LASCELLES ABERCROMBIEMARRIAGE SONGCome up, dear chosen morning, come,Blessing the air with light,And bid the sky repent of being dark:Let all the spaces round the world be white,And give the earth her green again.Into new hours of beautiful delight,Out of the shadow where she has lain,Bring the earth awake for glee,Shining with dews as fresh and clearAs my beloved's voice upon the air.For now, O morning chosen of all days, on theeA wondrous duty lies:There was an evening that did loveliness foretell;Thence upon thee, O chosen morn, it fellTo fashion into perfect destinyThe radiant prophecy.For in an evening of young moon, that wentFilling the moist air with a rosy fire,I and my beloved knew our love;And knew that thou, O morning, wouldst ariseTo give us knowledge of achieved desire.For, standing stricken with astonishment,Half terrified in the delight,Even as the moon did into clear air moveAnd made a golden light,Lo there, croucht up against it, a dark hill,A monstrous back of earth, a spineOf hunchèd rock, furred with great growth of pine,Lay like a beast, snout in its paws, asleep;Yet in its sleeping seemed it miserable,As though strong fear must always keepHold of its heart, and drive its blood in dream.Yea, for to our new love, did it not seem,That dark and quiet length of hill,The sleeping grief of the world?—Out of it weHad like imaginations stept to beBeauty and golden wonder; and for the lovely fearOf coming perfect joy, had changedThe terror that dreamt there IAnd now the golden moon had turnedTo shining white, white as our souls that burnedWith vision of our prophecy assured:Suddenly white was the moon; but sheAt once did on a woven modestyOf cloud, and soon went in obscured:And we were dark, and vanisht that strange hill.But yet it was not long beforeThere opened in the sky a narrow door,Made with pearl lintel and pearl sill;And the earth's night seem'd pressing there,—All as a beggar on some festival would peer,—To gaze into a room of light beyond,The hidden silver splendour of the moon.Yea, and we also, weLong gazed wistfullyTowards thee, O morning, come at last,And towards the light that thou wilt pour upon us soon!IIO soul who still art strange to sense,Who often against beauty wouldst complain,Doubting between joy and painIf like the startling touch of something keenAgainst thee, it hath beenTo follow from an upland heightThe swift sun hunting rainAcross the April meadows of a plain,Until the fields would flash into the airTheir joyous green, like emeralds alightOr when in the blue of night's mid-noonThe burning naked moonDraws to a brink of cloudy weather near,A breadth of snow, firm and soft as a wing,Stretcht out over a wind that gently goes,—Through the white sleep of snowy cloud there growsAn azure-border'd shining ring,The gleaming dream of the approaching joy of her;—What now wilt thou do, Soul? What now,If with such things as these troubled thou wert?How wilt thou now endure, or howNot now be strangely hurt?—Whenutter beauty must come closer to theeThan even anger or fear could be;When thou, like metal in a kiln, must lieSeized by beauty's mightily able flame;Enjoyed by beauty as by the ruthless gleeOf an unescapable power;Obeying beauty as air obeys a cry;Yea, one thing made of beauty and thee,As steel and a white heat are made the same!—Ah, but I know how this infirmityWill fail and be not, no, not memory,When I begin the marvellous hour.This only is my heart's strain'd eagerness,Long waiting for its bliss.—But from those other fears, from thoseThat keep to Love so close,From fears that are the shadow of delight,Hide me, O joys; make them unknown to-night!IIIThou bright God that in dream earnest to me last night,Thou with the flesh made of a golden light,Knew I not thee, thee and thy heart,Knew I not well, God, who thou wert?Yea, and my soul divinely understoodThe light that was beneath thee a ground,The golden light that cover'd thee round,Turning my sleep to a fiery morn,Was as a heavenly oath there swornPromising me an immortal good:Well I knew thee, God of Marriages, thee and thy flame!Ah, but wherefore beside thee cameThat fearful sight of another mood?Why in thy light, to thy hand chained,Towards me its bondage terribly strained,Why came with thee that dreadful hound,The wild hound Fear, black, ravenous, and gaunt?Why him with thee should thy dear light surround?Why broughtest thou that beast to hauntThe blissful footsteps of my golden dream?