Modern British Poetry Part 6

The fairest things have fleetest end, Their scent survives their close: But the rose's scent is bitterness To him that loved the rose.

She looked a little wistfully, Then went her suns.h.i.+ne way:-- The sea's eye had a mist on it, And the leaves fell from the day.

She went her unremembering way, She went and left in me The pang of all the partings gone, And partings yet to be.

She left me marvelling why my soul Was sad that she was glad; At all the sadness in the sweet, The sweetness in the sad.

Still, still I seemed to see her, still Look up with soft replies, And take the berries with her hand, And the love with her lovely eyes.

Nothing begins, and nothing ends, That is not paid with moan, For we are born in other's pain, And perish in our own.

TO OLIVIA

I fear to love thee, Sweet, because Love's the amba.s.sador of loss; White flake of childhood, clinging so To my soiled raiment, thy shy snow At tenderest touch will shrink and go.

Love me not, delightful child.

My heart, by many snares beguiled, Has grown timorous and wild.

It would fear thee not at all, Wert thou not so harmless-small.

Because thy arrows, not yet dire, Are still unbarbed with destined fire, I fear thee more than hadst thou stood Full-panoplied in womanhood.

AN ARAB LOVE-SONG

The hunched camels of the night[3]

Trouble the bright And silver waters of the moon.

The Maiden of the Morn will soon Through Heaven stray and sing, Star gathering.

Now while the dark about our loves is strewn, Light of my dark, blood of my heart, O come!

And night will catch her breath up, and be dumb.

Leave thy father, leave thy mother And thy brother; Leave the black tents of thy tribe apart!

Am I not thy father and thy brother, And thy mother?

And thou--what needest with thy tribe's black tents Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?

FOOTNOTES:

[3] (Cloud-shapes observed by travellers in the East.)

_A. E. Housman_

A. E. Housman was born March 26, 1859, and, after a cla.s.sical education, he was, for ten years, a Higher Division Clerk in H. M.

Patent Office. Later in life, he became a teacher.

Housman has published only one volume of original verse, but that volume (_A Shrops.h.i.+re Lad_) is known wherever modern English poetry is read. Originally published in 1896, when Housman was almost 37, it is evident that many of these lyrics were written when the poet was much younger. Echoing the frank pessimism of Hardy and the harder cynicism of Heine, Housman struck a lighter and more buoyant note. Underneath his dark ironies, there is a rustic humor that has many subtle variations. From a melodic standpoint, _A Shrops.h.i.+re Lad_ is a collection of exquisite, haunting and almost perfect songs.

Housman has been a professor of Latin since 1892 and, besides his immortal set of lyrics, has edited Juvenal and the books of Manilius.

REVEILLe

Wake: the silver dusk returning Up the beach of darkness brims, And the s.h.i.+p of sunrise burning Strands upon the eastern rims.

Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters, Trampled to the floor it spanned, And the tent of night in tatters Straws the sky-pavilioned land.

Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying: Hear the drums of morning play; Hark, the empty highways crying "Who'll beyond the hills away?"

Towns and countries woo together, Forelands beacon, belfries call; Never lad that trod on leather Lived to feast his heart with all.

Up, lad: thews that lie and c.u.mber Sunlit pallets never thrive; Morns abed and daylight slumber Were not meant for man alive.

Clay lies still, but blood's a rover; Breath's a ware that will not keep.

Up, lad: when the journey's over There'll be time enough to sleep.

WHEN I WAS ONE-AND-TWENTY

When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, "Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free."

But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, "The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain; 'Tis paid with sighs a-plenty And sold for endless rue."

And I am two-and-twenty, And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

WITH RUE MY HEART IS LADEN

With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipt maiden And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping The lightfoot boys are laid; The rose-lipt girls are sleeping In fields where roses fade.

TO AN ATHLETE DYING YOUNG

The time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away From fields where glory does not stay, And early though the laurel grows It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut Cannot see the record cut, And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout Of lads that wore their honours out, Runners whom renown outran And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade, The fleet foot on the sill of shade, And hold to the low lintel up The still-defended challenge-cup.