air. The joy that follows

  Drafts of wine o’ west wind, o’ north wind, o’ summer breeze,

  Never grape’s hath equalled from the wine hills

  by the summer seas.

  Whilst the breezes live, joy shall contrive,

  Still to tear asunder, and to scatter near and far

  Those nets small and thin

  That spider sorrows spin

  In the brooding hollows where no breezes are.

  SIDERA CADENTIA

  (ON THE DEATH OF QUEEN VICTORIA)

  WHEN one of the old, little stars doth fall from its place,

  The eye,

  Glimpsing aloft must sadden to see that its space

  In the sky

  Is darker, lacking a spot of its ancient, shimmering grace,

  And sadder, a little, for loss of the glimmer on high.

  Very remote, a glitter, a mote far away, is your star,

  But its glint being gone from the place where it shone

  The night’s somewhat grimmer and something is gone

  Out of the comforting quiet of things as they are.

  A shock,

  A change in the beat of the clock;

  And the ultimate change that we fear feels a little less far.

  NIGHT PIECE

  AH, of those better tides of dark and melancholy —

  When one’s abroad, in a field — the night very deep, very holy;

  The turf very sodden a-foot, walking heavy — the

  small ring of light,

  O’ the lanthorn one carries, a-swinging to left and to right,

  Revealing a flicker of hedgerow, a flicker of rushes

  — and Night

  Ev’rywhere; ev’rywhere sleep and a hushing to sleep —

  I — know that I never shall utter the uttermost secrets aright,

  They lie so deep.

  THANKS WHILST UNHARNESSING

  I

  [He gets down from the cart.)

  WEST’RING the last silver light doth gleam,

  Whilst in the welling shimmer of the lamp

  From the tired horse the blanketing of steam

  Flickers and whirls aloft into the damp

  Sharp winter darkness. In the deadened air

  The long, still night doth settle everywhere.

  And hark! there comes the rapt, sweet, crooning snatches

  Of song from where the little robin watches

  Close in the thorn, beyond the ring of light.

  II

  (He speaks towards the bushes.)

  Softest of all the birds that sing at night,

  For the most mellowest sound,

  That the long year brings round,

  Sweet robin. I give thanks and love you best

  Of birds that nest.

  (He follows the horse in, humming?)

  Sing! it is well, though the rest of life be bitter,

  Sing! (Z swill the oats in the trough and loose the girth.)

  Warble! It is well. ( There’s a rustle in the litter:

  Thafs the old grey rat.) It is well upon the earth.

  III

  Clotht-up and snug and warm, a-munching oats

  Old Tom doth make a comfortable sound,

  A rhythmic symphony for your sweet notes.

  [He speaks from the stable door.)

  Small brother, flit in here, since all around

  The frost hath gripped the ground;

  And oh! I would not like to have you die.

  We’s help each other,

  Little Brother Beady-eye.

  (The Robin flits in.)

  There — Sing! Warm and mellow the lanthorn lights the stable.

  Little brother, sing! In-a-doors beside the hearth.

  Slippers are a-toast, and the tea’s upon the table.

  Robin when you sing it is well tipon the earth.

  [He closes the stable door and enters the cottage.)

  GREY MATTER

  THEY leave us nothing.

  He. — Still, a little’s left.

  She. A crabbèd, ancient, dried biologist,

  Somewhere very far from the sea, closed up from the sky,

  Shut in from the leaves, destroys our hopes and us.

  He. Why, no, our hopes and...

  She. — In his “Erster Heft.”

  Page something, I forget the line, he says

  That, hidden as deep in the brain as he himself from hope,

  There’s this grey matter.

  He. — Why,’tis there, dear heart.

  She. That, if that hidden matter cools, decays,

  Dies — what you will — our souls die out as well;

  Since, hidden in the millionth of a cell,

  Is all we have to give us consciousness.

  He. Suppose it true.

  She. — Ah, never; better die,

  Better have never lived than face this mist,

  Better have never toiled to such distress.

  He. It matters little.

  She. — Little! — Where shall I,

  The woman, where shall you take part,

  My poet? Where has either of us scope

  In this dead-dawning century that lacks all faith,

  All hope, all aim, and all the mystery

  That comforteth. Since he victorious

  With his cold vapours chill out you and me,

  The woman and the poet?

