Think you that Athens and JerusalemRot in the places where they builded them?This is the Temple, this the ParthenonThe priests of old days laid their hands upon?No more a stream sends the same waters twiceAlong its channels to sea-sacrifice.Not God Himself shall bid Time stand to lockThe midmost atom in the mightiest rock.Still the most secret atom shall be hurledInto the riotous wind-ways of the world.Still, the most ancient town, up wrenched, shall floatFreer than flame and light as a bird's note.Still shall the crumbling globe itself be spunInto fresh ethers conquered by the sun.
So, even so, my soul shall wear no moreThe countless shapes my soul endued of yore.Yea, the stout granite of my soul shall rangeMolten across the blasting fires of change.Not this am I you saw an hour ago.Me fluid as thought your science shall not know.Hourly my conquering spirit digs and delvesA grave to hold a hundred slaughtered selves.Hourly through cowering moons and stellar dins,I stride across buried virtues and slain sins.
A star that was muteWas heard to sing.A flower took wing,A bird took root.
The Right is a Wrong,The Wrong is a Right.I fought with the Night,I sang you a song.
I slaughtered Time,For the path I trodTo the feet of GodWas the road of a rhyme.
A flower took wing,A bird took root.A star that was muteWas heard to sing.
If you have not a bird inside you,You have no reason to sing.But if a pent bird chide you,A beak and a bleeding wing,Then you have reason to sing.
If merely you are cleverWith thoughts and rhymes and words,Then always your poems severThe veins of our singing-birds,With blades of glinting words.
Yet if a Song, without ending,Inside you choke for breath,And a beak, devouring, rending,Tear through your lungs for breath,Sing—or you bleed to death.
You are like an ebony sea with derelict ships,Cold as my lover is cold;Until Beauty rises like the moon and whipsYou into shivering gold.
You are like a tree-top at the bleak last hourWhen birds to the tombs belong;Until Beauty blows like the dawn, and you flowerInto buds of innumerable song.
You are like a virginal and a most paleGirl in a secret mead;Until Beauty, like the indomitable Male,Enflames you with innermost seed.
You are like a corpse with worms in the holes of the head,Between a board and a board;Until Beauty shouts like the Trump that convulses the dead,And you enter the House of the Lord.
He has a voice so exquisiteYou can hardly hear it at all:Tragedy's there and there is wit,Both faint as a leaf's fall.
His feet pass hardly like human feet,Five-toed and leathern-shod,But more with the sound of bended wheat,Swayed by the skirts of God.
His eyes are a wistful and grey sea,Till a song stir his blood.Then are they flowers that suddenlyOpen from the pent bud.
But when at the shutting of the day,He sings faint songs for me,Then is it very hard to sayIf the wind sings or he.
(F. V. B.)
Go forth and conquer with the wind for a sword,O scorching might;Go forth and blaze through the jungles of night,Lead in the tameless stars with a cord;Go forth, Lover of Right!
Make moons thy pebbles and suns thy coins,And thy language light.Fill highest space with thy depth and height;Gather the nebulæ round thy loins;Go forth and fight!
Go forth and conquer—return, return,When the hawthorn's white.Encompass the void; then turn and learnThe veins of the grass and the bee's delight;Return, Lover of Right!
I shall be splendidly and tensely young,While yet my limbs are mine.Each of them shall be strungAs a bowstring by an archerWith fingers strict and fine.
I shall be splendidly and tensely young,My heart being whole, my brainKeen as a hawk's flight flungAgainst my victim seen securelyFrom my austere Inane.
But when my limbs no more are mine,My feet to walk, my hands to hold,I shall be most supremely young.Then shall my flawless songs be sung,My brow be sealed with a proud sign:When I am deaf and blind and fleshless,I shall be most supremely young,When I am old.
I shall slough my self as a snake its skin,My white spots of virtue, my black spots of sin.I shall abandon my sex, my brain,My scheming for pleasure, escaping from pain.I shall dig roots deep down and beA weed or a reed, a flower, a tree.I shall lose body and miry feet,Float with the clouds and sway with the wheat.I am a fool and foolisher thanAnything else that is not a man.For of all the things that I see or feel,The I-that-is-I is far the least real.And only when I shall learn at the lastThat a stream-bed pebble is far more vastIn the scale of Mind and its secret schemesThan all my passion and blunders and dreams;Then only that I that shall not be IShall play due part beneath sun and sky,Ranked below sparrow, just above sod,I shall take my place in the Self of God.
