THE ESPALIER

SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER

THE
ESPALIER

LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1925

Printed at the Curwen Press
Plaistow, London, E.13

TO

P. C. Buck

CONTENTS

QUIET NEIGHBOURS | 1
LONDON CHURCHYARD | 3
COUNTRY CHURCHYARD | 5
IN THE PARLOUR (i) | 7
IN THE PARLOUR (ii) | 8
TUDOR CHURCH MUSIC | 10
AN AFTERNOON CALL | 12
WISH IN SPRING | 13
THE VIRGIN AND THE SCALES | 14
I BRING HER A FLOWER | 21
THE LENTEN OFFERING | 22
CAVES OF HARMONY | 23
OLD MAN | 24
SONG FROM THE BRIDE OF SMITHFIELD | 25
LET ME GO! | 26
COUNTRY THOUGHT FROM A TOWN (i) | 27
COUNTRY THOUGHT FROM A TOWN (ii) | 28
THE GREEN VALLEY | 29
GHOSTS AT CHALDON HERRING | 30
THE TRAVELLER ENCOUNTERED | 32
THE REPOSE | 35
THE TRAVELLER BENIGHTED | 36
THE HAPPY DAY | 37
NELLY TRIM | 38
EPITAPHS | 43
THE SAILOR | 44
THE IMAGE | 46
GREEN PASTURES | 49
THE SOLDIER’S RETURN | 50
BLACK EYES | 51
BLUE EYES | 53
FARMER MAW | 54
MRS. SUMMERBEE GROWN OLD | 56
STOCK | 59
THE OLD SQUIRE | 60
MOPING CASTLE | 61
THE SICK MAN’S GARDEN | 62
WHITE MAGIC | 65
AS I WAS A-WALKING | 66
IN THE COTSWOLDS | 67
THE LITTLE DEATH | 68
THE DIVER | 70
UPON A GENTLEMAN FALLING SERIOUSLY IN LOVE | 72
THE CAPRICIOUS LADY | 74
THEODORIC | 75
HONEY FOR TEA | 76
BODLEY’S LIBRARY | 78
A SONG ABOUT A LAMB | 79
HYMN FOR A CHILD | 80
THE SCAPEGOAT | 81
BYRON 1924 | 82
GRACE AND GOOD WORKS | 82
MORNING | 82
FAITHFUL CROSS | 83
THE MAID’S TRAGEDY | 85
COMMON ENTRY | 86
THE ALARUM | 87
MATCH ME O ROSE | 88
THE ONLY CHILD | 89
THE BURNING-GLASS | 90
PEEPING TOM | 92

THE ESPALIER

QUIET NEIGHBOURS

Sitting alone at night

Careless of time,

From the house next door

I hear the clock chime.

Ten, eleven, twelve;

One, two, three—

It is all the same to the clock,

And much the same to me.

But to-night more than sense heard it:

I opened my eyes wide

To look at the wall and wonder

What lay on the other side.

They are quiet people

That live next door;

I never hear them scrape

Their chairs along the floor,

They do not laugh loud, or sing,

Or scratch in the grate,

I have never seen a taxi

Drawn up at their gate;

And though their back-garden

Is always neat and trim

It has a humbled look,

And no one walks therein.

So did not their chiming clock

Imply some hand to wind it,

I might doubt if the wall between us

Had any life behind it.

London neighbours are such

That I may never know more

Than this of the people

Who live next door.

While they, for their part,

Should they hazard a guess

At me on my side of the wall

Will know as little, or less;

For my life has grown quiet,

As quiet as theirs;

And the clock has been silent on my chimney-piece

For years and for years.

LONDON CHURCHYARD

As I walked through London

To ease my care,

I snuffed amid the houses

A greener air;

And behind iron railings

I saw branches wave,

Tossing their wild arms

Over, O! many a grave.

Such a sight as this

Pleased me very well.

I peered through the railings

That had a rusty smell—

All of a sudden

I heard a cry;

And saw a dark something

Crouched a new stone near-by.

It seemed lorn and witless

As sea-weed on a beach;

But it lamented

With a woman’s speech.

‘Woe’s me, my lover!

Cold-hearted you are grown.

The breast where I laid my head

Lies beneath a stone.

‘I thought I held you fast

My kind arms between,

But now you are gone from me

As if you’d never been.

‘Falsely have you dealt with me,

Falsely have you beguiled.

Dead and buried with you

Lies my child.’

Piteously, piteously,

Thus did she rave,

And wrung her hands,

And scratched on the grave.

COUNTRY CHURCHYARD

‘Awake, good neighbours all,

That wake not for the day.

The churchyard yews won’t spread the news—

No tales tell they.

Awake, good neighbours, scramble out of your sepulchres,

Cold lying is clay:’

‘No,’ mumbled they, ‘No, no.

Suppose the golden cock should crow.’

‘You loved a merry life—

For one more jaunt uprouse.

The moonlit stones above your bones

Show where you house:

Benjamin Harris, John French late of this parish,

Mary his spouse:’

‘No,’ mumbled they, ‘No, no.

Suppose the golden cock should crow.’

‘Awake, for time is short,

Your hour will soon be told.

Link bony hands, and dance in bands,

Nor dint the mould.

You’ll caper limberly with no flesh to cumber ye—

Better than of old:’

‘No,’ mumbled they, ‘No, no.

Suppose the golden cock should crow.’

‘Let friends and neighbours meet

With curtsey, beck, and bow.

When back in bed, if a maidenhead

Or a marriage vow

Doesn’t tally exactly with who’s under which blanket,

’Twon’t matter now:’

‘No,’ mumbled they, ‘No, no.

Suppose the golden cock should crow.’

‘Faint-hearted you are grown,

Neighbours, by lying dead.

This cock, your bane, is a weather-vane

With gilt overspread;

A trumpery figure, put up by the new vicar—

Nothing to dread:’

‘No,’ mumbled they, ‘No, no.

Suppose the golden cock should crow.’

IN THE PARLOUR
(i)

Come away from the door.

It has grown late;

The air is chill and frore,

And those whom you await

Will not pass by any more.

Close the shutters aright

And make all fast.

We shall have rain belike,

The sky is overcast:

No one will come here to-night.

Sit you down by my side,

Sing an old song.

Since you have been my bride

How well I like these long

Quiet evenings in Advent-tide.

IN THE PARLOUR
(ii)

He
How unobtrusively the snow
Comes down beyond the crimson blind!
I see it not, but through my mind
Sieve the large flakes, both soft and slow,
Warding us in from humankind.

She
My nimble needle forth and back
Goes twanging through the tambour-frame
To stitch a bird without a name.
If an indifferent heart should crack
’Twould sound, I fancy, much the same.

He
A cruel night for beast or man
To be abroad. But we might doubt
By this warm hearth the snow shut out,
Save for a denser silence than
Is wont to compass us about.

She
The needle and the web, how fine!
The silks no thicker than a hair!
Each choice of tint calls forth my care,
And slowly goes the great design.
No matter. I have time to spare.

He
’Twill soon be time to go to bed—
Sweet bed, but cold! Drowsed though I be
I’ll sit it out until I see
The wooden bird put forth his head,
And beck, and cry Cuckoo! to me.

She
With every length of gliding floss
Wrought in to make my sampler gay
So much life’s thread I stitch away.
But this bright wing will flaunt the gloss
Of life when I am dull as clay.

