Georgian Poetry 1918-19 — Themes and Context

Why did you let him go?

To fetch him back! For I enjoy this, mind. There's many a one Would think, to see me, There goes misery! There's a queer starveling for you!--and I do A thing that makes me like a saint in glory, The life of me the sound of a great tune Your flesh could never hear: I can send power Delighting out of me! O, the mere thought Has made my blood go smarting in my veins, Such a flame glowing along it!--And all the same I'll pay him out for sidling off from me. But I'll have supper first.

When she was gone, Their talk could scarcely raise itself again Above a grumble. But at last a cry Sharp-pitcht came startling in from the street: at once Their moody talk exploded into flare Of swearing hubbub, like gunpowder dropt On embers; mugs were clapt down, out they bolted Rowdily jostling, eager for the event.

All down the street the folk throng'd out of doors, But left a narrow track clear in the middle; And there a man came running, a tall man Running desperately and slowly, pounding Like a machine, so evenly, so blindly; And regularly his trotting body wagg'd. Only one foot clatter'd upon the stones; The other padded in his dogged stride: The boot was gone, the sock hung frayed in shreds About his ankle, the foot was blood and earth; And never a limp, not the least flinch, to tell The wounded pulp hit stone at every step. His clothes were tatter'd and his rent skin showed, Harrowed with thorns. His face was pale as putty, Thrown far back; clots of drooping spittle foamed On his moustache, and his hair hung in tails, Mired with sweat; and sightless in their sockets His eyeballs turned up white, as dull as pebbles. Evenly and doggedly he trotted, And as he went he moaned. Then out of sight Round a corner he swerved, and out of hearing.

--'The law should have a say to that, by God!'

In entering the town, where the bright river Shrinks in its white stone bed, old thoughts return Of how a quiet queen was nurtured here In the pale, shadowed ruin on the height; Of how, when the hoar town was new and clean And had not grown a part of the gaunt fells That peered down into it, the burghers wove On their small, fireside looms green, famous webs To cling on lissome, tower-dwelling ladies Who rode the hills swaying like green saplings, Or mask tall, hardy outlaws from pursuit Down beechen caverns and green under-lights, (The rude, vain looms are gone, their beams are broken; Their webs are now not seen, but memory Still tangles in their mesh the dews they swept Like ruby sparks, the lights they took, the scents They held, the movement of their shapes and shades); Of how the Border burners in cold dawns Of Summer hurried North up the high vales Past smoking farmsteads that had lit the night And surf of crowding cattle; and of how A laughing prince of cursed, impossible hopes Rode through the little streets Northward to battle And to defeat, to be a fading thought, Belated in dead mountains of romance.

A carver at his bench in a high gable Hears the sharp stream close under, far below Tinkle and rustle, and no other sound Arises there to him to change his thoughts Of the changed, silent town and the dead hands That made it and maintained it, and the need For handiwork and happy work and work To use and ease the mind if such sweet towns Are to be built again or live again.

The long town ends at Littleholme, where the road Creeps up to hills of ancient-looking stone. Under the hanging eaves at Littleholme A latticed casement peeps above still gardens Into a crown of druid-solemn trees Upon a knoll as high as a small house, A shapely mound made so by nameless men Whose smoothing touch yet shows through the green hide. When the slow moonlight drips from leaf to leaf Of that sharp, plumy gloom, and the hour comes When something seems awaited, though unknown, There should appear between those leaf-thatched piles Fresh, long-limbed women striding easily, And men whose hair-plaits swing with their shagged arms; Returning in that equal, echoed light Which does not measure time to the dear garths That were their own when from white Norway coasts They landed on a kind, not distant shore, And to the place where they have left their clothing, Their long-accustomed bones and hair and beds That once were pleasant to them, in that barrow Their vanished children heaped above them dead: For in the soundless stillness of hot noon The mind of man, noticeable in that knoll, Enhances its dark presence with a life More vivid and more actual than the life Of self-sown trees and untouched earth. It is seen What aspect this land had in those first eyes: In that regard the works of later men Fall in and sink like lime when it is slaked, Staid, youthful queen and weavers are unborn, And the new crags the Northmen saw are set About an earth that has not been misused.

