EYES OF YOUTH

A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum—Shane

Leslie—Viola Meynell—Ruth Lindsay—

Hugh Austin—Judith Lytton—Olivia

Meynell—Maurice Healy—Monica

Saleeby—Francis Meynell—With

four early Poems by Francis

Thompson, & a Foreword by

Gilbert K. Chesterton.

"He has eyes of youth, he writes verses"

The Merry Wives of Windsor.

The four early poems of Francis Thompson are here published, for the first time in book form, by the permission of his Literary Executor.

We have also to thank the Editors of The Station, The Tablet, The Outlook, The New Age, The Westminster Gazette, The Evening Standard, The Irish Rosary and The Lamp, for permission to re-publish other Verses.

CONTENTS

G.K. CHESTERTON Foreword FRANCIS THOMPSON Threatened Tears Arab Love Song Buona Notte The Passion of Mary PADRAIC COLUM "I shall not die for you" An Idyll Christ the Comrade Arab Songs (I) Arab Songs (II) SHANE LESLIE A Dead Friend (J.S. 1905) Forest Song The Bee Outside the Carlton The Pater of the Cannon Fleet Street Nightmare To a Nobleman becoming Socialist St. George-in-the-East VIOLA MEYNELL The Ruin The Dream The Wanderer "Nature is the living mantle of God" Secret Prayer The Unheeded Dream of Death THE HON. MRS. LINDSAY Mater Salvatoris To Choose The Hunters HUGH AUSTIN The Astronomer's Prayer The Moon To Yvonne The Burial of Scald THE HON. MRS. LYTTON A Day Remembered Childhood Love in Idleness Love's Counterfeit OLIVIA MEYNELL A Grief without Christ The Crowning MAURICE HEALY In Memoriam A Ballad of Friendship In the Midst of Them Sic Transit MONICA SALEEBY Retrospect FRANCIS MEYNELL Any Stone Lux in Tenebris Mater Inviolata Song-burden Gifts Wraith A Dedication

FOREWORD

My office on this occasion is one which I may well carry as lightly as possible. In our society, I am told, one needs an introduction to a beautiful woman; but I have never heard of men needing an introduction to a beautiful song. Prose before poetry is an unmeaning interruption; for poetry is perhaps the one thing in the world that explains itself. The only possible prelude for songs is silence; and I shall endeavour here to imitate the brevity of the silence as well as its stillness.

This collection contains four new poems by one whom all serious critics now class with Shelley and Keats and those other great ones cut down with their work unfinished. Yet I would not speak specially of him, lest modern critics should run away with their mad notion of a one-man influence; and call this a "school" of Francis Thompson. Francis Thompson was not a schoolmaster. He would have said as freely as Whitman (and with a far more consistent philosophy), "I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free." The modern world has this mania about plagiarism because the modern world cannot comprehend the idea of communion. It thinks that men must steal ideas; it does not understand that men may share them. The saints did not imitate each other; not always even study each other; they studied the Imitation of Christ. A real religion is that in which any two solitary people might suddenly say the same thing at any moment. It would therefore be most misleading to give to this collection an air of having been inspired by its most

famous contributor. The little lyrics of this little book must surely be counted individual, even by those who may count them mysterious. A variety verging on quaintness is the very note of the assembled bards.

Take, for example, Mr. Colum's stern and simple rendering of the bitter old Irish verses:

"O woman, shapely as the swan, On your account I shall not die."

Like Fitzgerald's Omar and all good translations, it leaves one wondering whether the original was as good; but to an Englishman the note is not only unique, but almost hostile. It is the hardness of the real Irishman which has been so skilfully hidden under the softness of the stage Irishman. The words are ages old, I believe; they come out of the ancient Ireland of Cairns and fallen Kings: and yet the words might have been spoken by one of Bernard Shaw's modern heroes to one of his modern heroines. The curt, bleak words, the haughty, heathen spirit are certainly as remote as anything can be from the luxuriant humility of Francis Thompson.

If the writers have a real point of union it is in a certain instinct for contrast between their shape and subject matter. All the poems are brief in form, and at the same time big in topic. They remind us of the vivid illuminations of the virile thirteenth century, when artists crowded cosmic catastrophes into the corner of an initial letter; where one may find a small picture of the Deluge or of the flaming Cities of the Plain. One of the specially short poems sees the universe overthrown and the good angels conquered. Another short poem sees the newsboys in Fleet Street shouting the news of the end of the world, and the awful return of God. The writers seem unconsciously to have sought to make a poem as large as a revelation, while it was nearly as short as a riddle. And though Francis Thompson himself was rather in the Elizabethan tradition of amplitude and ingenuity, he could write separate lines that were separate poems in themselves:—

"And thou, what needest with thy tribe's black tents, Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?"

