Poems, 1908-1919

LOVE’S PERSONALITY

If I had never seenThy sweet grave face,If I had never knownThy pride as of a queen,Yet would another’s graceHave led me to her throne.I should have loved as wellNot loving thee,My faith had been as strongWrought by another spell;Her love had grown to beAs thine for fire and song.Yet is our love a thingAlone, austere,A new and sacred birthThat we alone could bringThrough flames of faith and fearTo pass upon the earth.As one who makes a rhymeOf his fierce thought,With momentary artMay challenge change and time,So is the love we wroughtNot greatest, but apart.

PIERROT

Pierrot alone,And then Pierrette,And then a story to forget.Pierrot alone.Pierrette among the apple boughsCome down and take a Pierrot’s kiss,The moon is white upon your brows,Pierrette among the apple boughs,Your lips are cold, and I would setA rose upon your lips, Pierrette,A rosy kiss,Pierrette, Pierrette.And then Pierrette.I’ve left my apple boughs, Pierrot,A shadow now is on my face,But still my lips are cold, and ONo rose is on my lips, Pierrot,You laugh, and then you pass awayAmong the scented leaves of May,And on my faceThe shadows stay.And then a story to forget.The petals fall upon the grass,And I am crying in the dark,The clouds above the white moon pass —My tears are falling on the grass;Pierrot, Pierrot, I heard your vowsAnd left my blossomed apple boughs,And sorrows darkAre on my brows.

RECKONING

I heard my love go laughingBeyond the bolted door,I saw my love go ridingAcross the windy moor,And I would give my love no wordBecause of evil tales I heard.Let fancy men go laughing,Let light men ride away,Bruised corn is not for my mill,What’s paid I will not pay, —And so I thought because of thisGossip that poisoned clasp and kiss.Four hundred men went riding,And he the best of all,A jolly man for labour,A sinewy man and tall;I watched him go beyond the hill,And shaped my anger with my will.At night my love came ridingAcross the dusky moor,And other two rode with himWho knocked my bolted door,And called me out and bade me seeHow quiet a man a man could be.And now the tales that stung meAnd gave my pride its rule,Are worth a beggar’s broken shoeOr the sermon of a fool,And all I know and all I canIs, false or true, he was my man.

DERELICT

The cloudy peril of the seas,The menace of mid-winter days,May break the scented boughs of easeAnd lock the lips of praise,But every sea its harbour knows,And every winter wakes to spring,And every broken song the roseShall yet resing.But comfortable love once spentMay not re-shape its broken trust,Or find anew the old content,Dishonoured in the dust;No port awaits those tattered sails,No sun rides high above that gloom,Unchronicled those half-told talesShall time entomb.

WED

I married him on Christmas morn, —Ah woe betide, ah woe betide,Folk said I was a comely bride, —Ah me forlorn.All braided was my golden hair,And heavy then, and shining then,My limbs were sweet to madden men, —O cunning snare.My beauty was a thing they sayOf large renown, – O dread renown, —Its rumour travelled through the town,Alas the day.His kisses burn my mouth and brows, —O burning kiss, O barren kiss, —My body for his worship is,And so he vows.But daily many men draw nearWith courtly speech and subtle speech;I gather from the lips of eachA deadly fear.As he grows sullen I grow cold,And whose the blame? Not mine the blame;Their passions round me as a flameAll fiercely fold.And oh, to think that he might beSo proudly set, above them set,If he might but awaken yetThe soul of me.Will no man seek and seeking findThe soul of me, the soul of me?Nay, even as they are, so is he,And all are blind.On Christmas morning we were wed,Ah me the morn, the luckless morn;Now poppies burn along the corn,Would I were dead.

FORSAKEN

The word is said, and I no more shall knowAught of the changing story of her days,Nor any treasure that her lips bestow.And I, who loving her was wont to praiseAll things in love, now reft of music goWith silent step down unfrequented ways.My soul is like a lonely market-place,Where late were laughing folk and shining steedsAnd many things of comeliness and grace;And now between the stones are twisting weeds,No sound there is, nor any friendly face,Save for a bedesman telling o’er his beads.

