THE YEAR'S AT THE SPRING
an anthology of recent poetry
[Illustration: "AND I SHALL HAVE SOME PEACE THERE,
FOR PEACE COMES DROPPING SLOW"]
THE YEAR'S AT THE SPRING
AN ANTHOLOGY OF RECENT POETRY
COMPILED BY L.D'O WALTERS AND
ILLUSTRATED BY HARRY CLARKE
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HAROLD MONRO
BRENTANO'S
FIFTH AVENUE & 27TH STREET NEW YORK
1920
[Illustration]
INTRODUCTION
The best poetry is always about the earth itself and all the strange
and lovely things that compose and inhabit it. When a 'great poet'
sets himself the task of some 'big theme' he needs only to hold, as
it were, a magnifying glass to the earth. We who are born and live
here like very much to imagine other worlds, and we have even mentally
constructed such another in which to exist after dying on this one; but
we were careful to make it a glorified version of our own earth, with
everything we most love here intensified and improved to the utmost
stretch of human imagination.
To each man his 'best poetry' is that which he is able most to enjoy.
The first object of poetry is to give pleasure. Pleasure is various,
but it cannot exist where the emotions or the imagination have not
been powerfully stirred. Whether it be called sensual or intellectual,
pleasure cannot be willed. It is impossible to feel happy because one
wants to feel happy, or sad because one wishes to feel sad. But such
bodily or mental conditions may be induced from outside through a
natural agency such as poetry, or music.
Now those dreary people who would maintain that poetry should deal
(some say exclusively) with what they call 'big themes,' or 'the
larger life', are merely advocating more use of the magnifying glass
as against intensive cultivation of the natural eye. The poet is
essentially he who examines carefully, and learns to know fully, every
detail of common life. He seeks to name in a variety of manners, and
to define, the objects about him, to compare them with other objects,
near or remote, and to find, for the mere sake of enjoyment, wonderful
varieties of description and comparison. When he imagines better places
than his earth, or invents gods, the impersonation and combination of
the fortunate qualities in man, he is then using the magnifying glass
with talent, occasionally with rare genius. But the poet who seeks,
without genius, to magnify is simply a fool who sees everything too
big, and boasts, in the loudest voice he can raise, of his diseased
eyesight.
One of the peculiarities, or perhaps rather the essential quality, of
the lyrical poetry of to-day is a minute concentration on the objects
immediately near it and an anxious carefulness to describe these in
the most appropriate and satisfactory terms. Thus it is often accused
of a neglect to sublimate the emotions, and many critics have been at
pains to suggest that this affection for the nearest and that careful
description of natural events denotes a smallness of mental range. Be
it noted, however, that the eye which does not look too far often sees
most. It is remarkable that English lyrical poetry should have learnt
in this period of religious uncertainty to clasp itself at least to a
reality that cannot be questioned or doubted. So far its faith reaches.
It expresses a trustfulness in what it can definitely perceive, it
hardly ventures outside the circles of human daily experience, and
in this capacity it reveals an excellence of many kinds, sincerity
often, and, at worst, a playfulness which, if ephemeral, is amusing
at any rate to those whom it is intended to amuse, and appropriately
irritating to those whom it wants to annoy.
But the most noticeable characteristic of the verse of our present
moment is its dislike of the aloofness generally associated with
English poetry. About twice a century language consolidates: phrases
which were once soft and new harden with use; words once of a ringing
beauty become dry and hollow through excessive repetition. This state
of language is not much noticed by people who have no special use
for it beyond the expression of daily needs. Moreover, they make new
colloquial words for themselves as required without forethought or
difficulty. Poets, however, must consciously search for new words, and
a tired condition of their language is to them a great difficulty. The
Victorians were absolute spendthrifts of words: no vocabulary could
keep pace with their recklessness; they bequeathed a language almost
ruined for sentimental purposes--words and phrases had acquired either
such an aloofness that for a long time no one any more would trouble
to reach up to them, or had become so thin and common that to use them
would have been something like hack-sawing a piece of cotton.
Now in the anthology which follows we may notice a characteristic
escape from these difficulties. Words have been brought down from their
high places and compelled into ordinary use. This has been accomplished
not so much through any new familiarity with the words themselves as
by a certain naturalness in the attitude of the people employing them.
Rupert Brooke's "Great Lover" is an example.
In short, these are the chief reasons why present-day poetry is
readable and entertaining--that it deals with familiar subjects in a
familiar manner; that, in doing so, it uses ordinary words literally
and as often as possible; that it is not aloof or pretentious; that it
refuses to be bullied by tradition: its style, in fact, is itself.
II
If an excuse is to be sought for the addition of this one more to the
large number of existent collections of recent poetry, let it be in
the nature of an explanation rather than an apology. Good, or even
representative, poetry requires, in fact, no apology, but where the
poems of some thirty-two different authors have been extracted from
their books and placed side by side in one collection, a discussion
of the apparent aims of the anthologist may be interesting, and will
perhaps lead to a fuller enjoyment of the collection thus produced.
Some readers approach a volume of poems to criticize it, others with
the object of gaining pleasure. To give pleasure is assuredly the
object of this volume. Moreover, it is adapted to the tastes of almost
any age, from ten to ninety, and may be read aloud by grandchild to
grandparent as suitably as by grandparent to grandchild. It is an
anthology of Poems, not of Names. For instance, though Thomas Hardy
is on the list, the lyric chosen to represent him is actually more
characteristic of the book itself than of the mind of that great
and aged poet. It is, in fact, Christian in atmosphere. It is not a
typical specimen of Mr Hardy's style. It shows him in that occasional
rather sad mood of regret for a lost superstition. It is not the
best of Hardy, but rather a poem admirably suited to the book, which
also happens, as by chance, to be by the author of "The Dynasts" and
"Satires of Circumstance."
III
The collection as a whole is modern, and all except eight of its
authors are living and writing. Of those eight, five died as soldiers
in the European War, and are represented mainly by what is known as
'War poetry.' Otherwise such poetry is fortunately absent. This absence
may be justified by the fact that most of the verse written on the
subject of the War turns out, surveyed in cooler blood, to be, as
any sound judge of literature must always have known, definitely and
unmistakably bad. Much of it is by now, or should be, repudiated by
its authors. It was too often "the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings"; it too seldom originated from "emotion recollected in
tranquillity."
Rupert Brooke's sonnets "The Dead" and "The Soldier" were popular
almost from their first publication. They belong undoubtedly to the
best traditions of English poetry. Julian Grenfell's "Into Battle,"
and, in a lesser, degree, the "Home Thoughts from Laventie" of Edward
Wyndham Tennant, have acquired popularity among a larger number of folk
than can be included in the general term 'literary circles.' Neither of
the composers of these verses was a professional poet. Both were men of
attractive personality and strong feeling, with education, taste, and
an occasional impulse to write gracefully. Intrinsically either poem
might as easily have been inspired by an Indian frontier raid as by a
European war. They do not affect the traditions of English poetry by
subject or by form. It will be found, as the years pass, that always
fewer 'War poems' can still be read with pleasure, the incidents which
gave rise to them having become dim in human memory. And these will not
be read because of their association with the Great War, but for their
qualities as poems and their power to stir enjoyment or surprise in the
reader.
Consider those four melancholy lines by which Edward Thomas is here
represented, remarkable for their concentration and for the crowd of
images they can suggest. At present the words "where all that passed
are dead" alone associate this poem with the War. But death comes
through so many causes that twenty years from now a footnote would be
needed if it were desired to emphasize that association.
J.E. Flecker's "Dying Patriot," one of his three poems in this book,
was written in 1914 in Switzerland, where he was dying of consumption.
It is certainly less a 'War poem' than the same author's "War Song of
the Saracens."
The verses entitled "A Petition," by R. E. Vernède, are of a different
kind. They are written in conventional Henley-Kiplingese, and contain
too many incidents of a type of poetic expression that has been used
to excess, as "wider than all seas," "to front the world," "quenchless
hope" "All that a man might ask thou hast given me, England!" They are,
nevertheless, useful in the collection as a set-off against the other
'War poems' and an instance of the more ephemeral type of patriotic
verse.
Thus it would appear that the anthologist has displayed wisdom when
including in this volume only few pieces that may be associated with
the War, and those few (with one exception) on the score of their
literary merit, and for no other reason.
IV
Poets of to-day write individually less than their pre-decessors, and
most of them are satisfied to publish only a proportion of what they
write. None of the eight referred to above left us any great bulk of
verse. Four at least, however, are becoming daily better known to the
reading public, and of these Rupert Brooke and J. E. Flecker have
already their dozens of conscious or unconscious imitators. The form,
rhythm, or Eastern atmosphere of Fleckers poetry, the cynicism and
wit of Brooke's, recur somewhat diluted in the verse of almost every
young undergraduate. Neither Lionel Johnson nor Mary Coleridge has ever
become so well known or received so much attention from the average
plagiarist, while the reputation of Edward Thomas has been of slow and
uncertain growth. Johnsons poetry is too intellectual for the average
reader. The wonderful, small lyrics of Mary Coleridge are esoteric
rather than general. Nevertheless, this anthology includes, most
advisedly, a good poem by Johnson, one indeed which has had a quiet,
but strong, influence on modern lyrical poetry, namely, the lines
to the statue of King Charles at Charing Cross, and also a charming
impression by Mary Coleridge.
"Street Lanterns" is a good example of that poetry of close observation
to which reference has already been made. It is a small, careful
description of a London scene. It assumes that the reader has observed
as much, and that he will enjoy to be reminded and brought back for
a moment in imagination to autumn and street-mending. The advocate of
'big themes' will inevitably condemn such verse, for the poet has aimed
at neither size nor grandeur, has indeed sought rather to diminish her
subject than enlarge it.
V
This anthology, it has been remarked above, is one rather of particular
poems than of well-known authors. Several names of repute are not to
be found in the index. William Watson is only represented by "April,"
a little catch that might come to any man of feeling on a spring walk.
To think in terms of these verses is at once not to mind having left
an umbrella at home. Hilaire Belloc gives a sharp impression of early
rising; he also sings in a great voice all the glories of his favourite
part of England. W. H. Davies brings sheep across the Atlantic, and
he talks to a kingfisher. Mrs Meynell contributes "The Shepherdess,"
that well-known description of a fine and serene mind, also two London
poems, of which one is the lovely "November Blue." John Masefield is
not to be read in his best style, but the three poems we find here are
thoroughly English, full of the love of the island soil and of its sea,
and are probably in the book for that reason. So much for some of the
well-known contributors. Side by side with them we find the unknown
name of H. H. Abbott, whose "Black and White" is a sketch of remarkable
clarity and interest.
Death, so favourite a subject with poets, is seldom allowed to figure
in this book. Betsey-Jane would insist on going to Heaven, but is told,
in the charming verses by Helen Parry Eden, that it simply "would not
do." The whole book is too full of pleasure and the experience of being
alive: Betsey-Jane should read it. She might remember all her life the
advice given on page 117, and be saved hundreds of pounds in lawyers'
bills when she is grown up.
Let the reader turn to page 114. Here is the style in which good poetry
prefers to teach, and by which it achieves more in eleven lines than a
Martin Tupper in 11,000. Mr Pepler has written down only one sentence,
charmingly improved by a series of most natural rhymes. It is a very
nasty hit at the lawyer. He does not tell him he is not a 'gentleman',
or anything so strong as that. He pays him what might be taken for a
compliment. He assumes that he does understand his own job. Then he
enumerates the things he does not understand. He attaches no blame: he
makes a statement only; one that the lawyer certainly will not think
worth arguing about, but that his client may advisedly take to heart.
Ralph Hodgson's "Stupidity Street" argues in somewhat the same manner.
It does not suggest that anyone should become vegetarian, or that it is
wrong to kill birds. It names a street and gives a reason for doing so.
It is an angry little Poem, but impersonal.
"The Bells of Heaven," by the same author, simply chances a hint that
something might happen if something else did. It is a suggestion only,
but made by one who knows what he thinks, and how to think it. Into a
few lines a whole philosophy is concentrated.
Thus Pepler or Ralph Hodgson nudge peoples arms and draw attention to
traditional stupidities.
Walter De la Mare puts the children to sleep with "Nod," or bewitches
them with the Mad Prince's Song; or he takes us to an Arabia which
never existed, but is one of those countries more beautiful than any we
know, and therefore we love to imagine it.
Look at that full moon on page 53, which Dick saw "one night." Here is
the possible experience of man, woman, child, dog, fox, bear--or even
nightingale--all concentrated into the shortest and plainest account
of something that happened to Dick. He and Betsey-Jane, though quite
different in kind, belong to the same world. Betsey-Jane is plainly
more romantic than Dick.
But, talking of the moon, we may turn back to Mr Chesterton on page
36. Here we find something incongruous in the collection: a poem
that wishes deliberately to strike a note. The donkey is a much
better fellow than Mr Chesterton seems to think: he does not ask for
glorification, nor would he utter that boast of the last two lines.
Would a man not rather "go with the wild asses to Paradise" than have
the case for the donkey pleaded before him in this obtrusive manner?
Turn back four pages and you will find:
For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle,
And the merry love to dance.
This, by W. B. Yeats, represents a much pleasanter type of thought. In
these verses of the Irish poet we have the gaiety of a man who, knowing
all about religion, can afford not to be sentimental. And here is the
spirit of the book.
The happiness of those who love the earth is so different from the
pleasure by proxy of those that abide it in the idea of going to some
Heaven afterward. Mr Yeats' "Fiddler of Dooney" is that type of fellow
who accepts the symbolism of a national religion only in so far as it
may help him to enjoy the condition of being alive. And in his "Lake
Isle of Innisfree" he imagines a Paradise which is of the earth only.
And he takes you there by reason of his own longing.
VI
This anthology, as a whole, is romantic ; its language is simple; its
philosophy is that of everyday life, and is entirely undisturbing.
It contains a large proportion of poems by authors who write more
particularly for children, such as P. R. Chalmers, Rose Fyleman,
Queenie Scott-Hopper, and Marion St John Webb, or of children's poems
by authors who do not actually specialize in that style, such as "The
Ragwort," by Frances Cornford; "Cradle Song," by Sarojini Naidu;
"Check," by James Stephens, and others. Two of its authors remain
necessarily unmentioned here, namely, the compiler of the book and the
writer of this Introduction.
Some people make it their business to pick anthologies to pieces,
and they seem to enjoy themselves. "Why is this included?" they cry;
"Why is that left out?"--a form of criticism nearly always beside the
point. Inclusion or exclusion is in the taste and discretion of the
anthologist.
This Introduction may, it is hoped, stimulate the reader of the poems
which follow to think about them carefully in their relation to
each other, and in their relation to English poetry as a whole. For
though it has frequently been emphasized that the object of poetry
(and particularly of lyrical poetry) is to give pleasure, it should
nevertheless be added that intellectual pleasure cannot be gathered at
random, or without certain preparation of the mind to receive it.
HAROLD MONRO
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
For permission to use copyright poems the Editor is indebted to :
_The Authors_--H. H. Abbott, Hilaire Belloc, P. R. Chalmers,
G. K. Chesterton, Frances Cornford, W. H. Davies, Walter De la
Mare, John Drinkwater, Rose Fyleman, W. W. Gibson, Robert
Graves, Ralph Hodgson, Teresa Hooley, Margaret Mackenzie,
Irene R. McLeod, John Masefield, Alice Meynell, Harold Monro,
Sarojini Naidu, H. D. C. Pepler, James Stephens, Sir William
Watson, Marion St John Webb, and W. B. Yeats.
The Literary Executors of Rupert Brooke, Mary E. Coleridge
(Sir Henry Newbolt), James Elroy Flecker (Mrs Flecker), Julian
Grenfell (Lady Desborough), Lionel Johnson (Mr Elkin Mathews),
Edward Wyndham Tennant (Lady Glenconner), Edward Thomas
(Messrs Selwyn and Blount), R. E. Vernède.
And the following _Publishers_, in respect of the poems selected :
Messrs Burns and Oates, Ltd.
Alice Meynell: Collected Poems.
Messrs Constable and Co., Ltd.
Walter De la Mare: The Listeners, Peacock Pie.
Messrs J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd.
G. K. Chesterton: The Wild Knight.
Messrs Duckworth and Co.
Hilaire Belloc: Verses.
Mr A. C. Fifield
W. H. Davies: Collected Poems.
Messrs George G. Harrap and Co., Ltd.
E. J. Brady: The House of the Winds.
Queenie Scott-Hopper: Pull the Bobbin!
Marion St John Webb: The Littlest One.
Mr W. Heinemann, London, and the John Lane Company, New York
Sarojini Naidu: The Golden Threshold.
Messrs Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston
John Drinkwater: Poems by John Drinkwater.
Mr John Lane, London, and the John Lane Company, New York
Helen Parry Eden Bread and Circuses.
Edward Wyndham Tennant, by Pamela Glenconner.
Messrs Macmillan and Co., Ltd., London, and the Macmillan Company,
New York
W. W. Gibson: Whin.
Ralph Hodgson: Poems.
J. Stephens: The Adventures of Seumas Beg, Songs from the Clay.
W. B. Yeats: Poems: Second Series.
The Macmillan Company, New York
John Masefield: Ballads and Poems.
Messrs Maunsel and Co.
P. R. Chalmers: Green Days and Blue Days.
Messrs Methuen and Co., Ltd.
Rose Fyleman: Fairies and Chimneys, The Fairy Green.
The Poetry Bookshop
H. H. Abbott: Black and White.
Frances Cornford: Spring Morning.
R. Graves: Over the Brazier.
Messrs Sands and Co.
M. Mackenzie: The Station Platform, and Other Poems.
Mr Martin Seeker
J. E. Flecker: Collected Poems.
Francis Brett Young: Poems, 1916-1918.
Messrs Selwyn and Blount, London, and Messrs Henry Holt and
Company, New York
Edward Thomas: Poems.
Messrs Sidgwick and Jackson, Ltd.
J. Redwood Anderson: Walls and Hedges.
John Drinkwater: Swords and Ploughshares.
Messrs Sidgwick and Jackson, Ltd., and the John Lane Company,
New York
Rupert Brooke: 1914, and Other Poems.
Messrs T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd.
W. B. Yeats: Poems.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
ARRANGED UNDER NAMES OF AUTHORS
ABBOTT, H. H.
Black and White
ANDERSON, J. REDWOOD
The Bridge
BELLOC, HILAIRE
The Early Morning
The South Country
BRADY, E. J.
A Ballad of the Captains
BROOKE, RUPERT
The Dead
The Great Lover
The Soldier
CHALMERS, P. R.
If I had a Broomstick
Roundabouts and Swings
CHESTERTON, G. K.
The Donkey
COLERIDGE, MARY E.
Street Lanterns
CORNFORD, FRANCES
In France
The Ragwort
DAVIES, W. H.
The Kingfisher
Sheep
DE LA MARE, WALTER
Arabia
Full Moon
Nod
The Song of the Mad Prince
DRINKWATER, JOHN
A Town Window
EDEN, HELEN PARRY
To Betsey-Jane, on her Desiring to go
Incontinently to Heaven
FLECKER, JAMES E.
Brumana 79
The Dying Patriot
November Eves
FYLEMAN, ROSE
Alms in Autumn
I Don't Like Beetles
Wishes
GIBSON, W. W.
Sweet as the Breath of the Whin
GRAVES, ROBERT
Star-Talk
GRENFELL, JULIAN
Into Battle
HARDY, THOMAS
The Oxen
HODGSON, RALPH
The Bells of Heaven
The Song of Honour
Stupidity Street
HOOLEY, TERESA
Sea-Foam
JOHNSON, LIONEL
By the Statue of King Charles at
Charing Cross
MACKENZIE, MARGARET
To the Coming Spring
MCLEOD, IRENE R.
Lone Dog
MASEFIELD, JOHN
Sea Fever
Tewkesbury Road
The West Wind
MEYNELL, ALICE
A Dead Harvest
November Blue
The Shepherdess
MONRO, HAROLD
Overheard on a Saltmarsh
A Flower is Looking through the Ground
Man Carrying Bale
NAIDU, SAROJINI
Cradle-Song
PEPLER, H. D. C.
The Law the Lawyers Know About
SCOTT-HOPPER, QUEENIE
Very Nearly!
What the Thrush Says
STEPHENS, JAMES
Check
When the Leaves Fall
TENNANT, E. W.
Home Thoughts in Laventie
THOMAS, E.
The Cherry Trees
VERNÈDE, R. E.
A Petition
WALTERS, L. D'O.
All is Spirit and Part of Me
WATSON, SIR WILLIAM
April
WEBB, MARION ST JOHN
The Sunset Garden
YEATS, W. B.
The Fiddler of Dooney
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
YOUNG, FRANCIS BRETT
February
[Illustration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Lake Isle of Innisfree.
April
The Fiddler of Dooney
Cradle-Song
The Donkey
Sea Fever
A Ballad of the Captains
Arabia
The Song of the Mad Prince
The Shepherdess
The Dead
The Great Lover
If I had a Broomstick
The Dying Patriok
Star-Talk
Overheard on a Saltmarsh
To the Coming Spring
Alms in Autumn
Very Nearly!
All is Spirit and Part of Me
Black and White
[Illustration]
[Illustration "APRIL, APRIL, LAUGH THY GIRLISH LAUGHTER!"]
APRIL
April, April,
Laugh thy girlish laughter;
Then, the moment after,
Weep thy girlish tears!
April, that mine ears
If I tell thee, sweetest,
All my hopes and fears,
April, April,
Laugh thy golden laughter,
But, the moment after,
Weep thy golden tears.
WILLIAM WATSON
THE FIDDLER OF DOONEY
When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Moharabuiee.
I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.
When we come at the end of time,
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;
For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle,
And the merry love to dance:
[Illustration: WHEN WE COME AT THE END OF TIME, TO PETER SITTING IN STATE]
And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With "Here is the fiddler of Dooney!"
And dance like a wave of the sea.
W. B. YEATS
[Illustration]
THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always, night and day,
I hear lake-water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
W. B. YEATS
[Illustration: I BRING FOR YOU, AGLINT WITH DEW, A LITTLE LOVELY DREAM.]
CRADLE-SONG
From groves of spice,
O'er fields of rice,
Athwart the lotus-stream,
I bring for you,
Aglint with dew,
A little lovely dream.
Sweet, shut your eyes,
The wild fire-flies
Dance through the fairy neem;[1]
From the poppy-bole
For you I stole
A little lovely dream.
Dear eyes, good-night,
In golden light
The stars around you gleam;
On you I press
With soft caress
A little lovely dream.
SAROJINI NAIDU
[Footnote 1: A lilac-tree (Hindustani).]
THE DONKEY
When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.
G. K. CHESTERTON
[Illustration: "WITH MONSTROUS HEAD AND SICKENING CRY
AND EARS LIKE ERRANT WINGS"]
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.
HILAIRE BELLOC
[Illustration]
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 be there 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.
HILAIRE BELLOC
[Illustration: "ALL I ASK IS A WINDY DAY WITH THE WHITE CLOUDS FLYING"]
SEA FEVER
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray "and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gipsy life,
To the gull's, way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted
knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
JOHN MASEFIELD
[Illustration]
TEWKESBURY ROAD
It is good to be out on the road, and going one knows not where,
Going through meadow and village, one knows not whither nor why;
Through the grey light drift of the dust, in the keen cool rush
of the air,
Under the flying white clouds, and the broad blue lift of the sky.
And to halt at the chattering brook, in the tall green fern at the brink
Where the harebell grows, and the gorse, and the foxgloves purple and
white;
Where the shy-eyed delicate deer come down in a troop to drink
When the stars are mellow and large at the coming on of the night.
O, to feel the beat of the rain, and the homely smell of the earth,
Is a tune for the blood to jig to, a joy past power of words;
And the blessed green comely meadows are all a-ripple with mirth
At the noise of the lambs at play and the dear wild cry of the birds.
JOHN MASEFIELD
[Illustration]
THE WEST WIND
It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries;
I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes.
For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills,
And April's in the west wind, and daffodils.
It's a fine land, the west land, for hearts as tired as mine,
Apple orchards blossom there, and the air's like wine.
There is cool green grass there, where men may lie at rest,
And the thrushes are in song there, fluting from the nest.
"Will you not come home, brother? You have been long away.
It's April, and blossom time, and white is the spray:
And bright is the sun, brother, and warm is the rain,
Will you not come home, brother, home to us again?
The young corn is green, brother, where the rabbits run;
It's blue sky, and white clouds, and warm rain and sun.
It's song to a man's soul, brother, fire to a man's brain,
To hear the wild bees and see the merry spring again.
Larks are singing in the west, brother, above the green wheat,
So will you not come home, brother, and rest your tired feet?
I've a balm for bruised hearts, brother, sleep for aching eyes,"
Says the warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries.
It's the white road westwards is the road I must tread
To the green grass, the cool grass, and rest for heart and head,
To the violets and the brown brooks and the thrushes' song
In the fine land, the west land, the land where I belong.
JOHN MASEFIELD
[Illustration: "DRUMMING UP THE CHANNEL, HALING PRIZES IN THEIR WAKE."]
A BALLAD OF THE CAPTAINS
Where are now the Captains
Of the narrow ships of old--
Who with valiant souls went seeking
For the Fabled Fleece of Gold;
In the clouded Dusk of Ages,
In the Dawn of History;
When the ringing songs of Homer
First re-echoed o'er the Sea?
Oh, the Captains lie a-sleeping
Where great iron hulls are sweeping
Out of Suez in their pride;
And they hear not, and they heed not,
And they know not, and they need not
In their deep graves far and wide.
Where are now the Captains
Who went blindly through the Strait,
With a tribute to Poseidon,
A libation poured to Fate?
They were heroes giant-hearted,
That with Terrors, told and sung,
Like blindfolded lions grappled,
When the World was strange and young.
Oh, the Captains brave and daring,
With their grim old crews are faring
Where our guiding beacons gleam;
And the homeward liners o'er them--
All the charted seas before them--
Shall not wake them as they dream.
Where are now the Captains
From bold Nelson back to Drake,
Who came drumming up the Channel,
Haling prizes in their wake?
Where are England's fighting Captains
Who, with battle-flags unfurled,
Went a-rieving all the rievers
O'er the waves of all the world?
Oh, these Captains, all confiding
In the strong right hand, are biding
In the margins, on the Main;
They are shining bright in story,
They are sleeping deep in glory,
On the silken lap of Fame.
[Illustration: "WITH A DEAD HIDALGO'S DAUGHTER AS A DOWER FOR THE DEY"]
Where are now the Captains
Who regarded not the tears
Of the captured Christian maidens
Carried, weeping, to Algiers?
Yes, the swarthy Moorish Captains,
Storming wildly 'cross the Bay,
With a dead hidalgo's daughter.
As a dower for the Dey?
Oh, those cruel Captains never
Shall sweet lovers more dissever,
On their forays as they roll;
Or the mad Dons curse them vainly,
As their baffled ships, ungainly,
Heel them, jeering, to the Mole.
Where are now the Captains
Of those racing, roaring days,
Who of knowledge and of courage,
Drove the clippers on their ways--
To the furthest ounce of pressure,
To the latest stitch of sail,
'Carried on' before the tempest
Till the waters lapped the rail?
Oh, the merry, manly skippers
Of the traders and the clippers,
They are sleeping East and West,
And the brave blue seas shall hold them,
And the oceans five enfold them
In the havens where they rest.
Where are now the Captains
Of the gallant days agone?
They are biding in their places,
And the Great Deep bears no traces
Of their good ships passed and gone.
They are biding in their places,
Where the light of God's own grace is,
And the Great Deep thunders on.
Yea, with never port to steer for,
And with never storm to fear for,
They are waiting wan and white,
And they hear no more the calling
Of the watches, or the falling
Of the sea rain in the night.
E. J. BRADY
[Illustration: "DEMI-SILKED, DARK-HAIRED MUSICIANS"]
ARABIA
Far are the shades of Arabia,
Where the Princes ride at noon,
'Mid the verdurous vales and thickets,
Under the ghost of the moon;
And so dark is that vaulted purple
Flowers in the forest rise
And toss into blossom 'gainst the phantom stars
Pale in the noonday skies.
Sweet is the music of Arabia
In my heart, when out of dreams
I still in the thin clear mirk of dawn
Descry her gliding streams;
Hear her strange lutes on the green banks
Ring loud with the grief and delight
Of the demi-silked, dark-haired Musicians
In the brooding silence of night.
They haunt me--her lutes and her forests;
No beauty on earth I see
But shadowed with that dream recalls
Her loveliness to me:
Still eyes look coldly upon me,
Cold voices whisper and say--
"He is crazed with the spell of far Arabia,
They have stolen his wits away."
WALTER DE LA MARE
[Illustration]
FULL MOON
One night as Dick lay half asleep,
Into his drowsy eyes
A great still light began to creep
From out the silent skies.
It was the lovely moon's, for when
He raised his dreamy head,
Her rays of silver filled the pane
And streamed across his bed.
So, for awhile, each gazed at each--
Dick and the solemn moon--
Till, climbing slowly on her way,
She vanished, and was gone.
WALTER DE LA MARE
NOD
Softly along the road of evening,
In a twilight dim with rose,
Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew,
Old Nod, the shepherd, goes.
His drowsy flock streams on before him,
Their fleeces charged with gold,
To where the sun's last beam leans low
On Nod the shepherd's fold.
The hedge is quick and green with briar,
From their sand the conies creep;
And all the birds that fly in heaven
Flock singing home to sleep.
His lambs outnumber a noon's roses,
Yet, when night's shadows fall,
His blind old sheep-dog, Slumber-soon,
Misses not one of all.
His are the quiet steeps of dreamland,
The waters of no-more-pain,
His ram's bell rings 'neath an arch of stars,
"Rest, rest, and rest again."
WALTER DE LA MARE
[Illustration]
THE SONG OF THE MAD PRINCE
Who said, "Peacock Pie"?
The old King to the sparrow:
Who said, "Crops are ripe"?
Rust to the harrow:
Who said, "Where sleeps she now?
Where rests she now her head,
Bathed in eve's loveliness"?
That's what I said.
Who said, "Ay, mum's the word"?
Sexton to willow:
Who said, "Green dusk for dreams,
Moss for a pillow"?
Who said, "All Time's delight
Hath she for narrow bed;
Life's troubled bubble broken"?
That's what I said.
WALTER DE LA MARE
[Illustration: "'ALL TIME'S DELIGHT HATH SHE FOR NARROW BED'"]
A DEAD HARVEST
IN KENSINGTON GARDENS
Along the graceless grass of town
They rake the rows of red and brown,--
Dead leaves, unlike the rows of hay
Delicate, touched with gold and grey,
Raked long ago and far away.
A narrow silence in the park,
Between the lights a narrow dark.
One street rolls on the north; and one,
Muffled, upon the south doth run;
Amid the mist the work is done.
A futile crop! for it the fire
Smoulders, and, for a stack, a pyre.
So go the town's lives on the breeze,
Even as the sheddings of the trees;
Bosom nor barn is filled with these.
ALICE MEYNELL
NOVEMBER BLUE
/$
The golden tint of the electric lights seems to give a complementary
colour to the air in the early evening.
_Essay on London_
$/
O heavenly colour, London town
Has blurred it from her skies;
And, hooded in an earthly brown,
Unheaven'd the city lies.
No longer standard-like this hue
Above the broad road flies;
Nor does the narrow street the blue
Wear, slender pennon-wise.
But when the gold and silver lamps
Colour the London dew,
And, misted by the winter damps,
The shops shine bright anew--
Blue comes to earth, it walks the street,
It dyes the wide air through;
A mimic sky about their feet,
The throng go crowned with blue.
ALICE MEYNELL
[Illustration: "SHE WALKS--THE LADY OF MY DELIGHT--A SHEPHERDESS OF SHEEP"]
THE SHEPHERDESS
She walks--the lady of my delight--
A shepherdess of sheep.
Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white;
She guards them from the steep;
She feeds them on the fragrant height,
And folds them in for sleep.
She roams maternal hills and bright,
Dark valleys safe and deep,
Into that tender breast at night
The chastest stars may peep.
She walks--the lady of my delight--
A shepherdess of sheep.
She holds her little thoughts in sight,
Though gay they run and leap.
She is so circumspect and right;
She has her soul to keep.
She walks--the lady of my delight--
A shepherdess of sheep.
ALICE MEYNELL
THE DEAD
Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
There's none of these so lonely and poor of old,
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age; and those who would have been,
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.
Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,
Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.
Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
And we have come into our heritage.
RUPERT BROOKE
[Illustration: "HONOUR HAS COME BACK, AS A KING, TO EARTH"]
THE GREAT LOVER
I have been so great a lover: filled my days
So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise,
The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,
Desire illimitable, and still content,
And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,
For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear
Our hearts at random down the dark of life.
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife
Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,
My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days.
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise
Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me
High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see
The inenarrable godhead of delight?
Love is a flame;--we have beaconed the world's night.
A city:--and we have built it, these and I.
An emperor:--we have taught the world to die.
So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence,
And the high cause of Love's magnificence,
And to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names
Golden for ever, eagles, crying flames,
And set them as a banner, that men may know,
To dare the generations, burn, and blow
Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming....
These I have loved:
White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,
Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust;
Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust
Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;
Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;
And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;
And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,
Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;
Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen
Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;
The benison of hot water; furs to touch;
The good smell of old clothes; and other such--
The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,
Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers
About dead leaves and last year's ferns....
[Illustration: "OUT ON THE WIND OF TIME, SHINING AND STREAMING"]
Dear names,
And thousand other throng to me! Royal flames;
Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring;
Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing;
Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain,
Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train;
Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam
That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;
And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold
Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould;
Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;
And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;--
And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass;--
All these have been my loves. And these shall pass.
Whatever passes not, in the great hour,
Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power
To hold them with me through the gate of Death.
They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,
Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust
And sacramented covenant to the dust.
--Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,
And give what's left of love again, and make
New friends, now strangers....
But the best I've known,
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies.
Nothing remains.
O dear my loves, O faithless, once again
This one last gift I give: that after men
Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed,
Praise you, "All these were lovely"; say, "He loved."
RUPERT BROOKE
[Illustration: "MOIST BLACK EARTHEN mould;... AND HIGH PLACES;
FOOTPRINTS IN THE DEW"]
THE SOLDIER
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
RUPERT BROOKE
BY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES AT CHARING CROSS
Sombre and rich, the skies;
Great glooms, and starry plains.
Gently the night wind sighs;
Else a vast silence reigns.
The splendid silence clings
Around me: and around
The saddest of all kings
Crowned, and again discrowned.
Comely and calm, he rides
Hard by his own Whitehall:
Only the night wind glides:
No crowds, nor rebels, brawl.
Gone, too, his Court; and yet,
The stars his courtiers are:
Stars in their stations set;
And every wandering star.
Alone he rides, alone,
The fair and fatal king:
Dark night is all his own,
That strange and solemn thing.
Which are more full of fate:
The stars; or those sad eyes?
Which are more still and great:
Those brows; or the dark skies?
Although his whole heart yearn
In passionate tragedy:
Never was face so stern
With sweet austerity.
Vanquished in life, his death
By beauty made amends:
The passing of his breath
Won his defeated ends.
Brief life and hapless? Nay:
Through death, life grew sublime.
_Speak after sentence?_ Yea:
And to the end of time.
Armoured he rides, his head
Bare to the stars of doom:
He triumphs now, the dead,
Beholding London's gloom.
Our wearier spirit faints,
Vexed in the world's employ:
His soul was of the saints;
And art to him was joy.
King, tried in fires of woe
Men hunger for thy grace:
And through the night I go,
Loving thy mournful face.
Yet when the city sleeps;
When all the cries are still:
The stars and heavenly deeps
Work out a perfect will.
LIONEL JOHNSON
CHECK
The night was creeping on the ground;
She crept and did not make a sound
Until she reached the tree, and then
She covered it, and stole again
Along the grass beside the wall.
I heard the rustle of her shawl
As she threw blackness everywhere
Upon the sky and ground and air,
And in the room where I was hid:
But no matter what she did
To everything that was without,
She could not put my candle out.
So I stared at the night, and she
Stared back solemnly at me.
JAMES STEPHENS
WHEN THE LEAVES FALL
When the leaves fall off the trees
Everybody walks on them:
Once they had a time of ease
High above, and every breeze
Used to stay and talk to them.
Then they were so debonair
As they fluttered up and down;
Dancing in the sunny air,
Dancing without knowing there
Was a gutter in the town.
Now they have no place at all!
All the home that they can find
Is a gutter by a wall,
And the wind that waits their fall
Is an apache of a wind.
JAMES STEPHENS
IN FRANCE
The poplars in the fields of France
Are golden ladies come to dance;
But yet to see them there is none
But I and the September sun.
The girl who in their shadow sits
Can only see the sock she knits;
Her dog is watching all the day
That not a cow shall go astray.
The leisurely contented cows
Can only see the earth they browse;
Their piebald bodies through the grass
With busy, munching noses pass.
Alone the sun and I behold
Processions crowned with shining gold--
The poplars in the fields of France,
Like glorious ladies come to dance.
FRANCES CORNFORD
THE RAGWORT
The thistles on the sandy flats
Are courtiers with crimson hats;
The ragworts, growing up so straight,
Are emperors who stand in state,
And march about, so proud and bold,
In crowns of fairy-story gold.
The people passing home at night
Rejoice to see the shining sight,
They quite forget the sands and sea
Which are as grey as grey can be,
Nor ever heed the gulls who cry
Like peevish children in the sky.
FRANCES CORNFORD
LONE DOG
I'm a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog, and lone;
I'm a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own;
I'm a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep;
I love to sit and bay the moon, to keep fat souls from sleep.
I'll never be a lap dog, licking dirty feet,
A sleek dog, a meek dog, cringing for my meat,
Not for me the fireside, the well-filled plate,
But shut door, and sharp stone, and cuff, and kick, and hate.
Not for me the other dogs, running by my side,
Some have run a short while, but none of them would bide.
O mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best,
Wide wind, and wild stars, and the hunger of the quest!
IRENE R. McLEOD
IF I HAD A BROOMSTICK
If I had a broomstick, and knew how to ride it,
I'd fly through the windows when Jane goes to tea,
And over the tops of the chimneys I'd guide it,
To lands where no children are cripples like me;
I'd run on the rocks with the crabs and the sea,
Where soft red anemones close when you touch;
If I had a broomstick, and knew how to ride it,
If I had a broomstick--instead of a crutch!
PATRICK R. CHALMERS
[Illustration]
[Illustration: "IF I HAD A BROOMSTICK"]
ROUNDABOUTS AND SWINGS
It was early last September nigh to Framlin'amon-Sea,
An''twas Fair-day come to-morrow, an' the time was after tea,
An' I met a painted caravan adown a dusty lane,
A Pharaoh with his waggons cornin' jolt an' creak an' strain;
A cheery cove an' sunburnt, bold o' eye and wrinkled up,
An' beside him on the splashboard sat a brindled tarrier pup,
An' a lurcher wise as Solomon an' lean as fiddle-strings
Was joggin' in the dust along is roundabouts and swings.