Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones
Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones
In their hip-pockets as a thing that’s done,
And start their silent swinging, one by one.
Black horses drive a mower through the weeds,
And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds,
His belly close to ground. I see the blade,
Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.
To chase a never-reached mirage
Across the hot, white sand,
And choke and die, while gazing on
Its green and watered strand.
When I come down to sleep death’s endless night,
The threshold of the unknown dark to cross,
What to me then will be the keenest loss,
When this bright world blurs on my fading sight?
Will it be that no more I shall see the trees
Or smell the flowers or hear the singing birds
Or watch the flashing streams or patient herds?
No, I am sure it will be none of these.
But, ah! Manhattan’s sights and sounds, her smells,
Her crowds, her throbbing force, the thrill that comes
From being of her a part, her subtile spells,
Her shining towers, her avenues, her slums--
O God! the stark, unutterable pity,
To be dead, and never again behold my city!
Why should one live when living is a pain ?
I have not seen a flower had any scent,
Nor heard a bird sing once. The very rain
Seems dirty, and the clouds, all soiled and rent,
Toil sulkily across the black, old sky,
And all the weary stars go moping by,
They care not whither, sea, or mount, or plain,
All's one — and what one gets is never gain.
The sun scowled yesterday a weary while.
It used to beam. The moon last night was grim
With cynic gaze and frosty, sullen smile.
And once I loved to gaze while from the rim
Of some great mountain she would look and gild
The rustling cornfield. Now she is filled
With bitterness and rancour sour as bile,
And blasts the world's surface every mile.
I WILL not dance :
I say I will not dance.
Your audience, pah, let them go home again,
Sleek, ugly pigs. Am I to hop and prance
As long as they will pay,
And posture for their eyes, and lay
My womanhood before them ? Let them drain
Their porter pots and snuffle — I'll not stay.
For he is dead :
I tell you he is dead.
My God, did you not hear me say it
Twice already ? I held his groaning head
In these remembering arms,
And cursed the charms
That could not stop his going. Must I bay it
Like a dog to you ? Quit your alarms !
My arms are round you, and I lean
Against you, while the lark
Sings over us, and golden lights, and green
Shadows are on your bark.
There’ll come a season when you’ll stretch
Black boards to cover me:
Then in Mount Jerome I will lie, poor wretch,
With worms eternally.
We heard the thrushes by the shore and sea,
And saw the golden stars’ nativity,
Then round we went the lane by Thomas Flynn,
Across the church where bones lie out and in;
And there I asked beneath a lonely cloud
Of strange delight, with one bird singing loud,
What change you’d wrought in graveyard, rock and sea,
This new wild paradise to wake for me....
Yet knew no more than knew those merry sins
Had built this stack of thigh-bones, jaws and shins.
If I were on the High Road
That runs to Malvern Town,
I should not need to read, to smoke,
My fear of death to drown;
Watching the clouds, skies, shadows dappling
The sweet land up and down.
But here the shells rush over,
We lie in evil holes,
We burrow into darkness
Like rabbits or like moles,
Men that have breathed the Severn air,
Men that have eyes and souls.
To-day the grass runs over
With ripples like the sea,
And men stand up and drink air
Easy and sweet and free;
Pour out your light, O stars, and do not hold
Your loveliest shining from earth’s outworn shell--
Pure and cold your radiance, pure and cold
My dead friend’s face as well.
I HAVE seen Death and the faces of men in fear
Of Death, and shattered, terribly ruined flesh,
Appalled; but through the horror, coloured and clear
The love of my county, Gloster, rises afresh.
And on the Day of Days, the Judgment Day,
The Word of Doom awaiting breathless and still,
I’ll marvel how sweet’s the air down Framilode way,
And take my sentence on sheer-down Crickley Hill.
I WATCHED the boys of England where they went
Through mud and water to do appointed things.
See one a stake, and one wire-netting brings,
And one comes slowly under a burden bent
Of ammunition. Though the strength be spent
They “carry on” under the shadowing wings
Of Death the ever-present. And hark, one sings
Although no joy from the grey skies be lent.
Are these the heroes--these? have kept from you
The power of primal savagery so long?
Shall break the devil’s legions? These they are
Who do in silence what they might boast to do;
In the height of battle tell the world in song
How they do hate and fear the face of War.
She knew but one desire, one single aim
Consumed her days and robbed her nights of rest —
To reconcile the two whom she loved best,
Who, long estranged, yet of one household came;
And while for this she strove, her gentle frame
And tender heart were often sore distressed,
For all her longing love and pain repressed
Seemed but as fuel added to the flame.
But on that day of silence when she passed
By unseen pathways to the distant spheres,
What life had failed to do, death wrought at last,
For they who through the long, embittered years
Had spoken not, now stood with hands locked fast,
And looked into each other's face with tears.