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 Ex Libris 
 ISAAC FOOT
 
 SEEDS OF TIME
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 POEMS- 
 POEMS. 1908-1914 
 SWORDS AND PI.OUGHSHARBS. 1915 
 
 OI<TON POOI^. 1916 
 TIDES. 1917 
 I^OYAiTIES. 1 9 19 
 
 PLA YS— 
 COPHETUA. 19 1 1 
 REBELWON. 1914 
 PAWNS. Three Plays. 1917 
 ABRAHAM I^H^TCOIvN. 19 18 
 MARY STUART. 192 1 
 OLIVER CROMWELI*. 192 1 
 
 PROSE STUDIES— 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 19 1 2 
 SWINBURNE. 1913 
 THE LYRIC. 19 1 5 
 PROSE PAPERS. 1917
 
 Seeds of Time 
 
 by John Drlnkwater 
 
 If you can look into the seeds of time, 
 
 And say which grain will grow, and which will not, 
 
 Speak then to me, who neither beg, nor fear, 
 
 Your favours nor your hate, 
 
 Macbeth. 
 
 London : Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd. 
 3 Adam Street, Adelphi mcmxxi
 
 First published in 192 1 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 TO THE MEMORY 
 OF 
 
 CLAUD LOVAT FRASER
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Thrift ....... 
 
 FAOB 
 9 
 
 The Toll-gate House . . . . . 
 
 lO 
 
 A Lesson to My Ghost . . . . 
 
 II 
 
 Absence ....... 
 
 14 
 
 A New Ballad of Charity . . . . 
 
 15 
 
 The Recorder ..... 
 
 17 
 
 The Wood -carver ..... 
 
 . 18 
 
 The Dying Philosopher to His Fiddler . 
 
 . 19 
 
 The Flame ...... 
 
 20 
 
 The Garden ...... 
 
 21 
 
 Hereafter ...... 
 
 22 
 
 
 23 
 
 Two Ships ...... 
 
 • 24 
 
 Portia's Housekeeping .... 
 
 25 
 
 Night Music ...... 
 
 27 
 
 In the Valley ...... 
 
 29 
 
 Malediction 
 
 . 30 
 
 
 32 
 
 The Cry 
 
 • 34 
 
 7 

 
 Who were Before Me 
 
 The Years 
 
 To AND Fro about the City 
 
 Vocation ... 
 
 Fairford Nightingales . 
 
 Beacons 
 
 England to Czecho-Slovakia 
 
 The Man Who Won the War 
 
 John Keats . 
 
 Samplers 
 
 To Waste Not 
 
 The Bond 
 
 Decision 
 
 Surety . 
 
 Union 
 
 Against Treason 
 
 For This Moment 
 
 Death and a Lover 
 
 The Pledge . 
 
 Nunc Dimittis 
 
 The Providence 
 
 Covenant 
 
 Persuasion 
 
 PAGE 
 
 35 
 37 
 39 
 40 
 
 42 
 44 
 45 
 46 
 
 47 
 48 
 
 49 
 50 
 51 
 52 
 54 
 55 
 56 
 58 
 59 
 60 
 61 
 62 
 
 8
 
 SEEDS OF TIME 
 
 THRIFT 
 
 (to f. l.) 
 
 No beauty beauty overthrows 
 But every joy its season knows, 
 And all enchanted hours prepare 
 Enchantment for to-morrow's wear. 
 
 Who in the just society 
 That walks with him this hour can see 
 But shadows of another bhss 
 Loses both that dehght and this. 
 
 Grieve not the parting day, for soon 
 The nightingales will sing the moon 
 CHmbing the track that now the sun 
 Leaves when the songs of day are done. 
 
 And grieve not when her beauty pales. 
 And silence keeps the nightingales, 
 For that eclipse again will bring 
 The sun with all his birds to sing, 
 
 9
 
 THE TOLL-GATE HOUSE 
 
 The toll-gate's gone, but still stands lone, 
 
 In the dip of the hill, the house of stone, 
 
 And over the roof in the branching pine 
 
 The great owl sits in the white moonshine. 
 
 An old man lives, and lonely, there. 
 
 His windows yet on the cross-roads stare, 
 
 And on Michaelmas night in all the years 
 
 A galloping far and faint he hears , . . 
 
 His casement open wide he flings 
 
 With " Who goes there ? " and a lantern 
 
 swings . . . 
 But never more in the dim moonbeam 
 Than a cloak and a plume and the silver gleam 
 Of passing spurs in the night can he see, 
 For the toll-gate's gone and the road is free. 
 
 10
 
 A LESSON TO MY GHOST 
 
 Shall it be said that the wind's gone over 
 The hill this night, and no ghost there ? 
 Not the shape of an old-time lover 
 Pacing the old road, the high road there ? 
 By the peacock tree, the tree that spreads its 
 
 branches 
 Like a proud peacock's tail (so my lady says). 
 Under a cloudy sky, while the moon launches 
 Scattered beams of hght along the dark silences ? 
 I will be a ghost there, though I yet am 
 
 breathing, 
 A Hving presence still in tight cottage walls. 
 Sitting by the fire whose smoke goes wreathing 
 Over fields and farmyards and farmyard stalls. 
 As a player going to rehearse his faring, 
 I will send my ghost there before my bones are 
 
 dust. 
 Bid it learn betimes the sock it shall be wearing 
 When it bids the clay good-bye, as all ghosts 
 
 must. 
 Hush, then ; upstairs sleep my lady and her 
 
 mother ; 
 The cat curls the night away, and will not stir ; 
 Beams of lamp and beech-log cross one another, 
 No wind walks in the garden there. 
 Go, my ghost, it calls you, the high road, the 
 
 winding. 
 Written by the moonlight on the sleeping hill ; 
 I will watch the ashes, you go finding 
 The way you shall walk for generations still. 
 
 II
 
 The window-latch is firm, the curtain does not 
 
 tremble, 
 The wet grass bends not under your tread, 
 Brushing you shake not the rain from the 
 
 bramble, 
 They hear no gate who lie abed. 
 Nodding I stare at the hearth, but I see you, 
 My half-wit travels with you the road ; 
 There shall be your kingdom when death shall 
 
 free you. 
 When body's wit is neither leash nor goad. 
 Past the peacock branches proudly gliding. 
 Your own ghost now, I know, I know. 
 You look to the moon on the hill-top riding. 
 The mares in the meadow sleep as you go. 
 Your eyes that are dark yet great for divining 
 Brood on the valleys of wood and plough, 
 And you stand where the silver flower is shining 
 Of cherry against the black holly bough. 
 Rehearse, O rehearse, as j^ou pass by the 
 
 hedgerows, 
 Remembrance of all that was my bright will, 
 That so my grave of whispers and echoes 
 May rest for the ghost that is yet on the hill. 
 The primroses burn and the cowslips cover 
 The starry meadows as heaven is clad ; 
 Learn them all, O ghost, as a lover. 
 So shall your coming again be glad. 
 The inn-sign hangs in the windless watches. 
 You pass the shadowy piles of stone 
 Under the walls where the hawthorn catches 
 
 12
 
 Shapes from the moon that are not its own. 
 
