‘Come, surly fellow, come: a song!’
What, fools? Sing to you?
Choose from the clouded tales of wrong
And terror I bring to you:
Of a night so torn with cries,
Honest men sleeping
Start awake with rabid eyes,
Bone-chilled, flesh creeping,
Of spirits in the web-hung room
Up above the stable,
Groans, knockings in the gloom,
The dancing table,
Of demons in the dry well
That cheep and mutter,
Clanging of an unseen bell,
Blood choking the gutter,
Of lust frightful, past belief,
Lurking unforgotten,
Unrestrainable endless grief
In breasts long rotten.
A song? What laughter or what song
Can this house remember?
Do flowers and butterflies belong
To a blind December?
NEGLECTFUL EDWARD
Nancy: ‘Edward back from the Indian Sea,
What have you brought for Nancy?’
Edward: ‘A rope of pearls and a gold earring,
And a bird of the East that will not sing,
A carven tooth, a box with a key –’
Nancy: ‘God be praised you are back,’ says she,
‘Have you nothing more for your Nancy?’
Edward: ‘Long as I sailed the Indian Sea
I gathered all for your fancy;
Toys and silk and jewels I bring,
And a bird of the East that will not sing:
What more can you want, dear girl, from me?’
Nancy: ‘God be praised you are back,’ said she,
‘Have you nothing better for Nancy?’
Edward: ‘Safe and home from the Indian Sea,
And nothing to take your fancy?’
Nancy: ‘You can keep your pearls and your gold earring,
And your bird of the East that will not sing,
But, Ned, have you nothing more for me
Than heathenish gew-gaw toys?’ says she,
‘Have you nothing better for Nancy?’
THE WELL-DRESSED CHILDREN
Here's flowery taffeta for Mary's new gown:
Here’s black velvet, all the rage, for Dick’s birthday coat.
Pearly buttons for you, Mary, all the way down,
Lace ruffles, Dick, for you; you’ll be a man of note.
Mary, here I've bought you a green gingham shade
And a silk purse brocaded with roses gold and blue,
You’ll learn to hold them proudly like colours on parade.
No banker’s wife in all the town half so grand as you.
I’ve bought for young Diccon a long walking-stick,
Yellow gloves, well tanned, at Woodstock village made.
I’ll teach you to flourish ’em and show your name is DICK,
Strutting by your sister’s side with the same parade.
On Sunday to church you go, each with a book of prayer:
Then up the street and down the aisles, everywhere you’ll see
Of all the honours paid around, how small is Virtue’s share,
How large the share of Vulgar Pride in peacock finery.
THUNDER AT NIGHT
Restless and hot two children lay
Plagued with uneasy dreams,
Each wandered lonely through false day,
A twilight torn with screams.
True to the bed-time story, Ben
Pursued his wounded bear,
Ann dreamed of chattering monkey men,
Of snakes twined in her hair….
Now high aloft above the town
The thick clouds gather and break,
A flash, a roar, and rain drives down:
Aghast the young things wake,
Trembling for what their terror was,
Surprised by instant doom,
With lightning in the looking-glass,
Thunder that rocks the room.
The monkeys’ paws patter again,
Snakes hiss and flash their eyes:
The bear roars out in hideous pain:
Ann prays: her brother cries.
They cannot guess, could not be told
How soon comes careless day,
With birds and dandelion gold,
Wet grass, cool scents of May.
WILD STRAWBERRIES
Strawberries that in gardens grow
Are plump and juicy fine,
But sweeter far, as wise men know,
Spring from the woodland vine.
No need for bowl or silver spoon,
Sugar or spice or cream,
Has the wild berry plucked in June
Beside the trickling stream.
One such, to melt at the tongue’s root
Confounding taste with scent,
Beats a full peck of garden fruit:
Which points my argument: –
May sudden justice overtake
And snap the froward pen,
That old and palsied poets shake
Against the minds of men;
Blasphemers trusting to hold caught
In far-flung webs of ink
The utmost ends of human thought
Till nothing’s left to think.
But may the gift of heavenly peace
And glory for all time
Keep the boy Tom who tending geese
First made the nursery rhyme.
JANE
As Jane walked out below the hill,
She saw an old man standing still,
His eyes in trancèd sorrow bound
On the broad stretch of barren ground.
His limbs were knarled like aged trees,
His thin beard wrapt about his knees,
His visage broad and parchment white,
Aglint with pale reflected light.
He seemed a creature fall’n afar
From some dim planet or faint star.
Jane scanned him very close, and soon
Cried, ‘’Tis the old man from the moon.’
