Modern British Poetry Part 20

How long the gale had blown he could not tell, Only the world had changed, his life had died.

A moment now was everlasting h.e.l.l.

Nature an onslaught from the weather side, A withering rush of death, a frost that cried, Shrieked, till he withered at the heart; a hail Plastered his oilskins with an icy mail....

"Up!" yelled the Bosun; "up and clear the wreck!"

The Dauber followed where he led; below He caught one giddy glimpsing of the deck Filled with white water, as though heaped with snow.

He saw the streamers of the rigging blow Straight out like pennons from the splintered mast, Then, all sense dimmed, all was an icy blast.

Roaring from nether h.e.l.l and filled with ice, Roaring and cras.h.i.+ng on the jerking stage, An utter bridle given to utter vice, Limitless power mad with endless rage Withering the soul; a minute seemed an age.

He clutched and hacked at ropes, at rags of sail, Thinking that comfort was a fairy tale,

Told long ago--long, long ago--long since Heard of in other lives--imagined, dreamed-- There where the basest beggar was a prince.

To him in torment where the tempest screamed, Comfort and warmth and ease no longer seemed Things that a man could know; soul, body, brain, Knew nothing but the wind, the cold, the pain.

THE CHOICE

The Kings go by with jewelled crowns; Their horses gleam, their banners shake, their spears are many.

The sack of many-peopled towns Is all their dream: The way they take Leaves but a ruin in the brake, And, in the furrow that the ploughmen make, A stampless penny; a tale, a dream.

The Merchants reckon up their gold, Their letters come, their s.h.i.+ps arrive, their freights are glories: The profits of their treasures sold They tell and sum; Their foremen drive Their servants, starved to half-alive, Whose labours do but make the earth a hive Of stinking glories; a tale, a dream.

The Priests are singing in their stalls, Their singing lifts, their incense burns, their praying clamours; Yet G.o.d is as the sparrow falls, The ivy drifts; The votive urns Are all left void when Fortune turns, The G.o.d is but a marble for the kerns To break with hammers; a tale, a dream.

O Beauty, let me know again The green earth cold, the April rain, the quiet waters figuring sky, The one star risen.

So shall I pa.s.s into the feast Not touched by King, Merchant, or Priest; Know the red spirit of the beast, Be the green grain; Escape from prison.

SONNET[18]

Is there a great green commonwealth of Thought Which ranks the yearly pageant, and decides How Summer's royal progress shall be wrought, By secret stir which in each plant abides?

Does rocking daffodil consent that she, The snowdrop of wet winters, shall be first?

Does spotted cowslip with the gra.s.s agree To hold her pride before the rattle burst?

And in the hedge what quick agreement goes, When hawthorn blossoms redden to decay, That Summer's pride shall come, the Summer's rose, Before the flower be on the bramble spray?

Or is it, as with us, unresting strife, And each consent a lucky gasp for life?

FOOTNOTES:

[17] From _The Story of a Round-House_ by John Masefield. Copyright, 1913, by The Macmillan Company. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

[18] From _Good Friday and Other Poems_ by John Masefield. Copyright, 1916, by The Macmillan Company. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

_Lord Dunsany_

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Lord Dunsany, was born July 24, 1878, and was educated at Eton and Sandhurst. He is best known as an author of fantastic fairy tales and even more fantastic plays. _The G.o.ds of the Mountain_ (1911) and _The Golden Doom_ (1912) are highly dramatic and intensely poetic. _A Night at an Inn_ (1916) is that peculiar novelty, an eerie and poetical melodrama.

Dunsany's prime quality is a romantic and highly colored imagination which is rich in symbolism. After the World War, in which the playwright served as captain in the Royal Innis-killing Fusiliers, Dunsany visited America and revised the reissue of his early tales and prose poems collected in his _The Book of Wonder_.

SONGS FROM AN EVIL WOOD

I

There is no wrath in the stars, They do not rage in the sky; I look from the evil wood And find myself wondering why.

Why do they not scream out And grapple star against star, Seeking for blood in the wood As all things round me are?

They do not glare like the sky Or flash like the deeps of the wood; But they s.h.i.+ne softly on In their sacred solitude.

To their high, happy haunts Silence from us has flown, She whom we loved of old And know it now she is gone.

When will she come again, Though for one second only?

She whom we loved is gone And the whole world is lonely.

And the elder giants come Sometimes, tramping from far Through the weird and flickering light Made by an earthly star.

And the giant with his club, And the dwarf with rage in his breath, And the elder giants from far, They are all the children of Death.

They are all abroad to-night And are breaking the hills with their brood,-- And the birds are all asleep Even in Plug Street Wood!

II

Somewhere lost in the haze The sun goes down in the cold, And birds in this evil wood Chirrup home as of old;

Chirrup, stir and are still, On the high twigs frozen and thin.

There is no more noise of them now, And the long night sets in.

Of all the wonderful things That I have seen in the wood I marvel most at the birds And their wonderful quietude.

For a giant smites with his club All day the tops of the hill, Sometimes he rests at night, Oftener he beats them still.

And a dwarf with a grim black mane Raps with repeated rage All night in the valley below On the wooden walls of his cage.

III

I met with Death in his country, With his scythe and his hollow eye, Walking the roads of Belgium.

I looked and he pa.s.sed me by.

Since he pa.s.sed me by in Plug Street, In the wood of the evil name, I shall not now lie with the heroes, I shall not share their fame;

I shall never be as they are, A name in the lands of the Free, Since I looked on Death in Flanders And he did not look at me.

_Edward Thomas_