 Wander, wander down by the cresses, 
 
 Over the crest of the hill, between 
 
 The brown lych-gate and the cider-presses. 
 
 Past the well and across the green. 
 
 Heed me, my ghost, my heir. To-morrow, 
 
 Or soon, my body to ash must fall. 
 
 Heed me, ghost, and I shall not sorrow — 
 
 Learn this beauty, O learn it all. 
 
 Night goes on, the beech-log's ended, 
 
 Half-wit's drowsy, and doctrine done, — 
 
 Ghost, come home from the road ; befriended 
 
 My moon shall be when I leave the sun. 
 
 13
 
 ABSENCE 
 
 X 
 
 This was a fair land 
 
 For the young soul to find, 
 Whose orchards are renewed 
 And blossom in the mind. 
 
 Far wave, far heaven, far hill,. 
 I dream of England still. 
 
 And now this year's primrose 
 
 Shines under last year's leaves. 
 The swallow searches out 
 Accustomed eaves ; 
 
 Far wave, far heaven, far hill, 
 I dream of England still. 
 
 Though fresh devices come, 
 
 Yet is my custom true ; 
 There my vocation is, 
 That was my cradle too. 
 
 Far wave, far heaven, far hill, 
 I dream of England still. 
 
 14
 
 A NEW BALLAD OF CHARITY 
 
 God knows how time shall use me yet. 
 
 For I with brain too wise have known 
 A world corrupt, nor can forget 
 
 Some evil there as still my own — 
 Poor griefs henceforth may be alone 
 
 My calendars to reckon by, 
 But in my empires overthrown 
 
 I'll keep a heart of charity. 
 
 Wronged, and wrong doing, still I'll pray 
 
 For gentleness to all my kind, 
 So soon to-morrow strikes to-day. 
 
 And then a day when all is blind. 
 And the vainglory of the mind 
 
 Passes, and all together lie 
 Where nothing is but hope to find 
 
 The excellence of charity. 
 
 There is no virtue in us all 
 
 But keeps with sin for housefellow, 
 And, when the blade of death shall fall, 
 
 Starveling and naked must we go ; 
 And none of all shall warrant show 
 
 To save him from damnation by, 
 But only this — " Dear God, you owe 
 
 All that I dealt of charity." 
 
 And, O you Enghsh, let us make 
 Our hearts a little wise to-day. 
 
 And learn for best religion's sake 
 
 To walk awhile the homeward way. 
 B 15
 
 Too long we cast an alien clay 
 And towards a far and fading sky 
 
 Too long a pilgrimage we pay — 
 For there is not our charity. 
 
 Since I am English bred, I'll keep 
 
 A year and year my journey still 
 By little Langdale tarns asleep, 
 
 Or, with my rhymes on Bredon Hill, 
 I will go shepherding until 
 
 The shires from Severn down to Wye 
 Are figured messages to fill 
 
 My quietness with charity. 
 
 And where the yellow-hammer sings 
 
 From bramble blooms in Water Lane 
 I'll make a world of sweeter things 
 
 Than are in blind ambition's brain, 
 And there I will forget the pain 
 
 Of envy and the fears defy 
 That in love's bitterness complain, — 
 
 Because I walk with charity. 
 
 The primroses of Bagley Wood, 
 
 Old apple trees at Piddington, 
 Helvellyn in his cloudy hood — 
 
 Shall I not write them one by one, 
 The true, the best, occasion 
 
 Of all my faith before I die ? 
 For other gospellers are none 
 
 To teach me holy charity. 
 i6
 
 THE RECORDER 
 
 It was not dawn ; in the full day 
 I drowsed my wits in sleep. 
 
 And let the rich world steal away, 
 Without a song to keep. 
 
 Then from a dripping timber-stack. 
 Where the wild thistle grew. 
 
 Spreading his scarlet plumes and black, 
 Again the loud cock crew. 
 
 17
 
 THE WOOD-CARVER 
 
 (to w. g. s.) 
 
 Out of his ash did he conceive her mood, 
 Repentant Eve, her sad face bowed among 
 Cascades of hair, her Hmbs, that had been dewed 
 Lately in Eden where the apples hung, 
 Now carved for ever in a lovely sorrow. 
 All love, all grief, all kindred with the flowers 
 That now flush wood and meadow, and 
 
 to-morrow 
 Are ghosts, are tears among remembered hours. 
 O little Eve, bowed in your loss for ever. 
 Bowed bosom and clasped hands and hidden 
 
 face, 
 We are your sorrow too, and master never 
 The loss of spring and the wild April grace — 
 We love, and sin, and lose, as you to be 
 An image carved in beauty from the tree. 
 
 i8
 
 THE DYING PHILOSOPHER TO HIS 
 FIDDLER 
 
 Come, fiddler, play one tune before I die. 
 Philosophy is barren, and I lie 
 Untouched now by the plagues of all the schools, 
 And only silly fiddlers are not fools. 
 
 Bring then your bow, and on the strings let be, 
 In this last hour, merely the melody 
 Of waves and leaves and footfalls hazardous, 
 Where crafty logic shall not keep with us. 
 
 The patient fields of knowledge did I sow ; 
 
 I have done with knowledge — for I nothing 
 
 know. 
 Wisdom and folly set their faces hence. 
 And in their eyes a twin-intelligence. 
 
 Only your notes may quick again the keen 
 Tree-shadows cut upon the paddock's green. 
 The pools where mirrored branches are at rest. 
 The heron lifting to her windy nest. 
 
 And these are things that know not argument ; 
 Come, fiddler, play ; philosophy is spent. 
 Out of my thought the chiding doctors slip, 
 And you are now the only scholarship. 
 
 19
 
 THE FLAME 
 
 Myself I do but find 
 
 An ashen mind, 
 While others greeting me 
 
 Are flames, I see. 
 Yet they, alone, lament 
 
 Flames that are spent, 
 Remembering with shame 
 
 My crystal flame . . . 
 Hereafter then I'll be 
 
 A flame to me. 
 
 20
 
 THE GARDEN 
 
 Stone walls, dear trees, worn paths of every day, 
 Because you have Hved so cleanly in my mind 
 Something of me for ever in you shall stay, 
 When I the smaller acre yet shall find. 
 When noon is bright I shall be with your 
 
 flowers. 
 With you the snows of winter I shall wear. 
 And when, enchanted in the midnight hours, 
 You are a silver lake, I shall be there. 
 
 And none shall know, or few ; yet, knowing not, 
 The stranger here shall with your spirit take 
 Into his heart a kinship unforgot 
 That still you tell in numbers for my sake. 
 And in your mute occasion then shall be 
 Some whispered word that once you learnt of 
 me. 
 
 21
 
 HEREAFTER 
 
 One evening, by some hearth, I know not when, 
 A stranger to my song shall come to read 
 What faring was my lot through times and men, 
 How I was proud, how sorry, with what heed 
 I was glad of women, and the stars, and corn 
 Swelling upon my windy Cotswold height, 
 What miracles I counted in the morn. 
 And how I was defeated at the night. 
 And he shall make some story, as I make 
 Of men who sang as Marvell and as Donne, 
 And he shall quick his wisdom for my sake. 
 And put the plumes of celebration on, 
 And tell how, as of old, the clouded brain 
 Of man in song was a bright heaven again. 
 
 22
 
 VOTIVE 
 
 MOON, swung there immeasurably far, 
 Yet only in the pear-tree top, how then 
 Shall we body in thought the beauty that you 
 
 are — 
 Your wizardry upon the souls of men ? 
 
 Hush ! Let us say it is the tender light 
 That falls in silver circumstance and red 
 Dimly upon the regions of the night. 
 And saying this how little then is said. 
 
 Why should this mute enchantment thus possess 
 Our hearts in adoration — how should come 
 This worship of a ghost of quietness, 
 Of spectral tides that move not and are dumb ? 
 
 Why do we worship ? We are but strays of 
 
 will, 
 While the sun takes us. Folded now and far 
 From the day's light, we are minds possessed 
 
 and still, 
 Vision and peace. We worship what we are. 
 
 23
 
 TWO SHIPS 
 
 The morning shone with April on 
 
 A Httle silver ship at sea, 
 
 With happy sails, and bearing bales 
 
 To Panama from Tripoli, 
 And fortunately bound 
 She went without a sound. 
 
 Into the night, forlornly bright 
 There came a little ship of gold. 
 Without a name, she passed in flame. 
 With cargoes never to be told. 
 Out of a port unknown, 
 Swinging to death alone. 
 
 24
 
 PORTIA'S HOUSEKEEPING 
 
 We are thrifty of joy in this our modern house ; 
 We probe the springs of joy with uneasy rods, 
 And shadow the worm in every thrilling bud. 
 Virtue we know will walk in seedy rags 
 Of knavery when the better humour fails ; 
 And we know the good man's shadow of desire. 
 
 It was not so with Portia. She was simple, 
 Plain for clear yes or no and good or bad. 
 Bassanio at Belmont in the evening, 
 Walking the terrace with Antonio, 
 Was a good man with his friend, and that was 
 
 aU, 
 Save that his lips were young and masterful. 
 She had no fine philosophy of sin ; 
 You lied, and that was bad. You gave your 
 
 word. 
 And, when time came, redeemed it. A 
 
 treasure kept 
 At another's cost was ashes in your hand. 
 She hked her roses red, her lilies white, 
 And counted punctual hours in guests a virtue. 
 Sometimes she thought of a Jew and a young 
 
 doctor 
 Standing before the majesty of Venice, 
 And smiled, without approval, then again 
 To sow the asters or feed guinea-fowl. 
 Gratiano, finding ever new Nerissas 
 Among her maids, she told not to be tedious, 
 And Gratiano said she was growing dull. 
 
 25
 
 She liked the verse Lorenzo took to writing 
 And made some tunes herself upon the lute 
 To fit a Uttle moonlight sequence. When 
 Launcelot Gobbo stole a goose at Christmas, 
 She did not say he was an honest fellow, 
 But rated him and almost sent him off ; 
 He didn't brag about it to his fellows. 
 She had two children, and said two were 
 
 enough, 
 And loved them. She believed there was a God 
 With an impatient ear for casuistry. 
 Bassanio had no regrets, but some 
 Agreed with Gratiano. I do not know. 
 In Belmont was a lady richly left ? 
 
 26
 
 NIGHT MUSIC 
 
 (TO B. V. J.) 
 
 Enchanted as those days in Caliban's isle, 
 A music from the night falls on my hill, 
 
 And variously played. 
 In the hushed moonrise many sounds there are, 
 Inaudible but to the moods of prayer, 
 
 Into one music made. 
 
 Over the foothills from the valley comes 
 The lowing of some straggler from the herd. 
 
 Roaming in pastures deep. 
 A sheep-dog's challenge through the dark is met 
 By the ewe-mothers and their lambs that now 
 
 Are muffled flocks of sleep. 
 
 Sweeping across the fern twin measures go. 
 Towards Worcester one, and Hereford, where 
 weave, 
 
 Glooming, a pair of jars. 
 Faintly, afar, a brown owl speaks the night, 
 And hears high up, from out these hill-top pines, 
 
 His mate among the stars. 
 
 And, under all, the wind about the gorse 
 Creeps, or as fire rushes, and burns up 
 
 All sound into one song. 
 And in the night it flows about my grief, 
 Healing a little, as on Setebos 
 
 Was eased that older wrong. 
 
 27
 
 So in my heart beauty with beauty strives, 
 And good slays good. O spirit of wisdom, run, 
 
 As the wise wind to-night, 
 Through me, and make my crazy tunes all one ; 
 Upon the trouble of my blindness bring 
 
 Light, and for ever light. 
 
 28
 
 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 Let none devout forgive my sin 
 Wlio have not sinned as I ; 
 
 The soul immaculate within 
 Has not to measure by 
 My sorrowing husbandry. 
 
 The dark, the error, of my days 
 Shall be consoled by none 
 
 That have not in forbidden ways 
 Wandered as I have done 
 With faces from the sun. 
 
 Princes of virtue, keep yoiu- skill 
 Of pardon for your peers ; 
 
 Frail with the frail I travel still 
 Along uncertain years — 
 Forbear your holy tears. 
 
 One hour in black Gethsemane 
 I walked with him alone. 
 
 He sees, he knows, he touches me- 
 How shall it then be known 
 To you, hearts of stone ? 
 
