So blazing gaily red Against the luminous deeps Of starless London night, They burn for my delight: While somewhere, snug in bed, A worn old woman sleeps.

And yet to-morrow will these blooms be dead With all their lively beauty; and to-morrow May end the light lusts and the heavy sorrow Of that old body with the nodding head. The last oath muttered, the last pint drained deep, She'll sink, as Cleopatra sank, to sleep; Nor need to barter blossoms for a bed.



DEVIL'S EDGE

All night I lay on Devil's Edge, Along an overhanging ledge Between the sky and sea: And as I rested 'waiting sleep, The windless sky and soundless deep In one dim, blue infinity Of starry peace encompassed me.

And I remembered, drowsily, How 'mid the hills last night I'd lain Beside a singing moorland burn; And waked at dawn, to feel the rain Fall on my face, as on the fern That drooped about my heather-bed; And how by noon the wind had blown The last grey shred from out the sky, And blew my homespun jacket dry, As I stood on the topmost stone That crowns the cairn on Hawkshaw Head, And caught a gleam of far-off sea; And heard the wind sing in the bent Like those far waters calling me: When, my heart answering to the call, I followed down the seaward stream, By silent pool and singing fall; Till with a quiet, keen content, I watched the sun, a crimson ball, Shoot through grey seas a fiery gleam, Then sink in opal deeps from sight.

And with the coming on of night, The wind had dropped: and as I lay, Retracing all the happy day, And gazing long and dreamily Across the dim, unsounding sea, Over the far horizon came A sudden sail of amber flame; And soon the new moon rode on high Through cloudless deeps of crystal sky.

Too holy seemed the night for sleep; And yet, I must have slept, it seems; For, suddenly, I woke to hear A strange voice singing, shrill and clear, Down in a gully black and deep That cleft the beetling crag in twain. It seemed the very voice of dreams That drive hag-ridden souls in fear Through echoing, unearthly vales, To plunge in black, slow-crawling streams, Seeking to drown that cry, in vain ... Or some sea creature's voice that wails Through blind, white banks of fog unlifting To God-forgotten sailors drifting Rudderless to death ... And as I heard, Though no wind stirred, An icy breath Was in my hair ... And clutched my heart with cold despair ... But, as the wild song died away, There came a faltering break That shivered to a sobbing fall; And seemed half-human, after all ...

And yet, what foot could find a track In that deep gully, sheer and black ... And singing wildly in the night! So, wondering I lay awake, Until the coming of the light Brought day's familiar presence back.

Down by the harbour-mouth that day. A fisher told the tale to me. Three months before, while out at sea, Young Philip Burn was lost, though how, None knew, and none would ever know. The boat becalmed at noonday lay ... And not a ripple on the sea ... And Philip standing in the bow, When his six comrades went below To sleep away an hour or so, Dog-tired with working day and night, While he kept watch ... and not a sound They heard, until, at set of sun They woke; and coming up they found The deck was empty, Philip gone ... Yet not another boat in sight ... And not a ripple on the sea. How he had vanished, none could tell. They only knew the lad was dead They'd left but now, alive and well ... And he, poor fellow, newly-wed ... And when they broke the news to her, She spoke no word to anyone: But sat all day, and would not stir— Just staring, staring in the fire, With eyes that never seemed to tire; Until, at last, the day was done, And darkness came; when she would rise, And seek the door with queer, wild eyes; And wander singing all the night Unearthly songs beside the sea: But always the first blink of light Would find her back at her own door.

'Twas Winter when I came once more To that old village by the shore; And as, at night, I climbed the street, I heard a singing, low and sweet, Within a cottage near at hand: And I was glad awhile to stand And listen by the glowing pane: And as I hearkened, that sweet strain Brought back the night when I had lain Awake on Devil's Edge ... And now I knew the voice again, So different, free of pain and fear— Its terror turned to tenderness— And yet the same voice none the less, Though singing now so true and clear: And drawing nigh the window-ledge, I watched the mother sing to rest The baby snuggling to her breast.



* * * * *



D.H. LAWRENCE



SNAP-DRAGON

She bade me follow to her garden where The mellow sunlight stood as in a cup Between the old grey walls; I did not dare To raise my face, I did not dare look up Lest her bright eyes like sparrows should fly in My windows of discovery and shrill 'Sin!'

So with a downcast mien and laughing voice I followed, followed the swing of her white dress That rocked in a lilt along: I watched the poise Of her feet as they flew for a space, then paused to press The grass deep down with the royal burden of her: And gladly I'd offered my breast to the tread of her.

'I like to see,' she said, and she crouched her down, She sunk into my sight like a settling bird; And her bosom couched in the confines of her gown Like heavy birds at rest there, softly stirred By her measured breaths: 'I like to see,' said she, 'The snap-dragon put out his tongue at me.'

She laughed, she reached her hand out to the flower Closing its crimson throat: my own throat in her power Strangled, my heart swelled up so full As if it would burst its wineskin in my throat, Choke me in my own crimson; I watched her pull The gorge of the gaping flower, till the blood did float

Over my eyes and I was blind— Her large brown hand stretched over The windows of my mind, And in the dark I did discover Things I was out to find: My grail, a brown bowl twined With swollen veins that met in the wrist, Under whose brown the amethyst I longed to taste: and I longed to turn My heart's red measure in her cup, I longed to feel my hot blood burn With the lambent amethyst in her cup.

Then suddenly she looked up And I was blind in a tawny-gold day Till she took her eyes away.

So she came down from above And emptied my heart of love ... So I held my heart aloft To the cuckoo that fluttered above, And she settled soft.

It seemed that I and the morning world Were pressed cup-shape to take this reiver Bird who was weary to have furled Her wings on us, As we were weary to receive her:

This bird, this rich Sumptuous central grain, This mutable witch, This one refrain. This laugh in the fight, This clot of light, This core of night.

She spoke, and I closed my eyes To shut hallucinations out. I echoed with surprise Hearing my mere lips shout The answer they did devise.

Again, I saw a brown bird hover Over the flowers at my feet; I felt a brown bird hover Over my heart, and sweet Its shadow lay on my heart. I thought I saw on the clover A brown bee pulling apart The closed flesh of the clover And burrowing in its heart.

She moved her hand, and again I felt the brown bird hover Over my heart ... and then The bird came down on my heart, As on a nest the rover Cuckoo comes, and shoves over The brim each careful part Of love, takes possession and settles her down, With her wings and her feathers does drown The nest in a heat of love.

She turned her flushed face to me for the glint Of a moment. 'See,' she laughed, 'if you also Can make them yawn.' I put my hand to the dint In the flower's throat, and the flower gaped wide with woe. She watched, she went of a sudden intensely still, She watched my hand, and I let her watch her fill.

I pressed the wretched, throttled flower between My fingers, till its head lay back, its fangs Poised at her: like a weapon my hand stood white and keen, And I held the choked flower-serpent in its pangs Of mordant anguish till she ceased to laugh, Until her pride's flag, smitten, cleaved down to the staff.

She hid her face, she murmured between her lips The low word 'Don't!' I let the flower fall, But held my hand afloat still towards the slips Of blossom she fingered, and my crisp fingers all Put forth to her: she did not move, nor I, For my hand like a snake watched hers that could not fly. Then I laughed in the dark of my heart, I did exult Like a sudden chuckling of music: I bade her eyes Meet mine, I opened her helpless eyes to consult Their fear, their shame, their joy that underlies Defeat in such a battle: in the dark of her eyes My heart was fierce to make her laughter rise ... Till her dark deeps shook with convulsive thrills, and the dark Of her spirit wavered like water thrilled with light, And my heart leaped up in longing to plunge its stark Fervour within the pool of her twilight: Within her spacious gloom, in the mystery Of her barbarous soul, to grope with ecstasy ...

And I do not care though the large hands of revenge Shall get my throat at last—shall get it soon, If the joy that they are lifted to avenge Have risen red on my night as a harvest moon, Which even Death can only put out for me, And death I know is better than not-to-be.



* * * * *



JOHN MASEFIELD



BIOGRAPHY

When I am buried, all my thoughts and acts Will be reduced to lists of dates and facts, And long before this wandering flesh is rotten The dates which made me will be all forgotten; And none will know the gleam there used to be About the feast days freshly kept by me, But men will call the golden hour of bliss 'About this time,' or 'shortly after this.'

Men do not heed the rungs by which men climb Those glittering steps, those milestones upon time, Those tombstones of dead selves, those hours of birth, Those moments of the soul in years of earth. They mark the height achieved, the main result, The power of freedom in the perished cult, The power of boredom in the dead man's deeds Not the bright moments of the sprinkled seeds.

By many waters and on many ways I have known golden instants and bright days; The day on which, beneath an arching sail, I saw the Cordilleras and gave hail; The summer day on which in heart's delight I saw the Swansea Mumbles bursting white, The glittering day when all the waves wore flags And the ship Wanderer came with sails in rags; That curlew-calling time in Irish dusk When life became more splendid than its husk, When the rent chapel on the brae at Slains Shone with a doorway opening beyond brains; The dawn when, with a brace-block's creaking cry, Out of the mist a little barque slipped by, Spilling the mist with changing gleams of red, Then gone, with one raised hand and one turned head; The howling evening when the spindrift's mists Broke to display the four Evangelists, Snow-capped, divinely granite, lashed by breakers, Wind-beaten bones of long-since-buried acres; The night alone near water when I heard All the sea's spirit spoken by a bird; The English dusk when I beheld once more (With eyes so changed) the ship, the citied shore, The lines of masts, the streets so cheerly trod In happier seasons, and gave thanks to God. All had their beauty, their bright moments' gift, Their something caught from Time, the ever-swift.

