Chapter D: A. E. Wallace (somerville)

IMPROMPTU IN MARCH 59 IN NEW COLLEGE CLOISTERS 60 THE BEGGAR-MAIDEN 61

J. L. WING (MAGDALEN)

LOUIS ONZE 62

_H. M. ANDREWS_
(_NEW COLLEGE_)

SONG

I met a sage at the break of day,
And he welcomed me with a smile;
He spoke his words of encouragement
And we parted after a while.

I met a fair lady when all was bright,
And the sun was burning on high;
She turned to me with her deep, dark eyes
And sold herself for a lie.

I met a child when the world was dark
And I was drear and alone;
The child spoke naught,
But the dark became light;
The day of glory had come.

The barren ground shone with splendour high,
Bare branches dripped with gold,
And the earth was transformed to heaven,
Just as the sage foretold.

_T. H. W. ARMSTRONG_
(_KEBLE_)

HERITAGE

Here in my glass is blood of kings,
The life-blood of a race that lies
Long dead. The jewels burning in your rings
Are an Egyptian woman's eyes.

Your beads are dead bones; even my breath
Breathes hot words that were others' pain.
Now these fair things are ours awhile, till death
Brings us to quiet sleep again.

Then we shall put our love aside
For lovers of a later birth,
And leave to them this body's fragrant pride,
For jewels, in the heart of earth.

WATCHING

Midnight at last! And you, I know,
Are sleeping there
Peaceful. Stars keep
Great guard upon you. Calm, and still, and white
You are. One moment all your pale swift hair
Is quiet as the night.

Here in this mud, this beastliness
Of war, the thought
Of your soft sleep
Soothes a tired mind as a rare ointment may
Comfort a wound, sweet-scented ointment brought
From strange lands, far away.

LONELINESS

I watched the moon behind the trees
Float in a sea of sky.
The aspen whispers in the breeze,
The rest is silence now. And I
Can feel my loneliness around
Me fall. No human face
There is. None speaks. Never a sound
Save whispering leaves in this still place.

I have two friends, and they are dead,
Perhaps about their graves
Are trees that whisper overhead,
While in the grass the nettle waves.

_P. BLOOMFIELD_
(_BALLIOL_)

TWILIGHT

The day grows fainter, moonlit evening fills
With calm and cool the lilac-scented land,
And I feel--were I on the western hills,
At last, at last, now might I understand
These mysteries of Life; how things began,
And why I love my darling as I do,
And how came longing to the soul of Man,
And whether Death must sever me from you.
Ah, hush! A spirit moves abroad, whose veil
The poets would give all the world to raise,
But, failing, tell some wistful fairy-tale,
And laugh, and weep, and go their several ways.
The birds are sleeping: nay, I do not know
What's in the twilight, makes my heart beat so!

_VERA M. BRITTAIN_

(_SOMERVILLE_)

TO A V.C.

Because your feet were stayed upon that road
Whereon the others swiftly came and passed,
Because the harvest you and they had sowed
You only reaped at last.

Tis not your valour's meed alone you bear
Who stand the object of a nation's pride,
For on that humble Cross you live to wear
Your friends were crucified.

They shared with you the conquest over fear,
Sublime self-disregard, decision's power,
But Death, relentless, left you lonely here
In recognition's hour.

Their sign is yours to carry to the end;
The lost reward of gallant hearts as true
As yours they called their leader and their friend
Is worn for them by you.

_H. T. BURT_
(_BALLIOL_)

FROM THEIR DUST

Not in their immortality alone
Live those bright spirits who for honour spent
Their rich inheritance of years, and went
Gay-heartedly to meet the wide unknown.

Not though the fields where their young limbs were strown
Once more be chartered by the foeman's tent,
And all the achieving of their tournament
Be scattered to the winds or overthrown.

For from their memory and quickening dust
Shall spring the flashing squadrons of the dawn;
And they shall set their spears and ride afar
To seek and battle, thrust and counterthrust,
For grails from our beclouded eyes withdrawn,
The champion warriors of a holier war.

ERRATUM.

_For_ H. I. Burt _read_ H. T. Burt, to whom also should be attributed "Pilot and Clouds" (page 9).

_F. W. BUTLER-THWING_
(_NEW COLLEGE_)

THE TRAMP-SHIP

Sailing over summer seas,
Seeking ports of rest,
Dancing with the dancing breeze,
Host and guest.

