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(
Numbers I and X in 'Strange Meetings'
)
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Since man has been articulate,Mechanical, improvidently wise,(Servant of Fate),He has not understood the little criesAnd foreign conversations of the smallDelightful creatures that have followed himNot far behind;Has failed to hear the sympathetic callOf Crockery and Cutlery, those kindReposeful TeraphimOf his domestic happiness; the StoolHe sat on, or the Door he entered through:He has not thanked them, overbearing fool!What is he coming to?But you should listen to the talk of these.Honest they are, and patient they have kept,Served him without hisThank youor hisPlease.I often heardThe gentle Bed, a sigh between each word,Murmuring, before I slept.The Candle, as I blew it, cried aloud,Then bowed,And in a smoky argumentInto the darkness went.The Kettle puffed a tentacle of breath: —'Pooh! I have boiled his water, I don't knowWhy; and he always says I boil too slow.He never calls me "Sukie, dear," and oh,I wonder why I squander my desireSitting submissive on his kitchen fire.'Now the old Copper Basin suddenlyRattled and tumbled from the shelf,Bumping and crying: 'I can fall by myself;Without a woman's handTo patronize and coax and flatter me,I understandThe lean and poise of gravitable land.'It gave a raucous and tumultuous shout,Twisted itself convulsively about,Rested upon the floor, and, while I stare,It stares and grins at me.The old impetuous Gas above my headBegins irascibly to flare and fret,Wheezing into its epileptic jet,Reminding me I ought to go to bed.The Rafters creak; an Empty-Cupboard doorSwings open; now a wild Plank of the floorBreaks from its joist, and leaps behind my foot.Down from the chimney half a pound of SootTumbles, and lies, and shakes itself again.The Putty cracks against the window-pane.A piece of Paper in the basket shovesAnother piece, and toward the bottom moves.My independent Pencil, while I write,Breaks at the point: the ruminating ClockStirs all its body and begins to rock,Warning the waiting presence of the Night,Strikes the dead hour, and tumbles to the plainTicking of ordinary work again.You do well to remind me, and I praiseYour strangely individual foreign ways.You call me from myself to recognizeCompanionship in your unselfish eyes.I want your dear acquaintances, althoughI pass you arrogantly over, throwYour lovely sounds, and squander them alongMy busy days. I'll do you no more wrong.Purr for me, Sukie, like a faithful cat.You, my well trampled Boots, and you, my Hat,Remain my friends: I feel, though I don't speak,Your touch grow kindlier from week to week.It well becomes our mutual happinessTo go toward the same end more or less.There is not much dissimilarity,Not much to choose, I know it well, in fine,Between the purposes of you and me,And your eventual Rubbish Heap, and mine.
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When you have tidied all things for the night,And while your thoughts are fading to their sleep,You'll pause a moment in the late firelight,Too sorrowful to weep.The large and gentle furniture has stoodIn sympathetic silence all the dayWith that old kindness of domestic wood;Nevertheless the haunted room will say:'Some one must be away.'The little dog rolls over half awake,Stretches his paws, yawns, looking up at you,Wags his tail very slightly for your sake,That you may feel he is unhappy too.A distant engine whistles, or the floorCreaks, or the wandering night-wind bangs a door.Silence is scattered like a broken glass.The minutes prick their ears and run about,Then one by one subside again and passSedately in, monotonously out.You bend your head and wipe away a tear.Solitude walks one heavy step more near.
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What I saw was just one eyeIn the dawn as I was going:A bird can carry all the skyIn that little button glowing.Never in my life I wentSo deep into the firmament.He was standing on a tree,All in blossom overflowing;And he purposely looked hard at me,At first, as if to question merrily:'Where are you going?'But next some far more serious thing to say:I could not answer, could not look away.Oh, that hard, round, and so distracting eye:Little mirror of all sky! —And then the after-song another treeHeld, and sent radiating back on me.If no man had invented human word,And a bird-song had beenThe only way to utter what we mean,What would we men have heard,What understood, what seen,Between the trills and pauses, in betweenThe singing and the silence of a bird?
