FAREWELL

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

A GLOUCESTERSHIRE LAD AT HOME
AND ABROAD.                     [Sixth Impression.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE FRIENDS: Poems
from a German Prison Camp. [Third Impression.

DUCKS, AND OTHER VERSES.

COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY: A Record
of Life in Seven German Prisons.
Illustrated by C. E. B. Bernard.

Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd.

FAREWELL

BY
F. W. HARVEY

AUTHOR OF “A GLOUCESTERSHIRE LAD”
“GLOUCESTERSHIRE FRIENDS”
ETC., ETC.

LONDON
SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD.
1921

PREFACE

In spite of all the soulful utterances of people comfortably off, economic independence remains the first condition of happiness.

This is not to say that people aren’t great fools for preferring law to literature. It is rather to imply that a poet who can do both is a fool if he does not.

I am not a fool.

Farewell!

F. W. H.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author desires to acknowledge gratefully permissions to reprint certain of these poems granted by the editors of The Spectator, The Athenæum, The London Mercury, The Nation, The Woman’s Leader, The Gloucestershire Chronicle and The Gloucestershire Journal.

CONTENTS

| PAGE
Preface | 5
NATURE POEMS
PRAYERS:  I. | 11
         ”         II. | 12
         ”        III. | 13
         ”        IV. | 14
THE HOLLOW LAND | 15
ON BIRDLIP | 16
OUT OF THE CITY | 17
A SONG | 18
MAY-FLOOD | 18
BIG THINGS AND SMALL | 19
AFTER LONG WANDERING | 20
THE MOON | 22
THE WIND’S GRIEF | 23
A WINDY NIGHT | 24
RIDDLE CUM RUDDLE | 25
GLOUCESTERSHIRE FROM THE TRAIN | 26
LASSINGTON | 27
JEALOUSY | 28
ELVERS | 29
JOHN HELPS | 32
LOVE POEMS
THE GOLDEN SNAKE | 33
IN A CATHEDRAL | 34
THE LANTHORN | 35
SONNET: “MY NATIVE LAND IS ONLY WHERE YOU ARE” | 36
SINCE I HAVE LOVED | 37
SAFETY | 38
HAPPY SINGING | 39
SONG | 40
IDENTITY | 41
JUNE | 42
SONNET: “THAT DEATH SHALL TAKE AND SLAY ME MATTERS NOT” | 43
SONNET: “BUT NOW SINCE DEATH HATH CERTAIN DATE” | 44
“LOCAL FATALITIES ARE REPORTED” | 45
MY JOY | 46
THE WATCHING MOON | 46
HARVEST HOME | 47
POEMS OF REFLECTION
EXPERIMENTS IN VERS LIBRE | 48
THE PHILOSOPHER VISITS THE NIGHT CLUB | 50
MISERERE DOMINE | 52
NOW, IF I WERE RICH | 53
THE RABBLE FATES—TO HELL WITH THEM! | 54
THE LAUGHTER OF LITTLE BABIES | 55
PETITION TO THE ALMIGHTY | 56
LAST WORD | 57
VANITY OF VANITIES | 58
TRIOLET: “FLESH TRIUMPHS AWHILE” | 61
FIRE (REVISED VERSION) | 62
THE LIFE THAT’S UNDER THE GROUND | 66
EPITAPH | 67
INVOCATION—AND REPLY | 68
MADNESS | 70
GLOUCESTERSHIRE MEN | 71
BALLADE OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE TOWNS | 72
LUCKY | 74
CAROL | 75
GOD’S BEAUTY IN THE SKY | 76
THE LOST WORLD | 77
PROSE POEMS
DAWN | 78
THE VISIBLE WORLD | 78
FUEL | 78
BLOW, INVISIBLE MOUTHS! | 78
ANGRY LOVER | 79
HOME | 79
LOVE SONG | 79
THE WINDOW | 80
BROTHERS | 80
HOLY BROTHERHOOD | 80

NATURE POEMS

PRAYERS

I
THAT MY EYES MAY BE MADE TO SEE

God of bright colours: rainbows, peacocks,

And the shot-silk gleam of springing

Wind-shaken wheat

On rolling red-ribbed Earth:

Thou Who dost bring to birth

From out the womb

Of darkness golden flowers,

Filling the hollows

With daffodils in March,

Cowslips in April,

Dog-roses in May,

Who in the smouldering forest

Makes the huge

Red flare of Autumn:

God of all the colours

On Earth, and hues (too bright for mortal eyes)

In Paradise—

Unblind me to Thy glory,

That I may see!

II
THAT MY SOUL MAY BE SET TO DANCE

God of light dancing:

Waves and ripples

In foam and forest,

And shadows under leaves,

Lambs leaping, prancing,

Horses, dragon-flies,

Stars ...

Thou Whose eye perceives

How and in what dream-ecstasy tall reeds

Shake out brown hair and sway

Like dusky girls

Tranced in an Indian air;

Who knowest the way

Of clouds

Which glide o’er blue unflowered fields,

Scattering shadows

On golden meadows

And fields of dancing daisies:

Teach me, O Lord,

The rhythm of that joy which is Thy mind!