He

She
He
She
He

She
He
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! My dear, you heard
The clock? Another evening gone!
Asleep?
Not quite.
You’ve scarcely stirred.
In grave consideration
My thoughts upon that silly bird
Were fixed.
And mine on this.
Absurd!
We even think in unison.

TUDOR CHURCH MUSIC

Here in the minster tower

I sit alone,

While to mind’s ear old books

Mumble and drone;

And the warm sun slants in

Over the cold stone.

Through the long afternoon

I hear the clock

Preach to the empty church:

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

O, a rare text to expound

To a sleeping flock!

The patient organist

Who scrolled this clef;

The boy who drew him horned

On Gibbons in F;

Singers and hearers all

Are dumb and deaf—

‘Dumb and deaf, dead and dust,’

Confirms the clock.

And life seems so far off

That at the shock

I see my calm hand start,

When footsteps knock

Upon stair. Holiday-makers

Out on a trip

To whom the verger propounds

Each trusty quip,

While, mute, they fidget together

In uneasy fellowship.

And only when they are gone

Do I doff the mask

Of the scholar deep in his book:

‘Did they see me?’ I ask,

‘Or am I, too, a ghost?’ and so

Turn once more to my task.

AN AFTERNOON CALL

To shelter from the thunder-drench

A scorched and sorefoot tramping wench

Came to my door and proffered me

Lilac, that I had viewed her wrench

Out of my neighbour’s tree.

I bade her in. With glances keen

She eyed my well-found kitchen, scene

Of kind domestic arts;

Like one who curious and serene

Looks round on foreign parts.

She talked of winds and wayside fruits,

Seas, cities, fair-times, landmarks, routes

Of journeys past and gone.

I gave her an old pair of boots

That she might wander on.

WISH IN SPRING

To-day I wish that I were a tree,

And not myself,

Confronting spring with a neat little row of poems

Like cups and saucers on a shelf.

For then I should have poems innumerable,

One kissing the other;

Authentic, perfect in shape and lovely variety,

And all of the same tireless green colour.

No one would think it unnatural

Or question my right;

All day I would wave them above the heads of people,

And sing them to myself all night.

But as I am only a woman

And not a tree,

With piteous human care I have made this poem,

And set it now on the shelf with the rest to be.

THE VIRGIN AND THE SCALES

This is a public park;

You may not pick the flowers,

Or loiter after hours,

Or kiss too deep in the dark.

Yet here is green, and sweet

Forgetfulness of the street;

Deep walks of chestnut and lime

Where the old may pass away time,

Pleasant picnicing places

For children with shabby faces,

Lawns blowing in the sun

Where dogs may roll and run,

And the patient grass

For lover and lass.

Is this then not enough?

No, not enough for one

I met there.

Who?

A nun.

(And yet, God knows, so old,

So battered with untold

Heavenly housewifery,

So vowed to poverty,

You would not think to find

Ambition in her mind.)

In wintry woollen stuff

Of abstinence was she dressed,

And winter was on her breast;

But midsummer’s most complete

Honey-coloured, honey-sweet

Plenteousness was her plunder,

Standing the lime-tree under.

No housewife shelling peas,

No Saint upon her knees

Telling God’s praises over,

Slip-finger, nor bees in clover,

Nor girl-child gathering

Cowslips in the spring

Showed with more innocence

Delight in diligence

Than she, cramming her bag

With golden handfuls of swag.

Love knit my heart to her:

I approached; but at the stir

Of footfall she glanced round,

Loosed her rich branch, and frowned

With such an air of doubt

As children show found out

In fault, till seeing that I

Smiled, she in turn looked sly

And faster than before

Plucked on. Said I: ‘Here’s more

Than you can lessen, though you

Should gather the whole day through

For your lime-blossom tea.’

‘It is God’s gift,’ said she,

‘And pleasant for the sick.

It grows so clean and thick

’Twere shame to let it waste.

Aye, gathered it should be.

But I must work in haste

Lest the Keeper come along

And tell me I do wrong.’

I looked up overhead

And saw the lime-tree spread

Above us like a tent;

Like a green and golden pavilion

Of some Arabian Night,

Murmuring as with consent,

And gleaming as though alight

With a million, with a million

Loops and tassels of scent.

I thought then: Who could grudge

Blooms to this holy drudge,

Or stay her wrinkled, deft

Old hands from their kind theft?

She thief, lawbreaker? She?

As well accuse the tree,

That day-long with sweet skill

Steals sap, steals chlorophyl;

That from earth, from dew, from air

Thieves that it may be fair

And show its works to men,

Who beholding it then

May glorify their Father

In heaven.

No, but look farther.

I touch not blossom nor leaf,

And I, I am the Thief!

Thief so cunning and fell

That I am Keeper as well.

Good cause had she to frown

At my shadow blackening down;

For every joy I take

Becomes an iron grate,

And my innocent delights

Plant rows of iron spikes;

Worst, self-denying, this trick

Of integrity—not to pick

Blossom, bruise leaf, destroy

Aught from the common joy—

Binds in an iron band

My heart and prompts my hand,

Now lifted up to bless

In scrupulous emptiness,

To write these words of hate

Thou shalt not on every gate.

Yet here is solace, and sweet

Redemption from the street;

A pause, a look of pity

For the begrimed city,

Green almsgiving, a lake

Of green where men may slake

Parched senses, wash off care.

Ah, if it only were

Not so precious, so deadly dear,

So dearly defrayed a delight

That whosoever comes here

Must come as Thief outright,

Or cloaking his envious mind

With love of humankind,

And with caution and mistrust

Walking among the just

Grow Thief so cunning and fell

That perforce he’s Keeper as well.

Poor drudge, you had reason to start,

When with love in my heart

I approached you, as though you saw

In me the offended law.

Truly, to-day I must be

Offended because of thee.

For every blossom you pick

Must wound me to the quick,

And by that bag you’ve crammed

With mercies I am damned;

Worst, worst, your innocence,

Your happy, happy love,

Your hand, so hand in glove

With the tree’s consenting,

Is a sword to drive me hence,

Lamenting, lamenting;

Is a flame brandished to fright

Me from a forfeited delight,

Repenting, repenting;

Is a key in the unrelenting

Hand of the uncreate,

Locking the garden gate.

O why must my spirit pine

For a few handfuls of lime

Plucked by a poor old nun,

Whose cares are all in one

Concern so summed up and shriven

That were I to tell her but half

Of the coil through which she’s driven

My thoughts, she must either laugh

As a nurse laughs at a child,

Or with a sigh, maybe a frown

For one so devil-wiled,

Brush all my vain-wit down?

And yet I linger, I delay,

Hankering, as though some clue

She had hold of, answer knew.

As though, should I say:

‘No, dear, you may not pick

Lime-blossom for the sick;

For know you not, since the Fall

Not one tree, but all, all

Must bear forbidden fruit,

And are poisoned at the root

By man’s repentant tears?’—

She might reply: ‘Yet here’s

Good warrant for what I do.

When he was walking through

The harvest he plucked the ears

Of corn and shared them among

Those with him, for they were an hungered, and so was he.

Thus his disciples he taught

How to steal as they ought,

In joy and peace of heart;

Thus he took the sinner’s part;

So much to thieves a friend

That he had them with him till the end;

Thus, thus, he would set us free.

