6oor s = r- ^— ^ — 1 e = ^ ^ — _ 2 ^= 311 3 m 8 = — 2 3> 3 r- ^ ^^ ^ 6 — Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES OLTON POOLS BY THE SAME AUTHOR POETRY— COPHETUA. A Play, igii REBELLION. A Play. 1914 SWORDS AND PLOUGHSHARES. 1915 PA^\TS^S. Three Plays. 1917 POEMS, 1908-1914 TIDES. 1917 LOYALTIES. 1919 PROSE— WILLIAM MORRIS. 1912 SWINBURNE. 1913 THE LYRIC. 1915 PROSE PAPERS. 1917 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. A Play. 1919 Olton Pools by John Drinkwater London: Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd. 3 Adam Street, Adelphi mcmxix First edition, December, 1916 Second impression, December, 1916 Third impression, December, 1917 Fourth impression, June, 1919 All rights reserved f TO EDMUND GOSSE 998593 CONTENTS Dedication Birthright Antagonists . Olton Pools . They Also Serve From Generation to Generation Clouds . Nineteen-Fifteen Riddles, R.F.C. For April 23RD, 1616 — 1916 . September .... Sunrise on Rydal Water Wordsworth at Grasmere Written at Ludlow Castle . Holiness The City Daffodils John's Tune . To THE DeFILERS PAGE 9 II 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Anthony Crundle . • • • • PAGB 30 Old Oliver . • • • • • 31 Derbyshire Song . • • • • ■ 32 Millers Dale • • • • ' 33 To THE Lovers that Come After Us • 34 Love in October . • • • • • 35 Defiance • • • • 36 A Christmas Night • • ■ • 37 Invocation • • • « 38 Immortality . • • • ■ 39 The Craftsmen • • • • 41 Eetition , • • • • < > 42 8 OLTON POOLS BeMcation TO E. G. Sometimes youth comes to age and asks a blessing, Or counsel, or a tale of old estate, Yet youth will still be curiously guessing The old man's thought when death is at his gate; For all their courteous words they are not one. This youth and age, but civil strangers still. Age with the best of all his seasons done. Youth with his face towards the upland hill. Age looks ft)r rest while youth runs far and \\ide, Age talks with death, which is youth's very fear, Age knows so many comrades who have died. Youth bums that one companion is so dear. So, with good will, and in one house, may dwell These two, and talk, and all be yet to tell. 9 II But there are men who, in the time of age, Sometimes remember all that age forgets : The early hope, the hardly compassed wage, The change of com, and snow, and violets ; They are glad of praise ; they know this morning brings As true a song as any yesterday ; Their labour still is set to many things. They cry their questions out along the way. They give as who may gladly take again Some gift at need ; they move with gallant ease Among all eager companies of men ; And never signed of age are such as these. They speak with youth, and never speak amiss ; Of such are you ; and what is youth but this ? 10 BIRTHRIGHT Lord Rameses of Egypt sighed Because a summer evening passed ; And little Ariadne cried That summer fancy fell at last To dust ; and young Verona died When beauty's hour was overcast. Theirs was the bitterness we know Because the clouds of hawthorn keep So short a state, and kisses go To tombs unfathomably deep. While Rameses and Romeo And little Ariadne sleep. n ANTAGONISTS Green shoots, we break the morning earth And flourish in the morning's breath ; We leave the agony of birth And soon are all midway to death. While yet the summer of her year Brings life her marvels, she can see Far off the rising dust, and hear The footfall of her enemy. 12 OLTON POOLS (to g. c. g.) Now June walks on the waters. And the cuckoo's last enchantment Passes from Olton pools. Now dawn comes to my window Breathing midsummer roses. And scythes are wet with dew. Is it not strange for ever That, bowered in this wonder, Man keeps a jealous heart ? . . . That June and the June waters. And birds and dawn-lit roses, Are gospels in the wind. Fading upon the deserts, Poor pilgrim revelations ? . . ; Hist . . . over Olton pools 1 13 THEY ALSO SERVE Bride birds among your leaves to-day Watching from England green, Your mates have gone what sorrier way. And you, what have you seen ? — Of all things known but this you know — Against the falling night The myriad mates for ever go, Upon some alien fhght. Hushed upon frosty trees you wait That paragon of springs, When seaward shall the sound be great Of fond returning wings. 