ifc.'iV- ;;•;!; (f^ttii THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES k SWORDS AND PLOUGHSHARES BY THE SAME AUTHOR POETRY— POEMS OF MEN AND HOURS. 1911 COPHETUA. A Play in One Act. 1911 POEMS OF LOVE AND EARTH. 1912 CROMWELL, AND OTHER POEMS. 1913 REBELLION. A Plav in Three Acts. 1914 PROSE— WILLIAM MORRIS. A Critical Study. 1912 SWINBURNE. An Estimate. 1913 Swords and Ploughshares by John Drinkwater. London : Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd. 3 Adam Street, Adelphi. mcmxv 7 -■■ / J TO EDWARD MARSH 810352 CONTENTS PAGE The Carver in Stone . . . . 9 A Town Window . . . . 21 The New Miracle . . . . 22 Memory . . . . . 23 The Boundaries . . . . 24 Last Confessional . . . . 25 For Corin To-day . . . . 27 Mad Tom Tatterman . . . • 28 Mamble . . . . . 30 Love's Challenge . . . . 31 The Poet to his Mistress 32 Love's House . . . . ■ 33 Of Greatham . . . . • 37 We Willed it Not 39 The Cause .... 41 England to Belgium . 43 Rebuke. .... 45 Gathering Song 46 The Defenders • 47 On the Picture of a Private Soldier who hai gained a Victoria Cross . . 48 One Speaks in Germany ■ 49 Of the Dead .... • 50 Eclipse .... • 51 Nocturne .... • 52 The Ships of Grief . 53 The Poets to the Heroes • 54 Swords and Ploughshares THE CARVER IN STONE He was a man with wide and patient eyes, Grey, like the drift of twitch-fires blown in June, That, without fearing, searched if any wrong Might threaten from your heart. Grey eyes he had Under a brow was drawn because he knew So many seasons to so many pass Of upright service, loyal, unabased Before the world seducing, and so, barren Of good words praising and thought that mated his. He carved in stone. Out of his quiet life He watched as any faithful seaman charged With tidings of the myriad faring sea. And thoughts and premonitions through his mind Sailing as ships from strange and storied lands His hungry spirit held, till all they were Found living witness in the chiselled stone. Slowly out of the dark confusion, spread By life's innumerable venturings 9 Over his brain, he would triumph into the Hght Of one clear mood, unblemished of the blind Legions of errant thought that cried about His rapt seclusion : as a pearl unsoiled, Nay, rather washed to loneher chastity, In gritty mud. And then would come a bird, A flower, or the wind moving upon a flower, A beast at pasture, or a clustered fruit, A peasant face as were the saints of old, The leer of custom, or the bow of the moon Swung in miraculous poise — some stray from the world Of things created by the eternal mind In joy articulate. And his perfect mood Would dwell about the token of God's mood, Until in bird or flower or moving wind Or flock or shepherd or the troops of heaven It sprang in one fierce moment of desire To visible form. Then would his chisel work among the stone, Persuading it of petal or of hmb Or starry curve, till risen anew there sang Shape out of chaos, and again the vision Of one mind single from the world was pressed Upon the daily custom of the sky Or field or the body of man. His people Had many gods for worship. The tiger-god. The owl, the dewlapped bull, the running pard. The camel and the lizard of the slime, 10 The ram with quivering fleece and fluted horn, The crested eagle and the doming bat Were sacred. And the king and his high priests Decreed a temple, wide on columns huge, Should top the cornlands to the sky's far line. They bade the carvers carve along the walls Images of their gods, each one to carve As he desired, his choice to name his god. . . . And many came ; and he among them, glad Of three leagues' travel through the singing air Of dawn among the boughs yet bare of green. The eager flight of the spring leading his blood Into swift lofty channels of the air, Proud as an eagle riding to the sun. . . . An eagle, clean of pinion — there's his choice. Daylong they worked under the growing roof, One at his leopard, one the staring ram, And he winning his eagle from the stone, Until each man had carved one image out, Arow beyond the portal of the house. They stood arow, the company of gods. Camel and bat, lizard and bull and ram. The pard and owl, dead figures on the wall, Figures of habit driven on the stone By chisels governed by no heat of the brain But drudges of hands that moved by easy rule. Proudly recorded mood was none, no thought Plucked from the dark battalions of the mind And throned in everlasting sight. But one God of them all was witness of belief II And large adventure dared. His eagle spread Wide pinions on a cloudless ground of heaven, Glad with the heart's high courage of that dawn Moving upon the ploughlands newly sown, Dead stone the rest. He looked, and knew it so. Then came the king with priests and counsellors And many