Complete Works of Isaac Rosenberg
Page 4
He lay, a bullying hulk, to crush them more.
But when one, fearless, turned and clawed like bronze,
Cringing was easy to blunt these stern paws,
10 And he would weigh the heavier on those after.
Who rests in God’s mean flattery now? Your wealth
Is but his cunning to make death more hard.
Your iron sinews take more pain in breaking.
And he has made the market for your beauty
15 Too poor to buy, although you die to sell.
Only that he has never heard of sleep;
And when the cats come out the rats are sly.
Here we are safe till he slinks in at dawn.
But he has gnawed a fibre from strange roots,
20 And in the morning some pale wonder ceases.
Things are not strange and strange things are forgetful.
Ah! if the day were arid, somehow lost
Out of us, but it is as hair of us,
And only in the hush no wind stirs it.
25 And in the light vague trouble lifts and breathes,
And restlessness still shadows the lost ways.
The fingers shut on voices that pass through,
Where blind farewells are taken easily...
Ah! this miasma of a rotting God!
I DID NOT PLUCK AT ALL; OR, FIRST FRUIT
I did not pluck at all,
And I am sorry now.
The garden is not barred,
But the boughs are heavy with snow,
The flake-blossoms thickly fall,
And the hid roots sigh, ‘How long will our flowers be marred?’
Strange as a bird were dumb,
Strange as a hueless leaf,
As one deaf hungers to hear
Or gazes without belief,
The fruit yearned ‘fingers, come’.
O, shut hands, be empty another year.
CHAGRIN
Caught still as Absalom,
Surely the air hangs
From the swayless cloud-boughs,
Like hair of Absalom
5 Caught and hanging still.
From the imagined weight
Of spaces in a sky
Of mute chagrin, my thoughts
Hang like branch-clung hair
10 To trunks of silence swung,
With the choked soul weighing down
Into thick emptiness.
Christ! end this hanging death,
For endlessness hangs therefrom.
15 Invisibly — branches break
From invisible trees —
The cloud-woods where we rush,
Our eyes holding so much,
Which we must ride dim ages round
20 Ere the hands (we dream) can touch,
We ride, we ride, before the morning
The secret roots of the sun to tread,
And suddenly
We are lifted of all we know
25 And hang from implacable boughs.
IN THE PARK
Let me weave my fantasy
Of this web like broken glass
Gleaming through the fretted leaves
In a quaint intricacy,
Diamond tipping all the grass.
Hearken as the spirit heaves
Through the branches and the leaves
In the shudder of their pulse.
Delicate nature trembles so
To a ruder nature’s touch,
And of peace that these convulse
They have little who should have much.
Life is so.
Let me carve my fantasy
Of the fretwork of the leaves.
Then spake I to the tree,
‘Were ye your own desire
What is it ye would be?’
Answered the tree to me,
‘I am my own desire
I am what I would be.
If ye were your desire
Would ye lie under me,
And see me as you see?’
‘I am my own desire
While I lie under you,
145 And that which I would be
Desire will sing to you.’
DESIRE SINGS OF IMMORTALITY
‘Mortals — ancient syllables
Spoken of God’s mouth,
Do spirits them chronicle
So they be not lost?
‘Music, breathed ephemeral —
Fragrant maid and child;
Bellow, croak and droning —
Age and cumbrous man.
‘Music that the croaking hears:
Croak, to mate the music:
Do Angels stand and throw their nets
For you, from banks Eterne?
‘Surely the speech of God’s mouth
Shall not be for naught!
Music wrought of God’s passion
Less than vanished dew?
‘As the sea through cloud to sea,
Thought through deed to thought,
Each returneth as they were,
So man to God’s mouth?’
WEDDED
The knotted moment that untwists
Into the narrow laws of love,
Its ends are rolled round our four wrists
That once could stretch and rove.
See our confined fingers stray
O’er delicate fibres that recoil,
And blushing hints as cold as clay;
Love is tired after toil.
But hush! two twin moods meet in air;
Two spirits of one gendered thought.
Our chained hands loosened everywhere
Kindness like death’s have caught.
MARCHING
(AS SEEN FROM THE LEFT FILE)
My eyes catch ruddy necks
Sturdily pressed back —
All a red brick moving glint.
Like flaming pendulums, hands
5 Swing across the khaki —
Mustard-coloured khaki —
To the automatic feet.
We husband the ancient glory
In these bared necks and hands,
10 Not broke is the forge of Mars;
But a subtler brain beats iron
To shoe the hoofs of death,
(Who paws dynamic air now).
Blind fingers loose an iron cloud
15 To rain immortal darkness
On strong eyes.
SLEEP
Godhead’s lip hangs
When our pulses have no golden tremours,
And his whips are flicked by mice
And all star-amorous things.
5 Drops, drops of shivering quiet
Filter under my lids.
Now only am I powerful.
What though the cunning gods outwit us here
In daytime and in playtime,
10 Surely they feel the gyves we lay on them
In our sleep.