All of those gleams were golden; but life's hands Have given more constant gifts in changing lands; And when I count those gifts, I think them such As no man's bounty could have bettered much: The gift of country life, near hills and woods Where happy waters sing in solitudes, The gift of being near ships, of seeing each day A city of ships with great ships under weigh, The great street paved with water, filled with shipping, And all the world's flags flying and seagulls dipping.

Yet when I am dust my penman may not know Those water-trampling ships which made me glow, But think my wonder mad and fail to find, Their glory, even dimly, from my mind, And yet they made me: not alone the ships But men hard-palmed from tallying-on to whips, The two close friends of nearly twenty years Sea-followers both, sea-wrestlers and sea-peers, Whose feet with mine wore many a bolthead bright Treading the decks beneath the riding light. Yet death will make that warmth of friendship cold, And who'll know what one said and what one told, Our hearts' communion, and the broken spells When the loud call blew at the strike of bells? No one, I know, yet let me be believed— A soul entirely known is life achieved.

Years blank with hardship never speak a word Live in the soul to make the being stirred; Towns can be prisons where the spirit dulls Away from mates and ocean-wandering hulls, Away from all bright water and great hills And sheep-walks where the curlews cry their fills; Away in towns, where eyes have nought to see But dead museums and miles of misery And floating life un-rooted from man's need And miles of fish-hooks baited to catch greed And life made wretched out of human ken And miles of shopping women served by men. So, if the penman sums my London days, Let him but say that there were holy ways, Dull Bloomsbury streets of dull brick mansions old With stinking doors where women stood to scold And drunken waits at Christmas with their horn Droning the news, in snow, that Christ was born; And windy gas lamps and the wet roads shining And that old carol of the midnight whining, And that old room above the noisy slum Where there was wine and fire and talk with some Under strange pictures of the wakened soul To whom this earth was but a burnt-out coal.

O Time, bring back those midnights and those friends, Those glittering moments that a spirit lends, That all may be imagined from the flash, The cloud-hid god-game through the lightning gash; Those hours of stricken sparks from which men took Light to send out to men in song or book; Those friends who heard St. Pancras' bells strike two, Yet stayed until the barber's cockerel crew, Talking of noble styles, the Frenchman's best, The thought beyond great poets not expressed, The glory of mood where human frailty failed, The forts of human light not yet assailed, Till the dim room had mind and seemed to brood, Binding our wills to mental brotherhood; Till we became a college, and each night Was discipline and manhood and delight; Till our farewells and winding down the stairs At each gray dawn had meaning that Time spares That we, so linked, should roam the whole world round Teaching the ways our brooding minds had found, Making that room our Chapter, our one mind Where all that this world soiled should be refined.

Often at night I tread those streets again And see the alleys glimmering in the rain, Yet now I miss that sign of earlier tramps, A house with shadows of plane-boughs under lamps, The secret house where once a beggar stood, Trembling and blind, to show his woe for food. And now I miss that friend who used to walk Home to my lodgings with me, deep in talk, Wearing the last of night out in still streets Trodden by us and policemen on their beats And cats, but else deserted; now I miss That lively mind and guttural laugh of his And that strange way he had of making gleam, Like something real, the art we used to dream. London has been my prison; but my books Hills and great waters, labouring men and brooks, Ships and deep friendships and remembered days Which even now set all my mind ablaze— As that June day when, in the red bricks' chinks I saw the old Roman ruins white with pinks And felt the hillside haunted even then By not dead memory of the Roman men; And felt the hillside thronged by souls unseen Who knew the interest in me, and were keen That man alive should understand man dead So many centuries since the blood was shed, And quickened with strange hush because this comer Sensed a strange soul alive behind the summer. That other day on Ercall when the stones Were sunbleached white, like long unburied bones, While the bees droned and all the air was sweet From honey buried underneath my feet, Honey of purple heather and white clover Sealed in its gummy bags till summer's over. Then other days by water, by bright sea, Clear as clean glass, and my bright friend with me; The cove clean bottomed where we saw the brown Red spotted plaice go skimming six feet down, And saw the long fronds waving, white with shells, Waving, unfolding, drooping, to the swells; That sadder day when we beheld the great And terrible beauty of a Lammas spate Roaring white-mouthed in all the great cliff's gaps, Headlong, tree-tumbling fury of collapse, While drenching clouds drove by and every sense Was water roaring or rushing or in offence, And mountain sheep stood huddled and blown gaps gleamed Where torn white hair of torrents shook and streamed. That sadder day when we beheld again A spate going down in sunshine after rain When the blue reach of water leaping bright Was one long ripple and clatter, flecked with white. And that far day, that never blotted page When youth was bright like flowers about old age, Fair generations bringing thanks for life To that old kindly man and trembling wife After their sixty years: Time never made A better beauty since the Earth was laid, Than that thanksgiving given to grey hair For the great gift of life which brought them there.

Days of endeavour have been good: the days Racing in cutters for the comrade's praise. The day they led my cutter at the turn, Yet could not keep the lead, and dropped astern; The moment in the spurt when both boats' oars Dipped in each other's wash, and throats grew hoarse, And teeth ground into teeth, and both strokes quickened Lashing the sea, and gasps came, and hearts sickened, And coxswains damned us, dancing, banking stroke, To put our weights on, though our hearts were broke, And both boats seemed to stick and sea seemed glue, The tide a mill race we were struggling through; And every quick recover gave us squints Of them still there, and oar-tossed water-glints, And cheering came, our friends, our foemen cheering, A long, wild, rallying murmur on the hearing, 'Port Fore!' and 'Starboard Fore!' 'Port Fore' 'Port Fore,' 'Up with her,' 'Starboard'; and at that each oar Lightened, though arms were bursting, and eyes shut, And the oak stretchers grunted in the strut, And the curse quickened from the cox, our bows Crashed, and drove talking water, we made vows, Chastity vows and temperance; in our pain We numbered things we'd never eat again If we could only win; then came the yell 'Starboard,' 'Port Fore,' and then a beaten bell Rung as for fire to cheer us. 'Now.' Oars bent, Soul took the looms now body's bolt was spent, 'Damn it, come on now.' 'On now,' 'On now,' 'Starboard.' 'Port Fore,' 'Up with her, Port'; each cutter harboured Ten eye-shut painsick strugglers, 'Heave, oh heave,' Catcalls waked echoes like a shrieking sheave. 'Heave,' and I saw a back, then two. 'Port Fore,' 'Starboard,' 'Come on'; I saw the midship oar, And knew we had done them. 'Port Fore,' 'Starboard,' 'Now.' I saw bright water spurting at their bow, Their cox' full face an instant. They were done. The watchers' cheering almost drowned the gun. We had hardly strength to toss our oars; our cry Cheering the losing cutter was a sigh.

Other bright days of action have seemed great: Wild days in a pampero off the Plate; Good swimming days, at Hog Back or the Coves Which the young gannet and the corbie loves; Surf-swimming between rollers, catching breath Between the advancing grave and breaking death, Then shooting up into the sunbright smooth To watch the advancing roller bare her tooth; And days of labour also, loading, hauling; Long days at winch or capstan, heaving, pawling; The days with oxen, dragging stone from blasting, And dusty days in mills, and hot days masting. Trucking on dust-dry deckings smooth like ice, And hunts in mighty wool-racks after mice; Mornings with buckwheat when the fields did blanch With White Leghorns come from the chicken ranch; Days near the spring upon the sunburnt hill, Plying the maul or gripping tight the drill; Delights of work most real, delights that change The headache life of towns to rapture strange Not known by townsmen, nor imagined; health That puts new glory upon mental wealth And makes the poor man rich. But that ends, too. Health, with its thoughts of life; and that bright view, That sunny landscape from life's peak, that glory, And all a glad man's comments on life's story, And thoughts of marvellous towns and living men, And what pens tell, and all beyond the pen, End, and are summed in words so truly dead They raise no image of the heart and head, The life, the man alive, the friend we knew, The minds ours argued with or listened to, None; but are dead, and all life's keenness, all, Is dead as print before the funeral; Even deader after, when the dates are sought, And cold minds disagree with what we thought.

This many-pictured world of many passions Wears out the nations as a woman fashions, And what life is is much to very few; Men being so strange, so mad, and what men do So good to watch or share; but when men count Those hours of life that were a bursting fount Sparkling the dusty heart with living springs, There seems a world, beyond our earthly things, Gated by golden moments, each bright time Opening to show the city white like lime, High-towered and many-peopled. This made sure, Work that obscures those moments seems impure, Making our not-returning time of breath Dull with the ritual and records of death, That frost of fact by which our wisdom gives Correctly stated death to all that lives.

