OXFORD POETRY
1917

EDITED BY
W. R. C., T. W. E., AND D. L. S.

(SECOND IMPRESSION)

OXFORD
B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET
1918

OXFORD POETRY SERIES

OXFORD POETRY 1910-1913. Edited by G. D. H. C., G. P. D., and W. S. V. With an Introduction by Gilbert Murray. Cloth boards, 4s. net.

OXFORD POETRY 1914. Edited by G. D. H. C. and W. S. V. With a Preface by Sir Walter Raleigh. [Out of print.

OXFORD POETRY 1915. Edited by G. D. H. C. and T. W. E. Roxburgh parchment, 2s. 6d. net; sewed, 1s. 3d. net.

OXFORD POETRY 1916. Edited by T. W. E., W R. C., and A. L. H. Uniform with the above.

OXFORD POETRY 1914-1916. Uniform with the 1910-1913 volume. Now ready. 4s. net.

NEW YORK AGENTS
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., FOURTH AVENUE
AND THIRTIETH STREET

[CONTENTS]

P. BLOOMFIELD

SECOND-BEST

I would sail all alone up the stream,

Since you are far away, dear brother;

I would sail alone, and rather dream

Of you, than change thoughts with another.

Now May is come so beautiful, so blue,

And the chestnuts and the willows are green

Again ... then, since I may not be near you,

Dear brother, let me sail alone, unseen,

'Neath the overhanging buds, past rushes

Where the white, graceful swan sits on her nest,

Hear the song of the ripples and thrushes

And be with solitude ... the second-best.

All alone up the stream would I sail,

Think of your smile, and your voice, and eyes,

Fear you were out of a fairy-tale,

Paint your vision, brother, in the skies.

M. ST. CLARE BYRNE

[FAVETE LINGUIS]

There are few people, being by,

That leave me peacefully to lie:

Mostly their restless brains, or mine,

Seek each the other to divine:

Silence, that rightfully should be

Clear-hearted as a stretch of sea

That runs far inland, luminous,

To rest in still shades verdurous,

Becomes instead a thwarted thing,

With only waywardness to bring.

All otherwise in you I find

The inner places of the mind:

The gift of quiet on your brow

Like some long benediction now

Closes upon me: spirit-born

Tranquillity enfolds each worn

Wan thought, with slender fingers cool

Drawing away from off the pool

Of night the mists that hide a star,

Dreaming wondrously afar:

Till vision cometh down for me

In gracious white serenity.

J. E. A. CARVER

TINTAGIL

I lay on the verge of a Western cliff

On a waning Summer's day,

And watched the seagulls' skimming flight

As their shrill call filled the bay.

The waves rolled on from pool to pool

To the end of the rock-strewn lea:

Where a glistening stream through a vale sped on,

With its leaping trout, to the sea.

The wind rose, too, from a breath to a blast

As the rising tide drew near,

And the rain-clouds swelled from the distant deep,

So I knew 'twas a storm to fear.

I've lived on that coast for years now,

And I love the roar of the waves

As they lash the seaweed on the shore,

And the cold grey rocks and the caves.

EUGENE PARKER CHASE

ON SUSSEX DOWNS

A boy stood on the windy Sussex downs,

Resting a moment in his lonely walk

To gaze at the fresh fields, and their neighbour towns

Sunk in the valleys watered by thin streams

And sheltered by the pallid hills of chalk.

It seemed a land for slow and leisured dreams,

For fantasy, vague and cool as the mist.

The church there in the field, with yew-trees round

Should send across the air a silver sound

Of holy bells. The loud rooks should desist

A moment from their cawing; the dim sun

Brighten his face, the rounded meadows glisten,

And all the windswept grassy hillsides listen

And then take up the sound the bells begun.

Slowly, at length, rounding the hill, a white,

Long, slender, floating airship flies.

It, of this quiet landscape, is the sight

Most peaceful—white splash on the blue spring skies.

It passes over the church-crowned slope, it blends

Its whiteness for a moment with the cloud,

And finally, with nose a little bowed,

Off towards the distant sea its course it bends.

The watching boy beheld no other change

In all the placid, comfortable scene,

And yet he deeply realized what mean

The airships and the other things that are strange,

But form a living part of England now;

And when he left the place where he had been,

He seemed to have become a man somehow.

W. R. CHILDE

THE LAST ABBOT OF GLOUCESTER

The Middle Ages sleep in alabaster

A delicate fine sleep. They never knew

The irreparable hell of that disaster,

That broke with hammers Heaven's fragile blue.

Yea, crowned and robed and silent he abides,

Last of the Romans and that ivory calm,

Beneath whose wings august the minster-sides

Trembled like virgins to the perfect Psalm.

Yea, it is gone with him, yea, it returns not;

The gilt proud sanctuaries are dust, the high

Steam of the violet fragrant frankincense burns not:

All gone; it was too beautiful to die.

It was too beautiful to live; the world

Ne'er rotted it with her slow-creeping hells:

Men shall not see the Vision crowned and pearled,

When Jerusalem blossomed in the noontide bells!

THE GOTHIC ROSE

Amid the blue smoke of gem-glassed chapels

You shall find Me, the white five-wounded Flower,

The Rose of Sarras. Yea, the moths have eaten,

And fretted the gold cloths of the duke of York,

And lost is the scarlet cloak of the cardinal Beaufort;

Tapers are quencht and rods of silver broken,

Where once king Richard dined beneath the leopards:

But think you that any beautifulness is wasted,

Wherewith Mine angels have blessed the blue-eyed English,

Twining into stone an obscure dream of Heaven,

A crown of flinty spines about the Rose,

A slim flame blessing the coronal of thorns?

And York is for ever the White Rose of Mary,

And Lancaster is dipt in the Precious Blood,

Though the high shrine that was built by the king of the Romans

Be down at Hayles, and the abbey of saint Mary

Be shattered now in three-towered Eboracum.

GERALD H. CROW

AD DOMINAM SUAM MARIAM VIRGINEM

O lily Lady of loveliness,

O tender-hearted, marvellous-eyed,

Bend from Thine aureate throne and bless

The lonely people and comfortless

At Jesu-Mass and Vespertide.

And bless the mighty and proud of mien,

The scornful folk that pity and pass,—

For they are lonely as none have been,

The proud that lack on whom to lean—

At Vespertide and Jesu-Mass.

And bless before Thou makest end

Both me and mine in sorrow and pride,

Where frankincense and prayer ascend

And kneeling lilies whisper and bend

At Jesu-Mass and Vespertide.

DESIDERIO DESIDERAVI

Dear Father God, I want but one thing now.

Because I have been heart-proud all my days,

And given and asked all proudly for Love's sake,

In search of some lost tenderness out of the world,

And somehow never found it, I want this.

I want to choose my death as I have chosen

Mine other lovers proudly, and cleave to him.

I do not want to die afraid and failing

Some king that trusted me; nor yet to leave

This beautiful bright-coloured world in anguish,

Dirt, ugliness, old age, or shamefully

Eaten up with lust. I want to make myself

Lovelier on that last day than any of these

My lovers yet have found me, and so to die

Calmly by mine own hand and follow after

That tenderness that somehow passed me by,

That tenderness that will not let me be.

HUMILITY

Take counsel, O my friend, of your heart's pride,

And choose the proud thing alway. Never heed

The "wretched, rash, intruding fools" of the world,

Nor take the half-truths that life brings old men

For wisdom: nor the naked indecencies

That purity-mongers have shamed children with

For goodness: nor the silly hypocrisies

Of mean men for humility. But say,

"God is my Father. Christ was young and died

To comfort me. The towering archangels

With all their blue and gold and steely mail

Are my strong helpers and mine elder brothers.

The sweet white virgins gone to martyrdom

Calm-eyed and singing are my sisters." Yea,

Because of all these things keep your heart proud.

Be proud enough to serve the poor, too proud

To attend the rich: enough to love, not hate,

And give, not sell. Remember gentleness

Is the heart's pride of understanding, truth

Her greatness that will not be afraid for wrath

Nor flatter favour. This remember also,

The pure in heart shall walk like fierce white flames

Questing across the world in goodlier hope

And knightlier courtesy than they of the Graal,

For these are they in the end that shall see God.

D. N. DALGLISH

OTMOOR

The armies take the field in May,

And trees go marching all the day

On Otmoor, where the winds are strong

And mornings are a season long;

Where shining clouds halt for a pace,

Idling behind out of the race.

On Otmoor, hedges never die

Once spring has flung her tapestry;

And there most kindly summer throws

The lightest snowflakes of the rose,

And buttercups grow tall and straight

In fields that keep an open gate,

And daisies make a frosty gleam;

And yet you may not sleep nor dream,

Though field and road and wood are blessed,

Touched by the peaceful hands of rest.

On Otmoor, you may hear the voice

Of living green things that rejoice—

Hedges that boast defended fields,

And green seclusions proud of shields;

Great open deserts in the sky,

Cool icebergs slowly riding by

In the unruffled sea of blue;

Branches that let the sun pass through,

The cuckoo and the ecstatic lark,

Shadows that play at being dark—

In every leaf and stem and flower

There throbs a kindly, silent power,

And energies of being pass

From every breeze that stirs the grass,

And close around, with friendly care,

I feel the encircling sky and air,

That keep me safe, that hold without

Each shuddering fear, each traitorous doubt.

So am I safe and fenced around;

Boundless themselves, they set my bound,

For, should I make the ring less wide,

My fears start up on every side;

And only in unmeasured space

Can lives meet Life with braver face.

Here I may watch the silent earth

Consuming what shall come to birth;

For every leaf that falls and dies

Unbounded woodlands shall arise,

And though the roadside stream be dead,

New springs leap at the mountain head.

E. C. DICKINSON

A CHILD'S VOICE

'Twas in a far back swallow-time

When the air was filled with chime

Of Sunday bells that danced in tune

With Eastern phantasies,

A child within a garden's boon

Oft sighed with saddened eyes.

A swallow screamed and wheeled at him

Beside the greenhouse door;

It knew that there he strove to limn

The need in his soul's core:

And he is lonely and sad who tells

His need to Sunday bells.

Of playfellows there was not one

To whom at wake of sun

The child might turn to speak a dream

Of lazy summer seas

O'er which a ship rode fair of beam

Bringing his soul's keys;

And how a wondrous alien boy

Trod proud that ship of Fate.

There mid the bells of Sunday joy

He whispered, "Come not late

Within my longing, for my play

Won't keep for any day."

"The greenhouse tank is stagnant now

Under the cherry bough;

And there a ship is by the quay,

The joy of my Baghdad.

Oh come, oh come and play with me

That I should not be sad."

The jewelled shade of evening's hood

Held many Eastern tales;

And cinnamon and sandalwood

Lurked in his camels' bales.

But then a swallow harshly screamed

And tumbled what he dreamed.

And that was back in swallow-time

With life a child's rhyme.

And some came true of what he dreamed,