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THE AUGUSTAN BOOKS OF

ENGLISH POETRY

SECOND SERIES NUMBER TWENTY-ONJJ

SYLVIA
LYND

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LONDON: ERNEST BENN LTD.
BOUVERIE HOUSE, FLEET STREET

3P

The Augustan Books of English Poetry

{Second Series)
Edited by Humbert Wolfe

i j6lIN DONNE '•-'•• *
. 2 GEORGE HERBERT
J ;FRANCIS' THOMPSON '

4 W. B. YEATS

5 HAROLD MONRO

6 ROSE MACAULAY

7 ARTHUR WALEY, POEMS FROM

THE CHINESE

8 POEMS FROM THE GREEK

9 POEMS FROM THE LATIN

io EDWARD G. BROWNE, POEMS

FROM THE PERSIAN
M POEMS FROM THE IRISH

12 JOHN SKELTON, MODERNIZED

BY ROBERT GRAVES

13 POEMS FROM BOOKS, 1927

(THOMAS MOULT)

14 THE LESS FAMILIAR NURSERY
RHYMES (ROBERT GRAVES)

16 CHARLES AND MARY LAMB

(MARK PERUGINI)

17 EPITAPHS (HON. ELEANOR

BROUGHAM)

18 CHRISTMAS CAROLS (D. L.

KELLEHER)

19 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (H. W.

GARROD)

20 GERALD GOULD

21 SYLVIA LYND

22 D. H. LAWRENCE

23 S. T. COLERIDGE (HAROLD

MONRO)

24 POEMS FROM THE FRENCH

{translated by H. W. GARROD)

Compilers' names are indicated in brackets after the title.

[\ifOlZ

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SYLVIA LYND |12©*

AV/AJ

The image of glass is always in my mind when 1 read
Sylvia Lynd's verse. 1 think in particular of a delicate
crystal Don Quixote 1 once saw, whose helmet, by some
odd caprice, had been painted gold. It was a little wrong-
headed to use so fragile a material for that tremendous
figure, and entirely whimsical to substitute for rusted steel
flawless gold. And yet because of the very oddness the
little statue threw a new light on that great epic.

So with Mrs. Lynd's verse. The emotions she enshrines
are not seldom profound: she is in touch with " old un-
happy far-off things " as well as with much that is fair and
fresh. But always with light fingers she is making her
bright transparent moulds. Indeed, a hasty reader might
complain or pretend that they were so fashioned that he
could see through them all.

But he would be wrong. Because if they are of glass,
it is stained glass, stained with colours so reticent that only
a patient eye can rest on them. Let them, however, once
be seen, and they will for such a one outlast the glories of
a more strident palette. Read them by lamplight, and see
if there is not something warm in the cool depths, and
something that reflects the flame, and holds it, because
there is a fire in its heart.

Humbert Wolfe.

in

7< )2979

CONTENTS

FABLE -

LOOKING AT THE STARS -

TO SHEILA PLAYING HAYDN

SHUTGATE -

FAREWELL IN FEBRUARY -

FINE EVENING -

THE MOWER -

THE HAPPY HOUR

NIGHTFALL -

THE WILLOW -

THE HARE, I918 -

THE FLIGHT OF THE GOLDFINCHES

THE RETURN OF THE GOLDFINCHES

HUNTING SONG -

IN THIS DESERTED GARDEN

COWPER AT OLNEY

THE WHISTLING BOY

WOOTTON HILL IN WINTER

THAT DAY -

THE SMALL DAUGHTER

THE IRISHMAN'S STORY

HELAS! -

THE SHEPHERDS OF THE FLOWERS

A FINE NIGHT IN WINTER

BIBLIOGRAPHY -

5

6
6

7
8

10
11
12

13
14

16

i7

19

21

21

22

23

23
24

25
27

27

30

31

IV

Fable

WHERE the white lane meets with the green
The year's first butterflies are seen;
Here settling upon leaf or stone,
They spread their colours in the sun.

This is the chosen trysting place
Of butterflies' whole painted race;
Hither the gentle, favouring wind
Of spring shall bring to each his kind.

See, ever full of hope and love,
The basker leap to her above
At the first brushing of her shadow —
Over the hedge, across the meadow!

But ah, how fortune mocks delight!
The tortoiseshell pursues the white,
The yellow brimstone tracks the shade,
Zig-zag, the splendid peacock made.

Swiftly the fair day droops and dies
Above unmated butterflies;
Again, again, and yet again,
Comes the wrong lover down the lane.

Though still deceived they still return
To wait, to hope, perchance to mourn : —
Alas ! poor fools, how must they rue
Who but a flickering shade pursue!

Happier we and wiser far
Than these misguided insects are,
For whom both life and love are lost
At the first touch of evening frost.

5

Looking at the Stars

NOW, by night, while all is still,
Orion sets his starry heel,
Marching, on the western hill : —
Constellations with him wheel

Westward, ever westward moving,
Many a hero, many a god,
Fierce in war and fierce in loving : —
Men in ancient times who trod

This strange planet knew and named
Their great deeds, proclaimed their glories,
While the bright stars flinched and flamed:
Shades of shades those men; but stories

Live when speaking lips are dumb : —
Is it their night-haunting breath
Across unnumbered ages come,
Breathes in my hair the chill of death ?

To Sheila playing Haydn

OH, when thy fingers touch the notes, I think
The deer go stepping to the brook to drink;
Beneath the level beech-leaves low I peer,
And see again, branch-horned, the crested deer,
The thin-legged doe, the fawn in that green light
On tiptoe following them out of sight.

Most deft adored, thy nimble fingers make
A thousand pictures in my mind awake;
For no young tning of beast or bird or tree
I've seen, but I have seemed to look on thee,
And at thy sound I go remembering
About the woods of every vanished spring.

Shutgate

SHUTGATE was all the name it had,
That ancient house beside the road;
Close to its walls a broad stream flowed,
Across the stream two swallows played.

Bluebacked, forktailed, with red cravats,
They flashed their colours through the air,
The only living things they were
Beside those close-shut painted gates.

In the tall gable hung a bell,
A tongueless bell remote and high,
The window-panes gave back the sky,
The bucket slept beside the well.

The grass uncut, the hedge untrimmed,
Shutgate the name and that was all;
The brick glowed like a Paisley shawl,
The waters flowed, the swallows skimmed.

Through the long summer afternoons
It seemed to brood upon its name —
Shutgate — the swallows went and came
And the brook sparkled through the stones.

Farewell in February

THROUGH the small window on the stair
As I leant out to take the air
At the slow-fading end of day,
I heard the thrushes sing and say :
This is the end of winter.

This is the end, I thought, although
The northward fields are rimmed with snow,
And like a thrush's breast the down
Is speckled o'er with white and brown;
Though no sharp plough the furrow grooves,
Though still the seagulls' white-winged droves
Flurry above the inland plain —
Winter withdraws from earth again —
This is the end of winter.

Since then, I thought, I shall not see
New buds alight in every tree,
Nor watch the sun at evenfall
Put gold upon my bedroom wall,
And no more at this window lean
To feel the smooth air pressing in—
Here for a little while I'll rest
And mark the garden's every crest,
That in my mind when I am gone
Its birds and boughs may still live on.

This place that I'll not see again
Shall wear its seasons in my brain;
Clothed in fine weather it shall shine
Thorough what journeys may be mine,
Nor drought nor deluge shall destroy
What in my fancy I enjoy.
Here not a seed on barren ground
Shall fall, and not a grub be found.

8

All happy weathers, seasons, hours,
Entangled still with fruit and flowers,
In gay confusion shall display
The charms of Michaelmas or May.
Fresh leaves and blossoms I'll set in it
And plums shall ripened be next minute;
Through scarlet currants that appear
Like earrings in a lady's ear
Shall slant the beams of morning sun —
Next pinks breathe sweet and day be done
There be the moon and there tiptoe
The stars among the branches go,
And that young jasmine by the wall
Shall grow a flowery waterfall.

So rich in crops, so quickly weeded,
Where never fork or hoe is needed,
This place I leave beneath grey skies
Shall be my spirit's paradise.

What once was there and what there never
Who from thought's thicket can dissever?
Through the green branches looking down
Into this Eden of my own,
Unchanging phantoms I shall see
Myself and you who walked with me,
Two skipping children long since grown,
A cat long dead and birds long flown,
And so substantial I shall find
The dreams that living leaves behind;
All hopes, all loves, all ecstasies
Stolen from life, I shall find these.
What memory cannot paint be sure
Fancy will fashion more secure.

