Marlborough and other poems. Charles Hamilton Sorley

Earth is at length bedrid. She is

       Supinest of the things that be:

       And stilly, heavy with long years,

       Brings forth such days in dumb regret,

       Immortal days, that rise in tears,

       And cannot, though they strive to, set.

       * * * * * * *

      The mists do move. The wind takes breath.

       The sun appeareth over there,

       And with red fingers hasteneth

       From Earth's grey bed the clothes to tear,

       And strike the heavy mist's dank tent.

       And Earth uprises with a sigh.

       She is astir. She is not spent.

       And yet she lives and yet can die.

       The grey road-mender from the ditch

       Looks up. He has not looked before.

       The stunted tree sways like the witch

       It was: 'tis living witch once more.

       ​The winds are washen. In the deep

       Dew of the morn they've washed. The skies

       Are changing dress. The clumsy sheep

       Bound, and earth's many bosoms rise,

       And earth's green tresses spring and leap

       About her brow. The earth has eyes,

       The earth has voice, the earth has breath,

       As o'er the land and through the air,

       With wingéd sandals, Life and Death

       Speed hand in hand—that winsome pair!

      16 September 1913

      ​

      V RETURN

       Table of Contents

      Still stand the downs so wise and wide?

      Still shake the trees their tresses grey?

       I thought their beauty might have died

      Since I had been away.

       I might have known the things I love,

      The winds, the flocking birds' full cry,

       The trees that toss, the downs that move,

      Were longer things than I.

       Lo, earth that bows before the wind,

      With wild green children overgrown,

       And all her bosoms, many-whinned,

      Receive me as their own.

       The birds are hushed and fled: the cows

      Have ceased at last to make long moan.

       They only think to browse and browse

      Until the night is grown.

      ​The wind is stiller than it was,

      And dumbness holds the closing day.

       The earth says not a word, because

      It has no word to say.

       The dear soft grasses under foot

      Are silent to the listening ear.

       Yet beauty never can be mute,

      And some will always hear.

      18 September 1913

      ​

      RICHARD JEFFERIES

       Table of Contents

      VI

      RICHARD JEFFERIES

      (LIDDINGTON CASTLE)

      I see the vision of the Vale

      Rise teeming to the rampart Down,

       The fields and, far below, the pale

      Red-roofédness of Swindon town.

       But though I see all things remote,

      I cannot see them with the eyes

       With which ere now the man from Coate

      Looked down and wondered and was wise.

       He knew the healing balm of night,

      The strong and sweeping joy of day,

       The sensible and dear delight

      Of life, the pity of decay.

       And many wondrous words he wrote,

      And something good to man he showed,

       About the entering in of Coate,

      There, on the dusty Swindon road.

      19 September 1913

      ​

      J. B.

       Table of Contents

      VII

      J. B.

      There's still a horse on Granham hill,

       And still the Kennet moves, and still

       Four Miler sways and is not still.

      But where is her interpreter?

       The downs are blown into dismay,

       The stunted trees seem all astray,

       Looking for someone clad in grey

      And carrying a golf-club thing;

       Who, them when he had lived among,

       Gave them what they desired, a tongue.

       Their words he gave them to be sung

      Perhaps were few, but they were true.

       The trees, the downs, on either hand,

       Still stand, as he said they would stand.

       But look, the rain in all the land

      Makes all things dim with tears of him.

       And recently the Kennet croons,

       And winds are playing widowed tunes.

      —He has not left our "toun o' touns,"

      But taken it away with him!

      October 1913