5 J
II
LINES OF LIFE
HENRY W. NEVINSON
BONI
Publishers
AND
LIVERIGHT
New York
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT LOS ANGELES
LINES OF LIFE
BY THE S*AME ^AUTHOR
NEIGHBOURS OF OURS : Scenes of
East End Life.
IN THE VALLEY OF TOPHET :
Scenes of Black Country Life.
THE THIRTY DAYS' WAR : Scenei
in the Greek and Turkish War of 1897.
LADYSMITH : A Diary of the Siege.
CLASSIC GREEK LANDSCAPE AND
ARCHITECTURE : Text to John Pulley-
love's Pictures of Greece.
THE PLEA OF PAN.
BETWEEN THE ACTS : Scenes in the
Author's Experience.
ON THE OLD ROAD THROUGH
FRANCE TO FLORENCE: French
Chapters to Hallam Murray's Pictures.
BOOKS AND PERSONALITIES : A
Volume of Criticism.
A MODERN SLAVERY : An Investiga-
tion of the Slave System in Angola and the
Islands of San Thome and Principe.
THE DAWN IN RUSSIA : Scenes in
the Revolution of 1905-1906.
THE NEW SPIRIT IN INDIA: Scene.
during 1 the Unrest of 1907-1908.
ESSAYS IN FREEDOM.
THE GROWTH OF FREEDOM: A
Summary of the History of Democracy.
ESSAYS IN REBELLION.
THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN.
LINES OF LIFE
BY
HENRY W. NEVINSON
BONI AND LIVERIGHT
PUBLISHERS 192O NEW YORK
CONTENTS
PAOK
A JOURNEY . . . . . .9
THE ROSE . . . . . .12
VITA NUOVA XXI . . . 14
SITTING AT A PLAY . . . . I 5
A BALLADE OF PLACE . . . . 17
THE DEMONIAC . . . . . 1 8
A SHRINE . . . . . .20
TIME AND TIDE . . . . . .21
SOUTHWARD BOUND . . . . .22
AT SEA ... ... 23
ON GUARD . . . . . 24
THE COMMON ROUND . . . . 2 5
A MEETING . . . . . 25
THE HALLOWED STEPS . . . . .26
AFTER EPIPHANY . ... 27
AN EMPTY BOX . . . . . .28
DEATH IN LIFE . . . . . 2 9
SPACE . . . . . -3
AUTUMN . . . . 3O
PYTHAGORAS AT ARGOS . 3 1
MISERICORDE ... 3 2
AT THIRTY-FIVE ... -34
" OH FOR MORE WORLDS TO CONQUER ! " . . 34
AN OLD PORTRAIT . -35
GOOD-BYE . '35
CREMATION . 3^
A FRENCH SUNDIAL . . -3^
DIVINE FRENZY . . . . 3*>
43205;
6 CONTENTS
PAGE
SOULS . . . . . . -36
SHEEP-SHEARING ..... 37
THOMAS A KEMPIS . . . 37
ST. JOHN OF AMIENS . ... 39
PRAYER. . . -41
THE PICTURESQUE ... J. I
A HOLIDAY .... .42
ABROAD .... Al
IN CENTRAL AFRICA . . . . -45
A GERMAN WINTER . . . . -45
PILGRIM'S SONG . . . . 46
BLAGOVESCHENSK : igOO ... -47
HOME, SWEET HOME . . . . 48
A BALLADE OF TIME . . . . -5
THE SIREN . . 5 1
AFFATIM EDI, BIBI, LUS1 . . 5 2
THE HAUNTED SPRING: 1915 . . -53
AN ANCIENT BATTLEFIELD . . . -55
THE FOOL IN GOD . . . . 56
THE FOOL IN MAN . . . . -57
WOUNDED . . . . . -57
EPIMENIDES THE CRETAN . . . 6 1
THE RETURN OF ALCESTIS . . . 6 1
FORWARD . . . . . -7O
DEDICATA . . . . . .71
A PRAYER IN SPRING . . . . -75
SOLDIER M.P. . . . . . -78
A CABINET MINISTER . . . . -79
A VIGIL 8 I
ERRATA.
Page 14, third line from bottom, for " And with his a salutation "
read "And with his salutation."
Page 27, line 5 from top, for "of hallowed stones" read "of
hollowed stones."
Page 30, end of third line in "Autumn," for "dread" read
' ' drear. "
Page 47, fourth line from bottom, for " Christians dear " read
" Russians dear."
Page 76, line 16 from top, for " Peace came undreamt of" read
"Joy came undreamt of."
" Often in my past life the selfsame dream has come to
me, sometimes in one form, sometimes in another, but
always saying the same thing : ' Follow the Muse, Socrates !
Strictly meditate the Muse.' In old days I thought the
dream was only encouraging and inciting me to work at the
very thing I was after. As spectators hound on the runners
in a race with their cheers, the dream, I supposed, was
hounding me along the course I was already following ; since
the pursuit of wisdom is the highest art of the Muse, and I
was pursuing wisdom. But when the trial was over, and the
festival of Apollo delayed my execution, I thought that, if
after all the dream was ordering me to ' cultivate the Muse '
in the common meaning of the words, I ought not to disobey,
but to do my best in that line. For it seemed safer not to
depart this life before I had absolved and purified my soul by
making poems, in obedience to the dream."
SOCRATES, on the morning of his execution : Phaedo If.
A few of these verses have already appeared
in my books called " Between the Acts " and
''A Plea of Pan" and they are here
included by permission of the present
publishers, Messrs. Duckworth sf Co. A
few have appeared in "Tke Nation"
LINES OF LIFE
O
A JOURNEY
H, speed ! Oh, haste !
Plunge to the solid land,
Ship, having traversed the intervening waste
Of tedious water ! Plunge onward till you stand
Unmoved by baffling gales and dashing swirl
Of sea-foam, nor by the fog encumbered ! Drive
Your black prow through the successive waves that curl
In seething semicircles up your keel !
O ship, I would your engines were alive,
And that your furnace-heart might feel
The passion blazing in your plates of steel !
I would you were alive !
Speed, every wheel
Spinning along the rails !
Speed through the vineyards, make the white olives reel
Before the windows like a flashing show,
So quick that eyesight fails !
Devour the ground, with glowing phlanges pacing
Mile after mile, swift as a wild star racing,
And, like a comet's hair,
Let the smoke phantom mark the course you go !
Shriek through the cities of old Popes and kings,
O train, that lovers all may know
A love is passing by, beyond compare
With other loving things !
io LINES OF LIFE
Old Popes and kings, why were you born so soon ?
You should have waited till it was love's noon,
And known the noontide where
Love climbs the zenith by a golden stair :
You should have waited, kings !
Another city there !
And evening falls
On quiet houses, roofs, and purple walls,
And streets deserted in the lamplight glare,
And lovers wandering home.
So evening falls to them, and so to me
It will fall to-morrow ! Quick let the darkness come,
Building her shadowy bridge between the days,
Brief as one stepping-stone, that I may see
Sunset and sunrise mingle, and the night
Slide like a torrent lost down hidden ways !
O darkness, bring to all else delight,
Bring them the appointed lane, the orchard deep,
Or twilit chamber ; let the dumb midnight keep
Their secret in the wood or by the stream !
But to me bring a nothingness of sleep
Oh, swift as love's unerring sight,
And deeper than a dream
A dreamless sleep !
To-day !
Is that a gleam
Of morning through the rain,
Whitening the billows of careering steam
And glimmering on the pane ?
A JOURNEY ii
To-day to-day !
Let me not miss one moment of its hours,
That march in triumph up their sacred way
Of wind and sun and showers ;
But swiftly they must march Oh, swiftly too !
How many moments till I see again
The Paris streets, the bridges, and the Seine,
And cross the city through
To a land of streams, and poplar trees,
And sandy hills ? Then narrow seas
Dim cliffs the hedgerow squares
And London with her darkening towers,
And columned smoke, and lurid summer airs,
The platform, and the pausing train,
The unconscious crowd Then speed through street
and lane,
Speed to a house of consecrated stairs
The common, golden stairs !
How the horizon flares
With flaming signals beckoning me !
I hear the great cliffs cry,
Calling across the sea ;
Earth, sea and heaven, commingled in a rout
Of glory, pass, the clouds and waters flee,
Shouting together, and from the depth of sky
Great stars invisible shout ;
The sun and moon embrace,
And all the spirits of the world go shouting by.
O men and women, shall not you rejoice,
And the whole living race,
12 LINES OF LIFE
Dwelling in wilderness and houses dear,
Join with the firmament's exultant voice ?
For I come near Oh, near !
And speed along the street
(Make lightning slow, my feet !)
And reach the door, and hear
Behind the door, where is love's dwelling-place,
A sudden stir inside
A stir, a footstep ! How shall a board divide
Two souls that burn to meet
As meeting flames ? It opens opens wide
Wide as two arms ! And then a breast, a face-
Two arms, a breast, a face !
THE ROSE
QTEPHEN, clerk of Oxford town,
w_3 Oh, the weary while he lies,
Wrapt in his old college gown,
Burning, burning, till he dies !
And 'tis very surely said,
He shall burn when he is dead,
All aflame from foot to head.
Stephen said he knew a rose,
One and two, yea, roses three,
Lovelier far than any those
Which at service-time we see
THE ROSE 13
Emblems of atonement done,
And of Christ's beloved One,
And of Mary's mystic Son.
Stephen said his roses grew
All upon a milk-white stem ;
Side by side together two,
One a little up from them,
Sweeter than the rose's breath,
Rosy as the sun riseth,
Warm beside that was his death.
Stephen swore, as God knows well,
Just to touch the topmost bud,
He would give his soul to hell
Soul and body, bones and blood ;
Hell has come before he dieSj
Burning, burning, there he lies,
And he neither speaks nor cries.
Oh, what might those roses be ?
Once, before the dawn was red,
Did he wander out to see
If the rose were still abed ?
Did he find a rose-tree tall
Standing by the silent wall ?
Did he touch the rose of all ?
2
i 4 LINES OF LIFE
" Stephen, was it worth the pain,
Just to touch a breathing rose ? "
Ah, to think of it again,
See, he smiles amid his woes !