—All shadowy black the body dread,All frenzied fire the head,—The hunger of its mouth a hollow crimson flame,The hatred in its eyes a blazeFierce and green, stabbing the ruddy glaze,And sharp white jetting fire the teeth snarl'd at me,And white the dribbling rage of froth,—A throat that gaped to bay and paws working violently,Yet soundless all as a winging moth;Tugging towards me, famishing for my heart;—Even while thou, O golden god, wert stillLooking the beautiful kindness of thy willInto my soul, even then must I be,With thy bright promise looking at me,Then bitterly of that hound afraid?—Darkness, I know, attendeth bright,And light comes not but shadow comes:And heart must know, if it know thy light,Thy wild hound Fear, the shadow of love's delight.Yea, is it thus? Are we so madeOf death and darkness, that even thou,O golden God of the joys of love,Thy mind to us canst only prove,The glorious devices of thy mind,By so revealing how thy journeying hereThrough this mortality, doth closely bindThy brightness to the shadow of dreadful Fear?—Ah no, it shall not be! Thy joyous lightShall hide me from the hunger of fear to-night.IVFor wonderfully to live I now begin.So that the darkness which accompaniesOur being here, is fasten'd up withinThe power of light that holdeth me;And from these shining chains, to seeMy joy with bold misliking eyes,The shrouded figure will not dare arise.For henceforth, from to-night,I am wholly gone into the brightSafety of the beauty of love:Not only all my waking vigours pliedUnder the searching glory of love,But knowing myself with love all satisfiedEven when my life is hidden in sleep;As high clouds, to themselves that keepThe moon's white company, are all possestSilverly with the presence of their guest;Or as a darken'd roomThat hath within it roses, whence the airAnd quietness are taken everywhereDeliciously by sweet perfume.EPILOGUEWhat shall we do for Love these days?How shall we make an altar-blazeTo smite the horny eyes of menWith the renown of our Heaven,And to the unbelievers proveOur service to our dear god, Love?What torches shall we lift aboveThe crowd that pushes through the mire,To amaze the dark heads with strange fire?I should think I were much to blame,If never I held some fragrant flameAbove the noises of the world,And openly 'mid men's hurrying stares,Worshipt before the sacred fearsThat are like flashing curtains furl'dAcross the presence of our lord Love.Nay, would that I could fill the gazeOf the whole earth with some great praiseMade in a marvel for men's eyes,Some tower of glittering masonries,Therein such a spirit flourishingMen should see what my heart can sing:All that Love hath done to meBuilt into stone, a visible glee;Marble carried to gleaming heightAs moved aloft by inward delight;Not as with toil of chisels hewn,But seeming poised in a mighty tune.For of all those who have been knownTo lodge with our kind host, the sun,I envy one for just one thing:In Cordova of the MoorsThere dwelt a passion-minded King,Who set great bands of marble-hewersTo fashion his heart's thanksgivingIn a tall palace, shapen soAll the wondering world might knowThe joy he had of his Moorish lass.His love, that brighter and larger wasThan the starry places, into firm stoneHe sent, as if the stone were glassFired and into beauty blown.Solemn and invented gravelyIn its bulk the fabric stood,Even as Love, that trusteth bravelyIn its own exceeding goodTo be better than the wasteOf time's devices; grandly spaced,Seriously the fabric stood.But over it all a pleasure wentOf carven delicate ornament,Wreathing up like ravishment,Mentioning in sculptures twinedThe blitheness Love hath in his mind;And like delighted senses wereThe windows, and the columns thereMade the following sight to acheAs the heart that did them make.Well I can see that shining songFlowering there, the upward throngOf porches, pillars and windowed walls,Spires like piercing panpipe calls,Up to the roof's snow-cloud flight;All glancing in the Spanish lightWhite as water of arctic tides,Save an amber dazzle on sunny sides.You had said, the radiant sheenOf that palace might have beenA young god's fantasy, ere he cameHis serious worlds and suns to frame;Such an immortal