The New Morning: Poems

The Temple Bell, in peace and war,

Keeps the measure of sun and star.

But sometimes, in the night it cries

Faintly, and a voice replies:

Mother, Oh, mother, the Bell rings true!—

You were all that I had!—Oh, mother, my mother!—

With the land and the Bell it is well. Is it well,

Is it well with the heart that had you and none other?

THE Emperor mocked at Nazareth

In his almighty hour.

The Slave that bowed himself to death

And walked with slaves in Nazareth,

What were his words but wasted breath

Before that "will to power"?

Yet, in the darkest hour of all,

When black defeat began,

The Emperor heard the mountains quake,

He felt the graves beneath him shake,

He watched his legions rally and break,

And he whimpered as they ran.

"I hear a shout that moves the earth,

A cry that wakes the dead!

Will no one tell me whence they come,

For all my messengers are dumb?

What power is this that comes to birth

And breaks my power?" he said.

Then, all around his foundering guns,

Though dawn was now not far,

The darkness filled with a living fear

That whispered at the Emperor's ear,

"The armies of the dead draw near

Beneath an eastern star."

The trumpet blows in Nazareth.

The Slave is risen again.

Across the bitter wastes of death

The horsemen ride from Nazareth,

And the Power we mocked as wasted breath

Returns, in power, to reign;

Rides on, in white, through Nazareth,

To save His world again.

ON this high altar, fringed with ferns

That darken against the sky,

The dawn in lonely beauty burns

And all our evils die.

The struggling sea that roared below

Is quieter than the dew,

Quieter than the clouds that flow

Across the stainless blue.

On this bare crest, the angels kneel

And breathe the sweets that rise

From flowers too little to reveal

Their beauty to our eyes.

I have seen Edens on the earth

With queenly blooms arrayed;

But here the fairest come to birth,

The smallest flowers He made.

O, high above the sounding pine,

And richer, sweeter far,

The wild thyme wakes. The celandine

Looks at the morning star.

They may not see the heavens unfold.

They breathe no out-worn prayer;

But, on a mountain, as of old,

His glory fills the air.

THE sunset lingered in the pale green West:

In rosy wastes the low soft evening star

Woke; while the last white sea-mew sought for rest;

And tawny sails came stealing o'er the bar.

But, in the hillside cottage, through the panes

The light streamed like a thin far trumpet-call,

And quickened, as with quivering battle-stains,

The printed ships that decked the parlour wall.

From oaken frames old admirals looked down:

They saw the lonely slumberer at their feet:

They saw the paper, headed Talk from Town;

Our rusting trident, and our phantom fleet:

And from a neighbouring tavern surged a song

Of England laughing in the face of war,

With eyes unconquerably proud and strong,

And lips triumphant from her Trafalgar.

But he, the slumberer in that glimmering room,

Saw distant waters glide and heave and gleam;

Around him in the softly coloured gloom

The pictures clustered slowly to a dream.

He saw how England, resting on her past,

Among the faded garlands of her dead,

Woke; for a whisper reached her heart at last,

And once again she raised her steel-clad head.

Her eyes were filled with sudden strange alarms;

She heard the westering waters change and chime;

She heard the distant tumult of her arms

Defeated, not by courage, but by Time.

Knowledge had made a deadlier pact with death,

Nor strength nor steel availed against that bond:

Slowly approached—and Britain held her breath—

The battle booming from the deeps beyond.

O, then what darkness rolled upon the wind,

Threatening the torch that Britain held on high?

Where all her navies, baffled, broken, blind,

Slunk backward, snarling in their agony!

Who guards the gates of Freedom now? The cry

Stabbed heaven! England, the shattered ramparts fall!

Then, like a trumpet shivering through the sky

O, like white lightning rending the black pall

Of heaven, an answer pealed: Her dead shall hear that call.

