by Laura Barber
And shaped it forth before the multitude
Divinely human, raising worship so
To higher reverence more mixed with love –
That better self shall live till human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb
Unread for ever.
This is life to come,
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardour, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty –
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense.
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.
RUPERT BROOKE
The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England
given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
JULIA ALVAREZ
Last Trees
When I think of my death, I think of trees
in the full of summer, a row of them
describing a border, too distant yet
for me to name them, posted with rusting boards
everyone but the faint of heart ignores.
(By then, I hope not to be one of them.)
I want to go boldly to the extreme
verge of a life I’ve lived to the fullest
and climb over the tumbled rocks or crawl
under the wire, never looking back –
for if I were to turn and see the house
perched on its hillside, windows flashing light,
the wash plaintive with tearful handkerchiefs,
or hear a dear voice calling from the deck,
supper’s on the table – I might lose heart,
and turn back from those trees, telling myself,
tomorrow is a better day to die…
Behind me, the wind blowing in the leaves
in my distracted state will seem to say
something about true love and letting go –
some poster homily which I mistrust,
and which is why I break into a run,
calling out that I’m coming, wait for me,
thrashing and stumbling through the underbrush,
flushing out redwing blackbirds, shaking loose
seeds for next summer’s weeds from their packed pods –
only to look up, breathless, and realize
I’m heading straight for those trees with no time
left to name my favorites, arborvitae,
maple, oak, locust, samán, willow, elm.
LOUIS MACNEICE
The Sunlight on the Garden
The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.
Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.
The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying
And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.
THOMAS HARDY
Afterwards
When the Present has latched its postern behind my
tremulous stay,
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
‘He was a man who used to notice such things’?
If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid’s soundless blink,
The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,
‘To him this must have been a familiar sight.’
If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,
One may say, ‘He strove that such innocent creatures should
come to no harm,
But he could do little for them; and now he is gone.’
If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand
at the door,
Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no
more,
‘He was one who had an eye for such mysteries’?
And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the
gloom,
And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell’s boom,
‘He hears it not now, but used to notice such things’?
CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI
Remember
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
D. H. LAWRENCE
Bavarian Gentians
Not every man has gentians in his house
in Soft September, at slow, Sad Michaelmas.
Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark
darkening the day-time torch-like with the smoking
blueness of Pluto’s gloom,
ribbed and torch-like, with their blaze of darkness
spread blue
down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep
of white day
torch-flower of the blue-smoking darkness, Pluto’s
dark-blue daze,
black lamps from the halls of Dio, burning dark blue,
giving off darkness, blue darkness, as Demeter’s pale
lamps give off light,
lead me then, lead me the way.
Reach me a gentian, give me a torch
let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of this
flower
down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is
darkened on blueness
even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted
September
to the s
ightless realm where darkness is awake upon the
dark
and Persephone herself is but a voice
or a darkness invisible enfolded in the deeper dark
of the arms of Plutonic, and pierced with the passion of
dense gloom,
among the splendour of torches of darkness, shedding
darkness on the lost bride and her groom.
CAROLINE OLIPHANT, BARONESS NAIRNE
The Land o’ the Leal
I’m wearin’ awa’, John,
Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, John,
I’m wearin’ awa’
To the land o’ the leal.
There’s nae sorrow there, John,
There’s neither cauld nor care, John,
The day’s aye fair
In the land o’ the leal.
Our bonnie bairn’s there, John,
She was baith gude and fair, John,
And oh! we grudged her sair
To the land o’ the leal.
But sorrow’s sel’ wears past, John,
And joy’s a-comin’ fast, John,
The joy that’s aye to last,
In the land o’ the leal.
Sae dear’s that joy was bought, John,
Sae free the battle fought, John,
That sinfu’ man e’er brought
To the land o’ the leal.
Oh! dry your glist’ning e’e, John,
My saul langs to be free, John,
And angels beckon me
To the land o’ the leal.
Leal loyal; sair sore
Oh! haud ye leal and true, John,
Your day it’s wearin’ through, John,
And I’ll welcome you
To the land o’ the leal.
Now fare-ye-weel, my ain John,
This warld’s cares are vain, John,
We’ll meet, and we’ll be fain,
In the land o’ the leal.
KATHERINE, LADY DYER
[Epitaph on Sir William Dyer]
My dearest dust could not thy hasty day
Afford thy drowsy patience leave to stay
One hour longer: so that we might either
Sit up or go to bed together?
But since thy finished labour hath possessed
Thy weary limbs with early rest,
Enjoy it sweetly; and thy widow bride
Shall soon repose her by thy slumbering side;
Whose business, now, is only to prepare
My nightly dress and call to prayer:
Mine eyes wax heavy and the day grows old.
The dew falls thick, my blood grows cold;
Draw, draw the closed curtains: and make room;
My dear, my dearest dust; I come, I come.
fain affectionate
CHARLES CAUSLEY
Eden Rock
They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock:
My father, twenty-five, in the same suit
Of Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack
Still two years old and trembling at his feet.
My mother, twenty-three, in a sprigged dress
Drawn at the waist, ribbon in her straw hat,
Has spread the stiff white cloth over the grass.
Her hair, the colour of wheat, takes on the light.
She pours tea from a Thermos, the milk straight
From an old H.P. sauce bottle, a screw
Of paper for a cork; slowly sets out
The same three plates, the tin cups painted blue.
The sky whitens as if lit by three suns.
My mother shades her eyes and looks my way
Over the drifted stream. My father spins
A stone along the water. Leisurely,
They beckon to me from the other bank.
I hear them call, ‘See where the stream-path is!
Crossing is not as hard as you might think.’
I had not thought that it would be like this.
EDMUND WALLER
Of the Last Verses in the Book
When we for Age could neither read nor write,
The Subject made us able to indite.
The Soul with Nobler Resolutions deckt,
The Body stooping, does Herself erect:
No Mortal Parts are requisite to raise
Her, that Unbody’d can her Maker praise.
The Seas are quiet, when the Winds give o’re;
So calm are we, when Passions are no more:
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting Things, so certain to be lost.
Clouds of Affection from our younger Eyes
Conceal that emptiness, which Age descries.
The Soul’s dark Cottage, batter’d and decay’d,
Lets in new Light thró chinks that time has made;
Stronger by weakness, wiser Men become
As they draw near to their Eternal home:
Leaving the Old, both Worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the Threshold of the New.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
Crossing the Bar
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
ALDEN NOWLAN
This is What I Wanted to Sign Off With
You know what I’m
like when I’m sick: I’d sooner
curse than cry. And people don’t often
know what they’re saying in the end.
Or I could die in my sleep.
So I’ll say it now. Here it is.
Don’t pay any attention
if I don’t get it right
when it’s for real. Blame that
on terror and pain
or the stuff they’re shooting
into my veins. This is what I wanted to
sign off with. Bend
closer, listen, I love you.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.
RAYMOND CARVER
Late Fragment
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
W. H. AUDEN
Funeral Blues
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now ca
n ever come to any good.
WILFRED OWEN
Anthem for Doomed Youth
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
– Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
from In Memoriam A. H. H.
VII
Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,
A hand that can be clasped no more –
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.
He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly through the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,