Poems of To-Day: an Anthology

107. TO A DAISY

  Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide,    Like all created things, secrets from me,    And stand a barrier to eternity.  And I, how can I praise thee well and wide  From where I dwell—upon the hither side?    Thou little veil for so great mystery,    When shall I penetrate all things and thee,  And then look back? For this I must abide,  Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled  Literally between me and the world.    Then I shall drink from in beneath a spring,  And from a poet's side shall read his book.  O daisy mine, what will it be to look    From God's side even of such a simple thing?Alice Meynell.

108. LUCIFER IN STARLIGHT

  On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose.  Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend  Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened,  Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose.  Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.  And now upon his western wing he leaned,  Now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careened,  Now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows.  Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars  With memory of the old revolt from Awe,  He reached a middle height, and at the stars,  Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank.  Around the ancient track marched rank on rank,  The army of unalterable law.George Meredith.

109. THE CELESTIAL SURGEON

  If I have faltered more or less  In my great task of happiness;  If I have moved among my race  And shown no glorious morning face;  If beams from happy human eyes  Have moved me not; if morning skies,  Books, and my food, and summer rain  Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:—  Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take  And stab my spirit broad awake;  Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,  Choose thou, before that spirit die,  A piercing pain, a killing sin,  And to my dead heart run them in!Robert Louis Stevenson.

110. THE KINGDOM OF GOD

'In no Strange Land'

  O world invisible, we view thee,    O world intangible, we touch thee,  O world unknowable, we know thee,    Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!  Does the fish soar to find the ocean,    The eagle plunge to find the air—  That we ask of the stars in motion    If they have rumour of thee there?  Not where the wheeling systems darken,    And our benumbed conceiving soars!—  The drift of pinions, would we hearken,    Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.  The angels keep their ancient places;—    Turn but a stone, and start a wing!  'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces,    That miss the many-splendoured thing.  But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)    Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss  Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder    Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.  Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,    Cry,—clinging Heaven by the hems;  And lo, Christ walking on the water    Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!Francis Thompson.

111. THE LADY POVERTY

  The Lady Poverty was fair:  But she has lost her looks of late,  With change of times and change of air.  Ah slattern! she neglects her hair,  Her gown, her shoes; she keeps no state  As once when her pure feet were bare.  Or—almost worse, if worse can be—  She scolds in parlours, dusts and trims,  Watches and counts. Oh, is this she  Whom Francis met, whose step was free,  Who with Obedience carolled hymns,  In Umbria walked with Chastity?  Where is her ladyhood? Not here,  Not among modern kinds of men;  But in the stony fields, where clear  Through the thin trees the skies appear,  In delicate spare soil and fen,  And slender landscape and austere.Alice Meynell.

112. COURTESY

  Of Courtesy it is much less  Than Courage of Heart or Holiness,  Yet in my Walks it seems to me  That the Grace of God is in Courtesy.  On Monks I did in Storrington fall,  They took me straight into their Hall;  I saw Three Pictures on a wall,  And Courtesy was in them all.  The first the Annunciation;  The second the Visitation;  The third the Consolation,  Of God that was Our Lady's Son.  The first was of Saint Gabriel;  On Wings a-flame from Heaven he fell;  And as he went upon one knee  He shone with Heavenly Courtesy.  Our Lady out of Nazareth rode—  It was her month of heavy load;  Yet was Her face both great and kind,  For Courtesy was in Her Mind.  The third, it was our Little Lord,  Whom all the Kings in arms adored;  He was so small you could not see  His large intent of Courtesy.  Our Lord, that was Our Lady's Son,  Go bless you, People, one by one;  My Rhyme is written, my work is done.Hilaire Belloc.

113. MONTSERRAT

  Peace waits among the hills;  I have drunk peace,  Here, where the blue air fills  The great cup of the hills,  And fills with peace.  Between the earth and sky,  I have seen the earth  Like a dark cloud go by,  And fade out of the sky;  There was no more earth.  Here, where the Holy Graal  Brought secret light  Once, from beyond the veil,  I, seeing no Holy Graal,  See divine light.  Light fills the hills with God,  Wind with his breath,  And here, in his abode,  Light, wind, and air praise God,  And this poor breath.Arthur Symons.

