Modern British Poetry Part 5

Amazed to find it could rejoice, h.e.l.l raised a hoa.r.s.e, half-human cheer.

IMAGINATION

(_From "New Year's Eve"_)

There is a dish to hold the sea, A brazier to contain the sun, A compa.s.s for the galaxy, A voice to wake the dead and done!

That minister of ministers, Imagination, gathers up The undiscovered Universe, Like jewels in a jasper cup.

Its flame can mingle north and south; Its accent with the thunder strive; The ruddy sentence of its mouth Can make the ancient dead alive.

The mart of power, the fount of will, The form and mould of every star, The source and bound of good and ill, The key of all the things that are,

Imagination, new and strange In every age, can turn the year; Can shift the poles and lightly change The mood of men, the world's career.

_William Watson_

William Watson was born at Burley-in-Wharfedale, Yorkshire, August 2, 1858. He achieved his first wide success through his long and eloquent poems on Wordsworth, Sh.e.l.ley, and Tennyson--poems that attempted, and sometimes successfully, to combine the manners of these masters. _The Hope of the World_ (1897) contains some of his most characteristic verse.

It was understood that he would be appointed poet laureate upon the death of Alfred Austin. But some of his radical and semi-political poems are supposed to have displeased the powers at Court, and the honor went to Robert Bridges. His best work, which is notable for its dignity and moulded imagination, may be found in _Selected Poems_, published in 1903 by John Lane Co.

ODE IN MAY[1]

Let me go forth, and share The overflowing Sun With one wise friend, or one Better than wise, being fair, Where the pewit wheels and dips On heights of bracken and ling, And Earth, unto her leaflet tips, Tingles with the Spring.

What is so sweet and dear As a prosperous morn in May, The confident prime of the day, And the dauntless youth of the year, When nothing that asks for bliss, Asking aright, is denied, And half of the world a bridegroom is, And half of the world a bride?

The Song of Mingling flows, Grave, ceremonial, pure, As once, from lips that endure, The cosmic descant rose, When the temporal lord of life, Going his golden way, Had taken a wondrous maid to wife That long had said him nay.

For of old the Sun, our sire, Came wooing the mother of men, Earth, that was virginal then, Vestal fire to his fire.

Silent her bosom and coy, But the strong G.o.d sued and pressed; And born of their starry nuptial joy Are all that drink of her breast.

And the triumph of him that begot, And the travail of her that bore, Behold, they are evermore As warp and weft in our lot.

We are children of splendour and flame, Of shuddering, also, and tears.

Magnificent out of the dust we came, And abject from the Spheres.

O bright irresistible lord, We are fruit of Earth's womb, each one, And fruit of thy loins, O Sun, Whence first was the seed outpoured.

To thee as our Father we bow, Forbidden thy Father to see, Who is older and greater than thou, as thou Art greater and older than we.

Thou art but as a word of his speech, Thou art but as a wave of his hand; Thou art brief as a glitter of sand 'Twixt tide and tide on his beach; Thou art less than a spark of his fire, Or a moment's mood of his soul: Thou art lost in the notes on the lips of his choir That chant the chant of the Whole.

ESTRANGEMENT[2]

So, without overt breach, we fall apart, Tacitly sunder--neither you nor I Conscious of one intelligible Why, And both, from severance, winning equal smart.

So, with resigned and acquiescent heart, Whene'er your name on some chance lip may lie, I seem to see an alien shade pa.s.s by, A spirit wherein I have no lot or part.

Thus may a captive, in some fortress grim, From casual speech betwixt his warders, learn That June on her triumphal progress goes Through arched and bannered woodlands; while for him She is a legend emptied of concern, And idle is the rumour of the rose.

SONG

April, April, Laugh thy girlish laughter; Then, the moment after, Weep thy girlish tears, April, that mine ears Like a lover greetest, If I tell thee, sweetest, All my hopes and fears.

April, April, Laugh thy golden laughter, But, the moment after, Weep thy golden tears!

FOOTNOTES:

[1] From _The Hope of the World_ by William Watson. Copyright, 1897, by John Lane Company. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

[2] From _The Hope of the World_ by William Watson. Copyright, 1897, by John Lane Company. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

_Francis Thompson_

Born in 1859 at Preston, Francis Thompson was educated at Owen's College, Manchester. Later he tried all manner of strange ways of earning a living. He was, at various times, a.s.sistant in a boot-shop, medical student, collector for a book seller and homeless vagabond; there was a period in his life when he sold matches on the streets of London. He was discovered in terrible poverty (having given up everything except poetry and opium) by the editor of a magazine to which he had sent some verses the year before. Almost immediately thereafter he became famous. His exalted mysticism is seen at its purest in "A Fallen Yew" and "The Hound of Heaven." Coventry Patmore, the distinguished poet of an earlier period, says of the latter poem, which is unfortunately too long to quote, "It is one of the very few _great_ odes of which our language can boast."

Thompson died, after a fragile and spasmodic life, in St. John's Wood in November, 1907.

DAISY

Where the thistle lifts a purple crown Six foot out of the turf, And the harebell shakes on the windy hill-- O breath of the distant surf!--

The hills look over on the South, And southward dreams the sea; And with the sea-breeze hand in hand Came innocence and she.

Where 'mid the gorse the raspberry Red for the gatherer springs; Two children did we stray and talk Wise, idle, childish things.

She listened with big-lipped surprise, Breast-deep 'mid flower and spine: Her skin was like a grape whose veins Run snow instead of wine.

She knew not those sweet words she spake, Nor knew her own sweet way; But there's never a bird, so sweet a song Thronged in whose throat all day.

Oh, there were flowers in Storrington On the turf and on the spray; But the sweetest flower on Suss.e.x hills Was the Daisy-flower that day!

Her beauty smoothed earth's furrowed face.

She gave me tokens three:-- A look, a word of her winsome mouth, And a wild raspberry.

A berry red, a guileless look, A still word,--strings of sand!

And yet they made my wild, wild heart Fly down to her little hand.

For standing artless as the air, And candid as the skies, She took the berries with her hand, And the love with her sweet eyes.