But till everyone believes

In him we must all be thieves.’

I BRING HER A FLOWER

Sweet faith

Such looks of quiet hath

That those on whom she’s smiled

Lie down to sleep as easy as a child.

No night,

However dark, can fright

Them, no, nor day

To come, however bleak and fell, dismay.

But sound

Sleep they in prison-bound

As when at liberty.

And if they wake, they wake in charity;

Like her,

Who rousing at the jar

Of weary foot in the rain

Pitied the wakeful sentry for his pain.

Like her: Rosa Luxemburg.

THE LENTEN OFFERING

Christ, here’s a thorn

More poison-fanged than any that you knew:

On the north side of our churchyard it grew,

Where lie the suicides and babes chance-born.

Christ, here are nails,

Once driven in, will never lose their hold:

Forged at Krupp’s, Creusot’s, Vickers’, and tipped with gold

Pen-nibs that signed the Treaty of Versailles.

Christ, here’s a sharp

Spear, can wound deeper than all other spears:

In baths of human blood and human tears

Tempered, and whetted on the human heart.

CAVES OF HARMONY

Play, dark musician, play—

How almost human sounds your saxophone!

(Somewhere in Africa

An angry lion tosses up a bone.)

Sambo’s a ready scholar

And hides his black skin under a black coat.

Although he wears a collar

Adam’s own apple yet sticks in his throat.

Play, dark musician, play—

I see your imitation diamond flash.

(Once in America

Your fathers howled and writhed beneath the lash.)

How leers the blackamoor,

Exhaling his melodious delight!

Music’s his paramour;

And yours, and mine, since we dance here to-night.

Play, dark musician, play—

Outdo the beast’s roar and the scourged slave’s moan.

Ambassador from U.S.A.,

How almost human sounds your saxophone!

OLD MAN

Reading in bawdy books

The old man sits.

De Sade plays Abishag

To his cold wits.

Under his bushy brows

His eyes are mild—

There’s no more harm in him

Than in a child.

SONG FROM THE BRIDE OF SMITHFIELD

A thousand guileless sheep have bled,

A thousand bullocks knelt in fear,

To daub my Henry’s cheek with red

And round the curl above his ear.

And wounded calves hung up to drip

Have in slow sweats distilled for him

The dew that polishes his lip,

The inward balm that oils each limb.

In vain I spread my maiden arts,

In vain for Henry’s love I pine.

He is too skilled in bleeding hearts

To turn this way and pity mine.

LET ME GO!

Any wind but this—

That with remembrance of rain

Grown soft and pitiful, embraced me

As I walked homeward.

And any other look

Than the full-moon sheds to-night—

As though she bent like a mother

Above her sleeping children.

Not to be denied

The wind gropes over the house;

And now it has brushed aside the curtains

And walks about the room.

Too well, too well I know

Whence you have journeyed, O Wind!

And what the landscape of nestling hill and valley

That the moon eyes so lovingly.

COUNTRY THOUGHT FROM A TOWN
(i)

Averted from myself

I walk up and down—

I see how in the light of the arc-lamps

The trees look stricken and brown.

Autumn is an unkindly thing

In a town.

The leaves fall aimlessly;

Frustrated in their decay,

With scraps of paper and bus-tickets

They will be swept away.

All the mortality in me

Yearns to go

Somewhere alone into the country,

Where elms stand in the hedgerow;

Through fields completed and contented

To walk to and fro—

To hear leaves falling

Like a quiet breath;

To be a partaker

In their death.

COUNTRY THOUGHT FROM A TOWN
(ii)

Cold, is it cold?

Blows there a wind

All night through?

Does a frozen dew

Lie on the wold?

Dark, is it dark?

Blotted from being

Cottage and garth?

Has the last hearth

Quenched its spark?

Still, is it still?

Wakes the wind only?

Sunk in a deep

Midwinter sleep

Valley and hill?

No, not all cold,

Nor yet all dark,

Nor yet quite still.

Such is not God’s will.

In the sheepfold,

Warm in the ewe’s fleece,

Lies the lamb newborn.

To and fro all night

The shepherd bears a light,

Telling his flock’s increase.

THE GREEN VALLEY

Here in the green scooped valley I walk to and fro.

In all my journeyings I have not seen

A place so tranquil, so green;

And yet I think I have seen it long ago,

The grassy slopes, and the cart-track winding, so.

O now I remember it well, now all is plain,

Why twitched my memory like a dowser’s rod

At waters hidden under sod.

When I was a child they told me of Charlemagne,

Of Gan the traitor, and Roland outmatched and slain.

Weeping for Roland then, I scooped in my spirit

A scant green Roncesvalles, a holy ground,

Which here in Dorset I’ve found:

But finding, I knew it not. The years disinherit

Their children. The horn is blown, but I do not hear it.

GHOSTS AT CHALDON HERRING

Hush, my dear, hush!

Who are these that pass

Up Shady Lane?

Their feet don’t brush

Any dew from the grass

And they are silent, too.

Hand in kind hand

Go some, and closelier linked

Another twain;

And others stand

As a-drouse, indistinct

Beneath the darkening boughs.

Ghosts, ghosts are these!—

Long-dead lasses, each

Beside her swain—

Between the trees

Pacing slow, without speech,

As they were wont to go.

Strange, some should choose

Thus their mouldered dears

To meet again,

Whom long misuse

Of marriage, taunts and tears,

And the slow grudge of age

Warped and estranged;

Sure, this place above

All others fain

They’d leave unranged,

Lest a gaunt dead love

Them, like a dead child, haunt.

Ah, but not so

These who in true-love-knot

Their arms enchain.

Dead long ago

Are they all, and forgot

The life that held them thrall.

Nought now exists

Save fancies nursed apart.

And of all this train

Scarce one that trysts

With a seeming sweetheart

But walks beside a dream.

THE TRAVELLER ENCOUNTERED

The highroad runs plain

Between Thaxted and Dunmow,

But I had chosen to go

By bridle-path and lane;

To see the champaign,

And the stooks a-row—

There I met an old fellow

Standing in the rain.

He was bowed and lean;

But clear was his eye

As a rift of March sky,

His face like a quarrendine.

‘You must have seen

Many changes,’ said I.

‘Changes, lady? Aye!

Four times I have been

‘Forced to lie abed;

Once I had the ague,

And thrice did I spew

Up my blood so red.

’Twas my lungs, Doctor said,

And the most I could do

To last a week or two—

Ten years he’s been dead.

‘My wife died.

And then after her

My eldest daughter.

Eight years come Whitsuntide

The house where we did bide

Was pulled down. It stood yonder,

Just by that tall fir

With the rick alongside.’

Thus did he talk,

Twisting the while

A sprig of camomile

Or a corn-stalk.

‘Follow the grassy baulk

Till you come to a stile.’

So, mile by mile,

He told over my walk.

Musing on country folk

I bade him good-day.

And going on my way

To myself I spoke:

As well might I invoke

These hedges to say

Who passed by yesterday;

Or question yonder oak,

Bidding it declare

What changes it had seen,

‘In summer I was green,

Acorns did I bear.

Come winter, I was bare.

For years full eighteen

This meadow has not been

Under the ploughshare.’

But Labour-in-Vain

Was the epitome

Of changes sighed to me

By the doomed champaign.