Did he dream that hell would be
Years hereafter ? Now, you see,
Hell is here and where is she ?
At my word, through all his face
Flames the infernal fire within ;
Mary, Mary, grant me grace
Still to keep my soul from sin !
Thanks to God, my rose is one
Not so sweet, but all my own,
Not so fair, but mine alone.
VITA NUOVA XXI
WHY seek new praises for my lady's grace,
When he who passed through hell to paradise,
And saw no sweeter shape before him rise
Than was his lady in her heavenly place,
Already sings the wonder of her face
Shedding a gentleness because her eyes
Are homes of Love himself, wherein he lies
And with his a salutation doth abase
The trembling heart that greets her.
Oh, to hear
Her speech conveys a sweet humility,
VITA NUOVA XXI 15
And blest is who beholds her but awhile ;
How shall he tell, or how shall rightly bear
In mind such image, should he only see
The sudden miracle of her little smile ?
SITTING AT A PLAY
O LOVELY head, so small, so brown,
So neatly coiled about with hair,
I laugh to think as I look down
Upon that lower line of seats
And watch you lovely there
I laugh to think, as there you're set
So primly at another's side,
How queer a shock the house would get
If it could see what images
That little head can hide !
Could they but take that pretty hair,
And lift the delicate bone away,
And strip the working cellules bare,
And in that dear beloved brain
Read what the cellules say,
That interlace and twist about
The tiniest fairies ever seen
And dance together in and out,
As quick and noiseless in the dance
As fairies on the green.
1 6 LINES OF LIFE
Who watching them would ever guess
What picture in your mind they raise
That seem to dance in wantonness,
Pursuing as at hide-and-seek
Uncalculated ways ?
And yet together they compose
A summer scene, a moonlit night,
A garden, a sweet-scented rose,
A cottage glimmering in the moon,
A door not shut too tight,
And two that enter by the door,
And stand so close embraced they cast
One shadow on the moonlit floor ;
Ah, to be those embraced so close,
So lovingly, so fast !
Joy above joy that in my brain
The cellules dance the selfsame way,
Compose the selfsame scene again,
Reveal the very figures there,
And form the words they say !
How fortunate that hair and bone
Hide all those dancing cellules over,
And none may guess but two alone
The meaning of that fairy dance,
The scenes the two heads cover !
SITTING AT A PLAY 17
O lovely head, we two sit there,
Conspirators as in foreign lands ;
What for the audience do we care ?
What for the play ? The curtain falls ;
Now we must clap our hands.
A BALLADE OF PLACE
THERE was a time I thought to travel far,
Beyond the village, through the garden gate,
Down the white road, across the harbour bar,
And out upon the ocean desolate ;
Oh, what a weariness it was to wait
Till I could push my little boat from shore
And steer, a new Columbus, round the Nore,
Or follow Drake all flaming to Cadiz !
But now I dream of wandering seas no more,
There is no place but where my lady is.
Tell other men where other marvels are,
Where rites impenetrable consecrate
The glittering temple-domes of Candahar,
Or where the Pyramids, confronting fate,
Watch over Egypt's immemorial state ;
Tell them of jewelled vaults in Travancore,
And bid them all the haunted bays explore
Of Asia, slumbering on her memories ;
For me, who find what I have sought before,
There is no place but where my lady is.
1 8 LINES OF LIFE
Let down the mainsail, loosen every spar,
Drop the deep anchor, disembark the freight ;
In all the sailor's heaven one only star
Lit me to port with promise passionate,
And all the log records one only date
When to her heart the ocean currents bore
Me toiling long at random with the oar,
If haply I might reach such isle as this,
Where my soul lands and heaps her magic
store ;
There is no place but where my lady is.
ENVOI.
Queen, to thy loveliness in love I pour
All love, like blood upon a temple's floor ;
In mercy to thy lover grant as his
Love's only station at thy bosom's door ;
There is no place but where my lady is.
THE DEMONIAC
HE knew a devil lurked within,
Like a shy rat it gnawed his heart,
Behind his breast's partition thin
It roamed at will from part to part ;
But how to coax the devil out
Defied the village art.
THE DEMONIAC 19
They pounded spiders up with toads,
And mixed them in his special bread ;
They pricked him down the street with goads,
And rolled him in the nettle bed ;
But at the last they all agreed
He'd not be cured till dead.
He stared upon the unpitying sky,
And slunk about the lonely ways,
Striving to hide from every eye
The torment of his haunted face ;
He knew himself a creature loathed
By all the human race.
He knew the sentence on his soul,
From rack to rack condemned to go ;
Down an abyss he felt it roll
Of smoke and indistinguished woe ;
" What have I done," he asked the winds,
" To be confounded so ? "
Each morning, like a poisoned wine,
He drank the memory of his doom ;
All day in horror's shadowy mine
He dug the galleries of gloom,
And watched a shapeless thing in dread
Ever before him loom.
There came my lady Rosalie
Bright as a rainbow up the street ;
20 LINES OF LIFE
The sun of passion's charity
Shone on her mouth and eyelids sweet ;
She was herself a bounteous sun
From her eyes down to her feet.
He caught the border of her dress,
And clinging to her knees did kneel,
He felt her fingers' tenderness
About his maddened forehead steal,
And the devil came sliding out of his mouth
As easily as an eel.
Methinks my lady Rosalie
Is of herself the dull earth's leaven ;
Methinks there keeps her company
A pure and healing air from heaven ;
One devil from the clown she cast,
And from her lover, seven.
A SHRINE
I TOO was born a pilgrim, and have sought
From land to land, by holy reverence led,
The relics of mankind's immortal dead
Resting in shrines elaborately wrought
By kings in adoration, and have brought
Unwonted gifts to many a saintly head
Which lay unnoticed in the common bed
Whose counterpane is grass ; but now as nought
A SHRINE 21
I deem such pilgrimages.
Ancient stones
And mouldering sanctitudes ! what time for them
When morning, noon, and eve I kneel apart,
Turning to one within whose hallowed bones
Beats, warm with life, that miracle of a heart
Which is my Mecca and Jerusalem ?
TIME AND TIDE
WHEN life is rent, and the remorseless road
Shuts you from eyes that but for you are
blind,
And back I turn to that unchanged abode,
And close the door behind,
And feel the forsaken rooms, and wander through
The silent passages haunted by your feet,
And lie upon the bed that breathes of you
From pillow and from sheet,
A chilling flood creeps upward to my heart ;
I am the girl fast-bound by Solway side,
And all the gloomy crowd is ranged apart.
And watches for the tide,
Which shivers up her ankles to her knee,
And at the breast comes edging in between ;
And now those English hills are faint to see
And now the sun is green
22 LINES OF LIFE
SOUTHWARD BOUND
NOW the wild-eyed Northern Star
Dances on the horizon's bar,
Dances, rises, vanishes,
And we break the southern seas.
Nameless constellations stand
White above a nameless land ;
London London lies to-night
Set with constellations white.
Murmuring to the swinging tides,
To and fro her river slides ;
Down the streams of square and street
Murmuring go the human feet.
Drunk with life the city reels,
Joy is borne on burning wheels,
Lovers come and lovers part,
Lovers waken heart on heart.
Like a flame of lonely fire
Stands the star of my desire :
Longing as I long, she stands ;
Empty are her amorous hands.
Both her hands uncomforted
She would lay around my head ;
She would give her being whole,
She would give me all her soul.
SOUTHWARD BOUND 23
While the planets go their way,
She would hold me close till day,
Close to her heart she would hold me
And I sail a southern sea,
And the wild-eyed Northern Star
Dances on the horizon's bar ;
Lanterns at the masthead high
Swing across an unhallowed sky.
AT SEA
O MOUTH that clung, O little hands !
They took him from my heart,
They stitched him up in sacking bands
The mouth that clung, the little hands !
And laid him down apart ;
A flag was spread to hide the thing
The little thing that lived in me
And words were said and a bell did ring,
They pushed it off into the sea
The little thing that lived in me.
Oh, white and green and greener still,
He sank into the cold !
Down the ship's side he sank, until
Oh, white and green and greener still !
He vanished from my hold ;
24 LINES OF LIFE
The night comes on, and mothers bear
The babies to their beds again,
Last night last night a babe was there
Who knows not hunger now nor pain,
And never goes to bed again.
Cold, cold, and dark, and all alone,
He neither sleeps nor cries
The life that was my own life's own
The ship moves on, and all alone
Far, far behind he lies.
Last night he lay against my side
The mouth that clung, the little hands !-
Down through the dark I see him slide,
Or tossed on cold, unpitying sands
O mouth that clung, O little hands !
ON GUARD
LIKE a brown savage who beside the door
Stands with drawn sword through all the length
of night,
That death may find no entrance to the floor
Where, sick to death, lies all his world's delight,
Till, when the daybreak ends his silent care,
He enters softly with a tranquil brow,
And as he enters finds that death is there
Such were I, did you cease to love me now.
THE COMMON ROUND 25
THE COMMON ROUND
^IS sad enough to shut the unmoving eyes,
Fold up in sheets the darling limbs, and say
Farewell again, when once again she dies
And, where the breast is, thuds the inhuman clay
'Tis sad enough ; but what is it to move
Round an unchanging circle far away,
To work, to feed, and in the shroud of love
Drag out the common uses of the day ?
A MEETING
JUST where a white road leaves the northern lake
To slide unseen among the mountains old,
Even there Love met me, and with lips as cold
And sad as frozen harebells thus he spake :
" It is I, you know it well ; and will you take
No heed of one who in this desert wold
Long since came to you first, and shyly told
All my dear secret ? will you then forsake
Me in the selfsame valley ? "
And there swept
Grief like a flood upon me, and I cried :
4 Yes, Love, I know you well and hold you dear ;
You are the same, the streams and hills are here ;
But where is she who brought me to your side ? "
And suddenly he fell on my neck and wept.
26 LINES OF LIFE
THE HALLOWED STEPS
noble Saint is nobly shrined,"
The saintly bishop said,
" With gold and marble richly lined
And jewels is his bed.
" A diamond blazes on his breast,
A ruby on his hand ;
So let him lie and take his rest,
And save the northern land.
" And evermore the sacred sound
Of bells and melodies
In service due shall echo round
The chapel where he lies.
