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Title: Oxford Poetry
1920
Editors: Vera Mary Brittain
Clifford Henry Benn Kitchin
Alan Porter
Authors: Edmund Blunden
G. H. Bonner
Vera M. Brittain
G. A. Fielding Bucknall
Roy Campbell
Eric Dickinson
Louis Golding
L. P. Hartley
B. Higgins
Winifred Holtby
R. W. Hughes
E. W. Jacot
G. H. Johnstone
C. H. B. Kitchin
V. De S. Pinto
Alan Porter
Hilda Reid
Edgell Rickword
W. Force Stead
L. A. G. Strong
Release Date: November 3, 2015 [EBook #50376]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
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OXFORD POETRY
1920
Uniform with this Volume
OXFORD POETRY, 1914
(Out of Print)
OXFORD POETRY, 1915
OXFORD POETRY, 1916
OXFORD POETRY, 1917
OXFORD POETRY, 1918
OXFORD POETRY, 1919
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OXFORD POETRY, 1917-1919,
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OXFORD POETRY
1920
EDITED BY
V. M. B., C. H. B. K., A. P.
OXFORD
BASIL BLACKWELL
1920
The following authors wish to make acknowledgment to the editors of
the publications mentioned for permission kindly given to reprint:
Mr. E. Blunden, The Nation (“Forefathers”), Voices (“Sheet
Lightning”); Miss V. M. Brittain, The Oxford Chronicle (“Boar’s
Hill,” and “The Lament of the Demobilized”); Mr. R. Campbell, The
Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany (“Bongwi’s Theology”); Mr. L.
Golding, Voices (“The Moon-Clock,” “Cold Branch,” “I Seek a Wild
Star”); Mr. A. Porter, Voices (“Life and Luxury,” “A Far
Country”); Mr. E. Rickword, The London Mercury (“Intimacy”); Mr.
W. Force Stead, The Poetry Review; Mr. L. A. G. Strong, Coterie
(“A Devon Rhyme,” “Christopher Marlye”), The Oxford Chronicle
(“From the Greek”).
WHEN on the green the rag-tag game had stopt, And red the lights through alehouse curtains glowed, The clambering brake drove out and took the road. Then on the stern moors all the babble dropt Among those merry men, who felt the dew Sweet to the soul and saw the southern blue Thronged with heat lightning leagues and leagues abroad, Working and whickering; snake-like; winged and clawed; Or like old carp lazily rising and shouldering, Long the slate cloud flank shook with the death-white smouldering; Yet not a voice.
The night drooped oven-hot; Then where the turnpike pierced the black wood plot, Tongues wagged again and each man felt the grim Destiny of the hour speaking through him: And then tales came of dwarfs on Starling Hill, And those young swimmers drowned at the roller mill, Where on the drowsiest noon the undertow Famishing for life boiled like a pot below: And how two higglers at the “Walnut Tree” Had curst the Lord in thunderstorm and He Had struck them into soot with lightning then— It left the pitchers whole, it killed the men. Many a lad and many a lass was named Who once stept bold and proud—but death had tamed Their revel on the eve of May: cut short The primrosing and promise of good sport, Shut up the score book, laid the ribbands by.
Such bodings mustered from the fevered sky; But now the spring well through the honeycomb Of scored stone rumbling tokened them near home, The whip lash clacked, the jog-trot sharpened, all Sang “Farmer’s Boy” as loud as they could bawl, Till at the “Walnut Tree” the homeward brake Stopt for hoarse ribaldry to brag and slake.
The weary wildfire faded from the dark While this one damned the parson, that the clerk; And anger’s balefire forked from the unbared blade At word of notches missed or stakes not paid: While Joe the driver stooped with oath to find A young jack rabbit in the roadway, blind Or dazzled by the lamps, as stiff as steel With fear. Joe beat its brain out on the wheel.
FOREFATHERS
HERE they went with smock and crook, Toiled in the sun, lolled in the shade, Here they mudded out the brook And here their hatchet cleared the glade: Harvest-supper woke their wit, Huntsman’s moon their wooings lit.
From this church they led their brides; From this church themselves were led Shoulder-high; on these waysides Sat to take their beer and bread: Names are gone—what men they were These their cottages declare.
Names are vanished, save the few In the old brown Bible scrawled, These were men of pith and thew, Whom the city never called; Scarce could read or hold a quill: Built the barn, the forge, the mill.
On the green they watched their sons Playing till too dark to see, As their fathers watched them once, As my father once watched me; While the bat and beetle flew On the warm air webbed with dew.
Unrecorded, unrenowned, Men from whom my ways begin, Here I know you by your ground, But I know you not within— All is mist, and there survives Not one moment of your lives.
Like the bee that now is blown Honey-heavy on my hand From the toppling tansy-throne In the green tempestuous land,— I’m a-Maying now, nor know Who made honey long ago.
G. H. BONNER
(MAGDALEN)
SONNET
QUIETLY the old men die, in carven chairs Nodding to silence by the extinguished hearth; Their days are as a treasure nothing worth, For all their joy is stolen by the years. The striving and the fierce delights and fears Of youth trouble them not; for them the earth Is dead; in their cold hearts naught comes to birth Save ghosts: they are too old even for tears.
As to the breast of some slow moving stream, Close girt with sentinel trees on either side, The sear leaves flutter down and silently Glide onward on its dark November dream, So peacefully upon the quiet tide They steal out to the still moon-silvered sea.
VERA M. BRITTAIN
(SOMERVILLE)
BOAR’S HILL, OCTOBER, 1919
TALL slender beech-trees, whispering, touched with fire, Swaying at even beneath a desolate sky; Smouldering embers aflame where the clouds hurry by To the wind’s desire.
Dark sombre woodlands, rain-drenched by the scattering shower, Spindle that quivers and drops its dim berries to earth— Mourning, perhaps, as I mourn here alone for the dearth Of a happier hour.
Can you still see them, who always delighted to roam Over the Hill where so often together we trod When winds of wild autumn strewed summer’s dead leaves on the sod, Ere your steps turned home?
