•;;*f'<;»:>rt
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 A SYMPHONY 
 
 AND OTHER PIECES
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE SILVER AGE: A Dramatic Poem 
 THE PILGRIM JESTER: A Poem 
 LAND AND SEA PIECES : Poems
 
 A SYMPHONY 
 
 AND OTHER PIECES BY 
 ARTHUR E. J. LEGGE 
 
 LONDON : JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD 
 NEW YORK.: JOHN LANE COMPANY 
 TORONTO : BELL & COCKBURN. MCMXHI
 
 WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Symphony i 
 
 I. Andante i 
 
 II. Adagio 12 
 
 III. Scherzo 22 
 
 IV. Allegro 32 
 
 A Requiem 48 
 
 Nocturne 51 
 
 March of the Moss Troopers . • • 57 
 
 Intermezzo 62 
 
 A Waltz by Strauss 67 
 
 Spring 69 
 
 Exhortation 71 
 
 Wind 72 
 
 The Hunt 73 
 
 The Bugle 75 
 
 Soldiers 76 
 
 A May Message 77 
 
 Free Lance 79 
 
 The Little Cloister 81 
 
 Southerly Thoughts 83 
 
 A Street Organ 84 
 
 High Beech 86 
 
 Arcturus at Hampstead 87 
 
 Woodland Peace 89 
 
 A London Churchyard 90 
 
 The Turn of the Leaf 92 
 
 Emancipation 94 
 
 Coming Home from Fishing .... 95 
 
 922040
 
 VI 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 PAL.E 
 
 At Anchor 97 
 
 The Road through the Wood 
 
 
 • 99 
 
 The Rebuke of the Woods 
 
 
 . lOI 
 
 The New Moon . 
 
 
 
 . 103 
 
 Action 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 105 
 
 Space 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 107 
 
 Clouds . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 109 
 
 An Artist 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 1 10 
 
 Catkins . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 112 
 
 Sunlight 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • "3 
 
 Stars 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • "5 
 
 Post Meridian 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ "7
 
 A SYMPHONY 
 
 AND OTHER PIECES
 
 A SYMPHONY 
 
 I. ANDANTE 
 
 Daffodil time draws near to birth ; 
 
 The pulses that awaken Spring 
 Move in cold arteries of Earth, 
 
 And, spite of frost yet lingering, 
 Stir the amorous thrush to sing, 
 
 And lift, while hedges yet loom dark. 
 And fields lie sere, on aimless wing. 
 With no strong purpose, save delight 
 In tuneful rhapsody of flight. 
 Over wide ploughland loam, the lark, 
 Whose whirling voice would seem to mark 
 
 Dawn after Winter's silent night. 
 
 Against the brown and leafless copse, 
 Beyond bare furrows, hangs the steam 
 That goes up from the halted team. 
 While, for a moment, labour stops, 
 
 B
 
 2 A SYMPHONY 
 
 Threaded clear through the misty grey 
 Of morning, among blurred tree tops, 
 Moving a thought of busy day, 
 Of work and growth and future crops, 
 And the luxuriant, sunny dream 
 Of blade and blossom, whose array 
 Is nature's largest draft, to pay 
 The debts that Summer must redeem. 
 
 Already you may hear the bleat 
 Of new-born lambs. And soon 
 Birds will be nesting, and new wheat 
 Will tinge the dark soil, greenly pale, 
 As the year draws to noon. 
 Telling the same old fruitful tale. 
 That countless centuries repeat. 
 Till the warm air is oversweet 
 With white may blossom, and the moon 
 Is welcomed by the nightingale, 
 Who feels her silver round his feet. 
 And hymns the wonders to prevail 
 Throughout maturing June. 
 
 Nature allows no change. 
 A thousand years ago
 
 A SYMPHONY 
 
 We had not thought the season strange, 
 
 Nor found one faulty tone derange 
 
 The process that we know. 
 
 The pairing of the rooks. 
 
 The mating of the plovers, 
 
 The stealthy tryst in woodland nooks 
 
 Of shy, fur-coated lovers, 
 
 The surge of sap, the rising stalk. 
 
 The bud-sheath slowly broken, — 
 
 All the soft words of Spring-time talk 
 
 In every wind were spoken. 
 
 Life murmurs a familiar chant 
 
 From year to year, for beast and plant. 
 
 For bird and insect, sounding all 
 
 The great crescendo, that shall fall 
 
 Away when Autumn strews the ground 
 
 With yellow, an eternal round 
 
 From seed through flower to seed, — a plan 
 
 That governs the whole world, save Man. 
 
 Ah yes ! — save Man ! 
 
 He is begotten, lives and dies. 
 
 Eats, drinks, and labours, laughs and sighs 
 
 After his wont in far-off days. 
 
 But weather-bent are all his ways,
 
 4 A SYMPHONY 
 
 Like mountain fir trees, that have fought 
 
 A losing battle with the skies 
 
 Of tyrant Winter. Round him plays 
 
 A tempest of assaulting Thought, 
 
 Whose windy buffet shakes and sways 
 
 The fabric of his custom, wrought 
 
 Of mortal clay, and modifies 
 
 The fashion former ages taught. 
 
 So that he moves from phase to phase, 
 
 Pursuing that which ever flies. 
 
 And sometimes, when he turns to view 
 
 The road by which he came, 
 And sees how every life was new 
 
 And every death the same. 
 What footsteps in the fading dew 
 
 Are tracks of earthly fame. 
 He wonders if the scalding sweat, 
 
 The anguish and the tears. 
 The wounds, on which the blood is wet, 
 
 The gnawing doubts and fears. 
 Have gained him any profit yet 
 
 Through the recorded years. 
 
 He is compelled to face 
 An everlasting Why ?
 
 A SYMPHONY 
 
 To hear the haunting cry 
 That echoes through the gloom, 
 Vague omen for his race 
 Of undeciphered doom, 
 Whose meaning he must try 
 To gather, ere he reach 
 The muteness of the tomb. 
 But meagre human speech 
 Cannot make manifest 
 The something ne'er expressed. 
 That keeps ahve in each 
 An aching of the breast. 
 Yet, though it seem so vain, 
 He starts upon the quest 
 Again, and once again. 
 
 The dust of his endeavour 
 
 Is blown about the world. 
 Time works to rend and sever 
 
 The symbols that are hurled 
 Down from each ruined altar 
 
 And shattered temple roof. 
 To bid devotion falter. 
 
 And worship own reproof.
 
 6 A SYMPHONY 
 
 Inscrutable and solemn 
 
 The ironies that cling 
 To splintered shaft and column 
 
 And stone-work, harbouring 
 Remembrance of the glory 
 
 That crowned a passing creed. 
 Dead chapter in the story 
 
 Of Man's immortal need. 
 
 Is the old question answered yet ? 
 
 Is the old hunger satisfied ? 
 May a believing world forget 
 
 The drawn-out line of faiths that died ? 
 Interrogate some Gothic fane, 
 
 Aflush with shrouded light, that flows 
 Through every patterned window-pane 
 
 To coloured peace and dim repose, 
 That drapes a glowing veil of dusk 
 
 Over the age-worn, sculptured stones, 
 Still worthy, though a crumbling husk, 
 
 To sepulchre some hero's bones. 
 The shadow-burdened atmosphere 
 
 Of haunted nave and dreaming aisle. 
 Faintly voluptuous, yet austere, 
 
 May soothe our throbbing hearts awhile.
 
 A SYMPHONY 
 
 And, when the pedalled organ rolls 
 
 Harmonious thunder through the choir, 
 
 Perhaps will come to shaken souls 
 An answer for their old desire. 
 
 Oh, kneeling seekers, have you found 
 
 The haven whither men were bound 
 
 Since the slow pilgrimage began ? 
 
 Has the travel-worn caravan 
 
 Come to the well at last ? I hear 
 
 Echoing priestly accents, clear 
 
 In the cathedral's hush. They seem 
 
 To soothe and drug me, till the stream 
 
 Of doctrine merges in the roar 
 
 Of waters. I am on the shore 
 
 Of that great river, so long sought 
 
 By all adventurers of Thought, 
 
 Whose torrent is eternal Truth. 
 
 Here is the end of Age and Youth, 
 
 Of Space and Time ! This magic flood. 
 
 That sprang from a Redeemer's blood. 
 
 Is surely the one Life, the Whole, 
 
 The final rapture of the soul. 
 
 The All that is and is to be, 
 
 The spirit -surge of Ecstasy !
 
 8 A SYMPHONY 
 
 Was it the praying voice that broke, 
 
 Torn by a sceptic spasm ? 
 Was it a whirlwind doubt that spoke 
 
 From Reason's cloudiest chasm ? 
 Something jarred in the dream, and rent 
 
 The Veil of the Temple, hung 
 To hide from Faith what it really meant, — 
 
 Words on a human tongue. 
 And suddenly all comes down to earth, 
 
 To a building made with hands. 
 To a plump divine in a sorry dearth 
 
 Of ideas he understands, 
 To gilded plaster and coloured glass. 
 
 And rhetoric, and the cramp 
 Of Reason, twisted askew, to pass 
 
 Orthodox gauge and stamp. 
 And that which seemed a river has shrunk 
 
 To a trickle, dark with the stain 
 That minister, elder, priest, and monk 
 
 Have brewed out of fear and pain, 
 Whose crawling waters branch and divide 
 
 Into countless rivulets, 
 Shallow runnels of ignorant pride. 
 
 Fantastic spurts and jets. 
 Wandering over the thirsty land.
 
 A SYMPHONY 
 
 Whose green they hope to recall, 
 Till their course runs dry, and infidel sand 
 Chokes and absorbs them all. 
 
 Sardonic common-sense again 
 
 Unravels the half-woven skein 
 
 Of ghostly vision, dreamed in vain, 
 
 Satirical to those who hope 
 
 That bubbles, blown of frothy soap 
 
 Ecclesiastical, can cope 
 
 With furnace-breath of Thought, — and tries 
 To turn our gaze from empty skies 
 To fat delights that money buys. 
 
 Bidding us shelter in the clutch 
 
 Of warm and solid Fact, whose touch 
 
 Helps the idealist so much. 
 
 We are admonished not to waste 
 Regret on diamonds, when paste 
 Is moulded with so fine a taste. 
 
 And though our spirits may repine 
 For loss of that which seemed divine. 
 Science provides an anodyne.
 
 10 A SYMPHONY 
 
 Have we not safety, knowledge, wealth, 
 
 New methods of preserving health. 
 
 And much good done, — though not by stealth ? 
 
 Has not the world a kinder breast, 
 A conscience, that allows no rest 
 WTiere outward wrong is manifest ? 
 
 Are not the social virtues prized ? 
 
 And are we not so civilized 
 
 That wars are dead, and arms despised. 
 
 And only tongues for weapons used, 
 With certain coward blows excused. 
 And honour just a little bruised ? 
 
 Our world is warm, secure, and clean. 
 The wisdom of the golden mean 
 Provides a profitable screen 
 
 Against the glare of lawless fires. 
 Eager ambitions, fierce desires. 
 And all that hungers and aspires.
 