14 FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION Long since the sorrows of the nightingales Came throbbing through the night to lattices Where women watched whose amours had made rich The days of soldiers now gone out in mail And carven plate, with battleaxe and bow. Faring and fallen, or happily to be Home on some twilight road, a lonely spear. . . . Long since, that so these ladies and their loves, And casements looking on to battlefields WTiere still a loyal crest might wear a rose, Have perished, or grown fabulous, all song, Or mist of mummers, or a crazj^ tale For those book-learned fools who miss the world. . . . There is a wood in Warwickshire to-day. Haunted and hushed with midnight nightin- gales — O summer song. And there are fields of France, And fields, O love, by many an alien sea. . . . 15 CLOUDS Because a million voices call Across the earth distractedly. Because the thrones of reason fall And beautiful battalions die, My mind is like a madrigal Played on a lute long since put by. In common use my mind is still Eager for every lovely thing — The solitudes of tarn and hiU, Bright birds with honesty to sing, Bluebells and primroses that spill Cascades of colour on the spring. But now my mind that gave to these Gesture and shape, colour and song. Goes hesitant and ill at ease, And the old touch is truant long, Because the continents and seas Are loud with lamentable wrong. z6 NINETEEN- FIFTEEN On a ploughland hill against the sky, Over the barley, over the rye, Time, which is now a black pine tree. Holds out his arms and mocks at me — " In the year of your Lord nineteen-fifteen The acres are ploughed and the acres are green. And the calves and the lambs and the foals are born. But man the angel is all forlorn. " The cropping cattle, the swallow's wing. The wagon team and the pasture spring. Move in their seasons and are most wise. But man, whose image is in the skies, " Who is master of all, whose hand achieves The church and the barn and the homestead eaves — How are the works of his wisdom seen In the year of your Lord nineteen-fifteen ? " T7 RIDDLES, R.F.C.* (1916) He was a boy of April beauty ; one Who had not tried the world ; who, while the sun Flamed yet upon the eastern sky, was done. Time would have brought him in her patient ways — So his young beauty spoke— to prosperous days, To fulness of authority and praise. He would not wait so long. A boy, he spent His boy's dear life for England. Be content : No honour of age had been more excellent. * Lieut. Stewart G. Ridley. Royal Flying Corps, sacrificed his life in the Egyptian desert in an attempt to save a comrade. He was twenty years of age. 18 FOR APRIL 23RD 1616 — 1916 One thing to-day For England let us pray — That, when this bitterness of blood is spent, Out of the darkness of the discontent Perplexing man with man, poor pride with pride. Shall come to her, and loverly abide. Sure knowledge that these lamentable days Were given to death and the bewildered praise Of dear young limbs and eager eyes forestilled, That in her home, where Shakespeare's passion grew From song to song, should thrive the happy- willed Free life that Shakespeare drew. 19 SEPTEMBER Wind and the robin's note to-day Have heard of autumn and betray The green long reign of summer. The rust is falHng on the leaves, September stands beside the sheaves. The new, the happy comer. Not sad my season of the red And russet orchards gaily spread From Cholesbury to Cooming, Nor sad when twilit valley trees Are ships becalmed on misty seas, And beetles go abooming. Now soon shall come the morning crowds Of starlings, soon the coloured clouds From oak and ash and willow. And soon the thorn and briar shall be Rich in their crimson livery, In scarlet and in yeUow. Spring laughed and thrilled a million veins, And summer shone above her rains To fill September's faring ; September talks as kings who know The world's way and superbly go In robes of wisdom's wearing. 20 SUNRISE ON RYDAL WATER (to e. de s.) Come down at dawn from windless hills Into the valley of the lake. Where yet a larger quiet fills The hour, and mist and water make With rocks and reeds and island boughs One silence and one element, Where wonder goes surely as once It went By Galilean prows. Moveless the water and the mist. Moveless the secret air above, Hushed, as upon some happy tryst The poised expectancy of love ; What spirit is it that adores What mighty presence yet unseen ? What consummation works apace Between These rapt enchanted shores ? Never did virgin beauty wake Devouter to the bridal feast Than moves this hour upon the lake In adoration to the east ; Here is the bride a god may know, The primal will, the young