London Lamps 

A Book of Songs 


By 


Thomas Burke 






























New York 

Robert M. McBride &f Co. 

London : Grant Richards Ltd. 

Mdccccxix 



A few of these verses appeared as chapter- 
headings in the author s book on London, published 
a year or so ago. They are here reprinted by 
kind permission of Messrs George Allen ^ 
Univin Ltd., the publishers of that book. 

T. B. 



Printed in Great Britain by the Riversioc Press Limited 
Edinburgh 



1 ' 



'.i 



CITY DUSK 



THE day dies in a wrath of cloud, 
J- Flecking her roofs with pallid rain, 
And dies its music, harsh and loud. 

Struck from the tiresome strings of pain. 

Her highways leap to festal bloom, 
And swallow-swift the traffic skims 

O'er sudden shoals of light and gloom, 
Made lovelier where the distance dims. 

Robed by her tiring-maid, the dusk, 
The town lies tn a silvered bower. 

As, from a miserable husk. 

The lily robes herself with flower. 

And all her tangled streets are gay. 

And all her rudenesses are gone ; 
For, howso pitiless the day. 

The evening brings delight alone. 



LIBRARY 



A SUBURBAN NIGHT 



fVi, sweetly sad and sadly sweet, 

^ Thai rain-pearled night at Highbury ! 
The picture theatre, off the street, 
That housed us from the lisping sleet, 
Is a white grave of dreams for me. 

Though smile and talk were all our Part, 
Sorrow lay prone upon your hmrt 
That never again our lips might meet. 
And never so softly fall the sleet 

In gay -lamped, lyric Highbury. 
Love made your lily face to shine, 
But oh, your cheek was salt to mine, 

As we walked home from Highbury ! 

starry street of shop and show, 
And was it thus long years ago ? 
Was the full tale but waste and woe. 
And Love but doom in Highbury, 
My dusty, dreaming Highbury ? 



PICCADILLY 



/^UEEN of all streets, you stand ahvay 
f:f Lovely by dusk or dark or day. 

Cruellest oj streets that I do know, 

I love you wheresoe'er I go. 

The daytime knows your lyric wonder : 

Your tunes that rhyme and chime and thunder, 

And exiles vision with delight 

Your million-blossomed charm of night. 

Sweet frivolous frock and fragrant face 
Your shadow-fretted pavements trace ; 
And all about your haunted mile 
Hangs a soft air, a girlish smile. 

But other steps make echo here, 
With curse and prayer and wasted tear; 
And under the silver wings of sleep 
Your desolate step-children creep. 

Street of all fair streets fairest — say 
Why thus we love you night and day ; 
And why we love you last and best 
Whose hearts were broken on your breast I 



OLD COMPTON STREET 



^T^HROUGH London rain her people flow, 
?*- And Pleasure, trafficks to and fro. 
A gemniy splendour fills the town. 
And robes her in a spangled gown 
Through which no sorry wound may show. 

Bid with the dusk my fancies go 
To that grey street I used to knoxi). 

Where Love once brought his heavy crown 
Through London rain. 

And ever, when the day is low, 
A nd stealthy clouds the night forethrow, 
I quest these ways of dear renown, 
And pray, while Hope in tears 7 drown, 
That once again her face may glow 
Through London rain I 



IN MARY BONE 



rHE cold moon lights our attic stair. 
In M'irybone, tn Marybont ! 
And windows float m lyric air. 
In M-irybone, tn Marybone / 
derelict day / O barren night I 
phantoms of a dream's delight. 
You midnight hours in M uryhone I 

The high gods hold Jestivities. 

In Marybone, in Marybone I 
We have ransacked the goldsn years 
Of all their fruit of joy and tears, 
Gathered their burden to our mtnd. 

In Marybone, tn Marybone I 
But lost love, for one warm ktss 
To break the weeping of the wind 

That heats about this Marybone, 

This damned deflowered Marybone ! 



AT LIMEHOUSE 



FELLOW man, yellow man, where have you 
been ? 
Down the Pacific, where wonders are <>een. 
Up the Pacific, so glamorous and gay, 
Where night is of blue, and of silver the day. 

