Alfred Noyes

In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blownTo beauty proud as was your mother's prime,In that desired, delayed, incredible time,You'll ask why I abandoned you, my own,And the dear heart that was your baby throne,To dice with death. And oh! they'll give you rhymeAnd reason: some will call the thing sublime,And some decry it in a knowing tone.So here, while the mad guns curse overhead,And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor,Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,—But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed,And for the secret Scripture of the poor.

Alfred Noyes was born at Staffordshire, September 16, 1880. He is one of the few contemporary poets who have been fortunate enough to write a kind of poetry that is not only saleable but popular with many classes of people.

His first book,The Loom of Years(1902), was published when he was only 22 years old, andPoems(1904) intensified the promise of his first publication. Swinburne, grown old andliving in retirement, was so struck with Noyes's talent that he had the young poet out to read to him. Unfortunately, Noyes has not developed his gifts as deeply as his admirers have hoped. His poetry, extremely straightforward and rhythmical, has often degenerated into cheap sentimentalities and cheaper tirades; it has frequently attempted to express programs and profundities far beyond Noyes's power.

What is most appealing about his best verse is its ease and heartiness; this singer's gift lies in the almost personal bond established between the poet and his public. People have such a good time reading his vivacious lines because Noyes had such a good time writing them. Rhyme in a thumping rhythm seems to be not merely his trade but his morning exercise. Noyes's own relish filled and quickened glees and catches likeForty Singing Seamen(1907), the lusty choruses inTales of the Mermaid Tavern(1913), and the genuinely inspired nonsense of the earlierForest of Wild Thyme(1905).

The least popular work of Noyes is, as a unified product, his most remarkable performance. It is an epic in twelve books of blank verse,Drake(1908), a glowing pageant of the sea and England's drama upon it. It is a spirited echo of the maritime Elizabethans; a vivid and orchestral work interspersed with splendid lyric passages and brisk songs. The companion volume, an attempted reconstruction of the literary phase of the same period, is less successful; but theseTales of the Mermaid Tavern(which introduce Shakespeare, Marlowe, Drayton, Raleigh, Ben Jonson, and other immortals) are alive and colorful, if somewhat too insistently rollicking and smoothly lilting.

His eight volumes were assembled in 1913 and published in two books ofCollected Poems(Frederick A. Stokes Company).

Sherwood in the twilight, is Robin Hood awake?Grey and ghostly shadows are gliding through the brake;Shadows of the dappled deer, dreaming of the morn,Dreaming of a shadowy man that winds a shadowy horn.Robin Hood is here again: all his merry thievesHear a ghostly bugle-note shivering through the leaves,Calling as he used to call, faint and far away,In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.Merry, merry England has kissed the lips of June:All the wings of fairyland were here beneath the moon;Like a flight of rose-leaves fluttering in a mistOf opal and ruby and pearl and amethyst.Merry, merry England is waking as of old,With eyes of blither hazel and hair of brighter gold:For Robin Hood is here again beneath the bursting sprayIn Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.Love is in the greenwood building him a houseOf wild rose and hawthorn and honeysuckle boughs;Love it in the greenwood: dawn is in the skies;And Marian is waiting with a glory in her eyes.Hark! The dazzled laverock climbs the golden steep:Marian is waiting: is Robin Hood asleep?Round the fairy grass-rings frolic elf and fay,In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.Oberon, Oberon, rake away the gold,Rake away the red leaves, roll away the mould,Rake away the gold leaves, roll away the red,And wake Will Scarlett from his leafy forest bed.Friar Tuck and Little John are riding down togetherWith quarter-staff and drinking-can and grey goose-feather;The dead are coming back again; the years are rolled awayIn Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.Softly over Sherwood the south wind blows;All the heart of England hid in every roseHears across the greenwood the sunny whisper leap,Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?Hark, the voice of England wakes him as of oldAnd, shattering the silence with a cry of brighter gold,Bugles in the greenwood echo from the steep,Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?Where the deer are gliding down the shadowy glenAll across the glades of fern he calls his merry men;Doublets of the Lincoln green glancing through the May,In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day;Calls them and they answer: from aisles of oak and ashRings theFollow! Follow!and the boughs begin to crash;The ferns begin to flutter and the flowers begin to fly;And through the crimson dawning the robber band goes by.Robin! Robin! Robin!All his merry thievesAnswer as the bugle-note shivers through the leaves:Calling as he used to call, faint and far away,In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Robin Hood is here again: all his merry thievesHear a ghostly bugle-note shivering through the leaves,Calling as he used to call, faint and far away,In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Merry, merry England has kissed the lips of June:All the wings of fairyland were here beneath the moon;Like a flight of rose-leaves fluttering in a mistOf opal and ruby and pearl and amethyst.

