Poems of To-Day | Page 7

dream began:
How all of this had been before;?How ages far away?I lay on some forgotten shore?As here I lie to-day.
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The waves came shining up the sands,?As here to-day they shine;?And in my pre-pelasgian hands?The sand was warm and fine.
I have forgotten whence I came,?Or what my home might be,?Or by what strange and savage name?I called that thundering sea.
I only know the sun shone down?As still it shines to-day,?And in my fingers long and brown?The little pebbles lay.
_Frances Cornford._
3. FRAGMENTS
Troy Town is covered up with weeds,?The rabbits and the pismires brood?On broken gold, and shards, and beads?Where Priam's ancient palace stood.
The floors of many a gallant house?Are matted with the roots of grass;?The glow-worm and the nimble mouse?Among her ruins flit and pass.
And there, in orts of blackened bone,?The widowed Trojan beauties lie,?And Simois babbles over stone?And waps and gurgles to the sky.
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Once there were merry days in Troy,?Her chimneys smoked with cooking meals,?The passing chariots did annoy?The sunning housewives at their wheels.
And many a lovely Trojan maid?Set Trojan lads to lovely things;?The game of life was nobly played,?They played the game like Queens and Kings.
So that, when Troy had greatly passed?In one red roaring fiery coal,?The courts the Grecians overcast?Became a city in the soul.
In some green island of the sea,?Where now the shadowy coral grows?In pride and pomp and empery?The courts of old Atlantis rose.
In many a glittering house of glass?The Atlanteans wandered there;?The paleness of their faces was?Like ivory, so pale they were.
And hushed they were, no noise of words?In those bright cities ever rang;?Only their thoughts, like golden birds,?About their chambers thrilled and sang.
They knew all wisdom, for they knew?The souls of those Egyptian Kings
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Who learned, in ancient Babilu,?The beauty of immortal things.
They knew all beauty--when they thought?The air chimed like a stricken lyre,?The elemental birds were wrought,?The golden birds became a fire.
And straight to busy camps and marts?The singing flames were swiftly gone;?The trembling leaves of human hearts?Hid boughs for them to perch upon.
And men in desert places, men?Abandoned, broken, sick with fears,?Rose singing, swung their swords agen,?And laughed and died among the spears.
The green and greedy seas have drowned?That city's glittering walls and towers,?Her sunken minarets are crowned?With red and russet water-flowers.
In towers and rooms and golden courts?The shadowy coral lifts her sprays;?The scrawl hath gorged her broken orts,?The shark doth haunt her hidden ways,
But, at the falling of the tide,?The golden birds still sing and gleam,?The Atlanteans have not died,?Immortal things still give us dream.
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The dream that fires man's heart to make,?To build, to do, to sing or say?A beauty Death can never take,?An Adam from the crumbled clay.
_John Masefield._
4. FALLEN CITIES
I gathered with a careless hand,?There where the waters night and day?Are languid in the idle bay,?A little heap of golden sand;?And, as I saw it, in my sight?Awoke a vision brief and bright,?A city in a pleasant land.
I saw no mound of earth, but fair?Turrets and domes and citadels,?With murmuring of many bells;?The spires were white in the blue air,?And men by thousands went and came,?Rapid and restless, and like flame?Blown by their passions here and there.
With careless hand I swept away?The little mound before I knew;?The visioned city vanished too,?And fall'n beneath my fingers lay.?Ah God! how many hast Thou seen,?Cities that are not and have been,?By silent hill and idle bay!
_Gerald Gould._
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6. TIME, YOU OLD GIPSY MAN
Time, you old gipsy man,?Will you not stay,?Put up your caravan?Just for one day?
All things I'll give you,?Will you be my guest,?Bells for your jennet?Of silver the best,?Goldsmiths shall beat you?A great golden ring,?Peacocks shall bow to you,?Little boys sing,?Oh, and sweet girls will?Festoon you with may,?Time, you old gipsy,?Why hasten away?
Last week in Babylon,?Last night in Rome,?Morning, and in the crush?Under Paul's dome;?Under Paul's dial?You tighten your rein--?Only a moment,?And off once again;?Off to some city?Now blind in the womb,?Off to another?Ere that's in the tomb.
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Time, you old gipsy man,?Will you not stay,?Put up your caravan?Just for one day?
_Ralph Hodgson._
6. A HUGUENOT
O, a gallant set were they,?As they charged on us that day,?A thousand riding like one!?Their trumpets crying,?And their white plumes flying,?And their sabres flashing in the sun.
O, a sorry lot were we,?As we stood beside the sea,?Each man for himself as he stood!?We were scattered and lonely--?A little force only?Of the good men fighting for the good.
But I never loved more?On sea or on shore?The ringing of my own true blade,?Like lightning it quivered,?And the hard helms shivered,?As I sang, "None maketh me afraid!"
_Mary E. Coleridge._
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7. ON THE TOILET TABLE OF QUEEN MARIE-ANTOINETTE
This was her table, these her trim outspread?Brushes and trays and porcelain cups for red;?Here sate she, while her women tired and curled?The most unhappy head in all the world.
_J. B. B. Nichols._
8. UPON ECKINGTON BRIDGE, RIVER AVON
O pastoral heart of England! like a psalm?Of green days telling