The sheer hosts of Heaven above –
The grey warlock Ocean beside;
And shall feel the full centuries move
20
To Her purpose and pride.
Though a stranger shall he understand,
As though it were old in his blood,
The lives that caught fire ’neath Her hand –
The fires that were tamed to Her mood.
25
And the roar of the wind shall refashion,
And the wind-driven torches recall,
The passing of Time and the passion
Of Youth over all!
And, by virtue of magic unspoken
30
(What need She should utter Her power?)
The frost at his heart shall be broken
And his spirit be changed in that hour –
Changed and renewed in that hour!
Memories
1930
‘The eradication of memories of the Great War.’
Socialist Government Organ
The Socialist Government speaks:
Though all the Dead were all forgot
And razed were every tomb,
The Worm – the Worm that dieth not
Compels Us to our doom.
5
Though all which once was England stands
Subservient to Our will,
The Dead of whom we washed Our hands,
They have observance still.
We laid no finger to Their load.
10
We multiplied Their woes.
We used Their dearly-opened road
To traffic with Their foes:
And yet to Them men turn their eyes,
To Them are vows renewed
15
Of Faith, Obedience, Sacrifice,
Honour and Fortitude!
Which things must perish. But Our hour
Comes not by staves or swords
So much as, subtly, through the power
20
Of small corroding words.
No need to make the plot more plain
By any open thrust;
But – see Their memory is slain
Long ere Their bones are dust!
25
Wisely, but yearly, filch some wreath –
Lay some proud rite aside –
And daily tarnish with Our breath
The ends for which They died.
Distract, deride, decry, confuse –
30
(Or – if it serve Us – pray!)
So presently We break the use
And meaning of Their day!
Gertrude’s Prayer
That which is marred at birth Time shall not mend,
Nor water out of bitter well make clean;
All evil thing returneth at the end,
Or elseway walketh in our blood unseen.
5
Whereby the more is sorrow in certaine –
Dayspring mishandled cometh not againe.
To-bruizèd be that slender, sterting spray
Out of the oake’s rind that should betide
A branch of girt and goodliness, straightway
10
Her spring is turnèd on herself, and wried
And knotted like some gall or veiney wen. –
Dayspring mishandled cometh not agen.
Noontide repayeth never morning-bliss –
Sith noon to morn is incomparable;
15
And, so it be our dawning goth amiss,
None other after-hour serveth well.
Ah! Jesu-Moder, pitie my oe paine –
Dayspring mishandled cometh not againe!
Four-Feet
I have done mostly what most men do,
And pushed it out of my mind;
But I can’t forget, if I wanted to,
Four-Feet trotting behind.
5
Day after day, the whole day through –
Wherever my road inclined –
Four-Feet said, ‘I am coming with you!’
And trotted along behind.
Now I must go by some other round, –
10
Which I shall never find –
Somewhere that does not carry the sound
Of Four-Feet trotting behind.
The Disciple
He that hath a Gospel
To loose upon Mankind,
Though he serve it utterly –
Body, soul and mind –
5
Though he go to Calvary
Daily for its gain –
It is His Disciple
Shall make his labour vain.
He that hath a Gospel
10
For all earth to own –
Though he etch it on the steel,
Or carve it on the stone –
Not to be misdoubted
Through the after-days –
15
It is His Disciple
Shall read it many ways.
It is His Disciple
(Ere Those Bones are dust)
Who shall change the Charter,
20
Who shall split the Trust –
Amplify distinctions,
Rationalize the Claim,
Preaching that the Master
Would have done the same.
25
It is His Disciple
Who shall tell us how
Much the Master would have scrapped
Had he lived till now –
What he would have modified
30
Of what he said before –
It is His Disciple
Shall do this and more …
He that hath a Gospel
Whereby Heaven is won
35
(Carpenter, or Cameleer,
Or Maya’s dreaming son),
Many swords shall pierce Him,
Mingling blood with gall;
But His Own Disciple
40
Shall wound Him worst of all!
The Threshold
In their deepest caverns of limestone
They pictured the Gods of Food –
The Horse, the Elk, and the Bison –
That the hunting might be good;
5
With the Gods of Death and Terror –
The Mammoth, Tiger, and Bear.
And the pictures moved in the torchlight
To show that the gods were there!
But that was before Ionia –
10
(Or the Seven Holy Islands of Ionia)
Any of the Mountains of Ionia,
Had bared their peaks to the air.
The close years packed behind them,
As the glaciers bite and grind,
15
Filling the new-gouged valleys
With Gods of every kind.
Gods of all-reaching power –
Gods of all-searching eyes –
But each to be wooed by worship
20
And won by sacrifice.
Till, after many winters, rose Ionia –
(Strange men brooding in Ionia)
Crystal-eyed Sages of Ionia
Who said, ‘These tales are lies.
25
We dream one Breath in all things,
That blows all things between.
We dream one Matter in all things –
Eternal, changeless, unseen.
That the heart of the Matter is single
30
Till the Breath shall bid it bring forth –
By choosing or losing its neighbour –
All things made upon Earth.’
But Earth was wiser than Ionia
(Babylon and Egypt than Ionia)
And they overlaid the teaching of Ionia
35
And the Truth was choked at birth.
