V
(_An Answer_)
[After reading an article in a leading London journal by an "intellectual" who attacked one of the n.o.blest poets and greatest artists of a former century (or any century) on the ground that his high ethical standards were incompatible with the new lawlessness.
This vicious lawlessness the writer described definitely, and he paid his tribute to dishonour as openly and brutally as any of the Bolsheviki could have done. I had always known that this was the real ground of the latter-day onslaught on some of the n.o.blest literature of the past; but I had never seen it openly confessed before. The time has now surely come when, if our civilization is to make any fight at all against the new "red ruin and breaking up of laws," we must cease to belaud our slack-minded, latter-day "literature of rebellion" for its cleverness in making sc.r.a.ps of paper out of the plain laws of right and wrong. It has been doing this for more than twenty-five years, and the same has become fashionable among those who are too busy to read carefully or understand fully what pitfalls are being prepared for their own feet and the feet of their children.]
I
If this were true, England indeed were dead.
If the wild fashion of that poisonous hour Wherein the new Salome, clothed with power, Wriggled and hissed, with hands and feet so red, Should even now demand that glorious head, Whose every word was like an English flower, Whose every song an English April shower, Whose every thought immortal wine and bread; If this were true, if England should prefer Darkness, corruption, and the adulterous crew, Shakespeare and Browning would cry shame on her, And Milton would deny the land he knew; And those who died in Flanders yesterday Would thank their G.o.d they sleep in cleaner clay.
II
It is not true. Only these "rebel" wings, These glittering clouds of "intellectual" flies Out of the stagnant pools of midnight rise From the old dead creeds, with carrion-poisoned stings They strike at n.o.ble and ign.o.ble things, Immortal Love with the old world"s out-worn lies, But even now, a wind from clearer skies Dissolves in smoke their coteries and wings.
See, their divorced idealist re-divorces The wife he stole from his own stealing friend!
And _these_ would pluck the high stars from their courses, And mock the fools that praise them, till the end!
Well, let the whole world praise them. Truth can wait Till our new England shall unlock the gate.
III
Yes. Let the fools go paint themselves with woad, For we"ve a jest between us, Truth and I.
We know that those who live by fashion die Also by fashion, and that mode kills mode.
We know the great new age is on the road, And death is at the heart of every lie.
But we"ve a jest between us, Truth and I.
And we have locked the doors to our abode.
Yet if some great new "rebel" in his pride Should pa.s.s that way and hear us laughing low Like lovers, in the darkness, side by side, He might catch this:--"The dullards do not know That names are names. New "rebel" is old "thrall.""
And we"re the lonely dreamers after all.
THE COMPANIONS
How few are they that voyage through the night On that eternal quest, For that strange light beyond our light, That rest beyond our rest.
And they who, seeking beauty, once descry Her face, to most unknown; Thenceforth like changelings from the sky Must walk their road alone.
So once I dreamed. So idle was my mood; But now, before these eyes, From those foul trenches, black with blood, What radiant legions rise!
And loveliness over the wounded earth awakes Like wild-flowers in the Spring.
Out of the mortal chrysalis breaks Immortal wing on wing.
They rise like flowers, they wander on wings of light, Through realms beyond our ken.
The loneliest soul is companied tonight By hosts of unknown men.
THE LITTLE ROADS
The great roads are all grown over That seemed so firm and white.
The deep black forests have covered them.
How should I walk aright?
How should I thread these tangled mazes, Or grope to that far off light?
I stumble round the thickets, and they turn me Back to the thickets and the night.
Yet, sometimes, at a word, an elfin pa.s.s-word, (O, thin, deep, sweet with beaded rain!) There shines, through a mist of ragged-robins, The old lost April-coloured lane, That leads me from myself; for, at a whisper, Where the strong limbs thrust in vain, At a breath, if my heart help another heart, The path shines out for me again.
A thin thread, a rambling lane for lovers To the light of the world"s one May, Where the white dropping flakes may wet our faces As we lift them to the bloom-bowed spray: O Master, shall we ask Thee, then, for high-roads, Or down upon our knees and pray That Thou wilt ever lose us in Thy little lanes, And lead us by a wandering way.
SUNLIGHT AND SEA
Give me the sunlight and the sea And who shall take my heaven from me?
Light of the Sun, Life of the Sun, O happy, bold companion, Whose golden laughters round me run, Making wine of the blue air With wild-rose kisses everywhere, Browning the limb, flushing the cheek, Apple-fragrant, leopard-sleek, Dancing from thy red-curtained East Like a Nautch-girl to my feast, Proud because her lord, the Spring, Praised the way those anklets ring; Or wandering like a white Greek maid Leaf-dappled through the dancing shade, Where many a green-veined leaf imprints Breast and limb with emerald tints, That softly net her silken shape But let the splendour still escape, While rosy ghosts of roses flow Over the supple rose and snow.
But sweetest, fairest is thy face, When we meet, when we embrace, Where the white sand sleeps at noon Round that lonely blue lagoon, Fringed with one white reef of coral Where the sea-birds faintly quarrel And the breakers on the reef Fade into a dream of grief, And the palm-trees overhead Whisper that all grief is dead.
Sister Sunlight, lead me then Into thy healing seas again....
For when we swim out, side by side, Like a lover with his bride, When thy lips are salt with brine, And thy wild eyes flash in mine, The music of a mightier sea Beats with my blood in harmony.
I breast the primal flood of being, Too clear for speech, too near for seeing; And to his heart, new reconciled, The Eternal takes his earth-bound child.
Who the essential secret spells In those gigantic syllables,-- Flowing, ebbing, ebbing, flowing,-- Gathers wisdom past all knowing.
Song of the Sea, I hear, I hear, That deeper music of the sphere, Catch the rhythm of sun and star, And know what light and darkness are; Ay, faint beginnings of a rhyme That swells beyond the tides of time; Beat with thy rhythm in blood and breath, And make one song of life and death.
I hear, I hear, and rest content, Merged in the primal element, The old element whence life arose, The fount of youth, to which it goes.
Give me the sunlight and the sea And who shall take my heaven from me?
THE ROAD THROUGH CHAOS
I.