'TWIXT EARTH
AND STARS.

'TWIXT EARTH
AND STARS

POEMS

BY

MARGUERITE RADCLYFFE-HALL

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

MCMVI

DEDICATED TO
MY INSPIRATION

I know that through the waves of air,

Some part of all I feel for you,

Must surely travel swift and true,

Towards the heart for which I care

So dumbly, and before it lay

The words my lips shall never say.

IN A GARDEN

In the garden a thousand roses,

A vine of jessamine flower,

Sweetpeas in coquettish poses,

Sweetbrier with its fragrant dower.

There are hollyhocks tall and slender,

And marigolds gay and fair,

And sunflowers in glowing splendour,

Geraniums rich and rare;

And the wee, white, innocent daisy,

Half hidden amid the lawn;

A bee grown drowsy and lazy—

On honey he's drunk since dawn—

Is reposing with wings extended

On some soft, passionate rose,

Aglow with a blush more splendid

Than ever a fair cheek knows.

While a thrush, in the ivy swinging

That clusters over the gate,

Athrob with the spring is singing,

And ardently calls his mate.

For the spirit of all sweet odours

The soul of a June unborn

Has hallowed my humble garden,

And whispered to me since dawn.

And the flowers in a prayer of rapture,

Bent low to that spell divine,

Are wafting their sweetest incense

In clouds, at his sunlit shrine.

IF YOU WERE A ROSE AND I WERE THE SUN
(Song)

If you were a Rose and I were the Sun

What then, little girl, what then?

I'd kiss you awake when day had begun,

My sweet little girl, what then?

I'd waken you out of your valley of dreams

And open your heart with my passionate beams,

'Till you lifted your face to my ruddiest gleams,

My own little girl, yes then.

If you were the Earth and I were the Dew,

What then, little girl, what then?

Why surely the thing all lovers would do,

My sweet little girl, what then?

I'd steal through the twilight, o'er valley and lea,

And flood you with kisses, both tender and free

'Till the soul in you throbbed with the love that's in me,

My own little girl, yes then.

But I am a man and you are a maid,

What then, little girl, what then?

You're cold in your pride, and I am afraid,

My sweet little girl, what then?

If you cannot love me and I cannot die

There's nothing in life but the ghost of a sigh,

And the day growing dark 'neath a colourless sky;

My own little girl, yes then.

DRIFTING

It is sweet to lie in a boat,

And drift with the languid stream,

With body and soul afloat

The lake of a perfect dream.

It is sweet in the afternoon,

With just the breath of a breeze,

If the time be the month of June

And the birds sing low in the trees.

And the mind has a pleasant thought,

And the heart has a fond desire,

And the soul is a tissue wrought

Of youth, and it's golden fire.

And the limbs are both clean and strong,

And able to rest with joy,

And our time in the world is long,

With nothing that can destroy

The rapture of God's green earth,

The throb and the ecstasy

That springs into life with birth,

And lives through eternity.

TO ——

Dear heart! I was going away,

Could you not have spared me an hour

Of all your bountiful day?

No moment, no word, no flower

To keep; not even a tear?

My soul was so thirsty, dear!

LOVE TRIUMPHANT

Ere the first grief was born

Love was.

And after griefs are gone

Love still shall triumph on.

Ere the first grief was born

Love was.

In Eden grief became

Love's slave.

For in the dust and woe

Lost Adam still could know

Fond recompense, and so

Did grief become Love's slave.

MY ROSE

A Rose! but what can it say,

So tender, and sweet, and dumb;

What part of my love convey,

What thrill of the joys to come?

I send it, but how shall you,

Dear heart, ever understand

That rapturous tear of dew,

It drops on your strong white hand?

Or know that my lips have pressed

Those petals until they blush,

Or feel that my heart has blessed

The flower that your touch may crush?

IF ONLY

Oh! if one could only learn not to care,

To be utterly indifferent storm or fair;

And to say there's always pain

With the joy, I don't complain,

For the sunshine draws the rain

Everywhere.

Oh! if one could only learn not to feel;

To be absolutely callous, false or real;

And to let the world go by,

With a laugh to cap its sigh,

With a jest to meet its lie,

Cold as steel.

CONFESSION

Within the portals of thy shrine

Before thy presence, dearest mine,

I kneel, beseeching thee to bless

My penitence, while I confess,

And can a saint do any less?

If I have sinned as others do,

All human hearts the wide world through

Are erring things, and then with me

My greatest wrong was loving thee,

Wilt thou condemn my constancy?

Look down, dear heart, and let thine eyes

Commend my soul to Paradise.

He little sins, who sins in this

That to obtain eternal bliss

Seeks the communion of a kiss.

SUNLIGHT ON DISTANT HILLS
(Ledbury)

But a moment since and the sun was shining

Over the hills that I see from my room.

And now the rain and the mist come driving

Out of the West, in a cloud of gloom.

Over the woods, and meadows, and gardens,

Hurries the storm like the hand of Doom.

But a moment hence and the clouds shall vanish;

Breaking and drifting and all asunder.

And lo! in their midst will the sky be lying

Calm and blue with a peaceful wonder

Nothing may alter, though sorrow and tempest

Torture the Earth, as she trembles under.

MY LOVE

My love is a bird with a broken wing,

Alone in a stormy night;

My love is a lark that forgets to sing

And dies with the morning light.

My love is a rose that the wind has torn,

And crushed with a breath of pain;

My love is song with the sweetness gone,

A tune with a lost refrain.

My love is a ghost that has missed its way,

A spirit from Heaven cast;

My love is a joy of a bygone day,

The soul of a burning past.

A MEMORY

No, I have not forgotten you,

Although I went my way

Unanswered, as you wished me to,

With none to bid me stay.

For in my heart there is a space

Whose door you closed to me,

Locked in the memory of your face;

Then took away the key.

TO ——

What you deny me, you gave;

You cannot take it again

In life and after the grave

There is something that even then,

Death will not kill or destroy,

It is so with the hearts of men.

Even your pride cannot rob

My life of its blessed past;

You cannot recall one throb,

One glance of the many cast

From those dear, passionate eyes;

These things will be mine to the last.

ON THE MOUNTAIN

Below and above, yes, over and under us,

Swift clouds hover, and speed and fly;

Nothing we see that can hurt or sunder us

Here in the arms of the circling sky.

Surely we two must belong to each other,

Silently mated where none are nigh

Save God our Father, and Earth our Mother,

And sweetest of all, dear,—You and I.

TO ——

When she turns aside to pass us by,

With a little smile or a glance only

We are all alone, my Heart and I,

We are all alone, and very lonely.

THE PRAYER

There stood beside the road a shrine,

In whose quaint, vaulted shadow smiled

With eyes of tenderness divine,

The Blessed Virgin and Her Child.

And I, who wandered all alone,

Along a rough and weary way,

Felt that a great desire had grown

Within my heart, to kneel and pray.

But lo! my voice had lost the power

To utter words so deep and sweet,

And so, I breathed them in a flower,

And left it, at the Virgin's feet.

IF

If all the words you spoke, dear,

Were every one untrue,

There can be nothing good, dear,

In earth, or sun, or dew;

And all the world's a lie, dear,

Because of you.

If all the smiles you gave, dear,

Were only to beguile,

Why then there's nothing sweet, dear,

In any human smile;

And what we deem most fair, dear,

Is only vile.

If every kiss that lingered

Upon the lips you pressed,

Was but an empty token,

More fickle than the rest;

I wish that I had died, dear,

For death were best.

A LAMENT

Like a song that is sung, like a tale that is told,

The life in me hushes the voice of its gladness;

Youth walks by my side, but his hands have grown cold,

And deep in his eyes lurks the shadow of sadness.

Alas! for the flowers that never come to me;

Alas! for the morning again, now day closes;

The joy of a love is as nothing, for through me

There passes the deep-wounding thorn of the roses.

TO ——

The wind's on the hill,

The sun's on the lea,

The lark's on the wing

And the dawn's on the sea,

And the rapture that springeth of Love, is on me.