Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 E. J. THOMPSON 
 
 Author of 
 
 ' Ennerdale Bridge, and Other Poems," ' The Knight Mystic, 
 ' The Enchanted Lady,' ' John in Prison,' &c. 
 
 CHARLES H. KELLY 
 2 5-35 CITY ROAD, AND 26 PATERNOSTER Row, E.G. 
 
First Edition, 1917 
 
PR 
 
 TO THE HON. P. C. LYON 
 
 Lyon, my friend, from blinding sands and glaze 
 Of shimmering heats, where Tigris over mud 
 Tumbles our dead, to winds that brace the blood 
 And dreams of fir and ilex memory strays ; 
 To our last night when, nigh on morn, the gaze 
 Of that bold panther, ere he sought the khud, 
 Met me belated ; ferns, and falls in flood ; 
 Gold calceolarias ; snowy orchis-sprays. 
 
 All this my mind remembers now, with speech 
 Deep into night, when your kind wisdom gave 
 Counsel and strength. The songs you praised I send, 
 My murmuring doves whose voice perchance may reach 
 Past tongues that scold and venal scribes that rave. 
 These, and my heart, are yours, Lyon, my friend. 
 
 UPPER TIGRIS. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE Bengali Vaisnava poets have always used a form 
 of verse called baul. Its nature will be best seen from 
 an illustration. After Radha, Krishna's mistress, has 
 rhapsodized about her lord, the poet, onlooker to the 
 passion he has expressed, adds his personal statement ; 
 a comment, often of the naivest and most obvious sort, 
 as ' Chandidas says : Maiden, love has pierced thee to 
 the heart.' Or this statement may take the form of a 
 precis of what has gone before, or of a corollary. 
 
 This form is not altogether new to the West. It is 
 found in the Persian mystics, who have been often 
 translated. ' Sadi says.' But it was not until my friend 
 Rabindranath Tagore showed me his versions of old 
 Vaisnava lyrics that the form really caught my notice. 
 The earlier verses of this book were an experiment at 
 naturalizing the form in English and extending its scope. 
 
 The baul on page 28 takes off from one of the songs 
 of Ramprasad, the Bengali sakta (worshipper of the 
 feminine attributes, the Motherhood, of the Deity) of 
 two centuries ago. It is a song that echoed in my mind ; 
 I have heard it on the road and from the rice-fields, 
 and beside broad rivers, when the parrots were flying 
 against the sunset and the evening ferry was starting. 
 ' This brief day will pass, Mother, surely pass, and many 
 will speak ill of Tara's name.' 
 
 E. J. T. 
 
 MESOPOTAMIA FIELD FORCE. 
 
Quest! non vide mai 1'ultima sera, 
 Ma per la sua follia le fu si presso, 
 Che molto poco tempo a volger era. 
 
 Or ti piaccia gradir la sua venuta ; 
 Liberia- va cercando, che si cara, 
 Come sa chi per lei vita rifiuta. 
 
 He never saw his life's last evening burn, 
 But by his madness has he been so near, 
 That very little space remained to turn. 
 
 Now thou upon his coming grace confer ; 
 He follows Freedom, she that is so dear, 
 As that man knows who gives his life for her. 
 
 DANTE, Purgatorio, Canto I. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 WALTHAM THICKETS II 
 
 REST'S GOLDEN CROWN ~LJ 
 
 ROSE WONDERS ....... l8 
 
 DREAM AND DRIFT ...... 19 
 
 THE GARDEN OF THE SOUL . . . . .20 
 
 GOD'S EMPTY ROOM . . ".. . . .21 
 
 MY FRIEND OF FRIENDS . . . .22 
 
 THE NICKNAME . . . . . -23 
 
 THE WANDERING KING . '. . . .24 
 
 THE GARDEN HEDGED. ..... 25 
 
 THE QUENCHLESS FLAME . . . .26 
 
 THE SCROLL UNFURLED 27 
 
 A WIND OF QUESTION 28 
 
 LOVE'S PILGRIM ....... 29 
 
 QUEENS IN PROVENCE . . . . . 30 
 
 THE INVITATION 32 
 
 CALCUTTA MAIDAN . . . . . 34 
 
 DEAR EARTH OF FLOWERS . . . . -35 
 
 DEOLI VERSES 36 
 
 FROM ENNA 38 
 
 IN THE DIM YEARS 39 
 
 THE RECREANT ....... 40 
 
 THE RAILWAY ....... 4! 
 
 THE WATCHER ON THE BANK . . . -41 
 
 HOWRA BRIDGE 42 
 
 GOOD FRIDAY . . . . . .42 
 
 9 
 
io CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CLOUDS 43 
 
 THE FOREST-SLEEPER 43 
 
 STRAYING WATERS . . . . -44 
 
 GOD'S WAYS 44 
 
 THE TREES HAVE A GARMENT OF LEAVES . . 45 
 
 FLOWER AND WIND ...... 4^ 
 
 ENID 47 
 
 DORIS 5 
 
 TO A. R. T S 2 
 
 SEPTEMBER, IQI4 . . . . -53 
 
 WILL GOUDIE 54 
 
 OUR GLAD DEAD 55 
 
 SUSSEX FIRES 56 
 
 BIRD AND TREE 58 
 
 REMEMBRANCE 59 
 
 MEADOW-ROSES . 60 
 
 MESOPOTAMIAN VERSES 
 
 SPRING, 1916 ...... 63 
 
 KURMA REACHES, AUGUST . . . .64 
 
 NORFOLK HILL, EVENING . . . -65 
 
 AMARA POOL, AUGUST 66 
 
 UMM-EL-HANNA ...... 68 
 
 THE PASTURES OF SANNAIYAT . . . 70 
 
 FELAHIYEH, SANDY RIDGE . . . -7* 
 
 TO A HOSTILE AIRMAN . . . -72 
 
 THE WADI 73 
 
 TO FRANK HART 75 
 
 SLAIN MUSICS ....... 76 
 
 TO J. A. SHARP ....... 78 
 
 IN VIA RECTA CELERITER 79 
 
WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 Ah, my mind ! 
 
 Seeking peace where comforts all have dwindled ! 
 
 Brooding fool, that fain wouldst find 
 
 Warmth with shivering hands outspread 
 
 Over ashes whence all heat is dead ! 
 
 Mind, forgetful of what fire was kindled 
 
 Long ago and long ago, 
 
 Comfortable flames that glow 
 
 Through the forest far, and fling 
 
 Light on darkened boles, and call, 
 
 As with flutes of festival, 
 
 Memory's shadows round in dancing ring ! 
 
 Conrad says : I will arise, and yonder 
 
 See what friends I can discover. 
 
 This is my hour, and I will wander, 
 
 Light of heart as lover. 
 
 Pushing years like fronds aside, 
 
 Let me seek the woodland wide, 
 
 Hollows where the dwarfed oaks a crown 
 
 Lift, in pollard tops, of clinging fern; 
 
 Oozy brooks where blacken 
 
 Leaves from withered seasons drifted down ; 
 
12 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 Slopes where beeches sweep 
 
 Their long arms o'er grassless turf; and bowers 
 
 Where the crab its blush-tipt beauty showers, 
 
 Where the joyous furze, 
 
 Growing gold, with harmless waste doth broider 
 
 Richly all the covert's green, good hem. 
 
 And ah, the breast-high bracken ! 
 
 Lo, the Muse, hedged in with stick and stem, 
 
 Where the little wood-gods have decoyed her, 
 
 On their sweet, lush kexes piping loud, 
 
 Flings away her robes of divination, 
 
 Wand, and rapt prophetic brows, and comes, 
 
 Hearkening to the woodwele's mystic drums 
 
 And the throbbing, leaf-shut invocation 
 
 Of the ring-scarfed pigeon, 
 
 Comes in garments well-beseen, 
 
 Diapered of gold and green, 
 
 Dancing as the old love stirs, 
 
 Priestess of the first religion ! 
 
 Conrad says : Now I remember, 
 
 Long ago and long ago, 
 
 Here were fairies, here were elves, 1 
 
 And my name I think they know 
 
 Even yet, and, should I blow 
 
 On this horn of woodbine once that sounded 
 
 Through their realm, again since love is proud, 
 
 Waiting, though in ash and ember, 
 
 But a breath and whispered name 
 
 To fan the air with jubilant flags of flame 
 
 I should in a twinkling be surrounded. 
 
 Through the copse would rumour run 
 
 ' Conrad,' and the merle my name would whistle, 
 
 1 See The Enclianted Lady. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 13 
 
 Goldfinch pipe it from the thistle, 
 
 Winds the word would waft across 
 
 Grassy glade, and trees would toss 
 
 Upwards to our Lord the Sun. 
 