I know not why nor whence you come,My poems. Only this I know.You fall like petals failing downUpon the dustbins of a town.You fall like flakes of doubtful snow.Like fairy flutes your musics flow.You thunder like a madman's drum.
You falter on my worthless lips.You give me grapes to press for wine.Unasked, you bring me balm and spice,You lead me into fields of kine,With tinted dreams and anodyne.You freeze my flesh with flames of ice.You scorch my shrieking soul with whips.
Lyrria is an old country.Lost travellers tremble and call.A very white, wan, weird countryWhere never came traveller at all.
I am an old, old poet.Lost poems tremble and call.A very white, wan, weird poetWho never wrote poems at all.
There's a far road off to Faringdon,Under the downs it goes;Into the fine wood, the beech, the pine woodThe dim road shadows and glows.
My cycle hums to Faringdon,Hums like a joyful bee,Through dropping shy light of green tree twilight,Music of wind and tree.
Springtime, bluebells, Faringdon,And a cycle through all three;Great shadow reaches of English beeches,Downs far down to the sea.
There's a far road down to Faringdon.There no more I ride.The boys hear mostly a rider ghostly,The girls they run and hide.
But that's my ghost in Faringdon,All year cycling it goes.Into the fine wood, the beech, the pine wood,The dim ghost shadows and glows.
Salonica, 1916
(To Harry Owen)
The crying of the lonely ploverFrom the morning cloud!Do the wings and clouds still hoverWhere my heart sang loud?
O the valley and the stream there.Where we shouted, being young!Are there boys still dream a dream there,Are the boys' songs sung?
O the winds that once blew round us,O the sun! the rain!Shall the ancient spells that bound us,Bind us ever again?
O a great Word then was spoken,Then was a boy's will clean and strong!Is the boy's will brokenThat went straight along?
O our ageing ears are ringingWith many sad things!Shall we come again with singingWhere the plover sings?
CLOUD END
(For my School—without permission)
Grant us, O Lord, to do the thingClean men and boys have always done;These works to do, these songs to sing,The gallant road to run.
Grant us, O Lord, that we go straightAlong the path where shines the sun;These things to love, these things to hate,The gallant road to run.
Grant us, O Lord, to win the fightThat all the cleanly hearts have won,Having sure feet, even at nightThe gallant road to run.
Grant us, O Lord, when Death enfold,That we take Death as half in fun;Like men and boys that knew of oldThe gallant road to run.
1915
"I have sought you," I said; "I havefound you," I said, "in the pitch of yourintimate midnight lair."He drew back with a sob like the swish of astick thro' the smarting air.
"I have moved like Death on deliberatefeet thro' a thousand towns and a hundred lands.Thinking you found, I have squeezed men'sthroats with pulsing, twitching, inquisitive hands.
"But the fire that waned in their blood-starredeyes was not the flame of the fire I sought,And I went my way with the sword in myheart and the sword in my hand of passionand thought.
"My blood spurted over the boulders of farintolerant mountains of iron and ice,But never in crevice or cave or chasm I foundthe flesh of my sacrifice.
"I burned with the wrath of a wind from hellthro' molten deserts panting and pent;But ever my foeman fled me afar, the sinistergoal of my intent.
"I have sought you," I said, "I have foundyou," I said; "we shall die together, forI am you."The foam and fever oozed out of my forehead,with a dew like blood, with a blood like dew.
He wailed like a child that recoils from ashadow that moves with menace over his bed;But I pierced my heart with the sword in myhand, and his body at last lay stretchedand dead.
Such purposeless and iron wingsObscure our mortal music quite?Such gloom to monstrous gloom outflingsThe stenches of a churchyard night?
We are no more for God or SinThan parasites in rotting hair,No different but only inThe boundlessness of our despair?
Glories have sprung before our gazeFrom the wet wood the grey tide warps!We have heard peals of music blazeSheer from the cold heart of a corpse!