DEFIANCE

O wide the way your beauty goes,For all its feigned indifference,And every folly’s path it knows,And every humour of pretence.But I can be as false as areThe rainbow loves which are your days,And I will gladly go and far,Content with your immediate praise.Your lips, the shyer lover’s bane,I take with disputation none,And am your kinsman in disdainWhen all is excellently done.

LOVE IN OCTOBER

The fields, the clouds, the farms and farming gear,The drifting kine, the scarlet apple trees …Not of the sun but separate are these,And individual joys, and very dear;Yet when the sun is folded, they are hereNo more, the drifting skies: the argosiesOf wagoned apples: still societiesOf elms: red cattle on the stubbled year.So are you not love’s whole estate. I oweIn many hearts more dues than I shall pay;Yet is your heart the spring of all love’s light,And should your love weary of me and goWith all its thriving beams out of my day,These many loves would founder in that night.

TO THE LOVERS THAT COMEAFTER US

Lovers, a little of this your happy timeGive to the thought of us who were as you,That we, whose dearest passion in your primeIs but a winter garment, may renewOur love in yours, our flesh in your desire,Our tenderness in your discovering kiss,For we are half the fuel of your fire,As ours was fed by Marc and Beatrice.Remember us, and, when you too are dead,Our prayer with yours shall fall upon love’s springThat all our ghostly loves be comfortedIn those yet later lover’s love-making;So shall oblivion bring his dust to spillOn brain and limbs, and we be lovers still.

DERBYSHIRE SONG

Come loving me to Darley DaleIn spring time or sickle time,And we will make as proud a taleAs lovers in the antique primeOf Harry or Elizabeth.With kirtle green and nodding flowersTo deck my hair and little waist,I ’ll be worth a lover’s hours…Come, fellow, thrive, there is no hasteBut soon is worn away in death.Soon shall the blood be tame, and soonOur bodies lie in Darley Dale,Unreckoning of jolly June,With tongues past telling any tale;My man, come loving me to-day.I have a wrist is smooth and brown,I have a shoulder smooth and white,I have my grace in any gownBy sun or moon or candle-light…Come Darley way, come Darley way.

LOVE’S HOUSE

II know not how these men or those may takeTheir first glad measure of love’s character,Or whether one should let the summer makeLove’s festival, and one the falling year.I only know that in my prime of daysWhen my young branches came to blossoming,You were the sign that loosed my lips in praise,You were the zeal that governed all my spring.IIIn prudent counsel many gathered near,Forewarning us of deft and secret snaresThat are love’s use. We heard them as we hearThe ticking of a clock upon the stairs.The troops of reason, careful to persuade,Blackened love’s name, but love was more than these,For we had wills to venture unafraidThe trouble of unnavigable seas.IIITheir word was but a barren seed that liesUndrawn of the sun’s health and undesired,Because the habit of their hearts was wise,Because the wisdom of their tongues was tired.For in the smother of contentious pride,And in the fear of each tumultuous mood,Our love has kept serenely fortifiedAnd unusurped one stedfast solitude.IVDark words, and hasty humours of the bloodHave come to us and made no longer stayThan footprints of a bird upon the mudThat in an hour the tide will take away.But not March weather over ploughlands blown,Nor cresses green upon their gravel bed,Are beautiful with the clean rigour grownOf quiet thought our love has piloted.VI sit before the hearths of many men,When speech goes gladly, eager to withholdNo word at all, yet when I pass againThe last of words is captive and untold.We talk together in love’s house, and thereNo thought but seeks what counsel you may give,And every secret trouble from its lairComes to your hand, no longer fugitive.VII woo the world, with burning will to beDelighted in all fortune it may find,And still the strident dogs of jealousyGo mocking down the tunnels of my mind.Only for you my contemplation goesClean as a god’s, undarkened of pretence,Most happy when your garner overflows,Achieving in your prosperous diligence.VIIWhen from the dusty corners of my brainComes limping some ungainly word or deed,I know not if my dearest friend’s disdainBe durable or brief, spent husk or seed.But your rebuke and that poor fault of mineGo straitly outcast, and we close the door,And I, no promise asking and no sign,Stand blameless in love’s presence as before.VIIIA beggar in the ditch, I stand and callMy questions out upon the queer paradeOf folk that hurry by, and one and allGo down the road with never answer made.I do not question love. I am a lordHigh at love’s table, and the vigilant king,Unquestioned, from the hubbub at the boardLeans down to me and tells me everything.

