AND all hours long, the town
       Roars like a beast in a cave
     That is wounded there
     And like to drown;
       While days rush, wave after wave
     On its lair.

     An invisible woe unseals
       The flood, so it passes beyond
     All bounds: the great old city
     Recumbent roars as it feels
       The foamy paw of the pond
     Reach from immensity.

     But all that it can do
       Now, as the tide rises,
     Is to listen and hear the grim
     Waves crash like thunder through
       The splintered streets, hear noises
     Roll hollow in the interim.

WHEN I woke, the lake-lights were quivering on the
          wall,
     The sunshine swam in a shoal across and across,
     And a hairy, big bee hung over the primulas
     In the window, his body black fur, and the sound
          of him cross.

     There was something I ought to remember: and
          yet
     I did not remember. Why should I? The run-
          ning lights
     And the airy primulas, oblivious
     Of the impending bee—they were fair enough
          sights.

THE glimmer of the limes, sun-heavy, sleeping,
        Goes trembling past me up the College wall.
     Below, the lawn, in soft blue shade is keeping,
        The daisy-froth quiescent, softly in thrall.

     Beyond the leaves that overhang the street,
       Along the flagged, clean pavement summer-white,
     Passes the world with shadows at their feet
        Going left and right.

     Remote, although I hear the beggar's cough,
        See the woman's twinkling fingers tend him a
           coin,
     I sit absolved, assured I am better off
        Beyond a world I never want to join.

LOVE has crept out of her sealéd heart
       As a field-bee, black and amber,
       Breaks from the winter-cell, to clamber
     Up the warm grass where the sunbeams start.

     Mischief has come in her dawning eyes,
       And a glint of coloured iris brings
       Such as lies along the folded wings
     Of the bee before he flies.

     Who, with a ruffling, careful breath,
       Has opened the wings of the wild young sprite?
       Has fluttered her spirit to stumbling flight
     In her eyes, as a young bee stumbleth?

     Love makes the burden of her voice.
       The hum of his heavy, staggering wings
       Sets quivering with wisdom the common
           things
     That she says, and her words rejoice.

WHEN the wind blows her veil
       And uncovers her laughter
     I cease, I turn pale.
     When the wind blows her veil
     From the woes I bewail
       Of love and hereafter:
     When the wind blows her veil
     I cease, I turn pale.

YOU promised to send me some violets. Did you
          forget?
       White ones and blue ones from under the orchard
          hedge?
       Sweet dark purple, and white ones mixed for a
          pledge
     Of our early love that hardly has opened yet.

     Here there's an almond tree—you have never seen
       Such a one in the north—it flowers on the street,
          and I stand
       Every day by the fence to look up for the flowers
          that expand
     At rest in the blue, and wonder at what they mean.

     Under the almond tree, the happy lands
       Provence, Japan, and Italy repose,
       And passing feet are chatter and clapping of
          those
     Who play around us, country girls clapping their
          hands.

     You, my love, the foremost, in a flowered gown,
       All your unbearable tenderness, you with the
          laughter
       Startled upon your eyes now so wide with here-
          after,
     You with loose hands of abandonment hanging
          down.

THE new red houses spring like plants
           In level rows
     Of reddish herbage that bristles and slants
           Its square shadows.

     The pink young houses show one side bright
           Flatly assuming the sun,
     And one side shadow, half in sight,
           Half-hiding the pavement-run;

     Where hastening creatures pass intent
           On their level way,
     Threading like ants that can never relent
           And have nothing to say.

     Bare stems of street-lamps stiffly stand
           At random, desolate twigs,
     To testify to a blight on the land
           That has stripped their sprigs.

LAST night a thief came to me
       And struck at me with something dark.
     I cried, but no one could hear me,
       I lay dumb and stark.

     When I awoke this morning
       I could find no trace;
     Perhaps 'twas a dream of warning,
       For I've lost my peace.