Those woven boughs, that silken sky,
Regret nor winter will come nigh;

9

Beyond the reach of mortal grief
Its every shining flower and leaf;
Growing but fading not shall be
The span of its mortality,
And time's sad progress shall be stayed
By the perfection of a shade.

Fine Evening

TO-NIGHT the sky is like a rose
Above the little town,
A petal fallen from a rose
The chalk-pit on the down.

The ancient vane is gilt again,

And every roof is warm,
And brightly burns a window-pane

In some far distant farm.

The gentle hill, the gentle sky
Lie close as close-shut lips,

Softly and very secretly

Day towards darkness slips.

And every tree its arms puts out
To clasp the passing light,

And every bud puts up its mouth
To kiss the day good-night —

The elm-trees all on tiptoe stand

Her going to behold,
Like little children hand-in-hand

With hair of misty gold —
IO

So slowly that she seems to stay,

So slowly does she pass!
But trace we may the steps of day

Translucent in the grass.

To-night her going is as kind

As if that she stood still,
And we, by climbing, noon should find,

Full noon, behind the hill.

The Mower

THE rooks travelled home,
The milch cows went lowing,
And down in the meadow
An old man was mowing.

His shirt rank with sweat,
His neck stained with grime;
But he moved like the cadence
And sweetness of rhyme.

He moved like the heavy-winged
Rooks, the slow cows,
He moved like the vane
On the roof of the house.

The foam of the daisies
Was spread like a sea,
The spikes of red sorrel
Came up past his knee.

The sorrel, the daisies,
The white and the gold —
A man who was dirty
And twisted and old —
n

But again and again
Like an eddy he was.
He moved like the wind
In his own tasselled grass.

The Happy Hour

HL. A. L.; with penknife deep embedded,
# He carved the letters on the ancient stile.
Harry and Alice, rural lovers wedded,

Stayed and were happy here a little while.

Along the dykes they walked, while the sun wested,
In the warm summer evening, and so it was

That Harry stood and carved, while Alice rested,

Among the knapweed and the tall bleached grass.

Blue shone the tide, the swallows skimmed and darted,
White gulls passed slowly, redshanks made their cry;

The wheat was newly cut, the beans were carted,

And haystacks golden-rooved against the sky.

Pale gold the oaten stooks above the clover,

Too still the air to lift the thistledown,
Sometimes a curlew cried, sometimes a plover;

And evening fulness grew, and the sun shone,

And stretched long shadows on the yellow stubble;

While Harry set his oriflamme to prove
That, in a world called sad and full of trouble,

Two people once were happy, being in love.

12

T

Nightfall

HE church bells make their tumbling song,
And swiftly now the shadows grow
The quiet fields among :

Five little poplars in a row
Stripe with long shadows half the weald,
The elm-tree shadows flow,

Like streams till all the vale is filled —
Talk of the rooks is not yet done

And there the first bat wheeled :

Behind the beechwood the red sun
Burns on the ground, a woodman's fire,
And suddenly is gone :

Yet touched with gold are roof and spire,
And the young corn is lucent still,
And higher, ever higher,

The small clouds hold the light, until
Dusk draws its azure through the air —
The long shape of the hill

Against the west is sleeping there :
This is earth's calm and gentle hour, —
With darkening fields men share

Peace, like the closing of a flower.

13

The Willo w
To M. M. R.

THERE stands a willow by a stream
In pensive green and silver grace,
Quiet she stands, as in a dream;

But when the breezes dart and chase
The ripples, and the rushes quiver,

She stoops and kisses her own face
Reflected in the flowing river.

So when you turn your eyes our way,
Moved by a little thoughtful wind,

You see about you every day
The dawnlit Eden of your mind

Where many lovely shadows pass,
Since you in us your beauty find :

The world is but your looking-glass.

The Hare, 191 8

THROUGH the pale summer grass I stare
At the blue dome of sky;
A soft, contented, couchant hare
Hid in the grass am I.

