Chapter II: Part 2

And the murmuring palms of San Diego
Shook with stars as he passed beneath.
The Paradise palms, and the wild white orchards,
The night, and its roses, were all one breath,
Bearing the song of a nightingale seaward,
A song that had out-soared death.

COMPENSATIONS

Not with a flash that rends the blue
Shall fall the avenging sword.
Gently as the evening dew
Descends the mighty Lord.

His dreadful balances are made
To move with moon and tide;
Yet shall not mercy be afraid
Nor justice be denied.

The dreams that seemed to waste away,
The kindliness forgot,
Were singing in your heart today
Although you knew them not.

The sun shall not forget his road,
Nor the high stars their rhyme,
The traveller with the heavier load
Has one less hill to climb.

And, though a darker shadow fall
On every struggling age,
How shall it be if, after all,
He share our pilgrimage?

The end we mourn is not the end.
The dust has nimble wings.
But truth and beauty have a friend
At the deep heart of things.

He will not speak? What friend belies
His love with idle breath?
We read it in each others' eyes,
And ask no more in death.

DEAD MAN'S MORRICE

There came a crowder to the Mermaid Inn,
One dark May night,
Fiddling a tune that quelled our motley din,
With quaint delight,
It haunts me yet, as old lost airs will do,
A phantom strain:
_Look for me once, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain._

In that old wood, where ghosts of lovers walk,
At fall of day,
Gleaning such fragments of their ancient talk
As poor ghosts may,
From leaves that brushed their faces, wet with dew,
Or tears, or rain,...
_Look for me once, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain._

Have we not seen them--pale forgotten shades
That do return,
Groping for those dim paths, those fragrant glades,
Those nooks of fern,
Only to find that, of the may they knew,
No wraiths remain;
_Yet they still look, as I should look for you,
And look in vain._

They see those happier ghosts that waned away--
Whither, who knows?--
Ghosts that come back with music and the may,
And Spring's first rose,
Lover and lass, to sing the old burden through,
Stave and refrain:
_Look for me once, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain._

So, after death, if in that starless deep,
I lose your eyes,
I'll haunt familiar places. I'll not keep
Tryst in the skies.
I'll haunt the whispering elms that found us true,
The old grass-grown lane.
_Look for me there, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain._

There, as of old, under the dreaming moon,
A phantom throng
Floats through the fern, to a ghostly morrice tune,
A thin sweet song,
Hands link with hands, eyes drown in eyes anew,
Lips meet again....
_Look for me, once, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain._

THE OLD FOOL IN THE WOOD

"If I could whisper you all I know," Said the Old Fool in the Wood, "You'd never say that green leaves grow. You'd say, 'Ah, what a happy mood The Master must be in today, To think such thoughts,' That's what you'd say."

"If I could whisper you all I've heard," Said the Old Fool in the fern, "You'd never say the song of a bird. You'd say, 'I'll listen, and p'raps I'll learn One word of His joy as He passed this way, One syllable more,' That's what you'd say."

"If I could tell you all the rest," Said the Old Fool under the skies, "You'd hug your griefs against your breast And whisper with love-lit eyes, 'I am one with the sorrow that made the may, And the pulse of His heart,' That's what you'd say."

A NEW MADRIGAL TO AN OLD MELODY

(It is supposed that Shadow-of-a-Leaf uses the word "clear" in a more ancient sense of "beautiful.")

As along a dark pine-bough, in slender white mystery
The moon lay to listen, above the thick fern,
In a deep dreaming wood that is older than history
I heard a lad sing, and I stilled me to learn;
So rarely he lilted his long-forgot litany,--
_Fall, April; fall, April, in dew on our dearth!
Bring balm, and bring poppy, bring deep sleepy dittany
For Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth._

Then I drew back the branches. I saw him that chanted it.
I saw his fool's bauble. I knew his old grief.
I knew that old greenwood and the shadow that haunted it,--
My fool, my lost jester, my _Shadow-of-a-Leaf_!
And "why," I said, "why, all this while, have you left me so
Luckless in melody, lonely in mirth?"
"Oh, why," he sang, "why has this world then bereft me so
Soon of my Marian, so long laid in earth?

"In the years that are gone," he said, "love was more fortunate.
Grief was our minstrel of things that endure.
Now, ashes and dust and this world grow importunate.
Time has no sorrow that time cannot cure.
Once, we could lose, and the loss was worth cherishing.
Now, we may win, but, O, where is the worth?
Memory and true love," he whispered, "are perishing,
With Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth."

"Ah, no!" I said, "no! Since we grieve for our grief again,
Touch the old strings! Let us try the old stave!
And memory may wake, like my _Shadow-of-a-Leaf_ again,
Singing of hope, in the dark, by a grave."
So we sang it together--that long-forgot litany:--
_Fall, April; fall, April; bring new grief to birth.
Bring wild herb of grace, and bring deep healing dittany,
For Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth._

THE LOST BATTLE

It is not over yet-the fight
Where those immortal dreamers failed.
They stormed the citadels of night
And the night praised them--and prevailed.
So long ago the cause was lost
We scarce distinguish friend from foe;
But--if the dead can help it most--
The armies of the dead will grow.

The world has all our banners now,
And filched our watchwords for its own.
The world has crowned the "rebel's" brow
And millions crowd his lordly throne.
The masks have altered. Names are names;
They praise the "truth" that is not true.
The "rebel" that the world acclaims
Is not the rebel Shelley knew.

We may not build that Commonweal.
We may not reach the goal we set.
But there's a flag they dare not steal.
Forward! It is not over yet.
We shall be dust and under dust
Before we end that ancient wrong;
But here's a sword that cannot rust,
And where's the death can touch a song?

