love be all confessed!)

Praise! that upon my bent and bleeding back
Was stretched some share of Thy redeeming cross,
Some poverty as largess for my lack,
Some loss that shall prevent my utter loss!
Praise! that thou gavest me to keep joy sweet
The sanguine salt of pain!
Praise! for the weariness of questing feet
That else might quest in vain!

* * * * *

T. STURGE MOORE

AFORETIME

TO GORDON BOTTOMLEY

Dear exile from the hurrying crowd, At work I muse to you aloud; Thought on my anvil softens, glows, And I forget our art has foes; For life, the mother of beauty, seems A joyous sleep with waking dreams. Then the toy armoury of the brain Opining, judging, looks as vain As trowels silver gilt for use Of mayors and kings, who have to lay Foundation stones in hope they may Be honoured for walls others build. I, in amicable muse, With fathomless wonder only filled, Whisper over to your ear Listening two hundred odd miles north, And give thought chase that, were you here, Our talk would never run to earth.

Man can answer no momentous question: Whence comes his spirit? Has it lived before? Reason fails; hot springs of feeling spout Their snowy columns high in the dim land Of his surmise--violent divine decisions That often rule him: and at times he views Portraits of places he has never been to, Yet more minute and vivid than remembrance, Of boyhood homes, sail between sleep and waking Like some mirage, refuting all experience With topsy-turvy ships, That steals by in dead calms through tropic haze: And many a man in his climacteric years, Thoughts and remembered words have roused from sleep With knowledge that he lacked on lying down: And I, lapped in a trance of reverie, doubt Some spore of episodes Anterior far beyond this body's birth, Dispersed like puffs of dust impalpable, Wind-carried round this globe for centuries, May, breathed with common air, yet swim the blood, And striking root in this or that brain, raise Imaginations unaccountable; One such seems half-implied in all I am, And many times re-pondered shapes like this:

