The Project Gutenberg eBook, Bread and Circuses, by Helen Parry Eden

BREAD AND CIRCUSES

BY
HELEN PARRY EDEN

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY

TORONTO: BELL & COCKBURN MCMXIV

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

TO
THE MEMORY OF MY SISTER
JOAN ABBOTT PARRY

THESE, AND MUCH MORE

NOTE

Of the verses contained in this book, the greater part have already appeared, notably in the Westminster Gazette, The Englishwoman, The Daily Chronicle, The Catholic Messenger, The Pall Mall Magazine, T.P.’s Magazine, and Punch. To the proprietors of Punch I am especially indebted for leave to reprint thirteen numbers of which they own the copyright.

H. P. E.

CONTENTS

THE BROOK ALONG THE
ROMSEY ROAD

The brook along the Romsey road With cresses fringed about, Holds waving fins and streaming weeds And bubbles bright as crystal beads And root-bound reaches whither speeds Startled the shadowy trout.

As southward runs the Romsey road The sunny wind blows harsh With yellow shale and whirling sands That sting the faces and the hands Of us who leave the wooded lands Of pleasant Michelmarsh.

Where southward runs the Romsey road Southward lagged Betsey-Jane Clutching my hand, and still the grit Lay rough between our fingers, it Smarted on Betsey’s face and knit Her little brows with pain.

A bend was in the Romsey road, Shut off by elms the wind Was stilled, below a bridge the brook Came dimpling forth, and Betsey shook Her fingers free and ran to look,— I held her frock behind.

On the far shore a wag-tail dipped His beak,—we gazed below, And Betsey was content to stand And see the trout and hold my hand, And watch them wave above the sand Until we turned to go.

The brook along the Romsey road With cresses fringed about Ran all day long in Betsey’s head, She played at wag-tails while she fed, And even as she went to bed She babbled of the trout.

THE POET AND THE
WOOD-LOUSE

A portly Wood-louse, full of cares, Transacted eminent affairs Along a parapet where pears Unripened fell And vines embellished the sweet airs With muscatel.

Day after day beheld him run His scales a-twinkle in the sun About his business never done; Night’s slender span he Spent in the home his wealth had won— A red-brick cranny.

Thus, as his Sense of Right directed, He lived both honoured and respected, Cherished his children and protected His duteous wife, And nought of diffidence deflected His useful life.

One mid-day, hastening to his Club, He spied beside a water-tub The owner of each plant and shrub A humble Bard Who turned upon the conscious grub A mild regard.

“Eh?” quoth the Wood-louse, “Can it be A Higher Power looks down to see My praiseworthy activity And notes me plying My Daily Task?—Not strange, dear me, But gratifying!”

To whom the Bard: “I still divest My orchard of the Insect Pest, That you are such is manifest, Prepare to die.— And yet, how sweetly does your crest Reflect the sky!

“Go then forgiven, (for what ails Your naughty life this fact avails To pardon) mirror in your scales Celestial blue, Till the sun sets and the light fails The skies and you.”

May all we proud and bustling parties Whose lot in forum, street and mart is Stand in conspectu Deitatis And save our face, Reflecting where our scaly heart is Some skyey grace.

“JAM HIEMS TRANSIIT”

When the wind blows without the garden walls Where from high vantage of the budding boughs The wanton starling claps his wing and brawls And finches to their half-erected house Trail silver straws; when on the sand-pit verges The young lambs leap, when clouds on sunny tiles Pass and re-pass, then the young Spring emerges From Winter’s fingers panoplied with smiles. So some bright demoiselle but late returning To her old home with new-acquirèd graces Learnt in some strait academy and burning To kindle wonderment in homely faces Smileth, while she who taught her all her arts, The dark duenna, with a sigh departs.

“VOX CLAMANTIS”

How late in the wet twilight doth that bird Prolong his ditty; from what darkling thorn, Dim elder wand or blackest box unstirred By drip of rain, is the dear descant borne? So late it is, two seeming candles shine Athwart blue panes in the extremest hedge, Ev’n the child’s bunch of daisies close their eyne In their horn goblet on the window ledge. Sad is the night, doth it so smell of spring And wake such ardours in thy pelted breast? Aye, thou wert ever one to stay and sing Of surgent East to the declining West:— And now thou’rt gone, the last of a bright breed, Draw-to the curtains, it is night indeed.

SORROW

Of Sorrow, ’tis as Saints have said— That his ill-savoured lamp shall shed A light to Heaven, when, blown about By the world’s vain and windy rout, The candles of delight burn out.

Then usher Sorrow to thy board, Give him such fare as may afford Thy single habitation—best To meet him half-way in his quest, The importunate and sad-eyed guest.

Yet somewhat should he give who took Thy hospitality, for look, His is no random vagrancy, Beneath his rags what hints there be Of a celestial livery.

Sweet Sorrow, play a grateful part, Break me the marble of my heart And of its fragments pave a street Where, to my bliss, myself may meet One hastening with piercèd feet.

THE MULBERRY

Within our garden walls you see A huge old-fashioned mulberry Whose purple fruit in summer falls Into the shade below the walls.

Its blackened trunk grows grim and hard From the harsh gravel of the yard, Its crest beholds the winds go by And scans the milky evening sky.

And like this tree my soul makes mirth, (Though rooted deep in blackened earth) For it shall grow till it hath sight (The walls o’er-topped) of endless light.

THE WINDOW-SILL

The fuchsias dangle on their stem, The baby girl looks up at them, The light comes through the muslin frill Upon the painted window-sill.

She cannot see the world outside Where men in snorting motors ride, Each speeding from his far abode To town, along the Fulham Road.

THE ANGELUS-BELL

My night-dress hangs on fire-guard rail And my cup of milk on the table stands, The day goes down like a distant sail And leaves me undressed in my Mother’s hands.

She has washed me clean of the long day’s grime And the pillow is cool for my sleepy head, For the Angelus-bell with its three-fold chime Has tolled the sun and myself to bed.

THE APPLE-MAN FROM
AWBRIDGE

While I stand upon the pavement and I dress the dusty stall, Where they sell the travelled apples, I bethink me most of all How the Quarentines are ripening in Michelmarsh again And the Apple-man from Awbridge comes a-clinking up the lane.

Sweet and slim the Ladies’ Fingers fall around you as you pass, And the Hollycores are mellow by the pig-hole in the grass, ’Tis but green they look, you pluck them, and you list the ratt’ling core— And the Apple-man from Awbridge comes a-chaffering at the door.

Then the first baked batch of Profits, ’twas a treat my mother planned, Drew them foaming from the oven with the dishcloth round her hand, She who poured the amber cider to the pewter’s polished brink And the Apple-man from Awbridge wet the bargain with a drink.

For he buys them by the bushel and he buys them on the trees And he sends them from the orchard plot to places such as these; And there’s money in your pocket and a hollow at your heart When the Apple-man from Awbridge comes a-loading of his cart.

And maybe the nameless apples on the stall in Fulham Road Once were piled behind his pony in that fresh and fragrant load And maybe it was my mother pulled the Ladies’ Fingers down; And the Apple-man from Awbridge turned them over to the town.

OF DULCIBEL

When by the fire-light Dulcibel Stirs the red ash with lively grace, Is it the glow of Heaven or Hell That mantles in her rosy face?

They know, Who for despair and joy All fateful loveliness have blent, Who do both comfort and destroy With the indifferent element.

THE LADY PHEASANT

Whom meet we, Betsey, in the wood? The Lady Pheasant and her Brood; So stand we still, to let them pass On oak-leaves through the tasselled grass.

Down dappled aisles of hazel shade They disappear along the glade, My Lady in her rusty gown, Ten children clad in useful brown.

But one fledged laggard stops to eat The plantain seeds at Betsey’s feet, Who plucks my fingers: “Mother, come We’ll pick him up and take him home!”

The nestling joins the hidden nine Deep in the copse; and I lift mine And bear her home along the lane,— “I want him!” still pouts Betsey-Jane.

TIME’S TYRANNESS

How few alack, There be along the track Of life which hear not at their back

(Though small birds sing And blessèd belfries ring) The creaking of Time’s iron wing;

And, in mad flight From an untempted might, Trample the lovely fields of light,

Nor for a space Pause in their fearful race To look their tyrant in the face.—

In you alone, Dear child, there ever shone Divine deliberation.

And now in weed And grass you bid Time speed Away in dandelion seed,

Till your bright hair, For the down mingled there, His very greyness looks to wear.

Ah happy she Whose gentle hours be Told by such kind chronometry!

For now Time saith, Who smiling listeneth, “Lo, a child flouts me with a breath!”

And so, to assuage Sweetly a feignèd rage, He dims your hair with mimic age.

THE GINGER CAT

’Tis the old wife at Rickling, she Has lost her ginger cat, ’twas he Who used to share the Master’s tea Beside the settle, Or on his corduroy-clad knee Out-purr the kettle;

Who followed when she pinned a-row Her flapping gowns of indigo And watched the apple-petals blow, With stealthy rapture Rehearsing in a mimic show Some mouse’s capture.

At dew-fall, with uncovered head, What tidings have the old wife led Hither where oak and hazel shed Their shadow deeper? —They say the ginger cat is dead, Shot by the Keeper.

Through coverts dim her searches lie (Howe’er so hardly sorrows try The burden of uncertainty To bear were harder) To where things dangle when they die— The Keeper’s larder.

A bough the larder hangs upon— Rats, and decaying hedge-hogs grown Shapeless, and owls their features gone,— A grisly freight, And many a weasel skeleton With hairless pate,

And trophy of cats’ tails arrayed, Tabby and white and black displayed, The adornment of the still green glade— More gay for that Of him who in the morning strayed, The ginger cat.

She knows it, and she cuts it down; Then warm beneath her folded gown Bestows the severed brush’s brown And orange bands— So soft of fur, the tears fall down Upon her hands.

The copse-wood parts, ’tis she who goes, Whom shades obscure and star-light shows, Treading between the hazel rows The fallen sticks, Home, where the careless fire-light glows Along the bricks.

Μονοχρόνος Ἡδόνη.

Pull out my couch across the fire, Let the flames warm me through, Though the pain gnaw my back away There shall be pleasure too!

Search out the desolate garden walks— What though the year be spent— There shall be marigolds enough For the bowl we bought in Ghent:

Fire shall bring out their acrid scents For a walled garden’s sweets, With the melody of Flemish bells And the angles of Flemish streets.

Fire and blossom and dreamful shapes And I, while the long pain stays, Ward off the shot of the savage hours On my rampart of yesterdays.

A SONG IN A LANE

When the Wind comes up the lane And you go down— The elms their spacious branches swing, The hidden hedgelings sing and sing, The nettle draws aside his sting And kindly weeds their shadows fling Across your sunny gown;— When the Wind comes up the lane And you go down.

When the Wind comes up the lane And you go down— Your tresses, for a gusty space, Discover all your merry face And the Wind drops with pinioned grace To kiss the small white forehead place Above your summer brown;— When the Wind comes up the lane And you go down.