Make my soul dance!

III
THAT I MAY BE TAUGHT THE GESTURE OF HEAVEN

God of the steadfast line,

Who laid the curving Cotswolds on the sky:

God of the hills,

And of the lonely hollows in the hills,

And of the cloudy nipples of the mountains:

Teach me thy passionate austerity!

God of elm twigs

And of all winter trees

Etched ebony on sunset, or bright silver

Upon hard morning heavens;

Cunning shaper of ferns,

And ferns which whitely gleam on frosty windows

And snow-flakes:

God of the naked body beautifully snatched

To some swift-gestured loveliness of Heaven:

Master

Of stars,

And all beneath most passionately curbed

In Form: catch up my sprawling soul and fix it

In gesture of its lost divinity!

IV
THAT I MAY BE GIVEN FELLOWSHIP OF ANGELS AND A HAPPY HEART

God of fine fellowship in heaven and earth,

O let me share

A little of the gaiety of saints.

Sometimes let angels carelessly with robins

Sing in these Minsterworth trees.

Teach me that mirth,

Give me that happy heart, hating the thin

Blasphemous gravity of wicked men.

THE HOLLOW LAND

Elms on the marbled sky

Walling this hollow land,

Write something black that I

Find hard to understand.

Belshazzar in his hall,

Belshazzar and those lords

Saw suddenly on the wall

Great crooked words:

A doom, a doom of fear ...

Something our hearts forget

Is mighty still and near

To claim his debt.

Behold before it falls—

Behold the mighty hand

Of Nature on the walls

Of the hollow land!

ON BIRDLIP

I’ve tramped a score of miles to-day

And now on Cotswold stand,

Wondering if in any way

Their owners understand

How all those little gold fields I see

And the great green woods beyond

Have given themselves to me, to me

Who own not an inch of land.

Because I loved with deep desire,

Wooing all as I walked,

This noble country by tree and spire

Taught (as if music talked)

How Beauty is never bought or sold,

But freely given to them

Who worship more than crowns of gold

Her dew-bright diadem.

Now all that under open heaven

I see of arable

Or pasture land to me is given,

As runs the parable—

“To him that hath not——” Even so,

For all we love is ours

While the little streams of Cotswold flow,

Swaying forget-me-not flowers.

OUT OF THE CITY

Here in the ring of the hills,

Under a cloudy sky,

Content at last I lie

Where Peace o’erspills

Like a cool rain which giveth

This brave daisy scent

And wine of sacrament

Whereby he liveth.

The big hooters may howl,

Men quarrel, whistles screech,

I will hear only the speech

Of my forgotten soul,

Which is the speech of trees,

Soft yet of clarity

And brimmed with verity

And all gay peace.

A SONG

O, Cranham ways are steep and green

And Cranham woods are high,

And if I was that black rook,

It’s there that I would fly.

But since I’m here in London town,

A silly walking man;

I’ll make this song and caw it

As loudly as I can.

MAY-FLOOD

Now the Spring’s cold

Foam-crested waves, the bright

Hedges, delay

To break and quench the light

Of golden fields with spray

Of hawthorn. As of old

Men saw the steep

Walls of the Red Sea round them,

Quiet sheep

Watch the wild hedge forbear to drown them.

BIG THINGS AND SMALL

This spinning spark in space—our Earth and all

Its vast envelopment of ancient night—

Is not a wonder greater or less than the white

Blossom now in the orchards, soon to fall.

And let men learn the secret of that bloom

And all its beauty’s wonder, they shall know

Life to the core; and they with God may go

To make a daisy or the day of doom.

AFTER LONG WANDERING

I will go back to Gloucestershire,

To the spot where I was born,

To the talk at eve with men and women

And song on the roads at morn.

And I’ll sing as I tramp by dusty hedges

Or drink my ale in the shade

How Gloucestershire is the finest home

That the Lord God ever made.

First I will go to the ancient house

Where Doomsday book was planned,

And cool my body and soul in shade

Of pillars huge which stand

Where the organ echoes thunder-like

Its paean of triumph and praise

In a temple lovely as ever the love

Of Beauty’s God did raise.

Gargoyles will thrust out heads to hearken,

A frozen forest of stone

Echo behind me as I pass

Out of the shadow alone

To buzz and bustle of Barton Fair

And its drifting droves of sheep,

To find three miles away the village

Where I will sleep.

Minsterworth, queen of riverside places

(Save Framilode, who can vie?),

To her I’ll go when day has dwindled

And the light low in the sky;

And my troubles shall fall from me, a bundle,

And youth come back again,

Seeing the smoke of her houses and hearing

The talk of Minsterworth men.

I’ll drink my perry and sing my song

Of home and home again,

Pierced with the old miraculous pleasure

Keen as sharpest pain;

And if I rise to sing on the morrow

Or if I die in my bed,

’Tis all the same: I’ll be home again,

And happy alive or dead.

THE MOON

What have you not seen,

Old White-face, looking down

Since the heavens were hollowed out

And winds were blown?

You saw white Helen

On the walls of Troy Town,

You silvered dew on the ruin

When Troy shook down.

Ulysses you saw

And the strange seas that bore him;

But all he wandered to see

You had seen before him.

Bodies black and yellow,

Gold tresses and brown,

The brown earth covers them ...

And you look down.

THE WIND’S GRIEF

The wind is grieving. Over what old woe

Howls it as though

Its very heart would break?—

The roving wind who merrily did make

A song all day in woods and meadows gay

Grieves in the night.

Is it for olden evil it hath done

’Neath moon and sun

Since first it roved the world?

Brave trees uprooted, ships and sailors hurled

To stormy death? or for the passing breath

Of flowers bright?

A WINDY NIGHT

The rain is done; and a great wind,

Filling the hollow night,

He shouts like a boy in an archway

And whistles with all his might.

He has blown the sky empty,

Except for the little stout

Stars, and they are flickering

As if they might go out.

All the black trees are crying;

The night is full of noise;

They are shouting under the arch of heaven

Like a school of rowdy boys.

RIDDLE CUM RUDDLE

The wains be unloaded, the ricks be in stack—

Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam;

An’ varmer be merry, an’ me an’ Jack

Sing Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam.

There’s wuts for the horses and hay for the cow—

Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam;

And wheat for bread, and barley for brew—

Sing Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam

Young randy lovers may praise the Spring—

Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam;

But this be the time ver to dance and sing

Riddle cum Ruddle!

Riddle cum Ruddle!

Riddle cum Ruddle!

The harvest’s whoam!

GLOUCESTERSHIRE FROM THE TRAIN

The golden fields wheel round—

Their spokes, green hedges;

And at the galloping sound

Of the train, from watery sedges

Arise familiar birds.

Pools brown, and blue, and green,

Criss-crossed with shadows,

Flash by, and in between

Gloucestershire meadows

Lie speckled red with herds.

A little flying farm,

With humped grey back

Against the rays that warm

To gold a last-year stack,

Like a friendly cat appears;

And so through gloom and gleam

Continues dwindling,

While in my heart a dream

Of home awakes to kindling

Fire, and falling tears.

LASSINGTON

To Lassington the priests went out

From Gloucester long ago

To worship oaks and fool about

With mistletoe.

Now after twenty centuries

Still men and girls do go

Lassington way. To worship trees?

You ask,—ah no!

They laugh the magic boughs beneath,

Catch hands, and kiss the while:

And the dead Druids grind their teeth

Below, or smile

To see (ah, fair beneath the bough

The fretted moonlight lies!)

How readily come the victims now

To sacrifice.

How, robed in moonlight’s ancient gold,

Another god doth reign,

Tormenting men as did their old

Grey gods of Pain.

JEALOUSY

On Zunday marn dro’ varmer’s wheat

I zeed the print and track o’ veet:

If I’d a had a rook-gun then

They vaur veet would’n a walked again.

Two on ’em—they o’ the larger zize—

I coulden praperly reckernize.

Two wer the purty-printed veet

O’ Molly—zo valse as she be sweet.

I hadn’t no bird-gun: zo it fell

As I maun laugh—ho, ho!—and tell

Here in a pub at the end o’ the street

O’ the winding—ha! ha!—o’ they vaur veet.

But may the zoul o’ him as wore

They hob-nails roast vor evermore;

And the veet wi’ the instep’s purty curve

May both on ’em get what um deserve!

ELVERS

Up the Severn River from Lent to Eastertide

Millions and millions of slithy elvers glide,

Millions, billions of glassy bright

Little wormy fish,

Chewed-string fish,

Slithery dithery fish,

In the dead of the night.

Up the gleaming river miles and miles along

Lanterns burn yellow: old joke and song

Echo as fishermen dip down a slight

Wide frail net,

Gauzy white net,

Strong long net

In the water bright.

From the Severn river at daybreak come

Hundreds of happy fishermen home

With bags full of elvers: perhaps that’s why

We all love Lent,

Lean mean Lent,

Fishy old Lent,

When the elvers fry.

When elvers fry for breakfast with egg chopped small

And bacon from the side that’s hung upon the wall.

When the dish is on the table how the children shout

“O, what funny fish,

Wormy squirmy fish,

Weeny white fish,

Our mother’s dishing out!”

Eels have a flavour (and a baddish one) of oil.

“When we have shuffled down their mortal coil,

What dreams may come!” what horrid nightmares neigh,

Gallop or squat,

Trample or trot,

Vanishing not

Till break of day!

“Never start nothing,” says the motto in our pub:

“It might lead to summat”: that’s (as Shakespeare said) the rub!

So I’m not going to tell you, anyway not yet,

If the elvers are eels,

White baby eels,

Tiny shiny eels,

Caught with a net—

Or another quite separate wriggly kind of grub,

For I’ve seen more fights over that outside a pub

Than ever you saw at Barton Fair when Joe

The brown gipsy man,

The tawny gipsy man,

The tipsy gipsy man,

Tried to smart up the show.