All that I see a hare can see,

All that I hear she hears,
The wind's wave falling ceaselessly,

The trembling grassy spears :

The coloured patchwork of the weald,

Unto the world's blue edge,
Green field plaited with yellow field,

Hedge woven with dark hedge :

14

And, on the other side, the sea
Striped by the yellow grass,

Where to and fro continually
Small busy creatures pass :

Beetles as bright as lustre beads,

Ladybirds red as blood,
Green grasshoppers like little steeds

Threading the tangled wood :

And butterflies upon the wind

Blown past like withered leaves,

Graylings, and all the heathy kind,
And flecked fritillaries —

Their cool wings flutter near my face
Where cupped in grass I lie,

Domed with the blue and dazzling space
Of fine cloud-ruffled sky.

I watch the ambling shadows pass,

And bask without a care,
With sun and sky and summer grass

As thoughtless as a hare.

Till from that blue and friendly dome
There comes a sudden breath,

A shuddering breath out of a tomb,
A messenger of death.

A sound, a smouldering sound, that fills
And fades, but comes again;

Bruising the gentle grassy hills

With news of grief and pain.

Oh, then no summer do I see,

Nor feel the summer air;
But think upon men's cruelty,

And tremble like a hare.
15

The Flight of the Goldfinches

FLY not away, sweet goldfinches!
In this green garden no danger is.

White plumes shine in the lilac trees,
The sycamore flounces are full of bees,

Bend the laburnums in golden showers,
The dome of the chestnut rains down flowers-
Fly not away, sweet goldfinches !
Honey is tossed upon every breeze,

Apple-blossoms of red and pink

Hold cups of sweetness for you to drink,

The twigs of the apple-branches, look,

Are tied with bows like a shepherd's crook —

Fly not away, sweet goldfinches !

Stay with the bright-winged chaffinches,

Stay with the robin, who makes his song
The heart-shaped catalpa leaves among,

Stay with the delicate willow-wren,
Who pipes a grace and eats again —

Fly not away, sweet goldfinches !
The thrush here finds no enemies;

In the acacia he will sing,

His breast all pink in the evening,

When many a swift goes shrilling by,
And the neat swallows clip the sky —

16

Fly not away, sweet goldfinches !
Stay and sway in the rose bushes,

Here will be for you plum and pear,
Jasmine is here and syringa's here,

Raspberry, currant, and gooseberry,
Dark-leaved laurel and rosemary —

Fly not away, sweet goldfinches !
Nowhere is May more May than this,

Stay and tell us your pretty notes,

Let us see the pretty colours of your coats,

None shall frighten you,
All delight in you —

Fly not away, sweet memories!

The Return of the Goldfinches

WE are much honoured by your choice,
O golden birds of silver voice !
That in our garden you should find
A pleasaunce to your mind —

The painted pear of all our trees,
The south slope towards the gooseberries
Where all day long the sun is warm —
Combining use with charm.

Did the pink tulips take your eye ?
Or Beach's barn secure and high
To guard you from some chance mishap
Of gales through Shoreham gap ?

17

First you were spied a flighting pair
Flashing and fluting here and there,
Until in stealth the nest was made
And graciously you stayed.

Now when I pause beneath your tree,
An anxious head peeps down at me,
A crimson jewel in its crown,
I looking up, you down : —

I wonder if my stripey shawl
Seems pleasant in your eyes at all,
I can assure you that your wings
Are most delightful things.

Sweet birds, I pray, be not severe,
Do not deplore our presence here,
We cannot all be goldfinches
In such a world as this.

The shaded lawn, the bordered flowers,
We'll call them yours instead of ours,
The pinks and the acacia tree
Shall own your sovereignty.

And, if you let us, we will prove
Our lowly and obsequious love,
And when your little grey-pates hatch
We'll help you to keep watch.

No prowling stranger cats shall come

About your high celestial home,

With dangerous sounds we'll chase them hence

And ask no recompense.

And he, the Ethiop of our house,
Slayer of beetle and of mouse,

18

Huge, lazy, fond, whom we love well —
Peter shall wear a bell.

Believe me, birds, you need not fear,
No cages or limed twigs are here,
We only ask to live with you
In this green garden, too.

And when in other shining summers
Our place is taken by new-comers,
We'll leave them with the house and hill
The goldfinches' good will.

Your dainty flights, your painted coats,
The silver mist that is your notes,
And all your sweet caressing ways
Shall decorate their days.

And never will the thought of spring
Visit our minds, but a gold wing
Will flash among the green and blue,
And we'll remember you.

