Chapter VII: Part II: The Wakers (3)

"But, Heavenly Power," I'd cry, Knowing how, near or far, He still is nigh, "When this burning flesh Is burnt away to a little driven ash, What thing soever shall rise From that cold ash unseen to unseen skies, Grant that so much of me Shall rise as may remember Thy world, and Thee."

SNOWS

Now the long-bearded chilly-fingered winter Over the green fields sweeps his cloak and leaves Its whiteness there. It caught on the wild trees, Shook whiteness on the hedges and left bare South-sloping corners and south-fronting smooth Barks of tall beeches swaying 'neath their whiteness So gently that the whiteness does not fall. The ash copse shows all white between gray poles, The oaks spread arms to catch the wandering snow. But the yews--I wondered to see their dark all white, To see the soft flakes fallen on those grave deeps, Lying there, not burnt up by the yews' slow fire. Could Time so whiten all the trembling senses, The youth, the fairness, the all-challenging strength, And load even Love's grave deeps with his barren snows? Even so. And what remains? The hills of thought That shape Time's snows and melt them and lift up Green and unchanging to the wandering stars.

THE THORN

The days of these two years like busy ants
Have gone, confused and happy and distressed,
Rich, yet sad with aching wants,
Crowded, yet lonely and unblessed.

I stare back as they vanish in a swarm,
Seeming how purposeless, how mean and vain,
Till creeping joy and brief alarm
Are gone and prick me not again.

The days are gone, yet still this heart of fire
Smouldering, smoulders on with ancient love;
And the red embers of desire
I would not, oh, nor dare remove!

Where is the bosom my head rested on,
The arms that caught my boy's head, the soft kiss?
Where is the light of your eyes gone?--
For now I know what darkness is....

It is the loneliness, the loneliness,
Since she that brought me here has left me here
With the sharp need of her to press
Sudden upon the nerve of fear;

It is the loneliness that wounds me still,
Shut from the generations that are past,
That with their blood my warm veins fill
And on my spirit their spirit cast;

That haunt me so and yet how strangely keep
Beyond communion, alone, alone,
Like that huge ancient hill asleep,
With to-day's noisy winds o'erblown.

There from the hill is sprung a single thorn,
Wind-twisted, straining from the earth to the skies,
Thin branches pleading with wild morn
And root that pressed in darkness lies.

From the unknown of earth and heaven are brought
Her strength, her weakness, death and bravest life;
Shadow and light and wind have wrought
Beauty from change, calm out of strife.

That tree upon the unchanging hill am I,
Alone upon the dark unwhispering hill:--
You in the stirless cold past lie,
But I ache warm and lonely still.

There's not a storm tossing among my boughs,
Nor gentle air drawn under quiet skies,
There's not an idle cloud that flows
Across the mind, nor bird that cries,

But says (if I have eyes, or ears to hear),
"You in this mortal being are alone."
And morn and noon and night-stars clear
Repeat, "Alone, alone, alone."

Yet the tree in wild storm her dark boughs shakes,
Thrusting her roots in the earth, her arms to heaven,
Fresh washed with dew when morning breaks;
And new light back to the light is given.

* * * * *

Is it that I that loved have yet forgot?
Is it that I that looked have yet been blind?
Longing, have yet remembered not
Nor heard you whispering in my mind?

But at a word you are nearer now than when
We sat and spoke, or merely looked and thought,
Knowing all speech superfluous then,
Since what we needed, silence brought;--

And your warm bosom my head rested on,
The arms that caught my boy's head, the soft kiss,
The brown grave eyes that gently shone--
Are here again, and brightness is.

Two years have gone, but nearer now are you,
Being dearer now; and this false loneliness
Is but a dream that cloudlike grew,
Then growing cloudlike less and less

Passes away, leaving me like the tree
Bright with the sun and wind and lingering dew;
Homely is all the world for me
Being sweeter with the sense of you.

CHANGE

Just as this wood, cast on the snaky fire, Crushes the curling heads till smoke is thickened And the ash sinks beneath the billet's weight, And then again the hissing heads are quickened: Just as this wood, by fretful fangs new stung, Glows angrily, then whitens in the grate And slowly smouldering smoulders away, And dies defeated every famished tongue And nothing's left but a memory of heat And the sunk crimson telling warmth was sweet: Just as this wood, once green with Spring's swift fire Dies to a pinch of ashes cold and gray.... Just as this wood----

BEYOND THE BARN

I rose up with the sun And climbed the hill. I saw the white mists run And shadows run Down into hollow woods.

