Yet this we know: new leaves and rain Anon shall crown the vernal scene, But dust of dynasts not again Blows up into a king or queen.



GHOSTIES AT THE WEDDING.

Turn down a glass afore his place; Draw up the dog-eared chair; For though we shall not see his face, I think he will be here Our wedding day to share.

Turn up the glass where she would be And put a red rose there. Her quick, grey eyes we cannot see, But weren't they everywhere, And shall not they be here?

Though them old blids are in the grave And their good light's gone out, We'd sooner their kind ghosties have Than all the living rout As will be there no doubt.

For some are dead as cannot die. Some flown as cannot flee. You still do fancy 'em near by. 'Tis so with him and she, At any rate to we.



* * * * *



ARTHUR K. SABIN



FOUR LYRICS

I.

When old Anacreon sang the wine Which made his utterance divine, Perchance the eyes he gazed into Were lucent as the sun-touched dew— Brighter, perchance, than yours; and yet Eyes like yours, smoulderingly lit With the calm passion of the spirit. No young Greek maid did e'er inherit.... Ah! twenty years are not enough To mould to such celestial stuff A soul, my dear, as yours is moulded, Wherein all dreams of life lie folded, And through whose doors a friend may slip Into serene companionship.

II.

She came, as one who in the light Of many a sunset hour had grown Half sad, half glad, because the night So soon about her would be thrown. With melancholy ages old, And laughter fragrant as the Spring, She came, and in her low voice told Tales of rich joy and sorrowing. She led me to her garden, fair With flowers I love and whispering trees, And to her arbour sheltered there In peace, all redolent of peace. With rapt delight of halting speech, And commune, such as those have felt Whose minds move silent each by each. Whose hopes are kindred hopes, we dwelt. But though with love and dreams of gold She wove rare charms about that nest, My heart lay aching still, and cold: I could not rest, I could not rest.

III.

The birds are quiet on the boughs, And quiet are my slumbering trees.... O come a short while to my house And share these evening silences.

Come! for the sunset's weary smile Has faded; night is failing deep: And we will rest a little while And talk together ere we sleep.

IV.

It may be that in future years, When life serenely yields its best Of steadfast joy and fleeting tears, And, blessing, you move on, thrice blest,—

Amid glad tasks of love and home, And fond caresses every day, A softened thought of me shall come And fly to reach me when you pray;

Then I shall tremble where I sit Unhelped through those gray years to be, As, like a benediction, it Shall flood in sweetness over me.



* * * * *



MARGARET SACKVILLE



THE RETURN

Last night, within our little town The Dead came marching through; In a long line, like living men, Just as they used to do.

Only, so long a line it seemed You'd think the Judgment Day Had dawned, to see them slowly pass, With faces turned one way.

They walked no longer foe and foe But brother bound to brother; Poor men, common men they walked Friendly to one another.

Just as in life they might have done Who stabbed and slew instead.... So quietly and evenly they walked These million gentle dead.



TO——

I.

1

Was it for you the aching past alone Lived, that on you might fall the shadow of it? For you, for you kings climbed a ravished throne, And all these menacing, quenched fires were lit. Wars that have left no more than a grey trace, Where are they? Scattered foam, blown dust—ah, me! How have they found their way into your face? The new day is not yours, you only see A battle raging in a desert place, And blood-stained warriors seeking Sanctuary.

2

I cannot love you in the street; I met You in the street once and turned my head away, But I will meet you where the red sunset With forlorn fire flashes the leaping spray. We are too old, too old for all this noise, No wine of such new vintage shall control Us who have known, what passionate joys Once in some far, dark City of the Soul. We are kings still and have, as kings, the choice To spurn the proffered half and claim the whole.

3

Let us find out a new way; for it is plain That all these old, worn, trodden roads suffice Only those who will return again Seeking shelter in their homes from Paradise. Oh! let us find some solitary, green Forgotten garden, where the sunrays fall All blind and blurred and indistinct between Cypresses lofty as earth's boundary wall; Beneath whose shade shall glimmer forth half seen Your face through the soft darkness when I call.



II.

