SONNETS AND VERSE
BY
H. BELLOC
SONNETS AND VERSE
BY
H. BELLOC
[Illustration: colophon]
DUCKWORTH & CO.
3 HENRIETTA STREET, LONDON, W.C.
_First Published in 1923_
_All rights reserved_
_Made and Printed in Great Britain
by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh_
To
JOHN SWINNERTON PHILLIMORE
A DEDICATION
WITH THIS BOOK OF VERSE
_When you and I were little tiny boys_
_We took a most impertinent delight_
_In foolish, painted and misshapen toys_
_Which hidden mothers brought to us at night._
_Do you that have the child’s diviner part--_
_The dear content a love familiar brings--_
_Take these imperfect toys, till in your heart_
_They too attain the form of perfect things._
CONTENTS
I. SONNETS
PAGE
I. LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS IN GUMBER, LAUGH
THE WEALD 3
II. I WAS LIKE ONE THAT KEEPS THE DECK BY NIGHT 4
III. RISE UP AND DO BEGIN THE DAY’S ADORNING 5
IV. THE WINTER MOON HAS SUCH A QUIET CAR 6
V. WHATEVER MOISTURE NOURISHES THE ROSE 7
VI. YOUTH GAVE YOU TO ME, BUT I’LL NOT BELIEVE 8
VII. MORTALITY IS BUT THE STUFF YOU WEAR 9
VIII. NOT FOR THE LUCKLESS BUDS OUR ROOTS MAY BEAR 10
IX. THAT WHICH IS ONE THEY SHEAR AND MAKE IT TWAIN 11
X. SHALL ANY MAN FOR WHOSE STRONG LOVE ANOTHER 12
XI. THEY THAT HAVE TAKEN WAGES OF THINGS DONE 13
XII. BEAUTY THAT PARENT IS TO DEATHLESS RHYME 14
XIII. WHAT ARE THE NAMES FOR BEAUTY? WHO SHALL PRAISE 15
XIV. LOVE WOOING HONOUR, HONOUR’S LOVE DID WIN 16
XV. YOUR LIFE IS LIKE A LITTLE WINTER’S DAY 17
XVI. NOW SHALL THE CERTAIN PURPOSE OF MY SOUL 18
XVII. BECAUSE MY FALTERING FEET MAY FAIL TO DARE 19
XVIII. WHEN YOU TO ACHERON’S UGLY WATER COME 20
XIX. WE WILL NOT WHISPER, WE HAVE FOUND THE PLACE 21
XX. I WENT TO SLEEP AT DAWN IN TUSCANY 22
XXI. ALMIGHTY GOD, WHOSE JUSTICE LIKE A SUN 23
XXII. MOTHER OF ALL MY CITIES ONCE THERE LAY 24
XXIII. NOVEMBER IS THAT HISTORIED EMPEROR 25
XXIV. HOAR TIME ABOUT THE HOUSE BETAKES HIM SLOW 26
XXV. IT FREEZES: ALL ACROSS A SOUNDLESS SKY 27
XXVI. O MY COMPANION, O MY SISTER SLEEP 28
XXVII. ARE YOU THE END, DESPAIR, OR THE POOR LEAST 29
XXVIII. BUT OH! NOT LOVELY HELEN, NOR THE PRIDE 30
XXIX. THE WORLD’S A STAGE. THE LIGHT IS IN ONE’S EYES 31
XXX. THE WORLD’S A STAGE--AND I’M THE SUPER MAN 32
XXXI. THE WORLD’S A STAGE. THE TRIFLING ENTRANCE FEE 33
II. LYRICAL, DIDACTIC AND GROTESQUE
TO DIVES 37
STANZAS WRITTEN ON BATTERSEA BRIDGE DURING A SOUTH-WESTERLY GALE 39
THE SOUTH COUNTRY 42
THE FANATIC 45
THE EARLY MORNING 48
OUR LORD AND OUR LADY 49
COURTESY 51
THE NIGHT 53
THE LEADER 54
A BIVOUAC 56
TO THE BALLIOL MEN STILL IN AFRICA 57
VERSES TO A LORD WHO, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS,
SAID THAT THOSE WHO OPPOSED THE SOUTH AFRICAN
ADVENTURE CONFUSED SOLDIERS WITH MONEY-GRUBBERS 59
THE REBEL 61
THE PROPHET LOST IN THE HILLS AT EVENING 63
THE END OF THE ROAD 65
AN ORACLE THAT WARNED THE WRITER WHEN ON PILGRIMAGE 67
THE DEATH AND LAST CONFESSION OF WANDERING PETER 68
DEDICATORY ODE 70
DEDICATION ON THE GIFT OF A BOOK TO A CHILD 78
DEDICATION OF A CHILD’S BOOK OF IMAGINARY TALES 79
HOMAGE 80
THE MOON’S FUNERAL 81
THE HAPPY JOURNALIST 83
LINES TO A DON 85
NEWDIGATE POEM 88
THE YELLOW MUSTARD 93
THE POLITICIAN OR THE IRISH EARLDOM 94
THE LOSER 96
III. SONGS
NOËL 99
THE BIRDS 101
IN A BOAT 102
SONG INVITING THE INFLUENCE OF A YOUNG LADY UPON THE OPENING YEAR 104
THE RING 105
CUCKOO! 106
THE LITTLE SERVING MAID 107
AUVERGNAT 110
DRINKING SONG, ON THE EXCELLENCE OF BURGUNDY
WINE 111
DRINKING DIRGE 113
WEST SUSSEX DRINKING SONG 115
A BALLAD ON SOCIOLOGICAL ECONOMICS 117
HERETICS ALL 118
HA’NACKER MILL 119
TARANTELLA 120
THE CHAUNTY OF THE “NONA” 122
THE WINGED HORSE 125
STREPHON’S SONG (FROM “THE CRUEL SHEPHERDESS”) 127
IV. BALLADES
SHORT BALLADE AND POSTSCRIPT ON CONSOLS AND BOERS 131
BALLADE OF THE UNANSWERED QUESTION 134
BALLADE TO OUR LADY OF CZESTOCHOWA 136
BALLADE OF HELL AND OF MRS ROEBECK 138
BALLADE OF UNSUCCESSFUL MEN 140
BALLADE OF THE HERESIARCHS 142
V. EPIGRAMS 147
VI. THE BALLAD OF VAL-ÈS-DUNES 157
I SONNETS
I
Lift up your hearts in Gumber, laugh the Weald
And you my mother the Valley of Arun sing.
