Poems of To-Day: an Anthology

35. THE SOUTH COUNTRY

 
  When I am living in the Midlands,
    That are sodden and unkind,
  I light my lamp in the evening:
    My work is left behind;
  And the great hills of the South Country
    Come back into my mind.
 
 
  The great hills of the South Country
    They stand along the sea,
  And it's there, walking in the high woods,
    That I could wish to be,
  And the men that were boys when I was a boy
    Walking along with me.
 
 
  The men that live in North England
    I saw them for a day:
  Their hearts are set upon the waste fells,
    Their skies are fast and grey;
  From their castle-walls a man may see
    The mountains far away.
 
 
  The men that live in West England
    They see the Severn strong,
  A-rolling on rough water brown
    Light aspen leaves along.
  They have the secret of the Rocks,
    And the oldest kind of song.
 
 
  But the men that live in the South Country
    Are the kindest and most wise,
  They get their laughter from the loud surf,
    And the faith in their happy eyes
  Comes surely from our Sister the Spring
    When over the sea she flies;
 
 
  The violets suddenly bloom at her feet,
    She blesses us with surprise.
  I never get between the pines
    But I smell the Sussex air;
  Nor I never come on a belt of sand
    But my home is there.
 
 
  And along the sky the line of the Downs
    So noble and so bare.
  A lost thing could I never find,
    Nor a broken thing mend:
  And I fear I shall be all alone
    When I get towards the end.
 
 
  Who will there be to comfort me
    Or who will be my friend?
  I will gather and carefully make my friends
    Of the men of the Sussex Weald,
  They watch the stars from silent folds,
    They stiffly plough the field.
 
 
  By them and the God of the South Country
    My poor soul shall be healed.
  If I ever become a rich man,
    Or if ever I grow to be old,
  I will build a house with deep thatch
    To shelter me from the cold,
 
 
  And there shall the Sussex songs be sung
    And the story of Sussex told.
  I will hold my house in the high wood,
    Within a walk of the sea,
  And the men that were boys when I was a boy
    Shall sit and drink with me.
 

Hilaire Belloc.

36. CHANCLEBURY RING

 
  Say what you will, there is not in the world
  A nobler sight than from this upper down.
  No rugged landscape here, no beauty hurled
  From its Creator's hand as with a frown;
  But a green plain on which green hills look down
  Trim as a garden plot. No other hue
  Can hence be seen, save here and there the brown
  Of a square fallow, and the horizon's blue.
  Dear checker-work of woods, the Sussex weald.
  If a name thrills me yet of things of earth,
  That name is thine! How often I have fled
  To thy deep hedgerows and embraced each field,
  Each lag, each pasture,—fields which gave me birth
  And saw my youth, and which must hold me dead.
 

Wilfrid Blunt.

37. IN ROMNEY MARSH

 
  As I went down to Dymchurch Wall,
    I heard the South sing o'er the land;
  I saw the yellow sunlight fall
    On knolls where Norman churches stand.
 
 
  And ringing shrilly, taut and lithe,
    Within the wind a core of sound,
  The wire from Romney town to Hythe
    Alone its airy journey wound.
 
 
  A veil of purple vapour flowed
    And trailed its fringe along the Straits;
  The upper air like sapphire glowed;
    And roses filled Heaven's central gates.
 
 
  Masts in the offing wagged their tops;
    The swinging waves pealed on the shore;
  The saffron beach, all diamond drops
    And beads of surge, prolonged the roar.
 
 
  As I came up from Dymchurch Wall,
    I saw above the Down's low crest
  The crimson brands of sunset fall,
    Flicker and fade from out the west.
 
 
  Night sank: like flakes of silver fire
    The stars in one great shower came down;
  Shrill blew the wind; and shrill the wire
    Rang out from Hythe to Romney town.
 
 
  The darkly shining salt sea drops
    Streamed as the waves clashed on the shore;
  The beach, with all its organ stops
    Pealing again, prolonged the roar.
 

John Davidson.

38. A CINQUE PORT

 
  Below the down the stranded town
    What may betide forlornly waits,
  With memories of smoky skies,
    When Gallic navies crossed the straits;
  When waves with fire and blood grew bright,
  And cannon thundered through the night.
 
