INVOCATION: WAR POEMS & OTHERS BY ROBERT NICHOLS ELKIN MATHEWS CORK STREET, W. INVOCATION WAR POEMS AND OTHERS BY THE SAME WRITER POEMS IN OXFORD POETRY, 1915 INVOCATION: WAR POEMS & OTHERS BY ROBERT NICHOLS LONDON: ELKIN MATHEWS CORK STREET MCMXV TO MY FATHER JOHN BOWYER BUCHANAN NICHOLS N 2 3 453525 CONTENTS PAGB INVOCATION u FIVE SONNETS UPON IMMINENT DEPARTURE Look up, O stricken eyes . . . .15 I have no strength now . . . .16 You, my unwitting love . . . .17 Begin, O guns 18 If it should hap 19 THE CHINK 20 NIGHT BY THE SEA: 1915 .... 22 MOONLIGHT 23 SONNET Now when I feel the hand ... 24 EPITAPH 25 BEFORE JERUSALEM 26 ECHOES FROM AN HEROIC CHORUS . , 30 CRISIS ... .... 31 CHANT PROSPECTIVE OF TO-MORROW'S BURTHEN 32 Loss 36 THE SOLDIER 38 INVOCATION COURAGE born of Fire and Steel, Thee I invoke, thee I desire Who constant holdst the hearts that reel Before the steel, beneath the fire. Though in my mind no torment is, Yet in my being's hazard mesh There run such threads of cowardice That I must dread my untrue flesh. Therefore possess me and so dower The sword's weak spot that the true blade May nor in least nor direst hour Betray the spirit unafraid : For in the past whatever ill I did, or good with much of nought, Daily I strove to make my will The soldier of my earnest thought. 12 INVOCATION And now is opened Honour's way And the voice peals I knew times past, And once again I stoop and pray The same short prayer perhaps my last Not passively to suffer ill, A world-complacent sacrifice, But happy and rebellious still To prove Faith's courage can suffice. Death to waylay and slay stalks forth . . . One puny out of thousands more I go to slay the Giants of Wrath, Or perish as men have before. Forward I ride. Guns must to guns Intone a final requiem That those who forged yon mighty ones May learn 'tis more to bury them. FIVE SONNETS UPON IMMINENT DEPARTURE SONNET LOOK up, O stricken eyes that long have pored Over the sickliness of a young heart Diseased with double doubt and the abhorred Drugs of Self-will and Pity. Scan the chart Of Freedom in a new and noble cause. The Past is dead. A New Age now begins Of noble servitude to nobler laws Than those that barred by custom your lame sins. All that is terrible is yours to face, You that once sought the dark noon of the storm And only found a dust and a disgrace, Peril affronts you in heroic form : Lift up your head. Prove that which was your boast Though deemed long dead, or be for ever lost! 16 SONNET I HAVE no strength now save in my new will : Having sought Love whom Chance bade me desert ; Too false for Love, Passion pursued until My heart was soiled and sickened by mere dirt; Too stale for Passion, Fame I sought and found Poor Notoriety, more fool than knave, Liberty next, but left lest I were bound To prove for Her that I too dared be slave. Lost to Love, Fame, Passion, Liberty, Afraid to face their debts I have incurred, Alone I go resolved to render Thee, England, such due as one who ever erred Toward thy dispraise dare pay silently : A life unworthy and a fame deferred. SONNET You, my unwitting love, I see debate In your small head the hazard of my choice Not lightly yet not gravely, know that Fate Speaks to me through you with no doubtful voice. I love you ; my love a piteous chance Yet sweet ! ill-chance not being loved again ! And now know fully what I did but glance, You have but guessed the hundredth of my pain. And why should you ? Why should I trouble you ? I am ashamed you have guessed aught, though small Despite my love is healthier than the blue And since my time is come I will not fall To beggary, but bid a dumb adieu, For Love and War are Fate, and Fate is all. i8 SONNET BEGIN, O guns, your giant requiem Over my lovely friend the Fiend has slain From whom Death has not snatched the diadem Promised by Poetry ; for not in vain Has he a greater glory now put on Since, bound with cypress black, his boyish head Shines on Death's crowded groves as none has shone Since Sidney set a- whispering the dead. Begin, O guns, and when ye have begun Lift up your voices louder and proclaim The sick moon set, arisen the strong sun, Filling our skies with new and noble flame. The Soldier and the Poet now are one And the Heroic more than a mere name. 19 SONNET IF it should hap I being summoned hence To an unknown and all too hazardous bourne, One should bring news charged with this heavy sense : He has gone further and cannot return, Waste not your hour in weary ' Why ? ' and ' Whence ? ' In grief that my young years be compted so. I grieve not. Nor should you. My recom- pense Grows with the years and with them yours shall grow. For England's fairest, her best beloved lands, Her watchful hills, her slumbrous trees and streams Shall surely teach a heart, that understands, What depth and amplitude of noble dreams She gives and how content into her hands I yield the little life without her seems. 20 THE CHINK WEEPING I listen and I wait, The night grows long, the night grows late. Still gird the guns. But now a pause And lo ! a chink of night withdraws And strange and distant, thin and high, I hear the lost and human cry. The victors and victorious slain, The vanquished and their dead again Sing : ' We have slain a Foeman tall, Death the dreadest Foe of all. For bound with our own bloodied bands One is given in our hands, And the steel that slit our side Has his red hands crucified, We have made a gain of loss, Giant War hangs on his cross. Nothing fair has man assayed But by loss his gain was made. Giant War is dead, but still Live more giants that do ill. THE CHINK 21 Sword and trowel each to hand On the scaffold take your stand, Guard and build what we began, Man's Jerusalem for Man.' 22 NIGHT BY THE SEA: 1915 WHAT is this sound that only seems to chide ? And subtle light suffuses the black height ? It is the Sea mourns through the angry tide, Behind the inky veil it is the light. Amazed I see in all the infinite Pity I thought I alone felt to-night'. MOONLIGHT HUGE low moon seemingly sonorous As a shield to the clash of the booming sea, Do you mark with pleasure the haste of seas racing white, Clamouring in tumult together Along the rolling beams of your level light ? If so here Why do you hang piteously bright as a tear Looking with longing eyes upon the dead That sprawl stiffly in Flanders' fields ? Double-faced is Humanity, Double-faced as the moon, Which to pity and anger yields. I hear around shouts portending the slain, And above them the clear Midnight voice of man Who sits, head on hands, still as a stone, Cirqued by the dead with faces chalked by the moon, And who weeps the loss to the world no blood can atone. SONNET Now when I feel the hand of Death draw near While yet no laurel stands upon my brow, I ask what can sustain me, what is dear Was dear once and remains so even now ? Fame, Wisdom, Love, the high inheritance Of noble words and actions can no more Beacon my spirit being changed of chance To the bright rags on which the crazed set store. Grown child again I turn my thoughts too late- Back to the quiet house upon the hill Where shine alas ! more than sea-separate Those human hearts I loved, and harder still Eyes too oft grieved by th' importunate And crooked workings of my hazard will. FRANCE, 1915. EPITAPH ASK not how it came I died Whom no power on earth could save, But know that this man was crucified Who speaks to you from the grave. Ask not whom the grass overgrows ; Was his purpose sure or unsure ? Happy alone who knows His purpose and can endure. 1914. 26 BEFORE JERUSALEM O THOU Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Thou chief est jewel in God's diadem, Thou flushing flower most delicate Crushed in a hand unconsecrate, Sweet Bride of God we come to rescue thee With banners and with bells and minstrelsy, As 'twere God's squadrons pouring through the arches, With shaken mist and flame began our marches, Our swords were fire, our plumes were founts of flame, Our trumpets were the echo of God's name. Under our silken pennons red and white We passed and looked not or to left or right, But with dazed head and unheard thundrous feet Threaded the crooked, banner-blazoned street. There was great silence among all us knights, Only behind our eyes blazed sudden lights Passing a fiery cross back and again Lighting the chambers of the dreaming brain. BEFORE JERUSALEM 27 And in this silence upon each dim soul A Voice was heard speak each slow word the toll Of a huge silver bell in depths apart Chiming the fullness of the brimming heart : " Follow, follow, for where I am Thou art ! " Thou Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Thou chief est jewel in God's diadem, 1 am the sword of God that shall decide, I am His flame to cirque thee far and wide, Lily of Delight ! Lily of Delight, Watered by His tears, by blessing made bright ! Stone upon stone, cast down, overthrown Shall He build Thee again ! A red rose blown He gathered petals blown by the wind Of His fury on sins wantonly sinned. By blows of hammers driving in nails Through quivering palms He builds, He assails. O crystal vessel flushed incarnadine With blood more red than sacred ruby wine, The dregs of thickened hatred from the cup Shall the Lord's hand spill and fill brimful up ! 