Then came a distant light of great waves breaking

That brought the sunset on each crumbling crest,

A rumour as of buried ages waking,

And mighty spirits rising from their rest;

Then ghostly clouds arose, with billowing breast,

White clouds that turned to sails upon their way,

Red clouds that burned like flags against the West,

Till even the conquering fleet in silence lay

Dazed with that strange old light, and night grew bright as day.

We come to fight for Freedom! The great East

Heard, and was rent asunder like a veil.

Host upon host out of the night increased

Its towering clouds and crowded zones of sail:

England, our England, canst thou faint or fail?

We come to fight for Freedom yet once more!

This, this is ours at least! Count the great tale

Of all these dead that rise to guard thy shore

By right of the red life they never feared to pour.

We come to fight for Freedom! On they came,

One cloud of beauty sweeping the wild sea;

And there, through all their thousands, flashed like flame

That star-born signal of the Victory:

Duty, that deathless lantern of the free;

Duty, that makes a god of every man.

And there was Nelson, watching silently

As through the phantom fleet the message ran;

And his tall frigate rushed before the stormy van.

Nelson, our Nelson, frail and maimed and blind,

Stretched out his dead cold face against the foe:

And England's Raleigh followed hard behind,

With all his eager fighting heart aglow;

Glad, glad for England's sake once more to know

The old joy of battle and contempt of pain;

Glad, glad to die, if England willed it so,

The traitor's and the coward's death again;

But hurl the world back now as once he hurled back Spain.

And there were all those others, Drake and Blake,

Rodney and Howard, Byron, Collingwood;

With deathless eyes aflame for England's sake,

As on their ancient decks they proudly stood,—

Decks washed of old with England's purplest blood;

And there, once more, each rushing oaken side

Bared its dark-throated, thirsty, gleaming brood

Of cannon, watched by laughing lads who died

Long, long ago for England and her ancient pride.

We come to fight for England! The great sea

In a wild light of song began to break

Round that tall phantom of the Victory

And all the foam was music in her wake:

Ship after phantom ship, with guns a-rake

And shot-rent flags a-stream from every mast

Moved in a deepening splendour, not to make

A shield for England of her own dead past;

But, with a living dream to arm her soul at last.

We come to die for England: through the hush

Of gathered nations rose that regal cry,

From naked oaken walls one word could crush

If those vast armoured throats dared to reply:

But there the most implacable enemy

Felt his eyes fill with gladder, prouder tears,

As Nelson's calm eternal face went by,

Gazing beyond all perishable fears

To some diviner goal above the waste of years.

Through the hushed fleets the vision streamed away,

Then slowly turned once more to that deep West,

While voices cried, O, England, the new day

Is dawning, but thy soul can take no rest.

Thy freedom and thy peace are only thine

By right of toil on every land and sea

And by that crimson sacrificial wine

Of thine own heart and thine own agony.

Peace is not slumber. Peace, in every hour,

Throbs like the heart of music. This alone

Can save thy heritage and confirm that power

Whereof the past is but the cushioned throne.

Look to the fleet! Again and yet again,

Hear us who storm thy heart with this one cry.

Hear us, who cannot help, though fair and fain,

To hold thy seas before thee, and to die.

Look to the fleet! Thy fleet, the first, last line:

The sword of Liberty, her strength, her shield,

Her food, her life-blood! Britain, it is thine,

Here, now, to hold that birth-right, or to yield.

So, through the dark, those phantom ships of old

Faded, it seemed, through mists of blood and tears.

Sails turned to clouds, and slowly westward rolled

The sad returning pageant of the years.

On tides of light, where all our tumults cease,

Through that rich West, the Victory returned;

And all the waves around her whispered "peace,"

And from her mast no battle-message burned.

Like clouds, like fragments of those fading skies,

The pageant passed, with all its misty spars,

While the hushed nations raised their dreaming eyes

To that great light which brings the end of wars.

Ship after ship, in some strange glory drowned,

Cloud after cloud, was lost in that deep light

Each with a sovran stillness haloed round.

