Poems of To-Day: an Anthology Part 5

_Laurence Binyon._

23. SHADOWS AND LIGHTS

What G.o.ds have met in battle to arouse This whirling shadow of invisible things, These hosts that writhe amid the shattered sods?

O Father, and O Mother of the G.o.ds, Is there some trouble in the heavenly house?

We who are captained by its unseen kings Wonder what thrones are shaken in the skies, What powers who held dominion o'er our will Let fall the sceptre, and what destinies The younger G.o.ds may drive us to fulfil.

Have they not swayed us, earth's invisible lords, With whispers and with breathings from the dark?

The very border stones of nations mark Where silence swallowed some wild prophet's words That rang but for an instant and were still, Yet were so burthened with eternity, They maddened all who heard to work their will, To raise the lofty temple on the hill, And many a glittering thicket of keen swords Flashed out to make one law for land and sea, That earth might move with heaven in company.

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The cities that to myriad beauty grew Were altars raised unto old G.o.ds who died, And they were sacrificed in ruins to The younger G.o.ds who took their place of pride; They have no brotherhood, the deified, No high companionship of throne by throne, But will their beauty still to be alone.

What is a nation but a mult.i.tude United by some G.o.d-begotten mood, Some hope of liberty or dream of power That have not with each other brotherhood But warred in spirit from their natal hour, Their hatred G.o.d-begotten as their love Reverberations of eternal strife?

For all that fury breathed in human life, Are ye not guilty, answer, ye above?

Ah, no, the circle of the heavenly ones, That ring of burning, grave, inflexible powers, Array in harmony amid the deep The shining legionaries of the suns, That through their day from dawn to twilight keep The peace of heaven, and have no feuds like ours.

The morning Stars their labours of the dawn Close at the advent of the Solar Kings, And these with joy their sceptres yield, withdrawn When the still Evening Stars begin their reign, And twilight time is thrilled with homing wings To the All-Father being turned again.

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No, not on high begin divergent ways, The galaxies of interlinked lights Rejoicing on each other's beauty gaze, 'Tis we who do make errant all the rays That stream upon us from the astral heights.

Love in our thickened air too redly burns; And unto vanity our beauty turns; Wisdom, that gently whispers us to part From evil, swells to hatred in the heart.

Dark is the shadow of invisible things On us who look not up, whose vision fails.

The glorious shining of the heavenly kings To mould us in their image naught avails, They weave a robe of many-coloured fire To garb the spirits thronging in the deep, And in the upper air its splendours keep Pure and unsullied, but below it trails Darkling and glimmering in our earthly mire.

With eyes bent ever earthwards we are swayed But by the shadows of eternal light, And shadow against shadow is arrayed So that one dark may dominate the night.

Though kindred are the lights that cast the shade, We look not up, nor see how, side by side, The high originals of all our pride In crowned and sceptred brotherhood are throned, Compa.s.sionate of our blindness and our hate That own the G.o.dship but the love disowned.

Ah, let us for a little while abate The outward roving eye, and seek within

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Where spirit unto spirit is allied; There, in our inmost being, we may win The joyful vision of the heavenly wise To see the beauty in each other's eyes.

_A. E._

24. BRUMANA

Oh shall I never never be home again!

Meadows of England shining in the rain Spread wide your daisied lawns: your ramparts green With briar fortify, with blossom screen Till my far morning--and O streams that slow And pure and deep through plains and playlands go, For me your love and all your kingcups store, And--dark militia of the southern sh.o.r.e, Old fragrant friends--preserve me the last lines Of that long saga which you sang me, pines, When, lonely boy, beneath the chosen tree I listened, with my eyes upon the sea.

O traitor pines, you sang what life has found The falsest of fair tales.

Earth blew a far-horn prelude all around, That native music of her forest home, While from the sea's blue fields and syren dales Shadows and light noon spectres of the foam Riding the summer gales On aery viols plucked an idle sound.

Hearing you sing, O trees, Hearing you murmur, "There are older seas, That beat on vaster sands,

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Where the wise snailfish move their pearly towers To carven rocks and sculptured promont'ries,"

Hearing you whisper, "Lands Where blaze the unimaginable flowers."

Beneath me in the valley waves the palm, Beneath, beyond the valley, breaks the sea; Beneath me sleep in mist and light and calm Cities of Lebanon, dream-shadow-dim, Where Kings of Tyre and Kings of Tyre did rule In ancient days in endless dynasty, And all around the snowy mountains swim Like mighty swans, afloat in heaven's pool.

But I will walk upon the wooded hill Where stands a grove, O pines, of sister pines, And when the downy twilight droops her wing And no sea glimmers and no mountain shines My heart shall listen still.

For pines are gossip pines the wide world through And full of runic tales to sigh or sing.

'Tis ever sweet through pines to see the sky Blushing a deeper gold or darker blue.

'Tis ever sweet to lie On the dry carpet of the needles brown, And though the fanciful green lizard stir And windy odours light as thistledown Breathe from the lavdanon and lavender, Half to forget the wandering and pain, Half to remember days that have gone by, And dream and dream that I am home again!

_James Elroy Flecker._

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25. A LYKE-WAKE CAROL

Grow old and die, rich Day, Over some English field-- Chartered to come away What time to Death you yield!

Pa.s.s, frost-white ghost, and then Come forth to banish'd men!

I see the stubble's sheen, The mist and ruddled leaves, Here where the new Spring's green For her first rain-drops grieves.

Here beechen leaves drift red Last week in England dead.

For English eyes' delight Those Autumn ghosts go free-- Ghost of the field h.o.a.r-white, Ghost of the crimson tree.

Grudge them not, England dear, To us thy banished here!

_Arthur Shearly Cripps._

26. A REFRAIN

Tell the tune his feet beat On the ground all day-- Black-burnt ground and green gra.s.s Seamed with rocks of grey-- "England," "England," "England,"

That one word they say.

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Now they tread the beech-mast, Now the ploughland's clay, Now the faery ball-floor of her fields in May.

Now her red June sorrel, now her new-turned hay, Now they keep the great road, now by sheep-path stray, Still it's "England," "England,"

"England" all the way!

_Arthur Shearly Cripps._