He raised his voice, a grating creak,
But only to himself would speak,
Groaning with tears in piteous pain,
‘O! O! would I were home again.’
Then Jane ran off, quick as she could,
To cheer his heart with drink and food.
But ah, too late came ale and bread,
She found the poor soul stretched stone-dead.
And a new moon rode overhead.
VAIN AND CARELESS
Lady, lovely lady,
Careless and gay!
Once, when a beggar called,
She gave her child away.
The beggar took the baby,
Wrapped it in a shawl –
‘Bring him back,’ the lady said,
‘Next time you call.’
Hard by lived a vain man,
So vain and so proud
He would walk on stilts
To be seen by the crowd,
Up above the chimney pots,
Tall as a mast –
And all the people ran about
Shouting till he passed.
‘A splendid match surely,’
Neighbours saw it plain,
‘Although she is so careless,
Although he is so vain.’
But the lady played bobcherry,
Did not see or care,
As the vain man went by her,
Aloft in the air.
This gentle-born couple
Lived and died apart –
Water will not mix with oil,
Nor vain with careless heart.
NINE O’CLOCK
I
Nine of the clock, oh!
Wake my lazy head!
Your shoes of red morocco,
Your silk bed-gown:
Rouse, rouse, speck-eyed Mar
y
In your high bed!
A yawn, a smile, sleepy-starey,
Mary climbs down.
‘Good-morning to my brothers,
Good-day to the Sun,
Halloo, halloo to the lily-white sheep
That up the mountain run.’
II
Good-night to the meadow, farewell to the nine o’clock Sun,
‘He loves me not, loves me, he loves me not’ (O jealous one!)
‘He loves me, he loves me not, loves me’ – O soft nights of June,
A bird sang for love on the cherry-bough: up swam the Moon.
THE PICTURE BOOK
When I was not quite five years old
I first saw the blue picture book,
And Fräulein Spitzenburger told
Stories that sent me hot and cold;
I loathed it, yet I had to look:
It was a German book.
I smiled at first, for she’d begun
With a back-garden broad and green,
And rabbits nibbling there: page one
Turned; and the gardener fired his gun
From the low hedge: he lay unseen
Behind: oh, it was mean!
They’re hurt, they can’t escape, and so
He stuffs them head-down in a sack,
Not quite dead, wriggling in a row,
And Fräulein laughed, ‘Ho, ho! Ho, ho!’
And gave my middle a hard smack.
I wish that I’d hit back.
Then when I cried she laughed again;
On the next page was a dead boy
Murdered by robbers in a lane;
His clothes were red with a big stain
Of blood, he held a broken toy,
The poor, poor little boy!
I had to look: there was a town
Burning where every one got caught,
Then a fish pulled a nigger down
Into the lake and made him drown,
And a man killed his friend; they fought
For money, Fräulein thought.
Old Fräulein laughed, a horrid noise.
‘Ho, ho!’ Then she explained it all.
How robbers kill the little boys
And torture them and break their toys.
Robbers are always big and tall:
I cried: I was so small.
How a man often kills his wife,
How every one dies in the end
By fire, or water or a knife.
If you’re not careful in this life,
Even if you can trust your friend,
You won’t have long to spend.
I hated it – old Fräulein picked
Her teeth, slowly explaining it.
I had to listen, Fräulein licked
Her fingers several times and flicked
The pages over; in a fit
Of rage I spat at it…
And lying in my bed that night
Hungry, tired out with sobs, I found
A stretch of barren years in sight,
Where right is wrong, but strength is right,
Where weak things must creep underground,
And I could not sleep sound.
THE PROMISED LULLABY
Can I find True-Love a gift
In this dark hour to restore her,
When body’s vessel breaks adrift,
When hope and beauty fade before her?
But in this plight I cannot think
Of song or music, that would grieve her,
Or toys or meat or snow-cooled drink;
Not this way can her sadness leave her.
She lies and frets in childish fever,
All I can do is but to cry
‘Sleep, sleep, True-Love and lullaby!’
Lullaby, and sleep again.
Two bright eyes through the window stare,
A nose is flattened on the pane
And infant fingers fumble there.
‘Not yet, not yet, you lovely thing,
But count and come nine weeks from now,
When winter’s tail has lost the sting,
When buds come striking through the bough,
Then here’s True-Love will show you how
Her name she won, will hush your cry
With “Sleep, my baby! Lullaby!”’
RETROSPECT
HAUNTED
Gulp down your wine, old friends of mine,
Roar through the darkness, stamp and sing
And lay ghost hands on everything,
But leave the noonday’s warm sunshine
To living lads for mirth and wine.