O, subtle gods lying hidden!
O, gods with your oblique eyes!
Your elbows in the dawn, and wrists
15 Bright with the afternoon,
Do you not shake when a mortal slides
Into your own unvexed peace?
When a moving stillness breaks over your knees
(An emanation of piled aeons’ pressure)
20 From our bodies flat and straight,
And your limbs are locked,
Futilely gods’,
And shut your sinister essences?
HEART’S FIRST WORD
And all her soft dark hair,
Breathed for him like a prayer.
And her white lost face,
Was prisoned to some far place.
Love was not denied —
Love’s ends would hide.
And flower and fruit and tree
Were under its sea.
Yea! its abundance knelt
Where the nerves felt
The springs of feeling flow
And made pain grow.
There seemed no root or sky
But a pent infinity
Where apparitions dim
Sculptured each whim
In flame and wandering mist
Of kisses to be kist.
UNPUBLISHED POEMS
CONTENTS
ODE TO DAVID’S HARP
ZION
DAWN BEHIND NIGHT
A BALLAD OF WHITECHAPEL
A BALLAD OF TIME, LIFE AND MEMORY
DEATH
THE DEAD PAST
IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST
MY DAYS
THE WORLD RUMBLES BY ME
TO MR. AND MRS. LOWY, ON THEIR SILVER WEDDING
LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM TO J.L.
GOD LOOKED CLEAR AT ME THROUGH HER EYES
BIRTHDAY SONG
THE PRESENT
NOCTURNE
THE KEY OF THE GATES OF HEAVEN
THE CAGE
BACCHANAL
NOW THE SPIRIT’S SONG HAS WITHERED
SO INNOCENT YOU SPREAD YOUR NET
THE NUN
WE ARE SAD WITH A VAGUE SWEET SORROW
PEACE
FLEET STREET
THE GARDEN OF JOY
THE POET
MY SONGS
TO NATURE
DON JUAN’S SONG
YOU AND I
LOVE TO BE
LIKE SOME FAIR SUBTLE POISON
TWILIGHT I.
AS WE LOOK
EVEN NOW YOUR EYES ARE MIXED IN MINE
PSYCHE’S LAMENT
KNOWLEDGE
RAPHAEL
O’ER THE CELESTIAL PATHWAYS
DUST CALLETH TO DUST
TO MICHAEL SHERBROOKE ON HEARING HIS RECITATION OF ‘THE RAVEN’
TWILIGHT II.
AS A BESIEGED CITY
CREATION
GLORY OF HUELESS SKIES
A QUESTION
APPARITION
A CARELESS HEART
THE POET II
THE BLIND GOD
WALK YOU IN MUSIC, LIGHT OR NIGHT
TWILIGHT III
O, BE THESE MEN AND WOMEN
A WARM THOUGHT FLICKERS
SONG
SPRING
ON A LADY SINGING
AS A SWORD IN THE SUN
AT SEA-POINT
O HEART, HOME OF HIGH PURPOSES
OF ANY OLD MAN
INVISIBLE ANCIENT ENEMY OF MINE
AT NIGHT
SUBJECTIVITY
WISTFULLY IN PALLID SPLENDOUR
HAVE WE SAILED AND HAVE WE WANDERED
FAR AWAY
GIRL’S SONG
I KNOW YOU GOLDEN
SACRED, VOLUPTUOUS HOLLOWS DEEP
THE EXILE
MY SOUL IS ROBBED
NIGHT
WHAT IF I WEAR YOUR BEAUTY
DAWN
UNDER THESE SKIES
THE FEMALE GOD
HER FABLED MOUTH
A BIRD TRILLING ITS GAY HEART OUT
SUMMER’S LIPS ARE AGLOW
I HAVE LIVED IN THE UNDERWORLD TOO LONG
I AM THE BLOOD
BEAUTY I
BEAUTY II
AUGURIES
ON RECEIVING NEWS OF THE WAR
THE FLEA
A WOMAN’S BEAUTY
BUT I AM THROWN WITH BEAUTY’S BREATH
IN HALF DELIGHT OF SHY DELIGHT
PAST DAYS ARE HIEROGLYPHS
WHO LOSES THE HOUR OF THE WIND?
DUSK AND THE MIRROR
THE MIRROR
SIGNIFICANCE
WEDDED
MIDSUMMER FROST II.
SLEEP II.
GREEN THOUGHTS ARE
LUSITANIA
THE TROOP SHIP
AUGUST 1914
THE JEW
FROM FRANCE
IN THE TRENCHES
BREAK OF DAY IN THE TRENCHES
HOME-THOUGHTS FROM FRANCE
A WORM FED ON THE HEART OF CORINTH
THE DYING SOLDIER
IN WAR
THE IMMORTALS
LOUSE HUNTING
RETURNING, WE HEAR THE LARKS
DEAD MAN’S DUMP
DAUGHTERS OF WAR
SOLDIER: TWENTIETH CENTURY
GIRL TO SOLDIER ON LEAVE
THE BURNING OF THE TEMPLE
THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY THE BABYLONIAN HORDES
THROUGH THESE PALE COLD DAYS
ODE TO DAVID’S HARP
Awake! ye joyful strains, awake!