chosen of the people, wise With words weary of custom, and eyes askew That watched their neighbour face for any news Of the best way of judgment, till, each sure None would determine with authority. All spoke in prudent praise. One liked the owl Because an owl blinked on the beam of his barn. One, hoarse with crying gospels in the street, Praised most the ram, because the common folk Wore breeches made of ram's wool. One declared The tiger pleased him best, — the man who carved The tiger-god was halt out of the womb — A man to praise, being so pitiful. And one, whose eyes dwelt in a distant void, With spell and omen pat upon his lips. And a purse for any crystal prophet ripe, A zealot of the mist, gazed at the bull — A lean ill-shapen bull of meagre lines That scarce the steel had graved upon the stone — Saying that here was very mystery 12 And truth, did men but know. And one there was Who praised his eagle, but remembering The lither pinion of the swift, the curve That liked him better of the mirrored swan. And they who carved the tiger-god and ram, The camel and the pard, the owl and bull, And hzard, listened greedily, and made Humble denial of their worthiness, And when the king his royal judgment gave That all had fashioned well, and bade that each Re-shape his chosen god along the walls Till all the temple boasted of their skill, They bowed themselves in token that as this Never had carvers been so fortunate. Only the man with wide and patient eyes Made no denial, neither bowed his head. Already while they spoke his thought had gone Far from his eagle, leaving it for a sign Loyally wrought of one deep breath of hfe, And played about the image of a toad That crawled among his ivy leaves. A queer Puff-bellied toad, with eyes that always stared Sidelong at heaven and saw no heaven there. Weak-hammed, and with a throttle somehow twisted Beyond full wholesome draughts of air, and skin Of wrinkled lips, the only zest or will The little flashing tongue searching the leaves. And king and priest, chosen and counsellor, 13 Babbling out of their thin and jealous brains, Seemed strangely one ; a queer enormous toad Panting under giant leaves of dark, Sunk in the loins, peering into the day. Their judgment wry he counted not for wrong More than the fabled poison of the toad Striking at simple wits ; how should their thought Or word in praise or blame come near the peace That shone in seasonable hours above The patience of his spirit's husbandry ? They foohsh and not seeing, how should he Spend anger there or fear — great ceremonies Equal for none save great antagonists ? The grave indifference of his heart before them Was moved by laughter innocent of hate. Chastising clean of spite, that moulded them Into the antic likeness of his toad Bidding for laughter underneath the leaves. He bowed not, nor disputed, but he saw Those ill-created joyless gods, and loathed. And saw them creeping, creeping round the walls. Death breeding death, wile witnessing to wile. And sickened at the dull iniquity Should be rewarded, and for ever breathe Contagion on the folk gathered in prayer. His truth should not be doomed to march among This falsehood to the ages. He was called, And he must labour there ; if so the king Would grant it, where the pillars bore the roof 14 A galleried way of meditation nursed Secluded time, with wall of ready stone In panels for the carver set between The windows — there his chisel should be set, — It was his plea. And the king spoke of him. Scorning, as one lack-fettle, among all these Eager to take the riches of renown ; One fearful of the light or knowing nothing Of light's dimension, a witling who would throw Honour aside and praise spoken aloud All men of heart should covet. Let him go Grubbing out of the sight of these who knew The worth of substance ; there was his proper trade. A squat and curious toad indeed. . . . The eyes, Patient and grey, were dumb as were the lips. That, fixed and governed, hoarded from them all The larger laughter lifting in his heart. Straightway about his gallery he moved, Measured the windows and the virgin stone. Till all was weighed and patterned in his brain. Then first where most the shadow struck the wall. Under the sills, and centre of the base. From floor to sill out of the stone was wooed Memorial folly, as from the chisel leapt His chastening laughter searching priest and king— A huge and wrinkled toad, with legs asplay. And belly loaded, leering with great eyes Busily fixed upon the void. 15 All days His chisel was the first to ring across The temple's quiet ; and at fall of dusk Passing among the carvers homeward, they Would speak of him as mad, or weak against The challenge of the world, and let him go Lonely, as was his will, under