No touch on either flank, no touch in front,
Everything in the air. I cursed, I tell you.
Out went the Dockers, quick as we filed in,
And soon we’d settled down and put things straight,
Posted the guns, dug in, got out patrols,
And sent to right and left to restore touch.
R. There was a sunken road out on the right,
With rifle-pits half dug; at every pit
A dead man had his head thrust in for shelter.
D. Dawn found us happy enough; a funny day –
The strangest I remember in all those weeks.
German five-nines were bracketting down our trenches
Morning and afternoon.
R. Why, yes; at dinner,
Three times my cup was shaken out of my hand
And filled with dirt: I had to pour out fresh.
D. That was the mug you took from the Boche gun.
Remember that field gun, with the team killed
By a lucky shot just as the German gunners
Were limbering up? We found the gunner’s treasures
In a box behind, his lump of fine white chalk
Carefully carved, and painted with a message
Of love to his dear wife, and Allied flags,
A list of German victories, and an eagle.
Then his clean washing, and his souvenirs –
British shell-heads, French bullets, lumps of shrapnel,
Nothing much more. I never thought it lucky
To take that sort of stuff.
R. Then a tame magpie –
German, we guessed – came hopping into the trench,
Picking up scraps of food. That’s ‘One for sorrow’
I said to little Owen.
D. Not much mistaken
In the event, when only three days later
They threw us at High Wood and (mind, we got there!)
Smashed up the best battalion in the whole corps.
But, Robert, quite the queerest thing that day
Happened in the late afternoon. Worn out,
I snatched two hours of sleep; the Boche bombardment
Roared on, but I commended my soul to God,
And slept half through it; but as I lay there snoring
A mouse, in terror of all these wild alarms,
Crept down my neck for shelter, and woke me up
In a great sweat. Blindly I gave one punch
And slew the rascal at the small of my back.
That was a strange day!
R. Yes, and a merry one.
THE DANCING GREEN
Girl. What’s that you’re humming, gammer?
Grandmother. A silly old song,
They used to dance jigs to it in old Happy England
When my grandmother was young.
Girl. Where did they dance it, gammer?
Grandmother. Here where we stand,
Kicking up their heels on the green daisy carpet,
Girls and boys, hand in hand.
A blind man would make gay music
Perched on a cask,
And bent old folk brought currant-cake and cider
Dancers never had to ask.
Girl. Why did the jig end, gammer?
None dance it now.
Grandmother. Ninety years ago it was sent out of fashion:
Dance? we have forgotten how.
Girl. Who was the spoilsport, gammer?
Who stopped our play?
Grandmother. The lawyers and the Mills and the base new gentry,
They stole our laughter away.
THE PERSONAL TOUCH
Cunning indeed Tom Fool must be to-day
For us, who meet his verses in a book,
To cry ‘Tom Fool wrote that…I know his way…
…Unsigned, yet eyed all over with Tom’s look….
Why see! It’s pure Tom Fool, I’m not mistook….
Fine simple verses too; now who’s to say
How Tom has charmed these worn old words to obey
His shepherd’s voice and march beneath his crook?’
Instead we ponder ‘I can’t name the man,
But he’s been reading Wilde’, or ‘That’s the school
Of Coterie…Voices…Pound…the Sitwell clan…’
‘He “knows his Kipling”’ … ‘he accepts the rule
Of Monro…of Lord Tennyson…of Queen Anne…’;
How seldom, ‘There, for a ducat, writes
TOM FOOL.’
SONG: THE RING AND CHAIN
Janet. ‘Where are those treasures that you promised me
If I should fetch and carry and bake your bread?
Two years beyond my time I have laboured free
And two on seven have worn me to a thread!’
Witch. ‘Ay, these nine winters you have lived by me,
No idler servant in the world than you:
Two more again from now you must labour free
And time shall bring reward if you serve me true.’
Janet. ‘Where are those trinkets that you tokened me,
The chain and ring if I should be your slave?
Four years beyond my time I have laboured free
And four on seven have brought me nigh the grave.’
Witch. ‘Ay, four on seven you have lived here by me,
But idler serving girl has never been mine;
Your ring and chain lie deep below the sea,
Where you may fish them up with hook and line.’
She was young and had a heart like steel,
And scarcely had she set her feet on sand,
When up a herring swam and a crownèd eel
And gave the jewels safe into her hand.
Janet has won the charm that makes unseen,
Janet has won a great gold wishing ring.
This child of beauty shall be England’s queen,
And John the smith, her true-heart, shall be king.
THE OXFORD ENGLISH SCHOOL
1920
She’s in the second row, see? No, not that one!
