The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pier-Glass, by Robert Graves

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THE PIER-GLASS

ROBERT GRAVES

(From a Painting by Benjamin Nicholson).

THE PIER-GLASS

BY ROBERT GRAVES

LONDON: MARTIN SECKER

This myrrour I tote in, quasi diaphanum

Vel quasi speculum, in aenigmate....

Speke Parot, John Skelton.

THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS, LIMITED, LONDON AND NORWICH, ENGLAND

TO
NANCY NICHOLSON

NOTE

Most of the pieces here included have appeared serially in The London Mercury, The Athenæum, The Spectator, The Nation, The New Statesman, To-day, The Century Magazine and other periodicals, English and American.

Robert Graves.

Boar's Hill,
Oxford.

CONTENTS

THE STAKE

Naseboro' held him guilty,

Crowther took his part,

Who lies at the cross-roads,

A stake through his heart.

Spring calls, and the stake answers

Throwing out shoots;

The towns debate what life is this

Sprung from such roots.

Naseboro' says "A Upas Tree";

"A Rose," says Crowther;

But April's here to declare it

Neither one nor other.

Neither ill nor very fair,

Rose nor Upas,

But an honest oak-tree,

As its parent was.

A green-tufted oak-tree

On the green wold,

Careless as the dead heart

That the roots enfold.

THE TROLL'S NOSEGAY

A simple nosegay! was that much to ask?

(Winter still gloomed, with scarce a bud yet showing).

He loved her ill, if he resigned the task.

"Somewhere," she cried, "there must be blossom blowing."

It seems my lady wept and the troll swore

By Heaven he hated tears: he'd cure her spleen;

Where she had begged one flower, he'd shower fourscore,

A haystack bunch to amaze a China Queen.

Cold fog-drawn Lily, pale mist-magic Rose

He conjured, and in a glassy cauldron set

With elvish unsubstantial Mignonette

And such vague bloom as wandering dreams enclose.

But she?

Awed,

Charmed to tears,

Distracted,

Yet—

Even yet, perhaps, a trifle piqued—who knows?

THE PIER-GLASS

(To T. E. Lawrence, who helped me with it)

Lost manor where I walk continually

A ghost, while yet in woman's flesh and blood.

Up your broad stairs mounting with outspread fingers

And gliding steadfast down your corridors

I come by nightly custom to this room,

And even on sultry afternoons I come

Drawn by a thread of time-sunk memory.

Empty, unless for a huge bed of state

Shrouded with rusty curtains drooped awry

(A puppet theatre where malignant fancy

Peoples the wings with fear). At my right hand

A ravelled bell-pull hangs in readiness

To summon me from attic glooms above

Service of elder ghosts; here at my left

A sullen pier-glass cracked from side to side

Scorns to present the face as do new mirrors

With a lying flush, but shows it melancholy

And pale, as faces grow that look in mirrors.

Is here no life, nothing but the thin shadow

And blank foreboding, never a wainscote rat

Rasping a crust? Or at the window pane

No fly, no bluebottle, no starveling spider?

The windows frame a prospect of cold skies

Half-merged with sea, as at the first creation,

Abstract, confusing welter. Face about,

Peer rather in the glass once more, take note

Of self, the grey lips and long hair dishevelled,

Sleep-staring eyes. Ah, mirror, for Christ's love

Give me one token that there still abides

Remote, beyond this island mystery

So be it only this side Hope, somewhere,

In streams, on sun-warm mountain pasturage,

True life, natural breath; not this phantasma.

A rumour, scarcely yet to be reckoned sound,

But a pulse quicker or slower, then I know

My plea is granted; death prevails not yet.

For bees have swarmed behind in a close place

Pent up between this glass and the outer wall.

The combs are founded, the queen rules her court,

Bee-serjeants posted at the entrance chink

Are sampling each returning honey-cargo

With scrutinizing mouth and commentary,

Slow approbation, quick dissatisfaction.

Disquieting rhythm, that leads me home at last

From labyrinthine wandering. This new mood

Of judgment orders me my present duty,

To face again a problem strongly solved

In life gone by, but now again proposed

Out of due time for fresh deliberation.