the night Of stars or cloud or summer's folded sun, Through crop and wood and pastureland to sleep. None took the narrow stair as wondering How did his chisel prosper in the stone, Unvisited his labour and forgot. And times when he would lean out of his height And watch the gods growing along the walls, The row of carvers in their linen coats Took in his vision a virtue that alone Carving they had not nor the thing they carved. Knowing the health that flowed about his close Imagining, the daily quiet won From process of his clean and supple craft, Those carvers there, far on the floor below. Would haply be transfigured in his thought Into a gallant company of men Glad of the strict and loyal reckoning That proved in the just presence of the brain Each chisel-stroke. How surely would he prosper In pleasant talk at easy hours with men So fashioned if it might be — and his eyes Would pass again to those dead gods that grew In spreading evil round the temple walls ; i6 And, one dead pressure made, the carvers moved Along the wall to mould and mould again The self-same god, their chisels on the stone Tapping in dull precision as before. And he would turn, back to his lonely truth. He carved apace. And first his people's gods, About the toad, out of their sterile time, Under his hand thrilled and were recreate. The bull, the pard, the camel and the ram. Tiger and owl and bat — all were the signs Visibly made body on the stone Of sightless thought adventuring the host That is mere spirit ; these the bloom achieved By secret labour in the flowing wood Of rain and air and wind and continent sun. . . . His tiger, lithe, immobile in the stone, A swift destruction for a moment leashed, Sprang crying from the jealous stealth of men Opposed in cunning watch, with engines hid Of torment and calamitous desire. His leopard, swift on lean and paltry limbs, Was fear in flight before accusing faith. His bull, with eyes that often in the dusk Would lift from the sweet meadow grass to watch Him homeward passing, bore on massy beam The burden of the patient of the earth. His camel bore the burden of the damned. Being gaunt, with eyes aslant along the nose. He had a friend, who hammered bronze and iron B 17 And cupped the moonstone on a silver ring, One constant like himself, would come at night Or bid him as a guest, when they would make Their poets touch a starrier height, or search Together with unparsimonious mind The crowded harbours of mortality. And there were jests, wholesome as harvest ale, Of homely habit, bred of hearts that dared Judgment of laughter under the eternal eye : This frolic wisdom was his carven owl. His ram was lordship on the lonely hills. Alert and fleet, content only to know The wind mightily pouring on his fleece, With yesterday and all unrisen suns Poorer than disinherited ghosts. His bat Was ancient envy made a mockery, Cowering below the newer eagle carved Above the arches with wide pinion spread. His faith's dominion of that happy dawn. And so he wrought the gods upon the wall, Living and crying out of his desire. Out of his patient incorruptible thought. Wrought them in joy was wages to his faith. And other than the gods he made. The stalks Of bluebells heavy with the news of spring. The vine loaded with plenty of the j^ear. And swallows, merely tenderness of thought Bidding the stone to small and fragile flight ; Leaves, the thin rehcs of autumnal boughs, Or massed in June. . . . i8 All from their native pressure bloomed and sprang Under his shaping hand into a proud And governed image of the central man, — Their moulding, charts of all his travelling. And all were deftly ordered, duly set Between the windows, underneath the sills, And roofward, as a motion rightly planned, Till on the wall, out of the sullen stone, A glory blazed, his vision manifest. His wonder captive. And he was content. And when the builders and the carvers knew Their labour done, and high the temple stood Over the cornlands, king and counsellor And priest and chosen of the people came Among a ceremonial multitude To dedication. And, below the thrones Where king and archpriest ruled above the throng, Highest among the ranked artificers The carvers stood. And when, the temple vowed To holy use, tribute and choral praise Given as was ordained, the king looked down Upon the gathered folk, and bade them see The comely gods fashioned about the walls. And keep in honour men whose precious skill Could so adorn the sessions of their worship. Gravely the carvers bowed them to the ground. 