passionQuiver'd among the slim hewn stone.And in the nights it seemed a jarCut in the substance of a star,Wherein a wine, that will be pouredSome time for feasting Heaven, was stored.But within this fretted shell,The wonder of Love made visible,The King a private gentle moodThere placed, of pleasant quietude.For right amidst there was a court,Where always musked silencesListened to water and to trees;And herbage of all fragrant sort,—Lavender,lad's-love, rosemary,Basil, tansy, centaury,—Was the grass of that orchard, hidLove's amazements all amid.Jarring the air with rumour cool,Small fountains played into a poolWith sound as soft as the barley's hissWhen its beard just sprouting is;Whence a young stream, that trod on moss,Prettily rimpled the court across.And in the pool's clear idleness,Moving like dreams through happiness,Shoals of small bright fishes were;In and out weed-thickets bentPerch and carp, and sauntering wentWith mounching jaws and eyes a-stare;Or on a lotus leaf would crawl,A brinded loach to bask and sprawl,Tasting the warm sun ere it diptInto the water; but quick as fearBack his shining brown head sliptTo crouch on the gravel of his lair,Where the cooled sunbeams broke in wrack,Spilt shatter'd gold about his back.So within that green-veiled air,Within that white-walled quiet, whereInnocent water thought aloud,—Childish prattle that must makeThe wise sunlight with laughter shakeOn the leafage overbowed,—Often the King and his love-lassLet the delicious hours pass.All the outer world could seeGraved and sawn amazinglyTheir love's delighted riotise,Fixt in marble for all men's eyes;But only these twain could abideIn the cool peace that withinsideThrilling desire and passion dwelt;They only knew the still meaning speltBy Love's flaming script, which isGod's word written in ecstasies.And where is now that palace gone,All the magical skill'd stone,All the dreaming towers wroughtBy Love as if no more than thoughtThe unresisting marble was?How could such a wonder pass?Ah, it was but built in vainAgainst the stupid horns of Rome,That pusht down into the common loamThe loveliness that shone in Spain.But we have raised it up again!A loftier palace, fairer far,Is ours, and one that fears no war.Safe in marvellous walls we are;Wondering sense like builded fires,High amazement of desires,Delight and certainty of love,Closing around, roofing aboveOur unapproacht and perfect hourWithin the splendours of love's power.MARTIN ARMSTRONGTHE BUZZARDSWhen evening came and the warm glow grew deeper,And every tree that bordered the green meadowsAnd in the yellow cornfields every reaperAnd every corn-shock stood above their shadowsFlung eastward from their feet in longer measure,Serenely far there swam in the sunny heightA buzzard and his mate who took their pleasureSwirling and poising idly in golden light.On great pied motionless moth-wings borne along,So effortless and so strong,Cutting each other's paths together they glided,Then wheeled asunder till they soared dividedTwo valleys' width (as though it were delightTo part like this, being sure they could uniteSo swiftly in their empty, free dominion),Curved headlong downward, towered up the sunny steep,Then, with a sudden lift of the one great pinion,Swung proudly to a curve, and from its heightTook half a mile of sunlight in one long sweep.And we, so small on the swift immense hillside,Stood tranced, until our souls arose upliftedOn those far-sweeping, wide,Strong curves of flight—swayed up and hugely drifted,Were washed, made strong and beautiful in the tideOf sun-bathed air. But far beneath, beholdenThrough shining deeps of air, the fields were goldenAnd rosy burned the heather where cornfields ended.And still those buzzards whirled, while light withdrewOut of the vales and to surging slopes ascended,Till the loftiest flaming summit died to blue.MAURICE BARINGDIFFUGERE NIVES, 1917ToJ. C. S.The snows have fled, the hail, the lashing rain,Before the Spring.The grass is starred with buttercups again,The blackbirds sing.Now spreads the month that feast of lovely thingsWe loved of old.Once more the swallow glides with darkling wingsAgainst the gold.Now the brown bees about the peach trees boomUpon the walls;And far away beyond the orchard's bloomThe cuckoo calls.The season holds a festival of lightFor you, for me;But shadows