When she was gone, Their talk could scarcely raise itself again Above a grumble. But at last a cry Sharp-pitcht came startling in from the street: at once Their moody talk exploded into flare Of swearing hubbub, like gunpowder dropt On embers; mugs were clapt down, out they bolted Rowdily jostling, eager for the event.

All down the street the folk throng'd out of doors, But left a narrow track clear in the middle; And there a man came running, a tall man Running desperately and slowly, pounding Like a machine, so evenly, so blindly; And regularly his trotting body wagg'd.

Only one foot clatter'd upon the stones; The other padded in his dogged stride: The boot was gone, the sock hung frayed in shreds About his ankle, the foot was blood and earth; And never a limp, not the least flinch, to tell The wounded pulp hit stone at every step.

His clothes were tatter'd and his rent skin showed, Harrowed with thorns. His face was pale as putty, Thrown far back; clots of drooping spittle foamed On his moustache, and his hair hung in tails, Mired with sweat; and sightless in their sockets His eyeb.a.l.l.s turned up white, as dull as pebbles.

Evenly and doggedly he trotted, And as he went he moaned. Then out of sight Round a corner he swerved, and out of hearing.

--'The law should have a say to that, by G.o.d!'

GORDON BOTTOMLEY

LITTLEHOLME

(To J.S. and A.W.S.)

In entering the town, where the bright river Shrinks in its white stone bed, old thoughts return Of how a quiet queen was nurtured here In the pale, shadowed ruin on the height; Of how, when the h.o.a.r town was new and clean And had not grown a part of the gaunt fells That peered down into it, the burghers wove On their small, fireside looms green, famous webs To cling on lissome, tower-dwelling ladies Who rode the hills swaying like green saplings, Or mask tall, hardy outlaws from pursuit Down beechen caverns and green under-lights, (The rude, vain looms are gone, their beams are broken; Their webs are now not seen, but memory Still tangles in their mesh the dews they swept Like ruby sparks, the lights they took, the scents They held, the movement of their shapes and shades); Of how the Border burners in cold dawns Of Summer hurried North up the high vales Past smoking farmsteads that had lit the night And surf of crowding cattle; and of how A laughing prince of cursed, impossible hopes Rode through the little streets Northward to battle And to defeat, to be a fading thought, Belated in dead mountains of romance.

A carver at his bench in a high gable Hears the sharp stream close under, far below Tinkle and rustle, and no other sound Arises there to him to change his thoughts Of the changed, silent town and the dead hands That made it and maintained it, and the need For handiwork and happy work and work To use and ease the mind if such sweet towns Are to be built again or live again.

The long town ends at Littleholme, where the road Creeps up to hills of ancient-looking stone.

Under the hanging eaves at Littleholme A latticed cas.e.m.e.nt peeps above still gardens Into a crown of druid-solemn trees Upon a knoll as high as a small house, A shapely mound made so by nameless men Whose smoothing touch yet shows through the green hide.

When the slow moonlight drips from leaf to leaf Of that sharp, plumy gloom, and the hour comes When something seems awaited, though unknown, There should appear between those leaf-thatched piles Fresh, long-limbed women striding easily, And men whose hair-plaits swing with their s.h.a.gged arms; Returning in that equal, echoed light Which does not measure time to the dear garths That were their own when from white Norway coasts They landed on a kind, not distant sh.o.r.e, And to the place where they have left their clothing, Their long-accustomed bones and hair and beds That once were pleasant to them, in that barrow Their vanished children heaped above them dead: For in the soundless stillness of hot noon The mind of man, noticeable in that knoll, Enhances its dark presence with a life More vivid and more actual than the life Of self-sown trees and untouched earth. It is seen What aspect this land had in those first eyes: In that regard the works of later men Fall in and sink like lime when it is slaked, Staid, youthful queen and weavers are unborn, And the new crags the Northmen saw are set About an earth that has not been misused.

FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG

INVOCATION

Whither, O, my sweet mistress, must I follow thee?

For when I hear thy distant footfall nearing, And wait on thy appearing, Lo! my lips are silent: no words come to me.

Once I waylaid thee in green forest covers, Hoping that spring might free my lips with gentle fingers; Alas! her presence lingers No longer than on the plain the shadow of brown kestrel hovers.

Through windless ways of the night my spirit followed after; Cold and remote were they, and there, possessed By a strange unworldly rest, Awaiting thy still voice heard only starry laughter.

The pillared halls of sleep echoed my ghostly tread.

Yet when their secret chambers I essayed My spirit sank, dismayed, Waking in fear to find the new-born vision fled.

Once indeed--but then my spirit bloomed in leafy rapture-- I loved; and once I looked death in the eyes: So, suddenly made wise, Spoke of such beauty as I may never recapture....

Whither, O, divine mistress, must I then follow thee?

Is it only in love ... say, is it only in death That the spirit blossometh, And words that may match my vision shall come to me?

PROTHALAMION

When the evening came my love said to me: Let us go into the garden now that the sky is cool; The garden of black h.e.l.lebore and rosemary, Where wild woodruff spills in a milky pool.

Low we pa.s.sed in the twilight, for the wavering heat Of day had waned; and round that shaded plot Of secret beauty the thickets cl.u.s.tered sweet: Here is heaven, our hearts whispered, but our lips spake not.

Between that old garden and seas of lazy foam Gloomy and beautiful alleys of trees arise With spire of cypress and dreamy beechen dome, So dark that our enchanted sight knew nothing but the skies:

Veiled with a soft air, drench'd in the roses' musk Or the dusky, dark carnation's breath of clove: No stars burned in their deeps, but through the dusk I saw my love's eyes, and they were brimmed with love.

No star their secret ravished, no wasting moon Mocked the sad transience of those eternal hours: Only the soft, unseeing heaven of June, The ghosts of great trees, and the sleeping flowers.

For doves that crooned in the leafy noonday now Were silent; the night-jar sought his secret covers, Nor even a mild sea-whisper moved a creaking bough-- Was ever a silence deeper made for lovers?

Was ever a moment meeter made for love?

Beautiful are your closed lips beneath my kiss; And all your yielding sweetness beautiful-- Oh, never in all the world was such a night as this!

FEBRUARY

The robin on my lawn He was the first to tell How, in the frozen dawn, This miracle befell, Waking the meadows white With h.o.a.r, the iron road Agleam with splintered light, And ice where water flowed: Till, when the low sun drank Those milky mists that cloak Hanger and hollied bank, The winter world awoke To hear the feeble bleat Of lambs on downland farms: A blackbird whistled sweet; Old beeches moved their arms Into a mellow haze Aerial, newly-born: And I, alone, agaze, Stood waiting for the thorn To break in blossom white, Or burst in a green flame....

So, in a single night, Fair February came, Bidding my lips to sing Or whisper their surprise, With all the joy of spring And morning in her eyes.

LOCHANILAUN

This is the image of my last content: My soul shall be a little lonely lake, So hidden that no shadow of man may break The folding of its mountain battlement; Only the beautiful and innocent Whiteness of sea-born cloud drooping to shake Cool rain upon the reed-beds, or the wake Of churn'd cloud in a howling wind's descent.

For there shall be no terror in the night When stars that I have loved are born in me, And cloudy darkness I will hold most fair; But this shall be the end of my delight: That you, my lovely one, may stoop and see Your image in the mirrored beauty there.