Chapter II: On a Profiteer

I fattened on the blood and tears
Of these long laborious years;
Out of loss came forth my gain,
Watered by another’s pain:
Who shall bid me rise again?
Pray for me, all poor men, and pray right well,
Lest poor men’s curses bring the rich to hell.

SONNET: THE JOURNALIST

He called for blood, and would not shed his own,
He sat at ease, and sent young men to die
With his strong pen; he was the enemy
Stalking at noontide, by whose hand were sown
Rank tares among us--love of country grown
To poisonous cant, and blind hostility.
He forged a chain to lead the people by,
A chain of words, rattling with strident tone.
He battened on men’s selfishness and fear,
He pulled the strings that shook their statesmen down;
The people were content to sit and hear
His platitudes, and tremble at his frown,
And followed him with meek attentive ear
Till His Mendacity assumed the crown.

_E. H. W. MEYERSTEIN_

(_MAGDALEN_)

THE INCANTATION

Evil birds of evil feather
Night and storm are met together,
Bitter gale and dripping wrack
Unforetold by almanack.
Come, Lucasta, bolt the door
While I grave upon the floor
Circle wide, and strew around
Pentacles to guard the ground
When the solemn fiends appear
In fulfilment of our prayer;
For though Cimon scorn thy sight
He shall sleep with thee to-night.

Wond’rest not how I, a crone
Whom no crippled lout would own
His paramour, have strength to fling
The loveless ’neath his true love’s wing.
The old are strong, the young are fair,
And thou, wan leaf, whom eager care
Spirits to this world-shop of mine,
Shalt for this hour see things divine.
Thou trustest that my ugliness
Shall dissipate thy soul’s distress.
Yea, though he loathe Lucasta bright,
Cimon shall sleep with her to-night.

See yon dun familiar toad
That infecteth my abode
With sage humours; stroke his head.
Now he sleeps as he were dead.
Yet must he hearken to the charm
Watching that we take no harm,
For spirits are fickle as men are
And called to help may come to war.
He wakes; now will I cease my croak
And read the grand words from this book
That he who recks not of our rite
May sleep with her who loves to-night.

Arise, ye majesties of flame
Exhorted by Jehovah’s name,
That all things to itself hath won,
The almighty Tetragrammaton.
Paymon, Belphegor, ye that err,
Tried spaniel-friends to Lucifer
And him whose red and gusty eyes
Captain the legions of the flies,
Attend with ceremonious hum,
Conjure the light o’ love to come
Infirm of step, infirm of sight,
To sleep with her who loves to-night.

Lucasta, see the lamp burns blue.
Spirits, have we this boon of you?
In the smoke their faces nod,
He shall come though he were God.
Shake not, girl, thy love they say
Conquers--Spirits frisk away;
By the powers that raised you, hence
To your depths. Ye have licence.
So, they are vanished. Why so frail?
Once more the wick gleams yellow pale,
The smokewreaths whirl to left and right,
Cimon shall sleep with thee to-night.

He comes; his hand is on the latch,
The owlet shrieks above the thatch,
Unbolt, unbolt--scatter the yew,
The tripod, and the cauldron’s brew.
Cimon, Lucasta, hails thee now,
The star of fate is on his brow,
His eyes grow moist, his bosom warms,
Receive him in thy weary arms,
Loveliest! By Thessalian might
He sleeps with her he loves to-night.

_ROBERT NICHOLS_

(_TRINITY_)

CLOSING LINES FROM “POLYPHEMUS HIS PASSION: A PASTORAL”

THE SHEPHERD. A GIRL.

_Shepherd._ Thus found he his loved Galatea fled
With Acis! What rage ensued thou knowest.
Deceived, dejected, foiled, and overthrown
In hoarse distraction a full sev’n days’ term
He ranged, but on the eighth no more was glimpsed
Striding from vale to vale nor, raging, heard
Splintering the pine-slope nigh the precipice
With fist far flung nor with a desolate
Thunder of voice, volleyed from scarp to jag,
Dislodging from steep snowfields friths compact
In downward avalanche: less loud than he.
And no tide had we of him, save by chance
The while I wandered seeking a strayed goat
Through seaward vales, I happen’d on him.

_Girl._ Ah!
Lubberly still poor wretch? or quiet grown?