 29
 
 MALEDICTION 
 
 Thrush, across the twilight 
 Here in the abbey close, 
 Pouring from your lilac-bough 
 Note on pebbled note, 
 Why do you sing so, 
 Making your song so bright. 
 Swelling to a throbbing curve 
 That brave little throat ? 
 
 Soon, but a season brief. 
 The lice among your feathers, 
 Stiff-winged and aimless-eyed. 
 With song dead you shall fall ; 
 Refuse of some clotted ditch. 
 Seeking no more berries, — 
 Wliy with lyric numbers now 
 Do you the twilight call ? 
 
 Proud in your tawny plumes 
 Mottled in devising, 
 Singing as though never sang 
 Bird in close till now — 
 Sharp are the javelins 
 Of death that are seeking. 
 Seeking even simple birds 
 On a lilac-bough. 
 
 Crushed, forlorn, a frozen thing. 
 For no more nesting. 
 For no more speckled eggs 
 In pattered cup of clay, 
 30
 
 Soon your song shall come to this, 
 You who make the twilight yours, 
 And echoes of the abbey, 
 At the end of day. 
 
 In the song I hear it, 
 
 The thud of a poor feathered death. 
 
 In the swelling throat I see 
 
 The splintering of song — 
 
 What demon then has worked in me 
 
 To tease my brain to bitterness — 
 
 In me who have loved bird and tree 
 
 So long, so long ? 
 
 Until I come to charity, 
 
 Until I find peace again. 
 
 My curse upon the fiend or god 
 
 That will not let me hear 
 
 A bird in song upon the bough. 
 
 But, hovering about the notes. 
 
 There chimes the maniac beating 
 
 Of black-winged fear. 
 
 31
 
 SPECTRAL 
 
 What will the years tell ? 
 Hush ! If it would but speak — 
 That shadow athwart the stream, 
 In the gloom of a dream ; 
 
 Could my brain but spell 
 The thought in the brain of that weak 
 Old ghost that hides in the gloom, 
 Over there, of the chestnut bloom. 
 
 I sit in the broad June light 
 
 On the open bank of the river, 
 
 In the summer of manhood, young ; 
 
 And over the water bright 
 
 Is a lair that is overhung 
 
 With coned pink blooms that quiver 
 
 And droop till the water's breast 
 
 Is of petal and leaf caressed. 
 
 And the June sky glares on my prime- 
 But there in the gloom, with Time, 
 Huddled, with Time on its back. 
 Is a shadow that is my wrack. 
 
 Yes, it is I in the lair. 
 
 Peering and watching me there. 
 
 Under the chestnut bloom 
 My old age hides in the gloom. 
 32
 
 And the years to be have been, 
 Could I spell the lore of that brain. 
 But the river flows between, 
 Over the weeds of pain, 
 Over the snares of death, 
 Maybe, should I leap to hold, 
 With myself grown old, 
 Council there in the gloom 
 Under the chestnut bloom. 
 
 And so, with instruction none, 
 
 I go, and leave it there. 
 
 My ghost with Time in its lair. 
 
 And the things that must yet be done 
 
 Tear at my heart unknown. 
 
 And the years have tongues of stone 
 
 With no syllable to make 
 
 For consolation's sake. 
 
 But peradventure yet 
 
 I shall return 
 
 To dare the weeds of death. 
 
 And plunge through the coned pink bloom, 
 
 And cry on that spectre set 
 
 In its silent ring of gloom, 
 
 And slay my youth to learn 
 
 The thing that my old age saith. 
 
 33
 
 THE CRY 
 
 Dear life, be merciful and kind, 
 Lend me your hand, for I am blind. 
 Lend me your wit, for mine too soon 
 Inhabits with the spectral moon, 
 Prepare your still intelligence 
 To watch beside my ailing sense. 
 
 Life, I have made my pilgrimage 
 All as you bade, and, wage by wage, 
 Your service seemed but well to me. 
 Now gentle in persuasion be, 
 When after you I fall and bleed. 
 And hear not where your footfalls lead. 
 
 My song no tardy messenger 
 Has been of any word that there 
 Dwelt from your charge for witnessing, 
 Let me not be an outcast thing. 
 Dear life, this weather, from your fold. 
 With a great heart untimely old. 
 
 In faith to you have laboured long 
 My blood, my purposes, my song. 
 In faith to you my hope is dumb. 
 To this poor waste of darkness come. 
 O life, forsake me not, who lie 
 Broken upon your Calvary. 
 
 34
 
 WHO WERE BEFORE ME 
 
 Long time in some forgotten churchyard earth 
 
 of Warwickshire, 
 My fathers in their generations he beyond 
 
 desire. 
 And nothing breaks the rest, I know, of John 
 
 Drinkwater now. 
 Who left in sixteen-seventy his roan team at 
 
 plough. 
 
 And James, son of John, is there, a mighty 
 
 ploughman too, 
 Skilled he was at thatching and the barleycorn 
 
 brew. 
 And he had a heart-load of sorrow in his day, 
 But ten score of years ago he put it away. 
 
 Then Thomas came, and played a fiddle cut of 
 
 mellow wood, 
 And broke his heart, they say, for love that 
 
 never came to good . . . 
 A hundred winter peals and more have rung 
 
 above his bed — 
 O, poor eternal grief, so long, so lightly, 
 
 comforted. 
 
 And in the gentle yesterday these were but 
 
 ghmmering tombs. 
 Or tales to tell on fireside eves of legendary 
 
 dooms ; 
 
 35
 
 I being life while they were none, what had 
 
 their dust to bring 
 But cold intelligence of death upon my tides of 
 
 Spring ? 
 
 Now grief is in my shadow, and it seems well 
 
 enough 
 To be there with my fathers, where neither fear 
 
 nor love 
 Can touch me more, nor spite of men, nor my 
 
 own teasing blame, 
 While the slow mosses weave an end of my 
 
 forgotten name. 
 
 36
 
 THE YEARS 
 
 When I was young and twenty 
 
 I 'Id run a many mile, 
 
 And when I came to thirty 
 
 I 'Id sit and rest awhile, 
 
 And now that I am thirty-five 
 
 I am the sleepiest man alive. 
 
 But maybe when I'm forty 
 I'll shake my legs again, 
 And walk from then till fifty 
 With young and striding men, 
 And hillward go in sixty's wear 
 To see how yet the counties fare. 
 
 When I am old and eighty. 
 
 All treasons will be done 
 
 Of love and silly bitterness ; 
 
 And I shall watch the sun 
 
 Go out, and little heed the fear 
 
 That smote upon my middle-year. 
 
 So twenty comes to eighty 
 
 By many a stony track. 
 
 And times I have for merchandise 
 
 But sorrows in my pack. 
 