COTSWOLD LOVE

Blue skies are over CotswoldAnd April snows go by,The lasses turn their ribbonsFor April’s in the sky,And April is the seasonWhen Sabbath girls are dressed,From Rodboro’ to Campden,In all their silken best.An ankle is a marvelWhen first the buds are brown,And not a lass but knows itFrom Stow to Gloucester town.And not a girl goes walkingAlong the Cotswold lanesBut knows men’s eyes in AprilAre quicker than their brains.It’s little that it matters,So long as you’re alive,If you’re eighteen in April,Or rising sixty-five,When April comes to AmberleyWith skies of April blue,And Cotswold girls are bridingWith slyly tilted shoe.

WITH DAFFODILS

I send you daffodils, my dear,For these are emperors of spring,And in my heart you keep so clearSo delicate an empery,That none but emperors could beAmbassadors endowed to bringMy messages of honesty.My mind makes faring to and fro,Deft or bewildered, dark or kind,That not the eye of God may knowWhich motion is of true estateAnd which a twisted runagateOf all the farings of my mind,And which has honesty for mate.Only my love for you is cleanOf scandal’s use, and though, may be,Far rangers have my passions been, —Since thus the word of Eden went, —Yet of the springs of my content,My very wells of honestyAre you the only firmament.

FOUNDATIONS

Those lovers old had rare conceitsTo make persuasion beautiful,Or rail upon the pretty foolWho would not share those wanton sweetsThat, guarded, soon are bitterness.But we, my love, can look on theseOld tournaments of wit, and sayWhat novices of love were they,Who loved by seasons and degrees,And in the rate of more and less.We will not make of love a staleFor deft and nimble argument,Nor shall denial and consentBe processes whereof shall failOne surety that we possess.

DEAR AND INCOMPARABLE

Dear and incomparableIs that love to meFlowing out of the woodlands,Out of the sea;Out of the firmament breathingBetween pasture and sky,For no reward is cherished hereTo reckon by.It is not of my earning,Nor forfeit I canThis love that flows uponThe poverty of man,Though faithless and unkindI sleep and forgetThis love that asks no wage of meWaits my waking yet.Of such is the love, dear,That you fold me in,It knows no governanceOf virtue or sin;From nothing of my achievingShall it enrichment take,And the glooms of my unworthinessIt will not forsake.

