Neither believe those elegant essayists
Who reconstruct the princes’ conversation
From grotesque fabrics of their own vain brains.
I only know that East gave West a nod,
Asking him careless questions about trade;
West gave the latest rumours from the front,
Raising of sieges, plots and pillages.
He told a camp-fire yarn to amuse the soldiers
Whereat they all laughed emptily (East laughed too). 60
He sang a few staves of the latest catch,
And pulling out his roll of rhymes, unfurled it,
Ballads and songs, measured by the yard-rule.
But do not trust the elegant essayists
Who’d have you swallow all they care to tell
Of the riddling speech in painful double entendre
That West and East juggled across the cards,
So intricate, so exquisitely resolved
In polished antithetical periods
That by comparison, as you must believe, 70
Solomon himself faced with the Queen of Sheba
And Bishop Such, preaching before the King,
Joined in one person would have seemed mere trash.
I give my testimony beyond refutal,
Nailing the lie for all who ask the facts.

Pay no heed to those vagabond dramatists
Who, to present this meeting on the stage,
Would make my Prince, stealthily drawing out
A golden quill and stabbing his arm for blood,
Scratch on a vellum slip some hasty sentence 80
And pass it under the table; which West signs
With his blood, so the treaty’s made between them
All unobserved and two far nations wedded
While enemy soldiers loll, yawning, around.
I was there myself, I say, seeing everything.
Truly, this is what passed, that East regarding
West with a steady look and knowing him well,
For an instant let the heavy soldier-mask,
His best protection, a dull cast of face,
Light up with joy, and his eyes shoot out mirth. 90
West then knew East, checked, and misdealt the cards.
Nothing at all was said, on went the game.
But East bought from West’s bag of ballads, after,
Two sombre histories, and some songs for dancing.

Also distrust those allegorical
Painters who treating of this famous scene
Are used to splash the skies with lurching Cupids,
Goddesses with loose hair, and broad-cheeked Zephyrs;
They burnish up the soldiers’ breastplate steel
Rusted with languor of their long campaign, 100
To twinkling high-lights of unmixed white paint,
Giving them buskins and tall plumes to wear,
While hard by, in a wanton imagery,
Aquatic Triton thunders on his conch
And Satyrs gape from behind neighbouring trees.
I who was there, sweating in my shirt-sleeves,
Felt no divinity brooding in that mess,
For human splendour gave the gods rebuff.

Do not believe them, seem they never so wise,
Credibly posted with all new research, 110
Those elegant essayists, vagabond dramatists,
Authentic and approved biographers,
Solemn annalists, allegorical
Painters, each one misleading or misled.
One thing is true, that of all sights I have seen
In any quarter of this world of men,
By night, by day, in court, field, tavern, or barn,
That was the noblest, East encountering West,
Their silent understanding and restraint,
Meeting and parting like the Kings they were 120
With plain indifference to all circumstance;
Saying no good-bye, no handclasp and no tears,
But letting speech between them fade away
In casual murmurs and half compliments,
East sauntering out for fresh intelligence,
And West shuffling away, not looking back,
Though each knew well that this chance meeting stood
For turning movement of world history.
And I? I trembled, knowing these things must be.

THE SEWING BASKET
(Accompanying a wedding present from Jenny Nicholson to Winifred Roberts)

To Winifred
The day she’s wed
(Having no gold) I send instead
This sewing basket,
And lovingly
Demand that she,
If ever wanting help from me,
Will surely ask it.

Which being gravely said,
Now to go straight ahead
With a cutting of string,
An unwrapping of paper,
With a haberdasher’s flourish,
The airs of a draper,
To review
And search this basket through.

Here’s one place full
Of coloured wool,
And various yarn
With which to darn;
A sampler, too,
I’ve worked for you,
Lettered from A to Z,
The text of which
In small cross-stitch
Is Love to Winifred.

Here’s a rag-doll wherein
To thrust the casual pin.
His name is Benjamin
For his ingenuous face;
Be sure I’ve not forgotten
Black thread or crochet cotton;
While Brussels lace
Has found a place
Behind the needle-case.
(But the case for the scissors?
Empty, as you see;
Love must never be sundered
Between you and me.)

Winifred Roberts,
Think of me, do,
When the friends I am sending
Are working for you.
The song of the thimble
Is, “Oh, forget her not.”
Says the tape-measure,
“Absent but never forgot.”