Then—that high fleet of stars led on the night.

UNDER an arch of glorious leaves I passed

Out of the wood and saw the sickle moon

Floating in daylight o'er the pale green sea.

It was the quiet hour before the sun

Gathers the clouds to prayer and silently

Utters his benediction on the waves

That whisper round the death-bed of the day.

The labourers were returning from the farms

And children danced to meet them. From the doors

Of cottages there came a pleasant clink

Where busy hands laid out the evening meal.

From smouldering elms around the village spire

There soared and sank the caw of gathering rooks.

The faint-flushed clouds were listening to the tale

The sea tells to the sunset with one sigh.

The last white wistful sea-bird sought for peace,

And the last fishing-boat stole o'er the bar,

And fragrant grasses, murmuring a prayer,

Bowed all together to the holy west,

Bowed all together thro' the golden hush,

The breathing hush, the solemn scented hush,

The holy, holy hush of eventide.

And, in among the ferns that crowned the hill

With waving green and whispers of the wind,

A boy and girl, carelessly linking hands,

Into their golden dream drifted away.

On that rich afternoon of scent and song

Old Michael Oaktree died. It was not much

He wished for; but indeed I think he longed

To see the light of summer once again

Blossoming o'er the far blue hills. I know

He used to like his rough-hewn wooden bench

Placed in the sun outside the cottage door

Where in the listening stillness he could hear,

Across the waving gilly-flowers that crowned

His crumbling garden wall, the long low sigh

Of supreme peace that whispers to the hills

The sacred consolation of the sea.

He did not hope for much: he longed to live

Until the winter came again, he said;

But on the last sweet eve of May he died.

I wandered sadly through the dreaming lanes

Down to the cottage on that afternoon;

For I had known old Michael Oaktree now

So many years, so many happy years.

When I was little he had carried me

High on his back to see the harvest home,

And given me many a ride upon his wagon

Among the dusty scents of sun and hay.

He showed me how to snare the bulky trout

That lurked under the bank of yonder brook.

Indeed, he taught me many a country craft,

For I was apt to learn, and, as I learnt,

I loved the teacher of that homely lore.

Deep in my boyish heart he shared the glad

Influence of the suns and winds and waves,

Giving my childhood what it hungered for—

The rude earth-wisdom of the primal man.

He had retained his childhood: Death for him

Had no more terror than his bed. He walked

With wind and sunlight like a brother, glad

Of their companionship and mutual aid.

We, toilers after truth, are weaned too soon

From earth's dark arms and naked barbarous breast.

Too soon, too soon, we leave the golden feast,

Fetter the dancing limbs and pluck the crown

Of roses from the dreaming brow. We pass

Our lives in most laborious idleness.

For we have lost the meaning of the world;

We have gone out into the night too soon;

We have mistaken all the means of grace

And over-rated our small power to learn.

And the years move so swiftly over us:

We have so little time to live in worlds

Unrealised and unknown realms of joy,

We are so old before we learn how vain

Our effort was, how fruitlessly we cast

Our Bread upon the waters, and how weak

Our hearts were, but our chance desires how strong!

Then, in the dark, our sense of light decays;

We cannot cry to God as once we cried!

Lost in the gloom, our faith, perhaps our love,

Lies dead with years that never can return.

But Michael Oaktree was a man whose love

Had never waned through all his eighty years.

His faith was hardly faith. He seemed a part

Of all that he believed in. He had lived

In constant conversation with the sun,

The wind, the silence and the heart of peace;

In absolute communion with the Power

That rules all action and all tides of thought,

And all the secret courses of the stars;

The Power that still establishes on earth

Desire and worship, through the radiant laws

Of Duty, Love and Beauty; for through these

As through three portals of the self-same gate

The soul of man attains infinity,

And enters into Godhead. So he gained

On earth a fore-taste of Nirvana, not

The void of eastern dream, but the desire

And goal of all of us, whether thro' lives

Innumerable, by slow degrees, we near

The death divine, or from this breaking body

Of earthly death we flash at once to God.

