The silent shepherdess,She of my vows,Here with me exchanging loveUnder dim boughs.Shines on our mysteriesA sudden spark—"Dout the candle, glow-worm,Let all be dark."The birds have sung their last notes,The Sun's to bed,Glow-worm, dout your candle."The glow-worm said:"I also am a lover;The lamp I displayIs beacon for my true loveWandering astray."Through the thick bushesAnd the grass comes sheWith a heartload of longingAnd love for me."Sir, enjoy your fancy,But spare me harm,A lover is a lover,Though but a worm."
Come close to me, dear Annie, while I bind a lover's knot.A tale of burning love between a kettle and a pot.The pot was stalwart iron and the kettle trusty tin,And though their sides were black with smoke they bubbled love within.Forget that kettle, Jamie, and that pot of boiling broth,I know a dismal story of a candle and a moth.For while your pot is boiling and while your kettle singsMy moth makes love to candle flame and burns away his wings.Your moth, I envy, Annie, that died by candle flame,But here are two more lovers, unto no damage came.There was a cuckoo loved a clock and found her always true.For every hour they told their hearts, "Ring! ting! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!"As the pot boiled for the kettle, as the kettle for the pot,So boils my love within me till my breast is glowing hot.As the moth died for the candle, so could I die for you.And my fond heart beats time with yours and cries, "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!"
"Come, surly fellow, come! A song!"What, madmen? Sing to you?Choose from the clouded tales of wrongAnd terror I bring to you.Of a night so torn with cries,Honest men sleepingStart awake with glaring eyes,Bone-chilled, flesh creeping.Of spirits in the web hung roomUp above the stable,Groans, knockings in the gloom,The dancing table.Of demons in the dry wellThat cheep and mutter,Clanging of an unseen bell,Blood choking the gutter.Of lust frightful, past belief,Lurking unforgotten,Unrestrainable endless griefFrom breasts long rotten.A song? What laughter or what songCan this house remember?Do flowers and butterflies belongTo a blind December?
Nancy"Edward back from the Indian Sea,What have you brought for Nancy?"Edward"A rope of pearls and a gold earring,And a bird of the East that will not sing.A carven tooth, a box with a key—"Nancy"God be praised you are back," says she,"Have you nothing more for your Nancy?"Edward"Long as I sailed the Indian SeaI gathered all for your fancy:Toys and silk and jewels I bring,And a bird of the East that will not sing:What more can you want, dear girl, from me?"Nancy"God be praised you are back," said she,"Have you nothing better for Nancy?"Edward"Safe and home from the Indian Sea,And nothing to take your fancy?"
Nancy"You can keep your pearls and your gold earring,And your bird of the East that will not sing,But, Ned, have you nothing more for meThan heathenish gew-gaw toys?" says she,"Have you nothing better for Nancy?"
Here's flowery taffeta for Mary's new gown:Here's black velvet, all the rage, for Dick's birthday coat.Pearly buttons for you, Mary, all the way down,Lace ruffles, Dick, for you; you'll be a man of note.Mary, here I've bought you a green gingham shadeAnd a silk purse brocaded with roses gold and blue,You'll learn to hold them proudly like colours on parade.No banker's wife in all the town half so grand as you.I've bought for young Diccon a long walking-stick,Yellow gloves, well tanned, at Woodstock village made.I'll teach you to flourish 'em and show your name is DICK,Strutting by your sister's side with the same parade.On Sunday to church you go, each with a book of prayer:Then up the street and down the aisles, everywhere you'll seeOf all the honours paid around, how small is Virtue's share.How large the share of Vulgar Pride in peacock finery.