Yellow man, yelloiv man, what did you there ? 
I loved twenty maids who were loving and fair. 
Their cheeks were of velvet, their kisses were fire, 
I looked at them boldly and had my desire. 

Yellow man, yellow man, what do you know ? 
That living is lovely wherever I go ; 
A nd lovelier, I say, since when soft winds have passed. 
The tides will race over my bosom at last. 

Yellow man, yellow man, why do you sigh ? 
For flowers that are '>weet, and for floivers that die. 
For days in fair waters and nights in strange lands, 
For faces forgotten and little lost hands. 



10 



AT SH A DWELL 



LJ F was a bad, glad sailor-man. 
-^ Tan-ta-ta-ran-ian-tare-o ! 
You never could find a haler man, 

Tan-ta-ta-ran-tan-tare ! 
All human wickedness he knew, 
From Millwall Docks to Pichi-lu ; 
He loved all things that make us gay. 
He'd spit his juice ten yards away. 

And roundly he'd declare— oh ! 
" It isn't so much that I want the beer 

As the bloody good company, 
Whow ! 

Bloody good company ! " 

He loved all creatures— black, brown, ivhite, 

Tan-ta-ta-ran-tan-tare-o ! 
And never a word he'd speak in spite, 

Tan-ta-ta-ran-tan-tare I 
He knew that we were mortal men 
Who sinned and laughed and sinned again ; 
And never a cruel thing he'd do 
At Millwall Docks or Pi-chi-lu ; 
If you were down he'd make you gay : 
He'd spit his juice ten yards away. 

And roundly he'd declare— oh ! 
" It isn't so much that I want yer beer 

As yer bloody good company, 
Whow ! 

Bloody good company ! " 



II 



WEST INDIA DOCK ROAD 



JDLA C K man — white man — brown man — 
-'^ yellow man — 

All the lousy Orient loafing on the quay: 
Hindoo, Dago, Jap, Malay, and Chinaman 

Dipping into London from the great green sea t 

Black man — white man — brown man — yellow 

man — 

Pennyfields and Poplar and Chinatown for me ! 

Stately moving cut- throats and many - coloured 

mysteries, 

Never were such lusty things for London lads to see ! 

On the evil twilight — rose and star and silver— 
Steals a song that long ago in Singapore they sang : 

Fragrant of spices, of incense and opium, 

Cinnamon and aconite, the betel and the bhang. 

Three miles straight lies lily-clad Belgravia, 
Thin-lipped ladies and padded men and pale. 

But here are turbaned princes and velvet-glancing 
gentlemen. 
Tom-tom and sharp knife and salt-caked sail. 

Then get you down to Limehouse, by rigging, wharf, 
and smoke-stack. 
Glamour, dirt, and perfume, and dusky men and 
gold ; 
For down in lurking Limehouse there's the blue moon 
of the Orient — 
Lamps for young Aladdins, and bowiesfor the bold I 



12 



SUNDAY TEA-TIME 



nnHERE is a noise of winkles on the air. 
-^ Muffins and winkles rattle down the road, 
The sluggish road, whose hundred houses stare 
One on another in after -dinner gloom. 

" Peace, perfect Peace ! " wails an accordion ; 
" Ginger, you're barmy ! " snarls a gramophone. 

A most unhappy place, this lea/less Grove 
In the near suburbs ; not a place for tears. 

Nor for light laughter, for all life is chilled 
With the unpurposed toil of many years. 

But once — ah, once ! — the accordion s wheezy strains 

Led my poor heart to April-smelling lanes. 



X3 



CLAP HAM. S.W. 



/^LL wild it lay not long ago, 
-*-^ In billoiving curve and dip. 
Where houses brood the sweet hedgerow 

Of hawthorn hush was seen : 
And the it'hite road was used to slip 

Through golden hills and green. 

A cottage, pinafored with rose, 

Knelt under Balham Hill, 
And where the tiresome traffic flows 

Were many lilied lanes 
Echoing the throstle s raptured trill 

To April's jewelling rains. 

And still, though wire and petrol rage. 
And many chimneys loom ; 

And surly smokes their struggles wage, 
Over the grey bricks blowing — 

Her streets, for me, are all abloom 
With flowers of childhood's growing. 



