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 Freeman 
 Presage of Victory 
 
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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 
 ^Presage of Victory
 
 STONE TREES AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN FREEMAN. 
 
 1916, zs. (>d. net. 
 
 It takes us into its own separate world of spiritual mystery and solitude 
 a world of space and distance, crystal light and clearest darkness. 
 Beauty haunts it everywhere, its trees and flowers, moons and daybreaks, 
 birds and stars and meadows, and reveals itself where least it is to be ex- 
 pected. . . . Neither beauty nor terror nor the bizarre is here for its own 
 sake, but because they stand for a reality passionately felt and piercingly 
 confronted. ... It is the outcome of a deeply imaginative brooding on 
 life on the strangeness of sleep and the dreams it brings, on the most 
 curious riddle of death, the loveliness of childhood, the profundity of human 
 consciousness. The Times Literary Supplement. 
 
 Neither his imagination nor his intellect flags when he is writing, and 
 the result is a growing body of verse which is not always easy at first 
 reading, but which grows into one as one becomes more acquainted with 
 it. He is an austere, though often a tender, poet. " Never to be fulfilled 
 was the heart's endless passion meant " is not, on his lips, the cry of the 
 disappointed sensualist, but the considered doctrine of a religious man, 
 and it is significant that the pictures most recurrent in his landscape poems 
 which are numerous and sometimes very beautiful are cool or cold. 
 . . . The " large utterance " of his few war poems they deal with England, 
 human destiny, and the forces of the spirit ... is the mark of a strong 
 and contemplative mind. Lines like : 
 
 There is not anything more wonderful 
 Than a great people moving towards the deep 
 Of an unguessed and un feared future, 
 
 speak of a spiritual force in him, which may or may not ultimately make 
 Mr. Freeman a great poet, but which will certainly | revent him from writing 
 what is called minor poetry. The New Statesman. 
 
 Beauty, clear as a rain-washed sky, there is in all his work. The loveli- 
 ness of " Music Comes " haunts the ear like a strain of music itself : and 
 there is " It was the Lovely Moon," with its limpid vowels and the cadences 
 Shelley might have used. There is beauty in his obvious things too : in 
 the wind that " waked the darkness of the yew," in the small yellow stones, 
 in " Hector, great-helmed, severe," and even in the strange laughter of 
 the idiot watching the world go by. There is no idle impressionism here. 
 The thought or the motive is clear, sharply edged, the expression of it 
 sharp and clear also. The Observer. 
 
 FIFTY POEMS. 2s. 6d. net. 
 London : Selwyn & Blount. 
 
 TWENTY POEMS, is. net. GAY & HANCOCK. 
 THE MODERNS. Essays. 6s. net. ROBERT SCOTT.
 
 Presage of Victory 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 Poems of the Time 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN , FREEMAN 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SELWYN AND BLOUNT 
 
 27, CHANCERY LANE, W.C. 1916
 
 II 
 
 f 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PRESAGE OF VICTORY . . . . . . . . 7 
 
 SWEET ENGLAND .. .. .. .. .. 13 
 
 THE CRAZY CLAY 17 
 
 THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES . . . . . . 27 
 
 Presage of Victory appeared in The New Statesman. Thanks are due to the Editor 
 of that paper for permission to reprint. 
 
 The Stars in their Courses is reprinted from Stone Trees and other Poems (1916). 
 
 Of this Edition 350 copies have been printed. 
 A further 25 copies (numbered) on Special Paper are for sale : price 35. 6d. net 
 
 1231440
 
 I saw him as he went 
 With merry voice and eye. 
 
 I met him when he came 
 Back, tired but the same 
 The same clear voice, bright eye. 
 Merry laugh, quick reply. 
 
 A nd now, if I but look 
 Unnoting at a book, 
 Or from the window stare 
 A t dark woods newly bare, 
 I see that shining eye, 
 The same as when he went : 
 
 But whose is the low sigh, 
 The cold shade o'er me bent?
 