A SABBATH DAY

IN FIVE WATCHES

I. MORNING(TO M. C.)You were three men and women two,And well I loved you, all of you,And well we kept the Sabbath day.The bells called out of Malvern town,But never bell could call us downAs we went up the hill away.Was it a thousand years agoOr yesterday that men were soZealous of creed and argument?Here wind is brother to the rain,And the hills laugh upon the plain,And the old brain-gotten feuds are spent.Bring lusty laughter, lusty jest,Bring each the song he names the best,Bring eager thought and speech that’s keen,Tell each his tale and tell it out,The only shame be prudent doubt,Bring bodies where the lust is clean.II. FULL DAY(TO K. D.)We moved along the gravelled wayBetween the laurels and the yews,Some touch of old enchantment layAbout us, some remembered newsOf men who rode among the treesWith burning dreams of Camelot,Whose names are beauty’s litanies,As Galahad and Launcelot.We looked along the vaulted gloomOf boughs unstripped of winter’s bane,As for some pride of scarf and plumeAnd painted shield and broidered rein,And through the cloven laurel wallsWe searched the darkling pines and paleBeech-boles and woodbine coronals,As for the passing of the Grail.But Launcelot no travel keeps,For brother Launcelot is dead,And brother Galahad he sleepsThis long while in his quiet bed,And we are all the knights that passAmong the yews and laurels now.They are but fruit among the grass,And we but fruit upon the bough.No coloured blazon meets us hereOf all that courtly company;Elaine is not, nor Guenevere,The dream is but of dreams that die.But yet the purple violet liesBeside the golden daffodil,And women strong of limb and wiseAnd fierce of blood are with us still.And never through the woodland goesThe Grail of that forgotten quest,But still about the woodland flowsThe sap of God made manifestIn boughs that labour to their time,And birds that gossip secret things,And eager lips that seek to rhymeThe latest of a thousand springs.III. DUSK(TO E. S. V.)We come from the laurels and daffodilsDown to the homestead under the fell,We’ve gathered our hunger upon the hills,And that is well.Howbeit to-morrow gives or takes,And leads to barren or flowering ways,We’ve a linen cloth and wheaten cakes,For which be praise.Here in the valley at lambing-timeThe shepherd folk of their watching tellWhile the shadows up to the beacon climb,And that is well.Let be what may when we make an endOf the laughter and labour of all our daysWe’ve men to friend and women to friend,For whom be praise.IV. EVENSONG(TO B. M.)Come, let us tell it over,Each to each by the fireside,How that earth has been a swift adventure for us,And the watches of the day as a gay song and a right song,And now the traveller wind has found a bed,And the sheep crowd under the thorn.Good was the day and our travelling,And now there is evensong to sing.Night, and along the valleysWatch the eyes of the homesteads.The dark hills are very still and still are the stars.Patiently under the ploughlands the wheat moves and the barley.The secret hour of love is upon the sky,And our thought in praise is aflame.Sing evensong as well we mayFor our travel upon this Sabbath day.Earth, we have known you truly,Heard your mutable music,Have been your lovers and felt the savour of you,And you have quickened in us the blood’s fire and the heart’s fire.We have wooed and striven with you and made you oursBy the strength sprung out of your loins.Lift the latch on its twisted thong,And an end be made of our evensong.V. NIGHT(TO H. S. S.)The barriers of sleep are crossedAnd I alone am yet awake,Keeping another PentecostFor that new visitation’s sakeOf life descending on the hillsIn blackthorn bloom and daffodils.At peace upon my pillow lainI celebrate the spirit comeIn spring’s immutable youth againAcross the lands of Christendom;I hear in all the choral hostThe coming of the Holy Ghost.The sacrament of bough and blade,Of populous folds and building birdsI take, till now an end is madeOf praise and ceremonial words,And I too turn myself to keepThe quiet festival of sleep.

March 1913.

A DEDICATION (TO E. G.)

ISometimes youth comes to age and asks a blessing,Or counsel, or a tale of old estate,Yet youth will still be curiously guessingThe old man’s thought when death is at his gate;For all their courteous words they are not one,This youth and age, but civil strangers still,Age with the best of all his seasons done,Youth with his face towards the upland hill.Age looks for rest while youth runs far and wide,Age talks with death, which is youth’s very fear,Age knows so many comrades who have died,Youth burns that one companion is so dear.So, with good will, and in one house, may dwellThese two, and talk, and all be yet to tell.IIBut there are men who, in the time of age,Sometimes remember all that age forgets:The early hope, the hardly compassed wage,The change of corn, and snow, and violets;They are glad of praise; they know this morning bringsAs true a song as any yesterday;Their labour still is set to many things,They cry their questions out along the way.They give as who may gladly take againSome gift at need; they move with gallant easeAmong all eager companies of men;And never signed of age are such as these.They speak with youth, and never speak amiss;Of such are you; and what is youth but this?

