Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) (5 page)

Into which they were trepanned

Long time ago in a mighty band

Out of Hamelin town in Bruswick land,

But how or why, they don’t understand.

XV

[300] So, Willy, let me and you be wipers

Of scores out with all men – especially pipers!

And, whether they pipe us free fróm rats or fróm mice,

If we’ve promised them aught, let us keep our promise!

‘How They Brought the Good News
from Ghent to Aix’

[16—]

I

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;

‘Good speed!’ cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;

‘Speed!’ echoed the wall to us galloping through;

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,

And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

II

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace

Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;

I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,

[10] Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,

Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,

Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

III

’Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near

Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;

At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;

At Düffeld, ’twas morning as plain as could be;

And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,

So, Joris broke silence with, ‘Yet there is time!’

IV

At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,

[20] And against him the cattle stood black every one,

To stare through the mist at us galloping past,

And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,

With resolute shoulders, each butting away

The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray:

V

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back

For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;

And one eye’s black intelligence, – ever that glance

O’er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!

And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon

[30] His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.

VI

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, ‘Stay spur!

Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault’s not in her,

We’ll remember at Aix’ – for one heard the quick wheeze

Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,

And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,

As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

VII

So, we were left galloping, Joris and I,

Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;

The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,

[40] ’Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;

Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,

And ‘Gallop,’ gasped Joris, ‘for Aix is in sight!’

VIII

‘How they’ll greet us!’ – and all in a moment his roan

Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;

And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight

Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,

With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,

And with circles of red for his eye-sockets’ rim.

IX

Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall,

[50] Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,

Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,

Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;

Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,

Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.

X

And all I remember is – friends flocking round

As I sat with his head ’twixt my knees on the ground;

And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,

As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,

Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)

[60] Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.

The Lost Leader

I

Just for a handful of silver he left us,

Just for a riband to stick in his coat –

Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,

Lost all the others she lets us devote;

They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,

So much was theirs who so little allowed:

How all our copper had gone for his service!

Rags – were they purple, his heart had been proud!

[10] We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,

Made him our pattern to live and to die!

Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,

Burns, Shelley, were with us, – they watch from their graves!

He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,

– He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

II

We shall march prospering, – not through his presence;

Songs may inspirit us, – not from his lyre;

[20] Deeds will be done, – while he boasts his quiescence,

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:

Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,

One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,

One more devils’-triumph and sorrow for angels,

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!

Life’s night begins: let him never come back to us!

There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,

Forced praise on our part – the glimmer of twilight,

Never glad confident morning again!

[30] Best fight on well, for we taught him – strike gallantly,

Menace our heart ere we master his own;

Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,

Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!

Meeting at Night

I

The grey sea and the long black land;

And the yellow half-moon large and low;

And the startled little waves that leap

In fiery ringlets from their sleep,

As I gain the cove with pushing prow,

And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.

II

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch

[10] And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Parting at Morning

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,

And the sun looked over the mountain’s rim:

And straight was a path of gold for him,

And the need of a world of men for me.

Home-Thoughts, from Abroad

I

Oh, to be in England

Now that April’s there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England – now!

II

And after April, when May follows,

[10] And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops – at the bent spray’s edge –

That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children’s dower

[20] – Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church

Rome, 15—

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!

Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?

Nephews – sons mine … ah God, I know not! Well –

She, men would have to be your mother once,

Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!

What’s done is done, and she is dead beside,

Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,

And as she died so must we die ourselves,

And thence ye may perceive the world’s a dream.

[10] Life, how and what is it? As here I lie

In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,

Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask

‘Do I live, am I dead?’ Peace, peace seems all.

Saint Praxed’s ever was the church for peace;

And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought

With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:

– Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;

Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South

He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!

[20] Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence

One sees the pulpit o’ the epistle-side,

And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,

And up into the airy dome where live

The angels, and a sunbeam’s sure to lurk:

And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,

And ’neath my tabernacle take my rest,

With those nine columns round me, two and two,

The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:

Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe

[30]
As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.

– Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,

Put me where I may look at him! True peach,

Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!

Draw close: that conflagration of my church

– What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!

My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig

The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,

Drop water gently till the surface sink,

And if ye find … Ah God, I know not, I! …

[40] Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,

And corded up in a tight olive-frail,

Some lump, ah God, of
lapis lazuli
,

Big as a Jew’s head cut off at the nape,

Blue as a vein o’er the Madonna’s breast …

Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,

That brave Frascati villa with its bath,

So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,

Like God the Father’s globe on both his hands

Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,

[50] For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!

Swift as a weaver’s shuttle fleet our years:

Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?

Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black –

’Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else

Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?

The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,

Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance

Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,

The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,

[60] Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan

Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off,

And Moses with the tables … but I know

Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,

Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope

To revel down my villas while I gasp

Bricked o’er with beggar’s mouldy travertine

Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!

Nay, boys, ye love me – all of jasper, then!

’Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve

[70] My bath must needs be left behind, alas!

One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,

There’s plenty jasper somewhere in the world –

And have I not Saint Praxed’s ear to pray

Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,

And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?

– That’s if ye carve my epitaph aright,

Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully’s every word,

No gaudy ware like Gandolf ‘s second line –

Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!

[80] And then how I shall lie through centuries,

And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,

And see God made and eaten all day long,

And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste

Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!

For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,

Dying in state and by such slow degrees,

I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,

And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,

And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop

[90] Into great laps and folds of sculptor’s-work:

And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts

Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,

About the life before I lived this life,

And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,

Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,

Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,

And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,

And marble’s language, Latin pure, discreet,

– Aha,
ELUCESCEBAT
quoth our friend?

[100] No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!

Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.

All
lapis
, all, sons! Else I give the Pope

My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?

Ever your eyes were as a lizard’s quick,

They glitter like your mother’s for my soul,

Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,

Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase

With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term,