 
  With swinging stride the rhythmic tide
    Bore to the harbour barque and sloop;
  Across the bar the ship of war,
    In castled stern and lanterned poop,
  Came up with conquests on her lee,
  The stately mistress of the sea.
 
 
  Where argosies have wooed the breeze,
    The simple sheep are feeding now;
  And near and far across the bar
    The ploughman whistles at the plough;
  Where once the long waves washed the shore,
  Larks from their lowly lodgings soar.
 
 
  Below the down the stranded town
    Hears far away the rollers beat;
  About the wall the seabirds call;
    The salt wind murmurs through the street;
  Forlorn the sea's forsaken bride
  Awaits the end that shall betide.
 

John Davidson.

39. ESSEX

 
  I go through the fields of blue water
    On the South road of the sea.
  High to North the East-Country
    Holds her green fields to me—
  For she that I gave over,
    Gives not over me.
 
 
  Last night I lay at Good Easter
    Under a hedge I knew,
  Last night beyond High Easter
    I trod the May-floors blue—
  Tilt from the sea the sun came
    Bidding me wake and rue.
 
 
  Roding (that names eight churches)—
    Banks with the paigles dight—
  Chelmer whose mill and willows
    Keep one red tower in sight—
  Under the Southern Cross run
    Beside the ship to-night.
 
 
  Ah! I may not seek back now,
    Neither be turned nor stayed.
  Yet should I live, I'd seek her,
    Once that my vows are paid!
  And should I die I'd haunt her—
    I being what God made!
 
 
  England has greater counties—
    Their peace to hers is small.
  Low hills, rich fields, calm rivers,
    In Essex seek them all,—
  Essex, where I that found them
    Found to lose them all!
 

Arthur Shearly Cripps.

40. A TOWN WINDOW

 
  Beyond my window in the night
    Is but a drab inglorious street,
  Yet there the frost and clean starlight
    As over Warwick woods are sweet.
 
 
  Under the grey drift of the town
    The crocus works among the mould
  As eagerly as those that crown
    The Warwick spring in flame and gold.
 
 
  And when the tramway down the hill
    Across the cobbles moans and rings,
  There is about my window-sill
    The tumult of a thousand wings.
 

John Drinkwater.

41. MAMBLE

 
  I never went to Mamble
    That lies above the Teme,
  So I wonder who's in Mamble,
    And whether people seem
  Who breed and brew along there
    As lazy as the name,
  And whether any song there
    Sets alehouse wits aflame.
 
 
  The finger-post says Mamble,
    And that is all I know
  Of the narrow road to Mamble,
    And should I turn and go
  To that place of lazy token,
    That lies above the Teme,
  There might be a Mamble broken
    That was lissom in a dream.
 
 
  So leave the road to Mamble
    And take another road
  To as good a place as Mamble
    Be it lazy as a toad;
  Who travels Worcester county
    Takes any place that comes
  When April tosses bounty
    To the cherries and the plums.
 

John Drinkwater.

42. PLYMOUTH HARBOUR

 
  Oh, what know they of harbours
    Who toss not on the sea!
  They tell of fairer havens,
    But none so fair there be
 
 
  As Plymouth town outstretching
    Her quiet arms to me;
  Her breast's broad welcome spreading
    From Mewstone to Penlee.
 
 
  Ah, with this home-thought, darling,
    Come crowding thoughts of thee.
  Oh, what know they of harbours
    Who toss not on the sea!
 

Ernest Radford.

43. OXFORD

 
  I came to Oxford in the light
    Of a spring-coloured afternoon;
  Some clouds were grey and some were white,
    And all were blown to such a tune
  Of quiet rapture in the sky,
    I laughed to see them laughing by.
 
 
  I had been dreaming in the train
    With thoughts at random from my book;
  I looked, and read, and looked again,
    And suddenly to greet my look
  Oxford shone up with every tower
    Aspiring sweetly like a flower.
 
 
  Home turn the feet of men that seek,
    And home the hearts of children turn,
  And none can teach the hour to speak
    What every hour is free to learn;
  And all discover, late or soon,
    Their golden Oxford afternoon.
 

Gerald Gould.

44. ALMA MATER

 
  Know you her secret none can utter?
    Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?
  Still on the spire the pigeons flutter,
    Still by the gateway flits the gown;
  Still on the street, from corbel and gutter,
    Faces of stone look down.
 