So, when our bodies rot in earth
The singing souls that once were ours,
Weaponed with light and helmed with mirth,
Shall front the kingdoms and the powers.
The ancient lie is on its throne,
And half the living still forget;
But, since the dead are all our own,
Courage, it is not over yet.

RIDDLES OF MERLIN

As I was walking
Alone by the sea,
"_What is that whisper?_"
Said Merlin to me.
"Only," I answered,
"The sigh of the wave"--
"_Oh, no_," replied Merlin,
"_'Tis the grass on your grave_."

As I lay dreaming
In churchyard ground
"_Listen_," said Merlin,
"_What is that sound_?"
"The green grass is growing,"
I answered; but he
Chuckled, "_Oh, no!
'Tis the sound of the sea_."

As I went homeward At dusk by the shore, "_What is that crimson?_" Said Merlin once more. "Only the sun," I said. "Sinking to rest"-- "_Sunset for East_," he said, "_Sunrise for West_."

THE SYMPHONY

Wonder in happy eyes
Fades, fades away:
And the angel-coloured skies
Whisper farewell.

Loveliness over the strings of the heart may stray
In fugitive melodies;
But Oh, the hand of the Master must not stay,
Even for a breath;

For to prolong one joy, or even to dwell
On one rich chord of pain,
Beyond the pulse of the song, would untune heaven
And drown the stars in death.

So youth with its love-note dies;
And beauty fades in the air,
To make the master-symphony immortal,
And find new life and deeper wonder there.

PEACE

Give me the pulse of the tide again
And the slow lapse of the leaves,
The rustling gold of a field of grain
And a bird in the nested eaves;

And a fishing-smack in the old harbour
Where all was happy and young;
And an echo or two of the songs I knew
When songs could still be sung.

For I would empty my heart of all
This world's implacable roar,
And I would turn to my home, and fall
Asleep in my home once more;

And I would forget what the cities say,
And the folly of all the wise,
And turn to my own true folk this day,
And the love in their constant eyes.

There is peace, peace, where the sea-birds wheel,
And peace in the breaking wave;
And I have a broken heart to heal,
And a broken soul to save.

THE OPEN DOOR

O Mystery of life, That, after all our strife, Defeats, mistakes, Just as, at last, we see The road to victory, The tired heart breaks.

Just as the long years give Knowledge of how to live, Life's end draws near; As if, that gift being ours, God needed our new powers In worlds elsewhere.

There, if the soul whose wings Were won in suffering, springs To life anew, Justice would have some room For hope beyond the tomb, And mercy, too.

And since, without this dream No light, no faintest gleam Answers our "why"; But earth and all its race Must pass and leave no trace On that blind sky;

Shall reason close that door On all we struggled for, Seal the soul's doom; Make of this universe One wild answering curse, One lampless tomb?

Mine be the dream, the creed That leaves for God, indeed, For God, and man, One open door whereby To prove His world no lie And crown His plan.

IMMORTAL SAILS

Now, in a breath, we'll burst those gates of gold,
And ransack heaven before our moment fails.
Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old,
We'll mount and sing and spread immortal sails.

It is not time that makes eternity.
Love and an hour may quite out-run the years,
And give us more to hear and more to see
Than life can wash away with all its tears.

Dear, when we part, at last, that sunset sky
Shall not be touched with deeper hues than this;
But we shall ride the lightning ere we die
And seize our brief infinitude of bliss,

With time to spare for all that heaven can tell, While eyes meet eyes, and look their last farewell.

THE MATIN-SONG OF FRIAR TUCK

I.

If souls could sing to heaven's high King
As blackbirds pipe on earth,
How those delicious courts would ring
With gusts of lovely mirth!
What white-robed throng could lift a song
So mellow with righteous glee
As this brown bird that all day long
Delights my hawthorn tree.
Hark! That's the thrush
With speckled breast
From yon white bush
Chaunting his best,
_Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!_

II.

If earthly dreams be touched with gleams
Of Paradisal air,
Some wings, perchance, of earth may glance
Around our slumbers there;
Some breaths of may might drift our way
With scents of leaf and loam,
Some whistling bird at dawn be heard
From those old woods of home.
Hark! That's the thrush
With speckled breast
From yon white bush
Chaunting his best,
_Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!_

III.

No King or priest shall mar my feast
Where'er my soul may range.
I have no fear of heaven's good cheer
Unless our Master change.
But when death's night is dying away,
If I might choose my bliss,
My love should say, at break of day,
With her first waking kiss:-
Hark! That's the thrush
With speckled breast,
From yon white bush
Chaunting his best,
_Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!_

FIVE CRITICISMS

I.

(_On many recent novels by the conventional unconventionalists_.)

Old Pantaloon, lean-witted, dour and rich,
After grim years of soul-destroying greed,
Weds Columbine, that April-blooded witch
"Too young" to know that gold was not her need.

Then enters Pierrot, young, rebellious, warm,
With well-lined purse, to teach the fine-souled wife
That the old fool's gold should aid a world-reform
(Confused with sex). This wrecks the old fool's life.

O, there's no doubt that Pierrot was clever,
Quick to break hearts and quench the dying flame;
But why, for his own pride, does Pierrot never
Choose his own mate, work for his own high aim,

Stand on his feet, and pay for his own tune? Why scold, cheat, rob and kill poor Pantaloon?

II.