Best trust the happy moments. What they gave Makes man less fearful of the certain grave, And gives his work compassion and new eyes. The days that make us happy make us wise.



* * * * *



HAROLD MONRO



CHILD OF DAWN

O gentle vision in the dawn: My spirit over faint cool water glides. Child of the day, To thee; And thou art drawn By kindred impulse over silver tides The dreamy way To me.

I need thy hands, O gentle wonder-child, For they are moulded unto all repose; Thy lips are frail, And thou art cooler than an April rose; White are thy words and mild: Child of the morning, hail!

Breathe thus upon mine eyelids—that we twain May build the day together out of dreams. Life, with thy breath upon my eyelids, seems Exquisite to the utmost bounds of pain. I cannot live, except as I may be Compelled for love of thee. O let us drift, Frail as the floating silver of a star, Or like the summer humming of a bee, Or stream-reflected sunlight through a rift.

I will not hope, because I know, alas, Morning will glide, and noon, and then the night Will take thee from me. Everything must pass Swiftly—but nought so swift as dawn-delight. If I could hold thee till the day, Is broad on sea and hill, Child of repose, What god can say, What god or mortal knows, What dream thou mightest not in me fulfil?

O gentle vision in the dawn: My spirit over faint cool water glides, Child of the day, To thee; And thou art drawn By kindred impulse over silver tides The dreamy way To me.



LAKE LEMAN

It is the sacred hour: above the far Low emerald hills that northward fold, Calmly, upon the blue the evening star Floats, wreathed in dusky gold. The winds have sung all day; but now they lie Faint, sleeping; and the evening sounds awake. The slow bell tolls across the water: I Am haunted by the spirit of the lake. It seems as though the sounding of the bell Intoned the low song of the water-soul, And at some moments I can hardly tell The long-resounding echo from the toll. O thou mysterious lake, thy spell Holds all who round thy fruitful margin dwell. Oft have I seen home-going peasants' eyes Lit with the peace that emanates from thee. Those who among thy waters plunge, arise Filled with new wisdom and serenity. Thy veins are in the mountains. I have heard, Down-stretched beside thee at the silent noon, With leaning head attentive to thy word, A secret and delicious mountain-tune, Proceeding as from many shadowed hours In ancient forests carpeted with flowers, Or far, where hidden waters, wandering Through banks of snow, trickle, and meet, and sing. Ah, what repose at noon to go, Lean on thy bosom, hold thee with wide hands, And listen for the music of the snow! But most, as now, When harvest covers thy surrounding lands, I love thee, with a coronal of sheaves Crowned regent of the day; And on the air thy placid breathing leaves A scent of corn and hay. For thou hast gathered (as a mother will The sayings of her children in her heart) The harvest-thoughts of reapers on the hill, When the cool rose and honeysuckle fill The air, and fruit is laden on the cart. Thou breathest the delight Of summer evening at the deep-roofed farm, And meditation of the summer night, When the enravished earth is lying warm From recent kisses of the conquering sun.

Dwell as a spirit in me, O thou one Sweet natural presence. In the years to be When all the mortal loves perchance are done, Them I will bid farewell, but, oh, not thee. I love thee. When the youthful visions fade, Fade thou not also in the hopeless past. Be constant and delightful, as a maid Sought over all the world, and found at last.



* * * * *



T. STURGE MOORE



A SICILIAN IDYLL

(FIRST SCENE)

Damon:

I thank thee, no; Already have I drunk a bowl of wine ... Nay, nay, why wouldst thou rise? There rolls thy ball of worsted! Sit thee down; Come, sit thee down, Cydilla, And let me fetch thy ball, rewind the wool, And tell thee all that happened yesterday.

Cydilla:

Thanks, Damon; now, by Zeus, thou art so brisk, It shames me that to stoop should try my bones.

Damon:

We both are old, And if we may have peaceful days are blessed; Few hours of buoyancy will come to break The sure withdrawal from us of life's flood.

Cydilla:

True, true, youth looks a great way off! To think It once was age did lie quite out of sight!

Damon:

Not many days have been so beautiful As yesterday, Cydilla; yet one was; And I with thee broke tranced on its fine spell; Thou dost remember? yes? but not with tears, Ah, not with tears, Cydilla, pray, oh, pray!

Cydilla:

Pardon me, Damon, 'Tis many years since thou hast touched thereon; And something stirs about thee— Such air of eagerness as was thine when I was more foolish than in my life, I hope To ever have been at another time.

Damon:

Pooh! foolish?—thou wast then so very wise That, often having seen thee foolish since, Wonder has made me faint that thou shouldst err.

Cydilla:

Nay, then I erred, dear Damon; and remorse Was not so slow to find me as thou deemst.

Damon:

There, mop those dear wet eyes, or thou'lt ne'er hear What it was filled my heart full yesterday.

Cydilla:

Tell, Damon; since I well know that regrets Hang like dull gossips round another's ear.

Damon:

First, thou must know that oftentimes I rise,— Not heeding or not finding sleep, of watching Afraid no longer to be prodigal,— And gaze upon the beauty of the night. Quiet hours, while dawn absorbs the waning stars, Are like cold water sipped between our cups Washing the jaded palate till it taste The wine again. Ere the sun rose, I sat Within my garden porch; my lamp was left Burning beside my bed, though it would be Broad day before I should return upstairs. I let it burn, willing to waste some oil Rather than to disturb my tranquil mood; But, as the Fates determined, it was seen.— Suddenly, running round the dovecote, came A young man naked, breathless, through the dawn, Florid with haste and wine; it was Hipparchus. Yes, there he stood before me panting, rubbing His heated flesh which felt the cold at once. When he had breath enough he begged me straight To put the lamp out; and himself had done it Ere I was on the stair. Flung all along my bed, his gasping shook it When I at length could sit down by his side: 'What cause, young sir, brings you here in this plight At such an hour?' He shuddered, sighed and rolled My blanket round him; then came a gush of words: 'The first of causes, Damon, namely Love, Eldest and least resigned and most unblushing Of all the turbulent impulsive gods. A quarter of an hour scarce has flown Since lovely arms clung round me, and my head Asleep lay nested in a woman's hair; My cheek still bears print of its ample coils.' Athwart its burning flush he drew my fingers And their tips felt it might be as he said. 'Oh I have had a night, a night, a night! Had Paris so much bliss? And oh! was Helen's kiss To be compared with those I tasted? Which but for me had all been wasted On a bald man, a fat man, a gross man, a beast To scare the best guest from the very best feast!' Cydilla need not hear half that he said, For he was mad awhile. But having given rein to hot caprice, And satyr jest, and the distempered male, At length, I heard his story. At sun-down certain miles without the town. He'd chanced upon a light-wheeled litter-car, And in it there stood one Yet more a woman than her garb was rich, With more of youth and health than elegance. 'The mules,' he said, 'were beauties: she was one, And cried directions to the neighbour field: "O catch that big bough! Fool, not that, the next! Clumsy, you've let it go! O stop it swaying, The eggs will jolt out!" From the road,' said he, 'I could not see who thus was rated; so Sprang up beside her and beheld her husband, Lover or keeper, what you like to call him;— A middle-aged stout man upon whose shoulders Kneeled up a scraggy mule-boy slave, who was The fool that could not reach a thrush's nest Which they, while plucking almond, had revealed. Before she knew who it could be, I said "Why yes, he is a fool, but we, fair friend, Were we not foolish waiting for such fools? Let us be off!" I stooped, took, shook the reins With one hand, while the other clasped her waist. "Ah, who?" she turned; I smiled like amorous Zeus; A certain vagueness clouded her wild eyes As though she saw a swan, a bull, a shower Of hurried flames, and felt divinely pleased. I cracked the whip and we were jolted down; A kiss was snatched getting the ribbons straight; We hardly heard them first begin to bawl, So great our expedition towards the town: We flew. I pulled up at an inn, then bid them Stable my mules and chariot and prepare A meal for Dives; meanwhile we would stroll Down to the market. Took her arm in mine, And, out of sight, hurried her through cross-lanes, Bade her choose, now at a fruit, now pastry booth. Until we gained my lodging she spoke little But often laughed, tittering from time to time, "O Bacchus, what a prank!—Just think of Cymon, So stout as he is, at least five miles to walk Without a carriage!—well you take things coolly"— Or such appreciation nice of gifts I need not boast of, since I had them gratis. When my stiff door creaked open grudgingly Her face first fell; the room looked bare enough. Still we brought with us food and cakes; I owned A little cellar of delicious wine; An unasked neighbour's garden furnished flowers; Jests helped me nimbly, I surpassed myself; So we were friends and, having laughed, we drank, Ate, sang, danced, grew wild. Soon both had one Desire, effort, goal, One bed, one sleep, one dream ... O Damon, Damon, both had one alarm, When woken by the door forced rudely open, Lit from the stair, bedazzled, glowered at, hated! She clung to me; her master, husband, uncle (I know not which or what he was) stood there; It crossed my mind he might have been her father. Naked, unarmed, I rose, and did assume What dignity is not derived from clothes, Bid them to quit my room, my private dwelling. It was no use, for that gross beast was rich; Had his been neither legal right nor moral, My natural right was nought, for his she was In eyes of those bribed catchpolls. Brute revenge Seethed in his pimpled face: "To gaol with him!" He shouted huskily. I wrapped some clothes About my shuddering bed-fellow, a sheet Flung round myself; ere she was led away, Had whispered to her "Shriek, faint on the stairs!" Then I was seized by two dog officers. That girl was worth her keep, for, going down, She suddenly writhed, gasped, and had a fit. My chance occurred, and I whipped through the casement; All they could do was catch away the sheet; I dropped a dozen feet into a bush, Soon found my heels and plied them; here I am.'

