Eyes of Youth
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FOREWORD
My office on this occasion is one which I may well carry as lightly as possible. In our society, I am told, one needs an introduction to a beautiful woman; but I have never heard of men needing an introduction to a beautiful song. Prose before poetry is an unmeaning interruption; for poetry is perhaps the one thing in the world that explains itself. The only possible prelude for songs is silence; and I shall endeavour here to imitate the brevity of the silence as well as its stillness.
This collection contains four new poems by one whom all serious critics now class with Shelley and Keats and those other great ones cut down with their work unfinished. Yet I would not speak specially of him, lest modern critics should run away with their mad notion of a one-man influence; and call this a "school" of Francis Thompson. Francis Thompson was not a schoolmaster. He would have said as freely as Whitman (and with a far more consistent philosophy), "I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free." The modern world has this mania about plagiarism because the modern world cannot comprehend the idea of communion. It thinks that men must steal ideas; it does not understand that men may share them. The saints did not imitate each other; not always even study each other; they studied the Imitation of Christ. A real religion is that in which any two solitary people might suddenly say the same thing at any moment. It would therefore be most misleading to give to this collection an air of having been inspired by its most famous contributor. The little lyrics of this little book must surely be counted individual, even by those who may count them mysterious. A variety verging on quaintness is the very note of the assembled bards.
Take, for example, Mr. Colum's stern and simple rendering of the bitter old Irish verses:
"O woman, shapely as the swan,On your account I shall not die."Like Fitzgerald's Omar and all good translations, it leaves one wondering whether the original was as good; but to an Englishman the note is not only unique, but almost hostile. It is the hardness of the real Irishman which has been so skilfully hidden under the softness of the stage Irishman. The words are ages old, I believe; they come out of the ancient Ireland of Cairns and fallen Kings: and yet the words might have been spoken by one of Bernard Shaw's modern heroes to one of his modern heroines. The curt, bleak words, the haughty, heathen spirit are certainly as remote as anything can be from the luxuriant humility of Francis Thompson.
If the writers have a real point of union it is in a certain instinct for contrast between their shape and subject matter. All the poems are brief in form, and at the same time big in topic. They remind us of the vivid illuminations of the virile thirteenth century, when artists crowded cosmic catastrophes into the corner of an initial letter; where one may find a small picture of the Deluge or of the flaming Cities of the Plain. One of the specially short poems sees the universe overthrown and the good angels conquered. Another short poem sees the newsboys in Fleet Street shouting the news of the end of the world, and the awful return of God. The writers seem unconsciously to have sought to make a poem as large as a revelation, while it was nearly as short as a riddle. And though Francis Thompson himself was rather in the Elizabethan tradition of amplitude and ingenuity, he could write separate lines that were separate poems in themselves:—
"And thou, what needest with thy tribe's black tents,Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?"A mediaeval illuminator would have jumped out of his sandals in his eagerness to illustrate that.
G.K. CHESTERTON.