A child myself I watched a woman loll Like to a clot of seaweed thrown ashore; Heavy and limp as cloth soaked in black dye, She glooms the noontide dazzle where a bay Bites into vineyarded flats close-fenced by hills, Over whose tops lap forests of cork and fir And reach in places half down their rough slopes. Lower, some few cleared fields square on the thickets Of junipers and longer thorns than furze So clumped that they are trackless even for goats I know two things about that woman: first She is a slave and I am free, and next As mothers need their sons' love she needs mine. Longings to utter fond compassionate sounds Stir through me, checked by knowing wiser folk Reprobate such indulgence. Ill at ease, Mute, yet her captive, I thrust brown toes through Loose sand no daily large tides overwhelm To cake and roll it firm and smooth and clean As the Atlantic remakes shores, you know. But there, like trailing skirts, long flaws of wind Obliterate the prints feet during calms Track over and over its always lonely stretch, Till some will have, it ghosts must rove at night; For folk by day are rare, yet a still week Leaves hardly ten yards anywhere uncrossed; Tempest spreads all revirginate like snow, Half burying dead wood snapped off from tossed trees, Since right along the foreshore, out of reach Of furious driven waves, three hundred pines Straggle the marches between sand and soil. Like maps of stone-walled fields their branching roots Hold the silt still so that thin grass grows there, Its blades whitened with travelling powdery drift The besom of the lightest breeze sets stirring. That woman's gaze toils worn from remote years, Yet forward yearns through the bright spacious noon, Beyond the farthest isle, whose filmy shape Floats faint on the sea-line. I, scooping grains up with the frail half-shell Pale green and white-lined of sea-urchin, knew What her eyes sought as often children know Of grief or sin they could not name or think of Yet sooth or shrink from, so I saw and longed To heal her tender wound and yet said naught. The energy of bygone joy and pain Had left her listless figure charged with magic That caught and held my idleness near hers. Resentful of her power, my spirit chafed Against its own deep pity, as though it were Raised ghost and she the witch had bid it haunt me. What's more I knew this slave by rights should glean And faggot drift-wood, not lounge there and waste My father's food dreaming his time away. For then as now the common-minded rich Grudged ease to those whose toil brought them in means For every waste of life. At length I spoke, Insulting both my inarticulate soul And her with acted anger: "Lazy wretch, Is it for eyes like yours to watch the sea As though you waited for a homing ship? My father might with reason spend his hours Scanning the far horizon; for his Swan Whose outward lading was full half a vintage Is now months overdue." She turned on me Her languor knit and, through its homespun wrap, Her muscular frame gave hints of rebel will, While those great caves of night, her eyes, faced mine, Dread with the silence of unuttered wrongs: At last she spoke as one who must be heeded. Truly I am not clear Whether her meaning was conveyed in words (She mingled accents of an eastern tongue With deformed phrases of our native Latin) Or whether thought from her gaze poured through mine. The gravity of recollected life Was hers, condensed and, like a vision, flashed Suddenly on the guilty mind, a whole Compact, no longer a mere tedious string Of moments negligible, each so small As they were lived, but stark like a slain man Who would alive have been ourself with twice The skill, the knowledge, the vitality Actually ours. Yea, as a tree may view With fingerless boughs and lorn pole impotent, An elephant gorged upon its leaves depart, Men often have reviewed an unwieldy past, That like a feasted Mammoth, leisured and slow, Turned its back on their warped bones. Even thus, Momentous with reproach, her grave regard Made me feel mean, cashiered of rank and right, My limbs that twelve good years had nursed were numbed And all their fidgety quicksilver grew stiff, Novel and fevering hallucinations Invaded my attention. So daylight When shutters are thrown back spreads through a house; As then the dreams and terrors of the night Decamp, so from my mind were driven All its own thoughts and feelings. Close she leant Propped on a swarthy arm, while the other helped With eloquent gesture potent as wizard wand, Veil the world off as with an airy web, Or flowing tent a-gleam with pictured folds. These tauten and distend--one sea of wheat, Islanded with black cities, borders now The voluminous blue pavilion of day. There-under to the nearest of those towns This woman younger by ten years made haste While at her side ran a small boy of six. They neared the walls, half a huge double gate Lay prostrate, though the other by stone hinges Hung to its flanking tower. The path they followed Threaded an old paved road whose flags were edged With dry grass and dry weeds, even cactuses Had pushed the stones up or found root in muck heaps: The path struck up the slope of the fallen door, Basalt like midnight, o'er which dusty feet Had greyed a passage, for it rested on Some debris fallen from the left-hand tower, And from its upper edge rude blocks like steps Led down into the straight main street, that ran Past eyeless buildings mined as it were from coal, And earthquake-raised to light. Palaces and Roofless wide-flighted colonnaded temples, The uncemented walls piled-plumb with blocks Squared, polished, fitted with daemonic patience. Each gaping threshold high again as need be Waited a nine-foot lord to enter hall, Where the least draughty corner sheltered now Half-tented hut or improvised small home For Arab, brown, light-footed and proud-necked As was this woman with the compelling voice. Their present hutched and hived within that past As bees in the parchment chest of Samson's lion; And all seem conscious that their life was sweet, Like mice who clean their faces after meals And have such grace of movement, when unscared, As wins the admiration even of those Whose stores they rob and soil. I saw her eyes Young with contentment in her son And smaller babe and in their handsome sire, And knew that many a supper had been relished With hearts as joyous as waited while she cooked And served upon returning to their cot In hall where once far other hearts caroused. They and their tribe could never reap a tithe Of the vast harvest rustling round those ruins, And over which a half-moon soon set forth From black hills mounded up both east and south, While north-west her light played on distant summits; All the huge interspace floored with standing corn Which kings afar send soldiery to reap, Who now, beside a long canal cut straight In ancient days, have pitched their noisy camp Which on that vast staid silence makes a bruise Of blare and riot that its robust health Will certainly heal in a brief lapse of time.

One night, re-thought on after ten whole years, Is like the condor high above the Andes, A speck with difficulty found again Once the attention quits it. And I next Descried our woman under breathless noon, Bathing in a clear lane of gliding water Whose banks seem lonely as the path of light Crossing mid ocean south of Capricorn. Her son steals warily after a butterfly And is as hushed with hope to capture it As are the birds with heat. An insect hum Circles the spot as round a cymbal's rim, Long after it has clanged, tingles a throb Which in a dream forgets the parent sound, Oppressed by this protracted and awe-filled pause, She hardly dares to wade the stream and moves As though in dread to wake some sleeping god, Yet still she nears and nears the further bank Where there is shade under a shumac's eaves. The brilliant surface cut her right in two, And the reflection of her bronzed torso Hid all beneath the polished gliding mirror; How her face listened to that sleep divine Whose audible breath was tuned to dreams of bliss!

Sudden, as though the woof of heaven were torn, A strident shout rang from some neighbour shrubs Three Nubian soldiers ran upon her with Delighted oily faces. Screaming first Commands to her small son to make for home, She laboured to recross the current as when In nightmares the scared soul expects to die Tortured by mutiny in limbs like lead, But as the playful lion of the sea Climbs the rock ledges hard by Fingal's cave To throw himself down into deep green baths, While others barking follow his vigorous lead, The foremost Abyssinian threw his weight Before her with a splash that hid them both, As the explosion of light-filled liquid parcels Shot forth in all directions. In his arms She re-appeared, a tragic terrified face Beside his coarse one laughing with success. Squeezing her with a pantomime of love, He turns to follow an arrow with his eyes That his companion, still upon the bank, Has aimed towards her son's small head that bobbed Like a black cork across the basking corn. But from the level of the sunk stream bed Neither he nor she could see the target aimed at, Yet in the pause they heard the poor child scream; A second arrow, second scream; she fought, But soon like bundle bound, hung o'er his shoulder, Helpless as a mouse in cat's mouth carried off In search of quiet, there to play with it. Those arrows missed?--or did they not? The child Shrieked twice, yet scarcely like a wounded thing She thought and hoped and still but thinks and hopes. Where is that boy? Where is her husband now? While she submitted body to force and soul To the great shuddering violence of despair How had their life progressed in that far place? Compassion fused my consciousness with hers And second-sighted eloquence arose To claim my mind for rostrum, But obstinately tranced My eyes clung to their vision; For regions to explore allure the boy No stretch of thought or sea of feeling tempts. Entranced, the mind I then had, haunted Those basalt ruins. High on sable towers Some silky patriarchal goat appears And ponders silent streets, or suddenly Some nanny, her huge bag swollen with milk, Trots out on galleries that unfenced run Round vacant courts, there, stopped by plaintive kids, Lets them complete their meal. While always, always, Throughout, those mazed, sullen and sun-soaked walls, The steady, healthy wind, Which often blows for weeks without a lull Across that upland plain, Flutes staidly. Moaning Continuously as seas Or forests before storm, And, gathering moment, Articulated by her woe, begins With second-sighted eloquence To wail through me, Nigh as unheeded, As though it still had been Meaningless wind.

For ah! the heart is cowed And dares not use her strength, Hears the kind impulse plead Against the common avaricious fear, Grants it but life, though sovereignty was due Or doles it sway but one day out of seven Or one a year.

So, so, and ever, so In the close-curtained court Those causes are deferred Which most import; These wait man's leisure. These daily matters elbow; Merely because His panic meanness Jibs blindly ere it hear What wisdom has prepared, Bolts headlong ere it see Her face unfold its smile. Man after man, race after race Drops jaded by the iterancy Of petty fear. Even as horses on the green steppes grazing, Hundreds scattered through lonely peacefulness, If shadow of cloud or red fox breaking earth Delude but one with dream of a stealthy foe, All are stampeded. Their frantic torrent draws in, With dire attraction, cumulative force, Stragglers grazing miles from where it started; On it thunders quite devoid of meaning. The tender private soul Thus takes contagion from the sordid crowd, And shying at mere dread of loss, Loses the whole of life. Thus, in the vortex of a base turmoil, Those myriad million energies wear down That might have raised mankind To live the life of gods. Had but my soul been his, As his was mine, Those wind-resembling accents Had found fit auditor. Their second-sighted eloquence, Welcomed with acclamation, Had fired action. But that was ages since: he was not then What now I am, Who have no longer The opportunity then mine, then missed,-- Who still am dazed and troubled Surmising others mine, others missed.

Passionate, never-wearied voice, Tombed in thy brittle shell, This human heart Thou croonest age on age, "Give and ask not, Help and blame not," Heeded less than large and mottled cowry The which at least some child may hold to ear All smiles to listen.

Thou findest parables; With fond imagination Adorning truth For the successive Unpersuaded Generations.

This boy, myself that was, Musing visions by that woman raised, Watched that land she came from, towned with ruins Send mile-long files of laden camels out With grain to hostile cities,-- Knew too the blue entrancing plain of waters Teemed with fresh shoals, buoyed up indifferently, Fisher--trader--pirate bark,-- Even the straight thought whispered at his ear, "Thy lips might join with hers as with some cousin's, Here, now, at noon, Hugging her bereaved sadness close, And still, to-night, with equal satisfaction, Thy mother's blind contentment with her son." While half-seduced, half-chafed, his mind was shaken As with conflicting gusts a choppy sea, His eyes, still greedy of their visions, Fastened a swarthy town enisled in wheat, And to the ebon threshold of each house, Conjured forth the man that each was planned for: Great creatures smiling with his father's smile, Muscular, wealthy and self-satisfied, Wearing loud-coloured raiment, earrings, chains, Armlet and buckle, all of clanking gold. His spirit drank from theirs great draughts of pride And read their minds more clearly than his own; All, with one counsel like a chorus, dinned His soul that then was mine, With truths well-proved in action. "Love is chaos, For order's sake Whatever must be, should be," Roared those bulls of Bashan. Then their proud chant argued, "How should this woman know Her little lad again, Who either now is bones Under the fertile field, Or well nigh a grown man? Say they should cross at market Both slaves would pass on, not a start the wiser. What is she then to him Or he to her After these years? To drag a life that might have been but is not With toil of mind and heart, Through dreary year on year, Neglecting for its sake the life that is, Spells folly and ingratitude to those Who treat their slaves well. Thy father's household and thyself should be More to her now than those who may be dead, The place she lives in dearer Than any unattainable far land Where she is more forgotten than old dreams. Why make the day of evil worse By dwelling on it after it has past? Near things alone are real, Now is the whole of time: Places beyond the horizon are but pictures; Memory cheats the eye with an illusion!"

"Your thoughts are sound, bold builders, I am my father's son. Behold this home-shore, these our hills, this bay, And this our slave!-- Up, work, look sharp about it!" Bounding a foot and fast retiring from her, I stoop for stones strewn thick about the sand, Aim them, fling them, And, as my idle arm resumes the knack, Score a hit and laugh To see her stumble hurt, behind the pine trunks. "Unless you work, I throw again, To it and steady at it. Mark me, drab, we Camilli Mean what we say." Stone after stone still flies, But aimed to knock chips from the pine-boles now; For she is busy gathering sticks, increasing Her distance as she may. The noon is sultry, Heated and clammy, I, Towards the live waves turning, slip my tunic, Then run in naked. Cooled and soothed by swimming, Both mind and heart from their late tumult tuned To placid acquiescent health, I float, suspended in the limpid water, Passive, rhythmically governed; So tranced worlds travel the dark shoreless ether.

"Where should this stream of pictures tend?" No, Bottomley, you will not ask; To you I am quite free to send The unexpected, unexplained, You will not take me thus to task.

So they be painted well, they live; If ill, they yet may cling to fame Associated with your name. In which case you, and not I, give That we are both contented with.

