 |
E-text prepared by Al Haines
Transcriber's note:
Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred in the original book.
POEMS OF TO-DAY:
an Anthology.
London: Published for the English Association by Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., 1918
First issued in August, 1915; Reprinted October, 1915; January, March, June, September, and December, 1916; May, July, September, October, 1917, January, February, and July, 1918.
{vii}
PREFATORY NOTE
This book has been compiled in order that boys and girls, already perhaps familiar with the great classics of the English speech, may also know something of the newer poetry of their own day. Most of the writers are living, and the rest are still vivid memories among us, while one of the youngest, almost as these words are written, has gone singing to lay down his life for his country's cause. Although no definite chronological limit has been set, and Meredith at least began to write in the middle of the nineteenth century, the intention has been to represent mainly those poetic tendencies which have become dominant as the influence of the accepted Victorian masters has grown weaker, and from which the poetry of the future, however it may develope, must in turn take its start. It may be helpful briefly to indicate the sequence of themes. Man draws his being from the heroic Past and from the Earth his Mother; and in harmony with these he must shape his life to what high purposes he may. Therefore this gathering of poems falls into three groups. {viii} First there are poems of History, of the romantic tale of the world, of our own special tradition here in England, and of the inheritance of obligation which that tradition imposes upon us. Naturally, there are some poems directly inspired by the present war, but nothing, it is hoped, which may not, in happier days, bear translation into any European tongue. Then there come poems of the Earth, of England again and the longing of the exile for home, of this and that familiar countryside, of woodland and meadow and garden, of the process of the seasons, of the "open road" and the "wind on the heath," of the city, its deprivations and its consolations. Finally there are poems of Life itself, of the moods in which it may be faced, of religion, of man's excellent virtues, of friendship and childhood, of passion, grief, and comfort. But there is no arbitrary isolation of one theme from another; they mingle and inter-penetrate throughout, to the music of Pan's flute, and of Love's viol, and the bugle-call of Endeavour, and the passing-bell of Death.
May, 1915.
{ix}
INDEX OF AUTHORS
PAGE A. E. (GEORGE RUSSELL) Shadows and Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
ABERCROMBIE, LASCELLES Margaret's Song . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
BEECHING, H. C. Fatherhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Prayers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
BELLOC, HILAIRE Courtesy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 From "Dedicatory Ode" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 The South Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
BINYON, LAURENCE Bab-lock-hythe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 For the Fallen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 In misty blue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 O summer sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 The Little Dancers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 The Road Menders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
BLUNT, W. S. A Day in Sussex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Chanclebury Ring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 St. Valentine's Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
BRIDGES, ROBERT Awake, my heart, to be loved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Elegy on a Lady . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 I love all beauteous things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 I never shall love the snow again . . . . . . . . . . . 148 I will not let thee go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 London Snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
{x}
On a Dead Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 Spring goeth all in white . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 The hill pines were sighing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 There is a hill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 When June is come . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
BROOKE, RUPERT The Dead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 The Old Vicarage, Grantchester . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 The Soldier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
CANTON, WILLIAM Heights and Depths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
CHALMERS, P. R. Roundabouts and Swings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
CHESTERTON, G. K. The Praise of Dust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
COLERIDGE, MARY E. A Huguenot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Chillingham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Gibberish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Street Lanterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Where a Roman Villa stood, above Freiburg . . . . . . . 33
COLUM, PADRAIC A Cradle Song . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
CORNFORD, FRANCES Pre-existence To a Lady seen from the Train . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
CRIPPS, A. S. A Lyke-wake Carol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 A Refrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Essex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
DAVIDSON, JOHN A Cinque Port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 In Romney Marsh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
DAVIES, W. H. Days that have been . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Early Morn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Leisure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
{xi}
DE LA MARE, WALTER All that's Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 An Epitaph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Martha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Nod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 The Scarecrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
DRINKWATER, JOHN A Town Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Mamble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 The Defenders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
FLECKER, J. E. A ship, an isle, a sickle moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Brumana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
GOSSE, EDMUND Lying in the Grass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Philomel in London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
GOULD, GERALD Fallen Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Oxford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 'Tis but a week . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
HODGSON, RALPH Time, you old gipsy man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
HOUSMAN, LAURENCE Annus Mirabilis (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
JOHNSON, LIONEL A Friend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 By the Statue of King Charles at Charing Cross . . . . . 10 The Precept of Silence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
KIPLING, RUDYARD Sussex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 The Flowers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
LESLIE, SHANE Fleet Street . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
MACAULAY, ROSE Many Sisters to Many Brothers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 The Devourers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
MACKAIL, J. W. On the Death of Arnold Toynbee . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
{xii}
MASEFIELD, JOHN Beauty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 By a Bier-side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Fragments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Laugh and be merry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Tewkesbury Road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Twilight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
MEREDITH, GEORGE Juggling Jerry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 From "Love in the Valley" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 Lucifer in Starlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 The Lark Ascending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
MEYNELL, ALICE A Dead Harvest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 At Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Chimes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 November Blue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Parted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 The Lady Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 The Shepherdess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 To a Daisy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 To the Beloved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
MOORE, T. STURGE Idleness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Renaissance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Rower's Chant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
NEWBOLT, SIR HENRY Drake's Drum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 He Fell among Thieves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Minora Sidera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 The Volunteer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Vitai Lampada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
NICHOLS, J. B. B. On the Toilet Table of Queen Marie-Antoinette . . . . . 9
NOYES, ALFRED The moon is up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
QUILLER-COUCH, SIR A. T. Alma Mater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Upon Eckington Bridge, River Avon . . . . . . . . . . . 9
{xiii}
RADFORD, ERNEST Plymouth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
SMITH, ADA In City Streets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
STEVENSON, R. L. I will make you brooches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 If this were Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 In the Highlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 My Wife . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Requiem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 The Celestial Surgeon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 The House Beautiful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 The Vagabond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 To S. R. Crockett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 To Will H. Low . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Youth and Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
SYMONS, ARTHUR In Fountain Court . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 In the Meadows at Mantua . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Montserrat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
THOMPSON, FRANCIS All Flesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Daisy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 The Kingdom of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 To a Snowflake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 To my Godchild . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
TRENCH, HERBERT Musing on a Great Soldier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 O dreamy, gloomy, friendly Trees . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
TYNAN, KATHARINE Farewell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 The Choice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 The Old Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
WATSON, WILLIAM Estrangement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Ode in May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
WOODS, MARGARET L. Gaudeamus Igitur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 To the Forgotten Dead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
{xiv}
YEATS, W. B. A Dream of a Blessed Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 A Dream of Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven . . . . . . . . . . 156 Down by the galley gardens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Into the Twilight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 The Folly of being Comforted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 The Lake Isle of Inisfree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 When you are Old . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
For permission to use copyright poems the English Association is greatly indebted to the authors; to the literary executors of Mary Coleridge (Sir Henry Newbolt), J. E. Flecker (Mrs. Flecker), Lionel Johnson (Mr. Elkin Mathews), George Meredith (Trustees, through Mr. W. M. Meredith), R. L. Stevenson (Mr. Lloyd Osbourne), Arthur Symons (through Mr. Edmund Gosse), and Francis Thompson (Mr. Wilfrid Meynell); and to the following publishers in respect of the poems enumerated:
Mr. B. H. Blackwell: A. S. Cripps, Lyra Evangelistica (Nos. 25, 26, 39).
Messrs. W. Blackwood & Sons: Alfred Noyes, Drake (No. 12).
Mr. A. H. Bullen: W. B. Yeats, Poems (Nos. 101, 133, 146).
Messrs. Burns & Oates: Francis Thompson, Works (Nos. 105, 106, 110, 123, 127, 145). Alice Meynell, Collected Poems (Nos. 62, 74, 81, 107, 111, 115, 137, 140, 147). Shane Leslie, Eyes of Youth (No. 84).
Messrs. Chatto & Windus: R. L. Stevenson, Underwoods (Nos. 51, 73, 90, 109), and Songs of Travel (Nos. 29, 32, 68, 71, 94, 96, 135).
Messrs. Constable & Co.: Walter de la Mare, The Listeners (Nos. 1, 61, 67, 117, 142).
{xv}
Messrs. J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.: W. Canton, The Comrades (No. 28). G. K. Chesterton, The Wild Knight (No. 131).
Messrs. Duckworth & Co.: Hilaire Belloc, Verses (Nos. 35, 45, 112). T. Sturge Moore, The Gazelles (Nos. 89, 93).
Mr. A. O. Fifield: W. H. Davies, Songs of Joy (Nos. 48, 86), and Nature Poems (No. 53).
Messrs. Max Goschen, Ltd.: J. E. Flecker, The Golden Journey to Samarcand* (Nos. 24, 60).
Mr. William Heinemann: W. S. Blunt, Poetry of (Nos. 36, 64, 65). Edmund Gosse, Collected Poems (Nos. 82, 87). Arthur Symons, Poems (Nos. 85, 113, 130).
Mr. John Lane: L. Abercrombie, Interludes and Poems (No. 31). John Davidson, Ballads and Songs (Nos. 37, 38, 80). William Watson, The Hope of the World (Nos. 66, 121). Margaret L. Woods, Lyrics and Ballads (Nos. 10, 91).
Mr. Elkin Mathews: Laurence Binyon, Poems (1894), (No. 79), London Visions (Nos. 75, 77), and England (Nos. 16, 57, 129). Lionel Johnson, Poems (Nos. 9, 95, 118).
Messrs. Maunsel & Co.: P. R. Chalmers, Green Days and Blue Days (No. 99). Padraic Colum, Wild Earth (No. 124).
Messrs. Methuen & Co.: Rudyard Kipling, The Seven Seas (No. 50), and The Five Nations (No. 34). Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch, Poems and Ballads (No. 8), and The Vigil of Venus (No. 44). Herbert Trench, New Poems (Nos. 14, 92).
