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Various
Eyes of Youth
Forest Song
All around I heard the whispering larches
Swinging to the low-lipped wind;
God, they piped, is lilting in our arches,
For He loveth leafen kind.
Ferns I heard, unfolding from their slumber,
Say confiding to the reed:
God well knoweth us, Who loves to number
Us and all our fairy seed.
Voices hummed as of a multitude
Crowding from their lowly sod;
'Twas the stricken daisies where I stood,
Crying to the daisies' God.
The Bee
Away, the old monks said,
Sweet honey-fly,
From lilting overhead
The lullaby
You heard some mother croon
Beneath the harvest moon.
Go, hum it in the hive,
The old monks said,
For we were once alive
Who now are dead.
Outside the Carlton
The death of the grey withered grass
Of man's is a sign,
And his life is as wine
That is spilt from a half-shivered glass.
At a quarter to nine
Went Dives to dine …
(Man, it is said, is as grass.)
Riches and plunder had met
To furnish his feast—
Both succulent beast
And fish from the fisherman's net;
While he tasteth of dishes
And all his soul wishes—
Nor knoweth his hour hath been set.
The death of the pale-sodden hay
'Neath the feet of the kine
Is to man for a sign;
At the striking of ten he was grey,
And they carried him out
Stiff-strangled with gout.
(Man, it is said, is as hay.)
The Pater of the Cannon
Father of the thunder,
Flinger of the flame,
Searing stars asunder,
Hallowed be Thy Name!
By the sweet-sung quiring
Sister bullets hum,
By our fiercest firing,
May Thy Kingdom come!
By Thy strong apostle
Of the Maxim gun,
By his pentecostal
Flame, Thy Will be done!
Give us, Lord, good feeding
To Thy battles sped—Flesh,
white grained and bleeding,
Give for daily bread!
Fleet Street
I never see the newsboys run
Amid the whirling street,
With swift untiring feet,
To cry the latest venture done,
But I expect one day to hear
Them cry the crack of doom
And risings from the tomb,
With great Archangel Michael near;
And see them running from the Fleet
As messengers of God,
With Heaven's tidings shod
About their brave unwearied feet.
Nightmare
I dreamt that the heavens were beggared
And angels went chanting for bread,
And the cherubs were sewed up in sackcloth,
And Satan anointed his head.
I dreamt they had chalked up a price
On the sun and the stars at God's feet,
And the Devil had bought up the Church,
And put out the Pope in the street.
To a Nobleman becoming Socialist
I do remember thee so blest and filled
With all life offered thee,
Yet unsurprised I learn that thou hast willed
To share or lose her fee.
It seems a very great and stalwart thing
To toss defence away,
To tear the golden feathers from thy wing
And lie with shards of clay.
To some far vision's light thine eyes are set
That mock life's treasure trove,
And see the changing woof not woven yet
As God would have it wove.
The red thou flauntest bravely, friend, for me
Hast lost alarming power;
For who but guilty men will quake their knee,
And who but robbers cower?
For many hallowed things are symbolled red,
Live fire and cleansing war,
And the bright sealing Blood that Christ once shed,
And Martyrs yet must pour.
O friend, choose one of these ourselves to link;
For how could friendship be
If from the foaming cup thou hast to drink
The dregs come not to me?
Dividing much, thou makest little thine
Except the gain of loss;
Yet haply Christ's true peer hath better sign
Than coronet—the Cross.
St. George-in-the-East
'Mid the quiet splendour of a pennoned crowd,
Gently proud,
Moved in armour, silvered in celestial forge,
Great Saint George,
Stands he in the crimson-woven air of fight
Speared with light—
Hell is harried by the holy anger poured
From his sword.
Where the sweated toilers of the river slum
Shiver dumb,
Passed to-day a poorly clad and poorly shod
Knight of God;
Where the human eddy smears with shame and rags
Paving flags,
Hell shall weakly wail beneath the words he cries
Piteous-wise.
VIOLA MEYNELL
The Ruin
I led thy thoughts, having them for my own,
To where my God His head to thee did bend.
I bore thee in my bosom to His throne.
O, the blest labour, and the treasured end!
Now like a ruined aqueduct I go
Unburdened; thou by more fleet ways hast been
With Him. Since thou thine own swift road dost know,
Thou canst not brook such slow and devious mean.
The Dream
I slept, and thought a letter came from you—
You did not love me any more, it said.
What breathless grief!—my love not true, not true …
I was afraid of people, and afraid
Of things inanimate—the wind that blew,
The clock, the wooden chair; and so I strayed
From home, but could not stray from grief, I knew.
And then at dawn I woke, and wept, and prayed,
And knew my blessed love was still the same;—
And yet I sit and moan upon the bed
For that dream-creature's loss. For when I came
(I came, perhaps, to comfort her) she fled.
I would be with her where she wanders now,
Fleeing the earth, with pain upon her brow.
The Wanderer
All night my thoughts have rested in God's fold;
They lay beside me here upon the bed.
At dawn I woke: the air beat sad and cold.
I told them o'er—Ah, God, one thought had fled.
Into what dark, deep chasm this wayward one
Has sunk, I scarcely know; I will not chide.
O Shepherd, leave me! Seek this lamb alone.
The ninety-nine are here. They will abide.