Merry, merry England is waking as of old,With eyes of blither hazel and hair of brighter gold:For Robin Hood is here again beneath the bursting sprayIn Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Love is in the greenwood building him a houseOf wild rose and hawthorn and honeysuckle boughs;Love it in the greenwood: dawn is in the skies;And Marian is waiting with a glory in her eyes.

Hark! The dazzled laverock climbs the golden steep:Marian is waiting: is Robin Hood asleep?Round the fairy grass-rings frolic elf and fay,In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Oberon, Oberon, rake away the gold,Rake away the red leaves, roll away the mould,Rake away the gold leaves, roll away the red,And wake Will Scarlett from his leafy forest bed.

Friar Tuck and Little John are riding down togetherWith quarter-staff and drinking-can and grey goose-feather;The dead are coming back again; the years are rolled awayIn Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Softly over Sherwood the south wind blows;All the heart of England hid in every roseHears across the greenwood the sunny whisper leap,Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?

Hark, the voice of England wakes him as of oldAnd, shattering the silence with a cry of brighter gold,Bugles in the greenwood echo from the steep,Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?

Where the deer are gliding down the shadowy glenAll across the glades of fern he calls his merry men;Doublets of the Lincoln green glancing through the May,In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day;

Calls them and they answer: from aisles of oak and ashRings theFollow! Follow!and the boughs begin to crash;The ferns begin to flutter and the flowers begin to fly;And through the crimson dawning the robber band goes by.

Robin! Robin! Robin!All his merry thievesAnswer as the bugle-note shivers through the leaves:Calling as he used to call, faint and far away,In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden streetIn the City as the sun sinks low;And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweetAnd fulfilled it with the sunset glow;And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the painThat surround the singing organ like a large eternal light;And they've given it a glory and a part to play againIn the Symphony that rules the day and night.And now it's marching onward through the realms of old romance,And trolling out a fond familiar tune,And now it's roaring cannon down to fight the King of France,And now it's prattling softly to the moon.And all around the organ there's a sea without a shoreOf human joys and wonders and regrets;To remember and to recompense the music evermoreFor what the cold machinery forgets ...Yes; as the music changes,Like a prismatic glass,It takes the light and rangesThrough all the moods that pass;Dissects the common carnivalOf passions and regrets,And gives the world a glimpse of allThe colours it forgets.And thereLa TraviatasighsAnother sadder song;And thereIl TrovatorecriesA tale of deeper wrong;And bolder knights to battle goWith sword and shield and lance,Than ever here on earth belowHave whirled into—a dance!—Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)The cherry-trees are seas of bloom and soft perfume and sweet perfume,The cherry-trees are seas of bloom (and oh, so near to London!)And there they say, when dawn is high and all the world's a blaze of skyThe cuckoo, though he's very shy, will sing a song for London.The nightingale is rather rare and yet they say you'll hear him thereAt Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!)The linnet and the throstle, too, and after dark the long hallooAnd golden-eyedtu-whit, tu-whooof owls that ogle London.For Noah hardly knew a bird of any kind that isn't heardAt Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!)And when the rose begins to pout and all the chestnut spires are outYou'll hear the rest without a doubt, all chorusing for London:—Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;Come down to Kew in lilac-time (is isn't far from London!)And then the troubadour begins to thrill the golden street,In the city as the sun sinks low;And in all the gaudy busses there are scores of weary feetMarking time, sweet time, with a dull mechanic beat,And a thousand hearts are plunging to a love they'll never meet,Through the meadows of the sunset, through the poppies and the wheat,In the land where the dead dreams go.Verdi, Verdi, when you wroteIl Trovatoredid you dreamOf the City when the sun sinks low,Of the organ and the monkey and the many-coloured streamOn the Piccadilly pavement, of the myriad eyes that seemTo be litten for a moment with a wild Italian gleamAsA che la morteparodies the world's eternal themeAnd pulses with the sunset-glow?There's a thief, perhaps, that listens with a face of frozen stoneIn the City as the sun sinks low;There's a portly man of business with a balance of his own,There's a clerk and there's a butcher of a soft reposeful tone,And they're all of them returning to the heavens they have known:They are crammed and jammed in busses and—they're each of them aloneIn the land where the dead dreams go.There's a labourer that listens to the voices of the deadIn the City as the sun sinks low;And his hand begins to tremble and his face is rather redAs he sees a loafer watching him and—there he turns his headAnd stares into the sunset where his April love is fled,For he hears her softly singing and his lonely soul is ledThrough the land where the dead dreams go ...There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden streetIn the City as the sun sinks low;Though the music's only Verdi there's a world to make it sweetJust as yonder yellow sunset where the earth and heaven meetMellows all the sooty City! Hark, a hundred thousand feetAre marching on to glory through the poppies and the wheatIn the land where the dead dreams go.So it's Jeremiah, Jeremiah,What have you to sayWhen you meet the garland girlsTripping on their way?All around my gala hatI wear a wreath of roses(A long and lonely year it isI've waited for the May!)If any one should ask you,The reason why I wear it is—My own love, my true love is coming home to-day.And it's buy a bunch of violets for the lady(It's lilac-time in London; it's lilac-time in London!)Buy a bunch of violets for the lady;While the sky burns blue above:On the other side the street you'll find it shady(It's lilac-time in London; it's lilac-time in London!)But buy a bunch of violets for the lady,And tell her she's your own true love.There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden streetIn the City as the sun sinks glittering and slow;And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweetAnd enriched it with the harmonies that make a song completeIn the deeper heavens of music where the night and morning meet,As it dies into the sunset glow;And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the painThat surround the singing organ like a large eternal light,And they've given it a glory and a part to play againIn the Symphony that rules the day and night.And there, as the music changes,The song runs round again;Once more it turns and rangesThrough all its joy and pain:Dissects the common carnivalOf passions and regrets;And the wheeling world remembers allThe wheeling song forgets.Once moreLa TraviatasighsAnother sadder song:Once moreIl TrovatorecriesA tale of deeper wrong;Once more the knights to battle goWith sword and shield and lanceTill once, once more, the shattered foeHas whirled into—a dance!Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)And you shall wander hand in hand with Love in summer's wonderland,Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)