 But youth foretold them not, and yet 
 
 Age will but count them to forget. 
 
 37
 
 So though I come from twenty 
 
 To be at thirty-five, 
 
 Beset by fears and fancies, 
 
 The sleepiest man ahve. 
 
 Some birthday yet 111 rise and keep 
 
 A prouder soul before I sleep. 
 
 Before I sleep at eighty, 
 Never again to know 
 The hill-tops and the counties 
 And striding men below, 
 And furious fevers fade away 
 To song, and into grass my clay. 
 
 38
 
 TO AND FRO ABOUT THE CITY 
 
 Shakespeare is dust, and will not come 
 To question from his Avon tomb. 
 And Socrates and Shelley keep 
 An Attic and Italian sleep. 
 
 They will not see us, nor again 
 Shall indignation light the brain 
 Where Lincoln on his woodland height 
 Tells out the spring and winter night. 
 
 They see not. But, O Christians, who 
 Throng Holborn and Fifth Avenue, 
 May you not meet, in spite of death, 
 A traveller from Nazareth ? 
 
 39
 
 VOCATION 
 
 This be my pilgrimage and goal. 
 
 Daily to march and find 
 The secret phrases of the soul, 
 
 The evangels of the mind. 
 
 While easy tongues are lightly heard, 
 Let me with them be great 
 
 Who still upon the perfect word 
 As heavenly fowlers wait. 
 
 In taverns none will I be seen 
 
 But can my daemon teach 
 My cloudy thought to wash all clean 
 
 In the bright sun of speech. 
 
 40
 
 FAIRFORD NIGHTINGALES 
 
 The nightingales at Fairford sing 
 
 As though it were a common thing 
 
 To make the day melodious 
 
 With tones that use to visit us 
 
 Only when thrush and blackbird take 
 
 Their sleep nor know the moon's awake. 
 
 These nightingales they sing at noon, 
 Not lyric lone, but threading June 
 With songs of many nightingales. 
 Till the meridian summer pales, 
 And here by day that spectral will 
 Is spending its enchantment still. 
 
 Nor shyly in far woodland bowers 
 But walled among the garden flowers. 
 The Fairford nightingales are free. 
 That so the fabled melody 
 Is from the haunted groves of Thrace 
 Falling on Fairford market-place. 
 
 O nightingales that leave the night 
 
 To join the melodists of light. 
 
 And leave your coppiced gloom to dare 
 
 The fellowship forsaken there. 
 
 Fresh hours, fresh leaves can dispossess 
 
 Nor spoil your music's loneliness. 
 
 41
 
 BEACONS 
 
 One home together by the fells we knew 
 And the blue brakes of England in the spring. 
 And we had sires who also heard the bells 
 Somewhere along the English meadows. We 
 Measure one cause, one spirit, and one word, 
 And in one pilgrim faith have done our part 
 In the slow world's devising. Some queer grain 
 Of oak out of our soil moulded alike 
 The Mayflower, the Revenge. The East has 
 
 dreams, 
 Lotus and temples and the circled fingers. 
 Building in contemplation. The sun returns 
 Yet to the South with Mediterranean song, 
 And Provence bears the old Athenian gift, 
 And still is heard the praise of troubadours, 
 Which is for service ; from the Siberian fields 
 A sobbing and a moving in the night, 
 Wliere a great lineage communes with the earth. 
 Till grief is beauty and the wise revelation. 
 So from the races life inherits well. 
 Stillness, and flight, and faith. And we the 
 
 West, 
 Whose tides from Kent to California move, 
 Shall we not be the new adventurers ? 
 
 America, you were in Shakespeare's word. 
 And Milton's, half a prophecy. You were 
 An Ironside when Cromwell took the field, 
 Drake fared for you, and Nelson is your blood. 
 
 42
 
 And England, little fens and pools and hills, 
 Green friendliness of pastures in the dusk. 
 White-thorn where thrushes nest, grey thatch 
 
 and stone, 
 What excellence of you was there that day 
 When an unnoted sail put out to sea 
 From Plymouth to the England of a dream ? 
 At Yorktown did your nobler heart lament 
 Among the lost or beat with Washington ? 
 And has not Lincoln in your proper tongue 
 Your chronicle retold of Runneymede ? 
 Then, pledged upon a happier covenant 
 Than furnished old crusades, with none to fear 
 Of arms or treasons, having for our faith 
 To covet not an acre of the world. 
 Shall we not be the new adventurers ? 
 Come — let us get our gospel now by heart — 
 One man in grief sets a whole world in tears ; 
 No man is free while one for freedom fears. 
 
 43
 
 ENGLAND TO CZECHO-SLOVAKIA 
 
 Once — in the day of our meridian song 
 And young armadas — on your Bohemian hill 
 An older fame suffered an alien wrong 
 Where arms again blasphemed a people's will. 
 And freedom slept among your heroes then, 
 Sepulchred on White Mountain, till a theme 
 Of the unforgotten music called again. 
 And sovranty was where had been a dream. 
 
 Fortune, for all our wisdom, we can shape not, 
 Being free, we yet are kinsmen of the blind. 
 The snares of our own hearts we can escape not, 
 Our bravest end is fortitude of mind — 
 But Masaryk knows, Bohemia knows, that 
 
 thence 
 The spirit of man walks in magnificence. 
 
 May 1920. 
 
 44
 
 THE MAN WHO WON THE WAR 
 
 THE PASSING OF HIS BODY 
 
 Whoever sinned in this, it was not he, 
 While warriors of the tongue defiled our name, 
 His was no casual service, nor shall be 
 A casual fame. 
 
 To-day let all philosophies be dumb. 
 And every ardour pause a moment thus. 
 To say of him, who back from death has come, — 
 "He died for us." 
 
 Not lonely, though unnamed. Battalioned deep 
 With you are ghostly multitudes, who tell 
 Nothing, nor claim. Together to your sleep 
 Pass, and farewell. 
 November nth, 1920. 
 
 45
 
 JOHN KEATS 
 
 Out of the fevers and dark imaginations 
 That were his day, he would turn to the 
 
 mirrored quietness, 
 The imaged world, ordered from the desires 
 Of those his fathers whose fevers were as his 
 
 own, 
 And there he found the peace of understanding 
 In Troys and Fairylands and Heaven and Hell. 
 
 And thence the brain that was John Keats took 
 
 power 
 To build an imaged world his own, and devise 
 Shape for the fevers and dark imaginations, 
 Winnowing, moulding all, till all was beauty. 
 