114. PRAYERS

  God who created me    Nimble and light of limb,  In three elements free,    To run, to ride, to swim:  Not when the sense is dim,    But now from the heart of joy,  I would remember Him:    Take the thanks of a boy.  Jesu, King and Lord,    Whose are my foes to fight,  Gird me with Thy sword,    Swift and sharp and bright.  Thee would I serve if I might;    And conquer if I can,  From day-dawn till night,    Take the strength of a man.  Spirit of Love and Truth,    Breathing in grosser clay,  The light and flame of youth,    Delight of men in the fray,  Wisdom in strength's decay;    From pain, strife, wrong to be free,  This best gift I pray,    Take my spirit to Thee.Henry Charles Beeching.

115. THE SHEPHERDESS

  She walks—the lady of my delight—    A shepherdess of sheep.  Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white;    She guards them from the steep;  She feeds them on the fragrant height,    And folds them in for sleep.  She roams maternal hills and bright,    Dark valleys safe and deep.  Into that tender breast at night    The chastest stars may peep.  She walks—the lady of my delight—    A shepherdess of sheep.  She holds her little thoughts in sight,    Though gay they run and leap.  She is so circumspect and right;    She has her soul to keep.  She walks—the lady of my delight—    A shepherdess of sheep.Alice Meynell.

116. GIBBERISH

  Many a flower have I seen blossom,    Many a bird for me will sing.  Never heard I so sweet a singer,    Never saw I so fair a thing.  She is a bird, a bird that blossoms,    She is a flower, a flower that sings;  And I a flower when I behold her,    And when I hear her, I have wings.Mary E. Coleridge.

117. MARTHA

  "Once . . . once upon a time . . ."    Over and over again,  Martha would tell us her stories,    In the hazel glen.  Hers were those clear grey eyes    You watch, and the story seems  Told by their beautifulness    Tranquil as dreams.  She'd sit with her two slim hands    Clasped round her bended knees;  While we on our elbows lolled,    And stared at ease.  Her voice and her narrow chin,    Her grave small lovely head,  Seemed half the meaning    Of the words she said.  "Once . . . once upon a time . . ."    Like a dream you dream in the night,  Fairies and gnomes stole out    In the leaf-green light.  And her beauty far away    Would fade, as her voice ran on,  Till hazel and summer sun    And all were gone:—  All fordone and forgot;    And like clouds in the height of the sky,  Our hearts stood still in the hush    Of an age gone by.Walter de la Mare.

118. A FRIEND

    All, that he came to give,    He gave, and went again:    I have seen one man live,    I have seen one man reign,  With all the graces in his train.    As one of us, he wrought    Things of the common hour:    Whence was the charmed soul brought,    That gave each act such power;  The natural beauty of a flower?    Magnificence and grace,    Excellent courtesy:    A brightness on the face,    Airs of high memory:  Whence came all these, to such as he?    Like young Shakespearian kings,    He won the adoring throng:    And, as Apollo sings,    He triumphed with a song:  Triumphed, and sang, and passed along.    With a light word, he took    The hearts of men in thrall:    And, with a golden look,    Welcomed them, at his call  Giving their love, their strength, their all.    No man less proud than he,    Nor cared for homage less:    Only, he could not be    Far off from happiness:  Nature was bound to his success.    Weary, the cares, the jars,    The lets, of every day,    But the heavens filled with stars,    Chanced he upon the way:  And where he stayed, all joy would stay.    Now, when sad night draws down,    When the austere stars burn:    Roaming the vast live town,    My thoughts and memories yearn  Toward him, who never will return.    Yet have I seen him live,    And owned my friend, a king:    All that he came to give    He gave: and I, who sing  His praise, bring all I have to bring.Lionel Johnson.

119. TWILIGHT

  Twilight it is, and the far woods are dim, and the rooks      cry and call.  Down in the valley the lamps, and the mist, and a star over all,  There by the rick, where they thresh, is the drone at an end,  Twilight it is, and I travel the road with my friend.  I think of the friends who are dead, who were dear      long ago in the past,  Beautiful friends who are dead, though I know that      death cannot last;  Friends with the beautiful eyes that the dust has defiled,  Beautiful souls who were gentle when I was a child.John Masefield.