(_On a certain goddess, acclaimed as "new" but known in Babylon._)

I saw the assembled artists of our day
Waiting for light, for music and for song.
A woman stood before them, fresh as May
And beautiful; but, in that modish throng,

None heeded her. They said, "In our first youth
Surely, long since, your hair was touched with grey."
"I do not change," she answered. "I am Truth."
"Old and banal," they sneered, and turned away.

Then came a formless thing, with breasts dyed scarlet.
The roses in her hair were green and blue.
"I am new," she said. "I change, and
Death knows why."

Then with the eyes and gesture of a harlot
She led them all forth, whinneying, "New, how new!
Tell us your name!" She answered, "The
New Lie."

III.

(_On Certain of the Bolsheviki "Idealists."_)

With half the force and thought you waste in rage
Over your neighbor's house, or heart of stone,
You might have built your own new heritage,
O fools, have you no hands, then, of your own?

Where is your pride? Is this your answer still,
This the red flag that burns above our strife,
This the new cry that rings from Pisgah hill,
"_Our neighbor's money, or our neighbor's life_"?

Be prouder. Let us build that nobler state
With our own hands, with our own muscle and brain!
Your very victories die in hymns of hate;
And your own envies are your heaviest chain.

Is there no rebel proud enough to say
"We'll stand on our own feet, and win the day"?

IV.

(_On Certain Realists._)

You with the quick sardonic eye For all the mockeries of life, Beware, in this dark masque of things that seem, Lest even that tragic irony, Which you discern in this our mortal strife, Trick you and trap you, also, with a dream.

Last night I saw a dead man borne along The city streets, passing a boisterous throng That never ceased to laugh and shout and dance: And yet, and yet, For all the poison bitter minds might brew From themes like this, I knew That the stern Truth would not permit her glance Thus to be foiled by flying straws of chance, For her keen eyes on deeper skies are set, And laws that tragic ironists forget.

She saw the dead man's life, from birth to death,-- All that he knew of love and sin and pain, Success and failure (not as this world sees), His doubts, his passions, inner loss and gain, And borne on darker tides of constant law Beyond the margin of this life she saw All that had left his body with the breath. These things, to her, were still realities.

If any mourned for him unseen, She saw them, too. If none, she'd not pretend His clay were colder, or his God less true, Or that his grave, at length, would be less green. She'd not deny The boundless depths of her eternal sky Brooding above a boundless universe, Because he seemed to man's unseeing eye Going a little further to fare worse; Nor would she assume he lacked that unseen friend Whom even the tragic ironists declare Were better than the seen, in his last end.

Oh, then, beware, beware, Lest in the strong name of "reality" You mock yourselves anew with shapes of air, Lest it be you, agnostics, who re-write The fettering creeds of night, Affirm you know your own Unknowable, And lock the wingéd soul in a new hell; Lest it be you, lip-worshippers of Truth, Who break the heart of youth; Lest it be you, the realists, who fight With shadows, and forget your own pure light; Lest it be you who, with a little shroud Snatched from the sightless faces of the dead, Hoodwink the world, and keep the mourner bowed In dust, real dust, with stones, real stones, for bread; Lest, as you look one eighth of an inch beneath The yellow skin of death, You dream yourselves discoverers of the skull That old _memento mori_ of our faith; Lest it be you who hunt a flying wraith Through this dissolving stuff of hill and cloud; Lest it be you, who, at the last, annul Your covenant with your kind; Lest it be you who darken heart and mind, Sell the strong soul in bondage to a dream, And fetter us once more to things that seem.

V

(_An Answer_)

[After reading an article in a leading London journal by an "intellectual" who attacked one of the noblest poets and greatest artists of a former century (or any century) on the ground that his high ethical standards were incompatible with the new lawlessness. This vicious lawlessness the writer described definitely, and he paid his tribute to dishonour as openly and brutally as any of the Bolsheviki could have done. I had always known that this was the real ground of the latter-day onslaught on some of the noblest literature of the past; but I had never seen it openly confessed before. The time has now surely come when, if our civilization is to make any fight at all against the new "red ruin and breaking up of laws," we must cease to belaud our slack-minded, latter-day "literature of rebellion" for its cleverness in making scraps of paper out of the plain laws of right and wrong. It has been doing this for more than twenty-five years, and the same has become fashionable among those who are too busy to read carefully or understand fully what pitfalls are being prepared for their own feet and the feet of their children.]

I

If this were true, England indeed were dead. If the wild fashion of that poisonous hour Wherein the new Salome, clothed with power, Wriggled and hissed, with hands and feet so red, Should even now demand that glorious head, Whose every word was like an English flower, Whose every song an English April shower, Whose every thought immortal wine and bread; If this were true, if England should prefer Darkness, corruption, and the adulterous crew, Shakespeare and Browning would cry shame on her, And Milton would deny the land he knew; And those who died in Flanders yesterday Would thank their God they sleep in cleaner clay.

II

It is not true. Only these "rebel" wings,
These glittering clouds of "intellectual" flies
Out of the stagnant pools of midnight rise
From the old dead creeds, with carrion-poisoned stings
They strike at noble and ignoble things,
Immortal Love with the old world's out-worn lies,
But even now, a wind from clearer skies
Dissolves in smoke their coteries and wings.

See, their divorced idealist re-divorces The wife he stole from his own stealing friend! And _these_ would pluck the high stars from their courses, And mock the fools that praise them, till the end! Well, let the whole world praise them. Truth can wait Till our new England shall unlock the gate.

III

Yes. Let the fools go paint themselves with woad,
For we've a jest between us, Truth and I.
We know that those who live by fashion die
Also by fashion, and that mode kills mode.
We know the great new age is on the road,
And death is at the heart of every lie.
But we've a jest between us, Truth and I.
And we have locked the doors to our abode.

