This eBook was produced by David Widger

EMBERS

By Gilbert Parker

Volume 3.

CONTENTS

IN CAMDEN TOWN JEAN A MEMORY IN CAMP AT JUNIPER COVE JUNIPER COVE TWENTY YEARS AFTER LISTENING NEVERTHELESS ISHMAEL OVER THE HILLS THE DELIVERER THE DESERT ROAD A SON OF THE NILE A FAREWELL FROM THE HAREM AN ARAB LOVE SONG THE CAMEL-DRIVER TO HIS CAMEL THE TALL DABOON THERE IS SORROW ON THE SEA THE AUSTRALIAN STOCBRIDER THE BRIDGE OF THE HUNDRED SPANS NELL LATORE

IN CAMDEN TOWN

                    How many years of sun and snow
                    Have come to Camden Town,
                    Since through its streets and in its shade,
                    I wandered up and down.

                    Not many more than to you here
                    These verses hapless flung,
                    Yet of the Long Ago they seem
                    To me who am yet young.

                    We strive to measure life by Time,
                    And con the seasons o'er,
                    To find, alas! that days are years,
                    And years for evermore.

                    The joys that thrill, the ill that thralls,
                    Pressed down on heart and brain-
                    These are the only horologues,
                    The Age's loss or gain.

                    And I am old in all of these,
                    And wonder if I know
                    The man begotten of the boy,
                    Who loved that long ago.

                    A lilac bush close to the gate,
                    A locust at the door,
                    A low, wide window flower-filled,
                    With ivy covered o'er.

                    A face—O love of childhood dreams,
                    Lily in form and name—
                    It comes back now in these day-dreams,
                    The same yet not the same.

                    My childhood's friend! Well gathered are
                    The sheaves of many days,
                    But this one sheaf is garnered in,
                    Bound by my love always.

                    Where have you wandered, child, since when
                    Together merrily,
                    We gathered cups of columbine
                    By lazy Rapanee?

                    The green spears of the flagflower,
                    Down by the old mill-race,
                    Are weapons now for other hands,
                    Who mimic warfare chase.

                    You were so tender, yet so strong,
                    So gentle, yet so free,
                    Your every word, whenever heard,
                    Seemed wondrous wise to me.

                    You marvelled if the dead could hear
                    Our steps, that passed at will
                    Their low green houses in the elm-
                    Crowned churchyard on the hill.

                    And I, whom your sweet childhood's trust,
                    Esteemed as most profound,
                    Thought that they heard, as in a dream,
                    The shadow of a sound.

                    We drew the long, rank grass away
                    From tombstones mossy grown,
                    To read the verses crude and quaint,
                    And make the words our own.

                    One tottering marble, willow-spread,
                    I well remember yet,
                    With only this engraved thereon,
                    "By Joseph to Jeanette."

                    It held us wondering oft, as we
                    Peeped through the pickets old:
                    There was some mystery, we knew,
                    Some history untold.

                    Well, better far those simple words,
                    Where weeping phrase is not,
                    Than burdened tablet, and the rest
                    Forgetting and forgot.

                    And Lily Minden, do you lie
                    In some forgotten grave,
                    Where only strangers' feet pass o'er
                    Your temple's architrave?

                    Or, by some hearthstone, have you learned
                    The worst and best of life,
                    And found sweet greetings in the name
                    Of mother and of wife?

                    I cannot tell: I know you but
                    As bee the clover bloom,
                    That sips content, and straightway builds
                    Its mansion and its tomb.

                    So took I in child-innocence,
                    So build the House of Life,
                    And in low tone to thee alone,
                    As dead or maid or wife,

                    I sing this song, borne all along
                    A space of wasted breath;
                    And build me on from room to room
                    Unto the House of Death,

                    Where portals swing forever in
                    To weary pilgrim guest,
                    And hearts that here were inly dear
                    Shall find a Room of Rest.

JEAN

                    Three times round has the sun gone, Jean,
                    Since on your lips I pressed
                    Mute farewells; if that pain was keen
                    Fair were you in your nest.

                    Smiling, sweetheart, I left you there;
                    You had no word to say;
                    One last touch to your brow and hair,
                    Then I went on my way.

                    Time it was when the leaves were grown
                    Your rose-colour, my queen;
                    Ere the birds to the south had flown,
                    While yet the grass was green.

