Chapter I: Front Matter

POEMS OF LONDON

AND OTHER VERSES

BY

JOHN PRESLAND

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1918

COPYRIGHT

CONTENTS

POEMS OF LONDON

London Dawn
Spring in Oxford Street
Judd Street, St. Pancras
Sparrows
The Moon in January
An August Night, 1914
Counted out--Olympia
The German Band
Street Music--I
Street Music--II
Piccadilly
In the Tube
London Idyll--I
A London Idyll--II
Finis

OTHER VERSES

In Early Spring
A Ballad of the Fall of Knossos
A Sun-Dial in a Garden
"Two Only"
The Saint's Birthday
Rupert Brooke
"Comfort be with Apples, for I am sick of Love"
Of England
Question
Leonardo to Monna Lisa.
The Eternal Flux
Love is the Ultimate Measure
November 8
The Lovers
The Gentle Heart
A Ballad for Herman
France
Ilgar's Song
The Inn--I
The Inn--II
"To-Day I miss You"
"How Small the Thread"
"In all Things gracious there is a Thought of You"
"There's Duty, Friend"
"Evening"
Finis

POEMS OF LONDON

LONDON DAWN

Dawn over London; all the pearly light
Trembles and quivers over street and park,
The houses are a strange, unearthly white;
Pavement and roof grow slowly, palely bright;
There is no shadow, neither light nor dark
But everything is steeped in glimmering dawn.

Oh, purity of dawn; oh, milk-and-pearl
Translucent splendour, spreading far and wide,
As on a yellow beach the small waves curl
--Almost as noiselessly as buds unfurl--
On windless mornings with the rising tide,
So flows the dawn o'er London, all asleep.

Indeed, I think that heaven is a sea,
And London is a city of old rhymes
Sunk fathoms deep in its transparency,
That folk of living lands may dream they see
And muse on, and have thoughts about our times,
How we were great and splendid, and now gone.

For never light the common earth has born,
This crystalline pale wonder that so falls
On streets and squares the daily toil has worn,
On blind-eyed houses, holding lives forlorn,
For the grey roads and wide, blank, grey-brick walls
Shine with a glory that is new and strange.

And not more wonderful, nor otherwise
Shall dawn come up upon the dewy hills,
Nor in the mountains, where the rivers rise
That water Eden; and no lovelier lies
The dawn on Paradise, than this that fills
The space 'twixt house and house with tremulous light.

Yet, on the pavement, huddled fast asleep,
A thing of dusty, ragged misery,
Grotesque in wretchedness, from London's deep
Spumed off, a strange, distorted thing to creep
From God knows where, and lie, and let all be
Unheeding, whether of the day or night.

Such tired, hopeless angles of the knees
And neck and elbows--and the dawning grey
Trembling to sunrise; in the park the trees
Begin to shiver lightly in a breeze,
And turning watchful kindly eyes away
The policeman passes slowly on his beat.

SPRING IN OXFORD STREET

A dash of rain on the pavement,
In the air a gleam of sun,
And the clouds are white, and rolling high
From Marble Arch all down the sky
--And that's the spring begun!

The sky is all a-shining
With sunniest blue and white,
The flags are streaming out full cry
As the crisp North wind comes bustling by,
And all the roofs are bright.

And all the shops and houses
Of sunlit Oxford Street,
--Pearl behind amber, gold by rose--
To grey the long perspective goes;
Till all the houses meet.

And there, in every gutter,
The glory of spring flowers
The whole long street with colour fills,
And across the yellow daffodils
Sharp sunshine and soft showers.

And among the drabs and greys and browns
Of folk going to and fro
Are trays of violets, darkly bright,
And yellow, like the spring moon's light,
Pale primrose-bunches show.

There's blue in every puddle,
And every pane of glass
Has a thousand little dancing suns,
--And up and down the glad news runs,
That spring has come to pass.

JUDD STREET, ST. PANCRAS

My dwelling has a courtyard wide
Where lord with lady well might pace,
--Such silks and velvets side by side,
And she a fan to shield her face!--
It's fine as any king's;
For there I see on either hand
The whole great stretch of London lie;
--Just so as any king might stand
Upon his roof, to watch go by
The flashing pigeon wings.

Just so a king might look abroad:
"And this is all my own," says he,
And then he'd turn to some great lord,
Who'd acquiesce with gravity
--But that I do without,
For all of lord there is up here
Is this impassive chimney-stack,
And cloudy be my view or clear
My courtier will not answer back;
All silent I look out,

And see the flight of roofs that fade
Towards the West in golden haze,
And all this work men's hands have made
Like jewels in the sun's last rays--
I have a dwelling wide;
Three rooms are mine, but I can go
Up to this roof in shade or shine,
And watch all London change and glow
Rose, purple, gold; three rooms are mine--
And all of heaven beside.

SPARROWS

Brown little, fat little, cheerful sparrows!
I like to think, when I hear them chatter,
How, when the brazen noise was gone
Of the chariot-wheels, with the sparks a-scatter,
Their chirp was heard in old Babylon.

In Babylon, and more ancient Memphis,
They chattered and quarrelled, pecked and fumed,
And loved their loves, and flew their ways,
Where the royal Pharaohs lay entombed
Deep from the daylight's vulgar gaze.

Then, just such little homely fellows
(When the angry monarch, terrible,
Watched his curled Assyrians writhe)
They sat, on a carven granite bull
Unheeding of anguish, feathered and blithe.

So did they sit, on the roofs of Rome,
And preen themselves in the morning sun;
And Caesar saw them, brown and grey,
Whisk in the dust, when his course was run
And he took to the Forum his fated way.

Oh, changing time; oh, sun and birds
How little changing. In the Square
This winter morning I have met
Old Egypt's grandson, stopped him there,
And "Sir, you will outlive me yet,"
Said I politely, "mark my words."

THE MOON IN JANUARY

Sharp and straight are the scaffold poles,
Black on a delicate sky;
Upright they stand, across they lie,
In changeless angles fixed and bound,
The sunset light in mist is drowned,
And the moon has risen high;

High above houses, high and clear
Above the scaffolding,
So exquisite, so faint a thing,
The young moon's silver curve that shines
Above the fretting, tangled lines,
With the old moon in her ring.

The young moon holds the old black moon
In a sky all grey with frost,
By cable wires barred and crossed,
And below, the haze of purplish-brown
Smokes upward from the lamp-lit town
Where outlines all are lost.

The pure pale arch of windless sky,
The pure bright young moon's thread,
These wide and still are overhead;
And in the dusky glare below
The lamps go dotting, row on row,
And there is movement, to and fro,
Where far the pavements spread.

AN AUGUST NIGHT, 1914

The light has gone from the West; the wind has gone
From the quiet trees in the Park;
From the houses the open windows yellowly shine,
The streets are softly dark;

Row upon row the twisted chimneys stand,
Each angle sharply lined,
And the mass of the Institute rises, tower and dome,
Black on the sky behind;

Green is the sky, like some strange precious stone,
Dark, it yet holds the light
In its depths, like a bright thing shrouded over or veiled
By the creeping shadow of night;

And whiter than any whiteness there is upon earth
A faint star throbs and beats--
And the hurrying voices cry the news of the war,
Below, in the quiet street.

COUNTED OUT--OLYMPIA

The small white space roped off; the hard blue light
Burning intensely on the narrow ring,
And every muscle's movement sculpturing
Harshly, of those two naked men who fight;
Beyond, the yellow lights that seem to swing
Across abysmal darkness; and below,
Tier upon tier, all silent, row on row
The dense black-coated throng, and all a-strain
White faces, turned towards the narrow stage,
Watching intently; watching, nerves and brain,
As those two men, cut off in that blue glare
From all reality of place and age
Wherein our common being has a share,
Together isolated, watch and creep
--Sunk head, hunched shoulders, light of foot and swift,
Deadly of purpose--in that ancient game,
Which was not otherwise in forests deep
Of earth primeval: that light tread the same,
The same those watchful eyes, and those quick springs
Of a snake uncoiling; underneath the skin,
Glistening with sweat in that unearthly blaze,
The muscles run and check, like living things.
And then, the hot air tremulous with the din,
And all the great crowd surging to its feet,
Yet like a wave arrested, while the hands
Of the referee allot the moments' beat;
The seconds, strung like greyhounds on a leash
Await the signal; and there's one who stands
Still guarding, watchful, tense, while all around
Lamp-light and darkness seem to rock and spin
In one wild clamour; and upon the ground,
Beneath the stark blue light, the beaten man!

THE GERMAN BAND

When I was a little child
And lived very near the sky,
A German band was wonderful music
That could almost make me cry.

It was to me of a beauty
That I could not understand,
Though I dimly guessed at sorrow and joy
In a grown-up distant land.

All that I know with the years,
Much that I never shall know,
Was in my heart when the music came
In such guise, years ago.

And now when on Friday mornings
I hear my own child run,
When the German band in the street starts playing,
The wonder is never done;

The wonder at ways that our spirit
May take for itself to rise,
How a puddle may be a silver lake,
And a chimney touch the skies.

All the forms through which spirit
Yearns and strives to be known
Are only a little greater or less,
For great is the Spirit alone.

STREET MUSIC

I

There comes an old man to our street,
Dragging his knobby, lame old feet,
Once a week he comes and stands,
A concertina in his hands,
There in the gutter stops and plays,
No matter fine or rainy days
--Very humble and very old--
Pavement's for them who make so bold!
Prim, starched nurses, and ladies fair
With taffeta dresses and shining hair,
And gay little children, who break and run
To give him a penny--he seems to feel
(Out-at-elbows and out-at-heel)
That they've a right to the morning sun;
And so with gnarled old hands he'll play
For an hour, perhaps, then take his way,
Dragging his knobby, lame old feet
In the gutter of this quiet street.

There is no grudging in his eyes,
Nor anger, nor the least surprise
At the uneven scales of fate:
Glad of the sun, against the rain
Hunching his shoulders, age and pain
He takes as his appointed state,
And stands, like Lazarus, at the door
With the dread humility of the poor.

STREET MUSIC