Here am I homeward from my wandering
Here am I homeward and my heart is healed.
You my companions whom the World has tired
Come out to greet me. I have found a face
More beautiful than Gardens; more desired
Than boys in exile love their native place.
Lift up your hearts in Gumber, laugh the Weald
And you most ancient Valley of Arun sing.
Here am I homeward from my wandering,
Here am I homeward and my heart is healed.
If I was thirsty, I have heard a spring.
If I was dusty, I have found a field.
II
I was like one that keeps the deck by night
Bearing the tiller up against his breast;
I was like one whose soul is centred quite
In holding course although so hardly prest,
And veers with veering shock now left now right,
And strains his foothold still and still makes play
Of bending beams until the sacred light
Shows him high lands and heralds up the day.
But now such busy work of battle past
I am like one whose barque at bar at last
Comes hardly heeling down the adventurous breeze;
And entering calmer seas,
I am like one that brings his merchandise
To Californian skies.
III
Rise up and do begin the day’s adorning;
The Summer dark is but the dawn of day.
The last of sunset fades into the morning;
The morning calls you from the dark away.
The holy mist, the white mist of the morning
Was wreathing upward on my lonely way.
The way was waiting for your own adorning
That should complete the broad adornéd day.
Rise up and do begin the day’s adorning;
The little eastern clouds are dapple grey:
There will be wind among the leaves to-day;
It is the very promise of the morning.
_Lux Tua Via Mea_: your light’s my way--
Then do rise up and make it perfect day.
IV
The Winter Moon has such a quiet car
That all the winter nights are dumb with rest.
She drives the gradual dark with drooping crest
And dreams go wandering from her drowsy star
Because the nights are silent do not wake
But there shall tremble through the general earth,
And over you, a quickening and a birth.
The Sun is near the hill-tops for your sake.
The latest born of all the days shall creep
To kiss the tender eyelids of the year;
And you shall wake, grown young with perfect sleep,
And smile at the new world and make it dear
With living murmurs more than dreams are deep;
Silence is dead, my dawn, the morning’s here.
V
Whatever moisture nourishes the Rose
The Rose of the World in laughter’s garden-bed
Where Souls of men on faith secure are fed
And spirits immortal keep their pleasure-close.
Whatever moisture nourishes the Rose,
The burning Rose of the world, for me the same
To-day for me the spring without a name
Content or Grace or Laughter overflows.
This is that water from the Fount of Gold
Water of Youth and washer out of cares
Which Raymond of Saragossa sought of old
And finding in the mountain, unawares,
Returned to hear an ancient story told
To Bramimond, his love, beside the marble stairs.
VI
Youth gave you to me, but I’ll not believe
That Youth will, taking his quick self, take you.
Youth’s all our Truth: he cannot so deceive.
He has our graces, not our ownselves too.
He still compares with time when he’ll be spent,
By human doom enhancing what we are;
Enriches us with rare experiment,
Lends arms to leagured Age in Time’s rough war.
Look! This Youth in us is an Old Man taking
A Boy to make him wiser than his days.
So is our old Youth our young Age’s making:
So rich in time our final debt he pays.
Then with your quite young arms do you me hold
And I will still be young when all the World’s grown old.
VII
Mortality is but the Stuff you wear
To show the better on the imperfect sight.
Your home is surely with the changeless light
Of which you are the daughter and the heir.
For as you pass, the natural life of things
Proclaims the Resurrection: as you pass
Remembered summer shines across the grass
And somewhat in me of the immortal sings.
You were not made for memory, you are not
Youth’s accident I think but heavenly more;
Moulding to meaning slips my pen’s poor blot
And opening wide that long forbidden door
Where stands the Mother of God, your exemplar.
How beautiful, how beautiful you are!
VIII
Not for the luckless buds our roots may bear
Now all in bloom, now seared and cankered lying
Will I entreat you, lest they should compare
Foredoomed humanity with the fall of flowers.
Hold thou with me the chaste communion rare
And touch with life this mortal case of ours:
You’re lifted up beyond the power of dying:
I die, as bounded things die everywhere.
You’re voiced companionship, I’m silence lonely;
You’re stuff, I’m void; you’re living, I’m decay.
I fall, I think, to-night and ending only;
You rise, I know, through still advancing day.
And knowing living gift were life for me
In narrow room of rhyme I fixed it certainly.
IX
That which is one they shear and make it twain
Who would Love’s light and dark discriminate:
His pleasure is one essence with his pain,
Even his desire twin brother to his hate.
With him the foiled attempt is half achieving;
And being mastered, to be armed a lord;
And doubting every chance is still believing;
And losing all one’s own is all reward.
I am acquainted with misfortune’s fortune,
And better than herself her dowry know:
For she that is my fortune and misfortune,
Making me hapless, makes me happier so:
In which conceit, as older men may prove,
Lies manifest the very core of Love.
X
Shall any man for whose strong love another
Has thrown away his wealth and name in one,
Shall he turn mocker of a more than brother
To slight his need when his adventure’s done?
Or shall a breedless boy whose mother won him
In great men’s great concerns his little place
Turn when his farthing honours come upon him
To mock her yeoman air and conscious grace?
Then mock me as you do my narrow scope,
For you it was put out this light of mine:
Wrongfully wrecked my new adventured hope,
Wasted my wordy wealth, spilt my rich wine,
Made my square ship within a league of shore
Alas! To be entombed in seas and seen no more.
XI
They that have taken wages of things done
When sense abused has blocked the doors of sense,
They that have lost their heritage of the sun,
Their laughter and their holy innocence;
They turn them now to this thing, now to t’other,
For anchor hold against swift-eddying time,
Some to that square of earth which was their mother,
And some to noisy fame, and some to rhyme.