120. ON THE DEATH OF ARNOLD TOYNBEE

      Good-bye; no tears nor cries  Are fitting here, and long lament were vain.    Only the last low words be softly said,    And the last greeting given above the dead;  For soul more pure and beautiful our eyes      Never shall see again.      Alas! what help is it,  What consolation in this heavy chance,    That to the blameless life so soon laid low    This was the end appointed long ago,  This the allotted space, the measure fit      Of endless ordinance?      Thus were the ancient days  Made like our own monotonous with grief;    From unassuaged lips even thus hath flown    Perpetually the immemorial moan  Of those that weeping went on desolate ways,      Nor found in tears relief.      For faces yet grow pale,  Tears rise at fortune, and true hearts take fire    In all who hear, with quickening pulse's stroke,    That cry that from the infinite people broke,  When third among them Helen led the wail      At Hector's funeral pyre.      And by the Latin beach  At rise of dawn such piteous tears were shed,    When Troy and Arcady in long array    Followed the princely body on its way,  And Lord Aeneas spoke the last sad speech      Above young Pallas dead.      Even in this English clime  The same sweet cry no circling seas can drown,    In melancholy cadence rose to swell    Some dirge of Lycidas or Astrophel  When lovely souls and pure before their time      Into the dusk went down.      These Earth, the bounteous nurse,  Hath long ago lapped in deep peace divine.    Lips that made musical their old-world woe    Themselves have gone to silence long ago,  And left a weaker voice and wearier verse,      O royal soul, for thine.      Beyond our life how far  Soars his new life through radiant orb and zone,    While we in impotency of the night    Walk dumbly, and the path is hard, and light  Fails, and for sun and moon the single star      Honour is left alone.      The star that knows no set,  But circles ever with a fixed desire,    Watching Orion's armour all of gold;    Watching and wearying not, till pale and cold  Dawn breaks, and the first shafts of morning fret      The east with lines of fire.      But on the broad low plain  When night is clear and windy, with hard frost,    Such as had once the morning in their eyes,    Watching and wearying, gaze upon the skies,  And cannot see that star for their great pain      Because the sun is lost.      Alas, how all our love  Is scant at best to fill so ample room!    Image and influence fall too fast away    And fading memory cries at dusk of day  Deem'st thou the dust recks aught at all thereof,      The ghost within the tomb?      For even o'er lives like his  The slumberous river washes soft and slow;    The lapping water rises wearily,    Numbing the nerve and will to sleep; and we  Before the goal and crown of mysteries      Fall back, and dare not know.      Only at times we know,  In gyres convolved and luminous orbits whirled    The soul beyond her knowing seems to sweep    Out of the deep, fire-winged, into the deep;  As two, who loved each other here below      Better than all the world,      Yet ever held apart,  And never knew their own hearts' deepest things,    After long lapse of periods, wandering far    Beyond the pathways of the furthest star,  Into communicable space might dart      With tremor of thunderous wings;      Across the void might call  Each unto each past worlds that raced and ran,    And flash through galaxies, and clasp and kiss    In some slant chasm and infinite abyss  Far in the faint sidereal interval      Between the Lyre and Swan.J. W. Mackail.

121. ESTRANGEMENT

  So, without overt breach, we fall apart,  Tacitly sunder—neither you nor I  Conscious of one intelligible Why,  And both, from severance, winning equal smart.  So, with resigned and acquiescent heart,  Whene'er your name on some chance lip may lie,  I seem to see an alien shade pass by,  A spirit wherein I have no lot or part.  Thus may a captive, in some fortress grim,  From casual speech betwixt his warders, learn  That June on her triumphant progress goes  Through arched and bannered woodlands; while for him  She is a legend emptied of concern,  And idle is the rumour of the rose.William Watson.

122. FATHERHOOD

  A kiss, a word of thanks, away    They're gone, and you forsaken learn  The blessedness of giving; they    (So Nature bids) forget, nor turn    To where you sit, and watch, and yearn.  And you (so Nature bids) would go    Through fire and water for their sake;  Rise early, late take rest, to sow    Their wealth, and lie all night awake    If but their little finger ache.  The storied prince with wondrous hair    Which stole men's hearts and wrought his bale,  Rebelling, since he had no heir,    Built him a pillar in the vale,    —Absalom's—lest his name should fail.  It fails not, though the pillar lies    In dust, because the outraged one,  His father, with strong agonies    Cried it until the day was done—    "O Absalom, my son, my son!"  So Nature bade; or might it be    God, who in Jewry once (they say)  Cried with a great cry, "Come to me,    Children," who still held on their way,    Though He spread out His hands all day?Henry Charles Beeching.

