THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES CROMWELL AND OTHER POEMS BY THE SAME AUTHOR POEMS OF MEN AND HOURS, 1911. POEMS OF LOVE AND EARTH, 1912. COPHETUA : A PLAY IN VERSE, 1911. WILLIAM MORRIS: A CRITICAL STUDY, 1912. SWINBURNE: AN ESTIMATE, 1913. CROMWELL AND OTHER POEMS BY JOHN DRINKWATER LONDON DAVID NUTT 17 GRAPE STREET, NEW OXFORD STREET, W.C. 1913 FOR permission to reprint certain of the follow- ing poems the author's thanks are due to the Editors of The Academy, The Blue Review, The British Review, Country Life, The English Review, The Englishwoman, The Fortnightly Review, The Nation, Poetry and Drama, The Spectator, and The Sphere. p/? 6 ool CONTENTS ADVENTURES PAGE Symbols I The Building 2 Sealed 6 In Lady Street 9 Travel Talk 13 Challenge 19 Possessions 20 The Analyst 21 Old Woman in May 22 Dominion 24 A Sabbath Day : In Five Watches I. Morning 26 II. Full Day 27 III. Dusk 29 IV. Evensong 30 V. Night 32 Warranty 33 Lines for the Opening of a Theatre . . 34 The Inviolable Hour 38 Liegewoman 41 Lovers to Lovers 42 Reckoning 43 Lord of Time 45 1259725 vi CONTENTS CROMWELL PAGE Prologue 49 The First Interlude. Of the Leaven . . 52 The Call 55 The Second Interlude. Of Our Worship . 57 The Coming 58 The Third Interlude. Of the Captains . 60 Edgehill 63 The Gathering of the Ironsides ... 69 Marston-Moor 71 An Idyll 76 Naseby 80 The Fourth Interlude. Of War . . .88 The Entry into London .... 90 Judgment ....... 92 The Fifth Interlude. Of Tyranny . . 97 The Third of September I. 1650, Dunbar ..... 99 II. 165-1, Worcester . . . .102 III. 1658, Whitehall . . . .104 Epilogue 108 ADVENTURES TO JOHN MASEFIELD ADVENTURES SYMBOLS I SAW history in a poet's song, In a river-reach and a gallows-hill, In a bridal bed, and a secret wrong, In a crown of thorns : in a daffodil. I imagined measureless time in a day, And starry space in a wagon-road, And the treasure of all good harvests lay In the single seed that the sower sowed. My garden-wind had driven and havened again All ships that ever had gone to sea, And I saw the glory of all dead men In the shadow that went by the side of me. THE BUILDING WHENCE these hods, and bricks of bright red clay, And swart men climbing ladders in the night ? Stilled are the clamorous energies of day, The streets are dumb, and, prodigal of light, The lamps but shine upon a city of sleep. A step goes out into the silence ; far Across the quiet roofs the hour is tolled From ghostly towers ; the indifferent earth may keep That ragged flotsam shielded from the cold In earth's good time : not, moving among men, Shall he compel so fortunate a star. Pavements I know, forsaken now, are strange, Alien walks not beautiful, that then, In the familiar day, are part of all My breathless pilgrimage, not beautiful, but dear. The monotony of sound has suffered change, THE BUILDING 3 The eddies of wanton sound are spent, and clear To bleak monotonies of silence fall. And, while the city sleeps, in the central poise Of quiet, lamps are flaming in the night, Blown to long tongues by winds that moan between The growing walls, and throwing misty light On swart men bearing bricks of bright red clay In laden hods ; and ever the thin noise Of trowels deftly fashioning the clean Long lines that are the shaping of proud thought. Ghost-like they move between the day and day, These men whose labour strictly shall be wrought Into the captive image of a dream. Their sinews weary not, the plummet falls To measured use from steadfast hands apace, And momently the moist and levelled seam Knits brick to brick and momently the walls Bestow the wonder of form on formless space. And whence all these ? The hod and plummet- line, The trowels tapping, and the lamps that shine In long, dust-heavy beams from wall to wall, 4 THE BUILDING The mortar and the bricks of bright red clay, Ladder and corded scaffolding, and all The gear of common traffic whence are they ? And whence the men who use them ? When he came, God upon chaos, crying in the name Of all adventurous vision that the void Should yield up man, and man, created, rose Out of the deep, the marvel of all things made, Then in immortal wonder was destroyed All worth of trivial knowledge, and the close Of man's most urgent meditation stayed Even as his first thought " Whence am I sprung ? " What proud ecstatic mystery was pent In that first act for man's astonishment, From age to unconfessing age, among His manifold travel. And in all I see Of common daily usage is renewed This primal and ecstatic mystery Of chaos bidden into many-hued Wonders of form, life in the void create, And monstrous silence made articulate. Not the first word of God upon the deep Nor the first pulse of life along the day More marvellous than these new walls that sweep THE BUILDING 5 Starward, these lines that discipline the clay, These lamps swung in the wind that send their light On swart men climbing ladders in the night. No trowel-tap but sings anew for men The rapture of quickening water and continent, No mortared line but witnesses again Chaos transfigured into lineament. SEALED THE doves call down the long arcades of pine, The screaming swifts are tiring towards their eaves, And you are very quiet, O lover of mine. No foot is on your ploughlands now, the song Fails and is no more heard among your leaves That wearied not in praise the whole day long. I have watched with you till this twilight-fall, The proud companion of your loveliness ; Have you no word for me, no word at all ? The passion of my thought I have given you, Striving towards your passion, nevertheless, The clover leaves are deepening to the dew, And I am still unsatisfied, untaught. You lie guarded in mystery, you go Into your night, and leave your lover naught. 6 SEALED 7 Would I were Titan with immeasurable thews To hold you trembling, lover of mine, and know To the full the secret savour that you use Now to my tormenting. I would drain Your beauty to the last sharp glory of it ; You should work mightily through me, blood and brain. Your heart in my heart's mastery should burn, And you before my swift and arrogant wit Should be no longer proudly taciturn. You should bend back astonished at my kiss, Your wisdom should be armourer to my pride, And you, subdued, should yet be glad of this. The joys of great heroic lovers dead Should seem but market-gossiping beside The annunciation of our bridal bed. And now, my lover earth, I am a leaf, A wave of light, a bird's note, a blade sprung Towards the oblivion of the sickled sheaf ; A mere mote driven against your royal ease, A tattered eager traveller among The myriads beating on your sanctuaries. 8 SEALED I have no strength to crush you to my will, Your beauty is invulnerably zoned, Yet I, your undefeated lover still, Exulting in your sap am clear of shame, And biding with you patiently am throned Above the flight of desolation's aim. You may be mute, bestow no recompense On all the thriftless leaguers of my soul I am at your gates, O lover of mine, and thence Will I not turn for any scorn you send, Rebuked, bemused, yet is my purpose whole, I shall be striving towards you till the end. IN LADY STREET ALL day long the traffic goes In Lady Street by dingy rows Of sloven houses, tattered shops Fried fish, old clothes and fortune-tellers Tall trams on silver-shining rails, With grinding wheels and swaying tops, And lorries with their corded bales, And screeching cars. " Buy, buy ! " the sellers Of rags and bones and sickening meat Cry all day long in Lady Street. And when the sunshine has its way In Lady Street, then all the grey Dull desolation grows in state More dull and grey and desolate, And the sun is a shamefast thing, A lord not comely-housed, a god Seeing what gods must blush to see, A song where it is ill to sing, And each gold ray dispiteously Lies like a gold ironic rod. IO Yet one grey man in Lady Street Looks for the sun. He never bent Life to his will, his travelling feet Have scaled no cloudy continent, Nor has the sickle-hand been strong. He lives in Lady Street ; a bed, Four cobwebbed walls. But all day long A time is singing in his head Of youth in Gloucester lanes. He hears The wind among the barley-blades, The tapping of the woodpeckers On the smooth beeches, thistle-spades Slicing the sinewy roots ; he sees The hooded filberts in the copse Beyond the loaded orchard trees, The netted avenues of hops ; He smells the honeysuckle thrown Along the hedge. He lives alone, Alone yet not alone, for sweet Are Gloucester lanes in Lady Street. Aye, Gloucester lanes. For down below The cobwebbed room this grey man plies A trade, a coloured trade. A show Of many-coloured merchandise Is in his shop. Brown filberts there, And apples red with Gloucester air, II And cauliflowers he keeps, and round Smooth marrows grown on Gloucester ground, Fat cabbages and yellow plums, And gaudy brave chrysanthemums. And times a glossy pheasant lies Among his store, not Tyrian dyes More rich than are the neck-feathers ; And times a prize of violets, Or dewy mushrooms satin-skinned, And times an unfamiliar wind Robbed of its woodland favour stirs Gay daffodils this grey man sets Among his treasure. All day long In Lady Street the traffic goes By dingy houses, desolate rows Of shops that stare like hopeless eyes. Day long the sellers cry their cries, The fortune-tellers tell no wrong Of lives that know not any right, And drift, that has not even the will To drift, toils through the day until The wage of sleep is won at night. But this grey man heeds not at all The hell of Lady Street. His stall Of many-coloured merchandise He makes a shining paradise, 12 IN LADY STREET As all day long chrysanthemums He sells, and red and yellow plums And cauliflowers. In that one spot Of Lady Street the sun is not Ashamed to shine and send a rare Shower of colour through the air ; The grey man says the sun is sweet On Gloucester lanes in Lady Street. Ladywood, 1912 To Ernest de Selincourt To the high hills you took me, where desire, Daughter of difficult life, forgets her lures, And hope's eternal tasks no longer tire, And only peace endures. Where anxious prayer becomes a worthless thing Subdued by muted praise, And asking nought of God and life we bring The conflict of long days Into a moment of immortal poise Among the scars and proud unbuilded spires, Where, seeking not the triumphs and the joys So treasured in the world, we kindle fires That shall not burn to ash, and are content To read anew the eternal argument. Nothing of man's intolerance we know Here, far from man, among the fortressed hills, Nor of his querulous hopes. 