Poems of To-Day: an Anthology

86. LEISURE

  What is this life if, full of care,  We have no time to stand and stare.  No time to stand beneath the boughs  And stare as long as sheep or cows.  No time to see, when woods we pass,  Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.  No time to see, in broad daylight,  Streams full of stars, like skies at night.  No time to turn at Beauty's glance,  And watch her feet, how they can dance.  No time to wait till her mouth can  Enrich that smile her eyes began.  A poor life this if, full of care,  We have no time to stand and stare.William H. Davies.

87. LYING IN THE GRASS

  Between two russet tufts of summer grass,  I watch the world through hot air as through glass,  And by my face sweet lights and colours pass.  Before me, dark against the fading sky,  I watch three mowers mowing, as I lie:  With brawny arms they sweep in harmony.  Brown English faces by the sun burnt red,  Rich glowing colour on bare throat and head,  My heart would leap to watch them, were I dead!  And in my strong young living as I lie,  I seem to move with them in harmony,—  A fourth is mowing, and that fourth am I.  The music of the scythes that glide and leap,  The young men whistling as their great arms sweep,  And all the perfume and sweet sense of sleep,  The weary butterflies that droop their wings,  The dreamy nightingale that hardly sings,  And all the lassitude of happy things  Is mingling with the warm and pulsing blood  That gushes through my veins a languid flood,  And feeds my spirit as the sap a bud.  Behind the mowers, on the amber air,  A dark-green beech-wood rises, still and fair,  A white path winding up it like a stair.  And see that girl, with pitcher on her head,  And clean white apron on her gown of red,—  Her even-song of love is but half-said:  She waits the youngest mower. Now he goes;  Her cheeks are redder than the wild blush-rose;  They climb up where the deepest shadows close.  But though they pass and vanish, I am there;  I watch his rough hands meet beneath her hair,  Their broken speech sounds sweet to me like prayer  Ah! now the rosy children come to play,  And romp and struggle with the new-mown hay;  Their clear high voices sound from far away.  They know so little why the world is sad,  They dig themselves warm graves and yet are glad;  Their muffled screams and laughter make me mad!  I long to go and play among them there,  Unseen, like wind, to take them by the hair,  And gently make their rosy cheeks more fair.  The happy children! full of frank surprise,  And sudden whims and innocent ecstasies;  What godhead sparkles from their liquid eyes!  No wonder round those urns of mingled clays  That Tuscan potters fashion'd in old days,  And coloured like the torrid earth ablaze,  We find the little gods and loves portray'd  Through ancient forests wandering undismay'd,  Or gathered, whispering, in some pleasant glade.  They knew, as I do now, what keen delight  A strong man feels to watch the tender flight  Of little children playing in his sight.  I do not hunger for a well-stored mind,  I only wish to live my life, and find  My heart in unison with all mankind.  My life is like the single dewy star  That trembles on the horizon's primrose-bar,—  A microcosm where all things living are.  And if, among the noiseless grasses, Death  Should come behind and take away my breath,  I should not rise as one who sorroweth,  For I should pass, but all the world would be  Full of desire and young delight and glee,  And why should men be sad through loss of me?  The light is dying; in the silver-blue  The young moon shines from her bright window through:  The mowers all are gone, and I go too.Edmund Gosse.

88. DOWN BY THE SALLEY GARDENS

  Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;  She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.  She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;  But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.  In a field by the river my love and I did stand,  And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.  She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;  But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.W. B. Yeats.

89. RENAISSANCE

  O happy soul, forget thy self!  This that has haunted all the past,  That conjured disappointments fast,  That never could let well alone;  That, climbing to achievement's throne,  Slipped on the last step; this that wove  Dissatisfaction's clinging net,  And ran through life like squandered pelf:—  This that till now has been thy self  Forget, O happy soul, forget.  If ever thou didst aught commence,—  Set'st forth in springtide woods to rove,—  Or, when the sun in July throve,  Didst plunge into calm bay of ocean  With fine felicity in motion,—  Or, having climbed some high hill's brow,  Thy toil behind thee like the night,  Stoodst in the chill dawn's air intense;—  Commence thus now, thus recommence:  Take to the future as to light.  Not as a bather on the shore  Strips of his clothes, glad soul, strip thou:  He throws them off, but folds them now;  Although he for the billows yearns,  To weight them down with stones he turns;  To mark the spot he scans the shore;  Of his return he thinks before.  Do thou forget  All that, until this joy franchised thee,  Tainted thee, stained thee, or disguised thee;  For gladness, henceforth without let,  Be thou a body, naked, fair;  And be thy kingdom all the air  Which the noon fills with light;  And be thine actions every one,  Like to a dawn or set of sun,  Robed in an ample glory's peace;  Since thou hast tasted this great glee  Whose virtue prophesies in thee  That wrong is wholly doomed, is doomed and bound to cease.T. Sturge Moore.

