Many Voices

PHILOSOPHY

The sulky sage scarce condescends to see   This pretty world of sun and grass and leaves;To him ’tis all illusion—only he   Is real amid the visions he perceives.No sage am I, and yet, by Love’s decree,   To me the world’s a masque of shadows too,And I a shadow also—since to me   The only real thing in life is—you.

THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME

Before your feet,My love, my sweet,   Behold! your slave bows down;And in his handsFrom other lands   Brings you another crown.For in far climes,In bygone times,   Myself was royal too:Oh, I have beenA king, my queen,   Who am a slave for you!

MAGIC

What was the spell she wove for me?   Life was a common useful thing,      An eligible building siteTo hold a house to shelter me.   There were no woodlands whispering;      No unimagined dreams at night   About that house had folded wing,Disordering my life for me.I was so safe until she came   With starry secrets in her eyes,      And on her lips the word of power.—Like to the moon of May she came,   That makes men mad who were born wise—      Within her hand the only flower   Man ever plucked from Paradise;So to my half-built house she came.She turned my useful plot of land   Into a garden wild and fair,      Where stars in garlands hung like flowers:A moonlit, lonely, lovely land.   Dim groves and glimmering fountains there      Embraced a secret bower of bowers,   And in its rose-ringed heart we wereAlone in that enchanted land.What was the spell I wove for her,   Her mad dear magic to undo?      The red rose dies, the white rose dies,The garden spits me forth with her   On the old suburban road I knew.      My house is gone, and by my side   A stranger stands with angry eyesAnd lips that swear I ruined her.

WINDFLOWERS

When I was little and goodI walked in the dappled woodWhere light white windflowers grew,And hyacinths heavy and blue.The windflowers fluttered light,Like butterflies white and bright;The bluebells tremulous stoodDeep in the heart of the wood.I gathered the white and the blue,The wild wet woodland through,With hands too silly and smallTo clasp and carry them all.Some dropped from my hands and diedBy the home-road’s grassy side;And those that my fond hands pressedDied even before the rest.

AS IT IS

   If you and I   Had wings to fly—Great wings like seagulls’ wings—   How would we soar   Above the roarOf loud unneeded things!   We two would rise   Through changing skiesTo blue unclouded space,   And undismayed   And unafraidMeet the sun face to face.   But wings we know not;   The feathers grow notTo carry us so high;   And low in the gloom   Of a little roomWe weep and say good-bye.

BEFORE WINTER

The wind is crying in the night,   Like a lost child;The waves break wonderful and white   And wild.The drenched sea-poppies swoon along   The drenched sea-wall,And there’s an end of summer and of song—   An end of all.The fingers of the tortured boughs   Gripped by the blastClutch at the windows of your house   Closed fast.And the lost child of love, despair,   Cries in the night,Remembering how once those windows were   Open and bright.

THE VAULT

AFTER SEDGMOORYou need not call at the Inn;   I have ordered my bed:Fair linen sheets therein   And a tester of lead.No musty fusty scents   Such as inn chambers keep,But tapestried with content   And hung with sleep.My Inn door bears no bar   Set up against fear.The guests have journeyed far,   They are glad to be here.Where the damp arch curves up grey,   Long, long shall we lie;Good King’s men all are they,   A King’s man I.Old Giles, in his stone asleep,   Fought at Poictiers.Piers Ralph and Roger keep   The spoil of their fighting years.I shall lie with my folk at last   In a quiet bed;I shall dream of the sword held fast   In a round-capped head.Good tale of men all told   My Inn affords;And their hands peace shall hold   That once held swords.And we who rode and ran   On many a loyal questShall find the goal of man—   A bed, and rest.We shall not stand to the toast   Of Love or King;We be all too tired to boast   About anything.We be dumb that did jest and sing;   We rest who laboured and warred . . .Shout once, shout once for the King.   Shout once for the sword!

SURRENDER

Oh, the nights were dark and cold,   When my love was gone.And life was hard to hold   When my love was gone.I was wise, I never gaveWhat they teach a girl to save,But I wished myself his slave   When my love was gone.I was all alone at night   When my love came home.Oh, what thought of wrong or right   When my love came home?I flung the door back wideAnd I pulled my love inside;There was no more shame or pride   When my love came home.

VALUES

Did you deceive me?  Did I trustA heart of fire to a heart of dust?What matter?  Since once the world was fair,And you gave me the rose of the world to wear.That was the time to live for!  Flowers,Sunshine and starshine and magic hours,Summer about me, Heaven above,And all seemed immortal, even Love.Well, the mortal rose of your love was worthThe pains of death and the pains of birth;And the thorns may be sharper than death—who knows?—That crowd round the stem of a deathless rose.

