AUTOGRAPH EDITION
Printed for subscribers only
This Copy is
No. ___________

UNDERNEATH THE BOUGH

UNDERNEATH
THE BOUGH

A BOOK OF VERSES

By
GEORGE ALLAN ENGLAND

THE GRAFTON PRESS
NEW YORK

Copyright, 1903, by
GEORGE ALLAN ENGLAND

This little book is offered to
AGNES
its inspirer, in this the tenth year
of her reign.

I desire to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Titus Munson Coan, Mr. Justo Quintéro and Mr. A. B. Myrick for assistance rendered, and to acknowledge the kind permission to reprint certain of these verses given me by The Literary Digest, Harvard Illustrated Magazine, Vogue, Middletown Forum, Red Letter, Literary Review, Boston Transcript, Town Topics, Smart Set, The New York Herald and other periodicals.

G. A. E.

CONTENTS.

THE RACE OF THE MIGHTY

The Race of the Mighty[A]

THE START

THE appointed time at length the dials show.

“Attention, both!... Now, are you ready?... Go!!”

The chauffeur grips his lever with a hand

Of steel.—A leap!—A flash of wheels! A grand

And supple beast-like spring!—A growl of gear!

As, sweeping through the multitudinous sea

Of men upraising full-voiced cheer on cheer,

He whirls away to promised victory!...

ON THE ROAD

The high road stretches straight and white

Away

To dreamy distance, on and on—

The day

Dawns sharp and foggy; nips the driver’s

Nose,

Despite his costly furs. Zounds! How

It blows!

The motor purrs!—Our mobile seems

To fly,

Nor touch the ground... (Pneumatic

Mystery!)

The motor purrs!—Farewell wood, field

And stream!

Once on the road, we’ve scanty time

To dream!

The motor purrs!—Look out! A sheer

Decline.

Temptation whispers: Faster here!

It’s fine!

Faster? It’s madness! Yes, I know!—

But on!

Full speed down hill! Another record

Gone!...

The driver plunges out of view...

See, there

He climbs the distant slope again.

I swear

He’d scale Olympus! Yet that course

Is clear

From many mishaps that beset

Us here!

We crush a curséd mongrel in

The dust!

Slow down to miss an English spinster,

Just

Graze by her on her clumsy, ancient

Wheel!—

Rout ducks and chickens, set the pigs

A-squeal!

It’s not our fault! We can’t be kept

All day

To clear the road!... Speed on!—Away!

Away!...

THE STRUGGLE

But hark!... Behind, a trumpet-blast winds clear!

Great God! Our dread competitor draws near;

We’d half a minute start, and now, like Fate,

He’s rushing onward to annihilate

Distance and time, whirled in a hurricane!

Inexorably we see him gain and gain....

“Now!—speed her up!” the boy cries out. “More speed!”

“The curséd motor’s gone to sleep!—Indeed,

“We’re hardly doing fifty miles an hour.

“But he won’t pass us yet awhile! More power!”...

The driver heeds; he moves—the furious pace

Grows frenzied! Oh, the glory of a race

Like this of modern days, with steady hand

To steer a whirlwind through a startled land!

THE WATCHERS

“The first is near!—Let no one cross!—Take care!

“See! There they are!—Look out! The horn! Beware!

“Stand back!—They’re two!... It’s Girardot! No, no;

“It’s Charron! No, it’s Levegh!—How they blow

“That horn!”... But who can hope to recognize

Or name the shrilling bullet in its flight?

And what are names when glory blinds the eyes?

The towns love sport, and cheer; but, half in fright

The laboring peasants stop their ploughs to see

This avalanche—this hurtling mystery!

THE FINISH

Untiring, on their mounts of fire and steel,

The shielded chauffeurs, watchful, hand on wheel,

Have flashed through many a league;—have breathed the dust

Of devious ways; have skirted wood and sea;

Have traversed towns, crossed rivers, hills and dales;—

Nor halted once! To learn geography

By such vast lessons, though it tire the flesh,

Exalts the soul and makes the spirit free.

But now must end this vast, Titanic race!

(It cannot last forever!)—See! The place

Lies there!... A broad, white banner bars the way,

Between two lofty poles with streamers gay.

The “FINISH” there we read. The end at last!

All rest and glory, once that goal is passed!

A final burst!—The driver grips the bar!

The “FINISH!” In the road he sees afar

A judge with solemn air attentive stand,

Waving a crimson kerchief in his hand...

“Stop!” Harshly grinds the brake—“What number’s this?”

“Your name?”

Recorded!

Apotheosis!!

SONGS & SONNETS

Love Beatified.

LOVE, slain by us and buried yesterday,

Rose up again, nor in his grave would stay.

On his earth-stainèd brow and sightless eyes

Still shone the splendours of our Paradise.

Hushed was each dissonance, every fault made clean,

And joys alone I saw, that might have been.

It never seemed our Love could shew so fair

As that dead Presence, shrined in glory there.

I would not have our Love to live again,

And blend each pleasure with his greater pain.—

Oh better far this blessèd death, and rest!

Dead Love I clasp, I cherish to my breast

And ever shall, for this I know is best!

Morning, Noon and Night.