 But, though now my eager fingers sprang 
 
 As to clutch, yet (Conrad saith) 
 
 I will let the bugle hang 
 
 In Oberon's hall, and idly bloom to death. 
 
 Let the groves their secret keep, 
 
 And spell and Little Comrades sleep. 
 
 Over Theydon, where the trees 
 
 Stood apart, and widely heather 
 
 Reddened all the plain and fringed the Up 
 
 Of each mossed pool, where waved together 
 
 Catkins of the creeping sallow 
 
 And heath's faint-scented, waxen, clustered bells; 
 
 Where thriftless broom its glory scattered, 
 
 Bidding every robber breeze 
 
 Take what shining bits it please, 
 
 Since rejoiced as if gold mattered ! 
 
 From those generous, trustful arms to strip 
 
 The pretty stuff, whose lure 
 
 Brought from far the bees : 
 
 Over Theydon once I went 
 
 With friends whose love made talk a sacrament, 
 
 And through all years must hallow 
 
 The blessed paths they trod. 
 
 Now is there not one sod x 
 
 In Epping turf but bears 
 
 Flowers of amaranth ; more than Cumbrian fells, 1 
 
 Its sacred power stands sure. 
 
 One whom mists enwrap, 
 
 1 See Ennerdale Bridge. 
 
14 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 Where running waves hiss to the sweeping snow 
 
 And hide a watching foe, 
 
 Dreams that now bird-cherries 
 
 Are budding in Cook's Folly, 
 
 And thinks how there, with luck, a man may hap 
 
 On bushes two or three of thornless holly 
 
 That bear 
 
 A thing most rare 
 
 Not red but yellow berries. 
 
 He knows as I the bank where grass-snakes bask, 
 
 He knows what dikes conceal 
 
 From rifling hands the burgeoned Solomon's Seal, 
 
 Nor where the squirrel's drey is needs to ask. 
 
 Below King's Oak, where dip 
 
 Damp hollows, well he knows on what moist shelves 
 
 Is hid the fragrant fern, 1 where brambles trail 
 
 Protecting thorns about the shy leaves frail, 
 
 And gaudy ragged-robin flaunts his pride 
 
 Of tattered pink, to draw all knaves aside. 
 
 Brother ! Nay, Brothers Three ! 
 
 For I will name with thee 
 
 Our soldier youth thrice-loved, whose laughing face 
 
 In battles front can danger meet with eyes 
 
 No fear could e'er surprise, 
 
 Nor stain of self in their gay love leave trace, 
 
 His nature like his name, 
 
 Frank, and his eager spirit pure as flame ; * 
 
 And, Muse, beside him set 
 
 Our saint, whose bitter fate, by God's dear grace 
 
 As oft, from soil with lava's seam and sign 
 
 1 The fragrant Mountain Shield-Fern. 
 
 * Second-Lieut., Londons, attached K.R.R.C., killed in action, 
 January 13, 1917. The most fearless, unselfish, sunny boy that ever 
 died for freedom. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 15 
 
 Scarred deep, more richly flows the generous wine 
 
 With flowers of peace has blossomed, and whose mind 
 
 In darkness his compassionate Lord can find, 
 
 And through all sorrow hold 
 
 A course as brave as his who bore of old 
 
 Like name, our hero-king who dwelt awhile 
 
 Where mists and waters wrapt a lonely isle. 
 
 Brothers, to you I send 
 
 This praise of brother and friend. 
 
 But Gilbert's Slade ! 
 
 What rushing memories throng 
 
 To hear thy name ! There first we spake of song, 
 
 I and Neander, there our flutes assayed, 
 
 Ah, Gilbert's Slade ! 
 
 And ah, Loughton Camp ! 
 
 Whatever forms may tramp 
 
 With dusk through broken fosse, or stiffly guard 
 
 Vallums that fox and brock and time have marred, 
 
 Did they know their lover when we came, 
 
 Canton and I ? Did no dim clarion sound 
 
 To ghostly ears, to every haunted mound 
 
 His advent to proclaim? 
 
 And, under Fairmead's Oak 
 
 When Henry stood, was't not the Queen who spoke 
 
 To Oberon, there in sport 
 
 Holding 'neath gnarled plums their joyous court, 
 
 Where petal-snow the grass new-carpeted, 
 
 And chestnut-trees their worn-out lanterns shed : 
 
 ' Our Conrad, waxing old before his time, 
 
 It seems would forswear rime 
 
 And hurl his lyre to rust among the brambles ! 
 
 Since when did he consort 
 
 With mathematicians, or to logs his eye 
 
16 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 Give, when the green and growing trees were by? 
 
 Behold where Conrad rambles 
 
 With serious mien and sage, and bringing with him 
 
 A sombre wretch, who knows no kind of rhythm 
 
 Except a logarithm ! ' 
 
 But she was wrong, for Henry's thoughts replied 
 
 To Honour's pipes, and Freedom's need that cried, 
 
 And friendship knows that gallant heart which heard 
 
 Duty's faint-whispered word 
 
 (Ere to a clarion-peal it swelled) and gave 
 
 Quick answer back and brave. 
 
 Conrad of Elsass says : Racemes of song 
 
 We've gathered, Muse, and bunches all atangle, 
 
 Rimes that jangle, 
 
 And metaphors and sense across and wrong, 
 
 And trochees with iambs knit fierce in wrangle. 
 
 Yet flowers are flowers, and these, 
 
 Most for the thread of love which binds, may please. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 17 
 
 REST'S GOLDEN CROWN 
 
 The sun drops low, the moon, hung face-to-face, 
 
 Waits for her hour; a whispering, sudden gust 
 
 Dances amid the dust, 
 
 And stirs the trees from calm, 
 
 Bursting upon their silence like the psalm 
 
 Which from a saint's long meditation leaps, 
 
 Crowning with foam of praise his spirit's deeps. 
 
 It sinks, and in their spreading tops again 
 
 Quiet her kingdom keeps, 
 
 While sunset tints their trunks with ruddy grain. 
 
 Men seek their homes, the noise of day dies down; 
 
 Still Heaven expects the grace 
 
 Which on her aching brows Rest's golden crown 
 
 Will set, a peace from pain, 
 
 And gentler radiance through all paths will shed 
 
 Of light which lives not till all light is dead. 
 
 Conrad of Elsass saith : Soul, of Him 
 
 Thou dream'st who shines when other lights are dim ! 
 
i8 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 ROSE WONDERS 
 
 Rose, from thy crimson core 
 
 Expanding thy rich bowl for Love to brim, 
 
 Know'st thou within that rim 
 
 What mystic grace hath store, 
 
 Thy poised petals opening to a round 
 
 Where sun-kissed waves of glory break and spread, 
 
 Beauty made pain, whose breast and depths profound 
 
 The secret passion of a King dyed red ? 
 
 Conrad of Elsass saith : Within this bud 
 An ocean flows, wherein all wisdoms drown, 
 And on its face, for crown, 
 God like a lotus oversways the flood. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 19 
 
 DREAM AND DRIFT 
 
 Ah, fondest, dost thou hear what speech they use, 
 
 Who these thy days of careless ease accuse, 
 
 Thy brothers, busied in their tasks of might, 
 
 Who of thy labours deem 
 
 As feathers wind-blown, light, 
 
 And this thy life esteem 
 
 A thing of drift and dream ? 
 
 Nay, even they that love thee well proclaim 
 
 (Lo, One) 
 
 Though once he strove, he strives no more, but now 
 
 He sits with idle hands and folded brow, 
 
 (Another saith) 
 
 Or silent moves amid the market-place, 
 
 His toil undone, the while to others' need 
 
 He bends his strength. 
 
 (A Third speaketh) 
 Now song and eager grace 
 Conrad forgets, and fast to Time's dim shore 
 His life drifts on the hours. But little heed, 
 Whatever billows threat or tempests roar, 
 Is his who floats without all strife or aim. 
 
 Conrad of Elsass saith : As God's own gift, 
 
 For golden praise their speech I humbly take ; 
 
 And do confession make 
 
 There is both dream and drift. 
 
 Yet into dreams, perchance, of other Eyes 
 
 The glow may pierce, with light from other skies. 
 
 And, Brothers, well I know 
 
 Beneath my bark what currents strongly flow ; 
 
 For God is Spirit, and a Breath that sweeps, 
 
 Ranging all seas, all tides, all outer deeps. 
 
20 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 THE GARDEN OF THE SOUL 
 
 Carrying grief 
 
 Of heart and bitter unbelief, 
 
 Lord, I have lost the world, and now to-day 
 
 My mind with broodings slay. 
 