But anyway, good people, you may search the river over

Before a breakfast tastier or cheaper you discover

Than elvers, and if all the year the elver season lasted

I wouldn’t mind a bit,

I wouldn’t care a bit,

Not a little tiny bit,

How long I fasted!

JOHN HELPS

John Helps a wer an honest mon;

The perry that a made

Wer crunched vrom purs as honest

As ever tree displayed.

John Helps a wer an honest mon;

The dumplings that a chewed

Wer made vrom honest apples

As Autumn ever growed.

John Helps a wer an honest mon,

And I be sorry a’s dead.

Perry and honest men be scarce

These days, ’tiz zed.

LOVE POEMS

THE GOLDEN SNAKE

Her body’s glory is a golden snake

Around Life’s tree

Coiled: the tree shall break

In the blast of Eternity

And the coil be crushed.

Too late! immortal poison has rushed

Through more-than-veins.

Beauty remains

Though bodies rot. The fang

(Though flesh the pang

To flesh deliver)

Strikes down more deep

Than flesh, to trouble

Even the ultimate sleep,

The eternal dream.

Though all she seem

To be, like a golden bubble

Shall break at the prick of Death,

This shall not break:

Her beauty’s sting: sharp as the sting of a snake:

The sting of Beauty failing not with breath.

IN A CATHEDRAL

From her sweet unrest and sting

Hither I come.

The cloisters like a frozen forest ring,

Echoing back more faint and faintlier

The tread of living. Home,

Home flies the spirit. Faint and faintlier

The surging waves of passion break to foam

Then like a clash of cymbals suddenly

She, slave of Time,

O’ercomes all tokens of Eternity,

Nay, rather with Eternity is made one,

One with recurrent rhyme

Of arch, with flash of window, with the sun

Yellow on lofty walls sweet echoes climb.

THE LANTHORN

“I never saw a soul save in the body.”

Haply within the woods of Paradise

We see unblinded of our earthly eyes,

Kiss with unthwarted lips, and taste our one

Desired and complete communion.

There scabbards that do sheath the gleaming blade,

There globes which muffle in the naked light

Aside being cast, naked and unafraid,

Lovers may stand in one another’s sight.

Now since through fleshly glass Thy flame, O Love,

Shines clear, and nowhere else doth visibly move;

That lanthorn bright I will bow down before,

Kneeling the crystal body to adore.

SONNET

My native land is only where you are,

You are my home, my roof-tree, hearth, and fire.

I have been home-sick for you, wandering far,

But now have reached the end of my desire.

You are my kingdom small and very fair,

Your breasts my snowy hills, my lakes your eyes,

Your face my garden, and my woods your hair,

Your breath the breeze of that sweet Paradise.

Lie fenced within the circle of these arms,

Dear country: you whose air to breathe is Peace,

Peace deeper than Death, more soft than Night—

Soother of griefs. Here, safe from wild alarms,

I’ll bide, plucking from off your sighing trees

The fruit of dreams, red apples of delight.

SINCE I HAVE LOVED

Since I have loved, I have put the world in my heart.

The great clouds scattering over Cotswold seem

But shadows of those others counterpart:

Those clouds standing over hills of dream—

Hills of dream in a country that is called

Peace—a country by my own heart walled.

Since I do love and bear you in my breast,

Who are both my beloved country and its queen,

I wonder not to see red dawn uprise.

I say no more how restful is the green

Of summer fields, for looking on your eyes

It is as though I had died and found my rest.

SAFETY

You are like a pool reflecting shadowy trees

Of green and glint of sunbeams mixed together

(And I had forgotten both) in water clear.

Full of the foulness of blood and lust and fear

Is the past now. I break its holding tether,

And stand once more with guiding Innocences.

You are like silence in which I can be myself.

You are the truth of music: something lost

Ages and ages ago, and forgotten, and found.

Ere death my feet are set upon holy ground,

I, wanderer amid a wandering host,

Come home, led by the magic of one sweet elf.

HAPPY SINGING

Men have made songs,

And I among them,

Because some hell

Of grief had wrung them.

The tolling bell

Will often bring

Torture to force

A man to sing.

But I this day

A song will make

Only for joy

And my sweet love’s sake:

And will employ

No sorrowful thing

For making of it,—

That song, I’ll sing.

But lovely laughter

Of singing thrushes

When dawn has broken

And heaven flushes,

Shall be the token

Of one whom days

Nor death can rob

Of joyous praise.

SONG

And in the evening when I walked apart

For joy of that I carry in my heart,

The song I made brave thrushes did complete,

Shouting, “O, pretty Joy!” and “Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!”

This is my glory, this the crown of me:

That I hold joy of my love, and she of me;

And though my song be but a breath of air,

Yet is it greater than death and all despair.

For howso poor and of what base estate

I be, this love shall make me proud and great.

And howso deep in care I lie, there are words

Shall build my heart a nest of singing birds.

IDENTITY

I am the blood that burns,

The flesh that dies,

The haunted heart that turns

To Paradise,

The soul that laugheth low

And whispereth

There are sweet things to know

After—Death.

