UC-N WOLF S-BANE BOOKS BY JOHN COWPER POWYS The War and Culture, 1914 $ .60 Visions and Revisions, Essays, 1915 . . . . 2.00 Wood and Stone, A Romance, 1915 .... 1.50 PUBLISHED BY G. ARNOLD SHAW GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK WOLF S-BANE RHYMES BY JOHN COWPER POWYS No, no, go not to Letbe, neither twist Wolfs-bane, tight-rooted, /or its poisonous wine " G. ARNOLD SHAW NEW YORK 1916 COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY G. ARNOLD SHAW COPYRIGHT IN GREAT BRITAIN AND COLONIES am AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO MY LEARNED AND CRITICAL FRIEND LLEWELLYN JONES 35800 * CONTENTS PAGE APOLOGIA n WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 12 PAST AND PRESENT 13 To ONE WHO SPOKE OF ETERNAL THINGS 14 REGRET 16 PUT OUT THE LIGHT 16 OMENS BY THE WAY 17 THE CLOCK 19 ICE 20 CENSORSHIP 21 THE LIVING AND THE DEAD 22 THE ONE THING NEEDFUL 23 THO LOVE HAS FLOWN 24 DE PROFUNDIS 25 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOON 26 THEIR KISSES ON MY MOUTH 26 PANEM ET CIRCENSES 27 LOVE-IN-IDLENESS 28 REVERSION 29 THE LAST ILLUSION 30 COMPENSATION 31 THE TRUTH? 32 To A PERSON TALKING OF "REAL LIFE" 33 DAWN 35 THE VOICE OF DEMOGORGON 36 REMINISCENCE 37 INITIATION 38 BURIAL 39 THE LAST SAINT 40 AFFINITY 41 THE LAST WORSHIPPER 42 DE EGYPTU 43 INTERCEPTED 44 THE CLASSIC TOUCH 45 LOVE 47 THE ULTIMATE 48 8 QONTENTS ,; PAGE AT A GRAVE . *.* V *. 7 !* 50 ON THE DOWNS 52 THE POND-NEWT A PORTRAIT 54 IN A ROMAN GARDEN 55 CORPUS, CAMBRIDGE 57 THE OLD STORY 58 THE RECRUIT 59 THE VOICE OF THE WORM 60 AFTER READING WILLIAM BLAKE 62 ALONE 62 THE NEW MAGDALENE 63 THE OLD SONG : 64 FIRST AND LAST 65 WORSHIP 66 A DANIEL COME TO JUDGMENT 67 THE DEATH-BIRDS 68 FINIS 69 SEMELE 70 NEPENTHE 70 DIALOGUE 71 SLEEP 72 THE EPIPHANY OF THE MAD 73 DUALITY 74 IT is NOT NICE 76 PRAYER 77 COME, LET IT Go 78 DILEMMA 79 THE WINDS THAT WEPT 80 YOUR PORPHYRIES, YOUR TAPESTRIES 81 THE ESCAPE 83 RENAISSANCE 85 DAFFODILS 86 IN A HOTEL WRITING-ROOM 88 To AN IDEALISTIC POET 89 THE UPLIFTER THREE SCENES 91 KINGS 92 THE DREAM 93 DEATH 94 PRAYER 96 THE UNDER- WORLD . . . . 97 THE IMMIGRANT 99 THE MESSENGERS 100 THE PUBLIC GARDEN 101 To M. C. P 104 CONTENTS PAGE SONG OF THE OLD MEN 106 THE JOY OF LIVING 108 THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN . . . no A CERTAIN EVENING in RESIGNATION 113 THE MYSTERY 114 REQUIESCAT IN PACE 116 THE Music OF THE SPHERES 117 KNOWLEDGE 118 OVER THE HILL 119 WOLF S-BANE APOLOGIA THESE bitter stammered rhymes, Tuneless so many times, And always rent and torn, What have they they can plead At the bar of the critic-breed, That to life they should be born? Nothing but this, that they, In their own drifting way, Express the soul that bred J em. And it is something if verse, For many a priest does worse, Takes a man and his style to wed em. In every child of earth There runs thro his head from birth A broken stammered tune, The fairy-tale of his days; And tis much, if, with little to praise, He can mutter this to the moon. For the little things he spied at, And the little things he cried at, Take a far-flung wistful gleam, And seem as they drift on the mood Of his verse, however crude, To belong to the infinite stream. 12 WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN AH, poet you, who sing "The days that are no more" There is a bitterer sting In the days that never were. For lying alone in the night, Hearing the wind at play, I know such days to have been my right. Yet they came and took them away. I never knew them! They stole The sorrow out of my sleep; The crying out of my dreams. I cannot even weep. They came and took them they stole The longing that was my right, The grief that was my child. They left me alone in the night. "Never was" has a sharper sting Than "No more," as roll the years; And the gods take everything When they take away our tears. PAST AND PRESENT 13 PAST AND PRESENT I LL never forgive you!" I said, As among the Phloxes we went, Where the orchard-rails begin; And now that the Phloxes are dead And the apples gathered in, My anger is quite spent. But between your hands and me Hands that I hated so Because they were like a girl s! Leagues of unfathomed sea Under the cold moon flow, Sprinkled with wrecks, not pearls. And "I ll never forgive" has turned To "I ll never forget" and you, Ah! that s the sharpest sting! While the too soft hands I spurned Are now my only clue, Have forgotten everything. And over the Phloxes grave Grow other, alien flowers, And the orchard rails are gone. Life will not stoop to save Even such tokens as ours, As it roars and eddies on. With wrecks strewn, not with pearls, Are our far-divided sands, 14 TO ONE WHO SPOKE OF ETERNAL THINGS As the salt sea holds us apart, Are they still as soft as a girl s, Or have they hardened, your hands, As I seek to harden my heart? TO ONE WHO SPOKE OF ETERNAL THINGS HUSH! for the shadow of a flower Upon a sun-warmed stone, Your "Highest Truth" with all its power I d willingly disown. Hush! for a glance thro the lattice flung Upon a sleeping brow, Your "Thunder of the Immortal Tongue" I d lightly disavow. The eternal law, the deep life-stream, Why should I worship these? Better the briefest human dream Among the fading trees! Better the frailest human touch When the harebells cover the hill, Or the broken memory of such When the heart has its will! Better the toss of the daffodil s head When the swallow dips in the pool! Better the rain on the crocus-bed That keeps the twilight cool! TO ONE WHO SPOKE OF ETERNAL THINGS 15 Better I see it now! that look, Mixed strangely with shells and sand, And the uncut page of a curious book And the quiver of a hand! The little things the little things The things that fade and die The perfume of their passing brings More than Eternity. 16 PUT OUT THE LIGHT REGRET /GENTLY you whispered, "you ll forget;" VJT And I, who with "Never!" kissed you, Know that my bitterest regret Is not that I have missed you. Tis that a thing more sweet, more rare Than aught in life I ve seen, Can mingle with the common air And be as t had not been! PUT OUT THE LIGHT PUT out the light; and then Put out the light!" O loss to mortal men Of all delight! You who were so sun-fair Your beauty warmed the air, You who were so care-free You healed all misery, Must cry with ghosts upon the wind Or be in frozen earth confined. The fairest things are the briefest things; And the sweetest soonest die; No sign, no trace, no memory clings To earth or sea or sky. OMENS BY THE WAY 17 OMENS BY THE WAY DEAR God! Our pilgrimage Is a strange-scawled page Of script concealed by script! Sweetness beyond belief Leaps on us like a thief; And when the joy has gone Ashes we feed upon; Then onward are we whipped. Voices out of thin air find us, When did we hear them before? Footsteps follow close behind us Along the empty shore. Footsteps of whom? And from what country do they come? A starved and wrinkled tree Has memories for me, Pulling me fathoms deep Under strange seas of sleep. Life whispers "Memories of what?" The soul within me answers not. Sweet Christ! our wayfaring Is an unholy thing. We stumble over graves. We open sealed doors. We sink thro broken floors. We walk on perilous waves. l8 OMENS BY THE WAY Just now within a crowd, Lovely, but like a ghost, One face, amid a host, Beckoned me. Like a cloud Of fire rose Babylon: And dreaming I walked on. Flutes in the air! They came With February s sun. Thoughts, buried under mountains, swift as flame To meet this fluting run! THECLOCK 19 THE CLOCK WHY do you go to that grand hotel Of iron and marble built?" " I do not know I cannot tell Yet something in me could answer well If it would/* And I blushed with guilt. "Try to say it," she said. "Is t the gilded roof, Or the bunches of roses red, Or the airy corridors, fire-proof, Or the servants velvet tread?" "Yes, these but something more than these! Hush! Did you hear that sound? The corner-clock! It brings release To ghosts of underground. "No other House, no other place, Chants me these wistful rhymes That bring first love and a long-lost face And London, with their chimes." 