And point his path across our well-walled land:
A sculptor's model, but alas! no god:
These narrow fields the goat-foot never trod!
THE POET
Yet from his eyes the mirth a moment glanced
To which the streams of old Arcadia danced;
And on his tongue still lay the childish lore
Of that lost world for which you hope no more.
THE LADY
Tell me!--from where I watched I saw his face,
And his hands moving with a rustic grace,
Caught too the alien sweetness of his speech,
But sound alone, not sense, my ears could reach.
THE POET
He asked if we in England ever heard
The tiny beasts, half insect and half bird,
That neither eat nor sleep, but die content
When they in endless song their strength have spent.
THE LADY
Cicalas! how the name enchants me back
To the grey olives and the dust-white track!
Was there a story then?--I have forgot,
Or else by chance my Umbrians told it not.
{184}
THE POET
Lover of music, you at least should know
That these were men in ages long ago,--
Ere music was,--and then the Muses came,
And love of song took hold on them like flame.
THE LADY
Yes, I remember now the voice that speaks--
Most living still of all the deathless Greeks--
Yet tell me--how they died divinely mad,
And of the Muses what reward they had.
THE POET
They are reborn on earth, and from the first
They know not sleep, they hunger not nor thirst
Summer with glad Cicala's song they fill,
Then die, and go to haunt the Muses' Hill.
THE LADY
They are reborn indeed! and rightly you
The far-heard echo of their music knew!
Pray now to Pan, since you too, it would seem,
Were there with Phaedrus, by Ilissus' stream.
THE POET
Beloved Pan, and all ye gods whose grace
For ever haunts our short life's resting-place,
Outward and inward make me one true whole,
And grant me beauty in the inmost soul!
{185}
THE LADY
And thou, O Night, O starry Queen of Air,
Remember not my blind and faithless prayer!
Let me too live, let me too sing again,
Since Beauty wanders still the ways of men.
{186}
_The Faun_
Yesterday I thought to roam
Idly through the fields of home,
And I came at morning's end
To our brook's familiar bend.
There I raised my eyes, and there,
Shining through an ampler air,
Folded in by hills of blue
Such as Wessex never knew,
Changed as in a waking dream
Flowed the well-remembered stream.
Now a line of wattled pale
Fenced the downland from the vale,
Now the sedge was set with reeds
Fitter for Arcadian meads,
And where I was wont to find
Only things of timid kind,
Now the Genius of the pool
Mocked me from his corner cool.
Eyes he had with malice quick,
Tufted hair and ears a-prick,
And, above a tiny chin,
Lips with laughter wide a-grin.
{187}
Therewithal a shaggy flank
In the crystal clear he sank,
And beneath the unruffled tide
A little pair of hooves I spied.
Yet though plainly there he stood,
Creature of the wave and wood,
Under his satyric grace
Something manlike I could trace,
And the eyes that mocked me there
Like a gleam of memory were.
"So," said I at last to him,
Frowning from the river's brim,
"This is where you come to play,
Heedless of the time of day."
"Nay," replied the youthful god,
Leaning on the flowery sod,
"Here there are no clocks, and so
Time can neither come nor go."
"Little goat," said I, "you're late,
And your dinner will not wait:
If to-day you wish to eat,
Trust me, you must find your feet."
"Father," said the little goat,
"Do you know that I can float?
{188}
Do you know that I can dive
As deep as any duck alive?
Would you like to see me drop
Out of yonder willow's top?"
Sternly I replied again,
"You may spare your boasting vain;
All that you can do I did
When I was myself a kid."
Laughter followed such as pealed
Through the first unfurrowed field.
"Then what mother says is true,
And your hoof is cloven too!"
Ah!--but that irreverent mirth,
Learnt of the primeval earth,
Surely was with magic fraught
That upon my pulses wrought:
I too felt the air of June
Humming with a merry tune,
I too reckoned, like a boy,
Less of Time and more of Joy:
Till, as homeward I was wending,
I perceived my back unbending,
And before the mile was done
Ran beside my truant son.
