FAREWELL

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

A GLOUCESTERSHIRE LAD AT HOME
AND ABROAD. [Sixth Impression.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE FRIENDS: Poems
from a German Prison Camp. [Third Impression.

DUCKS, AND OTHER VERSES.

COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY: A Record
of Life in Seven German Prisons.
Illustrated by C. E. B. Bernard.

Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd.

FAREWELL

BY
F. W. HARVEY
AUTHOR OF “A GLOUCESTERSHIRE LAD”
“GLOUCESTERSHIRE FRIENDS”
ETC., ETC.

LONDON
SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD.
1921

PREFACE

In spite of all the soulful utterances of people comfortably off, economic independence remains the first condition of happiness.

This is not to say that people aren’t great fools for preferring law to literature. It is rather to imply that a poet who can do both is a fool if he does not.

I am not a fool.

Farewell!

F. W. H.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author desires to acknowledge gratefully permissions to reprint certain of these poems granted by the editors of The Spectator, The Athenæum, The London Mercury, The Nation, The Woman’s Leader, The Gloucestershire Chronicle and The Gloucestershire Journal.

CONTENTS

NATURE POEMS

PRAYERS

I
THAT MY EYES MAY BE MADE TO SEE

God of bright colours: rainbows, peacocks,

And the shot-silk gleam of springing

Wind-shaken wheat

On rolling red-ribbed Earth:

Thou Who dost bring to birth

From out the womb

Of darkness golden flowers,

Filling the hollows

With daffodils in March,

Cowslips in April,

Dog-roses in May,

Who in the smouldering forest

Makes the huge

Red flare of Autumn:

God of all the colours

On Earth, and hues (too bright for mortal eyes)

In Paradise—

Unblind me to Thy glory,

That I may see!

II
THAT MY SOUL MAY BE SET TO DANCE

God of light dancing:

Waves and ripples

In foam and forest,

And shadows under leaves,

Lambs leaping, prancing,

Horses, dragon-flies,

Stars ...

Thou Whose eye perceives

How and in what dream-ecstasy tall reeds

Shake out brown hair and sway

Like dusky girls

Tranced in an Indian air;

Who knowest the way

Of clouds

Which glide o’er blue unflowered fields,

Scattering shadows

On golden meadows

And fields of dancing daisies:

Teach me, O Lord,

The rhythm of that joy which is Thy mind!

Make my soul dance!

III
THAT I MAY BE TAUGHT THE GESTURE OF HEAVEN

God of the steadfast line,

Who laid the curving Cotswolds on the sky:

God of the hills,

And of the lonely hollows in the hills,

And of the cloudy nipples of the mountains:

Teach me thy passionate austerity!

God of elm twigs

And of all winter trees

Etched ebony on sunset, or bright silver

Upon hard morning heavens;

Cunning shaper of ferns,

And ferns which whitely gleam on frosty windows

And snow-flakes:

God of the naked body beautifully snatched

To some swift-gestured loveliness of Heaven:

Master

Of stars,

And all beneath most passionately curbed

In Form: catch up my sprawling soul and fix it

In gesture of its lost divinity!

IV
THAT I MAY BE GIVEN FELLOWSHIP OF ANGELS AND A HAPPY HEART

God of fine fellowship in heaven and earth,

O let me share

A little of the gaiety of saints.

Sometimes let angels carelessly with robins

Sing in these Minsterworth trees.

Teach me that mirth,

Give me that happy heart, hating the thin

Blasphemous gravity of wicked men.

THE HOLLOW LAND

Elms on the marbled sky

Walling this hollow land,

Write something black that I

Find hard to understand.

Belshazzar in his hall,

Belshazzar and those lords

Saw suddenly on the wall

Great crooked words:

A doom, a doom of fear ...

Something our hearts forget

Is mighty still and near

To claim his debt.

Behold before it falls—

Behold the mighty hand

Of Nature on the walls

Of the hollow land!

ON BIRDLIP

I’ve tramped a score of miles to-day

And now on Cotswold stand,

Wondering if in any way

Their owners understand

How all those little gold fields I see

And the great green woods beyond

Have given themselves to me, to me

Who own not an inch of land.

Because I loved with deep desire,

Wooing all as I walked,

This noble country by tree and spire

Taught (as if music talked)

How Beauty is never bought or sold,

But freely given to them

Who worship more than crowns of gold

Her dew-bright diadem.

Now all that under open heaven

I see of arable

Or pasture land to me is given,

As runs the parable—

“To him that hath not——” Even so,

For all we love is ours

While the little streams of Cotswold flow,

Swaying forget-me-not flowers.