FRANCIS THOMPSON
Threatened Tears
Do not loose those rains thy wetEyes, my Fair, unsurely threat;Do not, Sweet, do not so;Thou canst not have a single woe,But this sad and doubtful weatlierOvercasts us both together.In the aspect of those known eyesMy soul's a captain weatherwise.Ah me! what presages it seesIn those watery Hyades.Arab Love Song
The hunchèd camels of the night*Trouble the brightAnd silver waters of the moon.The Maiden of the Morn will soonThrough Heaven stray and sing,Star gathering.Now while the dark about our loves is strewn,Light of my dark, blood of my heart, O come!And night will catch her breath up, and be dumb.Leave thy father, leave thy motherAnd thy brother;Leave the black tents of thy tribe apart!Am I not thy father and thy brother,And thy mother?And thou—what needest with thy tribe's black tentsWho hast the red pavilion of my heart?* The cloud-shapes often observed by travellers in the East.Buona Notte
Jane Williams, in her last letter to Shelley, wrote: "Why do you talk of never enjoying moments like the past? Are you going to join your friend Plato, or do you expect I shall do so soon? Buona Notte." This letter was dated July 6th, and Shelley was drowned on the 8th. The following is his imagined reply from, another world:—
Ariel to Miranda:—hearThis good-night the sea-winds bear;And let thine unacquainted earTake grief for their interpreter.Good-night; I have risen so highInto slumber's rarity,Not a dream can beat its featherThrough the unsustaining ether.Let the sea-winds make avouchHow thunder summoned me to couch,Tempest curtained me aboutAnd turned the sun with his own hand out:And though I toss upon my bedMy dream is not disquieted;Nay, deep I sleep upon the deep,And my eyes are wet, but I do not weep;And I fell to sleep so suddenlyThat my lips are moist yet—could'st thou seeWith the good-night draught I have drunk to thee.Thou can'st not wipe them; for it was DeathDamped my lips that has dried my breath.A little while—it is not long—The salt shall dry on them like the song.Now know'st thou, that voice desolate,Mourning ruined joy's estate,Reached thee through a closing gate."Go'st thou to Plato?" Ah, girl, no!It is to Pluto that I go.The Passion of Mary
O Lady Mary, thy bright crownIs no mere crown of majesty;For with the reflex of His ownResplendent thorns Christ circled thee.The red rose of this passion tideDoth take a deeper hue from thee,In the five Wounds of Jesus dyed,And in Thy bleeding thoughts, Mary.The soldier struck a triple strokeThat smote thy Jesus on the tree;He broke the Heart of hearts, and brokeThe Saint's and Mother's hearts in thee.Thy Son went up the Angels' ways,His passion ended; but, ah me!Thou found'st the road of further daysA longer way of Calvary.On the hard cross of hopes deferredThou hung'st in loving agony,Until the mortal dreaded word,Which chills our mirth, spake mirth to thee.The Angel Death from this cold tombOf life did roll the stone away;And He thou barest in thy wombCaught thee at last into the day—Before the living throne of WhomThe lights of heaven burning pray.L'ENVOYO thou who dwellest in the day,Behold, I pace amidst the gloom:Darkness is ever round my way,With little space for sunbeam room.Yet Christian sadness is divine,Even as thy patient sadness was:The salt tears in our life's dark wineFell in it from the saving Cross.Bitter the bread of our repast;Yet doth a sweet the bitter leaven:Our sorrow is the shadow castAround it by the light of Heaven.O Light in light, shine down from Heaven!PADRAIC COLUM
"I shall not die for you"
(From the Irish)O woman, shapely as the swan,On your account I shall not die.The men you've slain—a trivial clan—Were less than I.I ask me shall I die for these:For blossom-teeth and scarlet lips?And shall that delicate swan-shapeBring me eclipse?Well shaped the breasts and smooth the skin,The cheeks are fair, the tresses free;And yet I shall not suffer death,God over me.Those even brows, that hair like gold,Those languorous tones, that virgin way;The flowing limbs, the rounded heelSlight men betray.Thy spirit keen through radiant mien,Thy shining throat and smiling eye,Thy little palm, thy side like foam—I cannot die.O woman, shapely as the swan,In a cunning house hard-reared was I;O bosom white, O well-shaped palm,I shall not die.An Idyll
