Georgian Poetry 1918-19 | Page 6

on those keys--
My tombs of song--you should engrave:
'My
music, stronger than his own,
Has made this poet my dumb slave.'
BIRDS
When our two souls have left this mortal clay
And, seeking mine, you
think that mine is lost--
Look for me first in that Elysian glade

Where Lesbia is, for whom the birds sing most.
What happy hearts those feathered mortals have,
That sing so sweet
when they're wet through in spring!
For in that month of May when
leaves are young,
Birds dream of song, and in their sleep they sing.
And when the spring has gone and they are dumb,
Is it not fine to
watch them at their play:
Is it not fine to see a bird that tries
To

stand upon the end of every spray?
See how they tilt their pretty heads aside:
When women make that
move they always please.
What cosy homes birds make in leafy walls

That Nature's love has ruined--and the trees.
Oft have I seen in fields the little birds
Go in between a bullock's legs
to eat;
But what gives me most joy is when I see
Snow on my
doorstep, printed by their feet.
OH, SWEET CONTENT!
Oh, sweet content, that turns the labourer's sweat
To tears of joy, and
shines the roughest face;
How often have I sought you high and low,

And found you still in some lone quiet place;
Here, in my room, when full of happy dreams,
With no life heard
beyond that merry sound
Of moths that on my lighted ceiling kiss

Their shadows as they dance and dance around;
Or in a garden, on a summer's night,
When I have seen the dark and
solemn air
Blink with the blind bats' wings, and heaven's bright face

Twitch with the stars that shine in thousands there.
A CHILD'S PET
When I sailed out of Baltimore
With twice a thousand head of sheep,

They would not eat, they would not drink,
But bleated o'er the
deep.
Inside the pens we crawled each day,
To sort the living from the dead;

And when we reached the Mersey's mouth
Had lost five hundred
head.
Yet every night and day one sheep,
That had no fear of man or sea,

Stuck through the bars its pleading face,
And it was stroked by me.

And to the sheep-men standing near,
'You see,' I said, 'this one tame
sheep:
It seems a child has lost her pet,
And cried herself to sleep.'
So every time we passed it by,
Sailing to England's slaughter-house,

Eight ragged sheep-men--tramps and thieves--
Would stroke that
sheep's black nose.
ENGLAND
We have no grass locked up in ice so fast
That cattle cut their faces
and at last,
When it is reached, must lie them down and starve,
With
bleeding mouths that freeze too hard to move.
We have not that
delirious state of cold
That makes men warm and sing when in
Death's hold.
We have no roaring floods whose angry shocks
Can
kill the fishes dashed against their rocks.
We have no winds that cut
down street by street,
As easy as our scythes can cut down wheat.

No mountains here to spew their burning hearts
Into the valleys, on
our human parts.
No earthquakes here, that ring church bells afar,
A
hundred miles from where those earthquakes are.
We have no cause
to set our dreaming eyes,
Like Arabs, on fresh streams in Paradise.

We have no wilds to harbour men that tell
More murders than they
can remember well.
No woman here shall wake from her night's rest,

To find a snake is sucking at her breast.
Though I have travelled
many and many a mile,
And had a man to clean my boots and smile

With teeth that had less bone in them than gold--
Give me this
England now for all my world.
THE BELL
It is the bell of death I hear,
Which tells me my own time is near,

When I must join those quiet souls
Where nothing lives but worms
and moles;
And not come through the grass again,
Like worms and
moles, for breath or rain;
Yet let none weep when my life's through,

For I myself have wept for few.

The only things that knew me well
Were children, dogs, and girls that
fell;
I bought poor children cakes and sweets,
Dogs heard my voice
and danced the streets;
And, gentle to a fallen lass,
I made her weep
for what she was.
Good men and women know not me.
Nor love
nor hate the mystery.

WALTER DE LA MARE
THE SUNKEN GARDEN
Speak not--whisper not;
Here bloweth thyme and bergamot;
Softly
on the evening hour,
Secret herbs their spices shower,
Dark-spiked
rosemary and myrrh,
Lean-stalked, purple lavender;
Hides within
her bosom, too,
All her sorrows, bitter rue.
Breathe not--trespass not;
Of this green and darkling spot,
Latticed
from the moon's beams,
Perchance a distant dreamer dreams;

Perchance upon its darkening air,
The unseen ghosts of children fare,

Faintly swinging, sway and sweep,
Like lovely sea-flowers in its
deep;
While, unmoved, to watch and ward,
'Mid its gloomed and
daisied sward,
Stands with bowed and dewy head
That one little
leaden Lad.
MOONLIGHT
The far moon maketh lovers wise
In her pale beauty trembling down,

Lending curved cheeks, dark lips, dark eyes,
A strangeness not
their own.
And, though they shut their lids