14 



PADDINGTON 



T\EEP in a dusk of lilac the station lies, 
-*-^ Vasty and echo-haunted and fiercely made ; 
Speared all about with suns where the arches rise. 

Leaping on lusty limbs over pools of shade. 
Oh, lovely are her lean lines, and lovely her poise, 
Empanoplying the long, dim frenzy of noise. 

But her most beauty she holds until the night, 
Even as Love, until the brute day be ended, 

When all her thousand eyes in a tempest of light 
Shatter the cathedral gloom, and show her splendid. 

Splendid we know her, and ever splendid she stands ; 

Clean from the splendid sweat of human hands. 



15 



CLERKENWELL 



T^EEP in the town a windoiv smiles — 
?^-^ You shall not find it, though you seek ; 
But over many bricky miles 

It draws me through ike wearing week. 
Its panes are dim. its curtains grey, 

It shows no heartsome shine at dusk ; 
For gas is dear, and factory pay 
Makes small display : 
On the small wage she earns she dare not be too gay I 

A loud saloon flings golden light 

Athwart the wet and greasy way. 
Where, every happy Sunday night, 

We meet in mood of holiday. 
She wears a dress of claret glow 

That's thinly frothed with bead and lace. 
She buys this lace in fasmine Row, 
A spot, you know, 
Where luxuries of lace for a mere nothing go. 

I love the shops that flare and lurk 

In the big street whose lamps are gems, 

For there she stops when off to work 
To covet silks and diadems. 

At evenings, too, the organ plays 

" My Hero " or " In Dixie Land " ; 

And in the odoured purple haze. 

Where naphthas blaze. 

The grubby little girls the dust of dancing raise. 



i6 



STEPNEY CAUSEWAY 



DEYOND the pleading lip, the reaching hand, 
-^ Laughter and tear ; 

Beyond the grief that none would understand ; 

Beyond all fear ; 
Dreams ended, beauty broken, 
Deeds done, and last word spoken. 

Quiet she lies. 

Far, far from our delirious dark and light, 

She finds her sleep. 
No more the noisy silences of night 

Shall hear her weep. 
The wretched tides break over 
Her holy breast to cover 

From any eyes. 
Till the stark dawn shall drink the latest star, 

So let her be. 
gracious Mother, she has wandered far 
And now comes home to thee. 



17 



FROM BERMONDSEY 



OH, to be free ! 
To lie for one short hour upon the breast 
0/ green hospitable fielda, 
And let the world wheel by ! 
To Jeel the kisses of the odoured wind. 
To watch the happy heaven alive with song, 
To press our faces to the healing grass, 
And there sob out our weariness of towns. 
And lose our souls in tangles oj green shade I 

For all our need 

Is but to know that still the world is young. 
That still the little lanes are loud with ?joy, 
That still the daisy smiles its prayer to God. 



i8 



LONDON ROSES 



JJ/'HEN the young year woos all the world to 

^^ /lower 

With gold and stiver of sun and shower. 

The girls troop out with an elfin clamour. 

Delicate bundles of lace and light. 
And London is laughter and youth and playtime, 
Fair as the million-blossomed may-time : 

All her ways are afire with glamour, 

With dainty damosels pink and white. 

The weariest streets new joys discover ; 
The sweet glad girl and the lyric lover 

Sing their hearts to the moment's flying, 

Never a thought to time or tears. 
frivolous frocks ! fragrant faces, 
Scattering blooms in the gloomy places ! 

Shatter and scatter our sombre sighing. 

And lead us back to the golden years / 



19 



LONDON JUNE 



r)ANK odours ride on every breeze ; 
-*•- Skyward a hundred towers loom; 
And factories throb and workshops wheeze. 

And children pine in secret gloom. 
To squabbling birds the roofs declaim 

Their little tale of misery ; 
And, smiling over murk and shame, 

A wild rose blows by Bermondsey. 

Where every traffic-thridden street 

Is ribboned o'er with shade and shine, 
And webbed with wire and choked with heat; 

Where smokes with fouler smokes entwine ; 
And where, at evening, darkling lanes 

Fume with a sickly ribaldry — 
Above the squalors and the pains, 

A wild rose blows by Bermondsey. 