The girl in the green jersey, the pale fat one,
Taking few notes, sitting beatified,
Plump fingers locked, a large mouth open wide,
Eyes staring down….Of course Professor Steel
Isn’t a dried old haddock like Macneil,
The Chair of Anglo-Saxon, who’ll admit
His period has no interest, not a bit,
Except to students ardent in research
For early records of our Laws or Church.
‘Literature? No, nothing of the kind!
Still, Glosses need re-glossing you may find.’…
But Steel (Parks Road Museum at midday,
Tuesdays and Fridays) points a happier way.
(Ascetic chin, smooth hair, persuasive gesture,
Smile, gentle Oxford voice setting at rest your
Rebel’s mistrust of mortar-board and gown.)
He quotes, smiles, pauses. Itching pens rush down
Chapter and verse; for we sit tier on tier,
A girl from Roedean there, a Serbian here,
Two Reds from Ruskin next the Meat-King’s daughter,
A one-armed Brigadier returned from slaughter,
A young Babu, the Nun from Foxcombe way,
All in a row we crouch, scribbling away.
But She sits still, her notebook shut, her pen
Idling. Steel treats of Beowulf’s death, and then
Wrings a deep sigh from her, almost a tear,
With ‘That old tale, the Snows of Yester-year.’
…What was the joke? I missed it, but they laughed;
A map of Syria shuddered with the draught.
She dimpled up, she laughed, she’s grave again.
The stops are changed, now a cathedral strain
Peals out: –
‘This Norman influence brought in
Fresh themes of Poetry an
d we first begin
To meet a new word, sweetened by new rhyme,
The great word, Love.’
I looked away this time,
Green Jersey; after all what right had I
To twitch aside the curtains, to play spy?
Still I could feel the sudden burst of red
Drench your pale face when glancing up, he said
Quoting most reverently: ‘A crowned “A”
And after, AMOR VINCIT OMNIA.’
THE STEPMOTHER AND THE PRINCESS
Through fogs and magic spells
All day I’ve guided you,
Through loud alarms and yells,
Through scent of wizard stew,
Through midday pools of dew,
Through crowds that moan and mock,
Ogres at human feast,
Blood-streams and battleshock,
Past phantom bird and beast,
Monsters of West and East.
But this calm wood is hedged
With the set shape of things;
Here is no phoenix fledged,
No gryphon flaps his wings,
No dragons wave their stings.
Nothing is here that harms,
No toothed or spiny grass,
No tree whose clutching arms
Drink blood when travellers pass,
No poison-breathed Upas.
Instead the lawns are soft,
The tree-stems grave and old:
Slow branches sway aloft,
The evening air comes cold,
The sunset scatters gold.
Nay, there’s no hidden lair
For tigers or for apes,
No dread of wolf or bear,
No ghouls, no goblin shapes,
No witches clad in capes.
My cloak, my ermine cloak,
Shall keep you warm and dry;
Branches of elm I’ve broke
To roof you as you lie
Below the winking sky.
Sleep now and think no ill,
No evil soul comes near.
The dreamy woods are still,
Sigh, sleep, forget your fear,
Sleep soundly, sleep, my dear.
CYNICS AND ROMANTICS
In club and messroom let them sit
At skirmish of ingenious wit;
Deriding Love, yet not with hearts
Accorded to those healthier parts
Of grim self-mockery, but with mean
And burrowing search for things unclean,
Pretended deafness, twisted sense,
Sharp innuendoes rising thence,
And affectation of prude-shame
That shrinks from using the short name.
We are not envious of their sour
Disintegrations of Love’s power,
Their swift analysis of the stabs
Devised by virgins and by drabs
(Powder or lace or scent) to excite
A none-too-jaded appetite.
They never guess of Love as we
Have found the amazing Art to be,
Pursuit of dazzling flame, or flight
From web-hung blacknesses of night,
With laughter only to express
Care overborne by carelessness;
They never bridge from small to great,
From nod or glance to ideal Fate,
From clouded forehead or slow sigh
To doubt and agony looming by,
From shining gaze and hair flung free
To infinity and to eternity –
They sneer and poke a treacherous joke
With scorn for our rusticity.
RECORDS FOR WONDER
Once there came a mighty, furious wind
(So old worthies tell).
It blew the oaks like nine-pins down,
And all the chimney-stacks in town
Down together fell.
That was a wind – to write a record on,
to hang a story on,
to sing a ballad on,
To ring the loud church bell!
But for one huge storm that cracks the sky
Come a thousand lesser winds rustling by,
And the only wind that will make me sing
Is breeze of summer or gust of spring,
But no more hurtful thing.
Once there came a mighty, thirsty drought
(So old worthies tell).