consent. Till surely upon the appointed mood Intent The god shall leap — and, lo, 21 Over the lake's end strikes the sun, WTiite, flameless fire ; some purity ThrilHng the mist, a splendour won Out of the world's heart. Let there be Thoughts, and atonements, and desires, Proud limbs, and undeliberate tongue, Where now we move with mortal oars Among Immortal dews and fires. So the old mating goes apace, Wind with the sea, and blood with thought. Lover with lover ; and the grace Of understanding comes unsought \Mien stars into the twilight steer, Or thrushes build among the may, Or wonder moves between the hills. And day Comes up on Rydal mere. 22 WORDSWORTH AT GRASMERE These hills and waters fostered you Abiding in your argument Until all comely wisdom drew About you, and the years were spent. Now over hill and water stays A world more intimately wise. Built of your dedicated days, And seen in your beholding eyes. So, marvellous and far, the mind. That slept among them when began Waters and hills, leaps up to find Its kingdom in the thought of man. 23 WRITTEN AT LUDLOW CASTLE (in the hall where comus was FIRST performed) Where wall and sill and broken window-frame Are bright with flowers unroofed against the skies, And nothing but the nesting jackdaws' cries Breaks the hushed even, once imperial came The muse that moved transfiguring the name Of Puritan, and beautiful and wise The verses fell, forespeaking Paradise, And poetry set all this hall aflame. Now silence has come down upon the place Where life and song so wonderfully went, And the mole's afoot now where that passion rang, Yet Comus now first moves his laurelled pace. For song and life for ever are unspent. And they are more than ghosts who lived and sang. 24 HOLINESS If all the carts were painted gay, And all the streets swept clean, And all the children came to play By hollyhocks, with green Grasses to grow between. If all the houses looked as though Some heart were in their stones. If all the people that we know Were dressed in scarlet gowns. With feathers in their crowns, I think this gaiety would make A spiritual land. I think that holiness would take This laughter by the hand, Till both should understand. 25 THE CITY A SHINING City, one Happy in snow and sun, And singing in the rain A paradisal strain. . . . Here is a dream to keep, O Builders, from your sleep. O foolish BuUders, wake, Take your trowels, take The poet's dream, and build The city song has willed, That every stone may sing And all your roads may ring With happ}^ wayfaring. 26 DAFFODILS Again, my man of Lady Street, Your daffodils have come, the sweet Bell daffodils that are aglow In RjAton woods now, where they go Who are my friends and make good rh5^mes. They come, these very daffodils. From that same flight of Gloucester hills, Where Dymock dames and Dymock men Have cider kegs and flocks in pen. For I've been there a thousand times. Your petals are enchanted still As when those tongues of Orphic skill Bestowed upon that Ryton earth A benediction for your birth. Sun-daffodils that now I greet. Because, brave daffodils, you bring Colour and savour of a spring That R}^i:on blood is quick to tell. You should be borne, if all were well. In golden carts to Lady Street. 27 JOHN'S TUNE (to a. J. G. AND J. E. S.) Now God be praised who gives us light, And hills on which the light may fall. And a song to sing at the end of the night When over the paddocks the starlings call. The sun is waiting in the sky And surely has but kind to say. And with never a cloud for company, So come, and we'll travel away to-day. A road for you, a hill for me, A river Joe may shine upon, Never has been such luck of three Since first went walking any John, Shake out your stars from pockets lined With pence enough for pilgrimage. Not one of us all but has a mind Fit to challenge the earth's old age. 28 TO THE DEFILERS Go, thieves, and take your riches, creep To corners out of honest sight ; We shall not be so poor to keep One thought of envy or despite. But know that in sad surety when Your sullen will betrays this earth To sorrows of contagion, then Beelzebub renews his birth. When you defile the pleasant streams And the wild bird's abiding-place. You massacre a million dreams And cast your spittle in God's face. 29 ANTHONY CRUNDLE Here lies the body of ANTHONY CRUNDLE. Farmer, of this parish. Who died in 1849 at the age of 82. " He delighted in music". R. I. P. And of SUSAN, For fifty-three years his wife, Who died in i860, aged 