Did not my answer please the Master's ear?

Yet, I'll stay obstinate. How went the question,

A paltry question set on the elements

Of love and the wronged lover's obligation?

Kill or forgive? Still does the bed ooze blood?

Let it drip down till every floor-plank rot!

Yet shall I answer, challenging the judgment:—

"Kill, strike the blow again, spite what shall come."

"Kill, strike, again, again," the bees in chorus hum.

THE FINDING OF LOVE

Before this generous time

Of Love in morning prime,

He had long season stood

Bound in a nightmare mood

Of dense murk, rarely lit

By Jack-o'-Lanthorn's flit

And straightway smothered spark

Of beasts' eyes in the dark,

Mourning with sense adrift,

Tears rolling swift.

With o, for Sun to blaze

Drying the cobweb-maze

Dew-sagged upon the corn,

With o, for flowering thorn,

For fly and butterfly,

For pigeons in the sky,

For robin and thrush,

For the long bulrush,

For cherry under the leaf,

For an end to grief,

For joy in steadfastness.

Then through his distress

And clouded vision came

An unknown gradual flame

By silent hands controlled,

Pale at first and cold,

Like wizard's lily-bloom

Conjured from the gloom,

Like torch of glow-worm seen

Through grasses shining green

By children half in fright,

Or Christmas candlelight

Flung on the outer snow,

Or tinsel stars that show

Their evening glory

With sheen of fairy story.

No more, no more,

Forget that went before!

Not a wrack remains

Of all his former pains.

Here's Love a drench of light,

A Sun dazzling the sight,

Well started on his race

Towards the Zenith space

Where fixed and sure

He shall endure,

Holding peace secure.

Now with his blaze

He dries the cobweb maze

Dew-sagging on the corn,

He brings the flowering thorn,

The fly and butterfly,

And pigeons in the sky,

The robin and the thrush,

And the long bulrush,

And cherry under the leaf,

Earth in a silken dress,

With end to grief,

With love in steadfastness.

REPROACH

Your grieving moonlight face looks down

Through the forest of my fears,

Crowned with a spiny bramble-crown,

Dew-dropped with evening tears.

Why do you spell "untrue, unkind,"

Reproachful eyes plaguing my sleep?

I am not guilty in my mind

Of aught would make you weep.

Untrue? but how, what broken oath?

Unkind? I know not even your name.

Unkind, untrue, you charge me both,

Scalding my heart with shame.

The black trees shudder, dropping snow,

The stars tumble and spin.

Speak, speak, or how may a child know

His ancestral sin?

THE MAGICAL PICTURE

Glinting on the roadway

A broken mirror lay:

Then what did the child say

Who found it there?

He cried there was a goblin

Looking out as he looked in—

Wild eyes and speckled skin,

Black, bristling hair!

He brought it to his father

Who being a simple sailor

Swore, "This is a true wonder,

Deny it who can!

Plain enough to me, for one,

It's a portrait aptly done

Of Admiral, the great Lord Nelson

When a young man."

The sailor's wife perceiving

Her husband had some pretty thing

At which he was peering,

Seized it from his hand.

Then tears started and ran free,

"Jack, you have deceived me,

I love you no more," said she,

"So understand!"

"But, Mary," says the sailor,

"This is a famous treasure,

Admiral Nelson's picture

Taken in youth."

"Viper and fox," she cries,

"To trick me with such lies,

Who is this wench with the bold eyes?

Tell the full truth!"

Up rides the parish priest

Mounted on a fat beast.

Grief and anger have not ceased

Between those two;

Little Tom still weeps for fear;

He has seen Hobgoblin, near,

Great white teeth and foul leer

That pierced him through.

Now the old priest lifts his glove

Bidding all for God's love

To stand and not to move,

Lest blood be shed.

"O, O!" cries the urchin,

"I saw the devil grin,

He glared out, as I looked in;

A true death's head!"

Mary weeps, "Ah, Father,

My Jack loves another!

On some voyage he courted her

In a land afar."

This, with cursing, Jack denies:—

"Father, use your own eyes:

It is Lord Nelson in disguise

As a young tar."