{189}
_Fidele's Grassy Tomb_
The Squire sat propped in a pillowed chair,
His eyes were alive and clear of care,
But well he knew that the hour was come
To bid good-bye to his ancient home.
He looked on garden, wood, and hill,
He looked on the lake, sunny and still:
The last of earth that his eyes could see
Was the island church of Orchardleigh.
The last that his heart could understand
Was the touch of the tongue that licked his hand
"Bury the dog at my feet," he said,
And his voice dropped, and the Squire was dead.
Now the dog was a hound of the Danish breed,
Staunch to love and strong at need:
He had dragged his master safe to shore
When the tide was ebbing at Elsinore.
From that day forth, as reason would,
He was named "Fidele," and made it good:
When the last of the mourners left the door
Fidele was dead on the chantry floor.
{190}
They buried him there at his master's feet,
And all that heard of it deemed it meet:
The story went the round for years,
Till it came at last to the Bishop's ears.
Bishop of Bath and Wells was he,
Lord of the lords of Orchardleigh;
And he wrote to the Parson the strongest screed
That Bishop may write or Parson read.
The sum of it was that a soulless hound
Was known to be buried in hallowed ground:
From scandal sore the Church to save
They must take the dog from his master's grave.
The heir was far in a foreign land,
The Parson was wax to my Lord's command:
He sent for the Sexton and bade him make
A lonely grave by the shore of the lake.
The Sexton sat by the water's brink
Where he used to sit when he used to think:
He reasoned slow, but he reasoned it out,
And his argument left him free from doubt.
"A Bishop," he said, "is the top of his trade;
But there's others can give him a start with the spade:
Yon dog, he carried the Squire ashore,
And a Christian couldn't ha' done no more."
{191}
The grave was dug; the mason came
And carved on stone Fidele's name;
But the dog that the Sexton laid inside
Was a dog that never had lived or died.
So the Parson was praised, and the scandal stayed,
Till, a long time after, the church decayed,
And, laying the floor anew, they found
In the tomb of the Squire the bones of a hound.
As for the Bishop of Bath and Wells
No more of him the story tells;
Doubtless he lived as a Prelate and Prince,
And died and was buried a century since.
And whether his view was right or wrong
Has little to do with this my song;
Something we owe him, you must allow;
And perhaps he has changed his mind by now.
The Squire in the family chantry sleeps,
The marble still his memory keeps:
Remember, when the name you spell,
There rest Fidele's bones as well.
For the Sexton's grave you need not search,
'Tis a nameless mound by the island church:
An ignorant fellow, of humble lot--
But he knew one thing that a Bishop did not.
{192}
_Moonset_
Past seven o'clock: time to be gone;
Twelfth-night's over and dawn shivering up:
A hasty cut of the loaf, a steaming cup,
Down to the door, and there is Coachman John.
Ruddy of cheek is John and bright of eye;
But John it appears has none of your grins and winks;
Civil enough, but short: perhaps he thinks:
Words come once in a mile, and always dry.
Has he a mind or not? I wonder; but soon
We turn through a leafless wood, and there to the right,
Like a sun bewitched in alien realms of night,
Mellow and yellow and rounded hangs the moon.
Strangely near she seems, and terribly great:
The world is dead: why are we travelling still?
Nightmare silence grips my struggling will;
We are driving for ever and ever to find a gate.
{193}
"When you come to consider the moon," says John at last,
And stops, to feel his footing and take his stand;
"And then there's some will say there's never a hand
That made the world!"
A flick, and the gates are passed.
Out of the dim magical moonlit park,
Out to the workday road and wider skies:
There's a warm flush in the East where day's to rise,
And I'm feeling the better for Coachman John's remark.
{194}
_A Song of Exmoor_
The Forest above and the Combe below,
On a bright September morn!
He's the soul of a clod who thanks not God
That ever his body was born!
So hurry along, the stag's afoot,
The Master's up and away!