 
  Faces of stone, and stonier faces—
    Some from library windows wan
  Forth on her gardens, her green spaces,
    Peer and turn to their books anon.
  Hence, my Muse, from the green oases
    Gather the tent, begone!
 
 
  Nay, should she by the pavement linger
    Under the rooms where once she played,
  Who from the feast would rise to fling her
    One poor sou for her serenade?
  One short laugh for the antic finger
    Thrumming a lute-string frayed?
 
 
  Once, my dear—but the world was young then—
    Magdalen elms and Trinity limes—
  Lissom the blades and the backs that swung then,
    Eight good men in the good old times—
  Careless we, and the chorus flung then
    Under St. Mary's chimes!
 
 
  Reins lay loose and the ways led random—
    Christ Church meadow and Iffley track,
  "Idleness horrid and dog-cart" (tandem),
    Aylesbury grind and Bicester pack—
  Pleasant our lines, and faith! we scanned 'em;
    Having that artless knack.
 
 
  Come, old limmer, the times grow colder;
    Leaves of the creeper redden and fall.
  Was it a hand then clapped my shoulder?—
    Only the wind by the chapel wall!
  Dead leaves drift on the lute . . . So fold her
    Under the faded shawl.
 
 
  Never we wince, though none deplore us,
    We who go reaping that we sowed;
  Cities at cockcrow wake before us—
    Hey, for the lilt of the London road!
  One look back, and a rousing chorus!
    Never a palinode!
 
 
  Still on her spire the pigeons hover;
    Still by her gateway haunts the gown.
  Ah, but her secret? You, young lover,
    Drumming her old ones forth from town,
  Know you the secret none discover?
    Tell it—when you go down.
 
 
  Yet if at length you seek her, prove her,
    Lean to her whispers never so nigh;
  Yet if at last not less her lover
    You in your hansom leave the High;
  Down from her towers a ray shall hover—
    Touch you, a passer-by.
 

Arthur Quiller-Couch.

45. FROM "DEDICATORY ODE"

 
  I will not try the reach again,
    I will not set my sail alone,
  To moor a boat bereft of men
    At Yarnton's tiny docks of stone.
 
 
  But I will sit beside the fire,
    And put my hand before my eyes,
  And trace, to fill my heart's desire,
    The last of all our Odysseys.
 
 
  The quiet evening kept her tryst:
    Beneath an open sky we rode,
  And passed into a wandering mist
    Along the perfect Evenlode.
 
 
  The tender Evenlode that makes
    Her meadows hush to hear the sound
  Of waters mingling in the brakes,
    And binds my heart to English ground.
 
 
  A lovely river, all alone,
    She lingers in the hills and holds
  A hundred little towns of stone,
    Forgotten in the western wolds.
 

Hilaire Belloc.

46. THE DEVOURERS

 
  Cambridge town is a beleaguered city;
    For south and north, like a sea,
  There beat on its gates, without haste or pity,
    The downs and the fen country.
 
 
  Cambridge towers, so old, so wise,
    They were builded but yesterday,
  Watched by sleepy gray secret eyes
    That smiled as at children's play.
 
 
  Roads south of Cambridge run into the waste,
    Where learning and lamps are not,
  And the pale downs tumble, blind, chalk-faced,
    And the brooding churches squat.
 
 
  Roads north of Cambridge march through a plain
    Level like the traitor sea.
  It will swallow its ships, and turn and smile again—
    The insatiable fen country.
 
 
  Lest the downs and the fens should eat Cambridge up,
    And its towers be tossed and thrown,
  And its rich wine drunk from its broken cup,
    And its beauty no more known—
 
 
  Let us come, you and I, where the roads run blind,
    Out beyond the transient city,
  That our love, mingling with earth, may find
    Her imperishable heart of pity.
 

Rose Macaulay.

47. THE OLD VICARAGE, GRANTCHESTER

Café des Westens, Berlin

 

 
  Just now the lilac is in bloom,
    All before my little room;
  And in my flower-beds, I think,
  Smile the carnation and the pink;
  And down the borders, well I know,
  The poppy and the pansy blow . . .
  Oh! there the chestnuts, summer through,
  Beside the river make for you
  A tunnel of green gloom, and sleep
  Deeply above; and green and deep
  The stream mysterious glides beneath,
  Green as a dream and deep as death.—
  Oh, damn! I know it! and I know
  How the May fields all golden show,
  And when the day is young and sweet,
  Gild gloriously the bare feet
  That run to bathe . . .
      Du lieber Gott!
 