Hunting Song

THE hunt is up, the hunt is up,
It sounds from hill to hill,
It pierces to the secret place
Where we are lying still,
And one of us the quarry is,
And one of us must go
When through the arches of the wood
We hear the dread horn blow.

J9

A huntsman bold is Master Death,

And reckless does he ride,

And terror's hounds with bleeding fangs

Go baying at his side.

And will it be a milk-white doe

Or little dappled fawn,

Or will it be an antlered stag

Must face the icy dawn ?

Or will it be a golden fox

Must leap from out his lair,

Or where the trailing shadows pass

A merry romping hare ?

The hunt is up, the horn is loud

By plain and covert side,

And one must run alone, alone,

When Death abroad does ride.

But idle 'tis to crouch in fear,

Since Death will find you out.

Then up and hold your head erect

And pace the wood about,

And swim the stream, and leap the wall,

And race the starry mead,

Nor feel the bright teeth in your flank

Till they be there indeed.

For in the secret hearts of men

Are peace and joy at one,

There is a pleasant land where stalks

No darkness in the sun,

And through the arches of the wood

There break like silver foam

Young laughter and the noise of flutes

And voices singing home.

20

In this Deserted Garden

IN this deserted garden was song ever sung?
Did ever the blossom of April put light on the bough ?
Did leaves move softly once ? At night was there hung
A moon in the depths of the branches where clouds hang
now?

Stood I by the willow listening, with indrawn breath,
To hear from the echoing night, from the mist-white
vale —

Leaves overhead and the moon, and grass beneath —
The first exultant song of the nightingale ?

Cowper at Olney

IN this green valley where the Ouse
Is looped in many a silver pool,
Seeking God's mercy and his muse
Went Cowper sorrowful.

Like the pale gleam of wintry sun
His genius lit the obscure place,
Where, battling with despair, lived one
Of melancholy's race.

By quiet waters, by green fields

In winter sweet as summer hay,

By hedgerows where the chaffinch builds

He went his brooding way.

And not a berry or a leaf,
Or stirring bough or fragrant wind,
But, in its moment, soothed the grief
Of his tormented mind.

21

And since, like the beloved sheep
Of David's shepherd, he was led
By streams and pastures quiet as slee
Was he not comforted?

The Whistling Boy

IT is not the whistling of blackbird or wren,
Nor yet the plump chaffinch that sings in the lane;
But a little starved boy that is crooked and lame,
A little starved ruffian that hasn't a name.

He's always in want and he's always in woe,

A load on his back and an errand to go,

A devil to fight and he'll fight six to one,

Or poke out a half-smothered wasps' nest for fun.

In a lapful of sorrows his infancy lay,
The mother who bore him she soon ran away,
His grandmother reared him in poverty cold,
And the life of the young was the grief of the old.

Sure not from his father such happiness came,
And not from his mother who left him in shame;
The song of green fields, of the streams and the groves,
The song of sweet hopes and of confident loves.

Oh, what puts that spirit of spring in his breast,
Oh, what makes him pipe like a bird by its nest,
Oh, what makes him whistle like blackbird or wren,
The little starved ruffian rejected of men ?

22

Wootton Hill in Winter

CROUCHING before the bitter North,
As if in anger driven forth,
A caravan against the sky,
The trees along the hill go by —

Hooded pine and muffled fir,
Larches clad in gossamer,
Oaks that mighty burdens bear,
Thorns that limping dwarfs appear —

A refuge do they find at last,

And all their burdens from them cast,

And straighten their strong backs, and sigh,

And stand upright against the sky.

So do they move again, again,
Like an old song with a refrain,
Like water curling round a stone,
Or like my thoughts when I'm alone.

That Day

THAT day, that three times happy day,
Is now a myriad miles away,
And nowhere can its trace be found
Upon earth's poorer ground.

Left far behind in starry space
By the unpausing planet's race,
A bubble in the wake it shone —
A bubble — and was gone.

23

But though dissolved, such sweetness clings
About that airy nought of things —
That rainbow-coloured mist of joy —
As time cannot destroy.

And young-eyed seraphim that go
Celestial errands to and fro,
Coming into that breath of bliss,
Will wonder what it is :

Finding a fragrance there the same
As in the place from whence they came,
Nor strive to guess nor ever care
What mortals left it there.

