Modern British Poetry Part 31

Amid this hot green glowing gloom A word falls with a raindrop's boom....

Like baskets of ripe fruit in air The bird-songs seem, suspended where

Those goldfinches--the ripe warm lights Peck slyly at them--take quick flights.

My feet are feathered like a bird Among the shadows scarcely heard;

I bring you branches green with dew And fruits that you may crown anew

Your whirring waspish-gilded hair Amid this cornucopia--

Until your warm lips bear the stains And bird-blood leap within your veins.

_F. W. Harvey_

Harvey was a lance-corporal in the English army and was in the German prison camp at Gutersloh when he wrote _The Bugler_, one of the isolated great poems written during the war. Much of his other verse is haphazard and journalistic, although _Gloucesters.h.i.+re Friends_ contains several lines that glow with the colors of poetry.

THE BUGLER

G.o.d dreamed a man; Then, having firmly shut Life like a precious metal in his fist Withdrew, His labour done. Thus did begin Our various divinity and sin.

For some to ploughshares did the metal twist, And others--dreaming empires--straightway cut Crowns for their aching foreheads. Others beat Long nails and heavy hammers for the feet Of their forgotten Lord. (Who dares to boast That he is guiltless?) Others coined it: most Did with it--simply nothing. (Here again Who cries his innocence?) Yet doth remain Metal unmarred, to each man more or less, Whereof to fas.h.i.+on perfect loveliness.

For me, I do but bear within my hand (For sake of Him our Lord, now long forsaken) A simple bugle such as may awaken With one high morning note a drowsing man: That wheresoe'er within my motherland That sound may come, 'twill echo far and wide Like pipes of battle calling up a clan, Trumpeting men through beauty to G.o.d's side.

_T. P. Cameron Wilson_

"Tony" P. Cameron Wilson was born in South Devon in 1889 and was educated at Exeter and Oxford. He wrote one novel besides several articles under the pseudonym _Tipuca_, a euphonic combination of the first three initials of his name.

When the war broke out he was a teacher in a school at Hindhead, Surrey; and, after many months of gruelling conflict, he was given a captaincy. He was killed in action by a machine-gun bullet March 23, 1918, at the age of 29.

SPORTSMEN IN PARADISE

They left the fury of the fight, And they were very tired.

The gates of Heaven were open quite, Unguarded and unwired.

There was no sound of any gun, The land was still and green; Wide hills lay silent in the sun, Blue valleys slept between.

They saw far-off a little wood Stand up against the sky.

Knee-deep in gra.s.s a great tree stood; Some lazy cows went by ...

There were some rooks sailed overhead, And once a church-bell pealed.

"_G.o.d! but it's England_," someone said, "_And there's a cricket-field!_"

_W. J. Turner_

W. J. Turner was born in 1889 and, although little known until his appearance in _Georgian Poetry 1916-17_, has written no few delicate and fanciful poems. _The Hunter_ (1916) and _The Dark Wind_ (1918) both contain many verses as moving and musical as his splendid lines on "Death," a poem which is unfortunately too long to quote.

ROMANCE

When I was but thirteen or so I went into a golden land, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi Took me by the hand.

My father died, my brother too, They pa.s.sed like fleeting dreams, I stood where Popocatapetl In the sunlight gleams.

I dimly heard the master's voice And boys far-off at play,-- Chimborazo, Cotopaxi Had stolen me away.

I walked in a great golden dream To and fro from school-- s.h.i.+ning Popocatapetl The dusty streets did rule.

I walked home with a gold dark boy And never a word I'd say, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi Had taken my speech away.

I gazed entranced upon his face Fairer than any flower-- O s.h.i.+ning Popocatapetl It was thy magic hour:

The houses, people, traffic seemed Thin fading dreams by day; Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, They had stolen my soul away!

_Patrick MacGill_

Patrick MacGill was born in Donegal in 1890. He was the son of poverty-stricken peasants and, between the ages of 12 and 19, he worked as farm-servant, drainer, potato-digger, and navvy, becoming one of the thousands of stray "tramp-laborers" who cross each summer from Ireland to Scotland to help gather in the crops. Out of his bitter experiences and the evils of modern industrial life, he wrote several vivid novels (_The Rat Pit_ is an unforgettable doc.u.ment) and the tragedy-crammed _Songs of the Dead End_. He joined the editorial staff of _The Daily Express_ in 1911; was in the British army during the war; was wounded at Loos in 1915; and wrote his _Soldier Songs_ during the conflict.

BY-THE-WAY

These be the little verses, rough and uncultured, which I've written in hut and model, deep in the dirty ditch, On the upturned hod by the palace made for the idle rich.

Out on the happy highway, or lines where the engines go, Which fact you may hardly credit, still for your doubts 'tis so, For I am the person who wrote them, and surely to G.o.d, I know!

Wrote them beside the hot-plate, or under the chilling skies, Some of them true as death is, some of them merely lies, Some of them very foolish, some of them otherwise.

Little sorrows and hopings, little and rugged rhymes, Some of them maybe distasteful to the moral men of our times, Some of them marked against me in the Book of the Many Crimes.

These, the Songs of a Navvy, bearing the taint of the brute, Unasked, uncouth, unworthy out to the world I put, Stamped with the brand of labor, the heel of a navvy's boot.

DEATH AND THE FAIRIES