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Gloucestershire Friends

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Fourth Impression

A Gloucestershire Lad at Home
and Abroad

Cloth 2s. net; paper 1s. 6d. net.

“The secret of Mr. Harvey’s power is that he says what other English lads in Flanders want to say and cannot.... This modest little volume has real charm, and not a little depth of thought and beauty. It contains far more real poetry than many a volume ten times its length.”—Bishop Frodsham in The Saturday Review.

“A poet of power and a subtle distinction.... This little collection of his poems, which has a Preface by his Commanding Officer, will give him a high place in the Sidneian company of soldier-poets.”—E. B. O. in The Morning Post.

London: Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd.

Gloucestershire Friends:

Poems from a German Prison Camp

by
F. W. Harvey

Author of
“A Gloucestershire Lad at Home and Abroad”

Introduction by the Right Rev. Bishop Frodsham
Canon Residentiary of Gloucester

London: Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd.
3 Adam Street, Adelphi, W.C.2. 1917

First published in 1917

All rights reserved

TO

THE BEST OF ALL

GLOUCESTERSHIRE FRIENDS

MY MOTHER

CONTENTS

 PAGE
INTRODUCTION, BY BISHOP FRODSHAM 11
CLOUD MESSENGERS 13
LONELINESS 14
AUTUMN IN PRISON 15
WHAT WE THINK OF 16
PRISONERS 17
SONNET, TO ONE KILLED IN ACTION 18
THE HATEFUL ROAD 19
ENGLISH FLOWERS IN A FOREIGN GARDEN 20
THE BOND 21
TO YOU—UNSUNG 22
A CHRISTMAS WISH 23
TO KATHLEEN 24
CHRISTMAS IN PRISON 25
TO THE OLD YEAR 26
BALLADE 27
BALLADE 29
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 31
A RONDEL OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 32
THE LITTLE ROAD 33
SONNET 34
ENGLAND, IN MEMORY 35
THE DEAD 36
THE SLEEPERS 37
COMRADES O’ MINE 38
TO R. E. K. 39
BALLAD OF ARMY PAY 40
TO THE DEVIL ON HIS APPALLING DECADENCE 43
AT AFTERNOON TEA 44
TO THE UNKNOWN NURSE 45
THE HORSES 46
MOTHER AND SON 47
GROWN UPS:
1. TIMMY TAYLOR AND THE RATS 48
2. WILLUM ACCOUNTS FOR THE PRICE OF LAMPREY 50
3. THE OLDEST INHABITANT HEARS FAR OFF THE DRUMS OF DEATH 51
4. SETH BEMOANS THE OLDEST INHABITANT 52
5. A RIVER, A PIG, AND BRAINS 53
6. MARTHA BAZIN ON MARRIAGE 54
CHILDREN:
1. LITTLE ABEL GOES TO CHURCH 55
2. DELIGHTS 56
3. THE BOY WITH LITTLE BARE TOES 57
THE WIND IN TOWN TREES 58
FORM—A STUDY 59
VILLANELLE 60
KOSSOVO DAY 61
A PHILOSOPHY 62
CONSOLATOR AFFLICTORUM 63
RECOGNITION 64
ON OVER BRIDGE AT EVENING 65
PASSION 66
A COMMON PETITION 67
AN ADVENTURE WITH GOD 68
THE STRANGER 69
THE BUGLER 71

INTRODUCTION

by Bishop Frodsham

 

“Good wine needs no bush.” Those who know and love “A Gloucestershire Lad” would resent any lengthy attempt to praise the quality of Lieutenant Harvey’s verses. Some of the poems from a German prison camp may reach a far higher standard of lyric excellence than any in the earlier volume. The two ballades on war and “The Bugler” grip one by the throat. But all the verses have a sweetness and beauty entirely their own.

The poems are all short—too short. Lieutenant Harvey sings like the wild birds of his own dear Gloucestershire because he cannot help doing so. He stops short—as they do—and like them begins again. What can we do but take what he gives us, wondering that he can write so well, mewed as he is in a cage—and such a cage! An agony of inarticulate longing shrills in a feathered cageling’s song: the man simply and unaffectedly lays bare his heart, his love, his faith, his hope, his sense of loneliness, of ineffectiveness, of baffled purposes and incompleted manhood.

Memory is at once the joy and torment of all who are forced to think. Memory tears the heart-strings of those who are in captivity. It makes some hopeless and weak, others bitter and savage, according to their natures. Beneath all the music of this man’s words there is an undertone of fierce anger that sweeps him away at times, but is this not characteristic of many other young Englishmen who laugh so well, and “woo bright danger for a thrilling kiss”? His memories sweep along the great gamut of his own tremendous experiences, and yet they never lose the melodies of home. Perhaps because of the objects of his heart’s desire he is so kindly withal, so modest, so humorous, and, to use his own words of another, “so worldly foolish, so divinely wise.” Herein is the fascination of these verses.