Through simple love and simple faith, this man

Attained a height above the hope of kings.

Yet, as I softly shut the little gate

And walked across the garden, all the scents

Of mingling blossom ached like inmost pain

Deep in my heart, I know not why. They seemed

Distinct, distinct as distant evening bells

Tolling, over the sea, a secret chime

That breaks and breaks and breaks upon the heart

In sorrow rather than in sound, a chime

Strange as a streak of sunset to the moon,

Strange as a rose upon a starlit grave,

Strange as a smile upon a dead man's lips;

A chime of melancholy, mute as death

But strong as love, uttered in plangent tones

Of honeysuckle, jasmine, gilly-flowers,

Jonquils and aromatic musky leaves,

Lilac and lilies to the rose-wreathed porch.

At last I tapped and entered and was drawn

Into the bedroom of the dying man,

Who lay, propped up with pillows, quietly

Gazing; for through his open casement far

Beyond the whispers of the gilly-flowers

He saw the mellow light of eventide

Hallow the west once more; and, as he gazed,

I think I never saw so great a peace

On any human face. There was no sound

Except the slumbrous pulsing of a clock,

The whisper of the garden and, far off,

The sacred consolation of the sea.

His wife sat at his bed-side: she had passed

Her eightieth year; her only child was dead.

She had been wedded more than sixty years,

And she sat gazing with the man she loved

Quietly, out into that unknown Deep.

A butterfly floated into the room

And back again, pausing awhile to bask

And wink its painted fans on the warm sill;

A bird piped in the roses and there came

Into the childless mother's ears a sound

Of happy laughing children, far away.

Then Michael Oaktree took his wife's thin hand

Between his big rough hands. His eyes grew dark,

And, as he turned to her and died, he spoke

Two words of perfect faith and love—Come soon!

O then in all the world there was no sound

Except the slumbrous pulsing of a clock,

The whisper of the leaves and far away,

The infinite compassion of the sea.

But, as I softly passed out of the porch

And walked across the garden, all the scents

Of mingling blossoms ached like inmost joy,

Distinct no more, but like one heavenly choir

Pealing one mystic music, still and strange

As voices of the holy Seraphim,

One voice of adoration, mute as love,

Stronger than death, and pure with wedded tones

Of honeysuckle, jasmine, gilly-flowers,

Jonquils and aromatic musky leaves,

Lilac and lilies to the garden gate.

O then indeed I knew how closely knit

To stars and flowers we are, how many means

Of grace there are for those that never lose

Their sense of membership in this divine

Body of God; for those that all their days

Have walked in quiet communion with the Life

That keeps the common secret of the sun,

The wind, the silence and the heart of man.

There is one God, one Love, one everlasting

Mystery of Incarnation, one creative

Passion behind the many-coloured veil.

We have obscured God's face with partial truths,

The cause of all our sorrow and sin, our wars

Of force and thought, in this unheavened world.

Yet, by the battle of our partial truths,

The past against the present and the swift

Moment of passing joy against the deep

Eternal love, ever the weaker truth

Falls to the stronger, till once more we near

The enfolding splendour of the whole. Our God

Has been too long a partial God. We are all

Made in His image, men and birds and beasts,

Mountains and clouds and cataracts and suns,

With those great Beings above our little world,

A height beyond for every depth below,

Those long-forgotten Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,

Existences that live and move in realms

As far beyond our thought as Europe lies

With all its little arts and sciences

Beyond the comprehension of the worm.

We are all partial images, we need

What lies beyond us to complete our souls;

Therefore our souls are filled with a desire

And love which lead us towards the Infinity

Of Godhead that awaits us each and all.

Peacefully through the dreaming lanes I went.

The sun sank, and the birds were hushed. The stars

Trembled like blossoms in the purple trees.

