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Title: Coal and Candlelight, and Other Verses

Author: Helen Parry Eden

Release date: December 28, 2014 [eBook #47803]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Charlene Taylor, Brian Wilsden, Bryan Ness and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COAL AND CANDLELIGHT, AND OTHER VERSES *** 



Cover






Transcriber's Notes.


Every effort has been made to replicate this text
as faithfully as possible. I have taken the liberty of adding
an additional reference to the CONTENTS page in order to provide a direct link
to the "By the Same Author" information at the end of the book.
The indentation of the lines of the poem "Coal and Candlelight"
reverse at lines 12/13. This is an obvious typographical error
and has been corrected.




COAL 
 AND
CANDLELIGHT




[Pg 1-2]


BY THE SAME AUTHOR

BREAD AND CIRCUSES

THE BODLEY HEAD




[Pg 3]


COAL AND CANDLELIGHT

AND OTHER VERSES
BY
HELEN PARRY EDEN




LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXVIII


[Pg 4]


Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London.




[Pg 5-6]


 TO E. A. P.






BEYOND all boundaries and pales


You led me hillward. With the clouds


We two were driven and the gales


That filled your soul's delightful sails


Shook my faint spirit's shrouds.



There where the æons still emboss


Cromlech and cairn and tufa crown


With lichen cold and stag-horn moss


And callous suns cross and recross,


You paused, and I looked down



And saw the straight strait Roman road,


The entangling lanes, our wayward track


And vestiges of all who strode


On the old quest with the old load


Beckoned me back and back.



Sweet wood-smoke climbing up the fell


Met me half-way as down I won,


And met me too the climbing bell


That bids the world kneel to a knell,


A knell ascending to the sun.



The holy bell shall tune my note,


The stars shall touch my thatch at night,


Within my spirit's dark stream shall float


A planet, meek as a child's boat,


That mocked your utmost height.



Yet I am yours—your pace is stamped


On mine, o'er mine your spirit broods—


Who tread the sanctuary hushed and lamped


With strides that took the heath and tramped


Your hopeless altitudes.







[Pg 7-8]




NOTE


THESE verses have been, for the most part,


already printed in England or America.


Five numbers are included by special permission of


the proprietors of Punch. All published in England


concerning the war are reprinted in their


original order.


H. P. E.


Begbroke, 1918.




[Pg 9]




CONTENTS





 
PAGE




The Distraction
13




Sir Bat-Ears
15




Coal and Candlelight
19




Trees
25




Simkin
27




A Ballard of Lords and Ladies
32




A Prayer for St.Innocent's Day
36




The Prize
38




To Wilfred Meynell
42




"Sidera sunt Testes et Matutina Pruina"
44




To A.W.: A Mother
46




The Ascent
47




April in Abingdon
51




An Idol of the Market Place
52




Peter Pigeon
55




I am glad the Martins are Building again....
58




A Parley with Grief
61




Levée de Rideau
63




An Afterthought on Apples[Pg 10]
65




Recruits on the Road to Oxford
67




A Volunteer
69




Ars Immortalis
71




The Admonition: To Betsey
75




The Great Rebuke
77




A Chairman of Tribunal
80




After the Storm
82




The Phœnix Liberty
83




By The Same Author
85







[Pg 11-12]


COAL AND
CANDLELIGHT




[Pg 13]


THE DISTRACTION






BETSEY, 'tis very like that I shall be—


When death shall wreak my life's economy—


Repaid with pains for contemplating thee




Unwisely out of season. With the rest


We knelt at Mass, not yet disperst and blest,


Waiting the imminent "Ite missa est."




And I, who turned a little from the pure


Pursuit of mine intention to make sure


My child knelt undistracted and demure,




Did fall into that sin. And ere the close
[Pg 14]

Of the grave Canon's "Benedicat vos ..."


Had scanned her hair and said, "How thick it grows




Over the little golden neck of her!"


So doth the mother sway the worshipper


And snatch the holiest intervals to err.




Nor piety constrained me, nor the place;


But I commended, 'gainst the light's full grace,


The little furry outline of her face.








[Pg 15]


SIR BAT-EARS






SIR BAT-EARS was a dog of birth


And bred in Aberdeen,


But he favoured not his noble kin


And so his lot is mean,


And Sir Bat-ears sits by the alms-houses


On the stones with grass between.




Under the ancient archway


His pleasure is to wait


Between the two stone pine-apples


That flank the weathered gate;




And old, old alms-persons go by,


All rusty, bent and black

[Pg 16]

"Good day, good day, Sir Bat-ears!"


They say and stroke his back.




And old, old alms-persons go by,


Shaking and wellnigh dead,


"Good night, good night, Sir Bat-ears!"


They say and pat his head.




So courted and considered


He sits out hour by hour,


Benignant in the sunshine


And prudent in the shower.




(Nay, stoutly can he stand a storm


And stiffly breast the rain,


That rising when the cloud is gone


He leaves a circle of dry stone


Whereon to sit again.)




