SONGS OF
THREE COUNTIES
AND OTHER POEMS

With an Introduction by

R. B. CUNNINGHAME-GRAHAM

By

MARGUERITE RADCLYFFE-HALL

LONDON

CHAPMAN & HALL, Ltd.

1913.

Dedicated

to

The Marchioness of Anglesey

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

WITH as much grace as if a monoplanist should attempt to write a preface to a book on flying for an albatross, so may a writer of mere prose attempt to pen an introduction to a book of poetry.

The bird and man both use the air, but with a difference. So do the poet and the man of prose use pen and ink.

Familiarity with tools, used in two branches of one art (or trade), is apt to prove a snare.

Music and poetry, the most ethereal of the arts upon the face of them, are in a way more mathematical than prose, for both have formulæ. Hence, their appeal goes quicker to men’s minds, and oversteps countries and languages to some degree, and makes it difficult to write about them. Of late, young poets, those who have bulked the largest in the public eye, those that the world has hailed as modern, have often been obscure. What is modernity? To be modern is to touch the senses of the age you write for. To me, a fool who owns a motor-car is just as great a fool as was a fool of the stone age.

The only true modernity is talent, and Lucian of Samosata was as modern to the full as Guy de Maupassant. The poet for whose verses I am writing this my introduction, preface, foreword, call it what you will, is one of those whose meaning he who runs may read.

Does she do well in making herself clear? I think so, for though there are those who prefer a mist of words, holding apparently that poetry should be written in Chinook, or Malagasy, this opinion must of necessity be of the nature of what Ben Jonson called a “humour.”

Few men to-day read Eupheus and fewer Gongora. Yet in their time their concepts were considered to be fine flowers of poetry. Those who wrote so that all men could understand, as Sapho, Campion, Jorge Maurique, Petrarca, Villon, and their fellow-singers in the celestial spheres where poets sing, crowned with the bays of the approval of countless generations, all wrote clearly. Their verses all were clear as is the water running over chalk in a south country trout-stream, such as the Itchin or the Test.

I take two specimens of Miss Radclyffe-Hall’s poetry to illustrate what I have said. She writes of a blind ploughman, whose prayer is to his friend to set him in the sun.

“Turn my face towards the East

And praise be to God.”

One sees him sitting, wrinkled and bent, and ploughworn in the sun, and thanking God according to his faith, for light interior, for that interior vision which all the mystics claim.

“God who made His sun to shine

On both you and me,

God who took away my eyes,

That my soul might see.”

This shows the poet in an unusual light, for most poets write on far different subjects; but here is one which is eternal, and has been eternal since the time of Œdipus.

Again in the verses, “Thoughts at Ajaccio,” she shows a love of the earth and of its fulness, a feeling which has been the birthright of all English writers of good verse from the remotest times.

“Fill me with scent of upturned ground,

Soft perfume from thy bosom drawn.”

This is the feeling that has inspired so many poets, and shows the writer not striving to be modern or filled with strange conceits; but with a love and trust of the brown earth, from which all poets take their birth, and into which they all return.

R. B. Cunninghame Graham.

RUSTIC COURTING

I
WALKING OUT

Upon a Sunday afternoon,

When no one else was by,

The little girl from Hanley way,

She came and walked with I.

We climbed nigh to the Beacon top,

And never word spoke we,

But oh! we heard the thrushes sing

Within the cherry tree.

The cherry tree was all a-bloom,

And Malvern lay below,

And far away the Severn wound—

’Twas like a silver bow.

She took my arm, I took her hand,

And never word we said,

But oh! I knew her eyes were brown,

Her lips were sweet and red.

And when I brought her home again,

The stars were up above,

And ’twas the nightingale that swelled

His little throat with love!

II
THE SHADOW OF RAGGEDSTONE

O Raggedstone, you darksome hill,

Your shadow fell for sure

Upon my own dear love and I,

Across the purple moor.

For we were such a happy pair,

The day we climbed your crest;

And now my love she lays her head

Upon another’s breast.

She sits beside another man,

And walks abroad with he,

And never sheds a single tear,

Or thinks a thought o’ me!

My mind it seems a-fire like,

My heart’s as cold as lead,

My prayers they dry upon my lips

And somehow won’t get said.

I wish that I could lay me down,

Upon the dreary plain

That stretches out to Raggedstone,*

And never rise again!

* A legend is attached to Raggedstone Hill in Worcestershire. The Hill was cursed by a Benedictine Monk. From time to time a great shadow rises up from it, spreading across the surrounding country. Woe betide those on whom the shadow falls, as it brings with it terrible misfortune! Many of the people living near Raggedstone still firmly believe in this legend.

III
THE LONG GREEN LANES OF ENGLAND

Oh! the long green lanes of England!

They be very far away,

And it’s there that I’d be walking,

’Mid the hawthorn and the may.

Where the trees are all in blossom,

And the mating birds they sing

Fit to bust their little bodies,

Out of joy because it’s Spring.

I’d be courting of my true love,

She’d be in her Sunday best,

With my arm around her shoulder

And her head upon my breast.

For the new land it’s a fine land,

Where a man can get a start;

But there’s that about the old land

That will grip his very heart:

For he’ll mind him o’ the cowslips,

Coming up all fresh and new

In the fields of early mornings,

Where the grass is white with dew.

Oh! it’s money, money, money,

“Go and try to earn a bit;”

And “America’s the country

For the lad as doesn’t quit.”

Seems that folks go mad on money,

Well, I’ll have enough some day,

But the long green lanes of England

They be Oh! so far away!

IV
THE HILLS

When I the hills of Malvern see,

There comes a sadness over me.

The reason why, I cannot tell,

Perhaps I love those hills too well.

But this I know, when I behold

Their springtime green, and autumn gold,

And see that year by year they bear

Such witness that God’s earth is fair,

I’m happy for their beauty’s sake,

And yet my heart begins to ache.

V
EASTNOR CHURCHYARD

I be hopin’ you remember,

Now the Spring has come again,

How we used to gather violets

By the little church at Eastnor,

For we were so happy then!

O my love, do you remember

Kisses that you took and gave?

There be violets now in plenty

By the little church at Eastnor,

But they’re growing on your grave.

VI
THE MALVERN HILLS

The Malvern Hills be green some days,

And some days purple-blue,

There never was the like of them

The whole of England through.

From Hanley straight into the Wells

The road runs long and white,

And there the hills they meet your gaze

Against the evening light.

Against the evening light they stand,

So proud, and dark, and old,

The Raggedstone and Hollybush,

And Worcester Beacon bold.

No matter where you chance to be,

However far away,

You’ll see the hills awaiting you

At close of every day.

Oh! it’s a lovely sight to see

The twilight stealing down

Their steepish banks and little paths,

Along to Malvern town.

And maybe on the Severn side,

Hung low on Bredon’s mound,

The big red harvest moon will rise,

So lazy-like and round.

They talks a lot o’ foreign parts,

Them as has seen them do,

But give me Malvern Hills at dusk

All green or purple-blue!

VII
THE FIRST CUCKOO

To-day I heard the cuckoo call,

Atop of Bredon Hill,

I heard him near the blackthorn bush,

And Oh! my heart stood still!

For it was just a year ago,

That to my love I said,

“When next we hear the cuckoo call,

Then you and I will wed.”

My love and I we still be two,

And will be, many Springs;

I think the saddest sound on earth

Is when the cuckoo sings.

VIII
DUSK IN THE LANE

Come, put yer little hand in mine,

And let it be at rest,

It minds me of a tired bird

Within a warm brown nest;

And bend that pretty head o’ your’n,

And lay it on my breast.

The lambs they all be wearied out,

I penned them in the fold;

The lights along the Malvern Hills

They shine like stars o’ gold;

And yonder rises up the moon,

All round, and big, and bold.

There’s not a single passer-by,

Nor sound along the lane,

And Oh! the earth be smelling sweet,

Like meadows after rain.

Then come a little closer, maid,

And kiss me once again.

IX
THE MEETING-PLACE

I mind me of the hawthorn trees,

With cuckoos flying near;

The hawthorn blossoms smelt so sweet,

The cuckoo called so clear!

The hill was steep enough to climb,

It seemed to touch the sky!

You saw two valleys from the top,

The Severn and the Wye.

The Severn and the Wye you saw,

And they were always green;

I think it was the prettiest sight

That I have ever seen.

And there, so far above the town,

With not a soul to see,

Whenever she could slip away

My love would come to me!

I never smell the hawthorn bloom,

Or hear the cuckoo sing,

But I am minded of my love,

And Malvern Hills in Spring!

X
BY THE AVON

In the meadows by the Avon,

Underneath the slope of Bredon,

There we often used to wander,

My girl and I.

All around the thrushes singing,

And on Sunday, church bells ringing,

Overhead the soft clouds floating,

White in the sky.

Still the waters of the Avon

Flow so gently under Bredon,

And on Sunday bells be ringing,

Clouds floating high.

But I’m sick at heart and lonely,

Nothing here has changed, save only

Just we two, who once were courting,

My girl and I.

XI
JEALOUSY

I see’d yer turn the other day

To watch a chap go by,

Because he wore a uniform,

And held his shoulders high.

And then yer wouldn’t even smile,

Or say a word to I!

A kid he was, all pink and white,

And strutting like a chick,

A tassel at his silly side,

And carrying a stick.

And yet yer thought the world o’ him,

And started breathin’ quick—

The same as when I kissed yer first,

Oh! maybe you forget!

But you was desperate sweet on I,

I mind yer blushes yet.

But now yer says me hands are rough,

Me coat will never set.

Me hands they bean’t lily white,

Me coat may not be trim,

But you may know, if fightin’ comes,

I’ll fight as well as him,

Although they pad his shoulders out

To make his waist look slim.

I haven’t got no buttons on

A showy coat of red;

I haven’t got no soldier’s cap

To wear upon me head.

But I can love yer just the same,

When all be done and said!

XII
IN THE CITY

Oh! City girls are pale-like,

And proud-like, and cold-like,

And nineteen out of twenty

Have never been our way.

I tells them of the tall hills,

The green hills, the old hills,

Where hawthorns are a-blossoming,

And thrushes call all day.

Oh! London is a fine place,

A big place, a rich place,

Where nineteen out of twenty

Of all the girls are fair.

But well I knows a white road,

A long road, a straight road,

That leads me into Bosbury;

I’m wishing I was there!

XIII
I BE THINKIN’

The hillside green with bracken,

And the red plough land,

The brownish hurrying rivers,

Where the willows stand.

The thickets and the meadows,

And the strong oak trees;

O, tell me traveller, have yer

Seen the like o’ these?

The mists along the common,

At the close of day,

They’re lovely when the twilight

Makes the vale look grey.

The lanes be long and lonely,

But they all lead home;

I be thinkin’ lads are foolish

When they wants to roam!

XIV
SUNDAY EVENING

The noontide showers have drifted past,

The sunset’s on the hill,

The lights be gleaming through the dusk,

Adown by Clincher’s Mill.