The Year's at the Spring: An Anthology of Recent Poetry

by Unknown

ALL IS SPIRIT AND PART OF ME.
A greater lover none can be,
And all is spirit and part of me.
I am sway of the rolling hills,
And breath from the great wide plains;
I am born of a thousand storms,
And grey with the rushing rains;
I have stood with the age-long rocks,
And flowered with the meadow sweet;
I have fought with the wind-worn firs,
And bent with the ripening wheat;
I have watched with the solemn clouds,
And dreamt with the moorland pools;
I have raced with the water's whirl,
And lain where their anger cools;
I have hovered as strong-winged bird,
And swooped as I saw my prey;
I have risen with cold grey dawn,
And flamed in the dying day;
For all is spirit and part of me,
And greater lover none can be.
L. D'O. WALTERS

STREET LANTERNS
Country roads are yellow and brown.
We mend the roads in London Town.
Never a hansom dare come nigh,
Never a cart goes rolling by.
An unwonted silence steals
In between the turning wheels.
Quickly ends the autumn day,
And the workman goes his way,
Leaving, midst the traffic rude,
One small isle of solitude,
Lit, throughout the lengthy night,
By the little lantern's light.
Jewels of the dark have we,
Brighter than the rustic's be.
Over the dull earth are thrown
Topaz, and the ruby stone.
MARY E. COLERIDGE

TO BETSEY-JANE, ON HER DESIRING
TO GO INCONTINENTLY TO HEAVEN
My Betsey-Jane, it would not do,
For what would Heaven make of you,
A little, honey-loving bear,
Among the Blessed Babies there?
Nor do you dwell with us in vain
Who tumble and get up again.
And try, with bruised knees, to smile—.
Sweet, you are blessed all the-while
And we in you: so wait, they'll come
To take your hand and fetch you home,
In Heavenly leaves to play at tents
With all the Holy Innocents.
HELEN PARRY EDEN

THE BRIDGE
Here, with one leap,
The bridge that spans the cutting; on its back
The load
Of the main-road,
And under it the railway-track.
Into the plains they sweep,
Into the solitary plains asleep,
The flowing lines, the parallel lines of steel—
Fringed with their narrow grass,
Into the plains they pass,
The flowing lines, like arms of mute appeal.
A cry
Prolonged across the earth—a call
To the remote horizons and the sky;
The whole east-rushes down them with its light,
And the whole west receives them, with its pall
Of stars and night—
The flowing lines, the parallel lines of steel.
And with the fall
Of darkness, see! the red,
Bright anger of the signal, where it flares
Like a huge eye that stares
On some hid danger in the dark ahead.
A twang of wire—unseen
The signal drops; and now, instead
Of a red eye, a green.
Out of the silence grows
An iron thunder—grows, and roars, and sweeps,
Menacing! The plain
Suddenly leaps,
Startled, from its repose—
Alert and listening. Now, from the gloom
Of the soft distance, loom
Three lights and, over them, a brush
Of tawny flame and flying spark—
Three pointed lights that rush,
Monstrous, upon the cringing dark.
And nearer, nearer rolls the sound,
Louder the throb and roar of wheels,
The shout of speed, the shriek of steam;
The sloping bank,
Cut into flashing squares, gives back the clank
And grind of metal, while the ground
Shudders and the bridge reels—
As, with a scream,
The train,
A rage of smoke, a laugh of fire,
A lighted anguish of desire,
A dream
Of gold and iron, of sound and flight,
Tumultuous roars across the night.
The train roars past—and, with a cry,
Drowned in a flying howl of wind,
Half-stifled in the smoke and blind,
The plain,
Shaken, exultant, unconfined,
Rises, flows on, and follows, and sweeps by,
Shrieking, to lose itself in distance and the sky.
J. REDWOOD ANDERSON

FEBRUARY
The robin on my lawn
He was the first to tell
How, in the frozen dawn,
This miracle befell,
Waking the meadows white
With hoar, the iron road
Agleam with splintered light,
And ice where water flowed:
Till, when the low sun drank
Those milky mists that cloak
Hanger and hollied bank,
The winter world awoke
To hear the feeble bleat
Of lambs on downland farms:
A blackbird whistled sweet;
Old beeches moved their arms
Into a mellow haze
Aerial, newly-born:
And I, alone, agaze,
Stood waiting for the thorn
To break in blossom white,
Or burst in a green flame....
So, in a single night,
Fair February came,
Bidding my lips to sing
Or whisper their surprise,
With all the joy of spring
And morning in her eyes.
FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG

SEA-FOAM
A fleck of foam on the shining sand,
Left by the ebbing sea,
But richer than man may understand
In magic and mystery—
Transient bubbles rainbow-bright,
Myriad-hued and strange,
Tremble and throb in the noonday light,
Flower and flush and change.
A million tides have come and gone,
Great gales of autumn and spring,
A million summoning moons have shone
To bring to birth this thing—
A foam-fleck left on the ribbed wet sand
By the wave of an outgoing sea,
With all the colour of Faeryland,
Wonder and mystery.
TERESA HOOLEY