Poems by Sir John Collings Squire Volume I Part 12

Rotting scrofulous steaming trunks, Great horned emerald beetles crawling, Ants and huge slow b.u.t.terflies That had strayed and lost the sun; Ah, sick I have swooned as the air thickened To a pallid brown ecliptic glow, And on the forest, fallen with languor, Thunder has begun.

Thunder in the dun dusk, thunder Rolling and battering and cracking, The caverns shudder with a terrible glare Again and again and again, Till the land bows in the darkness, Utterly lost and defenceless, Smitten and blinded and overwhelmed By the cras.h.i.+ng rods of rain.

And then in the forests of the Amazon, When the rain has ended, and silence come, What dark luxuriance unfolds From behind the night's drawn bars: The wreathing odours of a thousand trees And the flowers' faint gleaming presences, And over the clearings and the still waters Soft indigo and hanging stars.

O many and many are rivers, And beautiful are all rivers, And lovely is water everywhere That leaps or glides or stays; Yet by starlight, moonlight, or sunlight, Long, long though they look, these wandering eyes, Even on the fairest waters of dream, Never untroubled gaze.

For whatever stream I stand by, And whatever river I dream of, There is something still in the back of my mind From very far away; There is something I saw and see not, A country full of rivers That stirs in my heart and speaks to me More sure, more dear than they.

And always I ask and wonder (Though often I do not know it): Why does this water not smell like water?

Where is the moss that grew Wet and dry on the slabs of granite And the round stones in clear brown water?

--And a pale film rises before them Of the rivers that first I knew.

Though famous are the rivers of the great world, Though my heart from those alien waters drinks Delight however pure from their loveliness, And awe however deep, Would I wish for a moment the miracle That those waters should come to Chagford, Or gather and swell in Tavy Cleave Where the stones cling to the steep?

No, even were they Ganges and Amazon In all their great might and majesty, League upon league of wonders, I would lose them all, and more, For a light chiming of small bells, A twisting flash in the granite, The tiny thread of a pixie waterfall That lives by Vixen Tor.

Those rivers in that lost country, They were brown as a clear brown bead is, Or red with the earth that rain washed down, Or white with china-clay; And some tossed foaming over boulders, And some curved mild and tranquil, In wooded vales securely set Under the fond warm day.

Okement and Erme and Avon, Exe and his ruffled shallows, I could cry as I think of those rivers That knew my morning dreams; The weir by Tavistock at evening When the circling woods were purple, And the Lowman in spring with the lent-lilies, And the little moorland streams.

For many a hillside streamlet There falls with a broken tinkle, Falling and dying, falling and dying.

In little cascades and pools, Where the world is furze and heather And flas.h.i.+ng plovers and fixed larks, And an empty sky, whitish blue, That small world rules.

There, there, where the high waste bog-lands And the drooping slopes and the spreading valleys, The orchards and the cattle-sprinkled pastures Those travelling musics fill, There is my lost Abana, And there is my nameless Pharphar That mixed with my heart when I was a boy, And time stood still.

And I say I will go there and die there: But I do not go there, and sometimes I think that the train could not carry me there, And it's possible, maybe, That it's farther than Asia or Africa, Or any voyager's harbour, Farther, farther, beyond recall....

O even in memory!

I SHALL MAKE BEAUTY

I shall make beauty out of many things: Lights, colours, motions, sky and earth and sea, The soft unbosoming of all the springs Which that inscrutable hand allows to me, Odours of flowers, sounds of smitten strings, The voice of many a wind in many a tree, Fields, rivers, moors, swift feet and floating wings, Rocks, caves, and hills that stand and clouds that flee.

Men also and women, beautiful and dear, Shall come and pa.s.s and leave a fragrant breath; And my own heart, laughter and pain and fear, The majesties of evil and of death; But never, never shall my verses trace The loveliness of your most lovely face.

ENVOI

Beloved, when my heart's awake to G.o.d And all the world becomes His testimony, In you I most do see, in your brave spirit, Erect and certain, flas.h.i.+ng deeds of light, A pure jet from the fountain of all being, A scripture clearer than all else to read.

And when belief was dead and G.o.d a myth, And the world seemed a wandering mote of evil, Endurable only by its impermanence, And all the planets perishable urns Of perished ashes, to you alone I clung Amid the unspeakable loneliness of the universe.

THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED. EDINBURGH