And turning once again,

Far off did I see

The man and the tree

Standing in the rain.

THE REPOSE

At Bradwell in the marshes

There is an inn.

Few are the travellers

Have rested therein.

The folk that sit there

Have but little to say;

They sit looking out of the window

At the churchyard across the way.

Growing among the graves

Is a green weeping willow.

The graves are all green

And peaceful as a pillow.

The bar-parlour is shaded

With a green gloom,

As if the willow-branches

Were waving in the room.

Churchyard and church and inn—

They are all very old.

Even the beer they draw there

Seems to taste of the mould.

THE TRAVELLER BENIGHTED

On through the quiet country-side

The road runs small and white,

The trees stand still on either side

As if to watch me there—

But stilled, stilled is the air

At the oncome of night.

And see, behind my back the moon

Eyes me with steadfast gaze;

I did not think she’d spill so soon

Her silver in the brook—

But calm, calm is her look

As she mounts through the haze.

As though I’d shed it like a husk,

My body casts no shade;

I walk suspended in the dusk

Just as a spirit might,

For yet, yet there is light

In the west—but ’twill fade

Yes, fade it will, and I shall trace

My bobbing shadow spread

Before me on the whitened face

Of the road where I must go.

And then, then I shall know

What it is that I dread.

THE HAPPY DAY

All day long

I purpose in yonder

Green meadows to wander

And think of a song.

I shall take

Provision of berries,

Black treacle cherries,

And possibly cake.

Where the boughs

Of gliding willows

Freckle green pillows

I shall drowse,

Or wander blithe

Through scented acres

Where haymakers

Sharpen the scythe.

I shall not lack,

I shall not trouble;

Through fields of stubble

I shall come back—

While dusk is spread,

While twilight lingers—

With purple fingers,

A song in my head.

NELLY TRIM

‘Like men riding,

The mist from the sea

Drives down the valley

And baffles me.’

‘Enter, traveller,

Whoever you be.’

By lamplight confronted

He staggered and peered;

Like a wet bramble

Was his beard.

‘Sit down, stranger,

You look a-feared.’

Shudders rent him

To the bone,

The wet ran off him

And speckled the stone.

‘Dost bide here alone, maid?’

‘Yes, alone.’

As he sat down

In the chimney-nook

Over his shoulder

He cast a look,

As if the night

Were pursuing; she took

A handful of brash

To mend the fire,

He eyed her close

As the flame shot higher;

He spoke—and the cattle

Moved in the byre.

‘Though you should heap

Your fire with wood,

’Twouldn’t warm me,

Nor do no good,

Unless you first warm me

As a maiden should.’

With looks unwavering,

With breath unstirred,

She took off her clothes

Without a word;

And stood up naked

And white as a curd.

He breathed her to him

With famished sighs,

Against her bosom

He sheltered his eyes,

And warmed his hands

Between her thighs.

Strangely assembled

In the quiet room,

Alone alight

Amidst leagues of gloom,

So brave a bride,

So sad a groom;

And strange love-traffic

Between these two;

Nor mean, nor shamefaced—

As though they’d do

Something more solemn

Than they knew:

As though by this greeting

Which chance had willed

’Twixt him so silent

And her so stilled,

Some pledge or compact

Were fulfilled,

Made for all time

In times unknown,

’Twixt man and woman

Standing alone

In mirk night

By a tall stone.

His wayfaring terrors

All cast aside,

Brave now the bridegroom

Quitted the bride;

As he came, departing—

Undenied.

But once from darkness

Turned back his sight

To where in the doorway

She held a light:

‘Goodbye to you, maiden.’

‘Stranger, good night.’

Long time has this woman

Been bedded alone.

The house where she dwelt

Lies stone on stone:

She’d not know her ash-tree,

So warped has it grown.

But yet this story

Is told of her

As a memorial;

And some aver

She’d comfort thus any

Poor traveller.

A wanton, you say—

Yet where’s the spouse,

However true

To her marriage-vows,

To whom the lot

Of the earth-born allows

More than this?—

To comfort the care

Of a stranger, bound

She knows not where,

And afraid of the dark,

As his fathers were.

EPITAPHS

(i)

Here lies Melissa Mary Thorn

Together with her son, still-born;

Whose loss her husband doth lament.

He has a large estate in Kent.

(ii)

After long thirty years re-met

I, William Clarke, and I, Jeanette

His wife, lie side by side once more;

But quieter than we lay before.

(iii)

A widowed mother reared this stone

To Annott Clare, aged twenty-one.

Seven live sons have I, but she

Was dearer than them all to me.

(iv)

Here lies the body of Tom Fool,

Who died, a little boy, at school

Oft did he bleed and oft did weep,

And whimpering, now has fallen asleep.

(v)

John Bird, a labourer, lies here,

Who served the earth for sixty years

With spade and mattock, drill and plough;

But never found it kind till now.

THE SAILOR

I have a young love—

A landward lass is she—

And thus she entreated:

‘O tell me of the sea,

That on thy next voyage

My thoughts may follow thee.’

I took her up a hill

And showed her hills green,

One after other

With valleys between:

So green and gentle, I said,

Are the waves I’ve seen.

I led her by the hand

Down the grassy way,

And showed her the hedgerows

That were white with may:

So white and fleeting, I said,

Is the salt sea-spray.

I bade her lean her head

Down against my side,

Rising and falling

On my breath to ride:

Thus rode the vessel, I said,

On the rocking tide.

For she so young is, and tender,

I would not have her know

What it is that I go to

When to sea I must go,

Lest she should lie awake and tremble

When the great storm-winds blow.

THE IMAGE

‘Why do you look so pale, my son William?

Where have you been so long?’

‘I’ve been to my sweetheart, Mother,

As it says in the song.’

‘Though you be pledged and cried to the parish

’Tis not fitting or right

To visit a young maiden

At this hour of night.’

‘I went not for her sweet company,

I meant not any sin,

But only to walk round her house

And think she was within.

‘Unbeknown I looked in at the window;

And there I saw my bride

Sitting lonesome in the chimney-nook,

With the cat alongside.

‘Slowly she drew out from under her apron

An image made of wax,

Shaped like a man, and all stuck over

With pins and with tacks.

‘Hair it had, hanging down to its shoulders,

Straight as any tow—

Just such a lock she begged of me

But three days ago.

‘She set it down to stand in the embers—

The wax began to run.

Mother! Mother! That waxen image,

I think it was your son!’

‘’Twas but a piece of maiden’s foolishness,

Never think more of it.

I warrant that when she’s a wife

She’ll have a better wit.’

‘Maybe, maybe, Mother.

I pray you, mend the fire.

For I am cold to the knees

With walking through the mire.

‘The snow is melting under the rain,

The ways are full of mud;

The cold has crept into my bones,

And glides along my blood.

‘Take out, take out my winding-sheet

From the press where it lies,

And borrow two pennies from my money-box

To put upon my eyes;

‘For now the cold creeps up to my heart,

My ears go Ding, go Dong:

I shall be dead long before day,

For winter nights are long.’

‘Cursèd, cursèd be that Devil’s vixen

To rob you of your life!

And cursèd be the day you left me

To go after a wife!’

‘Why do you speak so loud, Mother?

I was almost asleep.

I thought the churchbells were ringing

And the snow lay deep.

