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 went 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,

Giving 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 the 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 known 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 REVENGED

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.

5

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,

10

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;

15

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,

20

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.’

25

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,

30

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: –

35

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,

40

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

The Clerks and the Bells

(OXFORD IN 1920)

The Merry clerks of Oxenford they stretch themselves at ease

Unhelmeted on unbleached sward beneath unshrivelled trees,

For the leaves, the leaves, are on the bough, the bark is on the bole,

And East and West men’s housen stand all even-roofed and whole …

5

(Men’s housen doored and glazed and floored and whole at every turn!)

And so the Bells of Oxenford ring: – ‘Time it is to learn!’

The merry clerks of Oxenford they read and they are told

Of famous men who drew the sword in furious fights of old.

They heark and mark it faithfully, but never clerk will write

10

What vision rides ’twixt book and eye from any nearer fight.

(Whose supplication rends the soul? Whose night-long cries repeat?)

And so the Bells of Oxenford ring: – ‘Time it is to eat!’

The merry clerks of Oxenford they sit them down anon

At tables fair with silver-ware and naperies thereon,

15

Free to refuse or dainty choose what dish shall seem them good;

For they have done with single meats, and waters streaked with blood …

(That three days’ fast is overpast when all those guns said ‘Nay’!)

And so the Bells of Oxenford ring: – ‘Time it is to play!’

The merry clerks of Oxenford they hasten one by one

20

Or band in companies abroad to ride, or row, or run

By waters level with fair meads all goldenly bespread,

Where flash June’s clashing dragon-flies – but no man bows his head,

(Though bullet-wise June’s dragon-flies deride the fearless air!)

And so the Bells of Oxenford ring: ‘Time it is for prayer!’

25

The pious clerks of Oxenford they kneel at twilight-tide

For to receive and well believe the Word of Him Who died.

And, though no present wings of Death hawk hungry round that place,

Their brows are bent upon their hands that none may see their face –

(Who set aside the world and died? What life shall please Him best?)

30

And so the Bells of Oxenford ring: ‘Time it is to rest!’

The merry clerks of Oxenford lie under bolt and bar

Lest they should rake the midnight clouds or chase a sliding star.

In fear of fine and dread rebuke, they round their full-night sleep,

And leave that world which once they took for older men to keep,

35

(Who walks by dreams what ghostly wood in search of playmate slain?)

Until the Bells of Oxenford ring in the light again.

Unburdened breeze, unstricken trees, and all God’s works restored –

In this way live the merry clerks – the clerks of Oxenford!

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?

5

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

10

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

15

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

20

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!

25

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

30

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? …

35

The tables rock with laughter – you

Not least derided.

London Stone

11 NOVEMBER, 1923

When you come to London Town,

(Grieving – grieving!)

Bring your flowers and lay them down

At the place of grieving.

5

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

10

(Grieving – grieving!)

All the empty-heart and ache

That is not cured by grieving.

For those minutes, tell no lie:

(Grieving – grieving!)

15

‘Grave, this is thy 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,

20

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.

25

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

30

(Grieving – grieving!)

That must last our whole lives through?

‘As I suffer, so do you.’

That may ease the grieving.

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 cloak the shameful nakedness of pain?

5

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.

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 –

5

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 –

10

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.

The Changelings

(R.N.V.R.)

Or ever the battered liners sank

With their passengers to the dark,

I was head of a Walworth Bank,

And you were a grocer’s clerk.

5

I was a dealer in stocks and shares,

And you in butters and teas;

And we both abandoned our own affairs

And took to the dreadful seas.

Wet and worry about our ways –

10

Panic, onset, and flight –

Had us in charge for a thousand days

And a thousand-year-long night.

We saw more than the nights could hide –

More than the waves could keep –

15

And – certain faces over the side

Which do not go from our sleep.

We were more tired than words can tell

While the pied craft fled by,

And the swinging mounds of the Western swell

20

Hoisted us heavens-high …

Now there is nothing – not even our rank –

To witness what we have been;

And I am returned to my Walworth Bank,

And you to your margarine!

Gipsy Vans

Unless you come of the gipsy stock

That steals by night and day,

Lock your heart with a double lock

And throw the key away.