 A SYMPHONY II 
 
 But, though the creed of Comfort steep 
 Fortunate souls in pleasant sleep, 
 Ungratefully they wake, and weep 
 
 For life illumined by a ray 
 
 From That whereto men used to pray, — 
 
 And One, like Christ, to point the way.
 
 II. ADAGIO 
 
 Come nobly down, 
 
 Compassionate and understanding night ! 
 
 Curtain the naked harshness of the town, 
 
 Till streets be blurred and brown, 
 
 And soften the fierce glare of their cold light 
 
 Into an orange veil about the head 
 
 Of such poor burdened majesty, whose crown 
 
 Of captive fire, — ansemic, though so bright, — 
 
 With staring, clustered globes is garlanded, — 
 
 Jewels, whose joy is dead. 
 
 Feverish pleasure riots in her breast, 
 And all her fitful pulses are aflame 
 With sensual unrest. 
 
 And flushed, hot, wanton revelries are glowing 
 Under her painted skin, that veils all shame. 
 Vulgarity, good-natured, noisy, knowing. 
 Leers from her bold eyes, leaving half ex- 
 pressed 
 Her wisdom, that would earn a harlot's name 
 
 12
 
 A SYMPHONY I3 
 
 From souls austere, — ^yet shuns no judgment, 
 
 showing 
 A brave face, Hvely with plebeian jest 
 And unimaginative pleasure-game. 
 Jovial, prosaic, friendly, overflowing 
 With shallow, eager zest. 
 
 To those who see 
 
 Beneath appearance their divining eyes 
 
 Show what romantic value lies 
 
 Under the city's cloak of commonplace. 
 
 Her very chimneys hold a mystery 
 
 Of unexpected grace. 
 
 When bloodshot, lurid sunshine ebbs and 
 
 dies 
 In smoky vapour ; and the soulless face 
 Of warehouse and pantechnicon may be 
 Transiigured by a moonbeam in such wise 
 That no majestic temple could encase 
 More beauty and surprise. 
 
 Ah yes ! If some aesthetic, heartless god, — 
 Floating luxurious on a couch of air. 
 Cushioned with clouds, and, for a curtain-rod. 
 Spanned by a rainbow, — saw the picture there,
 
 14 A SYMPHONY 
 
 Would not his senses tremble with the touch 
 Of harmony, like some sweet sound that 
 
 clings 
 To stirred aeolian strings, 
 And his thought welcome, with approving 
 
 nod, 
 The lurid drama of delight, despair. 
 Loves and debaucheries and sufferings, ■ 
 WTiose theatre is such 
 As actors have not walked before, a stage 
 With half a nation crowded in the wings. 
 And furnaces for footlights, and so much 
 Of pageant that personifies an age. 
 And wealth and warmth and glitter, and the 
 
 clutch 
 Of life, that grips and stings. 
 
 Beauty enough there is, for one aloof 
 From toiling hope and anguish of the hive. 
 Pavement and park and garden are alive 
 With colour and rh3^hm, — eloquent reproof 
 For souls too bare of culture to derive 
 An artist's ecstasy from some old roof. 
 Some pile of hoary walls, — too dull to feel 
 Fierce currents of humanity, that strive
 
 A SYMPHONY I5 
 
 And surge and moan, — challenge of clashing 
 
 hoof, 
 And harsh insistence of defiant wheel. 
 Binding over the brain a cage of noise like steel. 
 
 But neither godlike nor aloof the brood 
 
 Yon roaring town gives breath to. Be their 
 
 mood 
 Mournful or ardent, humorous or rude, 
 
 Ever is it remote from regions known 
 To children of the nomad tribes alone, 
 Who claim an unseen kingdom of their own 
 
 In realms the senses reach not. All of earth 
 The city's burden of complaint and mirth. 
 Stamped with the fleshly race-mark of their 
 birth. ^ - 
 
 Here crude perception speaks the crowning 
 
 word. 
 Melodious waves of thought their movement 
 
 stirred 
 By these street-nurtured swarms are never 
 
 heard.
 
 l6 A SYMPHONY 
 
 Divorced from Nature, starved of daylight, 
 
 fed 
 On Journalism's adulterated bread, 
 They hunt false echoes of a voice long dead 
 
 Through ways obscene and strident, harbour- 
 ing 
 No magic of the Muses, no shy spring 
 Whose flood could make the husky gutters sing. 
 
 Singing goes out of fashion. Ancient streams 
 
 Of song are dry. 
 Somehow the music of all modern dreams 
 
 Is tuned awry, 
 Jarring out discords of material schemes 
 
 And things to buy. 
 
 Ears that have never heard grey evening 
 hold 
 A misty landscape dumb, 
 Eyes that have never seen the dawn's pale 
 gold 
 Over the mountains come. 
 Hearts that have never known the story told 
 By summer's woodland hum.
 
 A SYMPHONY 17 
 
 Are blind and deaf to something, valueless 
 
 For those 
 Whose lives have no more fire than they express 
 
 In prose, — 
 Something that changes all with one caress,— 
 
 Then goes. 
 
 What felt but unheard music can survive, 
 What rhythmic super-tones be kept alive, 
 What muted strings invisible vibrate, 
 What waves of nameless meaning undulate, 
 For souls whose nourishment is here distilled 
 From blossom of fermenting hot-beds, filled 
 With essences of fragrance overripe. 
 With warm oppression of the heating-pipe, 
 With juices from degenerating roots. 
 And fungus-flavour of unwholesome fruits ? 
 
 But nought can dissipate the ghostly spark 
 
 Safeguarding, under 
 Negation's misty curtain, cold and dark. 
 
 The flame of wonder. 
 Conquering human hardness and self-love, 
 
 So that man treasures 
 A vague dream of accomplishment, above 
 
 The world's poor pleasures.
 
 l8 A SYMPHONY 
 
 And spiritual appetites, bereft 
 
 Of their true forage, 
 Will find some not all barren pasture left 
 
 For faith and courage. 
 To mend, at least, the damaged human wares. 
 
 The misfit bodies. 
 May furnish work for one who hardly dares 
 
 To hope that God is. 
 And all our Age's nobler effort strives 
 
 At consolation 
 For hungry, cramped, and overburdened 
 lives, — 
 
 Its own creation. 
 
 Our Age was their one author. When man sold 
 
 His aspirations for their weight in gold 
 
 He thought the bargain good. It seemed, at 
 
 last, 
 As though the desert wanderings were past, 
 The land of promise gained. We had worn out 
 Our old equipment, faith as well as doubt. 
 And here was a new Gospel to our hand. 
 That all the stupid world. might understand, — 
 The creed of wealth and comfort. Men, of old, 
 Had killed each other, and been killed, for gold,
 
 A SYMPHONY IQ 
 
 But also for mere dreams. We had devised 
 A higher wisdom. Gold should still be prized, 
 But neither dreams nor killing. We should aim 
 At a commercial Eden, somewhat tame, 
 A trifle ugly, but quite safe, and free 
 From all romantic moonshine, wherein we 
 Should sit behind our counters, plump and wise, 
 Bartering souls and other merchandise. 
 
 So here we find the fruits of our own growing. 
 The harvest gathered where the seed was cast ; 
 And they, whose formulas acclaimed the sowing. 
 Might gaze into these granaries, aghast 
 At crops there stored, — a multitude, so vast. 
 Of units counted human, yet denied 
 Human expansion, — ticketed and classed 
 As labourers mechanical, supplied 
 By Providence whplesale, to show how Heaven 
 is wide. 
 
 These, — whom we bred to turn the wheels and 
 keep 
 The golden stream in motion, that should 
 run 
 Across our paradise of bargains cheap.
 
 20 A SYMPHONY 
 
 Our blurred Utopia of the badly done, 
 And fertilize the soil, surpassed by none 
 In harvest of productive stocks and shares, — 
 Have, all at once, awakened, and begun 
 To fill our Mammon-Temple with their prayers. 
 Importuning the God to give them what is 
 theirs. 
 
 And their hoarse voices shake to the founda- 
 tions 
 
 Mansions that typify the bourgeois boast, 
 Stirring fat souls with greasy perturbations, 
 
 Troubling the stomachs of the well-fed host. 
 
 Whose gentle pilgrimage of boil and roast. 
 Pudding, and profits, and the world's esteem, 
 
 Is threatened by a gaunt and hungry ghost. 
 Harshly intruding on their peaceful dream, 
 WTiose flesh-composing calm ends in a night- 
 mare scream. 
 
 Aching with discord, wrung with fear and sorrow, 
 The clumsy social mammoth panting lies. 
 
 Hating to-day, yet glaring at to-morrow 
 With dull suspicion in its angry eyes, 
 Finding poor solace in the threadbare cries
 
 A SYMPHONY 21 
 
 Of self-appointed prophets, wondering 
 If to apportion newly the supplies 
 Of wealth and comfort and pretence would 
 
 bring 
 Again the Golden Age whereof the poets sing. 
 
 So hear, oh secret -guarding Night ! — the beat 
 Of overburdened hearts, and let one ray 
 Of moonlight filter to each flaring street. 
 With tidings of the silence far away, 
 That has, perchance, some message it 
 might say 
 To earth-encumbered spirits, and reveal 
 
 Some unknown Power, to hearken when 
 they pray 
 Some thought, that shall make truth of what 
 
 they feel, 
 Some universal Word, that shall explain and 
 heal.
 
 III. SCHERZO 
 
 Shout your bravest, rattle the drum ! 
 
 All the fun of the fair ! 
 See the epitome, quiddity, sum 
 
 Of our curious world laid bare ! 
 Do not repine if some ancient touches 
 
 Seem to be gone. We can yet display 
 Crown and courtier, footman and duchess, 
 
 Even if edges begin to fray. 
 Much we may laugh at, — -not unkindly, — 
 
 Knowing that never an age was born 
 Lofty enough to be worshipped blindly, 
 
 Low enough for a label of scorn. 
 Though you may shudder at loud vulgarity, 
 
 Self-advertisement, self-applause, 
 Listen to mellower notes of charity, 
 
 Look at the working of softer laws ! 
 Here and Now are ever on trial ; 
 
 Wisdom's armour wdl may resist 
 The surly pressure of glum denial, 
 
 And arrogance optimist 
 
 22
 
 A SYMPHONY 23 
 
 So gather your courage, and enter 
 
 The glare of gas and the noise 
 At the giant roundabout's centre, 
 
 Where acrobats tumble and poise, 
 Where political actors are storming 
 
 And tearing a passion to rags, 
 And supple divines are performing 
 
 For buns out of orthodox bags ; 
 Where writers for popular journals, 
 
 Burning oil of a thousand smells, 
 Are proving that nuts have kernels 
 
 By feeding their readers on shells ; 
 Where all are pursuing for ever 
 
 The news that is newer than new. 
 And everybody is clever, 
 
 But the wise, — ah, they are few ! 
 Fretful and sociable, fond of change. 
 