20 ICE ICE IIS not my fault that I am cold Or that my mind affects Each thought, each movement, of the souls That my poor heart reflects. When under ice the river rolls, Do the waves ask the frost Why with strange symbols manifold Its glassy face is crossed? Enough, if skating on that ice Which is my heart, O friends, Chasing the shapes that come not twice, You turn ere daylight ends! There is a place avoid it ! where That slippery mask s worn thin. A depth of drowning water s there. Twere pity to slip in! CENSORSHIP 21 CENSORSHIP THE twisted hearts, the crumpled brains, The broken spirits of us all, How could they tolerate life s pains If the quips and the nods And the mocks at the gods, And the wicked smiles And the wanton wiles, Which make things even, Were censored on earth as well as in heaven? We are all condemned, as the deep tide rolls: A prayer or a kiss Tis hit or miss. The goldenest lover The earth must cover Along with the fool Who holds life a school For hammering noble souls. Let us be kind to one another then; And remembering we are men Of one stuff spun, Make of our miching-mallecho A cowslip-ball to toss and throw At the moon or the sun! 22 THE LIVING AND THE DEAD THE LIVING AND THE DEAD THE humming sea is full of dirges Rung and tolled. The drifting sea beneath its surges Doth enfold Bones and skulls that once made sleep Flee from hearts impassioned deep; Flee from eyes that could not weep. They have lost their former spell Seaweeds cover them too well. And the lovers of these bones, Where they hear not the sea s dirges, Speak in quiet patient tones Of what lie beneath the surges She no more, they say, will feel The harsh turning of life s wheel. She no more will feel, they say, The sharp pinching of life s play. But the poor bones, tossed and tangled, Hearing those sea-dirges jangled, Mutter sadly, in their moving Tomb, of what they ve lost. Ah ! they moan that we again Might drive sleep away from men! Thus the tender thoughts of lovers Whom the warm sweet flesh still covers Differ from the thoughts of those Who have passed into repose! THE ONE THING NEEDFUL 23 THE ONE THING NEEDFUL I AM for you; I am against the oppressor! Proud and glad am I to be numbered with you. Yea, my heart is yours, and what wit is in me Strikes in your service. ye driven armies of slaves and outcasts, Cursed were I with the curse of Cain, if ever 1 forgot your tears in the halls of Egypt, Feasting with Pharaoh! Yet, behold! There s something beyond and over; Something without which, tho we rose and trampled All the tyrant hordes into hell and under, Still were we empty. Sounding brass and tinkling cymbals were we Though with meat and wine and with kisses sated, If the Clue the Signal the Burning Candle, Passed us unheeded. Yea, there s something something beyond and over Without which, tho in hell, like sheep, our masters Bleat their overthrowing and our uprising, Still we go naked. Who can name it? Who has the right to name it? None, ah none! And yet in the world s confusions With lips pure, hearts purged, to refuse to seek it Is to die living. 24 THO LOVE HAS FLOWN THO LOVE HAS FLOWN LET the wind wail on, my dear, And the branches moan. Light the candles; have no fear; Draw the curtains; dry your tear; Tho love has flown. He will come again, my child; He will come back. Over the hill and out of the wild, From the long, long road, by your light beguiled, He will come back. DEPROFUNDIS 25 DE PROFUNDIS SAVIOUR of the World, who by Thy Cross and Passion Still that tragic cry Pierces the blanket of our plight, And stabs a scarlet wound into our night. O Son of David, hear our piteous call! Have mercy on us all! For our loves turn to dust, And our swords turn to rust, And our days run out like sand. O Christ, if you never lived our hearts have made you! O Christ, if you never died our hearts betrayed you! O Saviour of the World, Save us and help us! 26 THEIR KISSES ON MY MOUTH THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOON OUT into the cool clear air Where love, like music, dies behind us! Out of the torches flare, Where lust lacks wings ever to find us! Out into regions where Hushed is the old mad tune; Out into the cool clear air; To the other side of the moon! THEIR KISSES ON MY MOUTH THEIR kisses on my mouth, sweetheart, Are frozen cold and few; And I come back to you; Their lovely magic waxeth old; Their cunning is a tale that s told; My soul is parched with drought, sweetheart, And I come back to you. PANEM ET CIRCENSES 27 PANEM ET CIRCENSES THE crumbs of bitter comfort fall; Our throats are parched; our mouths are dry; The dead leaves drift along the wall; "A little happiness!" we cry. "Not much not long; enough to drink Once of the sweet sun, ere we go. Not long not much; enough to know Once how the gods live, ere we sink." "Serve Life" they preach "Your pleasure s naught. Serve Life and die." Must those, who never Asked to be born, be balked of their retort? "Life is our enemy forever!" Thus have the generations cried - "O Unknown, let us feel content We had our jest before we went We were revenged before we died!" 28 LOVE-IN-IDLENESS LOVE-IN-IDLENESS YOU love him and I love you; And, since my heart shows it, You can never love me true; All creation knows it. I love you and you love him; He loves yet another! So we human midges skim, Biting each the other. If some Puck could just let fall, From his fairy flower, That mad juice upon us all What a heavenly hour! You d love me as I love you; She d love him; and he Would love does it matter who, So it left us free? REVERSION 29 REVERSION YES it is surely true That I who loved with you That magic Beardsley book With its Sidonian look And those androgynous masks that smirk and grin, Seraphic imps of sin; That I who muttered my mystic credo In the Cathedral of Toledo And traced the arabesques of doom On the last Caesar s tomb, And thro the rose-parterres Caught Babylonian airs, And twixt the kneeling mutes Heard Carthaginian flutes; Am now content to let all go And plant geraniums in a row And with my lady s piano-tuner Wish that the holidays came sooner! 30 THE LAST ILLUSION THE LAST ILLUSION f WE only played at love; That s not the link between us; Love s ashes nothing prove; That s how the world has seen us. Under the cinders cold Of that light-kindled spark The eternal flame has rolled And fused us in the dark. On then with your deadly wit And the darts of your glacial eyes! Mock love and slander it Where under the dust it lies! For I, I can bear your scorn As I follow wandering fires, Driven like all men born By unredeemed desires; And you, you can bear my mild Submission to your taunts; My pose of an injured child, Mixed with unseemly vaunts. For we both know well, though it stings, And we ll mock at it to the last; That under these casual things Something holds us fast. COMPENSATION 31 COMPENSATION AFTER all There are moments, Even for the most unhappy, When, out of some tiny crevice, Some small overlooked chink in the great Wine- Vat, The good liquor spurts forth Into our mouth. And we remember How long ago the rain-wet celandines Pierced us with memories, With memories of things deeper than sleep or death And older than all the orbits of the planets. Over the tossing poplars, Over the misty plough-lands, Over the dreamy meadows, Those memories came; Nor did they melt to nothing Even when, from the witch-girl s window, The lamp-light streamed across the night. And we remember How from a long straight road Somewhere no matter where While at our feet silver- weed and dandelion Laughed out of the hot dust, Somewhere no matter where We heard it; we knew it; The Sea! The Sea! The Sea! 32 THETRUTH THE TRUTH? GOME, my enemies, my friends, Let us drop this pose! Now the light s out the play ends And the door must close. Let us drop our masks and be Just for once ourselves, Saints and Satyrs shamelessly, Goblins, Imps and Elves. You love him and I love you, Why not say it then? God in heaven! let s once be true To what makes us men! Christ in heaven! let s once forego Caution and discretion! You you there whom I hate so, What is your confession? Eh? Is that the truth? Well, I Feel the same; so we Stripped of the eternal lie Can for once agree! You you there my one delight, What have you to say? What? Not that! Up with the light! Back to our old play! TO A PERSON TALKING OF "REAL LIFE* 33 TO A PERSON TALKING OF "REAL LIFE" AND so you really hold- You poor incredible ass! That all this steel and gold And all this roaring mass, These shops these streets these jostling cars, Represent life beneath the stars? Nom de Dieu! all the while These bawling bandits strive With brazen fraud and guile To keep themselves alive, The eternal gods in deep contempt Frustrate the insolent attempt. These things of iron and brass These manikins of clay You poor unmeasured ass ! Deem you life flows their way? Mere weight, mere noise, mere rampant size, Are nothing to the Destinies! Deem you that that deep tide, Which flowed thro Caesar s veins, And poured from Jesus side, Cares for their withered gains? Their works, like writings on the sands, Are and are not; as it commands. The scurf of our old earth Has bred that kind before, Unconscious of their birth, And will again; the shore Of life is strewn with such; 34 TO A PERSON TALKING OF "REAL LIFE But the deep waters flow, Where the horizons touch, And the vast sea-winds blow, Knows nothing of them Ass! Life and Reality Are high evasive things That come on eagles wings. All else is mud and dust and farce And sheer nonentity. Go find a girl and see! DAWN 35 DAWN BLOW out the candles, my little one, Lest more moths burn themselves; The moon must soon give place to the sun; And our watch by the dead be over and done; O I am cold, cold! Out of the marshes the wild-geese rise And float away on the misty skies; And the ash-tree leaves on the pale grass shiver To feel the dawn come up from the river. O I am cold, cold ! Fetch sticks for the fire, my little son; We know of what wood those are; And who gathered them for us one by one As far he went, how far ! Never again, son, never again! Why does the dawn tap on the pane Like a traveller sick and old? O that this night might have lasted on! Listen! Is that their feet? - With you and me, my little son, And him there, under the sheet; Lasted on and on and on! O I am cold, cold. 36 THE VOICE OF DEMOGORGON THE VOICE OF DEMOGORGON PALSIED and fevered and blind, Driven by madnesses strange, Aching and loathing it all, In our planetary hospital, Day and night we cry for a change. And the wind-tossed woods and the wild Waters that wash our shores, Unappeased, unreconciled, Cry also without a pause. And sometimes, between the souls Of our desperate mad-house men In the hospital of the world And these, there strangely rolls A tremor of mutual rage; And a mutual curse is hurled At the forehead of God; and