I went with the white clouds That swept the hill. A wind struck the low hedge trees And clustering trees, And rocked in each tall elm.

The long afternoon was calm When down the hill I came, and felt the air cool, The shadows cool; And I walked on footsore,

Saying, "But two hours more, Then, the last hill.... Surely this road I know, These hills I know, All the unknown is known,

"And that barn, black and lone, High on the hill-- There the long road ends, The long day ends, And travelling is over." ...

Nor thought nor travelling's over. Here on the hill The black barn is a shivering ruin, A windy cold ruin. I must go on and on,

Where often my thought has gone, Up hill, down hill, Beyond this ruin of Time; Forgetting Time I must follow my thought still.

LET HONOUR SPEAK

Let Honour speak, for only Honour can End nobly what in nobleness began. Nor hate nor anger may, though just their cause, This strife prolong, if Honour whisper, Pause! Let Honour speak. For Honour keeps the ashes of the dead, Accounts the anguish of all widowhead, All childlessness, all sacrifice, defeat, And all our dead have died for, though to live was sweet. Let Honour speak, Nor weariness nor weakness murmur, Stay! Nor for this _Now_ England's _To be_ betray. All else be dumb, for only Honour can End nobly what in nobleness began.

TALK

So many were there talking that I heard Nothing at first quite plain, as I sat down; Until from this man's gibe and that keen word, Another's chilly smile or peevish frown, I caught their talk--but added none of mine. They said how she still fumbled with her fate, How she had banished visitants divine, How long her sleep had been, her sloth how great, How others had drawn near and passed her by, While she luxuriously had dreamed, dreamed on, She, she her own eternal enemy, And wanting brain, brain, brain would be undone. The glasses tinkled as they talked and laughed, And if the door a moment hung ajar The noises of the street, remotely soft, Crept in as from a world sunken afar. And still they talked, and then well pleased were pleased To talk of other things--another's wife, Money that ministers to a mind diseased, And queer extravagant whims of death and life.... But I rose up, flushed at the careless slander, Heedless what other laughing things were said, And my bruised thoughts began to lift and wander Far off, as from that jargoning I fled. I saw the sharp green hills, the silver clouds At rest upon the hills, the silver streams Creeping between prone shoulders of dark woods. I saw wide marshlands laved with level beams Of the last light; I saw ships on the sea That foamed hard by, stinging the fretful shore; I smelt old ships on the deserted quay That English sailors sailed, and will no more; I thought of men I loved, and of dead men I had longed to know--and each heroic ghost Rose and moved on, and left me alone again Aching for love and splendour glimpsed and lost.

God knows what things I thought when anger broke Her narrow dam and swept my spirit clean. Yet I for very shame not a word spoke, But to my heart's heart caught the things I had seen, And _England, England!_ murmuring, stood and stared, Swept like a lover with sweet influence In brain and bone--and happy that I had spared Her nobleness the indignity of defence.

THE UNDYING

In thin clear light unshadowed shapes go by Small on green fields beneath the hueless sky. They do not stay for question, do not hear Any old human speech: their tongue and ear Seem only thought, for when I spoke they stirred not And their bright minds conversing my ear heard not. --Until I slept or, musing, on a heap Of warm crisp fern lay between sense and sleep Drowsy, still clinging to a strand of thought Spider-like frail and all unconscious wrought. For thinking of that unforgettable thing, The war, that spreads a loud and shaggy wing On things most peaceful, simple, happy and bright, Until the spirit is blind though the eye is light; Thinking of all that evil, envy, hate, The cruelty most dark, most desolate; Thinking of the English dead--"How can you dead," I muttered, "with your life and young joy shed, How can you but in these new lands of life Relume the fiery passion of old strife-- Just anger, mortal hate, the natural scorn Of men true-born for all things foully born?" For I had thought that not death's touch could still In man's clean spirit the hate of good for ill.

But now to see their shapes go lightly by On those vast fields, clear 'neath the hueless sky, With not one furious gesture, and (when seen With but the broad dark hedgerow space between) No eye's disdain, no thin drawn face of grief, But pondering calm or lightened look and brief Smile almost gay;--yet all seen in the air That driv'n mist makes unreal everywhere-- "So strange," I breathed, "How can you English dead Forget them for whose life your life was shed?"

