The Project Gutenberg eBook of Bread and Circuses

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Title: Bread and Circuses

Author: Helen Parry Eden

Release date: February 26, 2020 [eBook #61517]

Most recently updated: October 17, 2024

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, Paul Marshall, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BREAD AND CIRCUSES ***

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Bread and Circuses, by Helen Parry Eden

Note:

Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/breadcircuses00edeniala

BREAD AND CIRCUSES

BY

HELEN PARRY EDEN

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY

TORONTO: BELL & COCKBURN MCMXIV

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

ERRATA

Page

4,

line

11,

for

“about”

read

“above.”

”

15,

”

5,

for

“who”

read

“Who.”

”

55,

”

11,

for

“saw I”

read

“saw that I.”

”

87,

”

15,

for

“Close”

read

“close.”

TO

THE MEMORY OF MY SISTER

JOAN ABBOTT PARRY

THESE, AND MUCH MORE

NOTE

Of the verses contained in this book, the greater part have already appeared, notably in the Westminster Gazette, The Englishwoman, The Daily Chronicle, The Catholic Messenger, The Pall Mall Magazine, T.P.’s Magazine, and Punch. To the proprietors of Punch I am especially indebted for leave to reprint thirteen numbers of which they own the copyright.

H. P. E.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE BROOK ALONG THE ROMSEY ROAD

3

THE POET AND THE WOOD-LOUSE

5

“JAM HIEMS TRANSIIT”

7

“VOX CLAMANTIS”

8

SORROW

9

THE MULBERRY

10

THE WINDOW-SILL

11

THE ANGELUS-BELL

12

THE APPLE-MAN FROM AWBRIDGE

13

OF DULCIBEL

15

THE LADY PHEASANT

16

TIME’S TYRANNESS

17

THE GINGER CAT

19

Μονοχρόνος Ἡδόνη

21

A SONG IN A LANE

22

CRIES OF LONDON

23

THE THIRD BIRTHDAY

25

ONE-EYED JOCKO

26

A SUBURBAN NIGHT’S ENTERTAINMENT

27

“A PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT”

30

HELENA TO HERMIA

31

“EFFANY”

32

THE ARK

34

AN UPLAND STATION

36

THE WORSHIPPERS

38

LINES TO A JOURNALIST, ON HIS PRAISING A NOBLE LORD

RECENTLY CREATED

39

THE BELGIAN PINAFORE

41

THE WIND

43

TO BETSEY-JANE, ON HER DESIRING TO GO

INCONTINENTLY TO HEAVEN

45

IN BETHLEHEM TOWN

46

THE MOON

48

A LADY OF FASHION ON THE DEATH OF HER DOG

49

TO A LITTLE GIRL

51

LINES WRITTEN FOR D. E. IN A COPY OF

“THE CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES”

52

EPISTLE TO THOMAS BLACK, CAT TO THE SOANE MUSEUM

53

FOR MY MOTHER, WITH A NEW BUTTON-BOX

56

A CHILD BEFORE THE CRIB

57

TO MASS AT DAWN

59

THE NUNS’ CHAPEL

60

THE SNARE

61

A HOUSE IN A WOOD

63

THE CONFESSIONAL

65

EPITAPH ON A CHILD, RUN OVER AND KILLED BY

A MOTOR-CAR IN THE STREET

67

THE WATER-MEADS OF MOTTISFONT

70

THE SENIOR MISTRESS OF BLYTH

72

THE FIRST PARTY

75

SOUVENIR OF MICHAEL DRAYTON

77

“FOUR-PAWS”

79

“FOUR-PAWS” IN LONDON

81

TO MY SISTER DOROTHY, WITH A PASTE BROOCH

83

SESTINA, TO D. E.

84

LULLABY FOR A LITTLE GIRL

86

RONDEAU OF SARUM CLOSE

87

THE KNOBBY-GREEN

88

THE CARCANET

89

TO A TOWN CRIER

90

THE TALE OF JOCKO, A STORY FOR A CHILD

91

THE WAG-TAIL

98

HIGH TIDE AT BATTERSEA

100

TO MY DAUGHTER, WHO TELLS ME SHE CAN DRESS HERSELF

101

THE BABY GOAT

103

BOURNEMOUTH TO POOLE:

(1) BOURNEMOUTH

105

(2) POOLE HARBOUR

105

THE JAPANESE DUCKLING

107

THE PRIVET HEDGE

108

THE VEGETARIAN’S DAUGHTER

109

HONEY MEADOW

110

AN ELEGY, FOR FATHER ANSELM, OF THE ORDER OF REFORMED

CISTERCIANS, GUEST-MASTER AND PARISH PRIEST

112

THE REGRET

117

FIRST SNOW

118

TO A CHILD RETURNING HOME UPON A WINDY DAY

119

THE DEATH OF SIR MATHO

120

THE PETALS

124

POST-COMMUNION

126

INDEX TO FIRST LINES

127

THE BROOK ALONG THE

ROMSEY ROAD

The brook along the Romsey road

With cresses fringed about,

Holds waving fins and streaming weeds

And bubbles bright as crystal beads

And root-bound reaches whither speeds

Startled the shadowy trout.

As southward runs the Romsey road

The sunny wind blows harsh

With yellow shale and whirling sands

That sting the faces and the hands

Of us who leave the wooded lands

Of pleasant Michelmarsh.

Where southward runs the Romsey road

Southward lagged Betsey-Jane

Clutching my hand, and still the grit

Lay rough between our fingers, it

Smarted on Betsey’s face and knit

Her little brows with pain.

A bend was in the Romsey road,

Shut off by elms the wind

Was stilled, below a bridge the brook

Came dimpling forth, and Betsey shook

Her fingers free and ran to look,—

I held her frock behind.

On the far shore a wag-tail dipped

His beak,—we gazed below,

And Betsey was content to stand

And see the trout and hold my hand,

And watch them wave above the sand

Until we turned to go.

The brook along the Romsey road

With cresses fringed about

Ran all day long in Betsey’s head,

She played at wag-tails while she fed,

And even as she went to bed

She babbled of the trout.

THE POET AND THE

WOOD-LOUSE

A portly Wood-louse, full of cares,

Transacted eminent affairs

Along a parapet where pears

Unripened fell

And vines embellished the sweet airs

With muscatel.

Day after day beheld him run

His scales a-twinkle in the sun

About his business never done;

Night’s slender span he

Spent in the home his wealth had won—

A red-brick cranny.

Thus, as his Sense of Right directed,

He lived both honoured and respected,

Cherished his children and protected

His duteous wife,

And nought of diffidence deflected

His useful life.

One mid-day, hastening to his Club,

He spied beside a water-tub

The owner of each plant and shrub

A humble Bard

Who turned upon the conscious grub

A mild regard.

“Eh?” quoth the Wood-louse, “Can it be

A Higher Power looks down to see

My praiseworthy activity

And notes me plying

My Daily Task?—Not strange, dear me,

But gratifying!”

To whom the Bard: “I still divest

My orchard of the Insect Pest,

That you are such is manifest,

Prepare to die.—

And yet, how sweetly does your crest

Reflect the sky!

“Go then forgiven, (for what ails

Your naughty life this fact avails

To pardon) mirror in your scales

Celestial blue,

Till the sun sets and the light fails

The skies and you.”

May all we proud and bustling parties

Whose lot in forum, street and mart is

Stand in conspectu Deitatis

And save our face,

Reflecting where our scaly heart is

Some skyey grace.

“JAM HIEMS TRANSIIT”

When the wind blows without the garden walls

Where from high vantage of the budding boughs

The wanton starling claps his wing and brawls

And finches to their half-erected house

Trail silver straws; when on the sand-pit verges

The young lambs leap, when clouds on sunny tiles

Pass and re-pass, then the young Spring emerges

From Winter’s fingers panoplied with smiles.

So some bright demoiselle but late returning

To her old home with new-acquirèd graces

Learnt in some strait academy and burning

To kindle wonderment in homely faces

Smileth, while she who taught her all her arts,

The dark duenna, with a sigh departs.

“VOX CLAMANTIS”

How late in the wet twilight doth that bird

Prolong his ditty; from what darkling thorn,

Dim elder wand or blackest box unstirred

By drip of rain, is the dear descant borne?

So late it is, two seeming candles shine

Athwart blue panes in the extremest hedge,

Ev’n the child’s bunch of daisies close their eyne

In their horn goblet on the window ledge.

Sad is the night, doth it so smell of spring

And wake such ardours in thy pelted breast?

Aye, thou wert ever one to stay and sing

Of surgent East to the declining West:—

And now thou’rt gone, the last of a bright breed,

Draw-to the curtains, it is night indeed.

SORROW

Of Sorrow, ’tis as Saints have said—

That his ill-savoured lamp shall shed

A light to Heaven, when, blown about

By the world’s vain and windy rout,

The candles of delight burn out.

Then usher Sorrow to thy board,

Give him such fare as may afford

Thy single habitation—best

To meet him half-way in his quest,

The importunate and sad-eyed guest.

Yet somewhat should he give who took

Thy hospitality, for look,

His is no random vagrancy,

Beneath his rags what hints there be

Of a celestial livery.

Sweet Sorrow, play a grateful part,

Break me the marble of my heart

And of its fragments pave a street

Where, to my bliss, myself may meet

One hastening with piercèd feet.

THE MULBERRY

Within our garden walls you see

A huge old-fashioned mulberry

Whose purple fruit in summer falls

Into the shade below the walls.

Its blackened trunk grows grim and hard

From the harsh gravel of the yard,

Its crest beholds the winds go by

And scans the milky evening sky.

And like this tree my soul makes mirth,

(Though rooted deep in blackened earth)

For it shall grow till it hath sight

(The walls o’er-topped) of endless light.

THE WINDOW-SILL

The fuchsias dangle on their stem,

The baby girl looks up at them,

The light comes through the muslin frill

Upon the painted window-sill.

She cannot see the world outside

Where men in snorting motors ride,

Each speeding from his far abode

To town, along the Fulham Road.

THE ANGELUS-BELL

My night-dress hangs on fire-guard rail

And my cup of milk on the table stands,

The day goes down like a distant sail

And leaves me undressed in my Mother’s hands.

She has washed me clean of the long day’s grime

And the pillow is cool for my sleepy head,

For the Angelus-bell with its three-fold chime

Has tolled the sun and myself to bed.

THE APPLE-MAN FROM

AWBRIDGE

While I stand upon the pavement and I dress the dusty stall,

Where they sell the travelled apples, I bethink me most of all

How the Quarentines are ripening in Michelmarsh again

And the Apple-man from Awbridge comes a-clinking up the lane.

Sweet and slim the Ladies’ Fingers fall around you as you pass,

And the Hollycores are mellow by the pig-hole in the grass,

’Tis but green they look, you pluck them, and you list the ratt’ling core—

And the Apple-man from Awbridge comes a-chaffering at the door.

Then the first baked batch of Profits, ’twas a treat my mother planned,

Drew them foaming from the oven with the dishcloth round her hand,

She who poured the amber cider to the pewter’s polished brink

And the Apple-man from Awbridge wet the bargain with a drink.

For he buys them by the bushel and he buys them on the trees

And he sends them from the orchard plot to places such as these;

And there’s money in your pocket and a hollow at your heart

When the Apple-man from Awbridge comes a-loading of his cart.

And maybe the nameless apples on the stall in Fulham Road

Once were piled behind his pony in that fresh and fragrant load

And maybe it was my mother pulled the Ladies’ Fingers down;

And the Apple-man from Awbridge turned them over to the town.

