The Complete Poems Read online

  Clang! clang! And clang! was David’s last.

  Scorn blazes in the Giant’s eye,

  Towering unhurt six cubits high.

  Says foolish David, ‘Curse your shield!

  And curse my sling! but I’ll not yield.’

  He takes his staff of Mamre oak,

  A knotted shepherd-staff that’s broke

  The skull of many a wolf and fox

  Come filching lambs from Jesse’s flocks.

  Loud laughs Goliath, and that laugh

  Can scatter chariots like blown chaff

  To rout; but David, calm and brave,

  Holds his ground, for God will save.

  Steel crosses wood, a flash, and oh!

  Shame for beauty’s overthrow!

  (God’s eyes are dim, His ears are shut),

  One cruel backhand sabre-cut –

  ‘I’m hit! I’m killed!’ young David cries,

  Throws blindly forward, chokes…and dies.

  Steel-helmeted and grey and grim

  Goliath straddles over him.

  A PINCH OF SALT

  When a dream is born in you

  With a sudden clamorous pain,

  When you know the dream is true

  And lovely, with no flaw nor stain,

  O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch

  You’ll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much.

  Dreams are like a bird that mocks,

  Flirting the feathers of his tail.

  When you seize at the salt-box

  Over the hedge you’ll see him sail.

  Old birds are neither caught with salt nor chaff:

  They watch you from the apple bough and laugh.

  Poet, never chase the dream.

  Laugh yourself and turn away.

  Mask your hunger, let it seem

  Small matter if he come or stay;

  But when he nestles in your hand at last,

  Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast.

  BABYLON

  The child alone a poet is:

  Spring and Fairyland are his.

  Truth and Reason show but dim,

  And all’s poetry with him.

  Rhyme and music flow in plenty

  For the lad of one-and-twenty,

  But Spring for him is no more now

  Than daisies to a munching cow;

  Just a cheery pleasant season,

  Daisy buds to live at ease on.

  He’s forgotten how he smiled

  And shrieked at snowdrops when a child,

  Or wept one evening secretly

  For April’s glorious misery.

  Wisdom made him old and wary

  Banishing the Lords of Faery.

  Wisdom made a breach and battered

  Babylon to bits: she scattered

  To the hedges and the ditches

  All our nursery gnomes and witches.

  Lob and Puck, poor frantic elves,

  Drag their treasures from the shelves.

  Jack the Giant-killer’s gone,

  Mother Goose and Oberon,

  Bluebeard and King Solomon.

  Robin, and Red Riding Hood

  Take together to the wood,

  And Sir Galahad lies hid

  In a cave with Captain Kidd.

  None of all the magic hosts,

  None remain but a few ghosts

  Of timorous heart, to linger on

  Weeping for lost Babylon.

  CAREERS

  Father is quite the greatest poet

  That ever lived anywhere.

  You say you’re going to write great music –

  I chose that first: it’s unfair.

  Besides, now I can’t be the greatest painter and do

  Christ and angels, or lovely pears and apples

  and grapes on a green dish, or storms at sea,

  or anything lovely,

  Because that’s been taken by Claire.

  It’s stupid to be an engine-driver,

  And soldiers are horrible men.

  I won’t be a tailor, I won’t be a sailor,

  And gardener’s taken by Ben.

  It’s unfair if you say that you’ll write great music,

  you horrid, you unkind (I simply loathe you,

  though you are my sister), you beast, cad,

  coward, cheat, bully, liar!

  Well? Say what’s left for me then!

  But we won’t go to your ugly music.

  (Listen!) Ben will garden and dig,

  And Claire will finish her wondrous pictures

  All flaming and splendid and big.

  And I’ll be a perfectly marvellous carpenter, and I’ll

  make cupboards and benches and tables

  and…and baths, and nice wooden boxes

  for studs and money,

  And you’ll be jealous, you pig!

  THE LADY VISITOR IN THE PAUPER WARD

  Why do you break upon this old, cool peace,

  This painted peace of ours,

  With harsh dress hissing like a flock of geese,

  With garish flowers?

  Why do you churn smooth waters rough again,

  Selfish old Skin-and-bone?

  Leave us to quiet dreaming and slow pain,

  Leave us alone.

  THE LAST POST

  (On Sick Leave)

  The bugler sent a call of high romance –

  ‘Lights out! Lights out!’ to the deserted square.

  On the thin brazen notes he threw a prayer,

  ‘God, if it’s this for me next time in France…

  O spare the phantom bugle as I lie

  Dead in the gas and smoke and roar of guns,

  Dead in a row with the other broken ones

  Lying so stiff and still under the sky,

  Jolly young Fusiliers too good to die.’

  A DEAD BOCHE

  To you who’d read my songs of War

  And only hear of blood and fame,

  I’ll say (you’ve heard it said before)

  ‘War’s Hell!’ and if you doubt the same,

  To-day I found in Mametz Wood

  A certain cure for lust of blood:

  Where, propped against a shattered trunk,

  In a great mess of things unclean,

  Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk

  With clothes and face a sodden green,

  Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired,

  Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.

