Poems of To-Day: an Anthology

PREFATORY NOTE

This book has been compiled in order that boys and girls, already perhaps familiar with the great classics of the English speech, may also know something of the newer poetry of their own day. Most of the writers are living, and the rest are still vivid memories among us, while one of the youngest, almost as these words are written, has gone singing to lay down his life for his country's cause. Although no definite chronological limit has been set, and Meredith at least began to write in the middle of the nineteenth century, the intention has been to represent mainly those poetic tendencies which have become dominant as the influence of the accepted Victorian masters has grown weaker, and from which the poetry of the future, however it may develope, must in turn take its start. It may be helpful briefly to indicate the sequence of themes. Man draws his being from the heroic Past and from the Earth his Mother; and in harmony with these he must shape his life to what high purposes he may. Therefore this gathering of poems falls into three groups. {viii} First there are poems of History, of the romantic tale of the world, of our own special tradition here in England, and of the inheritance of obligation which that tradition imposes upon us. Naturally, there are some poems directly inspired by the present war, but nothing, it is hoped, which may not, in happier days, bear translation into any European tongue. Then there come poems of the Earth, of England again and the longing of the exile for home, of this and that familiar countryside, of woodland and meadow and garden, of the process of the seasons, of the "open road" and the "wind on the heath," of the city, its deprivations and its consolations. Finally there are poems of Life itself, of the moods in which it may be faced, of religion, of man's excellent virtues, of friendship and childhood, of passion, grief, and comfort. But there is no arbitrary isolation of one theme from another; they mingle and inter-penetrate throughout, to the music of Pan's flute, and of Love's viol, and the bugle-call of Endeavour, and the passing-bell of Death.

May, 1915.

1. ALL THAT'S PAST

 
  Very old are the woods;
    And the buds that break
  Out of the briar's boughs,
    When March winds wake,
  So old with their beauty are—
    Oh, no man knows
  Through what wild centuries
    Roves back the rose.
 
 
  Very old are the brooks;
    And the rills that rise
  Where snow sleeps cold beneath
    The azure skies
  Sing such a history
    Of come and gone,
  Their every drop is as wise
    As Solomon.
 
 
  Very old are we men;
    Our dreams are tales
  Told in dim Eden
    By Eve's nightingales;
  We wake and whisper awhile,
    But, the day gone by,
  Silence and sleep like fields
    Of amaranth lie.
 

Walter de la Mare.

2. PRE-EXISTEHCE

 
  I laid me down upon the shore
    And dreamed a little space;
  I heard the great waves break and roar;
    The sun was on my face.
 
 
  My idle hands and fingers brown
    Played with the pebbles grey;
  The waves came up, the waves went down,
    Most thundering and gay.
 
 
  The pebbles, they were smooth and round
    And warm upon my hands,
  Like little people I had found
    Sitting among the sands.
 
 
  The grains of sands so shining-small
    Soft through my fingers ran;
  The sun shone down upon it all,
    And so my dream began:
 
 
  How all of this had been before;
    How ages far away
  I lay on some forgotten shore
    As here I lie to-day.
 
 
  The waves came shining up the sands,
    As here to-day they shine;
  And in my pre-pelasgian hands
    The sand was warm and fine.
 
 
  I have forgotten whence I came,
    Or what my home might be,
  Or by what strange and savage name
    I called that thundering sea.
 
 
  I only know the sun shone down
    As still it shines to-day,
  And in my fingers long and brown
    The little pebbles lay.
 

Frances Cornford.

3. FRAGMENTS

 
  Troy Town is covered up with weeds,
    The rabbits and the pismires brood
  On broken gold, and shards, and beads
    Where Priam's ancient palace stood.
 
 
  The floors of many a gallant house
    Are matted with the roots of grass;
  The glow-worm and the nimble mouse
    Among her ruins flit and pass.
 
 
  And there, in orts of blackened bone,
    The widowed Trojan beauties lie,
  And Simois babbles over stone
    And waps and gurgles to the sky.
 
 
  Once there were merry days in Troy,
    Her chimneys smoked with cooking meals,
  The passing chariots did annoy
    The sunning housewives at their wheels.
 
 
  And many a lovely Trojan maid
    Set Trojan lads to lovely things;
  The game of life was nobly played,
    They played the game like Queens and Kings.
 
 
  So that, when Troy had greatly passed
    In one red roaring fiery coal,
  The courts the Grecians overcast
    Became a city in the soul.
 
