THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE DARK FIRE the same ^Author The Hunter, and Other Poems THE DARK FIRE By W. J. Turner LONDON SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD. 3 Adam Street, Adclphi 1918 First published in 1918 All rights reserved TO MY MOTHER 824028 Several of these poems have appeared in the New Statesman, and are here reprinted by the kind permission of the Editor. CONTENTS PAGE Haystacks 9 The Music of a Tree u The Shepherd goes to War 12 A Ritual Dance 1 The Dance 18 2 Sleep 21 In the Caves of Auvergne 23 Song 26 The Robber 27 Kent in War 28 Death's Men 30 Sunflowers 32 Recollecting a Visit to W. B. Yeats 33 Music 34 The Voyage 35 Epithalamium for a Modern Wedding 36 Farewell ! 38 Soldiers in a Small Camp 39 Song 41 Silence 42 Soldiers 44 Talking with Soldiers 47 Despair 49 Illusion 51 Peace 52 Harp, Flute and Viol 54 CONTENTS PAGE Mid-day 5 6 Solitude 58 The Dark Fire of Sorrow 60 Mirage 62 On the Roof of the World 63 On Persian Hills 64 The Princess 65 The Pompadour in Art 1 Would 'st thou go back 66 2 Because thou knowest 67 3 As for myself 68 4 The flesh has no expression 69 5 But Beauty is more delicate 70 8 HAYSTACKS WINDING across a highland on a wild October day, By small and yellow haystacks the road crept humbly on, Blue herds of dark-maned stallions tossed madly in the sky, And raced across the blots of woods and fields of wind-quiet stone. Purple and gold and violet greys and gleaming shades unknown Leaped up and flashed and faded out within the marvelling soul That, creeping on that narrow road, passed brooding squat and still Those small dim stacks as dreams heaped up by men in bitter toil : As dreams heaped up, as memoried hills, as generations gone Into the ground, and here arisen as quiet as hills of stone ; But linked along the roads they built to catch each human sound That quavering in the cold wind-light is sink- ing to its doom. And still the dark blue stallions race and toss white flakes of foam, And still the dark fields lie as quiet as wind- forsaken stone, And still along that humble road the silent soul plods on, And still the small dim stacks lie there, the dreams of men unknown. 10 THE MUSIC OF A TREE ONCE, walking home, I passed beneath a Tree, It filled the air like dark stone statuary, It was so quiet and still, Its thick green leaves a hill Of strange and faint earth-branching melody : Over a wall it hung its leaf-starred wood, And as I lonely there beneath it stood, In that sky-hollow street Where rang no human feet, Sweet music flowed and filled me with its flood ; And all my weariness then fell away, The houses were more lovely than by day ; The Moon and that old Tree Sang there, and secretly, With throbbing heart, tip-toe I stole away. ii THE SHEPHERD GOES TO WAR WHEN Dawn drew near and tree or hill Stood slowly bright, and clear, and still, It lit the Shepherd, a dark rock Amid his wide, grey, tumbling flock : He stands as stand great ancient trees When streams leap loud about their knees ; And he moves slow and tranquilly As clouds across a peaceful sky. There is no voice for him to hear, Save from men coming once a year Beyond that haze-blue mountain bar, Where the eastern cities are. In still repose his features sleep, He grows to look like his own sheep ; And priestlike at each dawn he stands, An ancient blessing on those lands. The days, the years, half life slips by Under that bright Australian sky : The gum trees are a rustling dream Upon the sunshine's golden stream : 12 The whip-bird and the cockatoo, They are the cries of dream-birds too, And more unearthly and unreal Grows Kookaburra's mocking peal. Still magic is the country round, Dead branches strew the snake-bright ground In luminous transparency Quivers each thin-leafed, blue-green tree : There is an esctasy of light, And Silence is as lightning bright : The earthflower, air, a still, blue blaze Springs from earth's pot those rainless days. The Shepherd sees as in a glass The flitting lyre-birds soundless pass, The Trees in sunlight standing deep, A world in an enchanted sleep, Nor ice, nor snow, nor rough winds come Unto him from his father's home, Old and remote in that grey sea Of cold, mist-haunted memory. But the men coming once a year Tell tales incredible to hear, Tales that sound legendary and dim, From long-dead camp fires brought to him. And, brooding when the men have done How fifty happy years are gone, Not knowing how, not knowing why, He turns toward the eastern sky : There, clasped with towns, meet land and sea, Thence sail the ships of destiny They also sail those ships on high, Winged with deep purpose, through the sky : He gazed at that immenser sea, And those travelling worlds gleamed steadily ; Then, shouting faintly from a star, A voice called that old man to war. The Shepherd reached the coast, amazed On Sydney's crowded streets he gazed ; On Circular Quay, with parted lips, He stared upon the thronging ships. But he soon sailed across the sea, And, fighting through Gallipoli, He often hungered and thirsted till Nought stirred in him save human will. To France from Suvla they were brought, Time faded from