OF DULCIBEL

When by the fire-light Dulcibel

Stirs the red ash with lively grace,

Is it the glow of Heaven or Hell

That mantles in her rosy face?

They know, Who for despair and joy

All fateful loveliness have blent,

Who do both comfort and destroy

With the indifferent element.

THE LADY PHEASANT

Whom meet we, Betsey, in the wood?

The Lady Pheasant and her Brood;

So stand we still, to let them pass

On oak-leaves through the tasselled grass.

Down dappled aisles of hazel shade

They disappear along the glade,

My Lady in her rusty gown,

Ten children clad in useful brown.

But one fledged laggard stops to eat

The plantain seeds at Betsey’s feet,

Who plucks my fingers: “Mother, come

We’ll pick him up and take him home!”

The nestling joins the hidden nine

Deep in the copse; and I lift mine

And bear her home along the lane,—

“I want him!” still pouts Betsey-Jane.

TIME’S TYRANNESS

How few alack,

There be along the track

Of life which hear not at their back

(Though small birds sing

And blessèd belfries ring)

The creaking of Time’s iron wing;

And, in mad flight

From an untempted might,

Trample the lovely fields of light,

Nor for a space

Pause in their fearful race

To look their tyrant in the face.—

In you alone,

Dear child, there ever shone

Divine deliberation.

And now in weed

And grass you bid Time speed

Away in dandelion seed,

Till your bright hair,

For the down mingled there,

His very greyness looks to wear.

Ah happy she

Whose gentle hours be

Told by such kind chronometry!

For now Time saith,

Who smiling listeneth,

“Lo, a child flouts me with a breath!”

And so, to assuage

Sweetly a feignèd rage,

He dims your hair with mimic age.

THE GINGER CAT

’Tis the old wife at Rickling, she

Has lost her ginger cat, ’twas he

Who used to share the Master’s tea

Beside the settle,

Or on his corduroy-clad knee

Out-purr the kettle;

Who followed when she pinned a-row

Her flapping gowns of indigo

And watched the apple-petals blow,

With stealthy rapture

Rehearsing in a mimic show

Some mouse’s capture.

At dew-fall, with uncovered head,

What tidings have the old wife led

Hither where oak and hazel shed

Their shadow deeper?

—They say the ginger cat is dead,

Shot by the Keeper.

Through coverts dim her searches lie

(Howe’er so hardly sorrows try

The burden of uncertainty

To bear were harder)

To where things dangle when they die—

The Keeper’s larder.

A bough the larder hangs upon—

Rats, and decaying hedge-hogs grown

Shapeless, and owls their features gone,—

A grisly freight,

And many a weasel skeleton

With hairless pate,

And trophy of cats’ tails arrayed,

Tabby and white and black displayed,

The adornment of the still green glade—

More gay for that

Of him who in the morning strayed,

The ginger cat.

She knows it, and she cuts it down;

Then warm beneath her folded gown

Bestows the severed brush’s brown

And orange bands—

So soft of fur, the tears fall down

Upon her hands.

The copse-wood parts, ’tis she who goes,

Whom shades obscure and star-light shows,

Treading between the hazel rows

The fallen sticks,

Home, where the careless fire-light glows

Along the bricks.

Μονοχρόνος Ἡδόνη.

Pull out my couch across the fire,

Let the flames warm me through,

Though the pain gnaw my back away

There shall be pleasure too!

Search out the desolate garden walks—

What though the year be spent—

There shall be marigolds enough

For the bowl we bought in Ghent:

Fire shall bring out their acrid scents

For a walled garden’s sweets,

With the melody of Flemish bells

And the angles of Flemish streets.

Fire and blossom and dreamful shapes

And I, while the long pain stays,

Ward off the shot of the savage hours

On my rampart of yesterdays.

A SONG IN A LANE

When the Wind comes up the lane

And you go down—

The elms their spacious branches swing,

The hidden hedgelings sing and sing,

The nettle draws aside his sting

And kindly weeds their shadows fling

Across your sunny gown;—

When the Wind comes up the lane

And you go down.

When the Wind comes up the lane

And you go down—

Your tresses, for a gusty space,

Discover all your merry face

And the Wind drops with pinioned grace

To kiss the small white forehead place

Above your summer brown;—

When the Wind comes up the lane

And you go down.

CRIES OF LONDON

What dusky branches fret the yellow sky,

Betsey, beyond our urban balcony

How darkly looms the street;

And from below how many a note assails

Your unaccustomed ears where London wails

About your little feet.

Here, princess of a sombre citadel,

You stand, the muffin-man with twilight bell

Preludes your early tea

And where the milk-man on melodious ways

Slowly meanders, you incline to praise

His clear delivery;

How pitiful you scan the vagabond

Who cries his ferns as though each arid frond

Sprang from his arid heart,

And list the lamentable sweep complain

Urging in wrath against the slanting rain

The sable of his cart.

These for your little ears, so lately blest

With cluck of painted poultry on the nest

And rooks’ loquacious flight,

Who, when the pear-blossom was hardly blown,

Answered the cuckoo’s folly with your own

And chid the owls at night.

Dear, I could thank you for your brave content—

But, ah, beware, when spring is gone and spent,

Lest summer’s dusty stir

Lead gypsies Londonwards from scented loam

Of Mitcham and the furrows nearer home

With song of “Lavender!”

Then close your casement, shun the outer air,

Let no sublime virago mount the stair

And bring the rustic South,

Lest some quick memory of all before

And the great silver bush beside the door,

Deject your happy mouth.

THE THIRD BIRTHDAY

Three candles had her cake,

Which now are burnt away;

We wreathed it for her sake

With currant-leaves and bay

And the last graces

Of Michaelmas Daisies

Pluckt on a misty day.

Curled (as she cut her cake)

In mine her fingers lay;

Purple the petals brake,

Bruised was the scented bay;

Like a yellow moth

On the white white cloth

One currant-leaf flew away.

Three candles lit her state;

Dimmed is their golden reign—

Leaves on an empty plate,

Petals and tallow-stain;

Nor will she

Nor the candles three

Ever be three again.

ONE-EYED JOCKO

The Baby slumbers through the night

With One-eyed Jocko close to her,

She clasps his fluffy limbs so tight

Beside her cheek, her breathings stir

His agèd fur.

When Mother, with the shaded light

Held from the sleepy pillow, stays

To smooth the counterpane, this sight

Of Friendship’s sweet nocturnal ways

Arrests her gaze.

Yet in the nursery by day

Jocko doth all neglected lie

Prone on the hearth-rug, while away

The Baby stalks, unheeded by

His vacant eye.

A SUBURBAN NIGHT’S

ENTERTAINMENT

With a full house of other folks

I pass the night at Sevenoaks;

And, for the air is still outside,

Push the new-painted lattice wide

Where night’s blue decent quilt is drawn

Over the shrubs and tennis-lawn

Up to the very star-lit face

Of the dim unacquainted place.

A yellow street-lamp, hid to me,

Haloes a dusky-headed tree,

And, by a hedge-row screened from sight,

Paves the still road with tranquil light,

Save where the path gold-parapetted

Lies by a shade of leaves o’erfretted;

Leaves dangle dark above the fence,

Their shadowy forms sole evidence

Of their sweet-breath’d nocturnal sleeping

And leaves out-face the light which leaping

A war with monstrous gloom to wage

Spangles a den of foliage.

A second lamp that burns in sight

Fronts shops fast closèd for the night

Whose white façades are all as mild

As eye-lids of a sleeping child

Which in their mute mendacity

The bustle of the day belie.

Among the darkling trees set back,

With many a swarthy chimney-stack,

The great, rich houses of the place

Lie all unlit, while the slow pace

Of night goes on and still lets be

Their dark inert felicity.

Here is all still, save when again

The shuddering cries of the hid train,

Deep in the cutting no one sees,

Muffled below the heavy trees,

Waken the sleeping shrubberies;

And, with red speed and scudding spark,

Disperse the arboreal-scented dark.

Were’t not for these, there is no doubt

But some fair daemon long cast out

(The authentic goddess of the place

Who far too long hath screened her face

And beauty in some beechen bole

Gigantic in the woods of Knole)

Would choose this night for her returning,

The lawns with silent footfall spurning;

And such mis-shapen woodland gods

As work-men with their laden hods

Scattered, when Progress came with Pride

And bound in brick the country-side

And Sevenoaks was edified.

To-night the wan demesne out-spread

By star-light waits her wonted tread;—

Fair! (for the dripping herb is so

Fragrant and dark) forget to know

That the dim grass, your sweet resort,

Is branded for a tennis-court,

Where silent conies scrambled through

The grey-clumped fox-gloves drenched with dew

In the old days so dear to you.

O pardon and forget it all,

The long insulting interval,

Know all a dream, believe them gone,

The urban race, nor having done

Hurt to your oaks nor stained your streams;

So stay, until the windy gleams

Of dawn the occult sweet minstrels wake.

Then through the gloaming by-ways take

Your way bent-headed whence you stole

Last night, the covert ferns of Knole,

Ere the first yawning maid unbars

The door and drives away the stars;

Lest haply from the northern sky

Smite on your ear the long-drawn sigh

(There where the silence was most deep)

Of London turning in her sleep.

“A PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT”

He who a mangold-patch doth hoe,

Sweating beneath a sturdy sun,

Clearing each weed-disguisèd row

Till day-light and the task be done,

Standeth to view his labour’s scene—

Where now, within the hedge-row’s girth,

The little plants untrammelled green

Stripes the brown fabric of the earth.

So when the absolution’s said

Behind the grille, and I may go,

And all the flowers of sin are dead,

And all the stems of sin laid low,

And I am come to Mary’s shrine

To lay my hopes within her hand—

Ah, in how fair and green a line

The seedling resolutions stand.

HELENA TO HERMIA

(FOR WINIFRED MORGAN-BROWN)

Throw up the cinders, let the night wear through

And all the dear accustomed things be said

Ere up the sleepy stair-case I and you

Take our warm ways to bed.

Then let us loose our hands’ reluctant hold

Lest the uneasy dawn behind dim groves

Stir the still leaves and any hint of cold

Blow on our loves.

“EFFANY”

When elm-buds turn from red to green

And growing lambs more staidly graze

And brighter nettle-tops are seen

Along the hedge-rows’ rambling ways;

When leaves unclose where late the hail

Rustled in naked hawthorn twig,

April comes laughing up the vale

And Effany comes round to dig.

Aloof among her nursery toys

From her high casement Betsey sees

His vellum-coloured corduroys

Stirring behind the apple-trees,

Clutching her trowel she descends,

With unimagined projects big,

For Effany and she are friends,

And she helps Effany to dig.

Deep in the flowering currant-rows

The robin twitters gentle mirth

Where Effany with Betsey goes

Triumphant o’er the new-turned earth;

And the wind wanders out and in

As doubting which it loves the best—

The grizzly stubble round his chin,

Or her be-ruffled golden crest.

His coat, lined with carnation red,

Hangs in the plum-tree’s forkèd boughs,

Till sun is low and the day sped

And Betsey called into the house—

He scrapes his spade, her trowel she,

She looks and lingers loath to start

With little earth-bound feet to tea,

He takes his coat down to depart.

Half musing on the little maid

He trudges towards the coming night,

Stooping beneath his shouldered spade,

To where across the curtained light

With leaves upon its fiery fold

His wife’s thin shadow falls alone—

For she and Effany are old

And all their little ones are gone.

THE ARK

Vainly, my Betsey, to the weeping day

You sing the rhyme that drives the rain away;

And from your window mourn the patient trees

Buffeted by the peevish Hyades.

Come, let us shut the lattice, do you slide

From your old Ark the gaudy-painted side

And let the enlargèd captives walk about;

For though a deluge be at work without,

Secure within we’ve no concern for that,

And all the nursery is Ararat.

Not on the rug,—a space of oaken boards

A firmer footing for the crew affords:

Softly, my Betsey, lest your fervour harm

The extreme frailness of a leg or arm—

Poor limbs, so often and so rudely tossed

And rattled down, no wonder some be lost

Beyond the aid of glue! What skill did cram

Into the hold vermilion-hatted Ham

And Shem with the green top-knot and the slim

Contours of Japheth, Noah (somewhat grim

With buttons) and his consort after him!

The wives are at the bottom, dear, but now

Come the black pig and terra-cotta cow,

Three foxes, this a purple collar round

His rigid neck proclaims the faithful hound;

The birds are not so nice, tradition fails

To account for such a quantity of quails,

But the old weary crow that flew and flew

Away from Noah has come back for you.

Where is the dove? For if my memory speak

The truth there was a dove and in his beak

The olive leaves he plucked upon the day

When, as you know, the waters ebbed away;

Who perched on Noah’s window with pink feet,

And without whom no Ark is thought complete.

Where is the missing dove? For now I see,

Standing or prone the whole menagerie,

And the rain’s stopped without and all above

Beams the benignant sky; and still no dove,

Of the same beautiful fact the feathered proof!

Why here—upon the ripples of the roof—

Here is your truant painted, to abide

When Shem and Ham are scattered far and wide,

And all the beasts are broke, to brood with furled

Pacific wings over the new-washed world.

AN UPLAND STATION

O  the trucks that leave Southampton bring a smell of twine and tar,

And fishy like the asphalt ways that front the glittering bar,

And they steam into the station where the laurel bushes are;

And the trucks be wet and slippery as sea-weed on the rocks

With their cumbrous coils of cordage from the ships beside the docks,

And they creak along the platform like the clank of ogres’ locks.

What send we to Southampton for our upland valley’s freight?

Comes a band of armoured milk-cans through the level-crossing’s gate

And cabbages with leaves a-curl and sprouting through the crate.

And ducklings in a wicker coop and gilly-flowers to fall,

Dusty-petalled in a bucket under some Southampton stall,

And sons who sail for ’Meriky and bid good-bye to all.

Then it’s “Forward for Southampton!” They are gone and we turn back,

Past the river and the orchard and the warm dishevelled stack,

And again the silent barriers are swung across the track;

Again the platform is at peace, the idle metals shine,

And the tendrils are untroubled on the station-master’s vine,

And the sun is on the laurels and the sparrows on the line.

THE WORSHIPPERS

When the young Spring in Betsey’s fingers sets

The first white violets,

And she hath reared them in her soft brown fist,

Ev’n to my stooping mouth till they be kist:—

Shall I allow my kiss more fainly lingers

Among her baby fingers,

Where (for all pride of perfume that they shed),

The very violets be out-violetted?

Great is her portion whose auriferous mines

Yield new-coin’d celandines,

Her dowry hoarded in the hedge-row’s heart

Till the March wind hath blown the buds apart;

For her delight these gay-wrought tassels be

By name Dog’s Mercury,

For her delight I scour from wood to wood,

Lured by one lode-star with her Babyhood.

Dare I avow then, Betsey, that your grove

Hath not mine only love?

Have we not quit a brave and bustling world

For catkins and the cuckoo-pint uncurl’d?

So, while your wind-blown cheek to mine you press,

I know you’ll never guess

Whereto my woodland incense I prefer—

And that I worship you, dear worshipper.

LINES TO A JOURNALIST, ON HIS

PRAISING A NOBLE LORD

RECENTLY CREATED

[“Finally it is proof of his faith in his race and his country that he owns twenty thousand acres in England and fifteen thousand in Scotland; and he has no terrors even of Mr. Lloyd George’s budgets.”]

Permit, Dear Sir, that the judicious grieve

Hearing you thus old Mammon’s faith profess

And the career of commerce interweave

With terms of more than standard unctuousness;

For (you yourself have said it) what reward

Hope you enrolled among the sworn defenders

Of one who, while you tender your regard,

Remains impassive and regards his tenders?

True he has great possessions, well they might

Stagger your brain and sway your understanding,

His English leagues—while English paupers fight

To hang their washing on a London landing;

Also (’tis as you say) while they the facts

Deplore of governmental tolls, his rest

Is still secure, nor any Georgian Acts

Rouse panic terror in that sturdy breast.

And yet, and yet, Dear Sir, it would not do

For all of us to kiss the feet that Fate

Has set upon our necks although (with you)

We own they are superlatively great;—

Here is a rule to save the like mistakes

And sift the patriots from the money-makers,

These take an interest in their country’s aches,

And those an interest on their country’s acres.

THE BELGIAN PINAFORE

’Twas bought in Bruges, the shop was poor,

One read “Au Bébé” flourished o’er

The ancient lintel; to that door

No English guinea

Had ever come nor travelled gold

Gladdened her gaze, that woman old,

Who tottered from the gloom and sold

The Belgian “pinny.”

I mind me choosing in the place

A cap with frills of little lace;

“That too,” I said, “shall come to grace

My Small and Sweet.”

Prim in her pinafore arrayed

I pictured Betsey while I strayed

Where, all the time, the proud bells played

Above the street.

Now, Betsey, on the roguish back

That stalks around the sunny stack

The turkey’s truculence or the track

Of stable cats

The Belgian “pinny” flaunts its hue,

Still the same stripe of white and blue

As when ’twas dyed, no doubt for you,

In Flemish vats.

Still of its old lost life it tells

And alien provenance, there are spells

And glamour of the Town of Bells

About it shed;

And when my Belgian Betsey climbs

My knee I’ve heard a hundred times

The clash and ripple of the chimes

Around her head.

As though the child herself did play

Without some white estaminet

Shuttered and silent where, all day

In sun and shower,

Two little lions with stone grins

Hold ’scutcheons under paws and chins

And their divine appellant dins

The honoured hour.

THE WIND

The sun sank, and the wind uprist whose note

Piped on amid the stubble melodies

Of such appeal as ’scape the limber throat

Of robin singing under saffron skies;—

Then did he breathe like winding of a horn,

Whereat some sable flock of clouds affrighted

Huddled across their rosy pasturage

Behind the troubled leaves,—

Larger he loomed, a traveller benighted,

Hinting of menace and insurgent rage

Around the placid twilight of our eaves.

The sun was gone; beneath the steady stars

That watched the spectral anticks of the oak

The plumèd elm-tops met in savage wars,

The smitten pools in argent splinters broke;

While, as a labourer among the boughs

Cudgels a harvest from the branches crooked,

Within the orchard fence one plied a flail

That woke the sleeping house,

Till from the shivered lattice faces looked

Whitely, because the apples fell like hail.

The sun uprose, serenely gold and fair,

And Morning in a little ruffled pond

Scanned her sweet face and prinkt her yellow hair.

Around her mirror lapped the leaves, beyond

Jetsam of mast and acorn hid the strand,

Thick in the orchard was the wreckage piled

Of twig and fruit, the pitifullest noise

Of sobbing filled the land:—

The wind was sleeping sadly as a child

Littered about by all its broken toys.

TO BETSEY-JANE,

ON HER DESIRING TO GO

INCONTINENTLY TO HEAVEN

My Betsey-Jane it would not do,

For what would Heaven make of you,

A little honey-loving bear,

Among the Blessèd Babies there?

Nor do you dwell with us in vain

Who tumble and get up again

And try, with bruisèd knees, to smile—

Sweet, you are blessèd all the while

And we in you: so wait, they’ll come

To take your hand and fetch you home,

In Heavenly leaves to play at tents

With all the Holy Innocents.

IN BETHLEHEM TOWN

In Bethlehem Town by lantern light

Installèd is our King to-night

Who for us men shall come to weep

Our sins alone while very deep

In shade of leaves His comrades sleep.

To-night we rise with Thee to pray,

O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town the shepherds spread

Their fairest fleeces for Thy head

Which for us men with buffets broke

Shall stain the mockery of Thy cloak

For the rude scorn of sinful folk.

No scorn know we who sing and say,

O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town soft linens wrap

Thy limbs upon Thy Mother’s lap

Which for us men shall soon be bound

Fast to the pillar whilst around

The plying scourges fall and wound.

Alas, our sins be sharp as they,

O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town Thou scarce couldst hold

The three Kings’ gift of myrrh and gold

Who for us men shall come to groan

Beneath a guerdon not Thine own,

Thy most dispiteous cross, alone.

Now Simon’s part be ours to play,

O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town Thy Mother’s knee

Bore Bliss Itself in bearing Thee

Who for us men with arms outspanned

The Cross shall bear while she doth stand

With pardon at Thy piercèd hand.

So may we stand with her alway,

O parve Jesu Domine.

THE MOON

Playthings my Betsey hath, the snail’s cast shell,

Pebbles and small unripened pears, she dotes

On gentle things with furred or feathered coats,

A bunch of keys, a little brazen bell;

But none of these enticements please so well,

Nor pouring tea nor sailing paper boats,

As the rare moon that of an evening floats

In anchorages inaccessible.

On frost-bound nights a portly yellow moon

She kissed her hand to him before she slept,

The slim white stripling of an afternoon

In summer, still she longed for him and wept

Seeking to coax him down an elder wand,

For once, that she might hold him in her hand.

A LADY OF FASHION ON

THE DEATH OF HER DOG

“Amongst the many others that were present that Cup Day were ... Mr. and Mrs. W.—— L.—— (the latter by the way has just lost a dear dog in London).”—The Lady.

I  am not lightly moved, my grief was dumb

At Great-Aunt Cohen’s death, nor did I whine

When Uncle Monty did at last succumb,

Aged close on sixty-nine.

Dear are my friends, and yet my heart still light is,

Undimmed the eyes that see our set depart,

Snatched from the Season by appendicitis

Or something quite as smart.

But when my Chin-Chin drew his latest breath

On Marie’s out-spread apron, slow and wheezily,

I simply sniffed, I could not take his death

So Pekineasily.

All day at Goodwood, where I planned to go,

Superb in pink and Coronation-blue,

I mourned, until my husband sought to know

What good would mourning do?

“Fool,” I replied, “grief courts these sad ovations,

And many press my sable-suèded hand,

Noting the blackest of Lucile’s creations,

Inquire, and understand:

And he who lies among the plane-trees shady,

May rest in peace below the fallen leaf,

For one, the Correspondent of ‘The Lady,’

Shares and respects my grief.”

TO A LITTLE GIRL

You taught me ways of gracefulness and fashions of address,

The mode of plucking pansies and the art of sowing cress,

And how to handle puppies, with propitiatory pats

For mother dogs, and little acts of courtesy to cats.

O connoisseur of pebbles, coloured leaves and trickling rills,

Whom seasons fit as do the sheaths that wrap the daffodils,

Whose eyes’ divine expectancy foretells some starry goal,

You taught me here docility—and how to save my soul.

LINES WRITTEN FOR D. E.