I that am wiser than most,Have yielded the tract of my ghostTo a panting and flat-eyed ghost who gathers these useless things.In a country of seventeen moons,He sits in the sound of bassoonsPlaying terrible stupid tunes to the first of the ghostial kings.
He has gathered my ghost with the restTo plough it, or do what is best,And doubtless he does it with zest in the country whereoverhe reigns.I am glad—for the thing was a pest;It lay at the roots of my chest,And it darkened the East and the West and it plasteredmy eyes with stains.
But heigh-ho! my arms and my feetNow are mine as I swing down the street,And my heart for to storm and to beat whenever my body desires.My eyes will look when they pleaseDown the drains or high to the trees.My body is mine to freeze or shrivel with whitest fires!
My drunken head is a whirl of song,My heart is a drumstick beating time.My pen goes swiftly galloping alongThe echoing roads of rhythm and rhyme.
The stars are dizzy, for they circle in a ring.Round about the Pole Star all hold hands.The moon lifts her skirts up to do a giddy fling,The trees in the forest dance in big black bands.
The river is bounding from place to place,The fishes in the cold air rise and shine.The parallel hedgerows are running in a race,For each of them and all of them are drunk with wine.
The grand old buildings, alas and woe is me!Sway about unsteadily from side to side.The streets are moreover crooked things to see;There is no object anywhere will stand and bide.
The goblins are assembled in a mad-moon crowdUpon the hazy summit of the palpitating hill.Let the things that have no voice shout out loud!Let them dance, the fickle things, and have their fill!
And if again they will not sub-subside,(For round-around-around ho! and dance shall we!)The road of the rebel stars is cool and wide,The mad waves dance on the sea!
Then beat like thunder heart, then! round go head!The red stars swing in time.For soon enough, the Lord knows, shall I be dead,And dead my rhythm and rhyme!
OXFORD
There's some be red of face, they be,Like jolly suns in harvest times,And some be haggard men to see,Because of certain hidden crimes.But let us sing with one accordThat we're the chosen of the Lord,We lads who barter rhymes.
There's some so tall and fair and free,Like policemen in their leisure times,And some are like a wizened pea,Some worth no more than twenty dimes.But here's our sober view expressed,We're three times better than the best,We lads who barter rhymes.
Who knows me? None knows me.I hobble on two blistered feetRound the corner, down the street.Now and then a child will cry,Seeing a strange thing in my eye,A Bogey Man, a Thing of Dread,Stand from each eye in my head.Now and then a baby 'll smile,—But that's only once a while.Boys of thirteen all throw stonesAt my stiff and creaky bones.Middle-aged people, fat and bright,Shrug and sniff "It serves him right."Round the corner, out of sight,Down the Street, across the Night.
Who knows me? None knows me.I am young and I am proud,Strong as sun and pure as cloud.All the five seas wash my veinsWith stinging foam and swinging rains.With the white stars I communeIn a silent spheric tune.Who knows me? None knows me.Only but a brown Bird,Only but a little Child,A little Child, a little Bird,Only they know me.
He hath no place to rest his head.O happy nations, weep indeed.He is forlorn till he be dead.O pity him his wretched meed,His wounds that bleed.
There is no resting in his eyes,And he hath scars upon his feet.He is a stranger to all skies.He walks sad-eyed along the street,And shadow-wise.
For with the dawn must he depart,And with the sunset make his way.All day he bears an aching heart,All night his aching sorrows stay,Yea, night and day.
Then look a moment as he goes,A little sadly, in his eyes.For there are written all the woes,And a surprise.For he is sadder than God knows.
Cold night, cold with pointed starsThat swing like instant scimitars,How you reproach with acid fireThe smoky lamps of our desire.
Cold stars, inexorably aloof,That freeze from Vision's dizziest roof,On these our human sins you broodIn pride of glacial rectitude.
Cold stars, come down and walk alongOur avenues of Sense and Song;Take human shape one night and vexYour bowels with the scourge of sex.
When you return at last to thoseCold skies from whence your travel rose,Will you still stare with such disdain,When you, cold stars, are stars again?