Yet if some great new "rebel" in his pride Should pass that way and hear us laughing low Like lovers, in the darkness, side by side, He might catch this:--"The dullards do not know That names are names. New 'rebel' is old 'thrall.'" And we're the lonely dreamers after all.

THE COMPANIONS

How few are they that voyage through the night
On that eternal quest,
For that strange light beyond our light,
That rest beyond our rest.

And they who, seeking beauty, once descry
Her face, to most unknown;
Thenceforth like changelings from the sky
Must walk their road alone.

So once I dreamed. So idle was my mood;
But now, before these eyes,
From those foul trenches, black with blood,
What radiant legions rise!

And loveliness over the wounded earth awakes
Like wild-flowers in the Spring.
Out of the mortal chrysalis breaks
Immortal wing on wing.

They rise like flowers, they wander on wings of light,
Through realms beyond our ken.
The loneliest soul is companied tonight
By hosts of unknown men.

THE LITTLE ROADS

The great roads are all grown over
That seemed so firm and white.
The deep black forests have covered them.
How should I walk aright?
How should I thread these tangled mazes,
Or grope to that far off light?
I stumble round the thickets, and they turn me
Back to the thickets and the night.

Yet, sometimes, at a word, an elfin pass-word,
(O, thin, deep, sweet with beaded rain!)
There shines, through a mist of ragged-robins,
The old lost April-coloured lane,
That leads me from myself; for, at a whisper,
Where the strong limbs thrust in vain,
At a breath, if my heart help another heart,
The path shines out for me again.

A thin thread, a rambling lane for lovers
To the light of the world's one May,
Where the white dropping flakes may wet our faces
As we lift them to the bloom-bowed spray:
O Master, shall we ask Thee, then, for high-roads,
Or down upon our knees and pray
That Thou wilt ever lose us in Thy little lanes,
And lead us by a wandering way.

SUNLIGHT AND SEA

Give me the sunlight and the sea And who shall take my heaven from me?

Light of the Sun, Life of the Sun, O happy, bold companion, Whose golden laughters round me run, Making wine of the blue air With wild-rose kisses everywhere, Browning the limb, flushing the cheek, Apple-fragrant, leopard-sleek, Dancing from thy red-curtained East Like a Nautch-girl to my feast, Proud because her lord, the Spring, Praised the way those anklets ring; Or wandering like a white Greek maid Leaf-dappled through the dancing shade, Where many a green-veined leaf imprints Breast and limb with emerald tints, That softly net her silken shape But let the splendour still escape, While rosy ghosts of roses flow Over the supple rose and snow.

But sweetest, fairest is thy face, When we meet, when we embrace, Where the white sand sleeps at noon Round that lonely blue lagoon, Fringed with one white reef of coral Where the sea-birds faintly quarrel And the breakers on the reef Fade into a dream of grief, And the palm-trees overhead Whisper that all grief is dead.

Sister Sunlight, lead me then Into thy healing seas again.... For when we swim out, side by side, Like a lover with his bride, When thy lips are salt with brine, And thy wild eyes flash in mine, The music of a mightier sea Beats with my blood in harmony. I breast the primal flood of being, Too clear for speech, too near for seeing; And to his heart, new reconciled, The Eternal takes his earth-bound child.

Who the essential secret spells In those gigantic syllables,-- Flowing, ebbing, ebbing, flowing,-- Gathers wisdom past all knowing. Song of the Sea, I hear, I hear, That deeper music of the sphere, Catch the rhythm of sun and star, And know what light and darkness are; Ay, faint beginnings of a rhyme That swells beyond the tides of time; Beat with thy rhythm in blood and breath, And make one song of life and death. I hear, I hear, and rest content, Merged in the primal element, The old element whence life arose, The fount of youth, to which it goes.

Give me the sunlight and the sea And who shall take my heaven from me?

THE ROAD THROUGH CHAOS

I.

There is one road, one only, to the Light:
A narrow way, but Freedom walks therein;
A straight, firm road through Chaos and old Night,
And all these wandering Jack-o-Lents of Sin.

It is the road of Law, where Pilate stays
To hear, at last, the answer to his cry;
And mighty sages, groping through their maze
Of eager questions, hear a child reply.

_Truth? What is Truth?_ Come, look upon my tables.
Begin at your beginnings once again.
_Twice one is two!_ Though all the rest be fables,
Here's one poor glimpse of Truth to keep you sane.

For Truth, at first, is clean accord with fact, Whether in line or thought, or word, or act.

II.

Then, by those first, those clean, precise, accords,
Build to the Lord your temples and your song;
The curves of beauty, music's wedded chords
Resolving into heaven all hate and wrong.

Let harmonies of colour marry and follow
And breaking waves in a rhythmic dance ensue;
And all your thought fly free as the wings of the swallow,
Whose arrowy curves obey their measure, too.

Then shall the marching stars and tides befriend you,
And your own heart, and the world's heart, pulse in rhyme;
Then shall the mob of the passions that would rend you
Crown you their Captain and march on in time.

So shall you repossess your struggling soul, Conquer your world, and find the eternal goal.

THE NIGHT OF THE LION

"_And that a reply be received before midnight._" _British Ultimatum_.

Their Day was at twelve of the night,
When the graves give up their dead.
And still, from the City, no light
Yellows the clouds overhead.
Where the Admiral stands there's a star,
But his column is lost in the gloom;
For the brazen doors are ajar,
And the Lion awakes, and the doom.