A mediaeval illuminator would have jumped out of his sandals in his eagerness to illustrate that.

G.K. CHESTERTON.

FRANCIS THOMPSON

Threatened Tears

Do not loose those rains thy wet Eyes, my Fair, unsurely threat; Do not, Sweet, do not so; Thou canst not have a single woe, But this sad and doubtful weatlier Overcasts us both together. In the aspect of those known eyes My soul's a captain weatherwise. Ah me! what presages it sees In those watery Hyades.

Arab Love Song

The hunchèd camels of the night* Trouble the bright And silver waters of the moon. The Maiden of the Morn will soon Through Heaven stray and sing, Star gathering. Now while the dark about our loves is strewn, Light of my dark, blood of my heart, O come! And night will catch her breath up, and be dumb. Leave thy father, leave thy mother And thy brother; Leave the black tents of thy tribe apart! Am I not thy father and thy brother, And thy mother? And thou—what needest with thy tribe's black tents Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?

* The cloud-shapes often observed by travellers in the East.

Buona Notte

Jane Williams, in her last letter to Shelley, wrote: "Why do you talk of never enjoying moments like the past? Are you going to join your friend Plato, or do you expect I shall do so soon? Buona Notte." This letter was dated July 6th, and Shelley was drowned on the 8th. The following is his imagined reply from, another world:—

Ariel to Miranda:—hear This good-night the sea-winds bear; And let thine unacquainted ear Take grief for their interpreter. Good-night; I have risen so high Into slumber's rarity, Not a dream can beat its feather Through the unsustaining ether. Let the sea-winds make avouch How thunder summoned me to couch, Tempest curtained me about And turned the sun with his own hand out: And though I toss upon my bed My dream is not disquieted; Nay, deep I sleep upon the deep, And my eyes are wet, but I do not weep; And I fell to sleep so suddenly That my lips are moist yet—could'st thou see With the good-night draught I have drunk to thee. Thou can'st not wipe them; for it was Death Damped my lips that has dried my breath. A little while—it is not long— The salt shall dry on them like the song. Now know'st thou, that voice desolate, Mourning ruined joy's estate, Reached thee through a closing gate. "Go'st thou to Plato?" Ah, girl, no! It is to Pluto that I go.

The Passion of Mary

O Lady Mary, thy bright crown Is no mere crown of majesty; For with the reflex of His own Resplendent thorns Christ circled thee. The red rose of this passion tide Doth take a deeper hue from thee, In the five Wounds of Jesus dyed, And in Thy bleeding thoughts, Mary. The soldier struck a triple stroke That smote thy Jesus on the tree; He broke the Heart of hearts, and broke The Saint's and Mother's hearts in thee. Thy Son went up the Angels' ways, His passion ended; but, ah me! Thou found'st the road of further days A longer way of Calvary. On the hard cross of hopes deferred Thou hung'st in loving agony, Until the mortal dreaded word, Which chills our mirth, spake mirth to thee. The Angel Death from this cold tomb Of life did roll the stone away; And He thou barest in thy womb Caught thee at last into the day— Before the living throne of Whom The lights of heaven burning pray. L'ENVOY. O thou who dwellest in the day, Behold, I pace amidst the gloom: Darkness is ever round my way, With little space for sunbeam room. Yet Christian sadness is divine, Even as thy patient sadness was:

The salt tears in our life's dark wine Fell in it from the saving Cross. Bitter the bread of our repast; Yet doth a sweet the bitter leaven: Our sorrow is the shadow cast Around it by the light of Heaven. O Light in light, shine down from Heaven!

PADRAIC COLUM

"I shall not die for you"

(From the Irish)

O woman, shapely as the swan, On your account I shall not die. The men you've slain—a trivial clan— Were less than I. I ask me shall I die for these: For blossom-teeth and scarlet lips? And shall that delicate swan-shape Bring me eclipse? Well shaped the breasts and smooth the skin, The cheeks are fair, the tresses free; And yet I shall not suffer death, God over me. Those even brows, that hair like gold, Those languorous tones, that virgin way; The flowing limbs, the rounded heel Slight men betray. Thy spirit keen through radiant mien, Thy shining throat and smiling eye, Thy little palm, thy side like foam— I cannot die. O woman, shapely as the swan, In a cunning house hard-reared was I; O bosom white, O well-shaped palm, I shall not die.