Somewhere beneath a nest of tiles 

My little garret window squats, 
Staring across the cruel miles, 

And wondering of kindlier spots. 
An organ, just across the way, 

Sobs out its rag-time melody ; 
But in my heart it seems to play : 

A Wild Rose blows by Bermondsey 1 

And dreams of happy morning hills 

And woodlands laced with greenest boughs, 
Are mine to-day amid the ills 

Of Tooley Street and wharfside sloughs. 
Though Cherry Gardens reek and roar. 

And engines gasp their horrid glee ; 
I mark their ugliness no more : 

A wild rose blows by Bermondsey. 



20 



IN THE TRAIN 



/Jl.ONG the leagues of railujciy line 
•^^ The year is young with happy fiowers. 
Lily and rose and clover shine 
Along the leagues of railway line ; 
And iris, too, and columbine 

Delight the twinkling-footed hours. 
Along the leagues of railway line 

The year is young with happy flowers. 

But the flower of flowers will meet my train, 

Lovelier far than lip can tell ! 
The wild wheels heat the glad refrain : 
Bui the flower of flowers will meet my train ! 
Sweet is the child of sun and rain : 

The violet or asphodel ; 
But the flower of flowers will meet my train, 

Lovelier far than lip can tell J 



SI 



WEEK-END 



/ILL the world's a snatch of song. 
-^ Holiday / Holiday ! 
Golden girls and boys as brave, 
Brighter than the rainbow wave, 
Flash and flutter through the throng. 

Holiday ! Holiday ! 
sweet children, laugh at sorrows, 
Snap your fingers at to-morrows, 
Youth and Love to you belong, 
On holiday ! 

Wilding flowers are not more fair. 

Holiday ! Holiday ! 
Sun and song are yours to-day ; 
Laugh with April ; sing with May ; 
Live your hour if so you dare. 

Holiday ! Holiday ! 
Toil and town must follow Sundays, 
So, my Saturday-to-Mondays, 
Kick your little heels at care, 

On holiday, your holiday / 



IN THE LANE 



GREEN branches laced a burning sky, 
And all the lane was mottled shade, 
When she came by. 
Her face is with me to this hour. 
I think there was no fairer flower 
In all the fields that day. 

Now Walworth attics hold me high 

Above a lane where bawling life 

Goes sadly by. 

But she has made this Lane for me 

A place ivhere I may daily see 

Some beauty pass my way ; 

Because, in a far-distant lane. 

She smiled, and turned to smile again. 



•3 



EVENING 



T^ROM The Circus to The Square 
-^ There's an avenue of light. 
Golden lamps are everywhere 
From The Circus to The Square; 
And the rose-winged hours there 
Pass like lovely birds in flight. 
From The Circus to The Square 
There's an avenue of light. 

London yields herself to men 
With the dying of the day. 

Let the twilight come, and then 

London yields herself to men. 

Lords of wealth or slaves of pen, 
We, her lovers, all will say : 

London yields herself to men 
With the dying of the day. 



24 



MUSIC-HALL BALLET 



nnEROVGR the sad billowing haze of grey and 

?^ rose, 

Stung with sharp lamps in its most velvet glooms ; 
Drowsy with smoke, and loud with voice and glass, 
Where wine-whipped animations pass and pass — 
Beauty breaks sudden blossoms all around 
In happy riot of rhythm, colour, and pose. 
The radiant hands, the swift, delighted limbs 
Move as in pools of dream the dancer sivims. 
Holding our bruted sense in fragrance bound. 

Lily and clover and the white May-flowers, 
And lucid lane afire with honeyed blooms. 
And songs that time nor tears can ever fade. 
Hold not the grace for which my heart has prayed. 
But in this garden of gilt loveliness, 
Lapped by the muffled pulse of hectic hours, 
Something in me awoke to happiness ; 
And through the streets of plunging hoof and horn, 
I walked with Beauty to the dim-starred morn. 



as 



AT THE PIANO 



/^ANE chairs, a sleek piano, table and bed in a 
^ room 
Lifted happily high from the loud street's 
fermentation ; 
Tobacco and chime of voices wreathing out of the 
gloom. 
Out of the lilied dusk at the firelight's invitation. 
Then, in the muffled hour, one, strange and gracious 

and sad, 
Moves from the phantom hearth, and, with infinite 

delicacies. 
Looses his lissome hands along the murmurous keys. 

Valse, mazurka, and nocturne, prelude and polonaise 
Clamour and wander and wail on the opiate air, 

Piercing our hearts with echo of passionate days, 
Peopling a top front lodging with shapes of care. 

And as our souls, uncovered, would shamefully hide 
away. 

The radiant hands light up the enchanted gloom 

With the pure flame of life from the shadowless tomb. 



2ft 



AT CHRISTMAS-TIME 



/IT Christmas-iime, when frost and rain 
-^ Wrought wonders on each window-pane ; 
When tea-time came with candle-light 
In Childhood's nursery of Delight, 
" Goodwill I " was every day's refrain. 

Now, in our weariness, we feign 
upon our lips that all is vain. 

We smile at Superstition's rite 

At Christmas-time. 

But in the rosy hearth's domain, 
Let the old Truths revive and reign. 
Let voices, carolling from the night 
That Wrong is Wrong and Right still Right, 
Lead us to Childhood once again, 
At Christmas-lime / 



SHOPS 



/^H, London has the hold shops, the silver and 
^ the gold shops, 

Rich with all the treasures in the wide world found. 
Oh, there you'll find the fairest shops, the cheapest 
and the rarest shops, 

All ablaze with colour on the pearl-grey ground ! 

They deck themselves at daytime with the colours of 
the Maytime ; 
They deck themselves at twilight with a glad and 
lyric glee ; 
^^i qJi — the fusty, frowzy shops, those old marine, 
Limehousey shops — 
Oh, they're the shops that most I love — the only 
shops for me / 



aS 



THE LAMPLIT HOUR 



TyJSK—and the lights of home 
^-^ Smile through the mitt : 
A thousand smiles for those that come 
Homeward again. 

What though the night be drear 

With gloom and cold, 
So that there be one voice to hear, 

One hand to hold ? 

Here, by the winter fire, 

Life is our own ; 
Here, out of murk and mire, 

Here is our throne. 

Then let the wide world throng 

To pomps and powers, 
And leave us with the love and song 

Of lamplit hours. 



99 



AT THE PANTOMIME 



T WONDER, will ever I dream them again — 
-* The old, old dreams ? 
I wonder, will ever the huntsman come, 
To lead his lady tenderly home 
From the perilous -plain ; 

And Little Boy Blue — imll he come with his horn 
Winding gaily across the corn, 
Over the seven streams, 
The little star-swept streams ? 

I wonder, is Robin Hood dead to-day 

In the low-lit greenery ? 
Or is he for long, long years but hiding, 
Waiting the call that shall bring him riding. 
Riding out of the grey ? 
I wonder will ever the dear To-morrow 
Lay her light hand on the pulse of Sorrow, 

Soothe her and set her free 

From sore captivity ? 

troubled waters ! broken song / 

phantasy vain ! 
For questing Childhood is lost for ever 
In year-locked hills where a foot falls never, 
Afar from Right and Wrong. 
Then come, little dreams, from the tranced steep, 
With light-winged music above my sleep, 

And let me wonder again, 

And wander once again. 



30 



ELISE CRAVEN, DANCING 



PEARL is the mt(sic-hnll and dim, 
And many fetid faces swim 
Cloudily o'er the gallery's rim, 

Little Twinkletoes. 
And rag-time choruses resound, 
For raffish joy is always found 
With heer and whisky going round, 
Little Twinkletoes. 

The fauteuils reek of snarling song, 
While weary fiddles wail along 
The opiate air their ding-dang-dong, 

Little Tivinkletoes . 
Back at the bar, one cries : " You lout ! " 
And others : " Order ! Throw 'im out ! " 
Oh, they are happy, never doubt, 

Little Twinkletoes ! 

And then there is a hush of lights. 
The music steals by silver flights 
Through carnival, moon-haunted nights, 

Little Twinkletoes. 
The haze of lilac looms and shifts. 
A sudden bell. The curtain lifts. 
And down the darkling stage there drifts 

Little Twinkletoes. 

fragrant flower of happiness ! 

little child, whose light caress 

At once can shame and wottnd and bless. 