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'Come, try your skill, kind gentlemen,A penny for three tries!'Some threw and lost, some threw and wonA ten-a-penny prize.She was a tawny gipsy girl,A girl of twenty years,I liked her for the lumps of goldThat jingled from her ears;I liked the flaring yellow scarfBound loose about her throat,I liked her showy purple gownAnd flashy velvet coat.A man came up, too loose of tongue,And said no good to her;She did not blush as Saxons do,Or turn upon the cur;She fawned and whined 'Sweet gentleman,A penny for three tries!'— But oh, the den of wild things inThe darkness of her eyes!
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'Twould ring the bells of HeavenThe wildest peal for years,If Parson lost his sensesAnd people came to theirs,And he and they togetherKnelt down with angry prayersFor tamed and shabby tigersAnd dancing dogs and bears,And wretched, blind pit ponies,And little hunted hares.
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If you could bring her glories back!You gentle sirs who sift the dustAnd burrow in the mould and mustOf Babylon for bric-a-brac;Who catalogue and pigeon-holeThe faded splendours of her soulAnd put her greatness under glass —If you could bring her past to pass!If you could bring her dead to life!The soldier lad; the market wife;Madam buying fowls from her;Tip, the butcher's bandy cur;Workmen carting bricks and clay;Babel passing to and froOn the business of a dayGone three thousand years ago —That you cannot; then be done,Put the goblet down again,Let the broken arch remain,Leave the dead men's dust alone —Is it nothing how she lies,This old mother of you all,You great cities proud and tallTowering to a hundred skiesRound a world she never knew,Is it nothing, this, to you?Must the ghoulish work go onTill her very floors are gone?While there's still a brick to saveDrive these people from her grave.The Jewish seer when he criedWoe to Babel's lust and prideSaw the foxes at her gates;Once again the wild thing waits.Then leave her in her last decayA house of owls, a foxes' den;The desert that till yesterdayHid her from the eyes of menIn its proper time and wayWill take her to itself again.
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It's hard to know if you're alive or deadWhen steel and fire go roaring through your head.One moment you'll be crouching at your gunTraversing, mowing heaps down half in fun:The next, you choke and clutch at your right breast —No time to think — leave all — and off you go ...To Treasure Island where the Spice winds blow,To lovely groves of mango, quince and lime —Breathe no good-bye, but ho, for the Red West!It's a queer time.You're charging madly at them yelling 'Fag!'When somehow something gives and your feet drag.You fall and strike your head; yet feel no painAnd find ... you're digging tunnels through the hayIn the Big Barn, 'cause it's a rainy day.Oh springy hay, and lovely beams to climb!You're back in the old sailor suit again.It's a queer time.Or you'll be dozing safe in your dug-out —Great roar — the trench shakes and falls about —You're struggling, gasping, struggling, then ... hullo!Elsie comes tripping gaily down the trench,Hanky to nose — that lyddite makes a stench —Getting her pinafore all over grime.Funny! because she died ten years ago!It's a queer time.The trouble is, things happen much too quick;Up jump the Bosches, rifles thump and click,You stagger, and the whole scene fades away:Even good Christians don't like passing straightFrom Tipperary or their Hymn of HateTo Alleluiah-chanting, and the chimeOf golden harps ... and ... I'm not well today ...It's a queer time.
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(
For D. C. T., killed at Fricourt, March 1916
)
Once an earlier David tookSmooth pebbles from the brook:Out between the lines he wentTo that one-sided tournament,A shepherd boy who stood out fineAnd young to fight a PhilistineClad all in brazen mail. He swearsThat he's killed lions, he's killed bears,And those that scorn the God of ZionShall perish so like bear or lion.But ... the historian of that fightHad not the heart to tell it right.Striding within javelin rangeGoliath marvels at this strangeGoodly-faced boy so proud of strength.David's clear eye measures the length;With hand thrust back, he cramps one knee,Poises a moment thoughtfully,And hurls with a long vengeful swing.The pebble, humming from the slingLike a wild bee, flies a sure line;For the forehead of the Philistine;Then ... but there comes a brazen clinkAnd quicker than a man can thinkGoliath's shield parries each cast.Clang! clang! and clang! was David's lastScorn blazes in the Giant's eye,Towering unhurt six cubits high.Says foolish David, 'Damn your shield!And damn my sling! but I'll not yield.'He takes his staff of Mamre oak,A knotted shepherd-staff that's brokeThe skull of many a wolf and foxCome filching lambs from Jesse's flocks.Loud laughs Goliath, and that laughCan scatter chariots like blown chaffTo rout: but David, calm and brave,Holds his ground, for God will save.Steel crosses wood, a flash, and oh!Shame for Beauty's overthrow!(God's eyes are dim, His ears are shut.)One cruel backhand sabre cut —'I'm hit! I'm killed!' young David cries,Throws blindly forward, chokes ... and dies.And look, spike-helmeted, grey, grim,Goliath straddles over him.