 Now again we are but blind men, darkly 
 Fingering circumstance, sick men with our 
 
 fevers, 
 And his brief time of passion and frustration 
 Shines over us, an image for our doctrine, 
 A sorrow shaped, a speculation bodied. 
 That we the clearlier may behold ourselves. 
 Because of his bright moons and nightingales. 
 
 And thus alone shall be the world's salvation. 
 
 46
 
 SAMPLERS 
 
 In praise of love, upon my mind 
 
 Samplers I'll make to be, 
 As lovers long ago designed 
 
 Emblems of courtesy, 
 Threading in warm and frosty wools 
 Their wisdom's calendars and rules. 
 
 He errs to think those hands were set 
 
 All spinster-like and cold. 
 Who spelt a scarlet alphabet. 
 
 And birds of blue and gold. 
 And made immortal garden-plots 
 Of daisies and forget-me-nots. 
 
 The bodkins wove an even pace. 
 
 Yet these are lyrics too, 
 Breathing of spectral lawn and lace, 
 
 Old ardours to renew. 
 For in the corners love would keep 
 His fold among the httle sheep. 
 
 So I will samplers make as well, 
 
 Nor shall the colours lack 
 In shining characters to tell 
 
 Your lovely Zodiac, 
 And all your kisses there and words 
 Shall spring again as flowers and birds. 
 
 D 47
 
 TO! WASTE NOT 
 
 Under the snow 
 Are roots to blow 
 So soon with daffodils, 
 And buds prepare 
 The cowslips' wear, 
 Buried below the hills. 
 
 Within the brake 
 
 So soon shall wake 
 
 The building birds to sing, 
 
 And folded now 
 
 In every bough 
 
 Are bridals of the Spring. 
 
 Shall Love be lost 
 
 In tardy frost 
 
 When other flowers are free ? 
 
 Or less than birds 
 
 Shake happy words 
 
 As blossoms from the tree ? 
 
 O Love, make haste 
 Or time will waste 
 The habit of your lute. 
 Prepare your string 
 To play the Spring, 
 Or be for ever mute. 
 
 48
 
 THE BOND 
 
 O FAR and well my gentleness 
 
 Has walked among your coverts green, 
 
 With your still wisdom to possess 
 
 My weary brain and gather in 
 
 My thought from madness, as the bells 
 
 Do beggared flocks from stormy fells. 
 
 Now mute and careful shall I live 
 Your constant alien to be ? 
 Or, as the honest fugitive. 
 Lend love but sad security ? 
 O love, be brave, and bid me go 
 In freedom still your bondfellow. 
 
 49
 
 DECISION 
 
 Had we our bodies to provide 
 With rule for an eternal date 
 Well should our intellectual pride 
 Upon the years for witness wait, 
 Holding our adversary's will 
 But heresy for time to kill. 
 
 And here where but a mood goes by 
 And we are folded from the sun, 
 In marriage of the grave to lie. 
 And every argument is done. 
 Each burning hour of argument 
 Is but in wrangling folly spent. 
 
 I will no cunning words devise ; 
 Once told, I can but let you be 
 In your own patient counsel wise 
 Of my love's simple honesty. 
 While somewhere is an acre sown 
 That shall instruct us, bone by bone. 
 
 50
 
 SURETY 
 
 Love is not dead 
 We have cherished it too long, 
 We have planted it too deep. 
 And we have watered well 
 The roots and branches spread 
 In earth and airy song. 
 Love has a word to keep, 
 A word to tell. 
 
 Yes, that is all. 
 
 I know behind the fume 
 
 Of this poor difference 
 
 Love waits, nor grieves too much. 
 
 Till the old voices call. 
 
 And sings upon the gloom 
 
 Too sure an eloquence 
 
 For death to touch. 
 
 Too long a date 
 Has love between us plied 
 For that long trodden path 
 To wear in weeds or rain. 
 Too long in love's debate 
 Have we been satisfied. 
 For jealousies of wrath 
 To blind the brain. 
 
 51
 
 UNION 
 
 I 
 
 Suppose me dead ; think of the man you made, 
 A moment, but as earth, unbreathing more. 
 His garments folded, and his reckoning paid 
 Of love, and faith, and fame ; then, as before 
 A chronicle all done, with finis writ, 
 Ask if the man you made had truly been 
 More woi th your pride and daily watching wit 
 Had fear of you one passage cancelled clean. 
 
 Would you not say, serenely gospelled then, 
 " I taught him faith, I bade his word be said 
 Fearing no challenge nor reproof of men ; 
 And had the happy courage that I bred 
 Once brought me chill obedience for wage, 
 This chronicle had been a poorer page " ? 
 
 II 
 
 For, dear, I can but serve you at the rate 
 That is my heart's occasion, that is all ; 
 If I deny myself and with you wait, 
 It is not I, however you may call ; 
 Something of me must go, if I deny. 
 Though in denial shall be with you still 
 A body walking and a watchful eye, 
 The patient service of an impoverished will. 
 
 For if the love that loved, and chose, and came 
 Ever again to you, nor ever found 
 Estrangement in far absences, nor blame 
 
 52
 
 For pilgrimage to other Edens bound, 
 Should know one beauty by your will denied, 
 Thenceforth how should old faith be satisfied ? 
 
 Ill 
 
 But when you bid me go as beauty calls, 
 
 Knowing that my desire could follow none 
 
 But fair vocation, and that intervals 
 
 In honest love are still love's errands done. 
 
 When you upon my embarkation wait. 
 
 And cry. " O Keel ! forth in pursuit of spring. 
 
 All Archipelagos to navigate. 
 
 You are my ship, and this your voyaging "— 
 
 Then nothing lets between your sovran pride 
 And all my kingdom, nor is poor pretence 
 That over all my fortunes you preside 
 When half my levies are rebellious pence ; 
 Then do you govern that your craft began, 
 A man, and not the shadow of a man. 
 
 53
 
 AGAINST TREASON 
 
 All you have been you can be in this hour, 
 My need will be my need for evermore. 
 Time cannot steal your excellence of power. 
 Nor stain the love that liveried you before. 
 If you shall but your wonted honour keep, 
 And daily meet me with quick truth of old. 
 And let nor change nor dark alloy nor sleep 
 Betray your former \vitness of its mould. 
 
 But if in other features you present 
 
 The woman that I loved, how should I make 
 
 Renewal daily of an old content 
 
 I knew for her whose covenant you break ? 
 
 Though you yourself betrayed your elder pride. 
 
 I would not in your treason be alhed. 
 