When the priest took the glass,

Fresh marvels came to pass

"A saint of glory, by the Mass!

"Where got you this?"

He signed him with the good Sign,

Be sure the relic was divine,

He would fix it in a shrine

For pilgrims to kiss.

There the chapel folk who come

(Honest, some, and lewd, some),

See the saint's eyes and are dumb,

Kneeling on the flags.

Some see the Doubter Thomas,

And some Nathaniel in the glass,

And others whom but old Saint Judas

With his money bags?

DISTANT SMOKE

Seth and the sons of Seth who followed him

Halted in silence: labour, then, was vain.

Fast at the zenith, blazoned in his splendour,

Hung the fierce Sun, wherefore these travelling folk

Stood centred each in his own disc of shade.

The term proposed was ended; now to enjoy

The moment's melancholy; their tears fell shining.

Yesterday early at the dreadful hour,

When life ebbs lowest, when the strand of being

Is slowly bared until discovered show

Weed-mantelled hulks that foundered years ago

At autumn anchorage, then father Adam

Summoned in haste his elder generations

To his death-tent, and gasping spoke to them,

Forthwith defining an immediate journey

Beyond the eastern ridge, in quest for one

Whom he named Cain, brother to Seth, true uncle

To these young spearmen; they should lead him here

For a last benediction at his hands.

First-born yet outlawed! Scarcely they believed

In this strange word of "Cain," in this new man,

Man, yet outside the tents; but Adam swore

And gave them a fair sign of recognition.

There was a brand, he said, a firm red pillar

Parting Cain's brows, and Cain had mighty hands,

Sprouting luxurious hair, red, like his beard.

Moreover Adam said that by huge strength

Himself could stay this ebb of early morning,

Yet three days longer, three days, though no more—

This for the stern desire and long disquietude

That was his love for Cain; whom God had cursed.

Then would he kiss all fatherly and so die—

Kneeling, with eyes abased, they made him promise,

Swore, at the midpoint of their second day,

If unsped in the search of whom he named,

They would come hasting home to Adam's tent.

They touched his bony fingers; forth they went.

Now Seth, shielding his eyes, sees mistily

Breaking the horizon thirty miles away

(A full day's journey) what but a wisp, a feather,

A thin line, half a nothing—distant smoke!

Blown smoke, a signal from that utmost ridge

Of desolation—the camp fire of Cain.

He to restrain his twelve impetuous sons

(He knows the razor-edge of their young spirit)

Dissembles seeing, turns his steps about,

Bids them come follow, but they little heeding,

Scarce noting his commands, fasten their eyes

On smoke, so forfeit Adam's benediction,

Striding forward into the wilderness

With eager thighs, forgetful of their oath,

Adventurous for this monster, a new man,

Their own kin—how accursed?—they haste for

wonder.

MORNING PHOENIX

In my body lives a flame,

Flame that burns me all the day,

When a fierce sun does the same,

I am charred away.

Who could keep a smiling wit,

Roasted so in heart and hide,

Turning on the sun's red spit,

Scorched by love inside?

Caves I long for and cold rocks,

Minnow-peopled country brooks,

Blundering gales of Equinox,

Sunless valley-nooks.

Daily so I might restore

Calcined heart and shrivelled skin,

A morning phoenix with proud roar

Kindled new within.

CATHERINE DRURY

Mother

Edward will not taste his food,

Nor touch his drink,

Flings me answers gruff and rude:

Why, I dare not think.

Sister

Mother, do not try to know

All that moves in Edward's heart,

The fiery gloom he will not show;

You and he who lay so near

Fall wide apart.

Watch your rival, mother dear:

Catherine Drury does not guess

His dark love or your envious fear,

Her own loveliness.

She will laugh, she will play,

Never know the hurt she does:

Edward's heart will melt away,

His head go buzz,

And if he thinks you read his mind,

Better you had been struck stone blind.

RAISING THE STONE

A shaft of moon from the cloud-hurried sky,

Has coursed the wide dark heath, but nowhere found

One paler patch to illumine—oats nor rye,

Chalk-pit nor waterpool nor sandy ground—

Till, checked by our thronged faces on the mound

(A wedge of whiteness) universally

Strained backward from the task that holds us bound,

It beams on set jaw and hate-maddened eye.

