Came slowly and brokenlyFrom the land of the East Saxons,From the sunrise and the sea,From the plains of the white sunrise,And sad St. Edmund's crown,Where the pools of Essex pale and gleamOut beyond London Town—In mighty and doubtful fragments,Like faint or fabled wars,Climbed the old hills of his renown,Where the bald brow of White Horse DownIs close to the cold stars.But away in the eastern placesThe wind of death walked high,And a raid was driven athwart the raid,The sky reddened and the smoke swayed,And the tall grey horse went by.The gates of the great riverWere breached as with a barge,The walls sank crowded, say the scribes,And high towers populous with tribesSeemed leaning from the charge.Smoke like rebellious heavens rolledCurled over coloured flames,Billowed in monstrous purple dreamsIn the mighty pools of Thames.Loud was the war on London wall,And loud in London gates,And loud the sea-kings in the cloudBroke through their dreaming gods, and loudCried on their dreadful fates.And all the while on White Horse HillThe horse lay long and wan,The turf crawled and the fungus crept,And the little sorrel, while all men slept,Unwrought the work of man.With velvet finger, velvet foot,The fierce soft mosses thenCrept on the large white commonwealAll folk had striven to strip and peel,And the grass, like a great green witch's wheel,Unwound the toils of men.And clover and silent thistle throve,And buds burst silently,With little care for the Thames ValleyOr what things there might be—That away on the widening river,In the eastern plains for crownStood up in the pale purple skyOne turret of smoke like ivory;And the smoke changed and the wind went by,And the King took London Town.PADRAIC COLUMTHE OLD WOMAN OF THE ROADSO, to have a little house!To own the hearth and stool and all!The heaped up sods upon the fireThe pile of turf again' the wall!To have a clock with weights and chains,And pendulum swinging up and down!A dresser filled with shining delph,Speckled with white and blue and brown!I could be busy all the dayCleaning 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 shining delph!Och! but I'm weary of mist and dark,And roads where there's never a house or 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—Outof the wind's and rain's way.FRANCES CORNFORDAUTUMN EVENINGThe shadows flickering, the daylight dying,And I upon the old red sofa lying,The great brown shadows leaping up the wall,The sparrows twittering; and that is all.I thought to send my soul to far-off lands,Where fairies scamper on the windy sands,Or where the autumn rain comes drumming downOn huddled roofs in an enchanted town.But O my sleepy soul, it will not roam,It is too happy and too warm at home:With just the shadows leaping up the wall,The sparrows twittering; and that is all.W. H. DAVIESDAYS TOO SHORTWhen Primroses are out in Spring,And small, blue violets come between;When merry birds sing on boughs green,And rills, as soon as born, must sing;When butterflies will make side-leaps,As though escaped from Nature's handEre perfect quite; and bees will standUpon their heads in fragrant deeps;When small clouds are so silvery whiteEach seems a broken rimmed moon—Whensuch things are, this world too soon,For me, doth wear the veil of Night.THE EXAMPLEHere's an example fromA Butterfly;That on a rough, hard rockHappy can lie;Friendless and all aloneOn this unsweetened stone.Now let my bed be hardNo care take I;I'll make my joy like thisSmall Butterfly;Whose happy heart has powerTo make a stone a flower.THE EAST IN GOLDSomehow this world is wonderful at times,As it has been from early morn in May;Since I first heard the cock-a-doodle-do,Timekeeper on green farms—at break of day.Soon after that I heard ten thousand birds,Which made me think an angel brought a binOf golden grain, and none was scattered yet—To rouse those birds to make that merry din.I could not sleep again, for such wild cries,And went out early into their green world;And then I saw what set their little tonguesTo scream for joy—they saw the East in gold.THE HAPPY CHILDI saw this day sweet flowers grow thick—But not one like the child did pick.I heard the packhounds in green park—But no dog like the child heard bark.I heard this day bird after bird—Butnot one like the child has heard.A hundred butterflies saw I—Butnot one like the child saw