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.