13 14 TRAVEL TALK To what may we attain ? What matter, so We feel the unwearied virtue that fulfils These cloudy crests and rifts and heathered slopes With life that is and seeks not to attain, For ever spends nor ever asks again ? To the high hills you took me. And we saw The everlasting ritual of sky And earth and the waste places of the air, And momently the change of changeless law Was beautiful before us, and the cry Of the great winds was as a distant prayer From a massed people, and the choric sound Of many waters moaning down the long Veins of the hills was as an undersong ; And in that hour we moved on holy ground. To the high hills you took me. Far below Lay pool and tarn locked up in shadowy sleep ; Above, we watched the clouds unhasting go From hidden crest to crest ; the neighbour sheep Cropped at our side, and swift on darkling wings The hawks went sailing down the valley wind, The rock-bird chattered shrilly to its kind ; And all these common things were holy things. TRAVEL TALK 15 From ghostly Skiddaw came the wind in flight By Langdale Pikes to Coniston's broad brow, From Coniston to proud Helvellyn's height, The eloquent wind, the wind that even now Whispers again its story gathered in For seasons of much traffic in the ways Where men so straitly spin The garment of unfathomable days. To the high hills you took me. And we turned Our feet again towards the friendly vale, And passed the banks whereon the bracken burned And the last foxglove bells were spent and pale, Down to a hallowed spot of English land Where Rotha dreams its way from mere to mere, Where one with undistracted vision scanned Life's far horizons, he who sifted clear Dust from the grain of being, making song Memorial of simple men and minds Not bowed to cunning by deliberate wrong, And conversed with the spirit of the winds, And knew the guarded secrets that were sealed In pool and pine, petal and vagrant wing, Throning the shepherd folding from the field, Robing anew the daffodils of spring. 16 TRAVEL TALK We crossed the threshold of his home and stood Beside his cottage hearth where once was told The day's adventure drawn from fell and wood, And wisdom's words and love's were manifold, Where, in the twilight, gossip poets met To read again their peers of older time, And quiet eyes of gracious women set A bounty to the glamour of the rhyme. There is a wonder in a simple word That reinhabits fond and ghostly ways, And when within the poet's walls we heard One white with ninety years recall the days When he upon his mountain paths was seen, We answered her strange bidding and were made One with the reverend presence who had been Steward of kingly charges unbetrayed. And to the little garden-close we went, Where he at eventide was wont to pass To watch the willing day's last sacrament, And the cool shadows thrown along the grass, To read again the legends of the flowers, Lighten with song th' obscure heroic plan, To contemplate the process of the hours, And think on that old story which is man. The lichened apple-boughs that once had spent Their blossoms at his feet, in twisted age TRAVEL TALK 17 Yet knew the wind, and the familiar scent Of heath and fern made sweet his hermitage. And, moving so beneath his cottage-eaves, His song upon our lips, his life a star, A sign, a storied peace among the leaves, Was he not with us then ? He was not far. To the high hills you took me. We had seen Much marvellous traffic in the cloudy ways, Had laughed with the white waters and the green, Had praised and heard the choric chant of praise, Communed anew with the undying dead, Resung old songs, retold old fabulous things, And, stripped of pride, had lost the world and led A world refashioned as unconquered kings. And the good day was done, and there again Where is your home of quietness we stood, Far from the sight and sound of travelling men, And watched the twilight climb from Lady- wood Above the pines, above the visible streams, Beyond the hidden sources of the rills, Bearing the season of uncharted dreams Into the silent fastness of the hills. B i8 TRAVEL TALK Peace on the hills, and in the valleys peace ; And Rotha's moaning music sounding clear ; The passing-song of wearied winds that cease, Moving among the reeds of Rydal Mere ; The distant gloom of boughs that still unscarred Beside their poet's grave due vigil keep- With us were these, till night was throned and starred And bade us to the benison of sleep. CHALLENGE You fools behind the panes who peer At the strong black anger of the sky, Come out and feel the storm swing by, Ay, take its blow on your lips, and hear The wind in the branches cry. No. Leave us to the day's device, Draw to your blinds and take your ease, Grow peak'd in the face and crook' d in the knees ; Your sinews could not pay the price When the storm goes through the trees. POSSESSIONS " BRING all the sorrows that you bear, And I will give them harbourage, And I will tame them unaware Of all their dark uncomely rage." " I will not let my sorrows go While I am subject to the sun, There might be nothing then to know If all my sorrowing were done. " I do not hoard my sorrows up As usurers of infirmity, But all the sorrows in my cup Are touchstones of my ecstasy." THE ANALYST ARMOURED in arrogance of youth, You look on life, assaying her, Swear lightly this or that for truth Instancing her your arbiter, And coldly measure her. She stands before you mute, her arm Hiding the laughter of her face, You register this frail alarm, And moralise the modest grace That here has dwelling-place. Oh youth, beware the day when she, No longer patient of your jests, Covers your calm with mockery, Confronts you with her blood's behests And most bewildering breasts. OLD WOMAN IN MAY OLD woman by the hedgerow In gown of withered black, With beads and pins and buttons And ribbons in your pack How many miles do you go ? To Dumbleton and back ? " " To Dumbleton and back, sir, And round by Cotsall Hill, I count the miles at morning, At night I count them still, A Jill without a Jack, sir, I travel with a will." " It's little men are paying For such as you can do, You with the grey dust in your hair And sharp nails in your shoe, The young folks go a-Maying, But what is May to you ? " OLD WOMAN IN MAY 23 I care not what they pay me While I can hear the call Of cattle on the hillside, And watch the blossoms fall In a churchyard where maybe I'll meet him after all." DOMINION I WENT beneath the sunny sky When all things bowed to June's desire, The pansy with its steadfast eye, The blue shells on the lupin spire, The swelling fruit along the boughs, The grass grown heady in the rain, Dark roses fitted for the brows Of queens great kings have sung in vain ; My little cat with tiger bars, Bright claws all hidden in content ; Swift birds that flashed like darkling stars Across the cloudy continent ; The wiry-coated fellow curled Stump-tailed upon the sunny flags ; The bees that sacked a coloured world Of treasure for their honey-bags. 24 DOMINION 25 And all these things seemed very glad, The sun, the flowers, the birds on wing, The jolly beasts, the furry-clad Fat bees, the fruit, and everything. But gladder than them all was I, Who, being man, might gather up The joy of all beneath the sky, And add their treasure to my cup, And travel every shining way, And laugh with God in God's delight, Create a world for every day, And store a dream for every night. A SABBATH DAY IN FIVE WATCHES I. MORNING (To M. C.) You were three men and women two, And well I loved you, all of you, And well we kept the Sabbath day. The bells called out of Malvern town, But never bell could call us down As we went up the hill away. Was it a thousand years ago Or yesterday that men were so Zealous of creed and argument ? Here wind is brother to the rain, And the hills laugh upon the plain, And the old brain-gotten feuds are spent. Bring lusty laughter, lusty jest, Bring each the song he names the best, Bring eager thought and speech that's keen, Tell each his tale and tell it out, The only shame be prudent doubt, Bring bodies where the lust is clean. 26 II. FULL DAY (To K. D.) WE moved along the gravelled way Between the laurels and the yews, Some touch of old enchantment lay About us, some remembered news Of men who rode among the trees With burning dreams of Camelot, Whose names are beauty's litanies, As Galahad and Launcelot. We looked along the vaulted gloom Of boughs unstripped of winter's bane, As for some pride of scarf and plume And painted shield and broidered rein, And through the cloven laurel walls We searched the darkling pines and pale Beech-boles and woodbine coronals, As for the passing of the Grail. But Launcelot no travel keeps, For brother Launcelot is dead, And brother Galahad he sleeps This long while in his quiet bed, 28 A SABBATH DAY And we are all the knights that pass Among the yews and laurels now. They are but fruit among the grass, And we but fruit upon the bough. No coloured blazon meets us here Of all that courtly company, Elaine is not, nor Guenevere, The dream is but of dreams that die. But yet the purple violet lies Beside the golden daffodil, And women strong of limb and wise And fierce of blood are with us still. And never through the woodland goes The Grail of that forgotten quest, But still about the woodland flows The sap of God made manifest In boughs that labour to their time, And birds that gossip secret things, And eager lips that seek to rhyme The latest of a thousand springs. III. DUSK (To E. S. V.) WE come from the laurels and daffodils Down to the homestead under the fell, We've gathered our hunger upon the hills, And that is well. Howbeit to-morrow gives or takes, And leads to barren or flowering ways, We've a linen cloth and wheaten cakes, For which be praise. Here in the valley at lambing-time The shepherd folk of their watching tell While the shadows up to the beacon climb, And that is well. Let be what may when we make an end Of the laughter and labour of all our days, We've men to