CRIES OF LONDON

What dusky branches fret the yellow sky, Betsey, beyond our urban balcony How darkly looms the street; And from below how many a note assails Your unaccustomed ears where London wails About your little feet.

Here, princess of a sombre citadel, You stand, the muffin-man with twilight bell Preludes your early tea And where the milk-man on melodious ways Slowly meanders, you incline to praise His clear delivery;

How pitiful you scan the vagabond Who cries his ferns as though each arid frond Sprang from his arid heart, And list the lamentable sweep complain Urging in wrath against the slanting rain The sable of his cart.

These for your little ears, so lately blest With cluck of painted poultry on the nest And rooks’ loquacious flight, Who, when the pear-blossom was hardly blown, Answered the cuckoo’s folly with your own And chid the owls at night.

Dear, I could thank you for your brave content— But, ah, beware, when spring is gone and spent, Lest summer’s dusty stir Lead gypsies Londonwards from scented loam Of Mitcham and the furrows nearer home With song of “Lavender!”

Then close your casement, shun the outer air, Let no sublime virago mount the stair And bring the rustic South, Lest some quick memory of all before And the great silver bush beside the door, Deject your happy mouth.

THE THIRD BIRTHDAY

Three candles had her cake, Which now are burnt away; We wreathed it for her sake With currant-leaves and bay And the last graces Of Michaelmas Daisies Pluckt on a misty day.

Curled (as she cut her cake) In mine her fingers lay; Purple the petals brake, Bruised was the scented bay; Like a yellow moth On the white white cloth One currant-leaf flew away.

Three candles lit her state; Dimmed is their golden reign— Leaves on an empty plate, Petals and tallow-stain; Nor will she Nor the candles three Ever be three again.

ONE-EYED JOCKO

The Baby slumbers through the night With One-eyed Jocko close to her, She clasps his fluffy limbs so tight Beside her cheek, her breathings stir His agèd fur.

When Mother, with the shaded light Held from the sleepy pillow, stays To smooth the counterpane, this sight Of Friendship’s sweet nocturnal ways Arrests her gaze.

Yet in the nursery by day Jocko doth all neglected lie Prone on the hearth-rug, while away The Baby stalks, unheeded by His vacant eye.

A SUBURBAN NIGHT’S
ENTERTAINMENT

With a full house of other folks I pass the night at Sevenoaks; And, for the air is still outside, Push the new-painted lattice wide Where night’s blue decent quilt is drawn Over the shrubs and tennis-lawn Up to the very star-lit face Of the dim unacquainted place. A yellow street-lamp, hid to me, Haloes a dusky-headed tree, And, by a hedge-row screened from sight, Paves the still road with tranquil light, Save where the path gold-parapetted Lies by a shade of leaves o’erfretted; Leaves dangle dark above the fence, Their shadowy forms sole evidence Of their sweet-breath’d nocturnal sleeping And leaves out-face the light which leaping A war with monstrous gloom to wage Spangles a den of foliage. A second lamp that burns in sight Fronts shops fast closèd for the night Whose white façades are all as mild As eye-lids of a sleeping child Which in their mute mendacity The bustle of the day belie. Among the darkling trees set back, With many a swarthy chimney-stack, The great, rich houses of the place Lie all unlit, while the slow pace Of night goes on and still lets be Their dark inert felicity. Here is all still, save when again The shuddering cries of the hid train, Deep in the cutting no one sees, Muffled below the heavy trees, Waken the sleeping shrubberies; And, with red speed and scudding spark, Disperse the arboreal-scented dark. Were’t not for these, there is no doubt But some fair daemon long cast out (The authentic goddess of the place Who far too long hath screened her face And beauty in some beechen bole Gigantic in the woods of Knole) Would choose this night for her returning, The lawns with silent footfall spurning; And such mis-shapen woodland gods As work-men with their laden hods Scattered, when Progress came with Pride And bound in brick the country-side And Sevenoaks was edified. To-night the wan demesne out-spread By star-light waits her wonted tread;— Fair! (for the dripping herb is so Fragrant and dark) forget to know That the dim grass, your sweet resort, Is branded for a tennis-court, Where silent conies scrambled through The grey-clumped fox-gloves drenched with dew In the old days so dear to you. O pardon and forget it all, The long insulting interval, Know all a dream, believe them gone, The urban race, nor having done Hurt to your oaks nor stained your streams; So stay, until the windy gleams Of dawn the occult sweet minstrels wake. Then through the gloaming by-ways take Your way bent-headed whence you stole Last night, the covert ferns of Knole, Ere the first yawning maid unbars The door and drives away the stars; Lest haply from the northern sky Smite on your ear the long-drawn sigh (There where the silence was most deep) Of London turning in her sleep.

“A PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT”

He who a mangold-patch doth hoe, Sweating beneath a sturdy sun, Clearing each weed-disguisèd row Till day-light and the task be done,

Standeth to view his labour’s scene— Where now, within the hedge-row’s girth, The little plants untrammelled green Stripes the brown fabric of the earth.

So when the absolution’s said Behind the grille, and I may go, And all the flowers of sin are dead, And all the stems of sin laid low,

And I am come to Mary’s shrine To lay my hopes within her hand— Ah, in how fair and green a line The seedling resolutions stand.

HELENA TO HERMIA
(FOR WINIFRED MORGAN-BROWN)

Throw up the cinders, let the night wear through And all the dear accustomed things be said Ere up the sleepy stair-case I and you Take our warm ways to bed. Then let us loose our hands’ reluctant hold Lest the uneasy dawn behind dim groves Stir the still leaves and any hint of cold Blow on our loves.