The vast stone lifts, turns, topples, in its fall

Spreads death: but we who live raise a shrill chant

Of joy for sacrifice cleansing us all.

Once more we heave. Erect in earth we plant,

The interpreter of our dumb furious call,

Outraging Heaven, pointing

"I want, I want."

THE TREASURE BOX

Ann in chill moonlight unlocks

Her polished brassbound treasure-box,

Draws a soft breath, prepares to spread

The toys around her on the bed.

She dips for luck: by luck pulls out

A silver pig with ring in snout,

The sort that Christmas puddings yield;

Next comes a painted nursery shield

Boy-carved; and then two yellow gloves,

A Limerick wonder that Ann loves,

Leather so thin and joined so well

The pair fold in a walnut shell;

Here's patchwork that her sister made

With antique silk and flower brocade,

Small faded scraps in memory rich

Joined each to each with feather-stitch;

Here's cherry and forget-me-not

Ribbon bunched in a great knot;

A satin purse with pansies on it;

A Tudor baby's christening bonnet;

Old Mechlin lace minutely knit

(Some woman's eyes went blind for it);

And Spanish broideries that pinch

Three blossomed rosetrees to one inch;

Here are Ann's brooches, simple pins,

A Comet brooch, two Harlequins,

A Posy; here's a great resplendent

Dove-in-bush Italian pendant;

A Chelsea gift-bird; a toy whistle;

A halfpenny stamped with the Scots thistle;

A Breguet watch; a coral string;

Her mother's thin-worn wedding ring;

A straw box full of hard smooth sweets;

A book, the Poems of John Keats;

A chessman; a pink paper rose;

A diary dwindling to its close

Nine months ago; a worsted ball;

A patchbox; a stray match—that's all,

All but a few small treasured scraps

Of paper; things forbid perhaps—

See how slowly Ann unties

The packet where her heartache lies;

Watch her lips move; she slants a letter

Up towards the moon to read it better,

(The moon may master what he can).

R stands for Richard, A for Ann

And L ... at this the old moon blinks

And softly from the window shrinks.

THE KISS

Are you shaken, are you stirred

By a whisper of love,

Spellbound to a word

Does Time cease to move,

Till her calm grey eye

Expands to a sky

And the clouds of her hair

Like storms go by?

Then the lips that you have kissed

Turn to frost and fire,

And a white-steaming mist

Obscures desire:

So back to their birth

Fade water, air, earth,

And the First Power moves

Over void and dearth.

Is that Love? no, but Death,

A passion, a shout,

The deep in-breath,

The breath roaring out,

And once that is flown,

You must lie alone,

Without hope, without life,

Poor flesh, sad bone.

LOST LOVE

His eyes are quickened so with grief,

He can watch a grass or leaf

Every instant grow; he can

Clearly through a flint wall see,

Or watch the startled spirit flee

From the throat of a dead man.

Across two counties he can hear,

And catch your words before you speak.

The woodlouse or the maggot's weak

Clamour rings in his sad ear;

And noise so slight it would surpass

Credence:—drinking sound of grass,

Worm talk, clashing jaws of moth

Chumbling holes in cloth:

The groan of ants who undertake

Gigantic loads for honour's sake,

Their sinews creak, their breath comes thin:

Whir of spiders when they spin,

And minute whispering, mumbling, sighs

Of idle grubs and flies.

This man is quickened so with grief,

He wanders god-like or like thief

Inside and out, below, above,

Without relief seeking lost love.

FOX'S DINGLE

Take now a country mood,

Resolve, distil it:—

Nine Acre swaying alive,

June flowers that fill it,

Spicy sweet-briar bush,

The uneasy wren

Fluttering from ash to birch

And back again,

Milkwort on its low stem,

Spread hawthorn tree,

Sunlight patching the wood,

A hive-bound bee....

Girls riding nim-nim-nim,

Ladies, trot-trot,

Gentlemen hard at gallop,

Shouting, steam-hot.

Now over the rough turf

Bridles go jingle,

And there's a well loved pool,

By Fox's Dingle,

Where Sweetheart, my brown mare,

Old Glory's daughter,

May loll her leathern tongue

In snow-cool water.

THE GNAT

The shepherd Watkin heard an inner voice

Calling "My creature, ho! be warned, be ready!"

Calling, "The moment comes, therefore be ready!"

And a third time calling, "Creature, be ready!"

This old poor man mistook the call, which sounded

Not for himself, but for his pensioner.

Now (truth or phantasy) the shepherd nourished

Fast in his brain, due earnings of transgression,

A creature like to that avenging fly

Once crept unseen in at King Herod's ear,

Tunnelling gradually inwards, upwards,

Heading for flowery pastures of the brain,

And battened on such grand, presumptuous fare

As grew him brazen claws and brazen hair

And wings of iron mail. Old Watkin felt

A like intruder channelling to and fro.

He cursed his day and sin done in past years,

Repentance choked, pride that outlawed his heart,

So that at night often in thunderous weather

Racked with the pain he'd start

From sleep, incontinently howling, leaping,

Striking his hoar head on the cottage walls,

Stamping his feet, dragging his hair by the roots.

He'd rouse the Gnat to anger, send it buzzing

Like a huge mill, scraping with metal claws

At his midpoint of being; forthwith tumble

With a great cry for Death to stoop and end him.

Now Watkin hears the voice and weeps for bliss,

The voice that warned "Creature, the time is come."

Merciful Death, was it Death, all his desire?

Promised of Heaven, and speedy? O Death, come!

Only for one thought must he make provision,

For honest Prinny, for old bob-tail Prinny.

Another master? Where? These hillside crofters

Were spiteful to their beasts and mercenary.

Prinny to such? No, Prinny too must die.

By his own hand, then? Murder! By what other?

No human hand should touch the sacrifice,

No human hand;

God's hand then, through his temporal minister.

Three times has Watkin in the morning early

When not a soul was rising, left his flock,

Come to the Minister's house through the cold mist,

Clicked at the latch and slowly moved the gate,

Faltered, held back and dared not enter in.

"Not this time, Prinny, we'll not rouse them yet,

To-morrow, surely, for our death is tokened,

My death and your death with small interval.

We meet in fields beyond; be sure of it, Prinny!"

On the next night

The busy Gnat, swollen to giant size,

Pent-up within the skull, knew certainly,

As a bird knows in the egg, his hour was come.

The thrice repeated call had given him summons ...

He must out, crack the shell, out, out!

He strains, claps his wings, arches his back,

Drives in his talons, out! out!

In the white anguish of this travail, Watkin

Hurls off his blankets, tears an axe from the nail

Batters the bed, hews table, splits the floor,

Hears Prinny whine at his feet, leaps, strikes again,

Strikes, yammering.

At that instant with a clatter

Noise of a bursting dam, a toppling wall,

Out flies the new-born creature from his mouth

And humming fearsomely like a huge engine,

Rackets about the room, smites the unseen

Glass of half-open windows, reels, recovers,

Soars out into the meadows, and is gone.

Silence prolonged to an age. Watkin still lives?

The hour of travail by the voice foretold

Brought no last throbbings of the dying Body

In child-birth of the Soul. Watkin still lives.

Labourer Watkin delves in the wet fields.

Did an old shepherd die that night with Prinny,

Die weeping with his head on the outraged corpse?

Oh, he's forgotten. A dead dream, a cloud.

Labourer Watkin delves, drowsily, numbly,

His harsh spade grates among the buried stones.

THE PATCHWORK BONNET

Across the room my silent love I throw,

Where you sit sewing in bed by candlelight,

Your young stern profile and industrious fingers

Displayed against the blind in a shadow show,

To Dinda's grave delight.

The needle dips and pokes, the cheerful thread

Runs after, follow-my-leader down the seam:

The patchwork pieces cry for joy together,

O soon to sit as a crown on Dinda's head,

Fulfilment of their dream.

Snippets and odd ends folded by, forgotten,

With camphor on a top shelf, hard to find,

Now wake to this most happy resurrection,

To Dinda playing toss with a reel of cotton

And staring at the blind.