And now it's marching onward through the realms of old romance,And trolling out a fond familiar tune,And now it's roaring cannon down to fight the King of France,And now it's prattling softly to the moon.And all around the organ there's a sea without a shoreOf human joys and wonders and regrets;To remember and to recompense the music evermoreFor what the cold machinery forgets ...

Yes; as the music changes,Like a prismatic glass,It takes the light and rangesThrough all the moods that pass;Dissects the common carnivalOf passions and regrets,And gives the world a glimpse of allThe colours it forgets.

And thereLa TraviatasighsAnother sadder song;And thereIl TrovatorecriesA tale of deeper wrong;And bolder knights to battle goWith sword and shield and lance,Than ever here on earth belowHave whirled into—a dance!—

Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)

The cherry-trees are seas of bloom and soft perfume and sweet perfume,The cherry-trees are seas of bloom (and oh, so near to London!)And there they say, when dawn is high and all the world's a blaze of skyThe cuckoo, though he's very shy, will sing a song for London.

The nightingale is rather rare and yet they say you'll hear him thereAt Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!)The linnet and the throstle, too, and after dark the long hallooAnd golden-eyedtu-whit, tu-whooof owls that ogle London.

For Noah hardly knew a bird of any kind that isn't heardAt Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!)And when the rose begins to pout and all the chestnut spires are outYou'll hear the rest without a doubt, all chorusing for London:—

Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;Come down to Kew in lilac-time (is isn't far from London!)

And then the troubadour begins to thrill the golden street,In the city as the sun sinks low;And in all the gaudy busses there are scores of weary feetMarking time, sweet time, with a dull mechanic beat,And a thousand hearts are plunging to a love they'll never meet,Through the meadows of the sunset, through the poppies and the wheat,In the land where the dead dreams go.

Verdi, Verdi, when you wroteIl Trovatoredid you dreamOf the City when the sun sinks low,Of the organ and the monkey and the many-coloured streamOn the Piccadilly pavement, of the myriad eyes that seemTo be litten for a moment with a wild Italian gleamAsA che la morteparodies the world's eternal themeAnd pulses with the sunset-glow?