But I to that far morning where you stood
In fullness of the body, with your hands
Reposing on your walls, before your lands,
And all, together, making one great good:
Then did I cry “For this my birth was meant.
These are my use, and this my sacrament!”
XII
Beauty that Parent is to deathless Rhyme
Was Manhood’s maker: you shall bear a Son,
Till Daughters linked adown admiring time
Fulfil the mother, handing Beauty on.
You shall by breeding make Life answer yet,
In Time’s despite, Time’s jeer that men go void;
Your stamp of heaven shall be more largely set
Than my one joy, ten thousand times enjoyed.
The glories of our state and its achievement,
Which wait their passing, shall not pass away.
I will extend our term beyond bereavement,
And launch our date into a dateless day.
For you shall make recórd, and when that’s sealed
In Beauty made immortal, all is healed.
XIII
What are the names for Beauty? Who shall praise
God’s pledge he can fulfil His creatures’ eyes?
Or what strong words of what creative phrase
Determine Beauty’s title in the skies?
But I will call you Beauty Personate,
Ambassadorial Beauty, and again
Beauty triumphant, Beauty in the Gate,
Beauty salvation of the souls of men.
For Beauty was not Beauty till you came
And now shall Beauty mean the sign you are;
A Beacon burnt above the Dawn, a flame
Like holy Lucifer the Morning Star,
Who latest hangs in Heaven and is the gem
On all the widowéd Night’s expectant Diadem.
XIV
Love wooing Honour, Honour’s love did win
And had his pleasure all a summer’s day.
Not understanding how the dooms begin,
Love wooing Honour, wooed her life away.
Then wandered he a full five years unrest
Until, one night, this Honour that had died
Came as he slept, in youth grown glorified
And smiling like the Saints whom God has blest.
But when he saw her on the clear night shine
Serene with more than mortal light upon her,
The boy that careless was of things divine,
Small Love, turned penitent to worship Honour.
So Love can conquer Honour: when that’s past
Dead Honour risen outdoes Love at last.
XV
Your life is like a little winter’s day
Whose sad sun rises late to set too soon;
You have just come--why will you go away,
Making an evening of what should be noon.
Your life is like a little flute complaining
A long way off, beyond the willow trees:
A long way off, and nothing left remaining
But memory of a music on the breeze.
Your life is like a pitiful leave-taking
Wept in a dream before a man’s awaking,
A Call with only shadows to attend:
A Benediction whispered and belated
Which has no fruit beyond a consecrated,
A consecrated silence at the end.
XVI
Now shall the certain purpose of my soul
By blind and empty things controlled be,
And mine audacious course to that far goal
Fall short, confessing mere mortality.
Limbs shall have movement and ignore their living,
Brain wit, that he his quickness may deny.
My promised hope forswears in act of giving,
Time eats me up and makes my words a lie.
And mine unbounded dream has found a bar,
And I must worst deceit of best things bear.
Now dawn’s but daybreak, seas but waters are,
Night darkness only, all wide heaven just air:
And you to whom these fourteen lines I tell,
My beauty, my desire: but not my love as well.
XVII
Because my faltering feet may fail to dare
The first descendant of the steps of Hell
Give me the Word in time that triumphs there.
I too must pass into the misty hollow
Where all our living laughter stops: and hark!
The tiny stuffless voices of the dark
Have called me, called me, till I needs must follow:
Give me the Word and I’ll attempt it well.
Say it’s the little winking of an eye
Which in that issue is uncurtained quite;
A little sleep that helps a moment by
Between the thin dawn and the large daylight.
Ah! tell me more than yet was hoped of men;
Swear that’s true now, and I’ll believe it then.
XVIII
When you to Acheron’s ugly water come
Where darkness is and formless mourners brood
And down the shelves of that distasteful flood
Survey the human rank in order dumb.
When the pale dead go forward, tortured more
By nothingness and longing than by fire,
Which bear their hands in suppliance with desire,
With stretched desire for the ulterior shore.
Then go before them like a royal ghost
And tread like Egypt or like Carthage crowned;
Because in your Mortality the most
Of all we may inherit has been found--
Children for memory: the Faith for pride.
Good land to leave: and young Love satisfied.
XIX
We will not whisper, we have found the place
Of silence and the endless halls of sleep.
And that which breathes alone throughout the deep
The end and the beginning: and the face
Between the level brows of whose blind eyes
Lie plenary contentment, full surcease
Of violence, and the passionless long peace
Wherein we lose our human lullabies.
Look up and tell the immeasurable height
Between the vault of the world and your dear head;
That’s death, my little sister, and the night
Which was our Mother beckons us to bed,
Where large oblivion in her house is laid
For us tired children, now our games are played.
XX
I went to sleep at Dawn in Tuscany
Beneath a Rock and dreamt a morning dream.
I thought I stood by that baptismal stream
Whereon the bounds of our redemption lie.
And there, beyond, a radiance rose to take
My soul at passing, in which light your eyes
So filled me I was drunk with Paradise.
Then the day broadened, but I did not wake.
Here’s the last edge of my long parchment furled
And all was writ that you might read it so.
This sleep I swear shall last the length of day;
Not noise, not chance, shall drive this dream away:
Not time, not treachery, not good fortune--no,
Not all the weight of all the wears of the world.
XXI
Almighty God, whose justice like a sun
Shall coruscate along the floors of Heaven,
Raising what’s low, perfecting what’s undone,
Breaking the proud and making odd things even.
The poor of Jesus Christ along the street
In your rain sodden, in your snows unshod,
They have nor hearth, nor sword, nor human meat,
Nor even the bread of men: Almighty God.
The poor of Jesus Christ whom no man hears
Have waited on your vengeance much too long.
Wipe out not tears but blood: our eyes bleed tears.
Come smite our damnéd sophistries so strong
That thy rude hammer battering this rude wrong
Ring down the abyss of twice ten thousand years.
XXII
Mother of all my cities once there lay
About your weedy wharves an orient shower
Of spice and languorous silk and all the dower
That Ocean gave you on his bridal day.
