OXFORD POETRY
1919

Uniform with this Volume

OXFORD POETRY, 1914
(Out of Print)
OXFORD POETRY, 1915
OXFORD POETRY, 1916
OXFORD POETRY, 1917
OXFORD POETRY, 1918

OXFORD POETRY
1919

EDITED BY
T. W. E., D. L. S., and S. S.

OXFORD
B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET
1920

The following authors wish to make acknowledgment for permission kindly given to reprint: Mr. E. Dickinson, to the editor of Coterie; Mr. P. H. B. Lyon, to the editor of the Spectator ("The Song of Strength"); Mr. W. Force Stead, to the editor of the Poetry Review.

[CONTENTS]

H. M. ANDREWS

SONG

I met a sage at the break of day,

And he welcomed me with a smile;

He spoke his words of encouragement

And we parted after a while.

I met a fair lady when all was bright,

And the sun was burning on high;

She turned to me with her deep, dark eyes

And sold herself for a lie.

I met a child when the world was dark

And I was drear and alone;

The child spoke naught,

But the dark became light;

The day of glory had come.

The barren ground shone with splendour high,

Bare branches dripped with gold,

And the earth was transformed to heaven,

Just as the sage foretold.

T. H. W. ARMSTRONG

HERITAGE

Here in my glass is blood of kings,

The life-blood of a race that lies

Long dead. The jewels burning in your rings

Are an Egyptian woman's eyes.

Your beads are dead bones; even my breath

Breathes hot words that were others' pain.

Now these fair things are ours awhile, till death

Brings us to quiet sleep again.

Then we shall put our love aside

For lovers of a later birth,

And leave to them this body's fragrant pride,

For jewels, in the heart of earth.

WATCHING

Midnight at last! And you, I know,

Are sleeping there

Peaceful. Stars keep

Great guard upon you. Calm, and still, and white

You are. One moment all your pale swift hair

Is quiet as the night.

Here in this mud, this beastliness

Of war, the thought

Of your soft sleep

Soothes a tired mind as a rare ointment may

Comfort a wound, sweet-scented ointment brought

From strange lands, far away.

LONELINESS

I watched the moon behind the trees

Float in a sea of sky.

The aspen whispers in the breeze,

The rest is silence now. And I

Can feel my loneliness around

Me fall. No human face

There is. None speaks. Never a sound

Save whispering leaves in this still place.

I have two friends, and they are dead,

Perhaps about their graves

Are trees that whisper overhead,

While in the grass the nettle waves.

P. BLOOMFIELD

TWILIGHT

The day grows fainter, moonlit evening fills

With calm and cool the lilac-scented land,

And I feel—were I on the western hills,

At last, at last, now might I understand

These mysteries of Life; how things began,

And why I love my darling as I do,

And how came longing to the soul of Man,

And whether Death must sever me from you.

Ah, hush! A spirit moves abroad, whose veil

The poets would give all the world to raise,

But, failing, tell some wistful fairy-tale,

And laugh, and weep, and go their several ways.

The birds are sleeping: nay, I do not know

What's in the twilight, makes my heart beat so!

VERA M. BRITTAIN

TO A V.C.

Because your feet were stayed upon that road

Whereon the others swiftly came and passed,

Because the harvest you and they had sowed

You only reaped at last.

Tis not your valour's meed alone you bear

Who stand the object of a nation's pride,

For on that humble Cross you live to wear

Your friends were crucified.

They shared with you the conquest over fear,

Sublime self-disregard, decision's power,

But Death, relentless, left you lonely here

In recognition's hour.

Their sign is yours to carry to the end;

The lost reward of gallant hearts as true

As yours they called their leader and their friend

Is worn for them by you.

H. I. BURT

FROM THEIR DUST

Not in their immortality alone

Live those bright spirits who for honour spent

Their rich inheritance of years, and went

Gay-heartedly to meet the wide unknown.

Not though the fields where their young limbs were strown

Once more be chartered by the foeman's tent,

And all the achieving of their tournament

Be scattered to the winds or overthrown.

For from their memory and quickening dust

Shall spring the flashing squadrons of the dawn;

And they shall set their spears and ride afar

To seek and battle, thrust and counterthrust,

For grails from our beclouded eyes withdrawn,

The champion warriors of a holier war.

ERRATUM.

For H. I. Burt read H. T. Burt, to whom also should be attributed "Pilot and Clouds" ([page 9]).

F. W. BUTLER-THWING

THE TRAMP-SHIP

Sailing over summer seas,

Seeking ports of rest,

Dancing with the dancing breeze,

Host and guest.

Calmed beside the setting sun,

Lifeless on the deep,

Waiting till the halt be done

And the sleep.

Driving 'gainst the sullen storm,

Striking hard the foe,

Gallant heart and gallant form

Breast the snow.

Homeward, homeward in the years,

All thy pennons fly;

Bravely onward, smiles and tears,

Home to die.

July, 1911.

PILOT AND CLOUDS

Clouds, little clouds, tell me whither are you going to,

Spun by the sun of the shearing of the sea?

"Thither we are bound, where the West Wind is blowing to,

Off on a holiday, merrymakers we."

