A little flock of clouds go down to rest
In some blue corner off the moon's highway,
With shepherd-winds that shook them in the West
To borrowed shapes of earth, in bright array,
Perhaps to weave a rainbow's gay festoons
Around the lonesome isle which Brooke has made
A little England full of lovely noons,
Or dot it with his country's mountain shade.
Ah, little wanderers, when you reach that isle[22]
Tell him, with dripping dew, they have not failed,
What he loved most; for late I roamed a while
Thro' English fields and down her rivers sailed;
And they remember him with beauty caught
From old desires of Oriental Spring
Heard in his heart with singing overwrought;
And still on Purley Common gooseboys sing.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] The island of Skyros where Rupert Brooke was buried. (See page [194].)
Irene Rutherford McLeod
Irene Rutherford McLeod, born August 21, 1891, has written three volumes of direct and often distinguished verse, the best of which may be found in Songs to Save a Soul (1915) and Before Dawn (1918). The latter volume is dedicated to A. de Sélincourt, to whom she was married in 1919.
"IS LOVE, THEN, SO SIMPLE"
Is love, then, so simple my dear?
The opening of a door,
And seeing all things clear?
I did not know before.
I had thought it unrest and desire
Soaring only to fall,
Annihilation and fire:
It is not so at all.