It died at the Gate of Knowledge –
/> The Key to the Gate in its hand –
And the anxious priests and wizards
40
Re-blinded the wakening land;
For they showed, by answering echoes,
And chasing clouds as they rose,
How shadows should stand for bulwarks
Between mankind and its woes.
45
It was then that men bethought them of Ionia
(The few that had not allforgot Ionia)
Or the Word that was whispered in Ionia;
And they turned from the shadows and the shows.
They found one Breath in all things,
50
That moves all things between.
They proved one Matter in all things –
Eternal, changeless, unseen;
That the heart of the Matter was single
Till the Breath should bid it bring forth –
55
Even as men whispered in Ionia,
(Resolute, unsatisfied Ionia)
Ere the Word was stifled in Ionia –
All things known upon earth!
The Expert
Youth that trafficked long with Death,
And to second life returns,
Squanders little time or breath
On his fellow-man’s concerns.
5
Earnèd peace is all he asks
To fulfil his broken tasks.
Yet, if he find war at home
(Waspish and importunate),
He hath means to overcome
10
Any warrior at his gate;
For the past he buried brings
Back unburiable things –
Nights that he lay out to spy
Whence and when the raid might start;
15
Or prepared in secrecy
Sudden blows to break its heart –
All the lore of No-Man’s Land
Moves his soul and arms his hand.
So, if conflict vex his life
20
Where he thought all conflict done,
He, resuming ancient strife,
Springs his mine or trains his gun,
And, in mirth more dread than wrath,
Wipes the nuisance from his path!
The Storm Cone
1932
This is the midnight – let no star
Delude us – dawn is very far.
This is the tempest long foretold –
Slow to make head but sure to hold.
5
Stand by! The lull ’twixt blast and blast
Signals the storm is near, not past;
And worse than present jeopardy
May our forlorn to-morrow be.
If we have cleared the expectant reef,
10
Let no man look for his relief.
Only the darkness hides the shape
Of further peril to escape.
It is decreed that we abide
The weight of gale against the tide
15
And those huge waves the outer main
Sends in to set us back again.
They fall and whelm. We strain to hear
The pulses of her labouring gear,
Till the deep throb beneath us proves,
20
After each shudder and check, she moves!
She moves, with all save purpose lost,
To make her offing from the coast;
But, till she fetches open sea,
Let no man deem that he is free!
The Bonfires
1933
‘Gesture … outlook … vision … avenue … example … achievement … appeasement … limit of risk.’
Common Political Form
We know the Rocket’s upward whizz;
We know the Boom before the Bust.
We know the whistling Wail which is
The Stick returning to the Dust.
5
We know how much to take on trust
Of any promised Paradise.
We know the Pie – likewise the Crust.
We know the Bonfire on the Ice.
We know the Mountain and the Mouse.
10
We know Great Cry and Little Wool.
We know the purseless Ears of Sows.
We know the Frog that aped the Bull.
We know, whatever Trick we pull,
(Ourselves have gambled once or twice)
15
A Bobtailed Flush is not a Full
We know the Bonfire on the Ice.
We know that Ones and Ones make Twos –
Till Demos votes them Three or Nought.
We know the Fenris Wolf is loose.
20
We know what Fight has not been fought.
We know the Father to the Thought
Which argues Babe and Cockatrice
Would play together, were they taught.
We know that Bonfire on the Ice.
25
We know that Thriving comes by Thrift.
We know the Key must keep the Door.
We know his Boot-straps cannot lift
The frightened Waster off the Floor.
We know these things, and we deplore
30
That not by any Artifice
Can they be altered. Furthermore
We know the Bonfires on the Ice!
The Appeal
If I have given you delight
By aught that I have done,
Let me lie quiet in that night
Which shall be yours anon:
5
And for the little, little, span
The dead are borne in mind,
Seek not to question other than
The books I leave behind.
Notes
The title of each poem is followed by details of the poem’s first publication, and then, where applicable, by the title of the volume in which it was subsequently collected.
‘We are very slightly changed’ (p. 1). The opening poem of Departmental Ditties (1886) with the title ‘General Summary’. As it also serves here as the opening poem, it is placed slightly out of chronology. ‘Dowb’ (line 7): ‘Take care of Dowb’ was a proverbial jibe at the widespread practice of nepotism in Victorian government and army appointments. Line 23, Cheops, King of Egypt, 2900–2877 BC; lines 26–9, Joseph… Pharaoh, Genesis 41.
‘The Undertaker’s Horse’ (p. 2). Civil and Military Gazette, 8 October 1885; Departmental Ditties. Line 22, dâk, stage of a journey; line 36, marigolds, used in India to decorate graves.
‘The Story of Uriah’ (p. 4). Civil and Military Gazette, 3 March 1886; Departmental Ditties. An updated version of the story of David and Bathsheba, as the biblical reference indicates. Simla (line 3), a hill-station in the lower Himalayas, the summer residence of the Viceroy and the imperial government, and a favoured holiday resort for officials’ wives. It was famed for its cool climate, unlike Quetta (line 1), the town in what is now Pakistan to which Jack Barrett is sent. The Hurnai (line 26), a mountain pass in Afghanistan.