“EFFANY”

When elm-buds turn from red to green And growing lambs more staidly graze And brighter nettle-tops are seen Along the hedge-rows’ rambling ways; When leaves unclose where late the hail Rustled in naked hawthorn twig, April comes laughing up the vale And Effany comes round to dig.

Aloof among her nursery toys From her high casement Betsey sees His vellum-coloured corduroys Stirring behind the apple-trees, Clutching her trowel she descends, With unimagined projects big, For Effany and she are friends, And she helps Effany to dig.

Deep in the flowering currant-rows The robin twitters gentle mirth Where Effany with Betsey goes Triumphant o’er the new-turned earth; And the wind wanders out and in As doubting which it loves the best— The grizzly stubble round his chin, Or her be-ruffled golden crest.

His coat, lined with carnation red, Hangs in the plum-tree’s forkèd boughs, Till sun is low and the day sped And Betsey called into the house— He scrapes his spade, her trowel she, She looks and lingers loath to start With little earth-bound feet to tea, He takes his coat down to depart.

Half musing on the little maid He trudges towards the coming night, Stooping beneath his shouldered spade, To where across the curtained light With leaves upon its fiery fold His wife’s thin shadow falls alone— For she and Effany are old And all their little ones are gone.

THE ARK

Vainly, my Betsey, to the weeping day You sing the rhyme that drives the rain away; And from your window mourn the patient trees Buffeted by the peevish Hyades. Come, let us shut the lattice, do you slide From your old Ark the gaudy-painted side And let the enlargèd captives walk about; For though a deluge be at work without, Secure within we’ve no concern for that, And all the nursery is Ararat. Not on the rug,—a space of oaken boards A firmer footing for the crew affords: Softly, my Betsey, lest your fervour harm The extreme frailness of a leg or arm— Poor limbs, so often and so rudely tossed And rattled down, no wonder some be lost Beyond the aid of glue! What skill did cram Into the hold vermilion-hatted Ham And Shem with the green top-knot and the slim Contours of Japheth, Noah (somewhat grim With buttons) and his consort after him! The wives are at the bottom, dear, but now Come the black pig and terra-cotta cow, Three foxes, this a purple collar round His rigid neck proclaims the faithful hound; The birds are not so nice, tradition fails To account for such a quantity of quails, But the old weary crow that flew and flew Away from Noah has come back for you. Where is the dove? For if my memory speak The truth there was a dove and in his beak The olive leaves he plucked upon the day When, as you know, the waters ebbed away; Who perched on Noah’s window with pink feet, And without whom no Ark is thought complete. Where is the missing dove? For now I see, Standing or prone the whole menagerie, And the rain’s stopped without and all above Beams the benignant sky; and still no dove, Of the same beautiful fact the feathered proof! Why here—upon the ripples of the roof— Here is your truant painted, to abide When Shem and Ham are scattered far and wide, And all the beasts are broke, to brood with furled Pacific wings over the new-washed world.

AN UPLAND STATION

O the trucks that leave Southampton bring a smell of twine and tar, And fishy like the asphalt ways that front the glittering bar, And they steam into the station where the laurel bushes are;

And the trucks be wet and slippery as sea-weed on the rocks With their cumbrous coils of cordage from the ships beside the docks, And they creak along the platform like the clank of ogres’ locks.

What send we to Southampton for our upland valley’s freight? Comes a band of armoured milk-cans through the level-crossing’s gate And cabbages with leaves a-curl and sprouting through the crate.

And ducklings in a wicker coop and gilly-flowers to fall, Dusty-petalled in a bucket under some Southampton stall, And sons who sail for ’Meriky and bid good-bye to all.

Then it’s “Forward for Southampton!” They are gone and we turn back, Past the river and the orchard and the warm dishevelled stack, And again the silent barriers are swung across the track;

Again the platform is at peace, the idle metals shine, And the tendrils are untroubled on the station-master’s vine, And the sun is on the laurels and the sparrows on the line.

THE WORSHIPPERS

When the young Spring in Betsey’s fingers sets The first white violets, And she hath reared them in her soft brown fist, Ev’n to my stooping mouth till they be kist:— Shall I allow my kiss more fainly lingers Among her baby fingers, Where (for all pride of perfume that they shed), The very violets be out-violetted?

Great is her portion whose auriferous mines Yield new-coin’d celandines, Her dowry hoarded in the hedge-row’s heart Till the March wind hath blown the buds apart; For her delight these gay-wrought tassels be By name Dog’s Mercury, For her delight I scour from wood to wood, Lured by one lode-star with her Babyhood.

Dare I avow then, Betsey, that your grove Hath not mine only love? Have we not quit a brave and bustling world For catkins and the cuckoo-pint uncurl’d? So, while your wind-blown cheek to mine you press, I know you’ll never guess Whereto my woodland incense I prefer— And that I worship you, dear worshipper.

LINES TO A JOURNALIST, ON HIS
PRAISING A NOBLE LORD
RECENTLY CREATED

[“Finally it is proof of his faith in his race and his country that he owns twenty thousand acres in England and fifteen thousand in Scotland; and he has no terrors even of Mr. Lloyd George’s budgets.”]

Permit, Dear Sir, that the judicious grieve Hearing you thus old Mammon’s faith profess And the career of commerce interweave With terms of more than standard unctuousness;

For (you yourself have said it) what reward Hope you enrolled among the sworn defenders Of one who, while you tender your regard, Remains impassive and regards his tenders?

True he has great possessions, well they might Stagger your brain and sway your understanding, His English leagues—while English paupers fight To hang their washing on a London landing;

Also (’tis as you say) while they the facts Deplore of governmental tolls, his rest Is still secure, nor any Georgian Acts Rouse panic terror in that sturdy breast.

