’Tis the rule of En-dor.

And not for nothing these gifts are shown

    By such as delight our dead.

They must twitch and stiffen and slaver and groan

    Ere the eyes are set in the head,

And the voice from the belly begins. Therefore,

We pay them a wage where they ply at En-dor.

Even so, we have need of faith

    And patience to follow the clue.

Often, at first, what the dear one saith

    Is babble, or jest, or untrue.

(Lying spirits perplex us sore

Till our loves – and their lives – are well known

               at En-dor) …

Oh the road to En-dor is the oldest road

    And the craziest road of all!

Straight it runs to the Witch’s abode,

    As it did in the days of Saul,

And nothing has changed of the sorrow in store

For such as go down on the road to En-dor!

GETHSEMANE

The Garden called Gethsemane

    In Picardy it was,

And there the people came to see

    The English soldiers pass.

We used to pass – we used to pass

    Or halt, as it might be,

And ship our masks in case of gas

    Beyond Gethsemane.

The Garden called Gethsemane

    It held a pretty lass,

But all the time she talked to me

    I prayed my cup might pass.

The officer sat on the chair,

    The men lay on the grass,

And all the time we halted there

    I prayed my cup might pass.

It didn’t pass –

    it didn’t pass –

It didn’t pass from me.

I drank it when we met the gas

    Beyond Gethsemane!

THE CRAFTSMAN

Once, after long-drawn revel at The Mermaid,

He to the overbearing Boanerges

Jonson, uttered (if half of it were liquor,

               Blessed be the vintage!)

Saying how, at an alehouse under Cotswold,

He had made sure of his very Cleopatra

Drunk with enormous, salvation-contemning

               Love for a tinker.

How, while he hid from Sir Thomas’s keepers,

Crouched in a ditch and drenched by the midnight

Dews, he had listened to gipsy Juliet

               Rail at the dawning.

How at Bankside, a boy drowning kittens

Winced at the business; whereupon his sister –

Lady Macbeth aged seven – thrust ’em under,

               Sombrely scornful.

How on a Sabbath, hushed and compassionate –

She being known since her birth to the townsfolk –

Stratford dredged and delivered from Avon

               Dripping Ophelia.

So, with a thin third finger marrying

Drop to wine-drop domed on the table,

Shakespeare opened his heart till sunrise

               Entered to hear him.

London waked and he, imperturbable,

Passed from waking to hurry after shadows …

Busied upon shows of no earthly importance?

               Yes, but he knew it!

THE BENEFACTORS

Ah! What avails the classic bent

    And what the chosen word,

Against the undoctored incident

    That actually occurred?

And what is Art whereto we press

    Through paint and prose and rhyme –

When Nature in her nakedness

    Defeats us every time?

It is not learning, grace nor gear,

    Nor easy meat and drink,

But bitter pinch of pain and fear

    That makes creation think.

When in this world’s unpleasing youth

    Our godlike race began,

The longest arm, the sharpest tooth,

    Gave man control of man;

Till, bruised and bitten to the bone

    And taught by pain and fear,

He learned to deal the far-off stone,

    And poke the long, safe spear.

So tooth and nail were obsolete

    As means against a foe,

Till, bored by uniform defeat,

    Some genius built the bow.

Then stone and javelin proved as vain

    As old-time tooth and nail;

Till, spurred anew by fear and pain,

    Man fashioned coats of mail.

Then there was safety for the rich

    And danger for the poor,

Till someone mixed a powder which

    Redressed the scale once more.

Helmet and armour disappeared

    With sword and bow and pike,

And, when the smoke of battle cleared,

    All men were armed alike …

And when ten million such were slain

    To please one crazy king,

Man, schooled in bulk by fear and pain,

    Grew weary of the thing;

And, at the very hour designed

    To enslave him past recall,

His tooth-stone-arrow-gun-shy-mind

    Turned and abolished all.

All Power, each Tyrant, every Mob

    Whose head has grown too large,

Ends by destroying its own job

    And works its own discharge;

And Man, whose mere necessities

    Move all things from his path,

Trembles meanwhile at their decrees,

    And deprecates their wrath!