5

Bury it under the blackest stone

Beneath your father’s hearth,

And keep your eyes on your lawful own

And your feet to the proper path.

Then you can stand at your door and mock

10

When the gipsy vans come through …

For it isn’t right that the Gorgio stock

Should live as the Romany do.

Unless you come of the gipsy blood

That takes and never spares,

15

Bide content with your given good

And follow your own affairs.

Plough and harrow and roll your land,

And sow what ought to be sowed;

But never let loose your heart from your hand,

20

Nor flitter it down the road!

Then you can thrive on your boughten food

As the gipsy vans come through …

For it isn’t nature the Gorgio blood

Should love as the Romany do.

25

Unless you carry the gipsy eyes

That see but seldom weep,

Keep your head from the naked skies

Or the stars’ll trouble your sleep.

Watch your moon through your window-pane

30

And take what weather she brews;

But don’t run out in the midnight rain

Nor home in the morning dews.

Then you can huddle and shut your eyes

As the gipsy vans come through…

35

For it isn’t fitting the Gorgio ryes

Should walk as the Romany do.

Unless you come of the gipsy race

That counts all time the same,

Be you careful of Time and Place

40

And Judgment and Good Name:

Lose your life for to live your life

The way that you ought to do;

And when you are finished, your God and your wife

And the Gipsies’ll laugh at you!

45

Then you can rot in your burying-place

As the gipsy vans come through…

For it isn’t reason the Gorgio race

Should die as the Romany do.

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.

5

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

10

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,

15

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

20

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.

25

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 …

30

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.

35

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.

40

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.

5

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

10

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,

15

(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-.

20

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!

25

We eat kitcheny food.

We have doors that latch.

They drink milk or blood,

Under an open thatch.

We have Doctors to fee.

30

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,

35

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

40

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 –

5

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

10

Noble devices and deep-wrought healings,

Lest offence should arise.

Heaven delivers to 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.

A Rector’s Memory

(ST ANDREWS, 1923)

The Gods that are wiser than Learning

But kinder than Life have made sure

No mortal may boast in the morning

That even will find him secure.

5

With naught for fresh faith or new trial,

With little unsoiled or unsold,

Can the shadow go back on the dial,

Or a new world be given for the old?

But he knows not what time shall awaken,

10

As he knows not what tide shall lay bare,

The heart of a man to be taken –

Taken and changed unaware.

He shall see as he tenders his vows

The far, guarded City arise –

15

The power of the North ’twixt her brows –

The steel of the North in her eyes;

The sheer hosts of Heaven above –

The grey warlock Ocean beside;

And shall feel the full centuries move

20

To Her purpose and pride.

Though a stranger shall he understand,

As though it were old in his blood,

The lives that caught fire ’neath Her hand –

The fires that were tamed to Her mood.

25

And the roar of the wind shall refashion,

And the wind-driven torches recall,

The passing of Time and the passion

Of Youth over all!

And, by virtue of magic unspoken

30

(What need She should utter Her power?)

The frost at his heart shall be broken

And his spirit be changed in that hour –

Changed and renewed in that hour!

Memories

1930

‘The eradication of memories of the Great War.’

Socialist Government Organ

The Socialist Government speaks:

Though all the Dead were all forgot

And razed were every tomb,

The Worm – the Worm that dieth not

Compels Us to our doom.

5

Though all which once was England stands

Subservient to Our will,

The Dead of whom we washed Our hands,

They have observance still.

We laid no finger to Their load.

10

We multiplied Their woes.

We used Their dearly-opened road

To traffic with Their foes:

And yet to Them men turn their eyes,

To Them are vows renewed

15

Of Faith, Obedience, Sacrifice,

Honour and Fortitude!

Which things must perish. But Our hour

Comes not by staves or swords

So much as, subtly, through the power

20

Of small corroding words.

No need to make the plot more plain

By any open thrust;

But – see Their memory is slain

Long ere Their bones are dust!

25

Wisely, but yearly, filch some wreath –

Lay some proud rite aside –

And daily tarnish with Our breath

The ends for which They died.

Distract, deride, decry, confuse –

30

(Or – if it serve Us – pray!)

So presently We break the use

And meaning of Their day!

Gertrude’s Prayer

That which is marred at birth Time shall not mend,

Nor water out of bitter well make clean;

All evil thing returneth at the end,

Or elseway walketh in our blood unseen.

5

Whereby the more is sorrow in certaine –

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

10

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;

15

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!

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.

5

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, –

10

Which I shall never find –

Somewhere that does not carry the sound

Of Four-Feet trotting behind.

The Disciple

He that hath a Gospel

To loose upon Mankind,

Though he serve it utterly –

Body, soul and mind –

5

Though he go to Calvary

Daily for its gain –

It is His Disciple

Shall make his labour vain.

He that hath a Gospel

10

For all earth to own –

Though he etch it on the steel,

Or carve it on the stone –

Not to be misdoubted

Through the after-days –

15

It is His Disciple

Shall read it many ways.

It is His Disciple

(Ere Those Bones are dust)

Who shall change the Charter,

20

Who shall split the Trust –

Amplify distinctions,

Rationalize the Claim,

Preaching that the Master

Would have done the same.

25

It is His Disciple

Who shall tell us how

Much the Master would have scrapped

Had he lived till now –

What he would have modified

30

Of what he said before –

It is His Disciple

Shall do this and more …

He that hath a Gospel

Whereby Heaven is won

35

(Carpenter, or Cameleer,

Or Maya’s dreaming son),

Many swords shall pierce Him,

Mingling blood with gall;

But His Own Disciple

40

Shall wound Him worst of all!

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;

5

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 –

10

(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,

15

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

20

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.

25

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

30

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

35

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

40

Re-blinded the wakening land;

For they showed, by answering echoes,

And chasing clouds as they rose,

How shadows should stand for bulwarks

Between mankind and its woes.

45

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,

50

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 –

55

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 long with Death,

And to second life returns,

Squanders little time or breath

On his fellow-man’s concerns.

5

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

10

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;

15

Or prepared in secrecy

Sudden blows to break its heart –

All the lore of No-Man’s Land

Moves his soul and arms his hand.

So, if conflict vex his life

20

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!

The Storm Cone

1932

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.

5

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,

10

Let no man look for his relief.

Only the darkness hides the shape

Of further peril to escape.

It is decreed that we abide

The weight of gale against the tide

15

And those huge waves the outer main

Sends in to set us back again.

They fall and whelm. We strain to hear

The pulses of her labouring gear,

Till the deep throb beneath us proves,

20

After each shudder and check, she moves!

She moves, with all save purpose lost,

To make her offing from the coast;

But, till she fetches open sea,

Let no man deem that he is free!

The Bonfires

1933

‘Gesture … outlook … vision … avenue … example … achievement … appeasement … limit of risk.’

Common Political Form

We know the Rocket’s upward whizz;

We know the Boom before the Bust.

We know the whistling Wail which is

The Stick returning to the Dust.

5

We know how much to take on trust

Of any promised Paradise.

We know the Pie – likewise the Crust.

We know the Bonfire on the Ice.

We know the Mountain and the Mouse.

10

We know Great Cry and Little Wool.

We know the purseless Ears of Sows.

We know the Frog that aped the Bull.

We know, whatever Trick we pull,

(Ourselves have gambled once or twice)

15

A Bobtailed Flush is not a Full

We know the Bonfire on the Ice.

We know that Ones and Ones make Twos –

Till Demos votes them Three or Nought.

We know the Fenris Wolf is loose.

20

We know what Fight has not been fought.

We know the Father to the Thought

Which argues Babe and Cockatrice

Would play together, were they taught.

We know that Bonfire on the Ice.

25

We know that Thriving comes by Thrift.

We know the Key must keep the Door.

We know his Boot-straps cannot lift

The frightened Waster off the Floor.

We know these things, and we deplore

30

That not by any Artifice

Can they be altered. Furthermore

We know the Bonfires on the Ice!

The Appeal

If I have given you delight

By aught that I have done,

Let me lie quiet in that night

Which shall be yours anon:

5

And for the little, little, span

The dead are borne in mind,

Seek not to question other than

The books I leave behind.