 PRESAGE OF VICTORY 
 
 THEN first I knew, seeing that bent grey head, 
 How England honours all her thousand dead. 
 Then first I knew how faith through black 
 grief burns, 
 
 Until the ruined heart glows while it yearns 
 For one that never more returns 
 Glows in the spent embers of its pride 
 For one that careless lived and fearless died. 
 And then I knew, then first, 
 
 How everywhere Hope from her prison had burst 
 On every hill, wide dale, soft valley's lap, 
 In lonely cottage clutch' d between huge downs, 
 And streets confused with streets in clanging towns 
 Like spring from winter's jail pouring her sap 
 Into the idle wood of last year's trees. 
 Then first I knew how the vast world-disease 
 Would die away, and England upon her seas 
 Shake every scab of sickness ; t'ward new skies 
 Lifting a little holier her head, 
 With honesty the brighter in her eyes, 
 And all that urgent horror well forgot,
 
 8 PRESAGE OF VICTORY 
 
 The dark remembered not ; 
 Only remembered then, with bosom yet hot, 
 The blood that on how many a far field lies, 
 The bones enriching not our English earth 
 That brought them to such splendid birth 
 And the last sacrifice. 
 
 II 
 
 Then first I knew, seeing that head bent low, 
 
 How gravely all her days she needs must go, 
 
 Bearing an image in her faded breast . . . 
 
 O, the dark unrest 
 
 Of thoughts that never cease their flight, 
 
 Never vanishing, yet never still, 
 
 Like birds that wail round the bewildering nest ! 
 
 But other nestlings never shall be hers, 
 
 Only a painful image his place fill, 
 
 Only a memory remain for her thin bosom to nurse 
 
 In all that dark unrest 
 
 Of sleepless and tormented night. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Yet from her eyes presage of victory 
 
 Looked steadfast out at mine. 
 
 It is not to be thought of (said her eyes) 
 
 That only a foul blotch the sun may shine 
 
 On England, through low poisonous thick skies ! 
 
 Never, O never again 
 
 This pain, this pain !
 
 PRESAGE OF VICTORY 
 
 Else from that foreign earth his bones would rise 
 
 And thrust in anger at the bitter skies. 
 
 It is not to be thought of that such prayer 
 
 Should fall unheeded back through heavy air. 
 
 But I have heard, in the night I have heard, 
 
 When not a leaf in all the orchard stirred, 
 
 And ev'n the water of the bourne hung still, 
 
 And the old twitching, creaking house was still, 
 
 And all was still, 
 
 What was it I heard ? 
 
 It could not be his voice, come from so far ; 
 
 I know 'twas not a bird. 
 
 It was his voice, or that lone watchful star 
 
 Creeping above the casement bar, 
 
 Saying : Fear thou no ill, 
 
 No ill ! 
 
 Then all the silence was an echoing round, 
 
 The water and dumb trees their antique murmur found, 
 
 And clear as music came the repeated sound : 
 
 Fear thou no ill, no ill ! 
 
 Was it her eyes or her tongue told me this ? 
 
 IV 
 
 Yet but sad comfort from such pain is caught. . . . 
 I went out from the house and climbed the coombe, 
 And where the first light of sweet morning hung 
 I found the light I sought. 
 From somewhere south a bugle's note was flung,
 
 io PRESAGE OF VICTORY 
 
 From somewhere north a sombre boom ; 
 
 On the opposing hills white flecks and grey 
 
 Spotted the misty green, 
 
 And blue smoke wraiths around the tall trees clung. 
 
 Presently rose thick dust clouds from the green : 
 
 Came up, or seemed to come, the instant beat 
 
 Of marching feet ; 
 
 Then with the clouds the beating died away, 
 
 And nothing was seen 
 
 But broken hills and the new flush of day. 
 
 All round the folding hills were like green waves, 
 
 Tossing awhile together ere they fall 
 
 And fling their salt on the steep stony beach. 
 