NATURAL THEOLOGY

PRIMITIVE

I ate my fill of a whale that died

    And stranded after a month at sea …

There is a pain in my inside.

    Why have the Gods afflicted me?

Ow! I am purged till I am a wraith!

    Wow! I am sick till I cannot see!

What is the sense of Religion and Faith?

    Look how the Gods have afflicted me!

PAGAN

How can the skin of a rat or mouse hold

    Anything more than a harmless flea? …

The burning plague has taken my household.

    Why have my Gods afflicted me?

All my kith and kin are deceased,

    Though they were as good as good could be.

I will out and batter the family priest,

    Because my Gods have afflicted me!

MEDIAEVAL

My privy and well drain into each other

    After the custom of Christendie …

Fevers and fluxes are wasting my mother.

    Why has the Lord afflicted me?

The Saints are helpless for all I offer –

    So are the clergy I used to fee.

Henceforward I keep my cash in my coffer,

    Because the Lord has afflicted me.

MATERIAL

I run eight hundred hens to the acre.

    They die by dozens mysteriously …

I am more than doubtful concerning my Maker.

    Why has the Lord afflicted me?

What a return for all my endeavour –

    Not to mention the £ s d!

I am an atheist now and for ever,

    Because this God has afflicted me!

PROGRESSIVE

Money spent on an Army or Fleet

    Is homicidal lunacy …

My son has been killed in the Mons retreat.

    Why is the Lord afflicting me?

Why are murder, pillage and arson

    And rape allowed by the Deity?

I will write to the Times, deriding our parson

    Because my God has afflicted me.

CHORUS

We had a kettle: we let it leak:

    Our not repairing it made it worse.

We haven’t had any tea for a week …

    The bottom is out of the Universe!

CONCLUSION

This was none of the good Lord’s pleasure,

    For the Spirit He breathed in Man is free;

But what comes after is measure for measure,

    And not a God that afflicteth thee.

As was the sowing so the reaping

    Is now and evermore shall be.

Thou art delivered to thy own keeping.

    Only thyself hath afflicted thee!

A DEATH-BED

‘This is the State above the Law

    The State exists for the State alone.’

[This is a gland at the back of the jaw,

    And an answering lump by the collar-bone.]

Some die shouting in gas or fire;

    Some die silent, by shell and shot.

Some die desperate, caught on the wire;

    Some die suddenly. This will not.

‘Regis suprema voluntas Lex’

    [It will follow the regular course of – throats.]

Some die pinned by the broken decks,

    Some die sobbing beneath the boats.

Some die eloquent, pressed to death

    By the sliding trench, as their friends can hear.

Some die wholly in half a breath.

    Some – give trouble for half a year.

‘There is neither Evil nor Good in life,

    Except as the needs of the State ordain.’

[Since it is rather too late for the knife,

    All we can do is to mask the pain.]

Some die saintly in faith and hope –

    One died thus in a prison-yard –

Some die broken by rape or the rope;

    Some die easily. This dies hard.

‘I will dash to pieces who bar my way,

    Woe to the traitor! Woe to the weak!’

[Let him write what he wishes to say.

    It tires him out if he tries to speak.]

Some die quietly. Some abound

    In loud self-pity. Others spread

Bad morale through the cots around …

    This is a type that is better dead.

‘The war was forced on me by my foes.

    All that I sought was the right to live.’

[Don’t be afraid of a triple dose;

    The pain will neutralize half we give.]

Here are the needles. See that he dies

    While the effects of the drug endure …

What is the question he asks with his eyes?

    Yes, All-Highest, to God, be sure.]

EPITAPHS OF THE WAR

‘EQUALITY OF SACRIFICE’

A. ‘I was a “have”.’ B. ‘I was a “have-not”.’

    (Together). ‘What hast thou given which I gave not?’

A SERVANT

We were together since the War began.

He was my servant – and the better man.

A SON

My son was killed while laughing at some jest.

               I would I knew

What it was, and it might serve me in a time when

               jests are few.

AN ONLY SON

I have slain none except my Mother. She

(Blessing her slayer) died of grief for me.

EX-CLERK

Pity not! The Army gave

Freedom to a timid slave:

In which Freedom did he find

Strength of body, will, and mind:

By which strength he came to prove

Mirth, Companionship, and Love:

For which Love to Death he went:

In which Death he lies content.

THE WONDER

Body and Spirit I surrendered whole

To harsh Instructors – and received a soul …

If mortal man could change me through and through

From all I was – what may the God not do?

HINDU SEPOY IN FRANCE

This man in his own country prayed we know not to

               what Powers.

We pray Them to reward him for his bravery in ours.

THE COWARD

I could not look on Death, which being known,

Men led me to him, blindfold and alone.

SHOCK

My name, my speech, my self I had forgot.

My wife and children came – I knew them not.

I died.    My Mother followed.    At her call

And on her bosom I remembered all.

A GRAVE NEAR CAIRO

Gods of the Nile, should this stout fellow here

Get out – get out! He knows not shame nor fear.

PELICANS IN THE WILDERNESS

A Grave Near Halfa

The blown sand heaps on me, that none may learn

    Where I am laid for whom my children grieve …

O wings that beat at dawning, ye return

    Out of the desert to your young at eve!

TWO CANADIAN MEMORIALS

    I

We giving all gained all.

    Neither lament us nor praise.

Only in all things recall,

    It is Fear, not Death that slays.

    II

From little towns in a far land we came,

    To save our honour and a world aflame.

By little towns in a far land we sleep;

    And trust that world we won for you to keep!

THE FAVOUR

Death favoured me from the first, well knowing

               I could not endure

    To wait on him day by day.    He quitted my betters

               and came

Whistling over the fields, and, when he had made

               all sure,

    ‘Thy line is at end,’ he said, ‘but at least I have saved

               its name.’

THE BEGINNER

On the first hour of my first day

    In the front trench I fell.

(Children in boxes at a play

    Stand up to watch it well.)

R.A.F. (AGED EIGHTEEN)

Laughing through clouds, his milk-teeth still unshed,

Cities and men he smote from overhead.

His deaths delivered, he returned to play

Childlike, with childish things now put away.

THE REFINED MAN

I was of delicate mind. I stepped aside for my needs,

    Disdaining the common office. I was seen from afar

               and killed …

How is this matter for mirth? Let each man be judged

               by his deeds.

    I have paid my price to live with myself on the terms that

               I willed.

NATIVE WATER-CARRIER (M.E.F.)

Prometheus brought down fire to men,

    This brought up water.

The Gods are jealous – now, as then,

    They gave no quarter.

BOMBED IN LONDON

On land and sea I strove with anxious care

To escape conscription. It was in the air!

THE SLEEPY SENTINEL

Faithless the watch that I kept: now I have none to keep.

I was slain because I slept: now I am slain I sleep.

Let no man reproach me again, whatever watch is

               unkept –

I sleep because I am slain. They slew me because I slept.

BATTERIES OUT OF AMMUNITION

If any mourn us in the workshop, say

We died because the shift kept holiday.

COMMON FORM

If any question why we died,

Tell them, because our fathers lied.

A DEAD STATESMAN

I could not dig: I dared not rob:

Therefore I lied to please the mob.

Now all my lies are proved untrue

And I must face the men I slew.

What tale shall serve me here among

Mine angry and defrauded young?

THE REBEL

If I had clamoured at Thy Gate

    For gift of Life on Earth,

And, thrusting through the souls that wait,

    Flung headlong into birth –

Even then, even then, for gin and snare

    About my pathway spread,

Lord, I had mocked Thy thoughtful care

    Before I joined the Dead!

But now? … I was beneath Thy Hand

    Ere yet the Planets came.

And now – though Planets pass, I stand

    The witness to Thy Shame.

THE OBEDIENT

Daily, though no ears attended,

    Did my prayers arise.

Daily, though no fire descended,

    Did I sacrifice.

Though my darkness did not lift,

    Though I faced no lighter odds,

Though the Gods bestowed no gift,

    None the less,

None the less, I served the Gods!

A DRIFTER OFF TARENTUM

He from the wind-bitten North with ship and

               companions descended,

    Searching for eggs of death spawned by invisible hulls.