1

If one, with visionary pen, should write The love which might be ours, how would he call These strange, perplexing fires veiled servants light Down the dark vistas of our empty hall? That love which might be ours, how would he name That love? No bitter leaving of the brine, No white or fading blossom twined like flame Round any brow, Christian or Erycine, Not all those loves blown to a windy fame Shall find their counterpart in yours and mine.

2

Not Tristram, not Isolde, wild shades which dip Their pinions like blown gulls in a waste sea, Nor those mute lovers, who still, lip on lip, Float on for ever, though they have ceased to be, Not any of those who loved once;—far apart We wander; the years have made us weak, we fail To rush together with a single heart, And we shall meet at last, only as pale Autumnal mists no sun's shaft cleaves apart When all the winds are still and no ships sail.

III.

1

Yet we shall meet—it may be we shall meet And count our days up-gathered, one by one, Like poppies plucked among the burnished wheat, Beneath the red gaze of the August sun; And all our scattered dreams shall flutter home At last. Oh! silent, age-long wandering What since your setting forth have ye become? What gift from those far waters do ye bring?— A splash of rain, salt taste of frozen foam, Green sea-weed trailing from a broken wing.

2

Or we shall find each other—on the brink Of sleep some day, when the cool evening airs Blow bubbles round the pool where wood-birds drink; Or in the common Inn of wayfarers: Both weary, both beside the wide fireplace Drowsing, till at some sudden spark up-blown Shall each awake to find there face to face You and I very tired and alone; And lo! your welcome from my eyes shall gaze And in your eyes there shall I find my own.

3

I will pursue thee down these solitudes Therefore, and thou shalt yet escape me not. I will set traps for thee of subtle moods And wound thee with the arrows of my thought. In thickest forest ways though thou lie hid, Or in some autumn vale of Brocelinde, Or in whatever place of magic forbid, I will pierce through the woven branches like a wind, And drag thee from thy hiding-place amid The secret laughter of the fairy-kind.

4

Oh, triumph still delaying! I must pass Lonely a long time yet, for I know well No fugitive fair dream that ever was Left anywhere traces where her footprints fell. I, lonely hunter in the woods of sleep. The hunt is up—away! I ride, I ride On a white steed, where black-boughed fir-trees keep Watch and the kindly world is shut outside. I am afraid, the haunted woods are deep! I am afraid—afraid! Where dost thou hide?



* * * * *



W. KEAN SEYMOUR



FRUITAGE

For her the proud stars bend, she sees, As never yet, dim sorceries Breaking in silver magic wide On the blue midnight's swirling tide, With arrowy mist and spearing flame That out of central beauty came. The innumerate splendours of the skies Are thronging in her shining eyes; Her body is a fount of light In the plumed garden of the night; Her lily breasts have known the bliss Of the cool air's unfaltering kiss. She is made one with loveliness, Enfranchised from the world's distress, Given utterly to joy, a bride With a bride's hunger satisfied. Now, though she heavily walk, and know The sharp premonitory throe And the life leaping in the gloom Of her most blessed and chosen womb, It is as though foot never was So light upon the glimmering grass. She is shot through with the stars' light, Helped by their calm, unwavering might. In tall, lone-swaying gravity Stoops to her there the eternal tree Whose myriad fruitage ripens on Beneath the light of moon and sun.



IN THE WOOD

Lone shadows move, The night air stirs; This hour of dying Dreams was hers.

In this dusk place Her throat gleamed white In glimmering beauty Of starlight.

Nightingales sang Exultant bliss; The snared stars saw us Sway, and kiss.

Now the bats whirr, The barn owls hoot, Her loveliness Is dust, is mute.

Peace comes not here, No dream-bird trills: They haunt her lodging In the hills.



SIESTA

Bring me some oranges on blue china, With a jade-and-silver spoon, And drowse on your silken mats beside me In the burning noon.

Bring me red wine in cups of crystal, With melons on chrysoprase, And place them softly with jewelled fingers Before my gaze.

Hasten, my dove of scented whisperings, My lily, my Xacn! Bring bubbling pipes for the cool shadows, And my peacock fan.

And bid Isrrib, my chief musician, Weave quiet songs within, That my soul in the circles of a great glamour May float and spin.

And O, you gaudy and whistling parrots In your high, flowered maze, Still your harsh, petulant quarrelling With the mocking jays.



