OND C.A.DAWSON SCOTT i ! I 5 1 5 ■ 7 \ 5 1 5 i 9 1 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/beyondpoemsOOdawsiala BEYOND BY C. A. DAWSON SCOTT cKs LONDON G. J. GLAISHER 58, HIGH STREET, NOTTING HILL GATE, W. 1^12 BY THE SAME AUTHOR POEMS Sappho Idylls of Womanhood NOVELS - The Story of Anna Beames The Burden- Treasure Trove The Agony Column Madcap Jane Mrs. Noakes PLAYS Phoca Tom Alice Bland TILWELS Nooks and Corners of Cornwall NooKS AND Corners of Devon {in the press) ?R (oozn TO W. H. 917S7^ Some of these poems have appeared in the Nation and Chambers' Journal and are now reprinted by kind permission of the editors. CONTENTS Behind the trees a slender moon . We build The smith achieves the bowl, the golden bowl Holpen by sweet neglect The bees of rest have drowsed across the sun If but the antient tales were true . The day hath drawn My cousin — that I lost Bard The street of life . A roof of vibrant leaves. In the dim watches of the night, we hear. 1 know ...... A day shall break — the widening rose of dawn The spring has hung a veil of green Rhythms of lonely Constantine — the arc Under yon hillock lies .... The cup of ocean is a-brim with tears thro which the sky FACE 7 8 9 lO 12 14 15 i6 19 20 21 22 24 25 27 28 29 30 THE FLEET WOODS. Behind the trees a slender moon Rose in the quiet sky ; Clear gold in the grey night she passed The leafless branches by. The heather like a midnight sea Billowed across the plain, To where the masts of the red pine Sprang, ebon, from the main. The night-wind murmured in the boughs, But never vagrant breeze Came ruffling where I cradled lay A-dream beneath the trees. ETERNITY. We build A temple to eternity ; but slow The silence settles on our faltered prayers. The lichen gathers in the clefts, the bee On lotus capital and colonnade Hangs her defacing nest. In Nature's lap Under her kindly cloak it lies forgot — With them that built. THE BREAKING OF THE BOWL. The smith achieves the bowl, the golden bowl, The sculptor graves and the mysterious tale Of the dim ages gleams upon the gold. While in the curve, a darkness till the sun Fires its dull purple, sleeps the wine. The chain Runs from the treasure-house across the wheel. The ever-grinding wheel and in the sun The artificer is twisting from the fine And golden filigree new links for old. On the white road, beneath an olive tree, The palmer lingers, dropping bead by bead — A prayer, a life — along the silver cord. The bowl is broken, the bowl beautiful ! And the wine sinks into the hungry earth ; The cord that held the rosary is loosed And the told beads are scattered in the dust ; While from the passing chain a filament SUps flashing and the links are whirled aside. Where goeth man ? The candle on the wall Bums with a steady ray. Cometh a wind — Where in that whelming blackness is the flame ? 10 THE SEA-GATE. HoLPEN by sweet neglect The yellow clock* has faded to a ghost And clover thickens in the sward. A path Wanders by fern and foxglove to the sea, And near the fading lavender, the gloom Of ilex branches o'er a wall Ruddy and low, branches above the pale And glimmering margent of the tide. Beyond the garden close — the derrick's swing, The fell destroyer shaping in the shps — But here an ancient chymist who distills Elixir from the breeze, and softly turns The green of poplar into gold. Unlatch the gate — The water trembles on the weedy stair. And over the full wave Cloud upon cloud the snowy bergs of air Drift in the blue. Here are but sky and sea. The breath that is not life, the march Majestic of the vaporous multitudes ! The ripples turn in light, a sail * Dajidelion. 11 Like a grey moth gigantic, glides and glides Until the haze of the autumnal day, Dimness engulfing dimness, folds it deep In swathes of mist. Here are but dreams ! Boats at their moorings sleep, a gull Idle upon the water, dips and drifts. And from the over-arch, the warm Late sunshine, as a benediction, falls. With waning day the fishes argosies Fleet o'er the shallows, thro' the veils Of opal to the verge, a russet flight Caught in the flame of sunset as it drops Down the steep tumult of the tides. Thro' dusk of tropic seas The coral builds into the day, And with the ebbing tide Gathers a broken vision of the whole. May I too lose The sad perplexities of earth and time — When ebbs the tide. 12 BED-TIME. The bees of rest have drowsed across the sun Thickening the air. Droning their lullabies of pillow-land By every stair. Come from your play, my little heart, the sea In pmple cold. In the far east the raven wings of night Will soon unfold. Here is a star will show you to your bed And in the blue Over your dreams keep silent silver ward The long night thro'. Sleep Uttle love, if ever in the sky That star should set, Mother will watch, mother, whose empty heart Cannot forget — Who hstens for the happy hour to chime. When she may creep Under the coverlet and clasp you close In that long sleep. 13 The toys are broken — scattered — let them lie I Another day May bring a different vision of delight A mightier play. Another day ? Oh, Uttle tender love Slumbering deep, Is there another day for you and me After our sleep ? ANTIENT TALES. If but the antient tales were true, and elves Worked the rose-petals mto perfumed smocks For fairies hiding from the languorous noon In honeyed bells of hly, hyacinth ! If when the purple canopy was hung With stars, a naiad trod the luminous Moon-ghtter to hnk hands with Will-o'-Wisp, And dance her crystal slippers into dew ! If in auspicious hour, an antique dame. Red-cloaked, a pointed beaver on her coif. With magic carpet set the gates ajar Of east and west — or spirit pitiful Granted our heart's desire. Ah, children dear. The snow has folded close the Uttle mound Beyond the church ; but here the flame of life Burns merrily. We warm us at the blaze. Prating of magic and of miracle ; WhUe he — they say he sleeps ! Oh, bitter heaven And earth — for never antient tale is true. 15 HOPE. The day hath drawn A veil of darkening rain before her face, And aged night Spreading a purple pall amid the stars To her lorn watch hath left the widowed moon. Dim in the void The tapers burn from dusk to sombre dawn. Where in her shroud of drifted snow On pillared bier, Hope lieth frozen in her dream. A silence as of crystal solitudes Is in the folding of her Hps ; The peace of smitten waters compasseth The wan frost flowers, on a breast As cold. At her feet The lyre she hath forgot, the fair Blue robe abandoned for a winding-sheet, A chalice, empty, over-turned — For Hope is dead. The hearth is black, Bent are our heads before the storm. And it is night. Out of the deeps, out of the utter dark — A sigh. i6 H. D. LOWRY. October 21, 1906. I. My cousin — that I lost ^ Because the hedgerows were too thick a-bloom ; Because in youth the elfin voices call I With promise — 'i Now that thy lyric note ] Is silenced, all the voices drone, and I i Hear once again the beating of a heart That slept. 1 The dusk is peopled with thy dreams, with ghosts ! Ethereal, of thy songs unsung — And thou, where art thou ? j Waiting in the Great Silence for the hour Of a re-birth ? - i Or was death but a curtain hung i Thick, cloudy, white, j Betwixt thee and the sun ? ; I have a vision of that withered husk i Which is not, was not thou — ■ Thin, grey, the face turned from me, the eyes 1 sunk. I A wisp of weed. j Flung widely by the breaking seas, flung high i 17 To rot and blacken ere the sun was set — The sun of my day as of thine. I slept and sent my soul in search of thee ! But if we met I know not — I who slept. I but remember what the eyes have seen The swing in the grey courtyard, the old loft. And our first talks, our letters, our big hopes — " Prince Lazy-bones " — and how we fell apart. No reason, none. O bird of the mid-heaven ! Who would bid The poet labour, making bricks For the Egyptian ? Yet thro' the weary day Trembled the rhythms of the flowers, the wind The ocean till they linked In notes ethereal And from " a hundred windows * " poured thy song. And now the bird is flown, his empty cage Hangs on the wall. Here was the sod from which he poured His lyric rapture, he who now O my lost cousin, leave thy gift with me. Drop the faint echoes down the blue Into our barren dreams. * " A Hundred Windows," by H. D. Lowry. c i8 If we but knew ! The lily-bud Breaks into flower and lies Lovely among its leaves until the pool Takes it again. Ay, flower, song ! Friend of the long ago When life was wonder, has thy shallop crossed Uncharted seas or foundered in the deep ? Did I but know 19 II. O Bard, Once of our pilgrim company ! Mute is the harp That was thy golden fardel. We call to thee Across the barrens, thro' the wildering mist And call in vain. She, who was loved before the silver strings Were loosened and the harp Slipped from thy hand — ^like dust of stars, a pale Fire-riband gleaming down the blue — Who blossomed in the dust until thy gold Evolved a garden from the wilderness, Can she not hush the choral flutes of reed And river swelling to a dirge ? The cloud-enfolded earth Turns on her midnight path, the censers sway Wafting the amber myrrh and ancient death Under thy window-sill hath called the hour. To thee our lamentable cry Must seem as but a cheeping in the walls That sheltered sleep ; and we — The moths of a forgotten dusk. The scrolled valves of time are locked — Thy cast attire Flung to the moth and the grey worm ! Perchance, a naked poor adventurer Thou art reborn into some tender arms. To find the ship of wonder, laden deep With dreams, at anchor in the roads. i6 THE ARTIST. The street of life Is a Venetian waterway. Palace and fane of the dead hand ; But for the gliding gondola, the air Salt of the sea. The pictures live along the wall, but he Who dipped his brush in flower-tints or graved A victory on primordial bone Is " dust of earth." The seer who raised A taper in the dwindling dark Sleeps in his shrine of jade and amethyst ; While sands of time are blowing over man The dreamer, over sphinx and pyramid. And in Caesarian halls Echo is seneschal. The thought creative lives ! But he who wrought. He whose dim moon of pearl is set. Hath he "no knowledge, nor device. Nor wisdom — ^in the grave ? " 21 THE CHESTNUT WOOD. Green roof of vibrant leaves, thro' which the sky GUmmers or fair or foul the day ; Green tapestry about the pillared aisles — ■ The woodland pathway's brown inlay. A dim green hall beneath the verdant flood When heaven is scattering sunflower grain, A sanctuary — with one clear chorister — From the pale arrows of the rain. Cascades of emerald shadow, breathed aside By northern airs, until the night — Folding the glad earth in a dream of stars Has trimmed her lanthorn's cadent light. Beneath the vaulted darkness, earth to earth The leafy generations lie — While thro' the glooming aisles a presence flits The wraith of a forgotten sigh. A faint embodiment of echoes old Trembling upon the midnight air, A haunting memory of the hopes and dreams The tragedies of those who were. Fasten the narrow casement on the dark ! Stir the red log until the spears Of flame are hurtling on the phantom host — The flying shadow of our fears. 22 AFTER. In the dim watches of the night, we hear The gallop of the spectral steed, our hearts Thud with the hoofs, our fears acclaim the grim Inexorable summons. Who would take The silent road whereon each lonely walks And no man comes again ? Yet at the call. Stumbling, sobbing, shuddering, they file In shadowy multitude across the moon Into the outer dark. But is it void. Or doth a shining as of greater light Than either moon or star or sun can give Pulse faintly on the margins of the world ? Ye that have eyes behold the rim is black Against a paler sky, this scudding earth Is but an opalescent gleam in space. And past the silver galleon purple-drowned Of the last planet, is the dream. Cloud-wrack, Th' eternal menace of the tumbUng seas. Grey-bearded, grim, the driven winds of stonn, Earth-quake and bolt and levin-brand, the stir Which heard amid the harmony of spheres Swinging in mighty rhythm can but seem 23 A reedy piping — yet usurps our ear — And the diapason of the To Be Reverberates unheard. Or if a note, A clarion echo filters thro' the murk, The folk, in hodden drudgery of doubt, Listen — and turn again. 24 I KNOW. I KNOW Behind the cloudy curtain of the day The cosmic solitudes are fair With the blue light of stars, I know For I have seen. Green is the daisied sward and golden-green The roof of leaves. A shelter from the rain, Till a sweet babble gives a sweeter name ; And we forget The spectral roll of worlds invisible The last discovered planet hung about With dim and pearly moons, forget — Even the Fear. The dying suns Sink gUmmering thro' the tides of time. As the remorseless grave Gathers the lonely to her breast. Gathers the blossom with the fruit. And those who crave Re-union other than of mingled dust. Can they beUeve — Whoever cries unto their hearts : "I know For I have seen ? " 25 THE HOUSE OF CLAY. A DAY shall break — the widening rose of dawn Petal on petal lifting from the gold Until the neutral earth is green, the stars Reborn as dew — that day shall break And thou sleep on. Sleep so serenely that the pitcher left To brim and overflow, the scattered ash, The needle rusting in the seam Shall