 
  In some green island of the sea,
    Where now the shadowy coral grows
  In pride and pomp and empery
    The courts of old Atlantis rose.
 
 
  In many a glittering house of glass
    The Atlanteans wandered there;
  The paleness of their faces was
    Like ivory, so pale they were.
 
 
  And hushed they were, no noise of words
    In those bright cities ever rang;
  Only their thoughts, like golden birds,
    About their chambers thrilled and sang.
 
 
  They knew all wisdom, for they knew
    The souls of those Egyptian Kings
  Who learned, in ancient Babilu,
    The beauty of immortal things.
 
 
  They knew all beauty—when they thought
    The air chimed like a stricken lyre,
  The elemental birds were wrought,
    The golden birds became a fire.
 
 
  And straight to busy camps and marts
    The singing flames were swiftly gone;
  The trembling leaves of human hearts
    Hid boughs for them to perch upon.
 
 
  And men in desert places, men
    Abandoned, broken, sick with fears,
  Rose singing, swung their swords agen,
    And laughed and died among the spears.
 
 
  The green and greedy seas have drowned
    That city's glittering walls and towers,
  Her sunken minarets are crowned
    With red and russet water-flowers.
 
 
  In towers and rooms and golden courts
    The shadowy coral lifts her sprays;
  The scrawl hath gorged her broken orts,
    The shark doth haunt her hidden ways,
 
 
  But, at the falling of the tide,
    The golden birds still sing and gleam,
  The Atlanteans have not died,
    Immortal things still give us dream.
 
 
  The dream that fires man's heart to make,
    To build, to do, to sing or say
  A beauty Death can never take,
    An Adam from the crumbled clay.
 

John Masefield.

4. FALLEN CITIES

 
  I gathered with a careless hand,
    There where the waters night and day
    Are languid in the idle bay,
  A little heap of golden sand;
    And, as I saw it, in my sight
    Awoke a vision brief and bright,
  A city in a pleasant land.
 
 
  I saw no mound of earth, but fair
    Turrets and domes and citadels,
    With murmuring of many bells;
  The spires were white in the blue air,
    And men by thousands went and came,
    Rapid and restless, and like flame
  Blown by their passions here and there.
 
 
  With careless hand I swept away
    The little mound before I knew;
    The visioned city vanished too,
  And fall'n beneath my fingers lay.
    Ah God! how many hast Thou seen,
    Cities that are not and have been,
  By silent hill and idle bay!
 

Gerald Gould.

5. TIME, YOU OLD GIPSY MAN

 
  Time, you old gipsy man,
    Will you not stay,
  Put up your caravan
    Just for one day?
 
 
  All things I'll give you,
  Will you be my guest,
  Bells for your jennet
  Of silver the best,
  Goldsmiths shall beat you
  A great golden ring,
  Peacocks shall bow to you,
  Little boys sing,
  Oh, and sweet girls will
  Festoon you with may,
  Time, you old gipsy,
  Why hasten away?
 
 
  Last week in Babylon,
  Last night in Rome,
  Morning, and in the crush
  Under Paul's dome;
  Under Paul's dial
  You tighten your rein—
  Only a moment,
  And off once again;
  Off to some city
  Now blind in the womb,
  Off to another
  Ere that's in the tomb.
 
 
  Time, you old gipsy man,
    Will you not stay,
  Put up your caravan
    Just for one day?
 

Ralph Hodgson.

6. A HUGUENOT

 
    O, a gallant set were they,
    As they charged on us that day,
  A thousand riding like one!
    Their trumpets crying,
    And their white plumes flying,
  And their sabres flashing in the sun.
 
 
    O, a sorry lot were we,
    As we stood beside the sea,
  Each man for himself as he stood!
    We were scattered and lonely—
    A little force only
  Of the good men fighting for the good.
 
 
    But I never loved more
    On sea or on shore
  The ringing of my own true blade,
    Like lightning it quivered,
    And the hard helms shivered,
  As I sang, "None maketh me afraid!"
 

Mary E. Coleridge.

7. ON THE TOILET TABLE OF QUEEN MARIE-ANTOINETTE

 
  This was her table, these her trim outspread
  Brushes and trays and porcelain cups for red;
  Here sate she, while her women tired and curled
  The most unhappy head in all the world.
 