Restless and hot two children layPlagued with uneasy dreams,Each wandered lonely through false dayA twilight torn with screams.True to the bed-time story, BenPursued his wounded bear,Ann dreamed of chattering monkey men,Of snakes twined in her hair...Now high aloft above the townThe thick clouds gather and break,A flash, a roar, and rain drives down:Aghast the young things wake.Trembling for what their terror was,Surprised by instant doom,With lightning in the looking glass,Thunder that rocks the room.The monkeys' paws patter again,Snakes hiss and flash their eyes:The bear roars out in hideous pain:Ann prays: her brother cries.They cannot guess, could not be toldHow soon comes careless day,With birds and dandelion gold,Wet grass, cool scents of May.
Strawberries that in gardens growAre plump and juicy fine,But sweeter far as wise men knowSpring from the woodland vine.No need for bowl or silver spoon,Sugar or spice or cream,Has the wild berry plucked in JuneBeside the trickling stream.One such to melt at the tongue's root,Confounding taste with scent,Beats a full peck of garden fruit:Which points my argument.May sudden justice overtakeAnd snap the froward pen,That old and palsied poets shakeAgainst the minds of men.Blasphemers trusting to hold caughtIn far-flung webs of ink,The utmost ends of human thoughtTill nothing's left to think.But may the gift of heavenly peaceAnd glory for all timeKeep the boy Tom who tending geeseFirst made the nursery rhyme.By the brookside one August day,Using the sun for clock,Tom whiled the languid hours awayBeside his scattering flock.Carving with a sharp pointed stoneOn a broad slab of slateThe famous lives of Jumping Joan,Dan Fox and Greedy Kate.Rhyming of wolves and bears and birds,Spain, Scotland, Babylon,That sister Kate might learn the wordsTo tell to toddling John.But Kate who could not stay contentTo learn her lesson patNew beauty to the rough lines lentBy changing this or that.And she herself set fresh things downIn corners of her slate,Of lambs and lanes and London town.God's blessing fall on Kate!The baby loved the simple sound,With jolly glee he shook,And soon the lines grew smooth and roundLike pebbles in Tom's brook.From mouth to mouth told and retoldBy children sprawled at ease,Before the fire in winter's cold,in June, beneath tall trees.Till though long lost are stone and slate,Though the brook no more runs,And dead long time are Tom, John, Kate,Their sons and their sons' sons.Yet as when Time with stealthy treadLays the rich garden wasteThe woodland berry ripe and redFails not in scent or taste,So these same rhymes shall still be toldTo children yet unborn,While false philosophy growing oldFades and is killed by scorn.
As Jane walked out below the hill,She saw an old man standing still,His eyes in tranced sorrow boundOn the broad stretch of barren ground.His limbs were knarled like aged trees,His thin beard wrapt about his knees,His visage broad and parchment white,Aglint with pale reflected light.He seemed a creature fall'n afarFrom some dim planet or faint star.Jane scanned him very close, and soonCried, "'Tis the old man from the moon."He raised his voice, a grating creak,But only to himself would speak.Groaning with tears in piteous pain,"O! O! would I were home again."Then Jane ran off, quick as she could,To cheer his heart with drink and food.But ah, too late came ale and bread,She found the poor soul stretched stone-dead.And a new moon rode overhead.
Lady, lovely lady,Careless and gay!Once when a beggar calledShe gave her child away.The beggar took the baby,Wrapped it in a shawl,"Bring her back," the lady said,"Next time you call."Hard by lived a vain man,So vain and so proud,He walked on stiltsTo be seen by the crowd.Up above the chimney pots,Tall as a mast,And all the people ran aboutShouting till he passed."A splendid match surely,"Neighbours saw it plain,"Although she is so careless,Although he is so vain."But the lady played bobcherry,Did not see or care,As the vain man went by herAloft in the air.This gentle-born coupleLived and died apart.Water will not mix with oil,Nor vain with careless heart.
I.Nine of the clock, oh!Wake my lazy head!Your shoes of red morocco,Your silk bed-gown:Rouse, rouse, speck-eyed MaryIn your high bed!A yawn, a smile, sleepy-starey,Mary climbs down."Good-morning to my brothers,Good-day to the Sun,Halloo, halloo to the lily-white sheepThat up the mountain run."II.Good-night to the meadow, farewell to the nine o'clock Sun,"He loves me not, loves me, he loves me not" (O jealous one!)"He loves me, he loves me not, loves me"—O soft nights of June,A bird sang for love on the cherry-bough: up swam the Moon.