The quags were drained, the brooks were dried,
Cattle and sheep and pigs all died,
The Parson preached on Hell.
That was a drought – to write a record on,
to hang a story on,
to sing a ballad on,
To ring the loud church bell!
But for one long drought of world-wide note
Come a thousand lesser ones on man’s throat,
And the only drought for my singing mood
Is a thirst for the very best ale that’s brewed,
Soon quenched, but soon renewed.
Once there came a mighty, biting frost
(So old worthies tell).
It bound the never yet conquered lake
With ice that crow-bar scarce could break,
It froze the deep draw-well.
That was a frost – to write a record on,
to hang a story on,
to sing a ballad on,
To ring the loud church bell!
But for one black frost of strange alarm
Why, a thousand lesser ones bring no harm,
And the only frost that suits my strain
Is hoar-frost pattern on a latticed pane,
When Christmas comes again.
Once my sweetheart spoke an unkind word,
As I myself must tell,
For none but I have seen or heard
My sweetheart to such cruelty stirred
For one who loves her well.
That was a word – to write no record on,
to hang no story on,
to sing no ballad on,
To ring no loud church bell!
Yet for one fierce word that has made me smart
Ten thousand gentle ones ease my heart,
So all the song that springs in me
Is ‘Never a sweetheart born could be
So kind as only she!’
OLD LOB-LIE-BY-THE-FIRE
Henceforth old Lob shall sweat for no man’s hire
On winter nights knee-deep in snow or mire,
Split no hard logs, nor shoulder no huge burden,
Since he has seen his nightly favours harden
To obligation, his cream-brimming vat
Thin to mere whey, scarce quarter filled at that.
From god to blackleg labourer being sunk,
Instead of reverent dues, old Lob has drunk
Sour grudging minimum-wage, working so hard,
And farmer’s wife keeps her warm kitchen barred;
Then weary Lob, his job complete, may stand
In the muckyard.
Oh, goodbye to this changed land!
To Canada or New Zealand or the Cape
He works his passage easily in the shape
Of a Dago stoker, or perhaps he hides
His matted shapelessness in a bale of hides.
Once over, he hopes cream and by some fire
To doze, yet shall he sweat for no man’s hire,
Nor for ingratitude chore now never more.
MISGIVINGS, ON READING A POPULAR ‘OUTLINE OF SCIENCE’
When man forswears God and dispels taboo
Serving a butterfly expediency
In ultimate anarchy,
Mating and murdering too
Regardless of who’s who,
Only intent on doing what’s to do –
Will no one urge the sentimental plea
For wise old savages like you and me,
His unsophisticated
Forbears of time undated?
THE TOADS
Do you wear away time
Over ballad and rhyme
Ecstatic in attic or basement,
Your difficult labours
The scorn of Toad neighbours
Who wink at your inky effacement?
O do you set Art
As a kingdom apart
Do you choose the sad Muses to bed with?
Then you shall have praise
At the close of your days
With bays to bedizen your head with.
But a Toad is a Toad
With so poisoned a mode
Of address that few dare to declare it.
He is crass, he is cruel,
He wears no hid jewel,
Despite worthy writers who swear it.
Your dearly bought fame
Will be dulled by the shame
Toads award any bard they call Master.
None such can go crowned
Or in purple robes gowned
But they spurt at him dirt and disaster.
For whatever your care
Or your secret despair
With scandal their hand’ll unearth it.
Unlocking the locks
Of your intimate box
(Cry, pox on ’em! Is the praise worth it?)
They will prove that your brain
Never pleaded in vain
For cocaine-coloured dreams that enriched you,
That your wife was untrue
And your daughter a shrew
That a Jew and a Jesuit witched you.
They will show you complete
Lecher, liar and cheat,
A Job for ignoble diseases,
Ungentle, unwitty,
A sot without pity
Who preys and betrays as he pleases.
They will keep a sharp eye
On Remains when you die,
They will buy them for bagsfull of dollars.
Stray scraps that they find
Of old filth unrefined
They will bind up in books for the scholars.
They will oddly misquote
Whatsoever you wrote,
With a note on your ‘exquisite manner’:
And schoolmaster Toads
Will parade the long roads
With Centenary Odes and a banner.
And your unquiet ghost
Shall repent himself most
Of your boast for the bays and the laurels,
When Rose, Lily, Pink,
That in garlands you link
Shall stink of the Toads and their quarrels.
A HISTORY
The Palmist said: ‘In your left hand, which shews your inheritance, the Line of Head dips steeply towards Luna. In your right hand, which shews your development, there is a determined effort to escape into less melancholy thinking.’ I said nothing, but shewed him this sonnet: –
The Complete Poems Page 67