The Ballad of St. Barbara Part 3

Were I that wandering citizen whose city is the world, I would not weep for all that fell before the flags were furled; I would not let one murmur mar the trumpets volleying forth How G.o.d grew weary of the kings, and the cold h.e.l.l in the north.

But we whose hearts are homing birds have heavier thoughts of home, Though the great eagles burn with gold on Paris or on Rome, Who stand beside our dead and stare, like seers at an eclipse, At the riddle of the island tale and the twilight of the ships.

For these were simple men that loved with hands and feet and eyes, Whose souls were humbled to the hills and narrowed to the skies, The hundred little lands within one little land that lie, Where Severn seeks the sunset isles or Suss.e.x scales the sky.

And what is theirs, though banners blow on Warsaw risen again, Or ancient laughter walks in gold through the vineyards of Lorraine, Their dead are marked on English stones, their loves on English trees, How little is the prize they win, how mean a coin for these- How small a shrivelled laurel-leaf lies crumpled here and curled: They died to save their country and they only saved the world.

NIGHTMARE

The silver and violet leopard of the night Spotted with stars and smooth with silence sprang; And though three doors stood open, the end of light Closed like a trap; and stillness was a clang.

Under the leopard sky of lurid stars I strove with evil sleep the hot night long, Dreams dumb and swollen of triumphs without wars, Of tongueless trumpet and unanswering gong.

I saw a pale imperial pomp go by, Helmet and horned mitre and heavy wreath; Their high strange ensigns hung upon the sky And their great shields were like the doors of death.

Their mitres were as moving pyramids And all their crowns as marching towers were tall; Their eyes were cold under their carven lids And the same carven smile was on them all.

Over a paven plain that seemed unending They pa.s.sed unfaltering till it found an end In one long shallow step; and these descending Fared forth anew as long away to wend.

I thought they travelled for a thousand years; And at the end was nothing for them all, For all that splendour of sceptres and of spears, But a new step, another easy fall.

The smile of stone seemed but a little less, The load of silver but a little more: And ever was that terraced wilderness And falling plain paved like a palace floor.

Rust red as gore crawled on their arms of might And on their faces wrinkles and not scars: Till the dream suddenly ended; noise and light Loosened the tyranny of the tropic stars.

But over them like a subterranean sun I saw the sign of all the fiends that fell; And a wild voice cried "Hasten and be done, Is there no steepness in the stairs of h.e.l.l?"

He that returns, He that remains the same, Turned the round real world, His iron vice; Down the grey garden paths a bird called twice, And through three doors mysterious daylight came.

A SECOND CHILDHOOD

When all my days are ending And I have no song to sing, I think I shall not be too old To stare at everything; As I stared once at a nursery door Or a tall tree and a swing.

Wherein G.o.d's ponderous mercy hangs On all my sins and me, Because He does not take away The terror from the tree And stones still shine along the road That are and cannot be.

Men grow too old for love, my love, Men grow too old for wine, But I shall not grow too old to see Unearthly daylight shine, Changing my chamber's dust to snow Till I doubt if it be mine.

Behold, the crowning mercies melt, The first surprises stay; And in my dross is dropped a gift For which I dare not pray: That a man grow used to grief and joy But not to night and day.

Men grow too old for love, my love, Men grow too old for lies; But I shall not grow too old to see Enormous night arise, A cloud that is larger than the world And a monster made of eyes.

Nor am I worthy to unloose The latchet of my shoe; Or shake the dust from off my feet Or the staff that bears me through On ground that is too good to last, Too solid to be true.

Men grow too old to woo, my love, Men grow too old to wed: But I shall not grow too old to see Hung crazily overhead Incredible rafters when I wake And find I am not dead.

A thrill of thunder in my hair: Though blackening clouds be plain, Still I am stung and startled By the first drop of the rain: Romance and pride and pa.s.sion pa.s.s And these are what remain.

Strange crawling carpets of the gra.s.s, Wide windows of the sky: So in this perilous grace of G.o.d With all my sins go I: And things grow new though I grow old, Though I grow old and die.

"MEDIaeVALISM"

If men should rise and return to the noise and time of the tourney, The name and fame of the tabard, the tangle of gules and gold, Would these things stand and suffice for the bourne of a backward journey, A light on our days returning, as it was in the days of old?

Nay, there is none rides back to pick up a glove or a feather, Though the gauntlet rang with honour or the plume was more than a crown: And hushed is the holy trumpet that called the nations together And under the Horns of Hattin the hope of the world went down.

Ah, not in remembrance stored, but out of oblivion starting, Because you have sought new homes and all that you sought is so, Because you had trodden the fire and barred the door in departing, Returns in your chosen exile the glory of long ago.

Not then when you barred the door, not then when you trod the embers, But now, at your new road's end, you have seen the face of a fate, That not as a child looks back, and not as a fool remembers, All that men took too lightly and all that they love too late.

It is you that have made no rubric for saints, no raiment for lovers, Your caps that cry for a feather, your roofs that sigh for a spire: Is it a dream from the dead if your own decay discovers Alive in your rotting graveyard the worm of the world's desire?

Therefore the old trees tower, that the green trees grow and are stunted: Therefore these dead men mock you, that you the living are dead: Since ever you battered the saints and the tools of your crafts were blunted, Or shattered the gla.s.s in its glory and loaded yourselves with the lead.

When the usurer hunts the squire as the squire has hunted the peasant, As sheep that are eaten of worms where men were eaten of sheep: Now is the judgment of earth, and the weighing of past and present, Who scorn to weep over ruins, behold your ruin and weep.

Have ye not known, ye fools, that have made the present a prison, That thirst can remember water and hunger remember bread?

We went not gathering ghosts; but the shriek of your shame is arisen Out of your own black Babel too loud; and it woke the dead.

POLAND

Augurs that watched archaic birds Such plumed prodigies might read, The eagles that were double-faced, The eagle that was black indeed; And when the battle-birds went down And in their track the vultures come, We know what pardon and what peace Will keep our little masters dumb.

The men that sell what others make, As vultures eat what others slay, Will prove in matching plume with plume That naught is black and all is grey; Grey as those dingy doves that once, By money-changers palmed and priced, Amid the crash of tables flapped And huddled from the wrath of Christ.

But raised for ever for a sign Since G.o.d made anger glorious, Where eagles black and vultures grey Flocked back about the heroic house, Where war is holier than peace, Where hate is holier than love, Shone terrible as the Holy Ghost An eagle whiter than a dove.

THE HUNTING OF THE DRAGON

When we went hunting the Dragon In the days when we were young, We tossed the bright world over our shoulder As bugle and baldrick slung; Never was world so wild and fair As what went by on the wind, Never such fields of paradise As the fields we left behind: For this is the best of a rest for men That men should rise and ride Making a flying fairyland Of market and country-side, Wings on the cottage, wings on the wood, Wings upon pot and pan, For the hunting of the Dragon That is the life of a man.