are abroad, there falls a blightOn each green tree.And every leaf unfolding, every flowerBrings bitter meed;Beauty of the morning and the evening hourQuickens our need.All is reborn, but never any SpringCan bring back this;Nor any fullness of midsummer bringThe voice we miss.The smiling eyes shall smile on us no more;The laughter clear,Too far away on the forbidden shore,We shall not hear.Bereft of these until the day we die,We both must dwell;Alone, alone, and haunted by the cry:"Hail and farewell!Yet when the scythe of Death shall near us hiss,Through the cold air,Then on the shuddering marge of the abyssThey will be there.They will be there to lift us from sheer spaceAnd empty night;And we shall turn and see them face to faceIn the new light.So shall we pay the unabated priceOf their release,And found on our consenting sacrificeTheir lasting peace.The hopes that fall like leaves before the wind,The baffling waste,And every earthly joy that leaves behindA mortal taste.The uncompleted end of all things dear,The clanging doorOf Death, forever loud with the last fear,Haunt them no more.Without them the awakening world is darkWith dust and mire;Yet as they went they flung to us a spark,A thread of fire.To guide us while beneath the sombre skiesFaltering we tread,Until for us like morning stars shall riseThe deathless dead.JULIAN GRENFELLBecause of you we will be glad and gay,Remembering you, we will be brave and strong;And hail the advent of each dangerous day,And meet the last adventure with a song.And, as you proudly gave your jewelled gift,We'll give our lesser offering with a smile,Nor falter on that path where, all too swift,You led the way and leapt the golden stile.Whether new paths, new heights to climb you find,Or gallop through the unfooted asphodel,We know you know we shall not lag behind,Nor halt to waste a moment on a fear;And you will speed us onward with a cheer,And wave beyond the stars that all is well.PIERREI saw you starting for another war,The emblem of adventure and of youth,So that men trembled, saying: He forsoothHas gone, has gone, and shall return no more.And then out there, they told me you were deadTaken and killed; how was it that I knew,Whatever else was true, that was not true?And then I saw you pale upon your bed,Scarcely a year ago, when you were sentBack from the margin of the dim abyss;For Death had sealed you with a warning kiss,And let you go to meet a nobler fate:To serve in fellowship, O fortunate:To die in battle with your regiment.HILAIRE BELLOCTHE SOUTH COUNTRYWhen I am living in the MidlandsThat are sodden and unkind,I light my lamp in the evening:My work is left behind;And the great hills of the South CountryCome back into my mind.The great hills of the South CountryThey stand along the sea;And it's there walking in the high woodsThat I could wish to be,And the men that were boys when I was a boyWalking along with me.The men that live in North EnglandI saw them for a day;Their hearts are set upon the waste fells,Their skies are fast and grey;From their castle-walls a man may seeThe mountains far away.The men that live in West EnglandThey see the Severn strong,A-rolling on rough water brownLight aspen leaves along.They have the secret of the Rocks,And the oldest kind of song.But the men that live in the South CountryAre the kindest and most wise,They get their laughter from the loud surf,And the faith in their happy eyesComes surely from our Sister the SpringWhen over the sea she flies;The violets suddenly bloom at her feet,She blesses us with surprise.I never get between the pinesBut I smell the Sussex air;Nor I never come on a belt of sandBut my home is there.And along the sky the line of the DownsSo noble and so bare.A lost thing could I never find,Nor a broken thing mend:And I fear I shall be all aloneWhen I get towards the end.Who will there be to comfort meOr who will be my friend?I will gather and carefully make my friendsOf the men of the Sussex Weald,They watch the stars from silent folds,They stiffly plough the field,By them and the God of the South CountryMy poor soul shall be healed.If I ever become a rich man,Of if ever I grow to be old,I will build a house with deep thatchTo shelter me from the cold,And there shall the Sussex songs be sungAnd the story of Sussex told.I will hold my house in the high woodWithin