The S?nall Daughter

GOD does not fail in anything,
The ring-dove's neck, the beetle's wing,
The leaves that turn from green to gold,
The sunny perfumes of the spring,
The coloured patchwork of the wold,
The blue dusk dropping fold on fold,
And all talk talked and stories told
In the long evenings by the fire,
And strength and laughter and desire.

Dear, when you come to me and say
Do this, do that, I must obey,
Swift to interpret, to devise
With all the gladness that I may,
So can I face the trust that lies
24

Within your wide exacting eyes
(Your beautiful exacting eyes);
Mending and fashioning, I know
If you will have, it must be so.

Do not be over harsh with me
When (empty of all subtlety,
Stupid and ignorant and shy)
You find my small reality.
When on a sudden grown as high
And how much cleverer than I !
You put your games and nonsense by
And find me also questioning
And empty of all counselling.

Ah, turn your puzzled glances then
From the unresting ways of men,
From tangled right and tangled wrong
To where the brooks are loud with rain,
To where the birds are glad with song,
And with the world know you are young,
And with the ageing world be strong,
And unto God as faithful be
As in these days you are to me.

The Irishman s Story

CAN you not tell me the way to the Blue Mountains?
Can you not tell me the way to the Blue Mountains ?
An enchanted princess is there waiting for me,
An enchanted princess that I rescued from captivity —
Always I am asking the way to the Blue Mountains.

25

Three nights I watched, three nights I lay awake,

Three nights I fought with demons for her sake;

The little fair-haired lad he played a trick on me,

He put me to sleep beneath the hawthorn tree.

The little fair-haired lad

A coat of green he had,

A cap of red upon his head,

A smile with every word he said.

Three nights I watched, but I slept beneath the tree,

Slept and could not wake when the princess came for me,

Came with a coach and four horses grey,

Swiftly, swiftly did she come and swiftly went away —

Always I am asking the way to the Blue Mountains.

There is a shining harbour and a twinkling town,
There is a shining palace and a twinkling crown,
There is the most beautiful lady that any eye could see,
She leans out of her window, she looks and longs for me —
Always I am asking the way to the Blue Mountains.

I will mount an eagle's back, I will ride the wind,

I will see all hidden paths, and find and find

The smooth harbour, the secret town where the princess

waits for me,
The enchanted princess, mourning her lost captivity —
Can you not tell me the way to the Blue Mountains ?

26

HSlas!

AH! little tree, that shone in May
With glistening leaves and blossoms gay,
How show you now the bitter air
Of time has stripped your branches bare?

You that I loved and praised as one
That seemed a nursling of the sun —
What the bleak soil, what harsh wind blew,
Thus to deform and wither you ?

Apparelled in the robe of Spring,
You bloomed so fresh and fine a thing;
Was that most joyous canopy
But a disguise, my little tree?

I loved the blossoms and the green,
The coloured, carved, intricate screen :
Enchanted by the sight of them,
How should I mark the crooked stem ?

The Shepherds of the Flowers

OYOU that on a Summer's day,
Upon the shores of Blacksod Bay,
Among the sunshine and the showers,
I called the shepherds of the flowers;
The sturdy, sunburnt legs of you,
The round straw hats, the smocks of blue,
The brown locks and the golden locks,
That went a-following their flocks!

27

Into your hands you gathered then
Such colours as wise-fingered men
Painted on cups in Queen Anne's day.
When ladies called their tea Bohea :
Mauve orchises in printed dresses,
Yellow hawkweed, purple vetches,
Woodruff white, geranium rose,
Milkwort bluest flower that grows :
But these, and twice as many more,
Lie far beneath Time's crystal floor,
And you, instead of mountain sheep,
The tamer Sussex kind must keep :

Run to your flocks that here await
Your care within a garden gate :
Here the dark violet sweetness spreads,
And snowdrops hang their snow-white heads,
With wallflowers, squills and primroses,
Candytuft and crocuses,
And many a jonquil's leafy crown
Thrusting greenness through earth's brown :
Run to your flocks, and say that one
Who as they love it loves the sun,
Humbly desires that they will make
Their Spring a late one for her sake.
Say that in weakness and long pain
More than a season she has lain
Holding in hope but one small thing :
She should be well to see the Spring —
Oh, say to them to stay their growth,
This would be charity, not sloth,
Beseech them stay, that she may share
Their beauty with the gentle air.
Why should they hasten ? Winter still
Puts a coldness on the hill —
Tell them of sudden frosts and snows,
And how the bawling March wind blows —
28

Tell them of April when the wind
As the most steady sun is kind —
And is not May more lovely far
Than half-a-hundred Aprils are ?
Bid them but wait one other moon
And blossom with the rose of June!