90. TO WILL. H. LOW

  Youth now flees on feathered foot  Faint and fainter sounds the flute,  Rarer songs of gods; and still  Somewhere on the sunny hill,  Or along the winding stream,  Through the willows, flits a dream;  Flits but shows a smiling face,  Flees but with so quaint a grace,  None can choose to stay at home,  All must follow, all must roam.  This is unborn beauty: she  Now in air floats high and free,  Takes the sun and breaks the blue;—  Late with stooping pinion flew  Raking hedgerow trees, and wet  Her wing in silver streams, and set  Shining foot on temple roof:  Now again she flies aloof,  Coasting mountain clouds and kiss't  By the evening's amethyst.  In wet wood and miry lane,  Still we pant and pound in vain;  Still with leaden foot we chase  Waning pinion, fainting face;  Still with gray hair we stumble on,  Till, behold, the vision gone!  Where hath fleeting beauty led?  To the doorway of the dead.  Life is over, life was gay:  We have come the primrose way.Robert Louis Stevenson.

91. GAUDEAMUS IGITUR

  Come, no more of grief and dying!  Sing the time too swiftly flying.      Just an hour      Youth's in flower,  Give me roses to remember  In the shadow of December.  Fie on steeds with leaden paces!  Winds shall bear us on our races,      Speed, O speed,      Wind, my steed,  Beat the lightning for your master,  Yet my Fancy shall fly faster.  Give me music, give me rapture,  Youth that's fled can none recapture;      Not with thought      Wisdom's bought.  Out on pride and scorn and sadness!  Give me laughter, give me gladness.  Sweetest Earth, I love and love thee,  Seas about thee, skies above thee,      Sun and storms,      Hues and forms  Of the clouds with floating shadows  On thy mountains and thy meadows.  Earth, there's none that can enslave thee,  Not thy lords it is that have thee;      Not for gold      Art thou sold,  But thy lovers at their pleasure  Take thy beauty and thy treasure.  While sweet fancies meet me singing,  While the April blood is springing      In my breast,      While a jest  And my youth thou yet must leave me,  Fortune, 'tis not thou canst grieve me.  When at length the grasses cover  Me, the world's unwearied lover,      If regret      Haunt me yet,  It shall be for joys untasted,  Nature lent and folly wasted.  Youth and jests and summer weather,  Goods that kings and clowns together      Waste or use      As they choose,  These, the best, we miss pursuing  Sullen shades that mock our wooing.  Feigning Age will not delay it—  When the reckoning comes we'll pay it,      Own our mirth      Has been worth  All the forfeit light or heavy  Wintry Time and Fortune levy.  Feigning grief will not escape it,  What though ne'er so well you ape it—      Age and care      All must share,  All alike must pay hereafter,  Some for sighs and some for laughter.  Know, ye sons of Melancholy,  To be young and wise is folly.      'Tis the weak      Fear to wreak  On this clay of life their fancies,  Shaping battles, shaping dances.  While ye scorn our names unspoken,  Roses dead and garlands broken,      O ye wise,      We arise,  Out of failures, dreams, disasters,  We arise to be your masters.Margaret L. Woods.

92. O DREAMY, GLOOMY, FRIENDLY TREES!

  O dreamy, gloomy, friendly Trees,    I came along your narrow track  To bring my gifts unto your knees    And gifts did you give back;  For when I brought this heart that burns—    These thoughts that bitterly repine—  And laid them here among the ferns    And the hum of boughs divine,  Ye, vastest breathers of the air,    Shook down with slow and mighty poise  Your coolness on the human care,    Your wonder on its toys,  Your greenness on the heart's despair,    Your darkness on its noise.Herbert Trench.

93. IDLENESS

  O idleness, too fond of me,    Begone, I know and hate thee!  Nothing canst thou of pleasure see    In one that so doth rate thee;  For empty are both mind and heart    While thou with me dost linger;  More profit would to thee impart    A babe that sucks its finger.  I know thou hast a better way    To spend these hours thou squand'rest;  Some lad toils in the trough to-day    Who groans because thou wand'rest;  A bleating sheep he dowses now    Or wrestles with ram's terror;  Ah, 'mid the washing's hubbub, how    His sighs reproach thine error!  He knows and loves thee, Idleness;    For when his sheep are browsing,  His open eyes enchant and bless    A mind divinely drowsing;  No slave to sleep, he wills and sees    From hill-lawns the brown tillage;  Green winding lanes and clumps of trees,    Far town or nearer village,  The sea itself; the fishing feet    Where more, thine idle lovers,  Heark'ning to sea-mews find thee sweet    Like him who hears the plovers.  Begone; those haul their ropes at sea,    These plunge sheep in yon river:  Free, free from toil thy friends, and me    From Idleness deliver!T. Sturge Moore.