When I was not quite five years oldI first saw the blue picture book,And Fraulein Spitzenburger toldStories that sent me hot and cold;I loathed it, yet I had to look:It was a German book.I smiled at first, for she'd begunWith a back-garden broad and green,And rabbits nibbling there: page oneTurned; and the gardener fired his gunFrom the low hedge: he lay unseenBehind: oh, it was mean!They're hurt, they can't escape, and soHe stuffs them head-down in a sack,Not quite dead, wriggling in a row,And Fraulein laughed, "Ho, ho! Ho, ho!"And gave my middle a hard smack,I wish that I'd hit back.Then when I cried she laughed again;On the next page was a dead boyMurdered by robbers in a lane;His clothes were red with a big stainOf blood, he held a broken toy,The poor, poor little boy!I had to look: there was a townBurning where every one got caught,Then a fish pulled a nigger downInto the lake and made him drown,And a man killed his friend; they foughtFor money, Fraulein thought.Old Fraulein laughed, a horrid noise."Ho, ho!" Then she explained it allHow robbers kill the little boysAnd torture them and break their toys.Robbers are always big and tall:I cried: I was so small.How a man often kills his wife,How every one dies in the endBy fire, or water or a knife.If you're not careful in this life,Even if you can trust your friend,You won't have long to spend.I hated it—old Fraulein pickedHer teeth, slowly explaining it.I had to listen, Fraulein lickedHer fingers several times and flickedThe pages over; in a fitOf rage I spat at it...And lying in my bed that nightHungry, tired out with sobs, I foundA stretch of barren years in sight,Where right is wrong, but strength is right,Where weak things must creep underground,And I could not sleep sound.
Can I find True-Love a giftIn this dark hour to restore her,When body's vessel breaks adrift,When hope and beauty fade before her?But in this plight I cannot thinkOf song or music, that would grieve her,Or toys or meat or snow-cooled drink;Not this way can her sadness leave her.She lies and frets in childish fever,All I can do is but to cry"Sleep, sleep, True-Love and lullaby!"Lullaby, and sleep again.Two bright eyes through the window stare,A nose is flattened on the paneAnd infant fingers fumble there."Not yet, not yet, you lovely thing,But count and come nine weeks from now,When winter's tail has lost the sting,When buds come striking through the bough,Then here's True-Love will show you howHer name she won, will hush your cryWith "Sleep, my baby! Lullaby!"
HAUNTED.Gulp down your wine, old friends of mine,Roar through the darkness, stamp and singAnd lay ghost hands on everything,But leave the noonday's warm sunshineTo living lads for mirth and wine.I met you suddenly down the street,Strangers assume your phantom faces,You grin at me from daylight places,Dead, long dead, I'm ashamed to greetDead men down the morning street.
He had met hours of the clock he never guessed before—Dumb, dragging, mirthless hours confused with dreams and fear,Bone-chilling, hungry hours when the gods sleep and snore,Bequeathing earth and heaven to ghosts, and will not hear,And will not hear man groan chained to the sodden ground,Rotting alive; in feather beds they slumbered sound.When noisome smells of day were sicklied by cold night,When sentries froze and muttered; when beyond the wireBlank shadows crawled and tumbled, shaking, tricking the sight,When impotent hatred of Life stifled desire,Then soared the sudden rocket, broke in blanching showers.O lagging watch! O dawn! O hope-forsaken hours!How often with numbed heart, stale lips, venting his rageHe swore he'd be a dolt, a traitor, a damned fool,If, when the guns stopped, ever again from youth to ageHe broke the early-rising, early-sleeping rule.No, though more bestial enemies roused a fouler warNever again would he bear this, no never more!"Rise with the cheerful sun, go to bed with the same,Work in your field or kailyard all the shining day,But," he said, "never more in quest of wealth, honour, fame,Search the small hours of night before the East goes grey.A healthy mind, a honest heart, a wise man leavesThose ugly impious times to ghosts, devils, soldiers, thieves."Poor fool, knowing too well deep in his heartThat he'll be ready again if urgent orders come,To quit his rye and cabbages, kiss his wife and partAt the first sullen rapping of the awakened drum,Ready once more to sweat with fear and brace for the shock,To greet beneath a falling flare the jests of the clock.