them as they fought 14 And scratched and dug with only the sky To stare at as they fall and die. For long he bore an armoured life, While chums went West in that ceaseless strife, Then on the Somme was hit, and lay At Denmark Hill for many a day. One of his countrywomen found Him there, and twice a week came round But he spake little, and 'twould mostly be About their own far-off country : And in a silence 'twould appear Glittering with light and ghostly clear ; And she secretly wondered it snould seem So strange, so beautiful a dream. And Winter passed and Spring returned, When the Shepherd one day learned His fighting strength for good was spent And homewards he would soon be sent : And when she came again next day He said : " In a month I shall sail away, These cities and armies then shall seem More far, more faint than any dream : 15 And I shall stand amid my sheep, In that still light I shall sink deep, The shouting of nations clashed in war Shall not a leaf or feather jar ; But as the days pass I shall stand Lost between dream and dream ; no land, No thing at all shall solid be, But cries of joy and mystery : For I shall see behind my sheep Tall ships on death-pale oceans leap ; Dark hulls with armed men's faces white, Crowded beneath the star's cold light. And ships that gape and shudder down, And soft, bright bubbles of men that drown, And the same calm, watching Moon o'erhead My sheep and those wide-eyed, drifting dead : And the dim hordes of men that sigh Moon-tossed, sun-cracked, uneasily, Shall move amid my sightless sheep When women long have ceased to weep ; And this vast city's terrible roar Shall be silent there as it was before, Though dark among the summer's flowers Hang its streets, its steeples and its towers ; 16 And faces that were torn from speech And in a dream the soul beseech, My comrades of a month or day, With me a little while shall stay. And that still place shall be the cup Where this world's spirit gathered up Will be lifted silently Day by day unto the sky : Until the brightness of the stars Is gone from me, and all the w r ars Of earth cannot refill my eyes Again with sheep and trees and skies." A RITUAL DANCE (i) THE DANCE IN the black glitter of night the grey vapour forest Lies a dark Ghost in the water, motionless, dark, Like a corpse by the bank fallen, and hopelessly rotting Where the thin silver soul of the stars silently dances. The flowers are closed, the birds are carved on the trees, When out of the forest glide hundreds of spear-holding shadows, In smooth dark ivory bodies their eyeballs gleaming. Forming a gesturing circle beneath the Moon. The bright-eyed shadows, the tribe in ritual gathered, Are dancing and howling, the embryo soul of a nation : In loud drum-beating monotonous the tightly stretched skins Of oxen that stared at the stars are singing wild paeans : 18 Wild paeans for food that magically grew in the clearings When he that was slain was buried and is resur- rected, And a green mist arose from the mud and shone in the Moon, A great delirium of faces, a new generation. The thin wafer Moon it is there, it is there in the sky, The hand -linked circle raise faces of mad exaltation Dance, O you Hunters, leap madly upon the flung shields, Shoot arrows into the sky, thin moon-seeking needles : Now you shall have a harvest, a belly-full rap- ture, There shall be many fat women, full grown, and smoother than honey, Their limbs like ivory rounded, and firm as a berry, Their lips full of food and their eyes full of hunger for men ! The heat of the earth arises, a faint love mist Wan with over-desiring, and in the marshes 19 Blindly the mud stirs, clouding the dark shining water, And troubling the still soft swarms of fallen stars. There is bright sweat upon the bodies of cattle, Great vials of life motionless in the moon- light, Breathing faint mists over the warm, damp ground ; And the cry of a dancer rings through the shadowy forest. The tiger is seeking his mate and his glassy eyes Are purple and shot with starlight in the grass shining, The fiery grass tortured out of the mud and writhing Under the sun, now shivering and pale in the Moon. The shadows are dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing : The grey vapour arms of the forest lie dream- ing around them ; The cold, shining moonlight falls from their bodies and faces, But caught in their eyes lies prisoned and faintly gleaming : 20 And they return to their dwellings within the grey forest, Into their dark huts, burying the moonlight with them, Burying the trees and the stars and the flowing river, And the glittering spears, and their dark, evo- cative gestures. (2) SLEEP Hollow the world in the moonlit hour when the birds are shadows small, Lost in the awarm of giant leaves and myriad branches tall ; When vast thick boughs hang across the sky like solid limbs of night, Dug from still quarries of grey-black air by the pale transparent light, And the purple and golden blooms of the sun, each crimson and spotted flower, Are folded up or have faded away, as that still intangible power Floats out of the sky, falls shimmering down, a silver-shadowy bloom, On