Such powers am I, and more

Both good and bad;

Nor all the learnéd lore

Solomon had

Could ill and good dissever.

Yet this is true:

Naught’s me that doth not ever

Cleave to you.

JUNE

April was in your making—youth of the year,

Wild-blooded, beautiful! And May with flowers

And showers agleam went into you, my dear.

But you are June. Deep shadows, silver dew,

Red roses, and the nightingale’s delight:

White moonlight the essential soul of you.

And sometimes as I watch you walk arrayed

In beauty of that month, a foolish fear

Comes, dear, into my heart: I am afraid

That you being one with shadow-bars and roses,

Birds and wild scents of June, with these will fly

And I be left alone when Summer closes

Her pageantry!

SONNET

That Death shall take and slay me matters not

In truth: for better men are buried under,

And—tut, “what can’t be cured must be endured”!

But I am wild with hate, pray devil’s thunder

May fall on Death though heaven itself glow hot,

Hell-like, and stars be lighted stubble, and worlds

Like birds drop blinded by the bloody light!

O, such a bonfire do I wish for Death

Or ever his insolent envy of sweet breath

Should touch and soil the body of delight—

The singing flame of fragrant holy fire

Which showed to me the meaning of the spring

And every lovely tune musicians bring

Out of the womb of innermost desire!

SONNET

But now since Death hath certain date, I fling,

Strong in this manhood for a little space,

Gayest defiance in his wrinkled face,

And mock that envious shadowy old king:

Scyther of flowers, plucker of everything

In beauty fair upgrowing; so the place

Thereof knoweth no more the golden grace

That was the pride and savour of its spring.

Spring is not here. But spring is in this heart,

Quick with the blowing buds of lovely mirth

And over-brimmed with love taken and given

When that is withered, let us lie apart

And rock like sleeping babes in cradle of earth,

Dearest, till Doomsday: we have had our heaven.

“LOCAL FATALITIES ARE REPORTED”

Dangerously sheltered they,

The lovers lay

Upon the great dead hill,

Frail flesh and blood:

Beneath a twisted thorn,

Which to the heaven’s mood

Died and was born

Again, as lightning fell.

Two mites of trembling clay—

Ah, what cared they!

The lightning flashed:

They laughed.

The thunder crashed:

They kissed.

The grey rain lashed

The hill: and hid them in mist.

Did they return again

To the sunny plain,

To spite and scorn,

The plane of mortal care?

Nay, with passions of skies

They mingled were ...

They were made wise

Beneath the twisted thorn.

MY JOY

In your impassioned loveliness

I drink a wine no heel did press

In vats of place or time or space,

And gazing on your April face

And in your dim green-shadowed eyes

I glimpse green leaves of a great vine

Whose roots are firm in Paradise:

And you the cup and you the wine.

THE WATCHING MOON

Calm with the calm

Of all old Earth has taken

To her peaceful breast,

And will not awaken;

Pale with the passion

Of Life that never dies;

You sit there watching us

With clear bright eyes.

HARVEST HOME

My heart is filled with you

As a field tilled which grew

But couch and weed;

You are my cornfield spread,

Ripe to be harvested

For bitter need.

You have built barns in my heart,

You have become a part

Of all I knew:

Wherefore I dance and sing

And fear not anything

Sharp scythes may do.

POEMS OF REFLECTION

EXPERIMENTS IN VERS LIBRE

I

Not curled into rose leaves

Or twisted into fantastic patterns of beauty ...

Out of my joy in the Earth,

Out of my sorrow for men,

Out of the love which I bore to one and another

Come these rough nuggets.

Take them—they are all I can give you!

Take, and make of them whatsoever you will,

You who have skill,

And you also who have none.

Hold them in sunlight and moonlight

Till they shine back,

Ponder also the dark Earth wherefrom they came!

II

He who lies dead was my father.

Degradation has befallen his flesh.

Why? O, why?

The palace is fouled.

The king insulted, crucified, and abandoned.

The slaves have fled.

And so, after certain days, you

And I too shall lie.

The pride

Shall pass.

Our mouths shall never kiss

Nor our strong arms embrace ...

We too, we too shall die.

III

Lust spoils the sunlight

And narrows the day;

Love widens

Time to Eternity which alone can hold it!

THE PHILOSOPHER VISITS THE NIGHT CLUB

Fair and worthless things that die

Praising their goddess Vanity

Here gather. Like a violin

Many a sweetly-scented Sin

Whispers. Many a bright-wreathed Folly,

Finding its roses turned to holly,

Seeks with Pleasure’s aid to fend

That Boredom which is Folly’s end.

Wherefore the violins make moan.

For these “the visible world” alone

Exists; and “ah that it should pass!”

They cry, and fill a trembling glass.

“Here’s to Beauty!” (surnamed Lust)

They cry; and e’er it falls to dust,

“Love it,” they cry, “and hug it well.”

“To whatsoever heaven or hell

Fate builds for fools, these surely go,”

Thought the moralist watching this tinsel show.

“Yet is it not difficult to know

Who best deserve the name of Fool,

These or those more respectable

Most moral folks I know so well?...

