Collected Poems Volume II Part 13

_And the vines that bound our bodies round Were plain wet ropes that clung, Squeezing the light out o' fifty pirates When the world was young!_

Over the seas in the pomp of dawn a king's ship came with her proud flag flying.

Cloud upon cloud we watched her tower with her belts and her crowded zones of sail; And an A.B. perched in a white crow's nest, with a bra.s.s-rimmed spy-gla.s.s quietly spying, As we swallowed the lumps in our choking throats and uttered our last faint feeble hail!

_And our heads went round as the ship went round, And we thought how coves had swung: All for playing at broad-sheet pirates When the world was young!_

Half a hundred trembling corsairs, all cut loose, but a trifle giddy, We lands on their trim white decks at last and the bo'sun he whistles us good hot grog, And we tries to confess, but there wasn't a soul from the Admiral's self to the gold-laced middy But says, "They're delirious still, poor chaps," and the Cap'n he enters the fact in his log,

_That his boat's crew found us nearly drowned In a barrel without a bung-- Half a hundred suffering sea-cooks When the world was young!_

So we sailed by Execution Dock, where the swinging pirates haughty and scornful Rattled their chains, and on Margate beach we came like a school-treat safe to land; And one of us took to religion at once; and the rest of the crew, tho'

their hearts were mournful, Capered about as Christy Minstrels, while Hook conducted the big bra.s.s band.

_And the sun went round, and the moon went round, And, O, 'twas a thought that stung!

There was none to believe we were broad-sheet pirates When the world was young!_

Ah, yet (if ye stand me a noggin of rum) shall the old Blue Dolphin echo the story!

We'll hoist the white cross-bones again in our palmy harbour of Caribbee!

We'll wave farewell to our brown-skinned la.s.ses and, chorussing out to the billows of glory, Billows a-glitter with rum and gold, we'll follow the sunset over the sea!

_While earth goes round, let rum go round!

O, sing it as we sung!

Half a hundred terrible pirates When the world was young!_

THE NEWSPAPER BOY

I

Elf of the City, a lean little hollow-eyed boy Ragged and tattered, but lithe as a slip of the Spring, Under the lamp-light he runs with a reckless joy Shouting a murderer's doom or the death of a King.

Out of the darkness he leaps like a wild strange hint, Herald of tragedy, comedy, crime and despair, Waving a poster that hurls you, in fierce black print One word _Mystery_, under the lamp's white glare.

II

Elf of the night of the City he darts with his crew Out of a vaporous furnace of colour that wreathes Magical letters a-flicker from crimson to blue High overhead. All round him the mad world seethes.

Hansoms, like cantering beetles, with diamond eyes Run through the moons of it; busses in yellow and red Hoot; and St. Paul's is a bubble afloat in the skies, Watching the pale moths flit and the dark death's head.

III

Painted and powdered they shimmer and rustle and stream Westward, the night moths, masks of the Magdalen! See, Puck of the revels, he leaps through the sinister dream Waving his elfin evangel of _Mystery_, Puck of the bubble or dome of their scoffing or trust, Puck of the fairy-like tower with the clock in its face, Puck of an Empire that whirls on a pellet of dust Bearing his elfin device thro' the splendours of s.p.a.ce.

IV

_Mystery_--is it the scribble of doom on the dark, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, again?

_Mystery_--is it a sc.r.a.p of remembrance, a spark Burning still in the fog of a blind world's brain?

Elf of the gossamer tangles of shadow and light, Wild electrical webs and the battle that rolls League upon perishing league thro' the ravenous night, Breaker on perishing breaker of human souls.

V

Soaked in the colours, a flake of the flying spray Flung over wreckage and yeast of the murderous town, Onward he flaunts it, innocent, vicious and gay, Prophet of prayers that are stifled and loves that drown, Urchin and sprat of the City that roars like a sea Surging around him in hunger and splendour and shame, Cruelty, luxury, madness, he leaps in his glee Out of the mazes of mist and the vistas of flame.

VI

Ragged and tattered he scurries away in the gloom: Over the thundering traffic a moment his cry Mystery! Mystery!--reckless of death and doom Rings; and the great wheels roll and the world goes by.

Lost, is it lost, that hollow-eyed flash of the light?-- Poor little face flying by with the word that saves, Pale little mouth of the mask of the measureless night, Shrilling the heart of it, lost like the foam on its waves!

THE TWO WORLDS

This outer world is but the pictured scroll Of worlds within the soul, A coloured chart, a blazoned missal-book Whereon who rightly look May spell the splendours with their mortal eyes And steer to Paradise.

O, well for him that knows and early knows In his own soul the rose Secretly burgeons, of this earthly flower The heavenly paramour: And all these fairy dreams of green-wood fern, These waves that break and yearn, Shadows and hieroglyphs, hills, clouds and seas, Faces and flowers and trees, Terrestrial picture-parables, relate Each to its heavenly mate.

O, well for him that finds in sky and sea This two-fold mystery, And loses not (as painfully he spells The fine-spun syllables) The cadences, the burning inner gleam, The poet's heavenly dream.

Well for the poet if this earthly chart Be printed in his heart, When to his world of spirit woods and seas With eager face he flees And treads the untrodden fields of unknown flowers And threads the angelic bowers, And hears that unheard nightingale whose moan Trembles within his own, And lovers murmuring in the leafy lanes Of his own joys and pains.

For though he voyages further than the flight Of earthly day and night, Traversing to the sky's remotest ends A world that he transcends, Safe, he shall hear the hidden breakers roar Against the mystic sh.o.r.e; Shall roam the yellow sands where sirens bare Their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and wind their hair; Shall with their perfumed tresses blind his eyes, And still possess the skies.

He, where the deep unearthly jungles are, Beneath his Eastern star Shall pa.s.s the tawny lion in his den And cross the quaking fen.

He learnt his path (and treads it undefiled) When, as a little child, He bent his head with long and loving looks O'er earthly picture-books.

His earthly love nestles against his side, His young celestial guide.

GORSE

Between my face and the warm blue sky The crisp white clouds go sailing by, And the only sound is the sound of your breathing, The song of a bird and the sea's long sigh.

Here, on the downs, as a tale re-told The sprays of the gorse are a-blaze with gold, As of old, on the sea-washed hills of my boyhood, Breathing the same sweet scent as of old.

Under a ragged golden spray The great sea sparkles far away, Beautiful, bright, as my heart remembers Many a dazzle of waves in May.

Long ago as I watched them shine Under the boughs of fir and pine, Here I watch them to-day and wonder, Here, with my love's hand warm in mine.