NOTE

My thanks are due to the Editors of the Outlook and the Speaker for the kind permission they have given me to reprint a considerable number of the following poems. They have been selected and arranged rather with a view to unity of spirit than to unity of time or value; many of them being juvenile.

CONTENTS

BY THE BABE UNBORN

THE WORLD'S LOVER

THE SKELETON

A CHORD OF COLOUR

THE HAPPY MAN

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN

A NOVELTY

ULTIMATE

THE DONKEY

THE BEATIFIC VISION

THE HOPE OF THE STREETS

ECCLESIASTES

THE SONG OF THE CHILDREN

THE FISH

GOLD LEAVES

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

A CERTAIN EVENING

A MAN AND HIS IMAGE

THE MARINER

THE TRIUMPH OF MAN

CYCLOPEAN

JOSEPH

MODERN ELFLAND

ETERNITIES

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

ALONE

KING'S CROSS STATION

THE HUMAN TREE

TO THEM THAT MOURN

THE OUTLAW

BEHIND

THE END OF FEAR

THE HOLY OF HOLIES

THE MIRROR OF MADMEN

E.C.B.

THE DESECRATERS

AN ALLIANCE

THE ANCIENT OF DAYS

THE LAST MASQUERADE

THE EARTH'S SHAME

VANITY

THE LAMP POST

THE PESSIMIST

A FAIRY TALE

A PORTRAIT

FEMINA CONTRA MUNDUM

TO A CERTAIN NATION

THE PRAISE OF DUST

THE BALLAD OF THE BATTLE OF GIBEON

THE BALLAD OF GOD-MAKERS

AT NIGHT

THE WOOD-CUTTER

ART COLOURS

THE TWO WOMEN

THE WILD KNIGHT

THE WILD KNIGHT

GOOD NEWS

Another tattered rhymster in the ring, With but the old plea to the sneering schools, That on him too, some secret night in spring Came the old frenzy of a hundred fools To make some thing: the old want dark and deep, The thirst of men, the hunger of the stars, Since first it tinged even the Eternal's sleep, With monstrous dreams of trees and towns and mars. When all He made for the first time He saw, Scattering stars as misers shake their pelf. Then in the last strange wrath broke His own law, And made a graven image of Himself.

THE WORLD'S LOVER

My eyes are full of lonely mirth: Reeling with want and worn with scars, For pride of every stone on earth, I shake my spear at all the stars. A live bat beats my crest above, Lean foxes nose where I have trod, And on my naked face the love Which is the loneliness of God. Outlawed: since that great day gone by— When before prince and pope and queen I stood and spoke a blasphemy— 'Behold the summer leaves are green.' They cursed me: what was that to me Who in that summer darkness furled, With but an owl and snail to see, Had blessed and conquered all the world? They bound me to the scourging-stake, They laid their whips of thorn on me; I wept to see the green rods break, Though blood be beautiful to see. Beneath the gallows' foot abhorred The crowds cry 'Crucify!' and 'Kill!' Higher the priests sing, 'Praise the Lord, The warlock dies'; and higher still Shall heaven and earth hear one cry sent Even from the hideous gibbet height, 'Praise to the Lord Omnipotent, The vultures have a feast to-night.'

THE SKELETON

Chattering finch and water-fly Are not merrier than I; Here among the flowers I lie Laughing everlastingly. No: I may not tell the best; Surely, friends, I might have guessed Death was but the good King's jest, It was hid so carefully.

A CHORD OF COLOUR

My Lady clad herself in grey, That caught and clung about her throat; Then all the long grey winter day On me a living splendour smote; And why grey palmers holy are, And why grey minsters great in story, And grey skies ring the morning star, And grey hairs are a crown of glory. My Lady clad herself in green, Like meadows where the wind-waves pass; Then round my spirit spread, I ween, A splendour of forgotten grass. Then all that dropped of stem or sod, Hoarded as emeralds might be, I bowed to every bush, and trod Amid the live grass fearfully. My Lady clad herself in blue, Then on me, like the seer long gone, The likeness of a sapphire grew, The throne of him that sat thereon. Then knew I why the Fashioner Splashed reckless blue on sky and sea; And ere 'twas good enough for her, He tried it on Eternity. Beneath the gnarled old Knowledge-tree Sat, like an owl, the evil sage: 'The World's a bubble,' solemnly He read, and turned a second page. 'A bubble, then, old crow,' I cried, 'God keep you in your weary wit! 'A bubble—have you ever spied 'The colours I have seen on it?'

THE HAPPY MAN

To teach the grey earth like a child, To bid the heavens repent, I only ask from Fate the gift Of one man well content. Him will I find: though when in vain I search the feast and mart, The fading flowers of liberty, The painted masks of art. I only find him at the last, On one old hill where nod Golgotha's ghastly trinity— Three persons and one god.

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN

I do not cry, beloved, neither curse. Silence and strength, these two at least are good. He gave me sun and stars and ought He could, But not a woman's love; for that is hers. He sealed her heart from sage and questioner— Yea, with seven seals, as he has sealed the grave. And if she give it to a drunken slave, The Day of Judgment shall not challenge her. Only this much: if one, deserving well, Touching your thin young hands and making suit, Feel not himself a crawling thing, a brute, Buried and bricked in a forgotten hell; Prophet and poet be he over sod, Prince among angels in the highest place, God help me, I will smite him on the face, Before the glory of the face of God.

A NOVELTY

Why should I care for the Ages Because they are old and grey? To me, like sudden laughter, The stars are fresh and gay; The world is a daring fancy, And finished yesterday. Why should I bow to the Ages Because they were drear and dry? Slow trees and ripening meadows For me go roaring by, A living charge, a struggle To escalade the sky. The eternal suns and systems, Solid and silent all, To me are stars of an instant, Only the fires that fall From God's good rocket, rising On this night of carnival.

ULTIMATE

The vision of a haloed host That weep around an empty throne; And, aureoles dark and angels dead, Man with his own life stands alone. 'I am,' he says his bankrupt creed: 'I am,' and is again a clod: The sparrow starts, the grasses stir, For he has said the name of God.

THE DONKEY

When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born; With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The devil's walking parody On all four-footed things. The tattered outlaw of the earth, Of ancient crooked will; Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, I keep my secret still. Fools! For I also had my hour; One far fierce hour and sweet: There was a shout about my ears, And palms before my feet.

THE BEATIFIC VISION

Through what fierce incarnations, furled In fire and darkness, did I go, Ere I was worthy in the world To see a dandelion grow? Well, if in any woes or wars I bought my naked right to be, Grew worthy of the grass, nor gave The wren, my brother, shame for me. But what shall God not ask of him In the last time when all is told, Who saw her stand beside the hearth, The firelight garbing her in gold?