_He is not of a chosen race.
His strength is the strength of the skies,
In whose glory all nations have place,
In whose downfall Liberty dies.
He is mighty, but he is just.
He shall live to the end of years.
He shall bring the proud to the dust.
He shall raise the weak to the spheres._

It is night on the world's great mart,
But the brooding hush is awake
With the march of a steady heart
That calls like the drum of Drake,
_Come!_ And a muttering deep
As the pulse of the distant guns,
Or the thunder before the leap
Thro' the rolling thoroughfare runs.

And the wounded men go by Like thoughts in the Lion's brain. And the clouds lift on high Like the slow waves of his mane And the narrowing lids conceal The furnaces of his eyes. Their gold is gone out. They reveal Only two search-lights of steel Steadily sweeping the skies.

And we hoped he had peace in his lair
Where the bones of old tyrannies lay,
And the skulls that his cubs have stripped bare,
The old skulls they still toss in their play.
But the tyrants are risen again,
And the last light dies from their path;
For the midnight of his mane
Lifts to the stars with his wrath.

From the East to the West he is crouching. He snuffs at the North-East wind. His breast upon Britain is couching. His haunches quiver on Ind. It is night, black night, where he lies; But a kingdom and a fleet Shall burn in his terrible eyes When he leaps, and the darkness dies With the War-gods under his feet.

_Till the day when a little child,
Shall lay but a hand on his mane,
And his eyes grow golden and mild
And he stands in the heavens again;
Till the day of the seventh seal,
Which the Lion alone shall rend,
When the stars from their courses reel,
His Freedom shall not end._

THE WAR WIDOW

I.

Black-veiled, black-gowned, she rides in bus and train,
With eyes that fill too listlessly for tears.
Her waxen hands clasp and unclasp again.
_Good News_, they cry. She neither sees nor hears.

Good News, perhaps, may crown some far-off king.
Good News may peal the glory of the state--
Good News may cause the courts of heaven to ring.
She sees a hand waved at a garden gate.

For her dull ears are tuned to other themes;
And her dim eyes can never see aright.
She glides--a ghost--through all her April dreams,
To meet his eyes at dawn, his lips at night.

Wraiths of a truth that others never knew; And yet--for her--the only truth that's true.

II.

_Good News! Good News!_ There is no way but this.
Out of the night a star begins to rise.
I know not where my soul's deep Master is;
Nor can I hear those angels in the skies;

Nor follow him, as childhood used of old,
By radiant seas, in those time-hallowed tales.
Only, at times, implacable and cold,
From this blind gloom, stand out the iron nails.

Yet, at this world's heart stands the Eternal Cross,
The ultimate frame of moon and star and sun,
Where Love with out-stretched arms, in utter loss,
Points East and West and makes the whole world one.

_Good News! Good News!_ There is no hope, no way, No truth, no life, but leads through Christmas Day.

THE BELL

The Temple Bell was out of tune, That once out-melodied sun and moon.

Instead of calling folk to prayer It spread an evil in the air.

Instead of a song, from north to south, It put a lie in the wind's mouth.

The very palms beneath it died, So harsh it jarred, so loud it lied.

Then the gods told the blue-robed bonze: "_Your Bell is only wrought of bronze._

_Lower it down, cast it again, Or you shall shake the heavens in vain._"

Then, as the mighty cauldron hissed, Men brought the wealth that no man missed.

Yea, they brought silver, they brought gold, And melted them into the seething mould.

The miser brought his greening hoard, And the king cast in his sword.

Yet, when the Bell in the Temple swung, It jarred the stars with its harsh tongue.

"_Is this your best?_" the oracle said, "_Then were you better drunk or dead._"

Once again they melted it down, And the king cast in his crown.

Then they poured wine, and bullock's blood, Into the hot, grey, seething flood.

They gave it mellowing fruits to eat, And honey-combs to make it sweet.

Yet, when they hauled it to the sky, The Bell was one star-shattering lie.

So, for the third time and the last, They lowered it down to be re-cast.

The white-hot metal seethed anew, And the crowd shrank as the heat grew;

But a white-robed woman, queenly and tall, Pressed to the brink before them all,

One breast, like a golden fruit lay bare; She held her small son feeding there.

She plucked him off, she lifted him high, Like rose-red fruit on the blue sky.

She pressed her lips to the budded feet, And murmured softly, "_Oh, sweet, my sweet._"

She whispered, "_Gods, that my land may live, I give the best that I have to give!_"

Then, then, before the throng awoke, Before one cry from their white lips broke,

She tossed him into the fiery flood, Her child, her baby, her flesh and blood.

And the crisp hissing waves closed round And melted him through without a sound.

"_Too quick for pain_," they heard her say, And she sobbed, once, and she turned away.

* * * * *

The Temple Bell, in peace and war, Keeps the measure of sun and star.

But sometimes, in the night it cries Faintly, and a voice replies:

_Mother, Oh, mother, the Bell rings true!--
You were all that I had!--Oh, mother, my mother!--
With the land and the Bell it is well. Is it well,
Is it well with the heart that had you and none other?_

SLAVE AND EMPEROR

"Our cavalry have rescued Nazareth from the enemy whose supermen described Christianity as a creed for slaves."

The Emperor mocked at Nazareth In his almighty hour. The Slave that bowed himself to death And walked with slaves in Nazareth, What were his words but wasted breath Before that "will to power"?

Yet, in the darkest hour of all, When black defeat began, The Emperor heard the mountains quake, He felt the graves beneath him shake, He watched his legions rally and break, And he whimpered as they ran.