friend and women to friend, For whom be praise. IV. EVENSONG (To B. M.) COME, let us tell it over, Each to each by the fireside, How that earth has been a swift adventure for us, And the watches of the day as a gay song and a right song, And now the traveller wind has found a bed, And the sheep crowd under the thorn. Good was the day and our travelling, And now there is evensong to sing. Night, and along the valleys Watch the eyes of the homesteads. The dark hills are very still and still are the stars. Patiently under the ploughlands the wheat moves and the barley. The secret hour of love is upon the sky, And our thought in praise is aflame. Sing evensong as well we may For our travel upon this Sabbath day. 30 A SABBATH DAY 31 Earth, we have known you truly, Heard your mutable music, Have been your lovers and felt the savour of you, And you have quickened in us the blood's fire and the heart's fire, We have wooed and striven with you and made you ours By the strength sprung out of your loins. Lift the latch on its twisted thong, And an end be made of our evensong. V. NIGHT (To H, S. S.) THE barriers of sleep are crossed And I alone am yet awake, Keeping another Pentecost For that new visitation's sake Of life descending on the hills In blackthorn bloom and daffodils. At peace upon my pillow lain I celebrate the spirit come In spring's immutable youth again Across the lands of Christendom, I hear in all the choral host The coming of the Holy Ghost. The sacrament of bough and blade, Of populous folds and building birds I take, till now an end is made Of praise and ceremonial words, And I too turn myself to keep The quiet festival of sleep. March 1913. 32 WARRANTY FULL-SAILED upon imagination's tide, I was as God ; I compassed time and space In one swift glance ; the sorrows on the face Of man scorched through me ; my creation cried For word whereby I should be justified, For news of my most secret thoughts of grace, And then was I afraid in my proud place, Having no word though man was crucified. Then some forgotten virtue that had passed Out of my breath to man flowed back to me, The warrior hope that was his holy bread, And I was patient then and comforted, Knowing that things desired should surely be, That all he sought I must bestow at last. 33 LINES FOR THE OPENING OF THE BIRMINGHAM REPERTORY THEATRE To you good ease, and grace to love us well : To us good ease, and grace some tale to tell Worthy your love. We stand with one consent To plead anew a holy argument For art is holy. We, to whom there falls The charge that men may see within these walls The comely chronicle of comely plays, You, who shall quicken us with blame or praise, Desire alike but this, that here shall spring Such issue of our labour as may bring Fresh laurels to the altars that have known Service of men whose passion might atone For worlds than this more faithless, men whose names Are very life aye, swift and urgent flames Of living are they. These are over us To lighten all our travel : Aeschylus, Euripides, the Sophoclean song, And Aristophanes who captured wrong In nets of laughter, lords of the Attic stage, The fourfold Greek dominion ; and the age 34 BIRMINGHAM THEATRE 35 Of nameless poets when the hope began To quicken from the blood of Everyman Into the splendour of Marlowe's kingly lust Of kingly life, the glory that thieves nor rust Can ever spoil, whose name is manifold Ford, Massinger, Dekker, Webster aureoled With light of hell made holy, Middleton, Chapman, Beaumont and Fletcher, aye, and one Whom even these the lords of beauty's passion Might crown for beauty's high imperial fashion In classic calm of intellectual rule, Ben Jonson. Sirs, I am nor wit nor fool To speak in praise of him whose name is praise, Whose word is on the forehead of the days, Shakespeare, our master tried and proved how well, Mortality's immortal chronicle. Under the warrant of these men we sail, And theirs whose later labour these might hail, Congreve and Otway : the Good-Natured Man, Proud tattered Oliver : Dick Sheridan, Who played at passion but free-born of wit Put scandal out to school and laughed at it ; These few that stand between the golden age When poets made a marvel of the stage 36 BIRMINGHAM THEATRE And do we dare to dream it ? an age that stirred But yesterday, whereof the dawning word, Spoken when Ibsen spake, and here re-set To many tunes on lips untutored yet For speech Olympian, albeit pure of will, Shall ripen into witness that we still Are countrymen of those glad poets dead ; The seed is sown, the barren days are sped. And they who sowed, are sowing ? He, beguiled By who shall say what envious madness, Wilde, Misfortune's moth and laughter's new wing- feather, Remembering now no black despiteful weather : Hankin, and he, the cleanser of our day, Whose art is both a Preface and a Play, And he who pities, as poets have pitied, life Of Justice reft, so driven and torn in Strife, And one who cries in Waste some news of man, And one who finds in the bruised hearts of Nan And Pompey tragic and old yet timeless things : And that dead Playboy, and his peer who sings Yet of Cuchulain by the western sea Of these is sown the seed that yet shall be A heavy-waggoned harvest, masters mine, BIRMINGHAM THEATRE 37 Gathered by men whom now the immoderate wine Of song is making ready. In these walls Look not for that light trickery that falls To death at birth, wrought piecemeal at the will Of apes who seek to ply their mimic skill : Here shall the player work as work he may, Yet shall he work in service of the play. Nor shall you here find pitiful release From life's large pressure, nay, but new increase Of life made urgent by these master-men Who are our captains. Life, and life again Tragic or brave, free-witted, gentle, signed Of beauty's passion or the adventurous mind, Or light as orchard blossom, motley wear But life's wear always that shall be our care And all shall surely follow. What may be Hereafter to the heavens, to us to see No will transgressing on the poet's wish, To you to judge the meat before the dish. May you that watch and we that serve so grow In wisdom as adventuring we go That some unwavering light from us may shine. We have the challenge of the mighty line God grant us grace to give the countersign. THE INVIOLABLE HOUR IF ever you with riches should be bought, And all your life become a little thing, And all the bright adventure of your thought Be curbed ; if time should bring The passionate promise of your youth to naught ; If you should never find the lordly will To stir your beauty to a flame of flowers, If, robed in precious merchandise, you still Are subject to the powers That bruise the grain God sows along the hill ; If you should sell yourself in any wise Save at love's bidding, and so fall to be Life's drudge and outcast, yet, for that your eyes No longer then should see The light that once they borrowed from the skies, 38 THE INVIOLABLE HOUR 39 You went of your own sorrow unaware, Save in swift moments of remembered days When still the stars were tangled in your hair, And all your limbs were praise, And all your movement as a lyric prayer Should it be so, will you remember this, That once a man, who watched your beauty grow, And knew the waxing peril of your kiss, And saw you turn and go, Unweaponed, towards the world's untried abyss, Made in his heart a record that your soul Immortal beauty had, that you were strong To keep the proudest purpose of you whole, To meet the proudest wrong Should look your vagrant spirit to control, Will you remember this ? The days may prove The things alone of little worth in you, You may beguile yourself that life and love, So seared, have had their due, That you in your right constellation move. 40 THE INVIOLABLE HOUR It may be so ; and you may violate The seedling hope sown in a waste of fears, Yet in his thought shall you be consecrate With your immortal peers, Your laughter true, your soul immaculate. LIEGEWOMAN You may not wear immortal leaves Nor yet go laurelled in your days, But he believes Who loves you with most intimate praise That none on earth has ever gone, In whom a cleanlier spirit shone. You may be unremembered when Our chronicles are piled in dust : No matter then None ever bore a lordlier lust To know the savour sweet or sour Down to the dregs of every hour. And this your epitaph shall be " Within life's house her eager words Continually Lightened as wings of arrowy birds : She was life's house- fellow, she knew The passion of him, soul and thew." LOVERS TO LOVERS OUR love forsworn Was very love upon a day ; Bitterness now, forlorn, This tattered love once went as proud a way As any born. You well have kept Your love from all corrupting things, Your house of love is swept And bright for use ; whatso each season brings You may accept In pride. But we ? Our date of love is dead. Our blind Brief moment was to be The sum, yet was it signed as yours, and signed Indelibly. RECKONING I HEARD my love go laughing Beyond the bolted door, I saw my love go riding Across the windy moor, And I would give my love no word Because of evil tales I heard. Let fancy men go laughing, Let light men ride away, Bruised corn is not for my mill, What's paid I will not pay, And so I thought because of this Gossip that poisoned clasp and kiss. Four hundred men went riding, And he the best of all, A jolly man for labour, A sinewy man and tall ; I watched him go beyond the hill, And shaped my anger with my will. 43 44 RECKONING At night my love came riding Across the dusky moor, And other two rode with him Who knocked my bolted door, And called me out and bade me see How quiet a man a man could be. And now the tales that stung me And gave my pride its rule, Are worth a beggar's broken shoe Or the sermon of a fool, And all I know and all I can Is, false or true, he was my man. LORD OF TIME THAT I, some nameless seons hence, May be a god, god fashioning, With stars to break or recompense, Is that so great a thing ? It may be so. Some giant hand May finger me as excellent clay, Till I shall walk a cleaner land In a more urgent day. To the artificer joy. But now Great days and passion of earth I crave, True lips, the red rose of the bough, The white rose of the wave. There are known walls wherein I move In joy no promised joy can veil, And all my mastery of love Is as a fireside tale. The word that shapes a word again, The storied song, the coloured year, 46 LORD OF TIME Laughter and tragic trust of men, And fear that will not fear, That straw that blows about the gate, Those eyes that are my other sight, Of such are builded the estate I know before the night. Life and fierce life and life alone Here upon earth I seek and claim, Till my proud flesh again is thrown To sea and wind and flame. The gods are just ; eternity May gird me for its lordlier clime ; But here, where time encircles me, I am a lord of time. CROMWELL TO FREDERIC HARRISON CROMWELL PROLOGUE To shape in song a perishable theme, Though cunning be the craft and richly wrought The utterance in swift and chiming speech, May not avail against assaulting time ; High words, and curious skill, the golden stars Set by the singer round about the song, Shall crumble with the house wherein they serve; Clothing mortality, they too shall pass And go the way of unremembered things, Sending no marvellous beauty through the world. Then be my song of memorable days, That so, albeit of its proper power It gathers up no unassembled strains Of fugitive wonder far from common ears Withdrawn, nor shapes the bodiless things of dream, It may go proudly chartered of the pride And large heroic fates whereof it sings. 