Poems by Sir John Collings Squire Volume I Part 9

And they whisper aswoon: Did it move in the moon?

O it moved as it grew!

It is moving, opening, with calm and gradual will, And their bodies where they cling are shadowed and still And with marvel they mark that the mud now is dark For the unfolding flower, like a G.o.ddess in her power, Challenges the moon with a light of her own, That lovelily grows as the petals unclose, Wider, more wide with an awful inward pride, Till the heart of it breaks, and stilled is their breath, For the radiance it makes is as wonderful as death.

The morning's crimson stain tinges their ashen brows As they part the last boughs and slowly step again On to the village gra.s.s, and chill and languid pa.s.s Into the huts to sleep.

Brief slumber, yet so deep That, when they wake to day, darkness and splendour seem Broken and far away, a faint miraculous dream; And when those maidens rise they are as they ever were Save only for a rare shade of trouble in their eyes.

And the surly thick-lipped men, as they sit about their huts Making drums out of guts, grunting gruffly now and then, Carving sticks of ivory, stretching s.h.i.+elds of wrinkled skin, Smoothing sinister and thin squatting G.o.ds of ebony, Chip and grunt and do not see.

But each mother, silently, Longer than her wont stays shut in the dimness of her hut, For she feels a brooding cloud of memory in the air, A lingering thing there that makes her sit bowed With hollow s.h.i.+ning eyes, as the night-fire dies, And stare softly at the ember, and try to remember Something sorrowful and far, something sweet and vaguely seen Like an early evening star when the sky is pale green: A quiet silver tower that climbed in an hour, Or a ghost like a flower, or a flower like a queen: Something holy in the past that came and did not last.

But she knows not what it was.

A HOUSE

Now very quietly, and rather mournfully, In clouds of hyacinth the sun retires, And all the stubble-fields that were so warm to him Keep but in memory their borrowed fires.

And I, the traveller, break, still unsatisfied, From that faint exquisite celestial strand, And turn and see again the only dwelling-place In this wide wilderness of darkening land.

The house, that house, O now what change has come to it, Its crude red-brick facade, its roof of slate; What imperceptible swift hand has given it A new, a wonderful, a queenly state?

No hand has altered it, that parallelogram, So inharmonious, so ill arranged; That hard blue roof in shape and colour's what it was; No, it is not that any line has changed.

Only that loneliness is now accentuate And, as the dusk unveils the heaven's deep cave, This small world's feebleness fills me with awe again, And all man's energies seem very brave.

And this mean edifice, which some dull architect Built for an ignorant earth-turning hind, Takes on the quality of that magnificent Unshakable dauntlessness of human kind.

Darkness and stars will come, and long the night will be, Yet imperturbable that house will rest, Avoiding gallantly the stars' chill scrutiny, Ignoring secrets in the midnight's breast.

Thunders may shudder it, and winds demoniac May howl their menaces, and hail descend; Yet it will bear with them, serenely, steadfastly, Not even scornfully, and wait the end.

And all a universe of nameless messengers From unknown distances may whisper fear, And it will imitate immortal permanence, And stare and stare ahead and scarcely hear.

It stood there yesterday; it will to-morrow, too, When there is none to watch, no alien eyes To watch its ugliness a.s.sume a majesty From this great solitude of evening skies.

So lone, so very small, with worlds and worlds around, While life remains to it prepared to outface Whatever awful unconjectured mysteries May hide and wait for it in time and s.p.a.ce.

BEHIND THE LINES

The wind of evening cried along the darkening trees, Along the darkening trees, heavy with ancient pain, Heavy with ancient pain from faded centuries, From faded centuries.... O foolish thought and vain!

O foolish thought and vain to think the wind could know, To think the wind could know the griefs of men who died, The griefs of men who died and mouldered long ago: "And mouldered long ago," the wind of evening cried.

ARAB SONG

When her eyes' sudden challenge first halted my feet on the path, I stood like a s.h.i.+vering caught fugitive, and strained at my breath, And the Truth in her eyes was the portent of Love and of Death, For I am of the tribe of Ben Asra, who die when they love.

O you who have faded because girls were contemptuous and cold, I pitied you; but mine I have won, and her breast I enfold Despairing, and in agony long for the thing that I hold: For I am of the tribe of Ben Asra, who die when they love.

She is fair; and her eyes in her hair are like stars in a stream.

She is kind: never vaporous sleep-eddying maid in a dream Leaning over my darkness-drowned pillow more tender did seem.

But her beauty and sweetness are as blasts from the sands of the South.

Drink me, palsy me, flay me, bleed my veins, chain my limbs, choke my mouth, And make salt to my lips the wine that should temper my drouth: For I am of the tribe of Ben Asra, who die when they love.

Death must come: it were best by a knife in her hand or my own.

She'd not strike and I dare not, but here, as I wander alone, Should the wood topple over at a beast flying out like a stone I shall smile in its face at her image bending down from the sky, And its teeth in my neck will be hers, and its snarls as I die Will be gentle and sweet to my ears as the voice of the dove: For I am of the tribe of Ben Asra, who die when they love.

THE STRONGHOLD

Quieter than any twilight Shed over earth's last deserts, Quiet and vast and shadowless Is that unfounded keep, Higher than the roof of the night's high chamber Deep as the shaft of sleep.

And solitude will not cry there, Melancholy will not brood there, Hatred, with its sharp corroding pain, And fear will not come there at all: Never will a tear or a heart-ache enter Over that enchanted wall.

But, O, if you find that castle, Draw back your foot from the gateway, Let not its peace invite you, Let not its offerings tempt you.

For faded and decayed like a garment, Love to a dust will have fallen, And song and laughter will have gone with sorrow, And hope will have gone with pain; And of all the throbbing heart's high courage Nothing will remain.

TO A BULL-DOG

(_W. H. S., Capt. [Acting Major] R.F.A.; killed April_ 12, 1917)

We sha'n't see w.i.l.l.y any more, Mamie, He won't be coming any more: He came back once and again and again, But he won't get leave any more.

We looked from the window and there was his cab, And we ran downstairs like a streak, And he said "Hullo, you bad dog," and you crouched to the floor, Paralysed to hear him speak,

And then let fly at his face and his chest Till I had to hold you down, While he took off his cap and his gloves and his coat.

And his bag and his thonged Sam Browne.

We went upstairs to the studio, The three of us, just as of old, And you lay down and I sat and talked to him As round the room he strolled.

Here in the room where, years ago Before the old life stopped, He worked all day with his slippers and his pipe, He would pick up the threads he'd dropped,

Fondling all the drawings he had left behind, Glad to find them all still the same, And opening the cupboards to look at his belongings ... Every time he came.

But now I know what a dog doesn't know, Though you'll thrust your head on my knee, And try to draw me from the absent-mindedness That you find so dull in me.

And all your life you will never know What I wouldn't tell you even if I could, That the last time we waved him away w.i.l.l.y went for good.