"A BILL WHICH HAS SHOCKED THE CONSCIENCE OFEVERY CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY IN EUROPE."—Mr. F.E. Smith,ON THE WELSH DISESTABLISHMENT BILL.Are they clinging to their crosses,F.E. Smith,Where the Breton boat-fleet tosses,Are they, Smith?Do they, fasting, tramping, bleeding,Wait the news from this our city?Groaning "That's the Second Reading!"Hissing "There is still Committed"If the voice of Cecil falters,If McKenna's point has pith,Do they tremble for their altars?Do they, Smith?Russian peasants round their popeHuddled, Smith,Hear about it all, I hope,Don't they, Smith?In the mountain hamlets clothingPeaks beyond Caucasian pales,Where Establishment means nothingAnd they never heard of Wales,Do they read it all in HansardWith a crib to read it with—"Welsh Tithes: Dr. Clifford Answered,"Really, Smith?In the lands where Christians were,F.E. Smith,In the little lands laid bare,Smith, O Smith!Where the Turkish bands are busy,And the Tory name is blessedSince they hailed the Cross of DizzyOn the banners from the West!Men don't think it half so hard ifIslam burns their kin and kith,Since a curate lives in CardiffSaved by Smith.It would greatly, I must own,Soothe me, Smith,If you left this theme alone,Holy Smith!For your legal cause or civilYou fight well and get your fee;For your God or dream or devilYou will answer, not to me.Talk about the pews and steeplesAnd the Cash that goes therewith!But the souls of Christian peoples....—Chuck it, Smith!
"I WAS NEVER STANDING BY WHILE A REVOLUTIONWAS GOING ON."—Speech by the Rt. Hon. Walter Long.When Death was on thy drums, Democracy,And with one rush of slaves the world was free,In that high dawn that Kings shall not forget,A void there was and Walter was not yet.Through sacked Versailles, at Valmy in the fray,They did without him in some kind of way;Red Christendom all Walterless they cross,And in their fury hardly feel their loss....Fades the Republic; faint as Roland's horn,Her trumpets taunt us with a sacred scorn....Then silence fell; and Mr. Long was born.From his first hours in his expensive cotHe never saw the tiniest viscount shot.In deference to his wealthy parents' whimThe wildest massacres were kept from him.The wars that dyed Pall Mall and Brompton redPassed harmless o'er that one unconscious head:For all that little Long could understandThe rich might still be rulers of the land.Vain are the pious arts of parenthood,Foiled Revolution bubbled in his blood;Until one day (the babe unborn shall rue it)The Constitution bored him and he slew it.If I were wise and good and rich and strong—Fond, impious thought, if I were Walter Long—If I could water sell like molten gold,And make grown people do as they are told,If over private fields and wastes as wideAs a Greek city for which heroes died,I owned the houses and the men inside—If all this hung on one thin thread of habitI would not revolutionize a rabbit.I would sit tight with all my gifts and glories,And even preach to unconverted Tories,That the fixed system that our land inherits,Viewed from a certain standpoint, has its merits.I'd guard the laws like any Radical,And keep each precedent, however small,However subtle, misty, dusty, dreamy,Lest man by chance should look at me and see me;Lest men should ask what madman made me lordOf English ploughshares and the English sword;Lest men should mark how sleepy is the nodThat drills the dreadful images of God!Walter, be wise! avoid the wild and new,The Constitution is the game for you.Walter, beware! scorn not the gathering throngIt suffers, yet it may not suffer wrong,It suffers, yet it cannot suffer Long.And if you goad it these grey rules to break,For a few pence, see that you do not wakeDeath and the splendour of the scarlet cap,Boston and Valmy, Yorktown and Jemmappes,Freedom in arms, the riding and the routing,The thunder of the captains and the shouting,All that lost riot that you did not share—Andwhen that riot comes—youwillbe there.
Lord Lilac thought it rather rottenThat Shakespeare should be quiteAnd therefore got on a CommitteeWith several chaps out of the city.And Shorter and Sir Herbert Tree,Lord Rothschild and Lord RoseberyAnd F.C.G. and Comyns Carr,Two dukes and a dramatic star,Also a clergyman now dead;And while the vain world careless spedUnheeding the heroic name—The souls most fed with Shakespeare's flameStill sat unconquered in a ring,Remembering him like anything.Lord Lilac did not long remain.Lord Lilac did not come again.He softly lit a cigaretteAnd sought some other social setWhere, in some other knots or rings,People were doing cultured things,—Miss Zwilt's Humane Vivarium—The little men that paint on gum—The exquisite Gorilla Girl....He sometimes, in this giddy whirl(Not being really bad at heart),Remembered Shakespeare with a start—But not with that grand constancyOf Clement Shorter, Herbert Tree,Lord Rosebery and Comyns CarrAnd all the other names there are;Who stuck like limpets to the spot,Lest they forgot, lest they forgot.Lord Lilac was of slighter stuff;Lord Lilac had had quite enough.
