Poems of To-Day: an Anthology Part 17

76. LONDON SNOW

When men were all asleep the snow came flying, In large white flakes falling on the city brown, Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying, Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town; Deadening, m.u.f.fling, stifling its murmurs failing; Lazily and incessantly floating down and down: Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;

{92}

Hiding difference, making unevenness even, Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.

All night it fell, and when full inches seven It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness, The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven; And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare: The eye marvelled--marvelled at the dazzling whiteness; The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air; No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling, And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.

Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling, They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snow-balling; Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees; Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder, "O look at the trees!" they cried, "O look at the trees!"

With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder, Following along the white deserted way, A country company long dispersed asunder: When now already the sun, in pale display Standing by Paul's high dome, spread forth below His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.

For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow; And trains of sombre men, past tale of number, Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go;

{93}

But even for them awhile no cares enc.u.mber Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken, The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.

_Robert Bridges._

77. THE ROAD MENDERS

How solitary gleams the lamplit street Waiting the far-off morn!

How softly from the unresting city blows The murmur borne Down this deserted way!

Dim loiterers pa.s.s home with stealthy feet.

Now only, sudden at their interval, The lofty chimes awaken and let fall Deep thrills of ordered sound; Subsiding echoes gradually drowned In a great stillness, that creeps up around, And darkly grows Profounder over all Like a strong frost, hushing a stormy day.

But who is this, that by the brazier red Encamped in his rude hut, With many a sack about his shoulder spread Watches with eyes unshut?

The burning brazier flushes his old face, Illumining the old thoughts in his eyes.

Surely the Night doth to her secrecies Admit him, and the watching stars attune {94}

To their high patience, who so lightly seems To bear the weight of many thousand dreams (Dark hosts around him sleeping numberless); He surely hath unbuilt all walls of thought To reach an air-wide wisdom, past access Of us, who labour in the noisy noon, The noon that knows him not.

For lo, at last the gloom slowly retreats, And swiftly, like an army, comes the Day, All bright and loud through the awakened streets Sending a cheerful hum.

And he has stolen away.

Now, with the morning shining round them, come Young men, and strip their coats And loose the shirts about their throats, And lightly up their ponderous hammers lift, Each in his turn descending swift With triple strokes that answer and begin Duly, and quiver in repeated change, Marrying the eager echoes that weave in A music clear and strange.

But pausing soon, each lays his hammer down And deeply breathing bares His chest, stalwart and brown, To the sunny airs.

Laughing one to another, limber hand On limber hip, flushed in a group they stand, And now untired renew their ringing toil.

The sun stands high, and ever a fresh throng Comes murmuring; but that eddying turmoil

{95}

Leaves many a loiterer, prosperous or unfed, On easy or unhappy ways At idle gaze, Charmed in the sunshine and the rhythm enthralling, As of unwearied Fates, for ever young, That on the anvil of necessity From measureless desire and quivering fear, With musical sure lifting and downfalling Of arm and hammer driven perpetually, Beat out in obscure span The fiery destiny of man.

_Laurence Binyon._

78. STREET LANTERNS

Country roads are yellow and brown.

We mend the roads in London town.

Never a hansom dare come nigh, Never a cart goes rolling by.

An unwonted silence steals In between the turning wheels.

Quickly ends the autumn day, And the workman goes his way,

Leaving, midst the traffic rude, One small isle of solitude,

Lit, throughout the lengthy night, By the little lantern's light.

{96}

Jewels of the dark have we, Brighter than the rustic's be.

Over the dull earth are thrown Topaz, and the ruby stone.

_Mary E. Coleridge._

79. O SUMMER SUM

O summer sun, O moving trees!

O cheerful human noise, O busy glittering street!

What hour shall Fate in all the future find, Or what delights, ever to equal these: Only to taste the warmth, the light, the wind, Only to be alive, and feel that life is sweet?

_Laurence Binyon._

80. LONDON

Athwart the sky a lowly sigh From west to east the sweet wind carried; The sun stood still on Primrose Hill; His light in all the city tarried: The clouds on viewless columns bloomed Like smouldering lilies unconsumed.

"Oh sweetheart, see! how shadowy, Of some occult magician's rearing, Or swung in s.p.a.ce of heaven's grace Dissolving, dimly reappearing, Afloat upon ethereal tides St. Paul's above the city rides!"

{97}

A rumour broke through the thin smoke Enwreathing abbey, tower, and palace, The parks, the squares, the thoroughfares, The million-peopled lanes and alleys, An ever-muttering prisoned storm, The heart of London beating warm.