‘Over the white fields we trod to our wedding,

She leant upon my arm—

What have I done to her that she

Should do me this harm?’

GREEN PASTURES

‘O, I could lean

And look for ever

At such a scene!—

And bless the Giver,

Who beauty gave, and best of all,

Sameness, unwearied and perpetual.

‘Let such a sight

Brim up my seeing,

And with delight

Renew my being,

Until the prospect calm and kind

Seem the reflection of my mind!’

Said t’other: ‘At most

This field you’re praising

Has but the boast

Of being good grazing.

You’re easy pleased if what you like

Best be a green field and a stone dyke.’

THE SOLDIER’S RETURN

Jump through the hedge, lass!

Run down the lane!

Here’s your soldier-laddie

Come back again.

Coming over the hill

With the sunset at his back—

Never be feared, lass,

Though he look black;

Coming through the meadow

And leaping the watercourse—

Never be feared, lass,

Though his voice be hoarse;

Belike he’s out of breath

With walking from the town.

He will speak better

When the sun’s gone down.

BLACK EYES

Long Molly Samways

Went by just then.

Strange, how that girl

Gets off with the men!

With her head wig-waggling

On her long neck,

And her hair straggling

Down her back.

Past ten of the clock

She’ll get up in a daze,

And spend the morning

Lacing her stays.

She wouldn’t go

To the Whitsun Fair

Because of the trouble

Of getting there;

And if she be common

To half the town,

’Tis to please her back

That she lies her down.

Such a long, lazy

Slug-a-bed

Won’t have her sleep out

Until she’s dead.

And the Judgement Trump

May split the skies—

Though it should wake her

I doubt if she’ll rise.

BLUE EYES

Barbara Cushion

Weeps in the lane,

And vows she will never

Go brambling again.

Down her fat face

Fat teardrops run,

And splash on her bosom,

One by one;

With sobs and cries

She shakes like a shape—

What is the matter,

Is it a rape?

Oh no! It’s her feelings,

Poor girl, that smart;

And Jem’s unkindness

Has broken her heart.

For months she has had

A mind to Jem,

So when she set out

She smiled at him;

Down the green lane

She watched him come—

But all he did

Was to pinch her bum.

FARMER MAW

Who’s he you saw,

Stranger, among the stooks?—

’Tis Farmer Maw

Scaring away the rooks.

Once, stout and tall,

He had no peer to plough;

But this is all

Poor Farmer’s fit for now.

On Lammas Eve

He hoed the Seven Acre,

And taking leave

Looked round like God the Maker:

His hay well ricked—

His fields secure and small—

With a most strict

Eye he surveyed them all;

And finding less

Than usual to offend

His carefulness,

Went home, and made an end.

After she saw

Hired bailiff reap and bind,

Poor Widow Maw

Sat down and called to mind

How oft her Dear

Exclaimed with scornful oaths

At waste of gear

Unthrift. His working clothes

She fetched, and laid

Them out upon a table;

Though patched and frayed

They yet were serviceable—

Aye, in such worn

Apparel, and bemired,

As men might scorn,

Scarecrow were well-attired.

Thus, stuffed with straw,

As large as life he stands—

A shape of awe—

And overlooks his lands,

His flocks and herds:

But sore, poor soul! beshit;

For those bold birds

Don’t honour him a whit.

MRS. SUMMERBEE GROWN OLD

As tall as the church tower,

And as stark,

The churchyard elm

Rears into the dark.

And many’s the evening

I’ve walked in dread

To think that its boughs

Were overhead;

And many’s the midnight

I’ve waked in fear

To think that its branches

Were drawing near.

For we live here alone—

The Rector and I,

Both of us grown old,

And unwilling to die;

And the churchyard elm

Has arms like a fiend:

Many’s the dark night

I’ve thought they leaned

Downward, downward—

As though they’d claw

Us into the churchyard

Like things of straw.

But thanks to the rulers

Of the realm

We are delivered

From the elm.

For the Inspector

Chanced this way.

He wrote in his book,

And had his say

Of regulations

And bye-laws—

Then came the woodman

And cut its claws.

Harmless and glum

The monster stands

And holds to heaven

Its baffled hands.

The Rector and I

Can walk beneath,

Untroubled by

The fear of death.

And on still nights

When no one’s about

I dance round the elm,

And thus do I flout:

Coffin-tree, coffin-tree,

You shall get neither him nor me!

Your branches are lopped,

Your games are all stopped.

STOCK

Farmer Hood’s wife

Was brought to bed.

‘Look at the baby!’

The midwife said.

Scantly he glanced

At the babe she bore.

He had seen plenty

Like it before;

And ‘Troubles,’ quoth he,

‘Never come by half,

For the Guernsey heifer

Has slipped her calf.’

THE OLD SQUIRE

Squire England has grown old:

Too stiff to ride to hounds,

Too blind to shoot his coverts,

He takes up his great stick

And potters about the grounds.

The meadows and the pond,

The fig-tree on the south wall,

The plantation of young spruces,

The yew hedge twelve foot thick—

He stares at them all;

And grumbling as he goes,

He stops here and there

To spud up a dandelion.

His mind is full of doubt,

For a stranger is his heir.

House, meadows, walks and trees,

Although his sight be dim

He sees them very plainly;

He prays that none may flout

The things so dear to him.

MOPING CASTLE

‘Why have you planted firs

About your dwelling,

Of trees created

Choosing the most adverse

To mortal cheer?

Whose breasts uncouth, both song

And spring repelling,

With endless sighs are freighted;

Foreboding every year

A deeper wrong.

‘Or have you planted firs

About your dwelling

That they in proxy

Might all your sighs rehearse?

Ill-starred one! doomed

To mourn your frustrate prime,

Your sons rebelling,

Your Dear another’s doxy,

Your mouldered heart entombed

In waste of time.’

‘No, Friend. I planted firs

About my dwelling;

But, I protest, meant

No clue so apt for verse

As you conceive

These sombre groves to give.

Soon ripe for felling,

Firs are a good investment;

And though I live to grieve,

Yet I must live.’

THE SICK MAN’S GARDEN

He has been ill so long

On whom it depended,

That the garden untended

Is beginning to go wrong.

The gate has fallen awry,

The tools are half rusted—

They will be encrusted

All over, by and by.

The rose has broken loose

From the arch where he trained it;

Dead petal on petal has stained it

With its own juice.

Walks and plots are unkempt—

It is all dishevelled;

Like a skein unravelled,

Like a forgotten thing dream’d.

And peering through the gate,

And closing in around it,

The thickets that bound it

Seem to be lying in wait.

My heart foretells the day

Toward which it moulders,

When men with bowed shoulders

Shall carry him away.

Herb-border and flower-bed

Underfoot they shall trample,

And briar and bramble

Make slower their slow tread.

The mourners as they pass

Will stumble and shuffle,

Their steps shall be muffled

With the swishing of long grass.

Departed the last black form

And the last black shadow,

From thicket and meadow

Shall clamber in a swarm

Of wildings and weeds out-cast,

By exile eagered

For the garden beleaguered

Which has fallen to them at last.

By these remorseless, dumb

Spoilers invaded,

The flowers unaided

Shall all be overcome;

Save only those at need’s

Touch who turn traitors,

Changing their natures

And reverting again to weeds.

