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COTSWOLD LOVE
Blue skies are over Cotswold
And April snows go by,
The lasses turn their ribbons
For April’s in the sky,
And April is the season
When Sabbath girls are dressed,
From Rodboro’ to Campden,
In all their silken best.
An ankle is a marvel
When first the buds are brown,
And not a lass but knows it
From Stow to Gloucester town.
And not a girl goes walking
Along the Cotswold lanes
But knows men’s eyes in April
Are quicker than their brains.
It’s little that it matters,
So long as you’re alive,
If you’re eighteen in April,
Or rising sixty-five,
When April comes to Amberley
With skies of April blue,
And Cotswold girls are briding
With slyly tilted shoe.
WITH DAFFODILS
I send you daffodils, my dear,
For these are emperors of spring,
And in my heart you keep so clear
So delicate an empery,
That none but emperors could be
Ambassadors endowed to bring
My messages of honesty.
My mind makes faring to and fro,
Deft or bewildered, dark or kind,
That not the eye of God may know
Which motion is of true estate
And which a twisted runagate
Of all the farings of my mind,
And which has honesty for mate.
Only my love for you is clean
Of scandal’s use, and though, may be,
Far rangers have my passions been, —
Since thus the word of Eden went, —
Yet of the springs of my content,
My very wells of honesty
Are you the only firmament.
FOUNDATIONS
Those lovers old had rare conceits
To make persuasion beautiful,
Or rail upon the pretty fool
Who would not share those wanton sweets
That, guarded, soon are bitterness.
But we, my love, can look on these
Old tournaments of wit, and say
What novices of love were they,
Who loved by seasons and degrees,
And in the rate of more and less.
We will not make of love a stale
For deft and nimble argument,
Nor shall denial and consent
Be processes whereof shall fail
One surety that we possess.
DEAR AND INCOMPARABLE
Dear and incomparable
Is that love to me
Flowing out of the woodlands,
Out of the sea;
Out of the firmament breathing
Between pasture and sky,
For no reward is cherished here
To reckon by.
It is not of my earning,
Nor forfeit I can
This love that flows upon
The poverty of man,
Though faithless and unkind
I sleep and forget
This love that asks no wage of me
Waits my waking yet.
Of such is the love, dear,
That you fold me in,
It knows no governance
Of virtue or sin;
From nothing of my achieving
Shall it enrichment take,
And the glooms of my unworthiness
It will not forsake.
A SABBATH DAY
IN FIVE WATCHES
I. MORNING
(TO M. C.)
You were three men and women two,
And well I loved you, all of you,
And well we kept the Sabbath day.
The bells called out of Malvern town,
But never bell could call us down
As we went up the hill away.
Was it a thousand years ago
Or yesterday that men were so
Zealous of creed and argument?
Here wind is brother to the rain,
And the hills laugh upon the plain,
And the old brain-gotten feuds are spent.
Bring lusty laughter, lusty jest,
Bring each the song he names the best,
Bring eager thought and speech that’s keen,
Tell each his tale and tell it out,
The only shame be prudent doubt,
Bring bodies where the lust is clean.
II. FULL DAY
(TO K. D.)
We moved along the gravelled way
Between the laurels and the yews,
Some touch of old enchantment lay
About us, some remembered news
Of men who rode among the trees
With burning dreams of Camelot,
Whose names are beauty’s litanies,
As Galahad and Launcelot.
We looked along the vaulted gloom
Of boughs unstripped of winter’s bane,
As for some pride of scarf and plume
And painted shield and broidered rein,
And through the cloven laurel walls
We searched the darkling pines and pale
Beech-boles and woodbine coronals,
As for the passing of the Grail.
But Launcelot no travel keeps,
For brother Launcelot is dead,
And brother Galahad he sleeps
This long while in his quiet bed,
And we are all the knights that pass
Among the yews and laurels now.
They are but fruit among the grass,
And we but fruit upon the bough.
No coloured blazon meets us here
Of all that courtly company;
Elaine is not, nor Guenevere,
The dream is but of dreams that die.
But yet the purple violet lies
Beside the golden daffodil,
And women strong of limb and wise
And fierce of blood are with us still.
And never through the woodland goes
The Grail of that forgotten quest,
But still about the woodland flows
The sap of God made manifest
In boughs that labour to their time,
And birds that gossip secret things,
And eager lips that seek to rhyme
The latest of a thousand springs.
III. DUSK
(TO E. S. V.)
We come from the laurels and daffodils
Down to the homestead under the fell,
We’ve gathered our hunger upon the hills,
And that is well.
