The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

PRESS NOTICES

"'TWIXT EARTH AND STARS"

"Miss Radclyffe-Hall is a poet. She has a gift of expression always felicitous, not infrequently spontaneous, and her rhythms are really musical. Moreover, the level of her book is uniformly high. In writing of nature her intuition and sympathy are remarkable. Nearly every poem contains something which clings to your memory and sets you thinking.... The main note is vigorous, joyous youth, thankful for the right to exist in such a lovely world.

"If Miss Radclyffe-Hall acquires a higher finish she may confidently look forward to taking her place among the poetesses of this country. It is not often one can so honestly recommend the public to buy a volume of poetry."—The Queen, 4th July, 1906.

"The author of ''Twixt Earth and Stars' has a real talent for versification, and the subjects chosen are all poetical, added to which she has real feeling and the power to express it. I am so charmed with this little book of poems that I cannot help recommending it to you, that you also may enjoy it."—The Lady, 5th July, 1906.

"A little book of short poems, most of which are very pleasant, being marked by sincerity and sweetness."—Evening Standard, 21st July, 1906.

"''Twixt Earth and Stars' is a dainty little volume of verse, some of which is of considerable merit."—Publisher and Bookseller, 28th July, 1906.

A SHEAF OF VERSES

A SHEAF OF VERSES

POEMS

BY

MARGUERITE RADCLYFFE-HALL

AUTHOR OF "'TWIXT EARTH AND STARS"

JOHN AND EDWARD BUMPUS LTD.
350 OXFORD STREET, LONDON, W.

MCMVIII

DEDICATED TO SAD DAYS AND GLAD DAYS

CONTENTS

A SHEAF OF VERSES

KINSHIP

Sunlight and shade,

Moorland and glade,

Evening and day,

Winter and May,

Troubadour breeze,

Amorous trees,

Pondering Hills,

Gold daffodils

Born of the Spring,

Thrushes that sing

Passionate notes

From downy throats,

Be unto me

Each one of ye

Sister or brother;

And Earth be my mother!

THE MOON'S MESSAGE

The Moon looked in at the window,

And smiled as I wrote to you,

She lay like a frail white maiden,

In shadowy folds of blue.

Her bosom was bare and tender,

And slight, for she still was young,

And down from her dainty shoulders

A mantle of starlight hung.

She wooed with a wanton ardour

The winds till they lulled to sighs,

And night was transformed with beauty,

For love of her limpid eyes.

The soul of the cloudy darkness

Awakened beneath her beams,

The sky swooned away with longing,

The Earth stirred in tender dreams.

Alas! for the moon was cruel,

Far colder than snow was she,

Her heart was a burnt-out Planet,

Her light but a fallacy:

And she looked at my open letter,

And called from her couch on high,

"Pray give my love to my Sister

Who is even more cold than I."

ON A BATTLE FIELD

Once o'er this hill whereon we stand,

Just you and I, hand clasp'd in hand

Amid the silence, and the space,

A mighty battle rent the air,

With dying curse and choking prayer;

'Mid shot and shell death stalked apace.

Is it conceivable to you—

So much at peace—because we two

Are close together, or to me?

The silent beauty of the noon

Seems like a Heaven-granted boon,

Aglow with tender ecstasy.

A little mist of hazy blue

Is slowly hiding from our view

The city's domes and slender spires,

As thro' a bridal veil the sun

Subdued and shy lights one by one

The virgin clouds with blushing fires.

The wind has fallen; very low

We hear his wings brush past, and know

He creeps away to dream and rest;

How sweet to be alone, to feel

You breathe one longing sigh, and steal

A little closer to my breast.

Is anything worth while but this?

We may not perish for a kiss,

Yet thus it were not hard to die!

War strews the earth with countless dead,

And after all is done and said,

The end is love, and you and I!

TO ——

The world that thro' its vale of tears

Looks out upon Eternity

Has yet one smile for us, and we

Still youthful in the count of years,

May add our smiles, and kiss the lips

Of life, for whosoever sips

The wine within that ruddy bowl

Has quaffed defiance to the spheres.

Beloved, see, I drink thereto!

And pass the goblet on to you.

THE ALL-MOTHER'S AWAKENING

To-day the still, deep mind of the Earth

Has steeped in longing her wistful eyes,

A sense of wonder and glad surprise

Thrills thro' her heart with a thought of birth.

The grave All-Mother looks up and smiles,

Her breath comes balmy from sunlit mouth,

Her bosom bare to the ardent south

Is fanned by perfume from fruitful miles.

All winter long has the dear Earth slept

In drifts of snow, 'neath the bane of frost,

Her children sought for the Mother lost,

Yet found her not, and in anguish wept.

All winter long have my senses cried

For warmth of sun, and the blue of sky,

The hard north answered to mock my sigh,

And all the glory of life denied.

The cold mists drifting on land and sea,

Like ghosts of passions burnt out and chill,

Smote heart and soul with the fear of ill,

That cast its awfulness over me.

The dank gray sails, and the dank gray shore,

They melted each in the other's face,

With clammy kiss, in a wan embrace

That left them colder than e'en before.

And thro' the boughs of the moss-grown trees

The sap flowed sluggish, or not at all,

While here and there would a dead leaf fall,

Like thought of harrowing memories.

Then from the heart of the Universe

There rose a wail of unending woe,

An anguished prayer from the deeps below:

"Oh! Mother, lift from our souls the curse!"

"Oh! Mother, quicken thy sacred womb,

With fire that throbs in the veins of Spring,

Behold the numbness of everything,

And only thou can avert the doom."

"Oh! Mother, hear us!" But silent still

The Earth slept on, as it were in death.

Her ice-bound bosom stirred not with breath,

So fast she lay 'neath the winter's will.

I joined my prayer to the wind and trees,

I joined my cry to the striving soil,

I said, "Oh! Mother, our endless toil

Has made us sicken with miseries.

"Rise up! and help us again to live,

Rise up! uncover thy fruitful breast,

We faint in winter's unrestful rest,

We burn with longings to love and give."

And as I spoke came a voice more strong

Than all creation's, o'er land and sea

It called our Mother to ecstasy,

And lo! she stirred, who had slept so long.

She stirred, she opened her drowsy eyes,

And bending down from the dome above,

Beheld the form of embodied Love,

As Spring stepped Earthward from Paradise.

A SUMMER THOUGHT

I often think that all those vast desires

For purer joys, that thrill the human heart,

Vague yearnings such as solitude inspires,

That nameless something silence can impart,

Could after all be quenched by simple things,

Whose spirits dwell within the wide-eyed flowers,

Or haunt deep glades, where scent of primrose clings

About the garments of the passing hours.

MOTH TO THE FLAME

Moth to the flame!

Fool that you be,

Life's but a game,

Love is the same,

Better go free!

Moth to the fire!

Madness your fate;

Burnt of desire,

If you expire,

Joy comes too late.

Moth to the kiss

Bringing you death!

"Gladly for this

Agonized bliss,

With my last breath

Will I adore

As ne'er before!"

Foolish Moth saith.

A TWILIGHT FANCY

Dear, give me the tips of your fingers

To hold in this scented gloom,

'Mid the sighs of the dying roses,

That steal through the breeze-swept room;

I would have you but lightly touch me,

A phantom might stir the dress,

In its passing, of some lost lover

With just such a faint caress;

Or a butterfly wan with summer

Brush thus with his down-flecked wings

The bells of the altar lilies

He touches, and lightly rings.

So give me the tips of your fingers,

Not your hand, lest I break the spell

Of the moment with too much passion,

And lose what I love so well.

THE TWO ANGELS

Once Youth and Innocence, side by side,

With flaming swords at a garden gate

Stood forth in silence, to watch and wait,

Lest lust and evil their might defied.

Love's rarest fruits in that garden grew,

And lo! a Pilgrim of pain and sin

Grown tired, would gladly have entered in,

And washed his soul in the gleaming dew.

He looked at Youth, and the Angel said:

"Behold me young, and behold me weak;

If you but crush me, the joy you seek

Shall quench desire on a rose-strewn bed,

"Yet oh! I pray you another hour,

For should you enter this Holy place,

My soul is given again to space,

And I must die as a blighted flower."

Then all the sorrow and all the shame,

That life had taught him to understand,

Rose up, and fettered the Pilgrim's hand,

And murmur'd: "Youth is a sacred name."

He looked at Innocence, nude and white,

And all unconscious she met his gaze;

Her eyes were soft as an evening haze,

Her red lips fashioned to give delight.

She sighed, "I know not the boon you ask,

But Nature sent me to guard the way

That leads to realms of Eternal day;

I may not shrink from the Mother's task.

"Yet these fair limbs that are pure as snow,

Should you but sully by thought or deed

Must droop and fade as a broken reed,

That every wind of the earth may blow."

Then all the goodness that he had missed,

Each dream of sweetness that passed him by,

Rose up, and cried: "Thou shalt still deny

Thyself"—and Innocence stood unkissed.

IN THE HARDT WALD

A road disused these many years,

O'er which the grass has grown

Between two rows of silent pines,

That stretch in straight, unbroken lines

Away to plains unknown.

Long ruts that passing wagons made

In days whose records die

Form trenches for the frailer flowers,

That timid of more open bowers

Secure in hiding lie.

And in those deep impressions there,

Where patient beasts have trod,

With stems in dainty green array,

And faces turned to meet the day,

Grow sprays of golden-rod,

'Mid sunbeams slanting thro' the wood

The ardent Afternoon

Steals like a lover fond, and dumb,

Upon his mistress Earth, o'ercome

With many a tender boon;

And that she sooner shall respond

To his awakening fires,

He summons from each fairy glade

Wee winged things, to serenade

This nymph of his desires.

So full of mystic power and life

Is this forgotten place

That I may scarcely dare intrude

My presence and my lighter mood,

Lest stepping I deface