  He. — Never, dear.

  For you and I remain,

  The woman and the poet. And soft rain

  Still falls and still the crocus flames,

  The blackbird calls.

  She. — But halt the sweet is gone.

  The voices of our children at their games

  Lack half their ring.

  He. — Why, never, dear. Out there,

  The sea’s a cord of silver, still to south

  Beyond the marsh.

  She. — Ah, but beyond it all,

  And all beneath and all above, half of the glory’s done.

  And I and you....

  He. — Why, no. The ancient sun

  Shines as it ever shone, and still your mouth

  Is sweet as of old it was.

  She. — But what remains?

  He. All the old pains,

  And all the old sweet pleasures and the mystery

  Of time, slow travel and unfathomed deep.

  She. And then this cold extinction?...

  He. — Dreamless sleep.

  She. And nothing matters?

  He. — All the old, old things.

  Whether to Church or College rings

  The clamorous bell of creeds,

  We, in the lush, far meads,

  Poet and woman, past the city walls,

  Hear turn by turn the burden of their calls,

  Believe what we believe, feel what we feel,

  Like what we list of what they cry within

  Cathedral or laborat’ry,

  Since, by the revolution of the wheel,

  The one swings under, let us wait content.

  She. Yet it is hard.

  He. — Ah no. A sure intent,

  For me and you.

  The right, true, joyful word, the sweet, true phrase,

  The calling of our children from the woods these garden days

  Remain. — These drops of rain have laid the dust

  And in our soft brown seed-beds formed the crust

  We needed for our sowings. Bring your seed,

  And you shall prick it in, I close the row.

  Be sure the little grains your hands have pressed

  Tenderly, lovingly, home, shall flourish best.

  She. Aye you are still my poet.

  He. — Even so

  Betwixt the rain and shine. Half true’s still true

  More truly than the thing that’s proved and dead.

  The sun lends flame to every crocus head

  Once more, and we once more must sow and weed

  Since in the earth the newly stirring seed

  Begins the ancient mystery anew.

  OLD MAN’S EVENSONG

  ‘TIS but a teeny mite

  Hard, road side edge,

  OF missus’ candle light

  Shines through thet broken hedge.

  Reach me my coat, lads,

  Give me a lift into it,

  Rowin’ they tater-clads

  Tasks me to do it

  Terribly;

  Time was when I weer mad

  Diggin’ by star’s light,

  Now I am mortial glad

  T’ reach my dure-ajar’s light,

  ‘N’ eat my tea.

  Reach me my tools, boys,

  Ah mun quit this talk’n’ lurry;

  Theer’s my ol’ missus’ voice

  Calls: “Or meastur, hurry,

  Y’r tea-time’s come.”

  Smells from the chimney side

  Sniff down this plaguy mist,

  Wanst I’d wander far an’ wide,

  Now I’m terr’ble stiff an’ whist

  ‘N’ stay at home.

  ‘Tis but a yeard or two

  Hard road, thank God.

  Then off the hard an’ goo

  Home on the sod.

  CHILDREN’S SONG

  SOMETIMES wind and sometimes rain,

  Then the sun comes back again;

  Sometimes rain and sometimes snow,

  Goodness, how we’d like to know

  Why the weather alters so.

  When the weather’s really good

  We go nutting in the wood;

  When it rains we stay at home,

  And then sometimes other some

  Of the neighbours’ children come.

  Sometimes we have jam and meat,

  All the things we like to eat;

  Sometimes we make do with bread

  And potatoes boiled instead.

  Once when we were put to bed

  We had nowt and mother cried,

  But that was after father died.

  So, sometimes wind and sometimes rain,

  Then the sun comes back again;

  Sometimes rain and sometimes snow,

  Goodness, how we’d like to know

  If things will always alter so.

  FROM THE SOIL

  (TWO MONOLOGUES)

  I

  The Field Labourer speaks.

  AH am a mighty simple man and only

  Good wi’ my baggin’ hook and sichlike and’tis . lonely

  Wheer Ah do hedge on Farmer Finn his farm.