Here they lie who once learned hereAll that is taught of hurt or fear;Dead, but by free will they died:They were true men, they had pride.
On pay-day nights, neck-full with beer,Old soldiers stumbling homeward here,Homeward (still dazzled by the sparkLove kindled in some alley dark)Young soldiers mooning in slow thought,Start suddenly, turn about, are caughtBy a dancing sound, merry as a grig,Tom Taylor's piccolo playing jig.Never was blown from human cheeksMusic like this, that calls and speaksTill sots and lovers from one stringDangle and dance in the same ring.Tom, of your piping I've heard saidAnd seen—that you can rouse the dead,Dead-drunken men awash who lieIn stinking gutters hear your cry,I've seen them twitch, draw breath, grope, sigh,Heave up, sway, stand; grotesquely thenYou set them dancing, these dead men.They stamp and prance with sobbing breath,Victims of wine or love or death,In ragged time they jump, they shakeTheir heads, sweating to overtakeThe impetuous tune flying ahead.They flounder after, with legs of lead.Now, suddenly as it started, playStops, the short echo dies away,The corpses drop, a senseless heap,The drunk men gaze about like sheep.Grinning, the lovers sigh and stareUp at the broad moon hanging there,While Tom, five fingers to his nose,Skips off...And the last bugle blows.
And what of home—how goes it, boys,While we die here in stench and noise?"The hill stands up and hedges windOver the crest and drop behind;Here swallows dip and wild things goOn peaceful errands to and froAcross the sloping meadow floor,And make no guess at blasting war.In woods that fledge the round hill-shoulderLeaves shoot and open, fall and moulder,And shoot again. Meadows yet showAlternate white of drifted snowAnd daisies. Children play at shop,Warm days, on the flat boulder-top,With wildflower coinage, and the waresAre bits of glass and unripe pears.Crows perch upon the backs of sheep,The wheat goes yellow: women reap,Autumn winds ruffle brook and pond,Flutter the hedge and fly beyond.So the first things of nature run,And stand not still for any one,Contemptuous of the distant cryWherewith you harrow earth and sky.And high French clouds, praying to beBack, back in peace beyond the sea,Where nature with accustomed roundSweeps and garnishes the groundWith kindly beauty, warm or cold—Alternate seasons never old:Heathen, how furiously you rage,Cursing this blood and brimstone age,How furiously against your willYou kill and kill again, and kill:All thought of peace behind you cast,Till like small boys with fear aghast,Each cries for God to understand,'I could not help it, it was my hand.'"
SOSPAN FACH.(The Little Saucepan)Four collier lads from Ebbw ValeTook shelter from a shower of hail,And there beneath a spreading treeAttuned their mouths to harmony.With smiling joy on every faceTwo warbled tenor, two sang bass,And while the leaves above them hissed withRough hail, they started "Aberystwyth."Old Parry's hymn, triumphant, rich,They changed through with even pitch,Till at the end of their grand noiseI called: "Give us the 'Sospan' boys!"Who knows a tune so soft, so strong,So pitiful as that "Saucepan" songFor exiled hope, despaired desireOf lost souls for their cottage fire?Then low at first with gathering soundRose their four voices, smooth and round,Till back went Time: once more I stoodWith Fusiliers in Mametz Wood.Fierce burned the sun, yet cheeks were pale,For ice hail they had leaden hail;In that fine forest, green and big,There stayed unbroken not one twig.They sang, they swore, they plunged in haste,Stumbling and shouting through the waste;The little "Saucepan" flamed on high,Emblem of hope and ease gone by.Rough pit-boys from the coaly South,They sang, even in the cannon's mouth;Like Sunday's chapel, Monday's inn,The death-trap sounded with their din.***The storm blows over, Sun comes out,The choir breaks up with jest and shout,With what relief I watch them part—Another note would break my heart!
