And Nelson turned his blindest eye

  On Naples and on liberty.

  Therefore to you my thanks, O throne,

  O thousandfold and frozen folk,

  For whose cold frenzies all your own

  The Battle of the Rivers broke;

  Who have no faith a man could mourn.

  Nor freedom any man desires;

  But in a new clean light of scorn

  Close up my quarrel with my sires;

  Who bring my English heart to me,

  Who mend me like a broken toy;

  Till I can see you fight and flee,

  And laugh as if I were a boy.

  THE WIFE OF FLANDERS

  Low and brown barns thatched and repatched and tattered

  Where I had seven sons until to-day,

  A little hill of hay your spur has scattered....

  This is not Paris. You have lost the way.

  You, staring at your sword to find it brittle,

  Surprised at the surprise that was your plan,

  Who shaking and breaking barriers not a little

  Find never more the death-door of Sedan.

  Must I for more than carnage call you claimant,

  Paying you a penny for each son you slay?

  Man, the whole globe in gold were no repayment

  For what you have lost. And how shall I repay?

  What is the price of that red spark that caught me

  From a kind farm that never had a name?

  What is the price of that dead man they brought me?

  For other dead men do not look the same.

  How should I pay for one poor graven steeple

  Whereon you shattered what you shall not know,

  How should I pay you, miserable people?

  How should I pay you everything you owe?34

  Unhappy, can I give you back your honour?

  Though I forgave would any man forget?

  While all the great green land has trampled on her

  The treason and terror of the night we met.

  Not any more in vengeance or in pardon

  An old wife bargains for a bean that’s hers.

  You have no word to break: no heart to harden.

  Ride on and prosper. You have lost your spurs.

  THE CRUSADER RETURNS FROM CAPTIVITY

  I have come forth alive from the land of purple and poison and glamour,

  Where the charm is strong as the torture, being chosen to change the mind;

  Torture of wordless dance and wineless feast without clamour,

  Palace hidden in palace, garden with garden behind;

  Women veiled in the sun, or bare as brass in the shadows,

  And the endless eyeless patterns where each thing seems an eye....

  And my stride is on Caesar’s sand where it slides to the English meadows,

  To the last low woods of Sussex and the road that goes to Rye.

  In the cool and careless woods the eyes of the eunuchs burned not,

  But the wild hawk went before me, being free to return or roam,

  The hills had broad unconscious backs; and the tree-tops turned not,

  And the huts were heedless of me: and I knew I was at home.

  And I saw my lady afar and her holy freedom upon her,

  A head, without veil, averted, and not to be turned with charms,

  And I heard above bannerets blown the intolerant trumpets of honour,

  That usher with iron laughter the coming of Christian arms.

  My shield hangs stainless still; but I shall not go where they praise it,

  A sword is still at my side, but I shall not ride with the King.

  Only to walk and to walk and to stun my soul and amaze it,

  A day with the stone and the sparrow and every marvellous thing.

  I have trod the curves of the Crescent, in the maze of them that adore it,

  Curved around doorless chambers and unbeholden abodes,

  But I walk in the maze no more; on the sign of the cross I swore it,

  The wild white cross of freedom, the sign of the white cross-roads.

  And the land shall leave me or take, and the Woman take me or leave me,

  There shall be no more Night, or nightmares seen in a glass;

  But Life shall hold me alive, and Death shall never deceive me

  As long as I walk in England in the lanes that let me pass.

  LOVE POEMS

  GLENCOE

  The star-crowned cliffs seem hinged upon the sky,

  The clouds are floating rags across them curled,

  They open to us like the gates of God

  Cloven in the last great wall of all the world.

  I looked, and saw the valley of my soul

  Where naked crests fight to achieve the skies,

  Where no grain grows nor wine, no fruitful thing,

  Only big words and starry blasphemies.

  But you have clothed with mercy like a moss

  The barren violence of its primal wars,

  Sterile although they be and void of rule,

  You know my shapeless crags have Wed the stars.

  How shall I thank you, O courageous heart.

  That of this wasteful world you had no fear;

  But bade it blossom in clear faith and sent

  Your fair flower-feeding rivers: even as here

  The peat burns brimming from their cups of stone

  Glow brown and blood-red down the vast decline

  As if Christ stood on yonder clouded peak

  And turned its thousand waters into wine.

  LOVE’S TRAPPIST

  There is a place where lute and lyre are broken.

  Where scrolls are torn and on a wild wind go,

  Where tablets stand wiped naked for a token,

  Where laurels wither and the daisies grow.