And now the youth and age have passed away
And all the sail superb and all the power;
Your time’s a time of memory like that hour
Just after sunset, wonderful and grey.
Too tired to rise and much too sad to weep,
With strong arm nerveless on a nerveless knee,
Still to your slumbering ears the spousal deep
Murmurs his thoughts of eld eternally;
But your soul wakes not from its holy sleep
Dreaming of dead delights beside a tideless sea.
XXIII
November is that historied Emperor
Conquered in age but foot to foot with fate
Who from his refuge high has heard the roar
Of squadrons in pursuit, and now, too late,
Stirrups the storm and calls the winds to war,
And arms the garrison of his last heirloom,
And shakes the sky to its extremest shore
With battle against irrevocable doom.
Till, driven and hurled from his strong citadels,
He flies in hurrying cloud and spurs him on,
Empty of lingerings, empty of farewells
And final benedictions and is gone.
But in my garden all the trees have shed
Their legacies of the light and all the flowers are dead.
XXIV
Hoar Time about the House betakes him slow
Seeking an entry for his weariness.
And in that dreadful company distress
And the sad night with silent footsteps go.
On my poor fire the brands are scarce aglow
And in the woods without what memories press
Where, waning in the trees from less to less
Mysterious hangs the hornéd moon and low.
For now December, full of agéd care
Comes in upon the year and weakly grieves;
Mumbling his lost desires and his despair
And with mad trembling hand still interweaves
The dank sear flower-stalks tangled in his hair,
While round about him whirl the rotten leaves.
XXV
It freezes: all across a soundless sky
The birds go home. The governing dark’s begun.
The steadfast dark that waits not for a sun;
The ultimate dark wherein the race shall die.
Death with his evil finger to his lip
Leers in at human windows, turning spy
To learn the country where his rule shall lie
When he assumes perpetual generalship.
The undefeated enemy, the chill
That shall benumb the voiceful earth at last,
Is master of our moment, and has bound
The viewless wind itself. There is no sound.
It freezes. Every friendly stream is fast.
It freezes, and the graven twigs are still.
XXVI
O my companion, O my sister Sleep,
The valley is all before us, bear me on.
High through the heaven of evening, hardly gone,
Beyond the harbour lights, beyond the steep,
Beyond the land and its lost benison
To where, majestic on the darkening deep,
The night comes forward from Mount Aurion.
O my companion, O my sister Sleep.
Above the surf-line, into the night-breeze;
Eastward above the ever-whispering seas;
Through the warm airs with no more watch to keep.
My day’s run out and all its dooms are graven.
O dear forerunner of Death and promise of Haven.
O my companion, O my sister Sleep.
XXVII
Are you the end, Despair, or the poor least
Of them that cast great shadows and are lies?
That dread the simple and destroy the wise,
Fail at the tomb and triumph at the feast?
You were not found on Olivet, dull beast,
Nor in Thebaid, when the night’s agonies
Dissolved to glory on the effulgent east
And Jesus Christ was in the morning skies.
You did not curb the indomitable crest
Of Tzerna-Gora, when the Falcon-bred
Screamed over the Adriatic, and their Lord
Went riding out, much angrier than the rest,
To summon at ban the living and the dead
And break the Mahommedan with the repeated sword.
XXVIII
But oh! not Lovely Helen, nor the pride
Of that most ancient Ilium matched with doom.
Men murdered Priam in his royal room
And Troy was burned with fire and Hector died.
For even Hector’s dreadful day was more
Than all his breathing courage dared defend
The armouréd light and bulwark of the war
Trailed his great story to the accustomed end.
He was the city’s buttress, Priam’s Son,
The Soldier born in bivouac praises great
And horns in double front of battle won.
Yet down he went: when unremembering fate
Felled him at last with all his armour on.
Hector: the horseman: in the Scæan Gate.
XXIX
The world’s a stage. The light is in one’s eyes.
The Auditorium is extremely dark.
The more dishonest get the larger rise;
The more offensive make the greater mark.
The women on it prosper by their shape,
Some few by their vivacity. The men,
By tailoring in breeches and in cape.
The world’s a stage--I say it once again.
The scenery is very much the best
Of what the wretched drama has to show,
Also the prompter happens to be dumb.
We drink behind the scenes and pass a jest
On all our folly; then, before we go
Loud cries for “Author” ... but he doesn’t come.
XXX
The world’s a stage--and I’m the Super man,
And no one seems responsible for salary.
I roar my part as loudly as I can
And all I mouth I mouth it to the gallery.
I haven’t got another rhyme in “alery”
It would have made a better job, no doubt
If I had left attempt at Rhyming out,
Like Alfred Tennyson adapting Malory.
The world’s a stage, the company of which
Has very little talent and less reading:
But many a waddling heathen painted bitch
And many a standing cad of gutter breeding.
We sweat to learn our book: for all our pains
We pass. The Chucker-out alone remains.
XXXI
The world’s a stage. The trifling entrance fee
Is paid (by proxy) to the registrar.
The Orchestra is very loud and free
But plays no music in particular.
They do not print a programme, that I know.
The caste is large. There isn’t any plot.
The acting of the piece is far below
The very worst of modernistic rot.
The only part about it I enjoy
Is what was called in English the Foyay.
There will I stand apart awhile and toy
With thought, and set my cigarette alight;
And then--without returning to the play--
On with my coat and out into the night.
II
LYRICAL, DIDACTIC AND GROTESQUE
TO DIVES
Dives, when you and I go down to Hell,
Where scribblers end and millionaires as well,
We shall be carrying on our separate backs
Two very large but very different packs;
And as you stagger under yours, my friend,
Down the dull shore where all our journeys end,
And go before me (as your rank demands)
Towards the infinite flat underlands,
And that dear river of forgetfulness--
Charon, a man of exquisite address
(For, as your wife’s progenitors could tell,
They’re very strict on etiquette in Hell),
Will, since you are a lord, observe, “My lord,
We cannot take these weighty things aboard!”