IN THE PEOPLE’S PARK

Many’s the time I’ve found your face   Fresh as a bunch of flowers in May,Waiting for me at our own old place   At the end of the working day.Many’s the time I’ve held your hand   On the shady seat in the People’s Park,And blessed the blaring row of the band   And kissed you there in the dark.Many’s the time you promised true,   Swore it with kisses, swore it with tears:“I’ll marry no one without it’s you—   If we have to wait for years.”And now it’s another chap in the Park   That holds your hand like I used to do;And I kiss another girl in the dark,   And try to fancy it’s you!

WEDDING DAY

The enchanted hour,The magic bower,Where, crowned with roses,Love love discloses.“Kiss me, my lover;Doubting is over,Over is waiting;Love lights our mating!”“But roses wither,Chill winds blow hither,One thing all say, dear,Love lives a day, dear!”“Heed those old stories?New glowing gloriesBlot out those lies, love!Look in my eyes, love!“Ah, but the world knows—Naught of the true rose;Back the world slips, love!Give me your lips, love!“Even were their lies true,Yet were you wise toSwear, at Love’s portal,The god’s immortal.”

THE LAST DEFEAT

Across the field of dayIn sudden blazon layThe pallid bar of goldBorne on the shield of day.Night had endured so long,And now the Day grew strongWith lance of light to holdThe Night at bay.So on my life’s dull nightThe splendour of your lightTraversed the dusky shieldAnd shone forth golden bright.Your colours I have wornThrough all the fight forlorn,And these, with life, I yield,To-night, to Night.

MAY DAY

“Will you go a-maying, a-maying, a-maying,   Come and be my Queen of May and pluck the may with me?The fields are full of daisy buds and new lambs playing,   The bird is on the nest, dear, the blossom’s on the tree.”“If I go with you, if I go a-maying,   To be your Queen and wear my crown this May-day bright,Hand in hand straying, it must be only playing,   And playtime ends at sunset, and then good-night.“For I have heard of maidens who laughed and went a-maying,   Went out queens and lost their crowns and came back slaves.I will be no young man’s slave, submitting and obeying,   Bearing chains as those did, even to their graves.”“If you come a-maying, a-straying, a-playing,   We will pluck the little flowers, enough for you and me;And when the day dies, end our one day’s playing,   Give a kiss and take a kiss and go home free.”

GRETNA GREEN

Last night when I kissed you,   My soul caught alight;And oh! how I missed you   The rest of the night—Till Love in derision   Smote sleep with his wings,And gave me in vision   Impossible things.A night that was clouded,   Long windows asleep;Dark avenues crowded   With secrets to keep.A terrace, a lover,   A foot on the stair;The waiting was over,   The lady was there.What a flight, what a night!   The hoofs splashed and pounded.Dark fainted in light   And the first bird-notes sounded.You slept on my shoulder,   Shy night hid your face;But dawn, bolder, colder,   Beheld our embrace.Your lips of vermilion,   Your ravishing shape,The flogging postillion,   The village agape,The rattle and thunder   Of postchaise a-speed . . .My woman, my wonder,   My ultimate need!We two matched for mating   Came, handclasped, at last,Where the blacksmith was waiting   To fetter us fast . . .At the touch of the fetter   The dream snapped and fell—And I woke to your letter   That bade me farewell.

THE ETERNAL

Your dear desired grace,   Your hands, your lips of red,The wonder of your perfect face   Will fade, like sweet rose-petals shed,         When you are dead.Your beautiful hair   Dust in the dust will lie—But not the light I worship there,   The gold the sunshine crowns you by—         This will not die.Your beautiful eyes   Will be closed up with clay;But all the magic they comprise,   The hopes, the dreams, the ecstasies         Pass not away.All I desire and see   Will be a carrion thing;But all that you have been to meIs, and can never cease to be.O Grave! where is thy victory?   Where, Death, thy sting?

THE POINT OF VIEW: I

IThere was never winter, summer only: roses,   Pink and white and red,Shining down the warm rich garden closes;      Quiet trees and lawns of dappled shadow,Silver lilies, whisper of mignonette,   Cloth-of-gold of buttercups outspread;Good gold sun that kissed me when we met,      Shadows of floating clouds on sunny meadow.In the hay-field, scented, grey,Loving life and love, I lay;By fresh airs blown, drifted into sleep;Slept and dreamed there.  Winter was the dream.IISummer never was, was always winter only;   Cold and ice and frostOnly, driven by the ice-wind, lonely,      In a world of strangers, in the welterOf the puddles and the spiteful wind and sleet,   Blinded by the spitting hailstones, lostIn a bitter unfamiliar street,      I found a doorway, crouched there for just shelter,Crouched and fought in vain for breath,Cursed the cold and wished for death;Crouched there, gathered somehow warmth to sleep;Slept and dreamed there.  Summer was the dream.

