The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pier-Glass, by Robert Graves

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

THE PIER-GLASS

ROBERT GRAVES

(From a Painting by Benjamin Nicholson).

THE PIER-GLASS

BY ROBERT GRAVES

LONDON: MARTIN SECKER

This myrrour I tote in, quasi diaphanum

Vel quasi speculum, in aenigmate....

Speke Parot, John Skelton.

THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS, LIMITED, LONDON AND NORWICH, ENGLAND

TO
NANCY NICHOLSON

NOTE

Most of the pieces here included have appeared serially in The London Mercury, The Athenæum, The Spectator, The Nation, The New Statesman, To-day, The Century Magazine and other periodicals, English and American.

Robert Graves.

Boar's Hill,
Oxford.

CONTENTS

• The Stake, [11]
• The Troll's Nosegay, [12]
• The Pier-glass, [13]
• The Finding of Love, [15]
• Reproach, [17]
• The Magical Picture, [18]
• Distant Smoke, [21]
• Morning Phœnix, [23]
• Catherine Drury, [24]
• Raising the Stone, [25]
• The Treasure Box, [26]
• The Kiss, [28]
• Lost Love, [29]
• Fox's Dingle, [30]
• The Gnat, [31]
• The Patchwork Bonnet, [34]
• Kit Logan and Lady Helen, [35]
• Down, [36]
• Saul of Tarsus, [38]
• Storm: at the Farm Window, [39]
• Black Horse Lane, [40]
• Return, [42]
• Incubus, [44]
• The Hills of May, [45]
• The Coronation Murder, [49]

THE STAKE

Naseboro' held him guilty,

Crowther took his part,

Who lies at the cross-roads,

A stake through his heart.

Spring calls, and the stake answers

Throwing out shoots;

The towns debate what life is this

Sprung from such roots.

Naseboro' says "A Upas Tree";

"A Rose," says Crowther;

But April's here to declare it

Neither one nor other.

Neither ill nor very fair,

Rose nor Upas,

But an honest oak-tree,

As its parent was.

A green-tufted oak-tree

On the green wold,

Careless as the dead heart

That the roots enfold.

THE TROLL'S NOSEGAY

A simple nosegay! was that much to ask?

(Winter still gloomed, with scarce a bud yet showing).

He loved her ill, if he resigned the task.

"Somewhere," she cried, "there must be blossom blowing."

It seems my lady wept and the troll swore

By Heaven he hated tears: he'd cure her spleen;

Where she had begged one flower, he'd shower fourscore,

A haystack bunch to amaze a China Queen.

Cold fog-drawn Lily, pale mist-magic Rose

He conjured, and in a glassy cauldron set

With elvish unsubstantial Mignonette

And such vague bloom as wandering dreams enclose.

But she?

Awed,

Charmed to tears,

Distracted,

Yet—

Even yet, perhaps, a trifle piqued—who knows?

THE PIER-GLASS

(To T. E. Lawrence, who helped me with it)

Lost manor where I walk continually

A ghost, while yet in woman's flesh and blood.

Up your broad stairs mounting with outspread fingers

And gliding steadfast down your corridors

I come by nightly custom to this room,

And even on sultry afternoons I come

Drawn by a thread of time-sunk memory.

Empty, unless for a huge bed of state

Shrouded with rusty curtains drooped awry

(A puppet theatre where malignant fancy

Peoples the wings with fear). At my right hand

A ravelled bell-pull hangs in readiness

To summon me from attic glooms above

Service of elder ghosts; here at my left

A sullen pier-glass cracked from side to side

Scorns to present the face as do new mirrors

With a lying flush, but shows it melancholy

And pale, as faces grow that look in mirrors.

Is here no life, nothing but the thin shadow

And blank foreboding, never a wainscote rat

Rasping a crust? Or at the window pane

No fly, no bluebottle, no starveling spider?

The windows frame a prospect of cold skies

Half-merged with sea, as at the first creation,

Abstract, confusing welter. Face about,

Peer rather in the glass once more, take note

Of self, the grey lips and long hair dishevelled,

Sleep-staring eyes. Ah, mirror, for Christ's love

Give me one token that there still abides

Remote, beyond this island mystery

So be it only this side Hope, somewhere,

In streams, on sun-warm mountain pasturage,

True life, natural breath; not this phantasma.

A rumour, scarcely yet to be reckoned sound,

But a pulse quicker or slower, then I know

My plea is granted; death prevails not yet.

For bees have swarmed behind in a close place

Pent up between this glass and the outer wall.

The combs are founded, the queen rules her court,

Bee-serjeants posted at the entrance chink

Are sampling each returning honey-cargo

With scrutinizing mouth and commentary,

Slow approbation, quick dissatisfaction.

Disquieting rhythm, that leads me home at last

From labyrinthine wandering. This new mood

Of judgment orders me my present duty,

To face again a problem strongly solved

In life gone by, but now again proposed

Out of due time for fresh deliberation.

Did not my answer please the Master's ear?

Yet, I'll stay obstinate. How went the question,

A paltry question set on the elements

Of love and the wronged lover's obligation?

Kill or forgive? Still does the bed ooze blood?

Let it drip down till every floor-plank rot!

Yet shall I answer, challenging the judgment:—

"Kill, strike the blow again, spite what shall come."

"Kill, strike, again, again," the bees in chorus hum.

THE FINDING OF LOVE

Before this generous time

Of Love in morning prime,

He had long season stood

Bound in a nightmare mood

Of dense murk, rarely lit

By Jack-o'-Lanthorn's flit

And straightway smothered spark

Of beasts' eyes in the dark,

Mourning with sense adrift,

Tears rolling swift.

With o, for Sun to blaze

Drying the cobweb-maze

Dew-sagged upon the corn,

With o, for flowering thorn,

For fly and butterfly,

For pigeons in the sky,

For robin and thrush,

For the long bulrush,

For cherry under the leaf,

For an end to grief,

For joy in steadfastness.

Then through his distress

And clouded vision came

An unknown gradual flame

By silent hands controlled,

Pale at first and cold,

Like wizard's lily-bloom

Conjured from the gloom,

Like torch of glow-worm seen

Through grasses shining green

By children half in fright,

Or Christmas candlelight

Flung on the outer snow,

Or tinsel stars that show

Their evening glory

With sheen of fairy story.

No more, no more,

Forget that went before!

Not a wrack remains

Of all his former pains.

Here's Love a drench of light,

A Sun dazzling the sight,

Well started on his race

Towards the Zenith space

Where fixed and sure

He shall endure,

Holding peace secure.

Now with his blaze

He dries the cobweb maze

Dew-sagging on the corn,

He brings the flowering thorn,

The fly and butterfly,

And pigeons in the sky,

The robin and the thrush,

And the long bulrush,

And cherry under the leaf,

Earth in a silken dress,

With end to grief,

With love in steadfastness.

REPROACH

Your grieving moonlight face looks down

Through the forest of my fears,

Crowned with a spiny bramble-crown,

Dew-dropped with evening tears.

Why do you spell "untrue, unkind,"

Reproachful eyes plaguing my sleep?

I am not guilty in my mind

Of aught would make you weep.

Untrue? but how, what broken oath?

Unkind? I know not even your name.

Unkind, untrue, you charge me both,

Scalding my heart with shame.

The black trees shudder, dropping snow,

The stars tumble and spin.

Speak, speak, or how may a child know

His ancestral sin?

THE MAGICAL PICTURE

Glinting on the roadway

A broken mirror lay:

Then what did the child say

Who found it there?

He cried there was a goblin

Looking out as he looked in—

Wild eyes and speckled skin,

Black, bristling hair!

He brought it to his father

Who being a simple sailor

Swore, "This is a true wonder,

Deny it who can!

Plain enough to me, for one,

It's a portrait aptly done

Of Admiral, the great Lord Nelson

When a young man."

The sailor's wife perceiving

Her husband had some pretty thing

At which he was peering,

Seized it from his hand.

Then tears started and ran free,

"Jack, you have deceived me,

I love you no more," said she,

"So understand!"

"But, Mary," says the sailor,

"This is a famous treasure,

Admiral Nelson's picture

Taken in youth."

"Viper and fox," she cries,

"To trick me with such lies,

Who is this wench with the bold eyes?

Tell the full truth!"

Up rides the parish priest

Mounted on a fat beast.

Grief and anger have not ceased

Between those two;

Little Tom still weeps for fear;

He has seen Hobgoblin, near,

Great white teeth and foul leer

That pierced him through.

Now the old priest lifts his glove

Bidding all for God's love

To stand and not to move,

Lest blood be shed.

"O, O!" cries the urchin,

"I saw the devil grin,

He glared out, as I looked in;

A true death's head!"

Mary weeps, "Ah, Father,

My Jack loves another!

On some voyage he courted her

In a land afar."

This, with cursing, Jack denies:—

"Father, use your own eyes:

It is Lord Nelson in disguise

As a young tar."

When the priest took the glass,

Fresh marvels came to pass

"A saint of glory, by the Mass!

"Where got you this?"

He signed him with the good Sign,

Be sure the relic was divine,

He would fix it in a shrine

For pilgrims to kiss.

There the chapel folk who come

(Honest, some, and lewd, some),

See the saint's eyes and are dumb,

Kneeling on the flags.

Some see the Doubter Thomas,

And some Nathaniel in the glass,

And others whom but old Saint Judas

With his money bags?

DISTANT SMOKE

Seth and the sons of Seth who followed him

Halted in silence: labour, then, was vain.

Fast at the zenith, blazoned in his splendour,

Hung the fierce Sun, wherefore these travelling folk

Stood centred each in his own disc of shade.