An Idyll

You stay at last at my bosom, with your beauty young and rare, Though your light limbs are as limber as the foal's that follows the mare, Brow fair and young and stately where thought has now begun—Hair bright as the breast of the eagle when he strains up to the sun! In the space of a broken castle I found you on a day When the call of the new-come cuckoo went with me all the way. You stood by the loosened stones that were rough and black with age: The fawn beloved of the hunter in the panther's broken cage! And we went down together by paths your childhood knew— Remote you went beside me, like the spirit of the dew; Hard were the hedge-rows still: sloe-bloom was their scanty dower— You slipped it within your bosom, the bloom that scarce is flower. And now you stay at my bosom with you beauty young and rare, Though your light limbs are as limber as the foal's that follows the mare; But always I will see you on paths your childhood knew, When remote you went beside me like the spirit of the dew.

Christ the Comrade

Christ, by thine own darkened hour Live within my heart and brain! Let my hands not slip the rein. Ah, how long ago it is Since a comrade rode with me! Now a moment let me see Thyself, lonely in the dark, Perfect, without wound or mark.

Arab Songs (I)

Saadi the Poet stood up and he put forth his living words. His songs were the hurtling of spears and his figures the flashing of swords. With hearts dilated our tribe saw the creature of Saadi's mind; It was like to the horse of a king, a creature of fire and of wind. Umimah my loved one was by me: without love did these eyes see my fawn, And if fire there were in her being, for me its splendour had gone; When the sun storms up on the tent, he makes waste the fire of the grass— It was thus with my loved one's beauty: the splendour of song made it pass. The desert, the march, and the onset—these and these only avail, Hands hard with the handling of spear-shafts, brows white with the press of the mail! And as for the kisses of women—these are honey, the poet sings; But the honey of kisses, beloved, it is lime for the spirit's wings.

Arab Songs (II)

The poet reproaches those who have affronted him.

Ye know not why God hath joined the horse fly unto the horse Nor why the generous steed is yoked with the poisonous fly: Lest the steed should sink into ease and lose his fervour of nerve God hath appointed him this: a lustful and venomous bride. Never supine lie they, the steeds of our folk, to the sting, Praying for deadness of nerve, their wounds the shame of the sun; They strive, but they strive for this: the fullness of passionate nerve; They pant, but they pant for this: the speed that outstrips the pain. Sons of the dust, ye have stung: there is darkness upon my soul. Sons of the dust, ye have stung: yea, stung to the roots of my heart. But I have said in my breast: the birth succeeds to the pang, And sons of the dust, behold, your malice becomes my song.

SHANE LESLIE

A Dead Friend (J.S., 1905)

I drew him then unto my knee, my friend who was dead, And I set my live lips over his, and my heart by his head. I thought of an unrippled love and a passion unsaid, And the years he was living by me, my friend who was dead; And the white morning ways that we went, and how oft we had fed And drunk with the sunset for lamp—my friend who was dead; Now never the draught at my lips would thrill to my head— For the last vintage ebbed in my heart; my friend he was dead. Then I spake unto God in my grief: My wine and my bread And my staff Thou hast taken from me—my friend who is dead. Are the heavens yet friendless to Thee, and lone to Thy head, That Thy desolate heart must have need of my friend who is dead? To God then I spake yet again: not Peter instead Would I take, nor Philip nor John, for my friend who is dead.

Forest Song

All around I heard the whispering larches Swinging to the low-lipped wind; God, they piped, is lilting in our arches, For He loveth leafen kind. Ferns I heard, unfolding from their slumber, Say confiding to the reed: God well knoweth us, Who loves to number Us and all our fairy seed. Voices hummed as of a multitude Crowding from their lowly sod; 'Twas the stricken daisies where I stood, Crying to the daisies' God.

The Bee

Away, the old monks said, Sweet honey-fly, From lilting overhead The lullaby You heard some mother croon Beneath the harvest moon. Go, hum it in the hive, The old monks said, For we were once alive Who now are dead.

Outside the Carlton

The death of the grey withered grass Of man's is a sign, And his life is as wine That is spilt from a half-shivered glass. At a quarter to nine Went Dives to dine ... (Man, it is said, is as grass.) Riches and plunder had met To furnish his feast— Both succulent beast And fish from the fisherman's net; While he tasteth of dishes And all his soul wishes— Nor knoweth his hour hath been set. The death of the pale-sodden hay 'Neath the feet of the kine Is to man for a sign; At the striking of ten he was grey, And they carried him out Stiff-strangled with gout. (Man, it is said, is as hay.)