19 Only the man with wide and patient eyes Stood not among them ; nor did any come To count his labom', where he watched alone Above the coloured throng. He heard, and looked Again upon his work, and knew it good, Smiled on his toad, passed down the stair unseen, And sang across the teeming meadows home. 20 A TOWN WINDOW Beyond my window in the night Is but a drab inglorious street, Yet there the frost and clean starlight As over Warwick woods are sweet. Under the grey drift of the town The crocus works among the mould As eagerly as those that crown The Warwick spring in flame and gold. And when the tramway down the hill Across the cobbles moans and rings, There is about my window-sill The tumult of a thousand wings. 21 THE NEW MIRACLE Of old men wrought strange gods for mystery, Implored miraculous tokens in the skies, And lips that most were strange in prophecy Were most accounted wise. The hearthstone's commerce between mate and mate, Barren of wonder, prospered in content, And still the hunger of their thought was great For sweet astonishment. And so they built them altars of retreat Where life's familiar use was overthrown, And left the shining world about their feet, To travel worlds unknown. We hunger still. But wonder has come down From alien skies upon the midst of us ; The sparkling hedgerow and the clamorous town Have grown miraculous. And man from his far travelling returns To find yet stranger wisdom than he sought, Where in the habit of his threshold burns Unfathomable thought. 22 MEMORY One told me in the stress of days Of ease that memory should bring, And so I feared my trodden ways For snares against my labouring. Lest I should spend my brain amiss In wrath for bitterness gone by, Or amorous for some old kiss, I would not deal with memory. Because one said — " In memory Is half the health of your estate," I smote the dead years under me, I smote, and cast them from my gate. 23 THE BOUNDARIES Although beyond the track of unseen stars Imagination strove in weariless might, Yet loomed at last inviolable bars That bound my farthest flight. And when some plain old carol in the street Quickened a shining angel in my brain, I knew that even his passionate wings should beat Upon those bars in vain. And then I asked if God omnipotent Himself was caught \vithin the snare, or free, And would the bars at his command relent, — And none could answer me. 24 LAST CONFESSIONAL For all ill words that I have spoken, For all clear moods that I have broken, For all despite and hasty breath, Forgive me, Love, forgive me. Death. Death, master of the great assize. Love, falling now to memories. You two alone I need to prove, Forgive me. Death, forgive me, Love. For every tenderness undone. For pride when holiness was none But only easy charity, O Death, be pardoner to me. For stubborn thought that would not make Measure of love's thought for love's sake. But kept a sullen difference, Take, Love, this laggard penitence. For cloudy words too vainly spent To prosper but in argument, When truth stood lonely at the gate, On your compassion, Death, I wait. 25 For all the beauty that escaped This foolish brain, unsung, unshaped, For wonder that was slow to move, Forgive me, Death, forgive me. Love. For love that kept a secret cruse, For life defeated of its dues, This latest word of all my breath — Forgive me. Love, forgive me. Death. 26 FOR CORIN TO-DAY Old shepherd in your wattle cote, I think a thousand years are done Since first you took your pipe of oat And piped against the risen sun, Until his burning lips of gold Sucked up the drifting scarves of dew And bade you count your flocks from fold And set your hurdle, stakes anew. And then as now at noon you'ld take The shadow of delightful trees. And with good hands of labour break Your barley bread with dairy cheese, And with some lusty shepherd mate Would wind a simple argument. And bear at night beyond your gate A loaded wallet of content, O Corin of the grizzled eye, A thousand years upon your down You've seen the ploughing teams go by Above the bells of Avon's town ; And while there's any wind to blow Through frozen February nights. About your lambing pens will go The glimmer of your lanthorn lights. 27 MAD TOM TATTERMAN " Old man, grey man, good man scavenger, Bearing is it eighty years upon your crumpled back ? What is it you gather in the frosty weather, Is there any treasure here to carry in your sack ? " " I've a million acres and a thousand head of cattle, And a foaming river where the silver salmon leap ; But I've left fat valleys to dig in sullen alleys Just because a twisted star rode by me in my sleep. " I've a brain is dancing to an old forgotten music Heard when all the world was just a crazy flight of dreams, And don't you know I scatter in the dirt along the gutter Seeds that little ladies nursed by Babylonian streams ? " Mad Tom Tatterman, that is how they call me. Oh, they know so much, so much, all so neatly dressed ; 28 I've a tale to tell you — come and listen, will you?