YES. Wh do we all, seeing of a soldier, bless him? bless Our redcoats, our tars? Both these being, the greater part, But frail clay, nay but foul clay. Here it is: the heart, Since, proud, it calls the calling manly, gives a guess That, hopes that, makesbelieve, the men must be no less; It fancies, feigns, deems, dears the artist after his art; And fain will find as sterling all as all is smart, And scarlet wear the spirit of war there express.
Mark Christ our King. He knows war, served this soldiering through; He of all can handle a rope best. There he bides in bliss Now, and seeing somewhere some man do all that man can do, For love he leans forth, needs his neck must fall on, kiss, And cry "O Christ-done deed! So G.o.d-made-flesh does too: Were I come o"er again" cries Christ "it should be this".
_40 (Carrion Comfort)_
NOT, I"ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist--slack they may be--these last strands of man In me or, most weary, cry _I can no more_. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan With darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones? and fan, O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?
Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod, Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, foot trod Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my G.o.d!) my G.o.d.
_41_
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing-- Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked "No ling- ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief".
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap May who ne"er hung there. Nor does long our small Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep, Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
_42 Tom"s Garland;
upon the Unemployed_
TOM--garlanded with squat and surly steel Tom; then Tom"s fallowbootfellow piles pick By him and rips out rockfire homeforth--st.u.r.dy d.i.c.k; Tom Heart-at-ease, Tom Navvy: he is all for his meal Sure, "s bed now. Low be it: l.u.s.tily he his low lot (feel That ne"er need hunger, Tom; Tom seldom sick, Seldomer heartsore; that treads through, p.r.i.c.kproof, thick Thousands of thorns, thoughts) swings though. Common- weal Little I reck ho! lacklevel in, if all had bread: What! Country is honour enough in all us--lordly head, With heaven"s lights high hung round, or, mother-ground That mammocks, mighty foot. But no way sped, Nor mind nor mainstrength; gold go garlanded With, perilous, O no; nor yet plod safe shod sound; Undenizened, beyond bound Of earth"s glory, earth"s ease, all; no one, nowhere, In wide the world"s weal; rare gold, bold steel, bare In both; care, but share care-- This, by Despair, bred Hangdog dull; by Rage, Manwolf, worse; and their packs infest the age.
_43 Harry Ploughman_
HARD as hurdle arms, with a broth of goldish flue Breathed round; the rack of ribs; the scooped flank; lank Rope-over thigh; knee-nave; and barrelled shank-- Head and foot, shoulder and shank-- By a grey eye"s heed steered well, one crew, fall to; Stand at stress. Each limb"s barrowy brawn, his thew That onewhere curded, onewhere sucked or sank-- Soared or sank--, Though as a beechbole firm, finds his, as at a roll- call, rank And features, in flesh, what deed he each must do-- His sinew-service where do.
He leans to it, Harry bends, look. Back, elbow, and liquid waist In him, all quail to the wallowing o" the plough: "s cheek crimsons; curls Wag or crossbridle, in a wind lifted, windlaced-- See his wind- lilylocks -laced; Churlsgrace, too, child of Amansstrength, how it hangs or hurls Them--broad in bluff hide his frowning feet lashed! raced With, along them, cragiron under and cold furls-- With-a-fountain"s shining-shot furls.
_44_
To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life Among strangers. Father and mother dear, Brothers and sisters are in Christ not near And he my peace my parting, sword and strife.
England, whose honour O all my heart woos, wife To my creating thought, would neither hear Me, were I pleading, plead nor do I: I wear- y of idle a being but by where wars are rife.
I am in Ireland now; now I am at a third Remove. Not but in all removes I can Kind love both give and get. Only what word Wisest my heart breeds dark heaven"s baffling ban Bars or h.e.l.l"s spell thwarts. This to h.o.a.rd unheard, Heard unheeded, leaves me a lonely began.
_45_
I WAKE and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light"s delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent To dearest him that lives alas! away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. G.o.d"s most deep decree Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me; Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see The lost are like this, and their scourge to be As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.
_46_
PATIENCE, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray, But bid for, Patience is! Patience who asks Wants war, wants wounds; weary his times, his tasks; To do without, take tosses, and obey.
Rare patience roots in these, and, these away, Nowhere. Natural heart"s ivy, Patience masks Our ruins of wrecked past purpose. There she basks Purple eyes and seas of liquid leaves all day.
We hear our hearts grate on themselves: it kills To bruise them dearer. Yet the rebellious wills Of us we do bid G.o.d bend to him even so.
And where is he who more and more distils Delicious kindness?--He is patient. Patience fills His crisp combs, and that comes those ways we know.
_47_
MY own heart let me have more pity on; let Me live to my sad self hereafter kind, Charitable; not live this tormented mind With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get By groping round my comfortless, than blind Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find Thirst"s all-in-all in all a world of wet.
Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size At G.o.d knows when to G.o.d knows what; whose smile "s not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather--as skies Betweenpie mountains--lights a lovely mile.
_48 That Nature is a Herac.l.i.tean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection_
CLOUD-PUFFBALL, torn tufts, tossed pillowsflaunt forth, then chevy on an air- built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangsthey throng; they glitter in marches.
Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash,wherever an elm arches, Shivelights and shadowtackle in longlashes lace, lance, and pair.
Delightfully the bright wind boisterousropes, wrestles, beats earth bare Of yestertempest"s creases; in pool and rut peel parches Squandering ooze to squeezeddough, crust, dust; stanches, starches Squadroned masks and manmarkstreadmire toil there Footfretted in it. Million-fueled,nature"s bonfire burns on.
But quench her bonniest, dearestto her, her clearest-selved spark Man, how fast his firedint,his mark on mind, is gone!
Both are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark Drowned. O pity and indignation! Manshape, that shone Sheer off, disseveral, a star,death blots black out; nor mark Is any of him at all so stark But vastness blurs and timebeats level. Enough! the Resur- rection, A heart"s-clarion! Away grief"s gasping,joyless days, dejection.
Across my foundering deck shone A beacon, an eternal beam.Flesh fade, and mortal trash Fall to the residuary worm;world"s wildfire, leave but ash: In a flash, at a trumpet crash, I am all at once what Christ is,since he was what I am, and This Jack, joke, poor potsherd,patch, matchwood, immortal diamond, Is immortal diamond.
_49 In honour of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez Laybrother of the Society of Jesus_
HONOUR is flashed off exploit, so we say; And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field, And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day.
On Christ they do and on the martyr may; But be the war within, the brand we wield Unseen, the heroic breast not outward-steeled, Earth hears no hurtle then from fiercest fray.
Yet G.o.d (that hews mountain and continent, Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment, Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more) Could crowd career with conquest while there went Those years and years by of world without event That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.
_50_
_Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tec.u.m: verum- tamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prospera- tur? &c._
THOU art indeed just, Lord, if I contend With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners" ways prosper? and why must Disappointment all I endeavour end?