fly.I saw the horses roll in grass—But no horse like the child saw pass.My world this day has lovely been—But not like what the child has seen.A GREAT TIMESweet Chance, that led my steps abroad,Beyond the town, where wild flowers grow—A rainbow and a cuckoo, Lord,How rich and great the times are now!Know, all ye sheepAnd cows, that keepOn staring that I stand so longIn grass that's wet from heavy rain—A rainbow and a cuckoo's songMay never come together again;May never comeThis side the tomb.THE WHITE CASCADEWhat happy mortal sees that mountain now,The white cascade that's shining on its brow;The white cascade that's both a bird and star,That has a ten-mile voice and shines as far?Though I may never leave this land again,Yet every spring my mind must cross the mainTo hear and see that water-bird and starThat on the mountain sings, and shines so far.IN MAYYes, I will spend the livelong dayWith Nature in this month of May;And sit beneath the trees, and shareMy bread with birds whose homes are there;While cows lie down to eat, and sheepStand to their necks in grass so deep;While birds do sing with all their might,As though they felt the earth in flight.This is the hour I dreamed of, whenI sat surrounded by poor men;And thought of how the Arab satAlone at evening, gazing atThe stars that bubbled in clear skies;And of young dreamers, when their eyesEnjoyed methought a precious boonIn the adventures of the MoonWhose light, behind the Clouds' dark bars,Searched for her stolen flocks of stars.When I, hemmed in by wrecks of men,Thought of some lonely cottage then,Full of sweet books; and miles of sea,With passing ships, in front of me;And having, on the other hand,A flowery, green, bird-singing land.THUNDERSTORMSMy mind has thunderstorms,That brood for heavy hours:Until they rain me words,My thoughts are drooping flowersAnd sulking, silent birds.Yet come, dark thunderstorms,And brood your heavy hours;For when you rain me wordsMy thoughts are dancing flowersAnd joyful singing birds.SWEET STAY-AT-HOMESweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Well-content,Thou knowest of no strange continent:Thou hast not felt thy bosom keepA gentle motion with the deep;Thou hast not sailed in Indian seas,Where scent comes forth in every breeze.Thou hast not seen the rich grape growFor miles, as far as eyes can go;Thou hast not seen a summer's nightWhen maids could sew by a worm's light;Nor the North Sea in spring send outBright trees that like birds flit aboutIn solid cages of white ice—Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Love-one-place.Thou hast not seen black fingers pickWhite cotton when the bloom is thick,Nor heard black throats in harmony;Nor hast thou sat on stones that lieFlat on the earth, that once did riseTo hide proud kings from common eyes.Thou hast not seen plains full of bloomWhere green things had such little roomThey pleased the eye like fairer flowers—Sweet Stay-at-Home, all these long hours.Sweet Well-content, sweet Love-one-place,Sweet, simple maid, bless thy dear face;For thou hast made more homely stuffNurture thy gentle self enough;I love thee for a heart that's kind—Not for the knowledge in thy mind.EDWARD L. DAVISONTHE TREESI did not know your names and yet I sawThe handiwork of Beauty in your boughs,I worshipped as the Druids did, in awe,Feeling at Spring my pagan soul arouseTo see your leaf-buds open to the day,And dull green moss upon your ragged girth,The hoary sanctity of your decay,Life and Death glimmering upon the Earth.IN THIS DARK HOUSEI shall come back to dieFrom a far place at lastAfter my life's carouseIn the old bed to lie,Remembering the pastIn this dark house.Because of a clock's chimeIn the long waste of nightI shall awake and waitAt that calm lonely timeEach smell and sound and sightMysterious and innate:Some shadow on the wallWhen curtains by the doorMove in a draught of wind;Or else a light footfallIn a near corridor;Even to feel the kindCaress of a cool handSmoothing the draggled hairBack from my shrunken brow,And strive to understandThe woman's presence there,And whence she came, and how.What gust of wind that nightShall mutter her lost nameThrough windows open wide,And twist the nickering lightOf a sole candle's flameSmoking from side to side,Till the last spark it blowsSets a moth's wings aflareAs the faint flame goes out?Some