Then down they go, my wretched Dives, down--
The fifteen sorts of boots you kept for town,
The hat to meet the Devil in; the plain
But costly ties; the cases of champagne;
The solid watch, and seal, and chain, and charm;
The working model of a Burning Farm
(To give the little Belials); all the three
Biscuits for Cerberus; the guarantee
From Lambeth that the Rich can never burn,
And even promising a safe return;
The admirable overcoat, designed
To cross Cocytus--very warmly lined:
Sweet Dives, you will leave them all behind
And enter Hell as tattered and as bare
As was your father when he took the air
Behind a barrow-load in Leicester Square.
Then turned to me, and noting one that brings
With careless step a mist of shadowy things:
Laughter and memories, and a few regrets,
Some honour, and a quantity of debts,
A doubt or two of sorts, a trust in God,
And (what will seem to you extremely odd)
His father’s granfer’s father’s father’s name,
Unspoilt, untitled, even spelt the same;
Charon, who twenty thousand times before
Has ferried Poets to the ulterior shore,
Will estimate the weight I bear, and cry--
“Comrade!” (He has himself been known to try
His hand at Latin and Italian verse,
Much in the style of Virgil--only worse)
“We let such vain imaginaries pass!”
Then tell me, Dives, which will look the ass--
You, or myself? Or Charon? Who can tell?
They order things so damnably in Hell.
STANZAS WRITTEN ON BATTERSEA BRIDGE DURING A SOUTH-WESTERLY GALE
The woods and downs have caught the mid-December,
The noisy woods and high sea-downs of home;
The wind has found me and I do remember
The strong scent of the foam.
Woods, darlings of my wandering feet, another
Possesses you, another treads the Down;
The South West Wind that was my elder brother
Has come to me in town.
The wind is shouting from the hills of morning,
I do remember and I will not stay.
I’ll take the Hampton road without a warning
And get me clean away.
The Channel is up, the little seas are leaping,
The tide is making over Arun Bar;
And there’s my boat, where all the rest are sleeping
And my companions are.
I’ll board her, and apparel her, and I’ll mount her,
My boat, that was the strongest friend to me--
That brought my boyhood to its first encounter
And taught me the wide sea.
Now shall I drive her, roaring hard a’ weather,
Right for the salt and leave them all behind;
We’ll quite forget the treacherous streets together
And find--or shall we find?
There is no Pilotry my soul relies on
Whereby to catch beneath my bended hand,
Faint and beloved along the extreme horizon
That unforgotten land.
We shall not round the granite piers and paven
To lie to wharves we know with canvas furled.
My little Boat, we shall not make the haven--
It is not of the world.
Somewhere of English forelands grandly guarded
It stands, but not for exiles, marked and clean;
Oh! not for us. A mist has risen and marred it:--
My youth lies in between.
So in this snare that holds me and appals me,
Where honour hardly lives nor loves remain,
The Sea compels me and my County calls me,
But stronger things restrain.
* * * * *
England, to me that never have malingered,
Nor spoken falsely, nor your flattery used,
Nor even in my rightful garden lingered:--
What have you not refused?
THE SOUTH COUNTRY
When I am living in the Midlands
That are sodden and unkind,
I light my lamp in the evening:
My work is left behind;
And the great hills of the South Country
Come back into my mind.
The great hills of the South Country
They stand along the sea;
And it’s there walking in the high woods
That I could wish to be,
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Walking along with me.
The men that live in North England
I saw them for a day:
Their hearts are set upon the waste fells,
Their skies are fast and grey;
From their castle-walls a man may see
The mountains far away.
The men that live in West England
They see the Severn strong,
A-rolling on rough water brown
Light aspen leaves along.
They have the secret of the Rocks,
And the oldest kind of song.
But the men that live in the South Country
Are the kindest and most wise,
They get their laughter from the loud surf,
And the faith in their happy eyes
Comes surely from our Sister the Spring
When over the sea she flies;
The violets suddenly bloom at her feet,
She blesses us with surprise.
I never get between the pines
But I smell the Sussex air;
Nor I never come on a belt of sand
But my home is there.
And along the sky the line of the Downs
So noble and so bare.
A lost thing could I never find,
Nor a broken thing mend:
And I fear I shall be all alone
When I get towards the end.
Who will there be to comfort me
Or who will be my friend?
I will gather and carefully make my friends
Of the men of the Sussex Weald,
They watch the stars from silent folds,
They stiffly plough the field.
By them and the God of the South Country
My poor soul shall be healed.
If I ever become a rich man,
Or if ever I grow to be old,
I will build a house with deep thatch
To shelter me from the cold,
And there shall the Sussex songs be sung
And the story of Sussex told.
I will hold my house in the high wood
Within a walk of the sea,
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Shall sit and drink with me.
THE FANATIC
Last night in Compton Street, Soho,
A man whom many of you know
Gave up the ghost at half past nine.
That evening he had been to dine
At Gressington’s--an act unwise,
But not the cause of his demise.
The doctors all agree that he
Was touched with cardiac atrophy
Accelerated (more or less)
By lack of proper food, distress,
Uncleanliness, and loss of sleep.
He was a man that could not keep
His money (when he had the same)
Because of creditors who came
And took it from him; and he gave
So freely that he could not save.
But all the while a sort of whim
Persistently remained with him,
Half admirable, half absurd:
To keep his word, to keep his word....
By which he did not mean what you
And I would mean (of payments due
Or punctual rental of the Flat--
He was a deal too mad for that)
But--as he put it with a fine
Abandon, foolish or divine--
But “That great word which every man
Gave God before his life began.”
It was a sacred word, he said,
Which comforted the pathless dead
And made God smile when it was shown
Unforfeited, before the Throne.
And this (he said) he meant to hold
In spite of debt, and hate, and cold;
And this (he said) he meant to show
As passport to the Wards below.
He boasted of it and gave praise
To his own self through all his days.
He wrote a record to preserve
How steadfastly he did not swerve
From keeping it; how stiff he stood
Its guardian, and maintained it good.
He had two witnesses to swear
He kept it once in Berkeley Square.
(Where hardly anything survives)
And, through the loneliest of lives
He kept it clean, he kept it still,
Down to the last extremes of ill.