IN A COPY OF

“THE CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES”

You that have fenced about my storm-swept ways

With a green hedge-row of your hard-won bays

And set the flints with flowers such as start

Deep in the dear Child’s Garden of your heart—

Take this small gift from her to whom ’tis life

To be your Dearest Debtor and your Wife.

EPISTLE TO THOMAS BLACK,

CAT TO THE SOANE MUSEUM

Pardon, Dear Sir, if with intrusive pen

I would remind you that we met last week;

Not that you showed me any favour then

Nor that I have forgot the infernal cheek

You tendered to your fellow-citizen,

Veiling your yellow eyes, where black and sleek

You graced the hearth-rug in the glittering gloom

Of Sir John Soane’s be-mirrored breakfast-room.

Which snub to soften, an official leant

Hinting, behind his tactful fingers, that

It was but seldom that you quite unbent

Being almost a Statutory cat;

If not retained by Act of Parliament

(As is your noble shrine) at least you sat,

Kept up by twenty shillings and tradition,

As part and parcel of the exhibition.

For when (he added in an undertone)

Each Reynolds, Fuseli, and Bartolozzi,

Hogarth and Lawrence were bequeathed by Soane

With Roman marbles and Athenian pots, he

Begrudged to leave them lifeless and alone,

So, having ranged them in appropriate spots, he

Said—“There shall be a Cat,” and, in effect, you’re

His last word in Domestic Architecture.

Thus far Authority. Now, might I ask it,—

How came you, Thomas, by this lofty station

From kitten-hood and the maternal basket?

Was there, perchance, some stiff examination

Such as tests candidates whose pleasant task it

Is to advance the cause of education,

In places advertised, you often see ’em,

On outside pages of the Athenæum?

Or how were you appointed? Was it Fate or

The cat before, some mid-Victorian mouser,

Left you the seat Death bade him abdicate or

Did hirelings kidnap you like Kaspar Hauser?

Did rich relations canvass the Curator

And the Trustees on your behalf? Allow, Sir,

Some little light to play upon the mystery

Of Thomas Black his entrance into History.

O happy he for whom does not exist

Our later London—that superb disaster,

Who in his Georgian hermitage has missed

Our schemes of girders overlaid with plaster,

Who has not met a Post-Impressionist

Nor heard a maniac acclaimed a master,

But sits with those who draw their weekly salary

Soothed by dim models of the Dulwich Gallery.

For, be their outlook dull, at least ’tis clean.

Not so the cat’s whose whole existence spent is

In some half-lighted haunt of the obscene—

The studio of that modern idle ’prentice

Who thinks he has the trick of Hogarth’s spleen

(Of course he’s twice the draughtsman) if his bent is

To paint that vice with intimate elation

Which Hogarth limned, apart, with detestation.

All this you’re spared; and so you might have paid

Some courtesy to those, a very few,

Who come withdrawn from that exterior shade

To spend an hour with sanity and you,—

And, when you saw that I had gladly stayed,

Not closed your eye-lids and our interview

But told me what the contents of each case meant

And let me come with you to see the basement.

Yet, after all, you know your part, doze on;

You are no common cat, you rather seem,

If not the incarnation of Sir John,

To be at least the creature of his dream;

Visitors enter, sign their names, are gone—

You stay, the centre of his classic scheme.

Blink not an ear for me—t’were not expedient—

But let me rest, Dear Sir, your most obedient.

FOR MY MOTHER, WITH

A NEW BUTTON-BOX

When I was small, great joy it was to see

Your button-box: the deathless comedy

Of blowing on the lid enacted, wide

It flew, I scanned the treasure-trove tongue-tied,

Cassim in caves of Haberdashery!

The small pearl “glove” evoked essential glee,

The large white linen was an ecstasy

And each gilt hook was covetously eyed

When I was small.

Lost are the clothes whereon those buttons be—

But not the love that planned the stitchery,

The button-baby is herself a bride—

But sends you this with love, and writes inside

“You are far dearer than you were to me

When I was small.”

A CHILD BEFORE THE CRIB

We came on Christmas Day

Within the church to pray

And lit by candle-ray

I Mary saw

And Joseph and the mild

Ox and that little Child

With open arms who smiled

Amid the straw.

Behind a press of folk

We knelt and no one spoke,

Our Lady in her cloak

Made not less noise,

With folded fingers, than

Each silent kneeling man,

And sweet small girls who can

Be still, and boys.

But for that Babe divine,

His cot compared to mine,

There in the candle-shine

Was poor and hard.

Yet did He never cry,

Laid on such stems of rye

As we see blowing by

The stable yard.

And I who lie and wail,

Pent by the polished rail

Of my white cot while pale

The night-light gleams,

Who spurn my sheets and stain

The patchwork counterpane

With tears, then sink again

Into my dreams,

Must mind me of His lot

Whose mother poor had got

No whitely pillowed cot

To ease His head,

But was at pains to shake

The straws up for His sake

And did a manger make

Into His bed.

Sweet Jesus let me wear

My swaddling-bands of care

Smiling, and still forbear

To be so nice;

That thus I may behold

Thy True Face, being old,

Where straws are turned to gold

In Paradise.

TO MASS AT DAWN

“EX UMBRIS ET IMAGINIBUS IN VERITATEM”

On the high frosty fields afoot at dawn

I start:—with rarest mist the vale below

Brims like a milky cup, the elm-tops show

As floating islets, not a sound is borne

Up from the river, shadowy on the lawn

Two monstrous pheasants fight and strangely low

The white sun peers between a spectral row

Of quicksets spanned by spider-webs untorn.

And the return:—the high sun over-head,

The fair sleek fallows spread before my sight,

The garrulous clear waters in their bed

Of greenest sedge, the multitudinous flight

Of little wings—O miracle of light—

The self-same track, with all the shadows fled.

THE NUNS’ CHAPEL

Now night hath fallen on the little town,

Lights glimmer from each ancient window-pane,

On darkling chimney-cowl and weather-vane

The buoyant moon looks equitably down;

The portico’s be-shadowed columns frown

At the market’s verge, and the long lights again

Stream from the inn,—I to the convent lane

Pass betwixt looming walls and ilex brown.

The little door’s ajar, the moon in the porch

Gleams on the water-stoup, “In Nomine

Patris et Filii....” God’s rosy light

Plays on its swinging chain, the auguster torch

Of prayer hath burnt to fragrance here all day

Whose ashes lie about His feet to-night.

THE SNARE

Dear, the delightful world I see

Holdeth its attributes for thee,

Nor on my heart doth earth intrude

Save to thy grace it hath some rude

Inadequate similitude.

So lilac leaves the showers bespatter,

The dropping acorns’ elfin patter—

These are but echoes of thy feet,

Naked or shod, how fair and fleet

On oaken board or paven street.

The burnish of thy hair is far

Dearer to me than sunsets are—

When, from sheer Compton looking west,

Such gilded after-glows invest

The twilight on the Vale of Test.

Grey mirrors to the blue of the skies

Are the fringed candours of your eyes—

So hoof-prints in the grassy lane,

Goblets full-brimmed of Heaven, contain

Celestial leavings of the rain.

But vain the wordy nets I make

To trap the look of thee and take

Thy graces by the wings which be

So sturdy as to flutter free

Yet shall the broke words cast away

Serve for thy monument which say—

“Behold us, all too weak a gin

Too slack a toil to fetter in

The shadows on her childish chin.”

A HOUSE IN A WOOD

So ’tis your will to have a cell,

My Betsey, of your own and dwell

Here where the sun for ever shines

That glances off the holly spines—

A clearing where the trunks are few

Here shall be built a house for you,

The little walls of beechen stakes,

Wattled with twigs from hazel brakes,

Tiled with white oak-chips that lie round

The fallen giants on the ground;

Under your little feet shall be

A ground-work of wild strawberry

With gadding stem, a pleasant wort

Alike for carpet and dessert.

Here Betsey, in the lucid shade,

Come, let us twine a green stockade,

With slender saplings all about,

And a small window to look out,

So that you may be “Not at Home”

If any mortal callers come.

Then shall arrive to make you mirth

The four wise peoples of the earth:

The thrifty ants who run around

To fill their store-rooms underground,

The rabbit-folk, a feeble race,

From out their rocky sleeping place,

The grasshoppers who have no king

Yet come in companies to sing,

The lizard slim who shyly stands

Swaying upon his slender hands—

I’ll give them all your new address.

For me, my little anchoress,

I’ll never stir the bracken by

Your house; the brown wood butterfly,

Passing you like the sunshine’s fleck

That gilds the nape of your warm neck,

Shall still report me how you do

And bring me all the news of you,

And tell me (where I sit alone)

How gay you are and how you’re grown

A fox-glove’s span in the soft weather.

No? Then we’ll wander home together.

THE CONFESSIONAL

My Sorrow diligent would sweep

That dingy room infest

With dust (thereby I mean my soul)

Because she hath a Guest

Who doth require that self-same room

Be garnished for His rest.

And Sorrow (who had washed His feet

Where He before had been)

Took the long broom of Memory

And swept the corners clean,

Till in the midst of the fair floor

The sum of dust was seen.

It lay there, settled by her tears,

That fell the while she swept—

Light fluffs of grey and earthy dregs;

And over these she wept,

For all were come since last her Guest

Within the room had slept.

And, for nor broom nor tears had power

To lift the clods of ill,

She called one servant of her Guest

Who came with right good will,

For, by his sweet Lord’s bidding, he

Waiteth on Sorrow still;

Who, seeing she had done her part

As far as in her lay

And had intent to keep the place

More cleanly from that day,

Did with his Master’s dust-pan come

And take the dust away.

She thankèd him, and Him who sent

Such succour, and she spread

Fair sheets of Thankfulness and Love

Upon her Master’s bed,

Then on the new-scoured threshold stood

And listened for His tread.

EPITAPH ON A CHILD

RUN OVER AND KILLED BY A

MOTOR-CAR IN THE STREET

Here lies A. B. who, four years from her birth,

Found there was nowhere left to play on earth.

Strange, for her mother’s child had ever grown

In the quaint precincts of a country town,

Yet was she one whose small predestined feet

Learnt nor forgot to walk upon the street.

She might not ramble where the farmer spanned

With consecrated quickset all his land

To fill her pinafore when mushrooms swell;

Nor dare she scale the lovely citadel

Of brambles in the lane, for their sweet prize

Was spoilt with dust that dimmed the children’s eyes

When local gods dispersed the timid crowd

And went before in pillars of grey cloud.

Nor might a bigger child frequent the edge

Of the pebbled stream to plait the flowering sedge,

For aught of native life was kept without

The chosen haunt of Dives and his trout;

His pheasants held the coppice and its nuts,

Where bearded men played peep behind their butts

And wolvish keepers prowling through the woods

Had a short way with all Red Riding Hoods.

No blade of wholesome grass shot through the hard

And greasy flagstones of the narrow yard

At home, nor might the children ever play

Through the allotments where, a mile away,

The civic cabbages congested stood,

Reluctant tenants of a stony rood.

One playground, one alone, for such as she,

Had planned a grave adult humanity,

There where grey asphalt hid the ruder ground

And serried spikes begirt the place around;

At the one end, of yellow brick and slate,

Was reared a sort of female Traitors’ Gate,

At t’other end the piety of a nation

Had raised a shrine of tin to sanitation.

This, thanks to man, was all the children’s share

And Nature was allowed to tender air.

Hence did it chance (as now and then it may)

The Powers that Be decreed a holiday.