You stay at last at my bosom, with your beautyyoung and rare,Though your light limbs are as limber as thefoal's that follows the mare,Brow fair and young and stately where thoughthas now begun—Hairbright as the breast of the eagle when hestrains up to the sun!In the space of a broken castle I found you ona dayWhen the call of the new-come cuckoo wentwith me all the way.You stood by the loosened stones that wererough and black with age:The fawn beloved of the hunter in the panther'sbroken cage!And we went down together by paths yourchildhood knew—Remote you went beside me, like the spirit ofthe dew;Hard were the hedge-rows still: sloe-bloomwas their scanty dower—You slipped it within your bosom, the bloomthat scarce is flower.And now you stay at my bosom with youbeauty young and rare,Though your light limbs are as limber as thefoal's that follows the mare;But always I will see you on paths your childhoodknew,When remote you went beside me like thespirit of the dew.Christ the Comrade
Christ, by thine own darkened hourLive within my heart and brain!Let my hands not slip the rein.Ah, how long ago it isSince a comrade rode with me!Now a moment let me seeThyself, lonely in the dark,Perfect, without wound or mark.Arab Songs (I)
Saadi the Poet stood up and he put forth hisliving words.His songs were the hurtling of spears andhis figures the flashing of swords.With hearts dilated our tribe saw the creatureof Saadi's mind;It was like to the horse of a king, a creatureof fire and of wind.Umimah my loved one was by me: withoutlove did these eyes see my fawn,And if fire there were in her being, for meits splendour had gone;When the sun storms up on the tent, he makeswaste the fire of the grass—It was thus with my loved one's beauty: thesplendour of song made it pass.The desert, the march, and the onset—theseand these only avail,Hands hard with the handling of spear-shafts,brows white with the press of the mail!And as for the kisses of women—these arehoney, the poet sings;But the honey of kisses, beloved, it is limefor the spirit's wings.Arab Songs (II)
The poet reproaches those who have affronted him.
Ye know not why God hath joined the horsefly unto the horseNor why the generous steed is yoked withthe poisonous fly:Lest the steed should sink into ease and losehis fervour of nerveGod hath appointed him this: a lustful andvenomous bride.Never supine lie they, the steeds of our folk,to the sting,Praying for deadness of nerve, their woundsthe shame of the sun;They strive, but they strive for this: the fullnessof passionate nerve;They pant, but they pant for this: the speedthat outstrips the pain.Sons of the dust, ye have stung: there isdarkness upon my soul.Sons of the dust, ye have stung: yea, stungto the roots of my heart.But I have said in my breast: the birthsucceeds to the pang,And sons of the dust, behold, your malicebecomes my song.SHANE LESLIE
A Dead Friend (J.S., 1905)
I drew him then unto my knee, my friend whowas dead,And I set my live lips over his, and my heartby his head.I thought of an unrippled love and a passionunsaid,And the years he was living by me, my friendwho was dead;And the white morning ways that we went,and how oft we had fedAnd drunk with the sunset for lamp—my friendwho was dead;Now never the draught at my lips would thrillto my head—For the last vintage ebbed in my heart; myfriend he was dead.Then I spake unto God in my grief: My wineand my breadAnd my staff Thou hast taken from me—myfriend who is dead.Are the heavens yet friendless to Thee, andlone to Thy head,That Thy desolate heart must have need of myfriend who is dead?To God then I spake yet again: not PeterinsteadWould I take, nor Philip nor John, for myfriend who is dead.Forest Song
All around I heard the whispering larchesSwinging 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 numberUs and all our fairy seed.Voices hummed as of a multitudeCrowding 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 overheadThe lullabyYou heard some mother croonBeneath the harvest moon.Go, hum it in the hive,The old monks said,For we were once aliveWho now are dead.Outside the Carlton
The death of the grey withered grassOf man's is a sign,And his life is as wineThat is spilt from a half-shivered glass.At a quarter to nineWent Dives to dine …(Man, it is said, is as grass.)Riches and plunder had metTo furnish his feast—Both succulent beastAnd fish from the fisherman's net;While he tasteth of dishesAnd all his soul wishes—Nor knoweth his hour hath been set.The death of the pale-sodden hay'Neath the feet of the kineIs to man for a sign;At the striking of ten he was grey,And they carried him outStiff-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 quiringSister bullets hum,By our fiercest firing,May Thy Kingdom come!By Thy strong apostleOf the Maxim gun,By his pentecostalFlame, Thy Will be done!Give us, Lord, good feedingTo Thy battles sped—Flesh,white grained and bleeding,Give for daily bread!Fleet Street
