Poems of To-Day: an Anthology

73. REQUIEM

 
  Under the wide and starry sky,
  Dig the grave and let me lie.
  Glad did I live and gladly die,
    And I laid me down with a will.
 
 
  This be the verse you grave for me:
  Here he lies where he longed to be;
  Home is the sailor, home from sea,
    And the hunter home from the hill.
 

Robert Louis Stevenson.

74. A DEAD HARVEST

In Kensington Gardens

 
  Along the graceless grass of town
  They rake the rows of red and brown—
  Dead leaves, unlike the rows of hay
  Delicate, touched with gold and grey,
  Raked long ago and far away.
 
 
  A narrow silence in the park,
  Between the lights a narrow dark.
  One street rolls on the north; and one,
  Muffled, upon the south doth run;
  Amid the mist the work is done.
 
 
  A futile crop!—for it the fire
  Smoulders, and, for a stack, a pyre.
  So go the town's lives on the breeze,
  Even as the sheddings of the trees;
  Bosom nor barn is filled with these.
 

Alice Meynell.

75. THE LITTLE DANCERS

 
  Lonely, save for a few faint stars, the sky
  Dreams; and lonely, below, the little street
  Into its gloom retires, secluded and shy.
  Scarcely the dumb roar enters this soft retreat;
  And all is dark, save where come flooding rays
  From a tavern window: there, to the brisk measure
  Of an organ that down in an alley merrily plays,
  Two children, all alone and no one by,
  Holding their tattered frocks, through an airy maze
  Of motion, lightly threaded with nimble feet,
  Dance sedately: face to face they gaze,
  Their eyes shining, grave with a perfect pleasure.
 

Laurence Binyon.

76. LONDON SNOW

 
  When men were all asleep the snow came flying,
  In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
  Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
    Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;
  Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;
    Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:
    Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;
  Hiding difference, making unevenness even,
  Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.
    All night it fell, and when full inches seven
  It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,
  The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;
    And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness
  Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:
  The eye marvelled—marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;
    The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;
  No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,
  And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.
    Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,
  They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze
  Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snow-balling;
    Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;
  Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder,
  "O look at the trees!" they cried, "O look at the trees!"
    With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,
  Following along the white deserted way,
  A country company long dispersed asunder:
    When now already the sun, in pale display
  Standing by Paul's high dome, spread forth below
  His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.
    For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;
  And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,
  Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go;
    But even for them awhile no cares encumber
  Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,
  The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber
  At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the
        charm they have broken.
 

Robert Bridges.

77. THE ROAD MENDERS

 
  How solitary gleams the lamplit street
  Waiting the far-off morn!
  How softly from the unresting city blows
  The murmur borne
  Down this deserted way!
  Dim loiterers pass home with stealthy feet.
  Now only, sudden at their interval,
  The lofty chimes awaken and let fall
  Deep thrills of ordered sound;
  Subsiding echoes gradually drowned
  In a great stillness, that creeps up around,
  And darkly grows
  Profounder over all
  Like a strong frost, hushing a stormy day.
 
 
  But who is this, that by the brazier red
  Encamped in his rude hut,
  With many a sack about his shoulder spread
  Watches with eyes unshut?
  The burning brazier flushes his old face,
  Illumining the old thoughts in his eyes.
  Surely the Night doth to her secrecies
  Admit him, and the watching stars attune
  To their high patience, who so lightly seems
  To bear the weight of many thousand dreams
  (Dark hosts around him sleeping numberless);
  He surely hath unbuilt all walls of thought
  To reach an air-wide wisdom, past access
  Of us, who labour in the noisy noon,
  The noon that knows him not.
 