And reckless childhood, whom it ever galls

To sit within the compass of four walls,

Loosed from its wonted pen conspired to run

At random through the town beneath the sun,

Rashly disporting in the common street

Its rude hands and unnecessary feet.

That day, so many a hooting corner crost,

The marvel is that one alone was lost,

She to whom poverty no tomb assigns

But a low mound and these unworthy lines.—

Mourn not at all that Her whose burnished wing

Flies on the blissful errands of her King,

Whom (by a heavenly law too young to err,

Accounted on the earth a Trespasser)

He hath resumèd and her footfall white

Enfranchised of the liberties of light:

But for all those who play the part of Fate

To engineer this poor and mirthless state

Weep,—and for all who loved that childish hair

And saw it stained with Tragedy—one prayer.

THE WATER-MEADS OF MOTTISFONT

On the painted bridge at Mottisfont above the Test I’ve stood

Where the dab-chick from a rushy raft directs her little brood,

Where fringed with sedge and willow-weed the waters spread about

And linger in pellucid glooms the sleepy spotted trout.

I’ve seen the tawny tumult of the headlong Highland spate,

And the ebb round Hair-brush Island (which the map calls Chiswick Ait)

Where the withy bristles shimmer and the purple mud-banks gleam

And the lights come out by Thornycroft’s and glisten in the stream.

’Twere good to be at Abergeirch: the little brook again

Greets the brine among the shingle on the beetling coast of Lleyn,—

O the shallows on the sand-banks where the dozing flat-fish lie

And the heather surging inland till it breaks against the sky!

But the chalky scaurs of Compton hold the shadows; and between

Lie the water-meads of Mottisfont enamelled with such green

As discolours all I’ve looked upon in valleys far apart—

For the water-meads of Mottisfont lie nearest to my heart.

THE SENIOR MISTRESS OF BLYTH

[“BLYTH SECONDARY SCHOOL.—The Governors of the above School invite applications for the post of Senior Mistress. Candidates must be Graduates in Honours of a British University and must be well qualified in Mathematics, Latin, and English. Ability to teach Art will be a recommendation.”—Advertisement in The Spectator.]

It is told of the painter Da Vinci,

Being once unemployed for a span,

At the menace of poverty’s pinch he

Sought work at the Court of Milan.

Having shown himself willing and able

To perform on the curious lyre,

He presented the Duke with a table

Of the talents he proffered for hire.

“I can raze you a fortress,” it ran on,

“Quell castles, drain ditches and moats,

Make shapely and competent cannon,

Build aqueducts, bridges and boats;

In peace I can mould for your Courts a

Few models in marble or clay

And paint the illustrious Sforza

With anyone living to-day.”

Leonardo is dead, they asseverate,

He has left no successor behind,

For the days of the specialist never rate

At its value the versatile mind.

Is Lord Brougham, then, our latest example?

No, Time, the old churl with his scythe,

Shall spare us a notable sample

In the Senior Mistress of Blyth.

She shall guide Standard Three through Progressions,

Study Statics and Surds with the Fourth,

She shall dwell on De Quincey’s Confessions,

Donne, Caedmon and Christopher North;

And no class-room shall boast of a quicker row

When her classical pupils rehearse

Their prose, which is modelled on Cicero,

And their more than Horatian verse.

She shall lead them to love Cimabue,

To distinguish with scholarship ripe

’Twixt the texture of Clausen and Clouet,

And the values of Collier and Cuyp.

Nay, all Blyth shall reflect her ability

As its brushes acquire by her aid

Or South Kensington’s pretty facility

Or the terrible strength of the Slade.

Yes, her duties are diverse, and this’ll

Suggest to each candidate why

They should read Leonardo’s epistle

Before they sit down to apply;

For his style is itself a credential

Though truly he has not a tithe

Of the qualifications essential

To the Senior Mistress of Blyth.

THE FIRST PARTY

Follow, my Betsey-Jane, as best you can,

Clutching your Mother’s fingers in firm hold,

The sable progress of the serving-man,

Nor stumble on your shawl’s imperial fold;

Whose ceremonious pin of jade and gold

Bringeth such rosy awe into your face

As the white frock, the stockings silken-soled

And the white shoes (with pompons) which will grace

The lightness of your feet in this illumined place.

Shawls being shed, descend the ample stair

And greet our Hostess. Now you’re set to see

The Conjurer, nor think to leave your chair

For safer eyrie of your Mother’s knee;—

Still, as his tricks are tedious to Three

And strange the flounce-clad children in their tiers,

Turn your shy back on wiles and wizardry

To hug, for comfort’s sake, two homely bears

And a prepost’rous poodle, white with knitted ears.

For tea, gramercie to a thoughtful choice

And nice derangement of the chairs, your seat

Faces a fair acquaintance known as Joyce;—

What glances under glossy tresses greet

The fellow-connoisseur of cake and sweet

Till the last cracker’s pulled on the last plate.

Now sidle through the dancers’ tortuous feet

And come at last, for the time waxes late,

Where in their cloudy breath the shadowy horses wait.

Glow the two tawny lanterns on the hedge,

Gleam the ungainly boughs the window blurs,

And Betsey nodding on the seat’s soft edge

Holds to her heart those pompon’d shoes of hers;

Till in my arms, most spent of revellers,

I lift her slumb’ring whom nor lifting grieves

Nor sudden stay nor the cold night wind stirs,

Borne up the path through fragrance of box-leaves,

Up to her drowsy cot under dependent eaves.

SOUVENIR OF MICHAEL DRAYTON

I

Scarce hath the crookèd scythe

Duly been whetted

When all the mowers blithe

(By the storm letted,

Crouching the shed beneath

At the field’s margent)

See the first fallen swathe

Pelted with argent.

White mist the valley blurs,

White the horizon,

Since the cloud skirmishers

Sent their first spies on.

Haste away,

Waters grey,

Spare of your shedding,

Till we bestow our hay

Safe in the steading.

II

Gild, sun, the pendent leaves

Silverly dripping,

Call the swifts from the eaves

Screaming and dipping,

Raise the green docks that be

To the ground beaten,

All the washed earth we see

Comfort and sweeten;

Till at soft interval

On the small flowers,

Drops from the thatch-ends fall—

Spent are the showers.

Haste away,

Waters grey,

Spare of your shedding,

Till we bestow our hay

Safe in the steading.

III

Soon may the whisp’ring blade

Bow the grey grasses,

Lo, the lush edge unfrayed

Where the scythe passes!

All with a stately speed

Shorn and soft whistle

Muted on nought of weed,

Burdock nor thistle.—

Grace hath possessed the sky,

Hope hath o’er-spanned it,

Parteth he hurriedly,

Storm, the black bandit.

Haste away,

Waters grey,

Spare of your shedding,

Till we bestow our hay

Safe in the steading.

“FOUR-PAWS”

Four-paws, the kitten from the farm,

Is come to live with Betsey-Jane,

Leaving the stack-yard for the warm

Flower-compassed cottage in the lane,

To wash his idle face and play

Among chintz cushions all the day.

Under the shadow of her hair

He lies, who loves him nor desists

To praise his whiskers and compare

The tabby bracelets on his wrists,—

Omelet at lunch and milk at tea

Suit Betsey-Jane and so fares he.

Happy beneath her golden hand

He purrs contentedly nor hears

His Mother mourning through the land,

The old grey cat with tattered ears

And humble tail and heavy paw

Who brought him up among the straw.

Never by day she ventures nigh,

But when the dusk grows dim and deep

And moths flit out of the strange sky

And Betsey has been long asleep—

Out of the dark she comes and brings

Her dark maternal offerings;—

Some field-mouse or a throstle caught

Near netted fruit or in the corn,

Or rat, for this her darling sought

In the old barn where he was born;

And all lest on his dainty bed

Four-paws were faint or under-fed.

Only between the twilight hours

Under the window-panes she walks

Shrewdly among the scented flowers

Nor snaps the soft nasturtium stalks,

Uttering still her plaintive cries

And Four-paws, from the house, replies,

Leaps from his cushion to the floor,

Down the brick passage scantly lit,

Waits wailing at the outer door

Till one arise and open it—

Then from the swinging lantern’s light

Runs to his Mother in the night.

“FOUR-PAWS” IN LONDON

Four-paws, we know the sun is white

At dawn in Hampshire when the night

Deserts those frozen miles,

When robin creaks from wintry bush

And early milk-boy’s breeches brush

The hoar-frost from the stiles;

Yet shall you never hear him more

Insistent at our cottage door

Nor of his spoils partake,

Alas, poor puss who stir and yawn

Uneasy in the London dawn

And, in a flat, awake.

Four-paws, forgive us! When apprised

Of our departure you devised,

No doubt, some darling plan

Of exodus that should surpass

His who removed last Michaelmas—

Your friend the dairy-man:—

A mightier waggon on the road

You pictured and so vast a load

That all should turn and look,—

Betsey precarious on the shaft,

Master and Mistress fore and aft,

The carter and the cook,

Nurse, with her knitting, in mid-air,

Carpets in bales, your favourite chair

And (the progressive path

With added glory to invest)

Our Four-paws couchant on the crest

Of an inverted bath.

Alas, what difference disgraced

Our flight! An obscure van replaced

The customary wain;

And you, with many a mournful cry,

Fettered by Betsey in the fly

And hampered in the train.

And now you’re here. Well, it may be

The sun does rise in Battersea

Although to-day be dark,

Life is not shorn of loves and hates

While there are sparrows on the slates

And keepers in the Park:

And you yourself will come to learn

The ways of London and in turn

Assume your cockney cares,

Like other folk who live in flats,

Chasing your purely abstract rats

Upon the concrete stairs.

TO MY SISTER DOROTHY,

A PASTE BROOCH

Time, cunning smith, hath set you in my heart

Like stones in silver none may wrest apart;

Not counterfeit as these our loves shall stay

When sullen-footed Time hath paced away.

SESTINA

TO D. E.

I  saw myself encircled in the grey

Of your grey eyes, Dear Love, as in a glass;

In place of lurking glooms I come their way

As idle ghosts through magic mirrors pass

Or shifty clouds bewilder a spring day

Or windy shadows dusk the summer grass.

And as swift sickles lop the hedge-row grass,

As ghosts scent out the dawn with faces grey

And flee before the stirring feet of day,

As magic shivers in a splintered glass,

So all the shaken pictures of me pass

Even with the moving of your head away.

Yet would your head be ever turned my way,

Only our peace is fugitive as grass:—

Beyond the clapping lintels footsteps pass,

Shake the snared joy from quiet’s cobweb grey—

O who drinks silence from a jolted glass,

Who deals in stillness on a market-day?

Our joys go begging for a gentle day,

They are swayed as weed-stems in a water-way,

Hurt as blind lips that drain a broken glass,

Blown down by breath as petals flung on grass,

Thinned as gold hair dull sorrow braids with grey,

Lopped short as willow-tufts where cattle pass.

This noisy horde of minutes never pass,

This patchwork crew;—they throng us day by day,

Hint of silk linings to their cloaks of grey,

Cleave out strong-elbowed their ungentle way,

Bruise the poor joy as legions tread the grass,

Or as wet fingers rub a moaning glass.

There is no day ringed round with seas of glass,

No island day, where like-faced minutes pass

Fingered on gathered mouth through breathless grass

With close-girt garment lest the bloom of day

Be brushed or pollen spilt along their way,—

Or lest my face be shook from your eyes’ grey.

O dear grey eyes, though ruder minutes pass

And dusk the glass, your heart is turned my way

Wherein all day my face springs up like grass.