Halloo! Halloo! we'll follow it through
From Bratton to Porlock Bay!
_So hurry along, the stag's afoot,
The Master's up and away!
Halloo! Halloo! we'll follow it through
From Bratton to Porlock Bay!_
Hark to the tufters' challenge true,
'Tis a note that the red-deer knows!
His courage awakes, his covert he breaks,
And up for the moor he goes!
He's all his rights and seven on top,
His eye's the eye of a king,
And he'll beggar the pride of some that ride
Before he leaves the ling!
{195}
Here comes Antony bringing the pack,
Steady! he's laying them on!
By the sound of their chime you may tell that it's time
To harden your heart and be gone.
Nightacott, Narracott, Hunnacott's passed,
Right for the North they race:
He's leading them straight for Blackmoor Gate,
And he's setting a pounding pace!
We're running him now on a breast-high scent,
But he leaves us standing still;
When we swing round by Westland Pound
He's far up Challacombe Hill.
The pack are a string of struggling ants,
The quarry's a dancing midge,
They're trying their reins on the edge of the Chains
While he's on Cheriton Ridge.
He's gone by Kittuck and Lucott Moor,
He's gone by Woodcock's Ley;
By the little white town he's turned him down,
And he's soiling in open sea.
So hurry along, we'll both be in,
The crowd are a parish away!
We're a field of two, and we've followed it through
From Bratton to Porlock Bay!
_So hurry along, we'll both be in,
The crowd are a parish away!
We're a field of two, and we've followed it through
From Bratton to Porlock Bay!_
{196}
_Master and Man_
Do ye ken hoo to fush for the salmon?
If ye'll listen I'll tell ye.
Dinna trust to the books and their gammon,
They're but trying to sell ye.
Leave professors to read their ain cackle
And fush their ain style;
Come awa', sir, we'll oot wi' oor tackle
And be busy the while.
'Tis a wee bit ower bright, ye were thinkin'?
Aw, ye'll no be the loser;
'Tis better ten baskin' and blinkin'
Than ane that's a cruiser.
If ye're bent, as I tak it, on slatter,
Ye should pray for the droot,
For the salmon's her ain when there's watter,
But she's oors when it's oot.
Ye may just put your flee-book behind ye,
Ane hook wull be plenty;
If they'll no come for this, my man, mind ye,
They'll no come for twenty.
{197}
Ay, a rod; but the shorter the stranger
And the nearer to strike;
For myself I prefare it nae langer
Than a yard or the like.
Noo, ye'll stand awa' back while I'm creepin'
Wi' my snoot i' the gowans;
There's a bonny twalve-poonder a-sleepin'
I' the shade o' yon rowans.
Man, man! I was fearin' I'd stirred her,
But I've got her the noo!
Hoot! fushin's as easy as murrder
When ye ken what to do.
Na, na, sir, I doot na ye're willin'
But I canna permit ye,
For I'm thinkin' that yon kind o' killin'
Wad hardly befit ye.
And some work is deefficult hushin',
There'd be havers and chaff:
'Twull be best, sir, for you to be fushin'
And me wi' the gaff.
{198}
_Gavotte_
(OLD FRENCH)
Memories long in music sleeping,
No more sleeping,
No more dumb:
Delicate phantoms softly creeping
Softly back from the old-world come.
Faintest odours around them straying,
Suddenly straying
In chambers dim;
Whispering silks in order swaying,
Glimmering gems on shoulders slim:
Courage advancing strong and tender,
Grace untender
Fanning desire;
Suppliant conquest, proud surrender,
Courtesy cold of hearts on fire--
Willowy billowy now they're bending,
Low they're bending
Down-dropt eyes;
Stately measure and stately ending,
Music sobbing, and a dream that dies.
{199}
_Imogien_
(A LADY OF TENDER AGE)
Ladies, where were your bright eyes glancing,
Where were they glancing yesternight?
Saw ye Imogen dancing, dancing,
Imogen dancing all in white?