Jones had a dog; it had a chain;Not often worn, not causing pain;But, as the I.K.L. had passedTheir "Unleashed Cousins Act" at last,Inspectors took the chain away;Whereat the canine barked "hurray"!At which, of course, the S.P.U.(Whose Nervous Motorists' Bill was through),Were forced to give the dog in chargeFor being Audibly at Large.None, you will say, were now annoyed,Save haply Jones—the yard was void.But something being in the leaseAbout "alarms to aid police,"The U.S.U. annexed the yardFor having no sufficient guardsNow if there's one conditionThe C.C.P. are strong uponIt is that every house one buysMust have a yard for exercise;So Jones, as tenant, was unfit.His state of health was proof of it.Two doctors of the T.T.U.'sTold him his legs from long disuse,Were atrophied; and saying "SoFrom step to higher step we goTill everything is New and True,"They cut his legs off and withdrew.You know the E.T.S.T.'s viewsAre stronger than the T.T.U.'s:And soon (as one may say) took wingThe Arms, though not the Man, I sing.To see him sitting limbless thereWas more than the K.K. could bear"In mercy silence with all speedThat mouth there are no hands to feed;What cruel sentimentalist,O Jones, would doom thee to exist—Clinging to selfish Selfhood yet?Weak one! Such reasoning might upsetThe Pump Act, and the accumulationOf all constructive legislation;Let us construct you up a bit—"The head fell off when it was hit:Then words did rise and honest doubt,And four Commissions sat aboutWhether the slash that left him deadCut off his body or his head.An author in the Isle of WightObserved with unconcealed delightA land of old and just renownWhere Freedom slowly broadened downFrom Precedent to Precedent....And this, I think, was what he meant.
John Grubby, who was short and stoutAnd troubled with religious doubt,Refused about the age of threeTo sit upon the curate's knee;(For so the eternal strife must rageBetween the spirit of the ageAnd Dogma, which, as is well known.Does simply hate to be outgrown).Grubby, the young idea that shoots,Outgrew the ages like old boots;While still, to all appearance, small,Would have no Miracles at all;And just before the age of tenFirmly refused Free Will to men.The altars reeled, the hen-ens shook,Just as he read of in the book;Flung from his house went forth the youthAlone with tempests and the Truth,Up to the distant city and dimWhere his papa had bought for himA partnership in Chepe and DeerWorth, say, twelve hundred pounds a year.But he was resolute. Lord BruteHad found him useful; and Lord Loot,With whom few other men would act,Valued his promptitude and tact;Never did even philanthropyEnrich a man more rapidly:Twas he that stopped the Strike in Coal,For hungry children racked his soul;To end their misery there and thenHe filled the mines with Chinamen—Sat in that House that broke the Kings,And voted for all sores of things—And rose from Under-Sec. to Sec.Some grumbled. Growlers who gave lessThan generous worship to success,The little printers in DundeeWho got ten years for blasphemy,(Although he let them off with seven)Respect him rather less than heaven.No matter. This can still be said:Never to supernatural dread,Never to unseen deity,Did Sir John Grubby bend the knee;Never did dream of hell or wrathTurn Viscount Grubby from his path;Nor was he bribed by fabled blissTo kneel to any world but this.The curate lives in Camden Town,His lap still empty of renown,And still across the waste of yearsJohn Grubby, in the House of Peers,Faces that curate, proud and free,And never sits upon his knee.
NICE, JANUARY30, 1914.
If any in an island cradle curledOf comfort, may make offerings to you,Who in the day of all denial blewA bugle through the blackness of the world,An English hand would touch your shroud, in trustThat truth again be told in English speech.And we too yet may practise what we preach,Though it were practising the bayonet thrust.Cutting that giant neck from sand to sand,From sea to sea; it was a little thingBeside your sudden shout and sabre-swingThat cut the throat of thieves in every land.Heed not if half-wits mock your broken blade:Mammon our master doeth all things ill.You are the Fool that charged a windmill. Still,The Miller is a Knave; and was afraid.Lay down your sword. Ruin will know her own.Let each small statesman sow his weak wild oat,Or turn his coat to decorate his coat,Or take the throne and perish by the throne.Lay down your sword. And let the White Flag fadeTo grey; and let the Red Flag fade to pink,For these that climb and climb; and cannot sinkSo deep as death and honour, Déroulède.
