We strain our strings thus tight,
Our voices pitch thus high,
A song to indite
That nevermore shall die.
The Poet being divine
Admits no social sin,
Spurring with wine
And lust the Muse within.
Finding no use at all
In arms or civic deeds,
Perched on a wall
Fulfilling fancy’s needs.
Let parents, children, wife,
Be ghosts beside his art,
Be this his life
To hug the snake to his heart.
Sad souls, the more we stress
The advantage of our crown,
So much the less
Our welcome by the Town,
By the gross and rootling hog
Who grunts nor lifts his head,
By jealous dog
Or old ass thistle-fed.
By so much less their praise,
By so much more our glory.
Grim pride outweighs
The anguish of our story.
We strain our strings thus tight,
Our voices pitch thus high,
To enforce our right
Over futurity.
EPIGRAMS
ON CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
Here ranted Isaac’s elder son,
The proud shag-breasted godless one,
From whom observant Smooth-Cheek stole
Birthright, blessing, hunter’s soul.
A VILLAGE FEUD
The cottage damson, laden as could be,
Scowls at the Manor House magnolia-tree
That year by year within its thoughtless powers
Yields flowers and leaves and flowers and leaves and flowers,
While the Magnolia shudders as in fear:
‘Figurez-vous! two sackfuls every year!’
DEDICATORY
Dolon, analyst of souls,
To the Graces hangs up here
His shrimp-net rotting into holes
And oozy from the infernal mere;
He wreathes his gift around with cress,
Lush harvest of the public cess.
TO MY COLLATERAL ANCESTOR, REV. R. GRAVES, THE FRIEND OF THE POET SHENSTONE AND AUTHOR OF THE SPIRITUAL QUIXOTE: ON RECEIPT OF A PRESS-CUTTING INTENDED FOR HIM.
O friend of Shenstone, do you frown
In realms remote from me
When Messrs Durrant send you down
By inadvertency
Clippings identifying you
With some dim man in the moon,
A Spiritual Quixote, true,
But friend of S. Sassoon?
‘A VEHICLE, TO WIT, A BICYCLE’
(Dedicated, without permission, to my friend P.C. Flowers)
‘My front-lamp, constable? Why, man, the moon!
My rear-lamp? Shining there ten yards behind me,
Warm parlour lamplight of The Dish and Spoon!’
But for all my fancy talk, they would have fined me,
Had I not set a rather sly half-crown
Winking under the rays of my front lamp:
Goodwill towards men disturbed the official frown,
My rear-light beckoned through the evening’s damp.
MOTTO TO A BOOK OF EMBLEMS
Though you read these, but understand not, curse not!
Or though you read and understand, yet praise not!
What poet weaves a better knot or worse knot
Untangling which, your own lives you unbrace not?
THE BOWL AND RIM
The bearded rabbi, the meek friar,
Linked by their ankles in one cell,
Through joint distress of dungeon mire
Learned each to love his neighbour well.
When four years passed and five and six,
When seven years brought them no release,
The Jew embraced the crucifix,
The friar assumed phylacteries.
Then every Sunday, keeping score,
And every Sabbath in this hymn
They reconciled an age-long war
Between the platter’s bowl and rim.
‘Man-like he lived, but God-like died,
All hatred from His thought removed,
Imperfect until crucified,
In crucifixion well-beloved.
‘If they did wrong, He too did wrong,
(For love admits no contraries)
In blind religion rooted strong
Both Jesus and the Pharisees.
‘“Love all men as thyself,” said He.
Said they, “Be just with man or dog”,
“But only loathe a Pharisee”,
“But crucify this demagogue”.
‘He died forgiving on the Tree
To make amends for earlier spite;
They raised Him up their God to be,
And black with black accomplished white.
‘When He again descends on man
As chief of Scribes and Pharisees,
With loathing for the Publican,
The maimed and halt His enemies,
‘And when a not less formal fate
Than Pilate’s justice and the Rood
His righteous angers expiate,
To make men think Him wholly good,
‘Then He again will have done wrong,
If God be Love for every man,
For lewd and lettered, weak and strong,
For Pharisee or Publican,
‘But like a God He will have died,
All hatred from His thought removed,
Imperfect until crucified,
In crucifixion well-beloved.’
A FORCED MUSIC
Of Love he sang, full-hearted one.
But when the song was done,
The King demanded more,
Ay, and commanded more.
The boy found nothing for encore,
Words, melodies, none:
Ashamed the song’s glad rise and plaintive fall
Had so charmed King and Queen and all.
