II PEER GYNT
WHEN he was young and beautiful and bold
We hated him, for he was very strong.
But when he came back home again, quite old,
And wounded too, we could not hate him long.
For kingliness and conquest pranced he forth
Like some high-stepping charger bright with foam.
And south he strode and east and west and north
With need of crowns and never need of home.
Enraged we heard high tidings of his strength
And cursed his long forgetfulness. We swore
That should he come back home some eve at length.
We would deny him, we would bar the door!
And then he came. The sound of those tired feet!
And all our home and all our hearts are his,
Where bitterness, grown weary, turns to sweet,
And envy, purged by longing, pity is.
And pillows rest beneath the withering cheek,
And hands are laid the battered brows above,
And he whom we had hated, waxen weak,
First in his weakness learns a little love.
XX
IF I have suffered pain
It is because I would.
I willed it. ’Tis no good
To murmur or complain.
I have not served the law
That keeps the earth so fair
And gives her clothes to wear
Raiment of joy and awe.
For all that bow to bless
That law shall sure abide.
But man shall not abide,
And hence his gloriousness.
Lo, evening earth doth lie
All-beauteous and all peace.
Man only does not cease
From striving and from cry.
Sun sets in peace: and soon
The moon will shower her peace.
O law-abiding moon,
You hold your peace in fee!
Man, leastways, will not be
Down-bounden to these laws.
Man’s spirit sees no cause
To serve such laws as these.
There yet are many seas
For man to wander in.
He yet must find out sin,
If aught of pleasance there
Remain for him to store,
His rovings to increase,
In quest of many a shore
Forbidden still to fare.
Peace sleeps the earth upon,
And sweet peace on the hill.
The waves that whimper still
At their long law-serving
(O flowing sad complaint!)
Come on and are back drawn.
Man only owns no king,
Man only is not faint.
You see, the earth is bound.
You see, the man is free.
For glorious liberty
He suffers and would die.
Grudge not then suffering
Or chastisemental cry.
O let his pain abound,
Earth’s truant and earth’s king!
XXI
TO GERMANY
YOU are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed,
And no man claimed the conquest of your land.
But gropers both through fields of thought confined
We stumble and we do not understand.
You only saw your future bigly planned,
And we, the tapering paths of our own mind,
And in each other’s dearest ways we stand,
And hiss and hate. And the blind fight the blind.
When it is peace, then we may view again
With new-won eyes each other’s truer form
And wonder. Grown more loving-kind and warm
We’ll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain,
When it is peace. But until peace, the storm
The darkness and the thunder and the rain.
XXII
ALL the hills and vales along
Earth is bursting into song,
And the singers are the chaps
Who are going to die perhaps.
O sing, marching men,
Till the valleys ring again.
Give your gladness to earth’s keeping,
So be glad, when you are sleeping.
Cast away regret and rue,
Think what you are marching to.
Little live, great pass.
Jesus Christ and Barabbas
Were found the same day.
This died, that went his way.
So sing with joyful breath.
For why, you are going to death.
Teeming earth will surely store
All the gladness that you pour.
Earth that never doubts nor fears,
Earth that knows of death, not tears,
Earth that bore with joyful ease
Hemlock for Socrates,
Earth that blossomed and was glad
’Neath the cross that Christ had,
Shall rejoice and blossom too
When the bullet reaches you.
Wherefore, men marching
On the road to death, sing!
Pour your gladness on earth’s head,
So be merry, so be dead.
From the hills and valleys earth
Shouts back the sound of mirth,
Tramp of feet and lilt of song
Ringing all the road along.
All the music of their going,
Ringing swinging glad song-throwing,
Earth will echo still, when foot
Lies numb and voice mute.
On, marching men, on
To the gates of death with song,
Sow your gladness for earth’s reaping,
So you may be glad, though sleeping,
Strew your gladness on earth’s bed,
So be merry, so be dead.
XXIII
LE REVENANT
HE trod the oft-remembered lane
(Now smaller-seeming than before
When first he left his father’s door
For newer things), but still quite plain
(Though half-benighted now) upstood
Old landmarks, ghosts across the lane
That brought the Bygone back again:
Shorn haystacks and the rooky wood;
The guide post, too, which once he clomb
To read the figures: fourteen miles
To Swindon, four to Clinton Stiles,
And only half a mile to home:
And far away the one homestead, where—
Behind the day now not quite set
So that he saw in silhouette
Its chimneys still stand black and bare—
He noticed that the trees were not
So big as when he journeyed last
That way. For greatly now he passed
Striding above the hedges, hot
With hopings, as he passed by where
A lamp before him glanced and stayed
Across his path, so that his shade
Seemed like a giant’s moving there.
The dullness of the sunken sun
He marked not, nor how dark it grew,
Nor that strange flapping bird that flew
Above: he thought but of the One....
He topped the crest and crossed the fence,
Noticed the garden that it grew
As erst, noticed the hen-house too
(The kennel had been altered since).
It seemed so unchanged and so still.
(Could it but be the past arisen
For one short night from out of prison?)
He reached the big-bowed window-sill,
Lifted the window sash with care,
Then, gaily throwing aside the blind,
Shouted. It was a shock to find
That he was not remembered there.
At once he felt not all his pain,
But murmuringly apologised,
Turned, once more sought the undersized
Blown trees, and the long lanky lane,
Wondering and pondering on, past where
A lamp before him glanced and stayed
Across his path, so that his shade
Seemed like a giant’s moving there.
XXIV
LOST
ACROSS my past imaginings
Has dropped a blindness silent and slow.
My eye is bent on other things
Than those it once did see and know.
I may not think on those dear lands
(O far away and long ago!)
Where the old battered signpost stands
And silently the four roads go
East, west, south and north,
And the cold winter winds do blow.
And what the evening will bring forth
Is not for me nor you to know.
XXV
EXPECTANS EXPECTAVI
FROM morn to midnight, all day through,
I laugh and play as others do,
I sin and chatter, just the same
As others with a different name.
And all year long upon the stage
I dance and tumble and do rage
So vehemently, I scarcely see
The inner and eternal me.
I have a temple I do not
Visit, a heart I have forgot,
A self that I have never met,
A secret shrine—and yet, and yet
This sanctuary of my soul
Unwitting I keep white and whole
Unlatched and lit, if Thou should’st care
To enter or to tarry there.
With parted lips and outstretched hands
And listening ears Thy servant stands,
Call Thou early, call Thou late,
To Thy great service dedicate.
May 1915