Chapter I: Know Not Whence My Poems Come

I know not why nor whence you come,
My poems. Only this I know.
You fall like petals failing down
Upon the dustbins of a town.
You fall like flakes of doubtful snow.
Like fairy flutes your musics flow.
_You thunder like a madman's drum._

You falter on my worthless lips.
You give me grapes to press for wine.
Unasked, you bring me balm and spice,
You lead me into fields of kine,
With tinted dreams and anodyne.
_You freeze my flesh with flames of ice.
You scorch my shrieking soul with whips._

LYRRIA

Lyrria is an old country.
Lost travellers tremble and call.
A very white, wan, weird country
Where never came traveller at all.

I am an old, old poet.
Lost poems tremble and call.
A very white, wan, weird poet
Who never wrote poems at all.

FARINGDON FROM SALONICA

There's a far road off to Faringdon,
Under the downs it goes;
Into the fine wood, the beech, the pine wood
The dim road shadows and glows.

My cycle hums to Faringdon,
Hums like a joyful bee,
Through dropping shy light of green tree twilight,
Music of wind and tree.

Springtime, bluebells, Faringdon,
And a cycle through all three;
Great shadow reaches of English beeches,
Downs far down to the sea.

There's a far road down to Faringdon.
There no more I ride.
The boys hear mostly a rider ghostly,
The girls they run and hide.

But that's my ghost in Faringdon,
All year cycling it goes.
Into the fine wood, the beech, the pine wood,
The dim ghost shadows and glows.

Salonica, 1916

CALL OF THE PLOVER

(To Harry Owen)

The crying of the lonely plover
From the morning cloud!
Do the wings and clouds still hover
Where my heart sang loud?

O the valley and the stream there.
Where we shouted, being young!
Are there boys still dream a dream there,
Are the boys' songs sung?

O the winds that once blew round us,
O the sun! the rain!
Shall the ancient spells that bound us,
Bind us ever again?

O a great Word then was spoken,
Then was a boy's will clean and strong!
Is the boy's will broken
That went straight along?

O our ageing ears are ringing
With many sad things!
Shall we come again with singing
Where the plover sings?

CLOUD END

THE GALLANT ROAD

(For my School--without permission)

Grant us, O Lord, to do the thing
Clean men and boys have always done;
These works to do, these songs to sing,
The gallant road to run.

Grant us, O Lord, that we go straight
Along the path where shines the sun;
These things to love, these things to hate,
The gallant road to run.

Grant us, O Lord, to win the fight
That all the cleanly hearts have won,
Having sure feet, even at night
The gallant road to run.

Grant us, O Lord, when Death enfold,
That we take Death as half in fun;
Like men and boys that knew of old
The gallant road to run.

1915

THE QUEST

"I have sought you," I said; "I have
found you," I said, "in the pitch of your
intimate midnight lair."
He drew back with a sob like the swish of a
stick thro' the smarting air.

"I have moved like Death on deliberate
feet thro' a thousand towns and a hundred lands.
Thinking you found, I have squeezed men's
throats with pulsing, twitching, inquisitive hands.

"But the fire that waned in their blood-starred
eyes was not the flame of the fire I sought,
And I went my way with the sword in my
heart and the sword in my hand of passion
and thought.

"My blood spurted over the boulders of far
intolerant mountains of iron and ice,
But never in crevice or cave or chasm I found
the flesh of my sacrifice.

"I burned with the wrath of a wind from hell
thro' molten deserts panting and pent;
But ever my foeman fled me afar, the sinister
goal of my intent.

"I have sought you," I said, "I have found
you," I said; "we shall die together, for
I am you."
The foam and fever oozed out of my forehead,
with a dew like blood, with a blood like dew.

He wailed like a child that recoils from a
shadow that moves with menace over his bed;
But I pierced my heart with the sword in my
hand, and his body at last lay stretched
and dead.

HAVING FINISHED "JUDE THE OBSCURE"

Such purposeless and iron wings
Obscure our mortal music quite?
Such gloom to monstrous gloom outflings
The stenches of a churchyard night?

We are no more for God or Sin
Than parasites in rotting hair,
No different but only in
The boundlessness of our despair?

Glories have sprung before our gaze
From the wet wood the grey tide warps!
We have heard peals of music blaze
Sheer from the cold heart of a corpse!