Near Martinpuisch that night of hellTwo men were struck by the same shell,Together tumbling in one heapSenseless and limp like slaughtered sheep.One was a pale eighteen-year-old,Girlish and thin and not too bold,Pressed for the war ten years too soon,The shame and pity of his platoon.The other came from far-off landsWith bristling chin and whiskered hands,He had known death and hell beforeIn Mexico and Ecuador.Yet in his death this cut-throat wildGroaned "Mother! Mother!" like a child,While that poor innocent in man's clothesDied cursing God with brutal oaths.Old Sergeant Smith, kindest of men,Wrote out two copies there and thenOf his accustomed funeral speechTo cheer the womenfolk of each.
Kill if you must, but never hate:Man is but grass and hate is blight,The sun will scorch you soon or late,Die wholesome then, since you must fight.Hate is a fear, and fear is rotThat cankers root and fruit alike,Fight cleanly then, hate not, fear not,Strike with no madness when you strike.Fever and fear distract the world,But calm be you though madmen shout,Through blazing fires of battle hurled,Hate not, strike, fear not, stare Death out!
A RHYME OF FRIENDS.(In a Style Skeltonical)Listen now this timeShortly to my rhymeThat herewith startsAbout certain kind heartsIn those stricken partsThat lie behind Calais,Old crones and aged menAnd young children.About the Picardais,Who earned my thousand thanks,Dwellers by the banksOf mournful Somme(God keep me therefromUntil War ends)—These, then, are my friends:Madame Averlant Lune,From the town of Bethune;Good Professeur la BruneFrom that town also.He played the piccolo,And left his locks to grow.Dear Madame Hojdes,Sempstress of Saint Fe.With Jules and SusetteAnd Antoinette.Her children, my sweethearts,For whom I made dartsOf paper to throwIn their mimic show,"La guerre aux tranchees."That was a pretty play.There was old Jacques Caron,Of the hamlet Mailleton.He let me lookAt his household book,"Comment vivre cent ans."What cares I tookTo obey this wise book,I, who feared each hourLest Death's cruel powerOn the poppied plainMight make cares vain!By Noeus-les-minesLived old Adelphine,Withered and clean,She nodded and smiled,And used me like a child.How that old trot beguiledMy leisure with her chatter,Gave me a china platterPainted with CherubimAnd mottoes on the rim.But when instead of thanksI gave her francsHow her pride was hurt!She counted francs as dirt,(God knows, she was not rich)She called the Kaiser bitch,She spat on the floor,Cursing this Prussian war,That she had known beforeForty years past and more.There was also "Tomi,"With looks sweet and free,Who called me cher ami.This orphan's age was nine,His folk were in their graves,Else they were slavesBehind the German lineTo terror and rapine—O, little friends of mineHow kind and brave you were,You smoothed away careWhen life was hard to bear.And you, old women and men,Who gave me billets then,How patient and great-hearted!Strangers though we started,Yet friends we ever parted.God bless you all: now endsThis homage to my friends.
Love, Fear and Hate and Childish ToysAre here discreetly blent;Admire, you ladies, read, you boys,My Country Sentiment.But Kate says, "Cut that anger and fear,True love's the stuff we need!With laughing children and the running deerThat makes a book indeed."Then Tom, a hard and bloody chap,Though much beloved by me,"Robert, have done with nursery pap,Write like a man," says he.Hate and Fear are not wanted here,Nor Toys nor Country Lovers,Everything they took from my new poem bookBut the flyleaf and the covers.