J. B. B. Nichols.

8. UPON ECKINGTON BRIDGE, RIVER AVON

 
  O pastoral heart of England! like a psalm
    Of green days telling with a quiet beat—
  O wave into the sunset flowing calm!
    O tired lark descending on the wheat!
  Lies it all peace beyond that western fold
    Where now the lingering shepherd sees his star
  Rise upon Malvern? Paints an Age of Gold
    Yon cloud with prophecies of linked ease—
    Lulling this Land, with hills drawn up like knees,
  To drowse beside her implements of war?
 
 
  Man shall outlast his battles. They have swept
    Avon from Naseby Field to Severn Ham;
  And Evesham's dedicated stones have stepp'd
    Down to the dust with Montfort's oriflamme.
  Nor the red tear nor the reflected tower
    Abides; but yet these eloquent grooves remain,
  Worn in the sandstone parapet hour by hour
    By labouring bargemen where they shifted ropes.
    E'en so shall man turn back from violent hopes
  To Adam's cheer, and toil with spade again.
 
 
  Ay, and his mother Nature, to whose lap
    Like a repentant child at length he hies,
  Not in the whirlwind or the thunder-clap
    Proclaims her more tremendous mysteries:
  But when in winter's grave, bereft of light,
    With still, small voice divinelier whispering
  —Lifting the green head of the aconite,
    Feeding with sap of hope the hazel-shoot—
    She feels God's finger active at the root,
  Turns in her sleep, and murmurs of the Spring.
 

Arthur Quiller-Couch.

9. BY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES AT CHARING CROSS

 
  Sombre and rich, the skies;
  Great glooms, and starry plains.
  Gently the night wind sighs;
  Else a vast silence reigns.
 
 
  The splendid silence clings
  Around me: and around
  The saddest of all kings
  Crowned, and again discrowned.
 
 
  Comely and calm, he rides
  Hard by his own Whitehall:
  Only the night wind glides:
  No crowds, nor rebels, brawl.
 
 
  Gone, too, his Court; and yet,
  The stars his courtiers are:
  Stars in their stations set;
  And every wandering star.
 
 
  Alone he rides, alone,
  The fair and fatal king:
  Dark night is all his own,
  That strange and solemn thing.
 
 
  Which are more full of fate:
  The stars; or those sad eyes?
  Which are more still and great:
  Those brows; or the dark skies?
 
 
  Although his whole heart yearn
  In passionate tragedy:
  Never was face so stern
  With sweet austerity.
 
 
  Vanquished in life, his death
  By beauty made amends:
  The passing of his breath
  Won his defeated ends.
 
 
  Brief life and hapless? Nay:
  Through death, life grew sublime.
  Speak after sentence? Yea:
  And to the end of time.
 
 
  Armoured he rides, his head
  Bare to the stars of doom:
  He triumphs now, the dead,
  Beholding London's gloom.
 
 
  Our wearier spirit faints,
  Vexed in the world's employ:
  His soul was of the saints;
  And art to him was joy.
 
 
  King, tried in fires of woe!
  Men hunger for thy grace:
  And through the night I go,
  Loving thy mournful face.
 
 
  Yet when the city sleeps;
  When all the cries are still:
  The stars and heavenly deeps
  Work out a perfect will.
 

Lionel Johnson.

10. TO THE FORGOTTEN DEAD

 
    To the forgotten dead,
  Come, let us drink in silence ere we part.
  To every fervent yet resolvèd heart
  That brought its tameless passion and its tears,
  Renunciation and laborious years,
  To lay the deep foundations of our race,
  To rear its stately fabric overhead
  And light its pinnacles with golden grace.
 
 
    To the unhonoured dead.
    To the forgotten dead,
  Whose dauntless hands were stretched to grasp the rein
  Of Fate and hurl into the void again
  Her thunder-hoofed horses, rushing blind
  Earthward along the courses of the wind.
  Among the stars, along the wind in vain
  Their souls were scattered and their blood was shed,
  And nothing, nothing of them doth remain.
    To the thrice-perished dead.
 

Margaret L. Woods.

11. DRAKE'S DRUM

 
  Drake he's in his hammock an' a thousand mile away,
    (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?)
  Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay,
    An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
  Yarnder lumes the Island, yarnder lie the ships,
    Wi' sailor-lads a-dancin' heel-an'-toe,
  An' the shore-lights flashin', an' the night-tide dashin',
    He sees et arl so plainly as he saw et long ago.
 