 The sound I heard was sound of Roman feet 
 
 I saw the sparkling light on Roman glaives, 
 
 I heard the Roman speech 
 
 Answering the wild Iberian battle-call : 
 
 They passed from sight on the long street. 
 
 And I saw then the Mercian Kings that strode 
 
 Proudly from the small city of grey stone 
 
 And climbed the folding hills, 
 
 Past the full springs that bubbled and flowed 
 
 Through the soft valley and on to Avon stream. 
 
 They passed as all things pass and seem 
 
 No other than a dream, 
 
 All but the shining and the echo gone. 
 
 But still I listened and looked. Their voice it was
 
 PRESAGE OF VICTORY 11 
 
 Blown through the valley grass ; 
 
 Their dust it was that sprang from the hard road 
 
 Where now these English legions flowed, 
 
 Waking the quiet like a steady wind. 
 
 That ancient soldiery before me passed 
 
 With all that followed them, and these the last 
 
 Of my own generation, my own mind ; 
 
 Their strength and courage rooted deep in the earth 
 
 That brings men to such splendid birth 
 
 And no vain sacrifice. . . . 
 
 It was as when the land all darkness lies, 
 
 And shades, nor only shades, move freely out 
 
 And through the trees are heard and all about 
 
 Their ancient ways, 'neath the old stars and skies. 
 
 So now in morning's light I knew them there 
 
 Leading the men that marched and marched away, 
 
 And mounted up the hill, and down the hill 
 
 Passed from my eyes and ears, and left the air 
 
 Trembling everywhere, 
 
 And then how still ! 
 
 VI 
 
 Then first I knew the joy that yet should be 
 
 Ringing from camped hill and guarded sea 
 
 With England's victory. 
 
 The dust had stirred, the infinite dust had stirred, 
 
 It was the courage of the past I heard, 
 
 The virtue of those buried bones again 
 
 Animate in these marching Englishmen ;
 
 12 PRESAGE OF VICTORY 
 
 And nothing wanted if the dead but nerved 
 The living hands that the same England served. 
 With new-washed eyes I saw as I went down 
 On the hill crest the oak-grove's crown, 
 With new delighted ear heard the lark sing- 
 That mad delighted thing ; 
 The very smoke that rose was strangely blue, 
 But most the orchard brightened wonderfully new, 
 Where the wild spring, ere winter snow well gone, 
 Scattered her whiter, briefer snow-cloud down. 
 And England lovelier looked than when 
 Her dead roused not her living men. 
 
 May, 1916.
 
 SWEET ENGLAND 
 
 I HEARD a boy that climbed up Dover's Hill 
 Singing Sweet England, sweeter for his song. 
 The notes crept muffled through the copse, 
 
 but still 
 
 Sharply recalled the things forgotten long, 
 The music that my own boy's lips had known, 
 Singing, and old airs on a wild flute blown. 
 
 And other hills, more grim and lonely far, 
 
 And valleys empty of these orchard trees ; 
 
 A sheep-pond filled with the moon, a single star 
 
 I had watched by night searching the wreckful seas ; 
 
 And all the streets and streets that childhood knew 
 
 In years when London streets were all my view. 
 
 And I remembered how that song I heard, 
 Sweet England, sung by children on May-day, 
 Nor any song was sweeter of a bird 
 Than that half-grievous air from children gay 
 For then, as now, youth made the sadness bright, 
 Till the words, Sweet, Sweet England, shone with light. 
 
 13
 
 14 SWEET ENGLAND 
 
 Now, listening, I forgot how men yet fought 
 For this same England, till the song was done 
 And no sound lingered but the lark's, that brought 
 New music down from fields of cloud and sun, 
 Or the sad lapwing's over fields of green 
 Crying beneath the copse, near but unseen. 
 
 Then I remembered. All wide England spread 
 Before me, hill and wood and meadow and stream 
 And ancient roads and homes of men long dead, 
 And all the beauty a familiar dream. 
 On the green hills a cloud of silver grey 
 Gave gentle light stranger than light of day. 
 
