Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses
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THEN AND NOW
When battles were foughtWith a chivalrous sense of Should and Ought, In spirit men said, “End we quick or dead, Honour is some reward!Let us fight fair – for our own best or worst; So, Gentlemen of the Guard, Fire first!” In the open they stood,Man to man in his knightlihood: They would not deign To profit by a stain On the honourable rules,Knowing that practise perfidy no man durst Who in the heroic schools Was nurst. But now, behold, whatIs warfare wherein honour is not! Rama laments Its dead innocents: Herod breathes: “Sly slaughterShall rule! Let us, by modes once called accurst, Overhead, under water, Stab first.”1915.
A CALL TO NATIONAL SERVICE
Up and be doing, all who have a handTo lift, a back to bend. It must not beIn times like these that vaguely linger weTo air our vaunts and hopes; and leave our landUntended as a wild of weeds and sand.– Say, then, “I come!” and go, O women and menOf palace, ploughshare, easel, counter, pen;That scareless, scathless, England still may stand.Would years but let me stir as once I stirredAt many a dawn to take the forward track,And with a stride plunged on to enterprize,I now would speed like yester wind that whirredThrough yielding pines; and serve with never a slack,So loud for promptness all around outcries!March 1917.
THE DEAD AND THE LIVING ONE
The dead woman lay in her first night’s grave,And twilight fell from the clouds’ concave,And those she had asked to forgive forgave.The woman passing came to a pauseBy the heaped white shapes of wreath and cross,And looked upon where the other was.And as she mused there thus spoke she:“Never your countenance did I see,But you’ve been a good good friend to me!”Rose a plaintive voice from the sod below:“O woman whose accents I do not know,What is it that makes you approve me so?”“O dead one, ere my soldier went,I heard him saying, with warm intent,To his friend, when won by your blandishment:“‘I would change for that lass here and now!And if I return I may break my vowTo my present Love, and contrive somehow“‘To call my own this new-found pearl,Whose eyes have the light, whose lips the curl,I always have looked for in a girl!’“ – And this is why that by ceasing to be —Though never your countenance did I see —You prove you a good good friend to me;“And I pray each hour for your soul’s reposeIn gratitude for your joining thoseNo lover will clasp when his campaigns close.”Away she turned, when arose to her eyeA martial phantom of gory dye,That said, with a thin and far-off sigh:“O sweetheart, neither shall I clasp you,For the foe this day has pierced me through,And sent me to where she is. Adieu! —“And forget not when the night-wind’s whineCalls over this turf where her limbs recline,That it travels on to lament by mine.”There was a cry by the white-flowered mound,There was a laugh from underground,There was a deeper gloom around.1915.
A NEW YEAR’S EVE IN WAR TIME
I Phantasmal fears, And the flap of the flame, And the throb of the clock, And a loosened slate, And the blind night’s drone,Which tiredly the spectral pines intone!IIAnd the blood in my earsStrumming always the same,And the gable-cockWith its fitful grate,And myself, alone.IIIThe twelfth hour nearsHand-hid, as in shame;I undo the lock,And listen, and waitFor the Young Unknown.IVIn the dark there careers —As if Death astride cameTo numb all with his knock —A horse at mad rateOver rut and stone.VNo figure appears,No call of my name,No sound but “Tic-toc”Without check. Past the gateIt clatters – is gone.VIWhat rider it bearsThere is none to proclaim;And the Old Year has struck,And, scarce animate,The New makes moan.VII Maybe that “More Tears! — More Famine and Flame — More Severance and Shock!” Is the order from Fate That the Rider speeds onTo pale Europe; and tiredly the pines intone.1915–1916.
“I MET A MAN”
I met a man when night was nigh, Who said, with shining face and eye Like Moses’ after Sinai: — “I have seen the Moulder of Monarchies, Realms, peoples, plains and hills, Sitting upon the sunlit seas! — And, as He sat, soliloquiesFell from Him like an antiphonic breeze That pricks the waves to thrills. “Meseemed that of the maimed and dead Mown down upon the globe, — Their plenteous blooms of promise shed Ere fruiting-time – His words were said,Sitting against the western web of red Wrapt in His crimson robe. “And I could catch them now and then: – ‘Why let these gambling clans Of human Cockers, pit liege men From mart and city, dale and glen,In death-mains, but to swell and swell again Their swollen All-Empery plans, “‘When a mere nod (if my malign Compeer but passive keep) Would mend that old mistake of mine I made with Saul, and ever consignAll Lords of War whose sanctuaries enshrine Liberticide, to sleep? “‘With violence the lands are spread Even as in Israel’s day, And it repenteth me I bred Chartered armipotents lust-ledTo feuds.. Yea, grieves my heart, as then I said, To see their evil way!’ – “The utterance grew, and flapped like flame, And further speech I feared; But no Celestial tongued acclaim, And no huzzas from earthlings came,And the heavens mutely masked as ’twere in shame Till daylight disappeared.”Thus ended he as night rode high —The man of shining face and eye,Like Moses’ after Sinai.1916.
“I LOOKED UP FROM MY WRITING”
I looked up from my writing, And gave a start to see,As if rapt in my inditing, The moon’s full gaze on me.Her meditative misty head Was spectral in its air,And I involuntarily said, “What are you doing there?”“Oh, I’ve been scanning pond and hole And waterway hereaboutFor the body of one with a sunken soul Who has put his life-light out.“Did you hear his frenzied tattle? It was sorrow for his sonWho is slain in brutish battle, Though he has injured none.“And now I am curious to look Into the blinkered mindOf one who wants to write a book In a world of such a kind.”Her temper overwrought me, And I edged to shun her view,For I felt assured she thought me One who should drown him too.FINALE
THE COMING OF THE END
How it came to an end!The meeting afar from the crowd,And the love-looks and laughters unpenned,The parting when much was avowed, How it came to an end! It came to an end;Yes, the outgazing over the stream,With the sun on each serpentine bend,Or, later, the luring moon-gleam; It came to an end. It came to an end,The housebuilding, furnishing, planting,As if there were ages to spendIn welcoming, feasting, and jaunting; It came to an end. It came to an end,That journey of one day a week:(“It always goes on,” said a friend,“Just the same in bright weathers or bleak;”) But it came to an end. “How will come to an endThis orbit so smoothly begun,Unless some convulsion attend?”I often said. “What will be done When it comes to an end?” Well, it came to an endQuite silently – stopped without jerk;Better close no prevision could lend;Working out as One planned it should work Ere it came to an end.AFTERWARDS
When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay, And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say, “He was a man who used to notice such things”?If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid’s soundless blink, The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alightUpon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think, “To him this must have been a familiar sight.”If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm, When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,One may say, “He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm, But he could do little for them; and now he is gone”?If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door, Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more, “He was one who had an eye for such mysteries”?And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom, And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,Till they rise again, as they were a new bell’s boom, “He hears it not now, but used to notice such things”?1
Jer. li. 20.