84. YOUTH AND LOVE

  To the heart of youth the world is a highwayside.  Passing for ever, he fares; and on either hand,  Deep in the gardens golden pavilions hide,  Nestle in orchard bloom, and far on the level land  Call him with lighted lamp in the eventide.  Thick as the stars at night when the moon is down,  Pleasures assail him. He to his nobler fate  Fares; and but waves a hand as he passes on,  Cries but a wayside word to her at the garden gate,  Sings but a boyish stave and his face is gone.Robert Louis Stevenson.

95. THE PRECEPT OF SILENCE

  I know you: solitary griefs,  Desolate passions, aching hours!  I know you: tremulous beliefs,  Agonised hopes, and ashen flowers!  The winds are sometimes sad to me;  The starry spaces, full of fear:  Mine is the sorrow on the sea,  And mine the sigh of places drear.  Some players upon plaintive strings  Publish their wistfulness abroad:  I have not spoken of these things,  Save to one man, and unto God.Lionel Johnson.

96. IF THIS WERE FAITH

  God, if this were enough,  That I see things bare to the buff  And up to the buttocks in mire;  That I ask nor hope nor hire,  Nut in the husk,  Nor dawn beyond the dusk,  Nor life beyond death:  God, if this were faith?  Having felt thy wind in my face  Spit sorrow and disgrace,  Having seen thine evil doom  In Golgotha and Khartoum,  And the brutes, the work of thine hands,  Fill with injustice lands  And stain with blood the sea:  If still in my veins the glee  Of the black night and the sun  And the lost battle, run:  If, an adept,  The iniquitous lists I still accept  With joy, and joy to endure and be withstood,  And still to battle and perish for a dream of good  God, if that were enough?  If to feel, in the ink of the slough,  And the sink of the mire,  Veins of glory and fire  Run through and transpierce and transpire,  And a secret purpose of glory in every part,  And the answering glory of battle fill my heart;  To thrill with the joy of girded men,  To go on for ever and fail and go on again,  And be mauled to the earth and arise,  And contend for the shade of a word and a thing not        seen with the eyes:  With the half of a broken hope for a pillow at night  That somehow the right is the right  And the smooth shall bloom from the rough:  Lord, if that were enough?Robert Louis Stevenson.

97. VITAI LAMPADA

  There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night—    Ten to make and the match to win—  A bumping pitch and a blinding light,    An hour to play and the last man in.  And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,    Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,  But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote    "Play up! play up! and play the game!"  The sand of the desert is sodden red,—    Red with the wreck of a square that broke;—  The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead,    And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.  The river of death has brimmed his banks,    And England's far, and Honour a name,  But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks;    "Play up! play up! and play the game!"  This is the word that year by year,    While in her place the School is set,  Every one of her sons must hear,    And none that hears it dare forget.  This they all with a joyful mind    Bear through life like a torch in flame,  And falling fling to the host behind—    "Play up! play up! and play the game!"Henry Newbolt.

98. LAUGH AND BE MERRY

  Laugh and be merry, remember, better the world with a song,  Better the world with a blow in the teeth of a wrong.  Laugh, for the time is brief, a thread the length of a span.  Laugh, and be proud to belong to the old proud pageant of man.  Laugh and be merry: remember, in olden time,  God made Heaven and Earth for joy He took in a rhyme,  Made them, and filled them full with the strong red wine        of His mirth,  The splendid joy of the stars: the joy of the earth.  So we must laugh and drink from the deep blue cup of the sky,  Join the jubilant song of the great stars sweeping by,  Laugh, and battle, and work, and drink of the wine outpoured  In the dear green earth, the sign of the joy of the Lord.  Laugh and be merry together, like brothers akin,  Guesting awhile in the rooms of a beautiful inn,  Glad till the dancing stops, and the lilt of the music ends.  Laugh till the game is played; and be you merry, my friends.John Masefield.