The Pater of the Cannon

Father of the thunder, Flinger of the flame, Searing stars asunder, Hallowed be Thy Name! By the sweet-sung quiring Sister bullets hum, By our fiercest firing, May Thy Kingdom come! By Thy strong apostle Of the Maxim gun, By his pentecostal Flame, Thy Will be done! Give us, Lord, good feeding To Thy battles sped—Flesh, white grained and bleeding, Give for daily bread!

Fleet Street

I never see the newsboys run Amid the whirling street, With swift untiring feet, To cry the latest venture done, But I expect one day to hear Them cry the crack of doom And risings from the tomb, With great Archangel Michael near; And see them running from the Fleet As messengers of God, With Heaven's tidings shod About their brave unwearied feet.

Nightmare

I dreamt that the heavens were beggared And angels went chanting for bread, And the cherubs were sewed up in sackcloth, And Satan anointed his head. I dreamt they had chalked up a price On the sun and the stars at God's feet, And the Devil had bought up the Church, And put out the Pope in the street.

To a Nobleman becoming Socialist

I do remember thee so blest and filled With all life offered thee, Yet unsurprised I learn that thou hast willed To share or lose her fee. It seems a very great and stalwart thing To toss defence away, To tear the golden feathers from thy wing And lie with shards of clay. To some far vision's light thine eyes are set That mock life's treasure trove, And see the changing woof not woven yet As God would have it wove. The red thou flauntest bravely, friend, for me Hast lost alarming power; For who but guilty men will quake their knee, And who but robbers cower? For many hallowed things are symbolled red, Live fire and cleansing war, And the bright sealing Blood that Christ once shed, And Martyrs yet must pour. O friend, choose one of these ourselves to link; For how could friendship be If from the foaming cup thou hast to drink The dregs come not to me? Dividing much, thou makest little thine Except the gain of loss; Yet haply Christ's true peer hath better sign Than coronet—the Cross.

St. George-in-the-East

'Mid the quiet splendour of a pennoned crowd, Gently proud, Moved in armour, silvered in celestial forge, Great Saint George, Stands he in the crimson-woven air of fight Speared with light— Hell is harried by the holy anger poured From his sword. Where the sweated toilers of the river slum Shiver dumb, Passed to-day a poorly clad and poorly shod Knight of God; Where the human eddy smears with shame and rags Paving flags, Hell shall weakly wail beneath the words he cries Piteous-wise.

VIOLA MEYNELL

The Ruin

I led thy thoughts, having them for my own, To where my God His head to thee did bend. I bore thee in my bosom to His throne. O, the blest labour, and the treasured end! Now like a ruined aqueduct I go Unburdened; thou by more fleet ways hast been With Him. Since thou thine own swift road dost know, Thou canst not brook such slow and devious mean.

The Dream

I slept, and thought a letter came from you— You did not love me any more, it said. What breathless grief!—my love not true, not true ... I was afraid of people, and afraid Of things inanimate—the wind that blew, The clock, the wooden chair; and so I strayed From home, but could not stray from grief, I knew. And then at dawn I woke, and wept, and prayed, And knew my blessed love was still the same;— And yet I sit and moan upon the bed For that dream-creature's loss. For when I came (I came, perhaps, to comfort her) she fled. I would be with her where she wanders now, Fleeing the earth, with pain upon her brow.

The Wanderer

All night my thoughts have rested in God's fold; They lay beside me here upon the bed. At dawn I woke: the air beat sad and cold. I told them o'er—Ah, God, one thought had fled. Into what dark, deep chasm this wayward one Has sunk, I scarcely know; I will not chide. O Shepherd, leave me! Seek this lamb alone. The ninety-nine are here. They will abide.

"Nature is the living mantle of God" —Goethe

O for the time when some impetuous breeze Will catch Thy garment, and, like autumn trees, Toss it and rend it till Thou standest free, And end Thy long secluded reverie! Still now its beauty folds Thee, and—as she Who kissed Thy garment and had health from Thee— I feel the sun, or hear some bird in bliss, And Thou hast then my sudden, humble kiss.

Secret Prayer

Since that with lips which moved in one we prayed, So that God ceased to hear us speak apart, What law irrevocable have we made? How shall He hear a solitary heart When He did need that we, to have His ear, Should go aside and pray together there With urgent breath? Ah, now I pause and fear— How shall uprise my lonely, separate prayer?

The Unheeded