Georgian Poetry 1918-19 | Page 9

bent with the wind, from east to west,?Chased by one wild grey cloud, and flashing all?Her dews for happiness to hear morning call....
But even as I stepped out the brightness dimmed,?I saw the fading edge of all delight.?The sober morning waked the drowsy herds,?And there was the old scolding of the birds.
THE BODY
When I had dreamed and dreamed what woman's beauty was,?And how that beauty seen from unseen surely flowed,?I turned and dreamed again, but sleeping saw no more:?My eyes shut and my mind with inward vision glowed.
'I did not think!' I cried, seeing that wavering shape?That steadied and then wavered, as a cherry bough in June?Lifts and falls in the wind--each fruit a fruit of light;?And then she stood as clear as an unclouded moon.
As clear and still she stood, moonlike remotely near;?I saw and heard her breathe, I years and years away.?Her light streamed through the years, I saw her clear and still, Shape and spirit together mingling night with day.
Water falling, falling with the curve of time?Over green-hued rock, then plunging to its pool?Far, far below, a falling spear of light;?Water falling golden from the sun but moonlike cool:
Water has the curve of her shoulder and breast,?Water falls as straight as her body rose,?Water her brightness has from neck to still feet,?Water crystal-cold as her cold body flows.
But not water has the colour I saw when I dreamed,?Nor water such strength has. I joyed to behold?How the blood lit her body with lamps of fire?And made the flesh glow that like water gleamed cold,
A flame in her arms and in each finger flame,?And flame in her bosom, flame above, below,?The curve of climbing flame in her waist and her thighs;?From foot to head did flame into red flame flow.
I knew how beauty seen from unseen must rise,?How the body's joy for more than body's use was made.?I knew then how the body is the body of the mind,?And how the mind's own fire beneath the cool skin played.
O shape that once to have seen is to see evermore,?Falling stream that falls to the deeps of the mind,?Fire that once lit burns while aught burns in the world,?Foot to head a flame moving in the spirit's wind!
If these eyes could see what these eyes have not seen--?The inward vision clear--how should I look, for joy,?Knowing that beauty's self rose visible in the world?Over age that darkens, and griefs that destroy?
TEN O'CLOCK NO MORE [1]
The wind has thrown?The boldest of trees down.?Now disgraced it lies,?Naked in spring beneath the drifting skies,?Naked and still.
It was the wind?So furious and blind?That scourged half England through,?Ruining the fairest where most fair it grew?By dell and hill,
And springing here,?The black clouds dragging near,?Against this lonely elm?Thrust all his strength to maim and overwhelm?In one wild shock.
As in the deep?Satisfaction of dark sleep?The tree her dream dreamed on,?And woke to feel the wind's arms round her thrown?And her head rock.
And the wind raught?Her ageing boughs and caught?Her body fast again.?Then in one agony of age, grief, pain,?She fell and died.
Her noble height,?Branches that loved the light,?Her music and cool shade,?Her memories and all of her is dead?On the hill side.
But the wind stooped,?With madness tired, and drooped?In the soft valley and slept,?While morning strangely round the hush'd tree crept?And called in vain.
The birds fed where?The roots uptorn and bare?Thrust shameful at the sky;?And pewits round the tree would dip and cry?With the old pain.
'Ten o'clock's gone!'?Said sadly every one.?And mothers looking thought?Of sons and husbands far away that fought:--?And looked again.
[Footnote 1: "Ten o'clock" is the name of a tall tree that crowned the eastern Cotswolds.]
THE FUGITIVE
In the hush of early even?The clouds came flocking over,?Till the last wind fell from heaven?And no bird cried.
Darkly the clouds were flocking,?Shadows moved and deepened,?Then paused; the poplar's rocking?Ceased; the light hung still
Like a painted thing, and deadly.?Then from the cloud's side flickered?Sharp lightning, thrusting madly?At the cowering fields.
Thrice the fierce cloud lighten'd,?Down the hill slow thunder trembled?Day in her cave grew frightened,?Crept away, and died.
THE ALDE
How near I walked to Love,?How long, I cannot tell.?I was like the Alde that flows?Quietly through green level lands,?So quietly, it knows?Their shape, their greenness and their shadows well;?And then undreamingly for miles it goes?And silently, beside the sea.
Seamews circle over,?The winter wildfowl wings,?Long and green the grasses wave?Between the river and the sea.?The sea's cry, wild or grave,?From bank to low bank of the river rings;?But the uncertain river though it crave?The sea, knows not the sea.
Was that indeed salt wind??Came that noise from falling?Wild waters on a stony shore??Oh, what is this new troubling tide?Of eager waves that pour?Around and over, leaping, parting, recalling?...?How near I moved (as day to same day wore)?And silently, beside the sea!
NEARNESS
Thy hand my hand,?Thine eyes my eyes,?All of thee?Caught and confused with