Howbeit to-morrow gives or takes,
And leads to barren or flowering ways,
We’ve a linen cloth and wheaten cakes,
For which be praise.
Here in the valley at lambing-time
The shepherd folk of their watching tell
While the shadows up to the beacon climb,
And that is well.
Let be what may when we make an end
Of the laughter and labour of all our days
We’ve men to friend and women to friend,
For whom be praise.
IV. EVENSONG
(TO B. M.)
Come, let us tell it over,
Each to each by the fireside,
How that earth has been a swift adventure for us,
And the watches of the day as a gay song and a right song,
And now the traveller wind has found a bed,
And the sheep crowd under the thorn.
Good was the day and our travelling,
And now there is evensong to sing.
Night, and along the valleys
Watch the eyes of the homesteads.
The dark hills are very still and still are the stars.
Patiently under the ploughlands the wheat moves and the barley.
The secret hour of love is upon the sky,
And our thought in praise is aflame.
Sing evensong as well we may
For our travel upon this Sabbath day.
Earth, we have known you truly,
Heard your mutable music,
Have been your lovers and felt the savour of you,
And you have quickened in us the blood’s fire and the heart’s fire.
We have wooed and striven with you and made you ours
By the strength sprung out of your loins.
Lift the latch on its twisted thong,
And an end be made of our evensong.
V. NIGHT
(TO H. S. S.)
The barriers of sleep are crossed
And I alone am yet awake,
Keeping another Pentecost
For that new visitation’s sake
Of life descending on the hills
In blackthorn bloom and daffodils.
At peace upon my pillow lain
I celebrate the spirit come
In spring’s immutable youth again
Across the lands of Christendom;
I hear in all the choral host
The coming of the Holy Ghost.
The sacrament of bough and blade,
Of populous folds and building birds
I take, till now an end is made
Of praise and ceremonial words,
And I too turn myself to keep
The quiet festival of sleep.
March 1913.
A DEDICATION (TO E. G.)
I
Sometimes youth comes to age and asks a blessing,
Or counsel, or a tale of old estate,
Yet youth will still be curiously guessing
The old man’s thought when death is at his gate;
For all their courteous words they are not one,
This youth and age, but civil strangers still,
Age with the best of all his seasons done,
Youth with his face towards the upland hill.
Age looks for rest while youth runs far and wide,
Age talks with death, which is youth’s very fear,
Age knows so many comrades who have died,
Youth burns that one companion is so dear.
So, with good will, and in one house, may dwell
These two, and talk, and all be yet to tell.
II
But there are men who, in the time of age,
Sometimes remember all that age forgets:
The early hope, the hardly compassed wage,
The change of corn, and snow, and violets;
They are glad of praise; they know this morning brings
As true a song as any yesterday;
Their labour still is set to many things,
They cry their questions out along the way.
They give as who may gladly take again
Some gift at need; they move with gallant ease
Among all eager companies of men;
And never signed of age are such as these.
They speak with youth, and never speak amiss;
Of such are you; and what is youth but this?
RUPERT BROOKE (DIED APRIL 23, 1915)
To-day I have talked with old Euripides;
Shakespeare this morning sang for my content
Of chimney-sweepers; through the Carian trees
Comes beating still the nightingales’ lament;
The Tabard ales to-day are freshly brewed;
Wordsworth is with me, mounting Loughrigg Fell;
All timeless deaths in Lycid are renewed,
And basils blossom yet for Isabel.
Quick thoughts are these; they do not pass; they gave
Only to death such little, casual things
As are the noteless levies of the grave, —
Sad flesh, weak verse, and idle marketings.
So my mortality for yours complains,
While our immortal fellowship remains.
ON READING FRANCIS LEDWIDGE’S LAST SONGS
At April’s end, when blossoms break
To birth upon my apple-tree,
I know the certain year will take
Full harvest of this infancy.
At April’s end, when comes the dear
Occasion of your valley tune,
I know your beauty’s arc is here,
A little ghostly morning moon.
Yet are these fosterlings of rhyme
As fortunately born to spend
Happy conspiracies with time
As apple flowers at April’s end.
IN THE WOODS
I was in the woods to-day,
And the leaves were spinning there,
Rich apparelled in decay, —
In decay more wholly fair
Than in life they ever were.
Gold and rich barbaric red
Freakt with pale and sapless vein,
Spinning, spinning, spun and sped
With a little sob of pain
Back to harbouring earth again.
Long in homely green they shone
Through the summer rains and sun,
Now their humbleness is gone,
Now their little season run,
Pomp and pageantry begun.
Sweet was life, and buoyant breath,
Lovely too; but for a day
Issues from the house of death
Yet more beautiful array:
Hark, a whisper – “Come away.”