"I hear a shout that moves the earth, A cry that wakes the dead! Will no one tell me whence they come, For all my messengers are dumb? What power is this that comes to birth And breaks my power?" he said.

Then, all around his foundering guns, Though dawn was now not far, The darkness filled with a living fear That whispered at the Emperor's ear, "_The armies of the dead draw near Beneath an eastern star._"

_The trumpet blows in Nazareth. The Slave is risen again. Across the bitter wastes of death The horsemen ride from Nazareth, And the Power we mocked as wasted breath Returns, in power, to reign; Rides on, in white, through Nazareth, To save His world again._

ON A MOUNTAIN TOP

On this high altar, fringed with ferns
That darken against the sky,
The dawn in lonely beauty burns
And all our evils die.

The struggling sea that roared below
Is quieter than the dew,
Quieter than the clouds that flow
Across the stainless blue.

On this bare crest, the angels kneel
And breathe the sweets that rise
From flowers too little to reveal
Their beauty to our eyes.

I have seen Edens on the earth
With queenly blooms arrayed;
But here the fairest come to birth,
The smallest flowers He made.

O, high above the sounding pine,
And richer, sweeter far,
The wild thyme wakes. The celandine
Looks at the morning star.

They may not see the heavens unfold.
They breathe no out-worn prayer;
But, on a mountain, as of old,
His glory fills the air.

EARLY POEMS

(_Not Published Hitherto in America_)

THE PHANTOM FLEET (1904)

The sunset lingered in the pale green West:
In rosy wastes the low soft evening star
Woke; while the last white sea-mew sought for rest;
And tawny sails came stealing o'er the bar.

But, in the hillside cottage, through the panes
The light streamed like a thin far trumpet-call,
And quickened, as with quivering battle-stains,
The printed ships that decked the parlour wall.

From oaken frames old admirals looked down:
They saw the lonely slumberer at their feet:
They saw the paper, headed _Talk from Town;
Our rusting trident, and our phantom fleet_:

And from a neighbouring tavern surged a song
Of England laughing in the face of war,
With eyes unconquerably proud and strong,
And lips triumphant from her Trafalgar.

But he, the slumberer in that glimmering room,
Saw distant waters glide and heave and gleam;
Around him in the softly coloured gloom
The pictures clustered slowly to a dream.

He saw how England, resting on her past,
Among the faded garlands of her dead,
Woke; for a whisper reached her heart at last,
And once again she raised her steel-clad head.

Her eyes were filled with sudden strange alarms;
She heard the westering waters change and chime;
She heard the distant tumult of her arms
Defeated, not by courage, but by Time.

Knowledge had made a deadlier pact with death,
Nor strength nor steel availed against that bond:
Slowly approached--and Britain held her breath--
The battle booming from the deeps beyond.

O, then what darkness rolled upon the wind, Threatening the torch that Britain held on high? Where all her navies, baffled, broken, blind, Slunk backward, snarling in their agony! _Who guards the gates of Freedom now?_ The cry Stabbed heaven! _England, the shattered ramparts fall!_ Then, like a trumpet shivering through the sky O, like white lightning rending the black pall Of heaven, an answer pealed: _Her dead shall hear that call._

Then came a distant light of great waves breaking That brought the sunset on each crumbling crest, A rumour as of buried ages waking, And mighty spirits rising from their rest; Then ghostly clouds arose, with billowing breast, White clouds that turned to sails upon their way, Red clouds that burned like flags against the West, Till even the conquering fleet in silence lay Dazed with that strange old light, and night grew bright as day.

_We come to fight for Freedom!_ The great East Heard, and was rent asunder like a veil. Host upon host out of the night increased Its towering clouds and crowded zones of sail: _England, our England, canst thou faint or fail? We come to fight for Freedom yet once more!_ This, this is ours at least! Count the great tale Of all these dead that rise to guard thy shore By right of the red life they never feared to pour.

_We come to fight for Freedom!_ On they came, One cloud of beauty sweeping the wild sea; And there, through all their thousands, flashed like flame That star-born signal of the Victory: _Duty_, that deathless lantern of the free; _Duty_, that makes a god of every man. And there was Nelson, watching silently As through the phantom fleet the message ran; And his tall frigate rushed before the stormy van.

Nelson, our Nelson, frail and maimed and blind, Stretched out his dead cold face against the foe: And England's Raleigh followed hard behind, With all his eager fighting heart aglow; Glad, glad for England's sake once more to know The old joy of battle and contempt of pain; Glad, glad to die, if England willed it so, The traitor's and the coward's death again; But hurl the world back now as once he hurled back Spain.

And there were all those others, Drake and Blake, Rodney and Howard, Byron, Collingwood; With deathless eyes aflame for England's sake, As on their ancient decks they proudly stood,-- Decks washed of old with England's purplest blood; And there, once more, each rushing oaken side Bared its dark-throated, thirsty, gleaming brood Of cannon, watched by laughing lads who died Long, long ago for England and her ancient pride.

_We come to fight for England!_ The great sea In a wild light of song began to break Round that tall phantom of the Victory And all the foam was music in her wake: Ship after phantom ship, with guns a-rake And shot-rent flags a-stream from every mast Moved in a deepening splendour, not to make A shield for England of her own dead past; But, with a living dream to arm her soul at last.

_We come to die for England_: through the hush Of gathered nations rose that regal cry, From naked oaken walls one word could crush If those vast armoured throats dared to reply: But there the most implacable enemy Felt his eyes fill with gladder, prouder tears, As Nelson's calm eternal face went by, Gazing beyond all perishable fears To some diviner goal above the waste of years.