THE LAMENT OF THE DEMOBILIZED
“FOUR years,” some say consolingly. “Oh well, What’s that? You’re young. And then it must have been A very fine experience for you!” And they forget How others stayed behind, and just got on— Got on the better since we were away. And we came home and found They had achieved, and men revered their names, But never mentioned ours; And no one talked heroics now, and we Must just go back, and start again once more. “You threw four years into the melting-pot— Did you indeed!” these others cry. “Oh well, The more fool you!” And we’re beginning to agree with them.
DAPHNE
SUNRISE and spring, and the river agleam in the morning, Life at its freshest, like flowers in the dawn-dew of May, Hope, and Love’s dreams the dim hills of the future adorning, Youth of the world, just awake to the glory of day—
Is she not part of them, golden and fair and undaunted, Glad with the triumph of runners ahead in the race, Free as a child by no shadows or memories haunted, Challenging Death to his solemn and pitiful face?
Sunset and dusk, and the stars of a mellow September, Sombre grey shadows, like Sleep stealing over the grass, Autumn leaves blown through the chill empty lanes of November, Sorrow enduring, though Youth with its rhapsodies pass—
Are they not part of her, sweet with unconscious compassion, Ready to shoulder our burden of life with a jest, Will she not make them her own in her light-hearted fashion, Sadder than we in her song, in her laughter more blest?
G. A. FIELDING BUCKNALL
(EXETER)
UNTO DUST
NOT with a crown of thorns about his head But with a single rose in his white hand, Fairer than Death herself, he joins the dead, He that could laugh at life, yet understand. No veils are rent in twain, or unknown fears Fall on the crowd who crucify my lord; Lay him to rest, while poetry and tears Be the last gifts his mourning friends accord. Cast not white flowers on one who loved but red, Leave him the dust who found in dust the praise Only of life, and, now that he is dead Surely in death is fair a thousand ways. Leave him in peace, a poem to the end— He was the man I loved: I was his friend.
ROY CAMPBELL
(MERTON)
THE PORPOISE
THE ocean-cleaving porpoise goes Thrashing the waves with fins of gold, Butting the waves with brows of steel, From palm-fringed archipelagos To coasts of coral, where the bold Cannibal drives a pointed keel.
And round and round the world he runs, A golden rocket trailing fire, Out-distancing the moon and stars, Leaving the pale abortive suns To paint their dreams of dead desire On faint horizons. Nothing mars
His constant course, though storms may rend The charging waves from strand to strand, Though Love may wait with fingers curled To clutch him at the current’s bend, Though Death may dart an eager hand To drag him underneath the world!
Still threading depths of pearl and rose, Derisive, gay, and overbold, Who will not hear, who will not feel, The ocean-cleaving porpoise goes, Thrashing the waves with fins of gold, Butting the waves with brows of steel!
BONGWI’S THEOLOGY
THIS is the wisdom of the ape Who yelps beneath the moon— ’Tis God who made me in his shape; He is a great baboon. ’Tis he who tilts the moon askew And fans the forest trees: The Heavens, which are broad and blue, Provide him his trapeze. He swings with tail divinely bent Around those azure bars, And munches, to his soul’s content, The kernels of the stars. And when I die, his loving care Shall raise me from the sod, To learn the perfect Mischief there, The Nimbleness of God!
ERIC DICKINSON
(EXETER)
THREE SONNETS
For RANDOLPH HUGHES
I
SUCH beauty is the magic of old kings Who webbed enchantments on the bowls of night, Who stole the ocean-coral for their rings, And samite-curls of mermaids for their light; Who sent their envoys from the courts of Kand, To find the blue-flowered crown of ecstasy That grows beneath a Titan’s quiet hand. The beauty that is yours is grown to me More fine than furthest snows in golden Ind, More fair indeed than doves, who draw the cars Of purpurate belief in monarch’s mind, With benediction of the ultimate stars. Because of all this knowledge born of you, Raise up my faith in stone, and keep men true.
II
Always your eyes, your hair, your cheek, your voice, Impel the wish I had a magic art; Your beauty’s kind can perfectly rejoice With delicate music all a poet’s heart, As voice of summer over hills of joy. Oh, you are utterly of beauty’s dance, Such kind of rhythmic beauty they employ, Where Pheidias shakes the Parthenon with prance Of his proud steeds, and prouder youths show us The glory of a fair Athenian day. Your beauty lived before tumultuous Chattering knaves sped time and faith away, Before the chime for Babylon was rung, Or from the cross men found the stars were hung!
III
My love of most complete and dearest worth, Has ever breath of years, one day all spent, Mingled with thought of present smiling earth? Have you bethought you how so soon is sent To this poor passionate heart the Worm of Death With twined and intimate corrupt caress? Have you bethought you, how that your dear breath, Bathing the rose upon your mouth, shall press One day no more betwixt its petalled home? How all exceeding beauties exquisite Of limbs, of eyes, of hair, of cheek, shall come One day perhaps within that open night, Where sheep go plaintive on a lone highway, And ecstasy of love is far away?
LOUIS GOLDING
(QUEEN’S)
THE MOON-CLOCK
TICK-TOCK! the moon, that pale round clock, Her big face peering, goes tick-tock!
Metallic as a grasshopper The far faint tickings start and stir.
All night tinily you can hear Tick-tock tinkling down the sheer
Steep falls of space. Minute, aloof, Here is no praise, here no reproof.
Remote in voids star-purged of sense, Tick-tock in stark indifference!
From ice-black lands of lack and rock, The two swords shake and clank tick-tock.
In the dark din of the day’s vault Demand thy headlong soul shall halt
One moment. Hearken, taut and tense, In the vast Silence beyond sense,
The moon! From the hushed heart of her, Metallic as a grasshopper,
Patient though earth may writhe and rock, Imperturbably, tock, tick-tock!
Till, boastful earth, your forests wilt In grotesque death. Till death shall silt,
Loud-blooded man, her unchecked sands From feet and warped expiring hands
Through fatuous channels of the thinned Brain. Till all the clangours which have dinned
Through your arched ears are only this, Tick-tock down blank eternities,
Where still the sallow death’s-head ticks As stars burn down like candle-wicks.