— One as ragged as the twigs that make a mag- pie's nest. " Ragged, oh, but very wise. You and this and that man, All of you are making things that none of you would lack, And so your eyes grow dusty, and so your limbs grow rusty — But mad Tom Tatterman puts nothing in his sack. " Nothing in my sack, sirs, but the Sea of Galilee Was walked for mad Tom Tatterman, and when I go to sleep They'll know that I have driven through the acres of broad heaven Flocks are whiter than the flocks that all your shepherds keep." 29 MAMBLE I NEVER went to Mamble That lies above the Teme, So I wonder who's in Mamble, And whether people seem Who breed and brew along there As lazy as the name, And whether any song there Sets alehouse wits aflame. The finger-post says Mamble, And that is all I know Of the narrow road to Mamble, And should I turn and go To that place of lazy token That lies above the Teme, There might be a Mamble broken That was hssom in a dream. So leave the road to Mamble And take another road To as good a place as Mamble Be it lazy as a toad ; Who travels Worcester county Takes any place that comes When April tosses bounty To the cherries and the plums. 30 LOVE'S CHALLENGE When days are words, and all is done. And we together lie alone In our last city, and the sun Can no more serve us than a stone — If then the riches that are signed In shapes of perishable earth Should know denial, and the mind That counted them be nothing worth, If love that orders patiently Upon the lover's brain the one True stature of the loved should be Less than the dust when all is done, Should love be forfeit, but a sound Of days outlasted by a rhyme, — Then would eternity be found Apostate in the court of time. 31 THE POET TO HIS MISTRESS If I should take Less thought of gentleness For your dear sake Than for the poignant labours that possess My blood, then surely by so much were signed My shame and loss in the world's recording mind. If you should be Jealous of my desire, And, loving me. Rebuke my patient hopes from your sweet fire, Then would you take a lover to your bed Abased with the pale submission of the dead. 32 LOVE'S HOUSE I KNOW not how these men or those may take Their first glad measure of love's character, Or whether one should let the summer make Love's festival, and one the falling year. I only know that in my prime of days When my young branches came to blossoming, You were the sign that loosed my lips in praise, You were the zeal that governed all my spring. II In prudent counsel many gathered near, Forewarning us of deft and secret snares That are love's use. We heard them as we hear The ticking of a clock upon the stairs. The troops of reason, careful to persuade, Blackened love's name, but love was more than these, For we had wills to venture unafraid The trouble of unnavigable seas. 33 Ill Their word was but a barren seed that has Undrawn of the sun's health and undesired, Because the habit of their hearts was wise, Because the wisdom of their tongues was tired. For in the smother of contentious pride, And in the fear of each tumultuous mood. Our love has kept serenely fortified And unusurped one stedfast sohtude. IV Dark words, and hasty humours of the blood Have come to us and made no longer stay Than footprints of a bird upon the mud That in an hour the tide will take away. But not March weather over ploughlands blown, Nor cresses green upon their gravel bed. Are beautiful with the clean rigour grown Of quiet thought our love has piloted. 34 I sit before the hearths of many men, When speech goes gladly, eager to withhold No word at all, yet when 1 pass again The last of words is captive and untold. We talk together in love's house, and there No thought but seeks what counsel you may give, And every secret trouble from its lair Comes to your hand, no longer fugitive. VI I woo the world, with burning will to be Delighted in all fortune it may find, And still the strident dogs of jealousy Go mocking down the tunnels of my mind. Only for you my contemplation goes Clean as a god's, undarkened of pretence, Most happy when your garner overflows, Achieving in your prosperous diligence. 33 VII When from the dusty corners of my brain Comes hmping some ungainly word or deed, I know not if my dearest friend's disdain Be durable or brief, spent husk or seed. But your rebuke and that poor fault of mine Go straitly outcast, and we close the door, And I, no promise asking and no sign, Stand blameless in love's presence as before. VIII A beggar in the ditch, I stand and call My questions out upon the queer parade Of folk that hurry by, and one and all Go down the road with never answer made. I do not question love. I am a lord High at love's table, and the vigilant king, Unquestioned, from the hubbub at the board Leans down to me and tells me everything. 