But, as I paused upon the whispering hill

The mellow light still lingered in the west,

And dark and soft against that rosy depth

A boy and girl stood knee-deep in the ferns.

Dreams of the dead man's youth were in my heart,

Yet I was very glad; and as the moon

Brightened, they kissed; and, linking hand in hand,

Down to their lamp-lit home drifted away.

Under an arch of leaves, into the gloom

I went along the little woodland road,

And through the breathless hedge of hawthorn heard

Out of the deepening night, the long low sigh

Of supreme peace that whispers to the hills

The sacrament and sabbath of the sea.

LAST night I rode with Touchstone on a bus

From Ludgate Hill to World's End. It was he!

Despite the broadcloth and the bowler hat,

I knew him, Touchstone, the wild flower of folly,

The whetstone of his age, the scourge of kings,

The madcap morning star of elfin-land,

Who used to wrap his legs around his neck

For warmth on winter nights. He had slipped back,

To see what men were doing in a world

That should be wiser. He had watched a play,

Read several books, heard men discourse of art

And life; and he sat bubbling like a spring

In Arden. Never did blackbird, drenched with may,

Chuckle as Touchstone chuckled on that ride.

Lord, what a world! Lord, what a mad, mad world!

Then, to the jolt and jingle of the engine,

He burst into this bunch of madcap rhymes:—

"I WANT to be new," said the duckling.

"O, ho!" said the wise old owl,

While the guinea-hen cluttered off chuckling

To tell all the rest of the fowl.

"I should like a more elegant figure,"

That child of a duck went on.

"I should like to grow bigger and bigger,

Until I could swallow a swan.

"I won't be the bond slave of habit,

I won't have these webs on my toes.

I want to run round like a rabbit,

A rabbit as red as a rose.

"I don't want to waddle like mother,

Or quack like my silly old dad.

I want to be utterly other,

And frightfully modern and mad."

"Do you know," said the turkey, "you're quacking!

There's a fox creeping up thro' the rye;

And, if you're not utterly lacking,

You'll make for that duck-pond. Good-bye!"

"I won't," said the duckling. "I'll lift him

A beautiful song, like a sheep;

And when I have—as it were—biffed him,

I'll give him my feathers to keep."

Now the curious end of this fable,

So far as the rest ascertained,

Though they searched from the barn to the stable,

Was that only his feathers remained.

So he wasn't the bond slave of habit,

And he didn't have webs on his toes;

And perhaps he runs round like a rabbit,

A rabbit as red as a rose.

THE man who discovered the use of a chair,

Odds—bobs—

What a wonderful man!

He used to sit down on it, tearing his hair,

Till he thought of a highly original plan.

For years he had sat on his chair, like you,

Quite—still!

But his looks were grim

For he wished to be famous (as great men do)

And nobody ever would listen to him.

Now he went one night to a dinner of state

Hear! hear!

In the proud Guildhall!

And he sat on his chair, and he ate from a plate;

But nobody heard his opinions at all;

There were ten fat aldermen down for a speech

(Grouse! Grouse!

What a dreary bird!)

With five fair minutes allotted to each,

But never a moment for him to be heard.

But, each being ready to talk, I suppose,

Order! Order!

They cried, for the Chair!

And, much to their wonder, our friend arose

And fastened his eye on the eye of the Mayor.

"We have come," he said, "to the fourteenth course!

"High—time,

for the Chair," he said.

Then, with both of his hands, and with all of his force,

He hurled his chair at the Lord Mayor's head.

It missed that head by the width of a hair.

Gee—whizz!

What a horrible squeak!

But it crashed through the big bay-window there

And smashed a bus into Wednesday week.

And the very next day, in the decorous Times

(Great—Guns—

How the headlines ran!)

In spite of the kings and the wars and the crimes,

There were five full columns about that man.

Oh, if you get dizzy when authors write

(My stars!

And you very well may!)

That white is black and that black is white,

You should sit, quite still, in your chair and say:

It is easy enough to be famous now,

(Puff—Puff!