The manuscript was sent on by the prison authorities of Crefeld without any obliteration or excision. This must be counted unto them for literary righteousness. Yet it would be difficult to imagine what the most stony-hearted German censor could resent in any one of Lieutenant Harvey’s poems, unless it might be a deep love for England and an overwhelming desire to be with his love again.

Many unfortunates who have had dear ones imprisoned at Gütersloh, where most of these poems were written, and at other centres, are looking forward eagerly to the publication of this little book. If they expect to read descriptions of the life of the camp, or reflections upon the conduct of German gaolers, they will be disappointed. The circumstances of the case have made such revelations impossible. If they had been possible, it is still doubtful if they would have been made here. But it will be strange if such readers do not find better things than they expected. Transpose any other county of this land for Gloucestershire, or any other home for the tree-encircled house at Minsterworth, then they will learn what the best of England’s captive sons are thinking, and so take heart of grace from the true love-songs of a Gloucestershire soldier, written first and foremost for his mother.

CLOUD MESSENGERS

GLOUCESTERSHIRE
FRIENDS

You clouds that with the wind your warden
Flying toward the Channel go,
Or ever the frost your fruit shall harden
To hail and sleet and driving snow,
Go seek one sunny old sweet garden—
An English garden that I know.
Therein perchance my Mother, straying
Among her dahlias, shall see
Your rainy gems in sunlight swaying
On flower of gold and emerald tree.
Then in her heart feel suddenly
Old love and laughter, like sunshine playing
Through tears of memory.

LONELINESS

Oh where’s the use to write?
What can I tell you, dear?
Just that I want you so
Who are not near.
Just that I miss the lamp whose blessèd light
Was God’s own moon to shine upon my night,
And newly mourn each new day’s lost delight:
Just—oh, it will not ease my pain—
That I am lonely
Until I see you once again,
You—you only.

AUTUMN IN PRISON

Here where no tree changes,
Here in a prison of pine,
I think how Autumn ranges
The country that is mine.
There—rust upon the chill breeze—
The woodland leaf now whirls;
There sway the yellowing birches
Like dainty dancing girls.
Oh, how the leaves are dancing
With Death at Lassington!
And Death is now enhancing
Beauty I walked upon.
The roads with leaves are littered,
Yellow, brown, and red.
The homes where robins twittered
Lie ruin; but instead
Gaunt arms of stretching giants
Stand in the azure air,
Cutting the sky in pattern
So common, yet so fair.
The heart is kindled by it,
And lifted as with wine,
In Lassington and Highnam—
The woodlands that were mine.

WHAT WE THINK OF

Walking round our cages like the lions at the Zoo,
We think of things that we have done, and things we mean to do:
Of girls we left behind us, of letters that are due,
Of boating on the river beneath a sky of blue,
Of hills we climbed together—not always for the view.
Walking round our cages like the lions at the Zoo,
We see the phantom faces of you, and you, and you,
Faces of those we loved or loathed—oh every one we knew!
And deeds we wrought in carelessness for happiness or rue,
And dreams we broke in folly, and seek to build anew,—
Walking round our cages like the lions at the Zoo.

PRISONERS

Comrades of risk and rigour long ago
Who have done battle under honour’s name,
Hoped (living or shot down) some meed of fame,
And wooed bright Danger for a thrilling kiss,—
Laugh, oh laugh well, that we have come to this!
Laugh, oh laugh loud, all ye who long ago
Adventure found in gallant company!
Safe in Stagnation, laugh, laugh bitterly,
While on this filthiest backwater of Time’s flow
Drift we and rot, till something set us free!
Laugh like old men with senses atrophied,
Heeding no Present, to the Future dead,
Nodding quite foolish by the warm fireside
And seeing no flame, but only in the red
And flickering embers, pictures of the past:—
Life like a cinder fading black at last.

SONNET ( To One Killed in Action )

My undevout yet ardent sacrifice
Did God refuse, knowing how carelessly
And with what curious sensuality
The coloured flames did flicker and arise.
Half boy, half decadent, always my eyes
Sparkle to danger: Oh it was joy to me
To sit with Death gambling desperately
The borrowed Coin of Life. But you, more wise,
Went forth for nothing but to do God’s will:
Went gravely out—well knowing what you did
And hating it—with feet that did not falter
To place your gift upon the highest altar.
Therefore to you this last and finest thrill
Is given—even Death itself, to me forbid.

THE HATEFUL ROAD

Oh pleasant things there be
Without this prison yard:
Fields green, and many a tree
With shadow on the sward,
And drifting clouds that pass
Sailing above the grass.
All lovely things that be
Beyond this strong abode
Send comfort back to me;
Yea, everything I see
Except the hateful road;
The road that runs so free
With many a dip and rise,
That waves and beckons me
And mocks and calls at me
And will not let me be
Even when I close my eyes.

ENGLISH FLOWERS IN A FOREIGN GARDEN

Snapdragon, sunflower, sweet-pea,
Flowers which fill the heart of me
With so sweet and bitter fancy:
Glowing rose and pensive pansy,
You that pierce me with a blade
Beat from molten memory,
With what art, how tenderly,
You heal the wounds that you have made!
Thrushes, finches, birds that beat
Magical and thrilling sweet
Little far-off fairy gongs:
Blackbird with your mellow songs,
Valiant robin, thieving sparrows,
Though you wound me as with arrows,
Still with you among these flowers
Surely I find my sweetest hours.

THE BOND

Once, I remember, when we were at home
I had come into church, and waited late,
Ere lastly kneeling to communicate
Alone: and thinking that you would not come.
Then, with closed eyes (having received the Host)
I prayed for your dear self, and turned to rise;
When lo! beside me like a blessed ghost—
Nay, a grave sunbeam—you! Scarcely my eyes
Could credit it, so softly had you come
Beside me as I thought I walked alone.
Thus long ago; but now, when fate bereaves
Life of old joys, how often as I’m kneeling
To take the Blessed Sacrifice that weaves
Life’s tangled threads, so broken to man’s seeing,
Into one whole; I have the sudden feeling
That you are by, and look to see a face
Made in fair flesh beside me, and all my being
Thrills with the old sweet wonder and faint fear
As in that sabbath hour—how long ago!—
When you had crept so lightly to your place.
Then, then, I know
(My heart can always tell) that you are near.

TO YOU—UNSUNG ( Sonnet )

How should I sing you?—you who dwell unseen
Within the darkest chamber of my heart.
What picturesque and inward-turning art
Could shadow forth the image of my queen,
Sweet, world aloof, ineffably serene
Like holy dawn, yet so entirely part
Of what am I, as well a man might start
To paint his breathing, or his red blood’s sheen.
Nay, seek yourself, who are their truest breath,
In these my songs made for delight of men.
Oh, where they fail, ’tis I that am in blame,
But, where the words loom larger than my pen,
Be sure they ring glad echoes of your name,
And Love that triumphs over Life and Death.

A CHRISTMAS WISH

I cannot give you happiness:
For wishes long have ceased to bring
The Fortune which to page and king
They brought in those good centuries,
When with a quaint and starry wand
Witches turned poor men’s thoughts to gold
And Cinderella’s carriage rolled
Through moonlight into Fairyland.
I may but wish you happiness:
Not Pleasure’s dusty fruit to find,
But wines of Mirth and Friendship kind,
And Love, to make with you a home.
But may Our Lord whose Son has come
Now heed the wish and make it true,
Even as elves were wont to do
When wishing could bring happiness.

TO KATHLEEN, AT CHRISTMAS ( An Acrostic )

  K ings of the East did bring their gold
  A nd jewels unto the cattle fold.
  T he angel’s song was heard by men
“H oly! holy! holy!” then.
  L ittle and weak in the manger He lay
  E ven as you in a cradle to-day;
  E ven as you did the Christ-child rest
  N estling warm in His mother’s breast.
Gütersloh,
December 1916.

CHRISTMAS IN PRISON

Outside, white snow
And freezing mire.
The heart of the house
Is a blazing fire!
Even so whatever hags do ride
His outward fortune, withinside
The heart of a man burns Christmastide!

TO THE OLD YEAR

Old year, farewell!
Much have you given which was ill to bear:
Much have taken which was dear, so dear:
Much have you spoken which was ill to hear;
Echoes of speech first uttered deep in hell.
Pass now like some grey harlot to the tomb!
Yet die in child-birth, and from out your womb
Leap the young year unsullied! He perchance
Shall bring to man his lost inheritance.

BALLADE No. 1

Bodies of comrade soldiers gleaming white
Within the mill-pool where you float and dive
And lounge around part-clothed or naked quite;
Beautiful shining forms of men alive,
O living lutes stringed with the senses five
For Love’s sweet fingers; seeing Fate afar,
My very soul with Death for you must strive;
Because of you I loathe the name of War.
But O you piteous corpses yellow-black,
Rotting unburied in the sunbeam’s light,
With teeth laid bare by yellow lips curled back
Most hideously; whose tortured souls took flight
Leaving your limbs, all mangled by the fight,
In attitudes of horror fouler far
Than dreams which haunt a devil’s brain at night;
Because of you I loathe the name of War.
Mothers and maids who loved you, and the wives
Bereft of your sweet presences; yea, all
Who knew you beautiful; and those small lives
Made of that knowledge; O, and you who call
For life (but vainly now) from that dark hall
Where wait the Unborn, and the loves which are
In future generations to befall;
Because of you I loathe the name of War.
L’ENVOI
Prince Jesu, hanging stark upon a tree
Crucified as the malefactors are
That man and man henceforth should brothers be;
Because of you I loathe the name of War.