" One thing remains : this ledge of stones
Around the sculptured frieze
Is worn in hollows by the bones
Of twice ten thousand knees.
" Pilgrims of course must pray, but I
Will make a set of five
Smooth marble steps before I die
To keep my name alive."
The next year came, and down was hurled
The shrine to rot and rust ;
The Saint was blown about the world
Like other common dust.
THE HALLOWED STEPS 27
And now upon a vacant space
Where the north wind bleakly moans,
No sign remains to mark the place
But just a ledge of stones,
Of hallowed stones ; the learned say,
" Here was a shrine, for these
Deep troughs and holes were worn away
By twice ten thousand knees.
" That was a craze of by-gone years."
But still to me the place
As fervid of the past appears
As some old, wrinkled face,
Whereon deep lines alone reveal
What passions there have raged,
What woes that weary time could heal,
What fire, by time assuaged.
And, but for these, all's dumb at last
Grief's sanctuary is rust,
And love is blown about the past
Like other common dust.
AFTER EPIPHANY
SHOULD I remember my departed state
When on the heaven love's guiding star arose
Love's star now vanished dreary I seem as those
Wise men of old who turned from Bethlehem's gate
28 LINES OF LIFE
Back toward their obscure East to spell how fate
By trivial constellations threatened woes
On crumbling Babylon, or where Ganges flows
To make the dusky bathers supplicate
Quaint gods in old Benares.
Surely they
Sadly remembered oft the solemn stir
Of unimagined hopes that night they found
A star-lit manger where an infant lay
Beside his mother, and upon the ground
They poured their gold and frankincense and myrrh
AN EMPTY BOX
OURELY the woman of the sinful street
^-} Who pushed her way past many a spotless guest
And washed with tears, and kissed the sacred feet,
And wiped them with her hair, and from her breast
Drew out an alabaster box, and poured
The precious ointment forth, making increase
The indignant voices, till she heard her Lord
Saying, " Thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace "
Surely at times, long after he was dead,
She took the box out from some hidden place,
And wept, recalling in a fragrance shed
About it still, the very voice and face.
AN EMPTY BOX 29
So do I cherish up my heart, as it were
An alabaster box in secret shrine,
Retaining still a fragrance faint and rare
Of love long since poured out at feet of thine;
DEATH IN LIFE
HERE, by the lifeless wall,
Two souls immortal met ;
The sun marched over all,
We cared not when he set ;
Love in two souls aflame
Joined flame and flame as one ;
The wall is much the same,
And there's the marching sun.
Quick movements of her dress,
With breathings out and in ;
Eyes closed for lovingness,
The touch of skin on skin
Oh, the first touch, the first
Touch of dear passion's will !
And of all griefs the worst
Is that we're living still.
Long before living ends,
Alone or on the street
We are like meeting friends,
And happy not to meet ;
3
3 o LINES OF LIFE
But that so dear a thing
Should rot before we die
O Death, here is thy sting !
Here, Grave, thy victory !
SPACE
AS one who climbs again some mountain side
After long years of sea or prairie plain,
And gazes round upon the horizon wide,
Till nature reels beneath the joyous pain
Of all that gulf of 'wildering space descried,
So reels my heart at sight of you again.
AUTUMN
IS it a lark I hear ?
Over the firmament thin clouds are wild,
And autumn's afternoon on roadsides dread
Scatters the clammy leaves ;
Poor lark, who sang when summer was a child,
The fields are empty of their summer sheaves,
Why tell of spring to the declining year ?
Primrose and crocus blue,
The winter's advent finds you shining there ;
Old earth has lost her latest garden hue,
And all her bridal's done ;
You are the stars that virgin springtide bare,
But now the swallows gather to be gone,
Why gleam upon a heaven unmeet for you ?
AUTUMN 31
What stirs so tenderly,
Breaking the twilit dulness of a heart
Where autumn whispers of a life gone by,
Dead leaves and dying song ?
It stirs ! It moves ! It quickens every part !
I knew it once once when the world was young !
Can it be that ? Once more ? Before I die ?
PYTHAGORAS AT ARGOS
A RRIVED from far, he trod the remembered ways
JL\. Of that grave town where he was wont to be
With heroes old of far-resounding days,
Gathered for wandering wars of land or sea.
There, crumbling o'er a sculptured tomb he found
The rusted armour he himself did wear,
Battling long since at Troy, and underground
Lay his own body, long since crumbling there.
Even so, in wandering through the haunted nave
Of time's old church, I saw against a stone
A panoply of love, hung o'er a grave
Where lay a rigid body once my own.
Why waste a thought on long-forgotten men,
Or spell the record of those fading lines ?
Sweet life is sweeter to me now than then,
And round my heart a nobler armour shines.
3 2 LINES OF LIFE
MISERICORDE
HE came in tempest to a convent old,
High up the mountains on the Italian way,
Seeking a shelter from the sullen cold,
Where he might wait the dear return of day ;
Gold was his armour, and his hair was gold.
And as he slumbered in a chamber dim,
Came Misery, and she crept into the bed,
And laid one hand upon the heart of him,
And wound one wasted arm about his head ;
With tears her eyes were heavy to the brim.
" My hair," she said, " is wet with snow and rain,
My garment lets the biting weather in,
My girdle is a loop of rusty chain,
The frost and storm have crinkled all my skin,
And when I smile, half of the smile is pain.
" I stand removed from other women's grace,
My feet are cut with brambles and with stones,
My body shrinks into a little space,
And through my very breasts I feel the bones ;
Sorrow has graved her trade-mark on my face.
" But let me sleep beside this heart of thine ;
I eat the crusts that dogs have sorted through,
I drink the dregs of vinegar for wine ;
But let me sleep as other women do ;
No other woman has a heart like mine."
MISERICORDE 33
" Then sleep," he said, " if sleep be thy desire ;
But for thy loving heart, speak not of it ;
I love Delight, whom love can never tire,
And Jollity, who savours love with wit,
And amorous Passion with the lips of fire.
" And I love Plenty's well-contented form,
And the shy limbs of fugitive Daintiness ;
I love the fragrant hair, the ringers warm,
What pleasure is there in pale-eyed distress,
Sad at the mouth and frozen with the storm ?
" But sleep, if sleep be thy desire," he said,
" So that thou speak of love no more again."
Thereat she rose from out the narrow bed,
And round her loins she hooked the girdle chain,
And passed into the night, nor turned her head.
When yellow sunshine touched the convent old,
Forthwith he fared upon his onward way,
And climbed the pass across the mountain cold,
Till all the sunny plain beneath him lay ;
Gold was his armour, and his hair was gold.
And there within a golden city's gate
He passed with gladness, and a palace found
High-towered and bastioned as the crown of ttate,
Encircling in its walls a garden round,
With many a grove to pleasure dedicate ;
34 LINES OF LIFE
Where Plenty day by day her court did keep,
And Jollity and Delight made laughing love,
And Daintiness allowed her feet to peep
Under her broidered gown as she did move,
And Passion let him kiss her eyes to sleep
But ever came some vision of the night
When one besought him with petition sad,
And lay beside his face a face so white ;
And dreaming on the heart none other had
He found no solace in a world's delight.
AT THIRTY-FIVE
NOW in the centre of life's arch I stand,
And view its curve descending from to-day ;
How brief the road from birth's mysterious strand !
How brief its passage till it close in grey !
Yet by this bridge went all the immortal band,
And the world's saviour did not reach half-way.
"OH, FOR MORE WORLDS TO
CONQUER "
POOR Alexander ! was this earth
Too small in your opinion ?
To me was given at my birth
An infinite dominion.
"OH, FOR MORE WORLDS" 35
I've unknown seas, and deserts wide
With scarcely a trace of fountain ;
And fearsome monsters peep and hide
Along the lengths of mountain.
And every day begins anew
A strife of cruel ravages,
For every day my Grecian few
Brave Oriental savages.
So has it been since I was born ;
So lasts till death or longer ;
More blest than monarchs, every morn
I've the same world to conquer.
AN OLD PORTRAIT
OTRANGE comfort ! yet as sweet as it is strange,
w_J To scan my present and my youthful brow,
And find, though much is changed, so small a change
In sin, which then was quite as black as now.
GOOD-BYE
NOT from my dearest foe I'd take farewell,
But ever hope to meet beneath the sky ;
In each adieu there sounds a passing bell,
And every parting is indeed to die.
36 LINES OF LIFE
CREMATION
HELL scarce abolished, lo ! upsprings afresh
That ancient, just, insatiable desire ;
To purge the soul and purify the flesh
Man has an inward craving for the fire.
A FRENCH SUN-DIAL
WHERE the sun flashes from eternal snows,
And mountains have endured through years
untold,
A sun-dial urges, as the traveller goes,
Brief warning : " While you look, you are growing
old."
DIVINE FRENZY
IT was thought before, and now professors teach,
Genius with madness holds alliance sad :
" Look ! " shriek our poets, " at our life and speech,
Our lust, our vanity, and admit we are mad ! "
SOULS
WHEN I consider this queer soul of mine,
And kindred souls of all my fellows here,
I am like one to whom a child divine
Was promised by an angel-message clear,
SOULS 37
But lo ! the babe bears every devil's sign ;
God ! how she yearns with sorrow, love, and fear !
SHEEP-SHEARING
^HE shepherd sits like death who takes his toll ;
J. The struggling sheep secure before him lies,
And feels the encumbering fleeces off her roll,
And naked stands at gaze with dubious eyes ;
Then rushes forth, like a bewildered soul
Escaping, cool and white, to Paradise.
THOMAS A KEMPIS
IT is a sound of far-off peace,
As from a world of quiet things
Where the vexed soul may find release
On gold and silver wings ;
So far recede the hurrying noise
And fretful interests of the day,
Discordant strife and raucous joys
That wear the soul away ;
And up and down the ethereal space,
Majestically clothed in white,
Pure thoughts from far are seen to pace,
Conversing in the light.
432052
3 8 LINES OF LIFE
So when at times the hills and sea
Are silent in the Sabbath air,
And the Welsh fisher dreamily
Lets down the baited snare,
And watches how the bubble wells
Up from the depth of Penmaen bay,
He seems to hear a sound of bells
From very far away.