49 50 PROLOGUE Of stern and memorable days and men ; Of that far hour when Europe heard the sound Of this our England crying in the dark Against the tyrannous humour in her blood, The dark abomination that was borne At her own breast, the fanged and evil menace, When peril made the daily loves of men Careful and cunning, and a sword was set Upon the threshold, yea, upon the hearth, And many houses were divided. When A rumour ran from Cornwall on to Kent, Across the fens to Tweed, by wold and moor, Down to the Severn marches and the sea, Of a risen might and a sword and a rusting sheath. Of these my song. And of the will of God Creating in the heart of one a fire Unquenchable beneath the dust of time ; Of one who watched the shadows folding in All beautiful goings in the lives of men, And heard the arrogant mastery on the lips Of spoilers of the spirit's husbandry, Yet gave no witness of his vigil, kept His simple way among a simple folk Where Ely's tower tops the level lands Until the middle-watches of his day, Then answered God, stept out with soul aflame, PROLOGUE 51 Sword-girt and consecrate, to hurl abroad The thunders of a people newly clad In armour forged in humble, holy fires, Their brows bared to the dawn, exultant, free. THE FIRST INTERLUDE OF THE LEA YEN SHALL the holy of earth make earth as a fruitful field With nothing barren, a treasure unspoiled of tares? Shall a leaven of godlike leaders, pitiful, steeled, Bring heaven to earth untimely and unawares ? The song of the surest singer, the lordliest might Of the chosen hero, the scars of the strictest rod, The witness borne of the purest anchorite Shall they hasten by one brief day the coming of God? Since man was man, and battled and loved and died, And sinned and bowed in repentance and rose redeemed, Have starrier heights laughed back to his laugh- ing pride Does he dream a comelier thing than once he dreamed ? 52 OF THE LEAVEN 53 Song being new, is Homer yet outsung What sword than Sigurd's yet of holier worth For Plato's word what new prophetic tongue What Nazareth has seen what lovelier birth ? We are fierce in love, but as dust in the dead years are Forgotten Davids, Antonies fierce as we, We set a chart to the worlds between star and star, Yet Drake went out to the foam of a stranger sea. Not stouter our arms than the forthright arms of our sires, Our orchards of dream not richer in scarlet and gold, Our hearts are tempered in immemorial fires, We are brute and god as the brute and god of old ; So be it. Yet the eager and fearless hand, The searching word and the clean and naked rhyme, Heroic kisses of passion, by these withstand Our mountain altars the weariless winds of time. Earth we may know, but of heaven no more than the cloud Of marvellous light that veils the ultimate shrine, 54 OF THE LEAVEN Yet we who would bear us rejoicing, cry ing aloud " We inherit the earth, and are worthy, Lord, of our line," Have need of the dreamers who bear to the market-place Tidings of heaven, that we re-born at the birth Of the vision of heavenly beauty and holy grace May cherish anew the holy beauty of earth. We are men, and godhead is far, and it shall not be That men as gods without flaw shall travel to death, Yet a rumour of stars is with us, the light of a sea No ship has ventured, the savour of holier breath Than any of love most lovely, and well we need The Titans of men, the prophets of golden tongue, That man may labour his season as man indeed, Signed of the urgent will that the years have sung. THE CALL NEWS out of London town. So the king calls His commons up again. The twilight falls Over the eastland counties, and he stands, Hearing the corncrakes call across his lands, Oliver Cromwell, fiery-souled, clear-souled, And looks upon the night-tide aureoled With rings of palest silver. And aloud The wrongs of England smote his ears, the proud Complaint of patriot martyrs, and the cry Of mercy crushed, of right and love set by As common bawds, he saw the pitiful face Of life dishonoured in the market-place. Oliver Cromwell, keeper of the gate Of one proud temple yet inviolate, Looked upward to the stars and prayed that then He might not be unworthy among men To serve, if so to service God should call His arm and spirit. Let the word but fall, And he would dedicate unto the Lord The terrible arc of one great flaming sword. 55 56 THE CALL " O God, there is about the land a thing Not cleanly ; we, Thy daily bread who taste, Are but unworthy labourers, we waste Thy treasure, Lord, and Thy compassioning. Thy hand has given us most holy place, Yet are Thy judgments put aside, unheard ; The whirlwind scatters north and south Thy word Into the dust, and hidden is Thy face. Forgive us, Lord, and teach us ; let Thy light Shine out upon us. And, O Lord, if now Thy summons is to me to set my brow Unto Thy battles, I, albeit slight And weak as chaff before the thresher's flail, Am yet Thy servant. In Thy house are met Unrighteous men and faithless, and they set In bonds Thy children. Lord, might I avail But as the meanest of the men whose laws Are Thine alone, Thy peace their sole estate, My sword, my will, my love are consecrate Unto Thy cause, my God, unto Thy cause." THE SECOND INTERLUDE OF OUR WORSHIP PRAISING the great, what is it that we praise ? Arrows of secret aim ; the shaft of toil, Winged with the fugitive loveliness of days, Barbed with the tragic jealousies that soil Love's clean account. And such indeed are we, Only the archer drew a weaker string, Driving us forth upon the day to be Duller of edge, less beautiful of wing. We also toil, but with a lowlier skill, We cherish beauty, from a lowlier gate, We love and loathe as they, but is our will Paler to love, less terrible to hate. We are the shadows cast of these we praise, They are the slumbering giants in us freed, Bidding us on to unattempted ways. Praising the great we praise our hidden seed. 57 THE COMING How marvellous the weaving of the loom In the habitation of the God of days. How are we blind upon our pilgrimage Who cry aloud that we too read the skies With wisdom, being heritors of all The garnered understanding of the world. Surely the loom now fashions in this wise Or that, and when it throws the woven web Down to our twilight corner it will bear This shape or that, so patterned, and the gold Will flash upon those fringes, and on these The shining colours surely will be set Surely it will be so. Through clamorous years Men beat their souls out on the relentless iron, All charitable things to chaos fall, All issues are perplexed, all purpose dimmed, And supplicating hands go up against They know not what of peril. Out of peace Comes menace and confusion ; through the land Men labour in fear and walk by sceptred dread, And all the world cries out for some tried hand, Some spirit tempered in the councils of men 58 THE COMING 59 To speak aright and bring deliverance. The cry goes up, and, moving from the ranks Of troubled watch, comes one with brows knit up With two score years of labour on the earth, Oliver Cromwell, fiery-souled, clear-souled, A ploughshare handle fashioning to a hilt. O place of man, high on the windy scar That o'ertops desolation and the void ; O heart of man that knoweth not the end Of all thy pride though fiery witnesses Are all about thee loud in prophecy ; O harpers that are harping in our ears, What are the secret issues of your song ? Charles, King of England by the grace of God, Charles, King of England and God's finger moves. THE THIRD INTERLUDE OF THE CAPTAINS AND these who search with so undaunted eyes The secret terrible fastness of the skies, Enduring even the sun, How fare they, reconceiving paradise ? Love for the blind who follow do they bear, Pity, desire that here or otherwhere Worthily may be won By men who drudge the praise of men who dare. " Compassion of the chosen of the days Leaven with hope the vigil that in ways Of driven dust we keep ; We can bestow the oil, the urn, the bays, These only on your service. Yet we know That you, chosen, mightily will go Into the folds of sleep, Not measuring the little we bestow." 