Thus shall wild earth be paid

The debt so long owing;

Whilst he, unknowing,

Deep in wild earth is laid.

WHITE MAGIC

Young man, be warned by me,

And shun the hour

When the full moon has power

To sway men like the sea.

I with my love kept tryst

One moonlight night.

Something did us affright—

And she went home unkissed.

We saw as clear as day

The things we knew;

Only the sky more blue

Seemed, and the grass grown grey.

Round us the orchard trees

Like spirits stood—

When she threw back her hood,

She looked like one of these;

So blanched the face I knew

It seemed estranged:

Its moonlight aspect changed

My eager blood to dew.

Disheartened, we returned;

Nor met again.

I have grown old since then,

But I have never learned

By what mysterious art

The moonlight thieves

Colour from the young leaves,

And passion from the heart.

AS I WAS A-WALKING

Sweetly fell the rain on the springing grass,

The birds sang all with voices as clear as glass;

To greet the blackthorn I turned aside—

A presence too lovely to pass—

But as with worship I neared it, a man I espied

Asleep in the rain beneath the blossoming tree.

I forgot to look at the tree, I looked instead

At the man who lay so still with averted head.

Because I could not see his face

I wondered if he were dead.

My mind was full of doubt as I left the place—

But dead or alive he was a stranger to me.

IN THE COTSWOLDS

All day the rain

Fell on the wheat

And dripped from the gable

On to the stone;

And all day long

I sat alone

Save for the dog

Who slept at my feet.

Slept—till a-sudden

He roused in fear,

And snuffed at the door,

And would not be quelled.

I opened—and there

An old crone I beheld,

And round about her

The dusk drawn near.

Something she said—

But her voice was hollow,

And chill was the hand

She laid on mine.

Her words were a riddle

I could not untwine;

And when she turned onward

I knew I must follow.

I felt the watery

Stubble souse

My ankles, and round me

Saw corn-shocks blurred.

And faint and fainter

Yet I heard

The dog bark on

In the empty house.

THE LITTLE DEATH

What voice is this

Sings so, rings so

Within my head?

Not mine, for I am dead,

And a deep peace

Wraps me, haps me

From head to feet

Like a smooth winding-sheet.

Before my eyes

Reeling, wheeling,

Leaf-green stars

Have changed to purple bars

And flickered out;

Spinning, thinning,

Up the wall,

That has grown very tall.

Only that voice—

Distant, insistent;

Like the high

Stroked glass’s airy cry;

Echoing on,

Winds me, binds me

As with a thread

Spun from my own head.

O speak not yet!

Forget me, let me

Lie here as calm

As saints that nurse their palm;

Whilst like a tide

Turning, returning,

Silence and gloom

Flow in and fill the room.

THE DIVER

Self-loving I strayed

Through leagues of fir-wood—

Dream-like as woods

In water suspended,

So hushed was the shade,

So cool the silence;

Nor stayed, till I saw

My watery woodlands

In a deep tarn

Hanging head-downward,

As though they would draw

The soul down after them.

I thought: How sweet

To bathe in those waters!

I stripped myself bare;

On the pine-needles

I settled my feet,

And dived in fearless

To greet with the glow

Of an ardent lover

That limpid depth,

That bride-bed of stillness

Which far below

Awaited my coming.

O, but beneath

The rocky cornice,

Ready to pounce

There lurked a Nixy!

With ice-cold teeth

She bit and tore me,

And wreathed her fierce

Embraces about me

In coil on coil

Of anguish unspeakable,

And snarled in my ears

With a voice of darkness.

In fear of my life

I fought the Nixy

Till back to her den

At last I drove her;

To whet her knife

And await the next-comer.

Dry-footed on shore

I scrunched the pine-needles,

And watched the tarn

And its basking tree-tops

Resume once more

Their lovely stillness:

All, all like a charm

Inveigled the spirit;

Prompted: How sweet

To bathe in these waters

Here is no harm—

But I knew better.

UPON A GENTLEMAN FALLING SERIOUSLY IN LOVE

Who loves his kind, loves bone,

Flesh, play of sinew, shoot

Of sense, the turn of a head,

A voice answering his own:

Who loves a house, loves stone,

Iron, plaster, brick, glass, lead,

Timber hewn off and mute—

And these alone.

Who wins his kind, wins store

Of joys, griefs, memories, brain’s

Diligence, heart’s ease, a share

Of life not his before:

Who gains a house, a core

Of blank and senseless air

Cased up in matter gains—

And nothing more.

Sun may warm stone, awaken

Casement, with farewell kiss

Flush thatch—’tis all a show.

Though man a more unshaken

Diurnal love bestow—

He gains not even this.

And blest are they whose thrall

Hearts can endure this passion,

Hopeless, uncompromised

By aught reciprocal;

Yea, saints emparadised

May love God after this fashion.

THE CAPRICIOUS LADY

No, no, I do not choose

Commonplace flowers like these!

Such artless pinks and blues—

Forget-me-not, maiden’s-blush—

Are tedious to my sight.

But give me, if you’d please,

Blossoms more recondite:

Cocks-combs of crimson plush,

Large, spider-speckled, rare

Orchids, or tulips whose

Smooth flesh has learnt to wear

The colour of a bruise.

THEODORIC

Praise the great Goth, Theodoric!

Who, a true patriot, led

His northern hordes into Italy,

Where he’d be better fed.

Sturgeon, peacock, assafœtida—

Nought came amiss to him

(Though Peter Vischer of Nuremberg

Makes him out to be slim).

Once only did his appetite

Quail at a new dish;

When they served up an aged senator

In the shape of a large fish.

The dead eyes glared reproachfully—

Fear spawned in his blood

Agueish pangs innumerable

As fishes in the flood.

Not furs of marmot and zibeline,

Nor a great fire near-by,

Could warm the wretched Theodoric

As he lay waiting to die;

Chattering about old Symmachus,

And Boëthius his friend,

Who with no consolation but philosophy

Made a far braver end.

HONEY FOR TEA

I’ve sat in the sun

From three to five

Watching the bees

About the hive.

They are horribly alive!

From white to red,

From red to white,

They weave Euclidean

Tangles of flight,

And nowhere find delight:

But them a maniac

Industry eggs

Onward; they grapple

With hairy legs,

Methodical to the dregs.

The blossom rifled,

With laden thighs

Further each willing

Eunuch plies:

A dull way to fertilize.

And back to their cells

They come at last;

Armed, incurious,

Sailing past

Me where I sit aghast.

Oh, horrible

That aught can be

So sufficient, yet

So unlike me!

I shall go in to tea.

There in the parlour

I shall find

Things to restore

My peace of mind;

By man for man designed.

The rat-tail spoons,

The china dishes,

Smooth as the sequined

Sides of fishes,

Obedient to my wishes;

The sturdy table

So plain and whole,

The meek sweet

Of the sugar-bowl;

These shall confirm my soul

Till I, emboldened,

Lift down from the shelf

The hoarded treasure,

Taken by stealth

From that inimical Commonwealth.

BODLEY’S LIBRARY

Chained to their shelves

Sit Origen,

Aquinas, Gregory

Nazianzen,

Bede, Alcuin, Scotus—

All the wise men

Of golden mouth

And faithful pen.

