Poems, 1916-1918 Part 1

Poems 1916-1918.

by Francis Brett Young.

PROTHALAMION

When the evening came my love said to me: Let us go into the garden now that the sky is cool, The garden of black h.e.l.lebore and rosemary, Where wild woodruff spills in a milky pool.

Low we pa.s.sed in the twilight, for the wavering heat Of day had waned, and round that shaded plot Of secret beauty the thickets cl.u.s.tered sweet: Here is heaven, our hearts whispered, but our lips spake not.

Between that old garden and seas of lazy foam Gloomy and beautiful alleys of trees arise With spire of cypress and dreamy beechen dome, So dark that our enchanted sight knew nothing but the skies

Veiled with soft air, drench'd in the roses' musk Or the dusky, dark carnation's breath of clove; No stars burned in their deeps, but through the dusk I saw my love's eyes, and they were brimmed with love.

No star their secret ravished, no wasting moon Mocked the sad transience of those eternal hours: Only the soft, unseeing heaven of June, The ghosts of great trees, and the sleeping flowers.

For doves that crooned in the leafy noonday now Were silent; the night-jar sought his secret covers, Nor even a mild sea-whisper moved a creaking bough-- Was ever a silence deeper made for lovers?

Was ever a moment meeter made for love?

Beautiful are your closed lips beneath my kiss; And all your yielding sweetness beautiful-- Oh, never in all the world was such a night as this!

TESTAMENT

If I had died, and never seen the dawn For which I hardly hoped, lighting this lawn Of silvery gra.s.ses; if there had been no light, And last night merged into perpetual night; I doubt if I should ever have been content To have closed my eyes without some testament To the great benefits that marked my faring Through the sweet world; for all my joy was sharing And lonely pleasures were few. Unto which end Three legacies I'll send, Three legacies, already half possess'd: One to a friend, of all good friends the best, Better than which is nothing; yet another Unto thy twin, dissimilar spirit, Brother; The third to you, Most beautiful, most true, Most perfect one, to whom they all are due.

Quick, quick ... while there is time....

O best of friends, I leave you one sublime Summer, one fadeless summer. 'Twas begun Ere Cotswold hawthorn tarnished in the sun, When hedges were fledged with green, and early swallows Swift-darting, on curved wings, pillaged the fallows; When all our vale was dappled blossom and light, And oh, the scent of beanfields in the night!

You shall remember that rich dust at even Which made old Evesham like a street in heaven, Gold-paved, and washed within a wave of golden Air all her dreamy towers and gables olden.

You shall remember How arms sun-blistered, hot palms crack'd with rowing, Clove the cool water of Avon, sweetly flowing; And how our bodies, beautifully white, Stretch'd to a long stroke lengthened in green light, And we, emerging, laughed in childish wise, And pressed the kissing water from our eyes.

Ah, was our laughter childish, or were we wise?

And then, crown of the day, a tired returning With happy sunsets over Bredon burning, With music and with moonlight, and good ale, And no thought for the morrow.... Heavy phlox Our garden pathways bordered, and evening stocks, Those humble weeds, in sunlight withered and pale, With a night scent to match the nightingale, Gladdened with spiced sweetness sweet night's shadows, Meeting the breath of hay from mowing meadows: As humble was our joy, and as intense Our rapture. So, before I hurry hence, Yours be the memory.

One night again, When we were men, and had striven, and known pain, By a dark ca.n.a.l debating, unresigned, On the blind fate that shadows humankind, On the blind sword that severs human love...

Then did the hidden belfry from above On troubled minds in benediction shed The patience of the great anonymous dead Who reared those towers, those high cathedrals builded In solemn stone, and with clear fancy gilded A beauty beyond ours, trusting in G.o.d.

Then dared we follow the dark way they trod, And bowing to the universal plan Trust in the true and fiery spirit of Man.

And you, my Brother, You know, as knows one other, How my spirit revisiteth a room In a high wing, beneath pine-trees, where gloom Dwelleth, dispelled by resinous wood embers, Where, in half-darkness ... How the heart remembers...

We talked of beauty, and those fiery things To which the divine desirous spirit clings, In a wing'd rapture to that heaven flinging, Where beauty is an easy thing, and singing The natural speech of man. Like kissing swords Our wits clashed there; the brittle beauty of words Breaking, seemed to discover its secret heart And all the rapt elusiveness of Art.