They are no echoings that float
From his own village on the sands ;
Ten fathom deep beneath his boat
That ghostly belfry stands ;
And well he knows, if he looked down,
He still might see revealed again
Dim churches of a ghostly town,
And walls, and homes, and men.
He listens till the noon is passed ;
Then dreamily draws in the lines,
And, as the south wind slopes the mast,
Steers where his cottage shines.
But all the week on Penmaen bay
For him the music does not cease,
And in his heart he bears all day
That sound of far-off peace.
ST. JOHN OF AMIENS 39
ST. JOHN OF AMIENS
IN the fair church of Amiens
There lies the relic of St. John ;
Some say it is the skull of him
Beheaded, as the Gospels tell,
By Herod for a woman's whim,
What time her daughter danced so well.
(St. John the Baptist, ever blest,
Bring me to his eternal rest.)
But some adore it as the head
Of John Divine, the same who said,
" My little children, love each other,"
And lay upon Lord Jesu's heart,
And took in trust the Blessed Mother,
Till she in glory did depart.
(St. John Divine, the son of love,
Preserve me to his peace above.)
For John the Baptist's head, they say,
Was broken up in Julian's day ;
One bit is in Samaria's town,
And two beneath Byzantium's dome,
And Genoa has half the crown,
The nose and forehead rest in Rome.
(St. John the Baptist's scattered dust
Bring me to kingdoms of the just.)
40 LINES OF LIFE
And there are others say again
St. John Divine escaped the pain
Of death's last conflict, for he lies
Still sleeping in his bishopric
Of Ephesus, until his eyes
Shall ope to judgment with the quick.
(St. John Divine, who sleeps so fast,
Wake me to paradise at last.)
For me, a poor unwitting man,
I pray and worship all I can ;
Sure that the blessed souls in heaven
Will not be jealous of each other,
And the mistake will be forgiven
If for one saint I love his brother.
(St. John Divine and Baptist too
Stand at each side whate'er I do.
And so that dubious mystery
Which of the twain those relics be,
I leave to God ; He knows, I wis ;
How should a thing like me decide ?
And whosesoever skull it is,
St. John, I trow, is satisfied.
(May God, who reads all hearts aright,
Admit my blindness to his sight.)
PRAYER
PRAYER
WHAT profit in a prayer for grace
From such a heart as mine
A prayer for you, who in your place
Are like a star divine :
Are like a star that ever moves
Mid choiring spheres of light,
And I the obscure bird that loves
The star-illumined night ?
Yet once I watched, where in the hade
Of a dim church she stole,
A drunken prostitute who prayed,
And prayed for Newman's soul.
THE PICTURESQUE
THE Abbey Hall is fair to see,
With lawns the smoothest ever trod,
And many a quaint exotic tree
Encompassing the house of God.
A few old arches, open still
At certain hours throughout the week,
Where antiquaries gaze their fill,
And amorous pairs play hide-and-seek.
42 LINES OF LIFE
At luncheon in the aisle they sit,
The painter sets his painting desk ;
No place in all the shire so fit
For picnics and the picturesque.
O home of God, of God bereft
O modern virtue's counterpart
Sleek ruins of a conscience left
To grace the pleasaunce of a heart.
A HOLIDAY
UP from a radiant valley went the way
Running between the vines and walnut trees,
And crossed low Alps where peasants raked the hay,
And cow-bells tinkled on the laughing breeze,
And joyful children shouted as they sped
Grass-laden sledges down, till all the air
Resounded joy, and mountains overhead
Seemed in our human mirthfulness to share.
But suddenly I climbed whence I could see
An ocean haze revealing tremulously
Where lies the path to England. Then for me
It seemed as when, submerged in common life,
Some man goes cheerily on from year to year,
Peace in his breast unsanctified by strife,
And placid ease unchastened by a fear ;
A HOLIDAY 43
Till as he passes down a village street,
A Sabbath bell tolls with persistence dim,
He hears the shuffle of church-going feet,
And from the door drones out the dismal hymn ;
Where then is peace ? The dull repeated strain
Wakes the old serpent of a nobler pain,
And stirs a trouble at the heart again.
ABROAD
IT'S beautiful, no doubt : the blue
Hangs arched in one unchanging hue
Above the whitewashed little town
Through which the glacier stream pours down
One turbid gush of white and green
In savage eagerness, between
Those black, undeviating lines
Of precipice and fringing pines
Mute as a funeral ; and the land
Flings out, like some too careless hand,
Fat gourds, and solemn shafts of maize,
And vines about the garden ways,
Where sit, along the shady side,
Tall, dusky women, onyx-eyed,
Each like her neighbour, with a look
Unvaried, just as though they took
Their nature from the constant stare
44 LINES OF LIFE
Of brazen mid-day and the glare
Of the snow-peaks above them.
Where
May be the vision delicate
Which with remembrance passionate
Hangs like a phantom in between,
And blurs with mist that sunlit scene ?
It is a mountain none so high
But the sheep love it, and the sky
Comes down to it in tender cloud
Almost too fugitive to shroud
The changeful pools and boulders grey
Scattered beside the untrammeled way
Which, like the smile upon a face,
Moves in and out the mountain's base
From wooded lowlands come, to guide
Dwellers upon the forest side
From village heart to heart, across
That windy moor of soaking moss
And heather, where the curlews cry,
And plovers at the passer-by
Hum with strained wings, or when the fox
Steals like a ghost between the rocks
Along the shadowy watershed,
Whence flow the diverse murmurings, fed
By tendril streams of peaty brown ;
As when the wilding hair drops down
About those changeful pools, the eyes
Which take the moods of northern skies,
Sweet with the promise of surprise.
IN CENTRAL AFRICA 45
IN CENTRAL AFRICA
DARK in its channel which the grasses hide,
With living speed through marsh and desert
flowing,
Thirty feet deep its waters curl and slide,
Almost without a whisper going.
Quiet things come and lap it with soft tongue,
Footstep by footstep through the silence creeping,
And starry leopards shine its reeds among,
When all but they and stars are sleeping.
It has no name among the streams of earth,
No proud explorer has its bearings given ;
Only the sun and moon watched at its birth,
And it has sucked the breasts of heaven.
In peace assured, these perilous lands between,
It will its waters to some deep deliver ;
And had I been what I too might have been,
Then had my peace been like a river.
A GERMAN WINTER
ON leagues of solid land the snow lies deep,
The snow falls crumbling from the leaden sky ;
All but the fir is white ; with timorous eye
Strange little birds in at the window peep,
4
46 LINES OF LIFE
From frozen forests come ; black rivers creep,
Shrunk with the cold till half their bed is dry,
Along the ice-hung ozier reeds, and by
The wooden villages with gables steep,
Huddled around their spires.
Oh, far away
A purple mountain rises from the sand,
The golden sand beneath the golden day ;
Down the bright steep the waterfall plunges free
From ledge to radiant ledge, and on the strand
Sounds the long murmur of the eternal sea !
PILGRIM'S SONG
IN days when old Crusaders
Rode to the Holy War,
For every pilgrim sinner
They counted one saint more ;
They counted one saint more,
For they wrapped his body round
In the shirt that went to Zion
When they laid him under ground.
I too have been a pilgrim
Beneath a holy sky,
And that's how I'll be buried
Whene'er I come to die ;
PILGRIM'S SONG 47
Whene'er I come to die
And pilgrimages cease,
Oh, bury my pilgrim body
In the shirt that went to Greece !
I stood beside the columns
Of Athene's ruined shrine ;
And looked from far at Sparta,
And drank the resined wine ;
And drank the resined wine,
And heard the Goat-god speak,
Where the asphodel was growing
And the mother-tongue was Greek.
Dear land, my more than mother,
Receive me to my home !
Count me among thy children,
Though late in time I come ;
Though late in time I come,
Give me thy children's peace
When like a saint I'm buried
In the shirt that went to Greece.
BLAGOVESCHENSK : 1900
H, do not slay us, Christians dear !
What evil have we done ?
Poor Chinamen ! In mercy hear ! "
They drove them on.
48 LINES OF LIFE
" Listen in pity ! Let us be
Friends as we were before !
You ate our rice, you drank our tea ! "
They reached the shore.
" Oh, swift the river runs ! Oh, deep !
See where the whirlpools spin !
The bank how slippery, and how steep ! "
They drove them in.
" For all our lives we'll be your slaves
To toil in field and town.
Ourselves, our all to the man who saves ! "
They flung them down.
" A boat ! a thousand boats ! a boat !
Six thousand souls are we !
Look where the drowning women float ! "
They stood to see.
"We'll worship Christ, and Jesus too,
And upon Mary call !
We'll all be Christians just like you ! "
They drowned them all.
HOME, SWEET HOME
SWIFTLY in Africa the twilight came
To rocks and wildernesses lone,
Grey mists from lakes without a name
Crept over hills unknown.
HOME, SWEET HOME 49
The march was done, the camp was set,
The fire was blazing from the ground,
The slaver and the merchant met
Among the goods around.
They bargained with adjustment nice,
Holding commercial balance true ;
A man or woman ? what the price
Gave each the profit due ?
They shared their bread and wine and meat,
They smoked their Portuguese cigars,
And opposite, with feet to feet,
They sang to the gay guitars.
They sang of a city far away,
A river port, a castled wall,
A crowded square at the cool of day
Ah, that was in Portugal !
They sang of the dance in a summer night,
And marble courts, and acacia trees ;
They yearned in singing with sad delight
For a city beyond the seas.
They ended, and through the forest wide
The music passed in lessening waves ;
Rousing himself, the slaver cried,
" Here ! shackle up the slaves !
50 LINES OF LIFE
" Turn out the dogs, watch all the hills,
Have whips and rifles ready ! Come,
Ten dollars to the man who kills
A slave that runs for home ! "
A BALLADE OF TIME
" Where is the Life that late I led r "
Henry IV, Part II, Act V, Scene 3.
THEY come not now that came before
Evening of spring, and blossom white,
The footstep hushed, the whispering door,
The thin form glimmering into sight,
The moon half-seen in clouded night,
One star, and wind, and passing rain,
The smell of lilacs in the lane ;
Where is the foot, the lovely head,
My moon that never was to wane ?
Where is the life that late I led ?
