THE GENERAL ELLIOTT
He fell in victory"s fierce pursuit, Holed through and through with shot, A sabre sweep had hacked him deep Twixt neck and shoulderknot....
The potman cannot well recall, The ostler never knew, Whether his day was Malplaquet, The Boyne or Waterloo.
But there he hangs for tavern sign, With foolish bold regard For c.o.c.k and hen and loitering men And wagons down the yard.
Raised high above the hayseed world He smokes his painted pipe, And now surveys the orchard ways, The damsons cl.u.s.tering ripe.
He sees the churchyard slabs beyond, Where country neighbours lie, Their brief renown set lowly down; _His_ name a.s.saults the sky.
He grips the tankard of brown ale That spills a generous foam: Oft-times he drinks, they say, and winks At drunk men lurching home.
No upstart hero may usurp That honoured swinging seat; His seasons pa.s.s with pipe and gla.s.s Until the tale"s complete.
And paint shall keep his b.u.t.tons bright Though all the world"s forgot Whether he died for England"s pride By battle, or by pot.
THE PATCHWORK BONNET
Across the room my silent love I throw, Where you sit sewing in bed by candlelight, Your young stern profile and industrious fingers Displayed against the blind in a shadow-show, To Dinda"s grave delight.
The needle dips and pokes, the cheerful thread Runs after, follow-my-leader down the seam: The patchwork pieces cry for joy together, O soon to sit as a crown on Dinda"s head, Fulfilment of their dream.
Snippets and odd ends folded by, forgotten, With camphor on a top shelf, hard to find, Now wake to this most happy resurrection, To Dinda playing toss with a reel of cotton And staring at the blind.
Dinda in sing-song stretching out one hand Calls for the playthings; mother does not hear: Her mind sails far away on a patchwork Ocean, And all the world must wait till she touches land; So Dinda cries in fear,
Then Mother turns, laughing like a young fairy, And Dinda smiles to see her look so kind, Calls out again for playthings, playthings, playthings; And now the shadows make an Umbrian _Mary Adoring_, on the blind.
RICHARD HUGHES
THE SINGING FURIES
The yellow sky grows vivid as the sun: The sea glittering, and the hills dun.
The stones quiver. Twenty pounds of lead Fold upon fold, the air laps my head.
Both eyes scorch: tongue stiff and bitter: Flies buzz, but no birds twitter: Slow bullocks stand with stinging feet, And naked fishes scarcely stir for heat.
White as smoke, As jetted steam, dead clouds awoke And quivered on the Western rim.
Then the singing started: dim And sibilant as rime-stiff reeds That whistle as the wind leads.
The South whispered hard and sere, The North answered, low and clear; And thunder m.u.f.fled up like drums Beat, whence the East wind comes.
The heavy sky that could not weep Is loosened: rain falls steep: And thirty singing furies ride To split the sky from side to side.
They sing, and lash the wet-flanked wind: Sing, from Col to Hafod Mynd, And fling their voices half a score Of miles along the mounded sh.o.r.e: Whip loud music from a tree, And roll their paean out to sea Where crowded breakers fling and leap, And strange things throb five fathoms deep.
The sudden tempest roared and died: The singing furies muted ride Down wet and slippery roads to h.e.l.l: And, silent in their captors" train, Two fishers, storm-caught on the main: A shepherd, battered with his flocks; A pit-boy tumbled from the rocks; A dozen back-broke gulls, and hosts Of shadowy, small, pathetic ghosts, --Of mice and leverets caught by flood; Their beauty shrouded in cold mud.
MOONSTRUCK
Cold shone the moon, with noise The night went by.
Trees uttered things of woe: Bent gra.s.s dared not grow:
Ah, desperate man with haggard eyes And hands that fence away the skies, On rock and briar stumbling, Is it fear of the storm"s rumbling, Of the hissing cold rain, Or lightning"s tragic pain Drives you so madly?
See, see the patient moon; How she her course keeps Through cloudy shallows and across black deeps, Now gone, now shines soon.
Where"s cause for fear?
"I shudder and shudder At her bright light: I fear, I fear, That she her fixt course follows So still and white Through deeps and shallows With never a tremor: Naught shall disturb her.
I fear, I fear What they may be That secretly bind her: What hand holds the reins Of those sightless forces That govern her courses.
Is it Setebos Who deals in her command?
Or that unseen Night-Comer With tender curst hand?
--I shudder, and shudder."
Poor storm-wisp, wander!
Wind shall not hurt thee, Rain not appal thee, Lightning not blast thee; Thou art worn so frail, Only the moonlight pale To an ash shall burn thee, To an invisible Pain.
VAGRANCY
When the slow year creeps hay-ward, and the skies Are warming in the summer"s mild surprise, And the still breeze disturbs each leafy frond Like hungry fishes dimpling in a pond, It is a pleasant thing to dream at ease On sun-warmed thyme, not far from beechen trees.
A robin flashing in a rowan-tree, A wanton robin, spills his melody As if he had such store of golden tones That they were no more worth to him than stones: The sunny lizards dream upon the ledges: Linnets t.i.tter in and out the hedges, Or swoop among the freckled b.u.t.terflies.
Down to a beechen hollow winds the track And tunnels past my twilit bivouac: Two spiring wisps of smoke go singly up And scarcely tremble in the leafy air.
--There are more shadows in this loamy cup Than G.o.d could count: and oh, but it is fair: The kindly green and rounded trunks, that meet Under the soil with twinings of their feet And in the sky with twinings of their arms: The yellow stools: the still ungathered charms Of berry, woodland herb, and bryony, And mid-wood"s changeling child, Anemone.
Quiet as a grave beneath a spire I lie and watch the pointed climbing fire, I lie and watch the smoky weather-c.o.c.k That climbs too high, and bends to the breeze"s shock, And breaks, and dances off across the skies Gay as a flurry of blue b.u.t.terflies.