123. DAISY

  Where the thistle lifts a purple crown    Six foot out of the turf,  And the harebell shakes on the windy hill—    O the breath of the distant surf!—  The hills look over on the South,    And southward dreams the sea;  And with the sea-breeze hand in hand    Came innocence and she.  Where 'mid the gorse the raspberry    Red for the gatherer springs,  Two children did we stray and talk    Wise, idle, childish things.  She listened with big-lipped surprise,    Breast-deep 'mid flower and spine;  Her skin was like a grape, whose veins    Run snow instead of wine.  She knew not those sweet words she spake,    Nor knew her own sweet way;  But there's never a bird, so sweet a song    Thronged in whose throat that day.  Oh, there were flowers in Storrington    On the turf and on the spray;  But the sweetest flower on Sussex hills    Was the Daisy-flower that day!  Her beauty smoothed earth's furrowed face;    She gave me tokens three:—  A look, a word of her winsome mouth,    And a wild raspberry.  A berry red, a guileless look,    A still word,—strings of sand!  And yet they made my wild, wild heart    Fly down to her little hand.  For standing artless as the air,    And candid as the skies,  She took the berries with her hand,    And the love with her sweet eyes.  The fairest things have fleetest end,    Their scent survives their close;  But the rose's scent is bitterness    To him that loved the rose.  She looked a little wistfully,    Then went her sunshine way:—  The sea's eye had a mist on it,    And the leaves fell from the day.  She went her unremembering way,    She went and left in me  The pang of all the partings gone,    And partings yet to be.  She left me marvelling why my soul    Was sad that she was glad;  At all the sadness in the sweet,    The sweetness in the sad.  Still, still I seemed to see her, still    Look up with soft replies,  And take the berries with her hand,    And the love with her lovely eyes.  Nothing begins, and nothing ends,    That is not paid with moan;  For we are born in other's pain,    And perish in our own.Francis Thompson.

124. A CRADLE SONG

  O, men from the fields!    Come gently within.  Tread softly, softly,    O! men coming in.  Mavourneen is going    From me and from you,  Where Mary will fold him    With mantle of blue!  From reek of the smoke    And cold of the floor,  And the peering of things    Across the half-door.  O, men from the fields!    Soft, softly come thro'.  Mary puts round him    Her mantle of blue.Padraic Colum.

125. ON A DEAD CHILD

  Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee,    With promise of strength and manhood full and fair!        Though cold and stark and bare,  The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee.  Thy mother's treasure wert thou;—alas! no longer    To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be        Thy father's pride;—ah, he  Must gather his faith together, and his strength make stronger.  To me, as I move thee now in the last duty,    Dost thou with a turn or gesture anon respond;        Startling my fancy fond  With a chance attitude of the head, a freak of beauty.  Thy hand clasps, as 'twas wont, my finger, and holds it:    But the grasp is the clasp of Death, heartbreaking and stiff;        Yet feels to my hand as if  'Twas still thy will, thy pleasure and trust that enfolds it.  So I lay thee there, thy sunken eyelids closing,—    Go, lie thou there in thy coffin, thy last little bed!—        Propping thy wise, sad head,  Thy firm, pale hands across thy chest disposing.  So quiet! doth the change content thee?—Death,      whither hath he taken thee?    To a world, do I think, that rights the disaster of this?        The vision of which I miss,  Who weep for the body, and wish but to warm thee      and awaken thee?  Ah! little at best can all our hopes avail us    To lift this sorrow, or cheer us, when in the dark,        Unwilling, alone we embark,  And the things we have seen and have known and      have heard of, fail us.Robert Bridges.

126. I NEVER SHALL LOVE THE SNOW AGAIN

  I never shall love the snow again      Since Maurice died:  With corniced drift it blocked the lane,  And sheeted in a desolate plain      The country side.  The trees with silvery rime bedight      Their branches bare.  By day no sun appeared; by night  The hidden moon shed thievish light      In the misty air.  We fed the birds that flew around      In flocks to be fed:  No shelter in holly or brake they found,  The speckled thrush on the frozen ground      Lay frozen and dead.  We skated on stream and pond; we cut      The crinching snow  To Doric temple or Arctic hut;  We laughed and sang at nightfall, shut      By the fireside glow.  Yet grudged we our keen delights before      Maurice should come.  We said, "In-door or out-of-door  We shall love life for a month or more,      When he is home."  They brought him home; 'twas two days late      For Christmas Day:  Wrapped in white, in solemn state,  A flower in his hand, all still and straight      Our Maurice lay.  And two days ere the year outgave      We laid him low.  The best of us truly were not brave,  When we laid Maurice down in his grave      Under the snow.Robert Bridges.