Whither, O, my sweet mistress, must I follow thee? For when I hear thy distant footfall nearing, And wait on thy appearing, Lo! my lips are silent: no words come to me.

Once I waylaid thee in green forest covers, Hoping that spring might free my lips with gentle fingers; Alas! her presence lingers No longer than on the plain the shadow of brown kestrel hovers.

Through windless ways of the night my spirit followed after; Cold and remote were they, and there, possessed By a strange unworldly rest, Awaiting thy still voice heard only starry laughter.

The pillared halls of sleep echoed my ghostly tread. Yet when their secret chambers I essayed My spirit sank, dismayed, Waking in fear to find the new-born vision fled.

Once indeed--but then my spirit bloomed in leafy rapture-- I loved; and once I looked death in the eyes: So, suddenly made wise, Spoke of such beauty as I may never recapture....

Whither, O, divine mistress, must I then follow thee? Is it only in love ... say, is it only in death That the spirit blossometh, And words that may match my vision shall come to me?

When the evening came my love said to me: Let us go into the garden now that the sky is cool; The garden of black hellebore and rosemary, Where wild woodruff spills in a milky pool.

Low we passed in the twilight, for the wavering heat Of day had waned; and round that shaded plot Of secret beauty the thickets clustered sweet: Here is heaven, our hearts whispered, but our lips spake not.

Between that old garden and seas of lazy foam Gloomy and beautiful alleys of trees arise With spire of cypress and dreamy beechen dome, So dark that our enchanted sight knew nothing but the skies:

Veiled with a soft air, drench'd in the roses' musk Or the dusky, dark carnation's breath of clove: No stars burned in their deeps, but through the dusk I saw my love's eyes, and they were brimmed with love.

No star their secret ravished, no wasting moon Mocked the sad transience of those eternal hours: Only the soft, unseeing heaven of June, The ghosts of great trees, and the sleeping flowers.

For doves that crooned in the leafy noonday now Were silent; the night-jar sought his secret covers, Nor even a mild sea-whisper moved a creaking bough-- Was ever a silence deeper made for lovers?

Was ever a moment meeter made for love? Beautiful are your closed lips beneath my kiss; And all your yielding sweetness beautiful-- Oh, never in all the world was such a night as this!

The robin on my lawn He was the first to tell How, in the frozen dawn, This miracle befell, Waking the meadows white With hoar, the iron road Agleam with splintered light, And ice where water flowed: Till, when the low sun drank Those milky mists that cloak Hanger and hollied bank, The winter world awoke To hear the feeble bleat Of lambs on downland farms: A blackbird whistled sweet; Old beeches moved their arms Into a mellow haze Aerial, newly-born: And I, alone, agaze, Stood waiting for the thorn To break in blossom white, Or burst in a green flame.... So, in a single night, Fair February came, Bidding my lips to sing Or whisper their surprise, With all the joy of spring And morning in her eyes.

This is the image of my last content: My soul shall be a little lonely lake, So hidden that no shadow of man may break The folding of its mountain battlement; Only the beautiful and innocent Whiteness of sea-born cloud drooping to shake Cool rain upon the reed-beds, or the wake Of churn'd cloud in a howling wind's descent. For there shall be no terror in the night When stars that I have loved are born in me, And cloudy darkness I will hold most fair; But this shall be the end of my delight: That you, my lovely one, may stoop and see Your image in the mirrored beauty there.

These winter days on Lettermore The brown west wind it sweeps the bay, And icy rain beats on the bare Unhomely fields that perish there: The stony fields of Lettermore That drink the white Atlantic spray.

And men who starve on Lettermore, Cursing the haggard, hungry surf, Will souse the autumn's bruiséd grains To light dark fires within their brains And fight with stones on Lettermore Or sprawl beside the smoky turf.

When spring blows over Lettermore To bloom the ragged furze with gold, The lovely south wind's living breath Is laden with the smell of death: For fever breeds on Lettermore To waste the eyes of young and old.

A black van comes to Lettermore; The horses stumble on the stones, The drivers curse,--for it is hard To cross the hills from Oughterard And cart the sick from Lettermore: A stinking load of rags and bones.