 Hurried and worried and busy, 
 The century's children rove and range 
 
 In a whirl that makes them dizzy. 
 Turbine vessels, electric trains. 
 
 Bicycles, motor carriages. 
 Honeymoons spent in aeroplanes 
 
 To ensure celestial marriages : — 
 Over continents, far and wide,
 
 24 A SYMPHONY 
 
 Peripatetics are racing, 
 In a fervour not too dignified, 
 
 But undeniably bracing. 
 And though some tarrying souls may look, 
 
 With wistful eyes, for the quiet 
 Of places never served up by Cook 
 
 For aesthetic cockney diet, 
 When they see that Beauty becomes a 
 show. 
 And Romance an exhibition, 
 They ought to remember that Hampsteads 
 grow, 
 That Kensington has a mission, 
 That a Polytechnic tour may wake 
 
 The poet asleep in a baker, 
 And a trip to Florence or Rome may break 
 The chains of an undertaker. 
 And, after all, 
 For those whom the call 
 Of adventure yet pursues, 
 Whose long desire 
 Is fed by the fire 
 Of hearts that can stake and lose. 
 What shall it matter 
 If tourist chatter
 
 A SYMPHONY 25 
 
 Should blend with whispering seas 
 And visions of wonder 
 Should furnish plunder 
 For talkers at five-o'clock teas ? 
 There is room for the true Romantics 
 
 In a sorry excursion crowd, 
 In the midst of crapulous antics 
 
 And voices vulgar and loud ; 
 And while clumsy jesters are railing, 
 
 - And dullards are mumbling prose, 
 The ships of the Chosen are sailing 
 To the land of a dream unfailing. 
 The land that Memory knows. 
 
 Holloa, my bully, and bang the drum ! 
 
 All the fun of the fair ! 
 Waxwork figures from palace and slum 
 
 Move with a life-like air. 
 Here we show you, in all their variety. 
 
 Moths that encircle the flame 
 Of gas-fed, spluttering Notoriety, 
 
 Often mistaken for Fame, 
 And flies, disgustfully stuck in the honey 
 
 They thought to have found so sweet,
 
 26 A SYMPHONY 
 
 When the loot of the hives where bees make 
 money 
 
 Was potted in Lombard Street. 
 Here are samples of new Nobility, 
 
 Seated on bags of gold, 
 Trying to look, without imbecility, 
 
 Feudal, baronial, and old ; 
 And, beyond, in procession never ending, 
 
 All who are lured by the chance 
 Of a lucky coup in the great Pretending, 
 
 A prize in the Shadow-dance ; 
 Eager snobs and strenuous gluttons, 
 
 Hunters of trivial loves, 
 Souls made happy with stars and buttons. 
 
 Serious judges of gloves. 
 Pot-house oracles, chapel thunderers, 
 
 All the various fry 
 Of toilers, dreamers, chatterers, blunderers, — 
 
 You, — and the others, — and /. 
 With few illusions left 
 
 In our various ways we grope 
 Through the dusky paths of a world bereft 
 
 Of a highly respectable hope. 
 Each of us setting a price 
 
 On that which he values most.
 
 A SYMPHONY 27 
 
 Some paying high for a favourite vice, 
 
 And some for a harmless boast ; 
 Most of us weaving a net 
 
 Of gossamer words, to bind 
 Unruly visions and dreams that fret 
 
 And the over-candid mind. 
 But out of the make-believe and the sham 
 And the doubt as to whether I was, or 
 
 am. 
 Or ever shall be, — or who, and how. 
 Is the conscious Mystery living now. 
 Emerges Something, perfectly sure 
 Of deep veracities, that endure 
 Behind the ridiculous waxwork show. 
 And those who have courage to look below 
 The veil of delusion round the earth 
 Will shortly be getting their money's worth. 
 
 For they come to the springs of laughter 
 That wash the place out. 
 
 And the cobweb of lies goes after 
 The mildew of doubt, 
 
 In a drastic general cleaning 
 Of Thought's window-panes, 
 
 Till the light makes vivid the meaning 
 Of words in our brains.
 
 28 A SYMPHONY 
 
 And we see that the Serious Person 
 
 Is far from the truth, 
 And rests like a bUght and a curse on 
 
 The wisdom of youth, 
 Which, more than the learning of ages, 
 
 May serve to unfold 
 The conquering secret of sages 
 
 Who never grow old. 
 
 Split your throat and worry the drum ! 
 
 All the fun of the fair ! 
 Now that they scent the pleasure to come 
 
 They are crowding on to the stair. 
 Yes, we can give you the truth we know, 
 
 To serve till you find a better ; 
 Even the knowledge of what he may owe 
 
 Will sometimes profit a debtor. 
 So, before we begin to build the Dream 
 
 That shall furnish souls with a dwelling, 
 We must make a sweep of matters that seem, 
 
 And lies that the world is telling. 
 First, there are falsehoods made of brick, 
 
 And stone prevaricitions. 
 That are marked with letters specially thick 
 
 On the maps of our habitations :
 
 A SYMPHONY 29 
 
 We teach the names to children at school. 
 
 Calling them wonderful cities ; — 
 When Education is making a fool 
 
 Do you know what the name of it 
 is? 
 And, after the tawdry wilderness 
 
 Of specious bricks and mortar, 
 The labouring Void brought forth the Press 
 
 And the prying-eyed Reporter, 
 And spawned a comical world of thought 
 
 To fit the quaint exterior, 
 Wherein morality-mongers taught 
 
 That things would soon be drearier. 
 Then follow a curious brood 
 
 Of self-esteeming fictions, 
 The pious, pedagogue mood 
 
 That revels in all restrictions, 
 And social jealousy, masked 
 
 By love of the poor and needy, 
 And Democracy, overtasked 
 
 With the creed of being greedy. 
 And patriotism that cloaks 
 
 The fear for one's own possessions, 
 And academical jokes, 
 
 And puritan professions ;
 
 30 A SYMPHONY 
 
 And other symptoms, of various kinds, 
 
 Showing the marionettes that act, 
 In the puppet -theatre of men's minds, 
 
 The play, which some consider a tract, 
 Of " What is Truth ? " — a most ancient piece. 
 
 Often staged as a tragedy, — now 
 Played by comedians, who increase 
 
 The humour of Life, without knowing 
 how. 
 The answer, — so some prophets would teach, — 
 
 Is found by staring at candle-flames 
 And breathing deeply, — while others preach 
 
 A dip in the waters of William James, 
 Or a Bergson bath. The new School talk 
 
 As if Truth were made, like a cigarette 
 You roll for yourself on your earthly walk 
 
 Of any tobacco you choose to get. 
 
 The number was never greater 
 
 Of preachers and codes and creeds, 
 
 And countless purveyors cater 
 For moral and ghostly needs. 
 
 With a high-class stock, that is ready 
 For any doctrinal taste. 
 
 From Buddha to Mrs. Eddy,— 
 Salvation without any waste.
 
 A SYMPHONY 3I 
 
 And the Drama ? — Oh, how solemn 
 
 Is the message the playwright brings ; 
 While the daily newspaper column 
 
 With edification rings ; 
 And the earnest worker at novels 
 
 Has fuel to warm the heart 
 In the heavy sermon he shovels 
 On the flickering fires of Art. 
 But, beyond this laughterless fog, the sun 
 
 Of a truer wisdom glows. 
 And the spirits that need it, one by one. 
 
 Discarding the dominoes, 
 That they wore for the foolish masquerade 
 
 Of unreality, steal 
 Out to the solitude, not afraid 
 
 To think, and endeavour, and feel. 
 For they know the Trust that is never betrayed 
 And the Truth no words reveal.
 
 IV. ALLEGRO 
 
 Once again the grip of Winter loosens on the , 
 
 land ; 
 Comes the subtle stir of life, unchartered, | 
 
 contraband, j 
 
 Stealing through the guarded region, where the 
 
 iron hand 
 
 Sternly held the portal when the months were 
 
 black and cold, 
 Swept away the last of Summer green and 
 
 Autumn gold. 
 Blurred the faded landscape into grimness 
 
 manifold. 
 
 Once again the crocus follows where the snow- 
 drop led. 
 
 Spring, the sleep-bewildered beauty, turns upon 
 her bed, » 
 
 Half unlocks her drowsy eyes and moves her 
 glorious head. 
 
 32
 
 A SYMPHONY 33 
 
 Vague and fearful expectation trembles through 
 
 the mist. 
 Are the fairy lovers coming ? Will the mouths 
 
 be kissed 
 That have ached when slumber brought the 
 
 dreamers to their tryst ? 
 
 All around a fragrant essence oozes in the air ; 
 
 Faint, vibrating voices are about us every- 
 where ; 
 
 Senses throb with muffled sweetness, almost 
 pain to bear, 
 
 What is it that thrills and troubles, wakens 
 
 and benumbs ? 
 Why are hopes unfurled again with every 
 
 Spring that comes ? 
 Why do marching pulses beat the heart's 
 
 defiant drums ? 
 
 Unfulfilment cannot cloud the spirits that 
 
 aspire. 
 Cannot quench the radiance of vitality, whose 
 
 fire 
 Flashes on a sea of hope the searchlight of 
 
 desire.
 
 34 A SYMPHONY 
 
 Vanity of vanities ? — The over-plaintive 
 
 text 
 Makes narcotic music for satiety perplexed, 
 Cloyed with one indulgence, yet impatient for 
 
 the next. 
 
 Enervating argument and proverb pessimist 
 Cannot close the motion of an infinite 
 pursuit, 
 Cannot conquer forces that eternally persist, 
 Cannot hush life's clarion or make the 
 bugles mute. 
 Batteries of hope are silenced ; charging 
 ardours halt ; 
 Dreams, in broken regiments, are driven 
 from the field ; 
 Squadrons of belief disordered turn from the 
 assault ; 
 One thin line of thought alone can stand 
 and never yield. 
 Thought, pervading chaos, is the constant that 
 survives ; 
 Thought, the core of being, the main cur- 
 rent of the Whole ;
 
 A SYMPHONY 35 
 
 Impulse partly manifest in clumsy human lives. 
 Witness to the challenge of a purpose and 
 a goal. 
 We, who plunge and blunder in the dark 
 morass of tears, 
 Are but foam ephemeral on pools of con- 
 sciousness. 
 Action, — matter, — all the changing pageant 
 that appears, 
 Hints the revelation we are diligent to 
 
 guess. 
 Knowing how the greater may be hidden 
 by the less. 
 
 Bubbles on the surface are the things that man 
 has made. 
 And puffs of air the deeds that he has done. 
 Death is but the flickering dominion of a shade, 
 
 And life a waning moment in the sun. 
 That I Am of Jewry's God is our possession too. 
 
 Accident or chance can only mar 
 Our life's outer garment. We are hedged in 
 what we do. 
 But nought can set the bounds to what we 
 are.
 