GHOST AND BODY

I that am wiser than most,
Have yielded the tract of my ghost
To a panting and flat-eyed ghost who gathers these useless things.
In a country of seventeen moons,
He sits in the sound of bassoons
Playing terrible stupid tunes to the first of the ghostial kings.

He has gathered my ghost with the rest
To plough it, or do what is best,
And doubtless he does it with zest in the country whereover
he reigns.
I am glad--for the thing was a pest;
It lay at the roots of my chest,
And it darkened the East and the West and it plastered
my eyes with stains.

But heigh-ho! my arms and my feet
Now are mine as I swing down the street,
And my heart for to storm and to beat whenever my body desires.
My eyes will look when they please
Down the drains or high to the trees.
My body is mine to freeze or shrivel with whitest fires!

GALLOP

My drunken head is a whirl of song,
My heart is a drumstick beating time.
My pen goes swiftly galloping along
The echoing roads of rhythm and rhyme.

The stars are dizzy, for they circle in a ring.
Round about the Pole Star all hold hands.
The moon lifts her skirts up to do a giddy fling,
The trees in the forest dance in big black bands.

The river is bounding from place to place,
The fishes in the cold air rise and shine.
The parallel hedgerows are running in a race,
For each of them and all of them are drunk with wine.

The grand old buildings, alas and woe is me!
Sway about unsteadily from side to side.
The streets are moreover crooked things to see;
There is no object anywhere will stand and bide.

The goblins are assembled in a mad-moon crowd
Upon the hazy summit of the palpitating hill.
Let the things that have no voice shout out loud!
Let them dance, the fickle things, and have their fill!

And if again they will not sub-subside,
(For round-around-around ho! and dance shall we!)
The road of the rebel stars is cool and wide,
The mad waves dance on the sea!

Then beat like thunder heart, then! round go head!
The red stars swing in time.
For soon enough, the Lord knows, shall I be dead,
And dead my rhythm and rhyme!

OXFORD

WE LADS WHO BARTER RHYMES

There's some be red of face, they be,
Like jolly suns in harvest times,
And some be haggard men to see,
Because of certain hidden crimes.
But let us sing with one accord
That we're the chosen of the Lord,
We lads who barter rhymes.

There's some so tall and fair and free,
Like policemen in their leisure times,
And some are like a wizened pea,
Some worth no more than twenty dimes.
But here's our sober view expressed,
We're three times better than the best,
We lads who barter rhymes.

WHO KNOWS ME?

Who knows me? None knows me.
I hobble on two blistered feet
Round the corner, down the street.
Now and then a child will cry,
Seeing a strange thing in my eye,
A Bogey Man, a Thing of Dread,
Stand from each eye in my head.
Now and then a baby 'll smile,
--But that's only once a while.
Boys of thirteen all throw stones
At my stiff and creaky bones.
Middle-aged people, fat and bright,
Shrug and sniff "It serves him right."
Round the corner, out of sight,
Down the Street, across the Night.

Who knows me? None knows me.
I am young and I am proud,
Strong as sun and pure as cloud.
All the five seas wash my veins
With stinging foam and swinging rains.
With the white stars I commune
In a silent spheric tune.
Who knows me? None knows me.
Only but a brown Bird,
Only but a little Child,
A little Child, a little Bird,
Only they know me.

JUDÆUS ERRANS

He hath no place to rest his head.
O happy nations, weep indeed.
He is forlorn till he be dead.
O pity him his wretched meed,
His wounds that bleed.

There is no resting in his eyes,
And he hath scars upon his feet.
He is a stranger to all skies.
He walks sad-eyed along the street,
And shadow-wise.

For with the dawn must he depart,
And with the sunset make his way.
All day he bears an aching heart,
All night his aching sorrows stay,
Yea, night and day.

Then look a moment as he goes,
A little sadly, in his eyes.
For there are written all the woes,
And a surprise.
For he is sadder than God knows.

COLD STARS

Cold night, cold with pointed stars
That swing like instant scimitars,
How you reproach with acid fire
The smoky lamps of our desire.

Cold stars, inexorably aloof,
That freeze from Vision's dizziest roof,
On these our human sins you brood
In pride of glacial rectitude.

Cold stars, come down and walk along
Our avenues of Sense and Song;
Take human shape one night and vex
Your bowels with the scourge of sex.