  ESCAPE

  (August 6th, 1916. – Officer previously reported died of wounds, now reported wounded. Graves, Captain R., Royal Welch Fusiliers.)

  …But I was dead, an hour or more.

  I woke when I’d already passed the door

  That Cerberus guards, half-way along the road

  To Lethe, as an old Greek signpost showed.

  Above me, on my stretcher swinging by,

  I saw new stars in the subterrene sky:

  A Key, a Rose in bloom, a Cage with bars,

  And a barbed Arrow feathered in fine stars.

  I felt the vapours of forgetfulness

  Float in my nostrils. Oh, may Heaven bless

  Dear Lady Proserpine, who saw me wake

  And, stooping over me, for Henna’s sake

  Cleared my poor buzzing head and sent me back

  Breathless, with leaping heart along the track.

  After me roared and clattered angry hosts

  Of demons, heroes, and policeman-ghosts.

  ‘Life! life! I can’t be dead! I won’t be dead!

  Damned if I’ll die for anyone!’ I said….

  Cerberus stands and grins above me now,

  Wearing three heads – lion, and lynx, and sow.

  Quick, a revolver! But my Webley’s gone,

  Stolen…No bombs…no knife…The crowd swarms on,

  Bellows, hurls stones….Not even a honeyed sop…

  Nothing….Good Cerberus!…Good dog!…but
stop!

  Stay!…A great luminous thought…I do believe

  There’s still some morphia that I bought on leave.

  Then swiftly Cerberus’ wide mouths I cram

  With army biscuit smeared with ration jam;

  And sleep lurks in the luscious plum and apple.

  He crunches, swallows, stiffens, seems to grapple

  With the all-powerful poppy…then a snore,

  A crash; the beast blocks up the corridor

  With monstrous hairy carcase, red and dun –

  Too late! for I’ve sped through.

  O Life! O Sun!

  NOT DEAD

  Walking through trees to cool my heat and pain,

  I know that David’s with me here again.

  All that is simple, happy, strong, he is.

  Caressingly I stroke

  Rough bark of the friendly oak.

  A brook goes bubbling by: the voice is his.

  Turf burns with pleasant smoke;

  I laugh at chaffinch and at primroses.

  All that is simple, happy, strong, he is.

  Over the whole wood in a little while

  Breaks his slow smile.

  From Fairies and Fusiliers

  (1917)

  TO AN UNGENTLE CRITIC

  The great sun sinks behind the town

  Through a red mist of Volnay wine….

  But what’s the use of setting down

  That glorious blaze behind the town?

  You’ll only skip the page, you’ll look

  For newer pictures in this book;

  You’ve read of sunsets rich as mine.

  A fresh wind fills the evening air

  With horrid crying of night birds….

  But what reads new or curious there

  When cold winds fly across the air?

  You’ll only frown; you’ll turn the page,

  But find no glimpse of your ‘New Age

  Of Poetry’ in my worn-out words.

  Must winds that cut like blades of steel

  And sunsets swimming in Volnay,

  The holiest, cruellest pains I feel,

  Die stillborn, because old men squeal

  For something new: ‘Write something new:

  We’ve read this poem – that one too,

  And twelve more like ’em yesterday’?

  No, no! my chicken, I shall scrawl

  Just what I fancy as I strike it,

  Fairies and Fusiliers, and all.

  Old broken knock-kneed thought will crawl

  Across my verse in the classic way.

  And, sir, be careful what you say;

  There are old-fashioned folk still like it.

  THE LEGION

  ‘Is that the Three-and-Twentieth, Strabo mine,

  Marching below, and we still gulping wine?’

  From the sad magic of his fragrant cup

  The red-faced old centurion started up,

  Cursed, battered on the table. ‘No,’ he said,

  ‘Not that! The Three-and-Twentieth Legion’s dead,

  Dead in the first year of this damned campaign –

  The Legion’s dead, dead, and won’t rise again.

  Pity? Rome pities her brave lads that die,

  But we need pity also, you and I,

  Whom Gallic spear and Belgian arrow miss,

  Who live to see the Legion come to this:

  Unsoldierlike, slovenly, bent on loot,

  Grumblers, diseased, unskilled to thrust or shoot.

  O brown cheek, muscled shoulder, sturdy thigh!

  Where are they now? God! watch it straggle by,

  The sullen pack of ragged, ugly swine!

  Is that the Legion, Gracchus? Quick, the wine!’

  ‘Strabo,’ said Gracchus, ‘you are strange to-night.

  The Legion is the Legion, it’s all right.

  If these new men are slovenly, in your thinking,

  Hell take it! you’ll not better them by drinking.

  They all try, Strabo; trust their hearts and hands.

  The Legion is the Legion while Rome stands,

  And these same men before the autumn’s fall

  Shall bang old Vercingetorix out of Gaul.’

