Hawthorn and Lavender Part 6

Silence, loneliness, darkness-- These, and of these my fill, While G.o.d in the rush of the Maytide Without is working His will.

Without are the wind and the wall-flowers, The leaves and the nests and the rain, And in all of them G.o.d is making His beautiful purpose plain.

But I wait in a horror of strangeness-- A tool on His workshop floor, Worn to the b.u.t.t, and banished His hand for evermore.

L

So let me hence as one Whose part in the world has been dreamed out and done: One that hath fairly earned and spent In pride of heart and jubilance of blood Such wages, be they counted bad or good, As Time, the old taskmaster, was moved to pay; And, having warred and suffered, and pa.s.sed on Those gifts the Arbiters preferred and gave, Fare, grateful and content, Down the dim way Whereby races innumerable have gone, Into the silent universe of the grave.

Grateful for what hath been-- For what my hand hath done, mine eyes have seen, My heart been privileged to know; With all my lips in love have brought To lips that yearned in love to them, and wrought In the way of wrath, and pity, and sport, and song: Content, this miracle of being alive Dwindling, that I, thrice weary of worst and best, May shed my duds, and go From right and wrong, And, ceasing to regret, and long, and strive, Accept the past, and be for ever at rest.

FINALE

_Schizzando ma con sentimento_

A sigh sent wrong, A kiss that goes astray, A sorrow the years endlong-- So they say.

So let it be-- Come the sorrow, the kiss, the sigh!

They are life, dear life, all three, And we die.

WORTHING, 1899-1901.

LONDON TYPES

(_To_ S. S. P.)

I. BUS-DRIVER

He's called _The General_ from the brazen craft And dash with which he _sneaks a bit of road_ And all its fares; challenged, or chafed, or chaffed, _Back-answers_ of the newest he'll explode; He reins his horses with an air; he treats With scoffing calm whatever powers there be; He _gets it straight_, puts _a bit on_, and meets His losses with both _lip_ and _pounds s. d._; He arrogates a special taste in _short_; Is loftily grateful for a flagrant _smoke_; At all the smarter housemaids winks his court, And taps them for half-crowns; being _stoney-broke_, Lives l.u.s.tily; is ever _on the make_; And hath, I fear, none other G.o.ds but _Fake_.

II. LIFE-GUARDSMAN

Joy of the Milliner, Envy of the Line, Star of the Parks, jack-booted, sworded, helmed, He sits between his holsters, solid of spine; Nor, as it seems, though _WESTMINSTER_ were whelmed, With the great globe, in earthquake and eclipse, Would he and his charger cease from mounting guard, This Private in the Blues, nor would his lips Move, though his gorge with throttled oaths were charred!

He wears his inches weightily, as he wears His old-world armours; and with his port and pride, His st.u.r.dy graces and enormous airs, He towers, in speech his Colonel countrified, A triumph, waxing statelier year by year, Of British blood, and bone, and beef, and beer.

III. HAWKER

Far out of bounds he's figured--in a race Of West-End traffic pitching to his loss.

But if you'd see him in his proper place, Making the _browns_ for _bub_ and _grub_ and _doss_, Go East among the merchants and their men, And where the press is noisiest, and the tides Of trade run highest and widest, there and then You shall behold him, edging with equal strides Along the kerb; hawking in either hand Some artful nothing made of twine and tin, Cardboard and foil and bits of rubber band: Some penn'orth of wit-in-fact that, with a grin, The careful City marvels at, and buys For nurselings in the Suburbs to despise!

IV. BEEF-EATER

His beat lies knee-high through a dust of story-- A dust of terror and torture, grief and crime; Ghosts that are _ENGLAND'S_ wonder, and shame, and glory Throng where he walks, an antic of old time; A sense of long immedicable tears Were ever with him, could his ears but heed; The stern _Hic Jacets_ of our bloodiest years Are for his reading, had he eyes to read, But here, where _CROOKBACK_ raged, and _CRANMER_ trimmed, And _MORE_ and _STRAFFORD_ faced the axe's proving, He shows that Crown the desperate Colonel nimmed, Or simply keeps the Country Cousin moving, Or stays such c.o.c.kney pencillers as would shame The wall where some dead Queen hath traced her name.

V. SANDWICH-MAN

An ill March noon; the flagstones gray with dust; An all-round east wind volleying straws and grit; _ST. MARTIN'S STEPS_, where every venomous gust Lingers to buffet, or sneap, the pa.s.sing cit; And in the gutter, squelching a rotten boot, Draped in a wrap that, modish ten-year syne, Partners, obscene with sweat and grease and soot, A horrible hat, that once was just as fine; The drunkard's mouth a-wash for something drinkable, The drunkard's eye alert for casual _toppers_, The drunkard's neck stooped to a lot scarce thinkable, A living, crawling blazoning of Hot-Coppers, He trails his mildews towards a Kingdom-Come Compact of _sausage-and-mash_ and _two-o'-rum_!

VI. 'LIZA

_'LIZA'S old man_'s perhaps a little _shady_, _'LIZA'S old woman_'s p.r.o.ne to _booze_ and cringe; But _'LIZA_ deems herself _a perfect lady_, And proves it in her feathers and her fringe.

For _'LIZA_ has a _bloke_ her heart to cheer, With _pearlies_ and a _barrer_ and a _jack_, So all the vegetables of the year Are duly represented on her back.

Her boots are sacrifices to her hats, Which knock you speechless--_like a load of bricks_!

Her summer velvets dazzle _WANSTEAD FLATS_, And cost, at times, a good eighteen-and-six.

Withal, outside the gay and giddy whirl, _'LIZA'S_ a stupid, straight, hard-working girl.

VII. 'LADY'

Time, the old humourist, has a trick to-day Of moving landmarks and of levelling down, Till into Town the Suburbs edge their way, And in the Suburbs you may scent the Town.

With _MOUNT ST._ thus approaching _MUSWELL HILL_, And _CLAPHAM COMMON_ marching with the _MILE_, You get a _HAMMERSMITH_ that _fills the bill_, A _HAMPSTEAD_ with a serious sense of style.

So this fair creature, pictured in _THE ROW_, As one of that 'gay adulterous world,' {79} whose round Is by the _SERPENTINE_, as well would show, And might, I deem, as readily be found On _STREATHAM'S HILL_, or _WIMBLEDON'S_, or where Brixtonian kitchens lard the late-dining air.

VIII. BLUECOAT BOY

So went our boys when _EDWARD SIXTH_, the King, Chartered _CHRIST'S HOSPITAL_, and died. And so Full fifteen generations in a string Of heirs to his bequest have had to go.