60 OF THE CAPTAINS 61 And, eager for love's communion, nevertheless The chosen labour on in loneliness, Knowing that we not yet, Being weak, may stand beside them in the press. And they are sorrowful that we, being born Most worthy for love's use, the proudest thorn That on love's brow is set, Are worthy still the baser things of scorn. They labour far, but know not of the end, Whether the labour is well-wrought, or bend The issues to their will, Or shall they one day call the master, Friend. They turn to us, our willing lips are weak, They turn to him, he will in nowise speak, So, lonely labourers still, They break the earth, and sow, and daily seek Signs of the hidden harvest, and they scan Those great immobile skies, and pray and plan Towards the unshaped desire, The unabashed and fervent dream of man. And they are proud, these chosen, they are proud, Being most like gods among us, and endowed With the great tongues of fire, And fearing nought of battle-scathe or cloud 62 OF THE CAPTAINS Hell-fostered, or the menace of the night ; Stricken, they bow not, neither turn to flight, Till death shall silence all They are the holy legionaries of light. And they are glad. Let all the firmament Proclaim their will, or be their will misspent And into ruin fall, Their trust is unbetrayed : they are content. EDGEHILL AMONG the gold and scarlet of the year, Their horses crushing fallen leaves and husks Of beech and chestnut and the sapless cups Of acorns down into the sodden earth, A coloured host went down the Warwick lanes, With laughing faces set for London town. In shining panoply and waving plume, With pike and burnished musket, jewelled hilt And graven scabbard, crusted broidery, Pennon and standard floating on the day, And precious housings wrought with curious care, Moved on the battled ranks of Charles the king. In the king's counsel gathered gentle hearts, Not loving change, fearing the portents tossed About the land, heirs of an ancient tale ; And fiery captains seeking not the truth, Not asking aught of cause or circumstance, Mere comets curbless in the skies of war ; And with them fawning tricksters climbing up The stairs of chance ; and simple gentlemen Who stood among the legions of the king, 63 64 EDGEHILL For that they were the king's. In level rows All girt and furnished for the cannonade Or arm-length grapple or wide-flung assault Followed the ranks of chartered soldiery, High-hearted, fearless, ripe in all the rule And grammar of war, yet in their souls no fire Of passion spun into an arrowy light. And master of all, anointed of the Lord, Divinely chosen, setting on his will The sign of proud and unassailable right, Abiding nought of question among men, Rode Charles the king, dreamer of twisted dreams, Hearing all counsels, speaking all men fair, Prey to all bidders for a kingly pledge, Yet governed ever by one sovran rule The tattered sway of his own motley heart. Laughter and jest and lusty ballad tunes, And sound of sound begotten broke the hush That lay, on that grey Sabbath afternoon, Along the hills of Warwick oak, and set A peace about the valleys. Lightly rode The legions of the king for London town. And, moving in their tracks down Warwick lanes As a great silent shadow, came a host EDGEHILL 65 With sheathless rusted swords and rough-hewn pikes And age-worn armour, tattered troops intent On what might fall from fortune's careless hand ; Yet in their ranks a knightly leaven moved, A little band scattered from flank to flank Of stern-faced men untempered to the cry Of battle and the process of the field, Rude zealots stung by seasons of slow pain, And desecration at their cottage gates, And chartered spoilers waiting on their days, Into a silent lifting of the sword And a great oath before the God of wars That these things should not be. Their iron wills Curbed all the restless ranks ; they were the seed Wherefrom should spring a miracle of days, A wonder to the peoples of the earth ; And now they gathered in, swift mile by mile, Upon the laughing legions of the king, As a great shadow out of Warwick lanes. As they drew on, went sounding through the mind Of one stout captain there the branded tale That was recorded in the rolls of heaven E 66 EDGEHILL Against this curled and pale antagonist. Oliver Cromwell, leader of a few Untainted men fostered among the fens, And stalwart in allegiance to their God, Sifted the harvest of the turbulent years That lay behind him in that chosen hour Through the fine meshes of his single heart, And gathered for his sacred fostering A pure clear-tempered wrath. He heard again The cries of righteous men bowed down in shame When shame was nothing due ; he heard the laws Shaped not of heaven but of worldly priests Shouted along the holy aisles ; he saw The fruits of labour wrested from the hands That had grown old in tending ; and he felt The whips that a king hired to scar the flesh Of strong men seeking but to set aloft Bare witness that a man bore on his brow Some token of his kinship to the starg. Night fell upon the shock of arms opposed By brother's hand to brother ; fortune ran Arm-linked with loss, with equal favours flung To king's men and their foes ; grey shrouds of death Flamed sudden into robes of victory ; EDGEHILL 67 Men left their fellows flung to desperate flight To plunge in headlong passage through the ranks Of stricken opposites ; here triumph sang And here cried desolation from one host. And all the issue of that Sabbath tale Was an uncertain rumour. And the stars Shone over the hushed woods and stubbled fields, Where lay in everlasting vigil rapt Four thousand heritors of English names, Now gathered to death's garners, thin first-fruits Of the full harvest drawing to its time. Dawn over Warwick hills and Warwick lanes, And through the dawn the legions of the king Still set for London town, no laughter now Upon their lips, and dust upon their plumes. And gathered still as a great shadow set In tireless watch the iron-hearted men Whose hands were yet untempered to the sword. And Cromwell spoke to Hampden, knowing well How their deep purpose should not break to bloom Until their cause was winnowed of the chaff And all their holy weaponry was purged. ' Your troops may stand not, knowing not the cause, 68 EDGEHILL Vainglory in their hearts, their arms not steeled By thrifty days of service before God, Servants to whomso bids at hiring-time, Mere passionless brawlers, drift upon the deeps Of purifying wrath ; and they are set Against a might of men whose hearts are fired With resolution born of ancient blood Drawn from the veins of sires whose eyes have met Great clouds of alien spears unterrified. In us must move a spirit finely wrought As theirs, and breeding blows of equal might. They brave all circumstance with shields whereon Are graven boasts that are their heritage ; Upon our shields we must emblazon then A pledge yet prouder ; we must march to death Sworn legions of the living God of days." And Hampden doubted ; but in Cromwell then No question might have home ; he went his way, Not seeking how this hope or that should be Shaped to its end, unheeding any word Of clouded issues, with a will that knew No shape of peril standing in the ways Whereto his face was set, his being vowed Unto the day of full accomplishment. THE GATHERING OF THE IRONSIDES FROM the north to the south he travelled, and out to the east and west, And cried as a fiery prophet in lands where the heathen rest, " The God of battles calls you, and the service of God is best." Through the shades of the Essex woodlands, along by the Suffolk sea, ' And over the fens of Lincoln and little towns that be As grey gems set in Huntingdon, crying aloud went he. Across the moors of Norfolk, by windy common and spire, As a summons out of the heavens from sleep- ing shire to shire, This man went seeking, seeking, the men of his desire. 70 GATHERING OF THE IRONSIDES " We seek the men who seek the Lord, we seek the men who bear Within their hearts some conscience in the thing that's now to dare, Who ask alone to serve, and let the guerdon be God's care." And men who smote the anvil and men who drave the plough, And men who fostered well the fruits of tilth and orchard-bough, Stopped as they heard, and girt good swords about them with a vow That the word of this man should prosper. From seaboard and from fen, From woodland home and market-place the call was answered when It rang across the counties for iron-hearted men. And now the marshalled armies who ride for Charles the king Shall tighten rein and think of death as of a present thing When down the lanes of battle the armoured Ironsides ring. MARSTON MOOR No sun across the moors ; the rolling sound Of thunder, and the gleam of driven rain Upon the little leaves. The king's men wait Now songless on the plain, and wait the men Who no more bend in homage to the king, Where the plain breaks into a long low hill, Standing in silent watch among tall corn That mellows to a bloody harvesting. Hours pass, and ever grows the far-flung gloom, And massed above them gathers cloud on cloud. Another thunder breaks, a sullen threat Half-spoken of the cannon, and a threat Thrown back, and silence over all again. The full day wanes, full day of the full year, And through the ragged storm-spent western sky The sun flames out, throwing from pikes ranged up Like a long fence and painted standard-poles Long shadows out across the dusky moor. Then sudden from the watchers in the corn 72 MARSTON MOOR Goes up a loud deep-throated chant, and then A little time again no sound. The light Of evening falls in benediction calm, And the king's leaders turn to lay them down From their long vigil. Once again goes up The measured psalmody, and then a cry As Cromwell leads four thousand chosen men Turning nowise to right or left, straight on Into the shining flower of Rupert's lines. One moment locked in silent dread embrace They sway in doubtful issue, then as hail Driven before the unleashed winds of God They break and scatter, and along the moors The van of Cromwell's chosen sends them forth In bloody ruin to the gates of York. Yet here alone was any presage seen That on that day the people should prevail. As Cromwell saw the laughing chivalry Of Rupert plunged in flight, he saw the lines That were the hope of English freedom flung From centre on to wing in utter rout. He saw the Scots sucked into slaughter's pool And Fairfax crushed, and, leader of the host, The gentle Manchester in disarray Driven along relentless lanes of death. And through the mind of Cromwell instant then Flashed all confusion into perfect light And victoried order. Of four thousand men MARSTON MOOR 73 He called on all not levied in pursuit And as a mighty torrent led them on Against the exultant legions of the king. And all the tide of battle was set back, And curses rang along the summer dusk As king's men shouting cries of victory Beheld this sudden peril in their path, And, holding in dismay, were broken down And crushed as grain between the grinding stones. Till night the slaughter waxed. Across the moor As silent ghosts they flickered through the dusk, Avengers and the stricken of their