 
  For lo, at last the gloom slowly retreats,
  And swiftly, like an army, comes the Day,
  All bright and loud through the awakened streets
  Sending a cheerful hum.
  And he has stolen away.
  Now, with the morning shining round them, come
  Young men, and strip their coats
  And loose the shirts about their throats,
  And lightly up their ponderous hammers lift,
  Each in his turn descending swift
  With triple strokes that answer and begin
  Duly, and quiver in repeated change,
  Marrying the eager echoes that weave in
  A music clear and strange.
  But pausing soon, each lays his hammer down
  And deeply breathing bares
  His chest, stalwart and brown,
  To the sunny airs.
  Laughing one to another, limber hand
  On limber hip, flushed in a group they stand,
  And now untired renew their ringing toil.
  The sun stands high, and ever a fresh throng
  Comes murmuring; but that eddying turmoil
  Leaves many a loiterer, prosperous or unfed,
  On easy or unhappy ways
  At idle gaze,
  Charmed in the sunshine and the rhythm enthralling,
  As of unwearied Fates, for ever young,
  That on the anvil of necessity
  From measureless desire and quivering fear,
  With musical sure lifting and downfalling
  Of arm and hammer driven perpetually,
  Beat out in obscure span
  The fiery destiny of man.
 

Laurence Binyon.

78. STREET LANTERNS

 
  Country roads are yellow and brown.
  We mend the roads in London town.
 
 
  Never a hansom dare come nigh,
  Never a cart goes rolling by.
 
 
  An unwonted silence steals
  In between the turning wheels.
 
 
  Quickly ends the autumn day,
  And the workman goes his way,
 
 
  Leaving, midst the traffic rude,
  One small isle of solitude,
 
 
  Lit, throughout the lengthy night,
  By the little lantern's light.
 
 
  Jewels of the dark have we,
  Brighter than the rustic's be.
 
 
  Over the dull earth are thrown
  Topaz, and the ruby stone.
 

Mary E. Coleridge.

79. O SUMMER SUM

 
  O summer sun, O moving trees!
  O cheerful human noise, O busy glittering street!
  What hour shall Fate in all the future find,
  Or what delights, ever to equal these:
  Only to taste the warmth, the light, the wind,
  Only to be alive, and feel that life is sweet?
 

Laurence Binyon.

80. LONDON

 
  Athwart the sky a lowly sigh
    From west to east the sweet wind carried;
  The sun stood still on Primrose Hill;
    His light in all the city tarried:
  The clouds on viewless columns bloomed
  Like smouldering lilies unconsumed.
 
 
  "Oh sweetheart, see! how shadowy,
    Of some occult magician's rearing,
  Or swung in space of heaven's grace
    Dissolving, dimly reappearing,
  Afloat upon ethereal tides
  St. Paul's above the city rides!"
 
 
  A rumour broke through the thin smoke
    Enwreathing abbey, tower, and palace,
  The parks, the squares, the thoroughfares,
    The million-peopled lanes and alleys,
  An ever-muttering prisoned storm,
  The heart of London beating warm.
 

John Davidson.

81. NOVEMBER BLUE

The golden tint of the electric lights seems to give a complementary colour to the air in the early evening.—Essay on London.

 
  O heavenly colour, London town
    Has blurred it from her skies;
  And, hooded in an earthly brown,
    Unheaven'd the city lies.
  No longer standard-like this hue
    Above the broad road flies;
  Nor does the narrow street the blue
    Wear, slender pennon-wise.
 
 
  But when the gold and silver lamps
    Colour the London dew,
  And, misted by the winter damps,
    The shops shine bright anew—
  Blue comes to earth, it walks the street,
    It dyes the wide air through;
  A mimic sky about their feet,
    The throng go crowned with blue.
 

Alice Meynell.

82. PHILOMEL IN LONDON

 
  Not within a granite pass,
  Dim with flowers and soft with grass—
  Nay, but doubly, trebly sweet
  In a poplared London street,
  While below my windows go
  Noiseless barges, to and fro,
    Through the night's calm deep,
  Ah! what breaks the bonds of sleep?
 
 
  No steps on the pavement fall,
  Soundless swings the dark canal;
  From a church-tower out of sight
  Clangs the central hour of night.
  Hark! the Dorian nightingale!
  Pan's voice melted to a wail!
    Such another bird
  Attic Tereus never heard.
 