Tossed by the sea from shore to shore,
Wheeled to the battle's left and right ;
In wreck of storm, in wreck of war,
In tides that clashed, and clashing fight,
When the deep guns out-boomed the might
Of the deep-booming hurricane,
And like the shriek of ropes astrain,
The wind wailed with the death that sped
Sheer through the battery's galloping train
Where is the life that late I led ?
A BALLADE OF TIME 51
They come not now, they come no more,
The thoughts that sprang with daily light,
As gems upon an enchanted floor,
Matching the sun in promise bright ;
Even sorrow, too, has taken flight
Sorrow and consecrating pain
And rage comes never here again,
Pleasure and grief alike are dead ;
What fear can move ? What hopes remain ?
Where is the life that late I led ?
ENVOI.
So should a man recall in vain
The dreams of a scarce-wakened brain,
Forgotten e'er the sleep is fled,
And buried down in Time's inane,
Where is the life that late I led.
THE SIREN
ACROSS the fog, across the rain,
On glimmering London pavements falling,
I hear the voice, again, again
A voice that is calling, calling.
It calls me where the rivers run
Through forest gloom unbroken ever ;
And the steamer's mast to the mid-day sun
Is shadowless on the river.
52 LINES OF LIFE
" You know," it cries, " how mornings rise
In smoke from untrodden islands streaming,
And long waves roll from a southern pole,
And southern stars are gleaming.
" Remember where the desert lay-
Purple desert beside the sea
And barren mountains round a bay,
And a storm-crowned promontory ;
" And how the midnight draws her breath
As the sleeping sun returns on high,
And pallid water sleeps beneath
A pallid dome of sky.
"Ah ! leave the crowd that howls below
Crowding houses on either hand.
The streets are wide by which I go
To a wide and silent land ;
" By a silent road I'll bear you home."
From London dock the siren's calling,
" Come to the seas, to the desert come ! "
And I lie enchained in a London room
And the rain is falling, falling.
AFFATIM EDI, BIBI, LUSI
I DO not greatly care what may befall
My soul when it shall fade in air ;
Whether it live, or live no more at all,
I do not care.
AFFATIM EDI, BIBI, LUSI 53
Poor, pallid, gentle, wandering, bloodless thing,
That shivers naked out of sight !
A moth, a lonely seabird on the wing
Has more delight.
But for my body, what shall come of it
Dear host and comrade of the soul
I do deplore the destiny unfit,
That graveyard hole.
Oh, the broad chest that broke the swollen wave,
The feet that were so swift to run,
The eyes that threw a light so glad and brave
Back to the sun,
And limbs that learnt of love his utmost worth,
And burning heart that loved so true !
Sweet earth, have pity on a little earth
That pitied you !
THE HAUNTED SPRING: 1915
A TROUBLE shakes the rays of dying light,
The troubled earth, tremulous between her poles,
Like a lost angel through the forsaken height
Of heaven calling, down her sad orbit rolls,
And human hearts, unresting day or night,
Vibrate to passing souls ;
54 LINES OF LIFE
To dying souls, to souls that pass in pain,
Or with one crash are scattered on the air
To souls that, lightening over hill and plain,
Strike at our spirit's portal unaware,
And, crying for response, again, again,
Hold dim communion there.
Vainly we seek the life that once we led,
Pursue the toil, walk the familiar street ;
A ghostly movement stirs around our head,
And in our blood those failing pulses beat ;
Hid in the covert of the accustomed bed,
We hear the noiseless feet.
Could but a mountain wilderness provide
Some silent cavern of tranquillity !
Could but an undiscovered ocean's tide
Murmur of peace to such as thither flee !
No silence comforts now the mountain side,
No peace the untravelled sea.
No peace, no silence, no delight of spring,
No joy supportable, even if it came !
Flesh of our flesh, their souls go wandering
Young souls, who took death's hazard as a game,
Our common men, like us in everything,
In sin, in hope, the same.
THE HAUNTED SPRING: 1915 55
Winds of the sky upon their faces blew,
They heard the voice of spring across the guns,
They touched the emerging stream, but never knew
How in full strength dear life's great river runs :
Would God, would God that we had died for you,
Our sons, our lovely sons !
AN ANCIENT BATTLEFIELD
ONCE more the cricket wakes to sing,
And bats come fluttering out,
The owl upon a noiseless wing
Like a shadow swoops about,
And the late shepherd guides his flock
With slowly dying shout.
The withered branch is black and still
Against the sunset light ;
Only the road from hill to hill
Runs as a line of white ;
Far off a solitary bell
Hallows the coming night.
The night which brings the evening star,
And puts the world to bed,
Indifferently as when the war
Ceased at her ghostly tread,
And dying soldiers watched the moon
Shining upon the dead.
56 LINES OF LIFE
Who piled together now are laid
Where earth and crumbling stone
Fill up the piteous mouths that made
To the sweet night their moan ;
And uniforms hang loose around
Their shrunken lengths of bone.
Oh, rest at last like soldiers brave
In the forgotten past !
A soldier marches o'er your grave
Under the stars so fast ;
A soldier marches through the night,
And he shall rest at last.
THE FOOL IN GOD
I LIKE the world when God goes mad,
And splashes paint about the sky
In some wild sunset foolery ;
Or has a sudden silly fad
In spring, and takes a grassy bank
And scatters primroses, and plays
Once more at making Milky Ways
With grass for sky ; or for a prank
Builds a great castle out of cloud,
And smashes it before it's done
I'm glad he's not too old and' proud
For toys and games and foolish fun ;
I like him best for his immense
And total lack of common-sense.
(" The Nation," Sept. i, 1917.) W. N. EWER.
THE FOOL IN MAN 57
THE FOOL IN MAN
(With apologies tt the foregoing.)
I HATE the world when man goes mad,
And splashes blood on earth and sky
In some crazed battle's devilry ;
Or has a sudden silly fad
In spring, and takes a grassy bank,
And scatters corpses there, and plays
Once more in foul, barbaric ways
With lives for sport ; or for a prank
Builds gorgeous cities by the crowd,
And smashes them before they're done
I hate to think he's not too proud
For murderous toys of sword and gun :
I hate him most for his immense
And total lack of common-sense.
("The Natitn," Sept. 8, 1917.)
WOUNDED
MY shirt is warm with blood warm, brown,
and red ;
Here at the pocket hangs a pinkish gout
Shaking like jelly ; from my battered head
The sticky stream drips to my very eyes,
And with each drop my life is running out ;
My life, my only life is shed
With every drop, and gradually dies !
But one touch more, one little touch no doubt
I'd be already dead.
58 LINES OF LIFE
I should lie dead upon the ground, and be
Stinking and withering to the sun and rain,
All common functions of my body still
As engines silted in the depth of sea ;
No sleep, no waking, neither ease nor pain,
Hunger nor food, nor thirst nor splendid wine ;
But quick corruption shrinking me up, until
This moving heart should in the dust combine
With thighs and feet and finger-bones to fill
Scarcely a bulge in the uniform again.
What if I never see a summer sun
Rise slowly glimmering on the empurpled night,
And glory through the heaven's wide marching-ground,
Till all the golden hours are done,
And o'er the empurpled hills one star stands white
In a green sky, and then all other stars
Leap singly from their homes, above a sea
Which heaves in white and purple lines around
Great ships with furling sails and the entanglement of
spars !
Shall I not sail a ship again, nor feel
The rudder leaping in my hand
Like a big fish, nor hear deep waters slide
Hissing in foam against the slanted keel,
Nor watch the jagged horizon show a land
Grey with the rain and cloud,
Nor when the moaning winds are loud,
WOUNDED
Up through the storm exultant ride,
Bearing great orders, climb the mountain side,
Cross the dim watershed of plunging snow,
And see an army's braziers sparkling far below ?
Bleeding I lie, but all myself is whole ;
These interwoven threads of heart and brain,
All vital apparatus of the soul,
Electric nerves and thought-secreting stuff,
Visible chords charged with invisible life
All would fulfil their purpose, and again
Pursue the wonted ways of peace or strife ;
They would proceed ; they rest complete enough
To labour daily, converse with a friend,
Hate the dull enemy, suffer all the pain
Of old creation travailing for an unknown end,
Face crowding fools, and stand untouched by awe
For all the threatening powers of mortal law,
Big with established vengeance ; so to stand
At perilous crossways for dear honour's sake,
Unwilling and unfrighted ; so to take
Life and possessions, each in either hand,
And both hands open.
All those instruments,
Framed for activities, will wait a day
Two or three days expectant ; like the men
Marshalled for service in well-ordered tents,
Who wait to hear their leader's voice again,
But he comes not, being killed upon the way.
59
60 LINES OF LIFE
Oh, powers unknown, untested, unfulfilled !
I could have led the assault o'er open ground,
Held the platoon unflinching ; could have drilled
Battalions up to sharp perfection's edge
For a soldier's triumph ; wandering could have found
Strange lands untraversed, crawled on the icy ledge
Of undiscovered mountains, hewn the ways
Through swamps of steaming, twilit forest, deep
In black ooze to my middle ; could have known
Causes of things, the measured laws which keep
All stars in station, why solemn music sways
Hearts like a lake of osiers, why alone
Mankind of all his kindred beasts desip
To pierce beyond the world's encircling fires,
Far out to unimagined regions sweep,
And on the beatific vision gaze
Where dwells a Presence on a great white throne.
My shirt is warm with blood warm, brown, and red
My life, my only life is shed
With every drop, and gradually dies.
Oh not to die, not die before I see
Once more that lovely, fearless head,
And feel the rebellious heart confronting me,
And know the miracle of the sudden smile,
And live the immortal life of moments, while
I learn the revelation of the ethereal eyes !
EPIMENIDES THE CRETAN 61
EPIMENIDES THE CRETAN
THERE was a city once as sick as ours ;
Restless she lay upon her sea- washed throne,
Surmising evils ; for the gods were gone,
Their white homes shut ; no victim gay with flowers
Gladdened her altars, but on all the towers
Vague terror sat, and women made their moan
From street to street, foreboding ; save alone
Where he who knew the mind of heavenly powers
Implored Apollo.
But what Cretan old
Shall teach the lustral rite, and purify
Our city's slough, where pleasure coils with hate
And hunger watches ? Who shall be so bold
As raise the healing prayer before she die ?