COLD BRANCH IN THE BLACK AIR
WHO taps? You are not the wind tapping? No! Not the wind! You straining and moaning there, Are you a cold branch in the black air Which the storm has skinned? No! Not a cold branch! Not the wind!
Who are you? Who are you? But you loved me once, You drank me like wine. The dead wood simmers in my skull. I am rotten. And your blood is red still and you have forgotten, And my blood was yours once and yours mine!
Are you there still? O fainter, O further ... nothing! Nothing taps! Surely you straining and moaning there, You were only a cold branch in the black air? ... Or a door perhaps?
I SEEK A WILD STAR
WHAT seek you in this hoarse hard sand That shuffles from your futile hand? Your limbs are wry. With salt despair All day the scant winds freeze your hair. What mystery in the barren sand Seek you to understand?
All day the acute winds’ finger-tips Flay my skin and cleave my lips. But though like fame about my skull Leap the gibes of the cynic gull, I shall not go from this place. I Seek through all curved vacancy Though the sea taunt me and frost scar, I seek a star, a star!
Why seek you this, why seek you this Of all distraught futilities? The tide slides closer. The tide’s teeth Shall bite your body with keen death! Of all unspaced things that are Vain, vain, most hideously far, Why seek you then a star?
I seek a wild star, I that am Eaten by earth and all her shame; To whom fields, towns are a close clot Of mud whence the worm dieth not; To whom all running water is Besnagged with timeless treacheries, Who in a babe’s heart see designed Mine own distortion and the blind Lusts of all my kind! Hence of all things that are Vain, most hideously far, A star, I seek, a star!
ROBERT GRAVES
(ST. JOHN’S)
MORNING PHŒNIX
IN my body lives a flame, Flame that burns me all the day, When a fierce sun does the same, I am charred away.
Who could keep a smiling wit, Roasted so in heart and hide, Turning on the sun’s red spit, Scorched by love inside?
Caves I long for and cold rocks, Minnow-peopled country brooks, Blundering gales of Equinox, Sunless valley-nooks.
Daily so I might restore Calcined heart and shrivelled skin, A morning phœnix with proud roar Kindled new within.
L. P. HARTLEY
(BALLIOL)
CANDLEMAS
THE conversation waned and waxed, I was there: you were there: Doubtless a few were overtaxed, Talking was more than they could bear.
The aura of each candle-flame Excited me, excited you; I felt you in each diadem, Now in the yellow, now the blue.
The conversation waxed and waned: Question, reply; question, reply: We, for our intercourse, disdained Such palpable machinery.
Columnar in transparent gloom, Symbolical, inviolate, Those candles held the spell of some Campanile or minaret,
Which still takes in, as it exhales, The mood of joy or orison; With hoarded ceremonials Enfranchising communion—
Till every spoken word or thought, However alien and profane, Becomes the medium and resort Where spirits spirits entertain;
So, idle talk’s quintessences Gleamed in the candles’ radiance With gathered stores of unproved bliss: The multiplied inheritance
Of each succeeding moment.... More Perfect in form the flames appeared; Their arduous strivings overbore Slight wayward wisps that swayed and veered.
They changed their contours, one and all, Carefully, persistently, With efforts economical That had their will of you and me,—
For we somehow were party to The issue of their enterprise; Confounded in their overthrow, Triumphant in their victories.
The alternation of each flame —Thinning here—swelling there— Compell’d our souls into the same Compass,—ampler or narrower.
We knew that when those luminous spires Hung upwards, pacified, and tranc’d, Pois’d betwixt all and no desires, Beyond their accidents advanc’d,—
We, their adepts, might acquiesce: The promised consummation Would drown our wills in its excess, And mingle both our souls in one.
When suddenly a permanence, —A flutter of wings before rest— Drew down to those flame-forms: our sense Was steeped in it, folded, caress’d....
A casual devastating gust (The jolt, the sickening recoil!) Our universe in chaos thrust; And, not content to spoil
Our husbanded endeavour, threw A mocking, flickering light, Devour’d by shadows, on us two: The talk became more bright.
We entered into it with zest; Question, reply; question, reply: And lookers-on were much impressed By our inane garrulity.
B. HIGGINS
(B.N.C.)
ONE SOLDIER
TO GEORGE WRIGHT
HEAP the earth upon this head. Nature, like a wistful child, Clings unto the clay she fed, Shatters it—unreconciled Moans the ashes of her dead. Heap the earth upon this head.
Chanter of the lonely tombs, Lift him to thy harmony— Moulded in the million wombs That breed the soul’s nobility!... Such the man that perished? Heap the earth upon this head.
Our masters brood and preach and plot, And mourn in monuments, not tears, The man the centuries forgot Who builded up the mighty years! Faded are the fights they led, Piteous the blood they shed. Heap the earth upon this head.
Heap, heap the earth upon this head, Brother he was to you, to me— Lived, lusted, joyed and wept.... They spent Their verbal earnings, and he went And fought for human liberty, And died. And politics were free.
Raise, raise memorials to our Dead.... But heap the earth upon this head. Oh! heap the earth upon this head.
WINIFRED HOLTBY
(SOMERVILLE)
THE DEAD MAN
I SEE men walk wild ways with love, Along the wind their laughter blown Strikes up against the singing stars; But I lie all alone. When love has stricken laughter dead And tears their silly hearts in twain, They long for easeful death, but I Am hungry for their pain.
R. W. HUGHES
(ORIEL)
THE ROLLING SAINT
UNDER the crags of Teiriwch, The door-sills of the Sun, Where God has left the bony earth Just as it was begun; Where clouds sail past like argosies Breasting the crested hills, With mainsail and foretop-sail That the thin breeze fills; With ballast of round thunder, And anchored with the rain; With a long shadow sounding The deep, far plain: Where rocks are broken playthings By petulant gods hurled, And Heaven sits a-straddle On the roof-ridge of the World. —Under the crags of Teiriwch Is a round pile of stones: Large stones, small stones, —White as old bones; Some from high places, Or from the lake’s shore; And every man that passes Adds one more: The years it has been growing Verge on a hundred score.