TO A POPULAR LEADER MUCH TO BE CONGRATULATEDON THE AVOIDANCE OF A STRIKE AT CHRISTMAS.I know you. You will hail the huge release,Saying the sheathing of a thousand swords,In silence and injustice, well accordsWith Christmas bells. And you will gild with greaseThe papers, the employers, the police,And vomit up the void your windy wordsTo your New Christ; who bears no whip of cordsFor them that traffic in the doves of peace.The feast of friends, the candle-fruited tree,I have not failed to honour. And I sayIt would be better for such men as we,And we be nearer Bethlehem, it we layShot dead on scarlet snows for liberty,Dead in the daylight upon Christmas Day.
"A DROVE OF CATTLE CAME INTO A VILLAGE CALLEDSWORDS, AND WAS STOPPED BY THE RIOTERS."—-Daily Paper.In the place called Swords on the Irish roadIt is told for a new renownHow we field the horns of the cattle, and howWe will hold the horns of the devil nowEre the lord of bell, with the horn on his brow,Is crowned in Dublin townLight in the East and light in the West,And light on the cruel lords,On the souls that suddenly all men knew,And the green flag flew and the red flag flew,And many a wheel of the world stopped, too,When the cattle were stopped at Swords.Be they sinners or less than saintsThat smite in the street for rage,We know where the shame shines bright; we knowYou that they smite at, you their foe,Lords of the lawless wage and low.This is your lawful wage.You pinched a child to a torture priceThat you dared not name in words;So black a jest was the silver bitThat your own speech shook for the shame ofAnd the coward was plain as a cow they hitWhen the cattle have strayed at Swords.The wheel of the torment of wives went roundTo break men's brotherhood;You gave the good Irish blood to greaseThe clubs of your country's enemies;You saw the brave man beat to the knees:And you saw that it was good.The rope of the rich is long and long—The longest of hangmen's cords;But the kings and crowds are holding their bream,In a giant shadow o'er all beneathWhere God stands holding the scales of DeathBetween the cattle and Swords.Haply the lords that hire and lend,The lowest of all men's lords,Who sell their kind like kine at a fair.Will find no head of their cattle there;But faces of men where cattle were:Faces of men—and Swords.And the name shining and terrible,The sternest of all man's words,Still mark that place to seek or shun,In the streets where the struggling cattle run—Grass and a silence of judgment doneIn the place that is called Swords.
The line breaks and the guns go under,The lords and the lackeys ride the plain;I draw deep breaths of the dawn and thunder,And the whole of my heart grows young again.For our Chiefs said "Done," and I did not deem it;Our Seers said "Peace," and it was not peace;Earth will grow worse till men redeem it,And wars more evil, ere all wars cease.But the old flags reel and the old drums rattle.As once in my life they throbbed and reeled;I have found ray youth in the lost battle,I have found my heart on the battlefield.For we that fight till the world is free,We are not easy in victory:We have known each other too long, my brother,And fought each other, the world and we.And I dream of the days when work was scrappy,And rare in our pockets the mark of the mint,When we were angry and poor and happy,And proud of seeing our names in print.For so they conquered and so we scattered,When the Devil rode and his dogs smelt gold,And the peace of a harmless folk was shattered;When I was twenty and odd years old.When the mongrel men that the market classesHad slimy hands upon England's rod,And sword in hand upon Afric's passesHer last Republic cried to God.For the men no lords can buy or sell,They sit not easy when all goes well.They have said to each other what naught can smother,They have seen each other, our souls and hell.It is all as of old; the empty clangour.The Nothing scrawled on a five-foot page,The huckster who, mocking holy anger,Painfully paints his face with rage.And the faith of the poor is faint and partial,And the pride of the rich is all for sale,And the chosen heralds of England's MarshalAre the sandwich-men of the "Daily Mail."And the niggards that dare not give are glutted,And the feeble that dare not fail are strong,So while the City of Toil is gutted,I sit in the saddle and sing my song.For we that fight till the world is free,We have no comfort in victory;We have read each other as Cain his brother,We know each other, these slaves and we.