 And clear between the hills, past the near crest 
 And many hills, the hungry cities crept, 
 Noble and mean, oppressive and oppressed, 
 Where dreams unrealized of England slept : 
 And they too England, packed in dusty street 
 With men that half forgot England was sweet. 
 
 Millions of men that almost had forgot 
 
 And now remembered since for her they strove ; 
 
 But that vexed happiness remembered not, 
 
 And pain, in the simplicity of love ; 
 
 Bright careless courage hiding all that stirred 
 
 Within, when that loud solemn call they heard.
 
 SWEET ENGLAND 15 
 
 Now they were far, but like a living brain 
 
 Quick with their thought, the earth, hills, air and light 
 
 Were quivering as though a shining rain 
 
 Falling all round made ev'n the light more bright ; 
 
 And trees and water and heath and hedge-flowers fair 
 
 With more than natural sweetness washed the air. 
 
 From hill to hill a sparkling web it swung, 
 
 A snare for happiness, lit with lovely dews. 
 
 The very smoke of cities now was hung 
 
 But like a grave girl's dress of tranquil hues : 
 
 And how (I thought) can England, seen thus bright, 
 
 Lifting her clear frank head, but love the light ? 
 
 No, not her brain ! that bright web was the shadow 
 
 Of the high spirit in their spirit shining 
 
 Who on scarred foreign hill and trenched meadow 
 
 Kept the faith yet, unfearful, unrepining ; 
 
 Her faith that with the dark world's liberty 
 
 Mingles as earth's great rivers with the sea. 
 
 O with what gilding ray was the land agleam ! 
 
 It was not sun and dew, bush, bough and leaf, 
 
 But human spirits visible as in a dream 
 
 That turns from glad to aching, being too brief : 
 
 Courage and beauty shining in such brightness 
 
 That the dark thoughtful woods were no more lightless.
 
 16 SWEET ENGLAND 
 
 But most the hills a splendour had put on 
 
 Of golden honour, bright and high and calm 
 
 And like old heroes young men dream upon 
 
 When midnight stirs with magic sword and palm ; 
 
 With the fled mist all meanness put away 
 
 And the air clear and keen as salt sea-spray. . . . 
 
 And 3^et no dream, no dream ! I saw the whole, 
 The reap'd fields, idle kine and wandering sheep. 
 A weak wind through the near tall hedge-tree stole, 
 And died where Dover's Hill rose bare and steep ; 
 I saw yet what I saw an hour ago, 
 But knew what save by dreams I did not know 
 
 Sweet England ! wild proud heart of things unspoken, 
 
 Spirit that men bear shyly and love purely ; 
 
 That dies to live anew a life unbroken 
 
 As spring from every winter rising surely : 
 
 Sweet England unto generations sped, 
 
 Now bitter-sweetest for her daily dead. 
 
 September, 1916.
 
 THE CRAZY CLAY 
 
 THE windy day was almost spent, 
 Light thickened in the sky, 
 The orchards their great whiteness dimmed 
 
 The sheep that cropped thereby 
 Were like the trees and trees like sheep. 
 
 I heard a cuckoo cry ; 
 I heard a nightingale in the hedge 
 
 Sing and cease to sing, 
 Seeming to follow me and stir 
 
 My dust with sense of spring, 
 Until a new man woke in me 
 And joy in everything. 
 
 Climbing the hill I met a soldier 
 
 That limped down from the hill, 
 A soldier come from Camden down 
 
 To the hamlet hidden, still 
 A cluster of coloured stone. We spoke : 
 
 Our voices seemed to fill 
 The quietness, and wander out 
 
 Echoingly on the air, 
 
 17
 
 iS THE CRAZY CLAY 
 
 As we spoke of the war that rolled 
 
 It might be over there. . . . 
 Almost we heard the rolling guns 
 
 Rumbling everywhere. 
 
