Miscellany of Poetry
by
Various
Part 3 out of 3
They rise, they rise,
With the glory of utter loss
In their stary eyes.
Beckoning, beckoning, calling,
Pointing the way.
But the dawn comes white, and finds them
Bones and clay.
Winds of the world blow o'er them
Your serenade!
Touch like a lute the broken earth
Where our dead are laid!
Broken bones of the martyrs,
Reliques of pain,
Anoint them, anoint them with sunlight,
Robe them in rain.
The Silent People of No Man's Land
Calm they lie,
Bones, broken and bleached,
Under the sky.
Over them sweeps the tempest,
And stirs them not.
We pass over, beyond them,
They are forgot.
* * * * *
E. H. VISIAK
LAMPS AND LANTERNS
When I had sight, great glamour was
In myriad lamps of coloured glass:
Old lamps for new I never sold;
For old were new, and new were old.
And Chinese lanterns, paper globes,
Were Dragon Gods in tissue robes
That stood on air with squat, round shoon,
Beneath the thin, receded Moon.
STRANDED
_Dusk gathers. On the seaward hedge
The wild hops, hanging bright,
Gleam as a foam-spray flung on sedge
From a sea of golden light_.
A ship lies heavy on the sands
Above the warped, wan tide,
Whose waves thrust ineffectual hands
Beneath its murmuring side.
They cannot lift the monstrous hulk,
Nor break the ghostly spell;
The ship lies dreaming, all her bulk
Racked on a shoal of hell.
I hear the sullen timbers creak,
With echoings deep and numb;
No other sound: nor groan nor shriek;
For agony is dumb!
But at the seams, in every crack,
A beaded sweat appears:
The soul that's stretched on such a rack
Can shed no other tears!
* * * * *
ALEC WAUGH
RUBBLE
We may fill the daytime with friendship
And laughter and song;
But however the laughter may trip
And the words break in song
On a loved one's lip;
And however gaily the road may bend
Into the sky,
It must come to this in the end,
That we stand
And watch the last friend
Turn with a half-felt sigh
And a wave of the hand;
And silence is over the day,
Shadows fall,
And our happiness crumbles away
Like a wall
That nobody cares for,
That falls stone by stone
Till its grandeur is rubble once more,
And we are alone.
* * * * *
CHARLES WILLIAMS
CHRISTMAS
Word through the world went
On Christmas morn,--
'Tidings! behold, a
Townsman is born!'
Then in their council
Smiled the high lords:
'Sword for world-conquest
'Mid a world's swords.
Need shall our armies
Have of each birth,
In that last battle
Wins us the earth.'
Still were the priesthood,
Singing the Mass:
'Lo, is our creed come
Truly to pass?
Blesséd and broken
Crumbs that we give,
Say! say, O chalice,
Can a creed live?
Then to lord Shakespeare,
Brooding alone,
While in a vision
Lear was shown,
While his just loathing
Hung over men,
Lo, from the darkness
Came Imogen.
Then said a free maid,
Heart against mine,--
Take me, lord governor,
Who am all thine!
Thou that hast blessed me
With a new light,
Ah, is thy handmaid
Fair in thy sight?'
Then said our Lady,--
'Clean is the hut,
Filled are the platters,
And the door shut.
Sit, O son Jesus!
Sit thou, sweet friend!
Poor folk have supper
And their woes end.'
'Now,' said our Father,
'All things are won:
Welcome, O Saviour!
Welcome, O Son!
More than creation
Lives now again,
God hath borne Godhead
Nowise in vain.'
Word went through Sarras
On Easter morn,--
'Tidings! behold a
Townsman is born!'
BRISEIS
The footfalls of the parting Myrmidons
And counter-cries of leaguer and of town
Are hushed behind her as the silks drop down;
Alone she stands, and wonderingly cons
Heads circleted with gold or helmed with bronze;
Higher her eyes from crown to loftier crown
Creep, till they fall, nigh-blasted, at the frown
Of Argos, throned in his pavilions
And mid his captains wrathfully aware
How the plague smites the host, how by the sea
Beyond the ships, with vengeful prayer and oath,
Rages the young Achilles, of whose wrath
Innocent, ignorant, a captive, she
Sees but the dropped staff on the voided chair.
* * * * *
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(This list includes poetical works only).
BINYON, LAURENCE.
Persephone (1890)
Lyric Poems (1894)
Poems (1895)
Porphyrion and other poems (1898)
The Supper (1897)
Odes (1901)
Death of Adam and other poems (1904)
Penthesilea (1905)
Dream come true (1905)
Paris and Oenone (1906)
Attila, a tragedy (1907)
England and other poems (1909)
Auguries (1913)
The Winnowing-fan (1914)
Bombastes in the Shades, a play (1915)
The Anvil and other poems (1916)
The Cause: poems of the war (1917)
For the Fallen and other poems (1917)
The New World (1918)
The Four Years: Collected War Poems (1919)
CHESTERTON, G.K.
Ballad of the White Horse (1911)
The Wild Knight and other poems (1914)
Poems (1915)
Wine, Water and Song (1915)
CHURCH, RICHARD.
Flood of Life and other poems (1917)
Hurricane (1919)
DAVIES, W.H.
New Poems (1907)
Nature Poems and others (1908)
Farewell to Poesy and other poems (1910)
Songs of Joy and Others (1911)
Foliage (1913)
Bird of Paradise and other poems (1914)
Child Lovers and other poems (1916)
Collected Poems (1916)
Forty Poems (1918)
DRINKWATER, JOHN.
Poems (1903)
Death of Leander and other poems (1906)
Lyrical and other poems (1908)
Cophetua, a play (1911)
Poems of Men and Hours (1911)
Poems of Love and Earth (1912)
Cromwell and other poems (1913)
Rebellion (1914)
Swords and Ploughshares (1915)
Olton Pools and other poems (1916)
Pawns (1917)
Poems (1908-14) (1917)
Tides (1917)
Abraham Lincoln (1918)
Loyalties (1919)
GIBSON, WILFRED WILSON.
Golden Helm (1903)
On the Threshold and Other Plays (1907)
Stonefolds (1907)
Web of Life (1908)
Akra the Slave (1910)
Daily Bread (1910)
Womenkind (1912)
Fires (1912)
Thorough-fares (1914)
Borderlands (1914)
Battle (1915)
Friends (1916)
Livelihood (1917)
GOLDING, LOUIS.
Sorrow of War (1919)
GOULD, GERALD.
Lyrics (1906)
Poems (1911)
My Lady's Book (1913)
Monogamy (1918)
HOUSMAN, LAURENCE.
Mendicant Rhymes (1906)
Selected Poems (1908)
The Winners (1915)
Heart of Peace (1918)
LE GALLIENNE, RICHARD.
My Ladies' Sonnets (1887)
R. L. S., An Elegy (1895)
Omar Repentant (1908)
Orestes (1910)
The Lonely Dancer and other poems (1914)
The Silk Hat Soldier and other poems (1915)
MACAULAY, ROSE.
The Two Blind Countries (1914)
Three Days (1919)
MASON, EUGENE.
Flamma Vestalis and other poems (1890)
The Field Floridus and other poems (1899)
Vitrail and other Poems (1916)
MAYNARD, THEODORE.
Laughs and Whifts of Song (1915)
Drums of Defeat (1917)
Folly and other poems (1918)
MOORE, T. STURGE.
The Vinedresser and other poems (1899)
Aphrodite against Artemis (1901)
Absalom (1903)
The Centaur's Booty (1903)
Danäe (1903)
Rout of the Amazons (1903)
Pan's Prophecy (1904)
Theseus, Medea and Lyrics (1904)
To Leda and other odes (1904)
The Gazelles and other poems (1904)
A Sicilian Idyll and Judith (1911)
Mariamne (1911)
Collected Poems (1916)
NICHOLS, ROBERT.
Ardours and Endurances (1917)
Invocation (1919)
PHILLPOTTS, EDEN.
Up-Along and Down-Along (1905)
Wild Fruit (1911)
Demeter's Daughter (1911)
The Iscariot (1912)
Delight and other poems (1916)
Plain Song (1917)
SABIN, ARTHUR K.
Typhon and other poems (1902)
Death of Icarus (1906)
The Wayfarers (1907)
Dante and Beatrice (1908)
Medea and Circe and other poems (1911)
New Poems (1914)
War Harvest (1914)
Five Poems (1914)
Christmas (1914)
SACKVILLE, LADY MARGARET.
Poems (1901)
A Hymn to Dionysus and other poems (1905)
Hildris the Queen, a play (1908)
Lyrics (1912)
Songs of Aphrodite and other poems (1913)
Pageant of War (1916)
SEYMOUR, WILLIAM KEAN.
Street of Dreams (1914)
To Verhaeren and other poems (1917)
Twenty-four Poems (1918)
Swords and Flutes (1919)
SITWELL, EDITH.
The Mother and other poems (1915)
Clowns' Houses (1918)
(With Osbert Sitwell)
Twentieth Century Harlequinade and other poems.
STUART, MURIEL.
Christ at Carnival and other poems (1916)
The Cockpit of Idols (1918)
TITTERTON, W. R.
River Music and other poems (1900)
Guns and Guitars (1918)
VISIAK, E.H.
Buccaneer Ballads (1910)
Flints and Flashes (1911)
The Phantom Ship (1912)
Battle Fiends and other poems (1916)
Brief Poems (1919)
WAUGH, ALEC.
Resentment (1918)
WILLIAMS, CHARLES.
The Silver Stair (1912)
Poems of Conformity (1917)
Divorce (In preparation)
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