Many Voices | Page 9

my useful plot of land
Into a garden wild and fair,

Where stars in garlands hung like flowers:
A moonlit, lonely, lovely
land.
Dim groves and glimmering fountains there
Embraced a
secret bower of bowers,
And in its rose-ringed heart we were
Alone
in that enchanted land.
What was the spell I wove for her,
Her mad dear magic to undo?

The red rose dies, the white rose dies,
The garden spits me forth with
her
On the old suburban road I knew.
My house is gone, and by my
side
A stranger stands with angry eyes
And lips that swear I ruined
her.
POEM: WINDFLOWERS
When I was little and good
I walked in the dappled wood
Where
light white windflowers grew,
And hyacinths heavy and blue.
The windflowers fluttered light,
Like butterflies white and bright;

The bluebells tremulous stood
Deep in the heart of the wood.
I gathered the white and the blue,
The wild wet woodland through,

With hands too silly and small
To clasp and carry them all.
Some dropped from my hands and died
By the home-road's grassy
side;
And those that my fond hands pressed
Died even before the
rest.
POEM: AS IT IS
If you and I
Had wings to fly -
Great wings like seagulls' wings -


How would we soar
Above the roar
Of loud unneeded things!
We two would rise
Through changing skies
To blue unclouded
space,
And undismayed
And unafraid
Meet the sun face to face.
But wings we know not;
The feathers grow not
To carry us so high;

And low in the gloom
Of a little room
We weep and say
good-bye.
POEM: BEFORE WINTER
The wind is crying in the night,
Like a lost child;
The waves break
wonderful and white
And wild.
The drenched sea-poppies swoon
along
The drenched sea-wall,
And there's an end of summer and of
song -
An end of all.
The fingers of the tortured boughs
Gripped by the blast
Clutch at
the windows of your house
Closed fast.
And the lost child of love,
despair,
Cries in the night,
Remembering how once those windows
were
Open and bright.
POEM: THE VAULT--AFTER SEDGMOOR
You need not call at the Inn;
I have ordered my bed:
Fair linen
sheets therein
And a tester of lead.
No musty fusty scents
Such as
inn chambers keep,
But tapestried with content
And hung with
sleep.
My Inn door bears no bar
Set up against fear.
The guests have
journeyed far,
They are glad to be here.
Where the damp arch
curves up grey,
Long, long shall we lie;

Good King's men all are
they,
A King's man I.
Old Giles, in his stone asleep,
Fought at Poictiers.
Piers Ralph and
Roger keep
The spoil of their fighting years.
I shall lie with my folk

at last
In a quiet bed;
I shall dream of the sword held fast
In a
round-capped head.
Good tale of men all told
My Inn affords;
And their hands peace
shall hold
That once held swords.
And we who rode and ran
On
many a loyal quest
Shall find the goal of man -
A bed, and rest.
We shall not stand to the toast
Of Love or King;
We be all too tired
to boast
About anything.
We be dumb that did jest and sing;
We
rest who laboured and warred . . .
Shout once, shout once for the King.

Shout once for the sword!
POEM: SURRENDER
Oh, the nights were dark and cold,
When my love was gone.
And
life was hard to hold
When my love was gone.
I was wise, I never
gave
What they teach a girl to save,
But I wished myself his slave

When my love was gone.
I was all alone at night
When my love came home.
Oh, what
thought of wrong or right
When my love came home?
I flung the
door back wide
And I pulled my love inside;
There was no more
shame or pride
When my love came home.
POEM: VALUES
Did you deceive me? Did I trust
A heart of fire to a heart of dust?

What matter? Since once the world was fair,
And you gave me the
rose of the world to wear.
That was the time to live for! Flowers,
Sunshine and starshine and
magic hours,
Summer about me, Heaven above,
And all seemed
immortal, even Love.
Well, the mortal rose of your love was worth
The pains of death and

the pains of birth;
And the thorns may be sharper than death--who
knows? -
That crowd round the stem of a deathless rose.
POEM: IN THE PEOPLE'S PARK
Many's the time I've found your face
Fresh as a bunch of flowers in
May,
Waiting for me at our own old place
At the end of the
working day.
Many's the time I've held your hand
On the shady seat
in the People's Park,
And blessed the blaring row of the band
And
kissed you there in the dark.
Many's the time you promised true,
Swore it with kisses, swore it
with tears:
"I'll marry no one without it's you -
If we have to wait
for years."
And now it's another chap in the Park
That holds your
hand like I used to do;
And I kiss another girl in the dark,
And try
to fancy it's you!
POEM: WEDDING DAY
The enchanted hour,
The magic bower,
Where, crowned with roses,

Love love discloses.
"Kiss me, my lover;
Doubting is over,
Over is waiting;
Love
lights our mating!"
"But roses wither,
Chill winds blow hither,
One thing all