LULLABY FOR A LITTLE GIRL

Now candle-flames disperse the rout

Of shadows and their giant wars;

And though the roof of night without

Be spanned with dusk and set with stars,

’Tis lullaby,

The elm-tops cry,

And lullaby, the leaves that pass

In stealth across the window-glass.

The comb shall sleek your drooping head

And through the darling tangles go

And all your night attire is spread

Before the fire to face the glow,

And lullaby,

The cinders sigh,

For ev’ry rosy palace gone,

Fall’n in their dwarfish Ilion.

Now rest, your prayers said aright

And timely supped your milky bowl,

Your little body all as white

And sweet as your unsoilèd soul;

And lullaby,

Her melody,

Who from the quilted bedside goes,

A-tiptoe, when your eye-lids close.

RONDEAU OF SARUM CLOSE

In Sarum Close, when she had said her say,

He stood bare-headed where dim vapours lay

Heavy on vacant lawn, athwart the stone

Of that great pile that stands unsought, alone,—

Himself as still and derelict as they.

Here, when morn’s gleaming hand had rolled away

From the green plot of this their week-old play

Her misty curtain, each to each was shown,

In Sarum Close.

Void the discoloured fane before him lay,

Void the dark-sodded precincts,—far away

One closed a window, night’s appeal had grown

Perchance too urgent, even as his own

Had seemed to her whose friendship did with day

In Sarum close.

THE KNOBBY-GREEN

O  thou who ’neath the umbrageous trees

That line the Avenue Louise

Did’st spread in Belgian sun and breeze

Thy buds about,

I come to weep thy destinies

My Brussels Sprout:

Who, on this drear December day,

Rearest above mine Essex clay

Thy wand of buds as green as they

Who spend their Yule

Hearing remoter church-bells play

In St. Gudule.

Hail, noble alien, I see

Thou bear’st in exile and for me

A neat-curl’d row of progeny,

(Not all unlike

Some purse-proud donor’s family,

By John van Eyck)

For me unmindful of thy place

(Comrade of carpets and of lace)

Who class thee with the vulgar race

Of Beet and Bean,

And call thee—to thy very face—

The Knobby-green.

THE CARCANET

The world’s a quarry for whose spoils

Love, the untiring miner, toils

Early and late, such stones to get

As may be cut devised and set

Into his mistress’ carcanet.

Alack that love can never choose

But bring thee pebbles of no use:—

Glance at the gift and thou shalt see

Each facet in his treasury

Of stones doth but diminish thee.

TO A TOWN CRIER

“Whiffin, proclaim silence!”—Pickwick

Whiffin, with all thy faults, I love thee still,

Thee and thine ancient office and the sweet

Metallic peal that quelled the popular heat

When party strife ran high in Eatanswill;

Who now with quavering eloquence would’st fill,

And tidings of a pilfered purse, the street

Maddened with motors and the armoured fleet

Of base mechanical engines out to kill.

Go, thou sole arbiter of Buff and Blue,

Time hath prevailed against thee, yield the floor,

Toll, on bare sufferance, from door to door,

The hooters hold the highway;—as for you,

You voice the missing ha’pence of the poor,

And they the incomes of the well-to-do.

THE TALE OF JOCKO

A STORY FOR A CHILD

I

An old white Jocko, kindly and urbane,

Lived with a little girl called Betsey-Jane,

He was her oldest friend, thin was his hair,

One arm he lacked, but Jocko did not care,

No more did Betsey-Jane;—his eyes were gone,

His figure flat, but all his teeth were on,

Stitched to his mouth, a row of beady pearls

More white than those of many little girls.

All day to please he did his docile best

And only squeaked when Betsey punched his chest;

When bed-time came and Nurse tucked Betsey in,

Warm in her cot he slept beneath her chin.

II

Now Betsey-Jane was rather more than two

And just about as good as I and you;—

She’d learnt to talk, but not learnt when to stop,

Her yellow hair swung round her in a mop,

Round was her face, her eyes were opened wide

And only blinked in sleep or when she cried;

White frocks she had and blue her pinafore

With scarlet stitching at the neck, and more

Delights she had than many girls and boys,—

Father and Mother, Nurse and many toys

To comfort her, but, more than all the rest,

There is no doubt she loved her Jocko best.

III

Yet Jocko’s life was not a life of ease,—

We think to do entirely as we please,

Age teaches otherwise. One evil day

A cat approached the cushion where he lay

And tore away his inoffensive hair

And left him with his leathern skin laid bare,

Silent upon the rug. His Betsey-Jane

Found him with tears and kissed him well again;

But she herself, forgetful of her grief,

Laughed when they dressed him in a handkerchief

Just like a doll, but Jocko did not mind,

He still forgave her for his heart was kind.

IV

Thus did our Jocko play, for Betsey’s sake,

The Grand Domestic Game of Give and Take,

Until her rudeness to her friend was such

As makes men say “This is a straw too much.”

One day he sat, as docile as a lamb,

By Betsey-Jane who, upright in her pram,

Refused to sleep and went from bad to worse,

Kicked off her rug and disobeyed her nurse;

And though her Jocko did not speak his mind

And only stared to see her so unkind,

In Endless Street, some yards from their abode,

She picked him up and flung him in the road.

V

On sped the pram nor did the nurse’s pace

Leave time to miss our hero from his place.

Flat by the curb lay Jocko, still and pale,

Till a rude sparrow plucked him by the tail

And up he sat;—the sparrow hopped around

And eyed him seated sadly on the ground,

Propped up against the parapet and grey

With grime and dust that in the gutter lay.

Then Jocko spoke, he smoothed his sullied fur

With one long trembling paw, and thought of her

And said, all torn betwixt his love and pain,—

“I will go back no more to Betsey-Jane.”

VI

“I will arise and go beyond the din

Of towns to where the endless woods begin,

There among tangled oaks and lowly ways

Of undergrowth to end my dreary days;

I will seek acorns, beech-nuts, hips and haws

And pluck them down with my prehensile paws;

While the grey rabbits, never shy with me,

From holes around my sandy-rooted tree

Come out to nibble in the gentle rain,—

A calmer life than that with Betsey-Jane.

Long is the way, but I will make a start,

A carrier shall take me in his cart.”

VII

This said, he rose, and sought with feeble pace,

For he was stiff and sore, the Market Place;

Where, without horses and their shafts turned down,

Are ranged the carts that come into the town;

Until at dusk, all loaded up, they’re gone.

He found the cart that went to Clarendon.

Beneath it lay a yellow dog who shook

His brazen collar, but his churlish look

Passed off when Jocko hailed the man inside

Who, loading parcels and not looking, cried,—

“We start in Butcher Row, sir, from the Bear.

At four o’clock.” Said Jocko “I’ll be there.”

VIII

All was arranged, and he could do no more

But pass the time until the clock struck four.

He wandered up the Market; far and wide

The burly drovers elbowed him aside,

The sheep regarded him with mild surprise

Behind their hurdles, and the hairy eyes

Of families of little porkers stared

And cart-horses with braided tresses glared

And stamped upon the cobbles. From their shed

The calves looked bluntly round and many a head

Of penned-up fowls peered through a wiry door,—

“Jocko!” they cackled, “we will meet once more!”

IX

Out of the Market Place an alley led

To Poultry Cross and old white Jocko sped

Beneath its shelter and surveyed the stalls

Which here sell hobby horse, tops and balls,

And tins for little cakes. One stall was full

Of button-cards and reels and hanks of wool,

Another sold you sage and pansy roots,

And this, red carpet-slippers, hob-nailed boots

And clogs, and hanging on a string by twos

A row of little russet leather shoes;

Tears filled his eyes, he turned to look again,—

“Those shoes,” said he, “are just like Betsey-Jane.”

X

While thus he spake two farmers sauntered past

And turned to stare at Jocko, said the last,—

“I saw that monkey next a Spanish hen,

The little beast has wandered from his pen!”

Jocko is captured by the portly pair,

They lead him, passive, to the Market Square;

Once more the hens their throats exultant crane,—

“Jocko!” they cackle; “Here he is again!”

The farmers stuff our hero, sad and sore,

Into a vacant pen and slam the door:—

Through the grim wires the searching breezes moan

And Jocko sits there shivering alone.

XI

The time lagged on; some children through his door

Prodded his fur with sticks, the clock struck four.

Now is the time, but Jocko does not care,

When carriers are starting from the Bear;

Fast in his pen, and all his anger gone,

No longer would he live at Clarendon.

Home was his one desire. “At six,” he said,

“My Betsey-Jane is kissed, and goes to bed,

Her bath-tub by the nursery fire will be,

She will come in and look around for me

And sob all night beneath her counterpane

For her lost Jocko—little Betsey-Jane!”

XII

While Jocko thus lamented, through the crowd

There came a little girl who sobbed aloud

And clutched her Mother’s hand; ’twas Betsey-Jane,

Who all the afternoon had sought in vain

Her Jocko cast away in Endless Street;

Tired are her little gaitered legs, her feet

So weary, each new thought of Jocko brings

New tears to wet her woollen bonnet strings

And drip from each blue tassel to the ground.

She would not look on all the beasts around,

But Jocko saw her coat, and “Betsey-Jane,”

He cried, “Do come and take me home again!”

XIII

Alas, they did not hear, his voice was low,

With chill and hunger, Mother turned to go;

But Betsey-Jane looked sadly back and then

Beheld him upright in his distant pen.

She dropped her Mother’s hand and with a shout

Of “Jocko, Jocko!” ran to get him out;—

Two shame-faced men undid at her commands

His cage and Mother put him in her hands,

She clasped him closely, not a word was said,

And laid her tearful cheek against his head.

XIV

So back to Endless Street and once again

Our Jocko slumbers close to Betsey-Jane,

Clutched in her little fingers’ rosy snare,

Among the sleepy tangles of her hair,

Seen dimly through her cot’s surrounding rail.

And here are morals tied to Jocko’s Tale:—

“Though hurt your feelings never try to roam

For there are many places worse than home.”

And yet another,—“Never slight or spurn

A good old friend, they say a worm will turn;

And such-like stories end in deeper pain

Than that of Jocko and his Betsey-Jane.”

THE WAG-TAIL

By brook and bent,

Alert and diligent,

All day my merry wag-tail went,

Soberly clad

She seemed, in feathers sad

Which yet a fair white braiding had;

Nor did she fail

With jerking beak and tail

Quite to dislodge th’ incurious snail,

And thence away

To the pollard where all day

Her brown big-footed babies lay.

—I do desire

No better, nor look higher,

Pied wag-tail, than thy plain attire;

Nor would I roam

Afar, but kindly come

Back to th’ acclaiming mouths at home.

Like thee to run

About my works begun

And pluck delights from ev’ry one.

Where (might I do’t)

Living, my only suit,

And dead, my dearest attribute.

HIGH TIDE AT BATTERSEA

So now my Thames is fairly on the turn

And plain it is the sum of water seeks

That ocean which the flood so late did spurn

With long reluctance in the little creeks;

Now the great barges tethered to their buoys

(Their gulls still seated in deliberate loads)

Swing round majestical and, with no noise,

Face the hid sea beyond these sullen roads.

Even so my soul which did so long abide

With thoughts so fledged and meditative freighted

Hath veered about and answered to the tide,

Glad, and her faithless station abdicated;—

Lord, ere this lovely ebb shall set for me,

Slip thou my chain and lure me out to sea.