36 OF GREATHAM (to those who live there) Spendthrift of ease, importunate of will, Daily we bid at learning's mart, and speak In speech that is but vanity, for still We know not what we seek. . For peace, than knowledge more desirable Into your Sussex quietness I came, When summer's green and gold and azure fell Over the world in flame. And peace upon your pasture-lands I found. Where grazing flocks drift on continually, As httle clouds that travel with no sound Across a windless sky. Out of your oaks the birds call to their mates That brood among the pines, where hidden deep From curious eyes a world's adventure waits In columned choirs of sleep. Under the calm ascension of the night We heard the mellow lapsing and return Of night-owls purring in their groundling flight Through lanes of darkUng fern. 37 Unbroken peace when all the stars were drawn Back to their lairs of light, and ranked along From shire to shire the downs out of the dawn Were risen in golden song. • • • . • • • I sing of peace who have known the large unrest Of men bewildered in their travelHng, And I have known the bridal earth unblest By the brigades of spring. I have known that loss. And now the broken thought Of nations marketing in death I know, The very winds to threnodies are wrought That on your downlands blow. I sing of peace. Was it but yesterday I came among your roses and your corn ? Then momently amid this wrath I pray For yesterday reborn. 38 WE WILLED IT NOT We willed it not. We have not lived in hate, Loving too well the shires of England thrown From sea to sea to covet your estate Or wish one flight of fortune from your throne. We had grown proud because the nations stood Hoping together against the calumny That, tortured of its old barbarian blood, Barbarian still the heart of man should be. Builders there are who name you overlord, Building with us the citadels of hght. Who hold as we this chartered sin abhorred, And cry you risen Caesar of the Night. Beethoven speaks with Milton on this day. And Shakespeare's song with Goethe's beats the sky. In witness of the birthright you betray, In witness of the vision you deny. We love the hearth, the quiet hills, the song, The friendly gossip come from every land, And very peace were now a nameless wrong, — You thrust this bitter quarrel to our hand. 39 For this your pride the tragic armies go, And the grim navies watch along the seas ; You trade in death, you mock at hfe, you throw To God the tumult of your blasphemies. You rob us of our love-right. It is said. In treason to the world you are enthroned ; We rise, and, by the yet ungathered dead. Not hghtly shall the treason be atoned. 40 THE CAUSE When drum and brass make summons in the street And death holds mighty conclave at our gate, How girt against the summons do we meet — How clean of heart — how holy in estate ? Knowing, we have not builded as we knew. Loving, the price of love we have withheld, The works in witness of our faith are few, Upon our lips the forthright word is quelled. We have heard the voice that spake upon the Mount Unwearied of the generations dead, And in a watch have been content to count The loaves and leave the word unharvested. The dust is on our swords, and in our brain Sad ruinous gospels daily intercede ; We dream as angels, and the world again Calls, and the dream goes barren of its deed. Yet though we have been slow in sacrifice, In service weak, in purpose unannealed. Of all our treason still we know the price. We know the beauty that we have not sealed, 41 And now, because the apostate captains call, A guiltless people takes the pledge of guilt, Swearing that in oblivion shall fall The altars that our tattered hearts have built. These lords, brute-blind in sodden passion, wrong The promise of a world's regenerate name ; Our prophecy has faltered in a song — They boast in shameless prophecy of shame. Wherefore in arms we stand. O Spirit, thou Leading our battle terribly shalt ride. Our faith was halt, our httle faith, but now It is thy witness, and unterrified. We dare the final agony, to set The world's will free for far adventuring. Now, when the unholy hosts of death are met, Life's challenge to the hosts of death we fling. 