a walk of the sea,And the men that were boys when I was a boyShall sit and drink with me.THE NIGHTMost holy Night, that still dost keepThe keys of all the doors of sleep,To me when my tired eyelids closeGive thou repose.And let the far lament of themThat chant the dead day's requiemMake in my ears, who wakeful lie,Soft lullaby.Let them that knaw the horned mothBy my bedside their memories clothe.So shall I have new dreams and blestIn my brief rest.Fold your great wings about my face,Hide dawning from my resting-place,And cheat me with your false delight,Most Holy Night.SONGINVITING THE INFLUENCE OF A YOUNGLADY UPON THE OPENING YEAR.IYou wear the morning like your dressAnd all with mastery crowned;When as you walk your loveliness.Goes shining all around.Upon your secret, smiling waySuch new contents were found,The Dancing Loves made holidayOn that delightful ground.IIThen summon April forth, and sendCommandment through the flowers;About our woods your grace extendA queen of careless hours.For oh, not Vera veiled in vain,Nor Dian's sacred Ring,With all her royal nymphs in trainCould so lead on the Spring.THE FALSE HEARTI said to Heart, "How goes it?"Heart replied:"Right as a Ribstone Pippin!"But it lied.HANNAKER MILL (1913)Sally is gone that was so kindly;Sally is gone from Hannaker Hill,And the briar grows ever since then so blindly;And ever since then the clapper is still...And the sweeps have fallen from Hannaker Mill.Hannaker Hill is in desolation;Ruin a-top and a field unploughed.And Spirits that call on a falling nation,Spirits that loved her calling aloud,Spirits abroad in a windy cloud.Spirits that call and no one answers—Hannaker's down and England's done.Wind and thistle for pipe and dancers,And never a ploughman under the sun:Never a ploughman, never a one.TARANTELLADo you remember an Inn,Miranda?Do you remember an Inn?And the tedding and the spreadingOf the straw for a bedding,And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,And the wine that tasted of the tar?And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers(Under the dark of the vine verandah)?Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,Do you remember an Inn?And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteersWho hadn't got a penny,And who weren't paying any,And the hammer at the doors and the Din?And the Hip! Hop! Hap!Of the clapOf the hands to the twirl and the swirlOf the girl gone chancing,Glancing,Dancing,Backing and advancing,Snapping of the clapper to the spinOut and in—And the Ting, Tong, Tang of the guitar!Do you remember an Inn,Miranda?Do you remember an Inn?Never more;Miranda,Never more.Only the high peaks hoar:And Aragon a torrent at the door.No soundIn the walls of the Halls where fallsThe treadOf the feet of the dead to the ground.No sound:Only the boomOf the far Waterfall like Doom.ON A DEAD HOSTESSOf this bad world the loveliest and the bestHas smiled, and said good-night, and gone to rest.EDMUND BLUNDENALMSWOMENAt Quincey's moat the squandering village ends,And there in the almshouse dwell the dearest friendsOf all the village, two old dames that clingAs close as any trueloves in the spring.Long, long ago they passed three-score-and-ten,And in this doll's house lived together then;All things they have in common being so poor,And their one fear, Death's shadow at the door.Each sundown makes them mournful, each sunriseBrings back the brightness in their failing eyes.How happy go the rich fair-weather daysWhen on the roadside folk stare in amazeAt such a honeycomb of fruit and flowersAs mellows round their threshold; what long hoursThey gloat upon their steepling hollyhocks,Bee's balsams, feathery southernwood and stocks,Fiery dragons'-mouths, great mallow leavesFor salves, and lemon plants in bushy sheaves,Shagged Esau's Hands with five green finger-tips!Such old sweet names are ever on their lips.As pleased as little children where these growIn cobbled pattens and worn gowns they go,Proud of their wisdom when on gooseberry shootsThey stuck egg-shells to fright from coming fruitsThe brisk-billed rascals; waiting still to seeTheir neighbour owls saunter from tree to treeOr in the hushing half-light mouse the laneLong-winged and lordly.But when those hours waneIndoors they ponder, scared by the harsh stormWhose pelting saracens on the window swarm,And