TO MY DAUGHTER

WHO TELLS ME SHE CAN DRESS HERSELF

So, dear, have you and Nurse conspired

In secret, and all eyes evaded,

Till you can boast yourself attired

Unwatched, uncounselled and unaided?

Perfect in button, tape and hook,

You’ve learned the knack, you come to tell us,

And while you turn that we may look

I own I am a little jealous

That she has taught you with success

How to assume your frock and shed it,

That you have learnt the art to dress

And Abigail’s is all the credit.

Yet my devotion has its will,

Nor can I lightly yield to Nurse all

The praise, for I have prompted still

A spiritual dress rehearsal;

On your soft hair a helmet placed,

Fastened your breastplate like a bib on,

And tied the Truth about your waist

Where she is proud to tie your ribbon.

Each has her task, decorous, sweet,

Fair, to surpass your friends, she made you,

While for your hidden foes’ defeat

I in your Pauline arms arrayed you.

For, though you tire of sash and gown

And fold them up for good, there’s no day

When these, that I have made your own,

Shall be a burden or démodés.

Yet, though the clasps endure, I know

I’ll wish our handiwork were neater

When at celestial gates you show

The well-worn harness to St. Peter.

THE BABY GOAT

Four alders guard a bridge of planks

And waveless waters filmed with brown,

A rugged lawn’s uneven banks

Slope gently down,

And there, still chafing at the chain

That girds his slim pathetic throat,

They’ve picketed our friend again—

The Baby Goat.

Treading alone the watered vale,

Betsey and I, beside the marsh

Often we linger to bewail

His durance harsh;

What plaints allure my baby’s feet,

What tethered struggles claim her sighs,

What shrill protestant whinnies greet

Her long good-byes.

Once we repassed the lonely ground

Below the alders where he feeds

And spied his stunted horns girt round

With flow’ring weeds,

Two merry wenches and a child

Caressed his grey ill-fitting coat

And, lolling in the sedge, beguiled

The Baby Goat.

Now, for long days companionless,

His soft blunt nose, his agate eyes,

His raised remonstrant brows express

The sad surprise

Wherewith the desolate green waste

O’erloads his heart who at the edge

Of stagnant waters kneels to taste

The thankless sedge.

His Mother is his chiefest lack

Who in some heathy upland place

Tidied his sturdy socks of black

And licked his face;

He turns to see us saunter by

The level highway hand-in-hand—

I think the Baby Goat knows why

We understand.

BOURNEMOUTH TO POOLE

I BOURNEMOUTH

Quite given o’er to shameful destinies

Yet may I muse what graces once were thine

Whose little brooks descend the tawny chine

So silver-silent on their gold degrees;

Whose smiles, like hers of Cyprus, from the seas

Have drawn the tremulous mirth wherewith they shine

Under the coif of heaven that doth confine

Thy tender headlands and their tress of trees.

Poor beauty, with thy dowry of bright sand,

Poured out in softness, to chance comers shown,

So fallen;—doth it much import what hand

Cast the rude lot that shred thy purple gown,

Or, on this lovely and reluctant land,

Who stamped this monstrous image of a town?

II POOLE HARBOUR

O  valiant reach of land that doth include

The striving sea in such a large embrace!

O valiant homes that overlook the face

Of water by a hundred keels subdued!

Poole, thou art map of thine own fortitude,

And, in thy building, eloquent of a race

That singed the beard of Spain and for a lace

Fought on this quay the Georgian excise-brood.

Old, and thy harbour skies more scantly sparred,

Thy constant stones survey the fickle flow

Of Tide and Time; and on thy casements barred

Burns Memory like a crimson afterglow,

Bright as the blood-red hollyhocks that blow

Through the grey timber in this silent yard.

THE JAPANESE DUCKLING

The shop-girl in my fingers laid

The Yellow Duckling, Mother paid

A silver coin to set him free

And so he came to live with me.

I kissed his baby feathers sweet,

His callow bill and parchment feet;

And so his love for me began—

My Yellow Duckling from Japan.

And he forgot his native nest,

Forgot the way his plumy breast

Parted the waters as they ran

Amid strange weeds in far Japan.

And he forgot the yellow child

Whose narrow eye-lids on him smiled:—

I kissed him, and he settled down

To live with me in London town.

THE PRIVET HEDGE

The common pavement dull and grey

Is strewn with leafy wands to-day,

And sceptres green to the curb’s edge—

For they have cut the privet hedge.

My Baby gathers, bending down,

The branches swept by Mother’s gown

And carries home into the house

Those magical and royal boughs.

But O the milky blossoms sweet

That scented all the sunny street—

Crushed by the Baby’s sandalled tread

They lie behind her, brown and dead.

THE VEGETARIAN’S DAUGHTER

She ate her oat-cake by the fire,

Her bath was done and dried her hair,

Her nightgown was her sole attire,

Her towel steamed across a chair.

And as the oat-cake contour grew

Eroded as a tide-worn cape,

She named the jagged residue

After the beast most like its shape.

“This is a pig, a growly bear,

A baa-sheep” (and she bit him)—thus

Her speech flowed on, to my despair

Incredibly carnivorous.

At last, all wreathed in drowsy smiles,

She munched the final gee-gee’s head—

“Ah, Betsey, what would Eustace Miles,

And what would Bernard Shaw have said?”

HONEY MEADOW

Here, Betsey, where the sainfoin blows,

Pink and the grass more thickly grows,

Where small brown bees are winging

To clamber up the stooping flowers,

We’ll share the sweet and sunny hours

Made murmurous with their singing.

Dear, it requires no small address

In such a billowy floweriness

For you, so young, to sally:

Yet would you still out-stay the sun

And linger when his light was done

Along the haunted valley.

O small brown fingers, clutched to seize

The biggest blooms, don’t spill the bees;

Imagine what contempt he

Would meet who ventured to arrive

Home, of an evening, at the hive,

With both his pockets empty!

Moreover, if you steal their share,

The bees become too poor to spare

Their sweets nor part with any

Honey at tea-time; so for you

What were for them a cell too few

Would be a sell too many!

Or, what were worse for you and me,

They might admire the industry

So thoughtlessly paraded,

And, tired of their brown queen, maintain

That no one needed Betsey-Jane

As urgently as they did.

So should you taste in some far clime

The plunder of eternal thyme

And you would quite forget us,

Our cottage and these English trees,

When you were Queen of Honey Bees

At Hybla or Hymettus.

AN ELEGY, FOR FATHER ANSELM, OF THE

ORDER OF REFORMED CISTERCIANS,

GUEST-MASTER AND PARISH PRIEST

“Et pastores erant in regione eadem vigilantes”

You to whose soul a death propitious brings

Its Heaven, who attain a windless bourne

Of sanctity beyond all sufferings,

It is not ours to mourn;

For you, to whom the earth could nothing give,

Who knew no hint of our inspirèd pride,

You could not very well be said to live

Until the day you died.

’Tis upon us—father and kindly friend,

Holy and cheerful host—the unbidden guests

You welcomed and the souls you would amend,

The weight of sorrow rests.

From Sarum in the mesh of her five streams,

Her idle belfries and her glittering vanes,

We are clomb to where the cloud-race dusks and gleams

On turf of upland plains.

Southward the road through juniper and briar

Clambers the down, untrodden and unworn

Save where some flock pitted the chalky mire

With little feet at dawn.

Twice in a week the hooded carrier’s lamp,

Flashing on wayside flints and grasses, spills

Its misty radiance where the dews lie damp

Among the untended hills;

Here lies the hamlet ringed with grassy mound

And brambled barrow where, superbly dead,

The dust of pagans turned to holy ground

Beneath your humble tread.

Here we descend at drooping dusk the side

Of the stony down beneath the planted ring

Of beeches where you showed with pastoral pride

The folded lambs in spring;

Here pull at eve the self-same bell that hastened

Your rough-shod feet behind the hollow door—

Yet never see you stand, the chain unfastened,

Your lantern on the floor.

Others will spread the board now you are gone

Here where you smiled and gave your guests to eat,

Learning your menial kingliness from One

Who washed His servants’ feet;

Along the slumbering corridor betimes

Others will knock and other footsteps pass

Down the wet lane e’er the thin shivering chimes

Toll for the early mass.

Yet in the chapel’s self no sorrows sing

In the strange priest’s voice, nor any dolour grips

The heart because it is not you who bring

Your Master to its lips.

Here let us leave the things you would not have—

Vain grief and sorrow useless to be shown—

“God’s gift and the Community’s I gave

And nothing of my own,”

You would have said, self-deemed of no more worth

Than the green hands that guard a poppy’s grace,—

Blows the eternal flower and back to earth

Tumbles the withered case.

Nay, but Our Lord hath made renouncement vain,

Himself into those humble hands let fall,

Guerdon of willing poverty and pain,

The greatest gift of all;

To you and all who in that life austere

Mid fields remote your harsher labours ply

Singing His praise, girt round from year to year

With sheep-bells and the sky—

This, that to you is larger audience given

Where prayer and praise with sighing pinions shod

Piercing the starry ante-rooms of Heaven

Sway the designs of God:

And now yourself, standing where late hath stood

The echo of your voice, are prayer and praise—

O sweet reward and unsurpassing good

For that small gift of days.

Yourself, who now have heard such summoning

And seen such burning clarities alight

As broke the vigilant shepherds’ drowsy ring

On the predestined night,

Who made such haste as theirs who rose and trod

To Bethlehem the dew-encumbered grass,

Trustful to see the showing forth of God

And the Word come to pass;

With how much more than home-spun Israelites’

Poor hungry glimpse of Godhead are you blest

Whom Mary shows for more than mortal nights

The Jewel on her breast.

Yet, as one kneeling churl might chance to think

Of the wan herd behind their wattled bars,

Moving unshepherded with bells that clink

And stir beneath the stars,

And, for the thought’s space wishing he were back,

Pray to that Sum of Sweetness for his sheep—

“Take them, O Thou that dost supply our lack,

Into Thy hands to keep,”

So you who in His presence move and live

Recall amid your glad celestial cares

Your chosen office, to your children give

The charity of prayers.

THE REGRET

The mallow blooms in late July

Along the dusty track

To Romsey where the waters run

And Norman stones confront the sun—

Ah, Dear, that all our work were done

And we were getting back!

The whinchat in the willow runs

From silver stair to stair,

Cocks his white eyebrow, tunes his throat

And plans his little creaking note

To please the leaves that past him float—

Ah, Dear, that we were there!

Now all the world is carrying hay

And all the world is wise,

And O to trudge it once again

There in the wake of a green wain

That over-tops the rustling lane

Beneath familiar skies!

FIRST SNOW

Now Hertha hath, without a doubt,

Got all her winter peltry out;

And, for the weeds dispersèd show

Dark through that field of fallen snow,

We may felicitate in her

The happy choice of minever.

The well beside the rusty shed

Hath screened his pent-house lapt in lead

In candour of Carthusian cowl,

(Soft as the plumage of white owl),

Whose pail, for all the long night’s drouth,

Hath foam about his sable mouth.

How dark my cottage window eyes

Her wonted landscape’s white disguise—

Ho, Sulky-face, thine own brick ledge

Beareth such burden as the hedge,

And thatch, for all the warmth within,

Is bearded like a Capuchin!

TO A CHILD RETURNING HOME

UPON A WINDY DAY

Prythee what mad contentments canst thou find,

Rosy-cheeked Betsey, in this blust’rous wind

Loved of thy Babyhood? Without the door

His leaves as running footmen go before

Thy lagging feet who with compliant grace

Smilest, his kisses mantling on thy face.