127. TO MY GODCHILD

Francis M. W. M.  This labouring, vast, Tellurian galleon,  Riding at anchor off the orient sun,  Had broken its cable, and stood out to space  Down some frore Arctic of the aërial ways:  And now, back warping from the inclement main,  Its vaporous shroudage drenched with icy rain,  It swung into its azure roads again;  When, floated on the prosperous sun-gale, you  Lit, a white halcyon auspice, 'mid our frozen crew.  To the Sun, stranger, surely you belong,  Giver of golden days and golden song;  Nor is it by an all-unhappy plan  You bear the name of me, his constant Magian.  Yet ah! from any other that it came,  Lest fated to my fate you be, as to my name.  When at the first those tidings did they bring,  My heart turned troubled at the ominous thing:  Though well may such a title him endower,  For whom a poet's prayer implores a poet's power.  The Assisian, who kept plighted faith to three,  To Song, to Sanctitude, and Poverty,  (In two alone of whom most singers prove  A fatal faithfulness of during love!)  He the sweet Sales, of whom we scarcely ken  How God he could love more, he so loved men;  The crown and crowned of Laura and Italy;  And Fletcher's fellow—from these, and not from me,  Take you your name, and take your legacy!  Or, if a right successive you declare  When worms, for ivies, intertwine my hair,  Take but this Poesy that now followeth  My clayey best with sullen servile breath,  Made then your happy freedman by testating death.  My song I do but hold for you in trust,  I ask you but to blossom from my dust.  When you have compassed all weak I began,  Diviner poet, and ah! diviner man;  The man at feud with the perduring child  In you before Song's altar nobly reconciled;  From the wise heavens I half shall smile to see  How little a world, which owned you, needed me.  If, while you keep the vigils of the night,  For your wild tears make darkness all too bright,  Some lone orb through your lonely window peeps,  As it played lover over your sweet sleeps;  Think it a golden crevice in the sky,  Which I have pierced but to behold you by!  And when, immortal mortal, droops your head,  And you, the child of deathless song, are dead;  Then, as you search with unaccustomed glance  The ranks of Paradise for my countenance,  Turn not your tread along the Uranian sod  Among the bearded counsellors of God;  For if in Eden as on earth are we,  I sure shall keep a younger company:  Pass where beneath their ranged gonfalons  The starry cohorts shake their shielded suns,  The dreadful mass of their enridged spears;  Pass where majestical the eternal peers,  The stately choice of the great Saintdom, meet—  A silvern segregation, globed complete  In sandalled shadow of the Triune feet;  Pass by where wait, young poet-wayfarer,  Your cousined clusters, emulous to share  With you the roseal lightnings burning 'mid their hair;  Pass the crystalline sea, the Lampads seven:—  Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven.Francis Thompson.

128. WHEN JUNE IS COME

  When June is come, then all the day  I'll sit with my love in the scented hay  And watch the sunshot palaces high,  That the white clouds build in the breezy sky.  She singeth, and I do make her a song,  And read sweet poems the whole day long:  Unseen as we lie in our hay-built home.  Oh, life is delight when June is come.Robert Bridges.

129. IN MISTY BLUE

  In misty blue the lark is heard  Above the silent homes of men;  The bright-eyed thrush, the little wren,  The yellow-billed sweet-voiced blackbird  Mid sallow blossoms blond as curd  Or silver oak boughs, carolling  With happy throat from tree to tree,  Sing into light this morn of spring  That sang my dear love home to me.  Be starry, buds of clustered white,  Around the dark waves of her hair!  The young fresh glory you prepare  Is like my ever-fresh delight  When she comes shining on my sight  With meeting eyes, with such a cheek  As colours fair like flushing tips  Of shoots, and music ere she speak  Lies in the wonder of her lips.  Airs of the morning, breathe about  Keen faint scents of the wild wood side  From thickets where primroses hide  Mid the brown leaves of winter's rout.  Chestnut and willow, beacon out  For joy of her, from far and nigh,  Your English green on English hills:  Above her head, song-quivering sky,  And at her feet, the daffodils.  Because she breathed, the world was more,  And breath a finer soul to use,  And life held lovelier hopes to choose;  But O, to-day my heart brims o'er,  Earth glows as from a kindled core,  Like shadows of diviner things  Are hill and cloud and flower and tree—  A splendour that is hers and spring's,–  The day my love came home to me.Laurence Binyon.