Calmed beside the setting sun,
Lifeless on the deep,
Waiting till the halt be done
And the sleep.

Driving 'gainst the sullen storm,
Striking hard the foe,
Gallant heart and gallant form
Breast the snow.

Homeward, homeward in the years,
All thy pennons fly;
Bravely onward, smiles and tears,
Home to die.

_July, 1911._

PILOT AND CLOUDS

Clouds, little clouds, tell me whither are you going to,
Spun by the sun of the shearing of the sea?
"Thither we are bound, where the West Wind is blowing to,
Off on a holiday, merrymakers we."

Clouds, merry clouds, will you wait till I may fly to you,
Share in the frolic of your gay company?
"Nay, for the West Wind bids us say good-bye to you,
Save if your chariot be speedier than he."

Swift are my steeds: at the thunderous career of them
The high, lone silences that cradle you will flee.
"Think you our hilarity will tremble at the fear of them,
We who laugh in thunder and lighten in our glee?"

Then will I fly to you, dance with you, play with you,
Hover on your breast where the shadow cannot be.
"Hurry, brother, hurry, for we may not delay with you,
Off on a holiday, merrymakers we."

_E. P. CHASE_
(_MAGDALEN_)

SEVEN MISTS

The beauty of the High is not in brilliance
Nor in a florid sculpturing of stone,
Nor radiant colours, brave design, smooth stones,
But the wide curve and placid flow,--and that
St. Mary's spire and seven twilight mists
Are hanging over Oxford towers to-night.

I am clothed with furtive light
Reflected from that pallid sun
When it sets, hardly bright,
Behind Merton tower, daylight done.

When the moon, silver-hued,
Through Cowley generated mist
Tears its way and glimmers nude
Above Magdalen tower, it keeps tryst

With that spirit of my soul
Which would glide through Oxford streets,
Still, unseen, without control,
With wide eyes scanning whom it meets.

_W. R. CHILDE_
(_MAGDALEN_)

LES HALLUCINÉS

This is the singing of the sons of Hâli,
As they stand at their booth-doors when brazen eve
Covers the city of Chrysopolis
Like the vast cup of an inverted flower,
And into the pale blue cope of marble twilight
Steal up men's souls like incense strange and pure.

"This is the singing of the sons of Hâli,
To you, O seraphs, where you lean your breasts
Upon the perfumed clouds of sunsetting,
And your huge wings, enormous, like a swan's,
Alone cover with silver plumes of fire
Your long sides, strange as pictures in Toledo--

"O seraphs, with your melting eyes like girls',
And rosy breasts embosomed in the eve,
Vouchsafe to us a little rain of coins,
Of golden sequins tumbling through our sleep;
Give us of heavenly gold, we have none earthly,
And stab our souls with seeds of sworded fire."--
_This_ is the singing of the sons of Hâli.

_E. A. C. CLARKE_
(_KEBLE_)

FLOWERS

Shining, never-thirsty flowers,
That by the water-side
Do never plaintive cry for showers
To damp their local pride.

Lazy they wag their lovely heads,
Nodding that way and this,
Lithe bodies upon mossy beds
With lips bedewed that kiss.

The kindly and generous stream
That gently ripples by,
An idle, silvery dream,
Where sleeping fishes lie.

These delicate flowers of Mary
Lie long and overgrown,
While Martha's parched and weary
Stand in the sun and groan

_L. M. COOPER_
(_LADY MARGARET HALL_)

LINES FOR A FLYLEAF OF HERODOTUS

No lover and no kinsmen pass
To honour the deep-buried dead.
The roads are covered up with grass
That burned beneath th' Immortals' tread.
No tramp of armed foe is heard,
Nor bowstrings' twang, nor arrows' hiss,
Nor sound to scare the nesting bird
On rocky Salamis.

Yet runs the Royal Road to-day,
From Sardis up to Suza town,
And still above the Rhamnian Way
The heights of Marathon look down:
Still from the blue, Ægean wave
The sea-wind sweeps with keen salt breath
The hills that saw the Spartan brave
Comb their long hair for death.

CRUSOE WAS A VAGABOND

Wise men pray for hearth and home, a comely wife to tend them,
And dread to feed the little folks that clamber on their knee;
Their fathers' fields to plough and sow--their old friends to
befriend them,
But Crusoe was a vagabond, and ran away to sea.

He strayed upon the docks of Hull, and smelt the tar and cordage,
He saw the bales of foreign ware piled high upon the quay,
He heard the seamen singing, and the outbound ship-bells ringing
Across the fog and darkness;--and he ran away to sea.

He might have dwelt by barn and dyke our fathers made before us,
And dipped his fat sheep yearly in the burn that turns the mill;
He might have heard the harvest home go up in lusty chorus,
When the last wain comes lumbering across the moonlit hill.

But he heard the loud surf thundering against the harbour wall,
The brown be-earringed sailor-men all swearing on the quay;
The salt was in his nostrils, and he cared no more at all
For barn or byre or cattle; but he ran away to sea.

The boys he knew are grey, old men, and soon their sons shall lay
them
To rest beside the little church upon the spur of hill:
The distant hum of chant and prayers, the feet of them that pray them,
The sunlight and the blackbirds' song shall be about them still.

But he's a homeless wanderer from Rio Grande to Malabar,
And God knows who shall stand by him, or what his end shall be.
The wheeling gulls shall cry his dirge, the great waves drum his
burial,
When his poor old battered body slips into the greedy sea.

_ERIC DICKINSON_
(_EXETER_)

THE GARDEN

Blessed with the green of rains, charged sweet with scent of May,
The garden paths caressed her as she walked with slow foot-fall;
Slight was her frame, but took no pressure of decay,
And age had found age beautiful as when youth gave youth all.
Far over dreamy meadows bells toll the dying sun,
And a quiet is on her spirit for the tender drooping balm
Of the evening filled with perfume the spring has swiftly won,
And the rising moon that greets her in the garden of her calm.

The ebony stick has brought her by the phlox and marigold,
And a dream of one is with her who loved this place the best of all,
Who was straight and clean of stature as Bayard was of old--
Who when the drummers beat the fields obeyed the drummers' call.
His letters breathed a brighter hope than any she had heard,
Nor any hint he gave to her that for his fairest youth
Death leapt and chattered daily, and daily was deterred
From staying all the transient joys that chased across his mouth.

The mother thrilled with sense of beauty infinite:
For here it was the lithe, strong arms had pressed her to his breast,
And his proud mouth had sealed on hers the proudest right
That lovely tenderness may plan in gardens of the West.
And so the moon grew white to silver all the lawns,
While the garden wicket grows more white because a shadow near
Has come to steal the wakened joy of any further dawns.
The hand upon the wicket trembles, the vision is not clear

Of the one woman in the garden who is so quiet and still.
At last the shadow enters and knows a form has sudden fled,
And now is lonely weeping upon a haunted hill--
For with it entered a company of France's hidden dead.
At the sound of feet she turns, while her heart has made such stir
That makes her grip her stick more close and head grow more erect:
She sees a priest's worn cassock, and priests are sore to her,
For as a child she knew they moved where life's best ships were
wrecked.

"Madame, your son is dead," said he, with lowered glance:
"But he bade them say the lilies yet are strong within the gale,
He died a hero's death for honour and for France!"
Then the mother faced and fixed his eyes, but the cheeks were
drawn and pale.
"I thank you for these words, for I see God spared him speech
Before he died, and there are mothers for whom no words atone
For speech of those they love, and whom no tidings reach.
I thank you. And now leave me, for I would be alone."

And there she sits so quiet in the light of the young moon,
While the flowers are dead, and the fruits are dead along with the
young life
That someone sped to the depth of the last dim lagoon.
But only the priest in the fields of youth hears the requiem guns
of strife.
And he knows that strife goes on and on, for ever on and on,
While the harps of the world shall play no more, nor any more
shall bring
The maids and youths to laughter until that the end be won,
And the eyes of men grow young again, and the heart of the world
can sing.

_B. EDWARDS_
(_LADY MARGARET HALL_)

THE MAN WHO HAS FORGOTTEN TIME

The ancient man who has forgotten time
Walks seldom in the hurried city street,
Where is the man who has forgotten time?
For we so seldom meet--

Only sometimes on mornings after rain,
When feathers from the passing wings of night
Linger in wide sky spaces after rain,
I see the strangest sight--

The houses by the river melt away,
And there are paths between the silent trees,
And all the city's uproar melts away
Into the hum of bees.

And by the water walks an ancient man,
Who watches how the swift-tailed squirrels climb,
And him I know to be the ancient man
Who has forgotten time.

I often meet him pacing on the hills,
Or near flat marshy wastes where no one goes,
But very seldom will he leave the hills
Or sea-cliffs that he knows.