When you return at last to those
Cold skies from whence your travel rose,
Will you still stare with such disdain,
When you, cold stars, are stars again?

REACTIONARY

My heart's blood leaps high, O my Lady, in a
fountain of restless aspiring.
That you should dangle within it the dissolute
gold of your hair.
I have shattered the doors of my spirit that
you might thereinto retiring
Reposefully lie on my pain and reflect that
the morning is fair.

You may go to the devil, my Lady, yourself
and the rest of your species!
I mean it, O desperate damsel, O Lady most
anxious and coy!
I shall retire to my chamber to see that my
clothes are in creases,
For I see by the tilt of your brow the minuteness
of brain you enjoy.

You have set the clear bells of my spirit to
crack in a dissonant jangle.
You are fair in your way, O my Lady, but rather
oppressively sexed.
There is no such fatal mistake as a primitive
facial angle.
Good-bye, O my dispossessed Lady, remember
my name to the next.

LATE

I am very desolate.
I am afraid.
I am alone.
The shadows wait
Till I am laid
Beneath a stone.

I am very desolate.
I can hear feet.
I can see ghosts.
Fear's by the gate,
Death's in the street
By the dark posts.

I am very desolate.
What have I made
Of the dead time?
The night is late.
I am afraid
Of my own rhyme.

WIND OF BLACK NIGHT

I would go where you go,
You sole monarch that I know.
Wind, wind of black night,
I would go with your delight.
Take me by my streaming hair,
Take me where in the air
Planets meet, stars fight.

I have need of the speed
Of your thunder-shattering steed.
Wind, wind of black night,
I would battle with your might.
Take me by my soaring mind.
No more blind, I shall find
Hell's depth and sky's height.

I would follow where you lead,
Freed, freed of sense and creed.
Wind, wind of black night,
I would see with your sight.
Take me by my burning soul,
Stark, whole, to God my goal,
Clean darkness, sheer light.

YELLOW SATINS

(To Janey Golding)

When I am rich, mother,
You will sit in satins,
Yellow satins, looking out upon the street.
You will smile out on the neighbours,
Who will have no yellow satins;
And there'll be a great big hassock to rest your tired feet.

You'll have a gold-clasped family album,
And a grand piano in the corner;
But yellow satins, yellow satins, I have chiefly dreamed of them.
And the most wonderful silk-lined work-box,
With the clothes of my first baby,
For your dear pale fingers to hem.

And the neighbours will come to see you,
And pretend not to be looking
At the wonderful yellow satins, till I take you away to bed.
But in dreaming of the yellow satins,
I have forgotten, I have forgotten....
Isn't it seven years, little mother, since you've been dead?

MY MOTHER'S PORTRAIT

Dost thou turn thine eyes away from me,
thy stern and gentle eyes,
From the error of my living days, O thou in
Death most wise?
O thou in Death most wise,
With thy stern and gentle eyes,
Then is thy sleep disturbed by doubt, thy
coffin by surprise?

Have I not trodden then the ways which thou
wouldst have me tread?
Then was it but a wind of words, the passioned
vows I said?
The passioned vows I said,
The ways which I should tread,
So have I quite forgotten these now thou art
safely dead?

Unless I take thy buried lips my final word to say,
Unless I take thy crumbled eyes to light my tangled way,
To light my tangled way,
My final word to say,
Suddenly, Death, come down in flame and
shrive me from the day!

TO A. L. O.

My soul is a white flame that has burned longer
Than Mars or Aldebaran or all the stars,
And gentler than a snowdrop, and far stronger
Than all the steel of its containing bars.
In cosmic triumphs upon timeless cars
My lordly soul hath lain. My soul is younger
Than the new-fallen dews in flowery jars:
My soul, my godly food, my godly hunger.

Where shall I place my soul for most safe keeping
From boisterous intention and omnivorous wave?
And sow it in what field for goodliest reaping,
From night to shield it and from sins to save?
Thou art my treasure-house, awake or sleeping,
Or wind-free in meadows or in the obscure grave.

THE DARK KNIGHT OF THE ROAD

Three tall poplars are his plumes,
The Dark Knight of the Road.
And he is cuirassed round with glooms,
And all his stern abode
Is loud with seas and dooms.