My heart's blood leaps high, O my Lady, in afountain of restless aspiring.That you should dangle within it the dissolutegold of your hair.I have shattered the doors of my spirit thatyou might thereinto retiringReposefully lie on my pain and reflect thatthe morning is fair.
You may go to the devil, my Lady, yourselfand the rest of your species!I mean it, O desperate damsel, O Lady mostanxious and coy!I shall retire to my chamber to see that myclothes are in creases,For I see by the tilt of your brow the minutenessof brain you enjoy.
You have set the clear bells of my spirit tocrack in a dissonant jangle.You are fair in your way, O my Lady, but ratheroppressively sexed.There is no such fatal mistake as a primitivefacial angle.Good-bye, O my dispossessed Lady, remembermy name to the next.
I am very desolate.I am afraid.I am alone.The shadows waitTill I am laidBeneath a stone.
I am very desolate.I can hear feet.I can see ghosts.Fear's by the gate,Death's in the streetBy the dark posts.
I am very desolate.What have I madeOf the dead time?The night is late.I am afraidOf my own rhyme.
I would go where you go,You sole monarch that I know.Wind, wind of black night,I would go with your delight.Take me by my streaming hair,Take me where in the airPlanets meet, stars fight.
I have need of the speedOf your thunder-shattering steed.Wind, wind of black night,I would battle with your might.Take me by my soaring mind.No more blind, I shall findHell's depth and sky's height.
I would follow where you lead,Freed, freed of sense and creed.Wind, wind of black night,I would see with your sight.Take me by my burning soul,Stark, whole, to God my goal,Clean darkness, sheer light.
(To Janey Golding)
When I am rich, mother,You will sit in satins,Yellow satins, looking out upon the street.You will smile out on the neighbours,Who will have no yellow satins;And there'll be a great big hassock to rest your tired feet.
You'll have a gold-clasped family album,And a grand piano in the corner;But yellow satins, yellow satins, I have chiefly dreamed of them.And the most wonderful silk-lined work-box,With the clothes of my first baby,For your dear pale fingers to hem.
And the neighbours will come to see you,And pretend not to be lookingAt the wonderful yellow satins, till I take you away to bed.But in dreaming of the yellow satins,I have forgotten, I have forgotten....Isn't it seven years, little mother, since you've been dead?
Dost thou turn thine eyes away from me,thy stern and gentle eyes,From the error of my living days, O thou inDeath most wise?O thou in Death most wise,With thy stern and gentle eyes,Then is thy sleep disturbed by doubt, thycoffin by surprise?
Have I not trodden then the ways which thouwouldst have me tread?Then was it but a wind of words, the passionedvows I said?The passioned vows I said,The ways which I should tread,So have I quite forgotten these now thou artsafely dead?
Unless I take thy buried lips my final word to say,Unless I take thy crumbled eyes to light my tangled way,To light my tangled way,My final word to say,Suddenly, Death, come down in flame andshrive me from the day!
My soul is a white flame that has burned longerThan Mars or Aldebaran or all the stars,And gentler than a snowdrop, and far strongerThan all the steel of its containing bars.In cosmic triumphs upon timeless carsMy lordly soul hath lain. My soul is youngerThan the new-fallen dews in flowery jars:My soul, my godly food, my godly hunger.
Where shall I place my soul for most safe keepingFrom boisterous intention and omnivorous wave?And sow it in what field for goodliest reaping,From night to shield it and from sins to save?Thou art my treasure-house, awake or sleeping,Or wind-free in meadows or in the obscure grave.
Three tall poplars are his plumes,The Dark Knight of the Road.And he is cuirassed round with glooms,And all his stern abodeIs loud with seas and dooms.
A rock he takes to be his shield.Loud winds his clarions are.Should banded warriors take the field,Though strong troops come from far,Naught know they but to yield.
But if a sparrow taunt his helm,Froth-like his power is blown.Him shall the mating thrush o'erwhelm.Yea, I have even knownTom-tit usurp his realm.
Swift, feathered lightning, swift,Flesh of flame, wind-fleet,God who gave you your good giftGave me only two slow feet.
Countries merge within the spanOf your single hour's essay.I being but a wingless manPlod my score of miles a day.