And yet, and yet, Dear Sir, it would not do For all of us to kiss the feet that Fate Has set upon our necks although (with you) We own they are superlatively great;—

Here is a rule to save the like mistakes And sift the patriots from the money-makers, These take an interest in their country’s aches, And those an interest on their country’s acres.

THE BELGIAN PINAFORE

’Twas bought in Bruges, the shop was poor, One read “Au Bébé” flourished o’er The ancient lintel; to that door No English guinea Had ever come nor travelled gold Gladdened her gaze, that woman old, Who tottered from the gloom and sold The Belgian “pinny.”

I mind me choosing in the place A cap with frills of little lace; “That too,” I said, “shall come to grace My Small and Sweet.” Prim in her pinafore arrayed I pictured Betsey while I strayed Where, all the time, the proud bells played Above the street.

Now, Betsey, on the roguish back That stalks around the sunny stack The turkey’s truculence or the track Of stable cats The Belgian “pinny” flaunts its hue, Still the same stripe of white and blue As when ’twas dyed, no doubt for you, In Flemish vats.

Still of its old lost life it tells And alien provenance, there are spells And glamour of the Town of Bells About it shed; And when my Belgian Betsey climbs My knee I’ve heard a hundred times The clash and ripple of the chimes Around her head.

As though the child herself did play Without some white estaminet Shuttered and silent where, all day In sun and shower, Two little lions with stone grins Hold ’scutcheons under paws and chins And their divine appellant dins The honoured hour.

THE WIND

The sun sank, and the wind uprist whose note Piped on amid the stubble melodies Of such appeal as ’scape the limber throat Of robin singing under saffron skies;— Then did he breathe like winding of a horn, Whereat some sable flock of clouds affrighted Huddled across their rosy pasturage Behind the troubled leaves,— Larger he loomed, a traveller benighted, Hinting of menace and insurgent rage Around the placid twilight of our eaves.

The sun was gone; beneath the steady stars That watched the spectral anticks of the oak The plumèd elm-tops met in savage wars, The smitten pools in argent splinters broke; While, as a labourer among the boughs Cudgels a harvest from the branches crooked, Within the orchard fence one plied a flail That woke the sleeping house, Till from the shivered lattice faces looked Whitely, because the apples fell like hail.

The sun uprose, serenely gold and fair, And Morning in a little ruffled pond Scanned her sweet face and prinkt her yellow hair. Around her mirror lapped the leaves, beyond Jetsam of mast and acorn hid the strand, Thick in the orchard was the wreckage piled Of twig and fruit, the pitifullest noise Of sobbing filled the land:— The wind was sleeping sadly as a child Littered about by all its broken toys.

TO BETSEY-JANE,
ON HER DESIRING TO GO
INCONTINENTLY TO HEAVEN

My Betsey-Jane it would not do, For what would Heaven make of you, A little honey-loving bear, Among the Blessèd Babies there?

Nor do you dwell with us in vain Who tumble and get up again And try, with bruisèd knees, to smile— Sweet, you are blessèd all the while

And we in you: so wait, they’ll come To take your hand and fetch you home, In Heavenly leaves to play at tents With all the Holy Innocents.

IN BETHLEHEM TOWN

In Bethlehem Town by lantern light Installèd is our King to-night Who for us men shall come to weep Our sins alone while very deep In shade of leaves His comrades sleep. To-night we rise with Thee to pray, O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town the shepherds spread Their fairest fleeces for Thy head Which for us men with buffets broke Shall stain the mockery of Thy cloak For the rude scorn of sinful folk. No scorn know we who sing and say, O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town soft linens wrap Thy limbs upon Thy Mother’s lap Which for us men shall soon be bound Fast to the pillar whilst around The plying scourges fall and wound. Alas, our sins be sharp as they, O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town Thou scarce couldst hold The three Kings’ gift of myrrh and gold Who for us men shall come to groan Beneath a guerdon not Thine own, Thy most dispiteous cross, alone. Now Simon’s part be ours to play, O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town Thy Mother’s knee Bore Bliss Itself in bearing Thee Who for us men with arms outspanned The Cross shall bear while she doth stand With pardon at Thy piercèd hand. So may we stand with her alway, O parve Jesu Domine.

THE MOON

Playthings my Betsey hath, the snail’s cast shell, Pebbles and small unripened pears, she dotes On gentle things with furred or feathered coats, A bunch of keys, a little brazen bell; But none of these enticements please so well, Nor pouring tea nor sailing paper boats, As the rare moon that of an evening floats In anchorages inaccessible. On frost-bound nights a portly yellow moon She kissed her hand to him before she slept, The slim white stripling of an afternoon In summer, still she longed for him and wept Seeking to coax him down an elder wand, For once, that she might hold him in her hand.

A LADY OF FASHION ON
THE DEATH OF HER DOG

“Amongst the many others that were present that Cup Day were ... Mr. and Mrs. W.—— L.—— (the latter by the way has just lost a dear dog in London).”—The Lady.

I am not lightly moved, my grief was dumb At Great-Aunt Cohen’s death, nor did I whine When Uncle Monty did at last succumb, Aged close on sixty-nine.

Dear are my friends, and yet my heart still light is, Undimmed the eyes that see our set depart, Snatched from the Season by appendicitis Or something quite as smart.

But when my Chin-Chin drew his latest breath On Marie’s out-spread apron, slow and wheezily, I simply sniffed, I could not take his death So Pekineasily.

All day at Goodwood, where I planned to go, Superb in pink and Coronation-blue, I mourned, until my husband sought to know What good would mourning do?