listen for the mail to clatter pastAnd church clock's deep bay withering on the blast;They feed the fire that flings a freakish lightOn pictured kings and queens grotesquely bright,Platters and pitchers, faded calendars,And graceful hour-glass trim with lavenders.Many a time they kiss and cry, and prayBoth may be summoned in the self-same day,And wiseman linnet tinkling in his cageEnd too with them the friendship of old age,And all together leave their treasured roomSome bell-like evening when the May's in bloom.GLEANINGAlong the baulk the grasses drenched in dewsSoak through the morning gleaners' clumsy shoes,And cloying cobwebs trammel their brown cheeksWhile from the shouldering sun the dewfog reeks.Then soon begun, on ground where yesterdayThe rakers' warning-sheaf forbade their way,Hard clucking dames in great white hoods make hasteTo cram their lap-bags with the barley waste,Scrambling as if a thousand were but one,Careless of stabbing thistles. Now the sunGulps up the dew and dries the stubs, and scoresOf tiny people trundle out of doorsAmong the stiff stalks, where the scratched handsRed ants and blackamoors and such as fly;Tunbellied, too, with legs a finger long,The spider harvestman; the churlish, strongBlack scorpion, prickled earwig, and that miteWho shuts up like a leaden shot in frightAnd lies for dead. And still before the routThe young rats and the field mice whisk aboutAnd from the trod whisp out the leveret dartsBawled at by boys that pass with blundering cartsTop-heavy to the red-tiled barns. And stillThe children feed their cornsacks with goodwill,And farm wives ever faster stoop and flounce.The hawk drops down a plummet's speed to pounceThe nibbling mouse or resting lark away,The lost mole tries to pierce the mattocked clayIn agony and terror of the sun.The dinner hour and its grudged leisure won,All sit below the pollards on the dykes,Rasped with the twinge of creeping barley spikes:Sweet beyond telling now the small beer goesFrom the hooped hardwood bottles, the wasp knows,And even hornets whizz from the eaten ash—Then crusts are dropt and switches snatched to slash,While, safe in shadow of the apron thrownAside the bush which years before was grownTo snap the poacher's nets, the baby sleeps.Now toil returns, in red-hot fluttering light,And far afield the weary rabble creeps,Oft clutching blind wheat black among the white,That smutches where it touches quick as soot—Oftgaping where the landrail seems afoot,Who with such magic throws his baffling speech,Far off he sounds when scarce beyond arm's reach.Mongrels are left to mind the morning's gain,But squinting knaves can slouch to steal the grain;Now close the farm the fields are gleaned agen,Where the boy droves the turkey and white henTo pick the shelled sweet corn; their hue and cryAnswers the gleaners' gabble, and sows trudgeWith little pigs to play and rootle thereAnd all the fields are full of din and blare.So steals the time past, so they glean and gloat;The hobby-horses whir, the moth's dust coatBlends with the stubble, scarlet soldiers flyIn airy pleasure; but the gleaners' eyeSees little but their spoil, or robin flowerEver on tenterhooks to shun the shower,Their weather-prophet never known astray;When he folds up, then toward the hedge glean they.But now the dragon of the sky droops, pales,And wandering in the wet grey western vales,Stumbles, and passes, and the gleaning's done.The farmer, with fat hares slung on his gun,Gives folk goodnight as down the ruts they pullThe creaking two-wheeled hand carts bursting full,And whimpering children cease their teasing squalls,While left alone the supping partridge calls—Till all at home is stacked from mischief's wayTo thrash and dress the first wild, windy day,And each good wife crowns weariness with pride,With such small riches more than satisfied.GORDON BOTTOMLEYTHE PLOUGHMANUnder the long fell's stony eavesThe ploughman, going up and down,Ridge after ridge man's tide-mark leaves,And turns the hard grey soil to brown.Striding, he measures out the earthIn lines of life, to rain and sun;And every year that comes to birthSees him still striding on and on.The seasons change, and then return;Yet still, in blind, unsparing ways,However I may shrink or yearn,The ploughman measures out my days.His acre brought forth roots last year;This year it bears