Laughed she not with a pure delight,
Laughed she not with a joy serene,
Stepped she not with a grace entrancing,
Slenderly girt in silken sheen?
All through the night from dusk to daytime
Under her feet the hours were swift,
Under her feet the hours of playtime
Rose and fell with a rhythmic lift:
Music set her adrift, adrift,
Music eddying towards the day
Swept her along as brooks in Maytime
Carry the freshly falling May.
Ladies, life is a changing measure,
Youth is a lilt that endeth soon;
{200}
Pluck ye never so fast at pleasure,
Twilight follows the longest noon.
Nay, but here is a lasting boon,
Life for hearts that are old and chill,
Youth undying for hearts that treasure
Imogen dancing, dancing still.
{201}
_Nel Mezzo Del Cammin_
Whisper it not that late in years
Sorrow shall fade and the world be brighter,
Life be freed of tremor and tears,
Heads be wiser and hearts be lighter.
Ah! but the dream that all endears,
The dream we sell for your pottage of truth--
Give us again the passion of youth,
Sorrow shall fade and the world be brighter.
{202}
_The Invasion_
Spring, they say, with his greenery
Northward marches at last,
Mustering thorn and elm;
Breezes rumour him conquering,
Tell how Victory sits
High on his glancing helm.
Smit with sting of his archery,
Hardest ashes and oaks
Burn at the root below:
Primrose, violet, daffodil,
Start like blood where the shafts
Light from his golden bow.
Here where winter oppresses us
Still we listen and doubt,
Dreading a hope betrayed:
Sore we long to be greeting him,
Still we linger and doubt
"What if his march be stayed?"
{203}
Folk in thrall to the enemy,
Vanquished, tilling a soil
Hateful and hostile grown;
Always wearily, warily,
Feeding deep in the heart
Passion they dare not own--
So we wait the deliverer;
Surely soon shall he come,
Soon shall his hour be due:
Spring shall come with his greenery,
Life be lovely again,
Earth be the home we knew.
{204}
_Rilloby-Rill_
Grasshoppers four a-fiddling went,
Heigh-ho! never be still!
They earned but little towards their rent
But all day long with their elbows bent
They fiddled a tune called Rilloby-rilloby,
Fiddled a tune called Rilloby-rill.
Grasshoppers soon on Fairies came,
Heigh-ho! never be still!
Fairies asked with a manner of blame,
"Where do you come from, what is your name?
What do you want with your Rilloby-rilloby,
What do you want with your Rilloby-rill?"
"Madam, you see before you stand,
Heigh-ho! never be still!
The Old Original Favourite Grand
Grasshopper's Green Herbarian Band,
And the tune we play is Rilloby-rilloby,
Madam, the tune is Rilloby-rill."
{205}
Fairies hadn't a word to say,
Heigh-ho! never be still!
Fairies seldom are sweet by day,
But the Grasshoppers merrily fiddled away,
O but they played with a willoby-rilloby,
O but they played with a willoby-will!
Fairies slumber and sulk at noon,
Heigh-ho! never be still!
But at last the kind old motherly moon
Brought them dew in a silver spoon,
And they turned to ask for Rilloby-rilloby,
One more round of Rilloby-rill.
Ah! but nobody now replied,
Heigh-ho! never be still!
When day went down the music died,
Grasshoppers four lay side by side,
And there was an end of their Rilloby-rilloby,
There was an end of their Rilloby-rill.
{206}
_Pereunt Et Imputantur_
(AFTER MARTIAL)
Bernard, if to you and me
Fortune all at once should give
Years to spend secure and free,
With the choice of how to live,
Tell me, what should we proclaim
Life deserving of the name?
Winning some one else's case?
Saving some one else's seat?
Hearing with a solemn face
People of importance bleat?
No, I think we should not still
Waste our time at others' will.
Summer noons beneath the limes,
Summer rides at evening cool,
Winter's tales and home-made rhymes,
Figures on the frozen pool--
These would we for labours take,
And of these our business make.