Cydilla:

A strange tale, Damon, this to tell to me And introduce as thou at first began.

Damon:

Thy life, Cydilla, has at all times been A ceremony: this young man's Discovered by free impulse, not couched in forms Worn and made smooth by prudent folk long dead. I love Hipparchus for his wave-like brightness; He wastes himself, but till his flash is gone I shall be ever glad to hear him laugh: Nor could one make a Spartan of him even Were one the Spartan with a will to do it. Yet had there been no more than what is told, Thou wouldst not now be lending ear to me.

Cydilla:

Hearing such things, I think of my poor son, Which makes me far too sad to smile at folly.

Damon:

There, let me tell thee all just as it happened, And of thy son I shall be speaking soon.

Cydilla:

Delphis! Alas, are his companions still No better than such ne'er-do-wells? I thought His life was sager now, though he has killed My hopes of seeing him a councillor.

Damon:

How thou art quick to lay claim to a sorrow! Should I have come so eagerly to thee If all there was to tell thee were such poor news?

Cydilla:

Forgive me; well know I there is no end To Damon's kindness; my poor boy has proved it; Could but his father so have understood him!

Damon:

Let lie the sad contents of vanished years; Why with complaints reproach the helpless dead? Thy husband ne'er will cross thy hopes again. Come, think of what a sky made yesterday The worthy dream of thrice divine Apollo! Hipparchus' plan was, we should take the road (As, when such mornings tempt me, is my wont) And cross the hills, along the coast, toward Mylae. He in disguise, a younger handier Chloe, Would lead my mule; must brown his face and arms: And thereon straight to wake her he was gone. Their voices from her cabin crossed the yard; He swears those parts of her are still well made Which she keeps too well hidden when about;— And she, no little pleased; that interlards, Between her exclamations at his figure, Reproof of gallantries half-laughed at hers. Anon she titters as he dons her dress Doubtless with pantomime— Head-carriage and hip-swagger. A wench, more conscious of her sex than grace, He then rejoined me, changed beyond belief, Roguish as vintage makes them; bustling helps Or hinders Chloe harness to the mule;— In fine bewitching both her age and mine. The life that in such fellows runs to waste Is like a gust that pulls about spring trees And spoils your hope of fruit, while it delights The sense with bloom and odour scattered, mingled With salt spume savours from a crested offing. The sun was not long up when we set forth And, coming to the deeply shadowed gate, Found catchpolls lurked there, true to his surmise. Them he, his beard disguised like face-ache, sauced; (Too gaily for that bandaged cheek, thought I); But they, whose business was to think, Were quite contented, let the hussy pass, Returned her kisses blown back down the road, And crowned the mirth of their outwitter's heart. As the steep road wound clear above the town, Fewer became those little comedies To which encounters roused him: till, at last, He scarcely knew we passed some vine-dressers: And I could see the sun's heat, lack of sleep, And his late orgy would defeat his powers. So, where the road grows level and must soon Descend, I bade him climb into the car; On which the mule went slower still and slower. This creature who, upon occasions, shows Taste very like her master's, left the highway And took a grass-grown wheel-track that led down Zigzag athwart the broad curved banks of lawn Coating a valley between rounded hills Which faced the sea abruptly in huge crags. Each slope grew steeper till I left my seat And led the mule; for now Hipparchus' snore Tuned with the crooning waves heard from below. We passed two narrow belts of wood and then The sea, that first showed blue above their tops, Was spread before us chequered with white waves Breaking beneath on boulders which choked up The narrowed issue seawards of the glen. The steep path would no more admit of wheels: I took the beast and tethered her to graze Within the shade of a stunt ilex clump,— Returned to find a vacant car; Hipparchus, Uneasy on my tilting down the shafts, And heated with strange clothes, had roused himself And lay asleep upon his late disguise, Naked 'neath the cool eaves of one huge rock That stood alone, much higher up than those Over, and through, and under which, the waves Made music or forced milk-white floods of foam. There I reclined, while vision, sound and scent Won on my willing soul like sleep on joy, Till all accustomed thoughts were far away As from a happy child the cares of men. The hour was sacred to those earlier gods Who are not active, but divinely wait The consummation of their first great deeds, Unfolding still and blessing hours serene. Presently I was gazing on a boy, (Though whence he came my mind had not perceived). Twelve or thirteen he seemed, with clinging feet Poised on a boulder, and against the sea Set off. His wide-brimmed hat of straw was arched Over his massed black and abundant curls By orange ribbon tied beneath his chin; Around his arms and shoulders his sole dress, A cloak, was all bunched up. He leapt, and lighted Upon the boulder just beneath; there swayed, Re-poised, And perked his head like an inquisitive bird, As gravely happy; of all unconscious save His body's aptness for its then employment; His eyes intent on shells in some clear pool Or choosing where he next will plant his feet. Again he leaps, his curls against his hat Bounce up behind. The daintiest thing alive, He rocks awhile, turned from me towards the sea; Unseen I might devour him with my eyes. At last he stood upon a ledge each wave Spread with a sheet of foam four inches deep; He gazing at them saw them disappear And reappear all shining and refreshed: Then raised his head, beheld the ocean stretched Alive before him in its magnitude. None but a child could have been so absorbed As to escape its spell till then, none else Could so have voiced glad wonder in a song:— All the waves of the sea are there! In at my eyes they crush. Till my head holds as fair a sea: Though I shut my eyes, they are there! Now towards my lids they rush, Mad to burst forth from me Back to the open air!— To follow them my heart needs, O white-maned steeds, to ride you; Lithe-shouldered steeds, To the western isles astride you Amyntas speeds!' 'Damon!' said a voice quite close to me And looking up ... as might have stood Apollo In one vast garment such as shepherds wear And leaning on such tall staff stood ... Thou guessest, Whose majesty as vainly was disguised As must have been Apollo's minding sheep.

Cydilla:

Delphis! I know, dear Damon, it was Delphis! Healthy life in the country having chased His haggard looks; his speech is not wild now, Nor wicked with exceptions to things honest: Thy face a kindlier way than speech tells this.

Damon:

Yea, dear Cydilla, he was altogether What mountaineers might dream of for a king.

Cydilla:

But tell me, is he tutor to that boy?

Damon:

He is an elder brother to the lad.

Cydilla:

Nay, nay, hide nothing, speak the worst at once.

Damon:

I meant no hint of ill; A god in love with young Amyntas might Look as he did; fathers alone feel like him: Could I convey his calm and happy speech Thy last suspicion would be laid to rest.

Cydilla:

Damon, see, my glad tears have drowned all fear; Think'st thou he may come back and win renown, And fill his father's place? Not as his father filled it, But with an inward spirit correspondent To that contained and high imposing mien Which made his father honoured before men Of greater wisdom, more integrity.

Damon:

And loved before men of more kindliness!

Cydilla:

O Damon, far too happy am I now To grace thy naughtiness by showing pain. My Delphis 'owns the brains and presence too That make a Pericles!' ... (the words are thine) Had he but the will; and has he now? Good Damon, tell me quick?

Damon:

He dreams not of the court, and city life Is what he rails at.

Cydilla:

Well, if he now be wise and sober-souled And loved for goodness, I can rest content.

Damon:

My brain lights up to see thee happy! wait, It may be I can give some notion how Our poet spoke: 'Damon, the best of life is in thine eyes— Worship of promise-laden beauty. Seems he not The god of this fair scene? Those waves claim such a master as that boy; And these green slopes have waited till his feet Should wander them, to prove they were not spread In wantonness. What were this flower's prayer Had it a voice? The place behind his ear Would brim its cup with bliss and overbrim; Oh, to be worn and fade beside his cheek!'— 'In love and happy, Delphis; and the boy?'— 'Loves and is happy'— You hale from?'— 'tna; We have been out two days and crossed this ridge, West of Mount Mycon's head. I serve his father, A farmer well-to-do and full of sense, Who owns a grass-farm cleared among the pines North-west the cone, where even at noon in summer, The slope it falls on lengthens a tree's shade. To play the lyre, read and write and dance I teach this lad; in all their country toil Join, nor ask better fare than cheese, black bread, Butter or curds, and milk, nor better bed Than litter of dried fern or lentisk yields, Such as they all sleep soundly on and dream, (If e'er they dream) of places where it grew,— Where they have gathered mushrooms, eaten berries, Or found the sheep they lost, or killed a fox, Or snared the kestrel, or so played their pipes Some maid showed pleasure, sighed, nay even wept. There to be poet need involve no strain, For though enough of coarseness, dung—nay, nay, And suffering too, be mingled with the life, 'Tis wedded to such air, Such water and sound health! What else might jar or fret chimes in attuned Like satyr's cloven hoof or lorn nymph's grief In a choice ode. Though lust, disease and death, As everywhere, are cruel tyrants, yet They all wear flowers, and each sings a song Such as the hilly echo loves to learn.' 'At last then even Delphis knows content?' 'Damon, not so: This life has brought me health but not content. That boy, whose shouts ring round us while he flings Intent each stone toward yon shining object Afloat inshore ... I eat my heart to think How all which makes him worthy of more love Must train his ear to catch the siren croon That never else had reached his upland home! And he who failed in proof, how should he arm Another against perils? Ah, false hope And credulous enjoyment! How should I, Life's fool, while wakening ready wit in him, Teach how to shun applause and those bright eyes Of women who pour in the lap of spring Their whole year's substance? They can offer To fill the day much fuller than I could, And yet teach night surpass it. Can my means Prevent the ruin of the thing I cherish? What cares Zeus for him? Fate despises love. Why, lads more exquisite, brimming with promise, A thousand times have been lost for the lack Of just the help a watchful god might give; But which the best of fathers, best of mothers, Of friends, of lovers cannot quite supply. Powers, who swathe man's virtue up in weakness, Then plunge his delicate mind in hot desire, Preparing pleasure first and after shame To bandage round his eyes,—these gods are not The friends of men.' The Delphis of old days before me stood, Passionate, stormy, teeming with black thought, His back turned on that sparkling summer sea, His back turned on his love; and wilder words And less coherent thought poured from him now. Hipparchus waking took stock of the scene. I watched him wend down, rubbing sleepy lids, To where the boy was busy throwing stones. He joined the work, but even his stronger arm And heavier flints he hurled would not suffice To drive that floating object nearer shore: And, ere the rebel Delphis had expressed Enough of anger and contempt for gods, (Who, he asserted, were the dreams of men), I saw the stone-throwers both take the water And swimming easily attain their end. The way they held their noses proved the thing A tunny, belly floating upward, dead; Both towed it till the current caught and swept it Out far from that sweet cove; they laughing watched: Then, suddenly, Amyntas screamed and Delphis Turned to see him sink Locked in Hipparchus' arms. The god Apollo never Burst through a cloud with more ease than thy son Poured from his homespun garb The rapid glory of his naked limbs, And like a streak of lightning reached the waves:— Wherein his thwarted speed appeared more awful As, brought within the scope of comprehension, Its progress and its purpose could be gauged. Spluttering Amyntas rose, Hipparchus near him Who cried 'Why coy of kisses, lovely lad? I ne'er would harm thee; art thou not ashamed To treat thy conquest thus?' He shouted partly to drown the sea's noise, chiefly The nearing Delphis to disarm. His voice lost its assurance while he spoke, And, as he finished, quick to escape he turned; Thy son's eyes and that steady coming on, As he might see them over ruffled crests, Far better helped him swim Than ever in his life he swam before. Delphis passed by Amyntas; Hipparchus was o'ertaken, Cuffed, ducked and shaken; In vain he clung about his angry foe; Held under he perforce let go: I, fearing for his life, set up a whoop To bring cause and effect to thy son's mind, And in dire rage's room his sense returned. He towed Hipparchus back like one he'd saved From drowning, laid him out upon that ledge Where late Amyntas stood, where now he kneeled Shivering, alarmed and mute. Delphis next set the drowned man's mouth to drain; We worked his arms, for I had joined them; soon His breathing recommenced; we laid him higher On sun-warmed turf to come back to himself; Then we climbed to the cart without a word. The sun had dried their limbs; they, putting on Their clothes, sat down; at length, I asked the lad What made him keen to pelt a stinking fish. Blushing he said, 'I wondered what it was. But that man, when he came to help, declared 'Twould prove a dead sea-nymph, and we might see, By swimming out, how finely she was made. I did not half believe, yet when we found That foul stale fish, it made us laugh.' He smiled And watched Hipparchus spit and cough and groan. I moved to the car and unpacked bread and meat, A cheese, some fruit, a skin of wine, two bowls. Amyntas was all joy to see such things; Ran off and pulled acanthus for our plates; Chattering, he helped me set all forth,—was keen To choose rock basin where the wine might cool; Approved, was full as happy as I to praise: And most he pleased me, when he set a place For poor Hipparchus. Thus our eager work, While Delphis, in his thoughts retired, sat frowning, Grew like a home-conspiracy to trap The one who bears the brunt of outside cares Into the glow of cheerfulness that bathes The children and the mother,—happy not To foresee winter, short-commons or long debts, Since they are busied for the present meal,— Too young, too weak, too kind, to peer ahead, Or probe the dark horizon bleak with storms. Oh! I have sometimes thought there is a god Who helps with lucky accidents when folk Join with the little ones to chase such gloom. That chance which left Hipparchus with no clothes, Surely divinity was ambushed in it? When he must put on Chloe's, Amyntas rocked With laughter, and Hipparchus, quick to use A favourable gust, pretends confusion Such as a farmer's daughter red-faced shows If in the dance her dress has come unpinned. She suddenly grows grave; yet, seeing there Friends only, stoops behind a sister-skirt. Then, having set to rights the small mishap, Holding her screener's elbows, round her shoulder Peeps, to bob back meeting a young man's eye. All, grateful for such laughs, give Hermes thanks. And even Delphis at Hipparchus smiled When, from behind me, he peeped bashful forth; Amyntas called him Baucis every time, Laughing because he was or was not like Some wench ... Why, Delphis, in the name of Zeus How come you here?

Cydilla:

What can have happened, Delphis? Be brief for pity!

Delphis:

Nothing, mother, nothing That has not happened time on time before To thee, to Damon, when the life ye thought With pride and pleasure yours, has proved a dream. They strike down on us from the top of heaven, Bear us up in their talons, up and up, Drop us: we fall, are crippled, maimed for life. 'Our dreams'? nay, we are theirs for sport, for prey, And life is the King Eagle, The strongest, highest flyer, from whose clutch The fall is fatal always.

Cydilla:

Delphis, Delphis, Good Damon had been making me so happy By telling ...

Delphis:

How he watched me near the zenith? Three years back That dream pounced on me and began to soar; Having been sick, my heart had found new lies; The only thoughts I then had ears for were Healthy, virtuous, sweet; Jaded town-wastrel, A country setting was the sole could take me Three years back. Damon might have guessed From such a dizzy height What fall was coming.

Cydilla:

Ah my boy, my boy!

Damon:

Sit down, be patient, let us hear and aid;— Has aught befallen Amyntas?

Delphis:

Would he were dead! Would that I had been brute enough to slay him!— Great Zeus, Hipparchus had so turned his head, His every smile and word As we sat by our fire, stung my fool's heart.— How we laughed to see him curtsey, Fidget strings about his waist,— Giggle, his beard caught in the chlamys' hem Drawing it tight about his neck, 'just like Our Baucis.' Could not sleep For thinking of the life they lead in towns; He said so: when, at last, He sighed from dreamland, thoughts I had been day-long brooding Broke into vision.

A child, a girl, Beautiful, nay more than others beautiful, Not meant for marriage, not for one man meant, You know what she will be; At six years old or seven her life is round her; A company, all ages, old men, young men, Whose vices she must prey on. And the bent crone she will be is there too, Patting her head and chuckling prophecies.— O cherry lips, O wild bird eyes, O gay invulnerable setter-at-nought Of will, of virtue— Thou art as constant a cause as is the sea, As is the sun, as are the winds, as night, Of opportunities not only but events;— The unalterable past Is full of thy contrivance, Aphrodite, Goddess of ruin!

No girl; nay, nay, Amyntas is young, Is gay, Has beauty and health—and yet In his sleep I have seen him smile And known that his dream was vile; Those eyes which brimmed over with glee Till my life flowed as fresh as the sea— Those eyes, gloved each in a warm live lid, May be glad that their visions are hid.

I taught myself to rhyme; the trick will cling. Ah, Damon, day-lit vision is more dread Than those which suddenly replace the dark! When the dawn filtered through our tent of boughs I saw him closely wrapped in his grey cloak, His head upon a pile of caked thin leaves Whose life had dried up full two years ago. Their flakes shook in the breath from those moist lips; The vow his kiss would seal must prove, I knew As friable as that pale ashen fritter; It had more body than reason dare expect From that so beautiful creature's best intent. He waking found me no more there; and wanders Through tna's woods to-day Calling at times, or questioning charcoal burners, Till he shall strike a road shall lead him home; Yet all his life must be spent as he spends This day in whistling, wondering, singing, chatting, In the great wood, vacant and amiable.

Damon:

Can it be possible that thou desertest Thy love, thy ward, the work of three long years, Because chance, on an April holiday Has filled this boy's talk with another man, And wonder at another way of life? Worse than a woman's is such jealousy; The lad must live!

Delphis:

Live, live! to be sure, he must live! I have lived, am a fool for my pains! And yet, and yet, This heart has ached to play the god for him:— Mine eyes for his had sifted visible things; Speech had been filtered ere it reached his ear; Not in the world should he have lived, but breathed Humanity's distilled quintessences; The indiscriminate multitude sorted should yield him Acquaintance and friend discerned, chosen by me:— By me, who failed, wrecked my youth's prime, and dragged More wonderful than his gifts in the mire!