 
  Hung above the gloom and stain—
  London's squalid cope of pain—
  Pure as starlight, bold as love,
  Honouring our scant poplar-grove,
  That most heavenly voice of earth
  Thrills in passion, grief or mirth,
    Laves our poison'd air
  Life's best song-bath crystal-fair.
 
 
  While the starry minstrel sings
  Little matters what he brings,
  Be it sorrow, be it pain,
  Let him sing and sing again,
  Till, with dawn, poor souls rejoice,
  Wakening, once to hear his voice,
    Ere afar he flies,
  Bound for purer woods and skies.
 

Edmund Gosse.

83. ANNUS MIRABILIS (1902)

 
  Daylight was down, and up the cool
    Bare heaven the moon, o'er roof and elm,
  Daughter of dusk most wonderful,
    Went mounting to her realm:
  And night was only half begun
  Round Edwardes Square in Kensington.
 
 
  A Sabbath-calm possessed her face,
    An even glow her bosom filled;
  High in her solitary place
    The huntress-heart was stilled:
  With bow and arrows all laid down
  She stood and looked on London town.
 
 
  Nay, how can sight of us give rest
    To that far-travelled heart, or draw
  The musings of that tranquil breast?
    I thought—and gazing, saw
  Far up above me, high, oh, high,
  From south to north a heron fly!
 
 
  Oh, swiftly answered! yonder flew
    The wings of freedom and of hope!
  Little of London town he knew,
    The far horizon was his scope.
  High up he sails, and sees beneath
  The glimmering ponds of Hampstead Heath,
 
 
  Hendon, and farther out afield
    Low water-meads are in his ken,
  And lonely pools by Harrow Weald,
    And solitudes unloved of men,
  Where he his fisher's spear dips down:
  Little he knows of London town.
 
 
  So small, with all its miles of sin,
    Is London to the grey-winged bird,
  A cuckoo called at Lincoln's Inn
    Last April; in Soho was heard
  The missel-thrush with throat of glee,
  And nightingales at Battersea!
 

Laurence Housman.

84. FLEET STREET

 
  I never see the newsboys run
    Amid the whirling street,
    With swift untiring feet,
  To cry the latest venture done,
  But I expect one day to hear
    Them cry the crack of doom
    And risings from the tomb,
  With great Archangel Michael near;
  And see them running from the Fleet
    As messengers of God,
    With Heaven's tidings shod
  About their brave unwearied feet.
 

Shane Leslie.

86. IN THE MEADOWS AT MANTUA

 
  But to have lain upon the grass
  One perfect day, one perfect hour,
  Beholding all things mortal pass
  Into the quiet of green grass;
 
 
  But to have lain and loved the sun,
  Under the shadow of the trees,
  To have been found in unison,
  Once only, with the blessed sun;
 
 
  Ah! in these flaring London nights,
  Where midnight withers into morn,
  How quiet a rebuke it writes
  Across the sky of London nights!
 
 
  Upon the grass at Mantua
  These London nights were all forgot.
  They wake for me again: but ah,
  The meadow-grass at Mantua!
 

Arthur Symons.

86. LEISURE

 
  What is this life if, full of care,
  We have no time to stand and stare.
 
 
  No time to stand beneath the boughs
  And stare as long as sheep or cows.
 
 
  No time to see, when woods we pass,
  Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
 
 
  No time to see, in broad daylight,
  Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
 
 
  No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
  And watch her feet, how they can dance.
 
 
  No time to wait till her mouth can
  Enrich that smile her eyes began.
 
 
  A poor life this if, full of care,
  We have no time to stand and stare.
 

William H. Davies.

87. LYING IN THE GRASS

 
  Between two russet tufts of summer grass,
  I watch the world through hot air as through glass,
  And by my face sweet lights and colours pass.
 
 
  Before me, dark against the fading sky,
  I watch three mowers mowing, as I lie:
  With brawny arms they sweep in harmony.
 
 
  Brown English faces by the sun burnt red,
  Rich glowing colour on bare throat and head,
  My heart would leap to watch them, were I dead!
 