the spear-pointed forest a fragile crown, in the soul a soft, bright gloom ; Hollow the world when the shadow of man lies prone and still on its floor, 21 And the moonlight shut from his empty heart weeps softly against his door, And his terror and joy but a little dream in the corner of his house, And his voice dead in the darkness 'mid the twittering of a mouse. (3) Hollow the world I hollow the world I And its dancers shadow-grey ; And tlie Moon a silver-shadowy bloom Fading and fading away ; And the forest's grey vapour, and all the trees Shadows against the sky ; And the soul of man and his ecstasies A night-forgotten cry. Hollow the world ! hollow the world I 22 IN THE CAVES OF AUVERGNE HE carved the red deer and the bull Upon the smooth cave rock, Returned from war, with belly full, And scarred with many a knock, He carved the red deer and the bull Upon the smooth cave rock. The stars flew by the cave's wide door, The clouds wild trumpets blew, Trees rose in wild dreams from the floor, Flowers with dream faces grew Up to the sky, and softly hung Golden and white and blue. The woman ground her heap of corn, Her heart a guarded fire ; The wind played in his trembling soul Like a hand upon a lyre, The wind drew faintly on the stone Symbols of his desire : The red deer of the forests dark, Whose antlers cut the sky, That vanishes into the mirk And like a dream flits by, And by an arrow slain at last Is but the wind's dark body. 23 The bull that stands in marshy lakes As motionless and still As a dark rock jutting from a plain Without a tree or hill, The bull that is the sign of life, Its sombre, phallic will. And from the dead, white eyes of them The wind springs up anew, It blows upon the trembling heart, And bull and deer renew Their flitting life in the dim past When that dead Hunter drew. I sit beside him in the night, And, fingering his red stone, I chase through endless forests dark Seeking that thing unknown, That which is not red deer or bull, But which by them was shown. By those stiff shapes in which he drew His soul's exalted cry. When flying down the forest dark He slew and knew not why, When he was filled with song, and strength Flowed to him from the sky. The wind blows from red deer and bull, The clouds wild trumpets blare, Trees rise in wild dreams from the earth, Flowers with dream faces stare O Hunter, your own shadow stands Within your forest lair. SONG THE Sun has come I know, But yesterday I stood Beside it in the wood But O how pale, how softly it did glow. I stooped to warm my hands Before its rain- washed gold, But it was pebbly-cold, Startled to find itself in these dark lands 26 THE ROBBER THE Trees were taller than the night, And through my window square, Earth-stupefied, great oranges Drowsed in the leaf-carved air. Into that tree-top crowded dream A white arm stretched, and soon Those green-gold oranges were plucked, Were sucked pale by the Moon. And white and still that robber lay On the frail boughs asleep, Eating the solid substance through In silence clear and deep. Suddenly he went, and then The wood was dark as death : Come back, O robber ; robber, come ; These grey trees are but breath : These grey trees are but breath, the Night Is a wind-walled, dream-filled Hall ! But on the mirror of the air The wood wreathed dark and tall. No movement and no sound there was Within that silent House, Behind a cloud the Robber laughed In a mad white carouse. 27 KENT IN WAR THE pebbly brook is cold to-night, Its water soft as air, A clear, cold, crystal-bodied wind Shadowless and bare, Leaping and running in this world Where dark-horned cattle stare : Where dark-horned cattle stare, hoof-firm On the dark pavements of the sky, And trees are mummies swathed in sleep, And small dark hills crowd wearily : Soft multitudes of snow-grey clouds Without a sound march by. Down at the bottom of the road I smell the woody damp Of that cold spirit in the grass, And leave my hill -top camp With its long gun pointing in the sky I take the Moon for lamp. I stop beside the bright cold glint Of that thin spirit in the grass, So gay it is, so innocent ! I watch its sparkling footsteps pass Lightly from smooth round stone to stone, Hid in the dew-hung grass. 28 My lamp shines in the globes of dew, And leaps into that crystal wind Running along the shaken grass To each dark hole that it can find The crystal wind, the Moon my lamp, Have vanished in a wood that's blind. High lies my small, my shadowy camp, Crowded about by small dark hills ; With sudden small white flowers the sky Above the woods' dark greenness fills ; And hosts of dark-browed, muttering trees In trance the white Moon stills. I move among their tall grey forms, A thin moon-glimmering, wandering Ghost, Who takes his lantern through the world In search of life that he has lost, While watching by that long lean gun Up on his small hill post. 29 DEATH'S MEN UNDER a grey October sky The little squads that drill Click arms and legs mechanically, Emptied of ragged will : Of ragged will that frets the sky From crags juts ragged Pines, A wayward immortality, That flies from Death's trim lines. The men of Death stand trim and neat, Their faces stiff as stone, Click, clack, go four and twenty feet From twelve machines of bone. " Click, clack, left ! right ! form fours ! incline 1 s The jack-box sergeant cries ; For twelve erect and wooden dolls One clockwork doll replies. And twelve souls wander 'mid still clouds In a land of snow-drooped trees, Faint, foaming streams fall in grey hills Like beards in old men's knees. Old men, old hills, old kings, their beards Cold stone-grey, still cascades 30 Hung high above this shuddering earth Where the red blood sinks and fades. Then the quietness of all ancient things. Their round and full repose As balm upon twelve wandering souls Down from the grey sky flows. The rooks from out the tall, gaunt trees In shrieking circles pass ; Click, clack, click, clack go Death's trim men Across the Autumn grass. SUNFLOWERS IN Erith's streets I saw them come, I saw them come ; They stood against a villa wall, They were as strangers mournful all, Far from their home ; With dust blew down the dirty streets, The eager children's call. In Erith's streets where hovels lie, Close packed and trim They came, feeling the unseen sky, In that sad street where a child's bright cry Grows quickly dim, And slatternly women sit and stare, And then go in and die. I saw their faces when they woke In Erith's streets ; It was a wonder men could see Those golden sons of misery In Erith's streets, In Erith's streets and marvel not At such a mystery ! RECOLLECTING A VISIT TO W. B. YEATS IT is most pitiful to watch men go In search of beauty with despairing eyes, And what it is they lack as this world lies Open before their gaze they do not know. These porcelain skies with billows of graven snow They paint on cold, thin cups, and draw from strings Voices of mourning winds and sense of wings ; From w r oods rob sad-faced flowers and bid them grow Nearer their souls ; ay, creep out in the night And steal the stars and the bright Moon from Heaven, And bring them home to decorate their dreams My God it is a strange and pitiful sight To see the treasury of a poet's room And him alone there shrouded in beauty's gloom ! 33 MUSIC WHEN the last note is played and void the hall I sometimes think that then music begins, Scattered on chairs lie horns and violins, The Harp droops silent, standing by the wall ; On the live ear no sounds of music fall, The organ sleeps, coiled in its branching wood ; But this deep soundlessness is music's food, This quiet is big with thunder, if I call At once a thousand spirits rave and cry, Those instruments gape, quivering helplessly, With strangled voices vibrant and wild they lie ; And I can hear in that great solitude Madness and grief, not the smooth harmony That presently, subdued, they'll sing to me. 34 THE VOYAGE WHEN I remember how the bark of Youth Left port invited by the smooth bright sea, With white wings stretched, to find the goddess Truth Rise from deep waters shining magically ; And how his eyes dimmed with the ache of staring, And how his ears deafened by roaring spray Seek still a track dark water-hills o'er-faring, Still strain to catch her music in some bay : And his bright years all sunk in the cold wave, And love's most fair soft-glinting armoury Lying salt-rusted in a watery grave ; His voyage but an arabesque upon the sea I think, rinding such beauty is in this, That, loving Truth, Truth had been always his. 35 EPITHALAMIUM FOR A MODERN WEDDING that so long have held each other dear, oin hands, Beloved ; purposing to be One hand and life, one effort and career, One soul and Self, into eternity" Can the lover share his soul, Or the mistress show her mind ; Can the body beauty share, Or lust satisfaction find ? Marriage is but keeping house, Sharing food and company, What has this to do with love Or the body's beauty ? If love means affection, I Love old trees, hats, coats andjthings, Anything that's been with me In my daily sufferings. That is how one loves a wife There's a human interest too, And a pity for the days We so soon live through. What has this to do with love, The anguish and the sharp despair, The madness roving in the blood Because a girl or hill is fair ? I have stared upon a dawn And trembled like a man in love, A man in love I was, and I Could not speak and could not move. I no longer seek to hold Beauty with enchanted eyes ; 'Tis vain for beauty dies, I know, I know beauty dies. Ring the merry marriage bells, That most melancholy sound ! When the bridegroom and the bride Go to find what none has found. All the old wives grimly there Pleased to see love's sudden end, Beauty's last wild wood-note blown, Death the solitary friend. Ay ! Death sitting in the church, Busy getting breath anew, Tuning up the magic horn That the old lust blew. 37 FAREWELL ! THE warm flesh speaks against my hand and then My friend is but a shadow down the street, The air is very still, the houses seem On either hand aloof and desolate : And now the street is empty, but I stand As though my soul had left my body here, And I was one with this stiff furniture, These lamp-posts and these rows of faceless brick . SOLDIERS IN A SMALL CAMP THERE is a camp upon a