Late Lyrics and Earlier | Page 6

were threads of matin music spun?In trial tones as he pursued his way:?"This is a morn," he murmured, "well begun:?This strain to Ken will count when I am clay!"
And count it did; till, caught by echoing lyres,?It spread to galleried naves and mighty quires.
"I SOMETIMES THINK"?(FOR F. E. H.)
I sometimes think as here I sit
Of things I have done,?Which seemed in doing not unfit
To face the sun:?Yet never a soul has paused a whit
On such--not one.
There was that eager strenuous press
To sow good seed;?There was that saving from distress
In the nick of need;?There were those words in the wilderness:
Who cared to heed?
Yet can this be full true, or no?
For one did care,?And, spiriting into my house, to, fro,
Like wind on the stair,?Cares still, heeds all, and will, even though
I may despair.
JEZREEL?ON ITS SEIZURE BY THE ENGLISH UNDER ALLENBY, SEPTEMBER 1918
Did they catch as it were in a Vision at shut of the day--?When their cavalry smote through the ancient Esdraelon Plain, And they crossed where the Tishbite stood forth in his enemy's way-- His gaunt mournful Shade as he bade the King haste off amain?
On war-men at this end of time--even on Englishmen's eyes-- Who slay with their arms of new might in that long-ago place, Flashed he who drove furiously? . . . Ah, did the phantom arise Of that queen, of that proud Tyrian woman who painted her face?
Faintly marked they the words "Throw her down!" rise from Night eerily,?Spectre-spots of the blood of her body on some rotten wall? And the thin note of pity that came: "A King's daughter is she," As they passed where she trodden was once by the chargers' footfall?
Could such be the hauntings of men of to-day, at the cease?Of pursuit, at the dusk-hour, ere slumber their senses could seal? Enghosted seers, kings--one on horseback who asked "Is it peace?" . . .?Yea, strange things and spectral may men have beheld in Jezreel!
September 24, 1918.
A JOG-TROT PAIR
Who were the twain that trod this track
So many times together
Hither and back,?In spells of certain and uncertain weather?
Commonplace in conduct they
Who wandered to and fro here
Day by day:?Two that few dwellers troubled themselves to know here.
The very gravel-path was prim
That daily they would follow:
Borders trim:?Never a wayward sprout, or hump, or hollow.
Trite usages in tamest style
Had tended to their plighting.
"It's just worth while,?Perhaps," they had said. "And saves much sad good-nighting."
And petty seemed the happenings
That ministered to their joyance:
Simple things,?Onerous to satiate souls, increased their buoyance.
Who could those common people be,
Of days the plainest, barest?
They were we;?Yes; happier than the cleverest, smartest, rarest.
"THE CURTAINS NOW ARE DRAWN"?(SONG)
I
The curtains now are drawn,?And the spindrift strikes the glass,?Blown up the jagged pass?By the surly salt sou'-west,?And the sneering glare is gone?Behind the yonder crest,
While she sings to me:?"O the dream that thou art my Love, be it thine,?And the dream that I am thy Love, be it mine,?And death may come, but loving is divine."
II
I stand here in the rain,?With its smite upon her stone,?And the grasses that have grown?Over women, children, men,?And their texts that "Life is vain";?But I hear the notes as when
Once she sang to me:?"O the dream that thou art my Love, be it thine,?And the dream that I am thy Love, be it mine,?And death may come, but loving is divine."
1913.
"ACCORDING TO THE MIGHTY WORKING"
I
When moiling seems at cease
In the vague void of night-time,?And heaven's wide roomage stormless?Between the dusk and light-time,?And fear at last is formless,?We call the allurement Peace.
II
Peace, this hid riot, Change,
This revel of quick-cued mumming,?This never truly being,?This evermore becoming,?This spinner's wheel onfleeing?Outside perception's range.
1917.
"I WAS NOT HE"?(SONG)
I was not he--the man?Who used to pilgrim to your gate,?At whose smart step you grew elate,
And rosed, as maidens can,
For a brief span.
It was not I who sang?Beside the keys you touched so true?With note-bent eyes, as if with you
It counted not whence sprang
The voice that rang . . .
Yet though my destiny?It was to miss your early sweet,?You still, when turned to you my feet,
Had sweet enough to be
A prize for me!
THE WEST-OF-WESSEX GIRL
A very West-of-Wessex girl,
As blithe as blithe could be,?Was once well-known to me,?And she would laud her native town,
And hope and hope that we?Might sometime study up and down
Its charms in company.
But never I squired my Wessex girl
In jaunts to Hoe or street?When hearts were high in beat,?Nor saw her in the marbled ways
Where market-people meet?That in her bounding early days
Were friendly with her feet.
Yet now my West-of-Wessex girl,
When midnight hammers slow?From Andrew's, blow by blow,?As phantom draws me by the hand
To the place--Plymouth Hoe--?Where side by side in life, as planned,
We never were to go!
Begun in Plymouth, March 1913.
WELCOME HOME
To my native place?Bent upon returning,?Bosom all day burning?To be where my race?Well were known, 'twas much with me?There to dwell in amity.
Folk had sought their