Many he found and drew forth.    Of a sudden the

               fishery ended

    In flame and a clamorous breath not new to the

                         eye-pecking gulls.

DESTROYERS IN COLLISION

For Fog and Fate no charm is found

    To lighten or amend.

I, hurrying to my bride, was drowned –

    Cut down by my best friend.

CONVOY ESCORT

I was a shepherd to fools

    Causelessly bold or afraid.

They would not abide by my rules.

    Yet they escaped.    For I stayed.

UNKNOWN FEMALE CORPSE

Headless, lacking foot and hand,

Horrible I come to land.

I beseech all women’s sons

Know I was a mother once.

RAPED AND AVENGED

One used and butchered me: another spied

Me broken – for which thing an hundred died.

So it was learned among the heathen hosts

How much a freeborn woman’s favour costs.

SALONIKAN GRAVE

I have watched a thousand days

Push out and crawl into night

Slowly as tortoises.

Now I, too, follow these.

It is fever, and not the fight –

Time, not battle – that slays.

THE BRIDEGROOM

Call me not false, beloved,

    If, from thy scarce-known breast

So little time removed,

    In other arms I rest.

For this more ancient bride,

    Whom coldly I embrace,

Was constant at my side

    Before I saw thy face.

Our marriage, often set –

    By miracle delayed –

At last is consummate,

    And cannot be unmade.

Live, then, whom Life shall cure,

    Almost, of Memory,

And leave us to endure

    Its immortality.

V.A.D. (MEDITERRANEAN)

Ah, would swift ships had never been, for then we

               ne’er had found,

These harsh Aegean rocks between, this little virgin

               drowned,

Whom neither spouse nor child shall mourn, but men

               she nursed through pain

And – certain keels for whose return the heathen look

               in vain.

ACTORS

On a Memorial Tablet in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon

We counterfeited once for your disport

    Men’s joy and sorrow: but our day has passed.

We pray you pardon all where we fell short –

    Seeing we were your servants to this last.

JOURNALISTS

On a Panel in the Hall of the Institute of Journalists

We have served our day.

THE GODS OF THE COPYBOOK HEADINGS

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,

I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the

               Market-Place.

Peering through reverent fingers I watch them

               flourish and fall,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice,

               outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed

               us each in turn

That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would

               certainly burn:

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and

               Breadth of Mind,

So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed

               the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered

               their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of

               the Market-Place;

But they always caught up with our progress, and

               presently word would come

That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the

               lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were

               utterly out of touch,

They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied

               she was even Dutch.

They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied

               that a Pig had Wings.

So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who

               promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They

               promised perpetual peace.

They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the

               wars of the tribes would cease.

But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us

               bound to our foe,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘Stick to

               the Devil you know.’

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised

               the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by

               loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children and the men

               lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said:

               ‘The Wages of Sin is Death.’

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised

               abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was

               nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘If you

               don’t work you die.’

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their

               smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and

               began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two

               make Four –

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to

               explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man –

There are only four things certain since Social

               Progress began: –

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns

               to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling

               back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new

               world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must

               pay for his sins,

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire

               will burn,

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and

               slaughter return!

DOCTORS

Man dies too soon, beside his works half-planned.

    His days are counted and reprieve is vain:

Who shall entreat with Death to stay his hand,

    Or cloke the shameful nakedness of pain?

Send here the bold, the seekers of the way –

    The passionless, the unshakeable of soul,

Who serve the inmost mysteries of man’s clay,

    And ask no more than leave to make them whole.

LOLLIUS

HORACE, Bk V. Ode 13

Why gird at Lollius if he care

    To purchase in the city’s sight,

With nard and roses for his hair,

    The name of Knight?

Son of unmitigated sires

    Enriched by trade in Afric corn,

His wealth allows, his wife requires,

    Him to be born.

Him slaves shall serve with zeal renewed

    At lesser wage for longer whiles,

And school- and station-masters rude

    Receive with smiles.

His bowels shall be sought in charge

    By learned doctors; all his sons

And nubile daughters shall enlarge

    Their horizons.