 Parting I watched him as he dropped 
 
 With the road out of sight, 
 And then when he was gone I still 
 
 Saw him (I thought) though night 
 Broadened her shadows and made strange 
 
 Things not strange in the light. 
 And still I heard the noise and still 
 
 Enthralled and musing stood, 
 Not knowing it was the owl that cried 
 
 Painfully from the wood ; 
 Nor that mere trees and shadows made 
 
 That awful multitude. 
 
 There, there ! in shape and habit clear, 
 
 In gesture sharp and plain, 
 Many times many I could tell 
 
 And thronging as the rain ; 
 So they moved past me and then flowed 
 
 Slowly back again. 
 And some were men, young as the spring, 
 
 Yet twisted like old trees ; 
 And some were women, breastless, eyeless, 
 
 Or hate burned in their eyes ; 
 And some were children haunted with 
 
 Unnatural miseries.
 
 THE CRAZY CLAY 19 
 
 Pale all and weariful they were, 
 
 With anguish bowed and worn ; 
 And none but stared out helplessly 
 
 Forlorn on things forlorn. 
 There was a horror of bodies firm 
 
 God's cunning broken and torn. 
 Grotesquely sad crawled some, no more 
 
 With sense or motion free ; 
 And all I saw deep silence kept 
 
 Oh, no words could be 
 So painful as that silence was, 
 
 Stored with such misery. 
 
 Among the trees they moved and stood 
 
 Sharp as a dream and then 
 When the wind rambled through their ranks 
 
 They were as trees again ; 
 But still I knew them very shapes 
 
 Of children, women and men. 
 Soldiers of honour, robbed of honour's 
 
 Victory, unsatisfied, 
 With their great purpose unachieved ; 
 
 The ghosts of men that died 
 Mingled with them that only pain 
 
 From death could yet divide. . . . 
 
 Till all they shrank back as a cloud 
 
 Draws to a distant blur, 
 Yet hangs still on the shield of blue : 
 
 They shrank back, and clung there
 
 20 THE CRAZY CLAY 
 
 Patching the twilight with their cloud 
 
 Heavily everywhere. 
 Right before them one rose up, 
 
 Lean, cold ashy grey, 
 With torn soiled cloak dragged in the dust, 
 
 Head drooping, eyes astray, 
 And wandering hand that groped and failed- 
 
 A shape of crazy clay. 
 
 If silence was when he rose up 
 
 There fell a silence more 
 Painful and sinister ; it seemed 
 
 Time flagged at the last shore, 
 And that unapt lean figure looked 
 
 Lonelier than before. . . . 
 Until a high harsh mocking cry 
 
 Broke that hush of the air, 
 And a stream of mockery was loosed 
 
 Suddenly everywhere, 
 Bursting the rim of the sad peace, 
 
 Making each star aware. 
 
 Insanely fierce he glared and shifted, 
 
 Lips quivering, wanting speech. 
 Upon his head a crown was fixed, 
 
 White as the stones of the beach 
 A crown of fangs of wolf or bear. 
 
 His lips curled back shewed each 
 Their edge of other wolfish teeth : 
 
 The wolf within him howled
 
 THE CRAZY CLAY 21 
 
 Back at the mockery of the cry . . . 
 
 Far down the hill it rolled, 
 The discord of that wolfish howl 
 
 And jargons manifold. 
 
 Then all those others stirred and crept 
 
 Back from the trees ; they came, 
 A ring of ghosts and he within, 
 
 Lunatic, ringed with flame, 
 The awful fire of eyes that startled 
 
 His, everywhere the same : 
 Everywhere a fire of pain, 
 
 Madness, anger, fear. 
 But still none spoke, but there was sound 
 
 Of sighs : oh, I could hear 
 The gentle breath of children quaver 
 
 Sorrowfully everywhere. 
 