And so I meet him rarely in the town,
But I can always tell his face again,
And sometimes I have seen him in the town
At daybreak after rain.

IN A CANOE (OXFORD)

So many things you thought you knew
Are different seen from a canoe:
On either bank the grass is far
Higher than other grasses are,
And all the willows make a roof
Fretted with branches--not aloof
Like trees in gardens and in squares
Which never hit you unawares.

_RALPH W. W. FOX_
(_MAGDALEN_)

LOVE WEEPING AMONG THE CROSSES

Cupid has broken his bow,
His arrows are shattered and lost.
Oh, look at him, look at him now,
His pinions trailing the dust!

The beautiful boy is sad,
The glory has left his glance,
You would say he had never been glad,
That his limbs did not know how to dance.
Oh, look at him, look at him now,
Hugging his broken bow,
Forlornly he wanders about
Dreaming forgotten things...
Nobody heeds him now,
Nobody hears if he sings.

Once at his wanton play
Everyone railed and laughed,
But nobody laughs to-day
For love is so far away.

Beautiful sorrowing child,
Hugging your broken bow,
Your eyes grow suddenly wild,
Anguish is twisting your face...
So changed from the Cupid's we know,
The Cupid of dimples and grace.
Cupid is down on his knees,
Down in the midst of the crosses;
His glorious, childish head
Is bowed on his lovely arms...
But the young of the world are dead
And heedless of Cupid's charms.
Oh, look at him, look at him now,
The delicate shoulders shake.
Hugging his broken bow
Cupid is weeping now.
Cupid is weeping as though
His wonderful heart would break.

ON HEARING THAT THE NAMES CARVED UPON AN OLD SCHOOL TABLE ARE TO BE REMOVED

Gaze long upon this length of lifeless deal,
Carved with rude cipher or with ill-cut name.
Here youthful hands have wrought to set their seal
Of immortality. No idle fame
For those too-soon-forgotten names they sought,
Only that others, seeing them, might say,
These too were young and here have something brought
Of youth's high heart, ere going each his way.

These names, that thus have sung the joyous song
Of youth's endeavour, now must fade and die
'Neath the cold malice that doth e'er belong
To small minds wielding blind authority.
So youth by age is ever vanquishèd
And beauty smirched and soiled when youth is dead.

THE ENVIOUS POETS

You say we are happy, being poets,
In our poor songs and tawdry tales.
I tell you it is not true.
There are those we envy above the gods,
And they are the painters and carvers.
With bright colour and cunning line
They have the power to conjure up before them
Great visions of all the loveliness they have known.
A tree, the sea at night,
A friend,
The dear face of their belovèd,
All these they can make live before them
In colour, in marble.
But what satisfaction do you think there is
In a black printed word?
I tell you we envy the painters and carvers.

_J. B. S. HALDANE_
(_NEW COLLEGE_)

COMPLAINT OF THE BLASPHEMOUS BOMBERS AT BEIT AIESSA

It was not our hand or our fathers' hand,
Nor mortal malice and the hate of men,
That drew us to this far disastrous land
Where the old primal night comes on again.
Thy hand, O God of battles, and Thy voice
Drew friend and foe into one net of hell,
Wherefore Thine angels glory and rejoice,
Thine enemies shall perish. It is well.

We who had hoped in vain that for a season
We might hold back Thy darkness from mankind,
We who had trusted and obeyed our reason,
We now are helpless and amazed and blind.
Thou hast grudged the rich his little hours of pleasure,
The little things of life that he held dear,
The worker his fireside and evening leisure:
Thou hast Thy will. One doom has drawn us here.

Therefore from this unhallowed desolation,
Where these, the victims of Thy monstrous lust,
Half-buried in the mud of their damnation,
Crumble--how slowly!--into loathsome dust,
We curse Thee, God, nor shall our sons and daughters
Fall at Thy footstool as their fathers fell,
But, tired of tears and loyalties and slaughters,
Lie down in peace and laugh at heaven and hell.

_C. R. S. HARRIS_
(_CORPUS_)

SONNET

"Cum tacet omnis ager."--VIRGIL.

Oh for the stillness of the midnight hours,
When all the earth is silent, and the breeze
Rustles no more the branches of the trees,
And makes no music in the leafy bowers,
When Nature sleeps, and all earth's myriad flowers
Folded in slumber take their dewy ease,
And hushed is all the moaning of the seas,
Lulled by the magic of enchanting powers.
For then the green earth sleeps, and for a while
Forgets her sorrow, and her heaving breast
Is sunk in a deep calm and liquid rest.
And the still waters of the silver sea,
Bathed in the glory of the moon's cold smile,
Reflect the splendour of eternity.

_B. HIGGINS_
(_B. N. C._)

GALLIPOLI: AN EPITAPH

The moan of centuries breaks around these shores,
Whispers of sultry ages, and of woes
Low-trumpeted against the arch of Heaven....

A land that bows beneath the crescent moon
And shrinks within its glinting gaze--is this
The mausoleum of our nation's dead?
Yea, for their glory gathers on this strand!
Mourn not the brave with tears. These pagan hills
Are touched with sanctity: the Voice of God
Thrills thro' the barrenness of shrivell'd fields
And lingers where these warriors lie entombed--
'Neath the vast solitudes of Asian skies,
Where sleep they in a hush of eventide,
The sea their dirge, the stars their monuments!

MELBOURNE, 1917.

EVENTIDE

A thrush throbs out his mournful melody,
And shadowy fingers of approaching Dusk
Clutch vaguely at the trees
And shroud the purple hills:

And softly sobbing noon-winds float astir,
Bedewing tearful kisses on the buds
That freeze in filmy fold:
The waters, icy-chill,

Are gurgling from their depths, and nestling birds
Stand sunset-splashed, with plumage all dismay'd,
To join the woeful chant,
The dirge of waning day.

GIPPSLAND HILLS, 1917.

_H. J. HOPE_
(_CHRIST CHURCH_)

THE PATROL

All night we prowled the stricken No Man's Land,
And the high stars looked down dispassionate.
I wondered if they could but understand
That we poor grovelling things were fighters yet.
Fighters, O God! Begrimed, intent to kill,
But starting at all the secret noises near.
We'd sent our hearts to sleep; but mind and will
Fought the cold duel with children's night-born fear.
The haunted silence quenched the stir of fight,
The tainted wind no word of courage spoke.
We turned at last: sudden the grass dew-white
Smelt as it does at home: my heart awoke.
God sent one bird to sing: the old sun came
And lit the Eastern skies with orange flame.

THE MONK'S FANCY

The old monk down by the sea-beach listening,
Thought that the waves were singing a song,
And the wheeling gulls in the sea-spray glistening
Wheeled with the music that bore them along.

Day after day by the sea-beach dreaming,
The old monk heard what the sea-song told,
And he set the tale in the great book gleaming
With beautiful colours and letters of gold.

But one word only he set to flame there,
And naught of the tale but that golden word,
And sadly said all the men that came there
That none could know what the old monk heard.

AN ALPINE PICTURE

The earth beneath this awful snow
No feet have ever trod,
These icy peaks could never know
The smile of any God.
And as I watch I know again
Cruel tales I dare not tell,
Of legions of forsaken men
Who freeze in Dante's hell.

_G. H. JOHNSTONE_
(_MERTON_)

OXFORD IN MAY

When we have snapped the chain of tranquil youth,
And run to revel in the loud World's Fair,
And straddled on the painted roundabouts,
Clapping our hands at clowns, and horns that blare;

O heart of mine, when it grows late, and all
The noisy tents flap dully on the grey
Shivers of evening, and the Showman locks
The clamorous booths, and sends the crowd away;

When we have found how terrible is age,
And how men piped for us to dance, and we
Danced, till we caught them laughing through the tune,
And turned away, sick at their mockery:

Then in the silent room, with the lamp lit,
We shall remember the still summer nights,
The gold moon rising over Magdalen Bridge,
And how the curving High was gemmed with lights.

_C. H. B. KITCHIN_
(_EXETER_)

SOMME FILM, 1916

For you at least, sweet wanderers in the dark,
There is no cause to cry from cypress-trees
To a forgetful world; since you are seen
Of all twice nightly at the cinema,
While the munition-makers clap their hands.

ESCHATOLOGICAL SONNET

Before the final darkness, side by side
We watched the huge red sun glow in the sky
Malevolently dim, longing to die,
As though his dull and sullen face would chide
Slow-footed time that forced him to abide
Unnumbered ages in death-agony,
While at our feet the sea bore sluggishly
The burden of a salt-encumbered tide.
No word we spoke, but gazed with solemn eyes
Where the last sunset slowly passed away
And left the sky a sheet of endless grey,
Seeing the world, God's careful sacrifice,
The victim of an infinite decay,
And thinking of the worm that never dies.