BALLADE No. 2

You dawns, whose loveliness I have not missed,
Making so delicate background for the larches
Melting the hills to softest amethyst;
O beauty never absent from our marches;
Passion of heaven shot golden through the arches
Of woods, or filtered softly from a star,
Nature’s wild love that never cloys or parches;
Because of you I love the name of War.
I have seen dawn and sunset, night and morning,
I have tramped tired and dusty to a tune
Of singing voices tired as I, but scorning
To yield up gaiety to sweltering June.
O comrades marching under blazing noon
Who told me tales in taverns near and far,
And sang and slept with me beneath the moon;
Because of you I love the name of War.
But you most dear companions Life and Death,
Whose friendship I had never valued well
Until that Battle blew with fiery breath
Over the earth his message terrible;
Crying aloud the things Peace could not tell,
Calling up ancient custom to the bar
Of God, to plead its cause with Heaven and Hell ...
Because of you I love the name of War.
L’ENVOI
Prince Jesu, who did speak the amazing word
Loud, trumpet-clear, flame-flashing like a star
Which falls: “Not peace I bring you, but the sword!”
Because of you I love the name of War.

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

No mortal comes to visit me to-day,
Only the gay and early-rising Sun
Who strolled in nonchalantly, just to say,
“Good morrow, and despair not, foolish one!”
But like the tune which comforted King Saul
Sounds in my brain that sunny madrigal.
Anon the playful Wind arises, swells
Into vague music, and departing, leaves
A sense of blue bare heights and tinkling bells,
Audible silences which sound achieves
Through music, mountain streams, and hinted heather,
And drowsy flocks drifting in golden weather.
Lastly, as to my bed I turn for rest.
Comes Lady Moon herself on silver feet
To sit with one white arm across my breast,
Talking of elves and haunts where they do meet.
No mortal comes to see me, yet I say
“Oh, I have had fine visitors to-day!”
Douai,
August 20th, 1916.

A RONDEL OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE

Big glory mellowing on the mellowing hills,
And in the little valleys, thatch and dreams,
Wrought by the manifold and vagrant wills
Of sun and ripening rain and wind; so gleams
My country, that great magic cup which spills
Into my mind a thousand thousand streams
Of glory mellowing on the mellowing hills
And in the little valleys, thatch and dreams.
O you dear heights of blue no ploughman tills,
O valleys where the curling mist upsteams
White over fields of trembling daffodils,
And you old dusty little water-mills,
Through all my life, for joy of you, sweet thrills
Shook me, and in my death at last there beams
Big glory mellowing on the mellowing hills
And in the little valleys, thatch and dreams.

THE LITTLE ROAD

I will not take the great road that goes so proud and high,
Like the march of Roman legions that made it long ago;
But I will choose another way, a little road I know.
There no poor tramp goes limping, nor rich poor men drive by,
Nor ever crowding cattle, or sheep in dusty throng
Before their beating drovers drift cruelly along:
But only birds and free things, and ever in my ear
Sound of the leaves and little tongues of water talking near.
The great roads march on boldly, with scarce a curve or bend,
From some huge smoky Nothing, to Nothing at their end;
They march like Cæsar’s legions, and none may them withstand,
But whence, or whither going, they do not understand,
But oh, the little twisty road,
The sweet and lover’s-kiss-ty road,
The secret winding misty road,
That leads to Fairyland!

SONNET

Christ God, Who died for us, now turn Thy face!
Behold not what men do, lest once again
Thou should’st be crucified, and die of pain.
Look not, O Lord, but only of Thy grace
Do Thou let fall on this accursed place,
Where the poor starve and labour in disdain
Of blinded Greed and all its vulgar train,
A single thread of heaven that we may trace
Some way to Right! And since “great men” stand by,
Heedless of women and men that hunger, Lord,
Give Thou to common men the vision splendid.
Take (and if need be break) them, like a sword;
Take them, and break them till their lives be ended;
Here are a thousand christs ready to die!

ENGLAND IN MEMORY ( Sonnet )

Sweet Motherland, what have I done for thee,
What suffered, what of lasting beauty made?
I who ungratefully and undismayed
Drank from thy breast the milk which nourished me
In childhood, which until my death must be
The life within my veins. Lo, from that shade
Wherein they rest, thy dead and mine, arrayed
In honour’s robes, come clear and plaintively
Voices for ever to my listening ear
Which cry, “Not yet is finished England’s fight!
Still, still must poets strive and martyrs bleed
To overthrow the enemies of Light,
Armies of Dullness, Cruelty, Lust, and Greed!”
Yet what have I done for thee, England dear?

THE DEAD

You never crept into the night
That lurks for all mankind!
Joyous you lived and loved, and leapt
Into that gaping dark, where stept
Our Fathers all, to find
Old honour—jest of fools, yet still the soul of all delight.