Go back and bid him use while yet he may

His favour brief and pre-determined day;

Bear with his wooing, nor forbid him now

Lift the light hair from thine untroubled brow,

Whom thou shalt dub a churl, when thou art grown

A woman, but for ruffling of thy gown.

THE DEATH OF SIR MATHO

[“Nam quis iniquæ

Tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus ut teneat se

Causidici nova cum veniat lectica Mathonis

Plena ipso.”—Juvenal, I. 30.]

When Sir Matho lay a-dying and his feet were growing cold,

For the fire was out and left the place in gloom,

And he could not see the night-light on his cornices of gold

And the nurses that were hired for him some grisly gossip told

As they lingered in the little dressing-room,

There was none to light him candles or to kneel by him and pray

And the youth that fed the fire-dogs had packed up and gone away—

For where’s the sense of waiting on a man whose days are done?

And the faggots lie a-rotting where the brown pheasants run.

As Sir Matho lay a-shivering, for Death crept on apace,

Came an agèd woman in the flickering light;

Like the women of the village, but he didn’t know her face,

For his 50-h.p. Panhard used to go at such a pace

That he never knew his cottagers by sight.

He saw her twist her apron in her ugly withered hands

As the poor did who awaited, while he lived, his high commands

And Sir Matho blinked upon her like an old dog in the sun.

And the faggots lie a-rotting where the brown pheasants run.

Then Sir Matho saw she looked on him and waited his desire

And he conjured the poor mis-shapen witch

To bring some logs of cedar and of oak to light his fire,

For he counted on the pity that is never had for hire

And is all the poor possess to give the rich.

But she wrung her hands and cried to him, “Ah, Sir, I’ve done the oil

Wherewith upon a little stove my mess of greens I boil;

And coal is dear, and very dear, and fuel have we none.”

And the faggots lie a-rotting where the brown pheasants run.

She knelt her at his couch’s foot, he saw her sorrow rise,

Her tears bestarred his fair embroidered sheet,

She pierced his silken coverlid with pity of her eyes,

Her tenderness descended, like the dews of Paradise

Or grace of shining chrism, upon his feet—

The feet that trod the russet woods and broke the bracken curls;

And crushed the purple whinberries, that grow for little girls,

When the silly foreign feathers fell a-screaming to his gun.

And the faggots lie a-rotting where the brown pheasants run.

And her tears recalled Sir Matho to a Woman ’neath a Tree,

’Twas an old pietà in his hall below

(Bought to pass the time at Christie’s for a song) wherein you see

How a Mother holds the Body of her Son upon her knee,

But her eyes are red for them that dealt the blow.

“This woman has forgiven me, and You forgive,” he cried.

“So He may still be merciful.” With that Sir Matho died.

But Satan ceased to blow the fire that he had well begun.

And the faggots lie a-rotting where the brown pheasants run.

THE PETALS

Yourself in bed

(My lovely Drowsy-head)

Your garments lie like petals shed

Upon the floor

Whose carpet is strewn o’er

With little things that late you wore.

For the morrow’s wear

I fold them neat and fair

And lay them on the nursery chair;

And round them lie

Airs of the hours that die

With all their stored-up fragrancy.

As a flower might

Give out to the cool night

The warmth it drank in day-long light

So wool and lawn

From your soft skin withdrawn

(Whereon they were assumed at dawn)

Breathe the spent mood,

Lost act and attitude,

Of the small sweetness they endued.

Ere all turn cold

No garment that I hold

But shakes a vision from its fold

Of little feet

That vainly would be fleet,

Tangled about with meadow-sweet,

And of bent knees

When Betsey kneeling sees,

In the parched hedge-row, strawberries.

Such things I see

Folding your clothes, which be

Weeds of the dead day’s comedy.

The while I pray

Your part may be alway

So simple and so good to play,

And do desire

Your life may still respire

Such sweetness as your cast attire.

POST-COMMUNION

Lord, when to Thine embrace I run

Gathered like waters to the Sun,

Shape me to such celestial mirth

As may go back and glad the earth.

Let Thy rays compass me, and crowd

Into the semblance of a cloud

Mine idle and dispersèd powers;

That I, the casket of Thy showers,

May, for my closeness, coloured be

(Howe’er so faintly) like to Thee,

And when Thou loosest me to go

Diffused into Thy world below,

May I, till drip of words shall cease,

Sing of Refreshment, Light and Peace;

And, poured into the Time’s abyss,

Revive one blossom for Thy bliss.

INDEX TO FIRST LINES

PAGE

The brook along the Romsey road

3

A portly Wood-louse, full of cares

5

When the wind blows without the garden walls

7

How late in the wet twilight doth that bird

8

Of Sorrow, ’tis as Saints have said

9

Within our garden walls you see

10

The fuchsias dangle on their stem

11

My night-dress hangs on fire-guard rail

12

While I stand upon the pavement and I dress the dusty stall

13

When by the fire-light Dulcibel

15

Whom meet we, Betsey, in the wood?

16

How few alack

17

’Tis the old wife at Rickling, she

19

Pull out my couch across the fire

21

When the Wind comes up the lane

22

What dusky branches fret the yellow sky

23

Three candles had her cake

25

The Baby slumbers through the night

26

With a full house of other folks

27

He who a mangold-patch doth hoe

30

Throw up the cinders, let the night wear through

31

When elm-buds turn from red to green

32

Vainly, my Betsey, to the weeping day

34

O the trucks that leave Southampton bring a smell of twine and tar

36

When the young Spring in Betsey’s fingers sets

38

Permit, Dear Sir, that the judicious grieve

39

’Twas bought in Bruges, the shop was poor

41

The sun sank, and the wind uprist whose note

43

My Betsey-Jane it would not do

45

In Bethlehem Town by lantern light

46

Playthings my Betsey hath, the snail’s cast shell

48

I am not lightly moved, my grief was dumb

49

You taught me ways of gracefulness and fashions of address

51

You that have fenced about my storm-swept ways

52

Pardon, Dear Sir, if with intrusive pen

53

When I was small, great joy it was to see

56

We came on Christmas Day

57

On the high frosty fields afoot at dawn

59

Now night hath fallen on the little town

60

Dear, the delightful world I see

61

So ’tis your will to have a cell

63

My Sorrow diligent would sweep

65

Here lies A. B. who, four years from her birth

67

On the painted bridge at Mottisfont above the Test I’ve stood

70

It is told of the painter Da Vinci

72

Follow, my Betsey-Jane, as best you can

75

Scarce hath the crookèd scythe

77

Four-paws, the kitten from the farm

79

Four-paws, we know the sun is white

81

Time, cunning smith, hath set you in my heart

83

I saw myself encircled in the grey

84

Now candle-flames disperse the rout

86

In Sarum Close, when she had said her say

87

O thou who ’neath the umbrageous trees

88

The world’s a quarry for whose spoils

89

Whiffin, with all thy faults, I love thee still

90

An old white Jocko, kindly and urbane

91

By brook and bent

98

So now my Thames is fairly on the turn

100

So, dear, have you and Nurse conspired

101

Four alders guard a bridge of planks

103

Quite given o’er to shameful destinies

105

O valiant reach of land that doth include

105

The shop-girl in my fingers laid

107

The common pavement dull and grey

108

She ate her oat-cake by the fire

109

Here, Betsey, where the sainfoin blows

110

You to whose soul a death propitious brings

112

The mallow blooms in late July

117

Now Hertha hath, without a doubt

118

Prythee what mad contentments canst thou find

119

When Sir Matho lay a-dying and his feet were growing cold

120

Yourself in bed

124

Lord, when to Thine embrace I run

126

SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS

“A poem by Mrs. Helen Parry Eden, ‘A Suburban Night’s Entertainment,’ is in itself good enough to sustain the Englishwoman’s reputation as a judge of verse.”

“A delightful fable.”

“The most sensational feature of this number.”

The Westminster Gazette.

“A very pretty and finished piece of descriptive verse.”

The Queen.

“A little masterpiece.”

“JACOB TONSON” in The New Age.

Transcriber’s Notes:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Typographical errors have been silently corrected.

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Table of Contents

BREAD AND CIRCUSES

THE BROOK ALONG THE ROMSEY ROAD

THE POET AND THE WOOD-LOUSE

“JAM HIEMS TRANSIIT”

“VOX CLAMANTIS”

SORROW

THE MULBERRY

THE WINDOW-SILL

THE ANGELUS-BELL

THE APPLE-MAN FROM AWBRIDGE

OF DULCIBEL

THE LADY PHEASANT

TIME’S TYRANNESS

THE GINGER CAT

Μονοχρόνος Ἡδόνη.

A SONG IN A LANE

CRIES OF LONDON

THE THIRD BIRTHDAY

ONE-EYED JOCKO

A SUBURBAN NIGHT’S ENTERTAINMENT

“A PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT”

HELENA TO HERMIA (FOR WINIFRED MORGAN-BROWN)

“EFFANY”

THE ARK

AN UPLAND STATION

THE WORSHIPPERS

LINES TO A JOURNALIST, ON HIS PRAISING A NOBLE LORD RECENTLY CREATED

THE BELGIAN PINAFORE

THE WIND

TO BETSEY-JANE, ON HER DESIRING TO GO INCONTINENTLY TO HEAVEN

IN BETHLEHEM TOWN

THE MOON

A LADY OF FASHION ON THE DEATH OF HER DOG

TO A LITTLE GIRL

LINES WRITTEN FOR D. E. IN A COPY OF “THE CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES”

EPISTLE TO THOMAS BLACK, CAT TO THE SOANE MUSEUM

FOR MY MOTHER, WITH A NEW BUTTON-BOX

A CHILD BEFORE THE CRIB

TO MASS AT DAWN “EX UMBRIS ET IMAGINIBUS IN VERITATEM”

THE NUNS’ CHAPEL

THE SNARE

A HOUSE IN A WOOD

THE CONFESSIONAL

EPITAPH ON A CHILD RUN OVER AND KILLED BY A MOTOR-CAR IN THE STREET

THE WATER-MEADS OF MOTTISFONT

THE SENIOR MISTRESS OF BLYTH

THE FIRST PARTY

SOUVENIR OF MICHAEL DRAYTON

I

II

III

“FOUR-PAWS”

“FOUR-PAWS” IN LONDON

TO MY SISTER DOROTHY, A PASTE BROOCH

SESTINA TO D. E.

LULLABY FOR A LITTLE GIRL

RONDEAU OF SARUM CLOSE

THE KNOBBY-GREEN

THE CARCANET

TO A TOWN CRIER

THE TALE OF JOCKO A STORY FOR A CHILD

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

THE WAG-TAIL

HIGH TIDE AT BATTERSEA

TO MY DAUGHTER WHO TELLS ME SHE CAN DRESS HERSELF

THE BABY GOAT

BOURNEMOUTH TO POOLE

I BOURNEMOUTH

II POOLE HARBOUR

THE JAPANESE DUCKLING

THE PRIVET HEDGE

THE VEGETARIAN’S DAUGHTER

HONEY MEADOW

AN ELEGY, FOR FATHER ANSELM, OF THE ORDER OF REFORMED CISTERCIANS, GUEST-MASTER AND PARISH PRIEST

THE REGRET

FIRST SNOW

TO A CHILD RETURNING HOME UPON A WINDY DAY

THE DEATH OF SIR MATHO

THE PETALS

POST-COMMUNION

INDEX TO FIRST LINES

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE