Georgian Poetry 1916-1917 Part 6

Time soon now ... home ... house on a sunny hill ...

Gone like a flickered page: Time soon now ... zero ... will engage....

A sudden thrill-- 'Fix bayonets!'

G.o.ds! we have our fill Of fear, hysteria, exultation, rage, Rage to kill.

My heart burns hot, whiter and whiter, Contracts tighter and tighter, Until I stifle with the will Long forged, now used (Though utterly strained)-- O pounding heart, Baffled, confused, Heart panged, head singing, dizzily pained-- To do my part.

Blindness a moment. Sick.

There the men are!

Bayonets ready: click!

Time goes quick; A stumbled prayer ... somehow a blazing star In a blue night ... where?

Again prayer.

The tongue trips. Start: How's time? Soon now. Two minutes or less.

The gun's fury mounting higher ...

Their utmost. I lift a silent hand. Unseen I bless Those hearts will follow me.

And beautifully, Now beautifully my will grips, Soul calm and round and filmed and white!

A shout: 'Men, no such order as retire!'

I nod.

The whistle's 'twixt my lips ...

I catch A wan, worn smile at me.

Dear men!

The pale wrist-watch ...

The quiet hand ticks on amid the din.

The guns again Rise to a last fury, to a rage, a l.u.s.t: Kill! Pound! Kill! Pound! Pound!

Now comes the thrust!

My part ... dizziness ... will ... but trust These men. The great guns rise; Their fury seems to burst the earth and skies!

They lift.

Gather, heart, all thoughts that drift; Be steel, soul, Compress thyself Into a round, bright whole.

I cannot speak.

Time. Time!

I hear my whistle shriek, Between teeth set; I fling an arm up, Scramble up the grime Over the parapet!

I'm up. Go on.

Something meets us.

Head down into the storm that greets us.

A wail.

Lights. Blurr.

Gone.

On, on. Lead. Lead. Hail.

Spatter. Whirr! Whirr!

'Toward that patch of brown; Direction left'. Bullets a stream.

Devouring thought crying in a dream.

Men, crumpled, going down....

Go on. Go.

Deafness. Numbness. The loudening tornado.

Bullets. Mud. Stumbling and skating.

My voice's strangled shout: 'Steady pace, boys!'

The still light: gladness.

'Look, sir. Look out!'

Ha! ha! Bunched figures waiting.

Revolver levelled quick!

Flick! Flick!

Red as blood.

Germans. Germans.

Good! O good!

Cool madness.

FULFILMENT

Was there love once? I have forgotten her.

Was there grief once? grief yet is mine.

Other loves I have, men rough, but men who stir More grief, more joy, than love of thee and thine.

Faces cheerful, full of whimsical mirth, Lined by the wind, burned by the sun; Bodies enraptured by the abounding earth, As whose children we are brethren: one.

And any moment may descend hot death To shatter limbs! pulp, tear, blast Beloved soldiers who love rough life and breath Not less for dying faithful to the last.

O the fading eyes, the grimed face turned bony, Oped mouth gus.h.i.+ng, fallen head, Lessening pressure of a hand shrunk, clammed, and stony!

O sudden spasm, release of the dead!

Was there love once? I have forgotten her.

Was there grief once? grief yet is mine.

O loved, living, dying, heroic soldier, All, all, my joy, my grief, my love, are thine!

THE PHILOSOPHER'S ORATION

(From 'A Faun's Holiday')

Meanwhile, though nations in distress Cower at a comet's loveliness Shaken across the midnight sky; Though the wind roars, and Victory, A virgin fierce, on vans of gold Stoops through the cloud's white smother rolled Over the armies' shock and flow Across the broad green hills below, Yet hovers and will not circle down To cast t'ward one the leafy crown; Though men drive galleys' golden beaks To isles beyond the sunset peaks, And cities on the sea behold Whose walls are gla.s.s, whose gates are gold, Whose turrets, risen in an hour, Dazzle between the sun and shower, Whose sole inhabitants are kings Six cubits high with gryphon's wings And beard and mien more glorious Than Midas or a.s.saracus; Though priests in many a hill-top fane Lift anguished hands--and lift in vain-- Toward the sun's shaft dancing through The bright roof's square of wind-swept blue; Though 'cross the stars nightly arise The silver fumes of sacrifice; Though a new Helen bring new scars, Pyres piled upon wrecked golden cars, Stacked spears, rolled smoke, and spirits sped Like a streaked flame toward the dead: Though all these be, yet grows not old Delight of sunned and windy wold, Of soaking downs aglare, asteam, Of still tarns where the yellow gleam Of a far sunrise slowly breaks, Or sunset strews with golden flakes The deeps which soon the stars will throng.

For earth yet keeps her undersong Of comfort and of ultimate peace, That whoso seeks shall never cease To hear at dawn or noon or night.

Joys hath she, too, joys thin and bright, Too thin, too bright, for those to hear Who listen with an eager ear, Or course about and seek to spy, Within an hour, eternity.

First must the spirit cast aside This world's and next his own poor pride And learn the universe to scan More as a flower, less as a man.

Then shall he hear the lonely dead Sing and the stars sing overhead, And every spray upon the heath, And larks above and ants beneath; The stream shall take him in her arms; Blue skies shall rest him in their calms; The wind shall be a lovely friend, And every leaf and bough shall bend Over him with a lover's grace.

The hills shall bare a perfect face Full of a high solemnity; The heavenly clouds shall weep, and be Content as overhead they swim To be high brothers unto him.