ON HEARING A LANDLORD ACCUSED (FALSELY, FORALL THE BARD CAN SAY) OF NEGLECTING ONE OF THENUMEROUS WHITE HORSES THAT WERE OR WERE NOTCONNECTED WITH ALFRED THE GREATIf you have picked your lawn of leaves and snails,If you have told your valet, even with oaths,Once a week or so, to brush your clothes.If you have dared to clean your teeth, or nails,While the Horse upon the holy mountain fails—Then God that Alfred to his earth betrothesSend on you screaming all that honour loathes,Horsewhipping, Hounsditch, debts, andDaily Mails.Can you not even conserve? For if indeedThe White Horse fades; then closer creeps the fightWhen we shall scour the face of England white,Plucking such men as you up like a weed,And fling them far beyond a shaft shot rightWhen Wessex went to battle for the creed.
A sleepy people, without priests or kings,Dreamed here, men say, to drive us to the sea:O let us drive ourselves! For it is freeAnd smells of honour and of English things.How came we brawling by these bitter springs,We of the North?—two kindly nations—we?Though the dice rattles and the clear coin rings,Here is no place for living men to be.Leave them the gold that worked and whined for it,Let them that have no nation anywhereBe native here, and fat and full of bread;But we, whose sins were human, we will quitThe land of blood, and leave these vultures there,Noiselessly happy, feeding on the dead.
We never saw you, like our sires,For whom your face was Freedom's face,Nor know what office-tapes and wiresWith such strong cords may interlace;We know not if the statesmen thenWere fashioned as the sort we see,We know that not under your kenDid England laugh at Liberty.Yea, this one thing is known of you,We know that not till you were dumb,Not till your course was thundered through,Did Mammon see his kingdom come.The songs of theft, the swords of hire,The clerks that raved, the troops that ranThe empire of the world's desire,The dance of all the dirt began.The happy jewelled alien menWorked then but as a little leaven;From some more modest palace thenThe Soul of Dives stank to Heaven.But when they planned with lisp and leerTheir careful war upon the weak,They smote your body on its bier,For surety that you could not speak.A hero in the desert died;Men cried that saints should bury him.And round the grave should guard and ride,A chivalry of Cherubim.God said: "There is a better place,A nobler trophy and more tall;The beasts that fled before his faceShall come to make his funeral."The mighty vermin of the voidThat hid them from his bended bow,Shall crawl from caverns overjoyed,Jackal and snake and carrion crow.And perched above the vulture's eggs,Reversed upon its hideous head,A blue-faced ape shall wave its legsTo tell the world that he is dead."
This is their trumpet ripe and rounded,They have burnt the wheat and gathered the chaff,And we that have fought them, we that have watched them,Have we at least not cause to laugh?Never so low at least we stumbled—Dead we have been but not so deadAs these that live on the life they squandered,As these that drink of the blood they shed.We never boasted the thing we blundered,We never Haunted the thing that fails,We never quailed from the living laughter,To howl to the dead who tell no tales,'Twas another finger at least that pointedOur wasted men or our emptied bags,It was not we that sounded the trumpetIn front of the triumph of wrecks and rags.Fear not these, they have made their bargain,They have counted the cost of the last of raids,They have staked their lives on the things that live not,They have burnt their house for a fire that fades.Five years ago and we might have feared them,Been drubbed by the coward and taught by the dunce;Truth may endure and be told and re-echoed,But a lie can never be young but once.Five years ago and we might have feared them;Now, when they lift the laurelled brow,There shall naught go up from our hosts assembledBut a laugh like thunder. We know them now.
WRITTEN DURING A FRIDAY AND SATURDAY IN AUGUST1911.