Damon:

Yet if experience could not teach and save Others from ignorance, why, towns would be Ruins, and civil men like outlaws thieve, Stab, riot, ere two generations passed.

Delphis:

Where is the Athens that Pericles loved? Where are the youths that were Socrates' friends? There was a town where all learnt What the wisest had taught! Why had crude Sparta such treasonous force? Could Philip of Macedon Breed a true Greek of his son? What honour to conquer a world Where Alcibiades failed, Lead half-drilled highland hordes Whose lust would inherit the wise? There is nothing art's industry shaped But their idleness praising it mocked. Thus Fate re-assumed her command And laughed at experienced law. What ails man to love with such pains? Why toil to create in the mind Of those who shall close in his grave The best that he is and has hoped? The longer permission he has, The nobler the structure so raised, The greater its downfall. Fools, fools, Where is a town such as Pericles ruled? Where youths to replace those whom Socrates loved?

Wise Damon, thou art silent;—Mother, thou Hast only arms to cling about thy son.— Who can descry the purpose of a god With eyes wide-open? shut them, every fool Can conjure up a world arriving somewhere, Resulting in what he may call perfection. Evil must soon or late succeed to good. There well may once have been a golden age: Why should we treat it as a poet's tale? Yet, in those hills that hung o'er Arcady, Some roving inebriate Daimon Begat him fair children On nymphs of the vineyard, On nymphs of the rock:— And in the heart of the forest Lay bound in white arms, In action creative a father Without a thought for his child:— A purposeless god, The forbear of men To corrupt, ape, inherit and spoil That fine race beforehand with doom!

No, Damon, what's an answer worth to one Whose mind has been flung open? Only last night, The gates of my spirit gave entrance Unto the great light; And I saw how virtue seduceth, Not ended today or tomorrow Like the passion for love, Like the passion for life— But perennial pain And age-long effort. Dead deeds are the teeth that shine In the mouth that repeateth praise, That spurs men to do high things Since their fathers did higher before— To give more than they hope to receive, To slave and to die in a secular cause! The mouth that smiles over-praise Eats out the heart of each fool To feed the great dream of a race.

Yet wearied peoples each in turn awake From virtue, as a man from his brief love, And, roughly shaken, face the useless truth; No answer to brute fact has e'er been found. Slaves of your slaves, caged in your furnished rooms, Ushered to meals when reft of appetite— Though hungry, bound to wait a stated hour— Your dearest contemplation broken off By the appointed summons to your bath; Racked with more thought for those whom you may flog Than for those dear; obsessed by your possessions With a dull round of stale anxieties;— Soon maintenance grows the extreme reach of hope For those held in respect, as in a vice, By citizens of whom they are the pick. Of men the least bond is the roving seaman Who hires himself to merchantman or pirate For single voyages, stays where he may please, Lives his purse empty in a dozen ports, And ne'er obeys the ghost of what once was! His laugh chimes readily; his kiss, no symbol Of aught to come, but cordial, eager, hot, Leaves his tomorrow free. With him for comrade Each day shall be enough, and what is good Enjoyed, and what is evil borne or cursed. I go, because I will not have a home, Or here prefer to there, or near to far. I go, because I will not have a friend Lay claim upon my leisure this day week. I will be melted by each smile that takes me; What though a hundred lips should meet with mine! A vagabond I shall be as the moon is. The sun, the waves, the winds, all birds, all beasts, Are ever on the move, and take what comes; They are not parasites like plants and men Rooted in that which fed them yesterday. Not even Memory shall follow Delphis, For I will yield to all impulse save hers, Therein alone subject to prescient rigour; Lest she should lure me back among the dying— Pilfer the present for the beggar past. Free minds must bargain with each greedy moment And seize the most that lies to hand at once. Ye are too old to understand my words; I yet have youth enough, and can escape From that which sucks each individual man Into the common dream.

Cydilla:

Stay, Delphis, hear what Damon has to say! He is mad!

Damon:

Mad—yes—mad as cruelty! * * * * * Poor, poor Cydilla! was it then to this That all my tale was prologue? Think of Amyntas, think of that poor boy, Bereaved as we are both bereaved! Come, come, Find him, and say that Love himself has sent us To offer our poor service in his stead.

Cydilla:

Good Damon, help me find my wool; my eyes Are blind with tears; then I will come at once! We must be doing something, for I feel We both shall drown our hearts with time to spare.



* * * * *



RONALD ROSS



HESPERUS

Ah whither dost thou float, sweet silent star, In yonder floods of evening's dying light? Before the fanning wings of rising night, Methinks thy silvery bark is driven far To some lone isle or calmly havened shore, Where the lorn eye of man can follow thee no more.

How many a one hath watched thee even as I, And unto thee and thy receding ray Poured forth his thoughts with many a treasured sigh Too sweet and strange for the remorseless day; But thou hast gone and left unto their sight Too great a host of stars, and yet too black a night.

E'en as I gaze upon thee, thy bright form Doth sail away among the cloudy isles Around whose shores the sea of sunlight smiles. On thee may break no black and boisterous storm To turn the tenour of thy calm career. As thou wert long ago so now thou dost appear.

Art thou a tear left by the exiled day Upon the dusky cheek of drowsy night? Or dost thou as a lark carol alway Full in the liquid glow of heavenly light? Or, bent on discord and angelic wars, As some bright spirit tread before the trooping stars?

The disenchanted vapours hide thee fast; The watery twilight fades and night comes on; One lingering moment more and thou art gone, Lost in the rising sea of clouds that cast Their inundations o'er the darkening air; And wild the night wind wails the lightless world's despair.



* * * * *



EDMUND BEALE SARGANT



THE CUCKOO WOOD

Cuckoo, are you calling me, Or is it a voice of wizardry? In these woodlands I am lost, From glade to glade of flowers tost. Seven times I held my way, And seven times the voice did say, Cuckoo! Cuckoo! No man could Issue from this underwood, Half of green and half of brown, Unless he laid his senses down. Only let him chance to see The snows of the anemone Heaped above its greenery; Cuckoo! Cuckoo! No man could Issue from the master wood.

Magic paths there are that cross; Some beset with jewelled moss And boughs all bare; where others run, Bluebells bathe in mist and sun Past a clearing filled with clumps Of primrose round the nutwood stumps; All as gay as gay can be, And bordered with dog-mercury, The wizard flower, the wizard green, Like a Persian carpet seen. Brown, dead bracken lies between, And wrinkled leaves, whence fronds of fern Still untwist and upward turn. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! No man could Issue from this wizard wood, Half of green, and half of brown, Unless he laid his senses down.

Seven times I held my way Where new heaps of brushwood lay, All with withies loosely bound, And never heard a human sound. Yet men have toiled and men have rested By yon hurdles darkly-breasted, Woven in and woven out, Piled four-square, and turned about To show their white and sharpened stakes Like teeth of hounds or fangs of snakes. The men are homeward sped, for none Loves silence and a sinking sun. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Woodmen know Souls are lost that hear it so, Seven times upon the wind, To lull the watch-dogs of the mind.

A stranger wood you shall not find! Beech and birch and oak agree Here to dwell in company. Hazel, elder, few men could Name the kinds of underwood. Summer and winter haunt together, And golden light with misty weather. 'Tis summer where this beech is seen Defenceless in its virgin green; All its leaves are smooth and thin, And the sunlight passes in, Passes in and filters through To a green heaven below the blue. Low the branches fall and trace A circle round that mystic place, Guarded on its outward side By hyacinths in all their pride; And within dim moons appear, Wax and wane—I go not near! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! How we fear Sights and sounds that come and go Without a cause for men to know!

Why for a whispered doubt should I Shun that other beech-tree high, Red and watchful, still and bare, With a thousand spears in air, Guarding yet its treasured leaf From storm and hail and winter's grief? Unregarded on the ground Leaves of yester-year abound, For what is autumn's gold to one That hoards a life scarce yet begun? Let me so renew my youth, I defend it, nail and tooth, Rooting deep and lifting high. For this my dead leaves hiss and sigh And glow as on the downward road To the dog-snake's dread abode. Noxious things of earth and air, Get you hence, for I prepare To flaunt my beauty in the sun When all beside me are undone. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Pan shall see The surge of my virginity Overtop the sobered glade. Luminous and unafraid Near his sacred oak I'll spread Lures to tempt him from his bed: His couch, his lair his form shall be By none but by the fair beech-tree.

O cunning Oak! What is your skill To hold the god against my will? Keep your favours back like me, With disfavour he shall see Orange hues of jealousy: Show your leaf in early prime, It shall be dark before its time: Me you shall not rival ever. Silver Birch, would you endeavour, Trembling in your bridal dress, To win at last a dog's caress? Through your twigs so thin and dark Shows the black and ashen bark, Like a face that underneath Tightened eyebrows looks on death. Think not, dwarf, that Pan shall find Aught about you to his mind. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! All shall try To win him. But the beech and I, Man and tree made one at last, Alone have power to hold him fast.