Fading into blankness now,Song that flies and flight that sings,I am chained to clay, but thou,Winds are leashed around thy wings.
Art thou faded, swift? then see,Poet where the swift shall halt,Poet see the sun assaultThe stone towers of Finity.
Swift, dreamless atom, clod,Swift, thou art slower thanAny eyeless, limbless man.Him his soul shall drive to God.
FRESHWATER
The wind of course is Green.There is no other wordFor what no man has seenAnd every man has heard.
It's neither man nor fowl,And neither fish nor beast.But it comes out of the WestAnd goes into the East.
It never was definedBy instrument or mouth.But it comes out of the NorthAnd goes into the South.
The wind it is a Green ThingThat swishes thro' the corn,And shouts you to praise loudlyThe day that you were born.
The wind it is a Wise ThingThat rumbles thro' the beech,And bids you to learn thereA wisdom it can teach.
The wind's as Green as GreennessPossibly can be,And lashes to a foam of GreenThe deepest bluest sea.
And even in the grassless towns,The murky streets and mean,Along the greys, behind the browns,It sings a Song of Green.
And whither does it go then,And whence does it come forth?It comes out of the South,And goes into the North.
It comes out of the East,And goes into the West,And why the wind is Green as Green,God alone knows best.
There is a time of charm and chime,And this is Sabbath evening time.There is a place of dear content,This is the midmost field in Kent.This is the time and this the placeWhere boughs droop down with dews of grace;Where under hedges hung with sleep,Through atmospheres of music creepSheep like ghosts and ghosts like sheep.Here a great Lord of Magic comesFanfarronading with far drums,And deep athwart the night he throwsHis banners of white fire and rose.From the great town unto the sea,He thunders through his empiry.But when his drums are heard no more,The quiet is quiet as before.And there's a drowsy dreamy scentDrenches the midmost field in Kent.Neither more quickly nor more slow,Shadows come, shadows go.Shadows that reap while others sow,Shadows that sow while others reap,Shadows whose windy singings keep,Sheep like ghosts and ghosts like sheep.
In Murmuryngeham, in Murmuryngeham,The bees is always singing,The flowers is always chiming,The sheep stands on their head.There's lads and lasses clinging,And minor poets rhyming,In Murmuryngeham, in Murmuryngeham,When they should be in bed.So now my feet is winging,When other men's are climbing,To Murmuryngeham, which I shall findIf my good Patron be inclined,Murmuryngeham, Murmuryngeham,Some day before I'm dead.
In Winchester on the white downsThis is not mist at all,But the thin silk of fairy gownsWhich is not woven in the townsAnd all behind a wall.
In Winchester, be taught of me,The fairies seize your wrist.Their gowns are caught in every tree;—But if you have no eyes to see,Then sure, it's only mist.
O the wind blowing round me, the windblowing round me, the same wind thatblew when the grey world was green!The high hills before me, the brown hills beforeme, that stand in their places where Deathhas not been.The blue sky over my head is singing, is singing,is singing, as loudly as I.For Death was only a seeming, a dreaming,and Life is as clouds that fade and fly.The strong hills vanish, as thin clouds vanish,as I shall vanish, my dream, my pain;But all my dreams and I the dreamer, cloudsand hills shall sing again.Then birds of October, hills of October, windsof October, wrap me round.Carry me forward, road of October, sped onthe wheels of light and sound.For the birds are on wings now and I am onwings now over the white road the deadmen trod.And there are no dead men, there are no deadmen, but living men only and dead menare God!
"Ah me," the shepherd saidWho dwelt beside a foldUpon the Northern hills."Ah me, 'tis bitter cold,My oldest friends be dead.And O a humming fillsMy nid-nod-nodding head."
The guns lie in the beams.The shepherd feeds the fireWith fingers old and numb.The lamplight flickers higher.A double winter seemsSurely to have come.The old friends hover nigherIn simple shepherd dreams.
The frost lies on the fells.The moon's a great white flower.The stars have cruel hearts.And loud and very clear,With sudden silly starts,The old clock ticks and tellsThe changing of the hour.But the shepherd hears the bellsNo other man may hear.