{xvi}
Messrs. Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd.: Rupert Brooke, 1914 and Other Poems (Nos. 20, 21, 47). John Drinkwater, Swords and Ploughshares (Nos. 19, 40, 41). Laurence Housman, Selected Poems (No. 83). Rose Macaulay, The Two Blind Countries (No. 46).
Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co.: Robert Bridges, Poetical Works (Nos. 54, 56, 63, 76, 104, 125, 126, 128, 132, 139, 141).
Messrs. T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd.: Ernest Radford, Poems (No. 42). W. B. Yeats, Poems (Nos. 49, 88, 138, 143, 144).
The Poetry Book Shop (through Mr. Harold Monro). Ralph Hodgson, Eve (No. 5).
* Now transferred to Mr. Martin Seeker.
The Editor of The Times courteously confirmed the permissions given by Mr. George Russell ("A. E.") in respect of No. 23, and by Mr. Laurence Binyon in respect of No. 22—the latter being reprinted in The Winnowing Fan (Elkin Mathews).
The Association desires also to acknowledge the generosity with which authors and publishers have waived or reduced customary copyright fees, in view of the special objects of their organisation. They regret that considerations of copyright have rendered it impossible to include poems by T. E. Brown, Thomas Hardy, W. E. Henley, and A. E. Housman.
{1}
POEMS OF TO-DAY
1. ALL THAT'S PAST
Very old are the woods; And the buds that break Out of the briar's boughs, When March winds wake, So old with their beauty are— Oh, no man knows Through what wild centuries Roves back the rose.
Very old are the brooks; And the rills that rise Where snow sleeps cold beneath The azure skies Sing such a history Of come and gone, Their every drop is as wise As Solomon.
Very old are we men; Our dreams are tales Told in dim Eden By Eve's nightingales;
{2}
We wake and whisper awhile, But, the day gone by, Silence and sleep like fields Of amaranth lie.
Walter de la Mare.
2. PRE-EXISTEHCE
I laid me down upon the shore And dreamed a little space; I heard the great waves break and roar; The sun was on my face.
My idle hands and fingers brown Played with the pebbles grey; The waves came up, the waves went down, Most thundering and gay.
The pebbles, they were smooth and round And warm upon my hands, Like little people I had found Sitting among the sands.
The grains of sands so shining-small Soft through my fingers ran; The sun shone down upon it all, And so my dream began:
How all of this had been before; How ages far away I lay on some forgotten shore As here I lie to-day.
{3}
The waves came shining up the sands, As here to-day they shine; And in my pre-pelasgian hands The sand was warm and fine.
I have forgotten whence I came, Or what my home might be, Or by what strange and savage name I called that thundering sea.
I only know the sun shone down As still it shines to-day, And in my fingers long and brown The little pebbles lay.
Frances Cornford.
3. FRAGMENTS
Troy Town is covered up with weeds, The rabbits and the pismires brood On broken gold, and shards, and beads Where Priam's ancient palace stood.
The floors of many a gallant house Are matted with the roots of grass; The glow-worm and the nimble mouse Among her ruins flit and pass.
And there, in orts of blackened bone, The widowed Trojan beauties lie, And Simois babbles over stone And waps and gurgles to the sky.
{4}
Once there were merry days in Troy, Her chimneys smoked with cooking meals, The passing chariots did annoy The sunning housewives at their wheels.
And many a lovely Trojan maid Set Trojan lads to lovely things; The game of life was nobly played, They played the game like Queens and Kings.
So that, when Troy had greatly passed In one red roaring fiery coal, The courts the Grecians overcast Became a city in the soul.
In some green island of the sea, Where now the shadowy coral grows In pride and pomp and empery The courts of old Atlantis rose.
In many a glittering house of glass The Atlanteans wandered there; The paleness of their faces was Like ivory, so pale they were.
And hushed they were, no noise of words In those bright cities ever rang; Only their thoughts, like golden birds, About their chambers thrilled and sang.
They knew all wisdom, for they knew The souls of those Egyptian Kings
{5}
Who learned, in ancient Babilu, The beauty of immortal things.
They knew all beauty—when they thought The air chimed like a stricken lyre, The elemental birds were wrought, The golden birds became a fire.
And straight to busy camps and marts The singing flames were swiftly gone; The trembling leaves of human hearts Hid boughs for them to perch upon.
And men in desert places, men Abandoned, broken, sick with fears, Rose singing, swung their swords agen, And laughed and died among the spears.
The green and greedy seas have drowned That city's glittering walls and towers, Her sunken minarets are crowned With red and russet water-flowers.
In towers and rooms and golden courts The shadowy coral lifts her sprays; The scrawl hath gorged her broken orts, The shark doth haunt her hidden ways,
But, at the falling of the tide, The golden birds still sing and gleam, The Atlanteans have not died, Immortal things still give us dream.
{6}
The dream that fires man's heart to make, To build, to do, to sing or say A beauty Death can never take, An Adam from the crumbled clay.
John Masefield.
4. FALLEN CITIES
I gathered with a careless hand, There where the waters night and day Are languid in the idle bay, A little heap of golden sand; And, as I saw it, in my sight Awoke a vision brief and bright, A city in a pleasant land.
I saw no mound of earth, but fair Turrets and domes and citadels, With murmuring of many bells; The spires were white in the blue air, And men by thousands went and came, Rapid and restless, and like flame Blown by their passions here and there.
With careless hand I swept away The little mound before I knew; The visioned city vanished too, And fall'n beneath my fingers lay. Ah God! how many hast Thou seen, Cities that are not and have been, By silent hill and idle bay!
Gerald Gould.
{7}
6. TIME, YOU OLD GIPSY MAN
Time, you old gipsy man, Will you not stay, Put up your caravan Just for one day?
All things I'll give you, Will you be my guest, Bells for your jennet Of silver the best, Goldsmiths shall beat you A great golden ring, Peacocks shall bow to you, Little boys sing, Oh, and sweet girls will Festoon you with may, Time, you old gipsy, Why hasten away?
Last week in Babylon, Last night in Rome, Morning, and in the crush Under Paul's dome; Under Paul's dial You tighten your rein— Only a moment, And off once again; Off to some city Now blind in the womb, Off to another Ere that's in the tomb.
{8}
Time, you old gipsy man, Will you not stay, Put up your caravan Just for one day?
Ralph Hodgson.
6. A HUGUENOT
O, a gallant set were they, As they charged on us that day, A thousand riding like one! Their trumpets crying, And their white plumes flying, And their sabres flashing in the sun.
O, a sorry lot were we, As we stood beside the sea, Each man for himself as he stood! We were scattered and lonely— A little force only Of the good men fighting for the good.
But I never loved more On sea or on shore The ringing of my own true blade, Like lightning it quivered, And the hard helms shivered, As I sang, "None maketh me afraid!"
Mary E. Coleridge.
{9}
7. ON THE TOILET TABLE OF QUEEN MARIE-ANTOINETTE
This was her table, these her trim outspread Brushes and trays and porcelain cups for red; Here sate she, while her women tired and curled The most unhappy head in all the world.
J. B. B. Nichols.
8. UPON ECKINGTON BRIDGE, RIVER AVON
O pastoral heart of England! like a psalm Of green days telling with a quiet beat— O wave into the sunset flowing calm! O tired lark descending on the wheat! Lies it all peace beyond that western fold Where now the lingering shepherd sees his star Rise upon Malvern? Paints an Age of Gold Yon cloud with prophecies of linked ease— Lulling this Land, with hills drawn up like knees, To drowse beside her implements of war?
Man shall outlast his battles. They have swept Avon from Naseby Field to Severn Ham; And Evesham's dedicated stones have stepp'd Down to the dust with Montfort's oriflamme. Nor the red tear nor the reflected tower Abides; but yet these eloquent grooves remain, Worn in the sandstone parapet hour by hour By labouring bargemen where they shifted ropes. E'en so shall man turn back from violent hopes To Adam's cheer, and toil with spade again.
{10}
Ay, and his mother Nature, to whose lap Like a repentant child at length he hies, Not in the whirlwind or the thunder-clap Proclaims her more tremendous mysteries: But when in winter's grave, bereft of light, With still, small voice divinelier whispering —Lifting the green head of the aconite, Feeding with sap of hope the hazel-shoot— She feels God's finger active at the root, Turns in her sleep, and murmurs of the Spring.
Arthur Quiller-Couch.
8. BY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES AT CHARING CROSS
Sombre and rich, the skies; Great glooms, and starry plains. Gently the night wind sighs; Else a vast silence reigns.
The splendid silence clings Around me: and around The saddest of all kings Crowned, and again discrowned.
Comely and calm, he rides Hard by his own Whitehall: Only the night wind glides: No crowds, nor rebels, brawl.
Gone, too, his Court; and yet, The stars his courtiers are: Stars in their stations set; And every wandering star.
{11}
Alone he rides, alone, The fair and fatal king: Dark night is all his own, That strange and solemn thing.
Which are more full of fate: The stars; or those sad eyes? Which are more still and great: Those brows; or the dark skies?
Although his whole heart yearn In passionate tragedy: Never was face so stern With sweet austerity.
Vanquished in life, his death By beauty made amends: The passing of his breath Won his defeated ends.
Brief life and hapless? Nay: Through death, life grew sublime. Speak after sentence? Yea: And to the end of time.
Armoured he rides, his head Bare to the stars of doom: He triumphs now, the dead, Beholding London's gloom.
Our wearier spirit faints, Vexed in the world's employ:
{12}
His soul was of the saints; And art to him was joy.
King, tried in fires of woe! Men hunger for thy grace: And through the night I go, Loving thy mournful face.
Yet when the city sleeps; When all the cries are still: The stars and heavenly deeps Work out a perfect will.
Lionel Johnson.
10. TO THE FORGOTTEN DEAD
To the forgotten dead, Come, let us drink in silence ere we part. To every fervent yet resolved heart That brought its tameless passion and its tears, Renunciation and laborious years, To lay the deep foundations of our race, To rear its stately fabric overhead And light its pinnacles with golden grace. To the unhonoured dead.