_Shepherd._ He on an ocean pinnacle of rock
Sat, scowling, motionless. In truth he seemed
Rather a further buttress of the crag
Than a giant, helpless and unhappy being.
About his brooding bulk all day the birds,
The slippery swallow, the pois’d martin,
Lifted or swept a-scatter ev’n as when,
Chatting, such gad around the ravaged mien
Of the colossal Pharaoh or twin gods
Hawk-headed and immense of ancient Egypt.
Thus grieved he. And the huge begnarlèd hands
Pillared his jaw. A chillness gloomed his face
As on bare hills shadow of moveless cloud.
Nor spake he aught. But when the sun raged high
Grappling a rock he dashed it ’gainst his breast
And roared till the golden-green sea blackened
And spouting drove, loud with careering gulls,
Before his gusty breath; but passion spent
Dropping then pined, while from the single eye
One tear, as huge and hot as Phlegethon,
Fell in a hissing flood.

_Girl._ Alas, poor brute!
And yet I laugh.

_Shepherd._ Longtime in sufferance
Bowed he his massy head, quite dumb with grief.
But, at the last, confusedly arousing
His sluggish hands, groped for and found his pipes
Twin, dry, boughless trunks of beech fire-hollowed
And with huge cinder bored. This pair he set
To cave-like mouth, then, pursing hairy lips,
Vented, with monster fingers laid on stops,
His heart’s deep sorrow: ’twas a wounding sound.

_Girl._ And was it angry, then, the giant’s plaint?

_Shepherd._ Angry ’twas not: though anger in it spake
As of a rebel turning eye to heav’n
With moody imprecation natural
To one so crossed from birth. Melancholy
Lent majesty to strains uncouth. He mourned
The gift of might which is his mightiest foe.
Mourned! though the dire pipes themselves rebelling
Came apt not to his hand. With rage he shook
Yet, obstinate, subdued them to his mood
So that they brimmed the dusky lower air,
The fire-strewn skies, flushed cliffs and tawny sea
With the beauty borne of desolation.
Thus lingered he.

_Girl._ And of the tune itself,
Ugly, was it?

_Shepherd._ Listen: when twilight fell,
While the near wave lapsed with but seldom foam,
Darkling against the light foretells the moon,
He still played on. “Strange end,” thought I, “thou hast,
Poor fool whose all of life is ended now,
Saving the music thou canst make of it.”
Since, as I think, his heart is shipwrecked now:
Heart, but not song! For as the night waxed late
Somewhat of beauty found he and with beauty
Somewhat of solace. To the last I listened
The while th’ unbroken moon rocked in the tide
And multitudes of sea-sprites, glistering,
Rose up in choir, but, sudden, hushed to hear
Such grief pine on. Thus somewhat was the sound--
Like to the muffled wind among the crags
When night is clear, without or stars or moon,
And lightless clouds drift on a lightless sky;
Or as the mournful blowing of the waves,
Which in the pyloned gloom of northern cave
Nightly with flood soon-swallowed and discharge
Of pouring foam, deep tide and troubled ebb,
Makes profound plaint and dreary melody
To lightless waste, huge night and solemn stars.
Such was the Cyclops’ music.

_Girl._ Ah, poor soul!

_Shepherd._ Dost weep?

_Girl._ Yes, shepherd.

_Shepherd._ Fie, now; comfort thee!
The gods wax angry at a lass’s tears
Who has no whit to cry for. Thus say I,
Those there are who ev’n by living darken
The lives of such as are less passionate
Yet in their fall, by ev’n the full measure
That they o’ertopped us, must we mourn for them,
Such wonder has Life bared.

_Girl._ Maybe ’tis so;
Still I am sorry.

_Shepherd._ Yield thee now thine arm.
So: round my neck as mine sinks now round thine....
Evening falls. Hear the brook in the spinney:
Thy very voice.

_Girl._ And ... is yon star Venus?

_Shepherd._ Aye: Venus ’tis. Thou hast eyes like heaven.

_Girl._ Love is a pretty thing. Kiss me, sweet shepherd.

_L. RICE-OXLEY_

(_KEBLE_)

THE OPENING OF THE GRAVE OF ARTHUR AND GUINEVERE AT GLASTONBURY[A]

One slender relic from the wreck of death,
One golden hair from that far age,
A gleaming memory, a momentary breath
Of mystic times and Merlin sage!