 
  Drake he was a Devon man, an' ruled the Devon seas,
    (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?)
  Rovin' tho' his death fell, he went wi' heart at ease,
    An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
  "Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore,
    Strike et when your powder's runnin' low;
  If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port o' Heaven,
    An' drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago."
 
 
  Drake he's in his hammock till the great Armadas come,
    (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?)
  Slung atween the round shot, listenin' for the drum,
    An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
  Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound,
    Call him when ye sail to meet the foe;
  Where the old trade's plyin' an' the old flag flyin'
    They shall find him ware an' wakin', as they found him long ago!
 

Henry Newbolt.

12. THE MOON IS UP

 
  The moon is up: the stars are bright
    The wind is fresh and free!
  We're out to seek for gold to-night
    Across the silver sea!
  The world was growing grey and old:
    Break out the sails again!
  We're out to seek a Realm of Gold
    Beyond the Spanish Main.
 
 
  We're sick of all the cringing knees,
    The courtly smiles and lies!
  God, let Thy singing Channel breeze
    Lighten our hearts and eyes!
  Let love no more be bought and sold
    For earthly loss or gain;
  We're out to seek an Age of Gold
    Beyond the Spanish Main.
 
 
  Beyond the light of far Cathay,
    Beyond all mortal dreams,
  Beyond the reach of night and day
    Our El Dorado gleams,
  Revealing—as the skies unfold—
    A star without a stain,
  The Glory of the Gates of Gold
    Beyond the Spanish Main.
 

Alfred Noyes.

13. MINORA SIDERA

 
  Sitting at times over a hearth that burns
    With dull domestic glow,
  My thought, leaving the book, gratefully turns
    To you who planned it so.
 
 
  Not of the great only you deigned to tell—
    The stars by which we steer—
  But lights out of the night that flashed, and fell
    To night again, are here.
 
 
  Such as were those, dogs of an elder day,
    Who sacked the golden ports,
  And those later who dared grapple their prey
    Beneath the harbour forts:
 
 
  Some with flag at the fore, sweeping the world
    To find an equal fight,
  And some who joined war to their trade, and hurled
    Ships of the line in flight.
 
 
  Whether their fame centuries long should ring
    They cared not over-much,
  But cared greatly to serve God and the king,
    And keep the Nelson touch;
 
 
  And fought to build Britain above the tide
    Of wars and windy fate;
  And passed content, leaving to us the pride
    Of lives obscurely great.
 

Henry Newbolt.

14. MUSING ON A GREAT SOLDIER

 
  Fear? Yes . . . I heard you saying
  In an Oxford common-room
  Where the hearth-light's kindly raying
  Stript the empanelled walls of gloom,
  Silver groves of candles playing
  In the soft wine turned to bloom—
  At the word I see you now
  Blandly push the wine-boat's prow
  Round the mirror of that scored
  Yellow old mahogany board—
  I confess to one fear! this,
To be buried alive!
 
 
        My Lord,
  Your fancy has played amiss.
 
 
  Fear not. When in farewell
  While guns toll like a bell
  And the bell tolls like a gun
  Westminster towers call
  Folk and state to your funeral,
  And robed in honours won,
  Beneath the cloudy pall
  Of the lifted shreds of glory
  You lie in the last stall
  Of that grey dormitory—
  Fear not lest mad mischance
  Should find you lapt and shrouded
  Alive in helpless trance
  Though seeming death-beclouded:
 
 
  For long ere so you rest
  On that transcendent bier
  Shall we not have addressed
  One summons, one last test,
  To your reluctant ear?
  O believe it! we shall have uttered
  In ultimate entreaty
  A name your soul would hear
  Howsoever thickly shuttered;
  We shall have stooped and muttered
  England! in your cold ear. . . .
  Then, if your great pulse leap
  No more, nor your cheek burn,
  Enough; then shall we learn
  'Tis time for us to weep.
 

Herbert Trench.

16. HE FELL AMONG THIEVES

 
  "Ye have robbed," said he, "ye have slaughtered and made an end,
    Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead;
  What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?"
    "Blood for our blood," they said.
 
 
  He laughed: "If one may settle the score for five,
    I am ready; but let the reckoning stand till day:
  I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any alive."
    "You shall die at dawn," said they.
 