For in the cave of Teiriwch That scarce holds a sheep, Where plovers and rock-conies And wild things sleep, A woman lived for ninety years On bilberries and moss And lizards, and small creeping things, And carved herself a cross: But wild hill robbers Found the ancient saint And dragged her to the sunlight, Making no complaint: Too old was she for weeping, Too shrivelled, and too dry: She crouched and mumle-mumled And mumled to the sky. No breath had she for wailing, Her cheeks were paper-thin: She was, for all her holiness As ugly as sin. They cramped her in a barrel —All but her bobbing head. —And rolled her down from Teiriwch Until she was dead: They took her out, and buried her —Just broken bits of bone And rags and skin: and over her Set one small stone: But if you pass her sepulchre And add not one thereto The ghost of that old murdered Saint Will roll in front of you The whole night through.
The clouds sail past in argosies And cold drips the rain: The whole world is far and high Above the tilted plain. The silent mist floats eerily, And I am here alone: Dare I pass the place by, And cast not a stone?
THE SONG OF PROUD JAMES
(From “The Englishman.”)
“IF kith and kin disowned you, And all your friends were dead?” —I’d buy a spotted handkerchief To flaunt upon my head: I’d resurrect my maddest clothes, And gaily would I laugh, And climb the proud hills scornfully With swinging cherry staff.
“But when you’d crossed the sky-line, And knew you were alone?” —I’d cast away the hollow sham, I’d kick the ground, and groan, And tear my coloured handkerchief And snap my staff; and then I’d curse the God that built me up To break me down again.
E. W. JACOT
(QUEEN’S)
HERE’S A DAFFODIL
HERE’S a daffodil Nodding to the hill, Tipsy in the sunlight Drinking his fill.
Here’s a violet Pearled in dew as yet, Smiling in the wood shade, Sweet coquette!
NURSERY RHYMES
I
QUEEN Anne is dead ’Tis often said, For my part I agree. But she lived full ten score years ago And so She ought to be.
II
There was a scholar Of Oxford Town. He read till his wits were blunt. He put his gown On upside down, And his cap On back to front.
G. H. JOHNSTONE
(MERTON)
SUMMER
FULL of unearthly peace lies river-water, Glaucous and here and there with irised circles: Now subdued melody rises from the wreaths Of whirling flies, their mazy conflict driving To melancholy lamp-images in the pool: An unseen fish greyly breeds lubric rounds Up-reaching to the thrill of populous air: O hour supreme for poised and halting thought! Down colonnade on colonnade of rose The immense Symbols move augustly on; Mystery, her stony eyes revealed a little, Not cumbered longer by the veils of noise: Evening, a lithe and virginal dream-figure, Wavering between a green cloak and a blue, And, robed at length, turning with exquisite And old despair towards the gate of Dawn: And Fate, bemused awhile and half withdrawn, Charmed to short rest between grim Day and Night.
“IPSE EGO ...”
MARSILIO sighed: and drew a rough discord From his guitar, and sang so to us listeners: “I too have mounted every step of ice And dragged my bleeding ankles, hope-enthralled, To Heaven’s blessed door; when instantly From side-nooks rising tripped the outer angels, In thin, light-hammered armour, giggling boys, But muscular, and with concerted charge Seized my poor feet, and flung me laughing, laughing, Laughing, down, down among the insect men Who look up never, antwise busy—crawling: Alas! the burden of their feathery laughter, More bitter than my fall, has pried a passage Into my luckless head, and ‘Ha-ha, ha-ha!’ Maddens its walls and frets them ruinously: Beware my flitting pestilence: I’ll not gage That certain easier outlets may not bring The noise out and about and thick among you: O bitter, bitter days for those it visits!” And murmuring “bitter” with a fading sadness Marsilio went: the assembly all were silent.
C. H. B. KITCHIN
(EXETER)
OPENING SCENE FROM “AMPHITRYON”
ALCMENA. THREE ASTROLOGERS
Alcmena
I HAVE commanded you as often of old To ply the doctor’s trade with my disease, To cure me or to kill; for in whose veins Courses the age-long poison of despair, Seeks for himself no gentle surgery, Nor wishes for the touch of tender hands Upon his body.
First Astrologer
Something of your need Has been revealed us. Yet should there remain No secret hid from the physician’s eye.
Alcmena
It has been said that from the lips of queens Should come no word more bitter than sweet honey. If you adjudge me queen, let this too pass That I must act unqueenly. In my soul Drips wine more bitter than the taste of gall.
First Astrologer
When roses bloom most fully, death is near.
Alcmena
You too know this?
Second Astrologer
We know that life glides slowly But death is quicker than a lightning stroke.
Alcmena
Is it of me that you have gained this wisdom?
Third Astrologer
The grand revolving spheres of heaven teach The mind that hears their music. We have learned To listen through the clamour of all noons With evening in the heart.
Alcmena
He does not live Who hears no noon-day clamour about his ears.
First Astrologer
And you, Queen, that have lived and now confront Death or his shadow deep within your soul, Have you in life such wisdom garnered up As may disarm the heart’s rebellion? Wherefore then are we summoned?
Second Astrologer
The garden of life Is barren for you, bearing little fruit, And yields no store for hungry days ahead.
Third Astrologer
To me you seem as one that has in thought A hidden sin, and seeks an easy priest Who shall with smooth and flowing words of grace Persuade it from the heart.
Alcmena
Nay, I am sinless.
First Astrologer
You are still young to be thus weary of life.
Alcmena
There comes to every man a sudden time When he undoes the bolts that bar his heart Displaying hidden shame and scars concealed. Such season is the present. Hear me now; For I am sick and pale with lingering Over a mystery that has no clue Created idly by an idle brain. Astrologers, thrice mighty in yourselves, Say whence crept into me this discontent, This fretfulness of mine. Say whence arose My malady, so cunning in its ways, That I tormented have no skill to guide My doctors to the secret. Day by day I feel the heavy burden of the flesh Grow heavier. Your words rang true indeed. Though I am young, I am grown weary of life. The tedious cycle of each passing day Like streams of dripping tears from blinded eyes Falls in the cup of my calamity; While thoughts, such as you guess, are often here, Bringing a sweet temptation. I have tried All means of remedy. This perfumed air, This gold and ivory, these purple robes Have caused no change. The mute insistent hours Wait for me still, interminably slow. And, as in mental pain a man will crave For any fierce sensation of the flesh To rid his agony, so I have craved The frenzied lashing of tempestuous rain, The heat of flame, the sharpened fang of frost. I have gone forth at midnight with no robe, And walked bare-footed over stony ground While wind and rain have done their worst on me.