Clouds, merry clouds, will you wait till I may fly to you,

Share in the frolic of your gay company?

"Nay, for the West Wind bids us say good-bye to you,

Save if your chariot be speedier than he."

Swift are my steeds: at the thunderous career of them

The high, lone silences that cradle you will flee.

"Think you our hilarity will tremble at the fear of them,

We who laugh in thunder and lighten in our glee?"

Then will I fly to you, dance with you, play with you,

Hover on your breast where the shadow cannot be.

"Hurry, brother, hurry, for we may not delay with you,

Off on a holiday, merrymakers we."

E. P. CHASE

SEVEN MISTS

The beauty of the High is not in brilliance

Nor in a florid sculpturing of stone,

Nor radiant colours, brave design, smooth stones,

But the wide curve and placid flow,—and that

St. Mary's spire and seven twilight mists

Are hanging over Oxford towers to-night.

I am clothed with furtive light

I am clothed with furtive light

Reflected from that pallid sun

When it sets, hardly bright,

Behind Merton tower, daylight done.

When the moon, silver-hued,

Through Cowley generated mist

Tears its way and glimmers nude

Above Magdalen tower, it keeps tryst

With that spirit of my soul

Which would glide through Oxford streets,

Still, unseen, without control,

With wide eyes scanning whom it meets.

W. R. CHILDE

LES HALLUCINÉS

This is the singing of the sons of Hâli,

As they stand at their booth-doors when brazen eve

Covers the city of Chrysopolis

Like the vast cup of an inverted flower,

And into the pale blue cope of marble twilight

Steal up men's souls like incense strange and pure.

"This is the singing of the sons of Hâli,

To you, O seraphs, where you lean your breasts

Upon the perfumed clouds of sunsetting,

And your huge wings, enormous, like a swan's,

Alone cover with silver plumes of fire

Your long sides, strange as pictures in Toledo—

"O seraphs, with your melting eyes like girls',

And rosy breasts embosomed in the eve,

Vouchsafe to us a little rain of coins,

Of golden sequins tumbling through our sleep;

Give us of heavenly gold, we have none earthly,

And stab our souls with seeds of sworded fire."—

This is the singing of the sons of Hâli.

E. A. C. CLARKE

FLOWERS

Shining, never-thirsty flowers,

That by the water-side

Do never plaintive cry for showers

To damp their local pride.

Lazy they wag their lovely heads,

Nodding that way and this,

Lithe bodies upon mossy beds

With lips bedewed that kiss.

The kindly and generous stream

That gently ripples by,

An idle, silvery dream,

Where sleeping fishes lie.

These delicate flowers of Mary

Lie long and overgrown,

While Martha's parched and weary

Stand in the sun and groan

L. M. COOPER

LINES FOR A FLYLEAF OF HERODOTUS

No lover and no kinsmen pass

To honour the deep-buried dead.

The roads are covered up with grass

That burned beneath th' Immortals' tread.

No tramp of armed foe is heard,

Nor bowstrings' twang, nor arrows' hiss,

Nor sound to scare the nesting bird

On rocky Salamis.

Yet runs the Royal Road to-day,

From Sardis up to Suza town,

And still above the Rhamnian Way

The heights of Marathon look down:

Still from the blue, Ægean wave

The sea-wind sweeps with keen salt breath

The hills that saw the Spartan brave

Comb their long hair for death.

CRUSOE WAS A VAGABOND

Wise men pray for hearth and home, a comely wife to tend them,

And dread to feed the little folks that clamber on their knee;

Their fathers' fields to plough and sow—their old friends to befriend them,

But Crusoe was a vagabond, and ran away to sea.

He strayed upon the docks of Hull, and smelt the tar and cordage,

He saw the bales of foreign ware piled high upon the quay,

He heard the seamen singing, and the outbound ship-bells ringing

Across the fog and darkness;—and he ran away to sea.

He might have dwelt by barn and dyke our fathers made before us,

And dipped his fat sheep yearly in the burn that turns the mill;

He might have heard the harvest home go up in lusty chorus,

When the last wain comes lumbering across the moonlit hill.

But he heard the loud surf thundering against the harbour wall,

The brown be-earringed sailor-men all swearing on the quay;

The salt was in his nostrils, and he cared no more at all

For barn or byre or cattle; but he ran away to sea.

The boys he knew are grey, old men, and soon their sons shall lay them

To rest beside the little church upon the spur of hill:

The distant hum of chant and prayers, the feet of them that pray them,

The sunlight and the blackbirds' song shall be about them still.

But he's a homeless wanderer from Rio Grande to Malabar,

And God knows who shall stand by him, or what his end shall be.

The wheeling gulls shall cry his dirge, the great waves drum his burial,

When his poor old battered body slips into the greedy sea.

ERIC DICKINSON

THE GARDEN

Blessed with the green of rains, charged sweet with scent of May,

The garden paths caressed her as she walked with slow foot-fall;

Slight was her frame, but took no pressure of decay,

And age had found age beautiful as when youth gave youth all.

Far over dreamy meadows bells toll the dying sun,

And a quiet is on her spirit for the tender drooping balm

Of the evening filled with perfume the spring has swiftly won,

And the rising moon that greets her in the garden of her calm.