One by one they spin and fall,
But they fall in regal pride:
Dying, do they hear a call
Rising from an ebbless tide,
And, hearing, are beatified?
LATE SUMMER
Though summer long delayeth
Her blue and golden boon,
Yet now at length she stayeth
Her wings above the noon;
She sets the waters dreaming
To murmurous leafy tones,
The weeded waters gleaming
Above the stepping-stones.
Where fern and ivied willow
Lean o’er the seaward brook,
I read a volume mellow —
A poet’s fairy-book;
The seaward brook is narrow,
The hazel spans its pride,
And like a painted arrow
The king-bird keeps the tide.
JANUARY DUSK
Austere and clad in sombre robes of grey,
With hands upfolded and with silent wings,
In unimpassioned mystery the day
Passes; a lonely thrush its requiem sings.
The dust of night is tangled in the boughs
Of leafless lime and lilac, and the pine
Grows blacker, and the star upon the brows
Of sleep is set in heaven for a sign.
Earth’s little weary peoples fall on peace
And dream of breaking buds and blossoming,
Of primrose airs, of days of large increase,
And all the coloured retinue of spring.
AT GRAFTON
God laughed when he made Grafton
That’s under Bredon Hill,
A jewel in a jewelled plain.
The seasons work their will
On golden thatch and crumbling stone,
And every soft-lipped breeze
Makes music for the Grafton men
In comfortable trees.
God’s beauty over Grafton
Stole into roof and wall,
And hallowed every pavèd path
And every lowly stall,
And to a woven wonder
Conspired with one accord
The labour of the servant,
The labour of the Lord.
And momently to Grafton
Comes in from vale and wold
The sound of sheep unshepherded,
The sound of sheep in fold,
And, blown along the bases
Of lands that set their wide
Frank brows to God, comes chanting
The breath of Bristol tide.
DOMINION
I went beneath the sunny sky
When all things bowed to June’s desire, —
The pansy with its steadfast eye,
The blue shells on the lupin spire,
The swelling fruit along the boughs,
The grass grown heady in the rain,
Dark roses fitted for the brows
Of queens great kings have sung in vain;
My little cat with tiger bars,
Bright claws all hidden in content;
Swift birds that flashed like darkling stars
Across the cloudy continent;
The wiry-coated fellow curled
Stump-tailed upon the sunny flags;
The bees that sacked a coloured world
Of treasure for their honey-bags.
And all these things seemed very glad,
The sun, the flowers, the birds on wing,
The jolly beasts, the furry-clad
Fat bees, the fruit, and everything.
But gladder than them all was I,
Who, being man, might gather up
The joy of all beneath the sky,
And add their treasure to my cup,
And travel every shining way,
And laugh with God in God’s delight,
Create a world for every day,
And store a dream for every night.
THE MIRACLE
Come, sweetheart, listen, for I have a thing
Most wonderful to tell you – news of spring.
Albeit winter still is in the air,
And the earth troubled, and the branches bare,
Yet down the fields to-day I saw her pass —
The spring – her feet went shining through the grass.
She touched the ragged hedgerows – I have seen
Her finger-prints, most delicately green;
And she has whispered to the crocus leaves,
And to the garrulous sparrows in the eaves.
Swiftly she passed and shyly, and her fair
Young face was hidden in her cloudy hair.
She would not stay, her season is not yet,
But she has reawakened, and has set
The sap of all the world astir, and rent
Once more the shadows of our discontent.
Triumphant news – a miracle I sing —
The everlasting miracle of spring.
MILLERS DALE
Barefoot we went by Millers Dale
When meadowsweet was golden gloom
And happy love was in the vale
Singing upon the summer bloom
Of gipsy crop and branches laid
Of willows over chanting pools,
Barefoot by Millers Dale we made
Our summer festival of fools.
Folly bright-eyed, and quick, and young
Was there with all his silly plots,
And trotty wagtail stepped among
The delicate forget-me-nots,
And laughter played with us above
The rocky shelves and weeded holes
And we had fellowship to love
The pigeons and the water-voles.
Time soon shall be when we are all
Stiller than ever runs the Wye,
And every bitterness shall fall
To-morrow in obscurity,
And wars be done, and treasons fail,
Yet shall new friends go down to greet
The singing rocks of Millers Dale,
And willow pools and meadowsweet.
WRITTEN AT LUDLOW CASTLE (IN THE HALL WHERE COMUS WASFIRST PERFORMED)
Where wall and sill and broken window-frame
Are bright with flowers unroofed against the skies,
And nothing but the nesting jackdaws’ cries
Breaks the hushed even, once imperial came
The muse that moved transfiguring the name
Of Puritan, and beautiful and wise
The verses fell, forespeaking Paradise,
And poetry set all this hall aflame.