THE clouds are pushing in grey reluctance slowly
          northward to you,
     While north of them all, at the farthest ends,
          stands one bright-bosomed, aglance
     With fire as it guards the wild north cloud-coasts,
          red-fire seas running through
     The rocks where ravens flying to windward melt
          as a well-shot lance.

     You should be out by the orchard, where violets
          secretly darken the earth,
     Or there in the woods of the twilight, with
          northern wind-flowers shaken astir.
     Think of me here in the library, trying and trying
          a song that is worth
     Tears and swords to my heart, arrows no armour
          will turn or deter.

     You tell me the lambs have come, they lie like
          daisies white in the grass
     Of the dark-green hills; new calves in shed;
          peewits turn after the plough—
     It is well for you. For me the navvies work in the
          road where I pass
     And I want to smite in anger the barren rock of
          each waterless brow.

     Like the sough of a wind that is caught up high in
          the mesh of the budding trees,
     A sudden car goes sweeping past, and I strain my
          soul to hear
     The voice of the furtive triumphant engine as it
          rushes past like a breeze,
     To hear on its mocking triumphance unwitting
          the after-echo of fear.

     O STIFFLY shapen houses that change not,
       What conjuror's cloth was thrown across you,
          and raised
     To show you thus transfigured, changed,
       Your stuff all gone, your menace almost rased?

     Such resolute shapes, so harshly set
       In hollow blocks and cubes deformed, and heaped
     In void and null profusion, how is this?
       In what strong aqua regia now are you steeped?

     That you lose the brick-stuff out of you
       And hover like a presentment, fading faint
     And vanquished, evaporate away
       To leave but only the merest possible taint!

     Clerks.

WE have shut the doors behind us, and the velvet
         flowers of night
     Lean about us scattering their pollen grains of
         golden light.

     Now at last we lift our faces, and our faces come
         aflower
     To the night that takes us willing, liberates us to the
         hour.

     Now at last the ink and dudgeon passes from our
         fervent eyes
     And out of the chambered weariness wanders a
         spirit abroad on its enterprise.

         Not too near and not too far
         Out of the stress of the crowd
         Music screams as elephants scream
         When they lift their trunks and scream aloud
         For joy of the night when masters are
                Asleep and adream.

         So here I hide in the Shalimar
         With a wanton princess slender and proud,
         And we swoon with kisses, swoon till we seem
         Two streaming peacocks gone in a cloud
         Of golden dust, with star after star
                On our stream.

     I, THE man with the red scarf,
        Will give thee what I have, this last week's earn-
             ings.
     Take them, and buy thee a silver ring
        And wed me, to ease my yearnings.

     For the rest, when thou art wedded
        I'll wet my brow for thee
     With sweat, I'll enter a house for thy sake,
        Thou shalt shut doors on me.

     How gorgeous that shock of red lilies, and larkspur
         cleaving
     All with a flash of blue!—when will she be leaving
     Her room, where the night still hangs like a half-
         folded bat,
     And passion unbearable seethes in the darkness, like
         must in a vat.

     You, if you were sensible,
     When I tell you the stars flash signals, each one
        dreadful,
     You would not turn and answer me
     "The night is wonderful."

     Even you, if you knew
     How this darkness soaks me through and through,
        and infuses
     Unholy fear in my vapour, you would pause to dis-
        tinguish
     What hurts, from what amuses.

     For I tell you
     Beneath this powerful tree, my whole soul's fluid
     Oozes away from me as a sacrifice steam
     At the knife of a Druid.

     Again I tell you, I bleed, I am bound with withies,
     My life runs out.
     I tell you my blood runs out on the floor of this oak,
     Gout upon gout.

     Above me springs the blood-born mistletoe
     In the shady smoke.
     But who are you, twittering to and fro
     Beneath the oak?

     What thing better are you, what worse?
     What have you to do with the mysteries
     Of this ancient place, of my ancient curse?
     What place have you in my histories?