For fierce she-Britons, apt to smite

    Their upward-climbing sisters down,

Shall smooth their plumes and oft invite

    The brood to town.

For these delights will he disgorge

    The State enormous benefice,

But – by the head of either George –

    He pays not twice!

Whom neither lust for public pelf,

    Nor itch to make orations, vex –

Content to honour his own self

    With his own cheques –

That man is clean. At least, his house

    Springs cleanly from untainted gold –

Not from a conscience or a spouse

    Sold and resold.

Time was, you say, before men knew

    Such arts, and rose by Virtue guided?

The tables rock with laughter – you

    Not least derided.

THE LAST ODE

HORACE, Bk V. Ode 31

As watchers couched beneath a Bantine oak,

    Hearing the dawn-wind stir,

Know that the present strength of night is broke

    Though no dawn threatens her

Till dawn’s appointed hour – so Virgil died,

Aware of change at hand, and prophesied.

Change upon all the Eternal Gods had made

    And on the Gods alike –

Fated as dawn but, as the dawn, delayed

    Till the just hour should strike –

A Star new-risen above the living and dead;

    And the lost shades that were our loves restored

As lovers, and for ever. So he said;

    Having received the word …

Maecenas waits me on the Esquilme:

    Thither to-night go I …

And shall this dawn restore us, Virgil mine,

    To dawn? Beneath what sky?

LONDON STONE

When you come to London Town,

    (Grieving – grieving!)

Bring your flowers and lay them down

    At the place of grieving.

When you come to London Town,

    (Grieving – grieving!)

Bow your head and mourn your own,

    With the others grieving.

For those minutes, let it wake

    (Grieving – grieving!)

All the empty-heart and ache

    That is not cured by grieving.

For those minutes, tell no lie:

    (Grieving – grieving!)

‘Grave, this is your victory;

    And the sting of death is grieving.’

Where’s our help, from Earth or Heaven.

    (Grieving – grieving!)

To comfort us for what we’ve given,

    And only gained the grieving?

Heaven’s too far and Earth too near,

    (Grieving – grieving!)

But our neighbour’s standing here,

    Grieving as we’re grieving.

What’s his burden every day?

    (Grieving – grieving!)

Nothing man can count or weigh,

    But loss and love’s own grieving.

What is the tie betwixt us two

    (Grieving – grieving!)

That must last our whole lives through?

‘as I suffer, so do you.’

    That may ease the grieving.

THE FLIGHT

When the grey geese heard the Fool’s tread

    Too near to where they lay,

They lifted neither voice nor head,

    But took themselves away.

No water broke, no pinion whirred –

    There came no warning call.

The steely, sheltering rushes stirred

    A little – that was all.

Only the osiers understood,

    And the drowned meadows spied

What else than wreckage of a flood

    Stole outward on that tide.

But the far beaches saw their ranks

    Gather and greet and grow

By myriads on the naked banks

    Watching their sign to go;

Till, with a roar of wings that churned

    The shivering shoals to foam,

Flight after flight took air and turned

    To find a safer home;

And, far below their steadfast wedge,

    They heard (and hastened on)

Men thresh and clamour through the sedge

    Aghast that they were gone!

And, when men prayed them come anew

    And nest where they were bred,

‘Nay, fools foretell what knaves will do,’

    Was all the grey geese said.

CHARTRES WINDOWS

Colour fulfils where Music has no power:

    By each man’s light the unjudging glass betrays

All men’s surrender, each man’s holiest hour

    And all the lit confusion of our days –

Purfled with iron, traced in dusk and fire,

    Challenging ordered Time who, at the last,

    Shall bring it, grozed and leaded and wedged fast,

    To the cold stone that curbs or crowns desire.

    Yet on the pavement that all feet have trod –

    Even as the Spirit, in her deeps and heights,

Turns only, and that voiceless, to her God –

    There falls no tincture from those anguished lights.

And Heaven’s one light, behind them, striking through,

Blazons what each man dreamed no other knew.

A LEGEND OF TRUTH

Once on a time, the ancient legends tell,

Truth, rising from the bottom of her well,

Looked on the world, but, hearing how it lied,

Returned to her seclusion horrified.