{207}
Ah! but neither you nor I
Dare in earnest venture so;
Still we let the good days die
And to swell the reckoning go.
What are those that know the way,
Yet to walk therein delay?
{208}
_Felix Antonius_
(AFTER MARTIAL)
To-day, my friend is seventy-five;
He tells his tale with no regret,
His brave old eyes are steadfast yet,
His heart the lightest heart alive.
He sees behind him green and wide
The pathway of his pilgrim years;
He sees the shore, and dreadless hears
The whisper of the creeping tide.
For out of all his days, not one
Has passed and left its unlaid ghost
To seek a light for ever lost,
Or wail a deed for ever done.
So for reward of life-long truth
He lives again, as good men can,
Redoubling his allotted span
With memories of a stainless youth.
{209}
_Ireland, Ireland_
Down thy valleys, Ireland, Ireland,
Down thy valleys green and sad,
Still thy spirit wanders wailing,
Wanders wailing, wanders mad.
Long ago that anguish took thee,
Ireland, Ireland, green and fair,
Spoilers strong in darkness took thee,
Broke thy heart and left thee there.
Down thy valleys, Ireland, Ireland,
Still thy spirit wanders mad;
All too late they love that wronged thee,
Ireland, Ireland, green and sad.
{210}
_Hymn_
IN THE TIME OF WAR AND TUMULTS
O Lord Almighty, Thou whose hands
Despair and victory give;
In whom, though tyrants tread their lands,
The souls of nations live;
Thou wilt not turn Thy face away
From those who work Thy will,
But send Thy peace on hearts that pray,
And guard Thy people still.
Remember not the days of shame,
The hands with rapine dyed,
The wavering will, the baser aim,
The brute material pride:
Remember, Lord, the years of faith,
The spirits humbly brave,
The strength that died defying death,
The love that loved the slave;
{211}
The race that strove to rule Thine earth
With equal laws unbought:
Who bore for Truth the pangs of birth,
And brake the bonds of Thought.
Remember how, since time began,
Thy dark eternal mind
Through lives of men that fear not man
Is light for all mankind.
Thou wilt not turn Thy face away
From those who work Thy will,
But send Thy strength on hearts that pray
For strength to serve Thee still.
{212}
_The Building of the Temple_
(AN ANTHEM HEARD IN CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL)
_The Organ._
O Lord our God, we are strangers before Thee, and sojourners, as were
all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is
none abiding.
O Lord God of our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the
thoughts of Thy people, and prepare their heart unto Thee.
And give unto Solomon my son a perfect heart to keep Thy commandments,
and to build the palace for the which I have made provision.
_Boys' voices._
O come to the Palace of Life,
Let us build it again.
It was founded on terror and strife,
It was laid in the curse of the womb,
And pillared on toil and pain,
And hung with veils of doom,
And vaulted with the darkness of the tomb.
{213}
_Men's voices._
O Lord our God, we are sojourners here for a day,
Strangers and sojourners, as all our fathers were:
Our years on the earth are a shadow that fadeth away;
Grant us light for our labour, and a time for prayer.
_Boys._
But now with endless song,
And joy fulfilling the Law;
Of passion as pure as strong
And pleasure undimmed of awe;
With garners of wine and grain
Laid up for the ages long,
Let us build the Palace again
And enter with endless song,
Enter and dwell secure, forgetting the years of wrong.
_Men._
O Lord our God, we are strangers and sojourners here,
Our beginning was night, and our end is hid in Thee:
Our labour on the earth is hope redeeming fear,
In sorrow we build for the days we shall not see.
_Boys._
Great is the name
Of the strong and skilled,
Lasting the fame
Of them that build:
{214}
The tongues of many nations
Shall speak of our praise,
And far generations
Be glad for our days.
_Men._
We are sojourners here as all our fathers were,
As all our children shall be, forgetting and forgot:
The fame of man is a murmur that passeth on the air,
We perish indeed if Thou remember not.