 (Ah, show me Thy mercy ! ) 
 
 A naked grove I stand, 
 
 Whence yellow drifts are flying 
 
 Down the wind 
 
 Of autumn, that with rifling hand 
 
 Runs along the branches thinned 
 
 And leaves all crumpled, wrinkled, dying. 
 
 (Ah, show me Thy mercy ! ) 
 
 Fain would I bud and fruit again, 
 
 If Thou, Thou only wronged, my sinful pain 
 
 Wouldst pardon and my dark repentance vain. 
 
 Not the lost years restore, but bid the spring 
 
 Through my undefeated borders sing 
 
 With rustling boughs and swaying 
 
 Breast of bell and bud and emerald spraying. 
 
 (Ah, show me Thy mercy ! ) 
 
 Thou lovest gardens and to walk in shade, 
 
 And therefor Conrad's soul a garden make, 
 
 Which perishes of thirst, but yet can bear 
 
 (So Thou return) red buds to adorn Thy hair, 
 
 And such a turf of lilies tall unfold 
 
 As danced and laughed about Thy feet of old. 
 
 (Ah, show me Thy mercy ! ) 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 21 
 
 GOD'S EMPTY ROOM 
 
 Now in the temple of my mind 
 
 Hath sorrow made for Thee a habitation. 
 
 Here wilt Thou find 
 
 A space swept clear, wherein no speck remains 
 
 From Thy late sudden flaw 
 
 Which flung through windows wide 
 
 My tattered rags, and wisdom's sorry pride 
 
 Of garnered scripts, each wisp and cherished straw, 
 
 My dead years' precious gains. 
 
 Fierce was the wind that blew, 
 
 And I, with grief that saw, 
 
 And terror's hate, my chamber empty made, 
 
 Wailed in my wrath, nor guessed Thy Love to ride 
 
 The dreadful storm of that swift visitation ; 
 
 Nor, as I watched dismayed, 
 
 In that rude clamour knew 
 
 The Sacred Breath so long 
 
 Invoked, and summoned oft in idle song. 
 
 Conrad of Elsass saith : With empty hands 
 I bid Thee to Thy room that empty stands. 
 Poor is the man that once was rich, and Thou, 
 Unbribed, for Love's dear sake must enter now. 
 Yea, Conrad saith again, The hour grows late ; 
 The lamp is lit ; ah, Kingly Heart, I wait ! 
 
22 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 MY FRIEND OF FRIENDS 
 
 Dear, busy friend, 
 
 Forbear the eager love thou dost intend ! 
 
 And set without 
 
 Thy lighted lamp ! To-morrow I will heed 
 
 Thy gracious speech, and from a poor heart give 
 
 All thanks I may. But now 
 
 This restless mind, and thoughts so fugitive, 
 
 Fain would I fix on One that is His own 
 
 Full converse. Neither vex thy mind with doubt 
 
 What Conrad means ; my own heart's undertone, 
 
 Though none were by, of this shy guest would drown 
 
 The whispered word, and His low voice beat down. 
 
 This silent space allow 
 
 To darkness, for in Heaven the Moon shines clear, 
 
 And in thy flickering glim 
 
 Diviner lamps grow dim. 
 
 My Friend of Friends is here ! 
 
 No other light I need. 
 
 Conrad of Elsass says : With that thin flame, 
 On my bare walls a dance of shadows came. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 23 
 
 THE NICKNAME 
 
 Dreaming to-day, I thought 
 
 That on the lips of Him I serve I caught 
 
 My name of long ago, that often fell 
 
 From one who in the Northland slumbers well, 
 
 And lingers yet 
 
 In speech of them, the few, 
 
 Who loved me then and knew, 
 
 And nevermore forget. 
 
 It may be ; but, although 
 
 He spake, ' Henceforth as slaves no more but friends 
 
 I hold you,' this all promised grace transcends. 
 
 And Conrad says, This word 
 
 I must put from me far, since only heard 
 
 In dream ; nor is it to be thought that He 
 
 Would stoop to be my comrade, and forsake 
 
 All rank of Lord so low as thus to wake 
 
 His servant lost in bootless reverie, 
 
 By whispering at my side 
 
 My mate's dear call that ere my manhood died. 
 
24 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 THE WANDERING KING 
 
 When I have shut the doors and made within 
 
 Deep darkness and a place 
 
 Whence even spirits must withdraw a space ; 
 
 When reverently apart my Guardian goes, 
 
 For now no wings, he knows, 
 
 But silence, overshadowing all, must spread ; 
 
 Then, without speech or tread, 
 
 Another comes and stands, 
 
 The Lord who bears my life in His dear hands. 
 
 But, Master, in that hour, 
 
 What dost Thou see ? The will devoid of power 
 
 Before Thee broken lies ; 
 
 And the child-heart, that cries 
 
 Continually, for all the years have wrought 
 
 To stature of a man's the painful thought 
 
 And to a man's task set a mind too weak 
 
 For one day's petty need, 
 
 Howe'er its fevered clutch 
 
 Would centuries exceed. 
 
 Then every shrinking fear 
 
 And all that mighty man would scorn to hear, 
 
 I bare before Thee, ah 1 the ulcered blame 
 
 Of memory brooding o'er her endless shame 
 
 Of folly that can brook no human touch, 
 
 And all my utter impotence of sin. 
 
 Conrad of Elsass says : A Royal Heart 
 Hearkens, when God and man are wrapt apart. 
 Who but a King would wander forth to save 
 One bearing branded brows and known a slave? 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 25 
 
 THE GARDEN HEDGED 
 
 ' Who was it wrought Thy hurt ? ' 
 
 ' Myself, friend. 
 Thy house sharp stones defend, 
 And wastes of cruel thorn. 
 I wrenched the hedge apart, because a call 
 I heard, that rang through shuddering night's black hall. 
 My feet are cut, my face and hands are torn.' 
 
 ' That hedge is old ; long since the jungle grew, 
 
 And spiky creepers threw 
 
 Round bush and splintered rock their armed clasp. 
 
 The lightning leaps, the thunder follows hard ! 
 
 Heaven's brow, like Thine, is scarred ! 
 
 The hot rains hiss ! In such a night, ah ! who 
 
 Would strive to pass my garden's bitter bourn ? 
 
 The spine, the stone, the scorpion, lurking asp ? 
 
 Didst Thou not know the night was dark ? ' 
 
 ' I knew.' 
 
 Conrad of Elsass says : My friends were wise, 
 That would not tempt this dangerous earth and skies 
 With storm and demons racked. O Friend, I'm glad 
 Thy name is Love ; for only Love is mad ! 
 
26 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 THE QUENCHLESS FLAME 
 
 One saith : 
 
 Poor fool, that hopest thee exempt from death ! 
 
 And fool, for thinking that thou art at all, 
 
 Who art but a shadow leaping on Time's wall, 
 
 A flickering puppet, cast 
 
 From the great central fire that God we call ! 
 
 No life in thee thou hast ! 
 
 Conrad of Elsass saith : Then do I know 
 
 Eternal life is mine, beyond all doubt ! 
 
 The shadow cannot die 
 
 While the fire burns. Though but a shadow I, 
 
 Throughout all worlds there is no wind can blow 
 
 My flame to naught, whatever suns go out. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 27 
 
 THE SCROLL UNFURLED 
 
 Thy life, O Dying Sun, 
 
 Hath fed the world ; and, though light leave the day, 
 
 And slumber over outward form hold sway, 
 
 Yet, while the dark hours run, 
 
 The trees and breathing grass a strength will keep 
 
 That does not suffer sleep. 
 
 Conrad saith : A tale 
 
 Time on those fleeing skies hath written ; 
 
 This blood-red moment lifts a veil 
 
 From One whom foes have smitten. 
 
 Earth reads the scroll unfurled, 
 
 Her gazing eyes grow dim. 
 
 For He is in the world, 
 
 And the world was made by Him. 
 
28 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 A WIND OF QUESTION 
 
 This brief day will pass, surely pass, 
 
 And many at the Name 
 
 Of Him I love will cast reproach and blame. 
 
 Yea, men will say, ' Alas ! 
 
 This man, so poor, so broken, at the end 
 
 Was lost, for all he boasted God his friend. 
 
 Admit him weak, and fool beyond beUef, 
 
 A child for silly pride, 
 
 And bowed with childish fears and childish grief ; 
 
 But yet he loved ; and in his strength he tried. 
 
 Ah, could not He 
 
 That raised the dead and made the blind to see 
 
 Have caused it that His servant had not died ? ' 
 
 So men will speak, and so 
 
 Will through their homes a wind of question blow, 
 
 And clamour of tongues awake 
 
 Along Earth's ways, an hour, ere they forget 
 
 That Conrad's sun has set. 
 
 But Thou, that little heed 
 
 Of men's wild words and wilder thoughts dost take, 
 
 Behold Thy servants jealous for Thy sake ! 
 