To the forgotten dead, Whose dauntless hands were stretched to grasp the rein Of Fate and hurl into the void again Her thunder-hoofed horses, rushing blind Earthward along the courses of the wind.
{13}
Among the stars, along the wind in vain Their souls were scattered and their blood was shed, And nothing, nothing of them doth remain. To the thrice-perished dead.
Margaret L. Woods.
11. DRAKE'S DRUM
Drake he's in his hammock an' a thousand mile away, (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?) Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay, An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe. Yarnder lumes the Island, yarnder lie the ships, Wi' sailor-lads a-dancin' heel-an'-toe, An' the shore-lights flashin', an' the night-tide dashin', He sees et arl so plainly as he saw et long ago.
Drake he was a Devon man, an' ruled the Devon seas, (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?) Rovin' tho' his death fell, he went wi' heart at ease, An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe. "Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore, Strike et when your powder's runnin' low; If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port o' Heaven, An' drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago."
Drake he's in his hammock till the great Armadas come, (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?) Slung atween the round shot, listenin' for the drum, An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
{14}
Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound, Call him when ye sail to meet the foe; Where the old trade's plyin' an' the old flag flyin' They shall find him ware an' wakin', as they found him long ago!
Henry Newbolt.
12. THE MOON IS UP
The moon is up: the stars are bright The wind is fresh and free! We're out to seek for gold to-night Across the silver sea! The world was growing grey and old: Break out the sails again! We're out to seek a Realm of Gold Beyond the Spanish Main.
We're sick of all the cringing knees, The courtly smiles and lies! God, let Thy singing Channel breeze Lighten our hearts and eyes! Let love no more be bought and sold For earthly loss or gain; We're out to seek an Age of Gold Beyond the Spanish Main.
Beyond the light of far Cathay, Beyond all mortal dreams, Beyond the reach of night and day Our El Dorado gleams,
{15}
Revealing—as the skies unfold— A star without a stain, The Glory of the Gates of Gold Beyond the Spanish Main.
Alfred Noyes.
13. MINORA SIDERA
Sitting at times over a hearth that burns With dull domestic glow, My thought, leaving the book, gratefully turns To you who planned it so.
Not of the great only you deigned to tell— The stars by which we steer— But lights out of the night that flashed, and fell To night again, are here.
Such as were those, dogs of an elder day, Who sacked the golden ports, And those later who dared grapple their prey Beneath the harbour forts:
Some with flag at the fore, sweeping the world To find an equal fight, And some who joined war to their trade, and hurled Ships of the line in flight.
Whether their fame centuries long should ring They cared not over-much, But cared greatly to serve God and the king, And keep the Nelson touch;
{16}
And fought to build Britain above the tide Of wars and windy fate; And passed content, leaving to us the pride Of lives obscurely great.
Henry Newbolt.
14. MUSING ON A GREAT SOLDIER
Fear? Yes . . . I heard you saying In an Oxford common-room Where the hearth-light's kindly raying Stript the empanelled walls of gloom, Silver groves of candles playing In the soft wine turned to bloom— At the word I see you now Blandly push the wine-boat's prow Round the mirror of that scored Yellow old mahogany board— I confess to one fear! this, To be buried alive!
My Lord, Your fancy has played amiss.
Fear not. When in farewell While guns toll like a bell And the bell tolls like a gun Westminster towers call Folk and state to your funeral, And robed in honours won, Beneath the cloudy pall Of the lifted shreds of glory
{17}
You lie in the last stall Of that grey dormitory— Fear not lest mad mischance Should find you lapt and shrouded Alive in helpless trance Though seeming death-beclouded:
For long ere so you rest On that transcendent bier Shall we not have addressed One summons, one last test, To your reluctant ear? O believe it! we shall have uttered In ultimate entreaty A name your soul would hear Howsoever thickly shuttered; We shall have stooped and muttered England! in your cold ear. . . . Then, if your great pulse leap No more, nor your cheek burn, Enough; then shall we learn 'Tis time for us to weep.
Herbert Trench.
16. HE FELL AMONG THIEVES
"Ye have robbed," said he, "ye have slaughtered and made an end, Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead; What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?" "Blood for our blood," they said.
{18}
He laughed: "If one may settle the score for five, I am ready; but let the reckoning stand till day: I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any alive." "You shall die at dawn," said they.
He flung his empty revolver down the slope, He climb'd alone to the Eastward edge of the trees; All night long in a dream untroubled of hope He brooded, clasping his knees.
He did not hear the monotonous roar that fills The ravine where the Yassin river sullenly flows; He did not see the starlight on the Laspur hills, Or the far Afghan snows.
He saw the April noon on his books aglow, The wistaria trailing in at the window wide; He heard his father's voice from the terrace below Calling him down to ride.
He saw the gray little church across the park, The mounds that hid the loved and honoured dead; The Norman arch, the chancel softly dark, The brasses black and red.
He saw the School Close, sunny and green, The runner beside him, the stand by the parapet wall, The distant tape, and the crowd roaring between His own name over all.
{19}
He saw the dark wainscot and timbered roof, The long tables, and the faces merry and keen; The College Eight and their trainer dining aloof, The Dons on the dais serene.
He watch'd the liner's stem ploughing the foam, He felt her trembling speed and the thrash of her screw; He heard her passengers' voices talking of home, He saw the flag she flew.
And now it was dawn. He rose strong on his feet, And strode to his ruin'd camp below the wood; He drank the breath of the morning cool and sweet; His murderers round him stood.
Light on the Laspur hills was broadening fast, The blood-red snow-peaks chilled to a dazzling white; He turn'd, and saw the golden circle at last, Cut by the eastern height.
"O glorious Life, Who dwellest in earth and sun, I have lived, I praise and adore Thee." A sword swept. Over the pass the voices one by one Faded, and the hill slept.
Henry Newbolt.
{20}
16. ENGLAND
Shall we but turn from braggart pride Our race to cheapen and defame? Before the world to wail, to chide, And weakness as with vaunting claim? Ere the hour strikes, to abdicate The steadfast spirit that made us great, And rail with scolding tongues at fate?
If England's heritage indeed Be lost, be traded quite away For fatted sloth and fevered greed; If, inly rotting, we decay; Suffer we then what doom we must, But silent, as befits the dust Of them whose chastisement was just.
But rather, England, rally thou Whatever breathes of faith that still Within thee keeps the undying vow And dedicates the constant will. For such yet lives, if not among The boasters, or the loud of tongue, Who cry that England's knell is rung.
The fault of heart, the small of brain, In thee but their own image find; Beyond such thoughts as these contain A mightier Presence is enshrined. Nor meaner than their birthright grown Shall these thy latest sons be shown, So thou but use them for thine own.
{21}
By those great spirits burning high In our home's heaven, that shall be stars To shine, when all is history And rumour of old, idle wars; By all those hearts which proudly bled To make this rose of England red; The living, the triumphant dead;
By all who suffered and stood fast That Freedom might the weak uphold, And in men's ways of wreck and waste Justice her awful flower unfold; By all who out of grief and wrong In passion's art of noble song Made Beauty to our speech belong;
By those adventurous ones who went Forth overseas, and, self-exiled, Sought from far isle and continent Another England in the wild, For whom no drums beat, yet they fought Alone, in courage of a thought Which an unbounded future wrought;
Yea, and yet more by those to-day Who toil and serve for naught of gain, That in thy purer glory they May melt their ardour and their pain; By these and by the faith of these, The faith that glorifies and frees, Thy lands call on thee, and thy seas.
{22}
If thou hast sinned, shall we forsake Thee, or the less account us thine? Thy sores, thy shames on us we take. Flies not for us thy famed ensign? Be ours to cleanse and to atone; No man this burden bears alone; England, our best shall be thine own.
Lift up thy cause into the light! Put all the factious lips to shame! Our loves, our faiths, our hopes unite And strike into a single flame! Whatever from without betide, O purify the soul of pride In us; thy slumbers cast aside; And of thy sons be justified!
Laurence Binyon.
17. THE VOLUNTEER
"He leapt to arms unbidden, Unneeded, over-bold; His face by earth is hidden, His heart in earth is cold.
"Curse on the reckless daring That could not wait the call, The proud fantastic bearing That would be first to fall!"
{23}
O tears of human passion, Blur not the image true; This was not folly's fashion, This was the man we knew.
Henry Newbolt.
18. MANY SISTERS TO MANY BROTHERS
When we fought campaigns (in the long Christmas rains) With soldiers spread in troops on the floor, I shot as straight as you, my losses were as few, My victories as many, or more. And when in naval battle, amid cannon's rattle, Fleet met fleet in the bath, My cruisers were as trim, my battleships as grim, My submarines cut as swift a path. Or, when it rained too long, and the strength of the strong Surged up and broke a way with blows, I was as fit and keen, my fists hit as clean, Your black eye matched my bleeding nose. Was there a scrap or ploy in which you, the boy, Could better me? You could not climb higher, Ride straighter, run as quick (and to smoke made you sick) . . . But I sit here, and you're under fire.
Oh, it's you that have the luck, out there in blood and muck: You were born beneath a kindly star;
{24}
All we dreamt, I and you, you can really go and do, And I can't, the way things are. In a trench you are sitting, while I am knitting A hopeless sock that never gets done. Well, here's luck, my dear;—and you've got it, no fear; But for me . . . a war is poor fun.
Rose Macaulay.
19. THE DEFENDERS
His wage of rest at nightfall still He takes, who sixty years has known Of ploughing over Cotsall hill And keeping trim the Cotsall stone.
He meditates the dusk, and sees Folds of his wonted shepherdings And lands of stubble and tall trees Becoming insubstantial things.
And does he see on Cotsall hill— Thrown even to the central shire— The funnelled shapes forbidding still The stranger from his cottage fire?
John Drinkwater.
20. THE DEAD
These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
{25}
These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone; Touched flowers and furs, and cheeks. All this is ended.
