Modern British Poetry Part 2

The poem here reprinted is not only O'Shaughnessy's best, but is, because of its perfect blending of music and message, one of the immortal cla.s.sics of our verse.

ODE

We are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams: Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties We build up the world's great cities, And out of a fabulous story We fas.h.i.+on an empire's glory: One man with a dream, at pleasure, Shall go forth and conquer a crown; And three with a new song's measure Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying In the buried past of the earth, Built Nineveh with our sighing, And Babel itself with our mirth; And o'erthrew them with prophesying To the old of the new world's worth; For each age is a dream that is dying, Or one that is coming to birth.

_William Ernest Henley_

William Ernest Henley was born in 1849 and was educated at the Grammar School of Gloucester. From childhood he was afflicted with a tuberculous disease which finally necessitated the amputation of a foot. His _Hospital Verses_, those vivid precursors of current free verse, were a record of the time when he was at the infirmary at Edinburgh; they are sharp with the sights, sensations, even the actual smells of the sickroom. In spite (or, more probably, because) of his continued poor health, Henley never ceased to wors.h.i.+p strength and energy; courage and a triumphant belief in a harsh world s.h.i.+ne out of the athletic _London Voluntaries_ (1892) and the lightest and most musical lyrics in _Hawthorn and Lavender_ (1898).

The bulk of Henley's poetry is not great in volume. He has himself explained the small quant.i.ty of his work in a Preface to his _Poems_, first published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1898. "A princ.i.p.al reason," he says, "is that, after spending the better part of my life in the pursuit of poetry, I found myself (about 1877) so utterly unmarketable that I had to own myself beaten in art, and to indict myself to journalism for the next ten years." Later on, he began to write again--"old dusty sheaves were dragged to light; the work of selection and correction was begun; I burned much; I found that, after all, the lyrical instinct had slept--not died."

After a brilliant and varied career (see Preface), devoted mostly to journalism, Henley died in 1903.

INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever G.o.ds may be For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circ.u.mstance I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is b.l.o.o.d.y, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

THE BLACKBIRD

The nightingale has a lyre of gold, The lark's is a clarion call, And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute, But I love him best of all.

For his song is all of the joy of life, And we in the mad, spring weather, We two have listened till he sang Our hearts and lips together.

A BOWL OF ROSES

It was a bowl of roses: There in the light they lay, Languis.h.i.+ng, glorying, glowing Their life away.

And the soul of them rose like a presence, Into me crept and grew, And filled me with something--some one-- O, was it you?

BEFORE

Behold me waiting--waiting for the knife.

A little while, and at a leap I storm The thick sweet mystery of chloroform, The drunken dark, the little death-in-life.

The G.o.ds are good to me: I have no wife, No innocent child, to think of as I near The fateful minute; nothing all-too dear Unmans me for my bout of pa.s.sive strife.

Yet I am tremulous and a trifle sick, And, face to face with chance, I shrink a little: My hopes are strong, my will is something weak.

Here comes the basket? Thank you. I am ready But, gentlemen my porters, life is brittle: You carry Caesar and his fortunes--Steady!

MARGARITae SORORI

A late lark twitters from the quiet skies; And from the west, Where the sun, his day's work ended, Lingers as in content, There falls on the old, grey city An influence luminous and serene, A s.h.i.+ning peace.

The smoke ascends In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires s.h.i.+ne, and are changed. In the valley Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun, Closing his benediction, Sinks, and the darkening air Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night-- Night with her train of stars And her great gift of sleep.

So be my pa.s.sing!

My task accomplished and the long day done, My wages taken, and in my heart Some late lark singing, Let me be gathered to the quiet west, The sundown splendid and serene, Death.

_Robert Louis Stevenson_

Robert Louis Stevenson was born at Edinburgh in 1850. He was at first trained to be a lighthouse engineer, following the profession of his family. However, he studied law instead; was admitted to the bar in 1875; and abandoned law for literature a few years later.

Though primarily a novelist, Stevenson has left one immortal book of poetry which is equally at home in the nursery and the library: _A Child's Garden of Verses_ (first published in 1885) is second only to Mother Goose's own collection in its lyrical simplicity and universal appeal. _Underwoods_ (1887) and _Ballads_ (1890) comprise his entire poetic output. As a genial essayist, he is not unworthy to be ranked with Charles Lamb. As a romancer, his fame rests securely on _Kidnapped_, the unfinished masterpiece, _Weir of Hermiston_, and that eternal cla.s.sic of youth, _Treasure Island_.

Stevenson died after a long and dogged fight with his illness, in the Samoan Islands in 1894.

SUMMER SUN

Great is the sun, and wide he goes Through empty heaven without repose; And in the blue and glowing days More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull To keep the shady parlour cool, Yet he will find a c.h.i.n.k or two To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic, spider-clad, He, through the keyhole, maketh glad; And through the broken edge of tiles Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around He bares to all the garden ground, And sheds a warm and glittering look Among the ivy's inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue, Round the bright air with footing true, To please the child, to paint the rose, The gardener of the World, he goes.

WINTER-TIME

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed, A frosty, fiery sleepy-head; Blinks but an hour or two; and then, A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies, At morning in the dark I rise; And s.h.i.+vering in my nakedness, By the cold candle, bathe and dress.