Georgian Poetry 1918-19 | Page 2

The Birds (from 'The Birds and other
Poems')
W. J. TURNER
Silence (from 'The Dark Fire') Kent in War
Talking with Soldiers

Song
The Princess
Peace
Death
LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE
WITCHCRAFT: NEW STYLE
The sun drew off at last his piercing fires.
Over the stale warm air,
dull as a pond
And moveless in the grey quieted street,
Blue magic

of a summer evening glowed.
The sky, that had been 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