TO ONE WHO EATS LARKS

Ah, my brave Vitellius! Ah, your tastes are marvellous! When you eat your singing birds Do you leave the bones—and words, The proud music in the throat?... Not a note, not a note? Doubtless they were not so pleasant As the brains of a young pheasant, Or flamingoes' tongues, whose duty Never was to utter beauty. But they sang, but they fluted And your rasping lies confuted, And your ugliness laid bare With a lyric in the air. So you bought them on a string, Dangling balls that used to sing, And you gave them to the cook With a fat and happy look.

But you ask me why this fuss! Ah, my brave Vitellius, I am never sure your stringers May not string you other singers, May not tire of lark and wren And attempt to sell you men. Please forgive me, but I've made Certain songs ... and I'm afraid!



IF BEAUTY CAME TO YOU

If Beauty came to you, Ah, would you know her grace, And could you in your shadowed prison view Unscathed her face?

Stepping as noiselessly As moving moth-wings, so Might she come suddenly to you or me And we not know.

Amid these clangs and cries, Alas, how should we hear The shy, dim-woven music of her sighs As she draws near.

Threading through monstrous, black, Uncharitable hours, Where the soul shapes its own abhorrd rack Of wasted powers?



* * * * *



HORACE SHIPP



PRISON

I.

The dreadful days go up and up, to fall Through twilight to the sleepless dusk again, Like tortured flies upon a window pane. Wingless or broken-winged, They crawl and crawl ... Meaningless, striving—nowhere after all, Till one is tired of heeding. Tired. A stain of drab unloveliness the days remain Unmoving now, save that across the wall, A patch of sun behind a shadow of bars, Creeps in a stupor. Greys, Grins bloodily, Falters and dies.

Outside a day may slip From noon-glow to a miracle of stars With hours that flush and flood eternity; Whilst here The stagnant waters drip ... and drip.

II.

They tell me I have sinned; that long ago (Weeks—or a cycle of eternity) This thing of dead desire lived lustily, Was stirred with passion, and sinned. It may be so; As seas or hills may be. I only know God's world has shrunken, And that misery, Shrinking my heart, has closed her walls on me, Till in the dead, still soul the senses grow Carious as the ulcer of thought eats deep. Heavy, the slow lusts pace the barren mind From end to end. Barred door and window, Wall inexorable. And the horrors creep on padded feet like warders. Then the blind, pitiful night When hot tears scald and fall.

III.

Grey day-break and the silence of the cell: The dull, numb pain of waking, Stillness ... Fear clutching oblivion; And then to hear The brazen, blasphemous tolling of the bell, A crash of doors, Loud-clanging tins, The swell of brutal voices nearer and more near, Bursts at the last about you. Clangour. Queer delight of movement. Then ... the door shuts. Hell darkens about you with the turning key, The silence burns and sears you like a flame; It battens as the worm that never dies; Crawls back from distant noises; palpably Lurks through the rhythm of the feet of shame, Watching and watching out of hooded eyes.



THE SIXTH DAY

"And God said 'Let us make man in our image and let him have dominion'...."

God made you in His image, yet I saw You stoop and seize a blind mole from the snare. Blind. Blind with terror ... Blind Your teeth gleamed bare behind the taut, white lips. The trapper's law knows neither hate nor love. You watched it paw, Frantic with lust of life, the yielding air And were amused. God's Image! Did you care, pitying one moment, see the swift hands claw For life and darkness, know and hate your trap? I saw your knuckles gleam, your hand swing free; A cry; The blind face crashed against the wall. Then death and stillness and—— You grinned. Mayhap, Snaring the blind mole of humanity, God made you in His image after all.



* * * * *



EDITH SITWELL



EVENTAIL

Lovely Semiramis Closes her slanting eyes: Dead is she long ago, From her fan sliding slow Parrot-bright fire's feathers Gilded as June weathers, Plumes like the greenest grass Twinkle down; as they pass Through the green glooms in Hell, Fruits with a tuneful smell— Grapes like an emerald rain Where the full moon has lain, Greengages bright as grass, Melons as cold as glass Piled on each gilded booth Feel their cheeks growing smooth; Apes in plumed head-dresses Whence the bright heat hisses, Nubian faces sly, Pursing mouth, slanting eye, Feel the Arabian Winds floating from that fan: See how each gilded face Paler grows, nods apace: "Oh, the fan's blowing Cold winds.... It is snowing!"