King Dives he was waiting in his garden all alone,Where his flowers are made of iron and his trees are made of stone,And his hives are full of thunder and the lightning leaps and kills,For the mills of God grind slowly; and he works with other mills.Dives found a mighty silence; and he missed the throb and leap,The noise of all the sleepless creatures singing him to sleep.And he said: "A screw has fallen—or a bolt has slipped aside—Some little thing has shifted": and the little things replied:"Call upon the wheels, master, call upon the wheels;We are taking rest, master, finding how it feels,Strict the law of thine and mine: theft we ever shun—All the wheels are thine, master—tell the wheels to run!Yea, the Wheels are mighty gods—set them going then!We are only men, master, have you heard of men?"O, they live on earth like fishes, and a gasp is all their breath.God for empty honours only gave them death and scorn of death,And you walk the worms for carpet and you tread a stone that squeals—Only, God that made them worms did not make them wheels.Man shall shut his heart against you and you shall not find the spring.Man who wills the thing he wants not, the intolerable thing—Once he likes his empty belly better than your empty headEarth and heaven are dumb before him: he is stronger than the dead."Call upon the wheels, master, call upon the wheels,Steel is beneath your hand, stone beneath your heels,Steel will never laugh aloud, hearing what we heard,Stone will never break its heart, mad with hope deferred—Men of tact that arbitrate, slow reform that heals—Save the stinking grease, master, save it for the wheels."King Dives in the garden, we have naught to give or hold—(Even while the baby came alive the rotten sticks were sold.)The savage knows a cavern and the peasants keep a plot,Of all the things that men have had—lo! we have them not.Not a scrap of earth where ants could lay their eggs—Only this poor lump of earth that walks about on legs—Only this poor wandering mansion, only these two walking trees.Only hands and hearts and stomachs—what have you to do with these?You have engines big and burnished, tall beyond our fathers' ken,Why should you make peace and traffic with such feeble folk as men?"Call upon the wheels, master, call upon the wheels,They are deaf to demagogues, deaf to crude appeals;Are our hands our own, master?—how the doctors doubt!Are our legs our own, master? wheels can run without—Prove the points are delicate—they will understand.All the wheels are loyal; see how still they stand!"King Dives he was walking in his garden in the sun,He shook his hand at heaven, and he called the wheels to run,And the eyes of him were hateful eyes, the lips of him were curled,And he called upon his father that is lord below the world,Sitting in the Gate of Treason, in the gate of broken seals,"Bend and bind them, bend and bind them, bend and bind them into wheels,Then once more in all my garden there may swing and sound and sweep—The noise of all the sleepless things that sing the soul to sleep."Call upon the wheels, master, call upon the wheels.Weary grow the holidays when you miss the meals,Through the Gate of Treason, through the gate within,Cometh fear and greed of fame, cometh deadly sin;If a man grow faint, master, take him ere he kneels.Take him, break him, rend him, end him, roll him, crush him with the wheels.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget.For we are the people of England, that never has spoken yet.There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully,There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we.There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or so wise.There is hunger in our bellies, there is laughter in our eyes;You laugh at us and love us, both mugs and eyes are wet:Only you do not know us. For we have not spoken yet.The fine French kings came over in a flutter of flags and dames.We liked their smiles and battles, but we never could say their names.The blood ran red to Bosworth and the High French lords went down;There was naught but a naked people under a naked crown.And the eyes of the King's Servants turned terribly every way,And the gold of the King's Servants rose higher every day.They burnt the homes of the shaven men, that had been quaint and kind,Till there was no bed in a monk's house, nor food that man could find.The inns of God where no man paid, that were the wall of the weak,The King's Servants ate them all. And Still we did not speak.And the face of the King's Servants grew greater than the King:He tricked them, and they trapped him, and stood round him in a ring.The new grave lords closed round him, that had eaten the abbey's fruits.And the men of the new religion, with their bibles in their boots.We saw their shoulders moving, to menace or discuss,And some were pure and some were vile; but none took heed of us.We saw the King as they killed him, and his face was proud and pale;And a few men talked of freedom, while England talked of ale.A war that we understood not came over the world and wokeAmericans, Frenchmen, Irish; but we knew not the things they spoke.They talked about rights and nature and peace and the people's reign:And the squires, our masters, bade us fight; and never scorned us again.Weak if we be for ever, could none condemn us then;Men called us serfs and drudges; men knew that we were men.In foam and flame at Trafalgar, on Albuera plains,We did and died like lions, to keep ourselves in chains,We lay in living ruins; firing and fearing notThe strange fierce face of the Frenchmen who knew for what they fought,And the man who seemed to be more than man we strained against and broke;And we broke our own rights with him. And still we never spoke.Our patch of glory ended; we never heard guns again.But the squire seemed struck in the saddle; he was foolish, as if in painHe leaned on a staggering lawyer, he clutched a cringing Jew,He was stricken; it may be, after all, he was stricken at Waterloo.Or perhaps the shades of the shaven men, whose spoil is in his house,Come back in shining shapes at last to spoil his last carouse:We only know the last sad squires ride slowly towards the sea.And a new people takes the land: and still it is not we.They have given us into the hand of the new unhappy lords,Lords without anger and honour, who dare not carry their swords.They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes;They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.And the load 01 their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs,Their doors are shut in the evening; and they know no songs.We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first,Our wrath come after Russia's wrath and our wrath be the worst.It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our restGod's scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best.But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.
So you have gained the golden crowns, so you have piled togetherThe laurels and the jewels, the pearls out of the blue,But I will beat the bounding drum and I will fly the featherFor all the glory I have lost, the good I never knew.I saw the light of morning pale on princely human faces,In tales irrevocably gone, in final night enfurled,I saw the tail of flying fights, a glimpse of burning blisses,And laughed to think what I had lost—the wealth of all the world.Yea, ruined in a royal game I was before my cradle;Was ever gambler hurling gold who lost such things as I?The purple moth that died an hour ere I was born ofThat great green sunset God shall make three days after I die.When all the lights are lost and done, when all the skies are broken,Above the ruin of the stars my soul shall sit in state,With a brain made rich, with the irrevocable sunsets,And a closed heart happy in the fullness of a fate.So you have gained the golden crowns and grasped the golden weather,The kingdoms and the hemispheres that all men buy and sell,But I will lash the leaping drum and swing the flaring feather,For the light of seven heavens that are lost to me like hell.
O well for him that loves the sunThat sees the heaven-race ridden or run,The splashing seas of sunset won,And shouts for victory.God made the sun to crown his head,And when death's dart at last is sped,At least it will not find him dead,And pass the carrion by.O ill for him that loves the sun;Shall the sun stoop for anyone?Shall the sun weep for hearts undoneOr heavy souls that pray?Not less for us and everyoneWas that white web of splendour spun;O well for him who loves the sunAlthough the sun should slay.
Happy, who like Ulysses or that lordWho raped the fleece, returning full and sage,With usage and the world's wide reason stored,With his own kin can wait the end of age.When shall I see, when shall I see, God knows!My little village smoke; or pass the door,The old dear door of that unhappy houseThat is to me a kingdom and much more?Mightier to me the house my fathers madeThan your audacious heads, O Halls of Rome!More than immortal marbles undecayed,The thin sad slates that cover up my home;More than your Tiber is my Loire to me,Than Palatine my little Lyré there;And more than all the winds of all the seaThe quiet kindness of the Angevin air.
"The Rev. Isaiah Bunter has disappeared into the interiorof the Solomon Islands, and it is feared that he may havebeen devoured by the natives, as there has been a considerablerevival of religious customs among the Polynesians."A real paragraph from a real Paper; only the names altered.It was Isaiah BunterWho sailed to the world's end,And spread religion in a wayThat he did not intend.He gave, if not the gospel-feast,At least a ritual meal;And in a highly painful senseHe was devoured with zeal.And who are we (as Henson says)That we should close the door?And should not EvangelicalsAll jump at shedding Gore?And many a man will melt in man,Becoming one, not two,When smacks across the startled earthThe Kiss of Kikuyu.When Man is the Turk, and the Atheist,Essene, Erastian Whig,And the Thug and the Druse and the Catholic,And the crew of the Captain's gig.
The old earth keepeth her watch the same.Alone in a voiceless void doth stand,Her orange flowers in her bosom flame,Her gold ring in her hand.The surfs of the long gold-crested mornsBreak ever more at her great robe's hem,And evermore come the bleak moon-horns.But she keepeth not watch for them.She keepeth her watch through the awns,But the heart of her groweth not old,For the peal of the bridegroom's paeans,And the tale she once was told.The nations shock and the cities reel,The empires travail and rive and rend,And she looks on havoc and smoke and steel,And knoweth it is not the end.The faiths may choke and the powers despair,The powers re-arise and the faiths renew,She is only a maiden, waiting there,For the love whose word is true.She keepeth her watch through the aeons,But the heart of her groweth not old,For the peal of the bridegroom's paeans,And the tale she once was told.Through the cornfield's gleam and the cottage shade,They wait unwearied, the young and old,Mother for child and man for maid.For a love that once was told.The hair grows grey under thatch or slates,The eyes grow dim behind lattice panes,The earth-race wait as the old earth waits,And the hope in the heart remains.She keepeth her watch through the aeons,But the heart of her groweth not old,For the peal of the bridegroom's paeans,And the tale she once was told.God's gold ring on her hand is bound,She fires with blossom the grey hill-sides,Her fields are quickened, her forests crowned,While the love of her heart abides,And we from the fears that fret and marLook up in hours and behold awhileHer face, colossal, mid star on star,Still looking forth with a smile.She keepeth her watch through the sons,But the heart of her groweth not old,For the peal of the bridegroom's paeans,And the tale she once was told.
When Adam went from ParadiseHe saw the Sword and ran;The dreadful shape, the new device,The pointed end of Paradise,And saw what Peril is and Price,And knew he was a man.When Adam went from Paradise,He turned him back and criedFor a little flower from Paradise;There came no flower from Paradise;The woods were dark in Paradise,And not a bird replied.For only comfort or contempt,For jest or great reward,Over the walls of Paradise,The flameless gates of Paradise,The dumb shut doors of Paradise,God flung the flaming sword.It burns the hand that holds itMore than the skull it scores;It doubles like a snake and stings,Yet he in whose hand it swingsHe is the most masterful of things,A scorner of the stars.
When I came back to Fleet Street,Through a sunset nook at night,And saw the old Green DragonWith the windows all alight,And hailed the old Green DragonAnd the Cock I used to know,Where all good fellows were my friendsA little while ago;I had been long in meadows,And the trees took hold of me,And the still towns in the beech-woods,Where men were meant to be.But old things held; the laughter,The long unnatural night,And all the truth they talk in hell,And all the lies they write.For I came back to Fleet Street,And not in peace I came;A cloven pride was in my heart,And half my love was shame.I came to fight in fairy-tale,Whose end shall no man know—To fight the old Green DragonUntil the Cock shall crow!Under the broad bright windowsOf men I serve no more,The groaning of the old great wheelsThickened to a throttled roar;All buried things broke upward;And peered from its retreat,Ugly and silent, like an elf,The secret of the street.They did not break the padlocks,Or clear the wall away.The men in debt that drank of oldStill drink in debt to-day;Chained to the rich by ruin,Cheerful in chains, as thenWhen old unbroken Pickwick walkedAmong the broken men.Still he that dreams and ramblesThrough his own elfin air,Knows that the street's a prison,Knows that the gates are there:Still he that scorns or strugglesSees, frightful and afar.All that they leave of rebelsRot high on Temple Bar.All that I loved and hated,All that I shunned and knew,Clears in broad battle lightning,Where they, and I, and you,Run high the barricade that breaksThe barriers of the street,And shout to them that shrink within,The Prisoners of the Fleet.
To J.S.M.
EXTRACT FROM A ROMANCE WHICH IS NOT YETWRITTEN AND PROBABLY NEVER WILL BE.The wine they drink in ParadiseThey make in Haute Lorraine;God brought it burning from the sodTo be a sign and signal rodThat they that drink the blood of GodShall never thirst again.The wine they praise in ParadiseThey make in Ponterey,The purple wine of Paradise,But we have better at the price;It's wine they praise in Paradise,It's cider that they pray.The wine they want in ParadiseThey find in Plodder's End,The apple wine of Hereford,Of Hafod Hill and Hereford,Where woods went down to Hereford,And there I had a friend.The soft feet of the blessed goIn the soft western vales,The road the silent saints accord,The road from Heaven to Hereford,Where the apple wood of HerefordGoes all the way to Wales.
The wind blew out from Bergen from the dawning to the day,There was a wreck of trees and fall of towers a score of miles away,And drifted like a livid leaf I go before its tide,Spewed out of house and stable, beggared of flag and bride.The heavens are bowed about my head, shouting like seraph wars.With rains that might put out the sun and clean the sky of stars,Rains like the fall of ruined seas from secret worlds above,The roaring of the rains of God none but the lonely love.Feast in my hall, O foemen, and eat and drink and drain,You never loved the sun in heaven as I have loved the rain.The chance of battle changes—so may all battle be;I stole my lady bride from them, they stole her back from me.I rent her from her red-roofed hall, I rode and saw ariseMore lovely than the living flowers the hatred in her eyes.She never loved me, never bent, never was less divine;The sunset never loved me; the wind was never mine.Was it all nothing that she stood imperial in duresse?Silence itself made softer with the sweeping of her dress.O you who drain the cup of life, O you who wear the crown,You never loved a woman's smile as I have loved her frown.The wind blew out from Bergen from the dawning to the day,They ride and run with fifty spears to break and bar my way,I shall not die alone, alone, but kin to all the powers.As merry as the ancient sun and fighting like the flowers.How white their steel, how bright their eyes! I love each laughing knave.Cry high and bid him welcome to the banquet of the brave.Yea, I will bless them as they bend and love them where they lie,When on their skulls the sword I swing falls shattering from the sky.The hour when death is like a light and blood is like a rose,—You never loved your friends, my friends, as I shall love my foes.Know you what earth shall lose to-night, what rich, uncounted loans,What heavy gold of tales untold you bury with my bones?My loves in deep dim meadows, my ships that rode at ease,Ruffling the purple plumage of strange and secret seas.To see this fair earth as it is to me alone was given,The blow that breaks my brow to-night shall break the dome of heaven.The skies I saw, the trees I saw after no eyes shall see.To-night I die the death of God; the stars shall die with me:One sound shall sunder all the spears and break the trumpet's breath:You never laughed in all your life as I shall laugh in death.
