Modern British Poetry Part 18

Don John laughing in the brave beard curled, Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world, Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.

Love-light of Spain--hurrah!

Death-light of Africa!

Don John of Austria Is riding to the sea.

Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star, (_Don John of Austria is going to the war._) He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees, His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas.

He shakes the peac.o.c.k gardens as he rises from his ease, And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees; And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.

Giants and the Genii, Multiplex of wing and eye, Whose strong obedience broke the sky When Solomon was king.

They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn, From the temples where the yellow G.o.ds shut up their eyes in scorn; They rise in green robes roaring from the green h.e.l.ls of the sea Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be, On them the sea-valves cl.u.s.ter and the grey sea-forests curl, Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl; They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,-- They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.

And he saith, "Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide, And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide, And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest, For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.

We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun, Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done.

But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know The voice that shook our palaces--four hundred years ago: It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate; It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is G.o.dfrey at the gate!

It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth, Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."

For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar, (_Don John of Austria is going to the war._) Sudden and still--hurrah!

Bolt from Iberia!

Don John of Austria Is gone by Alcalar.

St. Michael's on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north (_Don John of Austria is girt and going forth._) Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift And the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift.

He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone; The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone; The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes, And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise, And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room, And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom, And Christian hateth Mary that G.o.d kissed in Galilee,-- But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.

Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips, Trumpet that sayeth _ha_!

_Domino gloria!_ Don John of Austria Is shouting to the ships.

King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck (_Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck._) The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin, And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.

He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon, He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon, And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day, And death is in the phial and the end of n.o.ble work, But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.

Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed-- Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.

Gun upon gun, ha! ha!

Gun upon gun, hurrah!

Don John of Austria Has loosed the cannonade.

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke, (_Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke._) The hidden room in man's house where G.o.d sits all the year, The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.

He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery; They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark, They veil the plumed lions on the galleys of St. Mark; And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs, And below the ships are prisons, where with mult.i.tudinous griefs, Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.

They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung The stair-ways of the tallest G.o.ds when tyranny was young.

They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon.

And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in h.e.l.l Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell, And he finds his G.o.d forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign-- (_But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!_) Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted p.o.o.p, Purpling all the ocean like a b.l.o.o.d.y pirate's sloop, Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds, Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds, Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.

_Vivat Hispania!_ _Domino Gloria!_ Don John of Austria Has set his people free!

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath (_Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath._) And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain, And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....

(_But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade._)

A PRAYER IN DARKNESS

This much, O heaven--if I should brood or rave, Pity me not; but let the world be fed, Yea, in my madness if I strike me dead, Heed you the gra.s.s that grows upon my grave.

If I dare snarl between this sun and sod, Whimper and clamour, give me grace to own, In sun and rain and fruit in season shown, The shining silence of the scorn of G.o.d.

Thank G.o.d the stars are set beyond my power, If I must travail in a night of wrath, Thank G.o.d my tears will never vex a moth, Nor any curse of mine cut down a flower.

Men say the sun was darkened: yet I had Thought it beat brightly, even on--Calvary: And He that hung upon the Torturing Tree Heard all the crickets singing, and was glad.

THE DONKEY

"The tattered outlaw of the earth, Of ancient crooked will; Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, I keep my secret still.

"Fools! For I also had my hour; One far fierce hour and sweet: There was a shout about my ears, And palms before my feet."

FOOTNOTES:

[14] From _Poems_ by G. K. Chesterton. Copyright by the John Lane Co.

and reprinted by permission of the publishers.

_Wilfrid Wilson Gibson_

Born at Hexam in 1878, Wilfrid Wilson Gibson has published almost a dozen books of verse--the first four or five (see Preface) being imitative in manner and sentimentally romantic in tone. With _The Stonefolds_ (1907) and _Daily Bread_ (1910), Gibson executed a complete right-about-face and, with dramatic brevity, wrote a series of poems mirroring the dreams, pursuits and fears of common humanity.

_Fires_ (1912) marks an advance in technique and power. And though in _Livelihood_ (1917) Gibson seems to be theatricalizing and merely exploiting his working-people, his later lyrics recapture the veracity of such memorable poems as "The Old Man," "The Blind Rower," and "The Machine." _Hill-Tracks_ (1918) attempts to capture the beauty of village-names and the glamour of the English countryside.

PRELUDE

As one, at midnight, wakened by the call Of golden-plovers in their seaward flight, Who lies and listens, as the clear notes fall Through tingling silence of the frosty night-- Who lies and listens, till the last note fails, And then, in fancy, faring with the flock Far over slumbering hills and dreaming dales, Soon hears the surges break on reef and rock; And, hearkening, till all sense of self is drowned Within the mightier music of the deep, No more remembers the sweet piping sound That startled him from dull, undreaming sleep; So I, first waking from oblivion, heard, With heart that kindled to the call of song, The voice of young life, fluting like a bird, And echoed that light lilting; till, ere long, Lured onward by that happy, singing-flight, I caught the stormy summons of the sea, And dared the restless deeps that, day and night, Surge with the life-song of humanity.

THE STONE[15]

"And will you cut a stone for him, To set above his head?

And will you cut a stone for him-- A stone for him?" she said.

Three days before, a splintered rock Had struck her lover dead-- Had struck him in the quarry dead, Where, careless of the warning call, He loitered, while the shot was fired-- A lively stripling, brave and tall, And sure of all his heart desired ...

A flash, a shock, A rumbling fall ...

And, broken 'neath the broken rock, A lifeless heap, with face of clay; And still as any stone he lay, With eyes that saw the end of all.

I went to break the news to her; And I could hear my own heart beat With dread of what my lips might say But, some poor fool had sped before; And flinging wide her father's door, Had blurted out the news to her, Had struck her lover dead for her, Had struck the girl's heart dead in her, Had struck life, lifeless, at a word, And dropped it at her feet: Then hurried on his witless way, Scarce knowing she had heard.

And when I came, she stood, alone A woman, turned to stone: And, though no word at all she said, I knew that all was known.

Because her heart was dead, She did not sigh nor moan, His mother wept: She could not weep.

Her lover slept: She could not sleep.

Three days, three nights, She did not stir: Three days, three nights, Were one to her, Who never closed her eyes From sunset to sunrise, From dawn to evenfall: Her tearless, staring eyes, That seeing naught, saw all.

The fourth night when I came from work, I found her at my door.

"And will you cut a stone for him?"

She said: and spoke no more: But followed me, as I went in, And sank upon a chair; And fixed her grey eyes on my face, With still, unseeing stare.

And, as she waited patiently, I could not bear to feel Those still, grey eyes that followed me, Those eyes that plucked the heart from me, Those eyes that sucked the breath from me And curdled the warm blood in me, Those eyes that cut me to the bone, And pierced my marrow like cold steel.