A dozen little door-steps

[Pg 17]

Under the arch are seen,


A dozen agèd alms-persons


To keep them bright and clean;




Two wrinkled hands to scour each step


With a square of yellow stone—


But print-marks of Sir Bat-ears' paws


Bespeckle every one.




And little eats an alms-person,


But, though his board be bare,


There never lacks a bone of the best


To be Sir Bats-ears' share.




Mendicant muzzle and shrewd nose,


He quests from door to door;


Their grace they say, his shadow grey

[Pg 18]

Is instant on the floor—


Humblest of all the dogs there be,


A pensioner of the poor.








[Pg 19]


COAL AND CANDLELIGHT


... ἔχω δέ τοι ὄσσ' ἑν ὀνείρῳ φαίνονται.—
Theocritus, ix. Idyll.






BEFORE they left their mirth's warm scene


And slept, I heard my children say


That moonlight, like a duck's egg, green,


Outside the enfolding curtains lay.


But hearth-bound by maternal choice,


The fire-side's eremite, I know


The nightfall less by sight than voice—


How wake the huffing winds, and how


More full the flooded stream descends,


In unarrested race of sound,


The lasher where the river bends


To circle in our garden ground.


Within I harbour, hap what hap

[Pg 20]

Without, and o'er my baby brood:


Who, newly slumbering on my lap,


Stirs in resentful quietude.


Her little shawl-swathed fists enfold


One cherished forefinger of mine;


Her callow hair with Tuscan gold


Is pencilled in the candle-shine;


Her cheeks' sweet heraldry, exprest


Each evening since her happy birth,


Is argent to her mother's breast


And gules to the emblazoning hearth;


Only the lashes of her eyes


Some ancient discontent impairs,


Which, for their abdicated skies,


Are pointed with forgotten tears.


And so, as simple as a bird,


She nestles—there is no child else

[Pg 21]

To rouse her with a reckless word


Or clink her rattle's fallen bells:


All, long dismissed with wonted prayers,


Such apostolic vigils keep,


No sound descends the darkened stairs


To question the allure of sleep.


Only their fringèd towels veil


The fender's interwoven wire,


And, parted in the midst, exhale


Domestic incense towards the fire.


Betwixt the hobs (their lease of light,


But not of heat, devolved to dark)


The elm-logs simmer, hoary white


Or ruddy-scaled with saurian bark.


'Twas the third George whose lieges planned


That grate, and all its iron caprice


Of classic garlands, nobly spanned


By that triumphant mantelpiece—

[Pg 22]

A very altar for the bright


Tame element its pomp installs


'Twixt flat pilasters, fluted, white,


And lion-bedizened capitals.


Here portly topers met of old


To serve their comfortable god


And praise the heroes wigged and jowled,


Of that pugnacious period.


Now in their outworn husk of state


Our frugal comfort oddly dwells—


(As recluse crabs accommodate


Their contours to discarded shells)


A dozen childish perquisites


Await my liberated hands


And lovelier usurpation sits


Enthroned above the fading brands,

[Pg 23]

Two lonely tapers criss-cross rays


Cancel the dusky wall and shine


To halo with effulgent haze


The Genius of this Georgian shrine.


Mary, who through the centuries holds


Her crown'd Son in her hand, amid


Her mantle's black Byzantine folds


More tenderly displayed than hid,


O'er this tramontane hearth presides


Oracular of Heaven and Rome—


Where Peter is the Church abides,


Where Mary and Her Son, the home.


All day she blesses my employ


Where surge and eddy round my knee,


Swayed by a comfit or a toy,


The battles of eternity.


And that regard of Hers and His,

[Pg 24]

Hallowing the truce of night, endows


The weariest vigilant head with bliss;


And sanctifies such sleeping brows


As hers I carry from the haunt


Of waning warmth, the empty bars,


Up the great staircase, 'neath the gaunt


North window with its quarrelled stars,


To the quiet cradle. Slumber on,


Small heiress of celestial peace,


The glitter of the world is gone,


Et lucet lux in tenebris.








[Pg 25]


TREES






I WANDER in the open fields


Amazed, for there is no one by,


To see the bowery-hanging trees


So sympathetic with the sky;




Where sheets of daisies on the grass


Lie like Our Lord's discarded shrouds,


Whence He is risen grow the elms


And etch their verges on the clouds.




But when I walk the causey'd town


Whose citizens with tedious breath


Make certain day by day that tomb


Which shuts the Godhead underneath,




I sorrowing tread the cobbled way

[Pg 26]

Their strait-rankt chestnut-rows between,


Where myriad blossoms hardly light


One sombre pyramid of green.








[Pg 27]


SIMKIN






TO the sheer summit of the town,


Up from the marshes where the mill is,


The High Street clambers, looking down


On willows, weirs and water-lilies;


What goblin homes those gradients bear,


Doors that for all their new defacements


Date darkly, windows that outwear


The centuries shining on their casements!




When Simkin shows you up the street


To pay a bill or post a letter,


Your urgency infects his feet,


He speeds as well as you, or better;


Moulding his Lilliputian stride

[Pg 28]

To your swift footfall's emulation


He walks unwavering by your side


Until you reach your destination.