I have kissed flame and held these hands in fire; These hands have taken the scourge, that is for slaves, To beat my body. Hear then all my curse. Neither the blade of sharp-projecting flint Nor wind nor rain nor burning tongue of flame Nor knotted scourge can leave a mark on me. These lips are no less red since they were kissed By glowing coal; these hands are yet untorn. Such is my fate, with flesh insensible To suffer from a mind which has no love And no distraction. Have it as you will, I am a shipwreck far on lonely seas With neither oars aboard, nor land in sight, Nor mast, nor mast for fluttering rags of sail.
First Astrologer
When you have seen the solemn moon in tears With long green tresses dipped in a purple sea, And noted in each tear a breaking heart, A lump of salty crystal, then your dreams Will give you counsel which we cannot give.
Second Astrologer
We are empowered to tell you what has been And what shall be, but this created image Of your own thought eludes our groping hand.
Third Astrologer
Soon he shall come to you! That stung your heart?
Alcmena
O wailing winds, scatter these words away As chaff unfruitful to unfruitful soil.
First Astrologer
As glints the jewel in the toad’s brown head——
Second Astrologer
As lurks a bitter sting in honeyed words——
Third Astrologer
As a foul plague lies hid beneath the skin——
Alcmena
You wrong me.
Third Astrologer
Nay, your heart has uttered it. When the strong arms of young Amphitryon——
First Astrologer
I hear a voice.
Alcmena
O God! the dream returns.
Third Astrologer
The dream was not, then, of Amphitryon?
Alcmena
May the royal hand of Zeus deliver me.
[Zeusenters in the form of Amphitryon.
Zeus
Your task is ended. Go, astrologers, Taking your admonition to such ears As are in need of it. Go silently.
[TheAstrologersgo out.
Zeus
Still you pursue their empty sorceries?
Alcmena
Will you now weary me again? You drive My friends away like dogs. I follow them.
Zeus
A sullen greeting to the traveller.
Alcmena
Have I not told you often how it is With me and you? Or must you ask again And hear me through unreasoned reasonings To the last drop of bitterness? And yet——
Zeus
Why gaze so strangely on me?
Alcmena
I had thought Your journey would be longer.
Zeus
No, alas!
Alcmena
What brings you here to probe the core of my heart With your unspoken question?
Zeus
We have need No longer of these lamps. Quench them. The dawn Arises in the East.
Alcmena
Since when am I Become your slave?
Zeus
Since you obeyed my word.
Alcmena
I was no friend to such obedience In the dead days that were my life’s design.
Zeus
You tremble. Speak your fear.
Alcmena
Heart’s utterance Were mockery, if spoken by the tongue.
Zeus
Yet, be assured, nothing is hid from me.
Alcmena
Unmoving figure of Amphitryon I knew and hated, when you crossed the threshold, Hope seemed to step beside you.
Zeus
Hope is mine.
Alcmena
Then say, where have you found the keys of life, That you unlock its portals suddenly?
Zeus
At my command all doors are set ajar.
Alcmena
The miserable forebodings of the night Have fallen from me like the gossamer Which spiders weave until a master-hand Sweeps clean their tracery. Mark you a change In me, as I in you?
Zeus
I am unchanging, But, till this moment, me you have not known.
Alcmena
Or known myself save as a falling leaf, The toy of winds, uncherished and unloved, Gliding to earth and slow decay in earth Of what was green and young.
Zeus
When you were younger And guarded still the pitiable illusion That life is good and destiny exalted, Did you not dream perhaps of sacrifice In which yourself as immolated victim Should satisfy delirious desire, Wedded at last in death with strength,—which marriage Humanly shaped has never learned to yield?
Alcmena
Your voice has in it the power of new command To pierce my secret.
Zeus
Naught is hid from me.
Alcmena
My soul is weak with longing for your counsel.
Zeus
When Semele, with lightning-darted flame Engirdled, woke with knowledge she must die, Having aspired to touch the majesty Of the omnipotent, in no wise dismayed Was she consumed with that unquenchable fire Which burns all veils that overspread the flesh.
Alcmena
Whence came the thought of Semele to you? And why this chain of words now coiled on me As a predestined victim?
Zeus
I myself Blaze with the fire of Semele. This hand Shall rend the veil once more. Myself am hope, Sole arbiter of germinating life, The driver of the lusty winds of morning, The cloud-compeller, dancer of the dance Wherein the sea is festive and the hills Nod musical assent, the charioteer That drags the world behind his flashing wheels, Bringer of life and change that is called death And vibrant longing, setter of an end To fear and doubt, a darting two-edged sword That heals the wounds created of itself, The crystal-veined one, in whose blood there flows The flame of life—in such wise apprehend Me standing here, and in such wise remark The honour I have done you.
Alcmena
Open-eyed At last, I see a spirit stands beside me. For this cause I grew pale and bent my head In sweet confusion. Bringer of release, Even if it should be my worship falls Before a devil from hell, behold I kneel To kiss the fragrance of your garment’s hem.
V. DE S. PINTO
(CHRIST CHURCH)
ART
FATE from an unimaginable throne Scatters a million roses on the world; They fall like shooting stars across the sky Glittering: Under a dark clump of trees Man, a gaunt creature, squats upon the ground Ape-like, and grins to see those brilliant flowers Raining through the dark foliage: He tries Sometimes to clutch at them, but in his hands They melt like snow. Then in despair he turns Back to his wigwam, stirs the embers, pats His blear-eyed dog, and smokes a pipe, and soon, Wrapped in his blankets, drowses off to sleep.
But all his dreams are full of flying flowers.