This only trace of that far-famous queen
And of her beauty causing sin
Recalled what Lancelot had whilom seen,
What fame his compeers sought to win.

Swift as a monk stoops down to grasp that hair
The golden glint dissolves to dust,
And naught of that old glory lieth there
But bones, and armour gone to rust.

Seek ye not thus to clutch the golden past
Of legend and romance, for so
Its splendour will dissolve and nothing last
But Now, and dust of long ago.

[A] A tradition says that the grave was opened in the time of Henry II., and that all that remained of the royal pair was a hair, which too turned to dust as a monk stooped down to pick it up.

_DOROTHY L. SAYERS_

(_SOMERVILLE_)

PYGMALION

Therefore one day, as all flesh must, she died,
Just as the mowers brought the last load in
From happy meadows warm with summer-tide,
And through the open casement, far and thin,
The nightingale’s first music did begin.

“Love is the sum of this world’s whole delight,
Love,” said the bird, “the ending of desire,
Love brought us, timid, forth to the lovely light,
Love the sole outlet, love, both toil and hire,
Love, with whose death the songs of life expire.”

Yet, as the limbs turned stone and bitter-cold,
Widowed Pygmalion sat beside the bed,
Huddling dry-eyed to see the new grown old
Again so strangely, and his clamorous head
Jarred him with discourse; and at length he said:

“Marble, my white girl, marble! Cyprian thighs
And amorous bosom all made chaste once more,
As though no lips had ever kissed thine eyes
To slumber--virgin as they were, before
The feet of Venus glowed along the floor!...

“Thy beauty should have made the workman blind
That found thee buried in the dust of thrones
Hereafter, when our pomps are left behind
Like some strange, sprawling scale of barbarous tones,
Our temples turned to curious heaps of stones;

“When by the highways merchant folk shall go
Three feet of earth above our walls and towers,
And other than Grecian ships bear to and fro
New wares, new men, and all as brief as flowers--
Thou hadst outlasted all that time devours.

“But thou art dead; thou art flesh and art dead;
The grave will be thy lover, thy round breast
Nourish the worm, while, shred by ghastly shred,
The mouth that laughed, the fingers that caressed,
Wither, O dearest of my works and best!...

“What have I gained? some mornings when my soul
Leaped out of me into the arms of day,
When the world, like a chariot, span in my own control,
Times when I saw the beech-tree leaves a-sway
And knew how green they were and far from grey.

“Say I learned joy--this was indeed a gain;
But can I face the reckoning unafraid?
For joy I bartered, first, that ancient pain
Which stabbed me into vision; next, betrayed
All that men looked for in me; thus I paid.

“Yea, I that rated at a small amount
That strange, cold jewel, purchased unawares,
Men’s gratitude--I that no longer count
For anything in any man’s affairs,
Am doubtful now; thus the gods grant our prayers.

“Ay me undone! The world cries out to me:
‘Pygmalion the sculptor, where art thou?’--
Buried indeed, O buried hopelessly
Fathom-deep under, fathom-deep under now--
The curious rootlets pry about his brow ...

“There is no remedy; what is changed is changed;
No skill can rub out wrinkles from the heart,
Nor even God knit friends that are estranged
As innocently again as at the start,
Since they must keep the memory of that smart

“For good or evil still. So I return
Never to that old quiet which asked no beat
Of answering pulse, content alone to burn,
While no fierce hand might fret thy bosom sweet,
Nor any lover come betwixt thy feet.

“I wrought thee for the world, and then thou wast
Immortal--and I wept uncomforted;
But since I made thee mine--O thou art lost
To me and all men. I was glad,” he said,
“But thou art dead, O thou art dead, art dead.”

_HELEN SIMPSON_

(_HOME STUDENT_)

THE HEAD OF THE TABLE; DECODERS W.R.N.S.

Every day at ten to three,
Be the weather wet or warm,
I doff my identity,
And assume a uniform.
Clad in this I sally out,
Cause considerable stir,
Order nobodies about
As becomes an Officer;
Freeze the surreptitious smile
With a chill severity--
Longing all the weary while
For the unregenerate Me.
But when my release is earned
And I am at home, secure,
My identity has turned
Unexpectedly demure.
Why? I enter rather late
And My manner when we meet,
Seems, I fear, to indicate
The repentant indiscreet.
I, thus tantalized by Me
Spend an irritated day;
Now the question seems to be--
What goes on when I’m away?