THE LADY WITH THE SEWING-MACHINE

Across the fields as green as spinach, Cropped as close as Time to Greenwich,

Stands a high house; if at all, Spring comes like a Paisley shawl—

Patternings meticulous And youthfully ridiculous.

In each room the yellow sun Shakes like a canary, run

On run, roulade, and watery trill— Yellow, meaningless, and shrill.

Face as white as any clock's, Cased in parsley-dark curled locks—

All day long you sit and sew, Stitch life down for fear it grow,

Stitch life down for fear we guess At the hidden ugliness.

Dusty voice that throbs with heat, Hoping with your steel-thin beat

To put stitches in my mind, Make it tidy, make it kind,

You shall not: I'll keep it free Though you turn earth, sky and sea

To a patchwork quilt to keep Your mind snug and warm in sleep!



PORTRAIT OF A BARMAID

Metallic waves of people jar Through crackling green toward the bar

Where on the tables chattering-white The sharp drinks quarrel with the light.

Those coloured muslin blinds the smiles, Shroud wooden faces in their wiles—

Sometimes they splash like water (you Yourself reflected in their hue).

The conversation loud and bright Seems spinal bars of shunting light

In firework-spurting greenery. O complicate machinery

For building Babel, iron crane Beneath your hair, that blue-ribbed mane

In noise and murder like the sea Without its mutability!

Outside the bar where jangling heat Seems out of tune and off the beat—

A concertina's glycerine Exudes, and mirrors in the green

Your soul: pure glucose edged with hints Of tentative and half-soiled tints.



SOLO FOR EAR-TRUMPET

The carriage brushes through the bright Leaves (violent jets from life to light); Strong polished speed is plunging, heaves Between the showers of bright hot leaves The window-glasses glaze our faces And jar them to the very basis— But they could never put a polish Upon my manners or abolish My most distinct disinclination For calling on a rich relation! In her house—(bulwark built between The life man lives and visions seen)— The sunlight hiccups white as chalk, Grown drunk with emptiness of talk, And silence hisses like a snake— Invertebrate and rattling ache.... Then suddenly Eternity Drowns all the houses like a sea And down the street the Trump of Doom Blares madly—shakes the drawing-room Where raw-edged shadows sting forlorn As dank dark nettles. Down the horn Of her ear-trumpet I convey The news that "It is Judgment Day!" "Speak louder: I don't catch, my dear." I roared: "It is the Trump we hear!" "The What?" "THE TRUMP!" "I shall complain! .... the boy-scouts practising again."



* * * * *



MURIEL STUART



THE FATHER

The evening found us whom the day had fled, Once more in bitter anger, you and I, Over some small, some foolish, trivial thing Our anger would not decently let die, But dragged between us, shamed and shivering Until each other's taunts we scarcely heard, Until we lost the sense of all we said, And knew not who first spoke the fatal word. It seemed that even every kiss we wrung We killed at birth with shuddering and hate, As if we feared a thing too passionate. However close we clung One hour the next hour found us separate, Estranged, and Love most bitter on our tongue.

To-night we quarrelled over one small head, Our fruit of last year's maying, the white bud Blown from our stormy kisses and the dead First rapture of our wild, estranging blood. You clutched him: there was panther in your eyes, We breathed like beasts in thickets, on the wall Our shadows in huge challenge seemed to rise, The room grew dark with anger. Yet through all The shame and hurt and pity of it you were Still strangely and imperishably dear, As one who loves the wild day none the less That breaks in bitter hands the buds of Spring, Whose cold hand stops the breath of loveliness, And drives the wailing ghost of beauty past, Making the rose,—even the rose, a thing For pain to be remembered by at last.

I said: "My son shall wear his father's sword." You said: "Shall hands once blossoms at my breast Be stained with blood?" I answered with a word More bitter, and your own, the bitterest Stung me to sullen anger, and I said: "My son shall be no coward of his line Because his mother choose"; you turned your head And your eyes grew implacable in mine. And like a trodden snake you turned to meet The foe with sudden hissing ... then you smiled, And broke our life in pieces at my feet, "Your child?" you said: "Your child?"