the gloomy grain;Next Spring shall seedling grass appear;Then roots and corn and grass again.Five times the young corn's pallid greenI have seen spread and change and thrill;Five times the reapers I have seenGo creeping up the far-off hill:And, as the unknowing ploughman climbsSlowly and inveterately,I wonder long how many timesThe corn will spring again for me.BABEL: THE GATE OF THE GODLost towers impend, copeless primeval propsOf the new threatening sky, and first rude digitsOf awe remonstrance and uneasy powerThrust out by man when speech sank back in his throat:Then had the last rocks ended bubbling upAnd rhythms of change within the heart begunBy a blind need that would make Springs and Winters;Pylons and monoliths went on by ages,Mycenae and Great Zimbabwe came about;Cowed hearts in This conceived a pyramidThat leaned to hold itself upright, a thingForedoomed to limits, death and an easy apex;Then postulants for the stars' previous wisdomStanding on Carthage must get nearer still;While in Chaldea an altitude of GodBeing mooted, and a Saurian unearthedUpon a mountain stirring a surmiseOf floods and alterations of the sea,A round-walled tower must rise upon SenaaiTemple and escape to God the ascertained.These are decayed like Time's teeth in his mouth,Black cavities and gaps, yet earth is darkenedBy their deep-sunken and unfounded shadowsAnd memories of man's earliest theme of towers.Space—the old source of time—should be undone,Eternity defined, by men who trustedAnother tier would equal them with God.A city of grimed brick-kilns, squat truncations,Hunched like spread toads yet high beneath their circlesOf low packed smoke, assemblages of thunderThat glowed upon their under sides by nightAnd lit like storm small shadowless workmen's toil.Meaningless stumps, unturned bare roots, remainedIn fields of mashy mud and trampled leaves,While, if a horse died hauling, plasterersKnelt on a plank to clip its sweaty coat.A builder leans across the last wide courses;His unadjustable unreaching eyesFail under him before his glances sinkOn the clouds' upper layers of sooty curlsWhere some long lightening goes like swallow downward,But at the wider gallery next belowRecognize master masons with pricked parchments:That builder then, as one who condescendsUnto the sea and all that is beneath him,His hairy breast on the wet mortar calls"How many fathoms is it yet to heaven!"On the next eminence the orgulous KingNimrond stands up conceiving he shall liveTo conquer God, now that he knows where God is:His eager hands push up the tower in thought...Again, his shaggy inhuman height strides downAmong the carpenters because he has seenOne shape an eagle-woman on a door-post:He drives his spear-beam through him for wastedday.Little men hurrying, running here and there,Within the dark and stifling walls, dissentFrom every sound, and shoulder empty hods:"The God's great altar should stand in the cryptAmong our earth's foundations "—"The God's great altarMust be the last far coping of our work"—"It should inaugurate the broad main stair"—"Or end it"—"It must stand toward the East!"But here a grave contemptuous youth cries out"Womanish babblers, how can we build God's altarEre we divine its foreordained true shape?"Then one "It is a pedestal for deeds"—"'Tis more and should be hewn like the King's brow"—"It has the nature of a woman's bosom"—"The tortoise, first created, signifies it"—"A blind and rudimentary navel showsThe source of worship better than horned moons."Then a lean giant "Is not a calyx needful?"—"Because round grapes on statues well expressedBecome the nadir of incense, nodal lamps,Yet apes have hands that but and carved red crystals—""Birds molten, touchly tale veins bronze buds crumbleAblid ublai ghan isz rad eighar ghaurl ..."Words said too often seemed such ancient soundsThat men forget them or were lost in them;The guttural glottis-chasms of language reachedA rhythm, a gasp, were curves of immortal thought.Man with his bricks was building, building yet,Where dawn and midnight mingled and woke no birds,In the last courses, building past his knowledgeA wall that swung—for towers can have no tops,No chord can mete the universal segment,Earth has no basis. Yet the yielding sky,Invincible vacancy, was there discovered—Though piled-up bricks should pulp the sappy balks,Weight