And to what god shall she be dedicate ?
THE RETURN OF ALCESTIS
DRAMATIS PERSONS:
KING ADMETUS (to whom Apollo had granted the unusual
privilege of escaping death if he could find some one to
die for him. Whereupon he went round to all his
friends and relations, requesting this personal favour
from each in turn, but found no one willing to consider
the proposal except his wife, from whom he gratefully
accepted the required exchange.)
PHERES, father of Admetus.
ALCESTIS, wife of Admetus (rescued by Heracles from death,
and brought back disguised as a woman he had won in a
boxing-match together with a herd of oxen).
5
62 LINES OF LIFE
HERACLES (who, having saved Alccstis in passing, is now
continuing his journey to capture the man-eating
horses of the Thracian monster, Diomede).
CHORUS (elderly gentlemen, representing the public opinion of
Phera:).
SCENE, the terrace berore the palace at Pherse in Thessaly.
Admetus sits at one end of a breakfast table, with
Heracles and Pheres on either hand. Alcestis with her
two children sits at the other end. The Chorus stands
on the palace steps, contemplating the family circle
with benevolent satisfaction.
TIME, early morning on the fourth day after the rescue of
Alcestis, whom divine decree had forbidden to speak for
three days since her death and resurrection.
A DMETUS. O men of Pherae, in good hour
-1\. you come,
And with good cheer I welcome to my home
Such friends and subjects now a home indeed !
For to perfect a home what greater need
Than the loved presence of a loving wife ?
And what more loving than to give one's life
For him one loves to adoration ? Pray
You join with us to celebrate this day
With wine and feasting, since 'tis far from common
For mortal man to own the Perfect Woman.
(He raises his glass as for a toast, looking fondly
across the table at Alcestis.}
CHORUS (raising their right arms in acclamation)
The Perfect Woman, paragon of her sex !
The Perfect Wife, whom wifely virtue decks !
In this her deed let all our womankind
Behold the model for the female mind !
THE RETURN OF ALCESTIS 63
PHERES. My son, a single word I first must say
To smooth our difference of that other day :
'Tis true, I would not die for you, although
Short is the course my life has yet to flow ;
But in old age life craves the greater care,
Just as we treasure gold the more 'tis rare ;
For aged eyes 'tis sweet to see the light
Faint glimmering still before 'tis whelmed in night :
Whom the gods love die young ; so let them die,
Leaving to elders risk of gods' enmity.
Fate bade you die, and there is no denying
'Twas best for you yourself to do your dying ;
I never heard that civil law demands
Old men be slain, save in barbaric lands.
Yet was Alcestis' act a great relief
To me and to your mother. So, in brief,
Let bygones be. Long may Admetus reign !
Long live his queen, to die for him again !
CHORUS. No more of dying ! Her example lives,
A duteous lesson for all future wives.
Timorous is woman, yet at need she can
Assume the fearless attributes of man.
But now to fearless man and god in one
We turn our praises great Alcmena's son,
Who from the clutch of Death himself could save,
And snatched the exception from the common grave !
HERACLES. Oh well ! I'm grateful for a jolly time,
Plenty to eat and drink. My word ! It's prime
64 LINES OF LIFE
To sleep at peace in bedclothes, then to wake
With joints and roots just tempting you to take
Your bellyful at leisure ! Sweet to drain
Long cups and know they'll fill themselves again !
For this I thank Admetus, courteous host,
Who put me up, nor told about the ghost
Still lingering close upon the threshold here,
Turning a mother's eyes to the children dear.
Lucky I caught old Death upon the road,
And gave him one, the melancholy toad,
That spun him round ! Then, Oh, the sport to see
Admetus jump as the lady's veil fell free !
But now a labour knocks upon my heart,
And before pleasure ends, I had best depart.
Farewell, domestic joys ! I seek my way
To bridle horses, champing men for hay.
CHORUS. What is more soothing than to sit at ease
And hear resounding deeds on distant seas
Or distant lands, and picture, were we there,
Ourselves engaged upon adventures rare ?
ADMETUS. Beneficent guest, one further moment
stay,
Await the consummation of a day
Bright through your presence. Now that three nights
are passed,
Alcestis from her silence speaks at last.
THE RETURN OF ALCESTIS 65
CHORUS. O silent lady, it is hard to teach
A woman silence, but from you 'tis speech
That's now demanded, nor can you speak too long
In demonstrating wifely virtue strong.
ALCESTIS. Admetus, Heracles, and you, my friends,
New life begins each day, and daily ends,
For mortal things are mortal, even love.
But now to-day, all common days above,
I feel new life beginning. It were strange
If otherwise, for great must be the change
From death to living when a woman dies
And next returns with bullocks as a prize
So thought my husband won in a boxing bout.
And there is much that dying searches out,
Since death exposes many depths of heart,
And fear of death plays well the explorer's part.
For me and that my so-called sacrifice,
Waste not excessive praise upon the price
I gave in thus exchanging life for life,
Nor hail me model of devoted wife.
To leave this house, was that so great a thing
When he whom once I loved would always cling
About my knees, imploring me to die
And spare his dying ? Was it so much that I
Should sicken of the world when even he
Who is mingled in my children, knelt to me
And poured his whining supplications out ?
Oh, when at last I yielded, then, no doubt,
He called the gods to witness how he'd give
66 LINES OF LIFE
His life and welcome, so that I should live !
He feared no Hell ! He feared no Pluto's hound !
Kissing my feet, he squirmed upon the ground,
With tears entreating I should not desert
Him and his household, for he hated dirt
And dust upon the floors and furniture !
Aye, and he took an oath in compact sure
Oath hard indeed for mortal man to keep !
He'd love no second in my bed, but sleep
Beside my statue, wrought by a sculptor's skill
Cold comfort ! But the grave is colder still.
CHORUS. Cease from reproaches, lady, lest you break
The peace of happy circles ! For our sake,
Cast not on one the common fault of man !
A mortal being does what mortals can.
Noblest of womankind in you we praise ;
Forsake not, then, the grace of woman's ways.
ALCESTIS. 'Tis true 'tis common, nor has a woman
right
To hope for husband raised above the height
Of commonplaces. Hardly was I dead,
He set about the mourning, shaved each head,
Had manes of horses clipt the accustomed show
Of outward grief, that citizens might know
How he lamented for his victim's dear
Vicarious sacrifice, hoping thus to clear
His own repute, lest in the gossiping town
THE RETURN OF ALCESTIS 67
Some whisper ran, contrasting up and down
This woman's courage with their King's escape.
CHORUS. Your fancy, queen, assumes a monstrous
shape !
No citizen could dream so vile a thing
As hint an error in our gracious King.
ALCESTIS. Had it been mine alas, I see it now !
Had it been mine to fulfil the appointed vow
Unasked, to cling about his neck, and cry,
" Dear love, I love you so, what is it to die
For my beloved ? What grief can touch my mind
But that to die means leaving you behind ? "
Had it been mine, unasked, to tread the way,
Love's fire at heart, Oh, I had gone as gay,
My hand in Death's, as when I first was wed,
And dreamed that Courage took me to his bed !
Too late I learn how better it had been
Better for him as well had I never seen
That chilling duteous path, but ere I died,
Had caught him by the throat, had boldly cried,
" Die for yourself, my friend, since some one must,
And, dying, learn a decency in dust ! "
CHORUS. Some cloud seems gathering in a peaceful
sky,
Heavy with disappointment. There's no high
Example of domestic virtue left ;
Of royal guidance womanhood's bereft.
68 LINES OF LIFE
ALCESTIS. My strong deliverer, much-enduring
heart,
Much-labouring Heracles, resume thy part ;
Once more deliver. Frequent is the death
Thy soul has ventured, drawing perilous breath
On the sharp edge of fear, nor sought exchange
Of doom with others. Let it not, then, be strange
If I, a widowed woman, offer here
Myself to thee, myself and the children dear,
To do thee service in whatever land
Thy labour visits dwell beneath thy hand,
Doing and suffering with my natural mate
Amid the toil and storm of restless fate.
CHORUS. By shameless lips let shameful words be
spoken,
Not by our worshipped queen ! Alas, how broken
Now lies the established bond, the charming tie,
Of man and wife united till they die !
PHERES. My son, you'll have to seek another wife
To die next time, methinks, or yield your life.
HERACLES. Dear woman, not ungrateful would I
seem,
For gift so precious. Far above price I deem
The love of women, and I speak who know.
But in the savage realms whereto I go,
How would you follow, with these twain beside ?
How 'scape carnivorous horses when they tried
THE RETURN OF ALCESTIS 69
To gobble up your darlings ? Lonely live
The enduring hearts, and lonely must they strive.
ALCESTIS. There is a temple looks upon the sea
Where Pelion's cliff is battered ; thither we
Will climb the heights, there set a pleasing shrine,
With solid food and shelter, plenteous wine,
And balm for pilgrims seeking Heracles,
In spirit or in person, as he please
To hearten up those hesitating souls
Who would and would not. There by the pilgrim
doles
Myself shall live as priestess, serving thee,
With these unfathered orphans servants three.
So then, farewell, Admetus ! From the vow
'Gainst second marriage God absolves you now,
And may some happier, if a duller, bride,
Witless of truth, inhabit at your side.
Farewell, dear servants, farewell, all my friends !
'Tis now the interment of Alcestis ends.
(She and her children go out, followed by Herac/es,
who wards off the indignant citizens.)
ADMETUS (standing with his father at the deserted
breakfast table). My friends, 'tis grievous in a
single week,
To mourn one's helpmate twice ; nor may I seek
Second redemption for a second loss.
My sun is darkened, gold reduced to dross.
Unwived, unchilded, thus alone I stand,
7 o LINES OF LIFE
A mark for pointing mockery in my land :
" Behold the King who won a duteous wife
To die in his place, so much he cherished life ;
But all his eloquence was vain to move
That steadfast soul to yield the Craven love."
Henceforth in every household through the State,
Let verses twain stand carved above the gate :
'* A woman's heart confronted Death to save ;
A woman's scorn stings sharper than the grave."