Little Twinkletoes I 
Though Love and Beauty pass us by. 
Yet in our hearts a smothered cry 
Awakes for what can never die, 

Little Twinkletoes. 
31 



Wg are so wistful for our home. 

Warm windows fleck the long grey gloam, 

But silently, nor hid us come, 

Little Twinkletoes. 
Sick ivith the tumult and the wine, 
Like -poor lost birds we fine and pine, 
Beating at every sheltered shrine, 

Little Twinkletoes. 

The curtain falls on April joys, 
And leering ladies harshly noise 
The loves of splendid girls and boys, 

Little Twinkletoes. 
And you — you cannot understand 
How, for a moment, your soft hand 
Has led us back to fairyland. 

Little Twinkletoes ! 



32 



OUTER SUBURBIA 



TJ/HERE London sprawls across the gentle 
^'^ fields, 

In those far fringes where the green begins — 
Elthnm and Enfield, Soiithall and Wanstead Flat — 
The landscape hut a loveless prospect yields : 
Wan grass, the last week's xvashing, a dead cat, 

Factories, maisonettes, and sardine-tins. 

Yet even here the honeysuckle blows. 

And the shy nightingale enchants the gloom; 

And sometimes I have seen the wayside rose 

Kissing the hawthorn bough by Barking Fair. 
And when the evening flowers with lights of home, 

Each window seems a little silent prayer. 



33 



GROWING UP 



T? AIR flakes of wilding rose 
-* Entwine for Seventeen, 
With lovely leaves of violet 
That dares not live till fields forget 
The grey that drest their green with snows, 
A nd grow from grey to green ! 

And when the wreath is twining, 

Oh, prithee, have a care ! 
Weave in no bloom of subtle smell ; 
The simple ones she loves too well. 
Let violets on her neck lie shining. 

Wild rose in her hair. 



And bring her rose-winged fancies, 
From shadowy shoals of dream. 

To clothe her in this wistful hour, 

When girlhood steals from bud to flower. 

Bring her the tunes of elfin dances, 
Bring her the faery Gleam ! 

At the world's gate she stands. 

Silent and very still ; 
And lone as that one star that lights 
The delicate dusk of April nights. 
Oh, let love bind -her holy hands, 

A nd fetter her from ill I 

Her tumbled tresses cling 

Adown her like a veil. 
And cheek and curls as sweetly chime 
As verses with a rounding rhyme. 
Surely there is not anything 

So valiant and so frail. 

34 



In faith and without fear, 
She brings to a rude throng 

At war with beauty and with truth, 

The wonder of her blossomy youth. 

A nd faith shall wither to a sneer, 
And sneers shall silence song. 



"?>• 



Her soul is a soft flame. 

Set in a ivorld of grey. 
Help her, Life, to keep its shrine 
That her white ivindoiv's vigilant sign 
May pierce the tangled mists of shame. 

Where we have lost our way ! 

So linger at this day, 

My little maid serene ! 
Or, since the dancing feet must go, 
Take Childhood with you still, and so. 
Live in a year-worn world, but stay 

For ever Sevetiteen / 



55 



POOR 



TT^ROM jail he soitght her, and he found 
-* A darkened house, a darkened street, 

A shrilly sky that screamed of sleet. 
And from The Lane quick gusts of sound. 

He mocked at life that men call sweet. 
He went and wiped it out in beer — 
" Well, dammit, why should I stick here, 

By a dark house in a dark street ? " 

For he and his but serve defeat. 

For kings they gather gems and gold, 
And life for them, when all is told, 

Is a dark house in a dark street. 



PRISON 



/ILL the changing loveliness that tires the face of 
-^^ London, 

All the pasture pageant of honey-breathing boughs^ 
All the gentle pomp that marches with the seasons — 

Have no part in him, save to thorn his wretched 
broivs. 
Young Spring whispers in the hedges and the high- 
ways ; 

Lusty Summer sings along the shadow-fretted green ; 
Low-toned Autumn holds finger-tips to Winter. 

Only for him the dead, unchanging scene. 

Only for him the death in life unending. 