These make of living a foolish sham,

These play a silly blind man’s game,

Chasing bubbles like a fool.

But the others like a sullen mule

Play at nothing at all, and so

Think they’re good because they’re dull—

Where, in the name of sense, will they go?”

Upon which curious reflection

The sad and wondering sage arose,

Paid for his drink and blew his nose,

Brushed the confetti from his clothes,

And shuffled forth in deep dejection.

MISERERE DOMINE

Three things a man can do without:

Debtors, a scolding wife, and gout.

First hates for what (he knows) they’ve got,

Second for what (she knows) he’s not,

The third of this unholy lot

Hates him and all he hateth not,

Brisk walking and the pewter pot,

Sound sleep and jovial company.

Who suffers these well may cry, God wot—

Miserere Domine!

NOW, IF I WERE RICH

Now, if I were rich,

And lord of the manor,

My limbs might all twitch.

Now, if I were rich

I might marry a—witch,

And lose every tanner

That made me so rich,

And lord of the manor.

(But I wish I were rich,

And lord of the manor!)

THE RABBLE FATES—TO HELL WITH THEM!

They fling at me stones and mud,

My clothes are tattered and foul,

My face is covered in blood;

But they haven’t hurt my soul.

They have beaten me sore—in truth

No part of me stands whole!

They have stolen away my youth:

But they could not steal my soul.

Robbed, baffled, and broken,

Something lives in me whole;

And I hold by that for a token

That they cannot conquer my soul.

Let them thrash me with knotted sorrow,

Stone me with sharp regret;

I shall be their king on a morrow,

My soul is a monarch yet.

THE LAUGHTER OF LITTLE BABIES

The laughter of little babies

Who chuckle and crow

Is the laugh of a stream

Which needs must flow

Into black caverns; on its way

Reflecting briefly the blue of day.

The mirth of little babies

Who chuckle and nod

Is the mirth of a spirit

Remembering odd

Scraps of the tales and heavenly mirth

He shall never remember again on Earth.

PETITION TO THE ALMIGHTY

My sins of scarlet I pray Thee wash away,

For they were done in passion and hot blood,

When youth was lord of me nor understood

The glory of the beauty of Thy way.

So pardon them; but, Lord, if I have stood

The enemy of any destitute,

Done cruelty to any man or brute,

Or nailed Thy poor upon a cross of wood,

Or on a cross of gold, or iron, O, smite!

Smite with Thy rod and cast me from Thy sight.

LAST WORD

Let no man call me coward that I will die

And dip no more my bread in living’s foul

And muddy stream; but, God, accept my soul

Which into air so soon must wandering fly.

For I have never hated you at all,

You brother men, albeit that you must

Hate all such dust as is not of your dust,

Content for power to strive and hate and brawl.

But to you who have laughed and holpen one another,

You few gay valiant souls amid the rabble,

I say—“God knows I have loved you!” Then forgive

Me in whose heart is no more power to live:

Who must with this poor gesture break the bubble

Which held us here on Earth brother to brother.

VANITY OF VANITIES

We spend our days for things which profit not,

We set our heart on things.

When sense is edged and blood of youth is hot,

And when stiff age like ice about us clings,

We spend our days for that which profits not,

We set our heart on things.

More worthy was the blasphemous disdain

Of all God’s world of sense by stubborn saint,

Ungrateful of the sunlight and the rain,

Untouched by colours bending rainbows paint.

More worthy was the pagan ignorance

Of all save what a world of sense discloses:

That found his soul above the starry dance,

This in a sweet but fading heaven of roses.

But us no heaven of saint nor flower delights;

When sense is edged and blood of youth is hot

We spend our days for things which profit not,

And in the last cold days and lonely nights

Wherewith our little span of living closes,

We set our heart on things.

What profits it, you futile little men

Who, furry-coated, tethering the lightning,

From here to London ride and back again?

What profits it, you whose fat hands are tightening

Upon the lives of others? Nay, but tell

What would you profit gaining all the world?

(And if there were no hell)

What have you seen of loveliness unfurled

In heaven above or on the earth below?

Speak! What have you to show?

What do you profit? If you drove a car

Through Paradise you would not hear the wings!

Did Michael leave the gates of God ajar

(As he has done!) what would you crave but things?

More houses, maybe, with a telephone,

To call your own!

And you, my brothers, in the dim-lit mine,

Or in the town, or on the tumbling sea,

Who carry in your ears the hungry whine

Of wolves which hunt the woods of Poverty:

What profit you, if under that same sign

As they who grind you down you too advance?

If on the tide of chance

You (swept away)

Do even as they?

For close about us whir the angel wings,

And near beside us sound the throbbing strings

Of Paradise. The song of Brotherhood

With flowers springs, and sings through all the air

To that high place where Jacob’s ladder stood

Tethered to chanting stars. We only dare

Ignore God’s message, we alone of all

His children scorn Love’s joyous festival,

Spending our days for that which profits not,

Setting our heart on things.

When sense is edged and blood of Youth is hot,

And when stiff age like ice about us clings,

We spend our days for things which profit not,

We set our heart on things.

TRIOLET

Flesh triumphs awhile,

And after, the spirit.

By force and by guile

Flesh triumphs awhile,

Then finds but a pile

Of grave-earth to inherit

Flesh triumphs awhile

And after, the spirit.

FIRE

(Revised Version[1])

I

Gold-crowned with flames

Behind its bars

The coal:

And over the chimney

In a black hole

Spark-children playing

Their mazy games

And mimic-mighty wars:

Apple-logs green

Crossed cunningly:

Smoke-veils between

Drifting and lifting....

O fire, my glee,

Poor man’s friend,

Food, company,

Warmth and wine in one:

May I never need

Shillings to spend

On apple-logs

And coals to feed

Thee,

Bright-faced wonder of children and me!

II

Warm at thy feet

I hear

Speech more wise, more dear

And clear than sage’s:

More sweet than pages

Of any poet,

Showing never yet

Smoke-veils of blue

In golden places,

Soot too,

And faces

In fire, and sparkling gay

Little-lived glad children of fire at play.

III

What lore forlorn,

What tale of tales,

When man’s poor stock

Of wisdom fails

In Fire’s cave,

Is born!

Here Jack shall knock,

—That hero brave

On the giant’s door ...

With rumbling snore

The monster turns

From sleep,

And yawns....

But the sheep

Of Little Bo-Peep

(By magic quick

To wolves now turning)

Are following Jack.

Hark, crackle crack!

(Is it fire burning?)

They crunch, they lick

Up “Fe, Fo, Fum.”

Sucking his thumb

Little Jack Horner

Creeps from the corner

Where he had hidden

Behind a pie

From the giant’s eye.

Now doors as bidden

Do open fly,

And in they throng—

The prisoners all

With a merry song.

Here’s Old King Cole

To lead the ball!

How merrily

His fiddlers three

Strike up the air

That pleases his soul—

A mighty sound

As of wind in chimneys

When trees are bare....

Round and round

In smoke-wreaths whirl

Prince, Shepherd-girl,

King, goose-girl, queen,

All who have been

For joy of children,

And company,

Since tales began:

All that a man

Can believe and be

Never again;

Save when in fire

(Apple-logs green

Crossed cunningly)

He sees it plain,

As I have seen,

This thronged night-fire:

Such light that shines

Through Poetry and

Small tumbling strain

Of song, or from a window-pane

As daylight fails,

As evening pales

In a sweet land

Shadowed with pines,

Peopled with children-haunted pines

Murmuring fairy-tales.

[1] First version was published in Ducks, and other Verses, 1919.

THE LIFE THAT’S UNDER THE GROUND

It’s funny to think of the life that’s under the ground.

The mole that snouted up that loose red mound

Of earth; the worm that turned those worm-casts; now,

They are enough to pucker any man’s brow.

Once (I was only a boy) I caught a mole,

And he was angry, and bit a little hole

In the ball of my thumb. Worms I have often found,

Glow-worms, and ones like this that slithe around.

It’s funny to think of the life that’s under ground.

EPITAPH

This little girl

In brown earth lies.

She shall sweeten the sweet air

Of Paradise

With her slow lovely speech

And wondering eyes.

INVOCATION—AND REPLY

Hear me, brave words,

You who of old

Came singing birds

To a poet’s call:

“Many have called us, yet we served not all.”

Come words of jade

To make green eyes

Of a little maid,

Come words that sing

And let her linnet speech now softly ring.

Ivory words

Denote her breasts,

Two fluttering birds

That sit and sing

For joy of some unseen delicious spring.

Dusky words weave

Her falling hair,

The world bereave

Of shadows long

And shake them in a sombre tangled throng.

Come you most durable

Shining words,

’Gainst the incurable

Drift of Time

Guard me her sweetness safe within a rhyme.

Is that thy need?—Truly the all-complete

Imperious need of every mortal lover

Since life was lived in Time and Time was rover—

To carve the image of that passing-sweet

Swift withering flower of Beauty naméd Love;

To crystallize a moment’s grace for ever.

(“The old old plea yet that is not enough!”

Words whisper); to seize Joy; to stay the river

Of ever-flowing water bearing down

To shadowy oceans all we crave to mind us

Of Beauty and her heart of perfect peace.

Words, aid me! Set your Time-defying crown

On all my heart would never more release.

Where wait ye, words? Here. Come! No, poet, find us!

MADNESS

“Nothing without a cause,”

You say. Why did the wind

Point with a thin

Lean finger then?

“Laws behind the laws,

And behind all a mind.”

A mind: just so.

Somebody telling it to!

Bidding it point and beckon

And wave;

Bidding it blast and blacken

All life was,

With thoughts of one in a grave,

And wind stroking the grass.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE MEN

Gloucester, Glevum, and Caer Glow,

The name is nothing! Then as now

Men mowed the meadow-grass for cattle,

Died for Gloucestershire in battle,

Fought, and loved, and built, and planned,

And wrested with this kindly land.

Man’s tiny spark of mortal fire

Seems suddenly big in Gloucestershire.

The little chain of life on earth

Lengthens out round Minsterworth.

Here and in all the country round

Marks of men are on the ground.

Here no brooding iron peak,

No barren desert is, to shriek

The little loneliness of man,

Whose days are measured by a span;

But in the faces of our brothers

See we the looks of those old “others”:

The men in yonder humped-up barrow,

Crouched with their mortal joys and sorrow;

The Roman soldier sound asleep

By walls where English weeds slow creep

(A thousand years are but a span ...):

Each dead man was a Gloucestershire man!

A BALLADE OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE TOWNS

Or ever in Cheltenham town dyspeptic flaunted

His finery, or steel-clad Normans came

To build that tower at Tewkesbury bird-haunted:

Or ever rose that town of olden fame—

Ciceter, out of Roman arms and flame:

Before the older Bristol was begot

Of Keltic fathers: Caer Glow was a name.

Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!

Caer Glow, “the splendid city,” so they called it,

Those funny beggars brilliant in woad;

And then the tramping Romans came and walled it

And called it Glevum, throwing many a road

Through and around it. Dane and Saxon strode

Awhile its streets; then they whose quills did blot

That Domesday Book which every city showed,

Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!

Bristol, that blue-eyed sailor-man, who sallied

Forth to adventure, latterly has grown

A merchant-prince, respectable, pot-bellied.

Winchcombe—poor pagan queen—doth lack a throne.

Ciceter keeps her soul, but she alone:

For Tewkesbury’s soul is in a pewter-pot,

And Cheltenham never had one of her own.

Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!

L’Envoy

Prince, you have travelled far and wide, and seen

Much nicer towns than these? “All Tommy rot!”

(“Your Royal Highness surely jests,” I mean.)

Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!

LUCKY

Lucky to live,

Lucky again

To have met and marched

With the finest men

(So I believe)

Earth ever bred

Since heaven was arched....

But they are dead.

Lucky to love,

Most lucky to

Have loved, of all

I might have, you

Whom Time doth prove

Most tender-hearted

And beautiful....

But we are parted.

CAROL

Sing lullaby, sing lullaby,

While snow doth softly fall,

Sing lullaby to Jesus

Born in an oxen-stall.

Sing lullaby to Jesus,

Born now in Bethlehem,

The naked blackthorn’s growing

To weave His diadem.

Sing lullaby, sing lullaby,

While thickly snow doth fall,

Sing lullaby to Jesus

The Saviour of all.

GOD’S BEAUTY IN THE SKY

God’s beauty in the sky,

And in a silver cloud:

Everywhere in the world

His beauty cries aloud.

But why should I talk of it?

Let me drink it up

As now I drink this cider

From a big blue cup!

THE LOST WORLD

What hues, what dances

Do I remember

Lighter than leaves dancing

And red November?

Why does my heart whisper

Under the trees,

“There are brighter colours and lighter

Dancers than these”?

What dream more golden

In firelight hovers

Than these faces of friends

And trusty lovers?

Why does my heart whisper

In this gay peace,

“There are bolder lovers and older

Comrades than these”?

PROSE POEMS

DAWN

Arise!—Arise!

Dew, like a thousand gems, is in the hair of the dear earth eager to dance.

THE VISIBLE WORLD

Rub your eyes! If a man believe not in earth, how should he believe in heaven? If he love not the visible, how should he its high symbol?

FUEL

You are burning me in a flame whereat starved men and women may warm themselves. But you are angry that the winds blow my ashes into your eyes.

BLOW, INVISIBLE MOUTHS!

Did God blow upon a reed (having cut it to His mind), what melodies might not be piped!—what news of glorious birth! To you, beloved Dead, I give my life that is but a reed. Blow, blow, invisible mouths of God!

ANGRY LOVER

Before God’s throne came the angry lover. “I am betrayed!” he cried, and the courts of Heaven rang again with the sound of the word. “Thy daughter Life have I wooed. For her have I given all—yea, all—since that is the price of love, and now, behold, Thou hast given me her dark sister, Death!”

“Yet have I but one daughter,” answered God.

“Is it possible that even yet thou dost not know me?” whispered the veiled one.

HOME

Home!—Home!

All night the orchards sighing and surging.... All night the branches tossing and gesturing against the moon.... All night the scent of the blossom.... But why do they say that I am dead?

LOVE SONG

He sang of the strong labouring of stars that wheel in their courses, and of passionate Suns.... Songs of courage against destiny, of scorn against mean riches; songs of sorrow, and of dancing joy; of childhood, old age, and life again after. But never a song sang he of his beloved. Therefore she laughed, and knew that he was still her slave.

THE WINDOW

Blinking at the sun, what things of horror come peering out of me!—what ages of beasts! O that God would look out of me upon His world—that I might be a window for the eyes of Christ!

BROTHERS

Are men only our brothers? Were not the animals and the stars at Bethlehem?

HOLY BROTHERHOOD

O you who have found mankind for a brother, be not content! You are brothers and sisters of angels and archangels: and your feet are on the glimmering roadways of unimaginable stars.

Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.