 
  Here am I, sweating, sick, and hot,
  And there the shadowed waters fresh
  Lean up to embrace the naked flesh.
  Temperamentvoll German Jews
  Drink beer around; and there the dews
  Are soft beneath a morn of gold.
  Here tulips bloom as they are told;
  Unkempt about those hedges blows
  An English unofficial rose;
  And there the unregulated sun
  Slopes down to rest when day is done,
  And wakes a vague unpunctual star,
  A slippered Hesper; and there are
  Meads towards Haslingfield and Coton
  Where das Betreten's not verboten . . .
 
 
  Eithe genoimên . . . would I were
  In Grantchester, in Grantchester!—
  Some, it may be, can get in touch
  With Nature there, or Earth, or such.
  And clever modern men have seen
  A Faun a-peeping through the green,
  And felt the Classics were not dead,
  To glimpse a Naiad's reedy head,
  Or hear the Goat-foot piping low . . .
  But these are things I do not know.
  I only know that you may lie
  Day long and watch the Cambridge sky,
  And, flower-lulled in sleepy grass,
  Hear the cool lapse of hours pass,
  Until the centuries blend and blur
  In Grantchester, in Grantchester . . .
  Still in the dawnlit waters cool
  His ghostly Lordship swims his pool,
  And tries the strokes, essays the tricks,
  Long learnt on Hellespont, or Styx;
  Dan Chaucer hears his river still
  Chatter beneath a phantom mill;
  Tennyson notes, with studious eye,
  How Cambridge waters hurry by . . .
  And in that garden, black and white
  Creep whispers through the grass all night;
  And spectral dance, before the dawn,
  A hundred Vicars down the lawn;
  Curates, long dust, will come and go
  On lissom, clerical, printless toe;
  And oft between the boughs is seen
  The sly shade of a Rural Dean . . .
  Till, at a shiver in the skies,
  Vanishing with Satanic cries,
  The prim ecclesiastic rout
  Leaves but a startled sleeper-out,
  Grey heavens, the first bird's drowsy calls,
  The falling house that never falls.
 
 
  God! I will pack, and take a train,
  And get me to England once again!
  For England's the one land, I know,
  Where men with Splendid Hearts may go;
  And Cambridgeshire, of all England,
  The shire for Men who Understand;
  And of that district I prefer
  The lovely hamlet Grantchester.
  For Cambridge people rarely smile,
  Being urban, squat, and packed with guile;
  And Royston men in the far South
  Are black and fierce and strange of mouth;
  At Over they fling oaths at one,
  And worse than oaths at Trumpington,
  And Ditton girls are mean and dirty,
  And there's none in Harston under thirty,
  And folks in Shelford and those parts,
  Have twisted lips and twisted hearts,
  And Barton men make cockney rhymes,
  And Coton's full of nameless crimes,
  And things are done you'd not believe
  At Madingley on Christmas Eve.
  Strong men have run for miles and miles
  When one from Cherry Hinton smiles;
  Strong men have blanched and shot their wives
  Rather than send them to St. Ives;
  Strong men have cried like babes, bydam,
  To hear what happened at Babraham.
  But Grantchester! ah, Grantchester!
  There's peace and holy quiet there,
  Great clouds along pacific skies,
  And men and women with straight eyes,
  Lithe children lovelier than a dream,
  A bosky wood, a slumbrous stream,
  And little kindly winds that creep
  Round twilight corners, half asleep.
  In Grantchester their skins are white,
  They bathe by day, they bathe by night;
  The women there do all they ought;
  The men observe the Rules of Thought.
  They love the Good; they worship Truth;
  They laugh uproariously in youth;
  (And when they get to feeling old,
  They up and shoot themselves, I'm told) . . .
 
