Orchard and Vineyard

by V. Sackville-West

FALLEN YOUTH

O redolent things most dear to Youth on earth,
Friendship of other men; the hunter’s horn;
The strong fatigue of practised limbs; the mirth
Of little birds in coppices and corn;
Work’s satisfaction; leisure’s bland delight;
The grateful sinking into sleep at night;

Speed, with the winds of heaven at your heels,
And grimy Power, and all you brilliant ones
That leap and sparkle ’mid the din of wheels,
A thousand little stars and little suns;
And streets of cities threatening the sky;
Cranes, wharves, and smoke in billows hanging high;

O stately Bridge, the country’s arching frame,
A needle’s eye to thread the river through;
Free ships, that rove and perish without fame;
Rich days of idleness, and soul that grew
Suddenly certain after doubting years,
And won through joy the wisdom lost through tears;

O Downs of Sussex, flowing swift and clean
Like stretchèd dogs along the English shore,
With cleanliness of athletes, and the lean
Brown flanks that course above the hare-belled floor;
O winds, that jangle all those little bells,
And tangle hair of nymphs in hidden dells;

O wandering Road, stranger and instant friend,—
For Youth a gipsy ever was at heart,—
Highway and packway, path with many a bend
That keep your mystery a thing of art;
O pools of friendly water; little lins;
O sudden views of country; wayside inns;

Labour of harvest; cider sweet and good;
Casual friends with tales of travel far;
Beauty of women; sunlight through a wood;
Companionable beasts; all things which are,
Weep for him! weep for Youth that laughed so bright,
Extravagantly fallen in the fight.

INSURRECTION

INSURRECTION. To A.

I

POOR soul! a captive in a prison-house
Dreaming of pastures, is not more degraded
Through rags and shackles and the insidious louse,
And naked splendour of the body faded,

Than our uneasy spirit, dimly haunted
By vision of some state, some wisdom whole;
Prophetic down unhoped-for distance; taunted;
Dissentient and disquiet guest, the soul.

II

Would I were done with flesh, or flesh with me,
—Frailty from frailty seeking prop and stay!—
Would that from all such trammels I were free,
Hindered no more by quagmires of the clay,

Then with an energy controlled and fierce
Might I on greater secrets turn, and fight
Through with unswathed and polished weapon; pierce
Through to some wisdom, to some lake of light.

A sinewy spirit, muscular and lean,
Should be my captain, striding ever on
Over harsh mountains where the wind blew keen,
Peak after peak, till the last peak was won.

Angry I strive, loving the world I hate,
Hating the flesh I love; but all in vain.
Freed for an hour, then, fall’n from ghostly state,
Sink to the clasp of siren foes again.

III

(Yet much is merry in men’s moods diverse.
I am no mystic, I, that I should preach
With lips string-drawn as tight as miser’s purse,
Dispense thin wisdom by my scrannel speech;

No, none, thank God, can more have loved good laughter,
Beauty, well-being, perilous lottery,
Or paid the reckoning that followed after
With smaller grudge to justice than did I.)

IV

Sometimes I met with one, and would have cried,
“Pilgrim! by the proud manner of your going
Clearly you ask no alms when ills betide.
Though of your journey’s end I have no knowing,
Travel a little distance by my side.
Lonely am I; lonely; I have not spoken
Closely with friend this many a questing day;
Body, my beast of burden, stumbles broken,
Rowelled by desperate spur along the way.
Pilgrim, if lonely spirit cross another
And pride in me salute in you your pride,
Shall we not either recognise a brother?”

But reticence held me, and I passed him wide.

V

And sometimes met with those who offered me
Comfort upholstered like a harlot’s bed
With winks for ribbons, shrugs to swansdown wed,
And squalor under frowsy frippery.

This draggletail of passion should be mine,
This slattern bastard born of spleen and lust,
Convention’s shrewd Bacchante, if I must
Yield to the senses’ feverish anodyne!

But I would turn, and, half-defeated, failing,
(How near defeat, they never guessed or knew,)
Load my last breath with scorn, and cry “You? You?”
And cry, at bay before their vanguard, railing,

VI

“What! you had vision? mountains, comets, seas,
Wild storm, wild beauty, wild embattled flames,
You harnessed to your tongues with hackneyed ease.
Tamers of splendour! those familiar names
Troubled you not, less kingly, more remote
Than gain and ease, your god, your man-made grail.
Not nature’s giants, not cosmic menace smote
Your souls with awe, or thrust you down the scale.

No, nor the thoughts your thoughts could not embrace,
A God’s intention, void, sublime, or strange,
The birth or death of time, the bourn of space,
Nor unimaginable colours’ range,

Nor the continuous eastward roll of earth,
Half, in the energy of day aware;
Half, where the sweeping shadow curves its girth,
Within night’s darkened temple cowled in prayer.