99. ROUNDABOUTS AND SWINGS

  It was early last September nigh to Framlin'am-on-Sea,  An' 'twas Fair-day come to-morrow, an' the time was after tea,  An' I met a painted caravan adown a dusty lane,  A Pharaoh with his waggons comin' jolt an' creak an' strain;  A cheery cove an' sunburnt, bold o' eye and wrinkled up,  An' beside him on the splashboard sat a brindled tarrier pup,  An' a lurcher wise as Solomon an' lean as fiddle-strings  Was joggin' in the dust along 'is roundabouts and swings.  "Goo'-day," said 'e; "Goo'-day," said I; "an' 'ow d'you        find things go,  An' what's the chance o' millions when you runs a travellin' show?"  "I find," said 'e, "things very much as 'ow I've always found,  For mostly they goes up and down or else goes round and round."  Said 'e, "The job's the very spit o' what it always were,  It's bread and bacon mostly when the dog don't catch a 'are;  But lookin' at it broad, an' while it ain't no merchant king's,  What's lost upon the roundabouts we pulls up on the swings!"  "Goo' luck," said 'e; "Goo' luck," said I; "you've put it        past a doubt;  An' keep that lurcher on the road, the gamekeepers is out;"  'E thumped upon the footboard an' 'e lumbered on again  To meet a gold-dust sunset down the owl-light in the lane;  An' the moon she climbed the 'azels, while a nightjar seemed to spin  That Pharaoh's wisdom o'er again, 'is sooth of lose-and-win;  For "up an' down an' round," said 'e, "goes all appointed things,  An' losses on the roundabouts means profits on the swings!"Patrick R. Chalmers.

100. THE LARK ASCENDING

  He rises and begins to round,  He drops the silver chain of sound,  Of many links without a break,  In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake,  All intervolved and spreading wide,  Like water-dimples down a tide  Where ripple ripple overcurls  And eddy into eddy whirls;  A press of hurried notes that run  So fleet they scarce are more than one,  Yet changeingly the trills repeat  And linger ringing while they fleet,  Sweet to the quick o' the ear, and dear  To her beyond the handmaid ear,  Who sits beside our inner springs,  Too often dry for this he brings,  Which seems the very jet of earth  At sight of sun, her music's mirth,  As up he wings the spiral stair,  A song of light, and pierces air  With fountain ardour, fountain play,  To reach the shining tops of day,  And drink in everything discerned  An ecstasy to music turned,  Impelled by what his happy bill  Disperses; drinking, showering still,  Unthinking save that he may give  His voice the outlet, there to live  Renewed in endless notes of glee,  So thirsty of his voice is he,  For all to hear and all to know  That he is joy, awake, aglow,  The tumult of the heart to hear  Through pureness filtered crystal-clear,  And know the pleasure sprinkled bright  By simple singing of delight,  Shrill, irreflective, unrestrained,  Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustained  Without a break, without a fall,  Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical,  Perennial, quavering up the chord  Like myriad dews of sunny sward  That trembling into fulness shine,  And sparkle dropping argentine;  Such wooing as the ear receives  From zephyr caught in choric leaves  Of aspens when their chattering net  Is flushed to white with shivers wet;  And such the water-spirit's chime  On mountain heights in morning's prime,  Too freshly sweet to seem excess,  Too animate to need a stress;  But wider over many heads  The starry voice ascending spreads,  Awakening, as it waxes thin,  The best in us to him akin;  And every face, to watch him raised,  Puts on the light of children praised,  So rich our human pleasure ripes  When sweetness on sincereness pipes,  Though nought be promised from the seas,  But only a soft-ruffling breeze  Sweep glittering on a still content,  Serenity in ravishment.  For singing till his heaven fills,  'Tis love of earth that he instils,  And ever winging up and up,  Our valley is his golden cup,  And he the wine which overflows  To lift us with him as he goes:  The woods and brooks, the sheep and kine,  He is, the hills, the human line,  The meadows green, the fallows brown,  The dreams of labour in the town;  He sings the sap, the quickened veins;  The wedding song of sun and rains  He is, the dance of children, thanks  Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks,  And eye of violets while they breathe;  All these the circling song will wreathe,  And you shall hear the herb and tree,  The better heart of men shall see,  Shall feel celestially, as long  As you crave nothing save the song.  Was never voice of ours could say  Our inmost in the sweetest way,  Like yonder voice aloft, and link  All hearers in the song they drink.  Our wisdom speaks from failing blood,  Our passion is too full in flood,  We want the key of his wild note  Of truthful in a tuneful throat,  The song seraphically free  Of taint of personality,  So pure that it salutes the suns  The voice of one for millions,  In whom the millions rejoice  For giving their one spirit voice.  Yet men have we, whom we revere,  Now names, and men still housing here,  Whose lives, by many a battle-dint  Defaced, and grinding wheels on flint,  Yield substance, though they sing not, sweet  For song our highest heaven to greet:  Whom heavenly singing gives us new,  Enspheres them brilliant in our blue,  From firmest base to farthest leap,  Because their love of Earth is deep,  And they are warriors in accord  With life to serve, and pass reward,  So touching purest and so heard  In the brain's reflex of yon bird:  Wherefore their soul in me or mine,  Through self-forgetfulness divine,  In them, that song aloft maintains  To fill the sky and thrill the plains  With showerings drawn from human stores,  As he to silence nearer soars,  Extends the world at wings and dome,  More spacious making more our home,  Till lost on aerial rings  In light, and then the fancy sings.George Meredith.