So when he died, of many friends
Who came in crowds from all the ends
Of London, that it might be known
They knew the man who died alone,
Some, who had thought his mood sublime
And sent him soup from time to time,
Said, “Well, you cannot make them fit
The world, and there’s an end of it!”
But others, wondering at him, said:
“The man that kept his word is dead!”
Then angrily, a certain third
Cried, “Gentlemen, he kept his word.
And as a man whom beasts surround
Tumultuous, on a little mound
Stands Archer, for one dreadful hour,
Because a Man is born to Power--
And still, to daunt the pack below,
Twangs the clear purpose of his bow,
Till overwhelmed he dares to fall:
So stood this bulwark of us all.
He kept his word as none but he
Could keep it, and as did not we.
And round him as he kept his word
To-day’s diseased and faithless herd,
A moment loud, a moment strong,
But foul forever, rolled along.”
THE EARLY MORNING
The moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other:
The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother.
The moon on my left and the dawn on my right.
My brother, good morning: my sister, good night.
OUR LORD AND OUR LADY
They warned Our Lady for the Child
That was Our blessed Lord,
And She took Him into the desert wild,
Over the camel’s ford.
And a long song She sang to Him
And a short story told:
And She wrapped Him in a woollen cloak
To keep Him from the cold.
But when Our Lord was grown a man
The Rich they dragged Him down,
And they crucified Him in Golgotha,
Out and beyond the Town.
They crucified Him on Calvary,
Upon an April day;
And because He had been her little Son
She followed Him all the way.
Our Lady stood beside the Cross,
A little space apart,
And when She heard Our Lord cry out
A sword went through Her Heart.
They laid Our Lord in a marble tomb,
Dead, in a winding sheet.
But Our Lady stands above the world
With the white Moon at Her feet.
COURTESY
Of Courtesy, it is much less
Than Courage of Heart or Holiness,
Yet in my Walks it seems to me
That the Grace of God is in Courtesy.
On Monks I did in Storrington fall,
They took me straight into their Hall;
I saw Three Pictures on a wall,
And Courtesy was in them all.
The first the Annunciation;
The second the Visitation;
The third the Consolation,
Of God that was Our Lady’s Son.
The first was of Saint Gabriel;
On Wings a-flame from Heaven he fell;
And as he went upon one knee
He shone with Heavenly Courtesy.
Our Lady out of Nazareth rode--
It was Her month of heavy load;
Yet was Her face both great and kind,
For Courtesy was in Her Mind.
The third it was our Little Lord,
Whom all the Kings in arms adored;
He was so small you could not see
His large intent of Courtesy.
Our Lord, that was Our Lady’s Son,
Go bless you, People, one by one;
My Rhyme is written, my work is done.
THE NIGHT
Most holy Night, that still dost keep
The keys of all the doors of sleep,
To me when my tired eyelids close
Give thou repose.
And let the far lament of them
That chaunt the dead day’s requiem
Make in my ears, who wakeful lie,
Soft lullaby.
Let them that guard the horned moon
By my bedside their memories croon.
So shall I have new dreams and blest
In my brief rest.
Fold your great wings about my face,
Hide dawning from my resting-place,
And cheat me with your false delight,
Most Holy Night.
THE LEADER
The sword fell down: I heard a knell;
I thought that ease was best,
And sullen men that buy and sell
Were host: and I was guest.
All unashamed I sat with swine,
We shook the dice for war,
The night was drunk with an evil wine--
But she went on before.
_She rode a steed of the sea-foam breed,_
_All faery was her blade,_
_And the armour on her tender limbs_
_Was of the moonshine made._
By God that sends the master-maids,
I know not whence she came,
But the sword she bore to save the soul
Went up like an altar flame
Where a broken race in a desert place
Call on the Holy Name.
_We strained our eyes in the dim day-rise,_
_We could not see them plain;_
_But two dead men from Valmy fen_
_Rode at her bridle-rein._
I hear them all, my fathers call,
I see them how they ride,
And where had been that rout obscene
Was an army straight with pride.
A hundred thousand marching men,
Of squadrons twenty score,
And after them all the guns, the guns,
But she went on before.
_Her face was like a king’s command_
_When all the swords are drawn._
_She stretched her arms and smiled at us,_
_Her head was higher than the hills._
_She led us to the endless plains._
_We lost her in the dawn._
A BIVOUAC
I
You came without a human sound,
You came and brought my soul to me;
I only woke, and all around
They slumbered on the firelit ground,
Beside the guns in Burgundy.
II
I felt the gesture of your hands,
You signed my forehead with the Cross;
The gesture of your holy hands
Was bounteous--like the misty lands
Along the Hills in Calvados.
III
But when I slept I saw your eyes,
Hungry as death, and very far.
I saw demand in your dim eyes
Mysterious as the moons that rise
At midnight, in the Pines of Var.
TO THE BALLIOL MEN STILL IN AFRICA
Years ago when I was at Balliol,
Balliol men--and I was one--
Swam together in winter rivers,
Wrestled together under the sun.
And still in the heart of us, Balliol, Balliol,
Loved already, but hardly known,
Welded us each of us into the others:
Called a levy and chose her own.
Here is a House that armours a man
With the eyes of a boy and the heart of a ranger,
And a laughing way in the teeth of the world
And a holy hunger and thirst for danger:
Balliol made me, Balliol fed me,
Whatever I had she gave me again:
And the best of Balliol loved and led me.
God be with you, Balliol men.
I have said it before, and I say it again,
There was treason done, and a false word spoken,
And England under the dregs of men,
And bribes about, and a treaty broken:
But angry, lonely, hating it still,
I wished to be there in spite of the wrong.
My heart was heavy for Cumnor Hill
And the hammer of galloping all day long.
Galloping outward into the weather,
Hands a-ready and battle in all:
Words together and wine together
And song together in Balliol Hall.
Rare and single! Noble and few!...
Oh! they have wasted you over the sea!
The only brothers ever I knew,
The men that laughed and quarrelled with me.
* * * * *
Balliol made me, Balliol fed me,
Whatever I had she gave me again;
And the best of Balliol loved and led me,
God be with you, Balliol men.
VERSES TO A LORD WHO, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, SAID THAT THOSE WHO
OPPOSED THE SOUTH AFRICAN ADVENTURE CONFUSED SOLDIERS WITH
MONEY-GRUBBERS
You thought because we held, my lord,
An ancient cause and strong,
That therefore we maligned the sword:
My lord, you did us wrong.
We also know the sacred height
Up on Tugela side,
Where those three hundred fought with Beit
And fair young Wernher died.
The daybreak on the failing force,
The final sabres drawn:
Tall Goltman, silent on his horse,
Superb against the dawn.
The little mound where Eckstein stood
And gallant Albu fell,
And Oppenheim, half blind with blood
Went fording through the rising flood--
My Lord, we know them well.
The little empty homes forlorn,
The ruined synagogues that mourn,
In Frankfort and Berlin;
We knew them when the peace was torn--
We of a nobler lineage born--
And now by all the gods of scorn
We mean to rub them in.
THE REBEL
There is a wall of which the stones
Are lies and bribes and dead men’s bones.
And wrongfully this evil wall
Denies what all men made for all,
And shamelessly this wall surrounds
Our homesteads and our native grounds.
But I will gather and I will ride,
And I will summon a countryside,
And many a man shall hear my halloa
Who never had thought the horn to follow;
And many a man shall ride with me
Who never had thought on earth to see
High Justice in her armoury.
When we find them where they stand,
A mile of men on either hand,
I mean to charge from right away
And force the flanks of their array,
And press them inward from the plains,
And drive them clamouring down the lanes,
And gallop and harry and have them down,
And carry the gates and hold the town.
Then shall I rest me from my ride
With my great anger satisfied.
Only, before I eat and drink,
When I have killed them all, I think
That I will batter their carven names,
And slit the pictures in their frames,
And burn for scent their cedar door,
And melt the gold their women wore,
And hack their horses at the knees,
And hew to death their timber trees,
And plough their gardens deep and through--
And all these things I mean to do
For fear perhaps my little son
Should break his hands, as I have done.
THE PROPHET LOST IN THE HILLS AT EVENING
Strong God which made the topmost stars
To circulate and keep their course,
Remember me; whom all the bars
Of sense and dreadful fate enforce.
Above me in your heights and tall,
Impassable the summits freeze,
Below the haunted waters call
Impassable beyond the trees.
I hunger and I have no bread.
My gourd is empty of the wine.
Surely the footsteps of the dead
Are shuffling softly close to mine!
It darkens. I have lost the ford.
There is a change on all things made.
The rocks have evil faces, Lord,
And I am awfully afraid.
Remember me: the Voids of Hell
Expand enormous all around.
Strong friend of souls, Emmanuel,
Redeem me from accursed ground.
The long descent of wasted days,
To these at last have led me down;
Remember that I filled with praise
The meaningless and doubtful ways
That lead to an eternal town.
I challenged and I kept the Faith,
The bleeding path alone I trod;
It darkens. Stand about my wraith,
And harbour me--almighty God.
THE END OF THE ROAD
IN THESE BOOTS AND WITH THIS STAFF
Two hundred leaguers and a half
Walked I, went I, paced I, tripped I,
Marched I, held I, skelped I, slipped I,
Pushed I, panted, swung and dashed I;
Picked I, forded, swam and splashed I,
Strolled I, climbed I, crawled and scrambled,
Dropped and dipped I, ranged and rambled;
Plodded I, hobbled I, trudged and tramped I,
And in lonely spinnies camped I,
And in haunted pinewoods slept I,
Lingered, loitered, limped and crept I,
Clambered, halted, stepped and leapt I;
Slowly sauntered, roundly strode I,
And ... (Oh! Patron saints and Angels
That protect the four Evangels!
And you Prophets vel majores
Vel incerti, vel minores,
Virgines ac confessores
Chief of whose peculiar glories
Est in Aula Regis stare
Atque orare et exorare
Et clamare et conclamare
Clamantes cum clamoribus
Pro Nobis Peccatoribus.)
Let me not conceal it.... _Rode I._
(For who but critics could complain
Of “riding” in a railway train?)
Across the valley and the high-land,
With all the world on either hand
Drinking when I had a mind to,
Singing when I felt inclined to;
Nor ever turned my face to home
Till I had slaked my heart at Rome.
AN ORACLE
THAT WARNED THE WRITER WHEN ON PILGRIMAGE
Matutinus adest ubi Vesper, et accipiens te
Saepe recusatum voces intelligit hospes
Rusticus ignotas notas, ac flumina tellus
Occupat--In sancto tum, tum, stans Aede caveto
Tonsuram Hirsuti Capitis, via namque pedestrem
Ferrea praeveniens cursum, peregrine, laborem
Pro pietate tua inceptum frustratur, amore
Antiqui Ritus alto sub Numine Romae.
_Translation of the above_:--
When early morning seems but eve
And they that still refuse receive:
When speech unknown men understand;
And floods are crossed upon dry land.
Within the Sacred Walls beware
The Shaven Head that boasts of Hair,
For when the road attains the rail
The Pilgrim’s great attempt shall fail.
THE DEATH AND LAST CONFESSION OF WANDERING PETER
When Peter Wanderwide was young
He wandered everywhere he would:
And all that he approved was sung,
And most of what he saw was good.
When Peter Wanderwide was thrown
By Death himself beyond Auxerre,
He chanted in heroic tone
To priests and people gathered there:
“If all that I have loved and seen
Be with me on the Judgment Day,
I shall be saved the crowd between
From Satan and his foul array.
“Almighty God will surely cry,
‘St Michael! Who is this that stands
With Ireland in his dubious eye,
And Perigord between his hands,
“‘And on his arm the stirrup-thongs,
And in his gait the narrow seas,
And in his mouth Burgundian songs,
But in his heart the Pyrenees?’
“St Michael then will answer right
(And not without angelic shame),
‘I seem to know his face by sight:
I cannot recollect his name ...?’
“St Peter will befriend me then,
Because my name is Peter too:
‘I know him for the best of men
That ever wallopped barley brew.
“‘And though I did not know him well
And though his soul were clogged with sin,
_I_ hold the keys of Heaven and Hell.