wrath. With wide resistless sweep the flaming sword, Swung down the sky as by one single might, Struck into desolation all the host Of Charles the king that day on Marston Moor, And winnowed to the service of the cause Were all the regions of the northern hills. And Cromwell on that night knelt before God, And offered up thanksgiving for this thing. " O Lord, our English land and Thy true Church In this have had great mercy. Thou didst make These men to-day as stubble to our swords. On all men gathered in to-day to Thee 74 MARSTON MOOR Thy pity, Lord, be plentiful. On those Who yet are bidden to Thy vineyards here Send down Thy light, and faith for armoury. Strengthen us in Thy service, let us keep Pure hearts and undefiled, and bind us up In Thy most loving kindness evermore." So, as the word is written that if two Or three should meet together in God's name They shall not ask in vain, and that the faith Of one may move great mountains, so the sons Of light, who are a little eager band Moulding and weaving in the obscure world, So work among the myriad lives of men Until their secret vision is fulfilled, And the large hopes that first are bodied forth As dreams in their imagined voyaging Are slowly forged through all the multitudes Into a durable monument of deeds. So, when this little sea-locked northern land, That now, albeit still much wronged and scarred With dark abomination, yet is set High on the windy front of all the world As the strong home of men whose torch is borne In whatso wise they will, was once the haunt Of men who soiled the plumes of liberty MARSTON MOOR 75 In dust and set a seal on freedom's lips, One dreamed a dream, and of his dream there sprang Dreams otherwhere, and in due season grew From that same dream a purpose, and a fire To set a passion over all the land. AN IDYLL WHILE dawn flashed over those pale hosts Locked in their everlasting sleep On Marston Moor, and dew was deep On beard and blade, as quiet ghosts Among the slain, with eyes intent Grave men in holy office went. Along the fringes of the field Poor human jackals watched their prey. No sound was heard along the day Save the thin clank of arms unsealed From their last service, and the fall Of solemn words of burial. Till on that quiet company Of ghosted men, whose debt was paid To earth and the long reckoning made, There fell from woeful lips a cry, As one who sought love's ruined gauge Paused in her tragic pilgrimage, 76 AN IDYLL 77 And stooped in fear to that she knew, And let her slender fingers move Curls that her lips were wont in love To kiss, now wet with blood and dew, Their treasured gold all splashed with red, And smoothed them back, and knew her dead. To God one witless pitiful call That this so certain thing might yet Be cancelled ; then about her set Relentless walls to prison all Her being. And in that full tide Of sorrow one stood by her side Booted and spurred, with eyes uneased Of sleep, and leathern jacket stained, His face scarred deep with knowledge gained In fiery courses God had pleased, And asked her of her trouble, mild As one would ask a little child. She told him of the goodly pride Of yester-noon, when he so proud, So loving proud, had gone unbowed To serve his king in battle-tide, She told him of the words of cheer That he had set against her fear ; 78 AN IDYLL Of all his promises unpaid That he would hold her yet again Warm lip to lip and now the stain Of death was on those lips, the blade Was broken and the brow was cold This thing and that again she told In garrulous wise. In Cromwell then An infinite compassion stirred And shook his being as he heard, Well knowing, ere the will of men Should straighten to the will of God How hard the road was to be trod ; How many thousand hearts of love Should redden all the ways wheredown The hosts of freedom to their crown Set far along the days must move, How hard the road, how long the night, The washing of the tears, how white. A quiet man mid quiet men He was ; he took her from the place, Not courtly was his hand, no grace Of word mocked consolation then, Yet as he helped her helplessness A strong and wonderful gentleness AN IDYLL 79 Was on him. And he bade one lead Her out beyond that visible woe. She went, nor knew his name who so Had visited her hour of need. The Lord's hand wearies not. Who knows What field shall bear the Master's rose ? NASEBY GATHERED at Naseby in Northamptonshire In the swart glory of barbaric June Ten thousand stubborn men, marshalled at dawn By Thomas Fairfax, watch as for good news. To-day the thumbs of fate are up or down Upon no sport or chance unchronicled. To-day will count among all English days As that whereon the men from croft and stead, From market-place and mill, from forge and loom, Met after days of discipline and prayer To try before the eternal assize of God, Beyond appeal, the issue laid between The people and the unjust stewards on earth. To-day shall many a hero go to death Leaving on earth no monumented name, No story for his children save the word " He fought at Naseby in Northamptonshire." To-day, come life or death, shall be set up Among the shining annals of the world For some swift moments in the waste of time so NASEBY 81 When in a corner of the English land, Scarce known erewhile to neighbour eyes, there rang A challenge that should echo down the years, Mount up to heaven, measure continents, And be as a great beacon lifted up Above the hosts who should for ever march Burdened with many sins and faiths forsworn Yet loyal to one untainted sacred cause, The freedom of the soul. Yea, from this day All men who set their wills to loosen bonds, Grow holy in revolt, break idols down Exalted by the priests of tyranny, Shall think again, as they go singing on To fearless battle, of the men who fight To-day at Naseby in Northamptonshire. Along the ranks of Charles the king there passed Gibe and chatter of scorn. These motley men Taken from trade and craft, from plough and pen, Who when the seedman moved down furrowed fields But some short months gone by had heard no sound Of blade on blade, or gathered aught of war Save in old legends and in travellers' tales F 82 NASEBY To stand in arms against the chosen bands Of king's men led by captains tried and proved ! Well may they laugh who fight for Charles the king. And, while they laughed, these quiet ten thousand men Looked through the dawn as looking for good news. For yesternight had Thomas Fairfax sent One haste post-haste with this to Westminster " Though by your orders none may serve afield Who is among you in debate, I pray That you not blindly hold by this resolve Against our urgent imminent need. In short, We wait upon a day when shall be weighed This matter to the scruple of a grain. Our horsemen, sirs, are brave, their arms are knit To smite and spare not, but we look for one To lead them out as once at Marston Moor He led. I pray you send upon this word Oliver Cromwell down to Naseby field." Six in the morning ; all the level lands Shimmered in wonder of may-bloom, and bright stars About the meadows, and cool folds of green Broidered with blossoms waking to the sun, NASEBY 83 Lord of the eastern sky where was no cloud. Full bounty of summer girdled the good earth That dawn-tide as they watched. Then sudden lit Their eyes with laughter, for good tidings came In a far cloud of dust along the road Out of the fenland shires. Great cries went up Full-throated from ten thousand heartened men, As out of the dust rolled a long thunder of hoofs, And scabbard and plate and helm that shone in the sun Grew visible and faces stern yet glad, And Cromwell with six hundred Ironsides rode Along the marshalled lines at Naseby field. And straight he saw move on towards them there In ordered march, line justly knit to line, An equal host of armoured soldiery Captained by Charles, in nothing unequipped For any chance of battle. On their tongues The word was " Mary," chosen by the king, Remembering the woman whom he loved Too blindly well ; and from the people's ranks An opposing cry, " God with us," smote the day. 84 NASEBY Then swiftly Fairfax shaped with Cromwell there The order of their battle. On one flank, Opposing Rupert, Ireton led his horse, Ireton who left his homestead by the Trent In Attenborough, hard by Nottingham, To press his country's battle and his God's. Along the centre facing equal strength Of king's men and so furnished, pike-men moved And musketeers and sworded soldiery Welded on foot. And on the other flank Against the sullen horsemen from the north, Who bore the king's arms for a bargained wage, Rode Cromwell with his chosen, who were sworn And fiery servants of the Lord of hosts. So patterned was that field. The centres locked And strove, with death a dreadful arbiter, Till the king's men with unrelenting stroke Drove back their foes. Not lightly did they yield, Those stubborn men-at-arms ; each foot they gave Was as the yielding of hewn seasoned oak To the smith's driven bolt, yet all their pride NASEBY 85 Of purpose was as naught. Through Ireton's line The swords of Rupert flickered to and fro And rose and fell in ghostly winnowing, And here as at the centre peril grew To havoc and destruction and long flight, And battle prospered here for Charles the king. But in that hour when exultation rose In a great shout along the prevailing ranks A sudden blast smote back the waves of war, As once it had so smitten on the day Of Marston field. As a dread vengeance hurled By God's right hand the men of Cromwell swept Unscathed among their massed antagonists And crushed them into ruin, wheeled about And while their solemn battle-cry rang up " God with us God be with us on this day The God of battles " back they rolled, their line Unbroken and their purpose newly steeled, And on the victors in those farther ranks They fell as men not armed with earthly arms, And wrote the issue, word on blinding word, Of Naseby battle, till the noon-day sun Looked down upon the legions of the king Scattered and stark, a memory no more. 86 NASEBY And of that day spoke Cromwell in these words " I can say this of Naseby, when I saw The enemy come on in ordered march Towards us, gallant, armed and captained well, And we a poor unlettered company, I, moving then to shape as best I might Our men for battle, could but smile