ALAN PORTER
(QUEEN’S)
LIFE AND LUXURY
I HELD imagination’s candle high To thread the pitchy cavern, life. A whisper Dazed all the dark with sweetness oversweet, A lithe body languished around my neck. “Do out this unavailing light;” she pleaded. “Soother is darkness. How may candle strive With topless, bleak, obdurate blanks of space? It can but cold the darkness else were warm. Leave, leave to search so bitter-toilfully Unthroughgone silence, leave and follow me; For I will lead where many riches lie, Where rippling silks and snow-soft cushions, rare Cool wines, and delicates unearthly sweet, And all the comfort flesh of man craves more. We two shall dallying uncurl the long And fragrant hours.” She reached a slender arm Slowly along mine to the light. I flung her Off, down. My candle showed her cheeks raddled, Her bindweed pressure made me sick and mad; I flung her back to the gloom. Her further hand Clanked; hidden gyves fell ringing to the rock. Peering behind her barely I could discern Outstretching bodies clamped along the floor, Unmoving most and silent, some uneasy, Stirring and moaning. Smothery clutches came Of slothful scents and fingered at my throat; But, brushing by them, unaccompanied I held aloft my rushlight in the cave And searched for beauty through the cleaner air. Thus far in parable. Laugh loud, O world, Laugh loud and hollow. There are those would spurn Your joys unjoyous and your acid fruits. They would not tread the corpsy paths of commerce Nor juggle with men’s bones; they would not chaffer Their souls for strumpet pleasure. Cast them out, Deny what little they would ask of life, Assail, starve, torture, murder them, and laugh. Shall it be war between us? Better war Than faint submission—better death. And yet I would not, no, nor shall not die. How weaponed Shall I go passionate against your host? How, cautelous, elude your calm blockade?
Of older days heart-free the poet roved Along the furrowed lanes, and watched the robin Squat in a puddle, whir his stumpy wings, And tweet amid the tempest he aroused; A hare would hirple on ahead (keep back, Let her get out of sight; quick, cross yourself), Or taper weasel slink past over the road; And, seeing native blossoms, breathing air From English hills, what recked the wanderer That barons threw no penny to his song? Should he be hungered, he would seek some rill And, scrambling down the hazel scarp, would walk Wet-ankled up the stream until he found A larger pool of cold, colourless water, Full two-foot deep, scooped out of solid stone By a chuckling trickle spated after rains. There he would rest upon the bank, while slowly His fingers crept along the crannied rock. Poor starveling belly!—No, that lower fissure, Straight, lipless grin like an unholy god’s, Reach out for that. The water stings to his armpit, He hangs above the pool from head to waist, His legs push tautly back for body’s poise, And careful, careful creep the sensitive fingers.
—Sudden touch of cold, wet silk. Now flesh be one with brain! He lightly strokes The slippery smoothness upward to the gills And throws a twiring trout upon the grass. Or where the rattle of the water slacks To low leaf-whisper, there he gropes beneath Root-knots that hug black, unctuous mould from toppling To slutch the daylit stream. His wary nerves Tell blunt teeth biting at his thumb. Stormswift He snatches a heavy hand over his head. A floundering eel flops wildly to the floor, And glides for the water. Quick the hungry poet Spins round, whips out his knife, and shears the neck How firm soever gripped, the limber body Long after wriggles headless out of hand. But if he roam across foot-tangling heath And bracken, where no burble glads the root Of juicy grasses? If along his way Never a kingcup lifted bowls of light, Nor burly watermint with bludgeon scent, Beat down the fair, mild, slumbering meadowsweet? If no nearby forgetmenot looks up With frank and modest eye, no yellow flag Plays Harold crowned and girt by fearless pikes? No more he fails of ample fare; nor famine Drains out his blood and piecemeal drags his flesh From outward-leaping bones, till wrathful death, Grudging to lose a pebble from his cairn, Bears off the pitiful orts. For, stepping soft, He finds a rabbit gazing at the world With eyes in which not many moons have gleamed; And, raising a bawl of more expended breath Than fritter your burghers in a year of gabbling, He runs and hurls himself headlong on to it. Stunned at the cry, the rabbit waits and dithers; His muscles melt beneath him; “Pluck up strength,” He calls to his legs; “oh, stiffen, stiffen!” and still He waits and dithers. Now the trembling scale Of timeless pain crashes suddenly down, And life’s a puffed-out flame.
Thus the poet Of bygone England (as an alchemist After ill magics and long labours wrought Seals in the flask his magisterium, Lest volatile it waste among the winds, And all men breathe a never-ageing youth) Found way to pend within his body life And what of pain or interwoven joy Life brings to poets. Friend, I do not gulp And weep with maudlin, sentimental tears, Lacking a late lamented golden age. The more of life was ever misery’s, And Socrates won hemlock. Yet before Was man so constant enemy to man? Did earth grow bleak at all these purposeless, Rotting and blotting, roaking, smoking chimneys? Look, men are dying, women dying, children dying. They sell their souls for bread, and poison-filths Whiten their flesh, bow their bodies. Crippled, Consumption-spotted, feeble-minded, sullen, They seek, bewildered, out of black despair, The star of life; so, dying a Christian death, Lie seven a grave unheedful. “Bad as that? Put down five hundred on the Lord Mayor’s list. After the cost of organizing’s paid There’ll still be something left. Besides, it looks well, And charity brings the firm new customers. Not that I hold with all this nonsense really. When I was young I’d nothing more than they, But I climbed, and trampled other people down. Why shouldn’t they?” O murderers, look, look, look. No man but tramples, tramples on his neighbour, And these the lowest wrench and writhe and kick And crush the desperate lives of whom they can. I will not tread the corpsy path of commerce Nor juggle with men’s bones. The world shall wend Those murderous ways. Not I, no, never I. You shall not gaol me round with city walls; I will not waste among your houses; roads That indiscriminate feel a thousand footings Shall not for mine augment their insolence. But, as of old the poet, poet now Shall hold a near communion with earth, Free from all traffic or truck with worldlihood: As poet one time lived of natural bounty, So now shall I. Yet differs even this. Me no man wronging still the world shall hound With interdict of food. Gamekeepers, bailiffs, And all the manlings vail and bob to lords Shall sturdy stand on decent English Law And threat my famine with a worser fate, The seasonless monotonies of walls That straitlier cabin than the closest town. So let them threat. War stands between us. I Take peril comrade, knowing a hazel scarp That breaks down ragged to a scampering brook; Knowing a hill whose deep-slit, slanting sides Brave out the wind and shoulder the rough clouds through.