THE POINT OF VIEW: II

IIn the wood of lost causes, the valley of tears,   Old hopes, like dead leaves, choke the difficult way;Dark pinions fold dank round the soul, and it hears:   “It is night, it is night, it has never been day;Thou hast dreamed of the day, of the rose of delight;It was always dead leaves and the heart of the night.Drink deep then, and rest, O thou foolish wayfarer,   For night, like a chalice, holds sleep in her hands.”IIThen you drain the dark cup, and, half-drugged as you lie   In the arms of despair that is masked as delight,You thrill to the rush of white wings, and you hear:   “It is day, it is day, it has never been night!Thou hast dreamed of the night and the wood of lost leaves;It was always noon, June, and red roses in sheaves,Unlock the blind lids, and behold the light-bearerWho holds, like a monstrance, the sun in his hands.”

MARY OF MAGDALA

Mary of Magdala came to bed;There were no soft curtains round her head;She had no mother to hold of worthThe little baby she brought to birth.Mary of Magdala groaned and prayed:“O God, I am very much afraid;For out of my body, by sin defiled,Thou biddest me make a little child.“O God, I have turned my face from TheeTo that which the angels may not see;How can I make, from my deep disgrace,A child whose angel shall see Thy face?“O God, I have sinned, and I know wellThat the pains I bear are the pains of hell;But the thought of the child that sin has givenIs like the thought of the airs of Heaven.”Mary of Magdala held her breathIn the clutch of pain like the pains of Death,And through her heart, like the mortal knife,Went the pang of joy and the pang of life.“We two are two alone,” said she,“And we are two who should be three;Now who will clothe my baby fairIn the little garments that babies wear?”There came two angels with quiet wingsAnd hands that were full of baby things;And the new-born child was bathed and dressedAnd laid again on his mother’s breast.“Now who will sign on his brow the markTo keep him safe from the Powers of the Dark?Who will my baby’s sponsor be?”“I, the Lord God, who died for thee.”“Now who will comfort him if he cry;And who will suckle him by and bye?For my hands are cold and my breasts are dry,And I think that my time has come to die.”“I will dandle thy son as a mother may;And his lips shall lie where my own Son’s lay.Come, dear little one, come to me;The Mother of God shall suckle thee.”Mary of Magdala laughed and sighed;“I never deserved a child,” she cried.“Dear God, I am ready to go to hell,Since with my little one all is well.”Then the Son of Mary did o’er her lean.“Poor mother, thy tears have washed thee clean.Thy last poor pains, they will soon be done,And My Mother shall give thee back thy son.”Frozen grass for a bearing bed,A halo of frost round a woman’s head,And pious folks who looked and said:“A drab and her brat that are better dead.”

THE HOME-COMING

This was our house.  To this we cameLighted by love with torch aflame,And in this chamber, door locked fast,I held you to my heart at last.This was our house.  In this we knewThe worst that Time and Fate can do.You left the room bare, wide the door;You did not love me any more.Where once the kind warm curtain hungThe spider’s ghostly cloth is flung;The beetle and the woodlouse creepWhere once I loved your lovely sleep.Yet so the vanished spell endures,That this, our house, still, still is yours.Here, spite of all these years apart,I still can hold you to my heart!

AGE TO YOUTH

Sunrise is in your eyes, and in your heart   The hope and bright desire of morn and May.My eyes are full of shadow, and my part   Of life is yesterday.Yet lend my hand your hand, and let us sit   And see your life unfolding like a scroll,Rich with illuminated blazon, fit   For your arm-bearing soul.My soul bears arms too, but the scroll’s rolled tight,   Yet the one strip of faded brightness shownProclaims that when ’twas splendid in the light   Its blazon matched your own.

IN AGE

The wine of life was rough and new,   But sweet beyond belief,And wrong was false, and right was true—   The rose was in the leaf.In that good sunlight well we knew   The hues of wrong and right;We slept among the roses through   The long enchanted night.Now to our eyes, made dim with years,   Right intertwines with wrong.How can we hear, with these tired ears,   The old, the magic song?But this we know—wine once was red,   Roses were red and dear;Once in our ears the truths were said   That now the young men hear!