I never see the newsboys runAmid the whirling street,With swift untiring feet,To cry the latest venture done,But I expect one day to hearThem cry the crack of doomAnd risings from the tomb,With great Archangel Michael near;And see them running from the FleetAs messengers of God,With Heaven's tidings shodAbout their brave unwearied feet.Nightmare
I dreamt that the heavens were beggaredAnd 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 priceOn 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 filledWith all life offered thee,Yet unsurprised I learn that thou hast willedTo share or lose her fee.It seems a very great and stalwart thingTo toss defence away,To tear the golden feathers from thy wingAnd lie with shards of clay.To some far vision's light thine eyes are setThat mock life's treasure trove,And see the changing woof not woven yetAs God would have it wove.The red thou flauntest bravely, friend, for meHast 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 beIf from the foaming cup thou hast to drinkThe dregs come not to me?Dividing much, thou makest little thineExcept the gain of loss;Yet haply Christ's true peer hath better signThan 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 goUnburdened; thou by more fleet ways hast beenWith 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 afraidOf things inanimate—the wind that blew,The clock, the wooden chair; and so I strayedFrom 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 bedFor 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 oneHas sunk, I scarcely know; I will not chide.O Shepherd, leave me! Seek this lamb alone.The ninety-nine are here. They will abide."Nature is the living mantle of God"
—Goethe
O for the time when some impetuous breezeWill catch Thy garment, and, like autumn trees,Toss it and rend it till Thou standest free,And end Thy long secluded reverie!Still now its beauty folds Thee, and—as sheWho kissed Thy garment and had health from Thee—I feel the sun, or hear some bird in bliss,And Thou hast then my sudden, humble kiss.Secret Prayer
Since that with lips which moved in one we prayed,So that God ceased to hear us speak apart,What law irrevocable have we made?How shall He hear a solitary heartWhen He did need that we, to have His ear,Should go aside and pray together thereWith urgent breath? Ah, now I pause and fear—How shall uprise my lonely, separate prayer?The Unheeded
Upon one hand your kisses chanced to rest:I smiled upon the other hand and said"Poor thing," when you had gone: and then in questOf pity rose a clamour from the dead—Some way of mine, some word, some look, some jestComplained they too went all uncoveted …That night I took these troubles to my breast,And played that you and I, my own, were wed;Those troubles were our child, with eyes of fear,—A wailing babe, whom I, his mother dear,Must soothe to quiet rest and calm relief,And urge his eyes to sleeping by and by."O hush," I said, and wept to see such grief;"Hush, hush, your father must not hear you cry."Dream of Death
In sleep my idle thoughts were sadly ledBy wild dark ways: it strangely seemed that IMust join the number of the silent dead,And with my young and fearful heart must die.But ah, what drew my bitter moans and sighs,And pierced my sleeping spirit, was that sheWho with the saddest tears would close these eyesAnd with maternal passion mourn for me,She on some pleasure-errand stayed away.Ah, bitter, bitter thought! Ah, lonely deathTo seek me in the night! And not till dayHad come and soothed my fear, and calmed my breath,And in the sun my new life I could kiss,And look with prayer and hope to future years,Did I discern God's mercy still in this—That I was spared the anguish of her tears.RUTH TEMPLE LINDSAY
Mater Salvatoris
