Georgian Poetry 1920-22 Part 17

Was it a fancy? Did we make Only a show for dead love's sake, It being so piteous?

No more against my bosom press thee, Seek no more that my hands caress thee, Leave the sad lips thou hast known so well; If to my heart thou lean thine ear, There grieving thou shalt only hear Vain murmuring of an empty sh.e.l.l.

THE WIND

Blow harder, wind, and drive My blood from hands and face back to the heart.

Cry over ridges and down tapering coombs, Carry the flying dapple of the clouds Over the gra.s.s, over the soft-grained plough, Stroke with ungentle hand the hill's rough hair Against its usual set.

s.n.a.t.c.h at the reins in my dead hands and push me Out of my saddle, blow my labouring pony Across the track. You only drive my blood Nearer the heart from face and hands, and plant there, Slowly burning, unseen, but alive and wonderful, A numb, confused joy!

This little world's in tumult. Far away The dim waves rise and wrestle with each other And fall down headlong on the beach. And here Quick gusts fly up the funnels of the valleys And meet their raging fellows on the hill-tops, And we are in the midst.

This beating heart, enriched with the hands' blood, Stands in the midst and feels the warm joy burn In solitude and silence, while all about The gusts clamour like living, angry birds, And the gorse seems hardly tethered to the ground.

Blow louder, wind, about My square-set house, rattle the windows, lift The trap-door to the loft above my head And let it fall, clapping. Yell in the trees, And throw a rotted elm-branch to the ground, Flog the dry trailers of my climbing rose-- Make deep, O wind, my rest!

A LONELY PLACE

The leafless trees, the untidy stack Last rainy summer raised in haste, Watch the sky turn from fair to black And watch the river fill and waste;

But never a footstep comes to trouble The sea-gulls in the new-sown corn, Or pigeons rising from late stubble And flashing lighter as they turn.

Or if a footstep comes, 'tis mine Sharp on the road or soft on gra.s.s: Silence divides along my line And shuts behind me as I pa.s.s.

No other comes, no labourer To cut his s.h.a.ggy truss of hay, Along the road no traveller, Day after day, day after day.

And even I, when I come here, Move softly on, subdued and still, Lonely as death, though I can hear Men shouting on the other hill.

Day after day, though no one sees, The lonely place no different seems; The trees, the stack, still images Constant in who can say whose dreams?

J.C. SQUIRE

ELEGY

I vaguely wondered what you were about, But never wrote when you had gone away; a.s.sumed you better, quenched the uneasy doubt You might need faces, or have things to say.

Did I think of you last evening? Dead you lay.

O bitter words of conscience!

I hold the simple message, And fierce with grief the awakened heart cries out: 'It shall not be to-day;

It is still yesterday; there is time yet!'

Sorrow would strive backward to wrench the sun, But the sun moves. Our onward course is set, The wake streams out, the engine pulses run Droning, a lonelier voyage is begun.

It is all too late for turning, You are past all mortal signal, There will be time for nothing but regret And the memory of things done!

The quiet voice that always counselled best, The mind that so ironically played Yet for mere gentleness forebore the jest.

The proud and tender heart that sat in shade Nor once solicited another's aid, Yet was so grateful always For trifles lightly given, The silences, the melancholy guessed Sometimes, when your eyes strayed.

But always when you turned, you talked the more.

Through all our literature your way you took With modest ease; yet would you soonest pore, Smiling, with most affection in your look, On the ripe ancient and the curious nook.

Sage travellers, learned printers, Divines and buried poets, You knew them all, but never half your lore Was drawn from any book.

Stories and jests from field and town and port, And odd neglected sc.r.a.ps of history From everywhere, for you were of the sort, Cool and refined, who like rough company: Carter and barmaid, hawker and bargee, Wise pensioners and boxers With whom you drank, and listened To legends of old revelry and sport And customs of the sea.

I hear you: yet more clear than all one note, One sudden hail I still remember best, That came on sunny days from one afloat And drew me to the pane in certain quest Of a long brown face, bare arms and flimsy vest, In fragments through the branches, Above the green reflections: Paused by the willows in your varnished boat You, with your oars at rest.

Did that come back to you when you were dying?

I think it did: you had much leisure there, And, with the things we knew, came quietly flying Memories of things you had seen we knew not where.

You watched again with meditative stare Places where you had wandered, Golden and calm in distance: Voices from all your altering past came sighing On the soft Hampshire air.

For there you sat a hundred miles away, A rug upon your knees, your hands gone frail, And daily bade your farewell to the day, A music blent of trees and clouds a-sail And figures in some old neglected tale: And watched the sunset gathering, And heard the birdsong fading, And went within when the last sleepy lay Pa.s.sed to a farther vale,

Never complaining, and stepped up to bed More and more slow, a tall and sunburnt man Grown bony and bearded, knowing you would be dead Before the summer, glad your life began Even thus to end, after so short a span, And mused a s.p.a.ce serenely, Then fell to easy slumber, At peace, content. For never again your head Need make another plan.

Most generous, most gentle, most discreet, Who left us ignorant to spare us pain: We went our ways with too forgetful feet And missed the chance that would not come again, Leaving with thoughts on pleasure bent, or gain, Fidelity unattested And services unrendered: The ears are closed, the heart has ceased to beat, And now all proof is vain.

Too late for other gifts, I give you this, Who took from you so much, so carelessly, On your far brows a first and phantom kiss, On your far grave a careful elegy.

For one who loved all life and poetry, Sorrow in music bleeding, And friendship's last confession.

But even as I speak that inner hiss Softly accuses me,

Saying: Those brows are senseless, deaf that tomb, This is the callous, cold resort of art.

'I give you this.' What do I give? to whom?

Words to the air, and balm to my own heart, To its old luxurious and commanded smart.

An end to all this tuning, This cynical masquerading; What comfort now in that far final gloom Can any song impart?

O yet I see you dawning from some heaven, Who would not suffer self-reproach to live In one to whom your friendship once was given.

I catch a vision, faint and fugitive, Of a dark face with eyes contemplative, Deep eyes that smile in silence, And parted lips that whisper, 'Say nothing more, old friend, of being forgiven, There is nothing to forgive.'

MEDITATION IN LAMPLIGHT

What deaths men have died, not fighting but impotent.

Hung on the wire, between trenches, burning and freezing, Groaning for water with armies of men so near; The fall over cliff, the clutch at the rootless gra.s.s, The beach rushing up, the whirling, the turning headfirst; Stiff writhings of strychnine, taken in error or haste, Angina pectoris, shudders of the heart; Failure and crushing by flying weight to the ground, Claws and jaws, the stink of a lion's breath; Swimming, a white belly, a crescent of teeth, Agony, and a spirting shredded limb, And crimson blood staining the green water; And, horror of horrors, the slow grind on the rack, The breaking bones, the stretching and bursting skin, Perpetual fainting and waking to see above The down-thrust mocking faces of cruel men, With the power of mercy, who gloat upon shrieks for mercy.

O pity me, G.o.d! O G.o.d, make tolerable, Make tolerable the end that awaits for me, And give me courage to die when the time comes, When the time comes as it must, however it comes, That I shrink not nor scream, gripped by the jaws of the vice; For the thought of it turns me sick, and my heart stands still, Knocks and stands still. O fearful, fearful Shadow, Kill me, let me die to escape the terror of thee!

A tap. Come in! Oh, no, I am perfectly well, Only a little tired. Take this one, it's softer.