42 ENGLAND TO BELGIUM Not lusting for a brief renown Nor apt in any vain dispute You throw the scythes of autumn down, And leave your dues of autumn fruit LTnhar vested, and dare the wrong Of death's immitigable wing, And on your banners burn a song That gods unrisen yet shall sing. Because your Belgian fields are dear. And now they suffer black despite, Because your womanhood can hear The menace on the lips of night. Because you are a little clan Of brothers, and because there comes The thief among you, to a man You take the challenge of your drums. Not all our tears and wrath shall weigh The utter bitterness that falls, O Belgian hearts, on you this day. The sorrow of your broken walls, And desolated hearths, the crime Of Prussian sword and Prussian flame, But, brothers, with the world we chime The story of your Belgian name. 43 We will be comrades at your side, Your battle and our battle one To turn again this monstrous pride That veils but does not know the sun ; Our blood and thews with yours are set Against this creed of bar and goad, The Ironside is in us yet As when the ranks of Cromwell rode. For all things clean, for all things brave, For peace, for spiritual hght, To keep love's body whole, to save The hills of intellectual sight. Girt at your Belgian gate we stand, Our trampled faith undaunted still. With heart unseared and iron hand And old indomitable will. 44 REBUKE In soaring stone they prophesied, And figured with a brush of gold Such peace as bids at eventide The happy shepherd from the fold. The stones are dust, the missal-page No more shall make its coloured song. . . . They were the souls of men ; the gage Is at your feet ; you did them wrong. It shall be answered. Yet they lie Broken for ever with the sweet Dear bodies crushed dispiteously As acorns under swinish feet. Though there be judgment, and the word Be strait and bitter on your head. Your work is done, your gospel heard. You have your dead . . . you have your dead. Yet, fools and httle, still the clear Undaunted hearts of Europe go Gallant in faith . . . how should they fear ? You know them not. How should you know ? 45 GATHERING SONG A WORD for you of the Prussian boast. Or never a word, but under the drum The hmber tread of a tramping host Out of the Enghsh counties come — There are men who could count you the Warwick spires, And fishermen turning from Severn and Ouse ; They gather from half a hundred shires. And never a man of them all to choose. They are coming out of the northern dales, Out of the sound of Bow they come, Lomond calls to the hills of Wales — Hear them tramping under the drum : From Derry to Cork, from Thames to Dee, With Kentish Hob and Collier Tyne, They come to travel the Dover sea, A thousand thousand men of the line. They come from the bright Canadian snows, And Brisbane's one with proud Bengal ; Over the Vaal and the Orange goes To the cape of the south a single call ; Though the term shall be for a year or ten You still shall hear it under the drum. The limber tread of the marching men : They come, you lords of the boast, they come. 46 THE DEFENDERS His wage of rest at nightfall still He takes, who sixty years has known Of ploughing over Cotsall hill And keeping trim the Cotsall stone. He meditates the dusk, and sees Folds of his wonted shepherdings And lands of stubble and tall trees Becoming insubstantial things. And does he see on Cotsall hill — Thrown even to the central shire — The funnelled shapes forbidding still The stranger from his cottage fire ? 47 ON THE PICTURE OF A PRIVATE SOLDIER WHO HAD GAINED A VICTORIA CROSS No daemon in that face ; he stands Strangely as one of men that build, In multitudes, with servile hands, The temples that they have not willed. Yet once he smote the prison wasU, And strode the hills of chance again, And scattered to their burials The prudent devils of his brain. The old monotonies may keep Anew the sessions of their power . . . His heart shall carry down to sleep The spoils of an eternal hour. 48 ONE SPEAKS IN GERMANY " I BID you build a tower," The king said to me, " Where I can watch the passing Of ships at sea." And I built the king a tall tower. And the king grew cunning. And covetous was he Of any ship was passing Over the sea ; A sorry heart, and cunning. I stand in the shadow Of the king's tall tower. And a heavy wind is nursing An evil hour. I am standing in the shadow. it Sw)orb0 anb lplougb6barc6 " Page 48 ERRATUM Second verse, first line : for "wasU" read " walls " OF THE DEAD Master and Maker, God of Right, The soldier dead are at Thy gate, Whose challenge cried against the night, Whose laughter dared the slings of hate. We do not praise, nor shall be spent This day in lamentation loud. But of this warrior testament We are proud, O Lord, nor vainly proud. For Thee their pilgiim swords were tried. Thy flaming word was in their scrips. They battled, they endured, they died To make a new apocalypse. Master and Maker, God of Right, The soldier dead are at Thy gate. Who kept the spears of honour bright And freedom's house inviolate. 