Be welcome, noble Peterkin.’
“Then shall I spread my native wings
And tread secure the heavenly floor,
And tell the Blessed doubtful things
Of Val d’Aran and Perigord.”
* * * * *
This was the last and solemn jest
Of weary Peter Wanderwide.
He spoke it with a failing zest,
And having spoken it, he died.
DEDICATORY ODE
I mean to write with all my strength
(It lately has been sadly waning),
A ballad of enormous length--
Some parts of which will need explaining.[A]
Because (unlike the bulk of men
Who write for fame or public ends),
I turn a lax and fluent pen
To talking of my private friends.[B]
For no one, in our long decline,
So dusty, spiteful and divided,
Had quite such pleasant friends as mine,
Or loved them half as much as I did.
* * * * *
The Freshman ambles down the High,
In love with everything he sees,
He notes the racing autumn sky.
He sniffs a lively autumn breeze.
“Can this be Oxford? This the place?”
(He cries) “of which my father said
The tutoring was a damned disgrace,
The creed a mummery, stuffed and dead?
“Can it be here that Uncle Paul
Was driven by excessive gloom,
To drink and debt, and, last of all,
To smoking opium in his room?
“Is it from here the people come,
Who talk so loud, and roll their eyes,
And stammer? How extremely rum!
How curious! What a great surprise.
“Some influence of a nobler day
Than theirs (I mean than Uncle Paul’s),
Has roused the sleep of their decay,
And flecked with life their crumbling walls.
“O! dear undaunted boys of old,
Would that your names were carven here,
For all the world in stamps of gold,
That I might read them and revere.
“Who wrought and handed down for me
This Oxford of the larger air,
Laughing, and full of faith, and free,
With youth resplendent everywhere?”
Then learn: thou ill-instructed, blind,
Young, callow, and untutored man,
Their private names were....[C]
Their club was called REPUBLICAN.
* * * * *
Where on their banks of light they lie,
The happy hills of Heaven between,
The Gods that rule the morning sky
Are not more young, nor more serene
Than were the intrepid Four that stand,
The first who dared to live their dream.
And on this uncongenial land
To found the Abbey of Theleme.
We kept the Rabelaisian plan:[D]
We dignified the dainty cloisters
With Natural Law, the Rights of Man,
Song, Stoicism, Wine and Oysters.
The library was most inviting:
The books upon the crowded shelves
Were mainly of our private writing:
We kept a school and taught ourselves.
We taught the art of writing things
On men we still should like to throttle:
And where to get the Blood of Kings
At only half a crown a bottle.
* * * * *
Eheu Fugaces! Postume!
(An old quotation out of mode);
My coat of dreams is stolen away
My youth is passing down the road.
* * * * *
The wealth of youth, we spent it well
And decently, as very few can.
And is it lost? I cannot tell:
And what is more, I doubt if you can.
The question’s very much too wide,
And much too deep, and much too hollow,
And learned men on either side
Use arguments I cannot follow.
They say that in the unchanging place,
Where all we loved is always dear,
We meet our morning face to face
And find at last our twentieth year....
They say (and I am glad they say)
It is so; and it may be so:
It may be just the other way,
I cannot tell. But this I know:
From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There’s nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.
* * * * *
But something dwindles, oh! my peers,
And something cheats the heart and passes,
And Tom that meant to shake the years
Has come to merely rattling glasses.
And He, the Father of the Flock,
Is keeping Burmesans in order,
An exile on a lonely rock
That overlooks the Chinese border.
And One (Myself I mean--no less),
Ah!--will Posterity believe it--
Not only don’t deserve success,
But hasn’t managed to achieve it.
Not even this peculiar town
Has ever fixed a friendship firmer,
But--one is married, one’s gone down,
And one’s a Don, and one’s in Burmah.
* * * * *
And oh! the days, the days, the days,
When all the four were off together:
The infinite deep of summer haze,
The roaring boast of autumn weather!
* * * * *
I will not try the reach again,
I will not set my sail alone,
To moor a boat bereft of men
At Yarnton’s tiny docks of stone.
But I will sit beside the fire,
And put my hand before my eyes,
And trace, to fill my heart’s desire,
The last of all our Odysseys.
The quiet evening kept her tryst:
Beneath an open sky we rode,
And passed into a wandering mist
Along the perfect Evenlode.
The tender Evenlode that makes
Her meadows hush to hear the sound
Of waters mingling in the brakes,
And binds my heart to English ground.
A lovely river, all alone,
She lingers in the hills and holds
A hundred little towns of stone,
Forgotten in the western wolds.
* * * * *
I dare to think (though meaner powers
Possess our thrones, and lesser wits
Are drinking worser wine than ours,
In what’s no longer Austerlitz)
That surely a tremendous ghost,
The brazen-lunged, the bumper-filler,
Still sings to an immortal toast,
The Misadventures of the Miller.
The unending seas are hardly bar
To men with such a prepossession:
We were? Why then, by God, we _are_--
Order! I call the Club to session!
You do retain the song we set,
And how it rises, trips and scans?
You keep the sacred memory yet,
Republicans? Republicans?
You know the way the words were hurled,
To break the worst of fortune’s rub?
I give the toast across the world,
And drink it, “Gentlemen: the Club.”
DEDICATION ON THE GIFT OF A BOOK TO A CHILD
Child! do not throw this book about!
Refrain from the unholy pleasure
Of cutting all the pictures out!
Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.
Child, have you never heard it said
That you are heir to all the ages?
Why, then, your hands were never made
To tear these beautiful thick pages!
Your little hands were made to take
The better things and leave the worse ones:
They also may be used to shake
The Massive Paws of Elder Persons.
And when your prayers complete the day,
Darling, your little tiny hands
Were also made, I think, to pray
For men that lose their fairylands.
DEDICATION OF A CHILD’S BOOK OF IMAGINARY TALES
WHEREIN WRONG-DOERS SUFFER
And is it true? It is not true!
And if it was it wouldn’t do
For people such as me and you,
Who very nearly all day long
Are doing something rather wrong.
HOMAGE
I