CHORUS. Many the forms of holy revelation ;
Unlooked-for are the ways devised by God ;
Who knows how fate will find its consummation,
Or by what labyrinth life will seek a road ?
The dawn is bright, the tempest comes at even,
And with the night, stars reappear in heaven ;
So is man's pathway trod.
FORWARD
WHAT choice for souls defeated ? Shall they
turn
Back to the past along familiar roads,
Retracing outward footsteps, so to learn
Fate's clenching limits drawn around them tight,
And sit hope-haunted in repatched abodes ?
Like those Helvetians who, one autumn night,
Reached the lone valley of their ancient home,
And from their wagons took the diminished loads
With wives and little ones, and laid them down
FORWARD 71
Poor savings from the sovereign might of Rome
Amid the windy ruins charred and brown
Of those same thresholds they had left erewhile
Exulting to behold the exultant flame
Themselves had kindled, light for many a mile
Their way to westward, as it took its fill
On homestead, croft, and barn ; which now, the same
But fragments now, received them wailing deep
For sons and fathers lost by Jura's hill,
Or at Bibracte slain, or such as sleep
Where sluggish Arar moves his tide so still
That scarcely eye perceives it.
Rather we
Smitten and shattered, all our ensigns gone,
Not one poor hope remaining, swear to keep
An ever-onward course, though one by one
Death strike us, or as slaves we bend the knee
At alien footstools. Haply some may reach
The furthest limits of the unconquered realm,
Our once imagined empire, and may see
New peaks arise, as out they turn the helm
Beyond the salt wave roaring on the beach.
DEDICATA
FIRE in the splendid soul indignant burning,
Her eyes ablaze with purifying flame,
Steadfast she trod a road that has no turning
And leads to no reward of love or fame,
72 LINES OF LIFE
But sorrow only, and the conspicuous height
Of isolating peril and naked shame,
Where cruelty stands and gazes ; not a light
To mark her footsteps in the uncertain storm,
But the storm's anger quivering through the night,
And that deep rage consuming her own heart
With fire that dims the lightning.
Exquisite form,
Incarnate semblance of an exquisite soul
Therein prefigured for its counterpart !
O body dedicate, splendour-breathing life,
Onward you moved to what invisible goal,
Alone, unsheltered, climbing without chart
Through haunted darkness, where dim shapes at strife
Forebode obscurely ? God-devoted mind,
Self-banished exile, purposely desolate,
To sacrifice self-condemned, so you might find
Some dubious path, some narrowly opening gate,
Whence gleamed a fitful hope for human kind,
Onward you moved, doomed to the nobler fate,
While we to common uses of the day are left behind.
There is a village and a plain,
Deep in jute and shimmering rice,
Where the golden sun and golden rain
Nurture a peopled paradise ;
Dust of buffaloes trailing home
Tells that sleepy evening's come ;
Over the roofs the cloudy spires
Spring from bowls upon the fires ;
DEDICATA 73
And beneath the sacred tree,
Guarding men and beasts and lands,
Hung with flowers for sanctity,
Smeared with scarlet the idol stands,
Who carries life and death in multifarious hands.
Moth-like figures gather round
One who makes his darkening way
Upward to the enchanted ground
Past the rainbow gates of day ;
Wrapt in the saffron robe, he goes
To heights of Himalayan snows,
There, alone with stars and sky,
To stare on God's immensity ;
But they return to the cattle-fold,
Boil the pots and lay the bed,
Hang the garland of marigold
Round the vermilion idol's head,
Who gives the living life, and sleep to all the dead.
Like them we turn from her and go
Our comfortable ways. Ah, worse than so !
Rather we seem like one
Who in old times lay crouching far apart,
And watched the slowly-mounting sun
And waited with sick heart,
Till from the prison gates he heard
The expected shout break on the morning glare
And crash from shouting street to street,
Striking one hideous word,
74 LINES OF LIFE
That drowned the clang of soldiers' feet,
And howled above the great cathedral square
In triumph of execration.
Then there fell
On silence the slow service for the dying,
And the death-tolling bell.
How small and white she stands !
So white a thing among the staring eyes,
And small !
But now they are tying
Cords on her feet, cords on her sacred hands.
They strain a biting rope around her thighs ;
Below the tender rising of her breast
A belt of iron is clamped, and at her throat
A twisted steel ; and for a parting jest
Across her mouth they knot two lengths of hair.
Oh, see ! What vapours float ?
What filmy creature crawls into the air ?
Smoke, threads of smoke ! And now a worm of fire !
Great globes of smoke ! Crackling of firewood ! Flame
Flame of devouring serpents leaping higher !
And then a cry a cry ! In mercy's name !
The vesture's gone. Let fire and smoke in haste
Conceal. God strike all gazers blind !
A whiteness darkens ; forward falls her head ;
God's temple crumbles ; beauty all effaced ;
Flakes of her body swim upon the wind,
And on the wind her passionate soul is sped.
DEDICATA 75
So as the last flame, pale in the sunshine, burned,
He who had loved her from the market turned,
And saw the shops reopening, pavements cleared,
And merry tables set for dinner-time,
While from the great cathedral's choir he heard
Old priests concluding mass on stroke of the noonday
chime.
A PRAYER IN SPRING
IF prayer fulfil itself as a fateful dream,
What should I pray this turbulent eve of March,
While the last hurricane whirls along the hills,
With snowy streamers grey,
And clouds in echelon traverse the radiant arch
Whence an invisible sun shoots forth a beam
Singly through some translucent edge, and fills
With sudden glory amid the extended plain
A village and its fields, or on her way
Lights the wild river to one silver gleam
At the foot of cloud-swept mountains, and again
Withdraws his light invisible ? Oh, but hark !
There's the unchanging lark
Greeting the centuries of spring,
And from a leafless ash the thrushes sing !
So Nature labours at her ancient play,
Groping with song and radiance through the ethereal
dark ;
And while old Earth awaits her Easter Day,
What should I pray ?
y6 LINES OF LIFE
Not long, not long is left ; I have laboured long,
And much enjoyed, much suffered, wandering far
In unknown wilds and cities of old fame,
Through a darkness groping pierced with lights and song ;
And secret strife have shared, and open 'war
Where the lost battle shook intolerable wrong ;
Love open, too, I have shared, and love that came
With secret fragrance of a midnight rose,
And silent arms ; and after Wisdom's flame
As a wild hunter sought
In life and record, following where she goes
Down the pale glens of thought ;
Much have I striven, like the old Greek who chose
Service to war and the Muses each a strife ;
But in the dusk and storm that battle wrought
Peace came undreamt of, as a miraculous flower
Sprung from a harsh and thorny stick,
And rapturous for an hour
Two things repent me now in that vanished life :
First, that, when joy or conflict sped
In streaming hurricane past, I was not quick
Not always quick to clutch one by the throat,
Or strain by her tangled beams that other's head
Laughing against me ; but as I sprang, they had fled
Far down irrevocable time, with a crying note
Of mockery on the whirlwind ; still the more
I do repent in conflict to have shown
A coward's complaisance to the established foe,
Entrenched in custom and with dulness blown ;
A PRAYER IN SPRING 77
Them I have greeted, entered the same door,
Joined in their boasted, smug amenities
Of life political, gone where opponents go
For foul communion o'er their bread and wine,
Concealing hate where none is to conceal,
And for sham fights devising strategies ;
Yes, and have listened, yielded them the floor,
Assumed a suavity such as flunkeys feel,
Polite and three-parts coward, when 'twas mine
To have smote them grovelling by one passionate blow,
Amazed at wrath's revelation.
Wherefore now,
On these old downs awakening to the spring,
That will not often wake me, penitent
For those my sins, I consecrate a vow
Ever to watch alert for the angel wing
Of chance escaping covert, all intent
With straining limbs to leap on her flight and cling
Unshamed, without reserve, against her heart
Whether for love or battle. And here I pray,
If prayer fulfil itself as a fateful dream,
For obdurate steel to encompass every part
Of coward in my soul, that so I may
Admit no courtesy luring me to abate
Enmity's due for sweetness, never deem
Tolerance else than treason's utmost crime,
Swim not with specious foes in the yielding stream,
But stand unmoved by compromise as fate,
Turn from the forward course no more than time,
Speak at sword's point with the enemy at the gate,
And with a perfect hatred hate.
6
78 LINES OF LIFE
SOLDIER M.P.
TO me one moment in this filthy war
Glows with unparalleled delight :
We had been planted out, three weeks or more,
To hold some inconspicuous height
A nameless, vital height ;
Heavy with muck of mingled blood and clay,
Down long communication trenches,
We stumbled back to where the rest-camp lay,
And sank secure upon the benches
The quiet, cleanly benches.
We flung aside the kit with all its dirt,
The tunic stiff with freezing weather,
Peeled off the louse-infested drawers and shirt,
And plunged into the bath together
A dozen men together.
Oh, the grand joy to feel hot water swirling
Round grimy thighs and shoulders bare !
To watch the clotted dust in eddies whirling
From hairy chest and close-cut hair
The mousy, close-cut hair !
Then to arise and stand in nakedness,
Drawing life up with newborn breath,
And in new-issued uniform to dress,
Clean as a soul renewed by death-
By body-purging death !
SOLDIER M.P. 79
And now, returned to London, invalided,
I'm back again in politics,
Holding a height where reinforcement's needed
To frustrate certain knavish tricks
Those unconfounded tricks.
So here we cling to freedom's ancient right,
Hard-won of old for England's kind ;
But nowhere is a rest-camp now in sight,
Nor bath to purge the encumbered mind
The talk-encrusted mind.
Oh but to see constituents washed away,
To win from mouldy meetings peace,
Feel resolutions crumble like the clay,
And clotted controversy cease
Dissolve to dust, and cease !
To pick the crawling catchwords from the brain,
To shed intriguing tactics whole,
To hear committees gurgling down the drain,
And rise a heaven-enfranchised soul
A clean, transfigured soul !
A CABINET MINISTER
SOME years ago he started on his course,
Equipt and emulous for the nobler fame ;
Aspiring principle, intellectual force,
And conscience pledged the promise of his name ;
8o LINES OF LIFE
Proud was the allegiance that his speeches gave
To freedom in historic contests won ;
But now his soul lies mouldering in the grave,
And his body goes marching on.