I meet you suddenly down the street,
Strangers assume your phantom faces,
You grin at me from daylight places,
Dead, long dead, I’m ashamed to greet
Dead men down the morning street.
RETROSPECT: THE JESTS OF THE CLOCK
He had met hours of the clock he never guessed before –
Dumb, dragging, mirthless hours confused with dreams and fear,
Bone-chilling, hungry hours when the gods sleep and snore,
Bequeathing earth and heaven to ghosts, and will not hear,
And will not hear man groan chained to the sodden ground,
Rotting alive; in feather beds they slumber sound.
When noisome smells of day were sicklied by cold night,
When sentries froze and muttered; when beyond the wire
Blank shadows crawled and tumbled, shaking, tricking the sight,
When impotent hatred of Life stifled desire,
Then soared the sudden rocket, broke in blanching showers.
O lagging watch! O dawn! O hope-forsaken hours!
How often with numbed heart, stale lips, venting his rage
He swore he’d be a dolt, a traitor, a damned fool,
If, when the guns stopped, ever again from youth to age
He broke the early-rising, early-sleeping rule.
No, though more bestial enemies roused a fouler war
Never again would he bear this, no never more!
‘Rise with the cheerful sun, go to bed with the same,
Work in your field or kailyard all the shining day,
But,’ he said, ‘never more in quest of wealth, honour, fame,
Search the small hours of night before the East goes grey.
A healthy mind, an honest heart, a wise man leaves
Those ugly impious times to ghosts, devils, soldiers, thieves.’
Poor fool, knowing too well deep in his heart
That he’ll be ready again if urgent orders come,
To quit his rye and cabbages, kiss his wife and part
At the first sullen rapping of the awakened drum,
Ready once more to sweat with fear and brace for the shock,
To greet beneath a falling flare the jests of the clock.
HERE THEY LIE
Here they lie who once learned here
All that is taught of hurt or fear;
Dead, but by free will they died:
They were true men, they had pride.
TOM TAYLOR
On pay-day nights, neck-full with beer,
Old soldiers stumbling homeward here,
Homeward (still dazzled by the spark
Love kindled in some alley dark)
Young soldiers mooning in slow thought,
Start suddenly, turn about, are caught
By a dancing sound, merry as a grig,
Tom Taylor’s piccolo playing jig.
Never was blown from human cheeks
Music like this, that calls and speaks
Till sots and lovers from one string
Dangle and dance in the same ring.
Tom, of your piping I’ve heard said
And seen – that you can rouse the dead,
Dead-drunken men awash who lie
In stinking gutters hear your cry,
I’ve seen them twitch, draw breath, grope
, sigh,
Heave up, sway, stand; grotesquely then
You set them dancing, these dead men.
They stamp and prance with sobbing breath,
Victims of wine or love or death,
In ragged time they jump, they shake
Their heads, sweating to overtake
The impetuous tune flying ahead.
They flounder after, with legs of lead.
Now, suddenly as it started, play
Stops, the short echo dies away,
The corpses drop, a senseless heap,
The drunk men gaze about like sheep
Grinning; the lovers sigh and stare
Up at the broad moon hanging there,
While Tom, five fingers to his nose,
Skips off… And the last bugle blows.
COUNTRY AT WAR
And what of home – how goes it, boys,
While we die here in stench and noise?
‘The hill stands up and hedges wind
Over the crest and drop behind;
Here swallows dip and wild things go
On peaceful errands to and fro
Across the sloping meadow floor,
And make no guess at blasting war.
In woods that fledge the round hill-shoulder
Leaves shoot and open, fall and moulder,
And shoot again. Meadows yet show
Alternate white of drifted snow
And daisies. Children play at shop,
Warm days, on the flat boulder-top,
With wildflower coinage, and the wares
Are bits of glass and unripe pears.
Crows perch upon the backs of sheep,
The wheat goes yellow: women reap,
Autumn winds ruffle brook and pond,
Flutter the hedge and fly beyond.
So the first things of nature run,
And stand not still for any one,
Contemptuous of the distant cry
Wherewith you harrow earth and sky
And high French clouds, praying to be
Back, back in peace beyond the sea,
Where nature with accustomed round
Sweeps and garnishes the ground
With kindly beauty, warm or cold –
Alternate seasons never old:
Heathen, how furiously you rage,
Cursing this blood and brimstone age,
How furiously against your will
You kill and kill again, and kill:
All thought of peace behind you cast,
Till like small boys with fear aghast,
Each cries for God to understand,
“I could not help it, it was my hand.”’