He sang the same verse once again,
But urging less Love’s pain,
With altered time and key
He showed variety,
Seemed to refresh the harmony
Of his only strain,
So still the glad rise and the plaintive fall
Could charm the King, the Queen, and all.
He of his song then wearying ceased,
But was not yet released;
The Queen’s request was ‘More’,
And her behest was ‘More’.
He played of random notes some score,
He found his rhymes at least –
Then suddenly let his twangling harp down fall
And fled in tears from King and Queen and all.
THE TURN OF A PAGE
‘He suddenly,’ the page read as it turned,
‘Died.’
The indignant eye discerned
No sense. ‘Good page, turn back,’ it cried,
(Happily evermore was cheated).
‘After these things he suddenly died,’
The truthful page repeated.
‘Turn back you earlier pages, nine or ten,
To “Him she loved” and “He alone of men”.
Now change the sentence, page!’ But still it read
‘He suddenly died: they scarce had time to kiss.’
‘Read on, ungentle reader,’ the book said,
‘Resign your hopes to this.’
The eye could not resign, restless in grief,
But darting forward to a later leaf
Found ‘Him she loved’ and ‘He alone of men’.
Oh, who this He was, being a second He,
Confused the plan; the book spoke sternly then,
‘Read page by page and see!’
THE MANIFESTATION IN THE TEMPLE
On the High Feast Day in that reverent space
; Between the Sacrifice and the word of Grace,
I, come to town with a merry-making throng
To pay my tithes and join in the season’s song,
Closing my eyes, there prayed – and was hurried far
Beyond what ages I know not, or what star,
To a land of thought remote from the breastplate glint
And the white bull’s blood that flows from the knife of flint,
Then, in this movement, being not I but part
In the fellowship of the universal heart,
I sucked a strength from the primal fount of strength,
I thought and worked omnipotence. At length
Hit in my high flight by some sorry thought
Back to the sweat of the soil-bound I was caught
And asked in pique what enemy had worked this,
What folly or anger thrust against my bliss?
Then I grew aware of the savour of sandal-wood
With noise of a distant fluting, and one who stood
Nudging my elbow breathed ‘Oh, miracle! See!’
The folk gape wonder, urge tumultuously,
They fling them down on their faces every one,
Some joyfully weep, others for anguish moan.
Lo, the tall gilt image of God at the altar niche
Wavers and stirs, we see his raiment twitch.
Now he stands and signs benediction with his rod.
The courtyard quakes, the fountains gush with blood.
The whistling scurry and throb of spirit wings
Distresses man and child. Now a bird-voice sings,
And a loud throat bellows, that every creature hears,
A sign to himself he must lay aside his fears.
It babbles an antique tongue, and threatening, pleads
Prompt sacrifice and a care for priestly needs,
Wholeness of heart, the putting away of wrath,
A generous measure for wine, for oil, for cloth,
A holding fast to the law that the Stones ordain,
And the rites of the Temple watch that ye maintain
Lest fire and ashes down from the mountain rain!
With expectance of goodly harvest and rain in Spring
To such as perform the will of the Jealous King.
To his priestly servants hearken!
The syllables die.
Now up from the congregation issues a sigh
As of stopped breath slow released. But here stands one
Who has kept his feet though the others fell like stone,
Who prays with outstretched palms, standing alone,
To a God who is speechless, not to be known by touch,
By sight, sound, scent. And I cry, ‘Not overmuch
Do I love this juggling blasphemy, O High Priest.
Or do you deny your part here? Then, at least,
An honest citizen of this honest town
May preach these nightmare apparitions down,
These blundering, perfumed noises come to tell
No more than a priest-instructed folk knows well.
Out, meddlesome Imps, whatever Powers you be,
Break not true prayer between my God and me.’
TO ANY SAINT
You turn the unsmitten other cheek,
In silence welcoming God’s grace,
Disdaining, though they scourge, to speak,
Smiling forgiveness face to face.
You plunge your arms in tyrant flame,
From ravening beasts you do not fly,
Calling aloud on one sweet Name,
Hosannah-singing till you die.
So angered by your undefeat,
Revenge through Christ they meditate,
Disciples at the bishop’s feet
They learn this newer sort of hate,
This unresisting meek assault
On furious foe or stubborn friend,
This virtue purged of every fault
By furtherance of the martyr’s end,
This baffling stroke of naked pride,
When satires fail and curses fail
To pierce the justice’s tough hide,
To abash the cynics of the jail.
Oh, not less violent, not less keen
And barbèd more than murder’s blade!
‘The brook,’ you sigh, ‘that washes clean,
The flower of love that will not fade!’