I LOVE thee when the gates of eastern light

Are opened by the Morning-star, aflame;

I love thee when the rose-red heavens proclaim

The coming of their lord, to mortal sight,

And cloudless, when from his imperial height

He looks in glory down. I breathe thy name

With thoughts of love, when drowsy Noon the same

Poised, equal distance holds, twixt dawn and night.

I love thee when the West begins to glow,

And when the restless winds lie still in heaven;

I love thee when the deep’ning shadows fall,

As comes with Tyrian dye, soft, purple even;

But when, from out the waters, rises slow

The noiseless Night, I love thee best of all.

Dante.

THOU’RT but a pensive, dreaming Boy, when first

To thy sad eyne the sight of Love appears

With blessèd Beatrice. Nine circling years

Name thee the wounded Lover, whose sweet thirst

Is never sated, nor whose fever less.

At Campaldino thou’rt the mailèd Knight;

Savage to spur thy City on toward right

Thou’rt driven, its scape-goat, to the wilderness.

There, in the stranger’s house whose stairs are pain

To mount, whose bread is bitter to thy mouth,

Dawns thy Great Vision, mid thy soul’s last drouth;

And, past Hell’s flame and Purgatory’s round,

Greets thee thy love most gentle, once again,

Thou frowning Florentine with laurels crowned!

Love’s Blindness.

“O LOVE, my Love, thou canst not know how sweet,

How dear thou art!”—“Naught would I know, save this

That thou wilt ever yearn to share my kiss!

So being, I reck not whether years be fleet

Or endless!”—“But thou canst not see thy face

As others see thee! Thy deep eyes that greet

Their lucent-mirrored glimmerings, melt and meet

In glory there, to blind themselves a space!”

“Hush, O my heart! Thy vain hyperbole

Means naught; but take in both thy hands and turn

To thee this face of mine, and kiss my brow,

And after that mine eyes which cannot see

But only feel thy lips that thrill, and now

My mouth, and now—O God! thy kisses burn!”

Hesperides.

I

NOW once again the angry sun

Wheels up the heaven his tireless way;

Once more we strangling herds of men

Wake to our labours never-done,

Rise up to toil another day.

Down flares the heat on town and street,

Wide-warping pillar, span and plinth;

Once more my burning, wearied eyes

Within this monstrous labyrinth

Meet the mad heat that stifles me,

And O, my baffled spirit flies

In dreams to thy green wood and thee,

To thee!... To thee!...

II

My pavement-wearied feet again

Tread the rough streets whose ways are pain,

Hot with the sun’s last sullen beam,

And yet—I dream!

Dream when I wake, and at high, blinding Noon,

Or when the moon

Mocks the sad City in her sullen night

That burns too bright!

So sweet my visions seem

That from this sordid smoke and dust I turn,

Turn where the dim Wood-world calls out to me

And where the forest-virgins I half see

With green mysterious fingers beckoning!

Where vine-wreathed woodland altars sunlit burn,

Or Dryads weave their mystic rounds and sing,

Sing high, sing low, with magic cadences

That once the wild oaks of Dodona heard;

And every wood-note bids me burst asunder

The bonds that hold me from the leaf-hid bird!

I quaff thee, O Nepenthe! Ah, the wonder

Grows that there be who scorn not wealth and ease,

Who still will choose the street-life, rough and blurred,

Who will not quest you, O Hesperides!...

III

And now, and now... I feel the forest-moss!

O, on these moss-beds let me lie with Pan,

Twined with the ivy-vine in tendrilled curls!

And I will hold all gold that hampers man

But the base ashes of a barren dross!

On with the love-dance of the pagan girls!

The pagan girls with lips all rosy-red,

With breasts up-girt and foreheads garlanded!

With fair white foreheads nobly garlanded!

With sandalled feet that weave the magic ring

Now ... let them sing,

And I will pipe a song that all may hear,

To bid them mind the time of my wild rhyme!

Away! Away! Beware our mystic trees!

Who will not quest you, O Hesperides?...

IV

Great men of song, what sing ye? Woodland meadows?

Rocks, trees and rills where sunlight glints to gold?

Sing ye the hills adown whose sides blue shadows

Creep when the westering day is growing old?

Sing ye the brooks where in the purling shallows

The small fish dart and gleam?

Sing ye the pale green tresses of the willows

That stoop to kiss the stream?

Or sing ye burning streets and sweating toil

Where we spawned swarms of men, unendingly,

Above, below, in mart and workshop’s moil

Have quite forgot thee, O mine Arcady?...

My Garden.

With a copy of “Sonnets of this Century.”

THIS little book, a Garden where the bloom

And fragrance of an hundred years are pent,

To thee, dear girl, at Christmas-tide is sent

By one who breathes with love the sweet perfume

Of such frail flowers. Let aye the world consume

Itself with toil and labour—such are all

Without the bounds of this my garden-wall,

And I, in light, feel not nor heed their gloom.

Come thou into my Garden! Let me show

Thee all the treasures that do lend it grace,

These goodly Sonnets, standing in a row

To tell of joy, tears, love,—life’s madrigal;

And, mistress of the pure enchanted place,

Be thou the fairest Flower among them all!...

Erinnerungen.

SCHWER ist mein Herz, und heute kann ich nicht

Mehr lesen—kann nicht denken, leiden mehr.

Aus jeder Ecke kommt ein Schatten her,

Wie aus dem toten Himmel geht das Licht.