 And, lo, how love dare duty's bounds exceed ! 
 
 Yea, Conrad asks, grown bold : 
 
 ' What thing is this, hereafter to be told, 
 
 That Thou, a King, dost unto service call, 
 
 Yet leave Thy sons amid dark ways to perish, 
 
 Unhelped to stray and fall, 
 
 For all Thy Name that in their death they cherish ? ' 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 29 
 
 LOVE'S PILGRIM 
 
 Now script and scroll 
 
 I put aside ; arrived, I will not leave 
 
 Thy chamber, Love, till I have learnt the whole. 
 
 My feet have found the goal, 
 
 That did not know the way. 
 
 That did not know ? Ah, what is this I say ? 
 
 That did not know ? For, though I went unknowing, 
 
 Too busy with my dreams, that built afar 
 
 A city of God, to catch from leaf and bird 
 
 Thy whispered, wandering word, 
 
 Or dawn's red-blazoned witness to receive, 
 
 Yet wast Thou not the road 
 
 Whereby through youth my confident footsteps strode ? 
 
 And was not that Thy realm, on either side 
 
 Mocking with glory my unheeding pride, 
 
 Rich fields whose dancing beauty was Thy sowing, 
 
 Yea, rippled ways where winds and sunbeams clustered 
 
 And summer's scarlet-liveried warriors mustered ? 
 
 Thou hast undone the gate 
 
 Of this Thy house, my Lord ; here let me wait, 
 
 Though suns and seasons fade, and moon and star 
 
 Pale from the scriptured skies. Thou hast from me 
 
 All grief and change, all time and loss, shut out, 
 
 And Death can be 
 
 Only a wind that vainly beats without. 
 
30 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 QUEENS IN PROVENCE 
 
 From Eastern suns a space 
 
 Winning welcome grace, 
 
 And seeking the fair face 
 
 Of orchard-snowy Kent, 
 
 Once by Rhone I went, 
 
 When Spring had run before, 
 
 Touching with her wand from drowsing 
 
 Sweet Provence, on lovers olden 
 
 Dreaming and the vanished mornings golden. 
 
 Hasting through the coverts wild, 
 
 Spring and ' frail April,' her child, 
 
 Magic comers, swift to illume 
 
 Hills with flaming bush of broom, 
 
 Rods of blest arousing 
 
 Bearing (as it would befall 
 
 With racers in God's Lupercal), 
 
 And flinging, 
 
 Mount and valley o'er, 
 
 Endless store 
 
 Of lilac-bloom, 
 
 Almond, pear, and cherry, 
 
 Buds and music's lilt 
 
 Through the green ways spilt. 
 
 Mad and merry, 
 
 Plunging, leaping, singing, 
 
 Rhone with flowers of foam his hoar 
 
 Locks adorned, and from each joyous wave 
 
 To pulse of those wild pipings answer gave. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 31 
 
 Conrad says : For France 
 Flutes of God are playing. 
 When she leads the dance, 
 Worlds must go a-maying. 
 Queen of wondrous days, 
 Pride of beauty, valour's praise 
 Ah, what man, the vast lands over, 
 Would not be her lover ? 
 
32 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 THE INVITATION 
 
 Come through my ways, O Love, 
 
 With flutings and with songs, and call about 
 
 Thy happy, joyful rout, 
 
 Drunk with the Spring's first voices and the wine 
 
 Of life that flowed like honey from the rock. 
 
 This was a grove 
 
 And garden erst ; the trees, now tattered, frayed, 
 
 With apples bowed ; dark plum and apricock, 
 
 Soft peach and nectarine, 
 
 Here grew, where now the poisonous creepers twine. 
 
 Tired wind, that, seeking sweet, dost vainly blow, 
 
 Be thou my summoner, and let Love know 
 
 This plot his father for an orchard made, 
 
 To nod with flower and harvest ; every stock 
 
 That now with lifeless thorns the place encloses 
 
 Was one of myriad slaves that lifted up 
 
 Drink in a kingly cup, 
 
 And baskets crammed with blossoms white and red 
 
 Bore for a Royal Master on its head ; 
 
 Yea, through the alleys spread 
 
 A blowing sea and wilderness of roses. 
 
 But Conrad says : No lure 
 
 For Love is here, where flowers nor fruits endure. 
 
 The koel's sweet voice is silent ; in the sun 
 
 No flashing barbets wheel, no peacocks run ; 
 
 The jay's harsh rasp tears through the thicket's tangle 
 
 Kites shrilly scream ; and daws and parrots wrangle. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 33 
 
 Nor would my bugle's blast Love hither lead, 
 Since he but horns of honeyed flowers will heed. 
 Yet, if he knew, perchance 
 
 For pity's sake he would himself Spring's dance 
 Pipe to my borders, yea, would bring along, 
 Beyond Hope's bravest dreams, both bud and song. 
 
34 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 CALCUTTA MAIDAN 
 
 O waving grasses white, 
 
 O'er which the quick wind races ! 
 
 O mohur blossoms bright ! 
 
 unknown human faces ! 
 
 1 thank my God for this, 
 That I have seen your bliss ! 
 
 Dear girl, beneath whose beauty 
 The swift horse bounds along, 
 Exulting in a duty 
 That does his strength no wrong, 
 Since monarchs might be proud 
 For servitude allowed ! 
 
 I would I were the steed 
 
 That bears your beauty's treasure, 
 
 Rejoicing in a speed 
 
 That served your whim and pleasure, 
 
 And swaying to command 
 
 Of that imperious hand ! 
 
 The ringlets of your hair 
 Your laughing face discover ! 
 To God who made you fair 
 I sing, become your lover ! 
 Nor less my joy than yours, 
 Since such a sight endures ! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 35 
 
 DEAR EARTH OF FLOWERS 
 
 Dear Earth of flowers, 
 
 Wind-shaken bowers, 
 
 Heather-hapt fells, 
 
 And desolate stormy places ! 
 
 Great spaces 
 
 Washed clean with sunbeams and with breezes blowing 
 
 Rosy with sowing 
 
 Of fairy hosts that sang, and sufferers' fancies ! 
 
 Wavy with foxglove bells 
 
 And grass and clover, dressing 
 
 Thy delicate, dimpled vales ! 
 
 Noisy with nightingales 
 
 And cuckoo, bawling blessing ! 
 
 Lovely with upturned faces 
 
 Of children and of pansies ! 
 
 Shining with lovers' eyes 
 
 And dance of dawn, 
 
 And sweet with talk and laughter's light replies ! 
 
 Earth ! I have loved thee so, 
 
 That, going hence, I swear I do not know 
 
 On what celestial lawn 
 
 Hereafter I shall find 
 
 A garden to my mind ! 
 
36 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 DEOLI VERSES 
 
 In the rising moon 
 
 Waters greyly shimmer, 
 
 Lamps of fairy revel 
 
 Set the grass aglimmer. 
 
 Through a sea of light 
 
 Mounted (heavenly swimmer !) 
 
 Raying out a beauty 
 
 Foiling skill of limner, 
 
 Shedding radiance forth 
 
 From celestial brimmer 
 
 (Elvish link and lantern 
 
 Waxing dim and dimmer), 
 
 Looks the goddess now behold her !- 
 
 O'er the simul's shoulder ! 
 
 Fate, I praise thee for this boon, 
 Fireflies fading in the moon, 
 But grant that I may see again 
 Glow-worms in an English lane. 
 
 The afternoon a light 
 
 Of silent gold across the paddy threw ; 
 
 A swaying breeze caressed 
 
 The shrubby li'r, 1 and shook from dreaming rest 
 
 Bengal Bush-Bean. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 37 
 
 The feathered grass : God made a pause wherethro' 
 
 Our listening borders knew, 
 
 Far-off, the blare and gliding wheels of Night. 
 
 'Twas then, with inner ear, 
 
 My spirit first caught clear 
 
 The clarion of her King, and knew at hand 
 
 The hour when she must leave the darkened room 
 
 Wherein so long she wrought in brooding gloom, 
 
 And all would understand. 
 
 That message blew from realms beyond all ken 
 
 Of busy, heedful men. 
 
 Ah me ! this many a day she had not heard 
 
 Her dead air with that music tremulous-stirred I 
 
 3 
 
 Now from the darkening river 
 Chill breaths arise ; 
 Athwart the rose-cheeked sunset 
 A parrot flies ; 
 
 The noise of driven cattle 
 And children's play 
 Sinks ; and the emerald barbets 
 Fade into grey ; 
 
 The flowers of oleander 
 Pale from their red ; 
 A fox laughs in the jungle ; 
 Day is dead. 
 