distant door may close;Perhaps a heavy chairOn bare floors dragged aboutO'er the low ceiling sound,And the thin twig of a treeKnock on my window-paneTill all the night aroundIs listening with me,While like a noise of rainLeaves rustle in the wind.Then from the inner gloomThe scratching of a mouseMay echo down my mindAnd sound around the roomIn this dark house.The vague scent of a flower,Smelt then in that warm airFrom gardens drifting in,May slowly overpowerThe vapid lavender,Till feebly I beginTo count the scents I knewAnd name them one by one,And search the names for this.Dreams will be swift and fewEre that last night be done,And gradual silencesIn each long interimOf halting time awakeConfuse all conscious sense.Shadows will grow more dim,And sound and scent forsakeThe dark ere dawn commence,In the new morning then,So fixed the stare and fast,The calm unseeing eyeWill never close again.. . . .I shall come back at lastTo this dark house to die.WALTER DE LA MARETHE LISTENERS"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller,Knocking on the moonlit door;And his horse in the silence champed the grassesOf the forest's ferny floor:And a bird flew up out of the turret,Above the Traveller's head:And he smote upon the door again a second time;"Is there anybody there?" he said.But no one descended to the Traveller;No head from the leaf-fringed sillLeaned over and looked into his grey eyes,Where he stood perplexed and still.But only a host of phantom listenersThat dwelt in the lone house thenStood listening in the quiet of the moonlightTo that voice from the world of men:Stood thronging the faint moon beams on the dark stair,That goes down to the empty hall,Hearkening in an air stirred and shakenBy the lonely traveller's call.And he felt in his heart their strangeness,Their stillness answering his cry,While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,'Neath the starred and leafy sky;For he suddenly smote on the door, evenLouder, and lifted his head:—"Tell them I came, and no one answered,That I kept my word," he said.Never the least stir made the listeners,Though every word he spakeFell echoing through the shadowiness of the still houseFrom the one man left awake:Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,And the sound of iron on stoneAnd how the silence surged softly backwardWhen the plunging hoofs were gone.ARABIAFar are the shades of Arabia,Where the Princes ride at noon,'Mid the verdurous vales and thickets,Under the ghost of the moon;And so dark is that vaulted purpleFlowers in the forest riseAnd toss into blossom 'gainst the phantom starsPale in the noonday skies.Sweet is the music of ArabiaIn my heart, when out of dreamsI still in the thin clear mirk of dawnDescry her gliding streams;Hear her strange lutes on the green banksRing loud with the grief and delightOf the dim-silked, dark-haired MusiciansIn the brooding silence of night.They haunt me—her lutes and her forests;No beauty on earth I seeBut shadowed with that dream recallsHer loveliness to me.Still eyes look coldly upon me,Cold voices whisper and say—"He is crazed with the spell of far Arabia,They have stolen his wits away."MUSICWhen music sounds, gone is the earth I know,And all her lovely things even lovelier grow;Her flowers in vision flame, her forest treesLift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies.When music sounds, out of the water riseNaiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes,Rapt in strange dream burns each enchanted face,With solemn echoing stirs their dwelling-place.When music sounds, all that I was I amEre to this haunt of brooding dust I came;And from Time's woods break into distant songThe swift-winged hours, as I hasten along.THE SCRIBEWhat lovely thingshand hath made,The smooth-plumed birdIn its emerald shade,The seed of the grass,The speck of stoneWhich the wayfaring antStirs, and hastes on.Though I should sitBy some tarn in Thy hills,Using its inkAs the spirit willsTo write of Earth's wondersIts live willed things,Flit would the agesOn soundless wingsEre unto ZMy pen drew nigh,Leviathan told,And the honey-fly;And still would remainMy wit to try—My Myworn reeds broken.The dark tarn dry,All words forgotten—Thou, Lord, and I.THE GHOST"Who knocks?" "I, who was beautifulBeyond all dreams to restore,I from the roots of the dark thorn am hither,And