 Then first I saw those faces plain 
 
 In the moon's cruel light. 
 I saw how children look when fear 
 
 Darkens the spirit's sight. 
 I saw how women look when shame 
 
 Poisons day and night. 
 I saw old men whose age was grief, 
 
 That pithless were their bones ; 
 I saw dishonoured bodies stand 
 
 As stiff and cold as stones ; 
 I saw the mother's nerveless mouth 
 
 Whose sole speech was moans.
 
 22 THE CRAZY CLAY 
 
 And all that ring was swept with light, 
 
 The faces marred and sad, 
 The broken men and shame-faced women, 
 
 The children nevermore glad : 
 The very trees a tortured ruined 
 
 Human semblance had. 
 The light slid on him as he stared 
 
 From eyes unspiritual, 
 Seeing God knows what frenzied visions, 
 
 Shapes fantastical. 
 Clear on his forehead did the. moon's 
 
 Accusing cold beam fall. 
 
 One form drew near confronting him, 
 
 A dead child at her breast, 
 And bones that still crawled at her side 
 
 Restless, aching for rest, 
 With griefs unchildlike, bodiless fears, 
 
 Terrors unconfessed. 
 " Art thou the Kaiser of thy people, 
 
 The running sore of the world ? 
 The serpent sunned through the earth's late brightness 
 
 And at last uncurled ? 
 The stone that Lucifer from his deep 
 
 Once more at man has hurled ? 
 
 " O German land and German blood 
 
 Spent in an evil fight ! 
 O darkened German mind and spirit 
 
 Robbed of simple light !
 
 THE CRAZY CLAY 23 
 
 Hearts fed with poison and swept by craft 
 
 Out of clear day to night ! . . . 
 Who shall forgive thee the great wrong 
 
 Thou hast done to her ah, who 
 Forgive me whom thou mad'st corrupt, 
 
 With eyeless pride wormed through ? 
 Sickness is on me, of thy thoughts 
 
 Worming me through and through. 
 
 " Now have I lost what never, never, 
 
 Never is found again 
 Honour. The Germany that was 
 
 Dies, and dies in vain 
 Since thou livest on, a carrion King 
 
 Festering in heart and brain. 
 With Germany against Germany 
 
 Thou hast fought and stricken her dead, 
 Tearing her with thy teeth of pride 
 
 Till her true spirit was fled. . . . 
 Now but to weep with are her eyes 
 
 Left sightless in her head ! ' ' 
 
 Looking I saw a shudder vex 
 
 That tottering shape of clay, 
 And though the curled lips foamed and shook 
 
 No clear word could he say, 
 But indistinct and passionately 
 
 Gestured a wild, Away ! 
 Not now his single witless word 
 
 Could bring grey armies near ;
 
 24 THE CRAZY CLAY 
 
 Only those dark Shades crept to him, 
 
 Memory, Madness and Fear, 
 Whispering such things as none but they 
 
 Might dream, or that ghost hear. 
 
 I knew them as they crept to him 
 
 And all they watching knew 
 Death's dark Familiars : for their grief 
 
 Had they not heard them too, 
 Muttering always in their heart 
 
 Of anguish old and new ? 
 And now their whispers crept to him 
 
 Of things so sharp with pain 
 That from his senseless wandering eyes 
 
 The trouble of the brain 
 Stared wildly out, as from close bars 
 
 Stares a starved face in vain ! 
 
 And silence flowed back over all, 
 
 But her words sounded on 
 Within my brain unendingly ; 
 
 And she, as turned to stone, 
 Stayed unmoving where she stood 
 
 When echoes all were gone. 
 Until I heard from that great round 
 
 Of ghostly shapes creep out 
 Another voice not earthly quiet, 
 
 Clear ; from all about 
 It seemed to come, a general voice 
 
 Pouring all about.
 