Only for him a world of four dead walls. 
Even the hovels are marshalled in the pageant — 

Over Hoxton arches the lahiirnum falls ; 
Lilac leans laughing over Bethnal Green and Shore- 
ditch, 

Slum-locked cottages adorn their grey. 
Only for him the blossomless November ; 

Only for him the unchanging, sunless day. 

The gruff bricks leap high and higher from the tur- 
moil — 
Swart-tipped waves that surge along the London 
night — 
These, even these, catch the colour of the seasons, 
Even their dolours are touched about with light. 
Small birds twitter at the chimney-stacks of Walworth, 

Small birds whistle in the yellow-tressed trees, 
Sleek dogs lie with their bellies over plenty. 
But Law and Order hold him : and he is less than 
these. 

Wash him icith his tears when the daffodil awakens ; 
Bathe him in his blood when the fune stars ring ; 

37 



Break him on the wheel when the Clapham furze is 
yellow ; 
Burden him with shackles when the red leaves sing. 
Burn his flesh with discipline, tear his heart with 
routine ; 
Then, cool his agonies with oil of spikenard ; 
Cherish him and nourish him; then heat again the 
irons. 
God in His highest wrath shall never smite so hard. 

For fifteen years we will hold him in our torment ; 

Passionlessly break him by rite and rule of thumb. 
For fifteen years we will bind his heart in system, 

For fifteen years we will hold him deaf and dumb. 
For fifteen years at the pallid shrine of fustice, 

Scarce will he hear the world's muffled footsteps flow ; 
For fifteen years we will suck his soul of valour ; 

Then, if he be tranquil, we will loose and let him go. 

Then, exceeding mercy, we will spit him back to 
freedom ; 

Bloodless and useless, we will spit him from our jaw, 
Vacant of purpose, and numb to life and living : 

Such the meed of any who slight our precious law. 
Poor caged birds that, wingless and bewildered. 

Break from their bars and hear a strange world call. 
Flutter to the sunset, and die in darkling secret. 

God marks the sparrows ; will He mark his fall ? 

All the changing loveliness that tires the face oj 
London, 
All the pasture pageant of honey-breathing boughs, 
All the gentle pomp that marches with the seasons 
Have no part in him, save to thorn his wretched 
brows. 
Young Spring rustles in the hedges and the highways ; 
Golden-tasselled Summer from the merry meadow 
calls : 
Low-toned Autumn and fierce Winter find him 
Knee to knee with Death behind the four dead walls. 



38 



CHILDHOOD 



W 



^HEN we were small, and much alone, 
We lived in castles all our own, 
Fashioned of toys and ?pantomime, 
Of picture-hooks and nursery rhyme : 
And often dreamed that we were groivn. 

Alas ! The noisy years are flown, 
And all our wonderings are gone, 
And now our dreams are of the time 

When we were small. 

Yet, sister, though our lives he thrown 

In ways that lead to fret and moan ; 
Though we are wdary with the climh, 
And dusty ivith the glare and grime. 

Our hearts still shine as then they shone — 

When we were small I 



39 



MIDWINTER 



AJOW fades the green and grows the grey 
-^ ^ On sky and tree and winding way. 
Now fruitful fields lie slumber -hound, 
And lifeless leaves rain all around. 

Noiv leap the fires in hut and hall, 
And shadow-fairies climb the wall. 
Now hall and hut fling golden light 
To bead the bare December night. 

But gloom and chilly rain and snow 
Hold not our hearts; we do hut know 
A deeper gladness in the day 
When grows the green and fades the grey. 



40 



viGir 



J ON ELY I stand 
^-^ Here in the rainy dark, 
Where a i&arm window breaks the night 
With melody and gracious light. 

Vigil I keep 

Until the young birds cry, 

And on grey hills the green and golden 

Footprints of the morning lie. 

My dust and rags 

I carry with a will ; 

Though sunken in the darkling mire, 

My heart is singing still. 

And through long hours 

Her face before me swims — 

A window breaking through the night 

With melody and gracious light. 



41 



SONG 



/LOVE a lady of high degree, 
Who once in passing smiled on me. 
She is more beautiful than stars 
Lighting an unknown sea. 