28 BEFORE JERUSALEM The blaring trumpet of God's earnest voice Speaks in us and our leaping limbs rejoice, From singing strings on our bows arcs of fire Strung with the strings of heaven's luteing quire Spread paradisal-plumed arrows of desire ! Jerusalem, Jerusalem, O bright Lily, amber-hearted lily of delight, Through flood, through fire our tearing feet have trod, With a seraphic speed our feet are shod The foremost squadron in the van of God. But Thou, Jerusalem, Jerusalem Hast looked at those that came And marked them our mail is red with rust, Our broidered bridles fall apart in dust, Our blood is brown upon our seamed hands, Our plashy plumes hang down in wisps and strands ; So stalwart once our horses, ribbed and lamed, With crooked knees, hollow-flanked, sored and maimed Hang down their heads and watch with raw, dull eyes Thee, O Jerusalem, our journey's prize : BEFORE JERUSALEM 29 Gaunt horses and gaunt men to Thee ! But gaze Within the battered vizor, with amaze Thou shalt see calm and starry pupils stare And know the men for hidden angels there. . . . Thou Jerusalem, Jerusalem, We are the tide no earthly might can stem. Angels we rode with angels through the night Hearing the unheard songs to left and right, And wings that surged and feet's majestic paces, Brushed by the dark that hides immortal faces. With banners and with bells and winding flame That through our hearts blew, His sure message came, ' Lo, I am with you,' till our hands clenched tight And to our rounded eyes there grew a light. 1912. ECHOES FROM AN HEROIC CHORUS LONELY is Man from his youth, He saileth uncharted seas, But glimpsing the star of Truth, His sail the mark of Fate's breeze ; Yet who looks upon heaven and hell And fears not to hazard his all, Whose purpose not Fate can quell, Whose will no storm can appal Shall truly possess his soul, And calm shall his aspect be Whether he find his goal Or be swallowed alive by the sea ; He is justified of the Earth, He hath spent what was given to spend ; And She who regrets a slave's birth Shall give him peace in the end. CRISIS THERE comes a moment when the moony tide Draws its full strength and sleeps upon the verge Before . . . how suddenly ! it backward slide With a reverberate and sullen surge ; The mature sun stands on the darkling hill Beaming the moment's triumph in his round, The open-bosomed rose floats white and still One moment ere it circle to the ground. So at the topmost minute of our hour We stand and feed upon each other's eyes, And feel in us a dumb and deathless power, And become glad and generous and wise Before . . . before flutters apart the flower The deep calls and the last beam, waning, dies. 1914. CHANT PROSPECTIVE OF TO-MORROW'S BURTHEN MANY jewels hath Love and one Hath He given me : Not the Emerald, Hope's quenchless sun, Green as the brilliant sea ; Nor Possessed Desire A Ruby red ; Nor the Opal, a sea-mist flecked with fire, The gem of Strange Joy and Secrecy ; But He hath made mine A cold stone, blue and clear, A tear An Amethyst, the certain sign Of durance and pain and death ; Love hath given me a jewel out of those that He hath, And lo, this saddest, this fairest is mine ! Who hath given love and found none returning ? Who lieth forgotten a dry, white ember ? Who hath been fired and forgets the burning ? I too have known and would not remember. TO-MORROW'S BURTHEN 33 I too have known. Whom hath the lightning smitten And laid straight as an arrow ? Who hath been in the grave In his dungeon narrow ? And lain forgotten And been dissolved, fallen fruit turned rotten ? So that the soul forgets that it ever Lived and was glorious ? Who hath stood by the grave and felt the sever As of flesh from bone, The loved from the living ? Thou art not alone. I too have known. Who hath forgotten that he was a man For years wandering the stony wilderness Mad and naked, and when he ran Flesh, that followed him also ran And ceased not running until he ceased ; Until he became A beast followed by another beast And fell down in the dust that was warm Under that sky of hot, still flame. While out of the skies there gathered a swarm Of vultures that guessed the new-fallen beast c 34 TO-MORROW'S BURTHEN And creaked downwards on tattered wings, Who gorged the rank guts, laid bare the red bone, Who jerked at the heart's thin quivering strings And hopped and fluttered over the feast ? I too have known. Who hath awakened in his bed And groaned to see upon the pane The slow, white breath Of a new dawn spread ? Who hath groaned in his heavy spirit and said ' All