A FAR COUNTRY
THIS wood is older born than other woods: The trees are God’s imagining of trees, Anemones So pale as these Have never laughed like children in far solitudes, Shaking and breaking worldforweary moods To pure and childish glees.
The dripple from the mossed and plashing beck Has carven glassy walls of pallid stone, Where ferns have thrown Fine silks unsewn, Faint clouds unskied, that, one enchanted moment, check And chalice waterdrops. They, silver grown, With moons the darkness fleck.
HILDA REID
(SOMERVILLE)
THE MAGNANIMITY OF BEASTS
MAN—you who think you really know The beast you gaze on in the show, Nor see with what consummate art Each animal enacts its part— How different do they all appear The moment that you are not there! Then, fawns with liquid eyes a-flame Pursue the bear, their nightly game; Wolves shiver as the rabbit roars And stretches his terrific claws; While trembling tigers dare not sleep For passionate, relentless sheep, And frantic eagles through the skies Are chased by angry butterflies. —But beasts would suffer all confusions Before they shattered man’s illusions.
EDGELL RICKWORD
(PEMBROKE)
INTIMACY
SINCE I have seen you do those intimate things That other men but dream of; lull asleep The sinister dark forest of your hair, And tie the bows that stir on your calm breast Faintly as leaves that shudder in their sleep. Since I have seen your stocking swallow up, A swift black wind, the pale flame of your foot, And deemed your slender limbs so meshed in silk Sweet mermaid sisters drowned in their dark hair; I have not troubled overmuch with food, And wine has seemed like water from a well; Pavements are built of fire, grass of thin flames. All other girls grow dull as painted flowers Or flutter harmlessly like coloured flies Whose wings are tangled in the net of leaves Spread by frail trees that grow behind the eyes.
GRAVE JOYS
TO PEGGY
WHEN our sweet bodies moulder under-ground, Shut off from these bright waters and clear skies, When we hear nothing but the sullen sound Of dead flesh dropping slowly from the bone And muffled fall of tongue and ears and eyes; Perhaps, as each disintegrates alone, Frail broken vials once brimmed with curious sense, Our souls will pitch old Grossness from his throne, And on the beat of unsubstantial wings Soar to new ecstasies still more intense. There the thin voice of horny, black-legged things Shall thrill me as girls’ laughter thrills me here, And the cold drops a passing storm-cloud flings Be my strong wine, and crawling roots and clods My trees and hills, and slugs swift fallow deer. There I shall dote upon a sexless flower By dream-ghosts planted in my dripping brain, And suck from those cold petals subtler power Than from your colder, whiter flesh could fall, Most vile of girls and lovelier than all. But in your tomb the deathless She will reign And draw new lovers out of rotting sods That your lithe body may for ever squirm Beneath the strange embraces of the worm.
ADVICE TO A GIRL FROM THE WARS
WEEP for me but one day, Dry then your eyes; Think, is a heap of clay Worth a maid’s sighs?
Sigh nine days if you can For my waste blood; Think then, you love a man Whose face is mud;
Whose flesh and hair thrill not At your faint touch; Dear! limbs and brain will rot, Dream not of such.
YEGOR
“What shall I write?” said Yegor.—Tchekov.
“WHAT shall I write?” said Yegor; “Of the bright-plumed bird that sings Hovering on the fringes of the forest, Where leafy dreams are grown, And thoughts go with silent flutterings, Like moths by a dark wind blown?”
“Oh, write of those quiet women, Beautiful, slim and pale, Whose bodies glimmer under cool green waters, Whose hands like lilies float Tangled in the heavy purple veil Of hair on their breast and throat.”
“Or write of swans and princes Carved out of marble clouds, Of the flowers that wither upon distant mountains, Grey-pencilled in the brain; Of fiercely hurrying night-born crowds By the first swift sun-ray slain.”
“Nay, I will sing,” said Yegor, “Of stranger things than these, Of a girl I met in the fresh of morning, A laughing, slender flame; Of the slow stream’s song and the chant of bees, In a land without a name.”
STRANGE ELEMENTS
WHEN my girl swims with me I think She is a Shark with hungry teeth, Because her throat that dazzles me Is white as sharks are underneath.
And when she drags me down with her Under the wave, she clings so tight, She seems a deadly Water-snake Who smothers me in that dim light.
Yet when we lie on the hot sand, I find she cannot bite or hiss, But she swears I’m a Tiger fierce Who kills her slowly with a kiss.
[A] The lyrics from “The Burden of Babylon” appeared in Oxford
Poetry, 1919. The present editors have decided to reprint them with
their context.
Scene: An upper chamber in the Palace of the King of Babylon. Dusk
on a hot summer’s evening. The voice of one singing far off beyond
the palace-gardens is heard vaguely from time to time. The King is
sitting by an open window.
The King of Babylon
SINCE I am Babylon, I am the world. The windy heavens and the rainy skies Attend the earth in humble servitude. And I am Babylon, I am the world: The heavens and their powers attend on me.
The Voice of One Crying in the Night
Babylon, the glory of the Kingdoms, And the Chaldee’s excellency, Is become as Sodom and Gomorrah, Whom God overthrew by the Sea.
The King
Who is that fellow crying by the river? I think I heard him lift his voice in praise Of Babylon: some minstrelle seeking hire: I need him not to tell me who I am, For I am Baladan of Babylon. The splendours of my sceptre, throne, and crown, And all the awe that fills my royal halls, The pomp that heralds me, the shout that follows, Are flying shadows and reflections only From the wide dazzlings of myself, the King. This I conceive: and yet, we kings have labour To apprehend ourselves imperially, And see the blaze and lightnings of our person; The thought of their own sovereignty amazes The princelings even, and the lesser kings: But I am Baladan of Babylon.