In silence sleep no more;
Disperse the gloom that ever lies
O’er Judah’s barren shore.
5 Where are the hands that strung thee
With tender touch and true?
Those hands are silenced too.
The harp that faster caused to beat
The heart that throbbed for war,
10 The harp that melancholy calmed,
Lies mute on Judah’s shore.
One chord awake — one strain prolong
To wake the zeal in Israel’s breast;
Oh sacred lyre, once more, how long?
15 ’Tis vain, alas! in silence rest.
Many a minstrel fame’s elated
Envies thee thy harp of fame,
Harp of David — monarch minstrel,
Bravely — bravely, keep thy name.
20 Ay! every ear that listen’d,
Was charmed — was thrilled — was bound.
Every eye with moisture glisten’d
Thrilling to the harp’s sweet sound.
Hark! the harp is pouring
25 Notes of burning fire,
And each soul o’erpowering,
Melts the rousing ire.
Fiercer — shriller — wilder far
Than the iron notes of war,
30 Accents sweet and echoes sweeter,
Minstrel — minstrel, steeds fly fleeter
Spurred on by thy magic strains.
Tell me not the harp lies sleeping,
Set not thus my heart aweeping,
35 In the muse’s fairy dwelling
There thy magic notes are swelling.
But for list’ning mortals’ ear
Vainly wait, ye will not hear.
So clearly sweet — so plaintive sad
40 More tender tone no harper had.
O! when again shall Israel see
A harp so toned with melody?
1905
ZION
She stood — a hill-ensceptred Queen,
The glory streaming from her;
While Heaven flashed her rays between,
And shed eternal summer.
5 The gates of morning opened wide
On sunny dome and steeple.
Noon gleamed upon the mountain-side
Throng’d with a happy people.
And twilight’s drowsy, half closed eyes
10 Beheld that virgin splendour
Whose orbs were as her darkening skies,
And as her spirit, tender.
Girt with that strength, first born of right,
Held fast by deeds of honour,
15 Her robe she wove with rays more bright
Than Heaven could rain upon her.
Where is that light — that citadel?
That robe with woof of glory?
She lost her virtue and she fell,
20 And only left her story.
1906
DAWN BEHIND NIGHT
Lips! bold, frenzied utterance, shape to the thoughts that are prompted by hate
Of the red streaming burden of wrong we have borne and still bear;
That wealth with its soul-crushing scourges placed into its hands by fate,
Hath made the cement of its towers, grim-girdled by our despair.
5 Should it die in the death that they make, in the silence that follows the sob;
In the voiceless depth of the waters that closes upon our grief;
Who shall know of the bl
eakness assigned us for the fruits that we reap and they rob?
To pour out the strong wine of pity, outstretch the kind hand in relief.
In the golden glare of the morning, in the solemn serene of the night,
10 We look on each other’s faces, and we turn to our prison bar;
In pitiless travail of toil and outside the precious light,
What wonder we know not our manhood in the curse of the things that are?
In the life or the death they dole us from the rags and the bones of their store,
In the blood they feed but to drink of, in the pity they feign in their pride,
15 Lies the glimpse of a heaven behind it, for the ship hath left the shore,
That will find us and free us and take us where its portals are opened wide.
1909
A BALLAD OF WHITECHAPEL
God’s mercy shines,
And our full hearts must make record of this,
For grief that burst from out its dark confines
Into strange sunlit bliss.
5 I stood where glowed
The merry glare of golden whirring lights
Above the monstrous mass that seethed and flowed
Through one of London’s nights.
I watched the gleams
10 Of jagged warm lights on shrunk faces pale.
I heard mad laughter as one hears in dreams,
Or Hell’s harsh lurid tale.
The traffic rolled,
A gliding chaos populous of din.
15 A steaming wail at doom the Lord had scrawled
For perilous loads of sin.
And my soul thought,
‘What fearful land have my steps wandered to?
God’s love is everywhere, but here is naught
20 Save love His anger slew.’
And as I stood
Lost in promiscuous bewilderment,
Which to my mazed soul was wonder-food,
A girl in garments rent
25 Peered ‘neath lids shamed,
And spoke to me and murmured to my blood.
My soul stopped dead, and all my horror flamed
At her forgot of God.
Her hungered eyes,
30 Craving and yet so sadly spiritual,
Shone like the unsmirched corner of a jewel
Where else foul blemish lies.
I walked with her
Because my heart thought, ‘Here the soul is clean,
35 The fragrance of the frankincense and myrrh
Is lost in odours mean.’
She told me how
The shadow of black death had newly come
And touched her father, mother, even now
40 Grim-hovering in her home,
Where fevered lay
Her wasting brother in a cold bleak room,