A look's within his eyesI have not seen beforeIn shepherd North or South.The old head sinketh lower.The shadows fall and riseAlong the earthen floor.—God wot, he'll go no moreBeneath the windy skies.
No more the shepherd willLead down the misty scarsThe small sheep frail and lost,Nor thread the bracken hillSinging a shepherd's rune.The moorland wind is still,Beneath the ancient moon.The fells are white with frost.The white peaks touch the stars.
(To J. L. Paton)
God give me Derwentwater when I die.Let no one else be byTo say prayers over me or close my eye.
On Friar's Crag my body will lie down.On green grass and earth brown.I will forget the fever and the town.
Over the tops of ancient Borrowdale,Slowly the clouds will sailThrough great sky spaces, exquisite and frail.
And grandly will the flames of heather climbUp Skiddaw-Hill sublime,With head unbowed before the knees of time.
Thro' the still dusk a little bird will singSweetly a holy thing,And fade in silence on a drowsy wing.
The winds will pass along the quiet lake,And God will gently takeMy own breath with them for His Godhead's sake.
I vowed that I would be a tree.I went up to an oak and said,"What shall I do that I might beA beech, an oak, or any tree,With branches leafing from my head?"
There was a sound of sap that ran,There was a wind of leaves that spoke."So you would cease to be a man,And be a green tree, if you can,A pine, a beech, an oak?"
I answered, "I am tired of men,As tired as they of me.I fain would not return againTo the perplexity of men,But straightway be a tree."
There was a sound of winds that wentTo summon every oldest tree,To hold their austere ParliamentAbout the thing had craved to beElect of their calm company.
There was a sound of bursting tide,There was a wash of clanging foam,A crumbling shore, a bursting tide.There came a thunder that outcried,"Go, wretched mortal, get thee home!
"Who art thou that would be a tree,Least of the weeds that shoot and pass?Bide till a Wisdom come, and seeBefore a mortal be a tree,He first must be a blade of grass!"
Have you no arms, soldier?See, I have two.Whatever deeds for arms there be,These still I can do.Out of clay I still can makeLiving things like me and you.I still can cleave the lakeWith strong arms true.
Have you no feet, soldier,No feet at all?I still have feet to climbOak-tree and tall.Still as in our boyhood,I leap the hedge and climb the wall.Still my feet will chase the SpringWhen birds call.
Have you no eyes, soldier,Keen eyes like me?My eyes still have light that drawStrength from the great sea.O soldier, is it hard to loseThe first Spring-whisper on the tree,Sun foaming round the love you choose,Whosoever she?
Ah! but you have something, soldier,Never we shall know.You shall hear the holy windsWe can not hear blow.From your garden-soul shall startFlowers of flaming snow.There's the secret at your heartNever we shall know.
Sweet peas drooping in a vaseLike the tears of Niobe,Poppies like the cheeks of MarsKissing the Aphrodite.
Pansies like a dryad's eyes,Open-wide and half-afraid,Like unfolded butterfliesIn a little Tempe glade.
* * * * *
Flowers and words might be my toysHalf a drowsy summer day,But at night I hear the noiseOf bombardment far away.
Very quiet I am then,Like a moon-enchanted boy,As I see the khaki menStorm the granite walls of Troy.
HARFLEUR, 1917
I dream'd I died.The green of Spring was not yet manifestUpon the cold hillside.They bore me slowly to my place of rest,And let me bide.Far from the pale I lay of space and light,Of dusk and dawn.I knew the sharp stars of the winter nightWere far withdrawn.Silent I lay upon my bed,In sooth at rest.The earth pressed heavily on my head,My lean hands cross'd my breast.I saw not through my eyes.When I had faded from the room of sighs,Someone had sealed them down with clay,Had whispered, "He hath seen the wholeOf summer earth and starlit skies,Or yellow hills of tumbled hayThat he shall see.Here till the time of Judgment let him be.God soothe his soul."
Under the moonI lay remote from the dear nightingale.Late and soon,Faintly I heard the wan wind drone and wail.I dream'd,Thro' many years it seemed:Until I wearied me of dreamingAnd closed the windows of my soul,Where no sun streamingShow'd how God's far far days did westward roll.All blind, blind,A sea of sleep did drown me unconfin'd,Wide and deep,A sea of utter sleep,Its levels no time stirred by any wind.And so I slept,My hands across my breast.My clamped spirit keptA total rest.