THE SHORE

The low bay melts into a ring of silver, And slips it on the shore's reluctant finger Though in an hour the tide will turn, will tremble, Forsaking her because the moon persuades him. But the black wood that leans and sighs above her No tide can turn, no moon can slave nor summon. Then comes the dark: on sleepy, shell-strewn beaches, O'er long pale leagues of sand and cold, clear water She hears the tide go out towards the moonlight. The wood still leans ... weeping she turns to seek him, And his black hair all night is on her bosom.



THLUS WOOD

I came by night to Thlus wood, And though in dark and desperate places Stubborned with wire and brown with blood Undaunted April crept and sewed Her violets in dead men's faces, And in a soft and snowy shroud Drew the scarred fields with gentle stitch; Though in the valley where the ditch Was hoarse with nettles, blind with mud, She stroked the golden-headed bud, And loosed the fern, she dared not here To touch nor tend this murdered thing; The wind went wide of it, the year Upon this breast stopped short of Spring: Beauty turned back from Thlus Wood.

From broken brows the dim eyes stared, Blistered and maimed the wide stumps grinned From the black mouth of Thlus bared In laughter at some monstrous jest. No creature moved there, weed nor wind. Huge arms, half-torn from savage breast, Hung wide, and tangled limbs and faces Lay, as if giants blind and stark With violent, with perverse embraces Groped for each other in the dark. A moaning rose—not of the wind, —There was no wind, but hollowly From its dim bed of mud each tree Gave forth a sound, till trees and mud Seemed but a single, sighing mouth, A wound that spoke with lips uncouth, And cried to me from Thlus Wood.

I heard one tree say: "This was I Who drew great clouds across the sky To weep against me." This one said: "I made a gloom where love might lie All day and dream it night, a bed Secret and soft, the birds' song had A twilight sound the whole day there." One said: "Last night I shook my hair Before the mirror of the moon." "I saw a corpse to-day," said one "That was but buried yester-year." And one, the smallest, sweetest thing— A fair child-tree made never stir, Dead before God had tended her In the green nurseries of Spring. She lay, the loveliest, loneliest, Among the old and ruined trees, And at each small and broken wrist The white flowers grew like bandages.

Then from the ruined churchyard where Old vaults and graves lay turned and tossed And earth from earth was shaken bare, Came murmurings of a tongueless host That to each ghastly brother said: "Who raised us from our sleep? Is this The resurrection of the dead? Upon our bodies no flesh grows, No bright blood through our temples springs, No glory spreads, no trumpet blows, The air is not white and blind with wings. And yet dragged up before us lie The woods of Thlus at our feet, And strange hills sentinel the sky, And where the road went yawns a pit. The world is finished: let us sleep. God has forgotten: we shall keep Here a sweet, safe Eternity. There is no other end than this, And this is death, and that is peace." But even as they ceased the stones Were loosed, the earth shook where I stood, And from far off the crouching guns Swung slowly round on Thlus Wood.



THE THIEF OF BEAUTY

I.

The mind is Beauty's thief, the poet takes The golden spendthrift's trail among the blooms Where she stands tossing silver in the lakes, And twisting bright swift threads on airy looms. Her ring the poppy snatches, and the rose With laughter plunders all her gusty plumes. The poet gleans and gathers as she goes Heedless of summer's end certain and soon, Of winter rattling at the door of June.

II.

When Beauty lies hand-folded, pale and still, Forsaken of her lovers and her lords, And winter keeps cold watch upon the hill, Then he lets fall his bale of coloured words. At frosty midnight June shall rise in flame, Move at his magic with her bells and birds, The rose will redden as he speaks her name. He shall release earth's frozen bosom there, And with great words shall cuff the whining air.



* * * * *



W. R. TITTERTON



THE HIGH WALL

I will build up a wall for Freedom to dwell therein, A high wall with towers And steel fangs for a gate. For Freedom that lacks a home falleth by pit and gin, A prey to the alien powers That lie in wait.

I will build up a house for her where the ways divide, A house set on a hill, With a lamp in the topmost tower, And a trumpet calling to arms, and a flag like a flame blown wide, And a sword to save and to kill As her bridal dower.