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Forth I creep, When the flowers fall asleep, And upgather odours rare Floating on the misty air, All to be imprisoned where My sap is rising till they reach The swelling twigs, and thence shall each Separate scent be shaken free As my flowers and leaves agree. Rare in sooth those flowers shall be: Cunningly will I devise Colours to delight the eyes, Slipping from my fissured stem To get by stealth or stratagem The glory of the morning petal. Where the bees at noontide settle, Mine to rifle all their sweets: Honey and bee-bread on the teats Of my blossoms shall be spread, Till the lime-trees shake with dread Of the marvels still to come When their bees about me hum.

Welcome, welcome, cloudless night, Is our labour ended quite? Are the mortal and the tree Now made one in ecstasy, One in foretaste of the dawn? Crescent moon, sink, sink outworn! Stars be buried, stars be born, Mount and dip to tell aright The doings of the morrow's light! Mists, assemble, hide me quite, Till the sun with growing strength Grips your veils, and length by length Tears them down from head to foot; Then to the challenge I am put!

Tell me busy, busy glade, Half in light and half in shade, Is your world of wood-folk there? All are come but the mole and hare; One is blind, and underground Of that tumult hears no sound; The other Pan has crept within, To bask afield in the hare-skin. All are come of woodland fowl But the cuckoo and the owl; The owl's asleep, and the cuckoo-bird Nowhere seen is eachwhere heard. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Those that see The leafing of this great beech-tree, And its flowers of every kind, Woodland lovers have in mind; Those that breathe the scented wind Or touch this bark of satin, could Never issue from our wood.

Tell me, busy, busy glade, Are little flying things afraid? All are come of aery folk, Gnats that hover like a smoke, Butterflies and humble-bees, Insects winged in all degrees, Honey-toilers, pleasure-makers, Of labours and of joys forsakers, Round these boughs to live and die. Only the moth and the dragon-fly Keep their haunts and come not nigh: The moth is moonstruck, she must creep With twitching wings, and half-asleep, Through folds of darkness; and that other, The dragon-fly, Narcissus' brother, Flashes all his burnished mail In a still pool adown the dale.

Tell me, busy, busy glade, Shifting aye in light and shade, Are the dryads peeping forth, More in wonder than in wrath, Each beneath her own dear tree Parting her hair that she may see How queens put on their sovereignty? All are come of Pan's own race, Nymphs and satyrs fill the place, Necks outstretched and ears a-twitching, That Pan may know of all this witching. Heedless stumble the goatfeet Till four-footed things retreat. Cries of Ah! and Ay! and Eh! Scare the forest birds away, And their notes that rang so clear At dawn, you now shall rarely hear: Only a robin here and there Pitches high his trembling voice In a challenge to rejoice.

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! How two notes Stolen from all woodland throats Make the satyrs stand like stone, Waiting for Pan to call his own! How the couching dryads seem To root themselves as in a dream, And the naiads, wan and whist, To melt into an evening mist!

Tell me, silent, silent glade, All in light that once was shade, All in shade that once was light, How went the creatures from my sight? Where are the shapes that turned to stone, And my tree that reigned alone? Red and watchful, still and bare, With a thousand spears in air, Stands the beech that you would bind Unlawfully to human mind. Gone is every woodland elf To the mighty god himself. Mortal! You yourself are fast! Doubt not Pan shall come at last To put a leer within your eyes That pry into his mysteries. He shall touch the busy brain Lest it ever teem again; Point the ears and twist the feet, Till by day you dare not meet Men, or in the failing light Mutter more than, Friend, good-night!

Tell me, whispering, whispering glade, Am I eager or afraid? Do I wish the god to come? What shall I say if he be dumb? Tell me, wherefore hiss and sigh Those shrivelled leaves? Has Pan gone by? Why do your thousand pools of light Gaze like eyes that fade at night? Pan has but twain, Pan's eyes are bright! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! See, yon stakes Gape and grin like fangs of snakes; Not snakes nor hounds are mouthing thus; Pan himself is watching us. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Now The god is breasting the hill-brow. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Pan is near: Joy runs trembling back to fear. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! All my blood Knocks through the heart whose every thud Chokes me, blinds me, drains my madness. As one half-drowned, I feel life's gladness Ooze from each pore. Towards the sun Downhill I reel that fain would run. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Thornless seem Briars that part as in a dream. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Hazel-boughs Hurt not though they blood the brows.

Cuckoo! In a meadow prone At last I lie, my wits my own; And in my hand I clasp the flower To counteract that magic power; The cuckoo-flower, in a lilac sheet Under body, head and feet. Above me apple-blossoms fleck The cloudless sky, a neighbouring beck With many a happy gurgle goes Down to the farm through alder-rows. Strange it is, and it is sweet, To hear the distant mill-wheel beat, And the kindly cries of men Turning the cattle home again, The clank of pails and all the shades Of laughter of the busy maids. Now is come the evening star, And my limbs new-blooded are. So beside the stream I choose A path that patient anglers use, Which with many twists and turns Brings me where a candle burns, A lowly light, through cottage pane Seen and hid and seen again. Cuckoo! Now you call in vain. I am far and I am free From all woodland wizardry!



* * * * *



JAMES STEPHENS



IN THE POPPY FIELD

Mad Patsy said, he said to me, That every morning he could see An angel walking on the sky; Across the sunny skies of morn He threw great handfuls far and nigh Of poppy seed among the corn; And then, he said, the angels run To see the poppies in the sun.

A poppy is a devil weed, I said to him—he disagreed; He said the devil had no hand In spreading flowers tall and fair Through corn and rye and meadow land, By garth and barrow everywhere: The devil has not any flower, But only money in his power.

And then he stretched out in the sun And rolled upon his back for fun: He kicked his legs and roared for joy Because the sun was shining down, He said he was a little boy And would not work for any clown: He ran and laughed behind a bee, And danced for very ecstasy.



IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING

I thought I heard Him calling. Did you hear A sound, a little sound? My curious ear Is dinned with flying noises, and the tree Goes—whisper, whisper, whisper silently Till all its whispers spread into the sound Of a dull roar. Lie closer to the ground, The shade is deep and He may pass us by. We are so very small, and His great eye, Customed to starry majesties, may gaze Too wide to spy us hiding in the maze; Ah, misery! the sun has not yet gone And we are naked: He will look upon Our crouching shame, may make us stand upright Burning in terror—O that it were night! He may not come ... what? listen, listen, now— He is here! lie closer ... 'Adam, where art thou?'



THE LONELY GOD

So Eden was deserted, and at eve Into the quiet place God came to grieve. His face was sad, His hands hung slackly down Along his robe; too sorrowful to frown He paced along the grassy paths and through The silent trees, and where the flowers grew Tended by Adam. All the birds had gone Out to the world, and singing was not one To cheer the lonely God out of His grief— The silence broken only when a leaf Tapt lightly on a leaf, or when the wind, Slow-handed, swayed the bushes to its mind.

And so along the base of a round hill, Rolling in fern, He bent His way until He neared the little hut which Adam made, And saw its dusky rooftree overlaid With greenest leaves. Here Adam and his spouse Were wont to nestle in their little house Snug at the dew-time: here He, standing sad, Sighed with the wind, nor any pleasure had In heavenly knowledge, for His darlings twain Had gone from Him to learn the feel of pain, And what was meant by sorrow and despair,— Drear knowledge for a Father to prepare.

There he looked sadly on the little place; A beehive round it was, without a trace Of occupant or owner; standing dim Among the gloomy trees it seemed to Him A final desolation, the last word Wherewith the lips of silence had been stirred. Chaste and remote, so tiny and so shy, So new withal, so lost to any eye, So pac't of memories all innocent Of days and nights that in it had been spent In blithe communion, Adam, Eve, and He, Afar from Heaven and its gaudery; And now no more! He still must be the God But not the friend; a Father with a rod Whose voice was fear, whose countenance a threat, Whose coming terror, and whose going wet With penitential tears; not evermore Would they run forth to meet Him as before With careless laughter, striving each to be First to His hand and dancing in their glee To see Him coming—they would hide instead At His approach, or stand and hang the head, Speaking in whispers, and would learn to pray Instead of asking, 'Father, if we may.'

Never again to Eden would He haste At cool of evening, when the sun had paced Back from the tree-tops, slanting from the rim Of a low cloud, what time the twilight dim Knit tree to tree in shadow, gathering slow Till all had met and vanished in the flow Of dusky silence, and a brooding star Stared at the growing darkness from afar, While haply now and then some nested bird Would lift upon the air a sleepy word Most musical, or swing its airy bed To the high moon that drifted overhead.

'Twas good to quit at evening His great throne, To lay His crown aside, and all alone Down through the quiet air to stoop and glide Unkenned by angels: silently to hide In the green fields, by dappled shades, where brooks Through leafy solitudes and quiet nooks Flowed far from heavenly majesty and pride, From light astounding and the wheeling tide Of roaring stars. Thus does it ever seem Good to the best to stay aside and dream In narrow places, where the hand can feel Something beside, and know that it is real. His angels! silly creatures who could sing And sing again, and delicately fling The smoky censer, bow and stand aside All mute in adoration: thronging wide, Till nowhere could He look but soon He saw An angel bending humbly to the law Mechanic; knowing nothing more of pain, Than when they were forbid to sing again, Or swing anew the censer, or bow down In humble adoration of His frown. This was the thought in Eden as He trod— ... It is a lonely thing to be a God.