Simkin, the urchin with the shock


Of curls rush-hatted, plainly preaches


The Age of Reason in a smock


And Liberty in holland breeches,


Yet all obediently he'll ramp


Against the counter, pressing closer


To watch you lick a ha'penny stamp


Or see you settle with the grocer.




But once your steps retrace the town


And "Home's" the goal your folly mentions


A thousand projects of his own


Engage the sum of his attentions—


As when, precariously superb,

[Pg 29]

He mounts with two-year-old activity


The great stone horse-block by the kerb


Time-worn to glacial declivity.




Then debonair and undebarred


By the old hound, its casual sentry,


He dallies in "The Old George" yard


And greets the jackdaw in the entry;


Retracted to the street, he gains


A sombre door no sunshine mellows,


The smithy, where there glows and wanes


Fire, at the bidding of the bellows.




A-tip-toe at the infrequent shops


Toys or tin kettles he appraises,


Seeds in bright packets, lollipops,


Through the dim oriels' greenish glazes:


Then with two sturdy hands he shakes

[Pg 30]

The stripling sycamore that dapples


With shade the side-walk and awakes


Some ancient memory of apples.




Next he rejoins, beneath a sky


With willow-leaves and gnats a-quiver,


The dapper martins where they ply


A clayey traffic by the river;


Watches the minnows in the warm


Near shallows with a smile persuading—


He could not come to any harm


On such a heaven-sent day for wading!




Home's gained at last. At last they cease,


Coaxes, entreaties, threats, coercions;


An old gate's iron fleurs-de-lis


Shut upon Simkin's last diversions.


The garden crossed, the door stands wide,

[Pg 31]

And, pouting like a wronged immortal,


But passive as a Roman bride,


Simkin is lifted through the portal.








[Pg 32]


A BALLAD OF LORDS AND LADIES


"At Wycombe County Court ...

as Lords and Lady of the Manor of Turville ..."






A SECOND spring came round when fell


To save our land (men said) from Hell


Of Teuton tyranny her sons—


On what strange soil, to what strange guns.


And here on English sward where some


Unsacrificed remained at home


The mild commenting sage saw pass


The insensate strife of class with class


Men lived in England side by side


As sweetly as their brethren died

[Pg 33]

In Flanders, said the Optimist.


One instance to augment his list ...


In England, when the tranquil spring


Bought and endowed with suffering


Began, and the heroic year's


New wheat shot up through blood and tears


Of sacrifice its slender shoots;


When every elm-tree, its great roots


Confirmed in English agony,


Shook its red buds against the sky;


In April, when the country lifted


Its winter-smitten face and shifted


From sombre tenderness to smiles


The sun-swept champaign's miles on miles


And melody made the morning rich—


Then Lords and Ladies lined the ditch


With the same spear-shaped leaves that stood,

[Pg 34]

Noble and meek, beneath the Rood,


Dappled with Jesus Christ His Blood.


As emulous of those unfurled swords


One noble Lady and two Lords—


Whose names the chronicler rejoice,


One Mrs. Nairne and Lord Camoys


And Mr. Hewitt—did consort


To sue in Wycombe County Court


"A cottager," one Walter West:


And did from that tribunal wrest


A strong injunction to affray


The man from "cutting thorn or may


Or trespassing" where the Manor's hand


Lay on "the waste or common land


Of Turville." With the noble Three's


Victory went the lawyers' fees—


"Costs, and one shilling damages."

[Pg 35]

Now, even in war-time, when one-half


Our ink wells forth in epitaph


And every quill their fate commends


Who lay down lives to save their friends,


There should be gall enough for those


Who lay down laws to snare their foes;


A little monument or cairn


For my Lord Camoys, Mrs. Nairne


And Mr. Hewitt, who, while hosts


Of English cottagers on coasts


Unknown went down to death, effaced


One cottager from Turville Waste;


Conserving in this world of scorns


Their brambles for the Crown of Thorns.








[Pg 36]


A PRAYER FOR ST. INNOCENT'S DAY






WISDOM, be Thou


The only garland of my burdened brow,




The nearest stage


And vowed conclusion of my pilgrimage,




Shade whence I shun


The untempered supervision of the sun,




Planet whose beams


Dispel the desperate ambuscade of dreams;




Through the Red Sea


Of mine own passion, Wisdom, usher me.






For this I pray

[Pg 37]

The four austere custodians of to-day,




Urge mine intent—


Nazarius, Celsus, Victor, Innocent.








[Pg 38]


THE PRIZE






WITH ivy wreathed, a hundred lights


Shone out; the Convent play was finished;


The waning term this night of nights


To a few golden hours diminished.




Again the curtain rose. Outshone


The childish frocks and childish tresses


Of the late cast that had put on


Demureness and its party dresses.




Rustled a-row upon the stage


Big girls and little, ranged in sizes,


All waiting for the Personage


To make the speech and give the prizes.