Ah, wilt thou turn aside and seeThe little Child on Mary's knee?Enter the stable bleak and cold,Grope through the straw and myrrh and gold;Seek in the darkness near and far—Lift up the lantern and the Star.Rough shepherds came to love and greet,There knelt three kings at Mary's feet.Ah! draw thee nigh the holy place—He sleepeth well in her embrace,The little Saviour of thy race—Then raise thine eyes to Mary's face.But wilt thou come in years to be?She held Him dead across her knee.Stretch Him aloft on planks of wood;Offer Him gall for tears and blood.Blazon thy hatred far and near:Lift up the hammer and the spear.Red thorns about his head were wound—There lay three nails upon the ground.Yea I Heed the Lover of thy race—He lieth dead in her embrace.Ah! scourge thy soul with its disgrace:Then raise thine eyes to Mary's face.To Choose
Thou canst choose the eastern Circle for thy part,And within its sacred precincts thou shalt rest;Thou shalt fold pale, slender hands upon thy breast,Thou shalt fasten silent eyes upon thy heart.If there steal within the languor of thine arkThe thunder of the waters of the earth,The human, simple cries of pain and mirth,The wails of little children in the dark,Thou shalt contemplate thy Circle's radiant gleam,Thou shalt gather self and God more closely still:Let the Piteous and the Foolish moan at will,So thou shelter in the sweetness of thy dream.Thou canst bear a bloodstained Cross upon thy breast,Thou shalt stand upon the common, human sod,Thou shalt lift unswerving eyes unto thy God,Thou shalt stretch torn, rugged hands to east and westThou shalt call to every throne and every cell—Thou shalt gather all the answers of the Earth,Thou shalt wring repose from weariness and dearth,Thou shalt fathom the profundity of Hell—But thy height shall touch the height of God above,And thy breadth shall span the breadth of pole to pole,And thy depth shall sound the depth of every soul,And thy heart the deep Gethsemane of Love.The Hunters
"The Devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may detour"
The Lion, he prowleth far and near,Nor swerves for pain or rue;He heeded nought of sloth nor fear,He prowleth—prowleth throughThe silent glade and the weary street,In the empty dark and the full noon heat;And a little Lamb with aching Feet—He prowleth too.The Lion croucheth alert, apart—With patience doth he woo;He waiteth long by the shuttered heart,And the Lamb—He waiteth too.Up the lurid passes of dreams that kill,Through the twisting maze of the great Untrue,The Lion followeth the fainting will—And the Lamb—He followeth too.From the thickets dim of the hidden wayWhere the debts of Hell accrue,The Lion leapeth upon his prey:But the Lamb—He leapeth too.Ah! loose the leash of the sins that damn,Mark Devil and God as goals,In the panting love of a famished Lamb,Gone mad with the need of souls.The Lion, he strayeth near and far;What heights hath he left untrod?He crawleth nigh to the purest star,On the trail of the saints of God.And throughout the darkness of things unclean,In the depths where the sin-ghouls brood,There prowleth ever with yearning mien—A lamb as white as Blood!HUGH AUSTIN
The Astronomers Prayer
Night. O Thou God! who rulest Heaven and earth,The terraced atmospheres, the bounded seas;Who knowest equally both death and birth,Frail human men, strong divine mysteries,Whose unencumbered thought sways all the spheres,In all their turning, snake-like, perfect ways;Now that the season of my labour nears,Grant me an insight to Thy larger days!To Thee all things create and unborn yield,Being of Thee, the secret of their souls—The traversed elements, the azure fieldWhereo'er eternal each huge star-world rolls.There is no tiny insect but does knowItself within Thy Presence visual:From us too swiftly years and seasons go,To Thee all change is a thing gradual.E'en as at nightfall, when the lights come in,The moth attracted woos and meets her death,So do I seek Thy light to wander in,Though fearfully and with half-bated breath.So do I seek all knowledge of Thy stars,Which move in and without my vision's reach;Maybe yet burning with internal wars,Or shaking as this world with human speech.Stars which perhaps ten thousand years agoWaned and grew cold at Thy almighty wordWaft their light hitherward. I do not know—Thy recreating voice I have not heard.Maybe, e'en at this hour Thine accents shakeSome chaos into order, into life;Perchance some great creation now doth breakInto new form beneath Thy wisdom's knife.Ah, Lord! The night appals me. Give me strengthWithin myself to search this planet's dome:O Supreme Architect, give me at lengthSome clearer knowledge of Thy spaceless home!My spirit seethes within me; in the skyThy constellations shine; for me beginMy labours until night-time passes by—And before dawn I must or fail or win.