 
  And in my strong young living as I lie,
  I seem to move with them in harmony,—
  A fourth is mowing, and that fourth am I.
 
 
  The music of the scythes that glide and leap,
  The young men whistling as their great arms sweep,
  And all the perfume and sweet sense of sleep,
 
 
  The weary butterflies that droop their wings,
  The dreamy nightingale that hardly sings,
  And all the lassitude of happy things
 
 
  Is mingling with the warm and pulsing blood
  That gushes through my veins a languid flood,
  And feeds my spirit as the sap a bud.
 
 
  Behind the mowers, on the amber air,
  A dark-green beech-wood rises, still and fair,
  A white path winding up it like a stair.
 
 
  And see that girl, with pitcher on her head,
  And clean white apron on her gown of red,—
  Her even-song of love is but half-said:
 
 
  She waits the youngest mower. Now he goes;
  Her cheeks are redder than the wild blush-rose;
  They climb up where the deepest shadows close.
 
 
  But though they pass and vanish, I am there;
  I watch his rough hands meet beneath her hair,
  Their broken speech sounds sweet to me like prayer
 
 
  Ah! now the rosy children come to play,
  And romp and struggle with the new-mown hay;
  Their clear high voices sound from far away.
 
 
  They know so little why the world is sad,
  They dig themselves warm graves and yet are glad;
  Their muffled screams and laughter make me mad!
 
 
  I long to go and play among them there,
  Unseen, like wind, to take them by the hair,
  And gently make their rosy cheeks more fair.
 
 
  The happy children! full of frank surprise,
  And sudden whims and innocent ecstasies;
  What godhead sparkles from their liquid eyes!
 
 
  No wonder round those urns of mingled clays
  That Tuscan potters fashion'd in old days,
  And coloured like the torrid earth ablaze,
 
 
  We find the little gods and loves portray'd
  Through ancient forests wandering undismay'd,
  Or gathered, whispering, in some pleasant glade.
 
 
  They knew, as I do now, what keen delight
  A strong man feels to watch the tender flight
  Of little children playing in his sight.
 
 
  I do not hunger for a well-stored mind,
  I only wish to live my life, and find
  My heart in unison with all mankind.
 
 
  My life is like the single dewy star
  That trembles on the horizon's primrose-bar,—
  A microcosm where all things living are.
 
 
  And if, among the noiseless grasses, Death
  Should come behind and take away my breath,
  I should not rise as one who sorroweth,
 
 
  For I should pass, but all the world would be
  Full of desire and young delight and glee,
  And why should men be sad through loss of me?
 
 
  The light is dying; in the silver-blue
  The young moon shines from her bright window through:
  The mowers all are gone, and I go too.
 

Edmund Gosse.

88. DOWN BY THE SALLEY GARDENS

 
  Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
  She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
  She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
  But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.
 
 
  In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
  And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
  She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
  But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.
 

W. B. Yeats.

89. RENAISSANCE

 
  O happy soul, forget thy self!
  This that has haunted all the past,
  That conjured disappointments fast,
  That never could let well alone;
  That, climbing to achievement's throne,
  Slipped on the last step; this that wove
  Dissatisfaction's clinging net,
  And ran through life like squandered pelf:—
  This that till now has been thy self
  Forget, O happy soul, forget.
 
 
  If ever thou didst aught commence,—
  Set'st forth in springtide woods to rove,—
  Or, when the sun in July throve,
  Didst plunge into calm bay of ocean
  With fine felicity in motion,—
  Or, having climbed some high hill's brow,
  Thy toil behind thee like the night,
  Stoodst in the chill dawn's air intense;—
  Commence thus now, thus recommence:
 
 
  Take to the future as to light.
  Not as a bather on the shore
  Strips of his clothes, glad soul, strip thou:
  He throws them off, but folds them now;
  Although he for the billows yearns,
  To weight them down with stones he turns;
  To mark the spot he scans the shore;
  Of his return he thinks before.
  Do thou forget
  All that, until this joy franchised thee,
  Tainted thee, stained thee, or disguised thee;
  For gladness, henceforth without let,
  Be thou a body, naked, fair;
  And be thy kingdom all the air
  Which the noon fills with light;
  And be thine actions every one,
  Like to a dawn or set of sun,
  Robed in an ample glory's peace;
  Since thou hast tasted this great glee
  Whose virtue prophesies in thee
  That wrong is wholly doomed, is doomed and bound to cease.
 