OUT OF THE CITY

Here in the ring of the hills,

Under a cloudy sky,

Content at last I lie

Where Peace o’erspills

Like a cool rain which giveth

This brave daisy scent

And wine of sacrament

Whereby he liveth.

The big hooters may howl,

Men quarrel, whistles screech,

I will hear only the speech

Of my forgotten soul,

Which is the speech of trees,

Soft yet of clarity

And brimmed with verity

And all gay peace.

A SONG

O, Cranham ways are steep and green

And Cranham woods are high,

And if I was that black rook,

It’s there that I would fly.

But since I’m here in London town,

A silly walking man;

I’ll make this song and caw it

As loudly as I can.

MAY-FLOOD

Now the Spring’s cold

Foam-crested waves, the bright

Hedges, delay

To break and quench the light

Of golden fields with spray

Of hawthorn. As of old

Men saw the steep

Walls of the Red Sea round them,

Quiet sheep

Watch the wild hedge forbear to drown them.

BIG THINGS AND SMALL

This spinning spark in space—our Earth and all

Its vast envelopment of ancient night—

Is not a wonder greater or less than the white

Blossom now in the orchards, soon to fall.

And let men learn the secret of that bloom

And all its beauty’s wonder, they shall know

Life to the core; and they with God may go

To make a daisy or the day of doom.

AFTER LONG WANDERING

I will go back to Gloucestershire,

To the spot where I was born,

To the talk at eve with men and women

And song on the roads at morn.

And I’ll sing as I tramp by dusty hedges

Or drink my ale in the shade

How Gloucestershire is the finest home

That the Lord God ever made.

First I will go to the ancient house

Where Doomsday book was planned,

And cool my body and soul in shade

Of pillars huge which stand

Where the organ echoes thunder-like

Its paean of triumph and praise

In a temple lovely as ever the love

Of Beauty’s God did raise.

Gargoyles will thrust out heads to hearken,

A frozen forest of stone

Echo behind me as I pass

Out of the shadow alone

To buzz and bustle of Barton Fair

And its drifting droves of sheep,

To find three miles away the village

Where I will sleep.

Minsterworth, queen of riverside places

(Save Framilode, who can vie?),

To her I’ll go when day has dwindled

And the light low in the sky;

And my troubles shall fall from me, a bundle,

And youth come back again,

Seeing the smoke of her houses and hearing

The talk of Minsterworth men.

I’ll drink my perry and sing my song

Of home and home again,

Pierced with the old miraculous pleasure

Keen as sharpest pain;

And if I rise to sing on the morrow

Or if I die in my bed,

’Tis all the same: I’ll be home again,

And happy alive or dead.

THE MOON

What have you not seen,

Old White-face, looking down

Since the heavens were hollowed out

And winds were blown?

You saw white Helen

On the walls of Troy Town,

You silvered dew on the ruin

When Troy shook down.

Ulysses you saw

And the strange seas that bore him;

But all he wandered to see

You had seen before him.

Bodies black and yellow,

Gold tresses and brown,

The brown earth covers them ...

And you look down.

THE WIND’S GRIEF

The wind is grieving. Over what old woe

Howls it as though

Its very heart would break?—

The roving wind who merrily did make

A song all day in woods and meadows gay

Grieves in the night.

Is it for olden evil it hath done

’Neath moon and sun

Since first it roved the world?

Brave trees uprooted, ships and sailors hurled

To stormy death? or for the passing breath

Of flowers bright?

A WINDY NIGHT

The rain is done; and a great wind,

Filling the hollow night,

He shouts like a boy in an archway

And whistles with all his might.

He has blown the sky empty,

Except for the little stout

Stars, and they are flickering

As if they might go out.

All the black trees are crying;

The night is full of noise;

They are shouting under the arch of heaven

Like a school of rowdy boys.

RIDDLE CUM RUDDLE

The wains be unloaded, the ricks be in stack—

Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam;

An’ varmer be merry, an’ me an’ Jack

Sing Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam.

There’s wuts for the horses and hay for the cow—

Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam;

And wheat for bread, and barley for brew—

Sing Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam

Young randy lovers may praise the Spring—

Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam;

But this be the time ver to dance and sing

Riddle cum Ruddle!

Riddle cum Ruddle!

Riddle cum Ruddle!

The harvest’s whoam!

GLOUCESTERSHIRE FROM THE TRAIN

The golden fields wheel round—

Their spokes, green hedges;

And at the galloping sound

Of the train, from watery sedges

Arise familiar birds.

Pools brown, and blue, and green,

Criss-crossed with shadows,

Flash by, and in between

Gloucestershire meadows

Lie speckled red with herds.

A little flying farm,

With humped grey back

Against the rays that warm

To gold a last-year stack,

Like a friendly cat appears;