Poems

What will there be to remember Of us in the days to be? Whose faith was a trodden ember And even our doubt not free; Parliaments built of paper, And the soft swords of gold That twist like a waxen taper In the weak aggressor's hold; A hush around Hunger, slaying A city of serfs unfed; What shall we leave for a saying To praise us when we are dead? But men shall remember the Mountain That broke its forest chains, And men shall remember the Mountain When it arches against the plains: And christen their children from it And season and ship and street, When the Mountain came to Mahomet And looked small before his feet.

His head was as high as the crescent Of the moon that seemed his crown, And on glory of past and present The light of his eyes looked down; One hand went out to the morning Over Brahmin and Buddhist slain, And one to the West in scorning To point at the scars of Spain; One foot on the hills for warden By the little Mountain trod; And one was in a garden And stood on the grave of God. But men shall remember the Mountain, Though it fall down like a tree, They shall see the sign of the Mountain Faith cast into the sea; Though the crooked swords overcome it And the Crooked Moon ride free, When the Mountain comes to Mahomet It has more life than he.

But what will there be to remember Or what will there be to see— Though our towns through a long November Abide to the end and be? Strength of slave and mechanic Whose iron is ruled by gold, Peace of immortal panic, Love that is hate grown cold— Are these a bribe or a warning That we turn not to the sun, Nor look on the lands of morning Where deeds at last are done? Where men shall remember the Mountain When truth forgets the plain— And walk in the way of the Mountain That did not fail in vain; Death and eclipse and comet, Thunder and seals that rend: When the Mountain came to Mahomet; Because it was the end.

Of old with a divided heart I saw my people's pride expand, Since a man's soul is torn apart By mother earth and fatherland.

I knew, through many a tangled tale, Glory and truth not one but two: King, Constable, and Amirail Took me like trumpets: but I knew

A blacker thing than blood's own dye Weighed down great Hawkins on the sea; And Nelson turned his blindest eye On Naples and on liberty.

Therefore to you my thanks, O throne, O thousandfold and frozen folk, For whose cold frenzies all your own The Battle of the Rivers broke;

Who have no faith a man could mourn. Nor freedom any man desires; But in a new clean light of scorn Close up my quarrel with my sires;

Who bring my English heart to me, Who mend me like a broken toy; Till I can see you fight and flee, And laugh as if I were a boy.

Low and brown barns thatched and repatched and tattered Where I had seven sons until to-day, A little hill of hay your spur has scattered.... This is not Paris. You have lost the way.

You, staring at your sword to find it brittle, Surprised at the surprise that was your plan, Who shaking and breaking barriers not a little Find never more the death-door of Sedan.

Must I for more than carnage call you claimant, Paying you a penny for each son you slay? Man, the whole globe in gold were no repayment For what you have lost. And how shall I repay?

What is the price of that red spark that caught me From a kind farm that never had a name? What is the price of that dead man they brought me? For other dead men do not look the same.

How should I pay for one poor graven steeple Whereon you shattered what you shall not know, How should I pay you, miserable people? How should I pay you everything you owe?34

Unhappy, can I give you back your honour? Though I forgave would any man forget? While all the great green land has trampled on her The treason and terror of the night we met.

Not any more in vengeance or in pardon An old wife bargains for a bean that's hers. You have no word to break: no heart to harden. Ride on and prosper. You have lost your spurs.

I have come forth alive from the land of purple and poison and glamour, Where the charm is strong as the torture, being chosen to change the mind; Torture of wordless dance and wineless feast without clamour, Palace hidden in palace, garden with garden behind;

Women veiled in the sun, or bare as brass in the shadows, And the endless eyeless patterns where each thing seems an eye.... And my stride is on Caesar's sand where it slides to the English meadows, To the last low woods of Sussex and the road that goes to Rye.

In the cool and careless woods the eyes of the eunuchs burned not, But the wild hawk went before me, being free to return or roam, The hills had broad unconscious backs; and the tree-tops turned not, And the huts were heedless of me: and I knew I was at home.

And I saw my lady afar and her holy freedom upon her, A head, without veil, averted, and not to be turned with charms, And I heard above bannerets blown the intolerant trumpets of honour, That usher with iron laughter the coming of Christian arms.

My shield hangs stainless still; but I shall not go where they praise it, A sword is still at my side, but I shall not ride with the King. Only to walk and to walk and to stun my soul and amaze it, A day with the stone and the sparrow and every marvellous thing.

I have trod the curves of the Crescent, in the maze of them that adore it, Curved around doorless chambers and unbeholden abodes, But I walk in the maze no more; on the sign of the cross I swore it, The wild white cross of freedom, the sign of the white cross-roads.

And the land shall leave me or take, and the Woman take me or leave me, There shall be no more Night, or nightmares seen in a glass; But Life shall hold me alive, and Death shall never deceive me As long as I walk in England in the lanes that let me pass.

The star-crowned cliffs seem hinged upon the sky, The clouds are floating rags across them curled, They open to us like the gates of God Cloven in the last great wall of all the world.

I looked, and saw the valley of my soul Where naked crests fight to achieve the skies, Where no grain grows nor wine, no fruitful thing, Only big words and starry blasphemies.

But you have clothed with mercy like a moss The barren violence of its primal wars, Sterile although they be and void of rule, You know my shapeless crags have Wed the stars.