No deep misgivings, no mysterious faith;
Your very god was passed from hand to hand;
You had no inkling of the nobler breath
Blown on the spark you could not understand.

VII

“The little spark within the heart of man.
How should you know the desperate clutch of fingers
That feel the moment slipping, feel the dear
Infrequent moment slipping as it lingers,

The flaming hour ironic in its fleetness,
The rush of vision swift beyond belief?
Near, as the dead to the incredulous living;
So dead, the heart is rigid with its grief.

What would you offer me as compensation
After your sloth had blanketed my fire?
Your deepest peace, satiety Lethean;
Your aim, diversion; and your spur, desire.

Tragic, or merry, be the body’s passion,
Ordained or gay; not, not the sordid mean!
Your soul’s a skinny waif, that was not driven
To sin, but sought small solaces unclean.

You struck no fire from flint; you neither knew
Fasting nor feasting; vigour, nor a kiss;
The silk pavilioned bed of Aphrodite,
Or woodland hardihood of Artemis.

VIII

“Ashamed of tolerance, but more ashamed
Of hot intolerance; who hold the snare
Less perilous when fraudulently named;
Forgetting folly, while remembering care;
Who shun the sinner with averted eyes;
Mistrust the impulse, danger in its breath;
Who think truth wholly truth, lies wholly lies;
Who never lived, but duly wept at death;

Who could not gaily stake the cherished whole
Upon the spinning coin’s fantastic turn;
Who count the moneyed value of your soul,
And give, but, giving, claim the just return.

IX

“I’ll dip contempt’s broad ladle for a measure
Lest I accept reprieve in such a guise,
Such cheap attainment where I most despise,
Or lull disquiet by such sham of pleasure.

Love, amongst counterfeits and marsh-light gleams
Already arch-impostor, doubly aped
By lust, to parody (most rarely shaped),
The consummation of our difficult dreams!”

HOME

NIGHT. To H. G. N.

MOONLIGHT through lattice throws a chequered square;
Night! and I wake in my low-ceilinged room
To lovely silence deep with harmony;
Sweet are the flutes of night-time, sweet the spell
Lies between day and day. This wise old night,
That, unreproachful, gives the pause to strife!
The murmurous diapason of the dark
Within the house made quick and intimate
By tiny noise—a bat? a mouse? a moth
Bruising against the ceiling? or a bird
Nested beneath the eaves? night, grave and huge
Outside with swell of sighing through the boughs,
Whispering far over unscythèd meadows,
Dying in dim cool cloisters of the woods.

I have been absent. I have found unchanged
The oaks, the slope and order of the fields;
I knew the wealden fragrance, and that old
Dear stubborn enemy of mine, the clay.
Nothing to mark the difference of year
But young wheat springing where I left the roots,
And last year’s pasture browned to this year’s plough;
Last year the crop was niggard on the orchard,
But blossom now foretells the weighted branches,
And the great stack, that like a galleon
Rode beneath furled tarpaulins last July,
Showed its bare brushwood as I passed to-day.
Where the sun rises, that I know of old;
Knowledge precedes me round the turn of the lane,
And I could take you where the orchids grow
Friendly with cowslips; where the bluebell pulls
Smooth from its bulb, bleached where it grew concealed,
Hidden from light; the tiny brook is eager,
Quick with spring rains, bright April rains, and fills
The pool where drowsy cattle slouch to drink.

Familiar! oh, familiar! native speech
Comes not more readily than that dear sense
Of bend and depth of country. This is Kent,
Unflaunting England, where the steaming mould,
Not plaintive, not regretful, lies content
That leaves should spring from sacrifice of leaves.

My Saxon weald! my cool and candid weald!
Dear God! the heart, the very heart of me
That plays and strays, a truant in strange lands,
Always returns and finds its inward peace,
Its swing of truth, its measure of restraint,
Here among meadows, orchards, lanes, and shaws.
Take me then close, O branches, take me close;
Whisper me all the secrets of the sap,
You branches fragile, tentative, that stretch
Your moonlit blossom to my open window,
Messengers of the gentle weald, encroaching
So shyly on the shelter of the house;
Cradle me, hammock me amongst you; let
Night’s quietude so drench my sleepy spirit
That morning shall not rob me of that calm.
Your buds against my pulses; so I lie
Wakeful as though in tree-tops, and the sap
Creeps through my blood, up from the scented earth.

... The birds are restless underneath the eaves,
Down in the byre the uneasy cattle stir,
And through the fret of branches grows the dawn.