THE cuckoo and the coo-dove's ceaseless calling,
                    Calling,
     Of a meaningless monotony is palling
     All my morning's pleasure in the sun-fleck-scattered
          wood.
     May-blossom and blue bird's-eye flowers falling,
                    Falling
     In a litter through the elm-tree shade are scrawling
     Messages of true-love down the dust of the high-
          road.
     I do not like to hear the gentle grieving,
                    Grieving
     Of the she-dove in the blossom, still believing
     Love will yet again return to her and make all good.

     When I know that there must ever be deceiving,
                    Deceiving
     Of the mournful constant heart, that while she's
          weaving
     Her woes, her lover woos and sings within another
          wood.

     Oh, boisterous the cuckoo shouts, forestalling,
                    Stalling
     A progress down the intricate enthralling
     By-paths where the wanton-headed flowers doff
          their hood.

     And like a laughter leads me onward, heaving,
                    Heaving
     A sigh among the shadows, thus retrieving
     A decent short regret for that which once was very
          good.

MANY roses in the wind
     Are tapping at the window-sash.
     A hawk is in the sky; his wings
     Slowly begin to plash.

     The roses with the west wind rapping
     Are torn away, and a splash
     Of red goes down the billowing air.

     Still hangs the hawk, with the whole sky moving
     Past him—only a wing-beat proving
     The will that holds him there.

     The daisies in the grass are bending,
     The hawk has dropped, the wind is spending
     All the roses, and unending
     Rustle of leaves washes out the rending
     Cry of a bird.

     A red rose goes on the wind.—Ascending
     The hawk his wind-swept way is wending
     Easily down the sky. The daisies, sending
     Strange white signals, seem intending
     To show the place whence the scream was heard.

     But, oh, my heart, what birds are piping!
     A silver wind is hastily wiping
     The face of the youngest rose.

     And oh, my heart, cease apprehending!
     The hawk is gone, a rose is tapping
     The window-sash as the west-wind blows.

     Knock, knock, 'tis no more than a red rose rapping,
     And fear is a plash of wings.
     What, then, if a scarlet rose goes flapping
     Down the bright-grey ruin of things!

THE houses fade in a melt of mist
       Blotching the thick, soiled air
     With reddish places that still resist
       The Night's slow care.

     The hopeless, wintry twilight fades,
       The city corrodes out of sight
     As the body corrodes when death invades
       That citadel of delight.

     Now verdigris smoulderings softly spread
       Through the shroud of the town, as slow
     Night-lights hither and thither shed
       Their ghastly glow.

     Street-Walkers.

WHEN into the night the yellow light is roused like
        dust above the towns,
     Or like a mist the moon has kissed from off a pool in
        the midst of the downs,

     Our faces flower for a little hour pale and uncertain
        along the street,
     Daisies that waken all mistaken white-spread in ex-
        pectancy to meet

     The luminous mist which the poor things wist was
        dawn arriving across the sky,
     When dawn is far behind the star the dust-lit town
        has driven so high.

     All the birds are folded in a silent ball of sleep,
        All the flowers are faded from the asphalt isle in
           the sea,
     Only we hard-faced creatures go round and round,
           and keep
        The shores of this innermost ocean alive and
           illusory.

     Wanton sparrows that twittered when morning
           looked in at their eyes
        And the Cyprian's pavement-roses are gone, and
           now it is we
     Flowers of illusion who shine in our gauds, make a
           Paradise
        On the shores of this ceaseless ocean, gay birds of
           the town-dark sea.

SAD as he sits on the white sea-stone
     And the suave sea chuckles, and turns to the moon,
     And the moon significant smiles at the cliffs and
        the boulders.
     He sits like a shade by the flood alone
     While I dance a tarantella on the rocks, and the
        croon
     Of my mockery mocks at him over the waves'
        bright shoulders.

     What can I do but dance alone,
     Dance to the sliding sea and the moon,
     For the moon on my breast and the air on my limbs
        and the foam on my feet?
     For surely this earnest man has none
     Of the night in his soul, and none of the tune
     Of the waters within him; only the world's old
        wisdom to bleat.

