Miscellany of Poetry | Page 5

as the shameful years have run, She is risen for all the humble,
she has heard the conquered calling, St. Barbara of the Gunners, with
her hand upon the gun.
They are burst asunder in the midst that eat of their own flatteries,
Whose lip is curled to order as its barbered hair is curled ... --Blast of
the beauty of sudden death, St. Barbara of the batteries! That blew the

new white window in the wall of all the world.
For the hand is raised behind us, and the bolt smites hard
Through the
rending of the doorways, through the death-gap of the Guard, For the
shout of the Three Colours is in Condé and beyond,
And the Guard is
flung for carrion in the graveyard of St. Gond; Through Mondemont
and out of it, through Morin marsh and on, With earthquake of
salutation the impossible thing is gone; Gaul, charioted and charging,
great Gaul upon a gun,
Tiptoe on all her thousand years, and
trumpeting to the sun, As day returns, as death returns, swung
backward for a span, Back on the barbarous reign returns the
battering-ram of Man.
While that the east held hard and hot like pincers in a forge, Came like
the west wind roaring up the cannon of St. George, Where the hunt is
up and racing over stream and swamp and tarn, And their batteries,
black with battle, hold the bridge-heads of the Marne;
And across the
carnage of the Guard by Paris in the plain
The Normans to the
Bretons cried; and the Bretons cheered again; But he that told the tale
went home to his house beside the sea And burned before St. Barbara,
the light of the windows three. Three candles for an unknown thing,
never to come again,
That opened like the eye of God on Paris in the
plain.

RICHARD CHURCH
PSYCHE GOES FORTH TO LIFE
What are these tears of loneliness to-night?
Hark! In my neighbour's
house the music swells,
Joins with the wind and fills the empty skies

And dies away, like echo of old age
Sighing and dying in the heart
that fails.
Ah! the cruel beauty ... how it creeps
Into my home, into
my waiting heart!
Who am I that I wait to-night?... Alas,
Where is
the old content of maidenhood,
The calmness and the laughter and
the song,
The patient hands unshaken as the needle
Plied to the

gentle rhythm that my lips
Murmured, untroubled girlhood at their
brink?
Was that but yesterday?... How long ago,
How the swift moments
flow along the flood.
For yesterday was sweet indifference;
These
little drooping breasts had never known
This pain that swells them
out and makes them ache
For Love to touch them, for the nestling
lips
To trouble them as a warm lifting wind
Murmurs between two
swelled and ripening grapes
Whispering of future wines of mad
delight.
Ah, let me learn of this! A rapture fills
My limbs, and in
my womb there stirs a craving
For life ... life! Oh, wonderful, the
vision that glows
About me in such radiance, the light, the strife
Of
music, hue and perfume of the rose.
Oh garden of desire, where one
awaits
My coming with the sudden knowledge glowing
Deep in my
eyes, made sombre as the day
Is somber in the summer noon of light.

Now I perceive I am a sacred temple
Long closed about the hidden
flame of life,
Closed with white ivories and gliding shapes
Of river
waves, and waves upon the sea
Rising and gliding. Every magic
curve
Of these unheeded arms, this supple waist--
So are my eyes
set on the infinite--
Are ministering music unto life
Calling love
forth to worship in my shrine,
To fill this temple with the prophecy

Of further, wider, deeper life to come.
Hark! The music of the night is rising up!
My neighbour's house is all
a flame of song.
I must abide until the prelude closes,
Until his
heart has ceased its preparation
And he comes forth into the dying
year,
Leaves his house of inspiration empty,
And with a loneliness
of heart creeps forth
Eagerly into the night, and gropes his way

With outstretched nerveless hands unto my home,
Where I wait,
alone! I hear his lips

Murmur again, and moan, and murmur again

Tones of the broken prelude, vainly trying
To call me forth, who am
waiting in my home,
Waiting in sweet imprisonment, the bonds
Of
love restraining me from running forth
To greet him and to lead him
to my soul.

Oh the swift pain, the agony of waiting,
Galled with these terrible
sweet bonds of love
That will not let me rise, though my cold hands

Are wrung with grief ... for do I not behold
Upon the outer night
the rising fire,
The danger and the terror of love's flight;
Do I not
know my lover; that his eyes
Are blinded by this madness of the skies.

Do I not hear him moaning in the night
For one to lead him to his
waiting love,
To lead him to the temple of delight,
To the white
ivory casket where his soul
Is set with lovely secrets? Do I not