ENGLISH TEA-ROOMS
Why do they sit in darkness,
Hiss like geese?
Outside the sun flashes his strong wings
Against the green-slit shutters,
Through which you can see
Him bathing in the street.
Like a bird he preens himself at the windows,
Then dances back with the swimming flash of a gold-fish.
Why do you hiss like geese,
What do you hide,
With your thin sibilance of genteel speech?
* * * * *
The Colonel, usually a rollicking character,
In the manner of El Capitano,
Simpers, like any schoolgirl.
Miss Vera complains that her brother
Is suffering from catarrh.
On the other hand
Hotel-life is easier than home-life,
She just rings the bell,
Orders anything she wants,
—And there it is—punctual to the minute.
Both Sir William and his daughter
Are pleased with their holiday;
Admire the flora and the fauna;
Miss Ishmael sketches, and the place abounds
In peasants, picturesque old-bit-and-corner—
* * * * *
If they should die...
Say only this of them,
That there's a corner in some foreign field
That is for ever England...
They travel; yet all foreign things
Are barr'd and bolted out of range
... While England benefits by the exchange.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
The gilt-fring'd earth has sadly spun
A sector of its lucent arc
About the disillusioned sun
Of Autumn. The bright angry spark
Of Heaven in each upturned eye
Denotes religious ecstasy.
We, too, have spun our Sunday round
Of Church and beef and after-sleep
In houses where obtrudes no sound
But breathing, regular and deep,
Till Sabbath sentiment, well-fed,
Demands a visit to the Dead.
For Autumn leaves sad thoughts beget,
As from life's tree they clatter down,
And Death has caught some in her net
Even on Sunday,—in this Town,
Tho' money and food and sleep are sweet!
The dead leaves rattle down the street.
Fat bodies, silk-enmeshed, inflate
Their way along; if Death comes soon
They'll leave this food-sweet earth to float
Heavenward, like some huge balloon.
Religion dims each vacant eye
As we approach the cemet'ry.
Proudly we walk; with care we bend
To lead our children by the hand,
Here, where all, rich and poor, must end
—This portal to a better land
To which—if in good business—
We have hereditary access;
Where to afford the Saints relief
From prayer and from religious questions,
Round after round of deathless beef
Flatters celestial digestions;
Where, in white robe, with golden crown,
We watch our enemies sent down,
To other spheres, while we lean out,
Divinest pity in our eyes,
And wonder why these sinners flout
Our kindly pitying surprise,
Why look so angry when we play
On gold harps as they go away,
A hymn tune, dear, familiar?
But now we stand within the space
Where marble females drape a tear
Above a whisker'd marble face.
"Isn't it pretty?" Even now
Rich and exotic blossoms grow
About each granite monument
Of men frock-coated, unaware
Of Judgment; what emolument
Requites a weeping willow's care?
Look! Over there a broken column
Is watched by one geranium,
Whose scorching scarlet tones uphold
Damnation and eternal fire
To those who will not reckon gold—
Who are not worthy of their hire,
For marble tombs are prized above
Such brittle things as thought or love.
The crystal web of dusk now clings
From evergreen to tropic tree,
Toss'd by the wind that subtly brings
A mingled scent of mould and tea
That causes silence to be rent
By one scream—childish, but intent.
For children will not realise
That they should rest without a sound
With folded hands and downcast eyes
Here, in the Saint's Recruiting Ground.
And so, in sorrow, we turn back
To hasten on our high-tea track.
But after, in the night, we dream
Of Heaven as a marbled bank,
In which, in one continual stream,
We give our gold for heavenly rank,
Where each Saint, standing like a sentry,
Explains a mystic double-entry.
The Director of the Bank is God—
Stares our foes coldly in the face,
But gives us quite a friendly nod,
And beckons us to share His place.
CORPSE DAY
July 19th, 1919.
Dusk floated up from the earth beneath,
Held in the arms of the evening wind
—The evening wind that softly creeps
Along the jasper-terraces,
To bear with it
The old, sad scent
Of midsummer, of trees and flowers
Whose bell-shaped blossoms, shaken, torn
By the rough fingers of the day
Ring out their frail and honeyed notes.
* * * * *
Up from the earth there rose
Sounds of great triumph and rejoicing.
* * * * *
Our Lord Jesus, the Son of Man,
Smiled
And leant over the ramparts of Heaven.
Beneath Him
Through the welling clouds of darkness
He could see
The swarming of mighty crowds.
It was in the Christian Continent,
Especially,
That the people chanted
Hymns and pæans of joy.
But it seemed to Our Lord
That through the noisy cries of triumph
He could still detect
A bitter sobbing
—The continuous weeping of widows and children
Which had haunted Him for so long,
Though He saw only
The bonfires,
The arches of triumph,
The processions,
And the fireworks
That soared up
Through the darkening sky,
To fall in showers of flame
Upon the citadel of Heaven.
As a rocket burst,
There fell from it,
Screaming in horror,
Hundreds of men
Twisted into the likeness of animals
—Writhing men
Without feet,
Without legs,
Without arms,
Without faces....
The earth-cities still rejoiced.
Old, fat men leant out to cheer
From bone-built palaces.
Gold flowed like blood
Through the streets;
Crowds became drunk
On liquor distilled from corpses.
And peering down
The Son of Man looked into the world;
He saw
That within the churches and the temples
His image had been set up;
But, from time to time,
Through twenty centuries,
The priests had touched up the countenance
So as to make war more easy
Or intimidate the people—
Until now the face
Had become the face of Moloch!
The people did not notice
The change
... But Jesus wept!