But you will go to Lettermore When white sea-trout are on the run, When purple glows between the rocks About Lord Dudley's fishing box Adown the road to Lettermore, And wide seas tarnish in the sun.

And so you'll think of Lettermore As a lost island of the blest: With peasant lovers in a blue Dim dusk, with heather drench'd in dew, And the sweet peace of Lettermore Remote and dreaming in the West.

Why have you stolen my delight In all the golden shows of Spring When every cherry-tree is white And in the limes the thrushes sing,

O fickler than the April day, O brighter than the golden broom, O blither than the thrushes' lay, O whiter than the cherry-bloom,

O sweeter than all things that blow ... Why have you only left for me The broom, the cherry's crown of snow, And thrushes in the linden-tree?

Before my window, in days of winter hoar Huddled a mournful wood: Smooth pillars of beech, domed chestnut, sycamore, In stony sleep they stood: But you, unhappy elm, the angry west Had chosen from the rest, Flung broken on your brothers' branches bare, And left you leaning there So dead that when the breath of winter cast Wild snow upon the blast, The other living branches, downward bowed, Shook free their crystal shroud And shed upon your blackened trunk beneath Their livery of death....

On windless nights between the beechen bars I watched cold stars Throb whitely in the sky, and dreamily Wondered if any life lay locked in thee: If still the hidden sap secretly moved As water in the icy winterbourne Floweth unheard: And half I pitied you your trance forlorn: You could not hear, I thought, the voice of any bird, The shadowy cries of bats in dim twilight Or cool voices of owls crying by night ... Hunting by night under the hornéd moon: Yet half I envied you your wintry swoon, Till, on this morning mild, the sun, new-risen Steals from his misty prison; The frozen fallows glow, the black trees shaken In a clear flood of sunlight vibrating awaken: And lo, your ravaged bole, beyond belief Slenderly fledged anew with tender leaf As pale as those twin vanes that break at last In a tiny fan above the black beech-mast Where no blade springeth green But pallid bells of the shy helleborine. What is this ecstasy that overwhelms The dreaming earth? See, the embrownéd elms Crowding purple distances warm the depths of the wood: A new-born wind tosses their tassels brown, His white clouds dapple the down: Into a green flame bursting the hedgerows stand. Soon, with banners flying, Spring will walk the land....

There is no day for thee, my soul, like this, No spring of lovely words. Nay, even the kiss Of mortal love that maketh man divine This light cannot outshine: Nay, even poets, they whose frail hands catch The shadow of vanishing beauty, may not match This leafy ecstasy. Sweet words may cull Such magical beauty as time may not destroy; But we, alas, are not more beautiful: We cannot flower in beauty as in joy. We sing, our muséd words are sped, and then Poets are only men Who age, and toil, and sicken.... This maim'd tree May stand in leaf when I have ceased to be.

Few are my books, but my small few have told Of many a lovely dame that lived of old; And they have made me see those fatal charms Of Helen, which brought Troy so many harms; And lovely Venus, when she stood so white Close to her husband's forge in its red light. I have seen Dian's beauty in my dreams, When she had trained her looks in all the streams She crossed to Latmos and Endymion; And Cleopatra's eyes, that hour they shone The brighter for a pearl she drank to prove How poor it was compared to her rich love: But when I look on thee, love, thou dost give Substance to those fine ghosts, and make them live.

When yon full moon's with her white fleet of stars, And but one bird makes music in the grove; When you and I are breathing side by side, Where our two bodies make one shadow, love;

Not for her beauty will I praise the moon, But that she lights thy purer face and throat; The only praise I'll give the nightingale Is that she draws from thee a richer note.

For, blinded with thy beauty, I am filled, Like Saul of Tarsus, with a greater light; When he had heard that warning voice in Heaven, And lost his eyes to find a deeper sight.

Come, let us sit in that deep silence then, Launched on love's rapids, with our passions proud That makes all music hollow--though the lark Raves in his windy heights above a cloud.

ON HEARING MRS. WOODHOUSE PLAY THE HARPSICHORD

We poets pride ourselves on what We feel, and not what we achieve; The world may call our children fools, Enough for us that we conceive. A little wren that loves the grass Can be as proud as any lark That tumbles in a cloudless sky, Up near the sun, till he becomes The apple of that shining eye.