And there, all rosy from her rôle,

[Pg 39]

Betsey with sturdy valiance bore her,


Nor did she recognize a soul


But braved the buzzing room before her




With such resolve that guest on guest,


And many a smiling nun behind them,


Met her eyes obviously addressed


To proving that she did not mind them.




(So might a kitchen kitten see—


Whose thoughts round housemaids' heels are centred—


The awful drawing-room's company


He inadvertently has entered.)




Swift from her side the girlish crowd,


With lovely smiles and limber graces,


Went singly, took their prizes, bowed,

[Pg 40]

Returning quietly to their places.




Then "Betsey Jane!" and all the rout,


Sweet postulant and nun pedantic,


Beheld that little craft put out


Upon the polished floor's Atlantic.




The Personage bestowed her prize,


And Betsey, lowly as the others,


Bowed o'er her sandals, raised her eyes


Alight with pride—and met her mother's!




She thrust between the honoured row


Before her in her glad elation;


Her school-mates gasped to see her go;


The nuns divined her destination;




The guests made way. Clap following clap

[Pg 41]

Acclaimed Convention's overleaping,


As Betsey gained her mother's lap


And gave the prize into her keeping.








[Pg 42]


TO WILFRID MEYNELL


His Friend complains of Prose that would never
serve her.






THRICE foolish I that, to portray


For you apart my heart and mind,


Bid foolish Prose the gift convey—


No thrall of mine and proved unkind—


Who flung both heart and mind away.




He never did my hests with joy


On deftest feet with fleetness shod,


But lagged in byways o'er some toy


More meet for babyhood. A rod


Reward my graceless errand boy!




On many a fair suit swiftly sent

[Pg 43]

He still hath stayed nor weighed the cost,


Reluctant to your door he bent,


The string of my thoughts' parcel lost


And gone the gist of mine intent.




Wherefore that ruffian lad I curse,


For 'tis his guilt hath spilt my sense,


For you, lest you should take for worse


His lack of wit, this evidence


Of my regard I send by Verse.








[Pg 44]




"SIDERA SUNT TESTES ET MATUTINA

PRUINA"






THE stars are witness and the morning frost,


The shuttered inn, the icy lane, the hoar


Alley transmuted at the keen moon's cost


To silver birch from leaden sycamore,


The shivering steps, the door that barely stands


Ajar, the altar's weekday thrift of gold,


The hasty breath that dews my helpless hands,


At what white heat I come through this white cold:


How before day blows up the smouldering sun


I feed my ashen hope with kindling phrase,


Cast fuel on my faith, watch the flame run

[Pg 45]

From brand to brand of love and by that blaze


Pillow my head upon His Heart whereon


Lay but last night the lovelocks of St. John.








[Pg 46]


TO A. W.: A MOTHER






WHEN beside you to your bed


Comes the little Catkin-head


(For she surely boasts some fair


Down or beech-leaf coloured hair


Your endowing aspects taught her,


His and yours, this first-born daughter)


Think how many, blessed two,


Babe and mother, prayed for you.




And when you hold appeased and warm


The Dear and Greedy on your arm,


Or laugh among the pillows piled,


All-sufficient to your child,


Pray sometimes for all exiled


(And maybe wistful) from these good


Earliest days of Motherhood.








[Pg 47]


THE ASCENT






HERE, where of old they sowed the mustard-seed,


A-branch like candelabra lit with flowers,


Above the slim young wheat-spears towers the weed


Burning the sunshine through these ardent hours;




And I, late pent in a small chintz-hung room


With all the bicker of a little town


About my window, I have burst my tomb


And stand assumed to the imperial down.




From the warm-breathing vale as from a prison,

[Pg 48]

From last year's plashy oak-leaves to the austere


Summits of chalky plough-land, I have risen


And sloughed my skin of sloth and heavened me here.




Past gardens laden with lilac and slow streams


Where the black-flowering rush renews its ranks


Where willow-drills lave in a mist of dreams


Their whispering leaflets, past the roadside banks




All white with daisies as green tide with surf,


(No star-bedizened belt of white Orion's


Holds lovelier constellations than this turf)

[Pg 49]

Past little closes set with dandelions




(And set so full that yellow ousts the green


And brags of victory shouting to the sun)


I urged me till beneath the sky's hot sheen


These heights of stony solitude were won.




Here on the crack'd white clods I stand elated


Whose iron verge scarce crumbles at my heels


So hath the effulgent ether indurated


The slot of horse-hoofs and the track of wheels;




And now, and now, the spirit no longer spent


In ease that overtops itself, takes grace,


Cleansed by the sweat of that divine ascent,


Exulting in the harsh unshaded place.




For here where God hath been so hard to shackle

[Pg 50]

The martyred earth He hath His first acclaim,


Still the parched flowers burn round His tabernacle,


The unwatered hills are vocal with His Name.








[Pg 51]


APRIL IN ABINGDON






WHEN milder days are well begun,


And window-sills are warm in the sun,


And grannies in white mufflers meet


Friends at the turn of every street,




When at the doctor's door you dread


Upon his spaniel's ears to tread


Who by the scraper lays to doze


His ginger lovelocks and his nose,




When the oldest alms-folk rise and peer


Out of their painted doors, to hear


The bellman's speech ere he be gone—


Then April comes to Abingdon.