Falcons once

Of piercing flight,

Chained they must needs be

Or out of sight

They’d soar. But now

They blink at the light,

Like old brown owls

Awaiting the night.

A SONG ABOUT A LAMB

‘O God, the Sure Defence

Of Jacob’s race,

Lover of innocence

And a smooth face,

Accept my sacrifice—

A little lamb, bought at the market price.

‘With fleece so soft and clean

And horns not yet

A-bud, the creature’s been

The children’s pet.

And sore they wept to see

Their snub-nosed friend come trotting after me.’

God heard: the lightnings brake

Forth in his honour;

But by some slight mistake

Consumed the donor.

The lamb fell in a muse—

But soon took heart, and leaped among the pews.

HYMN FOR A CHILD

Flocking to the Temple

See the priests assemble

Where a child expounds

What the wise confounds.

All the scribes and sages

Quit their dog’s-eared pages;

Spell-bound by his sense

And his eloquence.

Speaking without bias,

He reviewed Elias;

Said the dogs did well,

Eating Jezebel.

Just as he disposes

Of the Law and Moses,

Mary came in haste—

Caught him to her breast:

‘We have sought thee’ saying—

Chid him for delaying.

Then without demur

He went back with her.

Those he was amazing

Straightway broke out praising;

Calling him a mild,

Nicely brought-up child.

Teach me, gentle Saviour,

Such discreet behaviour

That my elders be

Always pleased with me.

THE SCAPEGOAT

See the scapegoat, happy beast,

From every personal sin released,

And in the desert hidden apart,

Dancing with a careless heart.

‘Lightly weigh the sins of others.’

See him skip! ‘Am I my brother’s

Keeper? O never, no, no, no!

Lightly come and lightly go!’

In the town, from sin made free,

Righteous men hold jubilee.

In the desert all alone

The scapegoat dances on and on.

BYRON 1924

Much as they all deplored his morals

Our fathers left the bard his laurels.

But in these more precisian days

We shake our young heads over the lays.

GRACE AND GOOD WORKS

Blest are the poor, whose needs enable

The rich but timely charitable

To take the Kingdom of Heaven by force.

The poor are also saved, of course.

MORNING

The long, long-looked-for night has sped.

’Tis time we should arise

Out of this tossed and blood-stained bed

Where a dead woman lies.

FAITHFUL CROSS

Strange, that his sorrow should

Only be understood

By two rough pieces of wood.

The friends that lingered there,

However true they were,

Had grief of their own to bear.

They stood and mourned apart:

With but half a heart

For his sorrow and smart;

They mourned, and went their way

Into Heaven to be gay.

The Cross is faithful to this day.

O Tree of Life, that root

Hast not, nor hope of shoot,

Nor but this one sad fruit—

Thou, not Mary or John—

Thou, that he died upon

He chose for his eidòlon.

Though he by a word or two

Or a look, men’s hearts could woo

And knit, as none else could do;

Not one of the brotherhood

To whom he did good,

But two rough pieces of wood,

Hewn-off, exanimate,

Could carry and constate

His and his sorrow’s weight.

THE MAID’S TRAGEDY

I kept two singing birds

In a cage of bone—

Hatched-out on the same day;

But since one flew away,

T’other’s alone.

I spoke him gentle words

And bade him sing.

But he hung down his head

As if discomforted,

And drooped his wing.

My mood was turned to rage;

I stinted his seed,

Opened the cage-door wide—

Starve, or begone! I cried.

He did not heed.

Silent within his cage

I see him mope

Like any turtle-dove.

The dumb bird I called Love,

The flown bird, Hope.

COMMON ENTRY

I hate my neighbour with bitter hate—

Night and morning, early and late,

Her and her works to the Fiend I commend;

For she’s had it mended—the garden gate.

For every comer ’twould grind and squeak;

But when One came here who had most to seek

It would cry aloud at his hasty shove,

‘Here, here’s your lover!’ and redden my cheek.

Oh yes, he still comes, though the gate doesn’t tell—

But I wish my neighbour were deep in Hell.

How dare she the least of my joys estrange,

Or threat me with changes when all’s so well?

THE ALARUM

With its rat’s tooth the clock

Gnaws away delight.

Piece by piece, piece by piece

It will gnaw away to-night,

Till the coiled spring released

Rouses me with a hiss

To a day, to another night

Less happy than this.

And yet my own hands wound it

To keep watch while I slept;

For though they be with sorrow,

Appointments must be kept.

MATCH ME O ROSE!

A red rose shining in the sun

Told me of summer new-begun.

I smoothed each petal, and kissed each petal,

And counted them one by one.

Eighteen—and I had two years more.

‘Match me, O rose!’ I said; and tore

In half two petals, two crimson petals,

To bring them to a score.

Just at that moment the wind blew—

Petal by petal away I threw,

And turned to the rose-bush, the lovely rose-bush,

Where other roses grew.

THE ONLY CHILD

When I was small

My mother had an Indian shawl,

Spun from the friendliest kind of goat

And dyed a comfortable red.

And when I had a pain in my throat

I used to take the shawl to bed.

So soft it was

That through her wedding-ring ’twould pass;

So warm, it nursed all care aside;

So wide, a covey of babes might be

Happed up in it—soft, warm and wide

As sleep, that shawl was lent to me.

THE BURNING-GLASS

All day the Sun looked down

On England; heath and town,

Cornland and woodland, mountain and champaign,

And the bright tangled skein

Of Thames, Avon, Severn, Trent—

Everywhere his beams went.

They lightened upon ships far out to sea,

And sifted every tree.

And few, and dull, were they

Abroad in England that day,

But looking up at the blue heavens overhead,

‘Fine harvest weather,’ said.

Turning him to his rest

Within the patient West—

As though he kept the primal law in mind

To multiply his kind—

Throughout the land his rays

Set windows in a blaze;

But nowhere, save at Wells in Somerset,

Did a live Sun beget.

There, under cottage brows,

Glittered intact the spouse

Whose steadfast welcome the steadfast greeting could match,

And fired a neighbour’s thatch.

Strange chance! (Enough to undo

Man’s wit, might he look through

Seeing, and know the Sun an enormous spark

In caves of endless dark;

And, like ourselves, condemned

His little light to expend

By rote. But our imaginations deck

The heaven’s hideous black.)

Strange chance! meeting well-met!

Chance more wild-faring yet

I woo, that with long hope and true intent

My burning-glass present

To that unmeasured, un-

surmiseable incendiary of suns—

Life—that some beam of it, matched by my art,

May fire a stranger’s heart.

PEEPING TOM

to T. F. Powys

Out of the land

He grew as grows the weed,

But had no land

For his own need.

He to a farmer

His crafty sinews hired,

Rising up early

And going home tired

For six days of the week—

Poor Tom!—and said on Sunday,

Leaning over a gate:

‘To-morrow be Monday.’

Few were his thoughts,

Devious, and unexpressed;

Yet one strong yearning

Swelled in his breast

Through rain and shine,

Through months of earthly labour;

Till at last he spoke

His thought to a neighbour.

‘I should like well

To have some land of my own,

To be my land

And mine alone:

‘Say, half an acre—

More would outdo my means—

To grow potatoes

And a few beans.’

Up at the Inn

His neighbour made it known

How Tom wished

For land of his own.

About the village

To all men’s ears it ran;

The farmer heard it,

Who was a rich man.