  Often Ah gits to thinking

  When it grows dark and the ol’ sun’s done sinking,

  And Ah hev had my sheere

  Of fear

  And wanted to feel sure that God were near

  And goodly warm —

  As near as th’eldritch shave I were at wark about...

  Plenty o’ time for thinking

  We hes between the getting up and sinking

  Of that ol’ sun — about the God we tark about...

  In the beginning God made Heaven and

  The’ Arth,’n Sea we sometimes hear a-calling

  When wind she bloweth from the rainy land

  An’ says ther’ll soon be wet an’ rain a-falling.

  Ah’ll give you, parson, God he made the sea,

  An’ made this’Arth, ner yit Ah wo-an’t scrimmage

  But what He made the sky; what passes me

  Is that what follows: “Then the Lord made we

  In his own image.”

  For, let alone the difference in us creatures,

  Some short o’ words like me, and others preachers

  With stores of them, like you; some fair, some middlin’,

  Some black-avis’d like you and good at fiddlin’,

  Some crabb’d, some mad, some mighty gay and pleasant,

  No two that’s more alike than jackdaw is to pheasant,

  We’re poorish stuff at best.

  We doesn’t last no time before we die,

  Nor leave more truck behind than they poor thrushes.

  You find, stiff feathers, laid aside the bushes

  After a hard ol’ frost in Janu-ry.

  Ol’ crow he lives much longer,

  Ol’ mare’s a de-al stronger

  ‘N the hare’s faster...

  If so be God’s like we and we like He

  The man’s as good’s his Master.

  You are a civil, decent-spoken man, Muss Parson.

  ‘N’ I don’t think ye’ll say this kind o’ tark is worse’n arson —

  That’s burning stacks, I think — surety it isn’ meant so,

  I tell you, Parson, no;

  ‘N’ us poor folk we doesn’t want to blame

  You parsons fer the things that’s said and sung

  Up there in church. My apple tree is crook’d because

  ‘twere bent so

  When it were young.

  ‘N’ them as had you preacher-folk to tame,

  Taught you the tales that you are bound to tell

  Us folk below

  About three Gods that’s one an’ Heav’n an’ Hell,

  An’ things us folk ain’t meant to understand.

  I — tell you, sir, we men that’s on the land

  Needs summut we can chew when trouble’s brewing,

  When our ol’’ooman’s bad an’ rent is due

  ‘N’ we no farden,

  ‘N’ when it’s late to sow’n’ still too wet to dig the garden,

  Something as we can chew like that ol’ cow be chewing.

  Something told plain and something we gits holt on,

  — You need a simple sort o’ feed to raise a colt on —

  We needs it, parson, life’s a bitter scrimmage,

  Livin’ and stuggin’ in the mud and things we do

  Enow confound us;

  We hain’t no need for fear

  Of God, to make the living hardly worth —

  You tell us, sir, that “God He made this Earth

  In His own image,”

  An’ make the Lord seem near.

  So’s we could think that when we come to die

  We’ll lie

  In this same goodly’Arth, an’ things goo on around us

  Much as they used to goo.

  II

  The Small Farmer soliloquizes.

  I wonder why we toiled upon the earth

  From sunrise until sunset, dug and delved,

  Crook-backed, cramp-fingered, making little marks

  On the unmoving bosoms of the hills,

  And nothing came of it. And other men

  In the same places dug and delved and ended

  As we have done; and other men just there

  Shall do the self-same things until the end.

  I wonder why we did it — Underneath

  The grass that fed my sheep, I often thought

  Something lay hidden, some sinister thing

  Lay looking up at us as if it looked

  Upwards thro’ quiet waters; that it saw

  Us futile toilers scratching little lines

  And doing nothing. And maybe it smiled

  Because it knew that we must come to this —

  I lay and heard the rain upon the roof

  All night when rain spelt ruin, lay and heard

  The east wind shake the windows when that wind

  Meant parched up land, dried herbage, blighted wheat,

  And ruin, always ruin creeping near

  In the long droughts and bitter frosts and floods.

  And when at dawning I went out-a-doors

  I used to see the top of the tall shaft

  O’ the workhouse here, peep just above the downs,

  It was as if the thing were spying, waiting,

  Watching my movements, saying, “You will come,

  Will come at last to me.” And I am here...