86. Anthony Crundle of Dorrington Wood Played on a piccolo. Lord was he, For seventy years, of sheaves that stood Under the perry and cider tree ; Anthony Crundle, R.I. P. And because he prospered with sickle and scythe, With cattle afield and labouring ewe, Anthony was uncommonly blithe. And played of a night to himself and Sue ; Antliony Crundle, eighty-two. The earth to till, and a tune to play. And Susan for fifty years and three. And Dorrington Wood at the end of day . . . May providence do no worse by me ; AntJiony Crundle, R.I. P. 30 OLD OLIVER Old Oliver, my uncle, went With but a penny for his needs, Walking from Cotsall hill to Clent, His pocket full of poppy seeds. And every little lane along He scattered them for good man's will, And then he sang a happy song From Clent again to Cotsall hill. 31 DERBYSHIRE SONG Come loving me to Darley Dale In spring time or sickle time, And we will make as proud a tale As lovers in the antique prime Of Harry or Elizabeth. With kirtle green and nodding flowers To deck my hair and little waist, I'll be worth a lover's hours. . . . Come, fellow, thrive, there is no haste But soon is worn away in death. Soon shall the blood be tame, and soon Our bodies lie in Darley Dale, Unreckoning of jolly June, With tongues past telling any tale ; My man, come loving me to-day. I have a wrist is smooth and brown, I have a shoulder smooth and white, I have my grace in any gown By sun or moon or candle-light. . . . Come Darley way, come Darley way. 3« MILLERS DALE Barefoot we went by Millers Dale When meadowsweet was golden gloom And happy love was in the vale Singing upon the summer bloom Of gipsy crop and branches laid Of willows over chanting pools, Barefoot by Millers Dale we made Our summer festival of fools. Folly bright-eyed, and quick, and young Was there with all his silly plots. And trotty wagtail stepped among The delicate forget-me-nots, And laughter played with us above The rocky shelves and weeded holes And we had fellowship to love The pigeons and the water-voles. Time soon shall be when we are all Stiller than ever runs the Wye, And every bitterness shall fall To-morrow in obscurity. And wars be done, and treasons fail, Yet shall new friends go down to greet The singing rocks of Millers Dale, And willow pools and meadowsweet 33 TO THE LOVERS THAT COME AFTER US Lovers, a little of this your happy time Give to the thought of us who were as you. That we, whose dearest passion in j^our prime Is but a winter garment, may renew Our love in j^ours, our flesh in j^our desire, Our tenderness in your discovering kiss. For we are half the fuel of your fire. As ours was fed by Marc and Beatrice. Remember us, and, when you too are dead. Our prayer with yours shall fall upon love's spring That all our ghostly loves be comforted In those yet later lovers' love-making ; So shall oblivion bring his dust to spill On bram and limbs, and we be lovers still. 34 LOVE IN OCTOBER (to k.) The fields, the clouds, the farms and farming gear, The drifting kine, the scarlet apple-trees , . . Not of the sun but separate are these. And individual joys, and very dear ; Yet when the sun is folded, they are here No more, the drifting skies : the argosies Of wagoned apples : still societies Of elms : red cattle on the stubbled year. So are you not love's whole estate. I owe In many hearts more dues than I shall pay ; Yet is your heart the spring of all love's light, And should your love weary of me and go With all its thriving beams out of my day, These many loves would founder in that night. 35 DEFIANCE O WIDE the way your beauty goes, For all its feigned indifference, And every folly's path it knows, And every humour of pretence. But I can be as false as are The rainbow loves which are your days. And I will gladly go and far, Content with your immediate praise. Your lips, the shyer lover's bane, I take with disputation none. And am your kinsman in disdain When all is excellently done. 36 A CHRIST]\LA.S NIGHT Christ for a dream was given from the dead To walk one Christmas night on earth again, Among the snow, among the Christmas bells. He heard the hymns that are his praise : Noel, And Christ is Born, and Babe of Bethlehem. He saw the travelling crowds happy for home. The gathering and the welcome, and the set Feast and the gifts, because he once was born, Because he once was steward of a word. And so he thought, " The spirit has been kind ; So well the peoples might have fallen from me, My way of life being difficult