AEROPLANE, JUNE 6TH.

I was watching as you flew
Circling in the summer sky;
Round about you thoughts I threw,
Every bit as swift as you,
Every bit as high.

Out of cloud a palace springs,
Domes and minarets and towers,
Bastions, where the trumpet rings
And my topmost turret swings
High about the showers.

You were captain in the skies
Nimble as a darting sword--
Of the company of spies
Who my castle from surprise
Vigilantly ward.

Wheeling, darting, unaware
That you were the warden bold
Of my palace towering there,
Of its battlements of air
And its roofs of gold.

All unheeding trumpet calls
Down you plunged from out the blue;
Warderless the silver wells,
And my airy castle falls
Swifter far than you.

_L. A. G. STRONG_

(_WADHAM_)

RUFUS PRAYS

In the darkening church,
Where but a few had stayed,
At the Litany Desk
The idiot knelt and prayed.

Rufus, stunted, uncouth.
The one son of his mother:
“Eh, I’d sooner ’ave Rufie,”
She said, “than many another.

“‘E’s so useful about the ’ouse
And so gentle as ’e can be:
And ’e gets up early o’ mornin’s
To make me a cup o’ tea.”

The formal evensong
Had passed over his head:
He sucked his thumb, and squinted,
And dreamed, instead.

Now while the organ boomed
To few who still were there,
At the Litany Desk
The idiot made his prayer:

“Gawd bless Muther,
’N’ make Rufie a good lad.
Take Rufie to Heaven,
’N’ forgive him when he’s bad.

“’N’ early mornin’s in Heaven
’E’ll make Muther’s tea,
’N’ a cup for the Lord Jesus
’N’ a cup for Thee.”

IN THE GARDEN

A soft and flowered vision
Came on me as a breeze
In summer, and I saw
The souls of men like bees.

Up stairs of orchard foam
With balustrade of may,
Stagger, a mazy cluster,
Drunk with the scented day.

Then strong from newer honey,
With brighter pollen shod,
The little souls went buzzing
Up to the Hives of God.

_SHERARD VINES_

(_NEW COLLEGE_)

PERMISSION

Not till, fallen swooning at the last
Round, heart-broken at the cruel pace,
Thrown out useless from my working place
Sickness, scorn, and bitterness to taste,
Not till hard days have me crucified
To a desk, the close nights to a bed
Comfortless, and all my gain unmade,
All the towers brought low that were my pride,
May I seek the silent golden tor,
Sleep beside long crumbled architraves,
See the desolate glory of the waves
Snarling, like tigers on a lone lee shore.

SUMMER

In blatant light the grasses look
Like bronzen swords of green,
The hillock-tops simmer and smoke,
The stark road thrusts between.

No mild opacity of cloud
Transmutes the harshness, where
Like stars of newly spattered blood
Kempt cottage flowers stare.

A blast of Hell gets up to flout
The sharp metallic trees,
And hungry insects haste about
Their cruel purposes.

_D. E. A. WALLACE_

(_SOMERVILLE_)

RIVER-POOLS

Were I a shadow in a pool
I would not live, I would not fear to die;
But only, faint and cool,
I’d pass my days of unreality
In passive contemplation of the sky;
And no desire should shake me.
And no denial break me,
Ah, fool,
Thou art no shadow in a pool.

Were I a shadow in a pool
I could not love, I could not thrill with hate;
But, ashy-pale and cool,
Through endless meadows moving desolate
I would outgaze the sky dispassionate,
With never grief to move me.
And never friend to love me.
Glad fool,
Thou art no shadow in a pool!

LIFE AND I

Life and I are a pair of lovers:
Life is only as old as I.
Here he kissed me, with no one by,
Here the day long will we lie,
On a hillside swept with the calling of plovers,
Until the stooping midnight covers
Life and me with the star-wrought sky.

Life, come kiss me! Joy, come tell me,
Will you love me still to-morrow?
Will you ravish me and sell me,
Love of mine, to sorrow?

“Sweet, come kiss me! Sweet, come tell me
No misgivings of the morrow!
But ... there are two ways to spell me:
I am Joy--and Sorrow.”

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS. GUILDFORD, ENGLAND

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