It was no voice that answered, yet plain word Less plain is than the unspoken that I heard, As I lay there on the dry heap of fern And watched them pass, mix, disappear and return, And felt their mute speech into empty senses burn: "Earth's is the strife. The Heavenly Powers that sent The gray globe spinning in the firmament, The Heavenly Powers that soon or late will stay The spinning, as a child that tires of play, And globe by spent globe put forgot away In some vast airless hollow: could they see Or seeing endure immortal misery Made out of mortal, and undying hate Earth's perishing agonies perpetuate? O spirits unhappy, if from earth men brought The mind's disease, the sickness of mad thought! Sooner the Heavenly Powers would let them lie Eternally unrising 'neath a sky Arctic and lonely, where death's starven wind Raged full-delighted:--sooner would those kind Serenities man's generation cast Back into nothingness, than heaven should waste With finite anguish infinitely prolonged Until the Eternal Spring were stained and wronged. O, even the Heavenly Powers at such a breath From mortal shores would fade and fade to death."

--Was it a voice or but a thought I heard, Mine or another's, in my boughs that stirred Waking the leafy darkness of the mind? Was it a voice, or but a new-roused wind That answered--"O, I know, I know, I know! The oldest rivers into the full sea flow And there are lost: so everything is lost, On midnight waves into oblivion tost. Yet--the high passion, the pity, the joy and pride, The righteousness for which these men have died, The courage, the uncounted sacrifice, The love and beauty, all that's beyond all price; That this, the immortal heart of mortal man, Should be--O tell me what, tell me again, again-- Petals lost on the river of the years When April sweetness pauses, fades and disappears! That this high Quarrel should be quenched in death As some vexed petty plaint unworthy breath; That the blood and the tears should never rise Renewed, accusing in grave judgment skies ... Tell me again--O, rather tell me not Lest that ill telling never be forgot."

And then I rose from that warm ferny heap And my thoughts climbed from the abyss of sleep. No more in human guise did cloud-shapes pass, Nor sighed with sad intelligence the grass. I saw the hueless sky break into blue, And I remembered how that heaven I knew When, a small child, I gazed at the great height, And thought of nothing but the blue and white, Pools of sweet blue swimming in fields of light. And as tired men from mine and stithy turn While still the midnight fires unslackened burn Flushing their road, and so reach home and then Dream of old childhood's days and dream again; So I forgot those inward fires and found Old happiness like dew lying all around. Under the hedge I stood and far below Saw on the Worcester Plain the swift clouds flow Like ships on seas no greener than the Plain That shone between October sun and rain; And thinking how time's plenteousness would bring Back and more bright the young delicious Spring, Between wet brambles thrust my hand, and tasted Ripe berries on neglected boughs that wasted.

THE NATIVE COUNTRY

Where is that country? The unresting mind Like a lapwing nears and leaves it and returns. I know those unknown hill-springs where they rise, I know the answer of the elms to the wind When the wind on their heaving bosom lies And sleeps. I know the grouping pines that crown The long green hill and fling their darkness down, A never-dying shadow; and well I know How in the late months the whole wide woodland burns Unsmoking, and the earth hangs still as still. I know the town, the hamlets and the lone Shelterless cottage where the wind's least tone Is magnified, and his far-flung thundering shout Brings near the incredible end of the world. I know! Even in sleep-walk I should linger about Those lanes, those streets sure-footed, and by the unfenced stream go, Hearing the swift waters past the locked mill flow. Where is that country? It lies in my mind, Its trees and grassy shape and white-gashed hill And springs and wind and weather; its village stone And solitary stone are in my mind; And every thought familiarly returns To find its home, and birdlike circling still Above the smouldering beeches of November And the bare elms and rattled hedgerows of December. That native country lies deep in my mind For every thought and true affection's home. And like that mental land are you become, Part of that land, and I the thought that turns Towards home. And as in that familiar land I find Myself among each tree, spring, road and hill, And at each present step my past footsteps remember; So you in all my inward being lies, In you my history, my earth and stream and skies. Your late fire is it that in my boughs yet burns, Your stone that to my passing footfall cries.