“Fool,” I replied, “grief courts these sad ovations, And many press my sable-suèded hand, Noting the blackest of Lucile’s creations, Inquire, and understand:

And he who lies among the plane-trees shady, May rest in peace below the fallen leaf, For one, the Correspondent of ‘The Lady,’ Shares and respects my grief.”

TO A LITTLE GIRL

You taught me ways of gracefulness and fashions of address, The mode of plucking pansies and the art of sowing cress, And how to handle puppies, with propitiatory pats For mother dogs, and little acts of courtesy to cats.

O connoisseur of pebbles, coloured leaves and trickling rills, Whom seasons fit as do the sheaths that wrap the daffodils, Whose eyes’ divine expectancy foretells some starry goal, You taught me here docility—and how to save my soul.

LINES WRITTEN FOR D. E.
IN A COPY OF
“THE CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES”

You that have fenced about my storm-swept ways With a green hedge-row of your hard-won bays And set the flints with flowers such as start Deep in the dear Child’s Garden of your heart— Take this small gift from her to whom ’tis life To be your Dearest Debtor and your Wife.

EPISTLE TO THOMAS BLACK,
CAT TO THE SOANE MUSEUM

Pardon, Dear Sir, if with intrusive pen I would remind you that we met last week; Not that you showed me any favour then Nor that I have forgot the infernal cheek You tendered to your fellow-citizen, Veiling your yellow eyes, where black and sleek You graced the hearth-rug in the glittering gloom Of Sir John Soane’s be-mirrored breakfast-room.

Which snub to soften, an official leant Hinting, behind his tactful fingers, that It was but seldom that you quite unbent Being almost a Statutory cat; If not retained by Act of Parliament (As is your noble shrine) at least you sat, Kept up by twenty shillings and tradition, As part and parcel of the exhibition.

For when (he added in an undertone) Each Reynolds, Fuseli, and Bartolozzi, Hogarth and Lawrence were bequeathed by Soane With Roman marbles and Athenian pots, he Begrudged to leave them lifeless and alone, So, having ranged them in appropriate spots, he Said—“There shall be a Cat,” and, in effect, you’re His last word in Domestic Architecture.

Thus far Authority. Now, might I ask it,— How came you, Thomas, by this lofty station From kitten-hood and the maternal basket? Was there, perchance, some stiff examination Such as tests candidates whose pleasant task it Is to advance the cause of education, In places advertised, you often see ’em, On outside pages of the Athenæum?

Or how were you appointed? Was it Fate or The cat before, some mid-Victorian mouser, Left you the seat Death bade him abdicate or Did hirelings kidnap you like Kaspar Hauser? Did rich relations canvass the Curator And the Trustees on your behalf? Allow, Sir, Some little light to play upon the mystery Of Thomas Black his entrance into History.

O happy he for whom does not exist Our later London—that superb disaster, Who in his Georgian hermitage has missed Our schemes of girders overlaid with plaster, Who has not met a Post-Impressionist Nor heard a maniac acclaimed a master, But sits with those who draw their weekly salary Soothed by dim models of the Dulwich Gallery.

For, be their outlook dull, at least ’tis clean. Not so the cat’s whose whole existence spent is In some half-lighted haunt of the obscene— The studio of that modern idle ’prentice Who thinks he has the trick of Hogarth’s spleen (Of course he’s twice the draughtsman) if his bent is To paint that vice with intimate elation Which Hogarth limned, apart, with detestation.

All this you’re spared; and so you might have paid Some courtesy to those, a very few, Who come withdrawn from that exterior shade To spend an hour with sanity and you,— And, when you saw that I had gladly stayed, Not closed your eye-lids and our interview But told me what the contents of each case meant And let me come with you to see the basement.

Yet, after all, you know your part, doze on; You are no common cat, you rather seem, If not the incarnation of Sir John, To be at least the creature of his dream; Visitors enter, sign their names, are gone— You stay, the centre of his classic scheme. Blink not an ear for me—t’were not expedient— But let me rest, Dear Sir, your most obedient.

FOR MY MOTHER, WITH
A NEW BUTTON-BOX

When I was small, great joy it was to see Your button-box: the deathless comedy Of blowing on the lid enacted, wide It flew, I scanned the treasure-trove tongue-tied, Cassim in caves of Haberdashery! The small pearl “glove” evoked essential glee, The large white linen was an ecstasy And each gilt hook was covetously eyed When I was small. Lost are the clothes whereon those buttons be— But not the love that planned the stitchery, The button-baby is herself a bride— But sends you this with love, and writes inside “You are far dearer than you were to me When I was small.”

A CHILD BEFORE THE CRIB

We came on Christmas Day Within the church to pray And lit by candle-ray I Mary saw And Joseph and the mild Ox and that little Child With open arms who smiled Amid the straw.

Behind a press of folk We knelt and no one spoke, Our Lady in her cloak Made not less noise, With folded fingers, than Each silent kneeling man, And sweet small girls who can Be still, and boys.

But for that Babe divine, His cot compared to mine, There in the candle-shine Was poor and hard. Yet did He never cry, Laid on such stems of rye As we see blowing by The stable yard.

And I who lie and wail, Pent by the polished rail Of my white cot while pale The night-light gleams, Who spurn my sheets and stain The patchwork counterpane With tears, then sink again Into my dreams,

Must mind me of His lot Whose mother poor had got No whitely pillowed cot To ease His head, But was at pains to shake The straws up for His sake And did a manger make Into His bed.

Sweet Jesus let me wear My swaddling-bands of care Smiling, and still forbear To be so nice; That thus I may behold Thy True Face, being old, Where straws are turned to gold In Paradise.

TO MASS AT DAWN
“EX UMBRIS ET IMAGINIBUS IN VERITATEM”

On the high frosty fields afoot at dawn I start:—with rarest mist the vale below Brims like a milky cup, the elm-tops show As floating islets, not a sound is borne Up from the river, shadowy on the lawn Two monstrous pheasants fight and strangely low The white sun peers between a spectral row Of quicksets spanned by spider-webs untorn. And the return:—the high sun over-head, The fair sleek fallows spread before my sight, The garrulous clear waters in their bed Of greenest sedge, the multitudinous flight Of little wings—O miracle of light— The self-same track, with all the shadows fled.

THE NUNS’ CHAPEL

Now night hath fallen on the little town, Lights glimmer from each ancient window-pane, On darkling chimney-cowl and weather-vane The buoyant moon looks equitably down; The portico’s be-shadowed columns frown At the market’s verge, and the long lights again Stream from the inn,—I to the convent lane Pass betwixt looming walls and ilex brown. The little door’s ajar, the moon in the porch Gleams on the water-stoup, “In Nomine Patris et Filii....” God’s rosy light Plays on its swinging chain, the auguster torch Of prayer hath burnt to fragrance here all day Whose ashes lie about His feet to-night.

THE SNARE

Dear, the delightful world I see Holdeth its attributes for thee, Nor on my heart doth earth intrude Save to thy grace it hath some rude Inadequate similitude.

So lilac leaves the showers bespatter, The dropping acorns’ elfin patter— These are but echoes of thy feet, Naked or shod, how fair and fleet On oaken board or paven street.

The burnish of thy hair is far Dearer to me than sunsets are— When, from sheer Compton looking west, Such gilded after-glows invest The twilight on the Vale of Test.

Grey mirrors to the blue of the skies Are the fringed candours of your eyes— So hoof-prints in the grassy lane, Goblets full-brimmed of Heaven, contain Celestial leavings of the rain.

But vain the wordy nets I make To trap the look of thee and take Thy graces by the wings which be So sturdy as to flutter free

Yet shall the broke words cast away Serve for thy monument which say— “Behold us, all too weak a gin Too slack a toil to fetter in The shadows on her childish chin.”

A HOUSE IN A WOOD

So ’tis your will to have a cell, My Betsey, of your own and dwell Here where the sun for ever shines That glances off the holly spines— A clearing where the trunks are few Here shall be built a house for you, The little walls of beechen stakes, Wattled with twigs from hazel brakes, Tiled with white oak-chips that lie round The fallen giants on the ground; Under your little feet shall be A ground-work of wild strawberry With gadding stem, a pleasant wort Alike for carpet and dessert. Here Betsey, in the lucid shade, Come, let us twine a green stockade, With slender saplings all about, And a small window to look out, So that you may be “Not at Home” If any mortal callers come. Then shall arrive to make you mirth The four wise peoples of the earth: The thrifty ants who run around To fill their store-rooms underground, The rabbit-folk, a feeble race, From out their rocky sleeping place, The grasshoppers who have no king Yet come in companies to sing, The lizard slim who shyly stands Swaying upon his slender hands— I’ll give them all your new address. For me, my little anchoress, I’ll never stir the bracken by Your house; the brown wood butterfly, Passing you like the sunshine’s fleck That gilds the nape of your warm neck, Shall still report me how you do And bring me all the news of you, And tell me (where I sit alone) How gay you are and how you’re grown A fox-glove’s span in the soft weather.

No? Then we’ll wander home together.

THE CONFESSIONAL

My Sorrow diligent would sweep That dingy room infest With dust (thereby I mean my soul) Because she hath a Guest Who doth require that self-same room Be garnished for His rest.

And Sorrow (who had washed His feet Where He before had been) Took the long broom of Memory And swept the corners clean, Till in the midst of the fair floor The sum of dust was seen.

It lay there, settled by her tears, That fell the while she swept— Light fluffs of grey and earthy dregs; And over these she wept, For all were come since last her Guest Within the room had slept.

And, for nor broom nor tears had power To lift the clods of ill, She called one servant of her Guest Who came with right good will, For, by his sweet Lord’s bidding, he Waiteth on Sorrow still;

Who, seeing she had done her part As far as in her lay And had intent to keep the place More cleanly from that day, Did with his Master’s dust-pan come And take the dust away.

She thankèd him, and Him who sent Such succour, and she spread Fair sheets of Thankfulness and Love Upon her Master’s bed, Then on the new-scoured threshold stood And listened for His tread.

EPITAPH ON A CHILD
RUN OVER AND KILLED BY A
MOTOR-CAR IN THE STREET

Here lies A. B. who, four years from her birth, Found there was nowhere left to play on earth. Strange, for her mother’s child had ever grown In the quaint precincts of a country town, Yet was she one whose small predestined feet Learnt nor forgot to walk upon the street. She might not ramble where the farmer spanned With consecrated quickset all his land To fill her pinafore when mushrooms swell; Nor dare she scale the lovely citadel Of brambles in the lane, for their sweet prize Was spoilt with dust that dimmed the children’s eyes When local gods dispersed the timid crowd And went before in pillars of grey cloud. Nor might a bigger child frequent the edge Of the pebbled stream to plait the flowering sedge, For aught of native life was kept without The chosen haunt of Dives and his trout; His pheasants held the coppice and its nuts, Where bearded men played peep behind their butts And wolvish keepers prowling through the woods Had a short way with all Red Riding Hoods. No blade of wholesome grass shot through the hard And greasy flagstones of the narrow yard At home, nor might the children ever play Through the allotments where, a mile away, The civic cabbages congested stood, Reluctant tenants of a stony rood. One playground, one alone, for such as she, Had planned a grave adult humanity, There where grey asphalt hid the ruder ground And serried spikes begirt the place around; At the one end, of yellow brick and slate, Was reared a sort of female Traitors’ Gate, At t’other end the piety of a nation Had raised a shrine of tin to sanitation. This, thanks to man, was all the children’s share And Nature was allowed to tender air. Hence did it chance (as now and then it may) The Powers that Be decreed a holiday. And reckless childhood, whom it ever galls To sit within the compass of four walls, Loosed from its wonted pen conspired to run At random through the town beneath the sun, Rashly disporting in the common street Its rude hands and unnecessary feet. That day, so many a hooting corner crost, The marvel is that one alone was lost, She to whom poverty no tomb assigns But a low mound and these unworthy lines.— Mourn not at all that Her whose burnished wing Flies on the blissful errands of her King, Whom (by a heavenly law too young to err, Accounted on the earth a Trespasser) He hath resumèd and her footfall white Enfranchised of the liberties of light: But for all those who play the part of Fate To engineer this poor and mirthless state Weep,—and for all who loved that childish hair And saw it stained with Tragedy—one prayer.

THE WATER-MEADS OF MOTTISFONT

On the painted bridge at Mottisfont above the Test I’ve stood Where the dab-chick from a rushy raft directs her little brood, Where fringed with sedge and willow-weed the waters spread about And linger in pellucid glooms the sleepy spotted trout.

I’ve seen the tawny tumult of the headlong Highland spate, And the ebb round Hair-brush Island (which the map calls Chiswick Ait) Where the withy bristles shimmer and the purple mud-banks gleam And the lights come out by Thornycroft’s and glisten in the stream.

’Twere good to be at Abergeirch: the little brook again Greets the brine among the shingle on the beetling coast of Lleyn,— O the shallows on the sand-banks where the dozing flat-fish lie And the heather surging inland till it breaks against the sky!

But the chalky scaurs of Compton hold the shadows; and between Lie the water-meads of Mottisfont enamelled with such green As discolours all I’ve looked upon in valleys far apart— For the water-meads of Mottisfont lie nearest to my heart.

THE SENIOR MISTRESS OF BLYTH

[“Blyth Secondary School.—The Governors of the above School invite applications for the post of Senior Mistress. Candidates must be Graduates in Honours of a British University and must be well qualified in Mathematics, Latin, and English. Ability to teach Art will be a recommendation.”—Advertisement in The Spectator.]

It is told of the painter Da Vinci, Being once unemployed for a span, At the menace of poverty’s pinch he Sought work at the Court of Milan. Having shown himself willing and able To perform on the curious lyre, He presented the Duke with a table Of the talents he proffered for hire.

“I can raze you a fortress,” it ran on, “Quell castles, drain ditches and moats, Make shapely and competent cannon, Build aqueducts, bridges and boats; In peace I can mould for your Courts a Few models in marble or clay And paint the illustrious Sforza With anyone living to-day.”

Leonardo is dead, they asseverate, He has left no successor behind, For the days of the specialist never rate At its value the versatile mind. Is Lord Brougham, then, our latest example? No, Time, the old churl with his scythe, Shall spare us a notable sample In the Senior Mistress of Blyth.

She shall guide Standard Three through Progressions, Study Statics and Surds with the Fourth, She shall dwell on De Quincey’s Confessions, Donne, Caedmon and Christopher North; And no class-room shall boast of a quicker row When her classical pupils rehearse Their prose, which is modelled on Cicero, And their more than Horatian verse.

She shall lead them to love Cimabue, To distinguish with scholarship ripe ’Twixt the texture of Clausen and Clouet, And the values of Collier and Cuyp. Nay, all Blyth shall reflect her ability As its brushes acquire by her aid Or South Kensington’s pretty facility Or the terrible strength of the Slade.

Yes, her duties are diverse, and this’ll Suggest to each candidate why They should read Leonardo’s epistle Before they sit down to apply; For his style is itself a credential Though truly he has not a tithe Of the qualifications essential To the Senior Mistress of Blyth.

THE FIRST PARTY

Follow, my Betsey-Jane, as best you can, Clutching your Mother’s fingers in firm hold, The sable progress of the serving-man, Nor stumble on your shawl’s imperial fold; Whose ceremonious pin of jade and gold Bringeth such rosy awe into your face As the white frock, the stockings silken-soled And the white shoes (with pompons) which will grace The lightness of your feet in this illumined place.

Shawls being shed, descend the ample stair And greet our Hostess. Now you’re set to see The Conjurer, nor think to leave your chair For safer eyrie of your Mother’s knee;— Still, as his tricks are tedious to Three And strange the flounce-clad children in their tiers, Turn your shy back on wiles and wizardry To hug, for comfort’s sake, two homely bears And a prepost’rous poodle, white with knitted ears.

For tea, gramercie to a thoughtful choice And nice derangement of the chairs, your seat Faces a fair acquaintance known as Joyce;— What glances under glossy tresses greet The fellow-connoisseur of cake and sweet Till the last cracker’s pulled on the last plate. Now sidle through the dancers’ tortuous feet And come at last, for the time waxes late, Where in their cloudy breath the shadowy horses wait.

Glow the two tawny lanterns on the hedge, Gleam the ungainly boughs the window blurs, And Betsey nodding on the seat’s soft edge Holds to her heart those pompon’d shoes of hers; Till in my arms, most spent of revellers, I lift her slumb’ring whom nor lifting grieves Nor sudden stay nor the cold night wind stirs, Borne up the path through fragrance of box-leaves, Up to her drowsy cot under dependent eaves.