     I wish a wild sea-fellow would come down the
        glittering shingle,
     A soulless neckar, with winking seas in his eyes
     And falling waves in his arms, and the lost soul's kiss
     On his lips: I long to be soulless, I tingle
     To touch the sea in the last surprise
     Of fiery coldness, to be gone in a lost soul's bliss.

IN the choir the boys are singing the hymn.
             The morning light on their lips
     Moves in silver-moist flashes, in musical trim.

     Sudden outside the high window, one crow
             Hangs in the air
     And lights on a withered oak-tree's top of woe.

     One bird, one blot, folded and still at the top
             Of the withered tree!—in the grail
     Of crystal heaven falls one full black drop.

     Like a soft full drop of darkness it seems to sway
             In the tender wine
     Of our Sabbath, suffusing our sacred day.

     Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
     Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
     A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the
         tingling strings
     And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who
         smiles as she sings.

     In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
     Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
     To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter
         outside
     And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano
         our guide.

     So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
     With the great black piano appassionato. The
         glamour
     Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
     Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a
         child for the past.

     Charity.

BY the river
     In the black wet night as the furtive rain slinks
         down,
     Dropping and starting from sleep
     Alone on a seat
     A woman crouches.

     I must go back to her.

     I want to give her
     Some money. Her hand slips out of the breast of
         her gown
     Asleep. My fingers creep
     Carefully over the sweet
     Thumb-mound, into the palm's deep pouches.

     So, the gift!

     God, how she starts!
     And looks at me, and looks in the palm of her hand!
     And again at me!
     I turn and run
     Down the Embankment, run for my life.

     But why?—why?

     Because of my heart's
     Beating like sobs, I come to myself, and stand
     In the street spilled over splendidly
     With wet, flat lights. What I've done
     I know not, my soul is in strife.

     The touch was on the quick. I want to forget.

RIGID sleeps the house in darkness, I alone
     Like a thing unwarrantable cross the hall
     And climb the stairs to find the group of doors
     Standing angel-stern and tall.

     I want my own room's shelter. But what is this
     Throng of startled beings suddenly thrown
     In confusion against my entry? Is it only the trees'
     Large shadows from the outside street lamp blown?

     Phantom to phantom leaning; strange women weep
     Aloud, suddenly on my mind
     Startling a fear unspeakable, as the shuddering wind
     Breaks and sobs in the blind.

     So like to women, tall strange women weeping!
     Why continually do they cross the bed?
     Why does my soul contract with unnatural fear?
     I am listening! Is anything said?

     Ever the long black figures swoop by the bed;
     They seem to be beckoning, rushing away, and
         beckoning.
     Whither then, whither, what is it, say
     What is the reckoning.

     Tall black Bacchae of midnight, why then, why
     Do you rush to assail me?
     Do I intrude on your rites nocturnal?
     What should it avail me?

     Is there some great Iacchos of these slopes
     Suburban dismal?
     Have I profaned some female mystery, orgies
     Black and phantasmal?

     How have I wandered here to this vaulted room
     In the house of life?—the floor was ruffled with gold
     Last evening, and she who was softly in bloom,
     Glimmered as flowers that in perfume at twilight
         unfold

     For the flush of the night; whereas now the gloom
     Of every dirty, must-besprinkled mould,
     And damp old web of misery's heirloom
     Deadens this day's grey-dropping arras-fold.

     And what is this that floats on the undermist
     Of the mirror towards the dusty grate, as if feeling
     Unsightly its way to the warmth?—this thing with
         a list
     To the left? this ghost like a candle swealing?

     Pale-blurred, with two round black drops, as if it
         missed
     Itself among everything else, here hungrily stealing
     Upon me!—my own reflection!—explicit gist
     Of my presence there in the mirror that leans from
         the ceiling!

     Then will somebody square this shade with the
         being I know
     I was last night, when my soul rang clear as a bell
     And happy as rain in summer? Why should it be
         so?
     What is there gone against me, why am I in hell?

