Georgian Poetry 1913-15 Part 20

I saw them march from Dover, long ago, With a silver cross before them, singing low, Monks of Rome from their home where the blue seas break in foam, Augustine with his feet of snow.

Noon strikes on England, noon on Oxford town, --Beauty she was statue cold--there's blood upon her gown: Noon of my dreams, O noon!

Proud and G.o.dly kings had built her, long ago, With her towers and tombs and statues all arow, With her fair and floral air and the love that lingers there, And the streets where the great men go.

Evening on the olden, the golden sea of Wales, When the first star s.h.i.+vers and the last wave pales: O evening dreams!

There's a house that Britons walked in, long ago, Where now the springs of ocean fall and flow, And the dead robed in red and sea-lilies overhead Sway when the long winds blow.

Sleep not, my country: though night is here, afar Your children of the morning are clamorous for war: Fire in the night, O dreams!

Though she send you as she sent you, long ago, South to desert, east to ocean, west to snow, West of these out to seas colder than the Hebrides I must go Where the fleet of stars is anch.o.r.ed, and the young Star-captains glow.

WILFRID WILSON GIBSON

THE GORSE

In dream, again within the clean, cold h.e.l.l Of glazed and aching silence he was trapped; And, closing in, the blank walls of his cell Crushed stifling on him ... when the bracken snapped, Caught in his clutching fingers; and he lay Awake upon his back among the fern, With free eyes travelling the wide blue day, Unhindered, unremembering; while a burn Tinkled and gurgled somewhere out of sight, Unheard of him; till suddenly aware Of its cold music, s.h.i.+vering in the light, He raised himself, and with far-ranging stare Looked all about him: and with dazed eyes wide Saw, still as in a numb, unreal dream, Black figures scouring a far hill-side, With now and then a sunlit rifle's gleam; And knew the hunt was hot upon his track: Yet hardly seemed to mind, somehow, just then ...

But kept on wondering why they looked so black On that hot hillside, all those little men Who scurried round like beetles--twelve, all told ...

He counted them twice over; and began A third time reckoning them, but could not hold His starved wits to the business, while they ran So brokenly, and always stuck at 'five' ...

And 'One, two, three, four, five,' a dozen times He muttered ... 'Can you catch a fish alive?'

Sang mocking echoes of old nursery rhymes Through the strained, tingling hollow of his head.

And now, almost remembering, he was stirred To pity them; and wondered if they'd fed Since he had, or if, ever since they'd heard Two nights ago the sudden signal-gun That raised alarm of his escape, they too Had fasted in the wilderness, and run With nothing but the thirsty wind to chew, And nothing in their bellies but a fill Of cold peat-water, till their heads were light ...

The crackling of a rifle on the hill Rang in his ears: and stung to headlong flight, He started to his feet; and through the brake He plunged in panic, heedless of the sun That burned his cropped head to a red-hot ache Still racked with crackling echoes of the gun.

Then suddenly the sun-enkindled fire Of gorse upon the moor-top caught his eye: And that gold glow held all his heart's desire, As, like a witless, flame-bewildered fly, He blundered towards the league-wide yellow blaze, And tumbled headlong on the spikes of bloom; And rising, bruised and bleeding and adaze, Struggled through clutching spines; the dense, sweet fume Of nutty, acrid scent like poison stealing Through his hot blood; the bristling yellow glare Spiking his eyes with fire, till he went reeling, Stifled and blinded, on--and did not care Though he were taken--wandering round and round, 'Jerusalem the Golden' quavering shrill, Changing his tune to 'Tommy Tiddler's Ground': Till, just a lost child on that dazzling hill, Bewildered in a glittering golden maze Of stinging scented fire, he dropped, quite done, A shrivelling wisp within a world ablaze Beneath a blinding sky, one blaze of sun.

HOOPS

[Scene: The big tent-stable of a travelling circus. On the ground near the entrance GENTLEMAN JOHN, stableman and general odd-job man, lies smoking beside MERRY ANDREW, the clown. GENTLEMAN JOHN is a little hunched man with a sensitive face and dreamy eyes. MERRY ANDREW, who is resting between the afternoon and evening performances, with his clown's hat lying beside him, wears a crimson wig, and a baggy suit of orange-coloured cotton, patterned with purple cats. His face is chalked dead-white, and painted with a set grin, so that it is impossible to see what manner of man he is. In the back-ground are camels and elephants feeding, dimly visible in the steamy dusk of the tent.]

