PORTON WATER

Through Porton village, under the bridge,

A clear bourne floweth, with grasses trailing,

Wherein are shadows of white clouds sailing,

And elms that shelter under the ridge.

Through Porton village we passed one day,

Marching the plain for mile on mile,

And crossed the bridge in single file,

Happily singing, and marched away

Over the bridge where the shallow races,

Under a clear and frosty sky:

And the winterbourne, as we marched by,

Mirrored a thousand laughing faces.

O, do we trouble you, Porton river,

We who laughing passed, and after

Found a resting-place for laughter?

Over here, where the poplars shiver

By stagnant waters, we lie rotten.

On windless nights, in the lonely places,

There, where the winter water races,

O, Porton river, are we forgotten?

Through Porton village, under the bridge,

The clear bourne floweth with grasses trailing,

Wherein are shadows of light cloud sailing,

And elms that shelter under the ridge.

The pale moon she comes and looks;

Over the lonely spire she climbs;

For there she is lovelier many times

Than in the little broken brooks.

AN OLD HOUSE

No one lives in the old house; long ago

The voices of men and women left it lonely.

They shuttered the sightless windows in a row,

Imprisoning empty darkness--darkness only.

Beyond the garden-closes, with sudden thunder

The lumbering troop-train passing clanks and jangles;

And I, a stranger, peer with careless wonder

Into the thickets of the garden tangles.

Yet, as I pass, a transient vision dawns

Ghostly upon my pondering spirit's gloom,

Of grey lavender bushes and weedy lawns

And a solitary cherry-tree in bloom....

No one lives in the old house: year by year

The plaster crumbles on the lonely walls:

The apple falls in the lush grass; the pear,

Pulpy with ripeness, on the pathway falls.

Yet this the garden was, where, on spring nights

Under the cherry-blossom, lovers plighted

Have wondered at the moony billows white,

Dreaming uncountable springs by love delighted;

Whose ears have heard the blackbird's jolly whistle,

The shadowy cries of bats in twilight flitting

Zigzag beneath the eaves; or, on the thistle,

The twitter of autumn birds swinging and sitting;

Whose eyes, on winter evenings, slow returning

Saw on the frosted paths pale lamplight fall

Streaming, or, on the hearth, red embers burning,

And shadows of children playing in the hall.

Where have they gone, lovers of another day?

(No one lives in the old house; long ago

They shuttered the sightless windows....) Where are they,

Whose eyes delighted in this moony snow?

I cannot tell ... and little enough they care,

Though April spray the cherry-boughs with light,

And autumn pile her harvest unaware

Under the walls that echoed their delight.

I cannot tell ... yet I am as those lovers;

For me, who pass on my predestinate way,

The prodigal blossom billows and recovers

In ghostly gardens a hundred miles away.

Yet, in my heart, a melancholy rapture

Tells me that eyes, which now an iron haste

Hurries to iron days, may here recapture

A vision of ancient loveliness gone to waste.

THE DHOWS

South of Guardafui with a dark tide flowing

We hailed two ships with tattered canvas bent to the monsoon,

Hung betwixt the outer sea and pale surf showing

Where dead cities of Libya lay bleaching in the moon.

'Oh whither be ye sailing with torn sails broken?'

'We sail, we sail for Sheba, at Suliman's behest,

With carven silver phalli for the ebony maids of Ophir

From brown-skinned baharias of Arabia the Blest.'

'Oh whither be ye sailing, with your dark flag flying?'

'We sail, with creaking cedar, towards the Northern Star.

The helmsman singeth wearily, and in our hold are lying

A hundred slaves in shackles from the marts of Zanzibar.'

'Oh whither be ye sailing...?'

'Alas, we sail no longer:

Our hulls are wrack, our sails are dust, as any man might know.

And why should you torment us? ... Your iron keels are stronger

Than ghostly ships that sailed from Tyre a thousand years ago.'

THE GIFT

Marching on Tanga, marching the parch'd plain

Of wavering spear-grass past Pangani River,

England came to me--me who had always ta'en

But never given before--England, the giver,

In a vision of three poplar-trees that shiver

On still evenings of summer, after rain,

By Slapton Ley, where reed-beds start and quiver

When scarce a ripple moves the upland grain.

Then I thanked God that now I had suffered pain,

And, as the parch'd plain, thirst, and lain awake

Shivering all night through till cold daybreak:

In that I count these sufferings my gain

And her acknowledgment. Nay, more, would fain

Suffer as many more for her sweet sake.

FIVE DEGREES SOUTH

I love all waves and lovely water in motion,

That wavering iris in comb of the blown spray:

Iris of tumbled nautilus in the wake's commotion,

Their spread sails dipped in a marmoreal way

Unquarried, wherein are greeny bubbles blowing

Plumes of faint spray, cool in the deep

And lucent seas, that pause not in their flowing

To lap the southern starlight while they sleep.