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after, Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance, A width, a shining peace, under the night.
Rupert Brooke.
21. THE SOLDIER
If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Rupert Brooke.
{26}
22. FOR THE FALLEN
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea. Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres. There is music in the midst of desolation And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted, They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; They sit no more at familiar tables of home; They have no lot in our labour of the day-time: They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound, Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight, To the innermost heart of their own land they are known As the stars are known to the Night;
{27}
As the stars that shall be bright when we are duet Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain, As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness, To the end, to the end, they remain.
Laurence Binyon.
23. SHADOWS AND LIGHTS
What gods have met in battle to arouse This whirling shadow of invisible things, These hosts that writhe amid the shattered sods? O Father, and O Mother of the gods, Is there some trouble in the heavenly house? We who are captained by its unseen kings Wonder what thrones are shaken in the skies, What powers who held dominion o'er our will Let fall the sceptre, and what destinies The younger gods may drive us to fulfil.
Have they not swayed us, earth's invisible lords, With whispers and with breathings from the dark? The very border stones of nations mark Where silence swallowed some wild prophet's words That rang but for an instant and were still, Yet were so burthened with eternity, They maddened all who heard to work their will, To raise the lofty temple on the hill, And many a glittering thicket of keen swords Flashed out to make one law for land and sea, That earth might move with heaven in company.
{28}
The cities that to myriad beauty grew Were altars raised unto old gods who died, And they were sacrificed in ruins to The younger gods who took their place of pride; They have no brotherhood, the deified, No high companionship of throne by throne, But will their beauty still to be alone.
What is a nation but a multitude United by some god-begotten mood, Some hope of liberty or dream of power That have not with each other brotherhood But warred in spirit from their natal hour, Their hatred god-begotten as their love Reverberations of eternal strife? For all that fury breathed in human life, Are ye not guilty, answer, ye above?
Ah, no, the circle of the heavenly ones, That ring of burning, grave, inflexible powers, Array in harmony amid the deep The shining legionaries of the suns, That through their day from dawn to twilight keep The peace of heaven, and have no feuds like ours. The morning Stars their labours of the dawn Close at the advent of the Solar Kings, And these with joy their sceptres yield, withdrawn When the still Evening Stars begin their reign, And twilight time is thrilled with homing wings To the All-Father being turned again.
{29}
No, not on high begin divergent ways, The galaxies of interlinked lights Rejoicing on each other's beauty gaze, 'Tis we who do make errant all the rays That stream upon us from the astral heights. Love in our thickened air too redly burns; And unto vanity our beauty turns; Wisdom, that gently whispers us to part From evil, swells to hatred in the heart. Dark is the shadow of invisible things On us who look not up, whose vision fails. The glorious shining of the heavenly kings To mould us in their image naught avails, They weave a robe of many-coloured fire To garb the spirits thronging in the deep, And in the upper air its splendours keep Pure and unsullied, but below it trails Darkling and glimmering in our earthly mire.
With eyes bent ever earthwards we are swayed But by the shadows of eternal light, And shadow against shadow is arrayed So that one dark may dominate the night. Though kindred are the lights that cast the shade, We look not up, nor see how, side by side, The high originals of all our pride In crowned and sceptred brotherhood are throned, Compassionate of our blindness and our hate That own the godship but the love disowned. Ah, let us for a little while abate The outward roving eye, and seek within
{30}
Where spirit unto spirit is allied; There, in our inmost being, we may win The joyful vision of the heavenly wise To see the beauty in each other's eyes.
A. E.
24. BRUMANA
Oh shall I never never be home again! Meadows of England shining in the rain Spread wide your daisied lawns: your ramparts green With briar fortify, with blossom screen Till my far morning—and O streams that slow And pure and deep through plains and playlands go, For me your love and all your kingcups store, And—dark militia of the southern shore, Old fragrant friends—preserve me the last lines Of that long saga which you sang me, pines, When, lonely boy, beneath the chosen tree I listened, with my eyes upon the sea.
O traitor pines, you sang what life has found The falsest of fair tales. Earth blew a far-horn prelude all around, That native music of her forest home, While from the sea's blue fields and syren dales Shadows and light noon spectres of the foam Riding the summer gales On aery viols plucked an idle sound.
Hearing you sing, O trees, Hearing you murmur, "There are older seas, That beat on vaster sands,
{31}
Where the wise snailfish move their pearly towers To carven rocks and sculptured promont'ries," Hearing you whisper, "Lands Where blaze the unimaginable flowers."
Beneath me in the valley waves the palm, Beneath, beyond the valley, breaks the sea; Beneath me sleep in mist and light and calm Cities of Lebanon, dream-shadow-dim, Where Kings of Tyre and Kings of Tyre did rule In ancient days in endless dynasty, And all around the snowy mountains swim Like mighty swans, afloat in heaven's pool.
But I will walk upon the wooded hill Where stands a grove, O pines, of sister pines, And when the downy twilight droops her wing And no sea glimmers and no mountain shines My heart shall listen still. For pines are gossip pines the wide world through And full of runic tales to sigh or sing. 'Tis ever sweet through pines to see the sky Blushing a deeper gold or darker blue. 'Tis ever sweet to lie On the dry carpet of the needles brown, And though the fanciful green lizard stir And windy odours light as thistledown Breathe from the lavdanon and lavender, Half to forget the wandering and pain, Half to remember days that have gone by, And dream and dream that I am home again!
James Elroy Flecker.
{32}
25. A LYKE-WAKE CAROL
Grow old and die, rich Day, Over some English field— Chartered to come away What time to Death you yield! Pass, frost-white ghost, and then Come forth to banish'd men!
I see the stubble's sheen, The mist and ruddled leaves, Here where the new Spring's green For her first rain-drops grieves. Here beechen leaves drift red Last week in England dead.
For English eyes' delight Those Autumn ghosts go free— Ghost of the field hoar-white, Ghost of the crimson tree. Grudge them not, England dear, To us thy banished here!
Arthur Shearly Cripps.
26. A REFRAIN
Tell the tune his feet beat On the ground all day— Black-burnt ground and green grass Seamed with rocks of grey— "England," "England," "England," That one word they say.
{33}
Now they tread the beech-mast, Now the ploughland's clay, Now the faery ball-floor of her fields in May. Now her red June sorrel, now her new-turned hay, Now they keep the great road, now by sheep-path stray, Still it's "England," "England," "England" all the way!
Arthur Shearly Cripps.
27. WHERE A ROMAN VILLA STOOD, ABOVE FREIBURG
On alien ground, breathing an alien air, A Roman stood, far from his ancient home, And gazing, murmured, "Ah, the hills are fair, But not the hills of Rome!"
Descendant of a race to Romans-kin, Where the old son of Empire stood, I stand. The self-same rocks fold the same valley in, Untouched of human hand.
Over another shines the self-same star, Another heart with nameless longing fills, Crying aloud, "How beautiful they are, But not our English hills!"
Mary E. Coleridge.
{34}
28. HEIGHTS AND DEPTHS
He walked in glory on the hills; We dalesmen envied from afar The heights and rose-lit pinnacles Which placed him nigh the evening star.
Upon the peaks they found him dead; And now we wonder if he sighed For our low grass beneath his head, For our rude huts, before he died.
William Canton.
29. IN THE HIGHLANDS
In the highlands, in the country places, Where the old plain men have rosy faces, And the young fair maidens Quiet eyes; Where essential silence cheers and blesses, And for ever in the hill-recesses Her more lovely music Broods and dies.
O to mount again where erst I haunted; Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted, And the low green meadows Bright with sward; And when even dies, the million-tinted, And the night has come, and planets glinted, Lo, the valley hollow Lamp-bestarred!
{35}
O to dream, O to awake and wander There, and with delight to take and render, Through the trance of silence, Quiet breath; Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses, Only the mightier movement sounds and passes; Only winds and rivers, Life and death.
Robert Louis Stevenson.
30. IN CITY STREETS
Yonder in the heather there's a bed for sleeping, Drink for one athirst, ripe blackberries to eat; Yonder in the sun the merry hares go leaping, And the pool is clear for travel-wearied feet.
Sorely throb my feet, a-tramping London highways, (Ah! the springy moss upon a northern moor!) Through the endless streets, the gloomy squares and byways, Homeless in the City, poor among the poor!
London streets are gold—ah, give me leaves a-glinting 'Midst grey dykes and hedges in the autumn sun! London water's wine, poured out for all unstinting— God! For the little brooks that tumble as they run!
Oh, my heart is fain to hear the soft wind blowing, Soughing through the fir-tops up on northern fells! Oh, my eye's an ache to see the brown burns flowing Through the peaty soil and tinkling heather-bells.
Ada Smith.
{36}
31. MARGARET'S SONG
Too soothe and mild your lowland airs For one whose hope is gone: I'm thinking of a little tarn, Brown, very lone.
Would now the tall swift mists could lay Their wet grasp on my hair, And the great natures of the hills Round me friendly were.
In vain!—For taking hills your plains Have spoilt my soul, I think, But would my feet were going down Towards the brown tarn's brink.
Lascelles Abercrombie.
82. TO S. R. CROCKETT
Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying, Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now, Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying, My heart remembers how!
Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places, Standing stones on the vacant wine-red moor, Hills of sheep, and the homes of the silent vanished races, And winds, austere and pure:
{37}
Be it granted me to behold you again in dying, Hills of home! and to hear again the call; Hear about the graves of the martyrs the peewees crying, And hear no more at all.
Robert Louis Stevenson.
33. CHILLINGHAM
I
Through the sunny garden The humming bees are still; The fir climbs the heather, The heather climbs the hill.
The low clouds have riven A little rift through. The hill climbs to heaven, Far away and blue.
II
O the high valley, the little low hill, And the cornfield over the sea, The wind that rages and then lies still, And the clouds that rest and flee!
O the gray island in the rainbow haze, And the long thin spits of land, The roughening pastures and the stony ways, And the golden flash of the sand!
{38}
O the red heather on the moss-wrought rock, And the fir-tree stiff and straight, The shaggy old sheep-dog barking at the flock, And the rotten old five-barred gate!
O the brown bracken, the blackberry bough, The scent of the gorse in the air! I shall love them ever as I love them now, I shall weary in Heaven to be there!
III
Strike, Life, a happy hour, and let me live But in that grace! I shall have gathered all the world can give, Unending Time and Space!
Bring light and air—the thin and shining air Of the North land, The light that falls on tower and garden there, Close to the gold sea-sand.
Bring flowers, the latest colours of the earth, Ere nun-like frost Lay her hard hand upon this rainbow mirth, With twinkling emerald crossed.
The white star of the traveller's joy, the deep Empurpled rays that hide the smoky stone, The dahlia rooted in Egyptian sleep, The last frail rose alone.
{39}
Let music whisper from a casement set By them of old, Where the light smell of lavender may yet Rise from the soft loose mould.
Then shall I know, with eyes and ears awake, Not in bright gleams, The joy my Heavenly Father joys to make For men who grieve, in dreams!
Mary E. Coleridge.
34. SUSSEX
God gave all men all earth to love, But since our hearts are small, Ordained for each one spot should prove Beloved over all; That as He watched Creation's birth So we, in godlike mood, May of our love create our earth And see that it is good.
So one shall Baltic pines content, As one some Surrey glade, Or one the palm-grove's droned lament Before Levuka's trade. Each to his choice, and I rejoice The lot has fallen to me In a fair ground—in a fair ground— Yea, Sussex by the sea!
{40}
No tender-hearted garden crowns, No bosomed woods adorn Our blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed Downs, But gnarled and writhen thorn— Bare slopes where chasing shadows skim, And through the gaps revealed Belt upon belt, the wooded, dim Blue goodness of the Weald.
Clean of officious fence or hedge, Half-wild and wholly tame, The wise turf cloaks the white cliff edge As when the Romans came. What sign of those that fought and died At shift of sword and sword? The barrow and the camp abide, The sunlight and the sward.
Here leaps ashore the full Sou'west All heavy-winged with brine, Here lies above the folded crest The Channel's leaden line; And here the sea-fogs lap and cling, And here, each warning each, The sheep-bells and the ship-bells ring Along the hidden beach.
We have no waters to delight Our broad and brookless vales— Only the dewpond on the height Unfed, that never fails,
{41}
Whereby no tattered herbage tells Which way the season flies— Only our close-bit thyme that smells Like dawn in Paradise.
Here through the strong unhampered days The tinkling silence thrills; Or little, lost. Down churches praise The Lord who made the hills; But here the Old Gods guard their round, And, in her secret heart, The heathen kingdom Wilfrid found Dreams, as she dwells, apart.
Though all the rest were all my share, With equal soul I'd see Her nine-and-thirty sisters fair, Yet none more fair than she. Choose ye your need from Thames to Tweed, And I will choose instead Such lands as lie 'twixt Rake and Rye, Black Down and Beachy Head.
I will go out against the sun Where the rolled scarp retires, And the Long Man of Wilmington Looks naked toward the shires; And east till doubling Rother crawls To find the fickle tide, By dry and sea-forgotten walls, Our ports of stranded pride.
{42}
I will go north about the shaws And the deep ghylls that breed Huge oaks and old, the which we hold No more than "Sussex weed"; Or south where windy Piddinghoe's Begilded dolphin veers, And black beside wide-banked Ouse Lie down our Sussex steers.
So to the land our hearts we give Till the sure magic strike, And Memory, Use, and Love make live Us and our fields alike— That deeper than our speech and thought, Beyond our reason's sway, Clay of the pit whence we were wrought Yearns to its fellow-clay.
God gives all men all earth to love, But since man's heart is small Ordains for each one spot shall prove Beloved over all. Each to his choice, and I rejoice The lot has fallen to me In a fair ground—in a fair ground— Yea, Sussex by the sea!
Rudyard Kipling.
{43}
35. THE SOUTH COUNTRY
When I am living in the Midlands, That are sodden and unkind, I light my lamp in the evening: My work is left behind; And the great hills of the South Country Come back into my mind.
The great hills of the South Country They stand along the sea, And it's there, walking in the high woods, That I could wish to be, And the men that were boys when I was a boy Walking along with me.
The men that live in North England I saw them for a day: Their hearts are set upon the waste fells, Their skies are fast and grey; From their castle-walls a man may see The mountains far away.
The men that live in West England They see the Severn strong, A-rolling on rough water brown Light aspen leaves along. They have the secret of the Rocks, And the oldest kind of song.
But the men that live in the South Country Are the kindest and most wise, They get their laughter from the loud surf, And the faith in their happy eyes
{44}
Comes surely from our Sister the Spring When over the sea she flies; The violets suddenly bloom at her feet, She blesses us with surprise.
I never get between the pines But I smell the Sussex air; Nor I never come on a belt of sand But my home is there. And along the sky the line of the Downs So noble and so bare.
A lost thing could I never find, Nor a broken thing mend: And I fear I shall be all alone When I get towards the end. Who will there be to comfort me Or who will be my friend?
I will gather and carefully make my friends Of the men of the Sussex Weald, They watch the stars from silent folds, They stiffly plough the field. By them and the God of the South Country My poor soul shall be healed.
If I ever become a rich man, Or if ever I grow to be old, I will build a house with deep thatch To shelter me from the cold, And there shall the Sussex songs be sung And the story of Sussex told.
{45}
I will hold my house in the high wood, Within a walk of the sea, And the men that were boys when I was a boy Shall sit and drink with me.
Hilaire Belloc.
36. CHANCLEBURY RING
Say what you will, there is not in the world A nobler sight than from this upper down. No rugged landscape here, no beauty hurled From its Creator's hand as with a frown; But a green plain on which green hills look down Trim as a garden plot. No other hue Can hence be seen, save here and there the brown Of a square fallow, and the horizon's blue. Dear checker-work of woods, the Sussex weald. If a name thrills me yet of things of earth, That name is thine! How often I have fled To thy deep hedgerows and embraced each field, Each lag, each pasture,—fields which gave me birth And saw my youth, and which must hold me dead.
Wilfrid Blunt.
87. IN ROMNEY MARSH
As I went down to Dymchurch Wall, I heard the South sing o'er the land; I saw the yellow sunlight fall On knolls where Norman churches stand.
{46}
And ringing shrilly, taut and lithe, Within the wind a core of sound, The wire from Romney town to Hythe Alone its airy journey wound.
A veil of purple vapour flowed And trailed its fringe along the Straits; The upper air like sapphire glowed; And roses filled Heaven's central gates.
Masts in the offing wagged their tops; The swinging waves pealed on the shore; The saffron beach, all diamond drops And beads of surge, prolonged the roar.
As I came up from Dymchurch Wall, I saw above the Down's low crest The crimson brands of sunset fall, Flicker and fade from out the west.
Night sank: like flakes of silver fire The stars in one great shower came down; Shrill blew the wind; and shrill the wire Rang out from Hythe to Romney town.
The darkly shining salt sea drops Streamed as the waves clashed on the shore; The beach, with all its organ stops Pealing again, prolonged the roar.
John Davidson.
{47}
38. A CINQUE PORT
Below the down the stranded town What may betide forlornly waits, With memories of smoky skies, When Gallic navies crossed the straits; When waves with fire and blood grew bright, And cannon thundered through the night.
With swinging stride the rhythmic tide Bore to the harbour barque and sloop; Across the bar the ship of war, In castled stern and lanterned poop, Came up with conquests on her lee, The stately mistress of the sea.
Where argosies have wooed the breeze, The simple sheep are feeding now; And near and far across the bar The ploughman whistles at the plough; Where once the long waves washed the shore, Larks from their lowly lodgings soar.
Below the down the stranded town Hears far away the rollers beat; About the wall the seabirds call; The salt wind murmurs through the street; Forlorn the sea's forsaken bride Awaits the end that shall betide.
John Davidson.
{48}
39. ESSEX
I go through the fields of blue water On the South road of the sea. High to North the East-Country Holds her green fields to me— For she that I gave over, Gives not over me.
Last night I lay at Good Easter Under a hedge I knew, Last night beyond High Easter I trod the May-floors blue— Tilt from the sea the sun came Bidding me wake and rue.
Roding (that names eight churches)— Banks with the paigles dight— Chelmer whose mill and willows Keep one red tower in sight— Under the Southern Cross run Beside the ship to-night.
Ah! I may not seek back now, Neither be turned nor stayed. Yet should I live, I'd seek her, Once that my vows are paid! And should I die I'd haunt her— I being what God made!
England has greater counties— Their peace to hers is small.
{49}
Low hills, rich fields, calm rivers, In Essex seek them all,— Essex, where I that found them Found to lose them all!
Arthur Shearly Cripps.
40. A TOWN WINDOW
Beyond my window in the night Is but a drab inglorious street, Yet there the frost and clean starlight As over Warwick woods are sweet.
Under the grey drift of the town The crocus works among the mould As eagerly as those that crown The Warwick spring in flame and gold.
And when the tramway down the hill Across the cobbles moans and rings, There is about my window-sill The tumult of a thousand wings.
John Drinkwater.
41. MAMBLE
I never went to Mamble That lies above the Teme, So I wonder who's in Mamble, And whether people seem Who breed and brew along there As lazy as the name, And whether any song there Sets alehouse wits aflame.
{50}
The finger-post says Mamble, And that is all I know Of the narrow road to Mamble, And should I turn and go To that place of lazy token, That lies above the Teme, There might be a Mamble broken That was lissom in a dream.
So leave the road to Mamble And take another road To as good a place as Mamble Be it lazy as a toad; Who travels Worcester county Takes any place that comes When April tosses bounty To the cherries and the plums.
John Drinkwater.
42. PLYMOUTH HARBOUR
Oh, what know they of harbours Who toss not on the sea! They tell of fairer havens, But none so fair there be
As Plymouth town outstretching Her quiet arms to me; Her breast's broad welcome spreading From Mewstone to Penlee.
{51}
Ah, with this home-thought, darling, Come crowding thoughts of thee. Oh, what know they of harbours Who toss not on the sea!
Ernest Radford.
43. OXFORD
I came to Oxford in the light Of a spring-coloured afternoon; Some clouds were grey and some were white, And all were blown to such a tune Of quiet rapture in the sky, I laughed to see them laughing by.
I had been dreaming in the train With thoughts at random from my book; I looked, and read, and looked again, And suddenly to greet my look Oxford shone up with every tower Aspiring sweetly like a flower.
Home turn the feet of men that seek, And home the hearts of children turn, And none can teach the hour to speak What every hour is free to learn; And all discover, late or soon, Their golden Oxford afternoon.
Gerald Gould.
{52}
44. ALMA MATER
Know you her secret none can utter? Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown? Still on the spire the pigeons flutter, Still by the gateway flits the gown; Still on the street, from corbel and gutter, Faces of stone look down.
Faces of stone, and stonier faces— Some from library windows wan Forth on her gardens, her green spaces, Peer and turn to their books anon. Hence, my Muse, from the green oases Gather the tent, begone!
Nay, should she by the pavement linger Under the rooms where once she played, Who from the feast would rise to fling her One poor sou for her serenade? One short laugh for the antic finger Thrumming a lute-string frayed?
Once, my dear—but the world was young then— Magdalen elms and Trinity limes— Lissom the blades and the backs that swung then, Eight good men in the good old times— Careless we, and the chorus flung then Under St. Mary's chimes!
Reins lay loose and the ways led random— Christ Church meadow and Iffley track,
{53}
"Idleness horrid and dog-cart" (tandem), Aylesbury grind and Bicester pack— Pleasant our lines, and faith! we scanned 'em; Having that artless knack.
Come, old limmer, the times grow colder; Leaves of the creeper redden and fall. Was it a hand then clapped my shoulder?— Only the wind by the chapel wall! Dead leaves drift on the lute . . . So fold her Under the faded shawl.
Never we wince, though none deplore us, We who go reaping that we sowed; Cities at cockcrow wake before us— Hey, for the lilt of the London road! One look back, and a rousing chorus! Never a palinode!
Still on her spire the pigeons hover; Still by her gateway haunts the gown. Ah, but her secret? You, young lover, Drumming her old ones forth from town, Know you the secret none discover? Tell it—when you go down.
Yet if at length you seek her, prove her, Lean to her whispers never so nigh; Yet if at last not less her lover You in your hansom leave the High; Down from her towers a ray shall hover— Touch you, a passer-by.
Arthur Quiller-Couch.
{54}
45. FROM "DEDICATORY ODE"
I will not try the reach again, I will not set my sail alone, To moor a boat bereft of men At Yarnton's tiny docks of stone.
But I will sit beside the fire, And put my hand before my eyes, And trace, to fill my heart's desire, The last of all our Odysseys.
The quiet evening kept her tryst: Beneath an open sky we rode, And passed into a wandering mist Along the perfect Evenlode.
The tender Evenlode that makes Her meadows hush to hear the sound Of waters mingling in the brakes, And binds my heart to English ground.
A lovely river, all alone, She lingers in the hills and holds A hundred little towns of stone, Forgotten in the western wolds.
Hilaire Belloc.
46. THE DEVOURERS
Cambridge town is a beleaguered city; For south and north, like a sea, There beat on its gates, without haste or pity, The downs and the fen country.
{55}
Cambridge towers, so old, so wise, They were builded but yesterday, Watched by sleepy gray secret eyes That smiled as at children's play.
Roads south of Cambridge run into the waste, Where learning and lamps are not, And the pale downs tumble, blind, chalk-faced, And the brooding churches squat.
Roads north of Cambridge march through a plain Level like the traitor sea. It will swallow its ships, and turn and smile again— The insatiable fen country.
Lest the downs and the fens should eat Cambridge up, And its towers be tossed and thrown, And its rich wine drunk from its broken cup, And its beauty no more known—
Let us come, you and I, where the roads run blind, Out beyond the transient city, That our love, mingling with earth, may find Her imperishable heart of pity.
Rose Macaulay.
47. THE OLD VICARAGE, GRANTCHESTER
Cafe des Westens, Berlin
Just now the lilac is in bloom, All before my little room; And in my flower-beds, I think,
{56}
Smile the carnation and the pink; And down the borders, well I know, The poppy and the pansy blow . . . Oh! there the chestnuts, summer through, Beside the river make for you A tunnel of green gloom, and sleep Deeply above; and green and deep The stream mysterious glides beneath, Green as a dream and deep as death.— Oh, damn! I know it! and I know How the May fields all golden show, And when the day is young and sweet, Gild gloriously the bare feet That run to bathe . . . Du lieber Gott!
Here am I, sweating, sick, and hot, And there the shadowed waters fresh Lean up to embrace the naked flesh. Temperamentvoll German Jews Drink beer around; and there the dews Are soft beneath a morn of gold. Here tulips bloom as they are told; Unkempt about those hedges blows An English unofficial rose; And there the unregulated sun Slopes down to rest when day is done, And wakes a vague unpunctual star, A slippered Hesper; and there are Meads towards Haslingfield and Coton Where das Betreten's not verboten . . .
{57}
Eithe genoimen . . . would I were In Grantchester, in Grantchester!— Some, it may be, can get in touch With Nature there, or Earth, or such. And clever modern men have seen A Faun a-peeping through the green, And felt the Classics were not dead, To glimpse a Naiad's reedy head, Or hear the Goat-foot piping low . . . But these are things I do not know. I only know that you may lie Day long and watch the Cambridge sky, And, flower-lulled in sleepy grass, Hear the cool lapse of hours pass, Until the centuries blend and blur In Grantchester, in Grantchester . . . Still in the dawnlit waters cool His ghostly Lordship swims his pool, And tries the strokes, essays the tricks, Long learnt on Hellespont, or Styx; Dan Chaucer hears his river still Chatter beneath a phantom mill; Tennyson notes, with studious eye, How Cambridge waters hurry by . . . And in that garden, black and white Creep whispers through the grass all night; And spectral dance, before the dawn, A hundred Vicars down the lawn; Curates, long dust, will come and go On lissom, clerical, printless toe; And oft between the boughs is seen
{58}
The sly shade of a Rural Dean . . . Till, at a shiver in the skies, Vanishing with Satanic cries, The prim ecclesiastic rout Leaves but a startled sleeper-out, Grey heavens, the first bird's drowsy calls, The falling house that never falls.
God! I will pack, and take a train, And get me to England once again! For England's the one land, I know, Where men with Splendid Hearts may go; And Cambridgeshire, of all England, The shire for Men who Understand; And of that district I prefer The lovely hamlet Grantchester. For Cambridge people rarely smile, Being urban, squat, and packed with guile; And Royston men in the far South Are black and fierce and strange of mouth; At Over they fling oaths at one, And worse than oaths at Trumpington, And Ditton girls are mean and dirty, And there's none in Harston under thirty, And folks in Shelford and those parts, Have twisted lips and twisted hearts, And Barton men make cockney rhymes, And Coton's full of nameless crimes, And things are done you'd not believe At Madingley on Christmas Eve. Strong men have run for miles and miles
{59}
When one from Cherry Hinton smiles; Strong men have blanched and shot their wives Rather than send them to St. Ives; Strong men have cried like babes, bydam, To hear what happened at Babraham. But Grantchester! ah, Grantchester! There's peace and holy quiet there, Great clouds along pacific skies, And men and women with straight eyes, Lithe children lovelier than a dream, A bosky wood, a slumbrous stream, And little kindly winds that creep Round twilight corners, half asleep. In Grantchester their skins are white, They bathe by day, they bathe by night; The women there do all they ought; The men observe the Rules of Thought. They love the Good; they worship Truth; They laugh uproariously in youth; (And when they get to feeling old, They up and shoot themselves, I'm told) . . .
Ah God! to see the branches stir Across the moon at Grantchester! To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten, Unforgettable, unforgotten River smell, and hear the breeze Sobbing in the little trees. Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand, Still guardians of that holy land? The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream,
{60}
The yet unacademic stream? Is dawn a secret shy and cold Anadyomene, silver-gold? And sunset still a golden sea From Haslingfield to Madingley? And after, ere the night is born, Do hares come out about the corn? Oh, is the water sweet and cool Gentle and brown, above the pool? And laughs the immortal river still Under the mill, under the mill? Say, is there Beauty yet to find? And Certainty? and Quiet kind? Deep meadows yet, for to forget The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yet Stands the Church clock at ten to three? And is there honey still for tea?
Rupert Brooke.
48. DAYS THAT HAVE BEEN
Can I forget the sweet days that have been, When poetry first began to warm my blood; When from the hills of Gwent I saw the earth Burned into two by Severn's silver flood:
When I would go alone at night to see The moonlight, like a big white butterfly, Dreaming on that old castle near Caerleon, While at its side the Usk went softly by:
{61}
When I would stare at lovely clouds in Heaven, Or watch them when reported by deep streams; When feeling pressed like thunder, but would not Break into that grand music of my dreams?
Can I forget the sweet days that have been, The villages so green I have been in; Llantarnam, Magor, Malpas, and Llanwern, Liswery, old Caerleon, and Alteryn?
Can I forget the banks of Malpas Brook, Or Ebbw's voice in such a wild delight, As on he dashed with pebbles in his throat, Gurgling towards the sea with all his might?
Ah, when I see a leafy village now I sigh and ask it for Llantarnam's green; I ask each river where is Ebbw's voice— In memory of the sweet days that have been.
William H. Davies.
49. THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
{62}
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core.
W. B. Yeats.
60. THE FLOWERS
Buy English posies! Kent and Surrey may— Violets of the Undercliff Wet with Channel spray; Cowslips from a Devon combe— Midland furze afire— Buy my English posies, And I'll sell your heart's desire!
Buy my English posies! You that scorn the may, Won't you greet a friend from home Half the world away?
{63}
Green against the draggled drift, Faint and frail and first— Buy my Northern blood-root And I'll know where you were nursed;
Robin down the logging-road whistles, "Come to me!" Spring has found the maple-grove, the sap is running free; All the winds of Canada call the ploughing-rain. Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
Buy my English posies! Here's to match your need— Buy a tuft of royal heath, Buy a bunch of weed White as sand of Muysenberg Spun before the gale— Buy my heath and lilies And I'll tell you whence you hail!
Under hot Constantia broad the vineyards lie— Throned and thorned the aching berg props the speckless sky— Slow below the Wynberg firs trails the tilted wain— Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again.
Buy my English posies! You that will not turn— Buy my hot-wood clematis Buy a frond o' fern
{64}
Gather'd where the Erskine leaps Down the road to Lorne— Buy my Christmas creeper And I'll say where you were born!
West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin— They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn— Through the great South Otway gums sings the great South Main— Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again.
Buy my English posies! Here's your choice unsold! Buy a blood-red myrtle-bloom, Buy the kowhai's gold Flung for gift on Taupo's face, Sign that spring is come— Buy my clinging myrtle And I'll give you back your home!
Broom behind the windy town; pollen o' the pine— Bell-bird in the leafy deep where the ratas twine— Fern above the saddle-bow, flax upon the plain— Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again.
Buy my English posies! Ye that have your own Buy them for a brother's sake Overseas, alone.
{65}
Weed ye trample underfoot Floods his heart abrim— Bird ye never heeded, O, she calls his dead to him.
Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas; Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these! Unto each his mother-beach, bloom and bird and land— Masters of the Seven Seas, oh, love and understand.
Rudyard Kipling.
61. THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL
A naked house, a naked moor, A shivering pool before the door, A garden bare of flowers and fruit And poplars at the garden foot. Such is the place that I live in, Bleak without and bare within.
Yet shall your ragged moor receive The incomparable pomp of eve, And the cold glories of the dawn Behind your shivering trees be drawn; And when the wind from place to place Doth the unmoored cloud-galleons chase, Your garden gloom and gleam again, With leaping sun, with glancing rain. Here shall the wizard moon ascend The heavens, in the crimson end
{66}
Of day's declining splendour; here The army of the stars appear. The neighbour hollows dry or wet, Spring shall with tender flowers beset; And oft the morning muser see Larks rising from the broomy lea, And every fairy wheel and thread Of cobweb dew-bediamonded. When daisies go, shall winter time Silver the simple grass with rime; Autumnal frosts enchant the pool And make the cart-ruts beautiful; And when snow-bright the moor expands, How shall your children clap their hands! To make this earth our hermitage, A cheerful and a changeful page, God's bright and intricate device Of days and seasons doth suffice.
Robert Louis Stevenson.
52. THE OLD LOVE
Out of my door I step into The country, all her scent and dew, Nor travel there by a hard road, Dusty and far from my abode.
The country washes to my door Green miles on miles in soft uproar, The thunder of the woods, and then The backwash of green surf again.
{67}
Beyond the feverfew and stocks, The guelder-rose and hollyhocks; Outside my trellised porch a tree Of lilac frames a sky for me.
A stretch of primrose and pale green To hold the tender Hesper in; Hesper that by the moon makes pale Her silver keel and silver sail.
The country silence wraps me quite, Silence and song and pure delight; The country beckons all the day Smiling, and but a step away.
This is that country seen across How many a league of love and loss, Prayed for and longed for, and as far As fountains in the desert are.
This is that country at my door, Whose fragrant airs run on before, And call me when the first birds stir In the green wood to walk with her.
Katharine Tynan.
53. EARLY MORN
When I did wake this morn from sleep, It seemed I heard birds in a dream; Then I arose to take the air— The lovely air that made birds scream; Just as a green hill launched the ship Of gold, to take its first clear dip.
{68}
And it began its journey then, As I came forth to take the air; The timid Stars had vanished quite, The Moon was dying with a stare; Horses, and kine, and sheep were seen, As still as pictures, in fields green.
It seemed as though I had surprised And trespassed in a golden world That should have passed while men still slept! The joyful birds, the ship of gold, The horses, kine, and sheep did seem As they would vanish for a dream.
William H. Davies.
64. THE HILL PINES WERE SIGHING
The hill pines were sighing, O'ercast and chill was the day: A mist in the valley lying Blotted the pleasant May.
But deep in the glen's bosom Summer slept in the fire Of the odorous gorse-blossom And the hot scent of the brier.
A ribald cuckoo clamoured, And out of the copse the stroke Of the iron axe that hammered The iron heart of the oak.
{69}
Anon a sound appalling, As a hundred years of pride Crashed, in the silence falling; And the shadowy pine-trees sighed.
Robert Bridges.
55. THE CHOICE
When skies are blue and days are bright A kitchen-garden's my delight, Set round with rows of decent box And blowsy girls of hollyhocks.
Before the lark his Lauds hath done And ere the corncrake's southward gone; Before the thrush good-night hath said And the young Summer's put to bed.
The currant-bushes' spicy smell, Homely and honest, likes me well, The while on strawberries I feast, And raspberries the sun hath kissed.
Beans all a-blowing by a row. Of hives that great with honey go, With mignonette and heaths to yield The plundering bee his honey-field.
Sweet herbs in plenty, blue borage And the delicious mint and sage, Rosemary, marjoram, and rue, And thyme to scent the winter through.
{70}
Here are small apples growing round, And apricots all golden-gowned, And plums that presently will flush And show their bush a Burning Bush.
Cherries in nets against the wall, Where Master Thrush his madrigal Sings, and makes oath a churl is he Who grudges cherries for a fee.
Lavender, sweet-briar, orris. Here Shall Beauty make her pomander, Her sweet-balls for to lay in clothes That wrap her as the leaves the rose.
Take roses red and lilies white, A kitchen garden's my delight; Its gillyflowers and phlox and cloves, And its tall cote of irised doves.
Katharine Tynan.
56. THERE IS A HILL
There is a hill beside the silver Thames, Shady with birch and beech and odorous pine And brilliant underfoot with thousand gems Steeply the thickets to his floods decline. Straight trees in every place Their thick tops interlace, And pendent branches trail their foliage fine Upon his watery face.
{71}
Swift from the sweltering pasturage he flows: His stream, alert to seek the pleasant shade, Pictures his gentle purpose, as he goes Straight to the caverned pool his toil has made. His winter floods lay bare The stout roots in the air: His summer streams are cool, when they have played Among their fibrous hair.
A rushy island guards the sacred bower, And hides it from the meadow, where in peace The lazy cows wrench many a scented flower, Robbing the golden market of the bees: And laden barges float By banks of myosote; And scented flag and golden flower-de-lys Delay the loitering boat.
And on this side the island, where the pool Eddies away, are tangled mass on mass The water-weeds, that net the fishes cool, And scarce allow a narrow stream to pass; Where spreading crowfoot mars The drowning nenuphars, Waving the tassels of her silken grass Below her silver stars.
But in the purple pool there nothing grows, Not the white water-lily spoked with gold;
{72}
Though best she loves the hollows, and well knows On quiet streams her broad shields to unfold: Yet should her roots but try Within these deeps to lie, Not her long-reaching stalk could ever hold Her waxen head so high.
Sometimes an angler comes, and drops his hook Within its hidden depths, and 'gainst a tree Leaning his rod, reads in some pleasant book, Forgetting soon his pride of fishery; And dreams, or falls asleep, While curious fishes peep About his nibbled bait, or scornfully Dart off and rise and leap.
And sometimes a slow figure 'neath the trees, In ancient-fashioned smock, with tottering care Upon a staff propping his weary knees. May by the pathway of the forest fare: As from a buried day Across the mind will stray Some perishing mute shadow,—and unaware He passeth on his way.
Else, he that wishes solitude is safe, Whether he bathe at morning in the stream: Or lead his love there when the hot hours chafe The meadows, busy with a blurring steam; Or watch, as fades the light, The gibbous moon grow bright, Until her magic rays dance in a dream, And glorify the night.
{73}
Where is this bower beside the silver Thames? O pool and flowery thickets, hear my vow! O trees of freshest foliage and straight stems, No sharer of my secret I allow: Lest ere I come the while Strange feet your shades defile; Or lest the burly oarsman turn his prow Within your guardian isle.
Robert Bridges.
57. BAB-LOCK-HYTHE
In the time of wild roses As up Thames we travelled Where 'mid water-weeds ravelled The lily uncloses,
To his old shores the river A new song was singing, And young shoots were springing On old roots for ever.
Dog-daisies were dancing, And flags flamed in cluster, On the dark stream a lustre Now blurred and now glancing.
A tall reed down-weighing The sedge-warbler fluttered; One sweet note he uttered, Then left it soft-swaying.
{74}
By the bank's sandy hollow My dipt oars went beating, And past our bows fleeting Blue-backed shone the swallow.
High woods, heron-haunted, Rose, changed, as we rounded Old hills greenly mounded, To meadows enchanted.
A dream ever moulded Afresh for our wonder, Still opening asunder For the stream many-folded;
Till sunset was rimming The West with pale flushes; Behind the black rushes The last light was dimming;
And the lonely stream, hiding Shy birds, grew more lonely, And with us was only The noise of our gliding.
In cloud of gray weather The evening o'erdarkened, In the stillness we hearkened; Our hearts sang together.
Laurence Binyon.
{75}
58. ROWER'S CHANT
Row till the land dip 'neath The sea from view. Row till a land peep up, A home for you.
Row till the mast sing songs Welcome and sweet. Row till the waves, out-stripped, Give up dead beat.
Row till the sea-nymphs rise To ask you why Rowing you tarry not To hear them sigh.
Row till the stars grow bright Like certain eyes. Row till the noon be high As hopes you prize.
Row till you harbour in All longing's port. Row till you find all things For which you sought.
T. Sturge Moore.
59. FAREWELL
Not soon shall I forget—a sheet Of golden water, cold and sweet, The young moon with her head in veils Of silver, and the nightingales.
{76}
A wain of hay came up the lane— O fields I shall not walk again, And trees I shall not see, so still Against a sky of daffodil!
Fields where my happy heart had rest, And where my heart was heaviest, I shall remember them at peace Drenched in moon-silver like a fleece.
The golden water sweet and cold, The moon of silver and of gold, The dew upon the gray grass-spears, I shall remember them with tears.
Katharine Tynan.
60. A SHIP, AN ISLE, A SICKLE MOON
A ship, an isle, a sickle moon— With few but with how splendid stars The mirrors of the sea are strewn Between their silver bars!
* * * * * *
An isle beside an isle she lay, The pale ship anchored in the bay, While in the young moon's port of gold A star-ship—as the mirrors told— Put forth its great and lonely light To the unreflecting Ocean, Night.
{77}
And still, a ship upon her seas, The isle and the island cypresses Went sailing on without the gale: And still there moved the moon so pale, A crescent ship without a sail!
James Elroy Flecker.
61. NOD
Softly along the road of evening, In a twilight dim with rose, Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew Old Nod, the shepherd, goes.
His drowsy flock streams on before him, Their fleeces charged with gold, To where the sun's last beam leans low On Nod the shepherd's fold.
The hedge is quick and green with briar, From their sand the conies creep; And all the birds that fly in heaven Flock singing home to sleep.
His lambs outnumber a noon's roses, Yet, when night's shadows fall, His blind old sheep-dog, Slumber-soon, Misses not one of all.
His are the quiet steeps of dreamland, The waters of no-more-pain, His ram's bell rings 'neath an arch of stars, "Rest, rest, and rest again."
Walter de la Mare.
{78}
62. CHIMES
Brief, on a flying night, From the shaken tower, A flock of bells take flight, And go with the hour.
Like birds from the cote to the gales, Abrupt—O hark! A fleet of bells set sails, And go to the dark.
Sudden the cold airs swing. Alone, aloud, A verse of bells takes wing And flies with the cloud.
Alice Meynell.
63. SPRING GOETH ALL IN WHITE
Spring goeth all in white, Crowned with milk-white may: In fleecy flocks of light O'er heaven the white clouds stray:
White butterflies in the air; White daisies prank the ground: The cherry and hoary pear Scatter their snow around.
Robert Bridges.
{79}
64. ST. VALENTINE'S DAY
To-day, all day, I rode upon the down, With hounds and horsemen, a brave company. On this side in its glory lay the sea, On that the Sussex weald, a sea of brown. The wind was light, and brightly the sun shone, And still we galloped on from gorse to gorse. And once, when checked, a thrush sang, and my horse Pricked his quick ears as to a sound unknown. I knew the Spring was come. I knew it even Better than all by this, that through my chase In bush and stone and hill and sea and heaven I seemed to see and follow still your face. Your face my quarry was. For it I rode, My horse a thing of wings, myself a god.
Wilfrid Blunt.
65. A DAY IN SUSSEX
The dove did lend me wings. I fled away From the loud world which long had troubled me. Oh lightly did I flee when hoyden May Threw her wild mantle on the hawthorn-tree. I left the dusty high-road, and my way Was through deep meadows, shut with copses fair. A choir of thrushes poured its roundelay From every hedge and every thicket there. Mild, moon-faced kine looked on, where in the grass All heaped with flowers I lay, from noon till eve.
{80}
And hares unwitting close to me did pass, And still the birds sang, and I could not grieve. Oh what a blessed thing that evening was! Peace, music, twilight, all that could deceive A soul to joy or lull a heart to peace. It glimmers yet across whole years like these.
Wilfrid Blunt.
66. ODE IN MAY
Let me go forth, and share The overflowing Sun With one wise friend, or one Better than wise, being fair, Where the pewit wheels and dips On heights of bracken and ling, And Earth, unto her leaflet tips, Tingles with the Spring.
What is so sweet and dear As a prosperous morn in May, The confident prime of the day, And the dauntless youth of the year, When nothing that asks for bliss, Asking aright, is denied, And half of the world a bridegroom is, And half of the world a bride?
The Song of Mingling flows, Grave, ceremonial, pure, As once, from lips that endure, The cosmic descant rose,
{81}
When the temporal lord of life, Going his golden way, Had taken a wondrous maid to wife That long had said him nay.
For of old the Sun, our sire, Came wooing the mother of men, Earth, that was virginal then, Vestal fire to his fire. Silent her bosom and coy, But the strong god sued and pressed; And born of their starry nuptial joy Are all that drink of her breast.
And the triumph of him that begot, And the travail of her that bore, Behold they are evermore As warp and weft in our lot. We are children of splendour and flame, Of shuddering, also, and tears. Magnificent out of the dust we came, And abject from the Spheres.
O bright irresistible lord! We are fruit of Earth's womb, each one, And fruit of thy loins, O Sun, Whence first was the seed outpoured. To thee as our Father we bow, Forbidden thy Father to see, Who is older and greater than thou, as thou Art greater and older than we.
{82}
Thou art but as a word of his speech, Thou art but as a wave of his hand; Thou art brief as a glitter of sand 'Twixt tide and tide on his beach; Thou art less than a spark of his fire, Or a moment's mood of his soul: Thou art lost in the notes on the lips of his choir That chant the chant of the Whole.
William Watson.
67. THE SCARECROW
All winter through I bow my head Beneath the driving rain; The North wind powders me with snow And blows me black again; At midnight 'neath a maze of stars I flame with glittering rime, And stand, above the stubble, stiff As mail at morning-prime. But when that child, called Spring, and all His host of children, come, Scattering their buds and dew upon These acres of my home, Some rapture in my rags awakes; I lift void eyes and scan The skies for crows, those ravening foes, Of my strange master, Man. I watch him striding lank behind His clashing team, and know Soon will the wheat swish body high Where once lay sterile snow;
{83}
Soon shall I gaze across a sea Of sun-begotten grain, Which my unflinching watch hath sealed For harvest once again.
Walter de la Mare.
68. THE VAGABOND
Give to me the life I love, Let the lave go by me, Give the jolly heaven above And the byway nigh me. Bed in the bush with stars to see, Bread I dip in the river— There's the life for a man like me, There's the life for ever.
Let the blow fall soon or late, Let what will be o'er me; Give the face of earth around And the road before me. Wealth I seek not, hope nor love, Nor a friend to know me; All I seek, the heaven above And the road below me.
Or let autumn fall on me Where afield I linger, Silencing the bird on tree, Biting the blue finger. White as meal the frosty field— Warm the fireside haven— Not to autumn will I yield, Not to winter even!
{84}
Let the blow fall soon or late, Let what will be o'er me; Give the face of earth around And the road before me. Wealth I ask not, hope nor love, Nor a friend to know me; All I ask, the heaven above And the road below me.
Robert Louis Stevenson.
69. TEWKESBURY ROAD
It is good to be out on the road, and going one knows not where, Going through meadow and village, one knows not whither nor why; Through the grey light drift of the dust, in the keen cool rush of the air, Under the flying white clouds, and the broad blue lift of the sky.
And to halt at the chattering brook, in the tall green fern at the brink Where the harebell grows, and the gorse, and the foxgloves purple and white; Where, the shy-eyed delicate deer come down in a troop to drink When the stars are mellow and large at the coming on of the night.
{85}
O, to feel the beat of the rain, and the homely smell of the earth, Is a tune for the blood to jig to, a joy past power of words; And the blessed green comely meadows are all a-ripple with mirth At the noise of the lambs at play and the dear wild cry of the birds.
John Masefield.
70. TO A LADY SEEN FROM THE TRAIN
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves, Missing so much and so much? O fat white woman whom nobody loves, Why do you walk through the fields in gloves, When the grass is soft as the breast of doves And shivering-sweet to the touch? O why do you walk through the fields in gloves, Missing so much and so much?
Frances Cornford.
71. I WILL MAKE YOU BROOCHES
I will make you brooches and toys for your delight Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night. I will make a palace fit for you and me Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.
I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room, Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom,
{86}
And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.
And this shall be for music when no one else is near, The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear! That only I remember, that only you admire, Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.
Robert Louis Stevenson.
72. JUGGLING JERRY
Pitch here the tent, while the old horse grazes! By the old hedge-side we'll halt a stage. It's nigh my last above the daisies: My next leaf 'll be man's blank page. Yes, my old girl! and it's no use crying: Juggler, constable, king, must bow. One that outjuggles all 's been spying Long to have me, and he has me now.
We've travelled times to this old common: Often we've hung our pots in the gorse. We've had a stirring life, old woman! You, and I, and the old grey horse, Races, and fairs, and royal occasions, Found us coming to their call: Now they'll miss us at our stations: There's a Juggler outjuggles all!
{87}
Up goes the lark, as if all were jolly! Over the duck-pond the willow shakes. Easy to think that grieving's folly, When the hand's firm as driven stakes! Ay, when we're strong, and braced, and manful, Life's a sweet fiddle: but we're a batch Born to become the Great Juggler's han'ful; Balls he shies up, and is safe to catch.
Here's where the lads of the village cricket: I was a lad not wide from here: Couldn't I whip off the bail from the wicket? Like an old world those days appear! Donkey, sheep, geese, and thatched ale-house—I know them! They are old friends of my halts, and seem, Somehow, as if kind thanks I owe them: Juggling don't hinder the heart's esteem.
Juggling's no sin, for we must have victual: Nature allows us to bait for the fool. Holding one's own makes us juggle no little; But, to increase it, hard juggling's the rule. You that are sneering at my profession, Haven't you juggled a vast amount? There's the Prime Minister, in one Session, Juggles more games than my sins'll count. |
|
