Georgian Poetry 1918-19 | Page 2

dazzling stone all day,?Hollowed in smooth hard brightness, now dissolved?To infinite soft depth, and smoulder'd down?Low as the roofs, dark burning blue, and soared?Clear to that winking drop of liquid silver,?The first exquisite star. Now the half-light?Tidied away the dusty litter parching?Among the cobbles, veiled in the colour of distance?Shabby slates and brickwork mouldering, turn'd?The hunchback houses into patient things?Resting; and golden windows now began.
A little brisk grey slattern of a woman,?Pattering along in her loose-heel'd clogs,?Pushed the brass-barr'd door of a public-house;?The spring went hard against her; hand and knee?Shoved their weak best. As the door poised ajar,?Hullabaloo of talking men burst out,?A pouring babble of inflamed palaver,?And overriding it and shouted down?High words, jeering or downright, broken like?Crests that leap and stumble in rushing water.?Just as the door went wide and she stepped in,?'She cannot do it!' one was bawling out:?A glaring hulk of flesh with a bull's voice.?He finger'd with his neckerchief, and stretched?His throat to ease the anger of dispute,?Then spat to put a full stop to the matter.
The little woman waited, with one hand?Propping the door, and smiled at the loud man.?They saw her then; and the sight was enough?To gag the speech of every drinker there:?The din fell down like something chopt off short.?Blank they all wheel'd towards her, with their mouths?Still gaping as though full of voiceless words.?She let the door slam to; and all at ease,?Amused, her smile wrinkling about her eyes,?Went forward: they made room for her quick enough.?Her chin just topt the counter; she gave in?Her bottle to the potboy, tuckt it back,?Full of bright tawny ale, under her arm,?Rapt down the coppers on the planisht zinc,?And turned: and no word spoken all the while.
The first voice, in that silent crowd, was hers,?Her light snickering laugh, as she stood there?Pausing, scanning the sawdust at her feet.?Then she switcht round and faced the positive man?Whose strong 'She cannot do it!' all still felt?Huskily shouting in their guilty ears.
'She can't, eh? She can't do it? '--Then she'd heard!
The man, inside his ruddy insolent flesh,?Had hoped she did not hear. His barrel chest?Gave a slight cringe, as though the glint of her eyes?Prickt him. But he stood up to her awkwardly bold,?One elbow on the counter, gripping his mug?Like a man holding on to a post for safety.
The Man:
You can't do what's not nature: nobody can.
The Woman:
And louts like you have nature in your pocket?
The Man:
I don't say that--
The Woman:
If you kept saying naught, No one would guess the fool you are.
Second Man:
Almost?My very words!
The Woman:
O you're the knowing man!?The spark among the cinders!
First Man:
You can't fetch?A free man back, unless he wants to come.
The Woman:
Nay, I'll be bound he doesn't want to come!
Third Man:
And he won't come: he told me flat he wouldn't.
The Woman:
Are you there too?
Third Man:
And if he does come back?It will be devilry brought him.
The Woman:
I shall bring him;--?Tonight.
First Man:
How will he come?
The Woman:
Running: unless?He's broke his leg, and then he'll have to come?Crawling: but he will come.
First Man:
How do you know?What he may choose to do, three counties off?
The Woman:
He choose?
Third Man:
You haven't got him on a lead.
The Woman:
Haven't I though!
Second Man:
That's right; it's what I said.
The Woman:
Ay, there are brains in your family.
First Man:
You have?Some sort of pull on him, to draw him home?
The Woman:
You may say that: I have hold of his mind.?And I can slack it off or fetch it taut.?And make him dance a score of miles away?An answer to the least twangling thrum?I play on it. He thought he lurkt at last?Safely; and all the while, what has he been??An eel on the end of a night line; and it's time?I haul'd him in. You'll see, to-night I'll land him.
Third Man:
Bragging's a light job.
The Woman;
You daren't let me take?Your eyes in mine!--Haul, did I say? no need:?I give his mind a twitch, and up he comes?Tumbling home to me. Whatever work he's at,?He drops the thing he holds like redhot iron?And runs--runs till he falls down like a beast?Pole-axt, and grunts for breath; then up and on,?No matter does he know the road or not:?The strain I put on his mind will keep him going?Right as a homing-pigeon.
First Man:
Devilry I call it.
The Woman:
And you're welcome.
Second Man:
But the law should have a say here.
The Woman:
What, isn't he mine,?My own? There's naught but what I please about it.
Third Man:
Why did you let him go?
The Woman:
To fetch him back!?For I enjoy this, mind. There's many a one?Would think, to see me, There goes misery!?There's a queer starveling for you!--and I do?A thing that makes me like a saint in glory,?The life of me the sound of a great tune?Your flesh could never hear: I can send power?Delighting out of me! O, the mere thought?Has made my blood go smarting in my veins,?Such a flame glowing along