I will take her to wife, she that is life and death; Life—for a trumpet calls; Death—for it calls me still, And I shall know love—a star, and a fluttering breath Till the shadow of silence falls In the house on the hill.

I will build up a house for her where the ways divide, Four-square on the rock, A high house and a great; So, when I fly, spent, back from a broken ride, Her key shall cry in the lock, She shall stand in the gate.

She shall stand in the gate—the prize of the world to win, Stand steel-shod, Crowned with a cloud of flowers. I will build up a wall, a wall, for Freedom to dwell therein In the name of the most high God, A wall with towers.



THE BROKEN SWORD

Soldier, soldier, burnishing your sword, Is there no place for a wayfaring man in the courts of your lord? A couch, and a crust, and a song, and a flagon of wine? Haggard, begrimed though I be, and out at heel, A lean, grey hop-and-go-one with a crutch of steel, Brother-at-arms with death? Behold the sign:

I have tasted great weather on high, white, green-turreted cliffs by the sea. I have tramped the tough heather, the purple, the brown, By pools of peat water; from the night to the day, Till the moon has dropped down: the ghost of a minim, low down, In a high-piping treble of grey.

In shy, dim recesses, mid tresses, green tresses. Slow dipping, caressing, I've heard A whisper, a chuckle of laughter, a scamper; and high, High up in the air the cry, the call of a bird. And when the night came with a flicker of wings I have heard the earth breathing quiet and slow Like a pulse in the tiny, wild tumult of things.

I have sung to the sun, and the moon and the stars, In valleys uncharted of tumbled sea meadows I have shouted aloud 'neath a sky whipped to smoke in the fret of my spars And I fought as I fared; and my couch was a camp; and my songs were my scars.

Soldier! Soldier! Cosetting your sword! Have you no place for a harper-at-arms in the courts of your lord— Prim fountains, clipped trees, and trim gardens, and music, and rest? Nay, keep your sugared delights and your margents embroidered! My life is the best. In my ears is the sound of a bugle blown, and my pulses like kettle-drums beat For the hungry blind onset, the rally, the stubborn defeat. I, too, could have polished, and polished, and jeered at the wayfaring man who passed by. But I follow the fighting Apollo. And I stand unashamed; and I raise up my shard of a sword; and I cry the old cry. Please God they shall find but a hilt in my hand when I die!



NIGHT-SHAPES

Dark hurrying shapes beset my path that night— Pushing and buffeting; and in my brain Dark hurrying shapes beset my soul. In vain I struggled; as a fevered dreamer might; Or some spent, breathless swimmer, in despite Of desperate stroke, thrust headlong to the main. The waking nightmare, monstrous and inane, Whirled, rushed, and huddled in its random flight.

Like a spent swimmer, battling with a swoon, Silent I fought, yet seemed to cry aloud. When, at the challenge of a marching tune, Heard in a sudden stillness of the crowd, I looked aloft, and saw the great round moon Steadfast behind her ragged rout of cloud.



THE SILENT PEOPLE

The Silent People of No Man's Land Calm they lie, With a stare and vacant smile At the vacant sky. Over them swept the battle, And stirred them not. Armies passed over, beyond them. They are forgot.

Calmly the earth deals with them, Melts them away. Nothing is left of them now but bones, Bones and clay. Bones of the Valley of Judgment, Bones stripped clean. We fought, day in, day out, and the others, With this between.

Dawn comes white and finds them Stark and cold. Twilight creeps over and covers them, Fold on fold. Night cannot hide them from us. In the dark, again, We see the Silent People Who once were men.

The Silent People of No Man's Land, They rise, they rise, With the glory of utter loss In their stary eyes. Beckoning, beckoning, calling, Pointing the way. But the dawn comes white, and finds them Bones and clay.

Winds of the world blow o'er them Your serenade! Touch like a lute the broken earth Where our dead are laid! Broken bones of the martyrs, Reliques of pain, Anoint them, anoint them with sunlight, Robe them in rain.

The Silent People of No Man's Land Calm they lie, Bones, broken and bleached, Under the sky. Over them sweeps the tempest, And stirs them not. We pass over, beyond them, They are forgot.



* * * * *



E. H. VISIAK



LAMPS AND LANTERNS

When I had sight, great glamour was In myriad lamps of coloured glass: Old lamps for new I never sold; For old were new, and new were old.

