Late Lyrics and Earlier | Page 5

chronological, and other contingencies keep me in these days from
critical studies and literary circles
Where once we held debate, a band
Of youthful friends, on mind and
art
(if one may quote Tennyson in this century of free verse). Hence I
cannot know how things are going so well as I used to know them, and
the aforesaid limitations must quite prevent my knowing henceforward.
I have to thank the editors and owners of The Times, Fortnightly,
Mercury, and other periodicals in which a few of the poems have
appeared for kindly assenting to their being reclaimed for collected
publication. T. H.
February 1922.
WEATHERS
This is the weather the cuckoo likes,

And so do I;
When showers betumble the chestnut spikes,
And nestlings fly:
And the little brown nightingale bills his best,

And they sit outside at "The Travellers' Rest,"
And maids come forth
sprig-muslin drest,
And citizens dream of the south and west,
And so do I.
II
This is the weather the shepherd shuns,
And so do I;
When beeches drip in browns and duns,
And thresh, and ply;
And hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe,
And
meadow rivulets overflow,
And drops on gate-bars hang in a row,

And rooks in families homeward go,
And so do I.
THE MAID OF KEINTON MANDEVILLE
(A TRIBUTE TO
SIR H. BISHOP)
I hear that maiden still
Of Keinton Mandeville
Singing, in flights
that played
As wind-wafts through us all,
Till they made our mood
a thrall
To their aery rise and fall,
"Should he upbraid."
Rose-necked, in sky-gray gown,
From a stage in Stower Town
Did
she sing, and singing smile
As she blent that dexterous voice
With
the ditty of her choice,
And banished our annoys
Thereawhile.
One with such song had power
To wing the heaviest hour
Of him
who housed with her.
Who did I never knew
When her spoused

estate ondrew,
And her warble flung its woo
In his ear.
Ah, she's a beldame now,
Time-trenched on cheek and brow,

Whom I once heard as a maid
From Keinton Mandeville
Of
matchless scope and skill
Sing, with smile and swell and trill,
"Should he upbraid!"
1915 or 1916.
SUMMER SCHEMES
When friendly summer calls again,
Calls again
Her little fifers to these hills,
We'll go--we two--to that
arched fane
Of leafage where they prime their bills
Before they start
to flood the plain
With quavers, minims, shakes, and trills.
"--We'll go," I sing; but who shall say
What may not chance before
that day!
And we shall see the waters spring,
Waters spring
From chinks the scrubby copses crown;
And we shall
trace their oncreeping
To where the cascade tumbles down
And
sends the bobbing growths aswing,
And ferns not quite but almost
drown.
"--We shall," I say; but who may sing
Of what another moon will
bring!
EPEISODIA
I

Past the hills that peep
Where the leaze is smiling,
On and on
beguiling
Crisply-cropping sheep;
Under boughs of brushwood

Linking tree and tree
In a shade of lushwood,
There caressed we!
II
Hemmed by city walls
That outshut the sunlight,
In a foggy dun
light,
Where the footstep falls
With a pit-pat wearisome
In its
cadency
On the flagstones drearisome
There pressed we!
III
Where in wild-winged crowds
Blown birds show their whiteness

Up against the lightness
Of the clammy clouds;
By the random
river
Pushing to the sea,
Under bents that quiver
There rest we.
FAINTHEART IN A RAILWAY TRAIN
At nine in the morning there passed a church,
At ten there passed me
by the sea,
At twelve a town of smoke and smirch,
At two a forest
of oak and birch,
And then, on a platform, she:
A radiant stranger, who saw not me.
I queried, "Get out to her do I
dare?"
But I kept my seat in my search for a plea,
And the wheels
moved on. O could it but be
That I had alighted there!
AT MOONRISE AND ONWARDS

I thought you a fire
On Heron-Plantation Hill,
Dealing out mischief
the most dire
To the chattels of men of hire
There in their vill.
But by and by
You turned a yellow-green,
Like a large glow-worm
in the sky;
And then I could descry
Your mood and mien.
How well I know
Your furtive feminine shape!
As if reluctantly
you show
You nude of cloud, and but by favour throw
Aside its drape . . .
--How many a year
Have you kept pace with me,
Wan Woman of
the waste up there,
Behind a hedge, or the bare
Bough of a tree!
No novelty are you,
O Lady of all my time,
Veering unbid into my
view
Whether I near Death's mew,
Or Life's top cyme!
THE GARDEN SEAT
Its former green is blue and thin,
And its once firm legs sink in and in;


Soon it will break down unaware,
Soon it will break down
unaware.
At night when reddest flowers are black
Those who once sat thereon
come back;
Quite a row of them sitting there,
Quite a row of them
sitting there.
With them the seat does not break down,
Nor winter freeze them, nor
floods drown,
For they are as light as upper air,
They are as light as
upper air!
BARTHELEMON AT VAUXHALL
Francois Hippolite Barthelemon, first-fiddler at Vauxhall Gardens,
composed