RUPERT BROOKE (DIED APRIL 23, 1915)

To-day I have talked with old Euripides;Shakespeare this morning sang for my contentOf chimney-sweepers; through the Carian treesComes beating still the nightingales’ lament;The Tabard ales to-day are freshly brewed;Wordsworth is with me, mounting Loughrigg Fell;All timeless deaths in Lycid are renewed,And basils blossom yet for Isabel.Quick thoughts are these; they do not pass; they gaveOnly to death such little, casual thingsAs are the noteless levies of the grave, —Sad flesh, weak verse, and idle marketings.So my mortality for yours complains,While our immortal fellowship remains.

ON READING FRANCIS LEDWIDGE’S LAST SONGS

At April’s end, when blossoms breakTo birth upon my apple-tree,I know the certain year will takeFull harvest of this infancy.At April’s end, when comes the dearOccasion of your valley tune,I know your beauty’s arc is here,A little ghostly morning moon.Yet are these fosterlings of rhymeAs fortunately born to spendHappy conspiracies with timeAs apple flowers at April’s end.

IN THE WOODS

I was in the woods to-day,And the leaves were spinning there,Rich apparelled in decay, —In decay more wholly fairThan in life they ever were.Gold and rich barbaric redFreakt with pale and sapless vein,Spinning, spinning, spun and spedWith a little sob of painBack to harbouring earth again.Long in homely green they shoneThrough the summer rains and sun,Now their humbleness is gone,Now their little season run,Pomp and pageantry begun.Sweet was life, and buoyant breath,Lovely too; but for a dayIssues from the house of deathYet more beautiful array:Hark, a whisper – “Come away.”One by one they spin and fall,But they fall in regal pride:Dying, do they hear a callRising from an ebbless tide,And, hearing, are beatified?

LATE SUMMER

Though summer long delayethHer blue and golden boon,Yet now at length she stayethHer wings above the noon;She sets the waters dreamingTo murmurous leafy tones,The weeded waters gleamingAbove the stepping-stones.Where fern and ivied willowLean o’er the seaward brook,I read a volume mellow —A poet’s fairy-book;The seaward brook is narrow,The hazel spans its pride,And like a painted arrowThe king-bird keeps the tide.

JANUARY DUSK

Austere and clad in sombre robes of grey,With hands upfolded and with silent wings,In unimpassioned mystery the dayPasses; a lonely thrush its requiem sings.The dust of night is tangled in the boughsOf leafless lime and lilac, and the pineGrows blacker, and the star upon the browsOf sleep is set in heaven for a sign.Earth’s little weary peoples fall on peaceAnd dream of breaking buds and blossoming,Of primrose airs, of days of large increase,And all the coloured retinue of spring.

AT GRAFTON

God laughed when he made GraftonThat’s under Bredon Hill,A jewel in a jewelled plain.The seasons work their willOn golden thatch and crumbling stone,And every soft-lipped breezeMakes music for the Grafton menIn comfortable trees.God’s beauty over GraftonStole into roof and wall,And hallowed every pavèd pathAnd every lowly stall,And to a woven wonderConspired with one accordThe labour of the servant,The labour of the Lord.And momently to GraftonComes in from vale and woldThe sound of sheep unshepherded,The sound of sheep in fold,And, blown along the basesOf lands that set their wideFrank brows to God, comes chantingThe breath of Bristol tide.

DOMINION

I went beneath the sunny skyWhen all things bowed to June’s desire, —The pansy with its steadfast eye,The blue shells on the lupin spire,The swelling fruit along the boughs,The grass grown heady in the rain,Dark roses fitted for the browsOf queens great kings have sung in vain;My little cat with tiger bars,Bright claws all hidden in content;Swift birds that flashed like darkling starsAcross the cloudy continent;The wiry-coated fellow curledStump-tailed upon the sunny flags;The bees that sacked a coloured worldOf treasure for their honey-bags.And all these things seemed very glad,The sun, the flowers, the birds on wing,The jolly beasts, the furry-cladFat bees, the fruit, and everything.But gladder than them all was I,Who, being man, might gather upThe joy of all beneath the sky,And add their treasure to my cup,And travel every shining way,And laugh with God in God’s delight,Create a world for every day,And store a dream for every night.