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When a dream is born in youWith a sudden clamorous pain,When you know the dream is trueAnd lovely, with no flaw nor stain,O then, be careful, or with sudden clutchYou'll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much.Dreams are like a bird that mocks,Flirting the feathers of his tail.When you seize at the salt-boxOver the hedge you'll see him sail.Old birds are neither caught with salt nor chaff:They watch you from the apple bough and laugh.Poet, never chase the dream.Laugh yourself and turn away.Mask your hunger, let it seemSmall matter if he come or stay;But when he nestles in your hand at last,Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast.
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'Are you awake, Gemelli,This frosty night?''We'll be awake till reveillé,Which is Sunrise,' say the Gemelli,'It's no good trying to go to sleep:If there's wine to be got we'll drink it deep,But rest is hopeless tonight,But rest is hopeless tonight.''Are you cold too, poor Pleiads,This frosty night?''Yes, and so are the Hyads:See us cuddle and hug,' say the Pleiads,'All six in a ring: it keeps us warm:We huddle together like birds in a storm:It's bitter weather tonight,It's bitter weather tonight.''What do you hunt, Orion,This starry night?''The Ram, the Bull and the Lion,And the Great Bear,' says Orion,'With my starry quiver and beautiful beltI am trying to find a good thick peltTo warm my shoulders tonight,To warm my shoulders tonight.''Did you hear that, Great She-bear,This frosty night?''Yes, he's talking of strippingmebareOf my own big fur,' says the She-bear,I'm afraid of the man and his terrible arrow:The thought of it chills my bones to the marrow,And the frost so cruel tonight!And the frost so cruel tonight!'How is your trade, Aquarius,This frosty night?''Complaints is many and variousAnd my feet are cold,' says Aquarius,'There's Venus objects to Dolphin-scales,And Mars to Crab-spawn found in my pails,And the pump has frozen tonight,And the pump has frozen tonight.'
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Christ of his gentlenessThirsting and hungering,Walked in the wilderness;Soft words of grace he spokeUnto lost desert-folkThat listened wondering.He heard the bitterns callFrom ruined palace-wall,Answered them brotherly.He held communionWith the she-pelicanOf lonely piety.Basilisk, cockatrice,Flocked to his homilies,With mail of dread device,With monstrous barbed stings,With eager dragon-eyes;Great rats on leather wingsAnd poor blind broken things,Foul in their miseries.And ever with him went,Of all his wanderingsComrade, with ragged coat,Gaunt ribs — poor innocent —Bleeding foot, burning throat,The guileless old scape-goat;For forty nights and daysFollowed in Jesus' ways,Sure guard behind him kept,Tears like a lover wept.
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'Gabble-gabble ... brethren ... gabble-gabble!'My window glimpses larch and heather.I hardly hear the tuneful babble,Not knowing nor much caring whetherThe text is praise or exhortation,Prayer or thanksgiving or damnation.Outside it blows wetter and wetter,The tossing trees never stay still;I shift my elbows to catch betterThe full round sweep of heathered hill.The tortured copse bends to and froIn silence like a shadow-show.The parson's voice runs like a riverOver smooth rocks. I like this church.The pews are staid, they never shiver,They never bend or sway or lurch.'Prayer,' says the kind voice, 'is a chainThat draws down Grace from Heaven again.'I add the hymns up over and overUntil there's not the least mistake.Seven-seventy-one. (Look! there's a plover!It's gone!) Who's that Saint by the Lake?The red light from his mantle passesAcross the broad memorial brasses.It's pleasant here for dreams and thinking,Lolling and letting reason nod,With ugly, serious people linkingPrayer-chains for a forgiving God.But a dumb blast sets the trees swayingWith furious zeal like madmen praying.
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Why do you break upon this old, cool peace,This painted peace of ours,With harsh dress hissing like a flock of geese,With garish flowers?Why do you churn smooth waters rough again,Selfish old Skin-and-bone?Leave us to quiet dreaming and slow pain,Leave us alone.