  Lo: I too join the brotherhood of silence,

  I am Love’s Trappist and you ask in vain,

  For man through Love’s gate, even as through Death’s gate,

  Goeth alone and comes not back again.

  Yet here I pause, look back across the threshold.

  Cry to my brethren, though the world be old,

  Prophets and sages, questioners and doubters,

  O world, old world, the best hath ne’er been told!

  CONFESSIONAL

  Now that I kneel at the throne, O Queen,

  Pity and pardon me.

  Much have I striven to sing the same,

  Brother of beast and tree;

  Yet when the stars catch me alone

  Never a linnet sings —

  And the blood of a man is a bitter voice

  And cries for foolish things.

  Not for me be the vaunt of woe;

  Was not I from a boy

  Vowed with the helmet and spear and spur

  To the blood-red banner of joy?

  A man may sing his psalms to a stone,

  Pour his blood for a weed,

  But the tears of a man are a sudden thing,

  And come not of his creed.

  Nay, but the earth is kind to me,

  Though I cry for a Star,

  Leaves and grasses, feather and flower,

  Cover the foolish scar,

  Prophets and saints and seraphim

  Lighten the load with song,

  And the heart of a man is a heavy load

  For a man to bear along.

  MUSIC

  Sounding brass and tinkling cymbal,

  He that made me sealed my ears,

  And the pomp of gorgeous noises,

  Waves of triumph, waves of tears,

  Thundered empty round and past me,

  Shattered, lost for ever more,

  Ancient gold of pride and passion,

  Wrecked like treasure on a shore.

  But I saw her cheek and forehead

  Change, as at a spoken word,

  And I saw her head uplifted

  Like a lily to the Lord.

  Nought is lost, but all transmuted,

  Ears are sealed, yet eyes have seen;

  Saw her smiles (O soul be worthy!),

  Saw her tears (O heart be clean!).

  THE DELUGE

  Though giant rains put out the sun,

  Here stand I for a sign.

  Though Earth be filled with waters dark,

  My cup is filled with wine.

  Tell to the trembling priests that here

  Under the deluge rod,

  One nameless, tattered, broken man

  Stood up and drank to God.

  Sun has been where the rain is now,

  Bees in the heat to hum,

  Haply a humming maiden came,

  Now let the Deluge come:

  Brown of aureole, green of garb,

  Straight as a golden rod,

  Drink to the throne of thunder now!

  Drink to the wrath of God.

  High in the wreck I held the cup,

  I clutched my rusty sword,

  I cocked my tattered feather

  To the glory of the Lord.

  Not undone were the heaven and earth,

  This hollow world thrown up,

  Before one man had stood up straight!

  And drained it like a cup.

  THE STRANGE MUSIC

  Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack,

  But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back,

  Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret,

  Still, my hope is all before me: for I cannot play it yet.

  In your strings is hid a music that no hand hath ere let fall,

  In your soul is sealed a pleasure that you have not known at all;

  Pleasure subtle as your spirit, strange and slender as your frame,

  Fiercer than the pain that folds you, softer than your sorrow’s name.

  Not as mine, my soul’s anointed, not as mine the rude and light

  Easy mirth of many faces, swaggering pride of song and fight;

  Something stranger, something sweeter, something waiting you afar,

  Secret as your stricken senses, magic as your sorrows are.

  But on this, God’s harp supernal, stretched but to be stricken once.

  Hoary Time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce.

  But I will not fear to match them — no, by God, I will not fear,

  I will learn you, I will play you and the stars stand still to hear.

  THE GREAT MINIMUM

  It is something to have wept as we have wept,

  It is something to have done as we have done,

  It is something to have watched when all men slept,

  And seen the stars which never see the sun.

  It is something to have smelt the mystic rose,

  Although it break and leave the thorny rods,

  It is something to have hungered once as those

  Must hunger who have ate the bread of gods.

  To have seen you and your unforgotten face,

  Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray.

  Pure as white lilies in a watery space,

  It were something, though you went from me to-day.

  To have known the things that from the weak are furled,

  Perilous ancient passions, strange and high;

  It is something to be wiser than the world,

  It is something to be older than the sky.

  In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts,

  And fatted lives that of their sweetness tire,

  In a world of flying loves and fading lusts,

  It is something to be sure of a desire.

  Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard;

  Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen:

  Let thunder break on man and beast and bird

  And the lightning. It is something to have been.

  THE MORTAL ANSWERS

  .................COME AWAY —

  WITH THE FAIRIES, HAND IN HAND,

  FOR THE WORLD IS MORE FULL OF WEEPING

  THAN YOU CAN UNDERSTAND.

  W.B. Yeats.

  From the Wood of the Old Wives’ Fables

  They glittered out of the grey,

  And with all the Armies of Elf-land

  I strove like a beast at bay;

  With only a right arm wearied,

  Only a red sword worn,

  And the pride of the House of Adam

  That holdeth the stars in scorn.

  For they came with chains of flowers

  And lilies lances free,

  There in the quiet greenwood

  To take my grief from me.

  And I said, “Now all is shaken

  When heavily hangs the brow,

  When the hope of the years is taken

  The last star sunken. Now —

  “Hear, you chattering cricket,

  Hear, you spawn of the sod,

  The strange strong cry in the darkness

  Of one man praising God,

  “That out of the night and nothing

  With travail of birth he came

  To stand one hour in the sunlight

  Only to say her name.

  “Falls through her hair the sunshine

  In showers; it touches, see,

  Her high bright cheeks in turning;

  Ah, Elfin Company,

  “The world is hot and cruel,

  We are weary of heart and hand.

  But the world is more full of glory

  Than you can understand.”

  A MARRIAGE SONG

  Why should we reck of hours that rend

  While we two ride together?

  The heavens rent from end to end

  Would be but windy weather,

  The strong stars shaken down in spate

  Would be a shower of spring,

  And we should list the trump of fate

  And hear a linnet sing.

  We break the line with stroke and luck,

  The arrows run like rain,

  If you be struck, or I be struck,

  There’s one to strike again.

  If you befriend, or I befriend,

  The strength is in us twain,

  And good things end and bad things end,

  And you and I remain.

  Why should we reck of ill or well

  While we two ride together?

  The fires that over Sodom fell

  Would be but sultry weather.

  Beyond all ends to all men given

  Our race is far and fell,

  We shall but wash our feet in heaven,

  And warm our hands in hell.

  Battles unborn and vast shall view

  Our faltered standards stream,

  New friends shall come and frenzies new.

  New troubles toil and teem;

  New friends shall pass and still renew

  One truth that does not seem,

  That I am I, and you are you,

  And Death a morning dream.

  Why should we reck of scorn or praise

  While we two ride together?

  The icy air of godless days

  Shall be but wintry weather.

  If hell were highest, if the heaven

  Were blue with devils blue,

  I should have guessed that all was even,

  If I had dreamed of you.

  Little I reck of empty prides,

  Of creeds more cold than clay;

  To nobler ends and longer rides,

  My lady rides to-day.

  To swing our swords and take our sides

  In that all-ending fray

  When stars fall down and darkness hides,

  When God shall turn to bay.

  Why should we reck of grin and groan

  While we two ride together?

  The triple thunders of the throne

  Would be but stormy weather.

  For us the last great fight shall roar,

  Upon the ultimate plains,

  And we shall turn and tell once more

  Our love in English lanes.

  BAY COMBE

  With leaves below and leaves above,

  And groping under tree and tree,

  I found the home of my true love,

  Who is a wandering home for me.

  Who, lost in ruined worlds aloof,

  Bore the dread dove wings like a roof;

  Who, past the last lost stars of space

  Carried the fire-light on her face.

  Who, passing as in idle hours,

  Tamed the wild weeds to garden flowers;

  Stroked the strange whirlwind’s whirring wings,

  And made the comets homely things.

  Where she went by upon her way

  The dark was dearer than the day;

  Where she paused in heaven or hell,

  The whole world’s tale had ended well.

  With leaves below and leaves above.

  And groping under tree and tree,

  I found the home of my true love,

  Who is a wandering home for me.

  Where she was flung, above, beneath,

  By the rude dance of life and death,

  Grow she at Gotham — die at Rome,

  Between the pine trees is her home.

  In some strange town, some silver morn,

  She may have wandered to be born;

  Stopped at some motley crowd impressed,

  And called them kinsfolk for a jest.

  If we again En goodness thrive,

  And the dead saints become alive,

  Then pedants bald and parchments brown

  May claim her blood for London town.

  But leaves below and leaves above.

  And groping under tree and tree,

  I found the home of my true love,

  Who is a wandering home for me.

  The great gravestone she may pass by,

  And without noticing, may die;

  The streets of silver Heaven may tread,

  With her grey awful eyes unfed.

  The city of great peace in pain

  May pass, until she find again

  This little house of holm and fir

  God built before the stars for her.

  Here in the fallen leaves is furled

  Her secret centre of the world.

  We sit and feel in dusk and dun

  The stars swing round us like a sun.

  For leaves below and leaves above.

  And groping under tree and tree,