  And down below that Thing lay there and smiled;

  Or no, it did not smile; it was as if

  One might have caught it smiling, but one saw

  The earth immovable, the unmoved sheep

  And senseless hedges run like little strings

  All over hill and dale —

  WISDOM

  THE young girl questions: “Whether were it better

  To lie for ever, a warm slug-a-bed

  Or to rise up and bide by F ate and Chance,

  The rawness of the morning,

  The gibing and the scorning

  Of the stern Teacher of my ignorance?’’

  “I know not,” Wisdom said.

  The young girl questions: “Friend, shall I die calmer,

  If I’ve lain for ever, sheets above the head,

  Warm in a dream, or rise to take the worst

  Of peril in the highways

  Of straying in the by-ways.

  Of hunger for the truth, of drought and thirst?”

  “We do not know,” he said,

  “Nor may till we be dead.”

  THE POSY-RING

  (AFTER CLEMENT MAROT)

  THIS on thy posy-ring I’ve writ:

  “True Love and Faith.”

  For, failing Love, Faith droops her head,

  And lacking faith, why love is dead

  And’s but a wraith.

  But Death is stingless where they’ve lit

  And stayed, whose names hereon I’ve writ.

  THE GREAT VIEW

  UP here, where the air’s very clear

  And the hills slope away nigh down to the bay,

  It is very like Heaven...

  For the sea’s wine-purple and lies half asleep

  In the sickle of the shore and, serene in the west,

  Lion-like purple and brooding in the even,

  Low hills lure the sun to rest.

  Very like Heaven — For the vast marsh dozes,

  And waving plough-lands and willowy closes

  Creep and creep up the soft south steep;

  In the pallid North the grey and ghostly downs do fold away.

  And, spinning spider-threadlets down the sea, the

  sea-lights dance

  And shake out a wavering radiance.

  Very like Heaven — For a shimmering of pink.

  East, far east, past the sea-lights’ distant blink,

  Like a cloud shell-pink, like the ear of a girl,

  Like Venice-glass mirroring mother-o’-pearl,

  Like the small pink nails of my lovely lady’s fingers,

  Where the skies drink the sea and the last light lies and lingers,

  There is France.

  WIFE TO HUSBAND

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692 693 694 695 696 697 698 699 700 701 702 703 704 705 706 707 708 709 710 711 712 713 714 715 716 717 718 719 720 721 722 723 724 725 726 727 728 729 730 731 732 733 734 735 736 737 738 739 740 741 742 743 744 745 746 747 748 749 750 751 752 753 754 755 756 757 758 759 760 761 762 763 764 765 766 767 768 769 770 771 772 773 774 775 776 777 778 779 780 781 782 783 784 785 786 787 788 789 790 791 792 793 794 795 796 797 798 799 800 801 802 803 804 805 806 807 808 809 810 811 812 813 814 815 816 817 818 819 820 821 822 823 824 825 826 827 828 829 830 831 832 833 834 835 836 837 838 839 840 841 842 843 844 845 846 847 848 849 850 851 852 853 854 855 856 857 858 859 860 861 862 863 864 865 866 867 868 869 870 871 872 873 874 875 876 877 878 879 880 881 882 883 884 885 886 887 888 889 890 891 892 893 894 895 896 897 898 899 900 901 902 903 904 905 906 907 908 909 910 911 912 913 914 915 916 917 918 919 920 921 922 923 924 925 926 927 928 929 930 931 932 933 934 935 936 937 938 939 940 941 942 943 944 945 946 947 948 949 950 951 952 953 954 955 956 957 958 959 960 961 962 963 964 965 966 967 968 969 970 971 972 973 974 975 976 977 978 979 980 981 982 983 984 985 986 987 988 989 990 991 992 993 994 995 996 997 998 999 1000 1001 1002 1003 1004 1005 1006 1007 1008 1009 1010 1011 1012 1013 1014 1015 1016 1017 1018 1019 1020 1021 1022 1023 1024 1025 1026 1027 1028 1029 1030 1031 1032 1033 1034 1035 1036 1037 1038 1039 1040 1041 1042 1043 1044 1045 1046 1047 1048 1049 1050 1051 1052 1053 1054 1055 1056 1057 1058