There's a thief, perhaps, that listens with a face of frozen stoneIn the City as the sun sinks low;There's a portly man of business with a balance of his own,There's a clerk and there's a butcher of a soft reposeful tone,And they're all of them returning to the heavens they have known:They are crammed and jammed in busses and—they're each of them aloneIn the land where the dead dreams go.

There's a labourer that listens to the voices of the deadIn the City as the sun sinks low;And his hand begins to tremble and his face is rather redAs he sees a loafer watching him and—there he turns his headAnd stares into the sunset where his April love is fled,For he hears her softly singing and his lonely soul is ledThrough the land where the dead dreams go ...

There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden streetIn the City as the sun sinks low;Though the music's only Verdi there's a world to make it sweetJust as yonder yellow sunset where the earth and heaven meetMellows all the sooty City! Hark, a hundred thousand feetAre marching on to glory through the poppies and the wheatIn the land where the dead dreams go.

So it's Jeremiah, Jeremiah,What have you to sayWhen you meet the garland girlsTripping on their way?All around my gala hatI wear a wreath of roses(A long and lonely year it isI've waited for the May!)If any one should ask you,The reason why I wear it is—My own love, my true love is coming home to-day.

And it's buy a bunch of violets for the lady(It's lilac-time in London; it's lilac-time in London!)Buy a bunch of violets for the lady;While the sky burns blue above:

On the other side the street you'll find it shady(It's lilac-time in London; it's lilac-time in London!)But buy a bunch of violets for the lady,And tell her she's your own true love.

There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden streetIn the City as the sun sinks glittering and slow;And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweetAnd enriched it with the harmonies that make a song completeIn the deeper heavens of music where the night and morning meet,As it dies into the sunset glow;

And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the painThat surround the singing organ like a large eternal light,And they've given it a glory and a part to play againIn the Symphony that rules the day and night.

And there, as the music changes,The song runs round again;Once more it turns and rangesThrough all its joy and pain:Dissects the common carnivalOf passions and regrets;And the wheeling world remembers allThe wheeling song forgets.

Once moreLa TraviatasighsAnother sadder song:Once moreIl TrovatorecriesA tale of deeper wrong;Once more the knights to battle goWith sword and shield and lanceTill once, once more, the shattered foeHas whirled into—a dance!

Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)And you shall wander hand in hand with Love in summer's wonderland,Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)

Carol, every violet hasHeaven for a looking-glass!Every little valley liesUnder many-clouded skies;Every little cottage standsGirt about with boundless lands.Every little glimmering pondClaims the mighty shores beyond—Shores no seamen ever hailed,Seas no ship has ever sailed.All the shores when day is doneFade into the setting sun,So the story tries to teachMore than can be told in speech.Beauty is a fading flower,Truth is but a wizard's tower,Where a solemn death-bell tolls,And a forest round it rolls.We have come by curious waysTo the light that holds the days;We have sought in haunts of fearFor that all-enfolding sphere:And lo! it was not far, but near.We have found, O foolish-fond,The shore that has no shore beyond.Deep in every heart it liesWith its untranscended skies;For what heaven should bend aboveHearts that own the heaven of love?Carol, Carol, we have comeBack to heaven, back to home.

Carol, every violet hasHeaven for a looking-glass!

Every little valley liesUnder many-clouded skies;Every little cottage standsGirt about with boundless lands.Every little glimmering pondClaims the mighty shores beyond—Shores no seamen ever hailed,Seas no ship has ever sailed.

All the shores when day is doneFade into the setting sun,So the story tries to teachMore than can be told in speech.

Beauty is a fading flower,Truth is but a wizard's tower,Where a solemn death-bell tolls,And a forest round it rolls.

We have come by curious waysTo the light that holds the days;We have sought in haunts of fearFor that all-enfolding sphere:And lo! it was not far, but near.We have found, O foolish-fond,The shore that has no shore beyond.

Deep in every heart it liesWith its untranscended skies;For what heaven should bend aboveHearts that own the heaven of love?

Carol, Carol, we have comeBack to heaven, back to home.

Padraic Colum was born at Longford, Ireland (in the same county as Oliver Goldsmith), December 8, 1881, and was educated at the local schools. At 20 he was a member of a group that created the Irish National Theatre, afterwards called The Abbey Theatre.

Colum began as a dramatist withBroken Soil(1904),The Land(1905),Thomas Muskerry(1910), and this early dramatic influence has colored much of his work, his best poetry being in the form of dramatic lyrics.Wild Earth, his most notable collection of verse, first appeared in 1909, and an amplified edition of it was published in America in 1916.

Sunset and silence! A man: around him earth savage, earth broken;Beside him two horses—a plough!Earth savage, earth broken, the brutes, the dawn man there in the sunset,And the Plough that is twin to the Sword, that is founder of cities!"Brute-tamer, plough-maker, earth-breaker! Can'st hear?There are ages between us."Is it praying you are as you stand there alone in the sunset?"Surely our sky-born gods can be naught to you, earth child and earth master?"Surely your thoughts are of Pan, or of Wotan, or Dana?"Yet, why give thought to the gods? Has Pan led your brutes where they stumble?"Has Dana numbed pain of the child-bed, or Wotan put hands to your plough?"What matter your foolish reply! O, man, standing lone and bowed earthward,"Your task is a day near its close. Give thanks to the night-giving God."Slowly the darkness falls, the broken lands blend with the savage;The brute-tamer stands by the brutes, a head's breadth only above them.A head's breadth? Ay, but therein is hell's depth, and the height up to heaven,And the thrones of the gods and their halls, their chariots, purples, and splendors.

Sunset and silence! A man: around him earth savage, earth broken;Beside him two horses—a plough!

Earth savage, earth broken, the brutes, the dawn man there in the sunset,And the Plough that is twin to the Sword, that is founder of cities!

"Brute-tamer, plough-maker, earth-breaker! Can'st hear?There are ages between us."Is it praying you are as you stand there alone in the sunset?

"Surely our sky-born gods can be naught to you, earth child and earth master?"Surely your thoughts are of Pan, or of Wotan, or Dana?

"Yet, why give thought to the gods? Has Pan led your brutes where they stumble?"Has Dana numbed pain of the child-bed, or Wotan put hands to your plough?

"What matter your foolish reply! O, man, standing lone and bowed earthward,"Your task is a day near its close. Give thanks to the night-giving God."

Slowly the darkness falls, the broken lands blend with the savage;The brute-tamer stands by the brutes, a head's breadth only above them.

A head's breadth? Ay, but therein is hell's depth, and the height up to heaven,And the thrones of the gods and their halls, their chariots, purples, and splendors.

O, to have a little house!To own the hearth and stool and all!The heaped up sods upon the fire,The pile of turf against the wall!To have a clock with weights and chainsAnd pendulum swinging up and down!A dresser filled with shining delph,Speckled and white and blue and brown!I could be busy all the dayClearing and sweeping hearth and floor,And fixing on their shelf againMy white and blue and speckled store!I could be quiet there at nightBeside the fire and by myself,Sure of a bed and loth to leaveThe ticking clock and the shining delph!Och! but I'm weary of mist and dark,And roads where there's never a house nor bush,And tired I am of bog and road,And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!And I am praying to God on high,And I am praying Him night and day,For a little house—a house of my own—Out of the wind's and the rain's way.

O, to have a little house!To own the hearth and stool and all!The heaped up sods upon the fire,The pile of turf against the wall!

To have a clock with weights and chainsAnd pendulum swinging up and down!A dresser filled with shining delph,Speckled and white and blue and brown!

I could be busy all the dayClearing and sweeping hearth and floor,And fixing on their shelf againMy white and blue and speckled store!

I could be quiet there at nightBeside the fire and by myself,Sure of a bed and loth to leaveThe ticking clock and the shining delph!

Och! but I'm weary of mist and dark,And roads where there's never a house nor bush,And tired I am of bog and road,And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!

And I am praying to God on high,And I am praying Him night and day,For a little house—a house of my own—Out of the wind's and the rain's way.

Joseph Campbell was born in Belfast in 1881, and is not only a poet but an artist; he made all the illustrations forThe Rushlight(1906), a volume of his own poems. Writing under the Gaelic form of his name, he has published half a dozen books of verse, the most striking of which isThe Mountainy Singer, first published in Dublin in 1909.

I am the mountainy singer—The voice of the peasant's dream,The cry of the wind on the wooded hill,The leap of the fish in the stream.Quiet and love I sing—The carn on the mountain crest,Thecailinin her lover's arms,The child at its mother's breast.Beauty and peace I sing—The fire on the open hearth,Thecailleachspinning at her wheel,The plough in the broken earth.Travail and pain I sing—The bride on the childing bed,The dark man laboring at his rhymes,The eye in the lambing shed.Sorrow and death I sing—The canker come on the corn,The fisher lost in the mountain loch,The cry at the mouth of morn.No other life I sing,For I am sprung of the stockThat broke the hilly land for bread,And built the nest in the rock!

I am the mountainy singer—The voice of the peasant's dream,The cry of the wind on the wooded hill,The leap of the fish in the stream.

Quiet and love I sing—The carn on the mountain crest,Thecailinin her lover's arms,The child at its mother's breast.

Beauty and peace I sing—The fire on the open hearth,Thecailleachspinning at her wheel,The plough in the broken earth.

Travail and pain I sing—The bride on the childing bed,The dark man laboring at his rhymes,The eye in the lambing shed.

Sorrow and death I sing—The canker come on the corn,The fisher lost in the mountain loch,The cry at the mouth of morn.

No other life I sing,For I am sprung of the stockThat broke the hilly land for bread,And built the nest in the rock!

As a white candleIn a holy place,So is the beautyOf an aged face.As the spent radianceOf the winter sun,So is a womanWith her travail done,Her brood gone from her,And her thoughts as stillAs the watersUnder a ruined mill.

As a white candleIn a holy place,So is the beautyOf an aged face.

As the spent radianceOf the winter sun,So is a womanWith her travail done,

Her brood gone from her,And her thoughts as stillAs the watersUnder a ruined mill.

This unique personality was born in Dublin in February, 1882. Stephens was discovered in an office and saved from clerical slavery by George Russell ("A. E."). Always a poet, Stephens's most poetic moments are in his highly-colored prose. And yet, although the finest of his novels,The Crock of Gold(1912), contains more wild phantasy and quaint imagery than all his volumes of verse, hisInsurrections(1909) andThe Hill of Vision(1912) reveal a rebellious spirit that is at once hotly ironic and coolly whimsical.

Stephens's outstanding characteristic is his delightful blend of incongruities—he combines in his verse the grotesque, the buoyant and the profound. No fresher or more brightly vigorous imagination has come out of Ireland since J. M. Synge.

And then I pressed the shellClose to my earAnd listened well,And straightway like a bellCame low and clearThe slow, sad murmur of the distant seas,Whipped by an icy breezeUpon a shoreWind-swept and desolate.It was a sunless strand that never boreThe footprint of a man,Nor felt the weightSince time beganOf any human quality or stirSave what the dreary winds and waves incur.And in the hush of waters was the soundOf pebbles rolling round,For ever rolling with a hollow sound.And bubbling sea-weeds as the waters goSwish to and froTheir long, cold tentacles of slimy grey.There was no day,Nor ever came a nightSetting the stars alightTo wonder at the moon:Was twilight only and the frightened croon,Smitten to whimpers, of the dreary windAnd waves that journeyed blind—And then I loosed my ear ... O, it was sweetTo hear a cart go jolting down the street.

I saw God. Do you doubt it?Do you dare to doubt it?I saw the Almighty Man. His handWas resting on a mountain, andHe looked upon the World and all about it:I saw him plainer than you see me now,You mustn't doubt it.He was not satisfied;His look was all dissatisfied.His beard swung on a wind far out of sightBehind the world's curve, and there was lightMost fearful from His forehead, and He sighed,"That star went always wrong, and from the startI was dissatisfied."He lifted up His hand—I say He heaved a dreadful handOver the spinning Earth. Then I said, "Stay,You must not strike it, God; I'm in the way;And I will never move from where I stand."He said, "Dear child, I feared that you were dead,"And stayed His hand.

He was not satisfied;His look was all dissatisfied.His beard swung on a wind far out of sightBehind the world's curve, and there was lightMost fearful from His forehead, and He sighed,"That star went always wrong, and from the startI was dissatisfied."

He lifted up His hand—I say He heaved a dreadful handOver the spinning Earth. Then I said, "Stay,You must not strike it, God; I'm in the way;And I will never move from where I stand."He said, "Dear child, I feared that you were dead,"And stayed His hand.

The driver rubbed at his nettly chinWith a huge, loose forefinger, crooked and black,And his wobbly, violet lips sucked in,And puffed out again and hung down slack:One fang shone through his lop-sided smile,In his little pouched eye flickered years of guile.And the horse, poor beast, it was ribbed and forked,And its ears hung down, and its eyes were old,And its knees were knuckly, and as we talkedIt swung the stiff neck that could scarcely holdIts big, skinny head up—then I stepped in,And the driver climbed to his seat with a grin.God help the horse and the driver too,And the people and beasts who have never a friend,For the driver easily might have been you,And the horse be me by a different end.And nobody knows how their days will cease,And the poor, when they're old, have little of peace.