Heaven shall forgive you Bridge at dawn,The clothes you wear—or do not wear—And Ladies' Leap-frog on the lawnAnd dyes and drugs, andpetits verres.Your vicious things shall melt in air ...... But for the Virtuous Things you do,The Righteous Work, the Public Care,It shall not be forgiven you.Because you could not even yawnWhen your Committees would prepareTo have the teeth of paupers drawn,Or strip the slums of Human Hair;Because a Doctor Otto MaehrSpoke of "a segregated few"—And you sat smiling in your chair—It shall not be forgiven you.Though your sins cried to—-Father Vaughan,These desperate you could not spareWho steal, with nothing left to pawn;You caged a man up like a bearFor ever in a jailor's careBecause his sins were more thantwo...... I know a house in Hoxton whereIt shall not be forgiven you.ENVOIPrincess, you trapped a guileless MayorTo meet some people that you knew ...When the Last Trumpet rends the airIt shall not be forgiven you.
They spoke of Progress spiring round,Of Light and Mrs. Humphry Ward—It is not true to say I frowned,Or ran about the room and roared;I might have simply sat and snored—I rose politely in the clubAnd said, "I feel a little bored;Will someone take me to a pub?"The new world's wisest did surroundMe; and it pains me to recordI did not think their views profound,Or their conclusions well assured;The simple life I can't afford,Besides, I do not like the grub—I wait a mash and sausage, "scored"—Will someone take me to a pub?I know where Men can still be found,Anger and clamorous accord,And virtues growing from the ground,And fellowship of beer and board,And song, that is a sturdy cord.And hope, that is a hardy shrub,And goodness, that is God's last word—Will someone take me to a pub?ENVOIPrince, Bayard would have smashed his swordTo see the sort of knights you dub—Isthat the last of them—O Lord!Will someone take me to a pub?
I have not read a rotten pageOf "Sex-Hate" or "The Social Test,"And here comes "Husks" and "Heritage"....O Moses, give us all a rest!"Ethics of Empire"!... I protestI will not even cut the strings,I'll read "Jack Redskin on the Quest"And feed my brain with better things.Somebody wants a Wiser Age(He also wants me to invest);Somebody likes the Finnish StageBecause the Jesters do not jest;And grey with dust is Dante's crest,The bell of Rabelais soundless swings;And the winds come out of the westAnd feed my brain with better things.Lord of our laughter and our rage.Look on us with our sins oppressed!I, too, have trodden mine heritage,Wickedly wearying of the best.Burn from my brain and from my breastSloth, and the cowardice that clings,And stiffness and the soul's arrest:And feed my brain with better things.ENVOIPrince, you are host and I am guest,Therefore I shrink from cavillings....But I should have that fizz suppressedAnd feed my brain with better things.
The gallows in my garden, people say,Is new and neat and adequately tall.I tie the noose on in a knowing wayAs one that knots his necktie for a ball;But just as all the neighbours—on the wall—Are drawing a long breath to shout "Hurray!"The strangest whim has seized me.... After allI think I will not hang myself to-day.To-morrow is the time I get my pay—Myuncle's sword is hanging in the hall—I see a little cloud all pink and grey—Perhaps the rector's mother willnotcall—I fancy that I heard from Mr. GallThat mushrooms could be cooked another way—I never read the works of Juvenal—I think I will not hang myself to-day.The world will have another washing day;The decadents decay; the pedants pall;And H.G. Wells has found that children play.And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall;Rationalists are growing rational—And through thick woods one finds a stream astray,So secret that the very sky seems small—I think I will not hang myself to-day.ENVOIPrince, I can hear the trumpet of Germinal,The tumbrils toiling up the terrible way;Even to-day your royal head may fall—I think I will not hang myself to-day.
The sky is blue with summer and the sun,The woods are brown as autumn with the tan,It might as well be Tropics and be done,I might as well be born a copper Khan;I fashion me an oriental fanMade of the wholly unreceipted billsBrought by the ice-man, sleeping in his van(A storm is coming on the Chiltern Hills).I read the Young Philosophers for fun—Fresh as our sorrow for the late Queen Anne—The Dionysians whom a pint would stun,The Pantheists who never heard of Pan.—But through my hair electric needles ran,And on my book a gout of water spills,And on the skirts of heaven the guns began(A storm is coming on the Chiltern Hills).O fields of England, cracked and dry and dun,O soul of England, sick of words, and wan!—The clouds grow dark;—the down-rush has begun.—It comes, it comes, as holy darkness can,Black as with banners, ban and arriere-ban;A falling laughter all the valley fills,Deep as God's thunder and the thirst of man:(A storm is coming on the Chiltern Hills).ENVOIPrince, Prince-Elective on the modern planFulfilling such a lot of People's Wills,You take the Chiltern Hundreds while you can—A storm is coming on the Chiltern Hills.