 
  He flung his empty revolver down the slope,
    He climb'd alone to the Eastward edge of the trees;
  All night long in a dream untroubled of hope
    He brooded, clasping his knees.
 
 
  He did not hear the monotonous roar that fills
    The ravine where the Yassin river sullenly flows;
  He did not see the starlight on the Laspur hills,
    Or the far Afghan snows.
 
 
  He saw the April noon on his books aglow,
    The wistaria trailing in at the window wide;
  He heard his father's voice from the terrace below
    Calling him down to ride.
 
 
  He saw the gray little church across the park,
    The mounds that hid the loved and honoured dead;
  The Norman arch, the chancel softly dark,
    The brasses black and red.
 
 
  He saw the School Close, sunny and green,
    The runner beside him, the stand by the parapet wall,
  The distant tape, and the crowd roaring between
    His own name over all.
 
 
  He saw the dark wainscot and timbered roof,
    The long tables, and the faces merry and keen;
  The College Eight and their trainer dining aloof,
    The Dons on the daïs serene.
 
 
  He watch'd the liner's stem ploughing the foam,
    He felt her trembling speed and the thrash of her screw;
  He heard her passengers' voices talking of home,
    He saw the flag she flew.
 
 
  And now it was dawn. He rose strong on his feet,
    And strode to his ruin'd camp below the wood;
  He drank the breath of the morning cool and sweet;
    His murderers round him stood.
 
 
  Light on the Laspur hills was broadening fast,
    The blood-red snow-peaks chilled to a dazzling white;
  He turn'd, and saw the golden circle at last,
    Cut by the eastern height.
 
 
  "O glorious Life, Who dwellest in earth and sun,
    I have lived, I praise and adore Thee."
          A sword swept.
  Over the pass the voices one by one
    Faded, and the hill slept.
 

Henry Newbolt.

16. ENGLAND

 
  Shall we but turn from braggart pride
  Our race to cheapen and defame?
  Before the world to wail, to chide,
  And weakness as with vaunting claim?
  Ere the hour strikes, to abdicate
  The steadfast spirit that made us great,
  And rail with scolding tongues at fate?
 
 
  If England's heritage indeed
  Be lost, be traded quite away
  For fatted sloth and fevered greed;
  If, inly rotting, we decay;
  Suffer we then what doom we must,
  But silent, as befits the dust
  Of them whose chastisement was just.
 
 
  But rather, England, rally thou
  Whatever breathes of faith that still
  Within thee keeps the undying vow
  And dedicates the constant will.
  For such yet lives, if not among
  The boasters, or the loud of tongue,
  Who cry that England's knell is rung.
 
 
  The fault of heart, the small of brain,
  In thee but their own image find;
  Beyond such thoughts as these contain
  A mightier Presence is enshrined.
  Nor meaner than their birthright grown
  Shall these thy latest sons be shown,
  So thou but use them for thine own.
 
 
  By those great spirits burning high
  In our home's heaven, that shall be stars
  To shine, when all is history
  And rumour of old, idle wars;
  By all those hearts which proudly bled
  To make this rose of England red;
  The living, the triumphant dead;
 
 
  By all who suffered and stood fast
  That Freedom might the weak uphold,
  And in men's ways of wreck and waste
  Justice her awful flower unfold;
  By all who out of grief and wrong
  In passion's art of noble song
  Made Beauty to our speech belong;
 
 
  By those adventurous ones who went
  Forth overseas, and, self-exiled,
  Sought from far isle and continent
  Another England in the wild,
  For whom no drums beat, yet they fought
  Alone, in courage of a thought
  Which an unbounded future wrought;
 
 
  Yea, and yet more by those to-day
  Who toil and serve for naught of gain,
  That in thy purer glory they
  May melt their ardour and their pain;
  By these and by the faith of these,
  The faith that glorifies and frees,
  Thy lands call on thee, and thy seas.
 
 
  If thou hast sinned, shall we forsake
  Thee, or the less account us thine?
  Thy sores, thy shames on us we take.
  Flies not for us thy famed ensign?
  Be ours to cleanse and to atone;
  No man this burden bears alone;
  England, our best shall be thine own.
 
 
  Lift up thy cause into the light!
  Put all the factious lips to shame!
  Our loves, our faiths, our hopes unite
  And strike into a single flame!
  Whatever from without betide,
  O purify the soul of pride
  In us; thy slumbers cast aside;
  And of thy sons be justified!
 

Laurence Binyon.