These I have seen, these I have loved and known:

I have seen Jupiter, that great star, swinging

Like a ship's lantern, silent and alone

Within his sea of sky, and heard the singing

Of the south trade, that siren of the air,

Who shivers the taut shrouds, and singeth there.

104° FAHRENHEIT

To-night I lay with fever in my veins

Consumed, tormented creature of fire and ice,

And, weaving the enhavock'd brain's device,

Dreamed that for evermore I must walk these plains

Where sunlight slayeth life, and where no rains

Abated the fierce air, nor slaked its fire:

So that death seemed the end of all desire,

To ease the distracted body of its pains.

And so I died, and from my eyes the glare

Faded, nor had I further need of breath;

But when I reached my hand to find you there

Beside me, I found nothing.... Lonely was death.

And with a cry I wakened, but to hear

Thin wings of fever singing in my ear.

FEVER-TREES

The beautiful Acacia

She sighs in desert lands:

Over the burning waterways

Of Africa she sways and sways,

Even where no air glideth

In cooling green she stands.

The beautiful Acacia

She hath a yellow dress:

A slender trunk of lemon sheen

Gleameth through the tender green

(Where the thorn hideth)

Shielding her loveliness.

The beautiful Acacia

Dwelleth in deadly lands:

Over the brooding waterways

Where death breedeth, she sways and sways,

And no man long abideth

In valleys where she stands.

THE RAIN-BIRD

High on the tufted baobab-tree

To-night a rain-bird sang to me

A simple song, of three notes only,

That made the wilderness more lonely;

For in my brain it echoed nearly,

Old village church bells chiming clearly:

The sweet cracked bells, just out of tune,

Over the mowing grass in June--

Over the mowing grass, and meadows

Where the low sun casts long shadows.

And cuckoos call in the twilight

From elm to elm, in level flight.

Now through the evening meadows move

Slow couples of young folk in love,

Who pause at every crooked stile

And kiss in the hawthorn's shade the while:

Like pale moths the summer frocks

Hover between the beds of phlox,

And old men, feeling it is late,

Cease their gossip at the gate,

Till deeper still the twilight grows,

And night blossometh, like a rose

Full of love and sweet perfume,

Whose heart most tender stars illume.

Here the red sun sank like lead,

And the sky blackened overhead;

Only the locust chirped at me

From the shadowy baobab-tree.

MOTHS

When I lay wakeful yesternight

My fever's flame was a clear light,

A taper, flaring in the wind,

Whither, fluttering out of the dim

Night, many dreams glimmered by.

Like moths, out of the darkness, blind,

Hurling at that taper's flame,

From drinking honey of the night's flowers

Into my circled light they came:

So near I could see their soft colours,

Grey of the dove, most soothely grey;

But my heat singed their wings, and away

Darting into the dark again,

They escaped me....

Others floated down

Like those vaned seeds that fall

In autumn from the sycamore's crown

When no leaf trembleth nor branch is stirred,

More silent in flight than any bird,

Or bat's wings flitting in darkness, soft

As lizards moving on a white wall

They came quietly from aloft

Down through my circle of light, and so

Into unlighted gloom below.

But one dream, strong-winged, daring

Flew beating at the heart of the flame

Till I feared it would have put out my light,

My thin taper, fitfully flaring,

And that I should be left alone in the night

With no more dreams for my delight.

Can it be that from the dead

Even their dreams, their dreams are fled?

BÊTE HUMAINE

Riding through Ruwu swamp, about sunrise,

I saw the world awake; and as the ray

Touched the tall grasses where they dream till day,

Lo, the bright air alive with dragonflies,

With brittle wings aquiver, and great eyes

Piloting crimson bodies, slender and gay.

I aimed at one, and struck it, and it lay

Broken and lifeless, with fast-fading dyes...

Then my soul sickened with a sudden pain

And horror, at my own careless cruelty,

That where all things are cruel I had slain

A creature whose sweet life it is to fly:

Like beasts that prey with bloody claw...

Nay, they

Must slay to live, but what excuse had I?

DOVES

On the edge of the wild-wood

Grey doves fluttering:

Grey doves of Astarte

To the woods at daybreak

Lazily uttering

Their murmured enchantment,

Old as man's childhood;

While she, pale divinity

Of hidden evil,

Silvers the regions chaste

Of cold sky, and broodeth

Over forests primeval

And all that thorny waste's

Wooded infinity.

'Lovely goddess of groves,'

Cried I, 'what enchanted

Sinister recesses

Of these lone shades

May still be haunted

By thy demon caresses,

Thy unholy loves?'