to God Praising Him in my heart, and knowing then That His hand would be with us on that day, Because it is His holy way to bring To naught the things that are, and magnify The things that are not. We, a company Ignorant of many things, yet rode that day Most wise of God's good rule. They laughed at us, Those soldiers of the king, and laughing so They laughed at God, and God's hand smote them there." That night one rode to Westminster with this " Here is God's work to God alone the praise. Your general 1 in this matter served you well, Yet would he perish rather than assign Unto himself the glory which is God's. And honest men drew swords for you to-day ; Sir, I beseech you, hinder them in naught That may for ever set upon their hearths The liberty whereto they spend their blood, 1 Fairfax. NASEBY 87 And lead them to the threshold of their God, Denied by no man. And in this he rests Who is your servant humbly in this thing, Oliver Cromwell." Thence from day to day About the land in siege and blinding storm His hand was put to breaking what might be Yet whole in sworn allegiance to the king, Until the end, until the pitiful end. As once along the Gadarean steeps One crying up and down in torment ran Stricken of unclean spirits, and the Lord In mercy cast the devils to the sea Nowise in hate, not using heavenly might For aught save pity that this man should be First cleansed and so should nurture through his days An upright heart and pure, and build at last A new and blameless city in his soul, So now God worked through Cromwell in that day To purge the body of this English land Of hosts unholy, that thenceforth should rise A shining state, re-fashioned on the dust And ruin of a dead, dishonoured tale. THE FOURTH INTERLUDE OF WAR THE strength of your arm that is lifted to break The delight of your equals in dust, man, Does it strike for the men who lamenting make The dead man grieve for the quick man's sake, For the hope that was sown when the years began Of love that is yet to wake ? Is death but a sound of the travelling wind, But a sound that is spent between shore and shore ? Is it this, man, as you battle to find, Be the cost as it may, the unclouded mind That is shamed of the debt denied no more Of man to his stricken kind ? For one who in beauty is mighty to shine, A beacon above your ways, for decrees Forsworn, for a broken countersign, For a birthright mocked, for a ruined shrine, To-day do you ride, man, for these, A lord of the battle-line ? OF WAR 89 Then thus it is well ; you are quitted and made One with the lords constrained to fight Since wrong so wills, till the day shall fade, If the day shall dawn, when, last arrayed For death maybe, the legions of light Shall ride to the last crusade. But hired of an alien will do you ride On a foe unloathed for a shameful wage, Do you traffic in death as a trade, divide The spoils of the weak, and the weak deride, And, faring no more as on pilgrimage, Cast out love's self, denied So signed is your cause ? Do you dare to steer So rotten a ship on so stern a stream ? Do you think that the love betrayed will fear The bought array of your fighting-gear ? Will you mock the skies and the gods blas- pheme ? So be it. The gods will hear. THE ENTRY INTO LONDON ALONG the streets of London town Full twenty thousand men go down In fighting gear and with faces beaten To little of laughter in battle's frown. They see the woeful threshing-floor Of Naseby field and Marston Moor, And the driven flail of the God of battles, And the dust about the homeland door. These things they see, these things alone, And the people watch, and the thing is known That long had lain as a treasure hidden Under the wedged and trodden stone. Of holy heart and blameless hand These men had borne along the land The sword that shattered the hosts that wasted The things of truth as a little sand. 90 THE ENTRY INTO LONDON 91 And now the day, and now the day Whereon these men alone should weigh The issue, measuring not in anger, Yet sworn to strike as goodmen may. And well the curled king may frown And well the queen in her scented gown, For twenty thousand men are marching Along the streets of London town. JUDGMENT ETERNAL righteousness that brood' st above Man's travel in the world, O leaven dear, Working among the congregations met In so brief conflict, bidding all great sins, All pain and desolation, tyrannous grief, Desires uncrowned yet holy, all sad things Bow down before th' immortal circumstance Of pity's sovran rule and cry aloud That over all the sorrows of the world Begotten out of error, still supreme In men is beauty of compassionate law, How yet will one in blindness lift his hand Against thy purpose and most high decree. This king of men, this puppet of the days, This twig set high among the winds of the world, This fool of time, so fostered in his heart This most vain thing. Might not a man so play With words and juggle thus with circumstance, And smile to north and south, turn many tunes To please all fancies, season all with craft, JUDGMENT 93 And trick at last the will of things that are ? Might not one mummer soul set back the hands That hold the everlasting mastery ? So dreamed the king, and now relentless dawn Broke on the dream, dawn and the terrible day. " Vouchsafe us but this latest mercy, Lord, And he whose hand has driven bolts of war In pitiless confusion through the land Shall answer all." So had the words gone up From twenty thousand hearts on Preston field. And now the mercy had been shown, and now The might was given, and the answer now Should not be lightly proven. Charles the king, When London streets were grey with winter's blade And powdered snow was driven along the stones, Into the Hall of Westminster was led, And faced his judges. Blood and terrible days, And ghosted kinsmen, violated oaths, And sacred things denied, and hearts debased From high and urgent longing towards God These rose between accusers and accused, Between the stern and battle-proven men Who sat in the high seats at Westminster 94 JUDGMENT And Charles, who stood with folded arms, and plume Falling unshaken over comely curls, And spake with calm that never had he known In the long days of craft and cunning toil " What right have you in this ? What privilege Has fallen on you now to try a king ? You bid me answer this or that, you cry For due account, you measure up my days, You question God's anointed. By what right ? " His judges answered not, but through the Hall Rang cries and curses from the soldiery, Calling for justice on the traitor's head, Wild curses born of fury prisoned up Through days of peril and bloody sacrifice. Then silence over all, and slowly then The accusation fell from passionate lips, Quiet with great strength, not labouring any word, Not fashioned of revenge, set above hate, Untouched of pity, as some issue wrought Indifferently by unrelenting hands Not cast in mortal mould. " This king of men Has soiled his holy office, and betrayed The trust of all his people. He has slain His own, and put the word of God to shame. JUDGMENT 95 The sceptre that is sacred unto peace Has been in this man's hand a bloody mace Of tyrannous usage. He has broken oath. He has been steadfast not in word or deed. He took the high king's crown, the sign and pledge Of sovran love, and put it out to use To glut the scullion fancy of a day. To his great place and his renowned name He has been false. We name him in this hour, Charles, traitor to his people." And the king Neither denial made nor any plea, As still one desperate answer " By what right ? " Fell from his lips, as from the errant lips Of captives to inscrutable circumstance Since chaos trembled into marvellous law. Three days the torches flared along the Hall, And the wind moaned and drave great clouds of snow Against the fretted windows, and the stones Rang as tuned iron beneath the tread of men Passing along the streets with wondering eyes Fixed on the storied walls wherein was held This council dread. Three grey and terrible days Words moulded words and purpose purpose shaped, 96 JUDGMENT And then the bidding " You have heard what thing Is charged against this man. All words are said, The cause is tried. To judgment you are called." Hushed were the judges then ; the men-at-arms Stood motionless as graven soldiery In some old woven fable, and no sound Was heard save winter's trouble in the air. Then one spake slowly, " Do you here pro- nounce Charles King of England traitor to the land, Forsworn, a sinner guilty unto death ? " They rose. A moment passed. And then the word Fell naked on eternity " We do." In Whitehall Cromwell waits, and with him there Ireton and Fairfax, watching to the end Of this so tragic shaping of their hands ; A sound of muffled feet and swinging gates, A figure curled and pale between his guards, A falling cloak, a murmur of ghostly words, A hush, and one swift flashing of an axe. In Windsor aisle, between the carven seats, There is a stone whereon no legend runs Save the unhappy name of Charles the king. THE FIFTH INTERLUDE OF TYRANNY SUPPLICATING hands, bewildered eyes, Lips bloody with reiterated cries, What word of ours may profit you, what blame Cast on your spoilers may redeem your name, Or heal in anywise Your bodies scarred, your spirits bruised in shame ? Our pity as our succour shall abate No whit of all your sorrow, your estate Shall be among the dust to fall and bleed ; Tormenting, they shall take not any heed, Who spend not even their hate, Of wrath of ours begotten of your need. They use you thus, they break you to their wills, You are but corn crushed in their fortressed mills ; They sin, but, men, they do not sin alone, You also sin whose lives are overthrown, Whose patient pleading fills One interlude and then no more is known. 