be as recollected play ; So deeply not the push Of dimpled fingers at thy breast May lure thee back. Beneath a coronal of bloom, the fruit Is ripening ere the petals fleet Thro' quiet airs A fragrant generation at a breath. When is fulfilled The law, the purpose of our earth — We too may wing into the vast. 26 The sacred fire Smoulders upon the hearth, tho' red On circhng wall the pageantry of hell ! Within the shrine The priestess pours libation, till the years Are numbered, and a younger vestal brings The oil and wine. From the low house of clay we look Thro' storied window of the creeds ; From the low house of clay — the altar lit Or black with dying brand — we step Into the light. l^ A SONG OF KNOWLEDGE. The spring has hung a veil of green Mine eyes and the dark wood between, The leaves have cloaked the poplar tall — Dear leaves, I shall not see them fall. When rude November's organ breath Peals the wild gallop of their death. Did all the winds of autumn blow About my bed — I should not know ! The thick rank grass will wave above My dreaming earth and if thy love Pass with my passing be it so. Faithful or false — I shall not know ! " If love should call to love ? " Dear heart We cannot be so far apart But that the welcome cry would grow Out of the hush — and I should know. 28 CORNWALL. Rhythms of lonely Constantine — the arc Of the wide bay, the billowy dunes, the long Atlantic roll. To look on the translucent green, the blue Deepening to purple where the weed is dense ! To hear the homing call as the brave sweep Of wings is folded on a sea-girt rock ! To he in golden warmth, while tow'ring waves Break with a lazy roar along the beach — To lie and dream. A perfect dream ! That I Might sleep for ever by the ruined church Whose threshold is the sacrificial stone Of a forgotten people, if such dream — Were mine. 29 AN EPITAPH. Under yon hillock lies A cloak with which the wind has rioted Thro* wanton Junes, a cloak Abandoned to December tears. By one who felt the lure of widening seas. 3» THE SHIP OF SOULS. " The conscious self with which we are familiar in our waking life is but a portion of a ' more comprehensive consciousness, a profounder faculty which for the most part remains potential, as far as regards the hfe on earth,' but which may be hberated in full activity by the change we call death." — Psychical Research, by W. F. Barrett. The cup of ocean is a-brim with tears Beneath the mist ; but the grey ripples ebb And over-sea are sands of morning pearl. Thralls of the earth, we take with covered eyes The way of prayer, or between bar and bar Follow the drama of a day, till death The wandering gleeman harps of liberty At curfew. Sweet and passing sweet the wind ! The sails are filling and the phantom ship The ship of souls is borne thro' lucent gold, Thin, magical, thro' star-light and the Gate. The mourners go about the streets, but man — The barley brown upon the slope, the share Deep in the furrow and the gate a-swing — Man goeth home. Grey-kilted and grey-shod Handmaiden Dawn hath sundered the black webs And flung the casement wide. As ruddy day Smiles in his sleep and every Uttle hill Flushes with early fire, a shadow glides Into the sapphire roads.* * Anchorage. 31 Now is the house Of bondage dwindled to a grassy knoll Across the gulf. So with the sorry years Dew-crystals on the thread of time that melt Into a rainbow shower. Errant, vague, Our hopes are beaten silver that the sun Shall gild. Upon that strand of morning pearl The glamorous dreams that burgeoned but to fade Shall bid us welcome ; on that honeyed lea In those deep meadows the desire of youth Be linked with holy vision. Like a bride Fulfilment waits us, the deep ecstasy. We have not known, the knowledge hid, the art We could not compass. On the stem of life The clustered trails of blossom, lilies white And golden, the blue ring o' bells, the rose I Thus are we gathered to the mystic heart One with the quenchless altar-fire, yet each A separate flame ; and man, the wanderer, Man goeth — home. PRINTED BY THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS, LIMITBD LONDON AND NORWICH University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hllgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. SEP 25 1991 ""«rfiiS«K JAN^ \ LL - DUE2WKSFR01V 'b m 9 2001 DATE RECEIVED 16" XiCM3 £»J.^^at PR 6037 ^236b X SOo-hiERN RE ONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 557 559 Unive: Soi Li