There she abode, so conscious of her worth,

Not even Pilate’s Question called her forth,

Nor Galileo, kneeling to deny

The Laws that hold our Planet ’neath the sky.

Meantime, her kindlier sister, whom men call

Fiction, did all her work and more than all,

With so much zeal, devotion, tact, and care,

That no one noticed Truth was otherwhere.

Then came a War when, bombed and gassed and mined,

Truth rose once more, perforce, to meet mankind,

And through the dust and glare and wreck of things,

Beheld a phantom on unbalanced wings,

Reeling and groping, dazed, dishevelled, dumb,

But semaphoring direr deeds to come.

Truth hailed and bade her stand; the quavering shade

Clung to her knees and babbled, ‘Sister, aid!

I am – I was – Thy Deputy, and men

Besought me for my useful tongue or pen

To gloss their gentle deeds, and I complied,

And they and thy demands, were satisfied.

But this –’ she pointed o’er the blistered plain,

Where men as Gods and devils wrought amain –

‘This is beyond me!    Take thy work again.’

Tablets and pen transferred, she fled afar,

And Truth assumed the record of the War …

She saw, she heard, she read, she tried to tell

Facts beyond precedent and parallel –

Unfit to hint or breathe, much less to write,

But happening every minute, day and night.

She called for proof. It came. The dossiers grew.

She marked them, first, ‘Return. This can’t be true.’

Then, underneath the cold official word:

‘This is not really half of what occurred.’

She faced herself at last, the story runs,

And telegraphed her sister. ‘Come at once.

Facts out of hand. Unable overtake

Without your aid. Come back for Truth’s own sake!

Co-equal rank and powers if you agree.

They need us both, but you far more than me!’

WE AND THEY

Father, Mother, and Me,

    Sister and Auntie say

All the people like us are We,

    And every one else is They.

And They live over the sea,

    While we live over the way,

But – would you believe it? – They look upon We

    As only a sort of They!

We eat pork and beef

    With cow-horn-handled knives.

They who gobble Their rice off a leaf,

    Are horrified out of Their lives;

While They who live up a tree,

    And feast on grubs and clay,

(Isn’t it scandalous?) look upon We

    As a simply disgusting They!

We shoot birds with a gun

    They stick lions with spears.

Their full-dress is un-.

    We dress up to Our ears.

They like Their friends for tea.

    We like Our friends to stay;

And, after all that, They look upon We

    As an utterly ignorant They!

We eat kitcheny food.

    We have doors that latch.

They drink milk or blood,

    Under an open thatch.

We have Doctors to fee.

    They have Wizards to pay.

And (impudent heathen!) They look upon We

    As a quite impossible They!

All good people agree,

    And all good people say,

All nice people, like Us, are We

    And every one else is They:

But if you cross over the sea,

    Instead of over the way,

You may end by (think of it!) looking on We

    As only a sort of They!

UNTIMELY

Nothing in life has been made by man for man’s using

But it was shown long since to man in ages

Lost as the name of the maker of it.

Who received oppression and shame for his wages –

Hate, avoidance, and scorn in his daily dealings –

Until he perished, wholly confounded.

More to be pitied than he are the wise

Souls which foresaw the evil of loosing

Knowledge or Art before time, and aborted

Noble devices and deep-wrought healings,

Lest offence should arise.

Heaven delivers on earth the Hour that cannot be

               thwarted,

Neither advanced, at the price of a world nor a soul,

               and its Prophet

Comes through the blood of the vanguards who

               dreamed – too soon – it had sounded.

GERTRUDE’S PRAYER

That which is marred at birth Time shall not mend,

    Nor water out of bitter well make clean;

An evil thing returneth at the end,

    Or elseway walketh in our blood unseen.

Whereby the more is sorrow in certame –

Dayspring mishandled cometh not againe.

To-bruizèd be that slender, sterting spray

    Out of the oake’s rind that should betide

A branch of girt and goodliness, straightway

    Her spring is turnèd on herself, and wried

And knotted like some gall or veiney wen. –

Dayspring mishandled cometh not agen.