97 98 OF TYRANNY His hand who wrongs you does no deeper wrong Than his who seeks not, albeit weak or strong, To stay the tyrannous soilure, and of none Save you who sorrow may this thing be done, Nor shall your sword and song Save by your arm and lips salute the sun. Deliverers are there none but you so bowed, Nor might to humble these so basely proud, None other may redeem you and release Your fettered limbs or bid your shame to cease ; Cry not to us aloud, Compassion may we bring you, but not peace. By these things suffered in your fatherland, By Milton's word and Cromwell's winnowing hand, By your green ways and shining leagues of foam, By England's name, by Athens and by Rome Let tyrants bear their brand, Rise up and strike your spoilers and strike home. THE THIRD OF SEPTEMBER I 1650 DUNBAR SODDEN the sheaves and pale the light of the moon, Watery-pale in the driven rainy wrack, And the wind in the Dunbar hills is piping a tune Of battle and death and love and the lover's lack. And they gird themselves in the dawn who will fight again, Breaking the peace of the day for the days to be, And the wrath of God shall quicken the wrath of men Beneath the hills that look to the northern sea. 99 ioo THE THIRD OF SEPTEMBER "The Lord of Hosts!" and the word is spoken well As among the soaked and yellow shocks they sweep. And Dunbar town shall have a tale to tell, And Dunbar day shall be a day to keep. Stricken the blow ; the shafted golden light Breaks through the mellow mists of autumn- tide As Cromwell's chosen scatter into flight The antagonists of love and lords of pride. And mid the roar of ruin Cromwell cries On all his people and exhorts them there To echo through the temple of the skies Glad words of praise and humble words of prayer. Rank upon rank drawn under the cloudy hill They offer to God the words that for God were sung, Ironside men of the iron fighting will, Of mighty sworded arm and boastless tongue THE THIRD OF SEPTEMBER 101 praise the Lord, all ye nations : Praise Him, all ye people. For His merciful kindness is great towards us : And the truth of the Lord endureth for ever. Praise ye the Lord. II 1651 WORCESTER THE Severn tide swings up and down From the great sea by town and town, And where the tower of Worcester stands Among the loaded orchard-lands, As holy news for ever set Above the Severn tide, are met At their last battle-tryst the men Who came from moor and misty fen At the call of a man who cried aloud That the Lord of Hosts was riding. One furrow more and the field is ploughed, And the Ironsides are riding. From dawn along the day to night On Worcester walls is bent the might Of men whose battle never failed, And Worcester walls are scarred and scaled. THE THIRD OF SEPTEMBER 103 And never more the men, whose name Is writ with theirs who bore the flame High in the desolate Trojan days, Shall break upon the battle ways As driven hail and thunder. The deeds are wrought, and won the praise And the immortal wonder. The stars look out on Worcester town, On Severn tide the stars look down, From orchard bough and sickled corn Sweet scents of the full year are borne To men who watch and men who sleep And men whose rest is over-deep. Had Cromwell prayed, " Now show us, Lord, The crowning mercy of Thy sword." The crowning mercy is bequeathed By God. The Ironside sword is sheathed. Ill 1658 WHITEHALL Chorus of Desires. In love or in scorn did He build us, and quicken our breath ? Dreaming of wonderful life, did He dream of death ? Does He lead man into the night foreknowing the end ? Does death defy Him at last, or is death His friend ? Chorus of Reasons. Tis given to man to live, but nothing to know Of the secret ways whereto he shall surely go. Yet, knowing nothing, to dare, and, being blind, To know not fear that is the comely mind, 104 THE THIRD OF SEPTEMBER 105 That is the doom of man and the high renown, The scourge and travelling staff and the starry crown ; He falls in the press when the long day's fight is done And knows not whether the battle be lost or won. Cromwell. Thy loving-kindness has been great, And great Thy blessing of the sword, Thy hand has prospered my estate, I was not worthy, Lord. My service has been sanctified In Thine acceptance, and I come Into Thy courts unterrified, Taking them for my home. Not any worth of mine I trust, Nor love that I have given Thee, But Thy sweet spirit in my dust, Thy love that is in me. The world is moving far away, The battle cries, the long desire, The trouble of my little day, And the consuming fire. io6 THE THIRD OF SEPTEMBER With nought of right or claim I stand, A pilgrim at Thy outer gate, Thou wilt not turn away Thy hand, Thou wilt not cry, " Too late." Chorus of Desires. Howbeit to us it is given to know that the end Is veiled from the vision of man, and the way he shall wend When his lips are grown cold, here is one who is locked in belief, Is it vain, all his hope, his defiance, denial of grief ? Chorus of Reasons. What matter the end, so believing govern a soul That terror is bowed ? To the dreamer the dream is the goal ; Seeing his God in his vision he sees Him indeed, Imagining peace, he has peace for his utmost need. Cromwell. An end is made. I see Thee now Whom I have sought so very long, Thy hand is cool upon my brow, I know not any wrong. THE THIRD OF SEPTEMBER 107 From travel in the dusty ways, From strife of speech and sounding sword, I come, undaunted of the days, Into Thy keeping, Lord. EPILOGUE COME tell us, you that travel far With brave or shabby merchandise, Have you saluted any star That goes uncourtiered in the skies ? Do you remember leaf or wing Or brook the willows leant along, Or any small familiar thing That passed you as you went along ? Or does the trade that is your lust Drive you as yoke-beasts driven apace, Making the world a road of dust From market-place to market-place ? You traffic in the grain, the wine, In purple and in cloth of gold, In treasure of the field and mine, In fables of the poets told, 108 EPILOGUE 109 But have you laughed the wine-cups dry And on the loaves of plenty fed, And walked, with all your banners high, In gold and purple garmented ? And do you know the songs you sell And cry them out along the way ? And is the profit that you tell After your travel day by day Sinew and sap of life, or husk Dead coffer-ware or kindled brain ? And do you gather in the dusk To make your heroes live again ? If the grey dust is over all, And stars and leaves and wings forgot, And your blood holds no festival Go out from us ; we need you not. But if you are immoderate men, Zealots of joy, the salt and sting And savour of life upon you then We call you to our counselling. And we will hew the holy boughs To make us level rows of oars, And we will set our shining prows For strange and unadventured shores. no EPILOGUE Where the great tideways swiftliest run We will be stronger than the strong, And sack the cities of the sun, And spend our booty in a song. THE END Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON 6* Co. at Paul's Work, Edinburgh POEMS OF LOVE AND EARTH Crown 8vo. Boards, is. 6d. net [Second Edition] The Athenceum. " The poems before us, besides their intellectual force and rhythmical harmony, are imbued with an admirable spirit of quest and adventure : evidence of the poet's determination to test and understand life before he wrote about it. ... Mr. Drinkwater has a fine sense for swift transitions in thought and emotion, and his intensity and conviction are conveyed with sureness of touch and comeliness of phrase." The Spectator. " Mr John Drinkwater in ' Poems of Love and Earth' has more than redeemed the promise of his first volume (referring to ' Poems of Men and Hours '). The ' Dedication,' with its love of clean beauty and its broad receptiveness, gives the keynote of his work. He is a most delicate artificer. . . . Not the least of the attractions of these verses is their spirit of faith and joy and high adventure, all too rare among our modern poets." The Nation. " We read his poetry, first of all because it is poetry ; its value for us does not necessarily depend on, but is nevertheless very greatly enhanced by, our -perception that it is significantly modern poetry. " Country Life- " Mr. John Drinkwater is taking an assured position as a poet." The Academy. "It is limpid, spontaneous song all through." The Times. " Mr. Drinkwater's poetic utterance is never poor or thin, and here, as in his ' Poems of Men and Hours,' there is the same high view of the life and calling of man." The Pall Mall Gazette. " Perhaps the most precious quality in art is the gift of sight ; it is certainly the rarest. . . . Mr. Drinkwater has this faculty of vision. ... A book full of a passionate hunger for beauty, and a real capacity for expressing true and lovely things." The Evening Standard and St. James' Gazette. " ' The Crowning of Dreaming John' reveals a gift of expression which hardly another living English poet can claim." JAMES STEPHENS in The Poetry Review. " Sometimes he is able to get what very few English poets even dare to attempt." The Manchester Guardian. " . . . This simplicity serves not POEMS OF LOVE AND EARTH continued. inconsiderably Mr. Drinkwater's undoubted dramatic sense possibly, indeed, his most striking characteristic and ' Uncrowned ' and ' A Ballad of Kings ' are genuine contributions to contemporary verse. " FRANCIS BICKLEY in The Bookman, " ' The Fires of God ' is a fine poem both in conception and in execution. Its author is a poet to be considered." COPHETUA: A Play in Verse Wrappers, 6d. net LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE in The Daily News. "Mr. Drinkwater's little book is a very important contribution to the cause of poetic drama. It is the work of a man who is a genuine playwright as well as a genuine poet." POEMS OF MEN AND HOURS Crown 8vo. Boards, is. 6d. net The Spectator. " In this slim book there is scarcely a jejune thought or a harsh line, and sometimes, as in the fine ' Prayer ' and ' The Lady Laura,' we find a beautiful and rare conception wedded to haunting music. ... In the business of the lyric, too, Mr. Drinkwater shows himself a master." The Nation. " The ' Prayer ' . . . may, without exaggerating its merits, be regarded as the mood preluding, somewhat indefinitely per- haps, English poesy's consciousness of the great task awaiting her." The Academy. " There is in all these short poems that individual note for which the critic looks so earnestly." The Westminster Gazette. " Such poems as ' Love's Personality,' ' Expectancy,' ' Death,' ' At Waterloo,' have a serene and austere dignity and beauty not to be attained except after long preparation and discipline of mind." University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. GOT DUE 2 WltS ROM D CEIVEB A 000859355 o 6007 D83c