A DEWDROP
The dewdrop carries in its eye
Snowdon and Hebog, sea and sky,
Twelve lakes at least, woods, rivers, moors,
And half a county’s out-of-doors:
Trembling beneath a wind-flower’s shield
In this remote and rocky field.
But why should man in God’s Name stress
The dewdrop’s inconspicuousness
When to lakes, woods, the estuary,
Hebog and Snowdon, sky and sea,
This dewdrop falling from its leaf
Can spread amazement near to grief,
As it were a world distinct in mould
Lost with its beauty ages old?
A VALENTINE
The hunter to the husbandman
Pays tribute since our love began,
And to love-loyalty dedicates
The phantom hunts he meditates.
Let me pursue, pursuing you,
Beauty of other shape and hue,
Retreating graces of which none
Shone more than candle to your sun,
Your well-loved shadow beckoning me
In unfamiliar imagery –
Smile your forgiveness; each bright ghost
Dives in love’s glory and is lost,
Yielding your comprehensive pride
A homage, even to suicide.
The Feather Bed
(1923)
THE WITCHES’ CAULDRON
In sudden cloud that, blotting distance out,
Confused the compass of the traveller’s mind,
Biased his course: three times from the hill’s crest
Trying to descend but with no track to follow,
Nor visible landmark – three times he had struck
The same sedged pool of steaming desolation,
The same black monolith rearing up before it.
This third time then he stood and recognized
The Witches’ Cauldron, only known before
By hearsay, fly-like on whose rim he had crawled
Three times and three times dipped to climb again
Its uncouth sides, so to go crawling on.
By falls of scree, moss-mantled slippery rock,
Wet bracken, drunken gurgling watercourses
He escaped, limping, at last, and broke the circuit –
Travelling down and down; but smooth descent
Interrupted by new lakes and ridges,
Sprawling unmortared walls of boulder granite,
Marshes; one arm hung bruised where he had fallen;
Blood in a sticky trickle smeared his cheek;
Sweat, gathering at his eyebrows, ran full beads
Into his eyes, which made them smart and blur.
At last he blundered on some shepherd’s hut –
He thought, the hut took pity and appeared –
With mounds of peat and welcome track of wheels
Which he now followed to a broad green road
That ran from right to left; but still at fault,
The mist being still on all, with little pause
He chose the easier way, the downward way.
Legs were dog-tired already, but this road,
Gentle descent with some relief of guidance,
Maintained his shambling five miles to the hour
Coloured with day-dreams. Then a finger-post
Moved through the mist, pointing into his face,
Yet when he stopped to read gave him no comfort.
Seventeen miles to – somewhere, God knows where –
&n
bsp; The paint was weathered to a puzzle
Which cold-unfocused eyes could not attempt –
And jerking a derisive thumb behind it
Up a rough stream-wet path: ‘The Witches’ Cauldron,
One mile.’ Only a mile
For two good hours of stumbling steeplechase!
There was a dead snake by some humorous hand
Twined on the pointing finger; far away
A bull roared hoarsely, but all else was mist.
Then anger overcame him…
THE FEATHER BED
‘Goodbye, but now forget all that we were
Or said, or did to each other, here’s goodbye.
Send no more letters now, only forget
We ever met…’ and the letter maunders on
In the unformed uncompromising hand
That witnesses against her, yet provides
Extenuation and a grudging praise.
Rachel to be a nun! Postulate now
For her noviciate in a red brick convent:
Praying, studying, wearing uniform,
She serves the times of a tyrannic bell,
Rising to praise God in the early hours
With atmosphere of filters and stone stairs,
Distemper, crucifixes and red drugget,
Dusty hot-water pipes, a legacy-library…
Sleep never comes to me so tired as now
Leg-chafed and footsore with my mind in a blaze
Troubling this problem over, vexing whether
To beat Love down with ridicule or instead
To disregard new soundings and still keep
The old course by the uncorrected chart,
(The faithful lover, his unchanging heart)
Rachel, before goodbye
Obscures you in your sulky resignation
Come now and stand out clear in mind’s eye
Giving account of what you were to me
And what I was to you and how and why,
Saying after me, if you can say it, ‘I loved.’
Rachel so summoned answers thoughtfully
But painfully, turning away her head,
‘I lived and thought I loved, for I had gifts
Of most misleading, more than usual beauty,
Dark hair, grey eyes, capable fingers, movement
Graceful and certain; my slow puzzled smile
Accusing of too much ingenuousness
Yet offered more than I could hope to achieve,
And if I thought I loved, no man would doubt it.’
So speaks the image as I read her mind,