And Chinese lanterns, paper globes, Were Dragon Gods in tissue robes That stood on air with squat, round shoon, Beneath the thin, receded Moon.



STRANDED

Dusk gathers. On the seaward hedge The wild hops, hanging bright, Gleam as a foam-spray flung on sedge From a sea of golden light.

A ship lies heavy on the sands Above the warped, wan tide, Whose waves thrust ineffectual hands Beneath its murmuring side.

They cannot lift the monstrous hulk, Nor break the ghostly spell; The ship lies dreaming, all her bulk Racked on a shoal of hell.

I hear the sullen timbers creak, With echoings deep and numb; No other sound: nor groan nor shriek; For agony is dumb!

But at the seams, in every crack, A beaded sweat appears: The soul that's stretched on such a rack Can shed no other tears!



* * * * *



ALEC WAUGH



RUBBLE

We may fill the daytime with friendship And laughter and song; But however the laughter may trip And the words break in song On a loved one's lip; And however gaily the road may bend Into the sky, It must come to this in the end, That we stand And watch the last friend Turn with a half-felt sigh And a wave of the hand; And silence is over the day, Shadows fall, And our happiness crumbles away Like a wall That nobody cares for, That falls stone by stone Till its grandeur is rubble once more, And we are alone.



* * * * *



CHARLES WILLIAMS



CHRISTMAS

Word through the world went On Christmas morn,— 'Tidings! behold, a Townsman is born!'

Then in their council Smiled the high lords: 'Sword for world-conquest 'Mid a world's swords. Need shall our armies Have of each birth, In that last battle Wins us the earth.'

Still were the priesthood, Singing the Mass: 'Lo, is our creed come Truly to pass? Blessd and broken Crumbs that we give, Say! say, O chalice, Can a creed live?

Then to lord Shakespeare, Brooding alone, While in a vision Lear was shown, While his just loathing Hung over men, Lo, from the darkness Came Imogen.

Then said a free maid, Heart against mine,— Take me, lord governor, Who am all thine! Thou that hast blessed me With a new light, Ah, is thy handmaid Fair in thy sight?'

Then said our Lady,— 'Clean is the hut, Filled are the platters, And the door shut. Sit, O son Jesus! Sit thou, sweet friend! Poor folk have supper And their woes end.'

'Now,' said our Father, 'All things are won: Welcome, O Saviour! Welcome, O Son! More than creation Lives now again, God hath borne Godhead Nowise in vain.'

Word went through Sarras On Easter morn,— 'Tidings! behold a Townsman is born!'



BRISEIS

The footfalls of the parting Myrmidons And counter-cries of leaguer and of town Are hushed behind her as the silks drop down; Alone she stands, and wonderingly cons Heads circleted with gold or helmed with bronze; Higher her eyes from crown to loftier crown Creep, till they fall, nigh-blasted, at the frown Of Argos, throned in his pavilions

And mid his captains wrathfully aware How the plague smites the host, how by the sea Beyond the ships, with vengeful prayer and oath, Rages the young Achilles, of whose wrath Innocent, ignorant, a captive, she Sees but the dropped staff on the voided chair.



* * * * *



BIBLIOGRAPHY

(This list includes poetical works only).

BINYON, LAURENCE.

Persephone (1890) Lyric Poems (1894) Poems (1895) Porphyrion and other poems (1898) The Supper (1897) Odes (1901) Death of Adam and other poems (1904) Penthesilea (1905) Dream come true (1905) Paris and Oenone (1906) Attila, a tragedy (1907) England and other poems (1909) Auguries (1913) The Winnowing-fan (1914) Bombastes in the Shades, a play (1915) The Anvil and other poems (1916) The Cause: poems of the war (1917) For the Fallen and other poems (1917) The New World (1918) The Four Years: Collected War Poems (1919)

CHESTERTON, G.K.

Ballad of the White Horse (1911) The Wild Knight and other poems (1914) Poems (1915) Wine, Water and Song (1915)

CHURCH, RICHARD.

Flood of Life and other poems (1917) Hurricane (1919)

DAVIES, W.H.

New Poems (1907) Nature Poems and others (1908) Farewell to Poesy and other poems (1910) Songs of Joy and Others (1911) Foliage (1913) Bird of Paradise and other poems (1914) Child Lovers and other poems (1916) Collected Poems (1916) Forty Poems (1918)

DRINKWATER, JOHN.

Poems (1903) Death of Leander and other poems (1906) Lyrical and other poems (1908) Cophetua, a play (1911) Poems of Men and Hours (1911) Poems of Love and Earth (1912) Cromwell and other poems (1913) Rebellion (1914) Swords and Ploughshares (1915) Olton Pools and other poems (1916) Pawns (1917) Poems (1908-14) (1917) Tides (1917) Abraham Lincoln (1918) Loyalties (1919)

GIBSON, WILFRED WILSON.

Golden Helm (1903) On the Threshold and Other Plays (1907) Stonefolds (1907) Web of Life (1908) Akra the Slave (1910) Daily Bread (1910) Womenkind (1912) Fires (1912) Thorough-fares (1914) Borderlands (1914) Battle (1915) Friends (1916) Livelihood (1917)

GOLDING, LOUIS.

Sorrow of War (1919)

GOULD, GERALD.

Lyrics (1906) Poems (1911) My Lady's Book (1913) Monogamy (1918)

HOUSMAN, LAURENCE.

Mendicant Rhymes (1906) Selected Poems (1908) The Winners (1915) Heart of Peace (1918)

LE GALLIENNE, RICHARD.

My Ladies' Sonnets (1887) R. L. S., An Elegy (1895) Omar Repentant (1908) Orestes (1910) The Lonely Dancer and other poems (1914) The Silk Hat Soldier and other poems (1915)

MACAULAY, ROSE.

The Two Blind Countries (1914) Three Days (1919)

MASON, EUGENE.

Flamma Vestalis and other poems (1890) The Field Floridus and other poems (1899) Vitrail and other Poems (1916)

MAYNARD, THEODORE.

Laughs and Whifts of Song (1915) Drums of Defeat (1917) Folly and other poems (1918)

MOORE, T. STURGE.

The Vinedresser and other poems (1899) Aphrodite against Artemis (1901) Absalom (1903) The Centaur's Booty (1903) Dane (1903) Rout of the Amazons (1903) Pan's Prophecy (1904) Theseus, Medea and Lyrics (1904) To Leda and other odes (1904) The Gazelles and other poems (1904) A Sicilian Idyll and Judith (1911) Mariamne (1911) Collected Poems (1916)

NICHOLS, ROBERT.

Ardours and Endurances (1917) Invocation (1919)

PHILLPOTTS, EDEN.

Up-Along and Down-Along (1905) Wild Fruit (1911) Demeter's Daughter (1911) The Iscariot (1912) Delight and other poems (1916) Plain Song (1917)

SABIN, ARTHUR K.

Typhon and other poems (1902) Death of Icarus (1906) The Wayfarers (1907) Dante and Beatrice (1908) Medea and Circe and other poems (1911) New Poems (1914) War Harvest (1914) Five Poems (1914) Christmas (1914)

SACKVILLE, LADY MARGARET.

Poems (1901) A Hymn to Dionysus and other poems (1905) Hildris the Queen, a play (1908) Lyrics (1912) Songs of Aphrodite and other poems (1913) Pageant of War (1916)

SEYMOUR, WILLIAM KEAN.

Street of Dreams (1914) To Verhaeren and other poems (1917) Twenty-four Poems (1918) Swords and Flutes (1919)

SITWELL, EDITH.

The Mother and other poems (1915) Clowns' Houses (1918) (With Osbert Sitwell) Twentieth Century Harlequinade and other poems.

STUART, MURIEL.

Christ at Carnival and other poems (1916) The Cockpit of Idols (1918)

TITTERTON, W. R.

River Music and other poems (1900) Guns and Guitars (1918)

VISIAK, E.H.

Buccaneer Ballads (1910) Flints and Flashes (1911) The Phantom Ship (1912) Battle Fiends and other poems (1916) Brief Poems (1919)

WAUGH, ALEC.

Resentment (1918)

WILLIAMS, CHARLES.

The Silver Stair (1912) Poems of Conformity (1917) Divorce (In preparation)

THE END