Modern British Poetry Part 19

And so I rose, and sought a stone; And cut it, smooth and square: And, as I worked, she sat and watched, Beside me, in her chair.

Night after night, by candlelight, I cut her lover's name: Night after night, so still and white, And like a ghost she came; And sat beside me in her chair; And watched with eyes aflame.

She eyed each stroke; And hardly stirred: She never spoke A single word: And not a sound or murmur broke The quiet, save the mallet-stroke.

With still eyes ever on my hands, With eyes that seemed to burn my hands, My wincing, overwearied hands, She watched, with bloodless lips apart, And silent, indrawn breath: And every stroke my chisel cut, Death cut still deeper in her heart: The two of us were chiselling, Together, I and death.

And when at length the job was done, And I had laid the mallet by, As if, at last, her peace were won, She breathed his name; and, with a sigh, Pa.s.sed slowly through the open door: And never crossed my threshold more.

Next night I laboured late, alone, To cut her name upon the stone.

SIGHT[16]

By the lamplit stall I loitered, feasting my eyes On colours ripe and rich for the heart's desire-- Tomatoes, redder than Krakatoa's fire, Oranges like old sunsets over Tyre, And apples golden-green as the glades of Paradise.

And as I lingered, lost in divine delight, My heart thanked G.o.d for the goodly gift of sight And all youth's lively senses keen and quick ...

When suddenly, behind me in the night, I heard the tapping of a blind man's stick.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] From _Fires_ by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. Copyright, 1912, by The Macmillan Co. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

[16] From _Borderlands and Thoroughfares_ by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson.

Copyright, 1915, by The Macmillan Company. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

_John Masefield_

John Masefield was born June 1, 1878, in Ledbury, Hertfordshire. He was the son of a lawyer but, being of a restless disposition, he took to the sea at an early age and became a wanderer for several years. At one time, in 1895, to be exact, he worked for a few months as a sort of third a.s.sistant barkeeper and dish-washer in Luke O'Connor's saloon, the Columbia Hotel, in New York City. The place is still there on the corner of Sixth and Greenwich Avenues.

The results of his wanderings showed in his early works, _Salt-Water Ballads_ (1902), _Ballads_ (1903), frank and often crude poems of sailors written in their own dialect, and _A Mainsail Haul_ (1905), a collection of short nautical stories. In these books Masefield possibly overemphasized pa.s.sion and brutality but, underneath the violence, he captured that highly-colored realism which is the poetry of life.

It was not until he published _The Everlasting Mercy_ (1911) that he became famous. Followed quickly by those remarkable long narrative poems, _The Widow in the Bye Street_ (1912), _Dauber_ (1912), and _The Daffodil Fields_ (1913), there is in all of these that peculiar blend of physical exulting and spiritual exaltation that is so striking, and so typical of Masefield. Their very rudeness is lifted to a plane of religious intensity. (See Preface.) Pictorially, Masefield is even more forceful. The finest moment in _The Widow in the Bye Street_ is the portrayal of the mother alone in her cottage; the public-house scene and the pa.s.sage describing the birds following the plough are the most intense touches in _The Everlasting Mercy_. Nothing more vigorous and thrilling than the description of the storm at sea in _Dauber_ has appeared in current literature.

The war, in which Masefield served with the Red Cross in France and on the Gallipoli peninsula (of which campaign he wrote a study for the government), softened his style; _Good Friday and Other Poems_ (1916) is as restrained and dignified a collection as that of any of his contemporaries. _Reynard the Fox_ (1919) is the best of his new manner with a return of the old vivacity.

Masefield has also written several novels of which _Mult.i.tude and Solitude_ (1909) is the most outstanding; half a dozen plays, ranging from the cla.s.sical solemnity of _Pompey the Great_ to the hot and racy _Tragedy of Nan_; and one of the freshest, most creative critiques of _Shakespeare_ (1911) in the last generation.

A CONSECRATION

Not of the princes and prelates with periwigged charioteers Riding triumphantly laurelled to lap the fat of the years,-- Rather the scorned--the rejected--the men hemmed in with the spears;

The men of the tattered battalion which fights till it dies, Dazed with the dust of the battle, the din and the cries.

The men with the broken heads and the blood running into their eyes.

Not the be-medalled Commander, beloved of the throne, Riding c.o.c.k-horse to parade when the bugles are blown, But the lads who carried the koppie and cannot be known.

Not the ruler for me, but the ranker, the tramp of the road, The slave with the sack on his shoulders p.r.i.c.ked on with the goad, The man with too weighty a burden, too weary a load.

The sailor, the stoker of steamers, the man with the clout, The chantyman bent at the halliards putting a tune to the shout, The drowsy man at the wheel and the tired look-out.

Others may sing of the wine and the wealth and the mirth, The portly presence of potentates goodly in girth;-- Mine be the dirt and the dross, the dust and sc.u.m of the earth!

Theirs be the music, the colour, the glory, the gold; Mine be a handful of ashes, a mouthful of mould.

Of the maimed, of the halt and the blind in the rain and the cold-- Of these shall my songs be fashioned, my tales be told.

AMEN.

SEA-FEVER

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the seagulls crying.

I must down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life.

To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

ROUNDING THE HORN

(_From "Dauber"_)[17]

Then came the cry of "Call all hands on deck!"

The Dauber knew its meaning; it was come: Cape Horn, that tramples beauty into wreck, And crumples steel and smites the strong man dumb.

Down clattered flying kites and staysails; some Sang out in quick, high calls: the fair-leads skirled, And from the south-west came the end of the world....

"Lay out!" the Bosun yelled. The Dauber laid Out on the yard, gripping the yard, and feeling Sick at the mighty s.p.a.ce of air displayed Below his feet, where mewing birds were wheeling.

A giddy fear was on him; he was reeling.

He bit his lip half through, clutching the jack.

A cold sweat glued the shirt upon his back.

The yard was shaking, for a brace was loose.

He felt that he would fall; he clutched, he bent, Clammy with natural terror to the shoes While idiotic promptings came and went.

Snow fluttered on a wind-flaw and was spent; He saw the water darken. Someone yelled, "Frap it; don't stay to furl! Hold on!" He held.

Darkness came down--half darkness--in a whirl; The sky went out, the waters disappeared.

He felt a shocking pressure of blowing hurl The ship upon her side. The darkness speared At her with wind; she staggered, she careered; Then down she lay. The Dauber felt her go, He saw her yard tilt downwards. Then the snow

Whirled all about--dense, mult.i.tudinous, cold-- Mixed with the wind's one devilish thrust and shriek, Which whiffled out men's tears, defeated, took hold, Flattening the flying drift against the cheek.

The yards buckled and bent, man could not speak.

The ship lay on her broadside; the wind's sound Had devilish malice at having got her downed.