knock on the door.""Who speaks?" "I—once was my speechSweet as the bird's on the air,When echo lurks by the waters to heed;'Tis I speak thee fair.""Dark is the hour!" "Aye, and cold.""Lone is my house." "Ah, but mine?""Sight, touch, lips, eyes gleamed in vain.""Long dead these to thine."Silence. Still faint on the porchBroke the flames of the stars.In gloom groped a hope-wearied handOver keys, bolts, and bars.A face peered. All the grey nightIn chaos of vacancy shone;Nought but vast sorrow was there—The sweet cheat gone.CLEAR EYESClear eyes so dim at last,And cheeks outlive their rose.Time, heedless of the past,No loving kindness knows;Chill unto mortal lipStill Lethe flows.Griefs, too, but brief while stay,And sorrow, being o'er,Its salt tears shed away,Woundeth the heart no more.Stealthily lave these watersThat solemn shore.Ah, then, sweet face burn on,While yet quick memory lives!And Sorrow, ere thou art gone,Know that my heart forgives—Ere yet, grown cold in peace,It loves not, nor grieves.FARE WELLWhen I lie where shades of darknessShall no more assail mine eyes,Nor the rain make lamentationWhen the wind sighs;How will fare the world whose wonderWas the very proof of me?Memory fades, must the rememberedPerishing be?Oh, when this my dust surrendersHand, foot, lip to dust again,May those loved and loving facesPlease other men!May the rusting harvest hedgerowStill the Traveller's Joy entwine,And as happy children gatherPosies once mine.Look thy last on all things lovely,Every hour. Let no nightSeal thy sense in deathly slumberTill to delightThou have paid thy utmost blessing;Since that all things thou wouldst praiseBeauty took from those who loved themIn other days.ALL THAT'S PASTVery old are the woods;And the buds that breakOut of the briar's boughs,When March winds wake,So old with their beauty are—Oh, no man knowsThrough what wild centuriesRoves back the rose.Very old are the brooks;And the rills that riseWhen snow sleeps cold beneathThe azure skiesSing such a historyOf come and gone,Their every drop is as wiseAs Solomon.Very old are we men;Our dreams are talesTold in dim EdenBy Eve's nightingales;We wake and whisper awhile,But, the day gone by,Silence and sleep like fieldsOf Amaranth lie.THE SONG OF THE MAD PRINCEWho said, "Peacock Pie"?The old King to the sparrow:Who said, "Crops are ripe"?Rust to the harrow:Who said, "Where sleeps she now?Where rests she now her head,Bathed in Eve's loveliness"?—That's what I said.Who said, "Ay, mum's the word"?Sexton to willow:Who said, "Green dust for dreams,Moss for a pillow"?Who said, "All Time's delightHath she for narrow bed;Life's troubled bubble broken"?—That's what I said.JOHN DRINKWATERBIRTHRIGHTLord Rameses of Egypt sighedBecause a summer evening passed;And little Ariadne criedThat summer fancy fell at lastTo dust; and young Verona diedWhen beauty's hour was overcast.Theirs was the bitterness we knowBecause the clouds of hawthorn keepSo short a state, and kisses goTo tombs unfathomably deep,While Rameses and RomeoAnd little Ariadne sleep.MOONLIT APPLESAt the top of the house the apples are laid in rows,And the skylight lets the moonlight in, and thoseApples are deep-sea apples of green. There goesA cloud on the moon in the autumn night.A mouse in the wainscot scratches, and scratches, and thenThere is no sound at the top of the house of menOr mice; and the cloud is blown, and the moon againDapples the apples with deep-sea light.They are lying in rows there, under the gloomy beams;On the sagging floor; they gather the silver streamsOut of the moon, those moonlit apples of dreams,And quiet is the steep stair under.In the corridors under there is nothing but sleep,And stiller than ever on orchard boughs they keepTryst with the moon, and deep is the silence, deepOn moon-washed apples of wonder.R. C. K. ENSORODE TO REALITYO Real, O That Which Is,Beyond all earthly blissMy spirit prays to be at one with Thee;Away from that which seems,From unenduring dreams,From vain pursuits and vainer meeds set free.How rosy to our eyesThe mists of error rise,The proud pavilions that we weave at will IHow glittering the rayOf that illusive day,The hills how grand, the vales how green and still!And how inviting yetThe service of deceit,Paid by the crowd that does not understand,Parents and friends and foesAll bowing down to thoseWho against Thee