* * * * *

THOMAS MOULT

DOWN HERE THE HAWTHORN

Down here the hawthorn.... And a stir of wings, Spring-lit wings that wake Sudden tumult in the brake, Tumult of blossom tide, tumult of foaming mist Where the bright bird's tumultuous feathers kissed. White mists are blinding me, White mist of hedgerow, white mist of wings. Down here the hawthorn And a stir of wings.... Softly swishing, swift with spray All along the green laneway Dewdimmed, sunwashed, windsweet and winter-free They flash upon the light, They swing across the sight, I cannot see, I cannot see!...

Down here the flowering hawthorn flings Sleet of petals, petalled shells Spread the coloured air that sings Magic and a myriad spells Spun by my count of Springs. Down here the hawthorn.... And the flower-foam stirred By a Spring-lit bird. White hawthorn mist is blinding me. I lower my gaze, and on this old Brown bridle road Crusted with golden moss and mould The hedgerow flings Lush carpetings, Blossom woven carpetings light lain Under the farmer's lumbering load; And, floating past the spent March wrack, The footstep trail, the traveller's track. Down here the hawthorn.... White mists are blinding me, White mists that rime the fresh green bank Where fernleaf-fall And sorrel tall Upwaving, rank on rank, Shall flush the bed whereon the windflowers sank.

I turn these Spring-bewildered eyes of mine, I seek above the surf of hedgerow line Where peeping branches reach, and reaching twine Faint cherry or plum or eglantine. But with pretence of whisperings The year's young mischief-wind shall take By storm these shy striplings, And soon or later shake Their slender limbs, and make Free with their clinging may-- Strip from them in a single boisterous day Their first and last vesture of pale bloom spray. So, as to meet such lack In bush or brack, The kindly hedgerows make Sure of a Springtime for these frailer things, Shedding on each the lavish creamthorn flake. Down here the hawthorn.... On all the green leaf-clusters round me clings Thickly a spray of gentle blossomings Everywhere as with many bells The young year with white magic swells. The morning rings. White mist is blinding me, I cannot see, I cannot see!

Blind grows the coloured air that sings The marvel of a myriad spells Spun by my count of Springs. Sleet of petals, petalled shells Falling with sudden poignancy (As the sleet stings) Upon the lightheart-hope which only clear sight knows. And slowly drifts, Lingering among the snows Nor, though the snow lifts, Ever goes The wistful heartache as the fresh Spring flows With slipping sureness to the time of the rose, and the withered rose. Down here the hawthorn.... And heaping blossom stirred By a joy-swift bird. White mists are blinding me, White mist of hedgerow, white mist of wings. The bird's flight flings Deep carpetings Over the wrack Of my life's track. Down here the hawthorn.... The air of coloured years is blurred By the Spring, by a bird. White mists are blinding me, White mists on the years to be. I cannot see, I cannot see....

INVOCATION

Hurl down, harsh hills, your bitterness Of wind and storm. Stem ye the drift of herded men With your uncouthness So, tasting of your power, they press Back shrinking where upon their warm Safe ways of smoothness They feed their various lusts again.

Guard ye, wild hills, with scar and whip Your outlawry Lest alien-hearted pigmies tame Your trackless boulders, And with their unclean cunning slip The leash of civilry Fast round your shoulders. O keep ye from that shame.

Or they shall surely come, black hordes Swarming as lice With their obscenities and greed Across your fastness, Even your peaks that swing white swords, Rent, splintered ice Into the vastness Of skies where fanged winds feed.

Hurl down, harsh hills, your bitterness, Guard ye with flail Of shattering wind and thong of sleet Your pride uplifting To the impaled stars; be pitiless Before this unquiet trail Of man-herds drifting Against your stone still feet.

* * * * *

ROBERT NICHOLS

PAEAN

ON SEEING A PORTRAIT OF BLAKE.