rounded hill Where men do sleep more closely to the stars, And tree-like shapes stand at its entrances, Beside the small, dark, shadow-soldiery. Deep in the gloom of days of isolation, Withdrawn, high up from the low, murmuring town, Those shadows sit, drooping around their fires, Or move as winds dark-waving in a wood : Staring at cattle on a neighbouring hill They are oblivious as is stone or grass The clouds passed voiceless over, and the sun Rose, and lit trees, and vanished utterly. Then in the awful beauty of the world, When stars are singing in dark ecstasy, Those ox-like soldiers sit collected round A thin, metallic echo of human song : And click their feet and clap their hands in time, And wag their heads, and make the white ghost owl Flit from its branch but still those tree-like shapes Stand like archangels dark- winged in the sky. 39 And presently the soldiers cease to stir ; The thin voice sinks and all at once is dead ; They lie down on their planks and hear the wind, And feel the darkness fumbling at their souls. They lie in rows as stiff as tombs or trees, Their eyeballs imageless, like marble still ; And secretly they feel that roof and walls Are gone and that they stare into the sky. It is so black, so black, so black, so black, Those black-winged shapes have stretched across the world, Have swallowed up the stars, and if the sun Rises again, it will be black, black, BLACK. 40 SONG GENTLY, sorrowfully sang the maid Sowing the ploughed field over, And her song was only : " Come ! O my lover ! " Strangely, strangely shone the light, Stilly wound the river : " Thy love is a dead man, He'll come back never." Sadly, sadly passed the maid The fading dark hills over ; Still her song far, far away said : "Come! O my lover!" SILENCE IT was bright day and all the trees were still In the deep valley, and the dim Sun glowed ; The clay in hard-baked fire along the hill Leapt through dark trunks to apples green and gold, Smooth, hard and cold, they shone like lamps of stone : They were bright bubbles bursting from the trees, Swollen and still among the dark green boughs; On their bright skins the shadows of the leaves Seemed the faint ghosts of summers long since gone, Faint ghosts of ghosts, the dreams of ghostly eyes. There was no sound between those breathless hills, Only the dim Sun hung there, nothing moved ; The thronged, massed, crowded multitude of leaves Hung like dumb tongues that loll and gasp for air : The grass was thick and still, between the trees. 42 There were big apples lying on the ground, Shining, quite still, as though they had been stunned By some great violent spirit stalking through, Leaving a deep and supernatural calm Round a dead beetle upturned in a furrow. A valley filled with dark, quiet, leaf-thick trees, Loaded with green, cold, faintly shining suns ; And in the sky a great dim burning disc ! Madness it is to watch these twisted trunks And to see nothing move and hear no sound ! Let's make a noise, Hey ! . . . Hey ! . . . Hullo 1 Hullo ! 43 SOLDIERS TREES struggling fiercely to the sky, and winds that leap and cry, Are soldiers of the spinning earth, and images of beauty, They are the songs of maddened clay, the wild delirious dreams, That, clothed in khaki, storm a hill, and melt away in blood. Like rocks and crags, their limbs are torn from depths of outward calm, Let them embrace their agony, and weep, and kiss their hands, And gaily seize what rapture lies in banners and in drums, For youth was meant to bleed and die, or sorrow- fully grow old. They are but common anguished men, waked from an opiate dream To see the lightning flash of life, ere they sink down again, Securer from its misery, its beauty and its grief They are like ancient songs that speak and then lie long unsung. 44 It matters not what symbols are inscribed upon their van, They are the symbols and the songs. Gesticu- lating trees Thus stand upon the hills and rave towards the speechless sky, But in the end sink feebly down and fade into the ground. And from the bodies of sweet girls as fair and white as flowers, The soldiers rise to storm foul hills, in search of words and dreams, And ebb a\vay among the stones to feed the gleaming corn, That with their beauty shall arise and quiver in the wind. O you wise stones that lie and soak the beau- teous blood of men, The loveliness of all earth's crops, the soft entreating eyes Of fawn-like girls, have you no tale, no sweet consoling hope To utter as we stand in pain, and gaze upon the dead ? 