 36 A SYMPHONY 
 
 Jets from the great fountain of Infinity we 
 flow 
 In rough, appointed channels, hardly sure 
 If seeming individual coherence that we know 
 
 Has any central fibre to endure. 
 For, looking down the nebulous perspective of 
 the past, 
 The vague, resembling shadow forms we 
 see, 
 Hover about the vacant moulds wherein our- 
 selves were cast, 
 Remote from all the meanings that are we. 
 
 So be not overburdened, Man, with discontent- 
 ment calling 
 For nobler fields to battle on, a wider 
 stage to walk ! 
 From laurel crowns of yesterday the withered 
 leaves are falling, 
 And loud-voiced Notoriety is nothing more 
 than talk. 
 The world's imagination needs a hero for the 
 story. 
 And many million dreams have gone to 
 build up Buonaparte,
 
 A SYMPHONY 37 
 
 We share in Caesar's destiny and Alexander's 
 glory, 
 Conspiring to transfigure them with naive, 
 unconscious art. 
 The fundamental force, that breeds unsatisfied 
 endeavour 
 In human souls to strain beyond the 
 boundaries of Fate, 
 Refuses to Earth's demi-gods the right to reign 
 for ever, 
 And, one by one, dethrones again the men 
 we counted great. 
 Their inspiration heartened us, until we stood 
 beside them, 
 Learning our claim to greatness too, 
 whate'er our lives may miss. 
 Seeing the lands unknown, whose exploration 
 was denied them, 
 And feeling there was no day more adven- 
 turous than this. 
 Should we appear a petty swarm, and shrink 
 before the laughter 
 That lights our little ant-heap in the cruel 
 glare of truth.
 
 38 A SYMPHONY 
 
 It can but send our spurring hopes to scout 
 through the hereafter, 
 Confident of eternity, since Time is yet in 
 youth. 
 So near the protoplasmic stage, our gains 
 aheady number 
 More than profoundest ecstasy prophetic 
 might foretell ; 
 Ages shall carve a pathway through the pas- 
 sions that encumber 
 Our toiling feet and hold us from the land 
 where we would dwell. 
 For though the Hallelujahs and the golden 
 harps have faded, 
 Leaving us only certain of mortality and 
 time, 
 A stagnant Paradise, with God for ever 
 serenaded. 
 Would stultify the summit of the moun- 
 tain we must climb. 
 Our journey has no longer such anthropo- 
 morphic ending ; • 
 To humanize the Universe were like a 
 childish tale ;
 
 A SYMPHONY 39 
 
 For Man is but the limit that was set for our 
 transcending, 
 And no pragmatic conjuror can make the 
 movement fail. 
 
 It were a meagre hope 
 
 That, penetrating Space, 
 Saw nought of larger scope 
 
 Than our bewildered race, 
 That deemed the final word 
 Of Evolution said, 
 And pictured Earth becoming Moon, and all 
 ascension dead. 
 
 Rather we may indulge 
 
 Faith in a future stored 
 With secrets to divulge 
 
 And conquests to record. 
 If one star here grow cold 
 Another there begins 
 To feed a coming fund of life with all the 
 warmth it wins. 
 
 Philosophers have striven 
 
 To build their Babel towers.
 
 40 A SYMPHONY 
 
 To force the gates of Heaven, 
 
 And bare the guarded powers. 
 And though they never reached 
 Reahty, we seem 
 A further step above the dirt and nearer to 
 the Dream. 
 
 Meanwhile, we need not wait till certainty 
 be won. 
 Poor the life that fades with all its living 
 business undone. 
 How shall they kngw the rules who have 
 not dared the game ? 
 Creed and system only hold till others can make 
 good their claim. 
 Though speculation seem to end in misty 
 doubt, 
 Higher up the hill of thought it may be that 
 the sun is out. 
 And those explorer souls who brook no 
 turning back. 
 Hear unearthly chariots thunder when the 
 whips of lightning crack.
 
 A SYMPHONY 4I 
 
 Gallant warriors I have known, who fell with 
 all their wounds in front ; 
 Blind indifference and neglect were their 
 reward, alive or dead. 
 Grim, the blood-dyed ground they held, with 
 cloven shields and swords grown blunt, 
 Then were borne to nameless burial, un- 
 acclaimed, ungarlanded. 
 My heart burns when I remember one true 
 poet, yesterday. 
 Fierce with eager inspiration, racked with 
 madness half divine, 
 WTio had snatched from iires of frenzy torn, 
 scorched things he strove to say, 
 Individual, rough, disordered, drunk with 
 molten life like wine. 
 Visions beautiful, appalling, tender, and gro- 
 tesque he told. 
 Gave the scribbling brood censorious all 
 the pastime they could wish ; 
 Every stain they painted blacker, laboured to 
 obscure the gold. 
 Squirted ink to spread their darkness, — 
 literary cuttle-fish !
 
 42 A SYMPHONY 
 
 Spawn of those who scoffed at Wordsworth, 
 hounded Shelley, tortured Keats, 
 Patrons of the mediocre, champions of the 
 commonplace, 
 Lovers of the brazen voices, deaf to Music's 
 under-beats. 
 Harbouring, as now, and always, low 
 traditions of their race. 
 Like a wounded deer he wandered, while they 
 buzzed and snapped and stung. 
 Hurt, bewildered, starved, he looked for 
 nobler souls to understand, 
 Bravely bore himself unconquered, kept his 
 hope for ever young. 
 Faced the desert, hungry, lonely, eager 
 for the promised land. 
 Bitter years wore down his courage, icy failure 
 chilled his breast ; 
 WTiere, about the Cornish rocks, Atlantic 
 breakers churn their foam. 
 Came to him a weary longing for the sea's 
 green house of rest,* 
 And, amid the liquid rhythm of surging 
 death, his heart went home.
 
 A SYMPHONY 43 
 
 Surely here may faith be shaken, surely grows 
 the meaning dark ; 
 While the sheepish world for pasture crops 
 a swampy waste of print, 
 Singles out for guide and guardian any dog 
 with noisy bark, 
 Sells itself, both wool and mutton, for the 
 coin that forgers mint. 
 There we threw away a poet ; here we keep — 
 well, what we keep ! 
 ^ Must we own the last surrender, see the 
 flag of truth disgraced. 
 Reckon theirs alone the triumph who can 
 
 bluster, fawn and creep. 
 Suffer market rates that value reticence and 
 honour cheap. 
 Noble thought and high endeavour only 
 waste, — unfruitful waste ? 
 
 Wait for an answer here in the stillness, 
 thundery, loaded with vague mistrust ! 
 All of a moment begins the whisper of 
 faintly moving, tremulous air. 
 
 Soon, with a delicate sense of moisture, a great 
 drop splashes into the dust,
 
 44 A SYMPHONY 
 
 And the parched and burning heart of the 
 
 world awakes from the torpor of choked 
 
 despair. 
 Breath of the freedom of lofty spirits blows 
 
 from mountain and forest and sea, 
 Sweeps away the poisonous vapour of 
 
 vulgar gases that flare and stink, 
 Freshens our hearts with the sweet reminder of 
 
 those pure heights where we hope 
 
 to be, 
 Hushes the crowded clamour and gives the 
 
 dazed Leviathan leisure to think. 
 Here and there we see in the darkness starlike, 
 
 flickering points of flame, 
 Souls aglow with immortal radiance, 
 
 threading their way through the mortal 
 
 night. 
 Far above the guttering candles of popular 
 
 favour and earthly fame, 
 That burden vision with tallowy smoke, 
 
 and smother ideals in tarnished light. 
 These are the rulers unacknowledged, the royal 
 
 Few of the blood dnd the race. 
 Who leave unclaimed the stage and the 
 
 limelight, notoriety, fashion, applause.
 
 A SYMPHONY 45 
 
 Silently working out the thoughts that the 
 world has never the courage to face, 
 Unconcerned for justification, looking for 
 consequence less than cause. 
 Others may talk but they are the doers, they 
 must be thinking while others dream, 
 Into the darkest ways of knowledge they 
 bear a lamp that shall never go out. 
 Through ice and fire of all experience, laughing 
 and scarred, they go with the stream 
 Fearlessly down to the boiling whirlpool 
 of final truth and ultimate doubt. 
 Ring after ring of the vortex floats them over 
 consecutive pools of life. 
 Plunged and stunned in sorrowful eddies, 
 tossed in a glory of rapturous foam. 
 Searching for unity through all difference, 
 looking for peace at the centre of 
 strife. 
 Knowing that out of a finite exile Thought 
 will come to an infinite home. 
 So Fate hurries them, deeper and deeper, in 
 vital circles where they may learn 
 The needful teaching of all adventure, 
 every pang and every thrill,
 
 46 A SYMPHONY 
 
 Till they fade at last in the hidden core, the 
 axis whereon the Whole must turn, 
 The focus poised by absolute forces, hold- 
 ing Reality tense and still. 
 
 For the soul, maybe, is like to a traveller, caged 
 awhile in a noisy town. 
 Fretted and jarred with ephemeral things, 
 the daily stir and folly of men, 
 Wandering on between the houses, sick of the 
 neutral tints and the brown, 
 Gathering hope from the splashes of green 
 that colour the distance now and then. 
 Little by little the lines are broken, trees look 
 out over garden walls. 
 The roar of wheels dies down to a mutter, 
 the throng is individualized. 
 The foul, dry odours fade, and the street is a 
 lane at last, where the silence calls, 
 And the throb and strain begin to be 
 drowned in finer vibrations harmonized. 
 Slowly the landscape blossoms and ripens, 
 slowly Nature uncovers her limbs 
 From the tissue of time and change that 
 veil eternal youth awake in her blood.
 
 A SYMPHONY 47 
 
 Life is a buttercup meadow, girt by a stream 
 where the anchored Hly swims, 
 Where, purple and white, the comfreys 
 droop to their mirrored image there in 
 the flood 
 Out of a tangle of yellow flags, the querulous 
 croak of the moorhen tells 
 Likelier secrets of lonely places than ever 
 a clouded mystic knows, 
 And colour, half comprehended, utters the 
 meaning of early foxglove bells, 
 And purest hope and pride survive in the 
 ivory gleam of the guelder rose. 
 Ever the wonderful silence gathers, softer and 
 softer the shadows come, 
 The rooks, like a last retiring flock of 
 sombre anxieties homeward sail. 
 And, into a harmony so profound that even 
 passion is hushed and dumb, 
 Throbs, like a sunken bubble of waters, 
 the liquid voice of the nightingale.
 
 A REQUIEM 
 
 A SHIP, with crowded sails the last gleam dies 
 on, 
 Through gloaming of a great age bears thy 
 soul, 
 After the sun, beyond our life's horizon. 
 
 While sad thoughts toll, 
 Like far-off bells, across the darkening waters, 
 Wrinkled beneath slow sighs, that stir their 
 
 face. 
 Faint tribute of a Race, 
 Who mourn thee, laurel-crowned among their 
 daughters. 
 
 Men who bled for England years ago 
 
 Wove that laurel garland from their bays, 
 
 Eager that home-dwelling hearts should know 
 Who must wear the honour, share the praise. 
 