101. INTO THE TWILIGHT

  Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn,  Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;  Laugh, heart, again in the gray twilight;  Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.  Your mother Eire is always young,  Dew ever shining and twilight gray;  Though hope fall from you and love decay  Burning in fires of a slanderous tongue.  Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill;  For there the mystical brotherhood  Of sun and moon and hollow and wood  And river and stream work out their will;  And God stands winding His lonely horn;  And time and the world are ever in flight,  And love is less kind than the gray twilight,  And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.W. B. Yeats.

102. BY A BIER-SIDE

  This is a sacred city built of marvellous earth.  Life was lived nobly here to give such beauty birth.  Beauty was in this brain and in this eager hand:  Death is so blind and dumb Death does not understand.  Death drifts the brain with dust and soils the young limbs' glory,  Death makes justice a dream, and strength a traveller's story.  Death drives the lovely soul to wander under the sky.  Death opens unknown doors. It is most grand to die.John Masefield.

103. 'TIS BUT A WEEK

  'Tis but a week since down the glen    The trampling horses came  —Half a hundred fighting men    With all their spears aflame!  They laughed and clattered as they went,    And round about their way  The blackbirds sang with one consent    In the green leaves of May.  Never again shall I see them pass;    They'll come victorious never;  Their spears are withered all as grass,    Their laughter's laid for ever;  And where they clattered as they went,    And where their hearts were gay,  The blackbirds sing with one consent    In the green leaves of May.Gerald Gould.

104. I LOVE ALL BEAUTEOUS THINGS

  I love all beauteous things,    I seek and adore them;  God hath no better praise,  And man in his hasty days    Is honoured for them.  I too will something make    And joy in the making;  Altho' to-morrow it seem  Like the empty words of a dream    Remembered on waking.Robert Bridges.

105. ALL FLESH

  I do not need the skies'  Pomp, when I would be wise;  For pleasaunce nor to use  Heaven's champaign when I muse.  One grass-blade in its veins  Wisdom's whole flood contains;  Thereon my foundering mind  Odyssean fate can find.  O little blade, now vaunt  Thee, and be arrogant!  Tell the proud sun that he  Sweated in shaping thee;  Night, that she did unvest  Her mooned and argent breast  To suckle thee. Heaven fain  Yearned over thee in rain,  And with wide parent wing  Shadowed thee, nested thing,  Fed thee, and slaved for thy  Impotent tyranny.  Nature's broad thews bent  Meek for thy content.  Mastering littleness  Which the wise heavens confess,  The frailty which doth draw  Magnipotence to its law—  These were, O happy one, these  Thy laughing puissances!  Be confident of thought,  Seeing that thou art naught;  And be thy pride thou'rt all  Delectably safe and small.  Epitomized in thee  Was the mystery  Which shakes the spheres conjoint—  God focussed to a point.  All thy fine mouths shout  Scorn upon dull-eyed doubt.  Impenetrable fool  Is he thou canst not school  To the humility  By which the angels see!  Unfathomably framed  Sister, I am not shamed  Before the cherubin  To vaunt my flesh thy kin.  My one hand thine, and one  Imprisoned in God's own,  I am as God; alas,  And such a god of grass!  A little root clay-caught,  A wind, a flame, a thought,  Inestimably naught!Francis Thompson.

106. TO A SNOWFLAKE

  What heart could have thought you?—  Past our devisal  (O filigree petal!)  Fashioned so purely,  Fragilely, surely,  From what Paradisal  Imagineless metal,  Too costly for cost?  Who hammered you, wrought you,  From argentine vapour?—  "God was my shaper.  Passing surmisal,  He hammered, He wrought me,  From curled silver vapour,  To lust of His mind:—  Thou couldst not have thought me!  So purely, so palely,  Tinily, surely,  Mightily, frailly,  Insculped and embossed,  With His hammer of wind,  And His graver of frost."Francis Thompson.