                    Eyes demure, do you ever yearn,
                    Bird-wise to summer lands?
                    Is it to meet your look I turn,
                    Saying, "She understands,"

                    Saying, "She waits in her quiet place
                    Patient till I shall come,
                    The old sweet grace in her dreaming face
                    That made a Heav'n her home"?

                    No! She is there 'neath Northern skies,
                    And no word does she send;
                    But near to my heart her image lies,
                    And shall lie there to the end.

                    Come what will I am not bereft
                    Of the memory of that time,
                    When in her hands my heart I left
                    There, in a colder clime.

                    And to my eyes no face is fair,
                    For one face comes between;
                    And if a song has a low sweet air,
                    Through it there whispers, "Jean."

                    Better for me the world would say,
                    If I had broke the charm,
                    Set in the circle she one day
                    Made by her round white arm.

                    Never a king in days of eld
                    Gathered about his throat
                    Such a circlet; no queen e'er held
                    Necklace so clear of mote.

                    It sufficeth the charm was set;
                    And if it chance that one
                    Still remembers, though one forget,
                    Then is the worst thing done—

                    Done, and I still can say "Let be;
                    I have no word of blame;
                    Though her heart is no more for me,
                    Mine shall be still the same."

                    I have my life to live and she—
                    Well, if it be so—so;
                    She may welcome or banish me
                    And if I go, I go.

                    Friend, I pray you repress those tears,
                    Comfort from this derive:
                    I am a score—and more-of years
                    And Jean is only five.

A MEMORY

               From buckwheat fields the summer sun
               Drew honeyed breezes over
               The lanes where happy children run
               With bare feet in the clover.

               The schoolhouse stood with pines about
               Upon the hill, and ever
               A creek, where hid the speckled trout,
               Ran past it to the river.

               And rosy faces gathered there,
               With rustic good around them;
               With breath of balm blown everywhere,
               Pure, ere the world had found them.

               Behind sweet purple ambuscades
               Of lilacs, laws were broken;
               And here a desk with knives was frayed,
               There passed forbidden token.

               One slipped a butternut between
               His pearly teeth; a maiden
               Dove-eyed, caressed her cheek; 'twas e'en
               With maple sugar laden—

               A flock that caught at wiles, because
               The shepherd's hand that drove them,
               Reached little toward wise human laws,
               And less to God above them.

               With eyebrows bent and surly look
               He only saw before him,
               The rule, the lesson, and the book,
               Not nature brooding o'er him.

               One day through drone of locusts fell
               The wood-bird's fitful tapping,
               And in his chair at "dinner-spell,"
               The teacher grim sat napping.

               An urchin creeping in beholds
               The tyrant slumber-smitten,
               And in his pocket's ample folds
               He thrusts the school-yard kitten.

               At length the master waked, and clanged
               His bell with anger fitting;
               His sleep had made it double-fanged,
               And crossed like needles knitting.

               Slow to their seats the children file,
               And wait "Prepare for classes,"
               A score of lads across the aisle
               From twice a score of lasses.

               But two within the throng betray
               A mirth suppressed; the sinner,
               And Rafe Ridall, the chief at play,
               At books the easy winner:

               The wildest boy in all the school,
               In mischief first and ever,
               His daily seat the penance-stool,
               Disgraced for weeks together.

               Just sound of bone and strong of heart,
               Staunch friend and noble foeman;
               In life to play the kingly part,
               True both to man and woman.

               Joe's secret now he holds; a deed
               With just enough of danger,
               To win his—ah, what's that? 'Tis freed,
               The pocket-prisoned stranger!

               A moment's riot laughter-filled,
               Then fear, white-visaged, follows;
               And through the silence there is trilled
               The shrill note of the swallows.

               And now a fierce form fronts them all,
               Two fierce eyes search their faces,
               Then flash their fire on Rafe Ridall,
               Whose mirth no peril chases.

               "You did it, sir!" "Not I!" "You did!"
               "No!" "You've one chance for showing
               Who in my coat the kitten hid,
               Or be well thrashed for knowing."

               The master paused, the birch he grasped
               Against his trousers flicking;
               Rafe said, with hands behind him clasped,
               "I'd rather take the licking."

               Full many a year has passed since then,
               The lilacs still are blooming,
               Awaiting childish hands again,
               But they are long in coming.

               Now wandering swallows build their nests
               Where doors and roofs decaying,
               No more shut in the master's zest,
               Nor out the children's playing.

               All, all are gone who gathered there;
               Some toil among the masses,
               Some, overworn with pain and care,
               Wait Death's "Prepare for classes."

               And some—the sighing pines sway on
               Above them, dreamless lying;
               And 'mong them sleeps the master, gone
               His anger and their crying.

               And Rafe Ridall, brave then, brave now,
               Amid the jarring courses
               Of man's misrule, still takes the blow
               For those of weaker forces.

IN CAMP AT JUNIPER COVE

               A little brown sparrow came tripping
               Across the green grass at my feet;
               A kingfisher poised, and was peering
               Where current and calm water meet;

               The clouds hung in passionless clusters
               Above the green hills of the south;
               A bobolink fluttered to leeward
               With a twinkle of bells in its mouth.

               Ah, the morning was silver with glory
               As I lay by my tent on the shore;
               And the soft air was drunken with odours,
               And my soul lifted up to adore.

               Is there wonder I took me to dreaming
               Of the gardens of Greece and old Rome,
               Of the fair watered meadows of Ida,
               And the hills where the gods made their home?

               Of the Argonauts sung to by Sirens,
               Of Andromache, Helen of Troy,
               Of Proserpine, Iphigenia,
               And the Fates that build up and destroy?

               Of the phantom isle, green Theresea,
               And the Naiads and Dryads that give
               To the soul of the poet, the dreamer,
               The visions of fancy that live

               In the lives and the language of mortals
               Unconscious, but sure as the sea,
               And that make for great losses repayment
               To wandering singers like me?

               But a little brown sparrow came tripping
               Across the green grass at my feet;
               And a kingfisher poised, and was peering
               Where current and calm water meet;

               And Alice, sweet Alice, my neighbour,
               Stands musing beneath the pine tree;
               And her look says—"I have a lover
               Who sails on the turbulent sea:

               Does he dream as I dream night and daytime
               Of a face that is tender and true;
               Will he come to me e'en as he left me?"
               Yes, Alice, sweet Alice, for you,

               Is the sunlight, and not the drear shadow,
               The gentle and fortunate peace:
               But he who thus revels in rhyming
               Has shadows that never shall cease.

JUNIPER COVE TWENTY YEARS AFTER

               The bay gleams softly in the sun,
               The morning widens o'er the world:
               The bluebird's song is just begun,
               And down the skies white clouds are furled.

               The boat lies idly by the shore,
               The shed I built with happy care
               Is fallen; and I see no more
               The white tents in the eager air.

               The goldenrod holds up its plumes
               In the long stretch of meadow grass,
               The briarrose shakes its sweet perfumes,
               In coverts where the sparrows pass.

               Far off, above, the sapphire gleams,
               Far off, below, the sapphire flows,
               And this, my place of morning dreams,
               The bank where my vain visions rose!

               Sweet Alice, he came back again,
               Across the waste of summer sea,
               What time the fields were full of grain,
               But not to thee; but not to thee.

               She comes no more when evening falls,
               To watch the stars wheel up the sky;
               Then love and light were over all;
               Alas! that light and love should die.

               I feel her hand upon my arm,
               I see her eyes shine through the mist;
               Her life was passionate and warm
               As the red jewels at her wrist.

               Hearts do not break, the world has said,
               Though love lie stark and light be flown;
               But still it counts its lost and dead,
               And in the solitudes makes moan.

               We school our lips to make our hearts
               Seem other than in truth they are;
               Before the lights we play our part,
               And paint the flesh to hide the scar.

               Masquers and mummers all, and yet
               The slaves of some dead passion's fires,
               Of hopes the soul can ne'er forget
               Still sobbing in life's trembling wires.

               Fate puts our dear desires in pawn,
               Youth passes, unredeemed they lie;
               The leaves drop from our rose of dawn,
               And storms fall from the mocking sky.

               I shall come back no more; my ship
               Waits for me by the sundering sea;
               A prayer for her is on my lip—
               And the old life is dead to me.

LISTENING

I have lain beneath the pine trees just to hear the thrush's calling,
I have waited for the throstle where the harvest fields were brown,
I have caught the lark's sweet trilling from the depths of cloud-land
     falling
And the piping of the linnet through the willow branches blown.

But you have some singing graces, you who sing because you love it,
That are higher than the throstle, or the linnet, or the lark;
And, however far my soul may reach, your song is far above it;
And I falter while I follow as a child does in the dark.

In elder days, when all the world was silent save the beating
Of the tempest-gathered ocean 'gainst the grey volcanic walls,
When the light had met the darkness and the mountains sent their greeting
To each other in sharp flashes as the vivid lightning falls,

Then the high gods said, "In token that we love the earth we fashioned,
We will set the white stars singing, and teach man the art of song":
And there rose up from the valleys sounds of love and life impassioned,
Till men cried, with arms uplifted, "Now from henceforth we are strong!"

Adown the ages there have come the sounds of that first singing,
Lifting up the weary-hearted in the fever of the time;
And I, who wait and wander far, felt all my soul upspringing,
To but touch those ancient forces and the energies sublime,

When I heard you who had heard it—that first song—perhaps in dreaming,
Till it filled you with fine fervour and the hopes of its refrain;
And I knew that God was gracious and had led me in the gleaming
Of a song-shine that is holy and that quiets all my pain.

Though the birds sing in the meadows and fill all the air with sweetness,
They sing only in the present, and they sing because they must;
They are wanton in their pureness, and in all their fine completeness,
They trill out their lives forgotten to the silence of the dust.

But if you should pass to-morrow where your songs could never reach us,
There would still be throbbing through us all the music of your voice;
And your spirit would speak through the chords, as though it would
     beseech us
To remember that the noblest ends have ever noblest choice.

NEVERTHELESS

                    In your onward march, O men,
                    White of face, in promise whiter,
                    You unsheathe the sword, and then
                    Blame the wronged as the fighter.

                    Time, ah, Time, rolls onward o'er
                    All these foetid fields of evil,
                    While hard at the nation's core
                    Eat the burning rust and weevil!

                    Nathless, out beyond the stars
                    Reigns the Wiser and the Stronger,
                    Seeing in all strifes and wars
                    Who the wronged, who the wronger.

ISHMAEL

"No man cared for my soul."

               Blind, Lord, so blind! I wander far
               From Thee among the haunts of men,
               Most like some lone, faint, flickering star
               Gone from its place, nor knoweth when
               The sun shall give it shining dole
               Lord! no man careth for my soul.

               Blind, Lord, so blind! In loneliness
               By crowded mart or busy street,
               I fold my hands and feel how less
               Am I to any one I meet,
               Than to Thee one lost billow's roll:
               Lord! no man careth for my soul.

               Blind, Lord, so blind! And I have knelt
               'Mong myriads in Thy house of prayer;
               And still sad desolation felt,
               Though heavy freighted was the air
               With litanies of love: one ghoul
               Cried, "No man careth for thy soul!"

               Blind, Lord, so blind! The world is blind;
               It feeds me, fainting, with a stone:
               I cry for bread. Before, behind,
               Are hurrying feet; yet all alone
               I walk, and no one points the goal
               Lord! no man careth for my soul.

               Blind, Lord, Oh very blind am I!
               If sin of mine sets up the wall
               Between my poor sight and Thy sky,
               O Friend of man, Who cares for all,
               Send sweet peace ere the last bell toll—
               Yea, Lord, Thou carest for my soul!

OVER THE HILLS

          Over the hills they are waiting to greet us,
          They who have scanned all the ultimate places,
          Fathomed the world and the things that defeat us—
          Evils and graces.

          They have no thought for the toiling or spinning,
          Striving for bread that is dust in the gaining,
          They have won all that is well worth the winning—
          Past all distaining.

          Now they have done with the pain and the error,
          Nevermore here shall the dark things assail them,
          Void man's devices and dreams have no terror—
          Shall we bewail them?

          They have cast off all the strife and derision,
          They have put on all the joy of our yearning;
          We falter feebly from vision to vision,
          Never discerning.

          Faint light before us, and shadows to grope in,
          Stretching out hands to the starbeams to guide us,
          Finding no place but our life's loves to hope in,
          Doubt to deride us—

          So we climb upward with eyes growing dimmer,
          Looking back only to sigh through our smiling,
          Wondering still if the palpitant glimmer
          Leads past defiling.

          They whom we loved have gone over the mountains,
          Hands beckon to us like wings of the swallow,
          Voices we knew from delectable fountains
          Cry to us, "Follow!"

          Some were so young when they left us, that morning
          Seemed to have flashed and then died into gloaming,
          Leaving us wearier 'neath the world's scorning,
          Blinder in roaming.

          Some, in the time when the manhood is bravest,
          Strongest to bear and the hands to endeavour,
          When all the life is the firmest and gravest,
          Left us for ever.

          Some, when the Springtime had grown to December,
          Said, "It is done: now the last thing befall me;
          I shall sleep well—ah! dear hearts but remember:
          Farewell, they call me!"

          So the tale runs, and the end, who shall fear it?
          Is it not better to sleep than to sorrow?
          Tokens will come from the bourne as we near it—
          Time's peace, to-morrow.

THE DELIVERER

          How has the cloud fallen, and the leaf withered on the tree,
          The lemontree, that standeth by the door?
          The melon and the date have gone bitter to the taste,
          The weevil, it has eaten at the core—
          The core of my heart, the mildew findeth it;
          My music, it is but the drip of tears,
          The garner empty standeth, the oven hath no fire,
          Night filleth me with fears.
          O Nile that floweth deeply, hast thou not heard his voice?
          His footsteps hast thou covered with thy flood?
          He was as one who lifteth up the yoke,
          He was as one who taketh off the chain,
          As one who sheltereth from the rain,
          As one who scattereth bread to the pigeons flying.
          His purse was at his side, his mantle was for me,
          For any who passeth were his mantle and his purse,
          And now like a gourd is he withered from our eyes.
          His friendship, it was like a shady wood—
          Whither has he gone?—Who shall speak for us?
          Who shall save us from the kourbash and the stripes?
          Who shall proclaim us in the palace?
          Who shall contend for us in the gate?
          The sakkia turneth no more; the oxen they are gone;
          The young go forth in chains, the old waken in the night,
          They waken and weep, for the wheel turns backward,
          And the dark days are come again upon us—
          Will he return no more?
          His friendship was like a shady wood,
          O Nile that floweth deeply, hast thou not heard his voice?
          Hast thou covered up his footsteps with thy flood?
          The core of my heart, the mildew findeth it!
          When his footsteps were among us there was peace;
          War entered not the village, nor the call of war:
          Now our homes are as those that have no roofs.
          As a nest decayed, as a cave forsaken,
          As a ship that lieth broken on the beach,
          Is the house where we were born.
          Out in the desert did we bury our gold,
          We buried it where no man robbed us, for his arm was strong.
          Now are the jars empty, gold did not avail
          To save our young men, to keep them from the chains.
          God hath swallowed his voice, or the sea hath drowned it,
          Or the Nile hath covered him with its flood;
          Else would he come when our voices call.
          His word was honey in the prince's ear—
          Will he return no more?

THE DESERT ROAD

               In the sands I lived in a hut of palm,
               There was never a garden to see;
               There was never a path through the desert calm,
               Nor a way through its storms for me.

               Tenant was I of a lone domain;
               The far pale caravans wound
               To the rim of the sky, and vanished again;
               My call in the waste was drowned.

               The vultures came and hovered and fled;
               And once there stole to my door
               A white gazelle, but its eyes were dread
               With the hurt of the wounds it bore.

               It passed in the dusk with a foot of fear,
               And the white cold mists rolled in;
               And my heart was the heart of a stricken deer,
               Of a soul in the snare of sin.

               My days they withered like rootless things,
               And the sands rolled on, rolled wide;
               Like a pelican I, with broken wings,
               Like a drifting barque on the tide.

               But at last, in the light of a rose-red day,
               In the windless glow of the morn,
               From over the hills and from far away,
               You came-ah, the joy of the morn!

               And wherever your footsteps fell there crept
               A path—it was fair and wide;
               A desert road which no sands have swept,
               Where never a hope has died.

               I followed you forth, and your beauty held
               My heart like an ancient song,
               By that desert road to the blossoming plains
               I came, and the way was long.

               So, I set my course by the light of your eyes;
               I care not what fate may send;
               On the road I tread shine the love-starred skies,
               The road with never an end.

A SON OF THE NILE

          Oh, the garden where to-day we, sow and to-morrow we reap;
          Oh, the sakkia turning by the garden walls;
          Oh, the onion-field and the date-tree growing,
          And my hand on the plough—by the blessing of God;
          Strength of my soul, O my brother, all's well!

A FAREWELL FROM THE HAREM

          Take thou thy flight, O soul! Thou hast no more
          The gladness of the morning: ah, the perfumed roses
          My love laid on my bosom as I slept!
          How did he wake me with his lips upon mine eyes,
          How did the singers carol, the singers of my soul,
          That nest among the thoughts of my beloved!
          All silent now, the choruses are gone,
          The windows of my soul are closed; no more
          Mine eyes look gladly out to see my lover come.
          There is no more to do, no more to say
          Take flight, my soul, my love returns no more!