We are sojourners here as all our fathers were,
Strangers travelling down to the land of death:
There is neither work nor device nor knowledge there,
O grant us might for our labour, and to rest in faith.
_Boys._
In joy, in the joy of the light to be,
_Men._
O Father of Lights, unvarying and true,
_Boys._
Let us build the Palace of Life anew.
_Men._
Let us build for the years we shall not see.
_Boys._
Lofty of line and glorious of hue,
With gold and pearl and with the cedar tree,
{215}
_Men._
With silence due
And with service free,
_Boys._
Let us build it for ever in splendour new.
_Men._
Let us build in hope and in sorrow, and rest in Thee.
{216}
_Epistle_
TO COLONEL FRANCIS EDWARD YOUNGHUSBAND
Across the Western World, the Arabian Sea,
The Hundred Kingdoms and the Rivers Three,
Beyond the rampart of Himalayan snows,
And up the road that only Rumour knows,
Unchecked, old friend, from Devon to Thibet,
Friendship and Memory dog your footsteps yet.
Let not the scornful ask me what avails
So small a pack to follow mighty trails:
Long since I saw what difference must be
Between a stream like you, a ditch like me.
This drains a garden and a homely field
Which scarce at times a living current yield;
The other from the high lands of his birth
Plunges through rocks and spurns the pastoral earth,
Then settling silent to his deeper course
Draws in his fellows to augment his force,
Becomes a name, and broadening as he goes,
Gives power and purity where'er he flows,
Till, great enough for any commerce grown,
He links all nations while he serves his own.
{217}
Soldier, explorer, statesman, what in truth
Have you in common with homekeeping youth?
"Youth" comes your answer like an echo faint;
And youth it was that made us first acquaint.
Do you remember when the Downs were white
With the March dust from highways glaring bright,
How you and I, like yachts that toss the foam,
From Penpole Fields came stride and stride for home?
One grimly leading, one intent to pass,
Mile after mile we measured road and grass,
Twin silent shadows, till the hour was done,
The shadows parted and the stouter won.
Since then I know one thing beyond appeal--
How runs from stem to stern a trimbuilt keel.
Another day--but that's not mine to tell,
The man in front does not observe so well;
Though, spite of all these five-and-twenty years,
As clear as life our schoolday scene appears.
The guarded course, the barriers and the rope;
The runners, stripped of all but shivering hope;
The starter's good grey head; the sudden hush;
The stern white line; the half-unconscious rush;
The deadly bend, the pivot of our fate;
The rope again; the long green level straight;
The lane of heads, the cheering half unheard;
The dying spurt, the tape, the judge's word.
You, too, I doubt not, from your Lama's hall
Can see the Stand above the worn old wall,
{218}
Where then they clamoured as our race we sped,
Where now they number our heroic dead.*
As clear as life you, too, can hear the sound
Of voices once for all by "lock-up" bound,
And see the flash of eyes still nobly bright
But in the "Bigside scrimmage" lost to sight.
Old loves, old rivalries, old happy times,
These well may move your memory and my rhymes;
These are the Past; but there is that, my friend,
Between us two, that has nor time nor end.
Though wide apart the lines our fate has traced
Since those far shadows of our boyhood raced,
In the dim region all men must explore--
The mind's Thibet, where none has gone before--
Rounding some shoulder of the lonely trail
We met once more, and raised a lusty hail.
"Forward!" cried one, "for us no beaten track,
No city continuing, no turning back:
The past we love not for its being past,
But for its hope and ardour forward cast:
The victories of our youth we count for gain
Only because they steeled our hearts to pain,
And hold no longer even Clifton great
Save as she schooled our wills to serve the State.
{219}
Nay, England's self, whose thousand-year-old name
Burns in our blood like ever-smouldering flame,
Whose Titan shoulders as the world are wide
And her great pulses like the Ocean tide,
Lives but to bear the hopes we shall not see--
Dear mortal Mother of the race to be."