THE MIRACLE

Come, sweetheart, listen, for I have a thingMost wonderful to tell you – news of spring.Albeit winter still is in the air,And the earth troubled, and the branches bare,Yet down the fields to-day I saw her pass —The spring – her feet went shining through the grass.She touched the ragged hedgerows – I have seenHer finger-prints, most delicately green;And she has whispered to the crocus leaves,And to the garrulous sparrows in the eaves.Swiftly she passed and shyly, and her fairYoung face was hidden in her cloudy hair.She would not stay, her season is not yet,But she has reawakened, and has setThe sap of all the world astir, and rentOnce more the shadows of our discontent.Triumphant news – a miracle I sing —The everlasting miracle of spring.

MILLERS DALE

Barefoot we went by Millers DaleWhen meadowsweet was golden gloomAnd happy love was in the valeSinging upon the summer bloomOf gipsy crop and branches laidOf willows over chanting pools,Barefoot by Millers Dale we madeOur summer festival of fools.Folly bright-eyed, and quick, and youngWas there with all his silly plots,And trotty wagtail stepped amongThe delicate forget-me-nots,And laughter played with us aboveThe rocky shelves and weeded holesAnd we had fellowship to loveThe pigeons and the water-voles.Time soon shall be when we are allStiller than ever runs the Wye,And every bitterness shall fallTo-morrow in obscurity,And wars be done, and treasons fail,Yet shall new friends go down to greetThe singing rocks of Millers Dale,And willow pools and meadowsweet.

WRITTEN AT LUDLOW CASTLE (IN THE HALL WHERE COMUS WASFIRST PERFORMED)

Where wall and sill and broken window-frameAre bright with flowers unroofed against the skies,And nothing but the nesting jackdaws’ criesBreaks the hushed even, once imperial cameThe muse that moved transfiguring the nameOf Puritan, and beautiful and wiseThe verses fell, forespeaking Paradise,And poetry set all this hall aflame.Now silence has come down upon the placeWhere life and song so wonderfully went,And the mole’s afoot now where that passion rang,Yet Comus now first moves his laurelled pace,For song and life for ever are unspent,And they are more than ghosts who lived and sang.

WORDSWORTH AT GRASMERE

These hills and waters fostered youAbiding in your argumentUntil all comely wisdom drewAbout you, and the years were spent.Now over hill and water staysA world more intimately wise,Built of your dedicated days,And seen in your beholding eyes.So, marvellous and far, the mind,That slept among them when beganWaters and hills, leaps up to findIts kingdom in the thought of man.

SUNRISE ON RYDAL WATER (TO E. DE S.)

Come down at dawn from windless hillsInto the valley of the lake,Where yet a larger quiet fillsThe hour, and mist and water makeWith rocks and reeds and island boughsOne silence and one element,Where wonder goes surely as onceIt wentBy Galilean prows.Moveless the water and the mist,Moveless the secret air above,Hushed, as upon some happy trystThe poised expectancy of love;What spirit is it that adoresWhat mighty presence yet unseen?What consummation works apaceBetweenThese rapt enchanted shores?Never did virgin beauty wakeDevouter to the bridal feastThan moves this hour upon the lakeIn adoration to the east;Here is the bride a god may know,The primal will, the young consent,Till surely upon the appointed moodIntentThe god shall leap – and, lo,Over the lake’s end strikes the sun,White, flameless fire; some purityThrilling the mist, a splendour wonOut of the world’s heart. Let there beThoughts, and atonements, and desires,Proud limbs, and undeliberate tongue,Where now we move with mortal oarsAmongImmortal dews and fires.So the old mating goes apace,Wind with the sea, and blood with thought,Lover with lover; and the graceOf understanding comes unsoughtWhen stars into the twilight steer,Or thrushes build among the may,Or wonder moves between the hills,And dayComes up on Rydal mere.