 » 
 
 Not alone, they felt, was glory won 
 
 \Vhere the carnage reddened and the smoke 
 
 48
 
 A REQUIEM 49 
 
 Hid from dying eyes the careless sun, 
 
 Blurred the breaking line that never broke. 
 
 But where shattered bodies fought for breath 
 Worn with white-hot fever, aching cramp. 
 
 Thou wast searching out the spies of Death, 
 Piercing shameful darkness with thy lamp, 
 
 Mending cruel blunders, making straight 
 Crooked ways, and setting right the wrong ; 
 
 Careless of the fools who thwart and hate. 
 Womanly, — but calm, and stern, and strong. 
 
 ' Then, when gave place that outward clash and 
 thunder. 
 By men called war, to subtler forms of 
 strife, — 
 Eternal, cosmic combat, raging under 
 
 The cloak of peace, — thou didst not ask of 
 life 
 A pensioner's indulgence, but went forward. 
 
 Broken and worn, but dauntless, in the van 
 Of Hope's wave-tossed Arm.ada, bearing shore- 
 ward 
 Dreams to deliver Man, 
 
 E
 
 50 A REQUIEM 
 
 Till death unconquered, thou didst hold 
 The fort of life, through long, brave years 
 
 Of power and wisdom never cold. 
 Of scorn for sentimental tears, 
 And proud oblivion for all fears. 
 
 With thee survived, to shame our day, 
 Some noble fashions ; — thou didst give 
 
 Example of a worthier way 
 
 Than theirs, now cheaply crowned, who live 
 Decked in a splendour fugitive. 
 
 In proud retirement thou didst show 
 
 Imagination's common-sense, — 
 Accomplishment that could not blow 
 
 The trumpet, ask for praise or pence, — 
 
 A great soul's royal reticence. 
 
 And now thou leavest to thy land 
 
 A stately legend, that shall be 
 Like waters in the desert sand. 
 
 Like stars above a troubled sea 
 
 For all true knights of chivalry.
 
 NOCTURNE 
 
 When I came down 
 
 Steep mountain pathways, through the chest- 
 nut wood, 
 
 Just after sunset, the clear sky, 
 
 That elsewhere gloomed to purple. 
 
 Mirrored peculiar light, there, in the East, 
 
 Till the translucent blue was almost green. 
 
 And, in the cleft 
 
 Between yon mountain peaks, 
 
 Saturn, 
 
 Pale, nearly to whiteness, shone. 
 
 Growing less ghostly, as each darkening 
 moment 
 
 Marked the ebb of day's golden blood, 
 
 Stealthily oozing out. 
 
 Brief was the slumber of the sky. 
 
 Now it is all awake once more. 
 
 Alive with glittering, quivering spouts of flame, 
 
 Luminous gold. 
 
 51
 
 52 NOCTURNE 
 
 See Cassiopeia, and, beyond, the square 
 Of Pegasus, that crowns Andromeda, 
 And Perseus, bearing the mysterious jewel, 
 Which Arabs call the demon star. 
 And Vega, and Capella, and, apart. 
 Fiery old Arcturus, like a torch. 
 
 Dear ! in the dusk I see your eyes, 
 
 With tender, shrouded light aglow. 
 
 And breathe the fragrant air, afloat 
 
 Round your face, like a pale, dim flower, 
 
 And feel your soft, disturbing hand 
 
 Tremble electric on my arm. 
 
 And know the enchanted force and spell, 
 
 Dreamlike, intoxicating, cast 
 
 Over my senses, through my brain, 
 
 By your sweet contact, and close warmth. 
 
 It seems as though the night were one great 
 
 harp, 
 Wliereon a low wind moves, with velvet 
 
 touch. 
 Stirring a formless murmur from the strings, 
 Music, that has no structure or design.
 
 NOCTURNE 53 
 
 Yet bears a load of meaning ; and that load 
 Of infinite vibrations everywhere, 
 Is just the throb of human passion, spread 
 Throughout all Being from our shaken hearts. 
 
 We have made heavy with Love the slumbrous 
 
 air. 
 Added a subtle burden to night's warm breath, 
 Poured out more than the roses dreamed in 
 
 the dew ; — 
 Are not lovers one with the soul of the world ? 
 
 Starlit peaks are pale with eternal desire, 
 Olive and cypress shiver with straining hope, 
 Moth and bat are messengers, bearing the 
 
 call ; — 
 Are not lovers one with the soul of the world ? 
 
 Here, at our feet, the water, lapping the 
 
 stones. 
 Lisps and whispers words in a wonderful 
 
 tongue 
 Learned by the lake, in talk with the mirrored 
 
 moon ; — 
 Are not lovers one with the soul of the world ?
 
 54 NOCTURNE 
 
 Measureless heart-beat, throb of the pulses that 
 
 feed 
 Life of meadow and woodland, fathomless sigh, 
 Blown from passionate river and yearning 
 
 sea ; — 
 Are not lovers one with the soul of the world ? 
 
 So has the self-complacent song been sung 
 
 By men of every time, 
 
 Under the same enchantment lured 
 
 To dream that for their pride alone 
 
 Was atom piled on atom. 
 
 Till slow, laborious growth made perfect this 
 
 great W^iole, 
 Yielding the vast variety 
 Of vision and sensation, for the boards 
 Whereon was nobly staged the drama of their 
 
 lives. 
 
 How the stars mock 
 
 These idle fables of our vanity. 
 
 Staring with their impenetrable gaze ! 
 
 Responsive, you and I, » 
 
 Whose ears are ever tuned to laughter, catch, — • 
 
 Though our mood be" exalted, — the faint echo
 
 NOCTURNE 55 
 
 Of merriment celestial, making plain 
 
 The true proportions and importance due. 
 
 Ripples of tender raillery, that chime 
 
 Softly from yonder quaking waters, rouse 
 
 Answering agitation in the calm 
 
 Of our profound and mutual absorption. 
 
 Reminding us 
 
 That, heedless of our race, 
 
 The cosmic process works. 
 
 That not alone to guide the voyager 
 
 Glitters the piercing Pole-star in the sky. 
 
 That flowers will bloom for no man's scent, 
 
 and fruit 
 Ripen for no man's appetite, and boughs 
 Lavish their shade where no man ever lies. 
 
 We and our love shall vanish like last year's 
 
 leaves. 
 With countless lovers before, countless to come. 
 With all the pomp and clamour of human- 
 kind. 
 With vain ambitions, empty, arrogant hopes, 
 With power and riches and government and 
 
 fame, — 
 But after the stars go out, comes ever the Dawn.
 
 56 NOCTURNE 
 
 Still would the chestnuts ripen, even if man 
 Never should walk to gather them, still would 
 
 rain 
 Soak to fatten the seed and dissolve to mould 
 Rotting, fallen foliage ; — we are no more 
 Than changing spadefuls, shovelled in garden 
 
 work ; — 
 But, after the stars go out, comes ever the 
 
 Dawn. 
 
 We have our destiny, we, who do not know 
 WTiy or how we have happened, what we shall 
 
 be, 
 Whether you or I in reality are ; 
 We have a share in Something beyond our 
 
 thought ; 
 Love and Life have their value ; there is no 
 
 waste ; — 
 And, after the stars go out, comes ever the 
 
 Dawn.
 
 MARCH OF THE MOSS TROOPERS 
 
 A LAUGHING, reckless, resolute band. 
 
 Careful of nothing that most men heed. 
 Follow their flag through a hostile land. 
 
 On a new Crusade, for an unknown creed, 
 Riding by lonely, difficult ways. 
 
 In trouble and dust that the prudent shun, 
 In the frozen rigour of wintry days ■ 
 
 Or the fiery throb of a summer sun. 
 
 Prosperous citizens see them marching. 
 
 Speculate scornfully why the fools 
 Care to go, aching, shivering, parching 
 
 Out to the sand and the stagnant pools. 
 Who might take their portion of milk and honey. 
 
 Safely hedged by the sheltering State, 
 Earn popularity, pile up money — 
 
 Models for others to emulate, — 
 Be churchwardens, councillors, aldermen. 
 
 Editors, creditors, crownless kings. 
 Leaving no portlier, courtlier, balder men. 
 
 Laden with ribands and robes and rings. 
 
 57
 
 58 MARCH OF THE MOSS TROOPERS 
 
 But they give no thought 
 
 To the wisdom taught 
 In the sacred temple of stocks and shares ; 
 
 Sages of Clubs, 
 
 Thumpers of tubs 
 Yield them but merriment, unawares. 
 
 They bring no gifts 
 
 When the world uplifts 
 Some charlatan god on a tinsel throne ; 
 
 They are deaf to the choice 
 
 Of the ruling voice 
 In fashions and passions — but choose their 
 own. 
 
 They pass by the chatter, 
 
 Of newspaper matter. 
 The topics that tea-party oracles weigh ; 
 
 They give no attention 
 
 To code or convention, 
 The bleat of the preacher, the resolute bray 
 
 Of the critic who reigns for a day. 
 
 But out to the desolate waste they go, like 
 
 lovers each to his bride. 
 With a look in their eyes that some may know, 
 
 but only a few can read.
 
 MARCH OF THE MOSS TROOPERS 6l 
 
 And all that they fight for, all they seek, is to 
 
 carry, unthanked, unknown, 
 A reinforcement of strength to the weak, of 
 
 courage to those afraid. 
 To plunder the palace of dreams and loot the 
 
 gold upon wisdom's throne, 
 And strip from the orchard of life the fruit 
 
 that falls to a stainless blade. 
 
 And hearts, that have grudged them a word of 
 
 praise, long after will understand 
 How they kept Romance alive in the days when 
 
 her voice was hard to hear. 
 How they broke Negation's infidel spell, and 
 
 taught the shuddering land. 
 Which had lain so long in the fear of Hell, that 
 
 the only Hell is Fear.
 
 INTERMEZZO 
 
 Each night an old year dies ; but, throned by 
 all. 
 
 This one night reigns apart, 
 President o'er a stately festival 
 
 That tunes the heart 
 With music of nocturnal bells, — a chime 
 Whose legend would impute new age to ageless 
 Time. 
 
 A still world hears the hush of breathless 
 thought. 
 
 Watching the last hour go, 
 In countless minds, to kindred tension 
 wrought. 
 
 So might they know 
 What were thy truth, fresh feigned Illusion ! — 
 
 due 
 For re-birth now, when hope is painting old 
 
 things new. 
 
 62
 
 INTERMEZZO 63 
 
 Phantom, evolved by labour of the sun 
 And process of the moon ! 
 
 With what grave portent is thy course begun ? 
 What bane or boon 
 
 Hast thou, concealed beneath thy starry cloak, 
 
 For hearts scarred by the whip and fretted by 
 the Yoke ? 
 
 One heart, I know, shall pray not for release. 
 Though patience well might ask 
 
 That collar-gall and servitude should cease, 
 Since the long task 
 
 Had never wrung complaint or coward tears 
 
 Through all unfed desires and discipline of years. 
 