generate a secrecy of heat,Cankerous charring, crevices' fronds of flame.THE END OF THE WORLDThe snow had fallen many nights and days;The sky was come upon the earth at last,Sifting thinly down as endlesslyAs though within the system of blind planetsSomething had been forgot or overdriven.The dawn now seemed neglected in the greyWhere mountains were unbuilt and shadowless treesRootlessly paused or hung upon the air.There was no wind, but now and then a sighCrossed that dry falling dust and rifted itThrough crevices of slate and door and casement.Perhaps the new moon's time was even past.Outside, the first white twilights were too voidUntil a sheep called once, as to a lamb,And tenderness crept everywhere from it;But now the flock must have strayed far away.The lights across the valley must be veiled,The smoke lost in the greyness or the dusk.For more than three days now the snow had thatchedThat cow-house roof where it had ever meltedWith yellow stains from the beasts' breath inside;But yet a dog howled there, though not quite lately.Someone passed down the valley swift and singing,Yes, with locks spreaded like a son of morning;But if he seemed too tall to be a manIt was that men had been so long unseen,Or shapes loom larger through a moving snow.And he was gone and food had not been given him.When snow slid from an overweighted leafShaking the tree, it might have been a birdSlipping in sleep or shelter, whirring wings;Yet never bird fell out, save once a dead one—And in two days the snow had covered it.The dog had howled again—or thus it seemedUntil a lean fox passed and cried no more.All was so safe indoors where life went onGlad of the close enfolding snow—O gladTo be so safe and secret at its heart,Watching the strangeness of familiar things.They knew not what dim hours went on, wentFor while they slept the clock stopt newly woundAs the cold hardened. Once they watched the road,Thinking to be remembered. Once they doubtedIf they had kept the sequence of the days,Because they heard not any sound of bells.A butterfly, that hid until the SpringUnder a ceiling's shadow, dropt, was dead.The coldness seemed more nigh, the coldness deepenedAs a sound deepens into silences;It was of earth and came not by the air;The earth was cooling and drew down the sky.The air was crumbling. There was no more sky.Rails of a broken bed charred in the grate,And when he touched the bars he thought the stingCame from their heat—he could not feel such cold ...She said "O do not sleep,Heart, heart of mine, keep near me. No, no; sleep.I will not lift his fallen, quiet eyelids,Although I know he would awaken then—Heclosed them thus but now of his own will.He can stay with me while I do not lift them."ATLANTISWhat poets sang in Atlantis? Who can tellThe epics of Atlantis or their names?The sea hath its own murmurs, and sounds notThe secrets of its silences beneath,And knows not any cadences enfoldedWhen the last bubbles of Atlantis brokeAmong the quieting of its heaving floor.O, years and tides and leagues and all their billowsCan alter not man's knowledge of men's hearts—While trees and rocks and clouds include our beingWe know the epics of Atlantis still:A hero gave himself to lesser men,Who first misunderstood and murdered him,And then misunderstood and worshipped him;A woman was lovely and men fought for her,Towns burnt for her, and men put men in bondage,But she put lengthier bondage on them all;A wanderer toiled among all the islesThat fleck this turning star or shifting sea,Or lonely purgatories of the mind,In longing for his home or his lost love.Poetry is founded on the hearts of men:Though in Nirvana or the Heavenly courtsThe principle of beauty shall persist,Its body of poetry, as the body of man,Is but a terrene form, a terrene use,That swifter being will not loiter with;And, when mankind is dead and the world cold,Poetry's immortality will pass.NEW YEAR'S EVE, 1913O, Cartmel bells ring soft to-night,And Cartmel bells ring clearBut I lie far away to-night,Listening with my dear;Listening in a frosty landWhere all the bells are stillAnd the small-windowed bell-towers standDark under heath and hill.I thought that, with each dying year,As long as life should lastThe bells of Cartmel I should hearRing out an aged past:The plunging, mingling sounds increaseDarkness's depth and height,