have lifted up their hand!Ah, but on whomsoeverAmid such glib endeavourThy light has shined in sudden sovereignty,He who has fallen and heardThy spirit-searching word:Why kick against the pricks? Why outrage Me?He can no longer stayThere in the easy way,No longer please himself with make-believe,No longer shape at willThe forms of good and illAnd what he shall reject and what receive.Nor may he dwell contentIn self-aggrandisement,To the deep wrong of modern Mammon blind;Nor can he drown his caresAmong the doctrinaires,Who think by sowing hate to save mankind.For every scheme of visionHe sees as the conditionNot of the truest only but the best—The riches of all wealth,The beauty of Beauty's self—That on Thee and within Thee it should rest.By Thee our bounds are set;Thou madest us; and yetO Mother, when we strain to see Thy face,Still dost Thou tease our pryingWith masks and mystifying,Still hold us at arm's length from Thy embrace!Yet would I rather in actPlough with the iron FactAnd earn at least some harvest that is bread,Than rich and popularIn gay Imposture's carDazzle mankind and leave them still unfed.Rather would I in thoughtMiss all that I had sought,Still pining on Negation's desert isle,Than with the current floatIn Pragmatism's boatDown to the fatal shore where sirens smile.Rather would I be thrownAgainst Thine altar-stone,Unsanctified, unpitied, unreprieved,Than in some other shrineSup the priests' meat and wine,Taking the wages of a world deceived.JAMES ELROY FLECKERBorn 1884Died 1915RIOUPEROUXHigh and solemn mountains guard Riouperoux,—Small untidy village where the river drives a mill:Frail as wood anemones, white, and frail were you,And drooping a little, like the slender daffodil.Oh I will go to France again, and tramp the valley through,And I will change these gentle clothes for clog and corduroy,And work with the mill-hands of black Rioupéroux,And walk with you, and talk with you, like any other boy.WAR SONG OF THE SARACENSWe are they who come faster than fate: we are they who ride earlyor late:We storm at your ivory gate: Pale Kings of the Sunset, beware!Not on silk nor in samet we lie, not in curtained solemnity dieAmong women who chatter and cry, and children who mumble a prayer.But we sleep by the ropes of the camp, and we rise with a shout,and we trampWith the sun or the moon for a lamp, and the spray of the wind inour hair.From the lands, where the elephants are, to the forts of Merouand Balghar,Our steel we have brought and our star to shine on the ruins of Rum.We have marched from the Indus to Spain, and by God we will gothere again;We have stood on the shore of the plain where the Waters ofDestiny boom.A mart of destruction we made at Jalula where men were afraid,For death was a difficult trade, and the sword was a broker of doom;And the Spear was a Desert Physician who cured not a few of ambition,And drave not a few to perdition with medicine bitter and strong:And the shield was a grief to the fool and as bright as a desolate pool,And as straight as the rock of Stamboul when their cavalry thunderedalong:For the coward was drowned with the brave when our battle sheered uplike a wave,And the dead to the desert we gave, and the glory to God in our song.THE OLD SHIPSI have seen old ships sail like swans asleepBeyond the village which men still call Tyre,With leaden age o'ercargoed, dipping deepFor Famagusta and the hidden sunThat rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire;And all those ships were certainly so oldWho knows how oft with squat and noisy gun,Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges,The pirate GenoeseHell-raked them till they rolledBlood, water, fruit and corpses up the hold.But now through friendly seas they softly run,Painted the mid-sea blue or shore-sea green,Still patterned with the vine and grapes ingold.But I have seen,Pointing her shapely shadows from the dawnAnd image tumbled on a rose-swept bay,A drowsy ship of some yet older day;And, wonder's breath indrawn,Thought I—who knows—who knows—but in that same(Fished up beyondÆæa,patched up new—Stern painted brighter blue—)That talkative, bald-headed seaman came(Twelve patient comrades sweating at the oar)From Troy's doom-crimson shore,And with great lies about his wooden horseSet the crew laughing, and forgot his course.It was so old a ship—who knows, who knows?