45 Exultantly you seem to stare, and wilder wave the trees, There is some joy in this fierce earth that echoes in my soul. Soldiers arise ! stand up you slain ! stand up, the silence fills ! The trumpet of immortal Death rings in the crumbling hills. TALKING WITH SOLDIERS THE mind of the people is like mud, From which arise strange and beautiful things, But mud is none the less mud, Though it bear orchids and prophesying Kings, Dreams, trees, and water's bright babblings. It has found form and colour and light, The cold whiteness of the Arctic Pole ; It has called a far-off glow Arcturus, And some pale weeds, lilies of the valley. It has imagined Virgil, Helen and Cassandra ; The sack of Troy, and the w r eeping for Hector Rearing stark up 'mid all this beauty In the thick, dull neck of Ajax. There is a dark Pine in Lapland, And the great, figured Horn of the Reindeer Moving soundlessly across the snow, Is its twin brother, double-dreamed, In the mind of a far-off people. Aristocrat and democrat ! It is strange that a little mud Should echo with sounds, syllables, and letters, 47 Should rise up and call a mountain Popoca- tapetl, And a green-leafed wood Oleander. These are the ghosts' of invisible things ; There is no Lapland, no Helen and no Hector, And the Reindeer is a darkening of the brain, And Oleander is but Oleander. Mary Magdalena and the vine Lachrymae Christi , Were like ghosts up the ghost of Vesuvius, As I sat and drank wine with the soldiers, As I sat in the Inn on the mountain, Watching the shadows in my mind. The mind of the people is like mud : Where are the imperishable things, The ghosts that flicker in the brain Silent women, orchids, and prophesying Kings, Dreams, trees, and water's bright babblings I DESPAIR THE girl that I shall marry stands waiting in the hall, She's tall and, oh ! she's pretty, but my eyes are far away ; We'll go to tea and chatter, and her hands are white and small, They remind me of the butterflies I saw in Quaya's bay. But if I hold or kiss them, darkness falls upon that scene, Its beauty fades for ever as the day fades under rain ; And her hair's a faint, faint memory of the soft night in the trees, Of the beauty that I sought for but shall never see again. And I listen to her talking, and I dream of winds that came, About those hills at morning ringing cold enchanted bells, And I tremble to go to them and to leave this fluttering soul That gaily sits beside me breaking beauty's cobweb spells. 49 And as I sit beside her after kissing her red mouth I step back, vainly wishing that I stood on Quaya's shore, When I saw such hills of beauty, such strange flowers and shapes of death That a nameless grief pierced through me, ay, pierced through me to the core. Here I sit, and here my voice sounds like the droning of a fly, And no doubt I'll often come here, half- forgetting and half gay ; You'll say the place is stuffy, or complain the cakes are dry But then I'll never see you or hear the words you say. O how and why was it I left that far-off Quaya bay ! O do not let me touch your hands but let them flutter by, For I would hunt those butterflies that droop down from the hills, And I would hear the singing sea on Quaya's margin cry ! ILLUSION SHE stood like Spring before my Winter door, Paler than dawn, wind-swept and delicate ; And her small hands, clasped like twin fragile shells, Were white as Spring skies faintly veined with blue. Years had she flown upon the moorland's edge, Graven upon some sleeping ploughland scene ; And I with parted lips would stand and gaze, While clouds breathed huge still outlines in the sky : And she was not on moor or field or hill ; Perhaps a plough was dark against the air ; And night would come, and the pale blossom- ing moon Shining upon that carven, furrowed sea. Yet once she stood, thin, pale, a rain-clear dream, With skyey white arms at my Winter door; But when I rose the air was desolate, With thin tree-fingers frozen in the sky. PEACE IN low chalk hills the great King's body lay, And bright streams fell, tinkling like polished tin, As though they carried off his armoury, And spread it glinting through his wide domain. Old bearded soldiers sat and gazed dim-eyed At the strange brightness flowing under trees, And saw his sword flashing in ancient battles, And drank, and swore, and trembled help- lessly. And bright-haired maidens dipped their cold white arms, And drew them glittering colder, whiter, still ; The sky sparkled like the dead King's blue eye Upon the sentries that were dead as trees. His shining shield lay in an old grey town, And white swans sailed so still and dreamfully ; They seemed the thoughts of those white, peaceful hills Mirrored that day within his glazing eyes. And in the square the pale cool butter sold, Cropped from the daisies sprinkled on the downs, 52 And old wives cried their wares, like queer day owls, Piercing the old men's sad and foolish dreams. And Time flowed on till all the realm forgot The great King lying in the low chalk hills ; Only the busy water dripping through His hard white bones knew of him lying there. 53 HARP, FLUTE AND VIOL THE Harp was silent in the chamber Where there danced the wavering shadow, Shadow of the flute-player, Fitful as the fall of water Dreaming Then the shadow of the viol Stole upon the people's faces, Played with fainter, fainter shadows Of the day beyond, the day of sky and street, Of illimitable airy shining, Walls and Pinnacles and Clouds Dreaming on the pavement. ***** No wind but only light reflected On the ivory walls and ceiling, And the globes of porphyry Silently and softly shining, And the shadow-fountain flute, Rippling, murmuring and lolling There amid white dreamy faces ^ ***** Gazing on the scenery Of the viol, In a land enchanted, weary, In a land of beauty disillusioned 54 The Harp began. Its music was as is the song of jasmine Slender and faint among the dark of trees, Winding a stair From the dark earth towards the cold white stars. And whiter than the stars the arms of her That plucked the strings and gazed into her soul, Where all the Trees of the round earth were clustered, Whose Foliage, Heavy and calm leaf-hammered thunder, rilled That silver mirror lying in the world ! 