38 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 FROM ENNA 
 
 Lord, by that love of Thine, 
 
 Which caught my soul, amid young buds at play, 
 
 As Pluto from her meadows rapt away 
 
 The wandering Proserpine, 
 
 Starring her brows, for beauty hourly shed, 
 
 With endless empire o'er the undying dead, 
 
 Setting the feet that loved the lilies well 
 
 Among the unfading fields of asphodel ! 
 
 Lord, should my soul forget, 
 
 Weaving of these her nobler coronet, 
 
 What time Thy Spring, with flush of blowing roses, 
 
 The palace-prison of her pomp uncloses, 
 
 Bringing her steps, for certain times and spaces, 
 
 Upon the old hills and on the old high places, 
 
 By that great Love which swept, a blast of doom, 
 
 Down ancient ways abloom, 
 
 Strike to her heart of loveliness, yea, sear 
 
 The Spring from out her year ! 
 
 Return, O Love that slew the daffodils 
 
 On her Sicilian hills ! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 39 
 
 IN THE DIM YEARS 
 
 In the dim years now spent 
 
 Like smoke that fades into the sky's recess, 
 
 Ere at a voice I went 
 
 Into the wilderness, 
 
 No prodigal, because a God's command 
 
 Rang, like a father's call, from that far land, 
 
 Friends walked beside me, and the double flame 
 
 Of Youth and Love lit up the way I came. 
 
 But some with eld have bowed 
 
 Their honoured heads ; and some through battle's cloud 
 
 Have vanished, laying with bright looks aside 
 
 The lust of life and manhood's eager pride ; 
 
 And mountain turf is green 
 
 O'er one, the best, whom yet I hourly mourn, 
 
 Sending my travelling thoughts, that flag forlorn, 
 
 To watch beside a grave I have not seen. 
 
 Friends, who, with braver light 
 
 Encompassed, unto deeds of greater might 
 
 March ever, chide me not nor think it scorn 
 
 If, lacking you, I show 
 
 Unlike the man you cherished long ago. 
 
 For after you comes none 
 
 But falser folk, that won 
 
 My easy faith, and like a toy flung down 
 
 My friendship and the Muses' fadeless crown. 
 
40 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 THE RECREANT 
 
 I faltered, for the flagging brain was worn, 
 
 And bitter wrath and scorn 
 
 Within my heart were born 
 
 For wrong of lying lips and slanderous speech. 
 
 I, recreant on the beach 
 
 Of battle, hated my ignoble foe, 
 
 The coward mob that foiled my overthrow ; 
 
 I shrunk the war by such frustration stained, 
 
 And from those ramparts foul a space refrained. 
 
 ' Ah, wherefor strive with these, 
 
 Whose strength is lies, whose weapons draff and dirt ? 
 
 My Captain owns far worthier enemies, 
 
 In whose despite may valour take no hurt.' 
 
 So spake I, but replied a truer voice : 
 
 ' Then dost thou dare, a slave, to stand on choice, 
 
 And of thy pain wouldst arbitrate the place ? 
 
 Back, slave, to thy disgrace ! 
 
 Nor look for nobler service from thy Lord, 
 
 Till even from this plucked victory crown thy sword.' 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 41 
 
 THE RAILWAY 
 
 For miles along the cutting 
 
 The babla bushes grow, 
 
 Thronged with yellow buttons powdered 
 
 With scented dust of gold. 
 
 On marshy pools the saluk 
 
 Scatters its cups of snow, 
 
 And corols pale of tender blue 
 
 Spiked rain-lilies unfold. 
 
 THE WATCHER ON THE BANK 
 
 Watcher on the bank while the stream flows past, 
 Bubbles rank on rank, wave on wave amassed, 
 Ever wilt thou sit, calm, aloft, and sole, 
 While the minutes flit, while the ripples roll? 
 
 Musing, so I spoke, when, upon the word, 
 Straight the Dreamer woke, straight the Watcher stirred ; 
 Life within him urged, in the stream he leapt, 
 With the waters merged, seaward as they swept. 
 
42 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 HOWRA BRIDGE 
 
 As over Howra Bridge I came, 
 
 The sun rose up, a golden bird 
 
 With feathers all aflame, 
 
 To sudden ardour by the quick winds stirred. 
 
 The primal sacrifice 
 
 Of Prajapati l straightway then I saw ; 
 
 When Love by dreadful law 
 
 Gave from full hands but doomed itself for price, 
 
 Creation's Lord his life 
 
 Yielding to pyre and knife. 
 
 1 See Indian mythology. 
 
 GOOD FRIDAY 
 
 This day, as I awoke, 
 
 With more than common lightness 
 
 The pipal 'gainst the silver shimmer of dawn 
 
 Danced, and through clouds of lawn 
 
 The jocund morning broke. 
 
 The trembling shrubs, wherethro' 
 
 Soft-plumaged breezes blew, 
 
 Shone and from twinkling fingers scattered brightness ; 
 
 And the aged banians knew, 
 
 Even as for me, for them 
 
 Fresh life in root and stem. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 43 
 
 CLOUDS 
 
 Upon these heavens so blue 
 
 A scarf of cloud God threw, 
 
 A snowy wreath which broke 
 
 And passed away in smoke. 
 
 E'en so, 
 
 This azure pageantry of morning skies, 
 
 Of dancing blooms which are the Master's eyes 
 
 Upon my toil, will prove a vision past 
 
 Of smoke by God into Time's sky upcast. 
 
 THE FOREST-SLEEPER 
 
 I have a wanderer been 
 
 In forests where the dew of yestereves 
 
 Clung to the silent fronds and sunless leaves. 
 
 There, where from earth's wet breast 
 
 The mounting sap runs up to set a crown 
 
 Of spreading foliage green, 
 
 That ever waxeth, ever withereth, 
 
 Above the dull trunks brown, 
 
 I saw in dreamless rest 
 
 Life sleeping in the cave of death. 
 
44 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 STRAYING WATERS 
 
 My scattered life I pour 
 Towards Thee ; but the volume is so slight, 
 Twill sink among Time's sands, to rise no more, 
 Unless Thyself, from fulhead of Thy might, 
 With depth of marching waters dost fulfil 
 And my bare shelves and gaping channels swill, 
 That, though I find Thee not, yet, found of Thee, 
 My waves may fall to Thine abounding sea. 
 
 GOD'S W T AYS 
 
 So lowly are Thy ways, my God, so dark 
 
 The depths in which Thou think'st no shame to hide, 
 
 Sometimes Thou seemest to me as a child 
 
 That writes the letters of its name in dust ! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 45 
 
 THE TREES RAVE A GARMENT OF LEAVES 
 
 The trees have a garment of leaves, 
 Their heads they have crowned with flowers ; 
 They dance and ruffle their sleeves, 
 Or dream through the silent hours. 
 
 I too of their bliss will partake ; 
 With beauty and blossoming rime 
 A crown for my brows 111 make, 
 And set my thoughts in time 
 
 To the wind of joy that blows 
 From the jubilant, dancing stream ; 
 And again, at the music's close, 
 I'll wear my garland and dream. 
 
46 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 FLOWER AND WIND 
 
 Lilies in their peace lift up, 
 Dewy-brimmed, an ivory cup, 
 Sweet that gathered, hidden deep, 
 Through the sliding hours of sleep. 
 
 But the winds, at set of sun, 
 Forth to reckless revel run, 
 Snap the stems in eager haste, 
 Pour the precious stuff to waste. 
 
 And the rose, whose flaunted gleam 
 Flowered like God's own mind adream, 
 Hangs, a shamed and tattered flag, 
 Beauty's cheek a crimson rag. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 47 
 
 ENID 
 
 Through John's long telescope, his wife and pride, 
 
 A little mob of ladies watched the moon. 
 
 But dusk ran on, and I must go to preach. 
 
 Then Enid turned and cried, 
 
 Enid, who all day kept me at arm's reach, 
 
 ' You wait and take me down ! ' and I complied, 
 
 And, Beauty's earnest servant ever, bare 
 
 My burden down the creaking, narrow stair. 
 
 But ... at the bottom, gazing at those charms 
 
 Within my circling arms, 
 
 Mere man, predatory, guileful, seeking gains, 
 
 Rose rampant, and requested 
 
 Some recognition of his knightly pains. 
 
 There was a woman there 
 
 (Prince, may all evil fairies pinch her soon, 
 
 And briers and brambles for her baseness tear ! ) 
 
 Cried shame upon the thought and bade defiance, 
 
 And vowed such impudence she never heard. 
 
 But Enid's wise, kind father saw the boon 
 
 Was mild, was reasonable, and urged compliance : 
 
 ' Just one \ You know you might ! ' 
 
 Till Enid, foiled of flight, 
 
 Helpless where in those cruel arms she rested, 
 
 Grew weak, and faltered lastly in despair, 
 
 ' Mummy '11 be cross with me ' ; but, still more low, 
 
 Bending above her, ' Mummy need never know,' 
 
 I said. And Enid kissed me like a bird. 
 