Dinda in sing-song stretching out one hand

Calls for the playthings; mother does not hear:

Her mind sails far away on a patchwork Ocean,

And all the world must wait till she touches land,

So Dinda cries in fear,

Then Mother turns, laughing like a young fairy,

And Dinda smiles to see her look so kind,

Calls out again for playthings, playthings, playthings,

And now the shadows make an Umbrian "Mary

Adoring," on the blind.

KIT LOGAN AND LADY HELEN

Here is Kit Logan with her love-child come

To Lady Helen's gate:

Then down sweeps Helen from the Italian room,

She, with her child of hate.

Kit's boy was born of violent hot desire,

Helen's of hate and dread:

Poor girl, betrayed to union with the Squire,

Loathing her marriage bed.

Kit Logan, who is father to your boy?

But Helen knows, too well:

Listen what biting taunts they both employ,

Watch their red anger swell.

Yet each would give her undying soul to be

Changed to the other's place.

Kit from the wet road's tasking cruelty

Looks up to silk and lace,

Helen looks down at rags, her fluttering pride

Caught in this cage of glass,

Eager to trudge, thieve, beg by the road-side,

Or starving to eat grass ...

Silence. Wrath dies. For Woman's old good name

Each swears a sister's oath;

Weeping, they kiss; to the Squire's lasting shame,

Who broke the heart in both.

DOWN

Downstairs a clock had chimed, two o'clock only.

Then outside from the hen-roost crowing came.

But why should Shift-wing call against the clock,

Three hours from dawn? The shutters click and knock,

And he remembers a sad superstition

Unfitting for the sick-bed—Turn aside,

Distract, divide, ponder the simple tales

That puzzled childhood; riddles, turn them over,

Half-riddles, answerless, the more intense!—

Lost bars of music tinkling with no sense

Recur, drowning uneasy superstition.

Mouth open, he was lying, this sick man,

And sinking all the while; how had he come

To sink? On better nights his dream went flying,

Dipping, sailing the pasture of his sleep,

But now, since clock and cock, had sunk him down

Through mattress, bed, floor, floors beneath, stairs, cellars,

Through deep foundations of the manse; still sinking

Through unturned earth. How had he cheated space

With inadvertent motion or word uttered

Of too-close-packed intelligence (such there are)

That he should penetrate with sliding ease,

Dense earth, compound of ages, granite ribs

And groins? Consider, there was some word uttered,

Some abracadabra—then like a stage-ghost,

Funereally with weeping, down, drowned, lost!

Oh, to be a child once more, sprawling at ease,

On warm turf of a ruined castle court.

Once he had dropped a stone between flat slabs

That mask the ancient well, mysteriously

Plunging his mind down with it. Hear it go

Rattling and rocketing down in secret void.

Count slowly one, two, three! and echoes rise

Fainter and fainter, merged in the gradual hum

Of bees and flies; only a thin draught rises

To chill the drowsy air; he for a while

Lay without spirit; until that floated back

From the deep waters. Oh, to renew now

The bliss of repossession, kindly sun

Forfeit for ever, and the scent of thyme!

Falling, falling! Light closed up behind him,

Now stunned by the violent subterrene flow

Of rivers, whirling down to hiss below

On the flame-axis of this terrible world;

Toppling upon their water-fall, O spirit ...

SAUL OF TARSUS

"Share and share alike

In the nest" was the rule,

But Paul had a wide throat,

He loved his belly-full.

Over the edge went Peter,

After him went John,

True-blooded young nestlings

Thrown out, one by one.

If Mother Church was proud

Of her great cuckoo son,

He bit off her simple head

Before he had done.

STORM: AT THE FARM WINDOW

The unruly member (for relief

Of aching head) clacks without care;

Pastures lie sullen; hung with grief

The steading: thunder binds the air.

Gulls on the blue sea-surface rock:

The cows move lowing to scant shade;

Jess lays aside the half-worked smock,

Dan, in his ditch, lets fall the spade.

Now swoops the outrageous hurricane

With lightning in steep pitchfork jags;

The blanched hill leaps in sheeted rain,

Sea masses white to assault the crags.