So, lady, I would never dare To hear your music ev'ry day; With those great bursts that send my nerves In waves to pound my heart away; And those small notes that run like mice Bewitched by light; else on those keys-- My tombs of song--you should engrave: 'My music, stronger than his own, Has made this poet my dumb slave.'

When our two souls have left this mortal clay And, seeking mine, you think that mine is lost-- Look for me first in that Elysian glade Where Lesbia is, for whom the birds sing most.

What happy hearts those feathered mortals have, That sing so sweet when they're wet through in spring! For in that month of May when leaves are young, Birds dream of song, and in their sleep they sing.

And when the spring has gone and they are dumb, Is it not fine to watch them at their play: Is it not fine to see a bird that tries To stand upon the end of every spray?

See how they tilt their pretty heads aside: When women make that move they always please. What cosy homes birds make in leafy walls That Nature's love has ruined--and the trees.

Oft have I seen in fields the little birds Go in between a bullock's legs to eat; But what gives me most joy is when I see Snow on my doorstep, printed by their feet.

Oh, sweet content, that turns the labourer's sweat To tears of joy, and shines the roughest face; How often have I sought you high and low, And found you still in some lone quiet place;

Here, in my room, when full of happy dreams, With no life heard beyond that merry sound Of moths that on my lighted ceiling kiss Their shadows as they dance and dance around;

Or in a garden, on a summer's night, When I have seen the dark and solemn air Blink with the blind bats' wings, and heaven's bright face Twitch with the stars that shine in thousands there.

When I sailed out of Baltimore With twice a thousand head of sheep, They would not eat, they would not drink, But bleated o'er the deep.

Inside the pens we crawled each day, To sort the living from the dead; And when we reached the Mersey's mouth Had lost five hundred head.

Yet every night and day one sheep, That had no fear of man or sea, Stuck through the bars its pleading face, And it was stroked by me.

And to the sheep-men standing near, 'You see,' I said, 'this one tame sheep: It seems a child has lost her pet, And cried herself to sleep.'

So every time we passed it by, Sailing to England's slaughter-house, Eight ragged sheep-men--tramps and thieves-- Would stroke that sheep's black nose.

We have no grass locked up in ice so fast That cattle cut their faces and at last, When it is reached, must lie them down and starve, With bleeding mouths that freeze too hard to move. We have not that delirious state of cold That makes men warm and sing when in Death's hold. We have no roaring floods whose angry shocks Can kill the fishes dashed against their rocks. We have no winds that cut down street by street, As easy as our scythes can cut down wheat. No mountains here to spew their burning hearts Into the valleys, on our human parts. No earthquakes here, that ring church bells afar, A hundred miles from where those earthquakes are. We have no cause to set our dreaming eyes, Like Arabs, on fresh streams in Paradise. We have no wilds to harbour men that tell More murders than they can remember well. No woman here shall wake from her night's rest, To find a snake is sucking at her breast. Though I have travelled many and many a mile, And had a man to clean my boots and smile With teeth that had less bone in them than gold-- Give me this England now for all my world.

It is the bell of death I hear, Which tells me my own time is near, When I must join those quiet souls Where nothing lives but worms and moles; And not come through the grass again, Like worms and moles, for breath or rain; Yet let none weep when my life's through, For I myself have wept for few.

The only things that knew me well Were children, dogs, and girls that fell; I bought poor children cakes and sweets, Dogs heard my voice and danced the streets; And, gentle to a fallen lass, I made her weep for what she was. Good men and women know not me. Nor love nor hate the mystery.

Speak not--whisper not; Here bloweth thyme and bergamot; Softly on the evening hour, Secret herbs their spices shower, Dark-spiked rosemary and myrrh, Lean-stalked, purple lavender; Hides within her bosom, too, All her sorrows, bitter rue.

Breathe not--trespass not; Of this green and darkling spot, Latticed from the moon's beams, Perchance a distant dreamer dreams; Perchance upon its darkening air, The unseen ghosts of children fare, Faintly swinging, sway and sweep, Like lovely sea-flowers in its deep; While, unmoved, to watch and ward, 'Mid its gloomed and daisied sward, Stands with bowed and dewy head That one little leaden Lad.