T. Sturge Moore.

90. TO WILL. H. LOW

 
  Youth now flees on feathered foot
  Faint and fainter sounds the flute,
  Rarer songs of gods; and still
  Somewhere on the sunny hill,
  Or along the winding stream,
  Through the willows, flits a dream;
  Flits but shows a smiling face,
  Flees but with so quaint a grace,
  None can choose to stay at home,
  All must follow, all must roam.
 
 
  This is unborn beauty: she
  Now in air floats high and free,
  Takes the sun and breaks the blue;—
  Late with stooping pinion flew
  Raking hedgerow trees, and wet
  Her wing in silver streams, and set
  Shining foot on temple roof:
  Now again she flies aloof,
  Coasting mountain clouds and kiss't
  By the evening's amethyst.
 
 
  In wet wood and miry lane,
  Still we pant and pound in vain;
  Still with leaden foot we chase
  Waning pinion, fainting face;
  Still with gray hair we stumble on,
  Till, behold, the vision gone!
  Where hath fleeting beauty led?
  To the doorway of the dead.
  Life is over, life was gay:
  We have come the primrose way.
 

Robert Louis Stevenson.

91. GAUDEAMUS IGITUR

 
  Come, no more of grief and dying!
  Sing the time too swiftly flying.
      Just an hour
      Youth's in flower,
  Give me roses to remember
  In the shadow of December.
 
 
  Fie on steeds with leaden paces!
  Winds shall bear us on our races,
      Speed, O speed,
      Wind, my steed,
  Beat the lightning for your master,
  Yet my Fancy shall fly faster.
 
 
  Give me music, give me rapture,
  Youth that's fled can none recapture;
      Not with thought
      Wisdom's bought.
  Out on pride and scorn and sadness!
  Give me laughter, give me gladness.
 
 
  Sweetest Earth, I love and love thee,
  Seas about thee, skies above thee,
      Sun and storms,
      Hues and forms
  Of the clouds with floating shadows
  On thy mountains and thy meadows.
 
 
  Earth, there's none that can enslave thee,
  Not thy lords it is that have thee;
      Not for gold
      Art thou sold,
  But thy lovers at their pleasure
  Take thy beauty and thy treasure.
 
 
  While sweet fancies meet me singing,
  While the April blood is springing
      In my breast,
      While a jest
  And my youth thou yet must leave me,
  Fortune, 'tis not thou canst grieve me.
 
 
  When at length the grasses cover
  Me, the world's unwearied lover,
      If regret
      Haunt me yet,
  It shall be for joys untasted,
  Nature lent and folly wasted.
 
 
  Youth and jests and summer weather,
  Goods that kings and clowns together
      Waste or use
      As they choose,
  These, the best, we miss pursuing
  Sullen shades that mock our wooing.
 
 
  Feigning Age will not delay it—
  When the reckoning comes we'll pay it,
      Own our mirth
      Has been worth
  All the forfeit light or heavy
  Wintry Time and Fortune levy.
 
 
  Feigning grief will not escape it,
  What though ne'er so well you ape it—
      Age and care
      All must share,
  All alike must pay hereafter,
  Some for sighs and some for laughter.
 
 
  Know, ye sons of Melancholy,
  To be young and wise is folly.
      'Tis the weak
      Fear to wreak
  On this clay of life their fancies,
  Shaping battles, shaping dances.
 
 
  While ye scorn our names unspoken,
  Roses dead and garlands broken,
      O ye wise,
      We arise,
  Out of failures, dreams, disasters,
  We arise to be your masters.
 

Margaret L. Woods.