Such menace tottering overhead,

Old Jess for ague scolds no more;

She sees grey bobtail flung down dead

Lightning-blazed by the barn door—

Wonder and panic chase our grief,

Purge our thick distempered blood;

Man, cattle, harvest shock and sheaf,

Stagger below the sluicing flood....

BLACK HORSE LANE

Dame Jane the music mistress,

the music mistress;

Sharkie the baker of Black Horse Lane,

At sound of a fiddle

Caught her up by the middle—

And away like swallows from the lane,

Flying out together—

From the crooked lane.

What words said Sharkie to her,

said Sharkie to her?

How did she look in the lane?

No neighbour heard

One sigh or one word,

Not a sound but the fiddling in Black Horse Lane,

The happy noise of music—

Again and again.

Where now be those two old 'uns,

be those two old 'uns,

Sharkie the baker run off with Jane?

Hark ye up to Flint Street,

Halloo to Pepper-Mint Street,

Follow by the fells to the great North Plain,

By the fells and the river—

To the cold North Plain.

How came this passion to them,

this passion to them,

Love in a freshet on Black Horse Lane?

It came without warning

One blue windy morning

So they scarcely might know was it joy or pain,

With scarce breath to wonder—

Was it joy or pain.

Took they no fardels with them,

no fardels with them,

Out and alone on the ice-bound plain?

Sharkie he had rockets

And crackers in his pockets,

Ay, and she had a plaid shawl to keep off the rain,

An old Highland plaid shawl—

To keep off the rain.

RETURN

The seven years' curse is ended now

That drove me forth from this kind land,

From mulberry-bough and apple bough

And gummy twigs the west-wind shakes,

To drink the brine from crusted lakes

And grit my teeth on sand.

The load that from my shoulder slips

Straightway upon your own is tied,

You, too, shall scorch your finger-tips,

With scrabbling on the desert's face

Such thoughts I had for this green place,

Sent scapegoat for your pride.

Now for your cold, malicious brain

And most uncharitable, cold heart,

You, too, shall clank the seven years' chain

On sterile ground for all time curst

With famine's itch and flames of thirst,

The blank sky's counterpart.

Here, Robin on a tussock sits,

And Cuckoo with his call of hope

Cuckoos awhile, then off he flits,

While peals of dingle-dongle keep

Troop discipline among the sheep

That graze across the slope.

A brook from fields of gentle sun,

Through the glade his water heaves,

The falling cone would well-nigh stun

That squirrel wantonly lets drop,

When up he scampers to tree-top,

And dives among the green.

Yet, no, I ask a wider peace

Than peace your heart could comprehend,

More ample than my own release;

Go, be you loosed from your right fate,

Go with forgiveness and no hate;

Here let the story end.

INCUBUS

Asleep, amazed, with lolling head,

Arms in supplication spread,

Body shudders, dumb with fear;

There lifts the Moon, but who am I,

Cloaked in shadow wavering by,

Stooping, muttering at his ear?

Bound is Body, foot and hand,

Bound to lie at my command,

Horror bolted to lie still

While I sap what sense I will.

Through the darkness here come I,

Softly fold about the prey;

Body moaning must obey,

Must not question who or why,

Must accept me, come what may,

Dumbly must obey.

When owls and cocks dispute the dawn,

Through the window I am drawn

Streaming out, a foggy breath.

... Body wakens with a sigh

From the spell that was half Death,

Smiles for freedom, blinks an eye

At the sun-commanded sky,

"O morning scent and treetop song,

Slow-rising smoke and nothing wrong!"

THE HILLS OF MAY

Walking with a virgin heart

The green hills of May,

Me, the Wind, she took as lover

By her side to play.

Let me toss her untied hair,

Let me shake her gown,

Careless though the daisies redden,

Though the Sun frown.

Scorning in her gay courage

Lesser love than this,

My cool spiritual embracing,

My gentle kiss.

So she walked, the proud lady,

So danced or ran,

So she loved with a calm heart,

Neglecting man....

Fade, fail, innocent stars

On the green of May;

She has left our bournes for ever,

Too fine to stay.