Green water-meadows,

Large barns, deep fields he had;

His servant’s wish

Made his heart glad,

For he in plenty

Was rooted like an oak;

And Tom’s half-acre

Seemed a good joke.

He gave the ground.

And all men said of him

He could well afford

To have his whim.

The plot of ground which the farmer gave

Did not cost him dear.

All unfenced and untilled it lay,

And far away

From cottage and inland tree;

Where the rolling down rears up like a great slow wave

And then falls sheer

Four hundred feet to the sea.

Thither poor Tom,

His day’s toil over, would walk;

And marked, and swaled,

And scratched on the chalk—

Too much intent

To note the oncome of night

Till to ease his back

He stood upright.

And plodding homeward

Through nurtured fields, his mind

Still delved in the patch

He had left behind.

Sea-winds blew there,

Sea-birds flew there,

Nothing grew there

Save the inherent tares of barren ground;

Grasses shrivelled and stiff,

And frantic thistles scattering their seed.

Claw-rooted was each necessitous weed

And salt to the taste,

For the blown rack groped over the waste,

And evermore the sea with a trampling sound

Beleaguered the cliff.

A row of beans

Was the first thing Tom set.

Most died: the rest

The rabbits ate.

He gave up beer

And saved to buy a fence.

His wife blamed him

For having no sense;

And all his friends

That saw him study and grieve—

Landless themselves—

Laughed in their sleeve.

Tom heard them out;

He did not say them Nay,

But still to his patch

Went day by day,

Disheartened, perhaps,

But redeless to forgo

The dogged dream

He had cherished so.

And little thought

His straitened brain-pan knew

Save only that

There was much to do.

From the beginning

The weeds had been his bane,

And tilling the ground

Made them as bad again.

He groaned aloud

To see how they would thrive

Where nothing he planted

Could keep alive;

And fresh weeds grew

That had not grown before;

For each he spudded

There sprang ten more,

That bloomed in his face

As if from very spite.

It chanced, such a blossom

Caught his sight

Just as he struck work.

His back was aching so

That he was half-minded

To let it go,

But from long habit,

With look indifferent,

Above the invader

Wearily he bent

To root it up:

His face by slow degrees

Awakened,

He went on his knees—

There is no beauty like the beauty of the wild,

That blossoms suddenly out of the bare hillside.

It is the barren woman that goes with child,

It is the clenched knot of necessity untied,

Eternity waylaid, and labouring creation

Into forgetfulness and laughter beguiled:

A relenting, a reconciliation, a glimpse of the bride,

Nature, hidden under her dark veils of Time and Space and Causation.

Out of the hillside a word:

‘Lo, here I am! Quick, gather my secret, cried—

Had you not come—to the waste, from pole to pole

To echo forever unheard. Had I died, had I died,

Perished had with me, unguessed, the clue of the whole.

But now are the heavens opened, and Salvation

Is sprung up like a flower cut of the earth.

Look! I am newly-made, the dew of my birth

Is of the womb of the morning; I hold in my wide-

open petals the epitome of that blue

In seas drowned, in distance secluded, in air enskied:

And all, all is for you.

Come! Kneel beside me and unlearn your soul.’

Ah, not for man the message, the revelation!

On hillsides desolate and bare, by paths untravelled,

In swamps, and skyey wastes the tokens are spilled.

Wild beauty like a bird flits here and there,

Homes not to hand nor snare, and nowhere settles.

Who’s he shall augur from her flight? And who shall dare

Unravel the plain speech of five blue petals?

Not man’s mind, that chooseth a good

Obsequious to the God his proud heart hath chosen,

That parteth light from darkness and right from wrong,

Nor brooketh the unfulfilled.

Let him tread out the blossom and ignore the song

And go upon his way.

But some there are who hearken, who stay,

Who kneel and worship before the undesigned,

And all their strength relinquish to obey

A voice that seeks not to be understood—

No, nor yet purpose has enough to be a mock.

Awhile they feed on brightness; but ere long

They find their hearts astray, and their blood frozen,

And know themselves averted from their kind.

Extremity of light has made them blind.

With look so vacant as to seem serene,

They wander towards darkness, and as they go

Idly a few belated berries glean,

Or darnel and the clammy nightshade wreathe,

Or to themselves speak low;

And in the end lie down upon the rock,

And to the heedless air their last loud groan bequeath.

Darkness rose up out of the deep;

Headland by headland along the coast

Lost colour, shape, identity, stole from sight,

Folded in darkness like a flock of sheep.

Up on the height

The flower ebbed from his vision like a ghost,

And Tom went home to sleep.

Changed henceforward was his mood.

All he’d endeavoured, all he’d planned

Forgetting, his mind at ease, he would sit awhile

To watch the gulls, or stretched full-length would brood;

And camomile,

Chance-plucked, chafed for its savour in his hand,

And thyme or fennel chewed.

Mildly now he could behold

Thistle and coney flourish unchecked.

The unequal combat relinquishing he let fall

His spade, or only dug to smell the mould;

But joys past all

Former surmise he harvested from neglect,

That joyed nor reaped of old.

Sweetness had pierced him like a dart.

Careless of duty, afield he ranged,

And spared with fostering hand the weeds amid

The farmer’s crops, such wonder was in his heart.

The farmer chid—

And swore the politicians were deranged

To take the labourer’s part.

Christmas came, and quarter-day;

‘Goodwill to all men’ chanted the choir,

‘And on earth, peace.’ The earth in a riveted black

Frost fast bound like a cataleptic lay.

The times were slack.

The farmer said to Tom: ‘I don’t require

Servants not worth their pay.’

Household shipwreck disposing as best

He could, since none near by would employ

Such a half-wit, on a tramp for work he set out;

Of more than land and livelihood dispossessed,

For care and doubt

Sat plotting deep in his heart that his secret joy

Might vade with all the rest.

Everywhere rejected, he turned

Onward by darkening ways and grim

Gaunt woodlands where yet would kindle from bough to bough

The irresistible wildfire of spring for which he had yearned.

Small difference now

’Twixt leaves unborn or dead underfoot to him

Whom spring no more concerned.

Lengthening days would but strengthen his care,

Nor spring be even what once it had been—

A dazzle in dull eyes, chance heart-thrust of a bird’s song,

Hint of a covenanted joy all creatures share;

For he too long

Had watched a wildflower’s visage, and had seen

No hope, no purpose there.

Whither he went,

And what the welcome he found,

Or if he yet

Were above ground,

Came never word.

His name was clean forgot;

Unless folk said

Tom was a bad lot.

Many years after,

His tale was told to me.

I for a whim

Went off to see

Tom’s patch, but might

Have sought in vain for it

Had not my foot

Caught in a bit

Of galvanised netting—

Good heartless shop-stuff, wrought

To outlast man

And man’s thought.

I gave it a kick;

And after one more look,

Moved off to find

Some sheltered nook

Where I might sit

And watch the seagulls fly.

All that afternoon

No one came by,

Save one old man

Scarcely more human than they—

And he, I think,

Had lost his way.

For as he went

He’d stop and look about,

And shake his head,

As if in doubt

Of where he was;

And once, as though he’d read

The answer there,

Pulled up a weed

And peered at it

Full steadfastly—and then

Throwing it down,

Limped on again.

Transcriber’s Notes

No corrections have been made to the original text.