Some Imagist Poets, 1916 Part 6

Then I thought: she has gone away; she is hurt; she does not know what poison has been working in me.

Then I thought: upstairs, her child is sleeping; and I felt the presence of the fields we had walked over, the roads we had followed, the flowers we had watched together, before it came.

She had touched my hair, and only then did I feel it; And I loved her once again.

And I came away, full of the sweet and bitter juices of life; and I lit the lamp in my room, and made this poem.

TERROR

Eyes are tired; the lamp burns, and in its circle of light papers and books lie where chance and life have placed them.

Silence sings all around me; my head is bound with a band; outside in the street a few footsteps; a clock strikes the hour.

I gaze, and my eyes close, slowly:

I doze; but the moment before sleep, a voice calls my name in my ear, and the shock jolts my heart: but when I open my eyes, and look, first left, and then right ...

no one is there.

CHALFONT SAINT GILES

The low graves are all grown over with forget-me-not, and a rich-green gra.s.s links each with each.

Old family vaults, some within railings, stand here and there, crumbling, moss-eaten, with the ivy growing up them and diagonally across the top projecting slab.

And over the vaults lean the great lilac bushes with their heart-shaped leaves and their purple and white blossom.

A wall of ivy shuts off the darkness of the elm-wood and the larches.

Walk quietly along the mossy paths; the stones of the humble dead are hidden behind the blue mantle of their forget-me-nots; and before one grave so hidden a widow kneels, with head bowed, and the c.r.a.pe falling over her shoulders.

The bells for evening church are ringing, and the people come gravely and with red, sun-burnt faces through the gates in the wall.

Pa.s.s on; this is the church-porch, and within the bell-ringers, men of the village in their Sunday clothes, pull their bob-major on the red and white grip of the bell-ropes, that fly up, and then fall snakily.

They stand there given wholly to the rhythm and swing of their traditional movements.

And the people pa.s.s between them into the church; but we are too sad and too reverent to enter.

WAR-TIME

If I go out of the door, it will not be to take the road to the left that leads past the bovine quiet of houses brooding over the cud of their daily content, even though the tranquillity of their gardens is a lure that once was stronger; even though from privet hedge and mottled laurel the young green peeps, and the daffodils and the yellow and white and purple crocuses laugh from the smooth mould of the garden beds to the upright golden buds of the chestnut trees.

I shall not see the almond blossom shaming the soot-black boughs.

But to the right the road will lead me to greater and greater disquiet; into the swift rattling noise of the motor-'busses, and the dust, the tattered paper-- the detritus of a city-- that swirls in the air behind them.

I will pa.s.s the shops where the prices are judged day by day by the people, and come to the place where five roads meet with five tram-routes, and where amid the din of the vans, the lorries, the motor-'busses, the clangorous tram-cars, the news is shouted, and soldiers gather, off-duty.

Here I can feel the heat of Europe's fever; and I can make, as each man makes the beauty of the woman he loves, no spring and no woman's beauty, while that is burning.

D. H. LAWRENCE

ERINNYES

There has been so much noise, Bleeding and shouting and dying, Clamour of death.

There are so many dead, Many have died unconsenting, Their ghosts are angry, unappeased.

So many ghosts among us, Invisible, yet strong, Between me and thee, so many ghosts of the slain.

They come back, over the white sea, in the mist, Invisible, trooping home, the una.s.suaged ghosts Endlessly returning on the uneasy sea.

They set foot on this land to which they have the right, They return relentlessly, in the silence one knows their tread, Mult.i.tudinous, endless, the ghosts coming home again.

They watch us, they press on us, They press their claim upon us, They are angry with us.

What do they want?

We are driven mad, Madly we rush hither and thither: Shouting, "Revenge, Revenge,"

Crying, "Pour out the blood of the foe,"

Seeking to appease with blood the insistent ghosts.

Out of blood rise up new ghosts, Grey, stern, angry, unsatisfied, The more we slay and are slain, the more we raise up new ghosts against us.

Till we are mad with terror, seeing the slain Victorious, grey, grisly ghosts in our streets, Grey, unappeased ghosts seated in the music-halls.

The dead triumphant, and the quick cast down, The dead, una.s.suaged and angry, silencing us, Making us pale and bloodless, without resistance.

What do they want, the ghosts, what is it They demand as they stand in menace over against us?

How shall we now appease whom we have raised up?

Since from blood poured out rise only ghosts again, What shall we do, what shall we give to them?

What do they want, forever there on our threshold?

Must we open the doors, and admit them, receive them home, And in the silence, reverently, welcome them, And give them place and honour and service meet?