THE SLEEPERS

A battered roof where stars went tripping
With silver feet,
A broken roof whence rain came dripping,
Yet rest was sweet.
A dug-out where the rats ran squeaking
Under the ground,
And out in front the poor dead reeking!
Yet sleep was sound.
No longer house or dug-out keeping,
Within a cell
Of brown and bloody earth they’re sleeping;
Oh they sleep well.
Thrice blessed sleep, the balm of sorrow!
Thrice blessed eyes
Sealed up till on some doomsday morrow
The sun arise!

COMRADES O’ MINE ( Rondeau )

Comrades o’ mine, that were to me
More than my grief and gaiety,
More than my laughter or my pain:
Comrades, we shall not walk again
The road whereon we went so free—
The old way of Humanity.
But you are sleeping peacefully
Till the last dawn, heroic slain,
Comrades o’ mine.
Till the last moon shall fade and flee
You sleep. Oh sleep not dreamlessly,
You whereof only dreams remain,
Come you by dreams into my brain,
Inspire my visions, and still be
Comrades o’ mine!

TO R. E. K. ( In Memoriam )

Dear, rash, warm-hearted friend,
So careless of the end,
So worldly-foolish, so divinely-wise,
Who, caring not one jot
For place, gave all you’d got
To help your lesser fellow-men to rise.
Swift-footed, fleeter yet
Of heart. Swift to forget
The petty spite that life or men could show you;
Your last long race is won,
But beyond the sound of gun
You laugh and help men onward—if I know you.
Oh still you laugh, and walk,
And sing and frankly talk
(To angels) of the matters that amused you
In this bitter-sweet of life,
And we who keep its strife,
Take comfort in the thought how God has used you.

BALLAD OF ARMY PAY

In general, if you want a man to do a dangerous job:—
Say, swim the Channel, climb St. Paul’s, or break into and rob
The Bank of England, why, you find his wages must be higher
Than if you merely wanted him to light the kitchen fire.
But in the British Army, it’s just the other way,
And the maximum of danger means the minimum of pay.
You put some men inside a trench, and call them infantrie,
And make them face ten kinds of hell, and face it cheerfully;
And live in holes like rats, with other rats, and lice, and toads,
And in their leisure time, assist the R.E.’s with their loads.
Then, when they’ve done it all, you give ’em each a bob a day!
For the maximum of danger means the minimum of pay.
We won’t run down the A.S.C., nor yet the R.T.O.
They ration and direct us on the way we’ve got to go.
They’re very useful people, and it’s pretty plain to see
We couldn’t do without ’em, nor yet the A.P.C.
But comparing risks and wages,—I think they all will say
That the maximum of danger means the minimum of pay.
There are men who make munitions—and seventy bob a week;
They never see a lousy trench nor hear a big shell shriek;
And others sing about the war at high-class music-halls
Getting heaps and heaps of money and encores from the stalls.
They “keep the home fires burning” and bright by night and day,
While the maximum of danger means the minimum of pay.
I wonder if it’s harder to make big shells at a bench,
Than to face the screaming beggars when they’re crumping up a trench;
I wonder if it’s harder to sing in mellow tones
Of danger, than to face it—say, in a wood like Trone’s;
Is discipline skilled labour, or something children play?
Should the maximum of danger mean the minimum of pay?

TO THE DEVIL ON HIS APPALLING DECADENCE

Satan, old friend and enemy of man;
Lord of the shadows and the sins whereby
We wretches glimpse the sun in Virtue’s sky
Guessing at last the wideness of His plan
Who fashioned kid and tiger, slayer and slain,
The paradox of evil, and the pain
Which threshes joy as with a winnowing fan:
Satan, of old your custom ’twas at least
To throw an apple to the soul you caught
Robbing your orchard. You, before you wrought
Damnation due and marked it with the beast,
Before its eyes were e’en disposed to dangle
Fruitage delicious. And you would not mangle
Nor maul the body of the dear deceased.
But you were called familiarly “Old Nick”—
The Devil, yet a gentleman you know!
Relentless—true, yet courteous to a foe.
Man’s soul your traffic was. You would not kick
His bloody entrails flying in the air.
Oh, “Krieg ist Krieg,” we know, and “C’est la guerre!”
But Satan, don’t you feel a trifle sick?

AT AFTERNOON TEA ( Triolet )

We have taken a trench
Near Combles, I see,
Along with the French.
We have taken a trench.
(Oh, the bodies, the stench!)
Won’t you have some more tea?
We have taken a trench
Near Combles, I see.

TO THE UNKNOWN NURSE

Moth-like at night you flit or fly
To where the other patients lie;
I hear, as you brush by my door
The flutter of your wings, no more.
Shall I now call you in and see
The phantom vanish instantly?
Perhaps some sixteen stone or worse,
Suddenly falling through my verse!
Nay, be you sour, or be you sweet,
I’d see you not. Life’s wisdom is
To keep one’s dreams. Oh never quiz
The lovely lady in the street!
I knew a man who went large-eyed
And happy, till he bought pince-nez
And saw things as they were. He died
—A pessimist—the other day.