How the trumpets blare!)

Provided, of course, that you don't care how,

Like the man who discovered the use of a chair.

SHUN the brush and shun the pen,

Shun the ways of clever men,

When they prove that black is white,

Whey they swear that wrong is right,

When they roast the singing stars

Like chestnuts, in between the bars,

Children, let a wandering fool

Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.

When you see a clever man

Run as quickly as you can.

You must never, never, never

Think that Socrates was clever.

The cleverest thing I ever knew

Now cracks walnuts at the Zoo.

Children, let a wandering fool

Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.

Homer could not scintillate.

Milton, too, was merely great.

That's a very different matter

From talking like a frantic hatter.

Keats and Shelley had no tricks.

Wordsworth never climbed up sticks.

Children, let a wandering fool

Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.

Lincoln would create a gloom

In many a London drawing-room;

He'd be silent at their wit,

He would never laugh at it.

When they kissed Salome's toes,

I think he'd snort and blow his nose.

Children, let a wandering fool

Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.

They'd curse him for a silly clown,

They'd drum him out of London town.

Professor Flunkey, the historian,

Would say he was a dull Victorian.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke and John,

Bless the bed I rest upon.

Children, let a wandering fool

Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.

Amen.

FASHION on fashion on fashion,

(With only the truth growing old!)

And here's the new purple of passion,

(And love waiting out in the cold)

Who'll buy?

They are crying new lamps for Aladdin,

New worlds for the old and the true;

And no one remembers the story

The magic was not in the new.

They are crying a new rose for Eden,

A rose of green glass. I suppose

The only thing wrong with their rose is

The fact that it isn't a rose.

Who'll buy?

And here is a song without metre;

And, here again, nothing is wrong;

(For nothing on earth could be neater)

Except that—it isn't a song.

Well. Walk on your hands. It's the latest!

And feet are Victorian now;

And even our best and our greatest

Before that dread epithet bow.

Who'll buy?

The furniture goes for a song, now.

The sixties had horrible taste.

But the trouble is this—they've included

Some better things, too, in their haste.

Were they wrapped in the antimacassars,

Or sunk in a sofa of plush?

Did an Angelican bishop forget them,

And leave them behind in the crush?

Who'll buy?

Here's a turnex. It's going quite cheaply.

(It lived with stuffed birds in the hall!

And, of course, to a mind that thinks deeply

That settles it, once and for all.)

Here's item, a ring (very plain, sirs!),

And item, a God (but He's dead!);

They say we shall need Him again, sirs,

So—item, a cross for His head.

Who'll buy?

Yes, you'll need it again, though He's dead, sirs.

It is only the fashions that fly.

So here are the thorns for His head, sirs.

They'll keep till you need 'em. Who'll buy?

WHY do we make our music?

Oh, blind dark strings reply:

Because we dwell in a strange land

And remember a lost sky.

We ask no leaf of the laurel,

We know what fame is worth;

But our songs break out of our winter

As the flowers break out on the earth.

And we dream of the unknown comrade,

In the days when we lie dead,

Who shall open our book in the sunlight,

And read, as ourselves have read,

On a lonely hill, by a firwood,

With whispering seas below,

And murmur a song we made him

Ages and ages ago.

If making his may-time sweeter

With dews of our own dead may,

One pulse of our own dead heart-strings

Awake in his heart that day,

We would pray for no richer guerdon,

No praise from the careless throng;

For song is the cry of a lover

In quest of an answering song.

As a child might run to his elders

With news of an opening flower

We should walk with our young companion

And talk to his heart for an hour,

As once by my own green firwood,

And once by a Western sea,

Thank God, my own good comrades

Have walked and talked with me.

Too mighty to make men sorrow,

Too weak to heal their pain

(Though they that remember the hawthorn

May find their heaven again),

We are moved by a deeper hunger;

We are bound by a stronger cord;

For love is the heart of our music,

And love is its one reward.