these hours ! and so far away The bourne Till sleep like death Cradle its own, Soothing the lids of the eyes that mourn ? ' Who hath hated the light ? One answereth : I too have known. Whom have the fires of a long grief blackened, Whose hands are stamped with red flowers of the nail ? Who with the blind and the dead has been reckoned ? Who hath seen Sorrow without her veil ? TO-MORROW'S BURTHEN 35 Who hath traversed the desert and lonely place, Whom hath Fate driven on his journey alone ? Who hath looked on the Gorgon's beautiful face And slowly and wholly been turned to stone ? I too have known. June, 1914. LOSS AT my feet I find a flower Flung in a moonlit hour Up by the sea. It is no flower I know but it is sweet, Though without scent or colour or even form Being torn by the sea. Why is it so sweet To one who never knew it, why does it bring Hints of delight Shadowy as those that perplex and sweeten night When over the body drowsing beneath Sleep's warm wing The soul's waking eyes glimpse fragments . Of the light That here they cannot wholly see And become dazzled with remembering ? Who brought you, flower ? Whence do you come ? How do I know you ? What is your home ? LOSS 37 The wind sighs and the friendly ripples creep One by one From the smooth steaming sea that heaves in sleep, The flower drops away from my hand. There flows One ripple forward, and the flower is gone : Whither the sea alone knows. The sea alone knows. July I, 1915. 453525 THE SOLDIER THE sombre clouds rolled slowly over the low plain Rutted with level plough lines and lit with pools of rain Till the enormous silence filled only by the humming blast Was rent by a cruel cry, and the wild geese winging fast Onward and onward through the currents of clouded air Craned down through the misty chasms to see what thing lay there. By a ditch of Flanders beside an arrowy road, Which stretched to the horizon where a fired farmstead glowed Exhaling a tremulous light and winding a murky tress Of billowy smoke over the wilderness, A wounded soldier lay watching the birds overhead . . . They vanished and into his eyes came know- ledge of death and the dead. THE SOLDIER 39 So feeble was he that scarcely he felt the blood 'twixt his lips Well up and flow down darkly. Upon him had gloamed eclipse When at his ear he heard a strange and terrible cry Such as had shaken the marsh birds winging the dreary sky: ' O God, God, God ! I am tormented, I sink. ' water, water, I burn. Give me to drink ! ' And there was no further sound under all the sky Nor in the earth save one sharp sweet reply From the ditch by his feet : a trickle of water was calling, Swoln by rain it carolled and tinkled in falling. But he could not move hand or foot and a noise Of groaning reached him and a dreamy voice Sing-songed of water while he lay perfectly still And cracked his sinews with the heat of his will, Willing himself to arise but he had not the strength To move hand or foot a foot or hand's length. And when he found he could not stir to arise Two warm tears welled and rolled out of his eyes, 40 THE SOLDIER And he began to pray, saying unto God Brokenly and in stupid words how he lay on the sod And could not move, and would God look down and give Just one minute of boyish strength that he might strive To succour somebody friend or foe near him. But God would not, And he complained endlessly till the cramp of the shot In his side tied and untied within like a knot. And he fainted. And the sombre clouds flocked slowly over the slaughterous plain Above the glimmering road that divided the slain from the slain ; And the spent neighbour rolling his eyes at the sky far and wide Gurgled, his mouth floating blood, and cursed God and died. And the water in the ditch cried happily and increased till it soaked The thirsty dead's feet and the sweeping wind stroked Softly the matted fair hair of the soldier until he lay, Save for this, stiller than the clotted thick clay THE SOLDIER 41 That in acres of ruts stretched silently To the deserted dykes and the desolate sea. . . . The sombre clouds rolled slowly over the low plain Rutted with level plough lines and lit with pools of rain, In whose shallow mirrors the majesty of the sky Figuring the funeral of heroes filed slowly by. December, 1914. FOR permission to reprint certain of these poems the Author's? thanks are due to the Editors of The Times and The Saturday Review. PRINTED BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LIMITED PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 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. tEC'D C.L, AU603'95