DARKNESS comes out of the earth
       And swallows dip into the pallor of the west;
     From the hay comes the clamour of children's
          mirth;
     Wanes the old palimpsest.

     The night-stock oozes scent,
       And a moon-blue moth goes flittering by:
     All that the worldly day has meant
       Wastes like a lie.

     The children have forsaken their play;
       A single star in a veil of light
     Glimmers: litter of day
       Is gone from sight.

     Outcasts.

THE night rain, dripping unseen,
     Comes endlessly kissing my face and my hands.

     The river, slipping between
     Lamps, is rayed with golden bands
     Half way down its heaving sides;
     Revealed where it hides.

     Under the bridge
     Great electric cars
     Sing through, and each with a floor-light racing
         along at its side.
     Far off, oh, midge after midge
     Drifts over the gulf that bars
     The night with silence, crossing the lamp-touched
         tide.

     At Charing Cross, here, beneath the bridge
     Sleep in a row the outcasts,
     Packed in a line with their heads against the wall.
     Their feet, in a broken ridge
     Stretch out on the way, and a lout casts
     A look as he stands on the edge of this naked stall.

     Beasts that sleep will cover
     Their faces in their flank; so these
     Have huddled rags or limbs on the naked sleep.
     Save, as the tram-cars hover
     Past with the noise of a breeze
     And gleam as of sunshine crossing the low black heap,

     Two naked faces are seen
     Bare and asleep,
     Two pale clots swept and swept by the light of the
         cars.
     Foam-clots showing between
     The long, low tidal-heap,
     The mud-weed opening two pale, shadowless stars.

     Over the pallor of only two faces
     Passes the gallivant beam of the trams;
     Shows in only two sad places
     The white bare bone of our shams.

     A little, bearded man, pale, peaked in sleeping,
     With a face like a chickweed flower.
     And a heavy woman, sleeping still keeping
     Callous and dour.

     Over the pallor of only two places
     Tossed on the low, black, ruffled heap
     Passes the light of the tram as it races
     Out of the deep.

     Eloquent limbs
     In disarray
     Sleep-suave limbs of a youth with long, smooth
         thighs
     Hutched up for warmth; the muddy rims
     Of trousers fray
     On the thin bare shins of a man who uneasily lies.

     The balls of five red toes
     As red and dirty, bare
     Young birds forsaken and left in a nest of mud—
     Newspaper sheets enclose
     Some limbs like parcels, and tear
     When the sleeper stirs or turns on the ebb of the
         flood—

     One heaped mound
     Of a woman's knees
     As she thrusts them upward under the ruffled skirt—
     And a curious dearth of sound
     In the presence of these
     Wastrels that sleep on the flagstones without any
         hurt.

     Over two shadowless, shameless faces
     Stark on the heap
     Travels the light as it tilts in its paces
     Gone in one leap.

     At the feet of the sleepers, watching,
     Stand those that wait
     For a place to lie down; and still as they stand,
         they sleep,
     Wearily catching
     The flood's slow gait
     Like men who are drowned, but float erect in the
         deep.

     Oh, the singing mansions,
     Golden-lighted tall
     Trams that pass, blown ruddily down the night!
     The bridge on its stanchions
     Stoops like a pall
     To this human blight.

     On the outer pavement, slowly,
     Theatre people pass,
     Holding aloft their umbrellas that flash and are
         bright
     Like flowers of infernal moly
     Over nocturnal grass
     Wetly bobbing and drifting away on our sight.

     And still by the rotten
     Row of shattered feet,
     Outcasts keep guard.
     Forgotten,
     Forgetting, till fate shall delete
     One from the ward.

     The factories on the Surrey side
     Are beautifully laid in black on a gold-grey sky.
     The river's invisible tide
     Threads and thrills like ore that is wealth to the eye.

     And great gold midges
     Cross the chasm
     At the bridges
     Above intertwined plasm.