  TO LUCASTA ON GOING TO THE WARS – FOR THE FOURTH TIME

  It doesn’t matter what’s the cause,

  What wrong they say we’re righting,

  A curse for treaties, bonds and laws,

  When we’re to do the fighting!

  And since we lads are proud and true,

  What else remains to do?

  Lucasta, when to France your man

  Returns his fourth time, hating war,

  Yet laughs as calmly as he can

  And flings an oath, but says no more,

  That is not courage, that’s not fear –

  Lucasta he’s a Fusilier,

  And his pride sends him here.

  Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray

  And so decide who started

  This bloody war, and who’s to pay

  But he must be stout-hearted,

  Must sit and stake with quiet breath,

  Playing at cards with Death.

  Don’t plume yourself he fights for you;

  It is no courage, love, or hate

  That lets us do the things we do;

  It’s pride that makes the heart so great;

  It is not anger, no, nor fear –

  Lucasta he’s a Fusilier,

  And his pride keeps him here.

  TWO FUSILIERS

  And have we done with War at last?

  Well, we’ve been lucky devils both,

  And there’s no need of pledge or oath

  To bind our lovely friendship fast,

  By firmer stuff

  Close bound enough.

  By wire and wood and stake we’re bound,

  By Fricourt and by Festubert,

  By whipping rain, by the sun’s glare,

  By all the misery and loud sound,

  By a Spring day,

  By Picard clay.

  Show me the two so closely bound

  As we, by the wet bond of blood,

  By friendship blossoming from mud,

  By Death: we faced him, and we found

  Beauty in Death,

  In dead men, breath.

  TO R.N.

  (From Frise on the Somme in February 1917, in answer to a letter, saying: ‘I am just finishing my “Faun” poem: I wish you were here to feed him with cherries.’)

  Here by a snow-bound river

  In scrapen holes we shiver,

  And like old bitterns we

  Boom to you plaintively.

  Robert, how can I rhyme

  Verses at your desire –

  Sleek fauns and cherry-time,

  Vague music and green trees,

  Hot sun and gentle breeze,

  England in June attire,

  And life born young again,

  For your gay goatish brute

  Drunk with warm melody

  Singing on beds of thyme

  With red and rolling eye,

  Waking with wanton lute

  All the Devonian plain,

  Lips dark with juicy stain,

  Ears hung with bobbing fruit?

  Why should I keep him time?

  Why in this cold and rime

  Where even to think is pain?

  No, Robert, there’s no reason;

  Cherries are out of season,

  Ice grips at branch and root,

  And singing birds are mute.

  DEAD COW FARM

  An ancient saga tells us how

  In the beginning the First Cow

  (For nothing living yet had birth

  But elemental Cow on Earth)

  Began to lick cold stones and mud:

  Under her warm tongue flesh and blood

  Blossomed, a miracle to believe;

  And so was Adam born, and Eve.

 
Here now is chaos once again,

  Primaeval mud, cold stones and rain.

  Here flesh decays and blood drips red

  And the Cow’s dead, the old Cow’s dead.

  MR. PHILOSOPHER

  Old Mr. Philosopher

  Comes for Ben and Claire,

  An ugly man, a tall man,

  With bright-red hair.

  The books that he’s written

  No one can read.

  ‘In fifty years they’ll understand:

  Now there’s no need.

  ‘All that matters now

  Is getting the fun.

  Come along, Ben and Claire;

  Plenty to be done.’

  Then old Philosopher,

  Wisest man alive,

  Plays at Lions and Tigers

  Down along the drive –

  Gambolling fiercely

  Through bushes and grass,

  Making monstrous mouths,

  Braying like an ass,

  Twisting buttercups

  In his orange hair,

  Hopping like a kangaroo,

  Growling like a bear.

  Right up to tea-time

  They frolic there.

  ‘My legs are wingle,’

  Says Ben to Claire.

  THE CRUEL MOON

  The cruel Moon hangs out of reach

  Up above the shadowy beech.

  Her face is stupid, but her eye

  Is small and sharp and very sly.

  Nurse says the Moon can drive you mad?

  No, that’s a silly story, lad!

  Though she be angry, though she would

  Destroy all England if she could,

  Yet think, what damage can she do

  Hanging there so far from you?

  Don’t heed what frightened nurses say:

  Moons hang much too far away.

  FINLAND

  Feet and faces tingle

  In that frore land:

  Legs wobble and go wingle,

  You scarce can stand.

  The skies are jewelled all around,

  The ploughshare snaps in the iron ground,

  The Finn with face like paper

  And eyes like a lighted taper

  Hurls his rough rune

  At the wintry moon

  And stamps to mark the tune.

  THE CATERPILLAR

  Under this loop of honeysuckle,

  A creeping, coloured caterpillar,

  I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray,

  I nibble it leaf by leaf away.

  Down beneath grow dandelions,

  Daisies, old-man’s-looking-glasses;