—And yet so beautiful, I watched in vainTo see the mast burst open with a rose,And the whole deck put on its leaves again.STILLNESSWhen the words rustle no more,And the last work's done,When the bolt lies deep in the door,And Fire, our Sun,Falls on the dark-laned meadows of the floor;When from the clock's last chime to the next chimeSilence beats his drum,And Space with gaunt grey eyes and her brother TimeWheeling and whispering come,She with the mould of form and he with the loom of rhyme:Then twittering out in the night my thought-birds flee,I am emptied of all my dreams:I only hear Earth turning, only seeEther's long bankless streams,And only know I should drown if you laid not your hand on me.AREIYAThis place was formed divine for love and us to dwell;This house of brown stone built for us to sleep therein;Those blossoms haunt the rocks that we should see and smell;Those old rocks break the hill that we the heights should win.Those heights survey the sea that there our thoughts should sailUp the steep wall of wave to touch the Syrian sky:For us that sky at eve fades out of purple pale,Pale as the mountain mists beneath our house that lie.In front of our small house are brown stone arches three;Behind it, the low porch where all the jasmine grows;Beyond it, red and green, the gay pomegranate tree;Around it, like love's arms, the summer and the rose.Within it sat and wrote in minutes soft and fewThis worst and best of songs, one who loves it, and you.THE QUEEN'S SONGHad I the powerTo Midas given of oldTo touch a flowerAnd leave the petals goldI then might touch thy face,Delightful boy,And leave a metal grace,A graven joy.Thus would I slay,—Ah, desperate device!The vital dayThat trembles in thine eyes,And let the red lips closeWhich sang so well,And drive away the roseTo leave a shell.Then I myself,Rising austere and dumbOn the high shelfOf my half-lighted room,Would place the shining bustAnd wait alone,Until I was but dust,Buried unknown.Thus in my loveFor nations yet unborn,I would removeFrom our two lives the morn,And muse on lovelinessIn mine arm-chair,Content should Time confessHow sweet you were.BRUMANAOh shall I never never be home again?Meadows of England shining in the rainSpread wide your daisied lawns: your ramparts greenWith briar fortify, with blossom screenTill my far morning—and O streams that slowAnd pure and deep through plains and playlands go,For me your love and all your kingcups store,And—dark militia of the southern shore,Old fragrant friends—preserve me the last linesOf that long saga which you sung me, pines,When, lonely boy, beneath the chosen treeI listened, with my eyes upon the sea.O traitor pines, you sang what life has foundThe falsest of fair tales.Earth blew a far-horn prelude all around,That native music of her forest home,While from the sea's blue fields and syren dalesShadows and light noon-spectres of the foamRiding the summer galesOn aery viols plucked an idle sound.Hearing you sing, O trees,Hearing you murmur, "There are older seas,That beat on vaster sands,Where the wise snailfish move their pearly towersTo carven rocks and sculptured promont'ries,"Hearing you whisper, "LandsWhere blaze the unimaginable flowers."Beneath me in the valley waves the palm,Beneath, beyond the valley, breaks the sea;Beneath me sleep in mist and light and calmCities of Lebanon, dream-shadow-dim,Where Kings of Tyre and Kings of Tyre did ruleIn ancient days in endless dynasty,And all around the snowy mountains swimLike mighty swans afloat in heaven's pool.But I will walk upon the wooded hillWhere stands a grove, O pines, of sister pines,And when the downy twilight droops her wingAnd no sea glimmers and no mountain shinesMy heart shall listen still.For pines are gossip pines the wide world throughAnd full of runic tales to sigh or sing.'Tis ever sweet through pine to see the skyMantling a deeper gold or darker blue.'Tis ever sweet to lieOn the dry carpet of the needles brown,And though the fanciful green lizard stirAnd windy odours light as thistledownBreathe from the lavdanon and lavender,Half to forget the wandering and pain,Half to remember days that have gone by,And dream and dream that I am home again!HYALIΣτὸ Γυαλὶ στὸ γαλἄζιο βρἄχοIsland in blue of summer floating on,Little brave sister of the Sporades,Hail and farewell! I pass, and thou art gone,