The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems Part 5

But I finish the story triumphantly all the same.

TOPIARY

Failing sometimes to understand Why there are folk whose flesh should seem Like carrion puffed with noisome steam, Fly-blown to the eye that looks on it, Fly-blown to the touch of a hand; Why there are men without any legs, Whizzing along on little trollies With long long arms like apes': Failing to see why G.o.d the Topiarist Should train and carve and twist Men's bodies into such fantastic shapes: Yes, failing to see the point of it all, I sometimes wish That I were a fabulous thing in a fool's mind, Or, at the ocean bottom, in a world that is deaf and blind, Very remote and happy, a great goggling fish.

ON THE BUS

Sitting on the top of the 'bus, I bite my pipe and look at the sky.

Over my shoulder the smoke streams out And my life with it.

"Conservation of energy," you say.

But I burn, I tell you, I burn; And the smoke of me streams out In a vanishing skein of grey.

Crash and b.u.mp ... my poor bruised body!

I am a harp of twittering strings, An elegant instrument, but infinitely second-hand, And if I have not got phthisis it is only an accident.

Droll phenomena!

POINTS AND LINES

Instants in the quiet, small sharp stars, Pierce my spirit with a thrust whose speed Baffles even the grasp of time.

Oh that I might reflect them As swiftly, as keenly as they shine.

But I am a pool of waters, summer-still, And the stars are mirrored across me; Those stabbing points of the sky Turned to a thread of shaken silver, A long fine thread.

PANIC

The eyes of the portraits on the wall Look at me, follow me, Stare incessantly: I take it their glance means nothing at all?

--Clearly, oh clearly! Nothing at all ...

Out in the gardens by the lake The sleeping peac.o.c.ks suddenly wake; Out in the gardens, moonlit and forlorn, Each of them sounds his mournful horn: Shrill peals that waver and crack and break.

What can have made the peac.o.c.ks wake?

RETURN FROM BUSINESS

Evenings in trains, When the little black twittering ghosts Along the brims of cuttings, Against the luminous sky, Interrupt with their hurrying rumour every thought Save that one is young and setting, Headlong westering, And there is no recapture.

STANZAS

Thought is an unseen net wherein our mind Is taken and vainly struggles to be free: Words, that should loose our spirit, do but bind New fetters on our hoped-for liberty: And action bears us onward like a stream Past fabulous sh.o.r.es, scarce seen in our swift course; Glorious--and yet its headlong currents seem Backwaters of some n.o.bler purer force.

There are slow curves, more subtle far than thought, That stoop to carry the grace of a girl's breast; And hanging flowers, so exquisitely wrought In airy metal, that they seem possessed Of souls; and there are distant hills that lift The shoulder of a G.o.ddess towards the light; And arrowy trees, sudden and sharp and swift, Piercing the spirit deeply with delight.

Would I might make these miracles my own!

Like a pure angel, thinking colour and form, Hardening to rage in a flame of chiselled stone, Spilling my love like sunlight, golden and warm On noonday flowers, speaking the song of birds Among the branches, whispering the fall of rain, Beyond all thought, past action and past words, I would live in beauty, free from self and pain.

POEM

Books and a coloured skein of thoughts were mine; And magic words lay ripening in my soul Till their much-whispered music turned a wine Whose subtlest power was all in my control.

These things were mine, and they were real for me As lips and darling eyes and a warm breast: For I could love a phrase, a melody, Like a fair woman, worshipped and possessed.

I scorned all fire that outward of the eyes Could kindle pa.s.sion; scorned, yet was afraid; Feared, and yet envied those more deeply wise Who saw the bright earth beckon and obeyed.

But a time came when, turning full of hate And weariness from my remembered themes, I wished my poet's pipe could modulate Beauty more palpable than words and dreams.

All loveliness with which an act informs The dim uncertain chaos of desire Is mine to-day; it touches me, it warms Body and spirit with its outward fire.

I am mine no more: I have become a part Of that great earth that draws a breath and stirs To meet the spring. But I could wish my heart Were still a winter of frosty gossamers.

SCENES OF THE MIND

I have run where festival was loud With drum and bra.s.s among the crowd Of panic revellers, whose cries Affront the quiet of the skies; Whose dancing lights contract the deep Infinity of night and sleep To a narrow turmoil of troubled fire.

And I have found my heart's desire In beechen caverns that autumn fills With the blue shadowiness of distant hills; Whose luminous grey pillars bear The stooping sky: calm is the air, Nor any sound is heard to mar That crystal silence--as from far, Far off a man may see The busy world all utterly Hushed as an old memorial scene.

Long evenings I have sat and been Strangely content, while in my hands I held a wealth of coloured strands, Shimmering plaits of silk and skeins Of soft bright wool. Each colour drains New life at the lamp's round pool of gold; Each sinks again when I withhold The quickening radiance, to a wan And shadowy oblivion Of what it was. And in my mind Beauty or sudden love has shined And wakened colour in what was dead And turned to gold the sullen lead Of mean desires and everyday's Poor thoughts and customary ways.

Sometimes in lands where mountains throw Their silent spell on all below, Drawing a magic circle wide About their feet on every side, Robbed of all speech and thought and act, I have seen G.o.d in the cataract.

In falling water and in flame, Never at rest, yet still the same, G.o.d shows himself. And I have known The swift fire frozen into stone, And water frozen changelessly Into the death of gems. And I Long sitting by the thunderous mill Have seen the headlong wheel made still, And in the silence that ensued Have known the endless solitude Of being dead and utterly nought.

Inhabitant of mine own thought, I look abroad, and all I see Is my creation, made for me: Along my thread of life are pearled The moments that make up the world.