 My sole austere demand the light that glows 
 
 In eyes, however sealed, 
 Whose spirit -born illumination shows 
 
 Secrets revealed 
 Alone to them that dare heroic ways, 
 Unmindful of reward, approval, gain, or praise. 
 
 Grant me diurnal vision of the land. 
 So wonder- veiled and dim. 
 
 Where voices one or two half understand. 
 Whisper to him
 
 64 INTERMEZZO 
 
 Who sees beyond appearance, hears behind 
 The screen of sensual sound, — though deaf, be- 
 wildered, blind. 
 
 Faith is most hard to hold, when others seem 
 
 To win from this world all 
 Whereof the young and ardent heart may 
 dream. 
 
 Ambition's call 
 Troubles the march of pilgrim feet, that press 
 The road of rocky thought and outward un- 
 success. 
 
 So, brave New Year ! Yield me more power to 
 
 live 
 
 The ripe life of this earth, 
 
 Computing no experience Fate may give 
 
 Under its worth ; 
 
 An anchorite, within whose sunlit cell 
 
 Laughter and human warmth and glowing love 
 
 shall dwell. 
 
 No cold ascetic quietist, but one 
 
 Who fears not the full cup 
 
 Of vital wine, who thinks all threads are spun 
 To gather up
 
 INTERMEZZO 65 
 
 In the long rope-walk, knowing how the Hand, 
 That weaves them, makes no waste, whatever 
 cords be planned. 
 
 But, loving warm realities of flesh 
 
 And blood, I fain would keep 
 
 Remembrance of the Shrine they curtain fresh, 
 So that the sleep 
 
 Of this world's wakefulness shall never numb 
 
 My hearing, nor the faint harmonics count for 
 dumb. 
 
 Let me not lose the music, when I tread 
 
 Daily the dull grey stones ! 
 Nor let the notes be blurred by weary head 
 
 And aching bones ! 
 My feet may halt, yet scramble through the 
 
 bog; 
 My blood be chilled, yet know sunshine above 
 the fog. 
 
 So guard for me the secret, that transcends 
 Luxury, wealth, and fame ! 
 
 Teach me to use the counters Fortune lends 
 For the strange game,
 
 66 INTERMEZZO 
 
 Whose stakes are human hves, and whose hard 
 
 rules 
 Are printed in a tongue that baffles all the 
 
 schools. 
 
 The shrouded hours march onward ; I would 
 draw 
 
 One deep draft from the fount 
 Of unseen movement and mysterious law. 
 
 Then arm, and mount, 
 And ride forth with the host, whose tramp I 
 
 hear 
 Growing loud to the beat of thy bold drum, 
 New Year !
 
 A WALTZ BY STRAUSS 
 
 Do you remember the drunken old white- 
 faced player, 
 Leering over the keys where his wonderful 
 hands 
 Crushed out tunes, more passionate, gloomier, 
 gayer, 
 Than the pride of youth, in its merriment, 
 understands ? 
 
 To how many a sultry dawn his ardour would 
 buoy us 
 O'er fragrant rustle and flush of the billowy 
 dance, — 
 You unaware, in your beauty, triumphant, 
 joyous, 
 Of the destinies half -foretold by a stranger's 
 glance. 
 
 Now when dancing and youth and the music 
 
 are over, 
 
 A face, more fair for the shadow of griefs afar, 
 
 67
 
 68 A WALTZ BY STRAUSS 
 
 Shines on the path of a worn, sea-buffeted 
 rover, 
 Who had looked through the ball-room 
 glitter, — and found a star. 
 
 i
 
 SPRING 
 
 The first faint note of Spring 
 
 Hums through the air, and surges 
 
 Fiercely in troubled veins, 
 
 With a mutinous ache that urges 
 
 Our souls to go over the mountain-ring 
 
 And view the uncharted plains. 
 
 We know not whose the call 
 
 That stirs in our blood, and maddens 
 
 With hope and a strange desire, 
 
 Even though the vague thought saddens 
 
 How early the blossoming dreams will 
 
 fall 
 And Autumn veil Life's fire. 
 
 But the Voice, to shame our doubt. 
 Murmurs a song of nesting, 
 
 69
 
 70 SPRING 
 
 Ancient before our birth, 
 An anthem of Power unresting, 
 That forges the re-born harmony out 
 From the old, orchestral Earth. 
 
 i
 
 EXHORTATION 
 
 Sweet frozen soul, benumbed you bear 
 
 Your aching hopelessness, and yet 
 Give welcome to no milder air 
 
 That thaws remembrance and regret. 
 Oh, bid the vital fountain run 
 
 Through hoar-frost of the years and flood 
 Your ice-bound bosom ! Bid the sun 
 
 Make bold your blood ! 
 
 Shall Autumn glories count for nought 
 
 While your sad heart remembers June ? 
 Now is the season of ripe thought, 
 
 The fruiting time, the harvest moon. 
 So, brave your twilight fears and trust 
 
 The doubtful fire of dawn beyond ! 
 A soft wind breathes the word it must ; — 
 
 Hear, — and respond ! 
 
 71
 
 WIND 
 
 Whirling smoke and tossing trees ; 
 
 Clouds that race ; 
 Surge and roar, like wash of seas 
 
 Flung through space 
 Backward from a stem rock's stubborn face. 
 
 Passion of a heart, that beats 
 
 Under all. 
 Pours through barren, stupid streets 
 
 This wild call. 
 Milling souls beneath its rise and fall. 
 
 Minstrel, you have made our earth 
 
 Your great lyre, 
 Swept the strings of death and birth. 
 
 Till your fire 
 Strikes eternal music of Desire ! 
 
 72
 
 THE HUNT 
 
 I FOUND your soul in the heart of the town, 
 
 And hunted you out, in harvest days 
 When wheat grew yellow and acorns brown. 
 
 And blind with mist were the moorland-ways. 
 From a phantom love you reckoned as dead, 
 
 And a ghostly hope you were sure would fail, 
 In a flutter of scornful wrath, you fled ; — 
 
 But I laughed, and followed the trail. 
 
 You ran to the forest, for refuge, there, 
 
 From a haunted heart and whispering Fate, 
 But found them in ambush everywhere, 
 
 For flight and denial had come too late. 
 So, on through thicket and lawn you passed. 
 
 Stealthily going from tree to tree. 
 Till I viewed you out in the open at last, 
 
 And chased you down to the sea. 
 
 And there, by the water at bay, you turned, 
 With spirit aglow in the light that came 
 
 From the sea's far edge,where the sunset burned, 
 Over rippling waves in a path of flame.
 
 74 THE HUNT 
 
 And a riot of passion stormed above 
 The humorous ruin of pride's control, 
 
 And I snared you fast in a noose of love, 
 And knotted it round your soul.
 
 THE BUGLE 
 
 Do you not hear the bugle, singing, singing, 
 
 Over the trees ? 
 Call, half ironic, of Romance, yet bringing 
 Thoughts of other days than these. 
 
 Play with the fancy now that sounds have 
 colour ! 
 
 Here a red note 
 Makes all our sober world of peace look duller, 
 Flings hot memories afloat. 
 
 Voice of rebuke and challenge, hardly sparing 
 
 Our self-esteem. 
 Tells of the greater souls, enduring, daring. 
 Claims the hero — and the dream. 
 
 75
 
 SOLDIERS 
 
 Soldiers riding loosely down the lane, 
 
 Fill the dusty, flower-scented air 
 
 With tobacco-fumes and laughter ; and they 
 
 rouse a strain 
 Of sentiment for things that shall not come 
 
 again. 
 And days that never were. 
 
 Mystery of manhood ! Let me keep 
 Dreams, to save the heart from growing old. 
 Of a land of gallant legend where the dead 
 
 knights sleep. 
 And a harvest of adventure heroes yet may 
 
 reap, 
 And all the tales untold. 
 
 76
 
 A MAY MESSAGE 
 
 Young leaf, and new-bom blossom, and abun- 
 dant blade and shoot ; 
 
 Sweet pipe of hedgerow warblers, and the 
 cuckoo's double flute ; 
 
 Oh, woman with the waking heart ! Life 
 surges from the root. 
 
 Dead leaves in the mill of winter were ground 
 
 to pregnant mould. 
 And rotting herbage nurtured a glory of green 
 
 and gold ; 
 Oh, woman with the trailing hope ! some truth 
 
 is yet untold. 
 
 On timber grove and pasture-land a magic 
 wand has lain ;
 
 78 A MAY MESSAGE 
 
 The Temple doors roll open, and we see the 
 
 Shrine again ; 
 Oh, woman with the dawning soul ! — the veil 
 
 is rent in twain.
 
 FREE LANCE 
 
 I RIDE in battered armour, by past rain 
 
 Made brown with rust ; 
 My limbs are scarred and aching with old 
 pain, 
 
 But, through the dust 
 Of fruitless errand and adventure vain, 
 
 I take my path again. 
 
 Wealthy and plump and scornful, pass me 
 by 
 The folk that knew 
 How to draw prizes from the bowl where I 
 
 Have found so few. 
 But hope and life and sunshine and the 
 sky 
 No fortune may deny. 
 
 And so, with threadbare pennon, tarnished 
 plume. 
 But sword-blade bright, 
 
 79
 
 80 FREE LANCE 
 
 I face the lonely roadway to the tomb, 
 
 Across the night, 
 Throwing my careless laughter through the 
 gloom 
 
 For challenge to my doom.
 
 THE LITTLE CLOISTER 
 
 So near the throb and thunder of the 
 
 town, 
 We walk the cloister's worn grey stones, that 
 frame 
 A square earth-bed of brown, 
 Wherefrom a mottled plane-tree pushes, through 
 The vacancy above, green arms, that claim 
 Breath from the square of blue. 
 
 Soothed by the hush and dimness, we let 
 
 fall 
 Our daily thoughts, like garments cast aside, 
 
 And bathe our souls in all 
 The vague suggested wonder, till we seem 
 To hear the silence rising, like a tide 
 
 That drowns us in a dream. 
 
 And while I hold your warm hand, watch the 
 
 look 
 
 In your dear eyes, we know the spectral chant 
 G 8i
 
 82 THE LITTLE CLOISTER 
 
 Of those who once forsook 
 The world for this calm refuge, and we 
 
 feel 
 More than our human passion dominant 
 
 Here, where our spirits kneel.
 
 SOUTHERLY THOUGHTS 
 
 Vine and cypress, olive and palm. 
 
 Are you there, by the blue 
 Of the mountain-girdled, southern bay, 
 With a fringe of gardens ? Here, in the grey 
 
 Of gloomy vapour, revolt grows calm 
 With a vision of you. 
 
 Up the clambering, stony track 
 
 My spirit goes again, 
 Through warm and luminous dusk, below 
 Crowded chestnut boughs, till I throw 
 
 A look from the crest, before and back, 
 On a glory made plain. 
 
 Sunset bathes the ridge of the hill, 
 
 And wordless meanings come 
 From the outpost line of far-off capes 
 Crouched on a sea the colour of grapes. 
 