Through the hushed fleets the vision streamed away,
Then slowly turned once more to that deep West,
While voices cried, O, England, the new day
Is dawning, but thy soul can take no rest.

Thy freedom and thy peace are only thine
By right of toil on every land and sea
And by that crimson sacrificial wine
Of thine own heart and thine own agony.

Peace is not slumber. Peace, in every hour,
Throbs like the heart of music. This alone
Can save thy heritage and confirm that power
Whereof the past is but the cushioned throne.

Look to the fleet! Again and yet again,
Hear us who storm thy heart with this one cry.
Hear us, who cannot help, though fair and fain,
To hold thy seas before thee, and to die.

Look to the fleet! Thy fleet, the first, last line:
The sword of Liberty, her strength, her shield,
Her food, her life-blood! Britain, it is thine,
Here, now, to hold that birth-right, or to yield.

So, through the dark, those phantom ships of old
Faded, it seemed, through mists of blood and tears.
Sails turned to clouds, and slowly westward rolled
The sad returning pageant of the years.
On tides of light, where all our tumults cease,
Through that rich West, the Victory returned;
And all the waves around her whispered "peace,"
And from her mast no battle-message burned.

Like clouds, like fragments of those fading skies,
The pageant passed, with all its misty spars,
While the hushed nations raised their dreaming eyes
To that great light which brings the end of wars.

Ship after ship, in some strange glory drowned,
Cloud after cloud, was lost in that deep light
Each with a sovran stillness haloed round.
Then--that high fleet of stars led on the night.

MICHAEL OAKTREE

Under an arch of glorious leaves I passed Out of the wood and saw the sickle moon Floating in daylight o'er the pale green sea.

It was the quiet hour before the sun Gathers the clouds to prayer and silently Utters his benediction on the waves That whisper round the death-bed of the day. The labourers were returning from the farms And children danced to meet them. From the doors Of cottages there came a pleasant clink Where busy hands laid out the evening meal. From smouldering elms around the village spire There soared and sank the caw of gathering rooks. The faint-flushed clouds were listening to the tale The sea tells to the sunset with one sigh. The last white wistful sea-bird sought for peace, And the last fishing-boat stole o'er the bar, And fragrant grasses, murmuring a prayer, Bowed all together to the holy west, Bowed all together thro' the golden hush, The breathing hush, the solemn scented hush, The holy, holy hush of eventide.

And, in among the ferns that crowned the hill With waving green and whispers of the wind, A boy and girl, carelessly linking hands, Into their golden dream drifted away. On that rich afternoon of scent and song Old Michael Oaktree died. It was not much He wished for; but indeed I think he longed To see the light of summer once again Blossoming o'er the far blue hills. I know He used to like his rough-hewn wooden bench Placed in the sun outside the cottage door Where in the listening stillness he could hear, Across the waving gilly-flowers that crowned His crumbling garden wall, the long low sigh Of supreme peace that whispers to the hills The sacred consolation of the sea. He did not hope for much: he longed to live Until the winter came again, he said; But on the last sweet eve of May he died.

I wandered sadly through the dreaming lanes Down to the cottage on that afternoon; For I had known old Michael Oaktree now So many years, so many happy years. When I was little he had carried me High on his back to see the harvest home, And given me many a ride upon his wagon Among the dusty scents of sun and hay. He showed me how to snare the bulky trout That lurked under the bank of yonder brook. Indeed, he taught me many a country craft, For I was apt to learn, and, as I learnt, I loved the teacher of that homely lore. Deep in my boyish heart he shared the glad Influence of the suns and winds and waves, Giving my childhood what it hungered for-- The rude earth-wisdom of the primal man.

He had retained his childhood: Death for him Had no more terror than his bed. He walked With wind and sunlight like a brother, glad Of their companionship and mutual aid. We, toilers after truth, are weaned too soon From earth's dark arms and naked barbarous breast. Too soon, too soon, we leave the golden feast, Fetter the dancing limbs and pluck the crown Of roses from the dreaming brow. We pass Our lives in most laborious idleness. For we have lost the meaning of the world; We have gone out into the night too soon; We have mistaken all the means of grace And over-rated our small power to learn. And the years move so swiftly over us: We have so little time to live in worlds Unrealised and unknown realms of joy, We are so old before we learn how vain Our effort was, how fruitlessly we cast Our Bread upon the waters, and how weak Our hearts were, but our chance desires how strong! Then, in the dark, our sense of light decays; We cannot cry to God as once we cried! Lost in the gloom, our faith, perhaps our love, Lies dead with years that never can return.

But Michael Oaktree was a man whose love Had never waned through all his eighty years. His faith was hardly faith. He seemed a part Of all that he believed in. He had lived In constant conversation with the sun, The wind, the silence and the heart of peace; In absolute communion with the Power That rules all action and all tides of thought, And all the secret courses of the stars; The Power that still establishes on earth Desire and worship, through the radiant laws Of Duty, Love and Beauty; for through these As through three portals of the self-same gate The soul of man attains infinity, And enters into Godhead. So he gained On earth a fore-taste of Nirvana, not The void of eastern dream, but the desire And goal of all of us, whether thro' lives Innumerable, by slow degrees, we near The death divine, or from this breaking body Of earthly death we flash at once to God. Through simple love and simple faith, this man Attained a height above the hope of kings.