 
  Ah God! to see the branches stir
  Across the moon at Grantchester!
  To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten,
  Unforgettable, unforgotten
  River smell, and hear the breeze
  Sobbing in the little trees.
  Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand,
  Still guardians of that holy land?
  The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream,
  The yet unacademic stream?
  Is dawn a secret shy and cold
  Anadyomene, silver-gold?
  And sunset still a golden sea
  From Haslingfield to Madingley?
  And after, ere the night is born,
  Do hares come out about the corn?
  Oh, is the water sweet and cool
  Gentle and brown, above the pool?
  And laughs the immortal river still
  Under the mill, under the mill?
  Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
  And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
  Deep meadows yet, for to forget
  The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yet
  Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
  And is there honey still for tea?
 

Rupert Brooke.

48. DAYS THAT HAVE BEEN

 
  Can I forget the sweet days that have been,
    When poetry first began to warm my blood;
  When from the hills of Gwent I saw the earth
    Burned into two by Severn's silver flood:
 
 
  When I would go alone at night to see
    The moonlight, like a big white butterfly,
  Dreaming on that old castle near Caerleon,
    While at its side the Usk went softly by:
 
 
  When I would stare at lovely clouds in Heaven,
    Or watch them when reported by deep streams;
  When feeling pressed like thunder, but would not
    Break into that grand music of my dreams?
 
 
  Can I forget the sweet days that have been,
    The villages so green I have been in;
  Llantarnam, Magor, Malpas, and Llanwern,
    Liswery, old Caerleon, and Alteryn?
 
 
  Can I forget the banks of Malpas Brook,
    Or Ebbw's voice in such a wild delight,
  As on he dashed with pebbles in his throat,
    Gurgling towards the sea with all his might?
 
 
  Ah, when I see a leafy village now
    I sigh and ask it for Llantarnam's green;
  I ask each river where is Ebbw's voice—
    In memory of the sweet days that have been.
 

William H. Davies.

49. THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE

 
  I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
  And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
  Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
  And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
 
 
  And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
  Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
  There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
  And evening full of the linnet's wings.
 
 
  I will arise and go now, for always night and day
  I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
  While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
  I hear it in the deep heart's core.
 

W. B. Yeats.

50. THE FLOWERS

  Buy English posies!

 

Kent and Surrey may—

Violets of the Undercliff

Wet with Channel spray;

Cowslips from a Devon combe—

Midland furze afire—

Buy my English posies,

And I'll sell your heart's desire!

 
  Buy my English posies!
    You that scorn the may,
  Won't you greet a friend from home
    Half the world away?
 
 
  Green against the draggled drift,
    Faint and frail and first—
  Buy my Northern blood-root
    And I'll know where you were nursed;
 
 
  Robin down the logging-road whistles, "Come to me!"
  Spring has found the maple-grove, the sap is running free;
  All the winds of Canada call the ploughing-rain.
  Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
 
 
  Buy my English posies!
    Here's to match your need—
  Buy a tuft of royal heath,
    Buy a bunch of weed
  White as sand of Muysenberg
    Spun before the gale—
  Buy my heath and lilies
    And I'll tell you whence you hail!
 
 
  Under hot Constantia broad the vineyards lie—
  Throned and thorned the aching berg props the speckless sky—
  Slow below the Wynberg firs trails the tilted wain—
  Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again.
 
 
  Buy my English posies!
    You that will not turn—
  Buy my hot-wood clematis
    Buy a frond o' fern
  Gather'd where the Erskine leaps
    Down the road to Lorne—
  Buy my Christmas creeper
    And I'll say where you were born!
 
 
  West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin—
  They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn—
  Through the great South Otway gums sings the great South Main—
  Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again.
 
 
  Buy my English posies!
    Here's your choice unsold!
  Buy a blood-red myrtle-bloom,
    Buy the kowhai's gold
  Flung for gift on Taupo's face,
    Sign that spring is come—
  Buy my clinging myrtle
    And I'll give you back your home!
 
 
  Broom behind the windy town; pollen o' the pine—
  Bell-bird in the leafy deep where the ratas twine—
  Fern above the saddle-bow, flax upon the plain—
  Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again.
 
 
  Buy my English posies!
    Ye that have your own
  Buy them for a brother's sake
    Overseas, alone.
  Weed ye trample underfoot
    Floods his heart abrim—
  Bird ye never heeded,
    O, she calls his dead to him.
 
 
  Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas;
  Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these!
  Unto each his mother-beach, bloom and bird and land—
  Masters of the Seven Seas, oh, love and understand.
 

Rudyard Kipling.