A rock he takes to be his shield.
Loud winds his clarions are.
Should banded warriors take the field,
Though strong troops come from far,
Naught know they but to yield.

But if a sparrow taunt his helm,
Froth-like his power is blown.
Him shall the mating thrush o'erwhelm.
Yea, I have even known
Tom-tit usurp his realm.

TO THE SWIFT

Swift, feathered lightning, swift,
Flesh of flame, wind-fleet,
God who gave you your good gift
Gave me only two slow feet.

Countries merge within the span
Of your single hour's essay.
I being but a wingless man
Plod my score of miles a day.

Fading into blankness now,
Song that flies and flight that sings,
I am chained to clay, but thou,
Winds are leashed around thy wings.

Art thou faded, swift? then see,
Poet where the swift shall halt,
Poet see the sun assault
The stone towers of Finity.

Swift, dreamless atom, clod,
Swift, thou art slower than
Any eyeless, limbless man.
Him his soul shall drive to God.

FRESHWATER

GREEN WIND

The wind of course is Green.
There is no other word
For what no man has seen
And every man has heard.

It's neither man nor fowl,
And neither fish nor beast.
But it comes out of the West
And goes into the East.

It never was defined
By instrument or mouth.
But it comes out of the North
And goes into the South.

The wind it is a Green Thing
That swishes thro' the corn,
And shouts you to praise loudly
The day that you were born.

The wind it is a Wise Thing
That rumbles thro' the beech,
And bids you to learn there
A wisdom it can teach.

The wind's as Green as Greenness
Possibly can be,
And lashes to a foam of Green
The deepest bluest sea.

And even in the grassless towns,
The murky streets and mean,
Along the greys, behind the browns,
It sings a Song of Green.

And whither does it go then,
And whence does it come forth?
It comes out of the South,
And goes into the North.

It comes out of the East,
And goes into the West,
And why the wind is Green as Green,
God alone knows best.

THE MIDMOST FIELD IN KENT

There is a time of charm and chime,
And this is Sabbath evening time.
There is a place of dear content,
This is the midmost field in Kent.
This is the time and this the place
Where boughs droop down with dews of grace;
Where under hedges hung with sleep,
Through atmospheres of music creep
Sheep like ghosts and ghosts like sheep.
Here a great Lord of Magic comes
Fanfarronading with far drums,
And deep athwart the night he throws
His banners of white fire and rose.
From the great town unto the sea,
He thunders through his empiry.
But when his drums are heard no more,
The quiet is quiet as before.
And there's a drowsy dreamy scent
Drenches the midmost field in Kent.
Neither more quickly nor more slow,
Shadows come, shadows go.
Shadows that reap while others sow,
Shadows that sow while others reap,
Shadows whose windy singings keep,
Sheep like ghosts and ghosts like sheep.

MURMURYNGEHAM

In Murmuryngeham, in Murmuryngeham,
The bees is always singing,
The flowers is always chiming,
The sheep stands on their head.
There's lads and lasses clinging,
And minor poets rhyming,
In Murmuryngeham, in Murmuryngeham,
When they should be in bed.
So now my feet is winging,
When other men's are climbing,
To Murmuryngeham, which I shall find
If my good Patron be inclined,
Murmuryngeham, Murmuryngeham,
Some day before I'm dead.

WINCHESTER DOWNS

In Winchester on the white downs
This is not mist at all,
But the thin silk of fairy gowns
Which is not woven in the towns
And all behind a wall.

In Winchester, be taught of me,
The fairies seize your wrist.
Their gowns are caught in every tree;
--But if you have no eyes to see,
Then sure, it's only mist.

CYCLING IN OCTOBER

O the wind blowing round me, the wind
blowing round me, the same wind that
blew when the grey world was green!
The high hills before me, the brown hills before
me, that stand in their places where Death
has not been.
The blue sky over my head is singing, is singing,
is singing, as loudly as I.
For Death was only a seeming, a dreaming,
and Life is as clouds that fade and fly.
The strong hills vanish, as thin clouds vanish,
as I shall vanish, my dream, my pain;
But all my dreams and I the dreamer, clouds
and hills shall sing again.
Then birds of October, hills of October, winds
of October, wrap me round.
Carry me forward, road of October, sped on
the wheels of light and sound.
For the birds are on wings now and I am on
wings now over the white road the dead
men trod.
And there are no dead men, there are no dead
men, but living men only and dead men
are God!

THE SHEPHERD

"Ah me," the shepherd said
Who dwelt beside a fold
Upon the Northern hills.
"Ah me, 'tis bitter cold,
My oldest friends be dead.
And O a humming fills
My nid-nod-nodding head."

The guns lie in the beams.
The shepherd feeds the fire
With fingers old and numb.
The lamplight flickers higher.
A double winter seems
Surely to have come.
The old friends hover nigher
In simple shepherd dreams.

The frost lies on the fells.
The moon's a great white flower.
The stars have cruel hearts.
And loud and very clear,
With sudden silly starts,
The old clock ticks and tells
The changing of the hour.
But the shepherd hears the bells
No other man may hear.

A look's within his eyes
I have not seen before
In shepherd North or South.
The old head sinketh lower.
The shadows fall and rise
Along the earthen floor.
--God wot, he'll go no more
Beneath the windy skies.

No more the shepherd will
Lead down the misty scars
The small sheep frail and lost,
Nor thread the bracken hill
Singing a shepherd's rune.
The moorland wind is still,
Beneath the ancient moon.
The fells are white with frost.
The white peaks touch the stars.

DERWENTWATER

(To J. L. Paton)

God give me Derwentwater when I die.
Let no one else be by
To say prayers over me or close my eye.

On Friar's Crag my body will lie down.
On green grass and earth brown.
I will forget the fever and the town.

Over the tops of ancient Borrowdale,
Slowly the clouds will sail
Through great sky spaces, exquisite and frail.

And grandly will the flames of heather climb
Up Skiddaw-Hill sublime,
With head unbowed before the knees of time.

Thro' the still dusk a little bird will sing
Sweetly a holy thing,
And fade in silence on a drowsy wing.

The winds will pass along the quiet lake,
And God will gently take
My own breath with them for His Godhead's sake.

"I VOWED THAT I WOULD BE A TREE"

I vowed that I would be a tree.
I went up to an oak and said,
"What shall I do that I might be
A beech, an oak, or any tree,
With branches leafing from my head?"

There was a sound of sap that ran,
There was a wind of leaves that spoke.
"So you would cease to be a man,
And be a green tree, if you can,
A pine, a beech, an oak?"

I answered, "I am tired of men,
As tired as they of me.
I fain would not return again
To the perplexity of men,
But straightway be a tree."

There was a sound of winds that went
To summon every oldest tree,
To hold their austere Parliament
About the thing had craved to be
Elect of their calm company.

There was a sound of bursting tide,
There was a wash of clanging foam,
A crumbling shore, a bursting tide.
There came a thunder that outcried,
"Go, wretched mortal, get thee home!

"Who art thou that would be a tree,
Least of the weeds that shoot and pass?
Bide till a Wisdom come, and see
Before a mortal be a tree,
He first must be a blade of grass!"

WOUNDED SOLDIERS

Have you no arms, soldier?
See, I have two.
Whatever deeds for arms there be,
These still I can do.
Out of clay I still can make
Living things like me and you.
I still can cleave the lake
With strong arms true.

Have you no feet, soldier,
No feet at all?
I still have feet to climb
Oak-tree and tall.
Still as in our boyhood,
I leap the hedge and climb the wall.
Still my feet will chase the Spring
When birds call.

Have you no eyes, soldier,
Keen eyes like me?
My eyes still have light that draw
Strength from the great sea.
O soldier, is it hard to lose
The first Spring-whisper on the tree,
Sun foaming round the love you choose,
Whosoever she?

Ah! but you have something, soldier,
Never we shall know.
You shall hear the holy winds
We can not hear blow.
From your garden-soul shall start
Flowers of flaming snow.
There's the secret at your heart
Never we shall know.

STILL LIFE IN FRANCE

Sweet peas drooping in a vase
Like the tears of Niobe,
Poppies like the cheeks of Mars
Kissing the Aphrodite.

Pansies like a dryad's eyes,
Open-wide and half-afraid,
Like unfolded butterflies
In a little Tempe glade.

* * * * *

Flowers and words might be my toys
Half a drowsy summer day,
But at night I hear the noise
Of bombardment far away.

Very quiet I am then,
Like a moon-enchanted boy,
As I see the khaki men
Storm the granite walls of Troy.

HARFLEUR, 1917