And the horse, poor beast, it was ribbed and forked,And its ears hung down, and its eyes were old,And its knees were knuckly, and as we talkedIt swung the stiff neck that could scarcely holdIts big, skinny head up—then I stepped in,And the driver climbed to his seat with a grin.

God help the horse and the driver too,And the people and beasts who have never a friend,For the driver easily might have been you,And the horse be me by a different end.And nobody knows how their days will cease,And the poor, when they're old, have little of peace.

Primarily a poetic dramatist, John Drinkwater, born in 1882, is best known as the author ofAbraham Lincoln—A Play(1919) founded on Lord Charnwood's masterly and analytical biography. He has published several volumes of poems, most of them meditative and elegiac in mood.

The best of his verses have been collected inPoems, 1908-19, and the two here reprinted are used by permission, and by special arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers.

I do not think that skies and meadows areMoral, or that the fixture of a starComes of a quiet spirit, or that treesHave wisdom in their windless silences.Yet these are things invested in my moodWith constancy, and peace, and fortitude;That in my troubled season I can cryUpon the wide composure of the sky,And envy fields, and wish that I might beAs little daunted as a star or tree.

Beyond my window in the nightIs but a drab inglorious street,Yet there the frost and clean starlightAs over Warwick woods are sweet.Under the grey drift of the townThe crocus works among the mouldAs eagerly as those that crownThe Warwick spring in flame and gold.And when the tramway down the hillAcross the cobbles moans and rings,There is about my window-sillThe tumult of a thousand wings.

Beyond my window in the nightIs but a drab inglorious street,Yet there the frost and clean starlightAs over Warwick woods are sweet.

Under the grey drift of the townThe crocus works among the mouldAs eagerly as those that crownThe Warwick spring in flame and gold.

And when the tramway down the hillAcross the cobbles moans and rings,There is about my window-sillThe tumult of a thousand wings.

James Joyce was born at Dublin, February 2, 1882, and educated in Ireland. He is best known as a highly sensitive and strikingly original writer of prose, his most celebrated works beingDubliners(1914) and the novel,A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man(1916). His one volume of verse,Chamber Music, was published in this country in 1918.

I hear an army charging upon the land,And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees:Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the charioteers.They cry unto the night their battle-name:I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter.They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair:They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore.My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?

They cry unto the night their battle-name:I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter.They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.

They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair:They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore.My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?

Jack Collings Squire was born April 2, 1884, at Plymouth, of Devonian ancestry. He was educated at Blundell's and Cambridge University, and became known first as a remarkably adroit parodist. HisImaginary Speeches(1912) andTricks of the Trade(1917) are amusing parodies and, what is more, excellent criticism. He editedThe New Statesmanfor a while and foundedThe London Mercury(a monthly of which he is editor) in November, 1919. Under the pseudonym "Solomon Eagle" he wrote a page of literary criticism every week for six years, many of these papers being collected in his volume,Books in General(1919).

His original poetry is intellectual but simple, sometimes metaphysical and always interesting technically in its fluent and variable rhythms. A collection of his best verse up to 1919 was published under the title,Poems: First Series.

Now very quietly, and rather mournfully,In clouds of hyacinth the sun retires,And all the stubble-fields that were so warm to himKeep but in memory their borrowed fires.And I, the traveller, break, still unsatisfied,From that faint exquisite celestial strand,And turn and see again the only dwelling-placeIn this wide wilderness of darkening land.The house, that house, O now what change has come to it.Its crude red-brick façade, its roof of slate;What imperceptible swift hand has given itA new, a wonderful, a queenly state?No hand has altered it, that parallelogram,So inharmonious, so ill-arranged;That hard blue roof in shape and colour's what it was;No, it is not that any line has changed.Only that loneliness is now accentuateAnd, as the dusk unveils the heaven's deep cave,This small world's feebleness fills me with awe again,And all man's energies seem very brave.And this mean edifice, which some dull architectBuilt for an ignorant earth-turning hind,Takes on the quality of that magnificentUnshakable dauntlessness of human kind.Darkness and stars will come, and long the night will be,Yet imperturbable that house will rest,Avoiding gallantly the stars' chill scrutiny,Ignoring secrets in the midnight's breast.Thunders may shudder it, and winds demoniacMay howl their menaces, and hail descend:Yet it will bear with them, serenely, steadfastly,Not even scornfully, and wait the end.And all a universe of nameless messengersFrom unknown distances may whisper fear,And it will imitate immortal permanence,And stare and stare ahead and scarcely hear.It stood there yesterday; it will to-morrow, too,When there is none to watch, no alien eyesTo watch its ugliness assume a majestyFrom this great solitude of evening skies.So lone, so very small, with worlds and worlds around,While life remains to it prepared to outfaceWhatever awful unconjectured mysteriesMay hide and wait for it in time and space.