75* TT *3r TT* 53F Gaze on into your soul, O Harp-player, Those Trees that weep, Those flowers that twining hang Dream-faces vapour-crumbling in blind woods Are mirrored there and in that land we gaze ! O bright thy soul that Moon of quicksilver ! Lovely the falling shadow of the flute, Amid the viol's quiet scenery ! MID-DAY THE lilac blows in my heart ; Deep within the park The trees drip soft and dark The lilac blows, the lilac blows Within my heart. It is mid-day, no Sun Is shining in this place, Lit with grey dove-soft grace Of Water, Cloud, and dripping, drooping Trees ; No Moon, no Sun. Silence, a willow bough Hangs in the moving stream ; Bend low my Soul, a Dream On visionary banks of life, Art standing now ! As water dark with Trees I see Time flowing by, The woods flower up and die, Faint shadowy water-blooms that fade away, Lovelier than these. Art thou, O Spirit, mirrored like a Bough In the dark tide, The Spring thy white, white bride ; The lilac in her heart that blows Thy vow ! 57 SOLITUDE WHEN the sun is sunk and the woods wave Their dark boughs to the sky, And the sea leaps sullen and quiet, And the birds sit silently, Jewel-eyed and carved on the dreamlike boughs, My heart beats restlessly. O, in the quiet of the dove -grey sky Some holy land there may be, Where a man may ride in solitude, Yet not unhappily But to ride through this shadow-crowded world God it is lonely ! The singing, the laughter, men's clear eyes, Hollow as elfin bells, Slim girls, falling rain, friends drinking But air-linked syllables They are more wandering than any voice Of cuckoo in hill-heaped dells. And even this dove-grey sea and sky Is so quiet a mystery, That I feel it may suddenly fade away With its carved mountain imagery ; 58 And I close my eyes and it disappears And chill it is and airy ! And the shadows flock to my ears and touch In soft and populous cries, My heart is beleaguered in the dark ; A crowd pushes close and sighs Very still, wide-awake and watchful, The lonely sentinel dies. 59 THE DARK FIRE OF SORROW THE dark fire of Sorrow is burning in my brain, And its glow dwells softly on the hills The amber hills, the hills translucent, hills of mellow light Guaya's still, lake-reflected hills. There love is like a golden bird that leaps among dead trees, The old and withered thoughts of men ; Dark scenery of passion in the land of the ideal, Dark like a little mad glen. And in that calmer, magic light I see the bright wild bird Flitting through the peace of Guaya's hills ; And could I leave this narrow glen branched thick with tortured thought, And wander in those plains the dark fire fills. Yes, wander to those hills of peace that glow like strange sad jewels, And enter their calm supernatural day, That fire would die, that glow depart, and that bright, bright bird love Would have quietly and for ever flown away. " 60 For the dark fire of Sorrow burns not upon those hills, There's but peace there and loveliness afar ; And the radiance of that country is the sad, still light that fills This glen of human sorrow where we are. 61 MIRAGE WHOSE was the melody In the still wood? From a small bell it rang Close where I stood, Windlessly trembling Its bright blue hood. Blue in the green of leaves, Blue in the grass The dark sea flashes In memory's glass, In the still wood its foam White as I pass. Through the still trees it rolled Once long ago, Great sea-bells are tolling Hidden below, Ringing clear bells in summer, Muffled bells in snow. 62 ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD ON Chagola the air was full of butterflies, They fluttered down the valleys of bright blue ; White they were, snow-tinted, soft as the soft sea-foam That far inland breaks in mysterious bloom : Invisibly, as Spring lapping dark hills, It breaks into a billow pale as snow ; From Chagola there rolls a shadowy tide Of harebell drops of brightly quivering blue. The sky it had not rained its azure down But hoarded still its deep soft purple air ; A glacier shone, a cold, a cold white bride From some dark home of earth there raptly flown : O Chagola, Chagola come ! descend ! Into the lowlands, the dark and windy plains Where my house is, my fireside and my home, My harbour and the net about my soul ! ON PERSIAN HILLS ON Persian hills the Moonlights shadowed roses Still as the stone walls ; their pale dream-swept faces Hang in soft clusters weary and dusty grey. A lattice lies wide open on those hills : Who looks upon that carven soundless scene The Tree, the Peacock and the shining Moon ? It is jet dark that small high window square ; The shadowed roses dream, the Moon is still ; Without a sound the Peacock now has flown. THE PRINCESS THE stone-grey roses by the desert's rim Are