50 ECLIPSE A MAN is dead . . . another dead . . . God ! can you count the companies Of stars across dear heaven spread ? They are numbered even as these. Blind brain of the world ! And is the day Moving about its Christmas bells ? Poor spinning brain, and wellavvay . . . Christ . . . Christ ? But no man tells. The thoughts of men are kings. They keep The crown, the sepulchre, the song. The thoughts of men are kings. They sleep. The thrones are empty overlong. So rebel death a million-fold Of lamentable service takes. The prophesying heart is cold. . . . Is cold ... or breaks. What now were best ? Some little thing ? To trim the dock-weed, cleanse the floor, To die, to grieve on death, to bring The pitcher to the door ? Dig deep the grave, hew down the tree, Shatter the millstones, break the plough. And was there once a Calvary ? And thorns upon His brow ? 51 NOCTURNE O ROYAL night, under your stars that keep Their golden troops in charted motion set, The living legions are renewed in sleep For bloodier battle yet. O royal death, under your boundless sky Where unrecorded constellations throng, Dispassionate those other legions lie. Invulnerably strong. 52 THE SHIPS OF GRIEF On seas where every pilot fails A thousand thousand ships to-day Ride with a moaning in their sails, Through winds gi'ey and waters grey. They are the ships of grief. They go As fleets are derelict and driven. Estranged from every port they know, Scarce asking fortitude of heaven. No, do not hail them. Let them ride Lonely as they would lonely be . . . There is an hour will prove the tide. There is a sun will strike the sea. 53 THE POETS TO THE HEROES Let us devise a music for to-day, Solemn and sweet, worthy of solemn things, For death now takes an unfrequented way. Careless of age, his black and terrible wings Fold upon youth ; the full imaginings Of midmost life are but a little clay. Let sorrow sing the sorry forfeiture Of life that sailed upon the central sky Full-orbed in glad dominion, and secure As life may be beneath mortality ; Let sorrow sing : the bitter laurels lie On brows fore-darkened of death's signature. Most heavy toll has death of all the rare Bright bounty of the summertide of men, The brain of spring is stricken unaware, The flowing boughs are hewn. Make music then Solemn and sweet, till death shall choose again The winter tree and the grey-dusted hair. Solemn, with notes that are not of the time When plough nor scythe nor sickle is afield, But chanted as remembering a prime Cold in defeat, the rusting of a shield Too soon put by, poor lips and vision sealed When all the world was yet to see and rhyme. 54 Solemn, with sound of guns that make salute Over a million graves untimely kept, Solemn, with sound of tears that may dispute No more with grief so long a day unwept, Solemn, because the wiser angel slept, Solemn, because the golden choirs were mute. Yet sweet, for every nobleness is sweet. Building above all bleak and envious power Rigours and fames and chronicles to greet The equal stars. And never fairer flower Of nobleness was sprung than in this hour When youth and death in tragic bridals meet. Sweet, for the sacrifice that now is made, Sweet, for the soul's victorious desire. Sweet, for the hope whereof in price is paid This ranging fury of destroying fire, Sweet, for the wings that beat above the pyre Of happy men whose faith was unbetrayed. The stars dispute not, and the primrose makes Its bower unbidden underneath the thorn ; Nor profits it, when the black angel wakes. To rail on death with argument forlorn ; Then surely to heroic song was born This hour of earth that time so surely breaks. 55 Into your lonely silences you go And death is your imperishable deed, We bring you honour, and you shall not know. We bring you music, and you shall not heed ; Yet is our song not measured by your need. Being our sorrow's crown and overthrow. 56 A FEW of these poems have appeared in New Numbers, and for permission to reprint others I have to thank the Editors of The British Review, Country Life, The Empire Magazine, Methuen's Annual, The Nation, The Observer, The Sphere, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Westminster Gazette. THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH FROM SIDGWICK & JACKSON'S LIST JOHN MASEFIELD THE EVERLASTING MERCY Crown Zvo, cloth, 3^. 6d. 7iet Also Fcap. 8vo, in leather bindings^ 5^. net and 6s. net Sixteenth Impression Sir J. M. Barrie recently described "The Everlasting Mercy," by John Masefield, as being " incomparably the finest literature of the year." This remarkable poem was awarded the Edmond de Polignac prize of ;^ioo in Novem- ber 1912. "Mr Masefield is to be congratulated on a remarkable achievement — a vital portrait of a man, the drama of a great spiritual conquest, and many passages of high beauty." — Spectator. 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