and spare. It is beautiful that a dream in Galilee Should prosper so. They crucified me once, And now my name is spoken through the world. And bells are rung for me and candles burnt. They might have crucified my dream who used My body ill ; they might have spat on me Always as in one hour on Golgotha." . . . And the snow fell, and the last bell was still, And the poor Christ again was with the dead. 37 INVOCATION As pools beneath stone arches take Darkly within their deeps again Shapes of the flowing stone, and make Stories anew of passing men, So let the living thoughts that keep. Morning and evening, in their kind. Eternal change in height and deep, Be mirrored in my happy mind. Beat, world, upon this heart, be loud Your marvel chanted in my blood. Come forth, sun, through cloud on cloud To shine upon my stubborn mood. Great hills that fold above the sea, Ecstatic airs and sparkling skies. Sing out your words to master me. Make me immoderately wise. 38 IMMORTALITY When other beauty governs other lips, And snowdrops come to strange and happy springs, When seas renewed bear yet unbuilded ships. And alien hearts know all familiar things. When frosty nights bring comrades to enjoy Sweet hours at hearths where we no longer sit, When Liverpool is one with dusty Troy, And London famed as Attica for wit . , . How shall it be with you, and you, and you, How with us all who have gone greatly here In friendship, making some delight, some true Song in the dark, some story against fear ? Shall song still walk with love, and life be brave, And we, who were all these, be but the grave ? 39 11 No ; lovers yet shall tell the nightingale Sometimes a song that we of old time made, And gossips gathered at the twilight ale Shall say, " Those two were friends," or, " Unafraid Of bitter thought were those because they loved Better than most." And sometimes shall be told How one, who died in his young beauty, moved, As Astrophel, those English hearts of old. And the new seas shall take the new ships home Telling how yet the Dymock orchards stand, And you shall walk with Julius at Rome, And Paul shall be my fellow in the Strand ; There in the midst of all those words shall be Our names, our ghosts, our immortality. 40 THE CRAFTSMEN Confederate hand and eye Work to the chisel's blade. Setting the grain aglow Of porch and sturdy beam — So the strange gods may ply Strict arms till we are made Quick as the gods who know What builds behind this dream. 41 PETITION Lord, I pray : that for each happiness My housemate brings I may give back no less Than all my fertile will ; That I may take from friends but as the stream Creates again the hawthorn bloom adream Above the river sill ; That I may see the spurge upon the wall And hear the nesting birds give call to call. Keeping my wonder new ; That I may have a body fit to mate With the green fields, and stars, and streams in spate. And clean as clover-dew ; That I may have the courage to confute All fools with silence when they will dispute. All fools who will deride ; That I may know all strict and sinewy art As that in man which is the counterpart. Lord, of Thy fiercest pride ; That somehow this beloved earth may wear A later grace for all the love I bear. For some song that I sing ; That, when I die, this word may stand for me — He had a heart to praise, an eye to see. And beauty was his king. 42 I thank the Editors of The Cambridge Magazine, Country Life, The Englishwoman, The FoHnightly Review, The New Witness. The Saturday Review, The Sphere, and To- Day, by whom some of these poems were first printed PRINTED BY HAZEIX, WATSON AND VTNET, LI>», LONDON AND ATLESBURT. SUMMETl 1919 Sidgwick & Jackson^s List of Poetry ANDERSON, J. REDWOOD. Walls and Hedges. 3s. net. \Shortly. ASQUITH, HERBERT. TheVolunteer and other Poems. Second Edition, with neiv Poems added. 2s. net. BROOKE, RUPERT. Collected Poems. 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YORKSHIRE DIALECT POEMS (1673-1915). Com- piled with an Introduction by Prof. F. W. Moorman. Second Edition. Boards, 2s. net ; paper, Is. net. An anthology of the best poems in "broad Yorkshire." SIDGWICK & JACKSON, Ltd., 3 Adam Street, Addphi, London, W.C.2 OLTON POOLS by John Drink- water Sidgwick and Jackson Ltd. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. OCT 01 1933 Form L9-30m-7,'56(C824s4)444 PR 6 007 DUnkwa ter - D83oje Olton pools 3 1158 00605 4034 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILI^^^ AA 000 383 652 5 PR 6007 D83od