Now very quietly, and rather mournfully,In clouds of hyacinth the sun retires,And all the stubble-fields that were so warm to himKeep but in memory their borrowed fires.

And I, the traveller, break, still unsatisfied,From that faint exquisite celestial strand,And turn and see again the only dwelling-placeIn this wide wilderness of darkening land.

The house, that house, O now what change has come to it.Its crude red-brick façade, its roof of slate;What imperceptible swift hand has given itA new, a wonderful, a queenly state?

No hand has altered it, that parallelogram,So inharmonious, so ill-arranged;That hard blue roof in shape and colour's what it was;No, it is not that any line has changed.

Only that loneliness is now accentuateAnd, as the dusk unveils the heaven's deep cave,This small world's feebleness fills me with awe again,And all man's energies seem very brave.

And this mean edifice, which some dull architectBuilt for an ignorant earth-turning hind,Takes on the quality of that magnificentUnshakable dauntlessness of human kind.

Darkness and stars will come, and long the night will be,Yet imperturbable that house will rest,Avoiding gallantly the stars' chill scrutiny,Ignoring secrets in the midnight's breast.

Thunders may shudder it, and winds demoniacMay howl their menaces, and hail descend:Yet it will bear with them, serenely, steadfastly,Not even scornfully, and wait the end.

And all a universe of nameless messengersFrom unknown distances may whisper fear,And it will imitate immortal permanence,And stare and stare ahead and scarcely hear.

It stood there yesterday; it will to-morrow, too,When there is none to watch, no alien eyesTo watch its ugliness assume a majestyFrom this great solitude of evening skies.

So lone, so very small, with worlds and worlds around,While life remains to it prepared to outfaceWhatever awful unconjectured mysteriesMay hide and wait for it in time and space.

Lascelles Abercrombie was born in 1884. Like Masefield, he gained his reputation rapidly; totally unknown until 1909, upon the publication ofInterludes and Poems, he was recognized as one of the greatest metaphysical poets of his period.Emblems of Love(1912), the ripest collection of his blank verse dialogues, justified the enthusiasm of his admirers.

Many of Abercrombie's poems, the best of which are too long to quote, are founded on scriptural themes, but his blank verse is not biblical either in mood or manner. It is the undercurrent rather than the surface of his verse which moves with a strong religious conviction. Abercrombie's images are daring and brilliant; his lines, sometimes too closely packed, glow with a dazzling intensity that is warmly spiritual and fervently human.

What thing shall be held up to woman's beauty?Where are the bounds of it? Yea, what is allThe world, but an awning scaffolded amidThe waste perilous Eternity, to lodgeThis Heaven-wander'd princess, woman's beauty?The East and West kneel down to thee, the NorthAnd South; and all for thee their shoulders bearThe load of fourfold space. As yellow mornRuns on the slippery waves of the spread sea,Thy feet are on the griefs and joys of menThat sheen to be thy causey. Out of tearsIndeed, and blitheness, murder and lust and love,Whatever has been passionate in clay,Thy flesh was tempered. Behold in thy bodyThe yearnings of all men measured and told,Insatiate endless agonies of desireGiven thy flesh, the meaning of thy shape!What beauty is there, but thou makest it?How is earth good to look on, woods and fields,The season's garden, and the courageous hills,All this green raft of earth moored in the seas?The manner of the sun to ride the air,The stars God has imagined for the night?What's this behind them, that we cannot near,Secret still on the point of being blabbed,The ghost in the world that flies from being named?Where do they get their beauty from, all these?They do but glaze a lantern lit for man,And woman's beauty is the flame therein.

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