THE HORSES

My father bred great horses,
Chestnut, grey, and brown.
They grazed about the meadows,
And trampled into town.
They left the homely meadows
And trampled far away,
The great shining horses,
Chestnut, and brown, and grey.
Gone are the horses
That my father bred.
And who knows whither?...
Or whether starved or fed?...
Gone are the horses,
And my father’s dead.

MOTHER AND SON

“Bow-wow! Bow-wow!” See how he bounds and prances,
“Wow!” races off, returns again and dances—
A little wave of sunshine and brown fur—
About his old rheumatic mother-cur.
Look how she gives him back his baby bite
Tenderly as a human mother might.
Now, poor old thing—she gazes quaintly up
To laugh dog-fashion at me. “What a pup,
Master!” she seems to say: then, like a wave,
He’s down on her again—“Oh, master, see,
I’m growing old.... What spirits youngsters have!”
Her old eyes blink as they look up at me.

GROWN UPS — 1. TIMMY TAYLOR AND THE RATS

It was a spell of sultry weather,
There’d been no rain for weeks together,
And little Timmy Taylor,
A mouse of a man,
Walked down the road
With a big milk-can,
Walked softly down the road at night
When the stars were thick and the moon was bright.
Hard by the road a spring came up
To glimmer in a rare bright cup
Of green-sward, burnt elsewhere quite dry.
To this he came—we won’t ask why—
Little Timmy Taylor,
The mouse of a man,
With a big milk-can.
Then, as he turned, so goes the story—
Came trooping through the moonlight glory
Hundreds and scores of—what do you think?
Rats! rats a-coming down to drink
From granary and barn and stack,
Grey and tawny, brown and black,
Tails cocked up and teeth all gleaming,
Beady eyes light-filled, and seeming
That moony-mad and hunger-fierce.
Little Timmy Taylor,
The mouse of a man,
Dropped the milk-can,
And giving a shriek—’twas fit to pierce
The ear o’ the dead—he ran away,
And the can was found in the road next day.

2. WILLUM ACCOUNTS FOR THE PRICE OF LAMPREY

“Aye, sure, it’s pretty fish, but there’s no sale
Nowadays.” “Why?” “Well, the story that they tell
Is, as the king were very fond on ’em,
And all the fashion ate and paid up well.
And then one day our king—so goes the tale—
Ate over-hearty-like and throwed ’em up.
So all the fashion with him when he dined
Cut out their orders,—and the price cum down.
And maybe that be true, for still in town
Our council—scheming, likely, to remind
His Majesty of joys he left behind—
Sends un the very prince o’ lamprey pies
(I’ve seen un many a while in Fisher’s winder)
And so, God willing and if nothing hinder,
Some day he’ll taste again and prices rise.”

3. THE OLDEST INHABITANT HEARS FAR OFF THE DRUMS OF DEATH

Sometimes ’tis far off, and sometimes ’tis nigh,
Such drummerdery noises too they be!
’Tis odd—oh, I do hope I baint to die
Just as the summer months be coming on,
And buffly chicken out, and bumble-bee:
Though, to be sure, I cannot hear ’em plain
For this drat row as goes a-drumming on,
Just like a little soldier in my brain.
And oh, I’ve heard we got to go through flame
And water-floods—but maybe ’tisn’t true!
I allus were a-frightened o’ the sea.
And burning fires—oh, it would be a shame
And all the garden ripe, and sky so blue.
Such drummerdery noises, too, they be.

4. SETH BEMOANS THE OLDEST INHABITANT

We heard as we wer passing by the forge:
“’Er’s dead,” said he.
“’Tis Providence’s doing,” so said George.
“He’s allus doing summat,” so I said,
“You see this pig; we kept un aal the year
Fatting un up and priding in un, see,
And spent a yup o’ money—food so dear!
I wish ’twer ’e;
I’d liefer our fat pig had died than she.”

5. A RIVER, A PIG, AND BRAINS

Last fall, to sell his oldest perry,
Old Willum Fry did cross the ferry,
And thur inside of an old sty
’A seed a leanish pig did lie:
A rakish, active beast ’a was
As ever rooted up the grass:
Eager as bees on making honey
To stuff his self. Bill did decide
To buy un with the cider money
And fat un up for Easter-tide.
He bought un, but no net ’ad got
To kip thic pig inside the boat.
“The’ll drown wi’ pig and all at ferry!”
Cried one. Said Fry, “Go, bring some perry,
And this old drinking-horn you got,
Lying inside the piggery cot!”
He poured a goodish swig and soon
—As lazy as a day o’ June—
Piggy lay boozed, and so did bide
Snoring, while him and Fry were taken
’Cross Severn: and ’a didn’t waken
Until the boat lay safely tied
Up to a tree on t’other side.