soft-edged shadows on the moonlit sand, Grey are the broken walls of Conchubar That haunt of nightingales, whose voices are Fountains that bubble in the dream-soft Moon. Shall the Gazelles with moonbeam pale bright feet Entering the vanished gardens sniff the air Some scent may linger of that ancient time, Musician's song, or poet's passionate rhyme, The Princess dead, still wandering love-sick there. A Princess pale and cold as mountain snow, In cool, dark chambers sheltered from the sun, With long dark lashes and small delicate hands: All Persia sighed to kiss her small red mouth Until they buried her in shifting sand. And the Gazelles shall flit by in the Moon And never shake the frail Tree's lightest leaves, And moonlight roses perfume the pale Dawn Until the scarlet life that left her lips Gathers its shattered beauty in the sky. THE POMPADOUR IN ART (Vide an article in ( The Times " Literary Supplemen t of 9 th August, 1917.) (0 WOULD'ST thou go back to that white nakedness Among the dark trees glinting in the sun, Their feet white marble where the cool brooks run, Their frail, light ringers flushed with happi- ness ? A white dream in the hot day's breathlessness Would 'st thou enfold in thy hot, lustful arms ? Or would 'st thou have no traffic with these charms, Dost then indeed love primitive ugliness ? " To Nature " is thy cry, " abandon all Voluptuous ornament and toilet tricks 1 " Back to the healthy days before the fall When mother Eve her food-foul fingers licks And recks not of her heavy shapelessness, Her dirty nails, her dark skin's hairiness ? 66 (2) Because thou knowest well that Grecian dream Of white Fauns in a wood, and slender girls, Frail, laughing lilies shaking their bright curls Among the trees, is an unnatural dream ; The soft, white skin which has so bright a gleam, Those slender limbs and delicate, manicured hands Have they not been desired in ancient lands A part of that strange lure, that mystical beam Of beauty, which on many a drab old tower At sunset casts a fairy artifice, Lending rough bricks a sudden magic power So that dead clay becomes beauty's device For coquetry in clothes and hair and hands Is the quick spirit loosening matter's bands ! (3) As for myself, proudly I confess I love not matter lumped and unadorned, Five feet of flesh is but a cow unhorned ?. If the quick spirit shew not in the dress ; Blushes are roses in a wilderness, And pencilled eyebrows are the soul's delight ; The Moon is not more lovely in the night Than are white shoulders in a shadowy dress : And in silk stockings frailly gleam white limbs Like candles drawing painted butterflies ; And dressed hair gives the soul an earthless flower That shines into our eager, seeking eyes For now she speaks and moves beyond all dreams A Focus where some wild world radiance streams. 68 (4) The flesh has no expression in the mind Unless it be shot through with subtle thought. An honest wife is all too easily bought, A ten-stone animal that's deaf and blind, Who dresses plainly, plainly cooks, is kind And knows her husband's income to a nought ; Wears calico, flat shoes, is heard to snort At vice, but knows not virtue or mankind ; A cow, a bitch, a sense-dulled lump of clay Were virtuous as she, for art as ripe ; And in her sense's flesh-dimmed, feeble ray Her husband is a thing who smokes a pipe Such is the wife, das Weib, die deutsche Frau, Formed to stir clay, but only with the plough. (5) But Beauty is more delicate than the wind, Trackless and as intangible as light ; It cannot be pinned down for common sight ; Like violets in a wood it haunts us blind, Though scentless trees are mirrored in our mind. A girl's dress is a lovely wood, a night Of flowing clouds and shattered, shaken light ; An arabesque of dust to dust resigned, With cloud and wood and star, and her bright love : And in these rags, and in the dust of worlds, Beauty departed lies as lies the dove In a few feathers bleaching in the sun As the form crumbles so the spirit wanes And we'll not find it more for all our pains. 70 THE WESTMINSTER PRESS 41 1 A HARROW ROAD LONDON W Recent Volumes of Toetry OLTON POOLS John Drinkwater 2S. 6d. net (Third Impression) PAWNS : Three Poetic Plays John Drinkwater 2S. 6d. net (Second Impression) POEMS, 1908 1914 John Drinkwater 55. net (Second Impression) TIDES John Drinkwater 2s. 6d. net SEVERN AND SOMME Ivor Gurney 2S. 6d. net A GLOUCESTERSHIRE LAD F. W. Harvey is. 6d. and 2s. net (Fourth Impression) GLOUCESTERSHIRE FRIENDS : Poems from a German Prison Camp F. W. Harvey 2S. 6d. net DITCHLING BEACON A. B. Norman is. 6d. net SOME VERSE "F. S. " 2s.net (Third Impression) THE HUNTER W. J. Turner 2s. 6d. net FLOWER OF YOUTH Katharine Tynan 35. 6d. net (Third Impression) LATE SONGS Katharine Tynan 35. 6d. net (Second Impression) SIDGWIGK & JACKSON, LTD. 3 Adam Street, Adelphi, London, W.G. 2 The Dark Fire by W. J. Turner Sidg- wick and Jack- son, Ltd. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Form L9-lCOm-9,'52(A3105)444 THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIF'" LOS ANGELES JKNL PR '.Turner - PR 6039 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 562 337 6