[Pg 52]


AN IDOL OF THE MARKET PLACE






DECORUM and the butcher's cat


Are seldom far apart—


From dawn when clouds surmount the air,


Piled like a beauty's powdered hair,


Till dusk, when down the misty square


Rumbles the latest cart




He sits in coat of white and grey


Where the rude cleaver's shock


Horrid from time to time descends,


And his imposing presence lends


Grace to a platform that extends


Beneath the chopping-block.




How tranquil are his close-piled cheeks,

[Pg 53]

His paws, sequestered warm!


An oak-grained panel backs his head


And all the stock-in-trade is spread,


A symphony in white and red,


Round his harmonious form.




The butcher's brave cerulean garb


Flutters before his face,


The cleaver dints his little roof


Of furrowed wood; remote, aloof,


He sits superb and panic proof


In his accustomed place.




Threading the columned County Hall,


Midmost before his eyes,


Alerter dog and loitering maid


Cross from the sunlight to the shade,


And small amenities of trade

[Pg 54]

Under the gables rise;




Cats of the town, a shameless crew,


Over the way he sees


Propitiate with lavish purr


An unresponsive customer,


Or, meek with sycophantic fur,


Caress the children's knees.




But he, betrothed to etiquette,


Betrays nor head nor heart;


Lone as the Ark on Ararat,


A monument of fur and fat,


Decorum and the butcher's cat


Are seldom far apart.








[Pg 55]


PETER PIGEON






THE pigeons dwell in Pimlico; they mingle in the street;


They flutter at Victoria around the horses' feet;


They fly to meet the royal trains with many a loyal phrase


And strut to meet their sovereign on strips of scarlet baize;


But Peter, Peter Pigeon, salutes his cradle days.




The pigeons build in Bloomsbury; they rear their classic homes


Where pedants clamber sable steps to search forgotten tomes;


They haunt Ionic capitals with learned lullabies

[Pg 56]

And each laments in anapaests and in iambics cries;


But Peter, Peter Pigeon, how sleepily he sighs!




The pigeons walk the Guildhall; they dress in civic taste


With amplitude of mayoral chain and aldermanic waist;


They bow their grey emphatic heads, their topknots rise and fall,


They cluster in the courtyard at their midday dinner call;


But Peter, Peter Pigeon, he nods beneath my shawl.




The pigeons brood in Battersea; while yet the dawn is dark


Their ready aubade ripples in the plane-trees round the park;

[Pg 57]

They light upon your balcony, a brave and comely band,


Till night decoys their coral feet, their voices low and bland;


But Peter, Peter Pigeon, his feet are in my hand.








[Pg 58]


"I AM GLAD THE MARTINS ARE

BUILDING AGAIN...."






I AM glad the martins are building again,


They had all departed


From the old deserted


House by the stream;


Its windows were black to the snow and the rain


And the sky and the sun,


And the river sobbed on,


Like a child in a dream,


Under the unlopped sycamore boughs


That stifled the old stone house.




Now the axe-edge is blue on the sycamore rind,

[Pg 59]

By the workers huzza'd


Till the ashlared façade


Outpeers its disguise;


Now little white curtains flap out to the wind


Across the grey sills


And summer instils


The peace of the skies


And the zest of the sun into every old room


So given to grief and gloom.




And the children who wake the green walks with their mirth


And lift the shy heads


Of the flowers from their beds,


By a strange cry stirred—


Desert their dear pastime, look up from the earth,


Up, up, through the leaves

[Pg 60]

Where under the eaves


Clings the back of the bird:


And his nest-mate white-throated regards the new day


From her arch of inverted clay.








[Pg 61]


A PARLEY WITH GRIEF






GRIEF, let us come to terms! Your strict siege narrows


In on the final citadel of my soul,


Perish the outworks in a storm of arrows,


Mangonel, mace and battleaxe gain their goal.


Yet have we still provision and caparison,


You will not brook, nor we admit, defeat—


Take then the broken fort not grudge the garrison


Generous safe-conduct and a proud retreat.


Granted, O Grief? So am I saved disbanding,


Even in my end, the powers which called me chief—

[Pg 62]

Sick Memory, weak Will and Understanding


Wounded to death. Marvellest thou, chivalrous Grief,


Seeing us slink into the eternal distance,


A foe so faint should make such long resistance?








[Pg 63]


LEVÉE DE RIDEAU






HE rode upon the sorrel horse and led the dapple grey,


They passed below the gables mute soon after dawn of day,


Before the bell had chimed for Mass, while yet the sunless air


Lifted the straws of yesterday about the sleeping square.




I recked not of his name and fate nor yet did I surmise


Whose were the steeds whose locks were blown betwixt their spacious eyes,


The finches fluttered from their hoofs, I stayed to mark the ease

[Pg 64]

Of him who led the grey and swayed the sorrel with his knees.