then Silence. And, in the silence, a breath Not of man, nor of God, nor of these, Nor of birth, nor of life, nor of death, Nor of madness, nor yet disease, A strange weird voice from the deep That opens below all depth; "Lo! such are the dreams of sleep. Ye will wake one day!" it saith. REMINISCENCE 37 REMINISCENCE BENEATH the crumbling cliff we ate our meal. The grass was dry with sun. Vague breaths of April stirred. We did not feel How nearly all was done. All done, all over, finished with, closed up A grave, securely sealed! The dome of heaven, deep-hollowed like a cup, Nothing of this revealed. O you that long ago, that long ago I loved, what forms are they Gliding so dumb where the blue corn-flowers grow And the horned poppies sway? Why hang their empty hands? Why droop their heads? Why on their necks sits fate? So look the lovers who did make their beds When destiny cried "Wait!" 38 INITIATION INITIATION ONLY those whom the glacier-spears Pierce as they walk, On the scoriae heights where the ultimate Fears Nakedly stalk, Can taste the quivering cup of the dawn Where the cowslips grow And the starlings flying over the lawn Their shadows throw. These find in that enchanted hour The lilac-tinted cuckoo-flower. These know in that anointed shrine The rain-washed blue-bell s scent divine. Only those who have harrowed Hell Can read the runes of a sea-tossed shell. Only those who have challenged God Can hear the worms whisper beneath the sod. BURIAL 39 BURIAL CARRYING tapers in soft white hands, Whose thin flames blow, by the night winds shaken, Troop the maidens along the sands, Where he lies dead whom the sea has taken. Every law has he trampled on; Every altar has he defamed; Outcast, Pariah, cursed one, By his own kindred shamed. Was it the sea-gulls whispering the girls How their lover lay stiff and stark That made them slip from their wreathed pearls And carry their tapers thro the dark? Cold his lips as the wind-tossed spray; Cold his mouth as the drifting foam; But the candle-bearers kneel and pray Ere they carry him home. Two at his head and two at his feet, And two where hang his hands, And they chant the Church s dirge complete As they carry him over the sands: As they carry him slow to the holy place Which living he had disdained, As they lay him low in the tomb of his race Which in life he had profaned. When tomorrow s sun shines on the town The people will curse the dead; But his victims tears will trickle down On the Antichrist s last bed. 40 THE LAST SAINT THE LAST SAINT WITH vesture torn and air forlorn He shuffles on his quest. His limbs are old; his heart is cold. By night he gets no rest. With mock and sneer the people jeer; Hands wave from windows dim; With brutal vaunts and obscene taunts The crowd make sport of him. Wild thro his brain the ancient strain Throbs like a broken chord - "Until ye die hold charity More potent than the sword!" The old men grin to see how thin He is, and like to droop. The madmen greet his staggering feet, And imitate his stoop. Amid these harms the babes in arms Alone do not deride; With large sweet eyes and little cries They call him to their side. They weep and crow; they laugh and throw Themselves upon his breast. His dim eyes shine; "The Babe divine Still justifies my quest." AFFINITY 41 AFFINITY YOU are not made for me. Out of the burning sun Where he sank into the sea They moulded your glowing breast. Circe! What have I done That you should trouble my rest? You are not made for me. I was not made for you. Long since, in the marsh-lands old, Where the wailing curlew flew, And the wind talked to the ghouls, And the moon lay drowned in the pools, My heart was frozen with cold. I was not made for you. Was it drunk with mischief the high, Immortal, opposeless Will, Which ruled that you and I Should the same fate fulfil? "Marry the fire to the frost, And see what the atoms will do!" Is that how the dice were tossed That were shaken for me and you? 42 THE LAST WORSHIPPER THE LAST WORSHIPPER BROKEN and shattered Lie on the stones The golden censers, That once scattered Perfume and prayer; And unbeholden, Save of us only, The high gods lonely Mount their sad thrones. And I too, beneath my breath, Blaspheme and profane the place With mutterings lewd of death But your illumined face, Strained by the weeping of sacrifice, And lit by the candles of paradise, Gleams like a silver cup To those sad ones offered up; And as long you yield them that visible cry The dying gods cannot wholly die. DEEGYPTU 43 DE EGYPTU TT THERE the wet bank shines W With the celandines, And the marigolds mock the moon, Where the violets tender Their deep hearts render To the blackbirds wistful tune, Where the woolly sheep In their hurdles sleep And the rooks caw from the trees, I must go; for the end Is at hand, my friend, And my heart is sick for these. I must go; for the end Is near, my friend; We have lived. Let loose my hand! I can get no ease In my death, Felise, If I die not in my own land. 44 INTERCEPTED INTERCEPTED SELF-CONSCIOUSLY you leer From the livid swamp of your eyes; And my last hopes disappear; For so unctuously they wink Over your plump cheek s brink That I know you have won the prize. Anoint her with ambergris! Bind her with lilies fast! She is not the first nor is She likely to be the last. And you? Listen! There is hate Whose loathing shudders so, It cannot strike a blow. It is dazed by its own weight. Mad? Of course I am mad. I have heard her cry to the sun. But I hate you so much, that I m glad Do you hear? I am glad You have done what you have done! THE CLASSIC TOUCH 45 THE CLASSIC TOUCH THEY are the little things That strike our pulses dumb; By-issues nothings light moth-wings, Gone almost ere they come. Caught in a crowded town, My nerves laid quivering-bare, To the floor of hell my soul sank down And howled its protest there. Bar-windows, Burlesque-signs, Raw hideousness displayed, And in unending lines The people ebbed and swayed. Foul refuse tinged the snow; Its taste was in my mouth. Discordant trolleys row on row Went East, West, North and South. Sudden some blessed chance O chance bringing gifts to all! Led me to cast a glance On a patch of ancient wall. And there an indecent sketch Limned by some laughing boy O lovely and obscene wretch! Swept from me all annoy. 46 THE CLASSIC TOUCH And the hideous iron place With its monstrous crowds and cars Was whirled into outer space And diffused among the stars. And alone by the fire with you I sat and read Rabelais Rue des Beaux Arts, mon loup ! And my soul was once more gay. And the old great shades returned, And the large sweet thoughts flowed free, And my heart within me burned, And that town was nothing to me! LOVE 47 LOVE I LOVE not as you can love," I said, as we walked thro the wheat, On a day long dead; And a shadow of trouble stole Over his wanton brow. God help us! I see it now. To the darling of my soul Those words I said. And that wheat long ago is cut, Winnowed and ground and eaten; And I sit by the side of a slut Broken by life and beaten. I love not as you love, sweet;" She says; and she little guesses How I walk again thro* the wheat, And whom my soul caresses! 48 THE ULTIMATE THE ULTIMATE WHEN the head of a man lies under the sod, And, like little decrepit mice, The deepest thoughts of his brain creep out, They have nothing to do with God. As a rule they re not even pure or nice. Shall we see, in one case, what they re about? Sit down on this sun- warmed stone; And take in your hand this thing The skull of a man! Do you feel How they slipped out one by one, His curious thoughts? A spell can bring Them back to the place where I kneel. One is about the root of a tree And a Valentine buried there; One is about a crooked cross; A number ending in nought and three Comes next; then a half-penny s loss In the streets of Rome; then a coil of yellow hair. A honey-pot in a tea-house, near To the Penseur of the Pantheon; A table rapped by spooks, or those Who sat at it; a passing tear At Fontainebleau for Napoleon; And so the list might close. Or it might go on to other matters Still stranger, to geraniums blowing On sea-side walls; to ragged shoes THEULTIMATE 49 Laid carelessly by skirts in tatters; To ashes in a broken furnace glowing; To drops that from a squeezed Pomegranate ooze. Enough! Put the skull back beneath the sod, And let the earth fall on it It is over A human life! and all his thoughts that were Not very wise, not much concerned with God, But big enough the whole round earth to cover, Like mice have scuttled back into the air. 50 ATAGRAVE GRAVE LEAVE the roses; pluck the rue; Scatter ashes from the urn; To the cypress and the yew Let the weeping watchers turn. For Imagination s dead, And her body, strewn with balm, Lieth lovely in its bed, Safe from any further harm. Deep they drink, the rabble-rout, Of reality s dull lees. "Give us life and truth!" they shout; "Give us freedom; give us ease!" And she lieth in her place, Fair and terrible and cold, Graved upon her marble face All the lines of sorrow old. And reality and truth Hideous monsters howl and rage, Lapping up the sweat of youth, Draining down the tears of age. Fierce about her flames the sword; Rudely round her rolls the dance; These may never speak the word That will rouse her from her trance. ATAGRAVE 51 Ah! until he comes, her own, With the starlight on his brow And the world-forgetting tone Which alone the immortals know, Wrapped in linen-bands she ll keep Cold, unmoved, her silent scorn, Waiting in disdainful sleep The immeasurable dawn. 52 ONTHEDOWNS ON THE DOWNS SQUEEZE out the cowslip-wine and let me drink Deep of the hush that lieth on the hills! Let all the murmurs of the valley sink Far down, far distant, like a cup that spills Its sweetness on a drowsy-mossed lawn Smelling of twilight as the rooks sail by And the last twitterings of the sparrows cease With nought above me but Orion s horn, Calling thro space to Perseus, let me lie. Silence; a plover s scream, the world s release. Nothing about me but the close-cropp d grass And mushroom-rings and dew-ponds high and lonely In a half-dream I let my fancies pass Like ripples on a lake, and dally only With those that seem in league with careless sleep; Such as the thought of caverns floored with sand Thro which the gurgling tide ebbs, lifting slow And dropping the cold weed, and bearing deep Its drift of shells and shingle far from land, Far out to sea, where the great steamers go Such as the falling, in a moonlit night, Of leafy shadows on an empty way Fringed with tall-waving grass and parsley white Which not a single foot has stirred that day; Such as the stillness of a roofless shed Rising amid the reeds of a vast plain Where thro the willow-tops the night-winds hum And the old sorrow in a lover s head ONTHEDOWNS 53 Listens all night long to the sobbing rain, Listens and weeps, and dreams that she has come. Squeeze out the cowslip- wine, O fairy hands! Long, long ago I tasted such a cup, And weary now of foreign loves and lands I kiss the arms that once more lift it up, The shadowy arms full of mysterious sleep. The wheel of my life s fever comes at last Full circle I am tired let me rest. Let this wine lull the pulses that must keep Beating reiterations of the past Too many lives I ve lived The end is best. The mushroom-rings grow dark The dew-ponds fade. Thro* the hushed night Orion blows his horn. The brooding Downs a solemn couch have made, Where I can sleep away all earthly scorn, And all the ache of life, and all the throb Of all its engines. Somewhere from the hills Comes like a human voice the peewit s cry; Silence the world s release; a whimpering sob From distant sheep-folds; and a lost face fills My landscape; she is with me; I can die. 54 THE POND-NEWT A PORTRAIT THE POND-NEWT A PORTRAIT SILKY and soft and lewd, Leering at good and ill, Nature in him has spewed A serpent we cannot kill. Covering with glittering slime The flowers that whet his wit, He ravishes Heaven for a rhyme And harrows Hell for a hit. He would lose his soul to thrust A deep and poisonous dart, Not exactly for lust, Into his darling s heart. And yet he disarms our spleen His eyes are hunted and wild. In the head of the toad a jewel is seen. He is a wounded child. IN A ROMAN GARDEN 55 IN A ROMAN GARDEN THE pomegranates bloom red Above my head; And a marble god impassively From the yellow roses watches me. The calm of his face, like music, brings A thousand Summers, a thousand Springs. My husband kind soul! is out of sight; Visiting the Hermaphrodite. The black and red book I carry Has pages upon this place Did the man who wrote it marry, And hate his wife s mute face? Three splashing fountains call To the yellow roses and fling Spray; but no heed at all Takes he, that marble thing. Strange! Till this hushed noon-day Great Rome herself has been Like the drops of the fountains play Unheeded and unseen. But the calm of that classic head! It renounces. It lets all go. But over its brow is shed A light few mortals know. And into my spirit streams A strange unwonted stir, 56 IN A ROMAN GARDEN While the red Pomegranate dreams And the fountains play to her. lonely and classic head, I too can renounce and wait, While the Pomegranates bloom red At Love s forsaken gate! What matter if with that girl Whose eyes are like stars of night, And her throat like a column of pearl, He visits Hermaphrodite? 1 also, the wife foredone, Foredoomed, as a tale that is told, Can sit serene in the sun Inspired by wisdom old. For the clue to these marble things Is the clue to our human pain; Renounce; and a thousand Springs Burst into bloom again. CORPUS, CAMBRIDGE 57 CORPUS, CAMBRIDGE NOTHING can I recall, O Alma Mater, of thee Save a crumbling ivied wall And a world of obliquity. Nothing but shades discreet, Politic, glib of tongue, Pirouetting on tip-toe feet To where the Mass is sung: The Mass, or whatever most In Evangelic places Prefers the Holy Ghost To flamboyant grimaces: Nothing: and yet I lie! Across my memory flame, Like blood-drops on ivory, The syllables of a name. Like a red wound in the breast Of a god, like a maiden s cry For her ravished virginity, Like a torch that burneth a city, Comes to me over the years, A wraith of splendour and tears. Christopher Marlowe shrive him, God! Walked and blasphemed on Corpus sod. 58 THEOLDSTORY THE OLD STORY OF the bitter shafts of love That poison human veins Lost Opportunity Excites the cruellest pains. "An hour too late" and all We touch and see Turns to a frozen wall Of misery! Like drops of burning rain That ghastly "what might have been" Torments our wretched brain With its litany obscene. And our heart gives one wild cry Against the unchanging law: "Let eternity go by, "And the past be as before! "Welcome the uttermost harms "That hell holds in its power, "So I clasp her once in my arms "As I might have in that hour!" THERECRUIT 59 THE RECRUIT GARTER for Mister Manley, He worked at Wfflum s Mill And up by barton and down by mead He sang to the maidens upon his reed. "Apples be ripe" he sang to them; "And nuts be brown" they answered him. From England banished far In the madness of the war, With a bullet thro his throat He gasped the ancient note; His comrades laughed at the words he sang; But the dying men died without a pang. "Apples be ripe" he sang to them; "And nuts be brown" they answered him. In the hospital the nuns As his own end drew near Asked him what message he wished to send To those he held most dear. Sweetly they spoke to him of Christ Whose blood for all the world sufficed. But his thoughts were at Willum s Mill Along with Mister Manley. Up by barton and down by mead Someone was playing upon his reed. "Apples be ripe" sang the holy nuns; "And nuts be brown" answered the guns. 60 THE VOICE OF THE WORM THE VOICE OF THE WORM THE Prophets and the Saints forever keep Crying their cry of, "Live! Have Courage! Live! The cisterns of our misery flow deep: Deeper flows joy Have Faith! Have Courage! Live!" I only, I, the worm who drank the blood Of Satan when he fell, Have from eternity this cry withstood, Out of the pit of hell. Courage? What is it but the old illusion Forged by the sly Life-stream To lure its creatures on to new confusion From world-dream to world-dream. I, the worm coiled in Demogorgon s brain, I, who saw Lucifer Hurled from the highest heaven, alone remain Indifferent to this stir. Not noble, not heroic, only fools, Are they who "accept life" With gallant catchwords borrowed from the schools Of philosophic strife. Too many gods have I seen born and die. Hold ye your peace This "courage" will pass too. O latest Raiment of the eternal Lie, Snug mid your rags I yet shall spit at you! THE VOICE OF THE WORM 6l I, who saw fall from heaven the Morning s Son Whom his own strength sufficed, I, who lie coiled forever on the Stone Where they entombed the Christ, Am not to be deceived if, after Pride And Love, men credence give To the Illusion that puts both aside; And cries, "Have Courage! Live!" 62 ALONE AFTER READING WILLIAM BLAKE THOSE who cut a worm in twain With Jesus blood the roadway stain. Those who aside from the harlot turn Throw Jesus heart in the flame to burn. He who kills love in a woman s bed Drives the thorns into Jesus head. He who flings poison on love from pride Thrusts the spear into Jesus side. ALONE ALONE! That is the broken cry Of the soul whose bitter lot Even Christ shareth not. And none shareth it, none. None shareth it, none! A veil falls down and hides us. Our lovers search and weep. More than the world divides us. We only met in sleep. Alone! THE NEW MAGDALENE 63 THE NEW MAGDALENE SHE turns her with sick heart From the crowd with the burning eyes. She flees to the woods apart Where the old world s shadow lies. And there in the leafy gloom, With her white face hid in her hair, She moans the unpitied doom Of the flesh that s born too fair. Softly with amorous tread From the dark doth a Satyr creep And standing close to her head Watches the wanton weep. Like the mask of a thousand years The lust in him drops away, And big immortal tears Make a grave for it in the clay. And gently on bended knees He worships the wanton there, Pouring old heathen litanies Into her drooping hair. And the heart of the old world then Flings forth its ancient balm, And the burning eyes of men Can work her no more harm. 64 THEOLDSONG THE OLD SONG LET the dead go wed the dead. Let the shroud go weave the shroud. Twixt the daisies white and red, Kneel upon holier ground. Pansies are sweeter, are sweeter than rue; Cowslips are rarer, are rarer than willow; Kiss the boy who kneels with you. Make the cuckoo-flowers your pillow. Death comes soon, and youth has wings; Snatch the chance the time uncovers; Spring alone the crocus brings; God have mercy on all lovers! FIRST AND LAST 65 FIRST AND LAST THE primroses are dead. From the blackbird s yellow bill The first wild music s fled. Where the oozy blue-bell-stalks Hide the anemones The primroses are dead. Purple and scarlet and gay, The later summer flowers Burn on the throat of the day; But on the parched ground Where passed that first wild sound The primroses are dead. Not lightly can they bear Hearts delicate and rare The loss of love s first cry. Rich may be summer s bloom. It only hides a tomb. When that cry s dead they die. 66 WORSHIP WORSHIP BROKEN and maimed and bruised We beat on the iron gate And cry for the word refused With a cry most desolate. From the sea s edge windy and lone From the land s heart troubled and dim The moan of the dead joins with our moan And the cry goes up to Him. And cold on his ultimate throne His arms hang stiff by his side, And his mouth falls open and wide, Pitiful frozen to stone. His dead eyes stare from his face His dead hands stiffen apart And the vultures of space Flap screeching about his heart. But while we beat at the gate And cry, with our dead, to the Dead, The great Sun, splendid, elate, Rises above our head, And heedless of that lost thing Pitiful there in space, And heedless of our doomed race, The children play on the sun-warmed sod And the laughing lovers worship God. A DANIEL COME TO JUDGMENT 67 A DANIEL COME TO JUDGMENT MISJUDGED, misread, mistrusted, unappeased, A virgin, proud and cold; Lovelier than he whom the fond Cyprian seized And could not hold; He moves amid our throng, sits at our board, Eats, drinks, and wounds us all; The Incarnate Writing of the Invisible Lord On our Belshazzar s wall. He loathes us. His contempt none can assuage. Yet is he maddening-fair! He mocks our passion, as he scorns our rage. His air is not our air. Our glory and our pride he turns to shame With his cold virgin eyes. Up! Let us drive him from us whence he came; And stripped of his disguise! 68 THE DEATH-BIRDS THE DEATH-BIRDS WILL the rain on the drenched mould Never have rest? Never never wail the death-birds in their flying. Will the vulture of night never fold Its wings on its breast? Never never wail the death-birds in their flying. Will the wind that teases the trees Never be stilled, Or the pain at the heart of all these Never fulfilled? Never never wail the death-birds in their flying. Will the earth never cease from its moan Or the sea from its crying? Never never wail the death-birds in their flying. And the whisper of their dirge Blends with the ocean-surge, "Christ s heart is turned to stone; And God s pity gallows-high Under the weary sky Like a corpse stark and bleak Can only whistle and creak." FINIS 69 FINIS ON softly stepping feet She has gone to seek her dead. What will she do when she finds how deep They have buried so dear a head? She will go to the cowslips then And the cuckoo-flowers so pale. In the cold wet dawn she will go, When the mist is on the vale. And lying prone on the ground, While the white clouds over her pass, Thro her loosened hair she will hear the sound Of the worms beneath the grass. And the touch of that cold earth-bed And the cowslips against her cheek Will leave on her mouth the kiss of her dead, And she will no further seek. 70 NEPENTHE SEMELE HONEY and milk for her Whose kiss tastes of the sun! The burning candles of all the dead Bow to her one by one. Pluck all the summer s bloom Her sweet bare knees to cover! Quick! or the sealed-up tomb Will vent its dust to love her. Her eyelids droop. Away! The gods the gods have found her. She was ours; but we are clay. May their arms be flame around her! NEPENTHE WHERE ferns hang cool by the forest pool, And moss at the roots of trees Grows richly green in the flickering sheen Of noons that drowse the breeze, Be her eyes forgot and her hair forgot, And forgot Oh Christ! her lips! On the ancient breast of the mother of rest We may mock a world s eclipse. DIALOGUE 71 DIALOGUE I HAVE tasted the gall with my tongue, And the wormwood with my lips. "Enough; curse life!" cries the grave. I have heard my love-dirge sung And the knell of friendship rung. I have been scourged with whips. But still, in a garden I know, The purple hyacinths blow; And their scent is as it was; And still where the long tides run The wet sands gleam in the sun; And their laugh is as it was. Therefore I say to the grave "Though gall and wormwood sting, And the whips of fate bite shrewdly, There is yet another thing. Hyacinths are purple yet, And the bright sea-sands still wet; And the touch of them both awakes in me Memories deeper than memory. Therefore, though death can save, I cannot curse life, O grave! 72 SLEEP SLEEP THE city sleeps; the fierce metallic roar Ebbs like a broken wave; A wave drawn back to the silent ocean-floor. The city sleeps; and the sleeper, what dreams she? She dreams Of tiny grasses, lifted and dropped and lifted, As the wind goes over the hill; Of feathery reed-tops, rising and falling and rising, As the mill-stream turns the mill. The city sleeps; and the dreamer, what dreams he? He dreams Of tender fern-fronds drooping o er mosses cool By the cart-track s side; Of crimson seaweed rocked in the shadowy pool Where the boat-keels ride. The city sleeps; and one by one the clouds Darken the moon. The dreamers mutter and toss and softly weep; Then, cold and still, like corpses in their shrouds, They sleep. THE EPIPHANY OF THE MAD 73 THE EPIPHANY OF THE MAD I AM the voice of the outcast things, The refuse and the drift. What the waves wash up and the rivers spurn And the Golgothas of the cities burn, For these my song I lift. I sing in dust; I sing in mire; I sing in slag and silt; I sing in the reek of the rubble-fire; I sing where sewers are spilt; I sing where the paupers have their grave; I sing where abortions lie; I sing where the mad-house nettles wave; I sing where the hearse goes by. And all my tune is taught by the Moon; For the Moon looks down on all; And the song I sing of each outcast thing Is a mad Moon-madrigal. But all my thoughts as I sing this tune Are about a little star That soon or late, that late or soon, The evilest things beneath the moon Approach and cleansed are. 74 DUALITY DUALITY I NEVER pass a human house But another house is there, Too vague, too sad, for man or mouse, Its rafters made of air. Of night s black feathers are its doors, Its roof of woven mist, And in its shadowy corridors Strange phantoms keep their tryst. I never cross a lonely road But another road I see, Where no man travels with his load, No turnpike takes its fee, With ancient floods its pools are brimmed; Old footprints mark its edge; But not a swallow ever skimmed Along its withered sedge. I never pass a holy place But another shrine is there, With sorrows written on its face No man or god may share; With sorrows graven on its stone, Washed by ten-thousand rains, And sealed urns whose ashes moan Old lost forgotten pains. DUALITY 75 I never pass a sleeper s head But another head I see; And Christ or Christ s own Mother dead Lies there in front of me. O double life, O double death, When will these spells confused Dissolve neath some tremendous breath Or be forever fused? When will the house, the road, the shrine, No more their secret keep, And the human face seem as divine Awake, as in its sleep? 76 ITISNOTNICE IT IS NOT NICE IT is not nice to see Quite such little children Shiver with cold. It is not nice to see Quite such little children Bought and sold. It is not nice to hear the raucous Voices of the civic caucus Talk of popular education While with hideous emulation They scramble and spit For the golden bit. It is not nice to see the faces Of eminent persons in their places, Plotting after their sort; It is not nice their women to see Staring at the frippery By rascals in shop-windows hung! All these, and other things, among And worse is in the list Might really make a humble poet- If he weren t afraid to show it And wasn t earning his bread By making rhymes on the dead For the fattest of the living, And hadn t a slight misgiving And a suspicion dim That twould be the end of him Into so bad is the list An absolute Nihilist! PRAYER 77 PRAYER CHOKED we live, and choked we die. Give us air and give us space, You intolerable sky! J Tis not much a little grace J Tis not long a little thing That before our burying We may cry one natural cry. O to put into one breath Only one, All the poison of our hate, All all all that came too late; Give us that; and when that s done, Death! COME, LET IT GO COME, LET IT GO GOME, let it go. The little shoots Another year will blow, While you and I beneath their roots Will neither care nor know. Another year the quivering lark Poised on mid-air will skim, While you and I within the dark Will take no heed of him. No question then, dear heart, twill be As to the gold we piled, Or how the witch, prosperity, Was cozened and beguiled. Was I, in whom you trusted, kind? Did you, who loved me, keep True? We shall sleep then to our mind! If not we still shall sleep. DILEMMA 79 DILEMMA THE shadows fall as the sun sinks down And heavily droops the day; A leaden pall weighs on tower and town And the last of the dead leaves flutters down And the swallows fly away. And the road winds always across the plain, And always its milestones glimmer white; But the travellers there come not again: They are lost in the night. Will the swallows never fly back to our eaves? Will our branches never bear fresh green leaves? Will the sun never lift our load? Must we live weighed down in a twilight-town Or be lost on a midnight-road? 8o THE WINDS THAT WEPT THE WINDS THAT WEPT THE winds that wept round Helen lone, The waves that Iseult s vessel tossed, I hear them on this beach; I hear them and their wordless moan Comes to me like a spirit lost That struggles to find speech. The same old sobbing, the same cry, Rising and falling on the sand, No pause and no relief - Is there no heart in all the sky? Has not one god a human hand To ease us of our grief? Not one! Not one! And so it goes. And how it goes too well we know By the eternal sea! Unto one end all sorrow flows. Helen and Iseult long ago Have gone And go shall we. YOUR PORPHYRIES, YOUR TAPESTRIES 8l YOUR PORPHYRIES, YOUR TAPESTRIES YOUR porphyries, your tapestries, Your silks from Samarcand, Your musk, your myrrh, your ambergris, They are not worth a single kiss On a country maiden s hand; They are not worth a single hour In a certain field I know, Where the only flower is the cuckoo-flower, And the only thing that marks the hour Is the shade the chestnuts throw. The sliding down of the twilight dim On a garden wet with rain When the blackbird s song floats away from him Over the world s mysterious rim And we hear it not again; The crackling sticks of a country fire, And the smell of wheaten bread, And the sweet sharp sting of old desire, And the good ale mounting high and higher Into each honest head; Are dearer to me than the shimmering sun On San Clemente s steps, Or the foot-falls echoing one by one, On the stones of the Place du Pantheon, Of the "Quartier" demi-reps. 82 YOUR PORPHYRIES, YOUR TAPESTRIES Your Castilian airs, and your Tuscan strains, And your flute that soothes and flatters, May lull the soul; but the heart remains True to its ancient fields and lanes And its homely "country matters." THEESCAPE 83 THE ESCAPE IN the dreadful city s roar I have my clue to peace; And I carry it evermore, And it always brings release. Tis a spot which I once found, Bordered by grasses tall, Where a garden touches a burying-ground, And elm-tree shadows fall. Here I can feel rtiy bones Mouldering one by one, Far from the rattle of wheels on stones, While the slowly-mounting sun Gleams on the slope of the hill And shines on the stream beyond; And the village maidens bend and fill Their buckets at the pond. And the people little guess As they pass me in train and car, Why I stretch my legs, and press My hands together, and stare They can see not the slope of the hill; They can see not the stream beyond; They can see not the elm-tree hushed and still, Nor the buckets at the pond 84 THEESCAPE They know not how tender-sweet It is to feel one s bones With honest earth-mould mingle, and meet, In the dust, with delicate hands and feet, Far from these clattering stones. RENAISSANCE 85 RENAISSANCE STILL we hear it- Clear, immortal, undying, The old sweet chant Of those that worship the sun! Pallid, perverse, diseased, The mystical rabble Gibber and twitter and weep. With a waving of leprous arms, With a beating of epicene breasts, They mutter their prayers to the night, And the moon, their odalisque. But still we hear it Clear, immortal, undying, The old sweet chant Of those that worship the sun! 86 DAFFODILS DAFFODILS A BATTERED English actor, hired to act In a Chicago play-house, act the fool; Lean purse, sick soul, nerves mercilessly racked In what the preachers call life s wholesome school, Shuffling down Wabash, with a heart that pined For water-brooks and the eternal hills, If not for Zion, was entranced to find, In a shop- window, living daffodils. "O Proserpina, For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let st fall From Dis s wagon!" In a moment fell Before that golden shout the hated wall That held him. All the hubbub, all the hell Rolled like a vapour from the heart that ached; And he saw Oxford, saw the lovely tower Of Magdalen, saw the gardener-men who raked - Old men, who had known Swinburne in his hour Dead leaves across the graves of poets dead; And he saw purple loose-strife drowse and dream As his barge passed it, drifting, and his head Drowsed also, carried down that gracious stream. And he forgot how he had played the mime, Mimicked his fathers gods to make them laugh, Bawled the sweet ancient ditties out of time, And for a drachma torn his soul in half. DAFFODILS 87 He saw the marigolds which Isis yields; He saw the Scholar-gipsy of the Song Pass on his quest; he saw the Christ Church fields, The sunlit banks and the familiar throng. Wabash with all its rails and all its roar Melted to nothing, and once more he moved Wrapped in youth s dreams and legendary lore Where Burton jested and where Shelley loved. "For the flowers now, that" How his poor heart fills, And his tense nerves. relax! \Vhat dreams! What dreams! He stops that bunch of living Daffodils Brings more than Oxford to his eyes He seems To hear the Mediterranean s brimming tide Again; and from his wounded spirit, borne Away, all anguish ceases; at his side She stands the poor fool is no more forlorn. 88 IN A HOTEL WRITING-ROOM IN A HOTEL WRITING-ROOM WE artists have strange nerves! That man in front of me, I had been hating him Implacably, Just for the lines and curves Of his unconscious face, Lines that brought no disgrace Upon humanity. But when that same man spoke, And with a grunt and wheeze Asked me how many cs Had the word "Necessity," The cord of my hatred broke. "For how s a beggar to tell" He said; and I loved him for it "With a word as long as hell, If no wise blighter tells us?" "You are right, my friend. We may score it Over and over with c; But at last it is not we Who spell * Necessity/ But Necessity who spells us!" He smiled. I smiled. And between Your artist and your drummer Swept, on a breeze of summer, A wave of sympathy; And we even came to wonder Where in the name of thunder We had met before this scene. TO AN IDEALISTIC POET 89 TO AN IDEALISTIC POET OWHY, dear heart, drag in The over-soul and why Must that poor phantom-thing They call democracy Crow in your verse and fly Skyward on barn-door wings? Each is a lie a lie! And lies are ugly things. Do you not know with all your iteration You who have lived so long Listening the Muse s song, What is the role of true Imagination? Goethe to Eckermann Said once; and he was wise, "Avoid high thought and scan Nature with both your eyes." "Do Hercules himself," Said Hamlet, "what he may; The cat will mew; the dog Will have his day." Democracies and over-souls, Life spins them up and sucks them down, As round the sun the old earth rolls And the green leaves bud in lane and town. QO TO AN IDEALISTIC POET Over-souls and democracies Life sucks them down and spins them up, As the immense translunar cup Gleams with its stellar autocracies. In the streets of the town the harlot waits; Even so, democracy or not. The lovers lean upon country gates; Even so, the over-soul or not. The little things the old world s heart Come back, my Poet, and write of these! The Preacher will perform his part With the over-souls and democracies. THE UPLIFTER THREE SCENES 91 THE UPLIFTER THREE SCENES AT last! And every word- How hushed the people are! Is yours, my hawk-eyed bird; Is yours, my quivering star. Great heart! The flames which roll Thro* you redeem the race. Your lips, sweet; no, your soul! The signal! Take your place. Don t laugh! I do not love you when you laugh. Yes, child; I am that person they talk about The Uplifter of the people, the , or half Of me is or perhaps a third! What? Did I shout? It is a trick I learnt from someone ; well? Yes! But it doesn t matter! Yes; but not as young As you or half so pretty! I cannot tell What I saw in her. Pest! Your prompter s bell. Tulips? No; only pansies in that row! How that thrush sings ! Hand me the spade no; wait Till I have stamped the earth around them; so! You can have no conception how I hate The common crowd ! A minx it is a flirt. See em again? Not I! It is too late. Henceforth all I uplift is honest dirt! Q2 KINGS KINGS KINGS drop from ghostly hands Their sceptres dark with rust. Kings turn their ghostly feet From footstools fallen to dust. The lovely breasts they leant upon Are all to ashes gone. The wine of Tyre is poured out. The towers of Sidon are desolate. The swords of Nineveh are broken. The dancers of Babylon lie dead. But the wind blowing over the drowned sea-weed, Over the salt margins, Over the grey pools, Over the tossed-up shingle, Has the same form of nothingness, Has the same voice of supplication, And cries aloud upon the same Moon, As when in the silent Desert They built the Pyramids. The ghosts of kings troop by, And their Lemans sorrowfully Wail as they watch them pass. And standing on the sands Where the dead fade and sink, I stoop and write on the brink, Words that the wind understands. THEDREAM 93 THE DREAM <HE fields are full of light. They hold it up Rich, warm, and wavering, in a shadowy cup. I drink it, and I seem To taste an ancient dream. The night is full of mists. It holds them up Quivering and cool in a black marble cup. I drink them, and they seem To taste of the same dream. The woods are full of rain. All day it falls. All night it beats against the city walls. The winds go wailing by Under an empty sky And all the world is as a bitter cup That Life itself holds up. I drink it. And I know most miserably What that dream meant for me. 94 DEATH DEATH DRIFT of dying leaves whirls round me, And disconsolately, like bells Of a submerged city, sounds the Dirge that tells Of the streaming air-borne hosts Of the interminable ghosts From the graves the planets bear Through the windless whispering air: Ghosts of all the dead in Mars, Ghosts of Saturn, ghosts of stars More remote from Earth than those Which Algol or Orion knows. And the sound of Death ascends From the universal air Falling softlier when it blends With the primal silence there. From the Milky Way wide-spread, Rain into outer space the dead. Into that outer space are hurled Ghosts from worlds beyond the World. The worm that feeds on Caesar s head Wonders, groping in the dark, Why, if all these dead are dead, Ever flamed the vital spark. And the reeling earth, Sick of the weight of a sky heavy with death, Sullenly muttereth Curses on its own birth. But the vital flames still spout, And naught can put them out! DEATH 95 Dust piled on dust Cannot smother Life s lust! Every dead leaf that strews the breeze Manures the ground to make other trees; And every dead Moon that fills the sky Will be a new-shining planet by and bye. Enough! Let it cease, this reiteration! Let it cease, let it cease, this repetition! These ghosts that are drift-wood to make new fire Fill me with a strange desire. Would they might sink and lose their breath In a death deeper than any death! Sink utterly, utterly, and be Swallowed up in Eternity! 96 PRAYER PRAYER IF Beauty only died with Love, And Life with Beauty fled, How sweet it were to live and love Ere we were dead! Is there not reason to pray? Put up the sword and pass! Pull off the mask and kneel! Like mimes and shadows in a glass Through life we steal. Is there not reason to pray? The flowers bloom Is the bud s doom; And the flowers fall When the fruit ripens on the wall. Lamps draw the moths and burn them. Hopes draw our hearts and spurn them. Then comes the end; And the rain, the rain is on the roof! Thus in a narrow oblong hole, Beyond the clutches of the mole, Where no bat s cry can come, And the winds are dumb, The empty case of Love, the husk of Beauty, Is laid in the cold clay. Is there not reason to pray? There is reason to pray, God knows! And He knows if He hears us! THE UNDER-WORLD 97 THE UNDER-WORLD SINK, sink down, O heart, where out of its shadows Thy lost Atlantis Cries to thee with the cry of a populous city Softened by distance. Let the dim green depths and the quivering moon beams Soothe thee a little, Till the long hot fevers and lusts of living Leave thee in quiet. Let the drowned steeples and shaken belfries Lull thy disturbance. Let the swinging censers of submerged altars Heal thy distresses. Sink, sink down, O heart, where the tossing sea-weed Wavers and trembles. Sink, sink down where the great wrecked ships go drifting Borne on the current. All is equal there; where thy lost Atlantis Cries to thee softly; With the sweet low cry of a thing forgotten Plaintively calling. Nothing matters there, where the waves of moonlight Sink to the sea-floor; Life and Death are words of a tedious language, Let us forget them! 98 THE UNDER-WORLD Let us forget, O heart, all thy recent rages, Thy foolish fires; Here thy long-lost love is abiding for thee; Sink, and possess her! Sink, sink down, O heart, and possess thy darling, Thy lost Atlantis, Till the long hot fevers and lusts of living Leave thee in quiet. THE IMMIGRANT 99 V THE IMMIGRANT THIS raving crowd, immense and blind, This smoke, this filth, this rain, On her withdrawn and virgin mind Leave not the slightest stain. Stark poverty and monstrous wealth, Huge stores or huts of wood, She passes, centered in herself And armoured in her mood. Her smiling Attic eyes keep still, Remote, archaic, gay, The freshness of the old world s will, The secret of its way; Too deep-aloof to feel disdain Her classic spirit turns To where unfouled by smoke or rain The ancient altar burns. Its flame goes with her, proudly borne In the porphyry of her soul, As an ice-cold vase of crystal scorn Might hold a burning coal; And all the squalor of our grief \nd the grossness of our glee Endure the intolerable relief Of her serenity. 100 THE MESSENGERS THE MESSENGERS THE shadows in the garden listen While the flowers weep. Why does the door swing on its hinges? The shadows on the roadway listen While the grasses sleep. Why does the gate stand open so wide? Over the hills where the sun went down The Messengers come. They stoop. They stumble. Their hair is white. They are dumb. What shall we do to the messengers when they enter To make them whisper the thing? Hush! Be silent. Our mother the Earth to her centre Trembles at what they bring! Wreathe roses, spread tables, pour wine; Feast them but let them depart! Peace, Earth! We will not know. Who are we that so We should break our mother s heart? Hush! They are going now: Going as they came. And we wipe the sweat from our brow And name God s name. But the shadows still listen; And the gate remains still open; And the door still swings on its hinges. THE PUBLIC GARDEN IOI THE PUBLIC GARDEN A BURDEN of horrible loathing Weighed down on me out of the sky, Heavy and like a pall. Can I endure this and live? What matter? Under the ground Moles burrow and lob-worms crawl; Yet quite untroubled we lie! This morning I took my seat In a public garden. Desolation and I Stared at the gravel. A fountain that could not play Mocked each new-comer; And the white sick eyes of the day Jeered at the summer. Far off, in the town, church-bells Expression brought To the loathing my spirit felt, After this sort; "Round our altars flaps the bat, Squealing like an unlaid ghost, And the holy bread of the Host Is nibbled by a rat." An arbour littered with dust Blinked at the garden. A gate of iron and rust Guarded the garden. 102 THE PUBLIC GARDEN A wind that smelt of the town Sighed incessant through these, Whirling torn papers about, And fretting the trees. Euonymus bushes and Privet Grew starkly there; With shrubs less adapted than civet To cleanse a foul air. Steely and grey looked the sun, Like a sickle on sheaves; Thunder-drops one by one Fell on the leaves. A mackintoshed woman obtruded Her chin to the rain; Peering at me, as though I intruded On her private pain. Her mackintosh smelt of the grave-yard. A cemetery touch Made her cheeks pale as corruption And loathsome as such. This woman seemed Horror s twin-sister. She harmonized well With the gate and the arbour and gravel Of that corner of hell. She was Virtue s own child, but sweet Saviour! How dreadful and drear; As the sick white eyes of that moment Turned on her their leer. This woman, thought I, is the spirit Of this frightful place! She is old as the planet, and with it Goes mumbling through Space. THE PUBLIC GARDEN 103 What matter? The earth is sufficient To lie on each head That aches from these visions pernicious With which we are fed. Though mackintoshed females like corpses Peer at us in rows; Though winds drive torn papers before them And Euonymus grows In eternal successions of gardens Whose fountains can t play; Though bats flap down over our altars And rats eat Christ s Body; Though moles dig the roots of Creation And lob- worms crawl through it; We shall find in the arms of Negation Sweet peace and ensue it! 104 TO M. C. P. TO M. C. P. YOUR hands are cold. Your lips are cold. And colder still your breast. But to you I turn when all is told, Simply to rest. I only loved you after you were dead; For only then I knew What an accomplice in her travail-bed Life had in you. The shade of all the murderous suffering That cradles birth Fell on the ivory forehead of the thing You were on earth. And who that ever read Life s sorrow stark On a dead forehead writ Beheld such grief as yours bore, ere the dark Swallowed and cancelled it? Your hands are cold. Your lips are cold. And colder still your breast. But to you I turn when all is told, Simply to rest. I turn to you and the Night your friend! May your crescent moons And your silences and sad sea-tunes And your wistful-plaintive rhythmic runes Drift over me without an end; Drift over me and drive away Mention and memory of Day. TO M. C. P. 105 For I want before I die To feel as midnight feels when keen and cold The high stars mount into their places old And Cygnus spreads his wings across the sky. I want before I die, without despair, To face what is left there, When one by one life s masks drop from her brow, And the cold glacial snow Of her abysmal smile makes final scorn Of all that she hath borne! I want before I die to breathe an air More large, more calm, more rare, More deeply dipped in Space. I want to look Orion in the face And wear the indifference that the hushed dead wear. For I am weary of the gleams, The dust, the laughter, and the dancers tread. I want before I die to wake from dreams And feel the Outer Dark about my head. Your hands are cold. Your lips are cold. And colder still your breast. But to you I turn when all is told, Simply to rest. 106 SONG OF THE OLD MEN SONG OF THE OLD MEN SHADOWS drifting, drifting, drifting, drifting; Wraiths of mist and rain; Shadows beckoning, beckoning, beckoning, beckoning, Down the vaulted lane. They go before us, and we limp behind them, Slowly, and in pain. Will no god or angel tell us truly Whose the faces hidden by those cowls? Whose the hands those hoods conceal so throughly? Whose the light limbs underneath those shrouds? Saints! That Shadow, slenderer than the others! My Lost Love tis she! Christ! That Shadow, taller than its brothers! My Friend of Friends tis he! We are dull. We hardly may remember The sweet magic words that once could move Old lewd country- jests, soft signals tender, Mad wild quips and nonsense-lures of love. Will no god or angel turn and find me What I said that made her kiss and cling? Will no god or demi-god remind me What I did to make him crown me king? Has this vaulted lane not even echoes? Have these wraiths not even tears to shed? No matter. All is equal. Vaults are lifted, Lanes levelled, tears forgotten, when we re dead! SONG OF THE OLD MEN 107 Shadows drifting, drifting, drifting, drifting, Wraiths of mist and rain, To eternal silence trooping dumbly, Done with pain. Done with consciousness and memory and identity and pain. 108 THE JOY OF LIVING THE JOY OF LIVING THE Earth is weary and dull as a stone. When will the terrible spirit of life Leave her alone? Why must every day she bring forth again Trouble and agitation and pain, Passion and pity, and stress and strife, Under the spirit of life? The little grasses on her breast Sigh to be left at rest. Why must they spread their seeds so wide, Only to fill the fields with pride? The souls of infants within the womb Sigh to be left in that peaceful tomb. Why must they force their way to the light Only to sink back into night? The thoughts of great and inspired wit Have little longing those brains to quit. Far sooner they d dream in their cradles furled Than roam about and convert the world. The quiet gulfs of abysmal Space, What have they done to inherit This cruel merit, This bitter reward, Of being rent by the planet race, And torn by the meteor s sword? THE JOY OF LIVING IOp From the heights and the depths, From the seas and the hills, Goes up forever The ancient cry- What have we done That we should live to suffer; That we should live to die? The Earth is weary and dull as a stone. Will life never leave her alone? 110 THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN WHEN the people and horses have gone And silence has fallen, The lonely road wakes; And all night, Under Cassiopeia and the Pleiades It sighs for its lost travellers. But at the hour before dawn, When the stars are cold, It whispers the world-secret. When the ships have passed, And their tracks have melted, And the white horses have sunk, The lonely sea wakes; And all night, Under Aldebaran and Arcturus, It moans for its lost soul. But at the hour before dawn, When the stars are cold, It whispers the world-secret. When the camels have swept by, And the caravan has vanished, The lonely Desert wakes; And all night, Under Cygnus and Perseus, It wails for its dead kings. But at the hour before dawn, When the stars are cold, It whispers the world-secret. A CERTAIN EVENING III A CERTAIN EVENING ^ INHERE is no wind tonight _|_ To blow into the clouds The ghosts that rise upright Out of their shrouds. The sultry garden-plots With odours over-brim, And a heavy vapour blots The sky when the stars swim. A white moth-feathered owl Flaps round the village roofs; In distant yards dogs howl, And horses stamp their hoofs. Who knows what must forebode These oft-repeated sighs That breathe from the hot road As from a throat that dies? Who knows what must forebode These panting sighs that pass Along the dusty road, As from a throat of brass? The black trees droop and nod, As if they bowed the head Before some murdered god, Borne on a litter dead. The reeds that shivering bend As the dark stream flows by, Bend lower still and send Across the flats a cry. oomewhere, far-off, the sea, Deep-muttering, drowns the sand, 112 A CERTAIN EVENING And, like eternity, Moans round the frightened land. Dumbly, from depths unplumbed, Struggles and stirs my heart; Undreamed of, and unsummed, Is what it would impart. The world is one vast field Waiting with indrawn breath For what my heart will yield; But it yields only Death. RESIGNATION 113 RESIGNATION STRUGGLE no more: let it go- Cries the wind to the water; And the water answers the wind It is gone. Struggle no more: let it melt Cries the dew to the vapour; And the vapour answers the dew It has melted. Struggle no more: let it sink Cries the pond to the willow; And the willow answers the pond It has sunk. Struggle no more : let it fall Cries the moss to the ivy; And the ivy answers the moss It has fallen. Struggle no more: Let it die Cries the loved to the lover; And the lover answers the loved It is dead. 114 THEMYSTERY THE MYSTERY CAN you not hear the sobbing in the night, You pools of Silence? Can you not hear the wailing on the wind, You shores of Silence? The stones we walk over, The roots we uncover, The grass by the way, And the flames of the day, In the same accents dolorous Cry to the mystery over us. Can you not hear the voices in the sea, You isles of Silence? Can you not hear the murmur in the trees, You glades of Silence? The shells that we break, The fish that we take. The moss that we tread, And the graves of our dead, In the same accents dolorous Cry to the mystery over us. Can you not hear the moaning in the reeds, You banks of Silence? Can you not hear the sighing in the sand, You stones of Silence? The bubbles that sink, The stars that wink, The rocks that crumble, And the feet that stumble, In the same accents dolorous Cry to the mystery over us. THEMYSTERY 115 Can you not hear the rustling wings of love, You caves of Silence? Can you not hear the flapping wings of hate, You towers of Silence? The souls that are white With the moons of night, And the souls that are red With the sun s blood shed, In the same accents dolorous Cry to the mystery over us. Can you not hear the ticking clock of time, You halls of Silence? Can you not hear life s swift alternate rhyme, You roofs of Silence? The feet of desire, And the lips of fire, The hand that clings, And the tongue that stings, In the same accents dolorous Cry to the mystery over us. But the mystery answers not a word; And passes, as though it had not heard. Il6 REQUIESCAT IN PACE REQUIESCAT IN PACE THE end with outstretched hands Provides the balm That gives the slipping sands Of time their calm. The dark bewilders and the light entices. The end suffices. The things forlorn we glance at as we go; Dim patches of bleached grass, And floating wreckage tossed on desolate seas, And all the piteous faces that we pass, And all the flow Of all the tears those piteous faces show, The end suffices these. O end of all things giving all things peace And bringing them release! It is enough to name thee and be dumb. That thou must come, Unasked, unspeeded, At last to all, in answer unto all; No more is needed. This fungus-thing unfurled, This blunder, this contortion, this huge blot, That it should linger not, But into cool deep wells of death be hurled, How just, how blest! But let there be for us no after-world, Lord of Eternal Rest! THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES 117 THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES LET the sooth-sayers hold their peace With their false auguries! Let us have the truth s release, And bow our foreheads. Let us kiss the ground; While over us, slowly, Without pause, without sound - Save one, save only one ! The planets holy, And the sacred sun, In due succession, Their bright procession Draw out, and strew The eyelids of the night with healing dew. Hush! How they whisper, thro the expectant air, To mortal ears, The end of all our fears! In full enravishment We listen for the word; Which to have heard Is large enfranchisement. Let the Priests go aside and be dumb With their false oracles! Let the worst of all truth come. It can only slay us! And when we lie dead With the earth on our head, All hell may howl behind us. It can never find us! Il8 KNOWLEDGE KNOWLEDGE THE wild swan over the marshes knows On what cold reed-bed The witch-girl pressed the rook-boy s lips Until they bled. The wild owl over the mad-house knows In what padded place The loveliest form that ever breathed Lies on her face. The wild hawk over Golgotha knows Whose patient heart Cursed day, night, earth and heaven, before its curse Rent it apart. The wild kite over the world s edge knows To what piteous end All joy, all hope, all love, all wisdom, all desire, In swift procession tend - Yet none the less it soars and flashes free Across the glaciers of eternity! OVERTHEHILL 119 OVER THE HILL OVER the hill - Can you hear the sea? A voice I know Is calling to me. From a quiet place, all railed around, Her voice is calling out of the ground. And along the path by the high cliff s edge Where the sea-gulls flap on the windy ledge, And across the hill, by the straight white road, Where the wagon creaks beneath its load, And down the hill by the little white bridge, And up again by the gorse-bush ridge, On unwearied feet I must seek her side Who all night long to me has cried; On unwearied feet I must find the place Where she lies with the earth upon her face. That spot, with white-washed posts railed round, Where she calls to me out of the heavy ground, I have seen it in a thousand dreams. Near the sea it always seems; And railed with white-washed posts it gleams. But when I cross over the little bridge And follow the yellow gorse-bush ridge Instead of the white- washed posts I find An old stone-breaker half-blind, Crouching upon a heap of stones And eating a meal of rabbit bones. Yet over the hill - Can you hear the sea? A voice I know Is calling to me. 120 OVERTHEHILL And every night as I lie in my bed The same strange vision comes into my head And I cross the little stony bridge And I follow the yellow gorse-bush ridge And the white- washed posts by the road-side gleam; Is she the dreamer; am / the dream? 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. General Library University of California Berkeley