 Such was the ' fatal and perfidious ' act 
 
 That sealed our strong compact ; 
 
48 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 And, as the plantain fruits from mud and slime 
 
 And melons are most lush 
 
 That sprawl on silt and slush, 
 
 So Friendship's Tree from villany and crime 
 
 Grew tall, and spread long boughs where Birds of Praise 
 
 Sang Enid's name, and in the shimmering rays 
 
 Clapped joyous wings that shook the dewy flowers 
 
 Over the turf in showers. 
 
 For this was Tree from seed 
 
 A poet culled, that could with fruits dispense 
 
 Because it bore a sweeter excellence, 
 
 Being Phoebus' Laurel, evergreen, with store 
 
 Of starry blossoms, honeyed to the core. 
 
 And though, when next we met, one afternoon 
 
 In Babylon, my little maid was shy, 
 
 And, all her love forgot, 
 
 Would not one word upon her slave expend, 
 
 Yet, ere we parted, in her visage shone 
 
 Repentant kindness and regretful shame. 
 
 She looked about to cry, 
 
 And ' Come again,' she begged me, ' and come soon, 
 
 And ' while her voice died with remorse ' next time 
 
 I will be nicer to you.' So I came, 
 
 And, Enid, you were very nice indeed. 
 
 But then, as you observed, ' You see, you're not 
 
 An ordinary man. You are a friend.' 
 
 Child, with your poet's kiss upon your brow, 
 
 Go to your mummy now, 
 
 And tell her that the wretch has got you still 
 
 (She won't be cross, for mummy knows), and add 
 
 That, since his love was masterful, he bade 
 
 His strong slave Verse to work his eager will 
 
 And bind you fast in circling arms of rime. 
 
 You told me once to wait and take you down. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 49 
 
 I waited then. But there will come a time 
 When I shall hear a more imperious call, 
 And, passing hence, desert you to the throng 
 Of lovers that to Beauty's train belong. 
 But, though I go, I leave you not at all ; 
 I rub this ruby lamp my Master gave, 
 And Verse, that is its slave, 
 Answers the summons ; hands you cannot feel 
 Will shut you fast in grip more strong than steel. 
 He waits upon your steps, nor will forsake you, 
 But at the last in his firm arms will take you, 
 Lest in Oblivion's Brook my sweetheart drown. 
 
50 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 DORIS 
 
 Over Nilgiri wandering, 
 Under heat and cloud, 
 Foolish problems pondering, 
 All with sorrow bowed, 
 Prince, I met with eyes 
 That were kind and wise. 
 
 Sin jun wort and bramble, 
 Bracken, bearded fir ; 
 Mountain talk and ramble, 
 Mind, remember her, 
 Soul of coverts shady, 
 Nilgiri's oread-lady ! 
 
 She was grave and stately, 
 Gracious to behold ; 
 She could frown sedately, 
 Or pretend to scold ; 
 Bright-eyed mocker keen, 
 Mischief-loving queen ! 
 
 Face refrained from laughter, 
 
 Set in stern rebuke, 
 
 But, the moment after, 
 
 Dimpled like a brook, 
 
 When in jest I blamed you 
 
 And Cousin Crosspatch named you 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 51 
 
 Comrade golden-hearted, 
 
 Nilgiri made us friends ; 
 
 Light of days departed 
 
 Still my path attends ; 
 
 See, your memory, Doris, 
 
 Has set my thoughts to morris ! 
 
52 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 TO A. R. T. 
 
 Beside the tank I walk ; from fleecy cowl, 
 Full-orbed, the moon on babla and on palm 
 Looks down, and silvered water's waveless calm. 
 No wing is here but flying-fox and owl, 
 No foot save jackal's slinking in slow prowl, 
 No stir except cicada's dry, quick psalm. 
 The evening air that brings repose and balm 
 Flows round me, Brother. 
 
 Thee, where tempests howl 
 And mist-enwrapt the tossing grey sea runs 
 Death-sown, the bitter winds of winter numb. 
 I saw thee last when Earth to summer suns 
 Held peaceful foison. Now, where skies are glum, 
 Our Happy Warrior wakes beside his guns 
 And watches for the foe that will not come. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 53 
 
 SEPTEMBER, 1914 
 
 A crescent moon o'erhead ; 
 Lightning leapt on the water ; 
 And thought of England's dead 
 And my brethren called to slaughter 
 Troubled me, as I went 
 Over the rain-flushed bent. 
 
 Here, it was dusk and dew, 
 And dark in heaven's hollow 
 The big fruit-foxes flew, 
 And the little Indian swallow, 
 Poised on the waters grey, 
 Dipt and swooped on her prey. 
 
 But from where a wind of death 
 Through distant fields was blowing 
 Came waft of a bitter breath, 
 And crimson Hugh's flowing 
 I saw, with eyes that swam, 
 I, even the ghost I am. 
 
54 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 WILL GOUDIE 
 
 Killed in action, April 7, 1915. 
 
 Far-sown in Flanders, of the world's great morn 
 The waiting harvest, through the fields flung wide, 
 They rest, whose faith their Mother's brows of pride 
 Remember, and deep eyes, with watching worn. 
 And thou art there, whose radiant strength thought 
 
 scorn, 
 
 Summoned to stand in battle's raging tide, 
 Aught of her trustful calm to lay aside, 
 Friend in whose passing many flag forlorn ! 
 
 The ball drops dead, the bat is useless now ; 
 Yet, whatsoe'er new ways thy soul hath trod, 
 All's one to him who knew his Comrade-God 
 Alike in toil and play ; who lived, nor thought, 
 Simplest of heroes, on his joyful brow 
 What greatness shone, from secret converse caught. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 55 
 
 OUR GLAD DEAD 
 
 Where looks the lion of our greatness down 
 
 On Hougomont, and where 
 
 Euphrates draws his waters turbid, brown, 
 
 By Babel's buried stair ; 
 
 From mist-wrapt crag and skerry, Shetland sleet, 
 
 To Patagonian snow, 
 
 All earth and sea the sacred tale complete 
 
 Of our glad dead, that so, 
 
 As in old days of fame 
 
 Our lives the centuries sow, 
 
 On tides and sands our name 
 
 We write, till all lands grow 
 
 Grave-eloquent of the deeds of the English. 
 
56 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 SUSSEX FIRES 
 
 ' Bearing starry lilies 
 O'er the dewy meadows, 
 Whither do ye wander, 
 Maidens light-enwreathen ? 
 
 ' These are Sussex ways. 
 Wilmington is yonder, 
 Where the Giant looks 
 Over glebe and Abbey. 
 Cowslip and bee-orchis 
 From the chalky turf 
 Are budding, and the furze 
 Is gold about the barrows. 
 Cuckmere to the Channel 
 Shepherds lazy waters 
 Whereby the Dragons came. 
 Alfred's memory fills 
 All the vales and hills.' 
 
 ' Late have we arisen, 
 Elves of England's beauty, 
 Grace, and dreaming glory, 
 Risen with wreaths for valour. 
 
 ' Swept a wind-blown rumour, 
 As in olden story, 
 O'er the Channel's shingle. 
 Waking, we beheld 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 57 
 
 Over mound and dew-pond 
 Blaze of beacon leaping, 
 As when Armada came 
 Or when the death-fires glared 
 For neolithic man. 
 Heroes' bales are burning ; 
 Therefor thus we climb, 
 Honour's flowers to shed 
 On Loyalty's last bed.' 
 
58 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 BIRD AND TREE 
 
 Wind amid the nim ! 
 Dark-capped bulbul flitting ! 
 In my breast a voice 
 Of gladness you awaken. 
 
 Blow, Wind of God, 
 Through a poet's dream, 
 Where beneath Song's Bush 
 Idly he is sitting ! 
 Let the dreamer rouse, 
 And through tangled boughs 
 Song and gracious scent 
 Wander, sweetly blent ! 
 Hope, thou joyous bulbul, 
 Make the leaves rejoice ! 
 Let a drift of blossoms 
 On his head be shaken ! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 59 
 
 REMEMBRANCE 
 
 When I remember all the ways I went, 
 Companioned as was never man before 
 Companioned, even so the heart grows sore 
 With too much pain of musing, memories blent 
 Of joy and sorrow, thoughts of bruise and fall 
 And petty wrongs that wake to tyrannize 
 The man that lives their thrall, 
 For all his friendly skies. 
 
 Ah, Lord, at last to think on other things ! 
 