 54
 
 FOR THIS MOMENT 
 
 Let me, who am your poet — (nor thereby 
 Think me less yours that other worlds I sing 
 Than your sweet universe) now let me try 
 Persuasion such as in an antique spring 
 Pan among cowshp meadows might have thus 
 Found with his shepherd's daughter prosperous : 
 
 " O love, why should you ever look beyond 
 This gladness into past or future time, 
 Accusing in your mind the heart now fond. 
 With phantom treason or ungendercd crime? 
 For mortal ever is the lover's kiss 
 And mocks who claims diviner emphasis. 
 
 " But one day and another day shall come 
 New kisses, love, with each its sovran power 
 Bidding to-morrow's history be dumb 
 And yesterday's but a forgotten hour. 
 Fold up your fears, put your sad fancies by, 
 Lest in complaint our sweet occasion die. 
 
 " Lest in complaint of sad example grow 
 But barren hours to-morrow from to-day ; 
 Love lives but by renewal, and can show 
 Constant succession never ; therefore pay 
 Proudly the charges of this present need, 
 Or bid me sound on other shores my reed." 
 
 55
 
 DEATH AND A LOVER 
 
 DEATH. A LOVER. HIS DEAD MISTRESS ON A BIER 
 
 LOVER 
 
 Blind, silly Death, although you nothing care 
 
 For my despair, 
 Could you not see my darUng was too fair 
 
 For earth to lose ? 
 
 DEATH 
 
 The wit, when love comes to so quick a close, 
 
 Distempered goes — 
 No day but earth shall build bright Umbs as 
 those. 
 
 For me to bruise. 
 
 LOVER 
 
 Then, though the world is tearless for her sake, 
 
 Some pity take 
 Upon my dark immortal sorrow, — ^wake 
 
 This pretty one. 
 
 DEATH 
 
 Ten thousand years ago a lover cried, 
 
 " Ah, let betide 
 What may, my grief must ever more abide." 
 
 His grief is done. 
 
 56
 
 LOVER 
 
 She might have borne me children straight and 
 strong, 
 
 To plough the long 
 Fmrows, and make their ploughing in a song 
 
 Articulate. 
 
 DEATH 
 
 Still shall the green blades break upon the 
 spring, 
 
 And song shall bring 
 Her liberty to every captive thing. 
 
 Early or late. 
 
 LOVER 
 
 Though, Death, you govern me in argument, 
 
 Still goes unspent 
 My grief, my grief. How shall I be content, 
 
 O King of Fear ? 
 
 DEATH 
 
 I neither pity nor console. Farewell. 
 
 Bearers, the bell 
 Calls you. Alone his sorrow let him tell. 
 
 She will not hear. 
 
 57
 
 THE PLEDGE 
 
 When love is bright and whole again, 
 I'll sing like the bee's weather, 
 
 I'll set my colours up again 
 
 Like the cock-pheasant's feather, 
 
 I'll find a note to make me one 
 
 With lyric birds that sing the sun. 
 
 I'll fill my songs with palmer's buds 
 And sprigs of thorn for Whitsunday, 
 
 And they shall dance as willow rods. 
 And shine with garlands of the may, 
 
 I'D be a theme that takes the spring 
 
 From bushes where the blackbirds sing. 
 
 I'll walk among my sheep again 
 And turn my steps to numbers. 
 
 When love is bright and whole again 
 And fear has gone to slumbers, 
 
 With wings again and flowers and stars 
 
 To be my coloured calendars. 
 
 58
 
 NUNC DIMITTIS 
 
 I HAVE seen the plover's wing, 
 And the grey willow bough, 
 The sandy bubbling spring. 
 The hawk over the plough, 
 
 And now, instructed so, 
 
 I am content to go. 
 
 Songs of the lake and wood 
 Of water and wind I have heard, 
 And I have understood 
 According to Thy word. 
 
 What then is now to learn ? 
 
 Seaward, soul, return. 
 
 Though I shall walk again 
 Nor spring nor winter field, 
 Yet surely in my brain 
 Are spring and winter sealed. 
 Earth you have shown me all, 
 I am ready for the call. 
 
 59
 
 THE PROVIDENCE 
 
 I DO not ask, and yet you give, 
 You give, and yet without design,- 
 Only some wonder, fugitive 
 In you from all the world, is mine. 
 
 You do not bid me serve, and still 
 I am all service for your sake. 
 And gift by gift my daily will 
 For me does a new kingdom make. 
 
 60
 
 COVENANT 
 
 I WOULD no sweeter treasure know 
 From your dear love than I can give. 
 
 And in such peace as you bestow 
 I pray for you to live. 
 
 Star to rejoicing star shall move 
 
 And flower on happy flower shall shine, 
 
 But all the sorrows of our love, — 
 Let these be wholly mine. 
 
 Yet that is treason. For I bear 
 No prouder heart than is your own, 
 
 And you would scorn the love would share 
 Delight and grieve alone. 
 
 6i
 
 PERSUASION 
 
 Then I asked : " Does a firm persuasion that a 
 thing is so, make it so ? " 
 
 He replied : " All Poets believe that it does, and in 
 ages of imagination this firm persuasion removed 
 mountains ; but many are not capable of a firm 
 persuasion of anything." 
 
 Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell. 
 
 At any moment love unheralded 
 
 Comes, and is king. Then as, with a fall 
 
 Of frost, the buds upon the hawthorn spread 
 
 Are withered in untimely burial. 
 
 So love, occasion gone, his crown puts by, 
 
 And as a beggar walks unfriended ways, 
 
 With but remembered beauty to defy 
 
 The frozen sorrows of unsceptred days. 
 
 Or in that later travelUng he comes 
 
 Upon a bleak oblivion, and tells 
 
 Himself, again, again, forgotten tombs 
 
 Are all now that love was, and blindly spells 
 
 His royal state of old a glory cursed. 
 
 Saying " I have forgot," and that's the worst. 
 
 62
 
 II 
 
 If we should part upon that one embrace, 
 And ret far courses ever, each from each, 
 With all our treasure but a fading face 
 And little ghostly syllables of speech. 
 Should beauty's moment never be renewed. 
 And moons on moons look out for us in vain. 
 And each but whisper from a solitude 
 To hear but echoes of a lonely pain, — 
 Still in a world that fortune cannot change 
 Should walk those two that once were you and I, 
 Those two that once when moon and stars were 
 
 strange 
 Poets above us in an April sky. 
 Heard a voice falling on the midnight sea. 
 Mute, and for ever, but for you and me. 
 
 63
 
 Ill 
 
 This nature, this great flood of life, this cheat 
 
 That uses us as baubles for her coat. 
 