They passed. Uprose the rural sun and spake his prologue clear


Across the world for suburbs sleek and linkèd slums to hear—


"Come hither, hither, where are played the interludes of light


And day enacts her dearest parts for your abusèd sight!"








[Pg 65]


AN AFTERTHOUGHT ON APPLES






WHILE yet unfallen apples throng the bough,


To ripen as they cling


In lieu of the lost bloom, I ponder how


Myself did flower in so rough a spring;


And was not set in grace


When the first flush was gone from summer's face.


How in my tardy season, making one


Of a crude congregation, sour in sin,


I nodded like a green-clad mandarin,


Averse from all that savoured of the sun.


But now throughout these last autumnal weeks

[Pg 66]

What skyey gales mine arrogant station thresh,


What sunbeams mellow my beshadowed cheeks,


What steely storms cudgel mine obdurate flesh;


Less loath am I to see my fellows launch


Forth from my side into the air's abyss,


Whose own stalk is


Grown untenacious of its wonted branch.


And yet, O God,


Tumble me not at last upon the sod,


Or, still superb above my fallen kind,


Grant not my golden rind


To the black starlings screaming in the mist.


Nay, rather on some gentle day and bland


Give Thou Thyself my stalk a little twist,


Dear Lord, and I shall fall into Thy hand.








[Pg 67]


RECRUITS ON THE ROAD TO OXFORD






THEY passed in dusty black defile


Along the burning champaign's edge


Where English oaks for many a mile


Dripped acorns o'er the berried hedge,




With valorous smiles on faces soiled


Out of the autumn's heat and light


These who on English earth had toiled


Came forth for English earth to fight,




Round their descending flank outspread


The country like a painted page—


God's truth, a man were lightly dead


For such a golden heritage!




But these, the surging centuries' wrack

[Pg 68]

Beyond all tides auspicious thrown,


Doomed with bowed head and threadbare back


To till the land they might not own,




Reft of the swallow's tranquil lease,


Reft of the scrap-fed robin's dole—


How have these reared in starving peace


This flaming valiancy of soul?...




O England, when with fluttered breath


You greet the victory they earn


And when with eyes that looked on death


The remnant of your sons return,




On your inviolate soil repent


And give the guerdon unbesought—


To these whose lives were freely lent


Some share of that for which they fought!








[Pg 69]


A VOLUNTEER






HE had no heart for war, its ways and means,


Its train of machinations and machines,


Its murky provenance, its flagrant ends;


His soul, unpledged for his own dividends,


He had not ventured for a nation's spoils.


So had he sighed for England in her toils


Of greed, was't like his pulse would beat less blithe


To see the Teuton shells on Rotherhithe


And Mayfair—so each body had 'scaped its niche,


The wretched poor, the still more wretched rich?


Why had he sought the struggle and its pain?

[Pg 70]

Lest little girls with linked hands in the lane


Should look "You did not shield us!" as they wended


Across his window when the war was ended.








[Pg 71]


ARS IMMORTALIS






BETSEY, when all the stalwarts left


Us women to our tasks befitting,


Your little fingers, far from deft,


Coped for an arduous week with knitting;


And, though the meekness of your hair


Drooped o'er the task disarmed my strictures,


The Army gained when in despair


You dropped its socks to paint it pictures.




I, knowing well your guileless brush,


Urged that there wanted something subtler


To put Meissonier to the blush


And snatch the bays from Lady Butler;


And so your skies retained their blue,

[Pg 72]

Nor reddened with the wrath of nations,


To prove at least one artist knew


Her public and her limitations.




A dozen warriors far away


Craved of your skill to keep them posted,


With coloured pictures day by day,


In aught of note their birthplace boasted;


Hence these "Arriving Refugees"


(Cheerful in burnt sienna) hurry


To soothe your uncle's hours of ease


In some congested hut in Surrey.




I hear that Nurse's David gets


(His valour is already French's)


Your "Market" with the cigarettes


His sister forwards to the trenches;


This "Cat" (for Rupert in the East),

[Pg 73]

Limned in its moments of inertia,


You send that he may show the beast


To its progenitors in Persia.




Daily your brush depicts a home


Such as our duller pens are mute on;


Squanders Vermilion, Lake and Chrome


And Prussian Blue—that furious Teuton


Paper beneath your fingers calls


For forms and figures to divide it,


Colours and cock-eyed capitals


And kisses cruciform to hide it.




Till brushes sucked and laid apart,


And candles lit and daylight dying


And you asleep, your works of art


Ranged on the mantelpiece and drying—


We elders (older when you're gone)

[Pg 74]

Muse on our country's gains and losses ...


Ah, Betsey, is it you alone


Who send your kisses shaped like crosses?








[Pg 75]


THE ADMONITION: TO BETSEY






REMEMBER, on your knees,


The men who guard your slumbers—




And guard a house in a still street


Of drifting leaves and drifting feet,


A deep blue window where below


Lies moonlight on the roof like snow,


A clock that still the quarters tells


To the dove that roosts beneath the bell's


Grave canopy of silent brass


Round which the little night winds pass


Yet stir it not in the grey steeple;


And guard all small and drowsy people


Whom gentlest dusk doth disattire,

[Pg 76]

Undressing by the nursery fire


In unperturbed numbers


On this side of the seas—




Remember, on your knees,


The men who guard your slumbers.