How shall I thank you, O courageous heart. That of this wasteful world you had no fear; But bade it blossom in clear faith and sent Your fair flower-feeding rivers: even as here

The peat burns brimming from their cups of stone Glow brown and blood-red down the vast decline As if Christ stood on yonder clouded peak And turned its thousand waters into wine.

There is a place where lute and lyre are broken. Where scrolls are torn and on a wild wind go, Where tablets stand wiped naked for a token, Where laurels wither and the daisies grow.

Lo: I too join the brotherhood of silence, I am Love's Trappist and you ask in vain, For man through Love's gate, even as through Death's gate, Goeth alone and comes not back again.

Yet here I pause, look back across the threshold. Cry to my brethren, though the world be old, Prophets and sages, questioners and doubters, O world, old world, the best hath ne'er been told!

Now that I kneel at the throne, O Queen, Pity and pardon me. Much have I striven to sing the same, Brother of beast and tree; Yet when the stars catch me alone Never a linnet sings— And the blood of a man is a bitter voice And cries for foolish things.

Not for me be the vaunt of woe; Was not I from a boy Vowed with the helmet and spear and spur To the blood-red banner of joy? A man may sing his psalms to a stone, Pour his blood for a weed, But the tears of a man are a sudden thing, And come not of his creed.

Nay, but the earth is kind to me, Though I cry for a Star, Leaves and grasses, feather and flower, Cover the foolish scar, Prophets and saints and seraphim Lighten the load with song, And the heart of a man is a heavy load For a man to bear along.

Sounding brass and tinkling cymbal, He that made me sealed my ears, And the pomp of gorgeous noises, Waves of triumph, waves of tears,

Thundered empty round and past me, Shattered, lost for ever more, Ancient gold of pride and passion, Wrecked like treasure on a shore.

But I saw her cheek and forehead Change, as at a spoken word, And I saw her head uplifted Like a lily to the Lord.

Nought is lost, but all transmuted, Ears are sealed, yet eyes have seen; Saw her smiles (O soul be worthy!), Saw her tears (O heart be clean!).

Though giant rains put out the sun, Here stand I for a sign. Though Earth be filled with waters dark, My cup is filled with wine. Tell to the trembling priests that here Under the deluge rod, One nameless, tattered, broken man Stood up and drank to God.

Sun has been where the rain is now, Bees in the heat to hum, Haply a humming maiden came, Now let the Deluge come: Brown of aureole, green of garb, Straight as a golden rod, Drink to the throne of thunder now! Drink to the wrath of God.

High in the wreck I held the cup, I clutched my rusty sword, I cocked my tattered feather To the glory of the Lord. Not undone were the heaven and earth, This hollow world thrown up, Before one man had stood up straight! And drained it like a cup.

Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack, But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back, Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret, Still, my hope is all before me: for I cannot play it yet.

In your strings is hid a music that no hand hath ere let fall, In your soul is sealed a pleasure that you have not known at all; Pleasure subtle as your spirit, strange and slender as your frame, Fiercer than the pain that folds you, softer than your sorrow's name.

Not as mine, my soul's anointed, not as mine the rude and light Easy mirth of many faces, swaggering pride of song and fight; Something stranger, something sweeter, something waiting you afar, Secret as your stricken senses, magic as your sorrows are.

But on this, God's harp supernal, stretched but to be stricken once. Hoary Time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce. But I will not fear to match them—no, by God, I will not fear, I will learn you, I will play you and the stars stand still to hear.

It is something to have wept as we have wept, It is something to have done as we have done, It is something to have watched when all men slept, And seen the stars which never see the sun.

It is something to have smelt the mystic rose, Although it break and leave the thorny rods, It is something to have hungered once as those Must hunger who have ate the bread of gods.

To have seen you and your unforgotten face, Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray. Pure as white lilies in a watery space, It were something, though you went from me to-day.

To have known the things that from the weak are furled, Perilous ancient passions, strange and high; It is something to be wiser than the world, It is something to be older than the sky.

In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts, And fatted lives that of their sweetness tire, In a world of flying loves and fading lusts, It is something to be sure of a desire.

Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard; Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen: Let thunder break on man and beast and bird And the lightning. It is something to have been.

.................COME AWAY— WITH THE FAIRIES, HAND IN HAND, FOR THE WORLD IS MORE FULL OF WEEPING THAN YOU CAN UNDERSTAND.

W.B. Yeats.

From the Wood of the Old Wives' Fables They glittered out of the grey, And with all the Armies of Elf-land I strove like a beast at bay;

With only a right arm wearied, Only a red sword worn, And the pride of the House of Adam That holdeth the stars in scorn.

For they came with chains of flowers And lilies lances free, There in the quiet greenwood To take my grief from me.

And I said, "Now all is shaken When heavily hangs the brow, When the hope of the years is taken The last star sunken. Now—

"Hear, you chattering cricket, Hear, you spawn of the sod, The strange strong cry in the darkness Of one man praising God,

"That out of the night and nothing With travail of birth he came To stand one hour in the sunlight Only to say her name.

"Falls through her hair the sunshine In showers; it touches, see, Her high bright cheeks in turning; Ah, Elfin Company,

"The world is hot and cruel, We are weary of heart and hand. But the world is more full of glory Than you can understand."