Now silence has come down upon the place
Where life and song so wonderfully went,
And the mole’s afoot now where that passion rang,
Yet Comus now first moves his laurelled pace,
For song and life for ever are unspent,
And they are more than ghosts who lived and sang.
WORDSWORTH AT GRASMERE
These hills and waters fostered you
Abiding in your argument
Until all comely wisdom drew
About you, and the years were spent.
Now over hill and water stays
A world more intimately wise,
Built of your dedicated days,
And seen in your beholding eyes.
So, marvellous and far, the mind,
That slept among them when began
Waters and hills, leaps up to find
Its kingdom in the thought of man.
SUNRISE ON RYDAL WATER (TO E. DE S.)
Come down at dawn from windless hills
Into the valley of the lake,
Where yet a larger quiet fills
The hour, and mist and water make
With rocks and reeds and island boughs
One silence and one element,
Where wonder goes surely as once
It went
By Galilean prows.
Moveless the water and the mist,
Moveless the secret air above,
Hushed, as upon some happy tryst
The poised expectancy of love;
What spirit is it that adores
What mighty presence yet unseen?
What consummation works apace
Between
These rapt enchanted shores?
Never did virgin beauty wake
Devouter to the bridal feast
Than moves this hour upon the lake
In adoration to the east;
Here is the bride a god may know,
The primal will, the young consent,
Till surely upon the appointed mood
Intent
The god shall leap – and, lo,
Over the lake’s end strikes the sun,
White, flameless fire; some purity
Thrilling the mist, a splendour won
Out of the world’s heart. Let there be
Thoughts, and atonements, and desires,
Proud limbs, and undeliberate tongue,
Where now we move with mortal oars
Among
Immortal dews and fires.
So the old mating goes apace,
Wind with the sea, and blood with thought,
Lover with lover; and the grace
Of understanding comes unsought
When stars into the twilight steer,
Or thrushes build among the may,
Or wonder moves between the hills,
And day
Comes up on Rydal mere.
SEPTEMBER
Wind and the robin’s note to-day
Have heard of autumn and betray
The green long reign of summer.
The rust is falling in the leaves,
September stands beside the sheaves,
The new, the happy comer.
Not sad my season of the red
And russet orchards gaily spread
From Cholesbury to Cooming,
Nor sad when twilit valley trees
Are ships becalmed on misty seas,
And beetles go abooming.
Now soon shall come the morning crowds
Of starlings, soon the coloured clouds
From oak and ash and willow,
And soon the thorn and briar shall be
Rich in their crimson livery,
In scarlet and in yellow.
Spring laughed and thrilled a million veins,
And summer shone above her rains
To fill September’s faring;
September talks as kings who know
The world’s way and superbly go
In robes of wisdom’s wearing.
OLTON POOLS (TO G. C. G.)
Now June walks on the waters,
And the cuckoo’s last enchantment
Passes from Olton pools.
Now dawn comes to my window
Breathing midsummer roses,
And scythes are wet with dew.
Is it not strange for ever
That, bowered in this wonder,
Man keeps a jealous heart?..
That June and the June waters,
And birds and dawn-lit roses,
Are gospels in the wind,
Fading upon the deserts,
Poor pilgrim revelations?..
Hist … over Olton pools!
OF GREATHAM (TO THOSE WHO LIVE THERE)
For peace, than knowledge more desirable
Into your Sussex quietness I came,
When summer’s green and gold and azure fell
Over the world in flame.
And peace upon your pasture-lands I found,
Where grazing flocks drift on continually,
As little clouds that travel with no sound
Across a windless sky.
Out of your oaks the birds call to their mates
That brood among the pines, where hidden deep
From curious eyes a world’s adventure waits
In columned choirs of sleep.
Under the calm ascension of the night
We heard the mellow lapsing and return
Of night-owls purring in their groundling flight
Through lanes of darkling fern.
Unbroken peace when all the stars were drawn
Back to their lairs of light, and ranked along
From shire to shire the downs out of the dawn
Were risen in golden song.
…
I sing of peace who have known the large unrest
Of men bewildered in their travelling,
And I have known the bridal earth unblest
By the brigades of spring.
I have known that loss. And now the broken thought
Of nations marketing in death I know,
The very winds to threnodies are wrought
That on your downlands blow.
I sing of peace. Was it but yesterday
I came among your roses and your corn?
Then momently amid this wrath I pray
For yesterday reborn.