[Pg 77]


THE GREAT REBUKE


"May those at war soon lay down the sword and

so end the slaughter which is dishonouring Europe

and humanity."—Benedict XV.






"PUT up thy sword." So Peter found


Rebuke upon his weapon's aid,


The High Priest's servant of his wound


Was healed, and the disciple's blade


Rebidden to its scabbard. See,


O World, the lovely evidence—


True lesson of Gethsemane—


That Heaven on Earth disdained defence.


For still the hostile ages pass,


And force may strive for right, but know,


You cannot cut at Caiaphas


But the hired servant bears the blow;


And still the apostle, he who dies

[Pg 78]

In thought to stem Christ's Passion, falls


Short of his fervour and denies


His Master in the High Priest's halls ...


Forth leaps the sword upon the same


Innocent pretexts—little homes


Childhood and womanhood wronged, the Name


Of this rebuking Christ: hence comes


A votive fury that begins


All conflicts, and the justest pride


Is first the stalking-horse of sins


And then deserted and denied.


Despots, diplomatists, dark trades


Set men unceasingly at strife,


Usurp the war-cries of crusades,


Divert each God-devoted life;


Never, Oh never yet, will war,

[Pg 79]

Howe'er so poisonous root and stem,


Lack the assurance of a star


Outdazzling His of Bethlehem


Till Truth and Innocence reprove


Their ghastly champions with His word—


Who chid the violence even of love—


"Put up thy sword." "Put up thy sword."








[Pg 80]


A CHAIRMAN OF TRIBUNAL


"I am joined with ... nobility and tranquillity,

burgomasters and great oneyers such as ... pray

continually to their saint the commonwealth."—

I Henry IV, ii. 1.






SO ringed about with sparrow-hawks and owls,


Bloodhounds and weasels, triplicated jowls,


Complaisant dewlaps and uneasy eyes,


He sits—this President of Destinies—


Fingers his papers, strokes his creasy chin,


Bellows beneath his borrowed baldaquin.


Cocytus still sobs past him, on its brink


He lays nice odds which souls emerge or sink,


Paddles his bovine hoofs in the spilt bliss


Of Love, and in the tearfullest abyss


Angles for little jests. He knows no ruth—

[Pg 81]

Though even Pilate was concerned for Truth


And Caiaphas for Forms—his scarlet thumb


Was born reversed: and Innocence is dumb


Bound by the implication of his dream,


Unholy revenant of a dead régime,


Who made red War ere God made me and you


And now, God willing, thinks to see it through.








[Pg 82]


AFTER THE STORM






ALONG the silent lane I found—


Where all night long the wind blew Hell—


The chestnut trees had heaped the ground


With ruthless spoil of nut and shell.




So shall we see our night's grim tolls—


When dawn displays the insensate dusk's


Ravage—the unnumbered, fallen souls,


The unnumbered, vacant, mangled husks.








[Pg 83]


THE PHŒNIX LIBERTY






ONE dark December day, the text-books teach,


The English Commons set unbending names,


By the wan light of wavering candle-flames,


To their immortal Protest for Free Speech:


Stern signatories, who spared not to impeach


Mompesson and Mitchell of corrupted aims,


"And argue and debate," said peevish James,


"Publicly, matters far beyond their reach."


"O fiery popular spirits," re-create


Some sparkle of your ashes. Let us see


The Phœnix Liberty, that chirps by stealth


Through chinks and crannies of our shuttered state,

[Pg 84]

Bright as the sun and unabashed as he,


Cry through the casements of the commonwealth.








[Pg 85]


BY THE SAME AUTHOR




"BREAD AND CIRCUSES"


Crown 8vo, 3/6 net.




Some Opinions of the Press






"The best first book produced in many a year."—The
New York Times.


"It is difficult to describe the effect they produce
without seeming to use the language of exaggeration."—
The
Westminster Gazette.


"There is not a piece in the engaging volume that does not
make appeal."—The Daily Telegraph.


"A remarkable event in the world of women."—G. B. D.,
in The Queen.


"The large bulk of this small volume is a sheer
delight."—E. H. L., in the Manchester Guardian.


"She has approached common things and great things with a
quiet delicate ecstasy that is clean and refreshing."—J. M. B.,
in The Graphic.


"Mrs. Eden at once secures for herself a place by her
first volume in the distinctively literary class of her day. It
is the best volume of light verse that has been issued for many a
year."—Clement Shorter, in The Sphere.


"I have read it a great many times myself and it has become
part of my existence in a peculiar manner."—
G. K. Chesterton, in
The New Witness.


"Poems ... which competent critics consider the
noblest devotional poetry written since the death of Francis
Thompson."—Joyce Kilmer, in the New York Independent.


"She can work innocence into art without damaging the dew
on it: the very cunning of her verse seems indeed a kind of added
candour—a sort of celestial mischief that proves the possession
of the full freedom of heaven."—Dixon Scott, in the Liverpool
Daily Courier.






[Pg 86]




 RECENT VERSE






CHRIST IN HADES




By Stephen Phillips. With an Introduction by C. Lewis
Hind. Illustrated by Stella Langdale.

Demy 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. (Uniform with "The Dream of Gerontius.")


Daily News: "Mr. Lewis Hind has written a fascinating and
amusing chapter of memories of the literary 'nineties."






CACKLES AND LAYS




RHYMES OF A HENWIFE. By Margaret Lavington.

With numerous Illustrations by Helen Urquhart.

Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.


If Ann and Jane Taylor had lived in the twentieth century
and taken to keeping poultry for profit in war time, they
would probably have had a laudable desire to inculcate the
principles and practice of hen-keeping among the young. But
unless they had developed an unexpected sense of humour
they wouldn't have produced anything like "Cackles and
Lays," for while some of Margaret Lavington's rhymes are
practical and sprightly, others are just delightfully whimsical
and humorous.






POEMS OF WEST AND EAST




By V. Sackville-west (the Hon. Mrs. Harold Nicolson).

Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.


Morning Post: "These poems reveal a personality both charming
and courageous. They have all been lived—not merely
written."






THE RHYME GARDEN




By Marguerite Buller-allan. With Pictures in Black
and White and Colour by the Author.

 Crown 4to. 3s. 6d. net.


An unconventional book for children in that it is illustrated
in what seems at first sight a conventional childish manner,
but behind the apparent crudity there is real art and colour
of the kind that will appeal to all children and all grown-ups
who love children.






HAY HARVEST and Other Poems




By Lucy Buxton.

Crown 8vo.  3s. 6d. net.






A HIGHLAND REGIMENT and Other Poems




By Lieut. E. A. Mackintosh, M.C. 3rd edition.

Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.


Daily Graphic: "This is one of the most notable poetic harvests
of the war."






WAR THE LIBERATOR and Other Pieces




By Lieut. E. a. Mackintosh, M.C., Author of "A Highland
Regiment."

Crown 8vo. With portrait. 5s. net.






MESSINES ET AUTRES POÈMES. Messines and Other Poems




By Emile Cammaerts. English version by Tita Brand
Cammaerts.

Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.






ON HEAVEN and Other Poems




By Ford Madox Hueffer.

Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.






RETROGRESSION and Other Poems




By Sir William Watson.

Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.


Daily News: "'Retrogressions' will revive a splendid reputation."






AN EVENING IN MY LIBRARY AMONG THE ENGLISH POETS




By the Hon. Stephen Coleridge.

Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.






POEMS OF CAPTAIN BRIAN BROOKE




With a Foreword by M. P. Willcocks, and nine Illustrations.

Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.


Land and Water: "I cannot forbear the pleasure of quoting
from a book that will soon be by the side of Lindsay Gordon's
poems on the shelves of all those who love the poetry of out-of-doors."






THERE IS NO DEATH




Poems by the late Richard Dennys. With an Introduction
by Captain Desmond Coke,
and a Photogravure
Portrait of the Author.

Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.


Globe: "This graceful verse is distinguished by its manly tone
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THE DAY and Other Poems




By Henry Chappell. With an Introduction by Sir
Herbert Warren, K.C.V.O.

Crown 8vo. Cloth (with a Portrait), 2s. 6d. net.


Henry Chappell has long been widely known as the railway-porter
poet of Bath, and many of his poems have been published
in the press, and not a few set to music. His famous poem,
"The Day," was printed in practically every newspaper in
America. The present volume, however, constitutes the first
publication of his work in a collected form.






OUR GIRLS IN WAR TIME




By Joyce Dennys. With Topical Verses by Hampden
Gordon.

Crown 4to. 3s. 6d. net. 2nd Edition.


This is a companion volume to "Our Hospital A B C."


Morning Post: "Once again these clever collaborators play
up to the cheery souls on the Western Front, and their new
consignment of the munitions of merriment will be even more
sought after than the first volume. This Christmas the Dennys
Girl will become as well established as the Gibson Girl."






ODES TO TRIFLES, and Other War Rhymes




Poems by R. M. Eassie (Sergt. 5th Canadian Infantry)

Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.


The Times: "Humorous verse, by a member of the Canadian
Expeditionary Force, in which every stanza gets well home;
written with a refreshing air of conviction and a real wit which
scintillates the more sharply because not a word of it could
be spared."






FLOWER-NAME FANCIES




Designed and Written by Guy Pierre Fauconnet.

English Rhymes by Hampden Gordon.

Crown 4to. 2s. 6d. net.


A charming series of drawings illustrating in a delightfully
quaint and delicate manner the popular nicknames of many
flowers, both in French and English.


Each drawing is accompanied by an explanation as quaint
as itself, in French and English, the latter in rhyme by Hampden
Gordon.








JOHN LANE, The Bodley Head, Vigo Street, W.