His democratic Party feared his zeal,
Too grand in aim, in method too benign ;
His bosom cherished every mortal's weal,
Proclaiming peace and charity divine ;
Out of the abyss he called on God to save
Wrecks of the world from wrongs the world had
done ;
But now his soul lies mouldering in the grave,
And his body goes marching on.
Behold him soon, live mummy of his past,
Adept for honours, deaf to honour's call,
To Ministerial seats descending fast,
While conscious Ministers applaud his fall ;
Alas for resolutions doomed to pave
The infernal surface that he treads upon !
For now his soul lies mouldering in the grave
And his body goes marching on.
Colleague of cruelty, mouthing mercy still,
Coercion's helpmate, to coerce afraid,
He murdered freedom half against his will,
And kissed the holiness he had just betrayed ;
A CABINET MINISTER 81
Endearing enemy, half-reluctant knave,
A cross-bred hypocrite, Peckniff's bastard son ;
For now his soul lies mouldering in the grave,
And his body goes marching on.
Last stage of all : he shares the tyrant's fate,
Sees honour from afar, and knows it lost,
Knocks at the golden door, and knocks too late,
Expelled from glory where he sought it most ;
Peace, mercy, justice, resolutions brave,
Love for mankind and freedom all are gone,
For now his soul lies mouldering in the grave,
And his body goes marching on.
A VIGIL
THE summer day is closing like a flower
That has drunk long of sunshine and will sleep
Till dawn renews her splendour. It is the hour
When half the implacably revolving star
Sleeps to recover life. And here I keep
A vigil faithful to one soul afar,
For whom night brings no life-renewing peace,
But while I breathe in vigil, every breath
Hastens the moment when his breath shall cease
In unimaginable death.
Across the street some one, reprieved to pleasure
From labour's prison-house, with windows wide
82 LINES OF LIFE
Diffuses music solemn music, such
As gods might move to when they move in measure
Through heaven's eternal fields. Hark, at the touch
How themes with themes embracing intertwine
And sweep aloft to soar and march and ride
On wings beyond the storm-clouds, and dispart
To summon new companions and combine
In figures fixed by some eternal art
Before creation ! It is the selfsame song
The morning stars sang when they sang together
And shouts of joy harmonious rose among
The eternal sons of God ;
But to the exultant strains that last for ever
Unchanged, unfailing, still the moments run,
Like ghosts of soldiers filing down a road
To vanish one by one,
Returning never.
Now in his cell they kindle up a light,
The privilege due to one so soon to die,
That he may sanctify his final night,
Having a lamp to read the Bible by,
God's word eternal, passing not away.
Oh, what has he to learn from God's own book ?
Wide as the sunlit heaven his spirit lay
A sunlit sky through which tumultuous wind
Sweeps the black thunder-cloud and leaves behind
A wide and sunlit sky. For still he took
Into his heart the sorrows of mankind
And heard the silent crying of a wrong
A VIGIL 83
Crying in lonely darkness for the day
His coming heralded. Was any wrath,
Was any angry, and he burned not with flame
Devouring as the sudden lightning's path,
And as the wind which drives the tempest strong ?
But from the storm emerging still the same,
Glows the big sun, rejoicing in the race
Among his equal stars,
And on the mountains bends a joyful face
To light the dewdrops of the misty glen
With radiance. Radiant was that spirit born
Which now they cage behind the prison bars
As showmen cage some lion in a den
Far from the forest.
And to-morrow morn
Along this very street newsboys will cry,
" Last moments and death scenes ! " for common scorn
To snatch and read and pass. O Thou Most High,
Where is that holiness eternal now
When the last night's quick fingers have begun
To close around that spirit ? Thou dost Thou
Dost Thou continue holy, O Thou Holy One ?
There is a land too dear for a lover's words
Lying beyond the sunset like a dream
In magic slumber, and around her shore
Of cloudy promontories the wandering birds
As spirits of her lovers calling seem
To hang about her still, and evermore
The big waves surge and gulp and surge again
84 LINES OF LIFE
Below the sea-cliffs ; changeful mountains run
Encompassing the wilderness of her heart
With purple jewelry and with silver rain,
Whence fan-like rays pour from the hidden sun
To light the rainbow's unexpected gleam
On flying clouds far distant.
Counterpart
Of that enchanted country people find
In all her children, but in him was found
Unchanging passion for her, constant faith,
Unswerving love for all her holy ground,
And steadfastness of the undeviating mind
That leads him now to death.
Darkness and deeper darkness, short-lived night,
Revealing stars and stars and further stars
Beyond capacity of thought or sight,
Innumerable, multitudinous,
Crowded in swarms, and separate by the bars
Of million uncrossed miles, each star a sun
Bursting with huge volcanoes thunderous,
And girt by spinning fragments, like the dust
Flung from a chariot's wheel, and one by one
Moving in isolation with its planets, just
As our own sun, a child among the stars,
Moves with the dust-speck of our troublous earth,
Sliding through infinite darkness, none knows where,
Nor knows if all the suns of the visible sky
Light but one little hall in starry space
A VIGIL 85
Of universe after universe.
Oh, what worth
Is man or life one little life ? What care
In all that firmament whether he live or die ?
What hope, what love avails before the face
Of burning worlds in station ? Or what prayer ?
Quick blood is moving in the brave heart still ;
It throbs in pulses to the hands and feet,
Ceaselessly leaping in live jets that fill
With life the muslin network of the flesh,
The sacred web where soul and substance meet,
Mysterious, passing knowledge, with a mesh
Of wonder interwoven till it works
In perfect function ; limbs obey the call
Of lightning riders racing to and fro,
Silent, invisible, carrying the commands
Of a dominant thing unknown, that somewhere lurks
Silent, invisible, hidden apart from all,
But interfused and intermingled so
That while they live secure, secure it stands,
And if they suffer, suffering too it lies,
And if they die, it dies.
How many beats has now that heart to make r
They might be counted so many to go
To every minute of the shortening hours.
Few the commands those riders now will take
86 LINES OF LIFE
Till their last order bids the feet to tread
Slowly behind in that procession slow
A priest leads thither where the infernal powers
Will stop the blood from running, stop the heart,
Quench lighted eyes, shut the ears' listening,
Silence the voice, break short the woven thread,
Chill the warm limbs, strike rigid every part,
Slay all that miracle of a living thing,
Till that itself is dead
Which dwelt in secret, but in flesh revealed,
A furnace blazing with an unseen flame,
Lighting the world, and in itself concealed,
Known among men, itself without a name,
Sleepless by day, sleepless in dreams by night,
So endless seeming, and yet thus to end,
That secret thing, that fire, that life, that light,
My friend !
The chamber walls around me stealthily
Glimmer like ghosts in grey ;
Bookshelves and tables slowly re-appear,
Like ghosts emerging, and the northern sky
Turns pale in darkness ; streets and houses near
Show brown already ; for the dawn is here,
And it is now to-day.
They set about it now. Like ghosts they creep
From court to court inside the prison gate
To boil the coffee, make the breakfast ready,
A VIGIL 87
Knock up the drowsy hangman from his sleep ;
He sees the rope is right, the scaffold steady,
Drives in a nail and rectifies a plank,
Grumbling he's up too soon and has to wait.
But in the cell lies one who needs no waking ;
He watches too the walls grow white and blank ;
The final light, the light of death is breaking ;
Never again shall he behold the day
Steal through the sightless window, nor again
Hear the familiar jangle of the keys
As warders tramp those metal passages
Which he shall tread fast bound as with a chain
Pinioned they call it, like a wild bird trapped
And wild wings mutilated.
Far away
This very dawn steals down a mountain side
Below the summit sleeping still enwrapped
In unmoved clouds of quietude and night,
And brings a cool grey back to lichened rocks,
And brown to the sodden turf, and to each
flower
Yellow for scented broom, and a ruddy glow
For heather, where the bees are now awake ;
Now on the shore the slow-descending light
Touches the whitening ripples as they break
In bubbles against the sand with the flowing tide,
And rouses wild birds up in whitening flocks
Of crying terns and Solan geese that go
Through the clear air of this same morning hour
Swooping and plunging.
88 LINES OF LIFE
In the whitewashed cell
Does any vision of that distant home,
Abiding constant there, unchanging, rise
As, living still, with death close to his eyes,
He hears the lawful instruments of hell
Approaching, for the end has come ?
And now remains the unconquerable will,
The soul untamed, defiant to the death,
The life's example, calling to us still
To stand untamed, unconquered, and defy
Legalized murderers, spewing poisonous breath,
Successful ghouls of purchased infamy,
Life's prostitutes, suckers of noble blood,
And freedom's hypocrites whose zeal is spent
In praising distant freedom ; cultured minds
Of careful ease that pass and wag the head ;
The impenetrable shoals of dull content
Entombed in custom as blind eels in mud ;
Habituated sluggards, torpid kinds
Of worm in their own torpor comforted ;
And all the Might, Dominion, Majesty,
Thrones, Principalities, and Kingly Powers,
Rejoicing now he is dead.
That still remains, and this beside is ours :
To covet no reward of worldly state ;
To live indifferent to the public hate ;
Nor drink the alluring opiate of a home ;
Yield to no love, consort with never a friend
A VIGIL 89
Save only such as will espouse for fate
The losing battle and the inglorious end,
Or with insatiable desire will roam
Ever confronting wave beyond the wave
Recurrent o'er the wastes of trackless foam ;
Like those hard mariners who, rejecting ease
With wives and goatherds in the sheltered peace
Of long-sought Ithaca, conspired to save
From brute extinction that eternal spark
Which burned for action's knowledge, and beheld
Strange stars above a world where no man dwelled,
And beat the encircling ocean till they found
One great brown mountain, where the lonely bark,
Struck by an evil wind, turned three times round,
And at the fourth plunged to her lonely grave,
Untraced, unfathomable, dark,
Upon the abysmal ground
Printed in Great Britain by
UNWW BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRBSHAM PRESS, WOKJNQ AND LONDON
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below
Form L-D
Km -2, '43(5205)
UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA
AT
LOS ANGELES
LIBRARY
PR
6Q27 Navinson -
Ml 1 Lines of
1
lire.
UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
A 000 555 403 5
PR
"6027
N41 1