They do not heed us. Every day
Brings news of Spring's triumphal way.
Blackthorn and bullace star the lane;
The hazel staves sustain again
Their golden notes, the sky shines clear-
I shall not see the Spring this year.

Shepherds, with tidings of the flowers,
You do not know these flocks of yours,
Rustling soft-voiced across my bed,
Pass with a hard and hurtful tread.

But peace to grieving ! In this room
Is happiness to chase all gloom.
Are not two Mays, two Aprils here,
That keep their sweetness through the year ?
Shall the indifference of a few
Flowers distress me, while in you
All flowers, all suns, all Springs I see
And I clasp them and they clasp me?
These will not fail me, they are made
Of a delight that cannot fade
So long as loving eyes may look
In memory's well-painted book.
And, shepherds mine, when you are whirled
To the far ages of the world,
There will be countless flocks of sheep
For your be-ribboned crooks to keep.

29

Still may you guide into your fold
Flocks with fleeces of pure gold,
Shepherding through this world of ours
Truth, Justice, Laughter, and — the Flowers.

A Fine Night in Winter

THIS night of sweetly-perfumed air
Should not have fallen to December's share.
This is such perfume as young April breathes
When violet-girdled spring her garland wreathes,
When wallflowers crowd the borders, and in the sun
Hyacinth bells are opening one by one,
And tulip buds are red-stained at the tips,
And pear-trees are like full-rigged sailing-ships —
In such a place, on such a day stood I,
And watched fine weather walking in the sky,
Through pearly clouds threaded the azure day
And winter seemed a thousand years away.

Here are no flowers, and overhead I see
A quick star leaping in a leafless tree : —
Not to December's iron share
This night of perfumed air!

30

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Chorus. (Novel.) Constable and Co.

The Thrush and the Jay. (Miscellany.) Constable and Co.

The Goldfinches. (Poems.) R. Cobden-Sanaerson.

The Swallow Dive. (Novel.) Cassell and Co.

The Mulberry Bush. (Stories.) Macmillan and Co.

Acknowledgments for permission to reprint poems are
due to Messrs. Constable and Co.^ and to Mr. R. Cobden-
Sanderson.

31

The Augustan Books of Poetry
{First Series)

Edited by Edward Thompson

{First published during 1925 and 1926)

Uniform with this

ROBERT BRIDGES
EDMUND BLUNDEN
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
RUPERT BROOKE
HILAIRE BELLOC
JOHN KEATS
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
G. K. CHESTERTON
WILLIAM BLAKE
JOHN DAVIDSON
J. C. SQUIRE
JOHN FREEMAN
ROBERT GRAVES
ANDREW MARVELL
OMAR KHAYYAM
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
JOHN DRINKWATER
A CHRISTMAS ANTHOLOGY
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
WALT WHITMAN
SIEGFRIED SASSOON
A RELIGIOUS ANTHOLOGY
EDWARD SHANKS
DORA SIGERSON SHORTER
ALGERNON CHARLES SWIN-
BURNE
EDGAR ALLAN POE
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS

volume

F. W. HARVEY
ANDREW LANG
LAURENCE BINYON
EDITH SITWELL
HUMBERT WOLFE
THOMAS CAMPION
BRET HARTE
ALICE MEYNELL
EDWARD THOMAS
MATTHEW ARNOLD
GILBERT MURRAY
MAURICE HEWLETT
EMILY BRONTE
WALTER DE LA MARE
MAURICE BARING
AUSTIN DOBSON
HENRY W. NEVINSON
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
WILLIAM CANTON
EDEN PHILLPOTTS
SIR EDMUND GOSSE
J. A. CHAPMAN
SIR WALTER SCOTT
AFTER TEA (A Nursery

Anthology)
W. H. DAVIES
W. J. TURNER
ROBERT BURNS
J. K. STEPHEN

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