So long! afar through Time He bent His mind, For the beginning, which He could not find, Through endless centuries and backwards still Endless for ever, till His 'stonied will Halted in circles, dizzied in the swing Of mazy nothingness.—His mind could bring Not to subjection, grip or hold the theme Whose wide horizon melted like a dream To thinnest edges. Infinite behind The piling centuries were trodden blind In gulfs chaotic—so He could not see When He was not who always had To Be.

Not even godly fortitude can stare Into Eternity, nor easy bear The insolent vacuity of Time: It is too much, the mind can never climb Up to its meaning, for, without an end, Without beginning, plan, or scope, or trend To point a path, there nothing is to hold And steady surmise: so the mind is rolled And swayed and drowned in dull Immensity. Eternity outfaces even Me With its indifference, and the fruitless year Would swing as fruitless were I never here.

And so for ever, day and night the same, Years flying swiftly nowhere, like a game Played random by a madman, without end Or any reasoned object but to spend What is unspendable—Eternal Woe! O Weariness of Time that fast or slow Goes never further, never has in view An ending to the thing it seeks to do, And so does nothing: merely ebb and flow, From nowhere into nowhere, touching so The shores of many stars and passing on, Careless of what may come or what has gone.

O solitude unspeakable! to be For ever with oneself! never to see An equal face, or feel an equal hand, To sit in state and issue reprimand, Admonishment or glory, and to smile Disdaining what has happened the while! O to be breast to breast against a foe! Against a friend! to strive and not to know The laboured outcome: love nor be aware How much the other loved, and greatly care With passion for that happy love or hate, Nor know what joy or dole was hid in fate, For I have ranged the spacy width and gone Swift north and south, striving to look upon An ending somewhere. Many days I sped Hard to the west, a thousand years I fled Eastwards in fury, but I could not find The fringes of the Infinite. Behind And yet behind, and ever at the end Came new beginnings, paths that did not wend To anywhere were there: and ever vast And vaster spaces opened—till at last Dizzied with distance, thrilling to a pain Unnameable, I turned to Heaven again. And there My angels were prepared to fling The cloudy incense, there prepared to sing My praise and glory—O, in fury I Then roared them senseless, then threw down the sky And stamped upon it, buffeted a star With My great fist, and flung the sun afar: Shouted My anger till the mighty sound Rung to the width, frighting the furthest bound And scope of hearing: tumult vaster still, Thronging the echo, dinned My ears, until I fled in silence, seeking out a place To hide Me from the very thought of Space.

And so, He thought, in Mine own Image I Have made a man, remote from Heaven high And all its humble angels: I have poured My essence in his nostrils: I have cored His heart with My own spirit; part of Me, His mind with laboured growth unceasingly Must strive to equal Mine; must ever grow By virtue of My essence till he know Both good and evil through the solemn test Of sin and retribution, till, with zest, He feels his godhead, soars to challenge Me In Mine own Heaven for supremacy.

Through savage beasts and still more savage clay, Invincible, I bid him fight a way To greater battles, crawling through defeat Into defeat again: ordained to meet Disaster in disaster; prone to fall, I prick him with My memory to call Defiance at his victor and arise With anguished fury to his greater size Through tribulation, terror, and despair. Astounded, he must fight to higher air, Climb battle into battle till he be Confronted with a flaming sword and Me.

So growing age by age to greater strength, To greater beauty, skill and deep intent: With wisdom wrung from pain, with energy Nourished in sin and sorrow, he will be Strong, pure and proud an enemy to meet, Tremendous on a battle-field, or sweet To walk by as a friend with candid mind. —Dear enemy or friend so hard to find, I yet shall find you, yet shall put My breast In enmity or love against your breast: Shall smite or clasp with equal ecstasy The enemy or friend who grows to Me.

The topmost blossom of his growing I Shall take unto Me, cherish and lift high Beside Myself upon My holy throne:— It is not good for God to be alone. The perfect woman of his perfect race Shall sit beside Me in the highest place And be My Goddess, Queen, Companion, Wife, The rounder of My majesty, the life, Of My ambition. She will smile to see Me bending down to worship at her knee Who never bent before, and she will say, 'Dear God, who was it taught 'Thee' how to pray?'

And through eternity, adown the slope Of never-ending time, compact of hope, Of zest and young enjoyment, I and She Will walk together, sowing jollity Among the raving stars, and laughter through The vacancies of Heaven, till the blue Vast amplitudes of space lift up a song, The echo of our presence, rolled along And ever rolling where the planets sing The majesty and glory of the King. Then conquered, thou, Eternity, shalt lie Under My hand as little as a fly.

I am the Master: I the mighty God And you My workshop. Your pavilions trod By Me and Mine shall never cease to be, For you are but the magnitude of Me, The width of My extension, the surround Of My dense splendour. Rolling, rolling round, To steeped infinity, and out beyond My own strong comprehension, you are bond And servile to My doings. Let you swing More wide and ever wide, you do but fling Around this instant Me, and measure still The breadth and the proportion of My Will.

Then stooping to the hut—a beehive round— God entered in and saw upon the ground The dusty garland, Adam, (learned to weave) Had loving placed upon the head of Eve Before the terror came, when joyous they Could look for God at closing of the day Profound and happy. So the Mighty Guest Rent, took, and placed the blossoms in His breast. 'This,' said He gently, 'I shall show My queen When she hath grown to Me in space serene, And say "'twas worn by Eve."' So, smiling fair, He spread abroad His wings upon the air.



* * * * *



ROBERT CALVERLEY TREVELYAN



DIRGE

Gone is he now. One flower the less Is left to make For thee less lone Earth's wilderness, Where thou Must still live on.

What hath been, ne'er May be again. Yet oft of old, To cheat despair, Tales false and fair In vain Of death were told.

O vain belief! O'erweening dreams! Trust not fond hope, Nor think that bliss Which neither seems, Nor is, Aught else than grief.



* * * * *



BIBLIOGRAPHY

(These lists, which include poetical works only, are in some cases incomplete.)

LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE

Interludes and Poems. John Lane. 1908 Mary and the Bramble. Published by the Author. 1910 The Sale of St. Thomas. " " 1911 Emblems of Love. John Lane. 1912 Deborah (three act play) " " 1912

GORDON BOTTOMLEY

The Crier by Night (one act play). Unicorn Press. 1902. (Out of print.) [1] Midsummer Eve (one act pastoral) Peartree Press. 1905 The Riding to Lithend (one act play) " " 1909 The Gate of Smaragdus. Elkin Mathews. 1904 Chambers of Imagery (First Series). " 1907 Chambers of Imagery (Second Series). " 1912 A Vision of Giorgione. T. B. Mosher (Portland, Maine, U.S.A.). 1910

RUPERT BROOKE

Poems. Sidgwick and Jackson. 1911

G. K. CHESTERTON

The Wild Knight. Grant Richards. 1900 The Ballad of the White Horse. Methuen. 1911

WILLIAM H. DAVIES

The Soul's Destroyer. Alston Rivers. 1906 New Poems. Elkin Mathews. 1907 Nature Poems A. C. Fifield. 1908 Farewell to Poesy. " " 1910 Songs of Joy. " " 1911

WALTER DE LA MARE

Songs of Childhood. Longmans. 1902 Poems. Murray. 1906 The Listeners. Constable. 1912

JOHN DRINKWATER

Lyrical and Other Poems. Samurai Press. 1908. (Out of print.) Poems of Men and Hours. David Nutt. 1911 Cophetua (one act play). " " 1911 Poems of Love and Earth. " " 1912

JAMES ELROY FLECKER

Forty-Two Poems. J. M. Dent and Sons. 1911

WILFRID WILSON GIBSON

On the Threshold. Elkin Mathews. 1907 The Stonefolds. " " 1907 Daily Bread. " " 1910 Fires. " " 1912

D. H. LAWRENCE

('Poems of Love' will be published by Messrs Duckworth in February.)

JOHN MASEFIELD

Salt Water Ballads. Grant Richards. 1902 Ballads. Elkin Mathews. 1903 Ballads and Poems. " " 1910 The Everlasting Mercy. Sidgwick and Jackson. 1911 The Widow in the Bye Street. " " 1912

HAROLD MONRO

Poems. Elkin Mathews. 1906 Judas. Sampson Low. 1908 Before Dawn. Constable. 1911

T. STURGE MOORE

The Vinedresser. Unicorn Press. 1899 The Little School. Pissarro. 1905 Poems. Duckworth. 1906 Mariamne. " 1911 A Sicilian Idyll, and Judith " 1911

RONALD ROSS

Fables. Tinling and Co., Liverpool. 1907 Philosophies. Murray. 1910 Lyra Modulata. (Privately printed.) 1911

EDMUND BEALE SARGANT

The Casket Songs. Longmans. 1912

JAMES STEPHENS

Insurrections. Maunsel. 1909 The Hill of Vision. " 1912

ROBERT CALVERLEY TREVELYAN

Mallow and Asphodel. Macmillan. 1898 Sisyphus. Longmans. 1908 The Bride of Dionysus. " 1912



[Footnote 1: Reprinted in 'The Bibelot' for 1909. T. B. Mosher, Portland, Maine, U.S.A.]

THE END