The Voice in the Night
Never again inhabited, Babylon, O Babylon Even the wandering Arabian From thy weary waste is gone. Neither shall the shepherd tend his fold there, Nor any green herb be grown: It cometh in the night-time suddenly, And Babylon is overthrown.
The King
Pale from the east, the stars arise, and climb, And then grow bright, beholding Babylon; They would delay, but may not; so they pass, And fade and fall, bereft of Babylon. Quick from the Midian line the sun comes up, For he expects to see my palaces; And the moon lingers, even on the wane.... Mine ancient dynasty, as yon great river, Euphrates, with his fountains in far hills, Arose in the blue morning of the years; And as yon river flows on into time, Unalterable in majesty, my line Survives in domination down the years. I know, but am concerned not, that some peoples, At the pale limits of the world, abide As yet beyond the circle of my sway, The miserable sons of meagre soil That needs much tillage ere the yield be good. I only wait until they ripen more, And fatten toward my final harvesting: When I am ready, I will reap them in. For it is written in the stars, and read Of all my wise men and astrologers, That I, and my great line of Babylon, Shall rule the world, and only find a bound Where the horizon’s bounds are set, an end When the world ends; so shall all other lands, All languages, all peoples, and all tongues, Become a fable told of olden times, Deemed of our sons a thing incredulous.
The Voice in the Night
Woeful are thy desolate palaces, Where doleful creatures lie, And wild beasts out of the islands In thy fallen chambers cry. Where now are the viol and the tabret?— But owls hoot in moonlight, And over the ruins of Babylon The satyrs dance by night.
The King
That voice, that seems to hum my kingdom’s glory Fails in the vast immensity of night, As fails all earthly praise of Him who hears The ceaseless acclamation of the stars. What needs there more?—the apple of the world, Grown ripe and juicy, rolls into my lap, And all the gods of Babylon, well pleased With blood of bulls and fume of fragrant things, Even while I take mine ease, attend on me: The figs do mellow, the olive, and the vine, And in the plains climb the big sycamores; My camels and my laden dromedaries Move in from eastward bearing odorous gums, And the Zidonians hew me cedar beams, Even tall cedars out of Lebanon; Euphrates floats his treasured freightage down, And all great Babylon is filled with spoil. Wherefore, upon the summit of the world, The utmost apex of this thronèd realm, I stand, as stands the driving charioteer, And steer my course right onward toward the stars. Mean-fated men my horses trample under, And my wine-bins have drained the blood of mothers, And smoothly my wheels run upon the necks Of babes and sucklings,—while I hold my way, Serene, supreme, secure in destiny, Because the gods perceive mine excellence, And entertain for mine imperial Person Peculiar favours.... I am Babylon: Exceeding precious in the High One’s eyes.
The Voice in the Night
Babylon is fallen, fallen, And never shall be known again! Drunken with the blood of my belovèd, And trampling on the sons of men. But God is awake and aware of thee, And sharply shines His sword, Where over the earth spring suddenly The hidden hosts of the Lord; Armies of right and of righteousness, Huge hosts, unseen, unknown: And thy pomp, and thy revellings, and glory, Where the wind goes, they are gone.
L. A. G. STRONG
(WADHAM)
FROST
UNNATURAL foliage pales the trees, Frost in compassion of their death Has kissed them, and his icy breath Proclaims and silvers their election. Death, wert thou beautiful as these, We scarce would pray for resurrection.
VERA VENVSTAS
Corporis
PROUD Eastern Queene, Borne forth in splendour to thy buriall. What need of gems To deck thee? Bear the Tyrian gauds aside. Thy own dead loveliness outshines the pride Of diadems.
Animæ
O splendid hearte, Scorned and afflicted, still thou needest not Comfort of me. What matter though the body be uncouthe Wherein thou art? Fear not. He seeth truth Who gave it thee.
[To be chaunted as in a solemn Dumpe by such as fear God.]
A BABY
TWO days with puckered face of pain The accidental baby cried, And on the morning of the third Unclenched her tiny hands, and died.
FROM THE GREEK
BILL Jupp lies ’ere, aged sixty year: From Tavistock ’e came. Single ’e bided, and ’e wished ’Is father’d done the same.
A DEVON RHYME
GNARLY and bent and deaf ’s a post Pore ol’ Ezekiel Purvis Goeth creepin’ slowly up the ’ill To the Commoonion Survis.
Tap-tappy-tappy up the haisle Goeth stick and brassy ferule; And Parson ’ath to stoopy down And ’olley in ees yerole.
THE BIRD MAN
TO ERIC DICKINSON
I DREAD the parrots of the summer sun, The harsh and blazing screams of July noon, A riot of jays and peacocks and macaws. There is some presage of big ardours due Even in the pale flamingoes of the dawn; While golden pheasants and hoopoes of the West Burn fierce and proudly still, when he has set.
Better the winter wagtails of pied skies, Cold ospreys of the north, cormorants of squall, Brown wrens of rain, white silent owls of snow, And bitterns of great clouds that in October Sweep from the west at evening. Lovelier still The night’s black swans, the daws of starless night (Daw-like to hide what’s shiny), plovers and gulls Of winds that cry on autumn afternoons....
These every one I love: but above these Rarest of all my birds, I dearly love The blue and silver herons of the moon.
CHRISTOPHER MARLYE
CHRISTOPHER MARLYE damned his God In many a blasphemous mighty line, —Being given to words and wenches and wine.
He wrote his Faustus, and laughed to see How everyone feared his devils but he.
Christopher Marlye passed the gate, Eager to stalk on the floor of Heaven, Outface his God, and affront the Seven:
But Peter genially let him in, Making no mention of all his sin.
And he got no credit for all he had done, Though he grabbed a hold on the coat of God, And bellowed his infamies one by one, Blasphemy, lechery, thought, and deed ...
But nobody paid him the slightest heed.
And the devils and torments he thought to brave He left behind, on this side of the grave.
Heigh-ho! for Christopher Marlye.
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BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND ESHER
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