Now I have known sorrow, and now I sing That a lovely word is not an idle thing; For as with stars the cloth of night is spangled, With star-like words, most lovelily entangled, The woof of sombre thought is deckt.... Ah, bright And cold they glitter in the spirit's night!

But neither distant nor dispa.s.sionate; For beauty is an armour against fate....

I tell you, who have stood in the dark alone.

Seeing the face that turneth all to stone, Medusa, blind with hate, While I was dying, Beauty sate with me Nor tortured any longer; gracious was she; To her soft words I listened, and was content To die, nor sorry that my light was spent.

So, Brother, if I come not home, Go to that little room That my spirit revisiteth, and there, Somewhere in the blue air, you shall discover If that you be a lover Nor haughtily minded, all that once half-shaped Then fled us, and escaped: All that I found that day, Far, so far away.

And you, my lovely one, What can I leave to you, who, you having left, Am utterly bereft?

What in my store of visionary dowers Is not already yours?

What silences, what hours Of peace pa.s.sing all understanding; days Made lyric by your beauty and its praise; Years neither time can tarnish, nor death mar, Wherein you shined as steadfast as a star In my bleak night, heedless of the cloud-wrack Scudding in torn fleeces black Of my dark moods, as those who rule the far Star-haunted pleasaunces of heaven are?

So think but lightly of that afternoon With white clouds climbing a blue sky in June When a boy worshipped under dreaming trees, Who touched your hand, and sought your eyes.

... Ah, cease, Not these, not these...

Nor yet those nights when icy Brathay thundered Under his bridges, and ghostly mountains wondered At the white blossoming of a Christmas rose More stainless than their snows; Nor even of those placid days together Mellow as early autumn's amber weather When beech is ankleted with fire, and old Elms wear their livery of yellow gold, When orchards all are laden with increase, And the quiet earth hath fruited, and knows peace Oh, think not overmuch on those sweet years Lest their last fruit be tears,-- Your tears, beloved, that were my utmost pain,-- But rather, dream again How that a lover, half poet and half child, An eager spirit of fragile fancies wild Compact, adored the beauty and truth in you: To your own truth be true; And when, not mournfully, you turn this page Consider still your starry heritage, Continue in your loveliness, a star To gladden me from afar Even where there is no light In my last night.

LOCHANILAUN

This is the image of my last content: My soul shall be a little lonely lake, So hidden that no shadow of man may break The folding of its mountain battlement; Only the beautiful and innocent Whiteness of sea-born cloud drooping to shake Cool rain upon the reed-beds, or the wake Of churn'd cloud in a howling wind's descent.

For there shall be no terror in the night When stars that I have loved are born in me, And cloudy darkness I will hold most fair; But this shall be the end of my delight: That you, my lovely one, may stoop and see Your image in the mirrored beauty there.

LETTERMORE

These winter days on Lettermore The brown west wind it sweeps the bay, And icy rain beats on the bare Unhomely fields that perish there: The stony fields of Lettermore That drink the white Atlantic spray.

And men who starve on Lettermore, Cursing the haggard, hungry surf, Will souse the autumn's bruised grains To light dark fires within their brains And fight with stones on Lettermore Or sprawl beside the smoky turf.

When spring blows over Lettermore To bloom the ragged furze with gold, The lovely south wind's living breath Is laden with the smell of death: For fever breeds on Lettermore To waste the eyes of young and old.

A black van comes to Lettermore; The horses stumble on the stones, The drivers curse,--for it is hard To cross the hills from Oughterard And cart the sick from Lettermore: A stinking load of rags and bones.

But you will go to Lettermore When white sea-trout are on the run, When purple glows between the rocks About Lord Dudley's fishing-box Adown the road to Lettermore, And wide seas tarnish in the sun.

And so you'll think of Lettermore As a lost island of the blest: With peasant lovers in a blue Dim dusk, with heather drench'd in dew, And the sweet peace of Lettermore Remote and dreaming in the West.

LAMENT

Once, I think, a finer fire Touched my lips, and then I sang Half the songs of my desire: With their splendour the world rang.

And their sweetness made me free Of those starry ways whereby Planets make their minstrelsy In echoing, unending sky.

So, before that spell was broken, Song of the wind, surge of the sea,-- Beautiful pa.s.sionate things unspoken Rose like a breaking wave in me:

Rose like a wave with curled crest That green sunlight splinters through...

But the wave broke within my breast: And now I am a man like you.