 The woods, with trembling wings 
 
 Aflutter, and with glimmer of golden light 
 
 Most glowing and with emerald leafage bright ! 
 
 The flower-sown dusk, and ways with bean and clover 
 
 Rich-scented ! Night that sought her poet-lover, 
 
 With rustling step and breath of clustered roses ! 
 
 And, dim to maple-closes, 
 
 The owls slow-flitting from the roads, the skelter 
 
 Of furry lives to shelter ! 
 
 Dear Wind, my friend, the o'erclambered bushes shake 
 
 And flood the wearied brain 
 
 With breath of rose and honeysuckle again ! 
 
 Dear Wind, my friend, awake, 
 
 That Night may come, tall Night, my Mother, bringing 
 
 A sound of nightingales and rivers singing, 
 
 Of woodlands murmuring and of blossoms swaying, 
 
 Of homing wings, of little children praying, 
 
 Of life and wandering tides that seek the deep ; 
 
 That Night may come, and after Night come Sleep ! 
 
 UPPER TIGRIS, 
 MESOPOTAMIA. 
 
60 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 MEADOW-ROSES 
 
 Thy love is a meadow-rose, 
 
 Which clings to the earth, and grows 
 
 Away from the wind, with blossoms whose opened face 
 
 Of wonder and innocent grace 
 
 Meets children, marvelling on their joyous ways 
 
 Where the crimson lamps of the poppy blaze 
 
 In the southward-streaming wind, and the purple light 
 
 Of the orchis-torches makes the tall grass bright. 
 
 The rose by its scent is known, 
 
 Its golden heart and ivory petals spreading, 
 
 Globes of light in the branches thickly sown, 
 
 And a sward for the elves' light treading. 
 
 Lover of Souls, Thy place is 
 
 In the wind-swept, grass-grown, desolate spaces, 
 
 Where the air blows sweet 
 
 And cool to the brows of Thy roaming child, 
 
 And a path worn smooth by the punctual feet 
 
 Of Thy ministering friends leads over the wild. 
 
 UPPER TIGRIS, 
 August, 1916. 
 
MESOPOTAMIAN VERSES 
 
TO WILLIAM CANTON 
 
 Friend beloved from the years when three in our circle met, 
 Three and the youngest lies in our Mother's arms at rest ! 
 Lover and friend grow far ; and eyes that have hurt I forget ; 
 Not yours, old comrade-guide, of friends the bravest and best. 
 
 TIGRIS FRONT, MESOPOTAMIA, 
 December, 1916. 
 
MESOPOTAMIAN VERSES 
 
 i 
 SPRING, 1916 
 
 From Orah, Felahiyeh, 
 Sannaiyat, Hanna, Sinn, 
 Dijaila, Nasiriyeh, 
 The tale of death came in. 
 
 Death, where the soldier stands, 
 Burnt in an eight-foot trench; 
 Death, in the blinding sands ; 
 Death, in the desert's stench; 
 Death, where the reedbeds' mesh 
 Traps, and the Arabs prowl ; 
 Death, in the fly-blown flesh 
 And the water scant and foul ; 
 Death, where the flarelights fall, 
 An hour ere dawn's faint flush, 
 And we jump the garden-wall 
 (Six hundred yards to rush) ; 
 Death, where the P-boats go, 
 Packed with their huddled pain; 
 Death, where the strong tides flow 
 By Busra to the main ; 
 Death, where the wind's hot breath 
 Fails, and the fierce seas burn; 
 Death, in the docks ; and death, 
 Where the stretchers wait their turn. 
 63 
 
64 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 From Nasiriyeh and Sinn 
 
 The tale came in ; 
 And the shark-tracked ships went down 
 
 To Bombay town. 
 
 2 
 KURMA REACHES, AUGUST 
 
 Roses and stars in her raiment, 
 Roses and stars in her hair 
 Here is no Queen of Twilight 
 Ruling the snow-soft air; 
 Never the dawn, with shoulders 
 Silverly wimpled and clad, 
 Rosy-fingered, a Maiden, 
 Rises serene and glad. 
 
 Sunset forgets her splendour, 
 
 Morning her crimson dye ; 
 
 Dim are the dusty fingers 
 
 That opened the darkened sky. 
 
 Swiftly the Sun upspringing 
 
 Glares with his dreadful eye ; 
 
 Faint in the Giant's presence 
 
 The great lands wearily lie, 
 
 Till over the glimmering meadows 
 
 Nit and poisonous fly 
 
 Flock to the boat in her moorings, 
 
 And Sleep the Desired goes by. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 65 
 
 3 
 NORFOLK HILL, EVENING 
 
 Wrinkled river, drifting, 
 
 Drifting down, 
 In the restless, ever-shifting 
 
 Tides to drown, 
 Late you carried, lapsing slow, 
 Barges brimmed with human woe. 
 
 Wrinkled river, flowing 
 
 Deep and strong, 
 Know you that with you are going 
 
 Grief and wrong, 
 
 Pain and miseries late that vexed, 
 Memories and a mind perplexed? 
 
 Wrinkled river, bearing 
 
 Lives of men, 
 Here are boats of ours, now faring 
 
 Home agen, 
 
 Petty wrath and restlessness 
 Merging in a large distress. 
 
 4 
 
 Poor, he waxes unto rich estate, 
 Tigris, by the desert stripped and shorn, 
 Tigris, wandering through his maize and thorn, 
 Tigris, pacing through his groves of date. 
 
66 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 5 
 AMARA POOL, AUGUST 
 
 Blest shamal, blowing cool 
 Through the bending willows, 
 And setting with thy breath 
 The groves of date astir ; 
 Over Tigris' billows 
 Pushing the silver scud, 
 That lightly leaps the mud 
 To its dusty death 
 Beneath the dancing thorn, 
 That bows to the wave 
 And stretches hands to save ! 
 Blest shamal, blowing cool 
 Over Tigris Pool, 
 Flooding the chambers dank 
 Of speckled kingfisher 
 That pock the bank ! 
 Greeting, Wind, and praise 
 Be yours, and length of days ! 
 See, yonder is Amara ! 
 But this upon our right, 
 God bless us ! why, it might 
 As well be called Sahara ! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 67 
 
 Day, with his brazen quiver 
 
 And darts of dangerous fire, 
 
 Faints ; and the hot hours tire. 
 
 The flickering West grows dim, 
 
 And Night comes crowned from the desert's rim. 
 
 Lifting a gracious face, 
 
 The moon keeps pace for pace ; 
 
 Proud of his golden scales, old Tigris gleams. 
 
 The Arabs at our side 
 
 With clapping hands and touch of strings, below 
 
 Make music, as we ride 
 
 On where the great gales blow. 
 
 Now Sleep with his sheaf of poppies 
 
 Comes from the willow-coppice, 
 
 The silvery-sandalled, swift in his feathered stride, 
 
 Walking the happy river 
 
 And sowing the dark with dreams. 
 
 Strange are His ways ! He gives their hearts repose 
 And inward strength, whose bodies near their foes. 
 His friendship makes a flower-strewn path through Hell ; 
 Yea (Conrad saith), 
 Surely His ways are strange ; strange, and hard to spell. 
 
68 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 UMM-EL-HANNA 
 
 January 20 and April 5, 1916. 
 
 Wind through the tamarisk going, 
 
 As a maid through a meadow goes, 
 
 The folds of her raiment flowing 
 
 Loose through the stalks that scatter and close ! 
 
 Wind, to thyself that hummest 
 
 Of tamarisk, pink-flowered thorn, 
 
 Thy thoughts are astray, Wind, for thou comest 
 
 A Queen through a realm of corn ! 
 
 Where the hills draw closer their crescent 
 
 And the swamps creep nigh to the stream, 
 
 Rajput and English peasant 
 
 Died for the worshipped eyes of a dream ; 
 
 And the thorn is wrought from its fashion, 
 
 And the idle bush of the field 
 
 Is changed, that the plain of their bitter passion 
 
 The bread of life may yield. 
 
 And thou, O wandering Wind, dost seem 
 
 The forsaken Queen among realms, in her pride 
 
 Pacing the earth where her friends have died, 
 
 Making their faith her sorrowful theme, 
 
 While the light of her rustling garment waves 
 
 In the harvest of life that comes up from their graves. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 69 
 
 9 
 UMM-EL-HANNA 
 
 January 20, 1916. 
 
 Wintry winds, and a morn 
 
 From which the memory blenches ! 
 
 Tread lightly over the thorn 
 
 And the clean-cut, untouched trenches ! 
 
 They watched through the bitter night, 
 
 Crofter and English yeoman ; 
 
 Or ever the East grew light, 
 
 Their feet were swift to the foeman. 
 
 The parching months flagged by, 
 
 And the guns unconquered thundered ; 
 
 Their shrivelling skins grew dry, 
 
 And their limbs by the beasts were sundered. 
 
 Blest as in yew-tree shade 
 
 Or by their Highland heather, 
 
 They slumber, who watched and prayed, 
 
 Quietly lying together. 
 
 Tread lightly over the thorn, 
 And by the salt-plant bushes ! 
 Peace shall harvest her corn 
 Here, where are reeds and rushes. 
 
70 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 10 
 THE PASTURES OF SANNAIYAT 
 
 The pastures of Sannaiyat 
 Are flanked with grass and reeds ; 
 The pastures of Sannaiyat, 
 Where now the plover feeds. 
 Black partridge saunters slowly 
 Along the thorn-cracked walls, 
 And sand-grouse unto sand-grouse 
 Across the river calls. 
 
 The pastures of Sannaiyat 
 Lie broad 'twixt stream and sedge ; 
 The marsh's silver mirrors 
 God gave the land for hedge. 
 'Twixt tamarisk and papyrus 
 A tongue of sand He thrust, 
 Where jerboas build their burrows 
 And scurry through the dust. 
 
 And Tigris, loitering seaward, 
 Remembers here a space 
 The storm of human anguish 
 That swept the desert's face. 
 The flocks are grey hyaenas, 
 And here the jackal feeds, 
 On the pastures of Sannaiyat, 
 Sannaiyat flanked with reeds. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 71 
 
 ii 
 FELAHIYEH, SANDY RIDGE 
 
 Where wind-waves had drifted 
 The waves of dust, 
 I found a thorn that lifted 
 Strong arms of trust 
 Against a gun-embrasure ; 
 Green of leaf and bud, 
 With stars of azure 
 And berries of blood. 
 
72 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 12 
 
 TO A HOSTILE AIRMAN 
 
 Fritz, when dusk begins to settle 
 On the slopes of Pushti-Koh, 
 And the weary feel in fettle 
 On the gin-crawl for to go, 
 Mellow joy and peace are blended, 
 As I watch you, gentle Fritz, 
 Hastening Kutward shell-attended, 
 While the angry Archie spits. 
 
 But my kindly toleration 
 Fails before your morning jaunt ; 
 With a wrathful consternation 
 Then I bid you, Fiend, Avaunt ! 
 Most unmitigated bounder, 
 Brawling in the blue o'erhead, 
 Would you bomb my forty-pounder? 
 Draw the shrapnel on my bed ? 
 
 Fiend or airman, Fritz or Fuzzle, 
 If you'd live in my esteem 
 When the Censors cease to muzzle 
 And the Tigris is a dream, 
 Come when waves and mountains blacken, 
 Spare my morning dreams you must ! 
 Dreams of purpled heath and bracken, 
 Exiled here in Elam's dust. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 73 
 
 13 
 THE WADI 
 
 January 13, 1916. 
 
 Wind that in the Wadi 
 Sett'st the scrub asighing, 
 In the Wadi, where the grouse are crying ! 
 Like the souls of men 
 Homeward fleeting, 
 
 Through the wintry heavens the fowl their way are 
 beating. 
 
 Stream that in the Wadi 
 
 Sett'st the grasses swaying, 
 
 In the Wadi, where the waves are playing ! 
 
 Like the souls of men 
 
 Homeward going, 
 
 Down the racing stream the silvered waves are flowing. 
 
 You that saw men die, 
 
 Wind and Stream ! Reply ! 
 
 After all our pain 
 
 Does no trace remain, 
 
 But flying 
 
 Wings, and crying 
 
 Fowl, and weeds and waters sighing? 
 
74 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 OTHER POEMS 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 75 
 
 TO FRANK HART 
 
 The sand-grouse struts amid the camelthorn, 
 Or matches his grey coat against the slime 
 Our heats have burnt ; I prune the winged rime 
 To feather friendship's arrow to its bourn. 
 Beneath mud walls, shell-shattered, bullet-torn, 
 The river sleeps ; as I, in little time, 
 Forgetting Johnny Turk's black ways of crime, 
 Shall do, unkindly roused from rest ere mom. 
 
 Fair peace be yours, dear Frank ! In this cessation 
 Of our bad neighbours from their noisy work, 
 To you and that brave soul, my other friend, 
 The Little Woman, peace and salutation ! 
 How fares the battle at your Bombay end ? 
 This is the Tigris ; yonder is the Turk. l 
 
 UPPER TIGRIS, 
 August, 1916. 
 
 1 See finish of Browning's Guardian Angel. 
 
76 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 SLAIN MUSICS 
 
 Long since I knew 
 
 All seasons and all hours were full of Thee, 
 
 And Earth and Sea 
 
 Were of Thy quire, with Winds that sang Thy praise 
 
 Along the whistling ways. 
 
 Yea, like the dew 
 
 Thy love has made the desert lands rejoice 
 
 And given to rocks a voice 
 
 Most trumpet-loud, that, though our ears be dead, 
 
 All ways of men are with Thy music sped. 
 
 Not that the music which I heard dies down, 
 
 Or worldly clamours drown 
 
 That psalm so dear, so hearkened ; nay, not so, 
 
 Since less and less with earthly traffic run 
 
 My timorous thoughts, that now vexations shun, 
 
 And scant the commerce with the world I know 
 
 But now within I hear 
 
 A jangled stir, that fills the aching ear 
 
 And floods the brain with anguish, driving thence 
 
 AH sight and sound, the senses' evidence. 
 
 Thy music lives, I doubt not ; yea, I know 
 
 These winds that beat from Persia's hills of snow 
 
 And whistle through the salty plats and reeds 
 
 Make melody no less than those where Thames 
 
 By Kingstaff s tall and swaying willow-stems 
 
 His happy waters leads. 
 
 But, Lord, for all they make 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 77 
 
 (Could I but hear ! ) a song as that of old 
 
 Sweet, that along the crimson forest rolled, 
 
 Under a roof of golden autumn weather. 
 
 When elfin fingers swept the trembling brake 
 
 And shook all murmuring winds and breaths together, 
 
 Yet from this grief I have, of dying men 
 
 And women that must live, a stir arises 
 
 That slays Thy world of song, and like a frost 
 
 Shivers each eager season's sweet surprises. 
 
 Thy sons by wood and fen 
 
 Must wander, spirit-tossed, 
 
 And through the singing ways of summer pass, 
 
 Nor hear what music lives along the grass. 
 
 TIGRIS FRONT, MESOPOTAMIA, 
 December, 1916. 
 
78 WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 TO J. A. SHARP 
 
 The glow on the desert dies, and the ' sad Assyrian 
 
 Queen ' 
 Mounts to her ancient throne Astarte, beneath whose 
 
 beams 
 Tigris will roll a flood, where Thames and Hugli have 
 
 been, 
 Tigris murmuring slow through the starlit land of dreams. 
 
 The river flows, nor heeds whose graves he is wandering 
 
 by, 
 
 Tombs of forgotten realms or the men that died this 
 
 morn ; 
 
 Armies clash in a mist ; and Semite or Persian fly ; 
 Townshend hurries to Kut ; or Julian dies in scorn. 
 
 And now, as our souls are knit and stern for the final 
 
 stroke, 
 And Briton and Turk stand to, aware of the imminent 
 
 end, 
 I think of dusk and a fire and a room all dimmed with 
 
 smoke 
 And a brother's talk, and a face where kindness shone 
 
 O friend! 
 
 TIGRIS FRONT, MESOPOTAMIA, 
 December, 1916. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 79 
 
 IN VIA RECTA CELERITER 1 
 
 The fields will flush, while seasons wake, 
 In Lansdown Wood wild-cherry 
 Its sleeves of snowy blossom shake, 
 And winds again make merry ; 
 
 And Spring by down and budding combe 
 With flower-filled basket sally, 
 By Tadwick strew the kingcups' bloom 
 And daffs in Katharine's Valley ; 
 
 And Summer store in green retreat 
 White orchids, trembling lilies, 
 And sow his poppies thro' the wheat, 
 Where Kelston's tufted hill is ; 
 
 And we, grown old, returning here, 
 Shall mourn in life's November 
 The Spring that perished from our year, 
 And thro' all mists remember 
 
 The Shining Comrades, those of old 
 Who trod the same high places, 
 Who loved the meadows' cloth of gold, 
 The light-filled, flowery spaces. 
 
 1 The motto of Kingswood School. 
 
8o WALTHAM THICKETS 
 
 But theirs were laurelled brows, their eyes 
 Stars ! In the morning glowing 
 They saw the city's towers arise, 
 They heard its bugles blowing. 
 
 Beyond our lanes that wind and roam 
 They saw what path ascended, 
 Ran in a straight way swiftly home, 
 And in that brightness ended. 
 
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