Something moves in his dust, Flame sleeps beneath the crust; O whence had he those eyes Lit with celestial surprise? From what world blew that gust? Are we near to Paradise?

Gather a chaplet of five stars And the opalescent hue Of the aureole brightness cast-- Red, hardly red, and blue, scarce blue,-- Round th' immaculate frosty moon, Splintering light in glacial spars, When November's loudening blast Sweeps heaven's floor till burnished More crystal than at August noon, So we fit radiance may cast Before his feet, around his head.

How visits he an earthly place, Wanders among a mortal race? How were his footsteps led That still about his face Lingers a ghostly trace Of a secret influence shed By a Hand the world denies, In a land her most son flies, As a gift upon him thrust For an end he knoweth not, Yet will shine because he must, Shine and sing because he must Reap a wrong he soweth not Of contempt anger and distrust For a world which boweth not To the Flame which binds our dust.

Go net the moon, go snare the sun, Set them upon his either hand! Beneath his heels Leviathan Roll your thick coils! His head be spanned By rainbows tripled! Set a gem At the Cross-scabbard of his sword Whiter than lambwool or lilystem! Place on his brow the diadem Given the warrior of the Lord, The crown-turrets of Jerusalem!

* * * * *

EDEN PHILPOTTS

THE FALL

I'll sing a song of kings and queens And falling leaves and flying rain, With Time to mow, and Fate who gleans Their good and evil, boon and bane.

I'll sing a song of leaves and rains And flying queens and falling kings. Yet doubt not reason still remains Snug hidden at the core of things.

For every year an autumn brings To round the root and fat the sheaves And haply garner queens and kings With falling rain and flying leaves.

The rain is salt with tears of queens The leaves are red with blood of kings; Unknowing what the mystery means We puzzle at these splendid things.

For why great kings and rains should fall, And wherefore leaves and queens should fly, Or such rare wonders be at all, You cannot tell; no more can I.

Yet this we know: new leaves and rain Anon shall crown the vernal scene, But dust of dynasts not again Blows up into a king or queen.

GHOSTIES AT THE WEDDING.

Turn down a glass afore his place; Draw up the dog-eared chair; For though we shall not see his face, I think he will be here Our wedding day to share.

Turn up the glass where she would be And put a red rose there. Her quick, grey eyes we cannot see, But weren't they everywhere, And shall not they be here?

Though them old blids are in the grave And their good light's gone out, We'd sooner their kind ghosties have Than all the living rout As will be there no doubt.

For some are dead as cannot die. Some flown as cannot flee. You still do fancy 'em near by. 'Tis so with him and she, At any rate to we.

* * * * *

ARTHUR K. SABIN

FOUR LYRICS

I.

When old Anacreon sang the wine Which made his utterance divine, Perchance the eyes he gazed into Were lucent as the sun-touched dew-- Brighter, perchance, than yours; and yet Eyes like yours, smoulderingly lit With the calm passion of the spirit. No young Greek maid did e'er inherit.... Ah! twenty years are not enough To mould to such celestial stuff A soul, my dear, as yours is moulded, Wherein all dreams of life lie folded, And through whose doors a friend may slip Into serene companionship.

II.

She came, as one who in the light Of many a sunset hour had grown Half sad, half glad, because the night So soon about her would be thrown. With melancholy ages old, And laughter fragrant as the Spring, She came, and in her low voice told Tales of rich joy and sorrowing. She led me to her garden, fair With flowers I love and whispering trees, And to her arbour sheltered there In peace, all redolent of peace. With rapt delight of halting speech, And commune, such as those have felt Whose minds move silent each by each. Whose hopes are kindred hopes, we dwelt. But though with love and dreams of gold She wove rare charms about that nest, My heart lay aching still, and cold: I could not rest, I could not rest.

III.

The birds are quiet on the boughs, And quiet are my slumbering trees.... O come a short while to my house And share these evening silences.

Come! for the sunset's weary smile Has faded; night is failing deep: And we will rest a little while And talk together ere we sleep.