But clear day quelleth

Her dominion lonely,

And the soft ring-dove,

Murmuring, telleth

That dark sin only

From man's lust springeth,

In man's heart dwelleth.

SONG

I made a song in my love's likeness

From colours of my quietude,

From trees whose blossoms shine no less

Than butterflies in the wild-wood.

I laid claim on all beauty

Under the sun to praise her wonder,

Till the noise of war swept over me,

Stopp'd my singing mouth with thunder.

The angel of death hath swift wings,

I heard him strip the huddled trees

Overhead, as a hornet sings,

And whip the grass about my knees.

Down we crouched in the parchèd dust,

Down beneath that deadly rain:

Dead still I lay, as lie one must

Who hath a bullet in his brain.

Dead they left me: but my soul, waking,

Quietly laughed at their distress

Who guessed not that I still was making

That new song in my love's likeness.

BEFORE ACTION

Now the wind of the dawn sighs,

Now red embers have burned white,

Under the darkness faints and dies

The slow-beating heart of night.

Into the darkness my eyes peer

Seeing only faces steel'd,

And level eyes that know not fear;

Yet each heart is a battlefield

Where phantom armies foin and feint

And bloody victories are won

From the time when stars are faint

To the rising of the sun.

With banners broken, and the roll

Of drums, at dawn the phantoms fly:

A man must commune with his soul

When he marches out to die.

O day of wrath and of desire!

For each may know upon this day

Whether he be a thing of fire

Or fettered to the traitor clay.

Such is the hazard that is thrown:

We know not how the dice may fall:

All the secrets shall be known

Or else we shall not know at all.

ON A SUBALTERN KILLED IN ACTION

Into that dry and most desolate place

With heavy gait they dragged the stretcher in

And laid him on the bloody ground: the din

Of Maxim fire ceased not. I raised his head,

And looked into his face,

And saw that he was dead.

Saw beneath matted curls the broken skin

That let the bullet in;

And saw the limp, lithe limbs, the smiling mouth...

(Ah, may we smile at death

As bravely....) the curv'd lips that no more drouth

Should blacken, and no sweetly stirring breath

Mildly displace.

So I covered the calm face

And stripped the shirt from his firm breast, and there,

A zinc identity disc, a bracelet of elephant hair

I found.... Ah, God, how deep it stings

This unendurable pity of small things!

But more than this I saw,

That dead stranger welcoming, more than the raw

And brutal havoc of war.

England I saw, the mother from whose side

He came hither and died, she at whose hems he had play'd,

In whose quiet womb his body and soul were made.

That pale, estrangèd flesh that we bowed over

Had breathed the scent in summer of white clover;

Dreamed her cool fading nights, her twilights long,

And days as careless as a blackbird's song

Heard in the hush of eve, when midges' wings

Make a thin music, and the night-jar spins.

(For it is summer, I thought, in England now....)

And once those forward gazing eyes had seen

Her lovely living green: that blackened brow

Cool airs, from those blue hills moving, had fann'd--

Breath of that holy land

Whither my soul aspireth without despair:

In the broken brain had many a lovely word

Awakened magical echoes of things heard,

Telling of love and laughter and low voices,

And tales in which the English heart rejoices

In vanishing visions of childhood and its glories:

Old-fashioned nursery rhymes and fairy stories:

Words that only an English tongue could tell.

And the firing died away; and the night fell

On our battle. Only in the sullen sky

A prairie fire, with huge fantastic flame

Leapt, lighting dark clouds charged with thunder.

And my heart was sick with shame

That there, in death, he should lie,

Crying: 'Oh, why am I alive, I wonder?'

In a dream I saw war riding the land:

Stark rode she, with bowed eyes, against the glare

Of sack'd cities smouldering in the dark,

A tired horse, lean, with outreaching head,

And hid her face of dread....

Yet, in my passion would I look on her,

Crying, O hark,

Thou pale one, whom now men say bearest the scythe

Of God, that iron scythe forged by his thunder

For reaping of nations overripened, fashioned

Upon the clanging anvil whose sparks, flying

In a starry night, dying, fall hereunder....

But she, she heeded not my cry impassioned

Nor turned her face of dread,

Urging the tired horse, with outreaching head,

O thou, cried I, who choosest for thy going

These bloomy meadows of youth, these flowery ways

Whereby no influence strays

Ruder than a cold wind blowing,

Or beating needles of rain,

Why must thou ride again

Ruthless among the pastures yet unripened,

Crushing their beauty in thine iron track

Downtrodden, ravish'd in thy following flame,

Parched and black?

But she, she stayed not in her weary haste

Nor turned her face; but fled:

And where she passed the lands lay waste....

And now I cannot tell whither she rideth:

But tired, tired rides she.