 Takes love, that should be nothing but the beat 
 
 Of blood for its own beauty, by the throat, 
 
 Saying, you are my servant and shall do 
 
 My purposes, or utter bitterness 
 
 Shall be your wage, and nothing come to you 
 
 But stammering tongues that never can 
 
 confess. 
 Undaunted then in answer here I cry, 
 " You wanton, that control the hand of him 
 Who masquerades as wisdom in a sky 
 Where holy, holy, sing the cherubim, 
 I will not pay one penny to your name 
 Though all my body crumble into shame." 
 
 64
 
 IV 
 
 Woman, I once had whimpered at your hand, 
 Saying that all the wisdom that I sought 
 Lay in your brain, that you were as the sand 
 Should cleanse the muddy mirrors of my 
 
 thought ; 
 I should have read in you the character 
 Of oracles that quick a thousand lays. 
 Looked in your eyes, and seen accounted there 
 Solomons legioned for bewildered praise. 
 Now have I learnt love as love is. I take 
 Your hand, and with no inquisition learn 
 All that your eyes can tell, and that's to make 
 A little reckoning and brief, then turn 
 Away, and in my heart I hear a call, 
 " I love, I love, I love " ; and that is all. 
 
 65
 
 When all the hungry pain of love I bear, 
 And in poor lightless thought but bum and burn. 
 And wit goes hunting wisdom ever37where, 
 Yet can no word of revelation learn, 
 When endlessly the scales of yea and nay 
 In dreadful motion fall and rise and fall, 
 When all my heart in sorrow I could pay 
 Until at last were left no tear at all, 
 Then if with tame or subtle argument 
 Companions come and draw me to a place 
 Where words are but the tappings of content, 
 And life spreads all her garments with a grace, 
 I curse that ease, and hunger in my heart 
 Back to my pain and lonely to depart. 
 
 66
 
 VI 
 
 Not anything you do can make you mine, 
 For enterprise with equal charity 
 In duty as in love elect will shine, 
 The constant slave of mutability. 
 Nor can your words for all their honey breath 
 Outsing the speech of many an older rhyme. 
 And though my ear deliver them from death 
 One day or two, it is so little time. 
 Nor does your beauty in its excellence 
 Excel a thousand in the daily sun, — 
 Yet must I put a period to pretence. 
 And with my logic's catalogue have done. 
 For act and word and beauty are but keys 
 To unlock the heart, and you, dear love, are 
 these. 
 
 67
 
 VII 
 
 Never the heart of spring had^trembled so 
 
 As on that day when first in Paradise 
 
 We went afoot as novices to know 
 
 For the first time what blue was in the skies. 
 
 What fresher green than any in the grass. 
 
 And how the sap goes beating to the sun, 
 
 And tell how on the clocks of beauty pass 
 
 Minute by minute till the last is done. 
 
 But not the new birds singing in the brake, 
 
 And not the buds of our discovery. 
 
 The deeper blue, the wilder green, the ache 
 
 For beauty that we shadow as we see, 
 
 Made heaven, but we, as love's occasion brings^. 
 
 Took these, and made them Paradisal things^ 
 
 68
 
 VIII 
 
 The lilacs offer beauty to the sun, 
 Throbbing with wonder as eternally 
 For sad and happy lovers they have done 
 With the first bloom of summer in the sky, 
 Yet they are newly spread in honour now. 
 Because, for every beam of beauty given 
 Out of that clustering heart, back to the bough 
 My love goes beating, from a greater heaven. 
 So be my love for good or sorry luck 
 Bound, it has virtue on this April eve 
 That shall be there for ever when they pluck 
 Lilacs for love. And though I come to grieve 
 Long at a frosty tomb, there still shall be 
 My happy lyric in the lilac tree. 
 
 69
 
 IX 
 
 When they make silly question of my love, 
 
 And speak to me of danger and disdain, 
 
 And look by fond old argument to move 
 
 My wisdom to docility again, 
 
 When to my prouder heart they set the pride 
 
 Of custom and the gossip of the street. 
 
 And show me figures of myself beside 
 
 A self diminished at their judgment seat, 
 
 Then do I sit as in a drowsy pew 
 
 To hear a priest expounding th' heavenly will, 
 
 Defihng wonder that he never knew 
 
 With stolen words of measured good and ill. 
 
 For to the love that knows their counselling, 
 
 Out of my love contempt alone I bring. 
 
 70
 
 Not love of you is most that I can bring, 
 Since what I am to love you is the test, 
 And should I love you more than any thing 
 You would but be of idle love possessed, 
 A mere love wandering in appetite, 
 Counting your glories and yet bringing none, 
 Finding in you occasions of deUght, 
 A thief of payment for no service done. 
 But when of labouring life I make a song 
 And bring it you, as that were my reward. 
 To let what most is me to you belong. 
 Then do I come of high possessions lord, 
 And loving life more than my love of you 
 I give you love more excellently true. 
 
 71
 
 XI 
 
 What better tale could any lover tell 
 When age or death his reckoning shall write 
 Than thus, " Love taught me only to rebel 
 Against these things, — the thieving of delight 
 Without return ; the gospellers of fear 
 Who, loving, yet deny the truth they bear, 
 Sad-suited lusts with lecherous hands to smear 
 The cloth of gold they would but dare not wear. 
 And love gave me great knowledge of the trees. 
 And singing birds, and earth with all her flowers. 
 Wisdom I knew and righteousness in these, 
 I lived in their atonement all my hours ; 
 Love taught me how to beauty's eye alone 
 The secret of the lying heart is known." 
 
 72
 
 XII 
 
 This then at last ; we may be wiser far 
 Than love, and put his folly to our measure, 
 Yet shall we learn, poor wizards that we are, 
 That love chimes not nor motions at our 
 
 pleasure. 
 We bid him come, and light an eager fire, 
 And he goes down the road without debating. 
 We cast him from the house of our desire, 
 And when at last we leave he will be waiting. 
 And in the end there is no folly but this. 
 To counsel love out of our httle learning. 
 For still he knows where rotten timber is, 
 And where the boughs for the long winter 
 
 burning, 
 And when life needs no more of us at all, 
 Love's word will be the last that we recall. 
 
 1Z
 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT 
 
 Some of these poems have appeared in the following 
 periodicals, and I thank the Editors for their courtesy : 
 The Anglo-French Review, The Chapbook, The Daily 
 News, The Educational Times, Form, The King's 
 Highway, Nash's Magazine, The New Witness, Outward 
 Bound, The Poetry Review, The Sphere, To-day, and 
 The Venture. Fifty copies of Persuasion have been 
 privately printed. 
 
 J. D. 
 
 Printed by Hasell, Watson &■ Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
 
 
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