* * * * *
Earth of the Earth I slumber'd long,I slumber'd in the untrod glooms,And then Dawn came.I felt the world was glad with song,I felt the hillsides were a flameOf king-cup blooms.And when Dawn came,Three times I knocked upon the doorWhich was my seal, my world and sky,Three times with might.There came a burst of sound and light,A knowledge broad and deep and high,The long breath of a sloping moor.I looked into the daylight wide,A bird sang thro' the singing blue,And then, O heart, and then I knewIdream'dI died.
Still, still, with all your ancient bloom,You glow athwart our gloom.Still, O too callous flowers,You load with gems these swooning hours.Still, still, the lilac foams and fallsAgainst our hollow silenced walls.Against the cinders of our homes,Wistaria falls and foams.
When all the Spring is all a loaded grave,How can your banners wave?How when the wind goes round your way,How can your trumpets play?
For whom your splendours chiefly shone,All those, all those, are gone.Now Spring is nipped and hoar,Too callous flowers, why bloom ye more?Still, still, the scarlet sorrel gleamsAll noon along the noon-gold streams.Still, still, the meadow-pippet's feetAre dewed on meadow-sweet.
Be curst, O callous flowers that come so fairWith taunts at our despair.Or if next Spring shall lead you back,Be all your petals black!
Sheep, like woolly clouds dropt from the sky,Drift through the quiet meads.From over the seas, a little cry,—Europe bleeds!
Clouds, like woolly sheep, hardly stir'd,Drift through the quiet skies.From over the seas, a little word,—Europe dies!
Hands on the window-sillI hear but cannot see.Ghosts riding down the hillI see but cannot hear.My heart is cold with fearOf every trembling tree.
The day has never been,And day will never be.And Night is very lean,And Death is very swift.And green eyes blink and shiftThrough every monstrous tree.
Black arms across the night,And hands I may not flee,And fingers grasping tightThat choke my little cries,And I shall have green eyesWithin a phantom tree.
"Lad, why are your fingers twitching,What is the thing they strain to hold?Why does your blood flow thick, enrichingA bleak strange place?"
"Dying, dying—then do not task me!""Tell me before your lips are cold.""I am afraid of the thing you ask me.""—Before the dark is in your face."
"This is why my blood is oozing.Because my masters did the choosing.Blood is cheap and bought for gold."
"Are they masters of your knowing?""I know not who my masters be.I only know my blood is flowing,Because my secret masters said,'We shall live and he be dead.'"
"This is why your fingers strainingClutch the thing they shall not hold?""This is why the blood is waning,Waning from my face.They gathered in the market-place,They gathered to buy merchandise.My blood was bought for little price,My masters bought and I was sold.This is why my blood is oozing,Blood is cheap and bought for gold."
And still the War went on: till only tenWere left to win the War; they fought; and then,Then there were no more men.
There was a gloom of apprehension lestFor lack of flesh the first and last and bestOf wars might be suppressed.
But Mars was far too sage to be surprised.Now that the race of men were quite demised,The women mobilized.
So now for gassier gas and flamier flame!Compared with what the present War became,The old War was a game.
The old had fifty years in which to thrive;When this had lasted only twenty-five,Two dames remained alive.
With flammen-werfer strictly up-to-date,They stalked each other, singing Hymns of Hate:—But one was just too late!
The Victress trying vainly to decideFor whom her late opponent had just died,Committed suicide.
So now the world consisted but of treesAnd dogs and beetles livid with disease,And babies blue with fleas.
Trees, dogs, and beetles perished from the day.Like flies brought crawling earthwards by a spray,The babies dropped away.
Now truly War seemed ended. Mars was painedBeyond expression till he ascertained,Two babes, thank God! remained.
He fired them with the fury of all wars.A bloody hunger stung their toothless jaws.They squealed—"The Cause! The Cause!"
Black to the blinding noon they foamed and swore.Each from his brother's breast the red heart tore.Then there was War no more.
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