Yet know I well why her dread face she hideth:

She is pale and faint to death. Yea, her day faileth,

Nor all her blood, nor all her frenzy burning,

Nor all her hate availeth:

For she passeth out of sight

Into that night

From which none, none returneth

To waste the meadows of youth,

Nor vex thine eyelids, Routhe,

O sorrowful sister, soother of our sorrow.

And a hope within me springs

That fair will be the morrow,

And that charred plain,

Those flowery meadows, shall rejoice at last

In a sweet, clean

Freshness, as when the green

Grass springeth, where the prairie fire hath passed.

AFTER ACTION

All through that day of battle the broken sound

Of shattering Maxim fire made mad the wood;

So that the low trees shuddered where they stood,

And echoes bellowed in the bush around:

But when, at last the light of day was drowned,

That madness ceased.... Ah, God, but it was good!

There, in the reek of iodine and blood,

I flung me down upon the thorny ground.

So quiet was it, I might well have been lying

In a room I love, where the ivy cluster shakes

Its dew upon the lattice panes at even:

Where rusty ivory scatters from the dying

Jessamine blossom, and the musk-rose breaks

Her dusky bloom beneath a summer heaven.

SONNET

Not only for remembered loveliness,

England, my mother, my own, we hold thee rare

Who toil, and fight, and sicken beneath the glare

Of brazen skies that smile on our duress,

Making us crave thy cloudy state no less

Than the sweet clarity of thy rain-wash'd air,

Meadows in moonlight cool, and every fair

Slow-fading flower of thy summer dress:

Not for thy flowers, but for the unfading crown

Of sacrifice our happy brothers wove thee:

The joyous ones who laid thy beauty down

Nor stayed to see it shamed. For these we love thee,

For this (O love, O dread!) we hold thee more

Divinely fair to-day than heretofore.

A FAREWELL TO AFRICA

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Now once again, upon the pole-star's bearing,

We plough these furrowed fields where no blade springeth;

Again the busy trade in the halyards singeth

Sun-whitened spindrift from the blown wave shearing;

The uncomplaining sea suffers our faring;

In a brazen glitter our little wake is lost,

And the starry south rolls over until no ghost

Remaineth of us and all our pitiful daring;

For the sea beareth no trace of man's endeavour,

His might enarmoured, his prosperous argosies,

Soundless, within her unsounded caves, forever

She broodeth, knowing neither war nor peace,

And our grey cruisers holds in mind no more

Than the cedarn fleets that Sheba's treasure bore.

SONG

What is the worth of war

In a world that turneth, turneth

About a tired star

Whose flaming centre burneth

No longer than the space

Of the spent atom's race:

Where conquered lands, soon, soon

Lie waste as the pale moon?

What is the worth of art

In a world that fast forgetteth

Those who have wrung its heart

With beauty that love begetteth,

Whose faint flames vanish quite

In that star-powdered night

Where even the mighty ones

Shine only as far suns?

And what is beauty worth,

Sweet beauty, that persuadeth

Of her immortal birth,

Then, as a flower, fadeth:

Or love, whose tender years

End with the mourner's tears,

Die, when the mourner's breath

Is quiet, at last, in death?

Beauty and love are one,

Even when fierce war clashes:

Even when our fiery sun

Hath burnt itself to ashes,

And the dead planets race

Unlighted through blind space,

Beauty will still shine there:

Wherefore, I worship her.

THE HAWTHORN SPRAY

I saw a thrush light on a hawthorn spray,

One moment only, spilling creamy blossom,

While the bough bent beneath her speckled bosom,

Bent, and recovered, and she fluttered away.

The branch was still; but, in my heart, a pain

Than the thorn'd spray more cruel, stabbed me, only

Remembering days in a far land and lonely

When I had never hoped for summer again.

THE PAVEMENT

In bitter London's heart of stone,

Under the lamplight's shielded glare.

I saw a soldier's body thrown

Unto the drabs that traffic there

Pacing the pavements with slow feet:

Those old pavements whose blown dust

Throttles the hot air of the street,

And the darkness smells of lust.

The chaste moon, with equal glance,

Looked down on the mad world, astare

At those who conquered in sad France

And those who perished in Leicester Square.

And in her light his lips were pale:

Lips that love had moulded well:

Out of the jaws of Passchendaele

They had sent him to this nether hell.

I had no stone of scorn to fling,

For I know not how the wrong began--

But I had seen a hateful thing

Masked in the dignity of man:

And hate and sorrow and hopeless anger

Swept my heart, as the winds that sweep

Angrily through the leafless hanger

When winter rises from the deep....

* * * * *

I would that war were what men dream:

A crackling fire, a cleansing flame,

That it might leap the space between

And lap up London and its shame.

To LYDIA LOPOKOVA

HER GARLAND