6. MARTHA BAZIN ON MARRIAGE

This is the fourth ’un, Miss, and if so be
As he do die out like the t’other three,
I’ll take another man (if one do ask).
Woman and man apart be like a cask
Without a bung, letting Life’s cider out,
The Almighty made to drink withouten doubt.
I never could abode the thought o’ waste
Whether of Life or cider, fit for taste.
But love him, Miss, you ask?—why, that I can,
And thank the Lord I could love any man.

CHILDREN — 1. LITTLE ABEL GOES TO CHURCH

And this is what he heard
And saw at church:
Oh, a great yellow bird
Upon a perch—
Quite still upon a perch.
And then a man in white
Got up and walked to it,
And talked to it
For a long while (he said);
But the yellow bird
(Although it must have heard!)
Never turned its head,
Or did anything at all
But look straight at the wall!
(A true tale.)

2. DELIGHTS

Small Marjorie
In an apple-tree
Looks down upon the world with glee.
Her brother Ted,
So he has said,
Loves best to see the chickens fed.
And little Charlie likes to see
The Thresher working hard, when he
Hums like a dreadful bumble-bee.
But Ann and Martha sit together
Reading, however gold the weather.

3. THE BOY WITH LITTLE BARE TOES

He ran all down the meadow, that he did,
The boy with the little bare toes.
The flowers they smelt so sweet, so sweet,
And the grass it felt so funny and wet
And the birds sang just like this—“chereep!”
And the willow-trees stood in rows.
“Ho! ho!”
Laughed the boy with the little bare toes.
Now the trees had no insides—how funny!
Laughed the boy with the little bare toes.
And he put in his hand to find some money
Or honey—yes, that would be best—oh, best!
But what do you think he found, found, found?
Why, six little eggs all round, round, round,
And a mother-bird on the nest,
Oh, yes!
The mother-bird on her nest.
He laughed, “Ha! ha!” and he laughed, “He! he!”
The boy with the little bare toes.
But the little mother-bird got up from her place
And flew right into his face, ho! ho!
And pecked him on the nose, “Oh! oh!”
Yes, pecked him right on the nose.
“Boo! Boo!”
Cried the boy with the little bare toes.

THE WIND IN TOWN TREES

What is it says the breeze
In London streets to-day
Unto the troubled trees
Whose shadows strew the way,
Whose leaves are all a-flutter?
“You are wild!” the rascal cries.
The green tree beats its wings
And fills the air with sighs.
“Wild! Wild!” the rascal sings.
“But your feet are in the gutter!”
Men pass beneath the trees
Walking the pavement grey,
They hear the whisperings tease
And at the word he utters
Their hearts are green and gay.
Then like the gay, green trees,
They beat proud wings to fly,
But, like the fluttering trees,
Their footprints mark the gutters
Until the beggars die.

FORM ( A Study )

Flower-like and shy,
You stand, sweet mortal, at the river’s brim:
With what unconscious grace
Your limbs to some strange law surrendering
Which lifts you clear of our humanity!
Now would I sacrifice
Your breathing, warmth, and all the strange romance
Of living, to a moment. Ere you break
The greater thing than you, I would my eyes
Were basilisk to turn you into stone.
So should you be the world’s inheritance.
And souls of unborn men should draw their breath
From mortal you, immortalised in Death.

VILLANELLE

So is thy music unto me,
As the bright moon which tides obey,
As the white moon upon the sea.
And like a wind that scatters free
The petals of an April day,
So is thy music unto me.
It falleth light and quietly
And sweet as summer’s petals—nay,
As the white moon upon the sea.
As moonlight falling silvery
On waves of wild and surging grey,
So is thy music unto me.
As o’er each white and ebon key
I watch thy silver fingers play,
As the white moon upon the sea,
On headlands of eternity
My soul is hurled, and dashed in spray!
So is thy music unto me
As the bright moon which tides obey,
As the white moon upon the sea.

KOSSOVO DAY

From this sweet nest of peace and summer blue—
England in June—a sea-bird’s nest indeed
Guarded of waves, and hid by the sea-weed
From envious hunter’s eye, we send to you
Our flying thoughts and prayers, our treasure too,
Poor though it be to bandage wounds that bleed
For country dear beloved. There the seed
Of homely loves and occupations grew
To wither in the flame of godless might
Kindled by hands of treachery, yet reeking
With blood of friends and neighbours. Serbia, thou
Hast thought us careless and far off; know now
Thy name to us is sudden drums outspeaking
And tortured trumpets crying in the night!

Note.—This poem was sent from Crefeld, but was written in England just before the author left for the front.

A PHILOSOPHY

Only in pages of men’s books I find
Swart villain and fair knight
Closing in fight.
Not piebald is mankind.
The soul is hued to such swift varying
As flying hornet’s sunshine-smitten wing.
Therefore, dear brother men (where’er ye be),
Who strive for right
With such short sight,
’Tis wise for little folk like you and me
Neither too much to praise nor yet to blame,
Since in our different ways we’re all the same.

CONSOLATOR AFFLICTORUM

“Must ever I be so
—Yellow and old?” you asked,
“With living overtasked,
Ugly, and racked with pains?”
I answered, “Even so,
Dearest; yet love remains.”

RECOGNITION

By Him Who made you sweet
And set your eyes so wide,
Who suffered us to meet
Despite of woman’s pride,
And willed that we should know,
Despite of man’s gross sense,
The wonder and dawn-glow
Of Love’s omnipotence,—
By all of this I swear,
And by God’s self I vow,
We have met (I know not how)
Loving (I know not where):
Perhaps in heaven above,
Perhaps in deep perdition.
And so this present love
Is but a recognition.

ON OVER BRIDGE AT EVENING

Faint grow the hills, but yet the night delays
To blot them utterly. Below their ridge
Of shadow lies the city in blue haze.
I watch its lamps awaken, from the bridge
Whereunder, running strongly to the sea,
Water goes fleeting softly in a brown
Wild loveliness. In heaven two or three
Small stars awaken and gaze shyly down....
White and alluring runs the dusty road
Into the country, and with yellow eyes
A hastening car comes purring with its load:
Like some great owl it hoots, and then it flies
Past, and is swallowed up in dusk. And, singing,
A country girl with basket homeward wends
—Sweet as the dusty roses that are clinging
Around the cottage where her journey ends.
Night deepens, and the stars with strengthening rays
Thicken and go upon their lovely ways.
Where are the voices that have vexed us so?
Dear God, how quiet has Thy day become!
The clamorous tongues of Earth are smitten dumb,
Awed with the beauty that Thy work doth show.

PASSION

All life from passion springs.
In holy ecstasy
’Midst whir of angel-wings,
Did God decree
The golden stars that shine:
The flaming morn,
And that this flesh of mine
Should once be born.
And all the works of men
That live indeed:
Joyance of sword or pen,
High thought or deed,
Are in such primal fashion
Contrived and wrought.
God grant me fire of thought
To work Thy will—with Passion!

A COMMON PETITION

I crave not of the wonder
Of Thy full plan to see;
No secret would I plunder
Of guarded destiny;
This only grant to me:
To hear the rolling thunder
Of Life—be man alive:
Yet through no body’s blunder
To drag the bright soul under
—Drowned where it needs must dive.
Keeping against all Fate
That Thou hast given me—
The dual mystery
Of man—inviolate.

AN ADVENTURE WITH GOD

Far worse than pain,
Unutterable weariness
Of blood and brain—
Intolerable dreariness
Of days God gave me.
And I bethought
The first fresh flood of youth that rose to leave me,
And how in those brave days—
Virgin of lust and spot—
I had forgot
To render any praise.
Then, as I thus looked upward through the net
Wherein both soul and flesh lay cunningly caught,
God (’twas like Springtime calling from the earth
The flowers to birth!)
Smiled down and did restore
All that I had before.

THE STRANGER

It happened in a blood-red hell ringed round with golden weather;
Walking in khaki through a trench he came,
When life was death, and wounded men and great shells screamed together:
I did not know his name.
But so white-faced and wan, we talked a little while together
Amongst dead men, and timbers black with flame.
“What would you do with life again,” asks he, “if one could give it?”
“No use to talk when life is done,” I say.
“But, by the living God, if He should grant me life I’d live it
Kinder to man, truer to God each day.”
Flame and the noise of doom devoured the words, and for a while
Senseless I lay.... Then,
Oh, then as in a dream I saw the stranger with a smile
Moving towards me over the dead men.
Red, red were his hands and feet and a great hole in his side,
Yet glory seemed to blaze about his head;
“Kinder to man, truer to God,” he whispered, and then died;
Falling down, arms outspread.
Ere darkness fell upon me with the faintness and the pain,
I saw a mangled body lying prone
Upon the earth beside me. But what I can’t explain
Is—The stretcher-bearers found me quite alone.
But, howsoe’er it happened, it matters not at last,
Since God’s dear Son came down to earth and died
In bloodshed, and the darkness of clouds that groaned aghast;
With pierced hands and a great wound in His side.
It is not in my heart to hate the pleasant sins I leave.
Earth’s passion flames within me fierce and strong.
But this is like a shadow ever rising up to thieve
Sin’s pleasures, and the lure of every pattern lust can weave,
And charm of all things that can do Him wrong.

THE BUGLER

God 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 dare 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 fashion 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
The sound may come, ’twill echo far and wide
Like pipes of battle calling up a clan,
Trumpeting men through beauty to God’s side.

PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:

The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber and is entered into the public domain.