WHITE MAGIC

This is the room to which she came,   And Spring itself came with her;She stirred the fire of life to flame,   She called all music hither.Her glance upon the lean white walls   Hung them with cloth of splendour,And still the rose she dropped recalls   The graces that attend her.The same poor room, so dull and bare   Before, in consecration,She breathed upon its common air   The true transfiguration . . .?This room the same to which she came   For one immortal minute?—How can it ever be the same   Since she has once been in it!

FROM THE PORTUGUESE

IWhen I lived in the village of youthThere were lilies in all the orchards,Flowers in the orange-gardensFor brides to wear in their hair.It was always sunshine and summer,Roses at every lattice,Dreams in the eyes of maidens,Love in the eyes of men.When I lived in the village of youthThe doors, all the doors, stood open;We went in and out of them laughing,Laughing and calling each otherTo shew each other our fairings,The new shawl, the new comb, the new fan,The new rose, the new lover.Now I live in the town of ageWhere are no orchards, no gardens.Here, too, all the doors stand open,But no one goes in or goes out.We sit alone by the hearthstoneWhere memories lie like ashesUpon a hearth that is cold;And they from the village of youthRun by our doorsteps laughing,Calling, to shew each otherThe new shawl, the new comb, the new fan,The new rose, the new lover.Once we had all these things—We kept them from the old people,And now the young people have themAnd will not shew them to us—To us who are old and have nothingBut the white, still, heaped-up ashesOn the hearth where the fire went outA very long time ago.III had a mistress; I loved her.She left me with memories bitter,Corroding, eating my heartAs the acid eats into the steelEtching the portrait triumphant.Intolerable, indelible,Never to be effaced.A wife was mine to my heart,Beautiful flower of my garden,Lily I worshipped by day,Scented rose of my nights.Now the night wind sighingBlows white rose petals onlyOver the bed where she sleepsDreamless alone.I had a son; I loved him.Mother of God, bear witnessHow all my manhood loved himAs thy womanhood loved thy Son!When he was grown to his manhoodHe crucified my heart,And even as it hung bleedingHe laughed with his bold companions,Mocked and turned awayWith laughter into the night.Those three I loved and lost;But there was one who loved meWith all the fire of her heart.Mine was the sacred altarWhere she burnt her life for my worship.She was my slave, my servant;Mine all she had, all she was,All she could suffer, could be.That was the love of my life,I did not say, “She loves me”;I was so used to her loveI never asked its name,Till, feeling the wind blow coldWhere all the doors were left open,And seeing a fireless hearthAnd the garden deserted and weed-grownThat once was full of flowers for me,I said, “What has changed?  What is itThat has made all the clocks stop?”Thus I asked and they answered:“It is thy mother who is dead.”And now I am alone.My son, too, some day will standHere, where I stand and weep.He too will weep, knowing too lateThe love that wrapped round his life.Dear God spare him this:Let him never know how I loved him,For he was always weak.He could not endure as I can.Mother, my dear, ask GodTo grant me this, for my son!

THE NEST

That was the skylark we heard   Singing so high,The little quivering bird   We saw, and the sky.The earth was drenched with sun,   The sky was drenched with song;We lay in the grass and listened,   Long and long and long.I said, “What a spell it is   Has made her riseTo pour out her world of bliss   In that world of skies!”You said, “What a spell must pass   Between sky and plain,Since she finds in this world of grass   Her nest again!”

THE OLD MAGIC

Gray is the sea, and the skies are gray;They are ghosts of our blue, bright yesterday;And gray are the breasts of the gulls that screamLike tortured souls in an evil dream.There is white on the wings of the sea and sky,And white are the gulls’ wings wheeling by,And white, like snow, is the pall that liesWhere love weeps over his memories.For the dead is dead, and its shroud is wroughtOf good unfound and of wrong unsought;Yet from God’s good magic there ever springsThe resurrection of holy things.See—the gold and blue of our yesterdayIn the eyes and the hair of a child at play;And the spell of joy that our youth beguiledIs woven anew in the laugh of the child.

FAITH

A wallGray and tall,And a sky of gray,And a twilight cold;And that is allThat my eyes behold.But I know that unseen,Beyond the wall,On a lawn of greenWhite blossoms fallIn the waning light;And beyond the lawnCurtains are drawnFrom windows bright.And within she moves with her gracious handsAnd the heart that loves and that understands,Waiting to succour poor souls in need,And to bind with her blessing the hearts that bleed.I know it all, though I cannot see;But the tired-out tramp,Dirty and ill,In the evening’s damp,In the Spring’s clean chill,Knows not that thereIs the heart to careFor such as I and for such as he.He slouches along, and sees aloneThe gray of the sky and the gray of the stone.Lord, when my eyes see nothing but greyIn all Thy world that is now so green,I will bethink me of this spring dayAnd the house of welcome, known yet unseen;The wall that concealsAnd the faith that reveals.

THE DEATH OF AGNES

Now that the sunlight dies in my eyes,   And the moonlight grows in my hair,I who was never very wise,   Never was very fair,Virgin and martyr all my life,   What has life left to giveMe—who was never mother nor wife,   Never got leave to live?Nothing of life could I clasp or claim,   Nothing could steal or save.So when you come to carve my name,   Give me life in my grave.To keep me warm when I sleep alone   A lie is little to give;Call me “Magdalen” on my stone,   Though I died and did not live.

IN TROUBLE

It’s all for nothing: I’ve lost him now.   I suppose it had to be;But oh, I never thought it of him,   Nor he never thought it of me.And all for a kiss on your evening out,   And a field where the grass was down . . .And he ’as gone to God-knows-where,   And I may go on the town.The worst of all was the thing he said   The night that he went away;He said he’d ’a married me right enough   If I hadn’t ’a been so gay.Me—gay!  When I’d cried, and I’d asked him not,   But he said he loved me so;An’ whatever he wanted seemed right to me . . .   An’ how was a girl to know?Well, the river is deep, and drowned folk sleep sound,   An’ it might be the best to do;But when he made me a light-o’-love   He made me a mother too.I’ve had enough sin to last my time,   If ’twas sin as I got it by,But it ain’t no sin to stand by his kid   And work for it till I die.But oh! the long days and the death-long nights   When I feel it move and turn,And cry alone in my single bed   And count what a girl can earnTo buy the baby the bits of things   He ought to ha’ bought, by rights;And wonder whether he thinks of Us . . .   And if he sleeps sound o’ nights.

GRATITUDE

I found a starving cat in the street:   It cried for food and a place by the fire.I carried it home, and I strove to meet   The claims of its desire.And since its desire was a little fish,   A little hay and a little milk,I gave it cream in a silver dish   And a basket lined with silk.And when we came to the grateful pause   When it should have fawned on the hand that fed,It turned to a devil all teeth and claws,   Scratched me and bit me and fled.To pay for the fish and the milk and the hay   With a purr had been an easy task:But its hate and my blood were required to pay   For the gifts that it did not ask.

AT THE LAST

Where are you—you whose loving breathAlone can stay my soul from death?The world’s so wide, I seek it through,Yet—dare I dream to win to you?Perhaps your dear desirèd feetPass me in this grey muddy street.Your face, it may be, has its shrineIn that dull house that’s next to mine.But I believe, O Life, O Fate,That when I call on Death and waitOne moment at the unclosing gateI shall turn back for one last gazeAlong the trampled, sordid ways,And in the sunset see at last,Just as the barred gate holds me fast,Your face, your face, too late.

FEAR

If you were here,Hopes, dreams, ambitions, faith would disappear,Drowned in your eyes; and I should touch your hand,Forgetting all that now I understand.For you confuse my life with memoriesOf unrememberable ecstasiesWhich were, and are not, and can never be; . . .Ah! keep the whole earth between you and me.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT

When the bearing and doing are over,   And no more is to do or bear,God will see us and judge us   The kind of men we were;And our sins, so ugly and heavy,   We shall drag them into His sight,And throw them down at the foot of the throne,   Foul on the steps of light.We shall not be shamed or frightened,   Though the angels are all at hand,For He will look at our burden,   And He will understand.He will turn to the little angels,   Agog to hear and obey,And point to the festering sin-loads   With, “Take that rubbish away!”Then the steps will be cleared of the burdens   That we threw down at His feet;And we shall be washed in the tears of Christ,   And our tears bathe His feet.And the harvest of all our sinning   That moment’s shame will reap—When we look in the eyes that love us   And know we have made them weep.

A FAREWELL

   Good-bye, good-bye; it is not hard to part!You have my heart—the heart that leaps to hear      Your name called by an echo in a dream;      You have my soul that, like an untroubled stream,Reflects your soul that leans so dear, so near—   Your heartbeats set the rhythm for my heart.   What more could Life give if we gave her leaveTo give, and Life should give us leave to take?      Only each other’s arms, each other’s eyes,      Each other’s lips, the clinging secreciesThat are but as the written words to make   Records of what the heart and soul achieve.   This, only this we yield, my love, my friend,To Fate’s implacable eyes and withering breath.      We still are yours and mine, though, by Time’s theft,      My arms are empty and your arms bereft.It is not hard to part—not harder than Death;   And each of us must face Death in the end!