Yet, as I softly shut the little gate And walked across the garden, all the scents Of mingling blossom ached like inmost pain Deep in my heart, I know not why. They seemed Distinct, distinct as distant evening bells Tolling, over the sea, a secret chime That breaks and breaks and breaks upon the heart In sorrow rather than in sound, a chime Strange as a streak of sunset to the moon, Strange as a rose upon a starlit grave, Strange as a smile upon a dead man's lips; A chime of melancholy, mute as death But strong as love, uttered in plangent tones Of honeysuckle, jasmine, gilly-flowers, Jonquils and aromatic musky leaves, Lilac and lilies to the rose-wreathed porch.

At last I tapped and entered and was drawn Into the bedroom of the dying man, Who lay, propped up with pillows, quietly Gazing; for through his open casement far Beyond the whispers of the gilly-flowers He saw the mellow light of eventide Hallow the west once more; and, as he gazed, I think I never saw so great a peace On any human face. There was no sound Except the slumbrous pulsing of a clock, The whisper of the garden and, far off, The sacred consolation of the sea.

His wife sat at his bed-side: she had passed Her eightieth year; her only child was dead. She had been wedded more than sixty years, And she sat gazing with the man she loved Quietly, out into that unknown Deep.

A butterfly floated into the room And back again, pausing awhile to bask And wink its painted fans on the warm sill; A bird piped in the roses and there came Into the childless mother's ears a sound Of happy laughing children, far away.

Then Michael Oaktree took his wife's thin hand Between his big rough hands. His eyes grew dark, And, as he turned to her and died, he spoke Two words of perfect faith and love--_Come soon_!

O then in all the world there was no sound Except the slumbrous pulsing of a clock, The whisper of the leaves and far away, The infinite compassion of the sea. But, as I softly passed out of the porch And walked across the garden, all the scents Of mingling blossoms ached like inmost joy, Distinct no more, but like one heavenly choir Pealing one mystic music, still and strange As voices of the holy Seraphim, One voice of adoration, mute as love, Stronger than death, and pure with wedded tones Of honeysuckle, jasmine, gilly-flowers, Jonquils and aromatic musky leaves, Lilac and lilies to the garden gate.

O then indeed I knew how closely knit To stars and flowers we are, how many means Of grace there are for those that never lose Their sense of membership in this divine Body of God; for those that all their days Have walked in quiet communion with the Life That keeps the common secret of the sun, The wind, the silence and the heart of man. There is one God, one Love, one everlasting Mystery of Incarnation, one creative Passion behind the many-coloured veil.

We have obscured God's face with partial truths, The cause of all our sorrow and sin, our wars Of force and thought, in this unheavened world. Yet, by the battle of our partial truths, The past against the present and the swift Moment of passing joy against the deep Eternal love, ever the weaker truth Falls to the stronger, till once more we near The enfolding splendour of the whole. Our God Has been too long a partial God. We are all Made in His image, men and birds and beasts, Mountains and clouds and cataracts and suns, With those great Beings above our little world, A height beyond for every depth below, Those long-forgotten Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, Existences that live and move in realms As far beyond our thought as Europe lies With all its little arts and sciences Beyond the comprehension of the worm. We are all partial images, we need What lies beyond us to complete our souls; Therefore our souls are filled with a desire And love which lead us towards the Infinity Of Godhead that awaits us each and all.

Peacefully through the dreaming lanes I went. The sun sank, and the birds were hushed. The stars Trembled like blossoms in the purple trees. But, as I paused upon the whispering hill The mellow light still lingered in the west, And dark and soft against that rosy depth A boy and girl stood knee-deep in the ferns. Dreams of the dead man's youth were in my heart, Yet I was very glad; and as the moon Brightened, they kissed; and, linking hand in hand, Down to their lamp-lit home drifted away.

Under an arch of leaves, into the gloom I went along the little woodland road, And through the breathless hedge of hawthorn heard Out of the deepening night, the long low sigh Of supreme peace that whispers to the hills The sacrament and sabbath of the sea.

TOUCHSTONE ON A BUS

Last night I rode with Touchstone on a bus From Ludgate Hill to World's End. It was he! Despite the broadcloth and the bowler hat, I knew him, Touchstone, the wild flower of folly, The whetstone of his age, the scourge of kings, The madcap morning star of elfin-land, Who used to wrap his legs around his neck For warmth on winter nights. He had slipped back, To see what men were doing in a world That should be wiser. He had watched a play, Read several books, heard men discourse of art And life; and he sat bubbling like a spring In Arden. Never did blackbird, drenched with may, Chuckle as Touchstone chuckled on that ride. _Lord, what a world! Lord, what a mad, mad world!_ Then, to the jolt and jingle of the engine, He burst into this bunch of madcap rhymes:--

THE NEW DUCKLING

I

THE NEW DUCKLING

"I want to be new," said the duckling.
"O, ho!" said the wise old owl,
While the guinea-hen cluttered off chuckling
To tell all the rest of the fowl.

"I should like a more elegant figure,"
That child of a duck went on.
"I should like to grow bigger and bigger,
Until I could swallow a swan.

"I _won't_ be the bond slave of habit,
I _won't_ have these webs on my toes.
I want to run round like a rabbit,
A rabbit as red as a rose.

"I _don't_ want to waddle like mother,
Or quack like my silly old dad.
I want to be utterly other,
And _frightfully_ modern and mad."

"Do you know," said the turkey, "you're quacking!
There's a fox creeping up thro' the rye;
And, if you're not utterly lacking,
You'll make for that duck-pond. Good-bye!"

"I won't," said the duckling. "I'll lift him
A beautiful song, like a sheep;
And when I have--as it were--biffed him,
I'll give him my feathers to keep."

Now the curious end of this fable,
So far as the rest ascertained,
Though they searched from the barn to the stable,
Was that _only his feathers remained_.