Noontide repayeth never morning-bliss –

    Sith noon to morn is incomparable;

And, so it be our dawning goth amiss,

    None other after-hour serveth well.

Ah! Jesu-Moder, pitie my oe paine –

Dayspring mishandled cometh not againe!

THE THRESHOLD

In their deepest caverns of limestone

    They pictured the Gods of Food –

The Horse, the Elk, and the Bison

    That the hunting might be good;

With the Gods of Death and Terror –

    The Mammoth, Tiger and Bear.

And the pictures moved in the torchlight

    To show that the Gods were there!

               But that was before Ionia –

               (Or the Seven Holy Islands of Ionia)

               Any of the Mountains of Ionia,

               Had bared their peaks to the air.

The close years packed behind them,

    As the glaciers bite and grind,

Filling the new gouged valleys

    With Gods of every kind.

Gods of all-reaching power –

    Gods of all-searching eyes –

But each to be wooed by worship

    And won by sacrifice.

               Till, after many winters, rose Ionia –

               (Strange men brooding in Ionia)

               Crystal-eyed Sages of Ionia

               Who said, ‘These tales are lies.

‘We dream one Breath in all things,

    ‘That blows all things between.

‘We dream one Matter in all things –

    ’eternal, changeless, unseen.

‘That the heart of the Matter is single

    ‘Till the Breath shall bid it bring forth –

‘By choosing or losing its neighbour –

    ‘All things made upon Earth.’

               But Earth was wiser than Ionia

               (Babylon and Egypt than Ionia)

               And they overlaid the teaching of Ionia

               And the Truth was choked at birth.

It died at the Gate of Knowledge –

    The Key to the Gate in its hand –

And the anxious priests and wizards

    Re-blinded the wakening land;

For they showed, by answering echoes,

    And chasing clouds as they rose,

How shadows could stand for bulwarks

    Between mankind and its woes.

               It was then that men bethought them of Ionia

               (The few that had not allforgot Ionia)

               Or the Word that was whispered in Ionia;

               And they turned from the shadows and the shows.

They found one Breath in all things,

    That moves all things between.

They proved one Matter in all things –

    Eternal, changeless, unseen;

That the heart of the Matter was single

    Till the Breath should bid it bring forth –

               Even as men whispered in Ionia,

               (Resolute, unsatisfied Ionia)

               Ere the Word was stifled in Ionia –

               All things known upon earth!

THE EXPERT

Youth that trafficked along with Death,

    And to second life returns,

Squanders little time or breath

    On his fellow man’s concerns.

Earnèd peace is all he asks

To fulfil his broken tasks.

Yet, if he find war at home

    (Waspish and importunate),

He hath means to overcome

    Any warrior at his gate;

For the past he buried brings

Back unburiable things –

Nights that he lay out to spy

    Whence and when the raid might start;

Or prepared in secrecy

    Sudden Things to break its heart –

All the lore of No-Man’s Land

Steels his soul and arms his hand.

So, if conflict vex his life

    Where he thought all conflict done,

He, resuming ancient strife,

    Springs his mine or trains his gun;

And, in mirth more dread than wrath,

Wipes the nuisance from his path!

FOUR-FEET

I have done mostly what most men do,

And pushed it out of my mind;

But I can’t forget, if I wanted to,

Four-Feet trotting behind.

Day after day, the whole day through –

Wherever my road inclined –

Four-Feet said, ‘I am coming with you!’

And trotted along behind.

Now I must go by some other round –

Which I shall never find –

Somewhere that does not carry the sound

Of Four-Feet trotting behind.

THE STORM CONE

This is the midnight – let no star

Delude us – dawn is very far.

This is the tempest long foretold –

Slow to make head but sure to hold.

Stand by!    The lull ’twixt blast and blast

Signals the storm is near, not past;

And worse than present jeopardy

May our forlorn to-morrow be.

If we have cleared the expectant reef,

Let no man look for his relief.

Only darkness hides the shape

Of further peril to escape.

It is decreed that we abide

The weight of gale against the tide

And those huge waves the outer main

Sends in to set us back again.

They fall and whelm.