 Till weary thoughts that laboured are still, 
 And the discords are dumb. 
 
 83
 
 A STREET ORGAN 
 
 Thumped on mechanical organ-keys, 
 A foolish, common, melodious air 
 
 Floats from the gutter and brings 
 Vague, emotional memories 
 Of wide rooms, flushed with a shaded 
 
 glare. 
 Voices, and scent, — and the same tune there, 
 
 Tremulous on the strings. 
 
 Wanton music, walking the town 
 In a shameless, human, natural way, 
 
 Making plebeian appeal 
 To unregenerate moods, deep down 
 In our hearts, of reckless holiday, 
 Kisses and laughter, and souls at play. 
 
 And pleasures that we steal. 
 
 Wonderful London nights, that keep 
 Something ever of magic, for those 
 Who have tasted of your wine ! 
 
 84
 
 A STREET ORGAN 85 
 
 Your tune has woven a spell like sleep. 
 Hazily rich with a dream, that glows 
 In colour and warmth round one who knows 
 This earth — and the divine.
 
 HIGH BEECH 
 
 Where the Forest dreams by the city's border 
 
 Raucous hoHday revellers throng, 
 Shaking the glades with their harsh disorder, 
 
 Mocking the echoes with tortured song. 
 From the muddier pools of human reason 
 
 A drain-fed torrent guffaws and brays 
 Through a world where Nature wrought no 
 treason 
 
 To the stately quiet of woodland ways. 
 
 But the Forest knows her soul to be stronger 
 
 Than the spirit of crude, half-thought mis- 
 rule. 
 So she bears their folly a little longer. 
 
 Putting them, undiscovered, to school. 
 And though in their hearts, grotesque but tragic 
 
 The vision be blurred and the voice be dumb, 
 A faint change, born of the Forest magic, 
 
 Lingers for token of lives to come. 
 
 86
 
 ARCTURUS AT HAMPSTEAD 
 
 Myriad lights make a jewelled crown 
 
 In the darkness, under the dusky glare. 
 For the shapeless, huge, and terrible town. 
 
 Huddled and piled in the valley there. 
 But here there is only luminous night. 
 
 Dark, vague trees, and the broad expanse 
 Of heaven, with quivering stars so bright, 
 
 That it seems to dance. 
 
 Burns superbly, low in the west, 
 
 A star, like a great proud mind alone. 
 Drawing our souls from the town's unrest, 
 
 From the tarnished lights and the echoes 
 that moan, 
 Up to its own pure dwelling-place 
 
 Older than all we can think as time. 
 Beyond our furthest measure of space, 
 
 Supreme and sublime. 
 
 87
 
 88 ARCTURUS AT HAMPSTEAD 
 
 And when we have soared there, years are 
 nought, 
 
 And the fretful town is a fading blur 
 On the magic-lantern vision of thought, 
 
 And human life is only the stir 
 Of an ant-heap world ; and we seem to touch 
 
 The fringe of a region where the flame 
 Of starlight, searching the void, is such 
 
 As no voice may name.
 
 WOODLAND PEACE 
 
 Here will we leave our bitterness once for all, 
 Our anger against the folly of human ways, 
 And all our shuddering sense of wrong that is 
 
 done. 
 Setting out hearts in tune with voices that call 
 Through the woodland-hush, and lurid, ominous 
 
 days 
 Of a ripening sun. 
 
 But though the glowing silence may soothe 
 
 and cure. 
 And we walk in the vague enchantment of a 
 
 dream, 
 We are not drugged and numb with a nescient 
 
 sloth. 
 But braced by knowledge of forces that endure, 
 Effort, and strife, and even pain, that redeem. 
 And the labour of growth. 
 
 89
 
 A LONDON CHURCHYARD 
 
 London's corroding breath 
 
 Has dulled the grey of tombstones and the 
 
 green 
 Of ragged grass, in the grim shade that falls 
 From branches blocking narrow space, between 
 The gaunt, unlovely church, and the high walls 
 Enclosing Death. 
 
 Death, in the world outside. 
 Is but a ripe, full change, that heralds birth 
 Of field and woodland life. Its symbol, here, 
 Is yon bent sweeper, brushing from black earth 
 Leaves, that, in early August, parched and sere. 
 Lost hope and died. 
 
 City of crowded graves !, 
 The sweeper gathers up dry, withered souls. 
 That often drooped too early, like the spoil 
 
 90
 
 A LONDON CHURCHYARD gi 
 
 From those dark trees. But the life current 
 
 rolls 
 Ever to nobler races, — and his toil 
 Severely saves.
 
 THE TURN OF THE LEAF 
 
 Yellow in the plane tree, yellow in the 
 
 lime, 
 Rusted chestnut, softly mottled oak, 
 Wood music tuning for the dead-leaf time, 
 Opening the prelude on a chord that 
 
 broke ; 
 Autumn, when the brown touch comes, must 
 
 ever wake 
 Something of regret and sadness, for the 
 
 sake 
 Of a world to bear death's yoke. 
 
 Ah, but the true blood fears no falling leaf. 
 Takes the ruined petals for the Season's 
 
 cost, 
 Throbs a little proudly when the days grow 
 
 brief, 
 Beats a happy challenge to the first white 
 
 frost. 
 
 92
 
 THE TURN OF THE LEAF 93 
 
 When the snow is driving and the wind a 
 
 knife 
 Hero hearts are hfted to the crown of Hfe 
 And the conquest nearly lost.
 
 EMANCIPATION 
 
 I HEARD a thrush in Belgrave Square, 
 
 One soft day in December ; 
 Houses were gaunt and trees were bare, 
 But my sou] stayed to listen there, 
 
 Longer than I remember. 
 
 And, overhead, a sea-gull came. 
 
 Against the western glory 
 Of blood-red sunset, bathed in flame, 
 Bearing the dream that has no name. 
 
 The spell of ocean-story. 
 
 And, through the barren atmosphere. 
 
 There echoed, gay and shameless. 
 Song of the Spirit buccaneer. 
 Passionate throb of life sincere, 
 And laughter of the Tameless. 
 
 94
 
 COMING HOME FROM FISHING 
 
 Aprils I remember, when the day was nearly 
 
 out, 
 Coming home from fishing, with a basket full 
 
 of trout ; 
 Hawthorn clouded green already, blackthorn 
 
 like the snow, 
 Catkins on the hazels, and a primrose bank 
 
 below, 
 Twilight floating down on the bare world like 
 
 a caress, 
 Life-sounds growing silent in the soft grey 
 
 loneliness. 
 Whisper of the rusthng wind, and low chime of 
 
 the stream, 
 Throbbing through my heart like music 
 
 murmured in a dream. 
 
 England ? Is there any other England worth a 
 
 tear ? 
 
 Brick and mortar barracks, that are growing 
 
 year by year, 
 
 95
 
 96 COMING HOME FROM FISHING 
 
 Harbouring another race who talk another 
 tongue, 
 
 Eating up the England that I knew when I was 
 young ! 
 
 Though you prove a milestone on the path to 
 the Sublime, 
 
 Though your sons may plunder all the trea- 
 suries of Time, 
 
 Something you will never know was mine, I 
 cannot doubt, 
 
 Coming home from fishing, with a basket full 
 of trout.
 
 AT ANCHOR 
 
 Passionate heart, now still, 
 
 I hear you call to me 
 From the white town there on the hill, 
 
 Over the mile of sea 
 That parts my anchored ship from the sand 
 
 Where the Moorish horsemen ride. 
 You seem to have left a spell on the land. 
 
 Long since, when you dreamed and sighed, 
 Aglow with a fire the South wind fanned, 
 
 Wild love and wilful pride. 
 
 Just how the sunset falls, 
 
 In a miracle of flame, 
 Behind the old Corsair walls, 
 
 I learned, when your letters came. 
 Bringing me more than the language told, 
 
 Till my hands throbbed, as I read, 
 With the warmth of that which they had to 
 hold, 
 H 97
 
 gS AT ANCHOR 
 
 And I knew what you never said. 
 But the sea grows dark, and my hands are 
 cold — 
 And you and your love are dead.
 
 THE ROAD THROUGH THE WOOD 
 
 White-flowered woodruff crowded in the 
 ditch, 
 And a rampart of new, green beech ; 
 DeHcate and dainty is the colour-pitch 
 
 In the glade, where the long boughs 
 reach, 
 Like arms that would welcome, calling us 
 
 away 
 From the dust and clamour of our brazen 
 
 day 
 To the haunted calm, where we might live as 
 they. 
 Who beseech, — oh, beseech. 
 
 You and I are a gipsy king and queen. 
 
 Who have come once more to their throne, 
 Folded in waving drapery of green, 
 
 Root-cushioned, with moss overgrown, — 
 From a wilderness of comfort, cold and 
 vast, 
 
 99
 
 100 THE ROAD THROUGH THE WOOD 
 
 Where our souls their barren years of exile 
 
 passed, 
 Till they conquered, and found this fairy-land, 
 
 at last, 
 For their own,— all their own.
 
 THE REBUKE OF THE WOODS 
 
 A WHISPER, breathed by ruffled oak 
 
 And shaken pine and stirring beech, 
 Assailed my mournful thoughts, and woke 
 
 The trembling depths beyond all speech. 
 A liberating shaft of sound 
 
 It drove across the dusky care, 
 Whose weight of silence, piled around, 
 
 Gave hope a breathless doom to bear. 
 
 Low woodland laughter seemed to chide 
 
 The faint-heart hour of unbelief. 
 That, heedless of a truth denied. 
 
 Granted reality to grief. 
 The rustling dead leaves, under-foot, 
 
 Were accents of a sylvan elf. 
 With roguish arguments to put 
 
 Against all fallacies of self. 
 
 The life behind the waving green. 
 The wonder of the haunted shade, 
 
 lOI
 
 102 THE REBUKE OF THE WOODS 
 
 Are charged with messages, that mean 
 Remonstrance for a soul afraid. 
 
 And, while I listened, every bond 
 Tied by discordant thought was torn, 
 
 Till in the Harmony beyond, 
 A larger consciousness was born.
 
 THE NEW MOON 
 
 Hope with her finger has stabbed the sky, 
 
 Leaving her mark in a curved white scar, 
 Symbol of fancies never to die. 
 
 And visions that always are. 
 Every month are their prayers repeated 
 
 Who look for your coming to claim a boon, 
 Sanguine dreamers and undefeated ; 
 Will 5/0U suffer them now to be cheated ? 
 
 New Moon I New Moon ! 
 
 Distant yet is the loitering night ; 
 
 You have a setting of stainless blue. 
 O'er a landscape flushed in delicate light, 
 
 With a sea-gleam oozing through. 
 Sickle of silver, you reap the day-time, 
 
 Gathering azure of afternoon, 
 Crowning the toil of the stars, whose hay-time 
 Had to forage our souls in your play-time. 
 
 New Moon ! New Moon !
 
 104 THE NEW MOON 
 
 Though your promise carry a doubtful truth 
 
 For the Golden Season, slow to begin. 
 Yours the wealth of unquenchable youth, 
 
 And the hearts that never give in. 
 But sterner courage, that drives hope under. 
 
 Needing no recompense, late or soon, 
 Marches after you, gleaning plunder 
 From your harvest of faith and wonder, 
 
 New Moon ! New Moon !
 
 ACTION 
 
 Poplar boughs are quivering and sycamores 
 are dancing ; 
 Loud laughs the burly wind that ruffles all 
 their tresses, 
 Bidding them be scornful of the colder days 
 - advancing. 
 
 Promising them comfort from his own rough 
 caresses. 
 
 Not the languid wooing 
 
 Of the drowsy summer breeze, 
 Dreaming, never doing. 
 
 Idle lord of warmth and ease. 
 Courtier who would soften and 
 appease : — 
 Now, overwhelming, comes a lover who 
 possesses ! 
 
 His the virile breath of lovers noble women 
 
 care for. 
 
 Strong, bold assaulters of a fortress worth 
 
 defending, 
 
 105
 
 I06 ACTION 
 
 Fighters who have found a quest to labour for 
 and dare for, 
 Cavahers with reckless manners long past 
 amending. 
 
 Over Fortune's boulders 
 
 They will take the hardest road, 
 Bearing on their shoulders 
 
 Every weaker spirit's load, 
 Gaily paying dues they never owed, — 
 Life all adventurous, and death a gallant 
 ending.
 
 SPACE 
 
 From the sky of a stone-grey noon, the tar- 
 nished hght 
 Tinges with ohve the grey of a heaving 
 sea, 
 That tumbles and foams and tears, in a riot of 
 white, 
 
 Here, on the tawny sand. 
 Surging and crying, as though I should 
 understand 
 The notes it would moan to me. 
 
 And the voice of my heart intones the wordless 
 call, 
 Tosses the chant again to the turbulent 
 brine. 
 Feeling the passion of solitude conquering 
 all, 
 
 107
 
 I08 SPACE 
 
 Gripped by the stern constraint 
 Of lonely joy, where so many a soul 
 grows faint, 
 And space, where broods the Divine.
 
 CLOUDS 
 
 Marching, marching, purple and dun, 
 Massive column and stray patrol, 
 Armed with banners of flame by the sun 
 On a white-blue wintry heaven they roll, 
 Riders of Destiny, hordes of Doom, 
 With splendour and gloom, 
 They fill the sky of the soul. 
 
 Deep in my heart their hoof-beats fall. 
 Throbbing with battles as yet unf ought. 
 The wild wind blows them a bugle call. 
 Where are they hurrying ? What have they 
 
 brought ? 
 A life-time's longing after them streams. 
 And a straggle of dreams, 
 And a stern rear-guard of thought. 
 
 109
 
 AN ARTIST 
 
 He lived unknown and died unheeded, 
 Worn with labour, and scarred with 
 
 thought ; 
 He gave the world a thing that it needed 
 Sorely enough, though it gave him nought. 
 Others, with skill to beguile and flatter. 
 Picking up coins he barely saw, 
 Earned attention, consequence, chatter, — 
 Passed for great men. What did it 
 
 matter ? 
 Stern and high was the Law. 
 
 Stone by stone was the Temple fashioned 
 He came out of the Void to build, — 
 Mould where he poured his life im- 
 passioned, 
 Shrine of a Mystery unfulfilled. 
 
 no
 
 AN ARTIST III 
 
 His heart might ache, but faltered never, 
 Knowing the sole rewards that endure, — 
 Unseen honours that live for ever, 
 Rank and title of proud endeavour, 
 Crown of a purpose pure.
 
 CATKINS 
 
 A CURTAIN of yellow, the catkins hang 
 At the porch of a misty, leafless wood, 
 Like a banner drooped from a castle wall ; 
 And the vivid colour stirs, with a pang, 
 The thought of awakening maidenhood. 
 Shyly aware of a haunting call. 
 
 Rise of the sap and leap of the blood ! 
 
 Bloom and wonder are coming again ; 
 
 And we tremble before them, — we, who know 
 
 Life's overpowering surge and flood, 
 
 The burden of passion, the crown of pain. 
 
 Yet the best of our hope is to have it so. 
 
 :| 
 
 112
 
 SUNLIGHT 
 
 Miles out from Birmingham the railway gives 
 
 a sight of 
 What you may call country, if it be not town ; 
 Something no heart with any feeling could make 
 
 light of, 
 Stamped on Nature's face like an abiding 
 
 frown. 
 Dry and barren rubbish-land, smoke-corroded 
 
 brickwork. 
 Where men, for other men, have to toil and 
 
 dwell. 
 Rule of Law divine would assuredly make 
 
 quick work 
 Of the souls that dug such a nightmare out of 
 
 Hell. 
 
 Yet comes the sunlight, with a paint-brush 
 
 full of colour, 
 Floods and transfigures the landscape through 
 
 and through, 
 I "3
 
 114 SUNLIGHT 
 
 Gives every wall a glow, than which the dawn 
 
 were duller, 
 Leaves a blush on tapered shafts against the 
 
 blue. 
 Furnace and factory are touched with ruddy 
 
 splendour ; 
 Slag-buried pit-heads are warmer in their grey ; 
 This grim world knows a moment almost 
 
 tender ; — 
 And, happy on the waste ground, the children 
 
 play.
 
 STARS 
 
 Over a chimney-pot, somewhere in Chelsea, 
 
 Fierce and invincible Sirius flamed, 
 
 While towards Fulham aloft you could well 
 
 see 
 Stalwart Orion, upstanding, untamed. 
 
 Faithful they are when on earth all is faith- 
 less. 
 
 Nature without them were chained and en- 
 slaved. 
 
 Neither shall grass-land nor river be scatheless ; 
 
 Black lie the wharves where the bulrushes 
 waved. 
 
 Once man had made of our England a garden. 
 Now crude utility holds her in pawn. 
 Daily the lines of her landscape shall harden ; 
 Pavements are blotting out woodland and 
 lawn. 
 
 Here flowers rust upon brickwork and barrows ; 
 
 IIS
 
 Il6 STARS 
 
 Trees are but prisoners, caged behind bars ; 
 Where there were nightingales now are there 
 
 sparrows : — 
 Still have we treasuries safe with the 
 
 stars.
 
 POST MERIDIAN 
 
 Brown wheat, grey oats, and round them the 
 
 dark frame 
 Of overloaded green ripe summer brings ; 
 First hedgerow touches of autumnal flame 
 In maple leaves, or where the bramble clings. 
 Bean-fields all black ; and here, in withered 
 
 grass. 
 Rust-red of sorrel. So do seasons pass. 
 Only the yellow-hammer sings. 
 
 We and the year have gone from flower to fruit. 
 What shall we gather from the hopes we sowed ? 
 What else save thistles and rank weeds took 
 
 root ? 
 We fear the coming of our harvest load. 
 Such coarse and tangled growth usurps the soil, 
 How can we save the crop that blight may spoil 
 Or rain make rotten and corrode ? 
 
 Well, we must hold our courage of the sun, 
 
 Widen our dreams to vastness of the sky. 
 
 117
 
 Il8 POST MERIDIAN 
 
 Life grows no smaller when our lives are done ; 
 
 Love is eternal though our loves may die. 
 
 So much comes short. But when we measure 
 
 out 
 Our corn there is enough. Have done with 
 
 doubt ! 
 Yonder unmown to-morrows lie.
 
 Br THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 A DRAMATIC POEM 
 
 Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 PRESS OPINIONS, 
 
 T. P.'s Pf^eekly. — " Contains some excellent and vigorous 
 verse. One is glad to see a revival of satire in verse." 
 
 Scotsman. — "Mr. Arthur Legge's former books have won 
 him the favour of lovers of poetry as a satirist. This work 
 is always interesting and enjoyable to read." 
 
 Guardian. — " There is a principle awake in these vivid 
 pages. They tell a story and tell it well. They create an 
 atmosphere of truth and sustain it to the end." 
 
 Athenaum. — " Mr. Legge can write blank verse of good 
 quality and his lines show freshness of fancy and a gift of 
 felicitous expression." 
 
 Daily Chronicle. — "The force of his ideas, or those of his 
 characters, is very great. 'The Silver Age' is a substantial 
 poem that is interesting to the mind." 
 
 Glasgoiu Herald. — "It would be difficult to find a poem 
 more intellectually satisfying, and every other page has its 
 flash of pure poetry or its sparkle of bright wit or keen 
 judgment." 
 
 Aberdeen Free Press. — " Mr. Legge's undoubted gift for 
 satire has found excellent scope in this poem. 'The Silver 
 Age' reproduces with wonderful vividness the moral, in- 
 tellectual, and social ferment of these days. . . . Exceed- 
 ingly enjoyable to read." 
 
 Easi Anglian Daily Times. — " Pregnant with big thoughts 
 often couched in splendid language." 
 
 LONDON : JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD. 
 NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. 
 TORONTO: BELL AND COCKBURN.
 
 Br THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE PILGRIM JESTER 
 
 A POEM 
 
 Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 PRESS OPINIONS. 
 
 Times. — "A brave book, and a book one likes to turn 
 back to for another taste of the contrast between the grave 
 sweetness of the songs and the sharpness of the jester's 
 grimacing bubbling wit." 
 
 Spectator. — "Mr. Arthur Legge is that rare thing among 
 modern writers — a satirist who is also a poet. His ' Pilg.'im 
 Jester' has passages which are not unworthy of the author 
 of Don Juan. Great skill in versification, a keen sense of 
 the ironies of life, and something of prophetic wrath, are 
 joined with a delicacy of imagination, and a capacity for 
 sweet melodious flights which make his little book worthy 
 of note by all lovers of literature. In the Don Juan manner 
 the Seventh Jest is well-nigh perfect." 
 
 LAND AND SEA PIECES 
 
 POEMS 
 
 Crown 8vo. 38. 6d. net. 
 
 PRESS OPINIONS. 
 
 Daily Chronicle.'i-^"Mr. Legge has noticed some of the most 
 delicate effects of poetry, and has been moved by man and 
 nature to aim at effects of his own." 
 
 Outlook — "There is real talent in his work, and a gift for 
 striking expression." 
 
 Guardian. — " Mr. Legge possesses real poetic power . . . 
 and a fine note of daring and adventure." 
 
 Manchester Guardian. — " Undeniable grace and facility, 
 . . . daintiness, lightness of tbuch." 
 
 LONDON : JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD. 
 NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. 
 TORONTO: BELL AND COCKBURN.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 VQ«n TThis ^ok is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 0CT2^te-mi! 
 
 & W/t^ 
 
 W^ 
 
 "•*•-. 
 
 haut 
 
 Form L9-32m-8,'57 (.0868084)444 
 
 'mK Lii^RAKT 
 
 iJi^iiViillSlTX^ OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS AJ?«G£L£a ^
 
 uc 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRAt^^Y EAU 
 
 AA 000 373 274 o