THE CORONATION MURDER
In Four Parts

"Fairplay's good sport, and we're all mortal worms."—Mrs. Delilah Becker.

I

Blessed above all women

Shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be.

Jael, a queen in Heaven

Surely will speak out straight in defence of me.

Shall I despair Salvation?

Was Sisera then more ripe for the knife or nail

Than rat-soul'd Becker? Do I misread the tale?

I was no stealthy serpent.

(Jael flattered and killed her man as he slept.)

I was a lion, I challenged before I leapt.

Three times I gave clear warning

(Fair-play's good sport), then standing I struck him dead.

Ram-faced lecher, the blood on his own beast head!

Blessed above all women

Shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be.

Ah, she won fame for her triumph,

My inward joy was payment enough for me.

II

Old Becker crawling in the night

From his grave at the stair-foot,

Labours up the long flight,

Feeble, dribbling, black as soot,

Quakes at his own ghostly fright.

A cat goes past with lantern eyes

Shooting splendour through the dark.

Murder! Help! a voice cries

In nightmare; the son dreams that stark

In lead his vanished father lies.

A stair-top glimmer points the goal.

Becker goes wavering up, tongue-tied,

Stoops, with eye to keyhole....

There, a tall candle by her side,

Delilah sits, serene and whole.

Her fingers turn the prayer-book leaves,

Her forehead hints no mental strife:

Soft and calm her breast heaves:

So calmly, with his cobbling knife

She stabbed him through ... now never grieves.

Baffled, aghast with hate, mouse-poor,

He glares and clatters the brass knob ...

Through his heart it slid sure:

He bowed, he died with never a sob,

Again she stabbed, now sits secure.

Praying as she has always prayed

For great Victoria's Majesty,

Droning prayer for God's aid

To succour long dead Royalty,

The Consort Prince, Queen Adelaide....

She falls asleep, the clocks chime two;

Old Becker sinks to unquiet rest.

Loud and sad the cats mew:

Lead weighs cruelly on his breast:

His bones are tufted with mildew.

III

What's that, who's that comes breaking on my sleep

With groans? What, father, you? (The very look,

The same smudged foolish face like an old sheep

Even after twenty years scarcely mistook.)

Speak, Father, speak; that night what came to you

Vanished in wrath or terror? Tell the tale;

Your beer left still in mug, your half-made shoe

On last, your turnip ticking on its nail!

"Son, it was Death. I have not stirred a foot

Out of this horrible dwelling all these years,

But planted like a kail I have taken root

Under the stairs, my son, under the stairs.

"Do not avenge me, Henry. Let all slide.

I grudge your death. See, do not touch the snake.

A cowardice taints you from your father's side

And a coward's lusts, but curb them, for my sake!

"Back to your grave, back Father, lest she wake!"

IV

Two full hours before the dawn,

Dotard Parrot cocks an ear

To the sleeper's moan, long-drawn,

To her slurring tale of fear.

Parrot hears Delilah tell

Who lies dead below the stair;

How he shuddered, stumbled, fell;

In whose cause she laid him there.

The knife bit, thus: thus, the blood spread!

Connoisseur of fo'c'stle speeches

Parrot tilts his bald, sly head,

Learns the spicy yarn she teaches.

Soon, when sunlight warms his cage,

He plots to cheer the passers-by

With burlesque of murderous rage,

Acting how his victims die:

Thus, he stabs 'em; there, they lie.

POETRY BY THE SAME AUTHOR

1916 Over the Brazier Poetry Bookshop.
(New edition with slight alterations, 1920.)
1917 Fairies and Fusiliers William Heinemann.
American edition, 1918. Alfred Knopf.
1920 Country Sentiment Martin Secker.
American edition, 1920. Alfred Knopf.
Contributions to Georgian Poetry, 1915-1917 and 1918-19.

MARTIN SECKER'S
BOOKS

MCMXXI

NOTE

The prices indicated
in this catalogue are
in every case net

NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET
ADELPHI LONDON

General Literature

Verse

Drama

Fiction

The Tales of Henry James

The Art and Craft of Letters

Martin Seeker's Series of Critical Studies

Transcriber's Note

Minor punctuation and printer errors were corrected.