Gentleman John:

And then consider camels: only think Of camels long enough, and you'ld go mad-- With all their humps and lumps; their k.n.o.bbly knees, Splay feet, and straddle legs; their sagging necks, Flat flanks, and scraggy tails, and monstrous teeth.

I've not forgotten the first fiend I met: 'Twas in a lane in Smyrna, just a ditch Between the shuttered houses, and so narrow The brute's bulk blocked the road; the huge green stack Of dewy fodder that it slouched beneath Brus.h.i.+ng the yellow walls on either hand, And shutting out the strip of burning blue: And I'd to face that vicious bobbing head With evil eyes, slack lips, and nightmare teeth, And duck beneath the snaky, squirming neck, Pranked with its silly string of bright blue beads, That seemed to wriggle every way at once, As though it were a hydra. Allah's beard!

But I was scared, and nearly turned and ran: I felt that muzzle take me by the scruff, And heard those murderous teeth crunching my spine, Before I stooped--though I dodged safely under.

I've always been afraid of ugliness.

I'm such a toad myself, I hate all toads; And the camel is the ugliest toad of all, To my mind; and it's just my devil's luck I've come to this--to be a camel's lackey, To fetch and carry for original sin, For sure enough, the camel's old evil incarnate.

Blue beads and amulets to ward off evil!

No eye's more evil than a camel's eye.

The elephant is quite a comely brute, Compared with Satan camel,--trunk and all, His floppy ears, and his inconsequent tail.

He's stolid, but at least a gentleman.

It doesn't hurt my pride to valet him, And bring his shaving-water. He's a lord.

Only the bluest blood that has come down Through generations from the mastodon Could carry off that tail with dignity, That tail and trunk. He cannot look absurd, For all the monkey tricks you put him through, Your paper hoops and popguns. He just makes His masters look ridiculous, when his pomp's Butchered to make a b.u.mpkin's holiday.

He's dignity itself, and proper pride, That stands serenely in a circus-world Of mountebanks and monkeys. He has weight Behind him: aeons of primeval power Have shaped that pillared bulk; and he stands sure, Solid, substantial on the world's foundations.

And he has form, form that's too big a thing To be called beauty. Once, long since, I thought To be a poet, and shape words, and mould A poem like an elephant, huge, sublime, To front oblivion; and because I failed, And all my rhymes were gawky, shambling camels, Or else obscene, blue-b.u.t.tocked apes, I'm doomed To lackey it for things such as I've made, Till one of them crunches my backbone with his teeth, Or knocks my wind out with a forthright kick Clean in the midriff, crumpling up in death The hunched and stunted body that was me-- John, the apostle of the Perfect Form!

Jerusalem! I'm talking like a book-- As you would say: and a bad book at that, A maundering, kiss-mammy book--The Hunch-back's End Or The Camel-Keeper's Reward--would be its t.i.tle.

I froth and bubble like a new-broached cask.

No wonder you look glum, for all your grin.

What makes you mope? You've naught to growse about.

You've got no hump. Your body's brave and straight-- So shapely even that you can afford To trick it in fantastic shapelessness, Knowing that there's a clean-limbed man beneath Preposterous pantaloons and purple cats.

I would have been a poet, if I could: But better than shaping poems 'twould have been To have had a comely body and clean limbs Obedient to my bidding.

Merry Andrew:

I missed a hoop This afternoon.

Gentleman John:

You missed a hoop? You mean ...

Merry Andrew:

That I am done, used up, sc.r.a.pped, on the shelf, Out of the running--only that, no more.

Gentleman John:

Well, I've been missing hoops my whole life long; Though, when I come to think of it, perhaps There's little consolation to be chewed From crumbs that I can offer.

Merry Andrew:

I've not missed A hoop since I was six. I'm forty-two.

This is the first time that my body's failed me: But 'twill not be the last. And ...

Gentleman John: