The Project Gutenberg eBook of Samphire

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Title: Samphire

Author: John Cowper Powys

Illustrator: Frank Spicker

Release date: July 11, 2026 [eBook #79071]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1922

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79071

Credits: Paul Fatula (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMPHIRE ***

SAMPHIRE

SAMPHIRE

BY

JOHN COWPER POWYS

“Half way down

Hangs one that gathers Samphire, dreadful trade!

Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.”

King Lear. Act IV. Scene VI.

NEW YORK

THOMAS SELTZER

1922

Copyright, 1922, by THOMAS SELTZER, INC.

All rights reserved

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

DEDICATED TO LLEWELYN POWYS

CONTENTS

PAGE

T HE ULTIMATE

1

D EMOGORGON

4

T HE OLD PIER-POST

6

T HE CASTLE OF GATHORE

9

T HE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

13

T HE FACE

16

T HE HERON’S NEST

19

L UBBERLU

22

T HE OLD SATYR TO THE YOUNG PLATONIST

25

Y OUTH AND AGE

28

M ETAPHYSIC

31

T HE MALICE-DANCE

34

C ANDLE LIGHT

36

T HE ECLIPSE

39

T HE RIDER

43

W ILLIAM CORBY

45

T O A CERTAIN LADY

47

T HE “DISASTER”

49

N OVEMBER

51

B ON ESPOIR Y GIST AU FOND!

52

SAMPHIRE

THE ULTIMATE

So this is the ultimate—

That we bleed with our backs to the wall,

While the rats and weasels of fate

Eat at our liver and gall;

Eat at our hearts with teeth of bane,

And tug at the sick white roots of pain

Where every man’s alone,

And scrape a tune on the deep nerve-string

That is love and life and everything,

And gnaw our flesh to the bone.

Is this the ultimate?

No! This is nothing at all!

Some human dramas stop with this;

With this some curtains fall.

But the play that the high gods love

In their Theatre of Space

Has the mind, the mind for the stage thereof

And the soul for its dancing place!

Oh shapes of terror and fear,

Oh shapes of loathing and lust,

That gibber and jibe at us here

Ye break earth’s shallow crust.

Far back that stage recedes—

Who knows where that stairway goes?

Who knows where that passage leads?

And that door? Who knows? Who knows?

For the rats that again and again

Gnaw at each rib and joint

Of the vessel of our pain

Stop gasping at this point;

And in crowds they flee from the ship

That steers for the open sea

And turns the prow of its bleeding lip

Towards eternity!

DEMOGORGON

I am the Devil of Notre Dame.

Salaam!

I dance my dance and I work my charm.

Salaam!

I cling to terror by the hair of her head,

I have taken Medusa to my bed.

I hug the Nightmare until she is dead.

Salaam!

Hush! By the Lord’s side I have stood—

Touch wood!

Before Orion rose out of the sky

Rose I!

Before the Hunter hunted the Ram

I am

I am the Demon of Socrates

On your knees!

The oldest of the Eumenides—

The she-ape of Mephistopheles—

The deadly wind in Dodona’s trees—

The poisonous smoke ’twixt the Pythia’s knees—

I am more terrible than these!

In Jotunheim, Loki I’m called—

Scald!

I am Asmódéus in Babylon.

In Egypt I am Osiris’ son

I am many and I am One.

At the Beginning I stood by the Lord

God!

At the last I shall be the Worm of the Pit

Uncurled

Who swallows Him and who swallows It

His World!

THE OLD PIER-POST

I am the sea-ward-looking one,

Covered with weed and slime—

“Fresh fish for sale!”—of a row of posts,

That rotted by centuries nod like ghosts

To the ebb and flow of time.

Sea-tangle and sea-scum

Will the Christ never come?

Two lovers that met at this ocean-mart,

With kissings and clingings pale

Breaking the shell of a human heart

And tearing its bleeding core apart,—

—“Fresh fish, fresh fish for sale!”—

Left a tress of shining hair on me;

And two sea-gulls that once were mates

But were wrenched away by the blinding spray

And the unrelenting fates,

Left a feather on me, a shining feather,

With sea-scum covered and scales

Of the mackerel bright they had caught together,

—“Fresh fish for sale!”—in the wild storm-weather

And the fury of the gales.

And the terrible ultimate thought of one

Who had scooped at the shingle of things

Till he’d taken the light from the kindly sun—

—“Fresh fish for sale!”—and to death had done

The light that the sweet moon brings,

Graved itself on the grey sea-mark

Wherewith with eyeless stare

I frown at the twilight and face the dark—

—“Fresh fish for sale!”—and with forehead stark

Confront a world’s despair.

A shining tress, a feather, a thought—

With these I create a soul,

A soul that is not to be sold or bought;

Yes; I who am nought and less than nought—

—“Fresh fish for sale!”—have something caught

From the waters as they roll!

Yes; I, the sea-ward-looking one,

Covered with weed and slime,

Have gathered a soul to rest upon

As I rock to the rhythm of time.

Bright hair, bright feather, brain-disease

Blotting the sun and moon—

If an old sea-pier steals a soul from these,

Christ must be coming soon!

THE CASTLE OF GATHORE

There is a place none knows but I—

The Castle of Gathore!

Black murky pools about it lie.

And the trees are sick with its mystery;

And dead things are its floor.

Each tree with twisted root entwines

The bones of older trees.

Moon after moon above them shines—

Beyond the moon—the Zodiac signs!

Beyond them—the Immensities!

None would think that ever such pools could be!

Black morgues of leafy doom,

Where century after century

Old forests find their tomb.

Oh terrible steps of leaf-mould sod

Such as man never saw

That mount up—holy Mother of God!—

To the Castle of Gathore!

And I alone—yes only I—

Under Algol and Altair—

When a new-born moon was in the sky

Climbed up that mossy stair.

Old Cypress-roots of long decay

Troubled my noiseless tread;

Old Yews made midnight of the day

As they met above my head.

Out of the trees, tier above tier,

Mossed stone above mossed stone,

Buttress on buttress, it towered there,

A Nightmare image, a thing of fear,

Revealed to me alone!

My home! My home! To my heart I said—

My home! To my soul I cried—

From here have been wafted those airs of the dead

That have driven my true love from my bed,

And my true love from my side!

This is what divides me from him and her

And the blessed light of the sun;

Till the eyes of Algol and of Altair

Are my only benison!

This is what they guessed when in dumb surprise

They turned and let me pass—

This is what they saw behind my eyes

Like a phantom in a glass!

They saw those towers; they saw those trees;

And I am alone once more—

Alone with the Immensities

And the Castle of Gathore!

THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

In a long sad row the old gods come;

They come and bow to me.

Like candle-flames in a raftered room,

Like trees in an avenue of doom,

They bend in unity.

And a sound comes from them, a terrible sound,

Like the wind in a tamarisk grove,

Or a howl from some treacherous marshy ground

Where the swamp-demons move.

And in that moan is the cracking of sticks

Where Behemoth stalks thro’ the trees;

And in that moan is the flame that licks

The knees of Rameses:

And in that moan rocks Nineveh

With her golden roofs and floors!

And in that moan quakes Babylon

With her columned corridors!

From my little green seat of piled-up sods

Like a dwarf on a churchyard mound

I watch that row of bowing Gods

And I hear that terrible sound.

They nod and mutter; they sway and bend

Like monoliths of stone,

Like huge gaunt birds on a branches’ end,

And as they bend they moan.

They shiver like monstrous skeleton leaves;

They rattle like gibbets stark;

They reel like ruined autumn sheaves

In the stubble of the dark.

Their eye-sockets are hollow and deep;

Their foreheads are cliffs of doom;

And they bleat at me like gigantic sheep

That are herded in a tomb.

And very slowly I lift my head—

And slowly I lift my hand

—And a row of horny beetles dead

Lie scattered in the sand!

THE FACE

In the hollow spaces I see a face

As I go whistling to my Dear,

And in those lineaments I trace

The ultimate Fear.

Throned on the dark that face I see,

As I go whistling to my Doll;

Of human terror the apogee—

Fol-de-rol!

The wreckage of the whole damned race,

As I go whistling to my white bird,

Is in that wavering ghastly face

That speaks no word!

Is that face moulded by treachery

As I go whistling to my Poll,

And carved by lust out of lechery?

Fol-lol-de-rol!

Has it woven itself out of ancient sorrows

As I go whistling to my maid,

Out of all the To-days that to all the To-morrows

Shriek—“betrayed!”

I like not to see that face in the night,

As I go whistling to my own:

A terrible face for the sweet moonlight

To shine upon!

But as long as those lips utter no sound,

As I go whistling to my Troll,

All is yet well above the ground,

Fol-lol-de-rol!

Oh white, white lips that hang so mute,

As I go whistling to my Love,

That ultimate Fear would be absolute

If you should move!

THE HERON’S NEST

The World-Mother sits on her sky-blue eggs—

“A mare’s nest!” cries the minstrel, laughing.

“Her wings are lovely—but what of her legs?”

Cries the youngest page to the courtiers scoffing.

“A wicked bird,” cries the mitred priest—

“To lay blue eggs and to sit on them!

Blue is no colour for bird or beast

Blue is the colour of our Lady’s hem.”

“A shameless bird!” cries the old queen mother,

“Eggs should be mottled white, not blue.”

“A pox on the bird!” cries the old king’s brother—

“There’s no such bird!” cry the courtier crew.

Home from hunting returned the King—

White as a young birch-tree was he.

“Ye are all of you plotting a curséd thing!

And evil is your conspiracy!

“I have seen the World-Mother upon her nest;

I have seen those eggs, blue as the sky;

And for what I have seen I would give the rest

Of my kingdom; and willingly die!”

And the minstrel winked at the youngest page;

And the old queen pinched the fool;

And the mitred priest to hide his rage

Grinned at them like a ghoul.

“Down on your knees to the great World-Mother!

’Tis I, your King, who begs.”

But they stood stock-still and stared at each other—“The

King is mad,” cried the old king’s brother.

“I’ve traveled the world from one end to another—

Those eggs are Heron’s eggs!”

From the walls of the Madhouse upon the hill,

When this traveler came to be crowned

At the Queen’s and the Priest’s and the Courtier’s will,

There fell a curious sound—

A sound that was like the flapping of wings;

And a radiant voice that was like the King’s!

LUBBERLU

“Green were her eyes,—yellow were her eyes—

Her eyes were like withered sedge!”

—“This is holy Mass and the hour flies

And there is red in the church-yard hedge.

“Raise me aloft my taper’s flame,

Light me my candles three,

For I must call on the Baby’s name

Who is born to young Mary!”—

“O father, I see a blood-red streak

In the reeds where first I caught her—

And I hear a cry makes my heart weak—

And turns my bones to water.

“The marsh-bittern and lone curlew

That cry comes not from them—”

—“Bring me bread and wine my Lubberlu,

And hold my vestments’ hem!

“The candles burn—The oxen kneel.

Boy, bring me my holy book—

Born is the King of Israel!”

—“Oh father, my father, look!

“She is pressing her face ’gainst the window-pane,

Where the saints stare in a row

And her lips are red with the morning’s stain

And her cheeks are white like snow!”—

—“’Tis Christmas morn and the mass unsung

For the Baby of young Mary!”—

But the idiot-boy from his side had sprung.

At the window prone was he.

And the oxen knelt in their frozen shed

And the sheep in their hurdled pen;

But Lubberlu lay stark and dead,

He never will come again.

They sign his breast and they sign his brow

With the cross to which they pray—

But two lost souls are flying now

Over the reeds and over the snow,

Over the hills and away.

THE OLD SATYR TO THE YOUNG PLATONIST

Go and get a monk for a lover,

And let me quietly sit

On this warm stone which the lichens cover.

I have had enough of it!

Did the high gods carve your polished flanks

And make liquid your hazel eyes,

That two should stand on a river’s banks

And offer up the scurvy thanks

Of being over wise?

Let me alone. I have heard your tale,

How Love is this and how Love is that.

Is not milk still white in the pail

And wine still red in the vat?

I would have gathered you moschatel,

Wood-spurge, wood-sorel, wood-saxifrage!

When the moon rode forth I’d have taught you to tell

Every star in her equipage!

Because I’d loved you with satyr passion

Were that a reason I should not keep

Tenderness in my goat-foot fashion,

And watch beside your sleep?

The oldest of Centaurs is my brother—

The wild wood-ways are in my blood—

My mother was the great earth-mother—

Yet I can love you as well as another

For all my satyrhood!

Go find your friend. I have pride of my own,

But every noon I’ll sit

On this warm lichen-covered stone,

And perhaps you’ll come back to it!

Perhaps when they talk of Love one day

In their high platonic hall,

You will curse their chatter and flee away

And find your Satyr’s grave and say,

“His love was best of all!”

YOUTH AND AGE

“O wanton youth, this wind was not

Over common highways blown

From gardens far from here—God wot!

It has caught that plaintive tone.

Listen! But ah! It touches you not!

Listen! But ah! I had forgot—

The heart of youth is stone.

“Did you not know such places were?

Lovely are they and few,

The gardens that breathe such perfumed air!

Listen! But what care you?

Over many a moon-lit terraced spot

It has come to claim its own

Over Marjoram and Melilot,

Over London Pride and Bergamot,

It has come to trouble, doubt it not,

All hearts save those of stone!”

—“I like not this breath in the swaying grasses!

I like not that shadow on the rustling trees!

I suspect that wind as it softly passes

Back to its garden of memories!

Your walled-up pansies are faded and sere;

Your dark parterres of cypress-green

Make the very lizards listen in fear

Of phantom footsteps and forms unseen.

Your fountains are choked with hemlock weeds,

The toad croaks there and the night-owls call.

There are wandering dandelion-seeds

Where red rose-petals were wont to fall!

Oh woe-begone one, you can tempt me not

With your proud sad gardens, your wind that sighs,

Your Mignonette and your Melilot!

The heart of youth is wise.”

METAPHYSIC

Dearie I! When I up and follows

Grand-dad Cooper’s cross-cut road,

The road that from Hawk’s Hill to Green Lane Hollows

Is nought but rabbits and cuckoos and swallows

And fields with turnip sowed,

Dearie I! the road that over

Badger’s Warren and Turnstile Hill

Skirts park-fence by Witham’s Cover,

Where old man Rob caught young Nell’s lover,

And leads to Dead Man’s Mill,

Dearie I! I do stop and hear

Out of wind a terrible sound;

And Almighty, he do whisper clear

Like a girt wold owl long-side my ear—

“Nancy girl, this be holy ground!”

Dearie I! And he says to me—

“You’ve been here, Nancy, long ere this!”

And he lifts the veil of his mystery

From the face of his abyss.

And high Hawk Hill and Green Lane Hollows

Grow only dreams that I have dreamed;

And Grand-dad’s road with its cuckoos and swallows,

The road an old fox-bitch still follows,

Is a fairy-place that only seemed!

And Dead Man’s Mill grows doubly dead,

For its old-time pond of terribleness,

And him it drowned, like mists are fled!

And nought bides there but nothingness!

Gone, gone—all gone—shadows and dreams!

Dearie I! and ’twere Grand-dad’s road

Whereon a’ drove Squire Withy’s teams

And many a turnip-load!

THE MALICE-DANCE

An intolerable singing

From an ancient haunted lawn

Where the ghost-moths whitely winging

Cross a moon-dial forlorn,

Drew me from you as you trifled

With the jasmin in your hair,

Dreaming that your beauty rifled

All my sense and held me there;

But I left you; and, escaping

With a lost tune in my head,

Set my memory reshaping

The old dances of the dead.

And the intolerable singing

Heard across that haunted lawn,

Drew me to the ghost-moths winging,

Round that moon-dial forlorn.

Over me the clouds were running

Races with the naked stars,

And dark Yews were making cunning

Love to whispering Deodars.

And the ghost-moths drugged my reason,

And I danced to that old tune

Malice dances full of treason

Round that dial of the moon!

CANDLE LIGHT

Hush, true Love, as we sit and think

And talk to shadows and watch the coals

Redden up from beyond the brink

Of the common reach of our souls.

Do you not catch a cry in the air?

No! That is the wind in the chimney calling!

That is a curtain fluttering there!

That is a dead branch falling!

Burning wood when candles are lit

Has a bitter-sweet breath that can carry far;

That can carry two lovers from where they sit

To the edge of the sea and over it

Where the unknown islands are.

Burning wood has a wizard spell

Full of old sad stories and long-dead things;

Like myrrh and cassia is that smell,

From the sepulchres of kings.

And whenever lovers like you and me

Sit together of a winter’s night,

There’s a cry on the wind, there’s a cry on the sea

There’s a tongue in the candlelight.

And a great host gathers out of the dark

From wild far places, from sunk sea-walls,

From fallen roofs where hyænas bark

From ruined tents and kraals.

It gathers towards us while you and I

Talk to old shadows and sit and stare,

And let time and space and the world go by

Like smoke upon the air.

And as we gaze at the reddening coals

Lost in that amorous host are we;

That vast procession of lovers’ souls

Drowns our identity.

A procession, divided like Plato’s dream,

But rushing together on a winter’s night,

When the casement shakes and the red coals gleam

And we kiss by candle light!

THE ECLIPSE

I said, Tonight is her plenilune,

And the wise astronomers held their peace,

I said, Tonight this naked moon

To her prisoned passion will give release;

And she shall gather the forests to her

And draw the oceans up to her breast.

The mountain-torrents shall leap to undo her,

And the virgin valleys shall be at rest:

And the fish from their fathomless feeding-ground

In finny circles shall upward move,

And the furry things at the lightest sound

Shall make the forest ache with love!

And fallen boughs that for centuries

Have dreamed, I said, of such a night

Shall feel in their mossy mortuaries

The living touch of her liquid light!

Great promontories, where dawn by dawn

Cormorants seeking the open sea

With yearning jet-black necks up-borne

Steer to the shoals of immensity,

Shall thrill as they feel that naked shape

Draw near with its luminous languorous power,

And over continent and cape

Float like an amorous lotus-flower.

Now, I said, with that moon at full,

While the wise astronomers kept them still,

Maids will grow more than beautiful,

And starved love-longings will have their will!

Now, I said, in this perfect night,

Lips that have paled and pined for passion

Will take at last their full delight

Mouth upon mouth in sweet lunar fashion!

Tonight is the night, I said to them all,

While the wise astronomers held their peace,

That Christ’s own cloak on Love shall fall

And let mortal longings have full release!

Then I looked up. Oh pity, oh loss

Irremediable! For behold the shade

Of our own dark planet crept across,

And on that glory its image laid.

Treachery in the heavens! It grew—

That shadow of evil and suppression

Larger and larger with the smouldering hue

Of the old intolerable repression!

It grew like some monstrous shadow of doom

Crossing the threshold of a happy king

Who begins to reck that his bridal-room

Will be the place of his murdering!

Terribly, inch by inch it grew.

Carved with the ruinous runic scrolls

Of our ancient woe and well I knew

Betrayed once more were our human souls.

Treachery in the heavens! From land

And sea and every forest way,

From frightened pastures and darkened sand

Rose up a cry of wild dismay—

And Christ bent down and hid His head;

And the haters of love laughed in their bed;

And “The Law is the law,” the astronomers said!

THE RIDER

On the horses of desire

Over the tossing trees

I have hunted the Pillar of

Fire

To his inmost fastnesses.

On the eagles of despair

Where the thunders meet,

I have hunted the Powers of

the Air

To their last retreat.

Over chasm and over crag

On the horned moon riding,

I have hunted the night-hag

To her furthest hiding.

On the lions of exultation

I ride to my doom!

No tears of human desolation

Shall find my tomb.

WILLIAM CORBY

I drive my cows to Corby;

On sweet spring-grass they’re fed;

But it’s Madge who nestles wantonly

In William Corby’s bed.

I drive my sheep to Corby,

And the gold-dust’s on the willow;

But it’s Nellie’s winsome curls that lie

On William Corby’s pillow.

I drive my geese to Corby

When the bind-weed’s in the wheat;

But it’s Bess who cuddles warm and sly

’Neath William Corby’s sheet.

I drive my pigs to Corby;

And the hips and haws are red;

But none but me will mind o’ he

When William Corby’s dead!

TO A CERTAIN LADY

They tore her scarlet gown.

“What’s in a kiss?” she said—

But they hunted her up and they hunted her down

From end to end of their moral town,

Till they left her there for dead.

But the bleeding throat of her cry

Was heard in another place;

And those who are older than earth or sky—

The austere ones of eternity ...

They knew her of their race.

“What’s this?” they said. “For a kiss?” said they;

And they took the red from the dawn,

And they took the dance from the salt-sea spray,

And they took the purple out of the day,

And the yellow out of the corn.

“Give her life, give her love, give her peace,” they said.

“Give her back her scarlet gown;

Or with ashes of death upon every head

Dead you shall skip to the tune of the dead

In your moral modern town!”

THE “DISASTER”

Without rudder, without sail

Drifts my soul, the brig “Disaster,”

And the madness of the gale

Takes the place of mate or master!

Covered is its ghostly keel

With sea-slime, sea-weed, sea-crust;

And its bulkheads groan and reel;

And its bolts are caked with rust;

Storm-tossed sea-gulls phantom-white

On the spars of the “Disaster”

Scream while the great winds of night

Drive the derelict still faster.

And the drowned men floating deep

Leagues beneath that churning sea,

Mutter in their careless sleep,

“The brig ‘Disaster’ goes merrily!”

And the brig “Disaster” drives right on,

Without captain, without mate,

Top-sails, bowsprit, compass gone,

Lost—exultant, desolate!

NOVEMBER

I will come back to you and you to me;

When the poplar-trees blow white and the rooks fly home,

And the fishermen draw their nets out of the sea;

I will come back to you and you to me.

When across the flooded weirs the wild-fowl fly,

When the dead leaves fall from each remembered tree,

When over the withered grass the plovers cry,

I will come back to you and you to me.

BON ESPOIR Y GIST AU FOND!

One shimmering opal is all the air

And the sun like a young girl’s loosened hair

Covers with pools of liquid yellow

Window-sill, floor, and bed and pillow!

And I touch the secret—yet have it not.

It is—God! I’ve forgotten what—

Yet the lovely madness wherewith we’re mad,

For no king’s penny is to be had!

Ha! Monsieur Maggot and my Lord Rat

More’s in this business than you guess at!

The road-dust sleeps in the summer-heat

And the hot noon drowses on ripened-wheat,

And from weed to weed in the burnt-up grass

Heavy-winged butterflies flutter past.

Ha! Monsieur Maggot! Ha! my Lord Rat,

There’s more in this business than you guess at!

The moon floats high like a silver barge,

And the bracken ferns grow strange and large,

And the bull-rushes forget to shiver

As she pours her magic on meadow and river;

And the tall pond-reeds, where the cattle cross,

Stand silent; and silent dreams the moss;

And the hazel-wood as the owl hoots by,

Is too moon-tranced to heed his cry—

Ha! Monsieur Maggot and my Lord Rat,

Here’s something for you to squinny at!

We pine and pine—but by Holy Rood

There’s something here not understood—

And we are not yet the Devil’s food!

Transcriber’s Notes

p. 20 removed opening quote before “And evil”

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Table of Contents

SAMPHIRE

CONTENTS

THE ULTIMATE

DEMOGORGON

THE OLD PIER-POST

THE CASTLE OF GATHORE

THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

THE FACE

THE HERON’S NEST

LUBBERLU

THE OLD SATYR TO THE YOUNG PLATONIST

YOUTH AND AGE

METAPHYSIC

THE MALICE-DANCE

CANDLE LIGHT

THE ECLIPSE

THE RIDER

WILLIAM CORBY

TO A CERTAIN LADY

THE “DISASTER”

NOVEMBER

BON ESPOIR Y GIST AU FOND!

Transcriber’s Notes

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