 THE CRAZY CLAY 25 
 
 " Enough ! the curses of our lips, 
 
 The angers of our eyes, 
 The piercing thoughts upthrust at heaven 
 
 Weighted with agonies ; 
 The prayers that God may never hear, 
 
 The great unanswered cries 
 Enough ! for Germany is dead, 
 
 And judged of Germany ; 
 There needs no word of ours Enough ! " 
 
 And every bush and tree 
 Stirred with the drawing of that host 
 
 Away : and I could see 
 
 No more a host but only clouds 
 
 Moving through the wood. 
 But still before me, fierce and feeble, 
 
 That crazy spectre stood 
 Until the moonlight died, and darkness 
 
 Drew her blackest hood 
 Over all trees, hill and sky 
 
 And spectre gaping there ; 
 So only darkness stayed with me 
 
 And the tingling air 
 That in great darkness is not still 
 
 Nor senseless anywhere. 
 
 But I was sad, and anger lingered 
 
 Burning in my thought, 
 Remembering all those warring peoples 
 
 Ev'n now that strove and fought,
 
 26 THE CRAZY CLAY 
 
 And the sharp mockery of this vision 
 
 With things unreal fraught. 
 But that same tingling darkness spoke 
 
 As darkness speaks to me, 
 Stilling at once the inward murmurings 
 
 That rose so bitterly : 
 " Enough ! for thee too it is enough 
 
 I show what yet shall be ! " 
 
 No more. The unstirring darkness lay 
 
 Thickly upon the night ; 
 Wind came rustling down the hill 
 
 And died in airs so light 
 That not a leaf woke at my hand. 
 
 I moved away : a bright 
 Point pricked the darkness flooding down 
 
 Where fields (I knew) must lie, 
 And the spring by the grey stone wall 
 
 Gurgled unrestingly. . . . 
 Mounting the hill as I came down 
 
 I heard an owlet's cry. 
 
 June, 1915.
 
 THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES 
 
 AND now, while the dark vast earth shakes and 
 rocks 
 In this wild dream-like snare of mortal shocks. 
 How look (I muse) those cold and solitary 
 stars 
 
 On these magnificent, cruel wars ? 
 Venus, that brushes with her shining lips 
 (Surely !) the wakeful edge of the world and mocks 
 With hers its all ungentle wantonness ? 
 Or the large moon (pricked by the spars of ships 
 Creeping and creeping in their restlessness), 
 The moon pouring strange light on things more strange, 
 Looks she unheedfully on seas and lands 
 Trembling with change and fear of counterchange ? 
 
 O, not earth trembles, but the stars, the stars ! 
 The sky is shaken and the cool air is quivering. 
 I cannot look up to the crowded height 
 And see the fair stars trembling in their light, 
 For thinking of the starlike spirits of men 
 Crowding the earth and with great passion quivering : 
 Stars quenched in anger and hate, stars sick with pity. 
 
 27
 
 28 THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES 
 
 I cannot look up to the naked skies 
 
 Because a sorrow on dark midnight lies, 
 
 Death, on the living world of sense ; 
 
 Because on my own land a shadow lies 
 
 That may not rise ; 
 
 Because from bare grey hillside and rich city 
 
 Streams of uncomprehending sadness pour, 
 
 Thwarting the eager spirit's pure intelligence . . . 
 
 How look (I muse) those cold and solitary stars 
 
 On these magnificent, cruel wars ? 
 
 Stars trembled in broad heaven, faint with pity. 
 
 An hour to dawn I looked. Beside the trees 
 
 Wet mist shaped other trees that branching rose, 
 
 Covering the woods and putting out the stars. 
 
 There was no murmur on the seas, 
 
 No wind blew only the wandering air that grows 
 
 With dawn, then murmurs, sighs, 
 
 And dies. 
 
 The mist climbed slowly, putting out the stars, 
 
 And the earth trembled when the stars were gone ; 
 
 And moving strangely everywhere upon 
 
 The trembling earth, thickened the watery mist. 
 
 And for a time the holy things are veiled. 
 
 England's wise thoughts are swords ; her quiet hours 
 
 Are trodden underfoot like wayside flowers, 
 
 And every English heart is England's wholly. 
 
 In starless night 
 
 A serious passion streams the heaven with light.
 
 THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES 29 
 
 A common beating is in the air 
 
 The heart of England throbbing everywhere. 
 
 And all her roads are nerves of noble thought, 
 
 And all her people's brain is but her brain ; 
 
 And all her history, less her shame, 
 
 Is part of her requickened consciousness. 
 
 Her courage rises clean again. 
 
 Even in victory there hides defeat ; 
 
 The spirit's murdered though the body survives, 
 
 Except the cause for which a people strives 
 
 Burn with no covetous, foul heat. 
 
 Fights she against herself who infamously draws 
 
 The sword against man's secret spiritual laws. 
 
 But thou, England, because a bitter heel 
 
 Hath sought to bruise the brain, the sensitive will, 
 
 The conscience of the world, 
 
 For this, England, art risen, and shalt fight 
 
 Purely through long profoundest night, 
 
 Making their quarrel thine who are grieved like thee ; 
 
 And (if to thee the stars yield victory) 
 
 Tempering their hate of the great foe that hurled 
 
 Vainly her strength against the conscience of the world. 
 
 I looked again, or dreamed I looked, and saw 
 The stars again and all their peace again. 
 The moving mist had gone, and shining still 
 The moon went high and pale above the hill. 
 Not now those lights were trembling in the vast 
 Ways of the nervy heaven, nor trembled earth :
 
 30 THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES 
 
 Profound and calm they gazed as the soft-shod hours 
 
 passed. 
 
 And with less fear (not with less awe, 
 Remembering, England, all the blood and pain), 
 How look, I cried, you stern and solitary stars 
 On these disastrous wars ! 
 
 August, 1914. 
 
 Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey.
 
 SELWYN & BLOUNT'S ANNOUNCEMENTS. 
 
 * 
 
 Remembrance 
 
 AND OTHER VERSES 
 By CHARLES BERNARD DE BOISMAISON WHITE 
 
 With a Memoir by DE V. PAYEN-PAYNE. 
 
 Two Portraits and Facsimiles. 
 In crown 8vo, cloth. 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 Charles White was a young journalist and poet of considerable 
 promise who joined the Army shortly after the outbreak of the 
 War, obtained a commission in the Northumberland Fusiliers, 
 and was killed during the great advance in July, 1916. 
 
 Rimes of the Diables Bleus 
 
 By HENRY BAERLEIN, 
 
 Author of " Abu'l Ala" (5th thousand and " Windrush and Evenlode." 
 In crown 8vo. Boards. 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 Mr. Henry Baerlein, who has been attached for some months 
 to one of the convoys of the British Ambulance Committee 
 operating in the Vosges and Alsace, has attempted to reproduce 
 in this book the spirits of the Chasseurs Alpins. Some of these 
 verses are translated from their remarkable trench paper, the 
 Diable au Cor ; and there is a study in prose of these famous 
 regiments. 
 
 Presage of Victory 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS OF THE TIME 
 
 By JOHN FREEMAN 
 In foolscap 4to. Paper wrappers. Is. net. 
 
 25 (numbered) copies on special paper are for sale at 3s. 6d. net. 
 Although not strictly speaking war poems, the four pieces in 
 this volume have been written since the War, and the three more 
 recent of these have not before appeared in book form. 
 
 Poems 
 
 By EDWARD EASTAWAY 
 In crown 8vo. Boards. 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 This is the first collection of Mr. Eastaway's poems, many of 
 which have already appeared in periodicals, and some have found 
 places in anthologies. Shortly.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 Form L9-Series 444 
 
 A Veil ot Uossamer 
 
 Being some Reflections on future Ethical bases 
 
 By ROLAND ST. CLAIR 
 
 la crown 8vo. 6d. net. 
 
 A collection of pithy epigrams applicable to the present time. 
 
 SELWYN & BLOUNT, 27, Chancery Lane, London, W,C.
 
 r*WPHLET BINDER 
 
 === Syracuse, N. Y. 
 S^ Stockton, Calif.