Georgian Poetry 1918-19 Part 10

How sang the others all around?

Piercing and harsh, a maddening sound, With 'Pretty Poll, Tuwit-tuwoo Peewit, Caw Caw, Cuckoo-Cuckoo.'

How went the song, how looked the bird?

If I could tell, if I could show With one quick phrase, one lightning word, I'd learn you more than poets know; For poets, could they only catch Of that forgotten tune one s.n.a.t.c.h, Would build it up in song or sonnet, And found their whole life's fame upon it.

ROCKY ACRES

This is a wild land, country of my choice, With harsh craggy mountain, moor ample and bare.

Seldom in these acres is heard any voice But voice of cold water that runs here and there Through rocks and lank heather growing without care.

No mice in the heath run nor no birds cry For fear of the dark speck that floats in the sky.

He soars and he hovers rocking on his wings, He scans his wide parish with a sharp eye, He catches the trembling of small hidden things, He tears them in pieces dropping from the sky: Tenderness and pity the land will deny, Where life is but nourished from water and rock, A hardy adventure, full of fear and shock.

Time has never journeyed to this lost land, Crakeberries and heather bloom out of date, The rocks jut, the streams flow singing on either hand, Careless if the season be early or late.

The skies wander overhead, now blue now slate: Winter would be known by his cold cutting snow If June did not borrow his armour also.

Yet this is my country beloved by me best, The first land that rose from Chaos and the Flood, Nursing no fat valleys for comfort and rest, Trampled by no hard hooves, stained with no blood Bold immortal country whose hill-tops have stood Strongholds for the proud G.o.ds when on earth they go, Terror for fat burghers in far plains below.

D.H. LAWRENCE

SEVEN SEALS

Since this is the last night I keep you home, Come, I will consecrate you for the journey.

Rather I had you would not go. Nay come, I will not again reproach you. Lie back And let me love you a long time ere you go.

For you are sullen-hearted still, and lack The will to love me. But even so I will set a seal upon you from my lip, Will set a guard of honour at each door, Seal up each channel out of which might slip Your love for me.

I kiss your mouth. Ah, love, Could I but seal its ruddy, shining spring Of pa.s.sion, parch it up, destroy, remove Its softly-stirring, crimson welling-up Of kisses! Oh, help me, G.o.d! Here at the source I'd lie for ever drinking and drawing in Your fountains, as heaven drinks from out their course The floods.

I close your ears with kisses And seal your nostrils; and round your neck you'll wear-- Nay, let me work--a delicate chain of kisses.

Like beads they go around, and not one misses To touch its fellow on either side.

And there Full mid-between the champaign of your breast I place a great and burning seal of love Like a dark rose, a mystery of rest On the slow bubbling of your rhythmic heart.

Nay, I persist, and very faith shall keep You integral to me. Each door, each mystic port Of egress from you I will seal and steep In perfect chrism.

Now it is done. The mort Will sound in heaven before it is undone.

But let me finish what I have begun And shirt you now invulnerable in the mail Of iron kisses, kisses linked like steel.

Put greaves upon your thighs and knees, and frail Webbing of steel on your feet. So you shall feel Ensheathed invulnerable with me, with seven Great seals upon your outgoings, and woven Chain of my mystic will wrapped perfectly Upon you, wrapped in indomitable me.

HAROLD MONRO

GRAVITY

I

Fit for perpetual worship is the power That holds our bodies safely to the earth.

When people talk of their domestic G.o.ds, Then privately I think of You.

We ride through s.p.a.ce upon your shoulders Conveniently and lightly set, And, so accustomed, we relax our hold, Forget the gentle motion of your body-- But You do not forget.

Sometimes you breathe a little faster, Or move a muscle: Then we remember you, O Master.

II

When people meet in reverent groups And sing to their domestic G.o.d, You, all the time, dear tyrant, (How I laugh!) Could, without effort, place your hand among them, And sprinkle them about the desert.

But all your ways are carefully ordered, For you have never questioned duty.

We watch your everlasting combinations; We call them Fate; we turn them to our pleasure, And when they most delight us, call them beauty.

III

I rest my body on your gra.s.s, And let my brain repose in you; I feel these living moments pa.s.s, And, from within myself to those far places To be imagined in your times and s.p.a.ces, Deliberate the various acts you do:--

Sorting and re-arranging worlds of Matter Keenly and wisely. Thus you brought our earth Through stages, and from purpose back to purpose, From fire to fog, to dust, to birth Through beast to man, who led himself to brain-- Then you invoked him back to dust again.

By leave of you he places stone on stone; He scatters seed: you are at once the prop Among the long roots of his fragile crop.

You manufacture for him, and insure House, harvest, implement and furniture, And hold them all secure.