I have not heard her voice ; its sound 
I think should hold my senses bound, 
As sweet tunes swimming through the night 
From an enchanted ground. 

When I with toil am sick for sleep. 
Through wakeful hours such thoughts I keep 
Upon this lady, that I lie 
In pleasant pain and weep. 

Oh, if my lonely dream could he, 
And bring my beautiful to me — 
Oh, then I'd laugh at Life and Death 
In Love's Eternity ! 



42 



SUPPLICATION 



GIVE me one hour of love, one little hour. 
While yet we have the day ! 
All that I have I bring — 
Truth and a heart of Spring. 
Give me one hour of love, 
Princess, I pray ! 

Give me one hour, lest, xvhen the day he done, 

Thy heart shall hear the call. 

And in thy pleasured round 

True love shall not he found. 

Give me one hour. Princess, 

Ere night hefall! 



43 



THE PRODIGAL 



/jFTER many years, 
-^ / have come home again, 
Through a lone land of tears, 

By many a noisome den. 
Along the twilit lane a casement sliows 

A lamp set out /or me. 
Love and Beauty ! After many years 

I have come home to thee. 

Yea, after many years 

In the loud wilderness, 
Shaken with shames and fears, 

I come now to confess. 
And only Love, that casteth out all sin. 

Hath known me and smiled, 
Because Love, blotting out the wan, waste years, 

Sees but a little child. 



44 



BEYOND LONDON 



/N Kentish lanes in llossom-time, 
The air is loud with bird and bee. 
Amid the spray of orchard foam — 
Of apple, lilac, plum-, and cherry — 
Whose colours like a sweet tune chime, 
The little voice of Spring makes merry. 

sun, shine kindly over Kent / 
wind, blow softly from the sea ! 
And bring, with gracious sacrament, 
Ripe fruit to every flowered tree. 

wind and sun, blow over me ! 
Cleanse me of malice, set mc free 
From hate, and lead me humbly home. 
Ripen my soul, that I may be 
A goodlier thing for men to see I 



45 



FIRST LOVE 



r\ MOTHER, I have heard a lady 

^^ Singing in the night. 

I peeped where the lucid moon disclosed her. 

Lovely and brave and bright. 
Her face was shining, shining, mother. 

With a wild sea's light. 

The silver flowers of the night ring out 

The name I call her by ; 
Her smiles float in the very dusts 

That on my footsteps fly. 
And the haunting song that tranced mine ears 

The sweet birds cry. 

mother, my heart is filled with wonder, 

Spun about with fear ; 
For her voice, above the clamour of living, 

Climbs and carols clear. 
And I know there is never a rest for me 

Till 1 have held my dear. 



46 



NIGHT-PIECE 



/ILL the night long I He in my lonely room, 
-" Where the muffled Jwurs, like prisoners, creep 

to doom ; 
And Silence, the velvet-voiced, sings me your name ; 
Your pitiful eyes are alight with an altar-flame, 
And your pearl-pale hands reach out of the timid 

gloom. 
And all my heart is a temple of wonder and shame. 

Ah, torturing fancy — but will it he even so 
When I hold the grace of you, never to let you go ? 
Will my heart he awed of you still, and your fire-lit 

chair a throne ? 
And I the man I am made hy the touch of your hand 

alone ? 
Will you still, when won, make holy the wan, waste 

places ? 
Or is the winning of Love but the losing of Love's high 

graces ? 



47 



A POSTSCRIPT 



yES, I have scribbled a deal of verse, 
Mostly in haste, and to feed my ptirse • 
With a graceful guinea or so ; 
And critical friends of mine allow 
I could write like Milton, if I knew how — 
Not a difficult thing to know. 

If you wonder — Why do I toy with rhyme ? 
The answer is : that to beg is crime, 

And to dig I am quite unable. 
So I gather the guineas, and buy with these 
Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese, 

And flowers to light my table. 

Hence do I turn — not over well — 
Rondeau, triolet, villatielle, 

Parody, jape, or sonnet. 
And those ivho skim in sedate revieics 
A vagrom lyric of dawns and dews, 

Mark not the tears upon it. 

To them it is merely a chansonette, 
A "fill "for a column under-set, 

A weed in a lucid lane. 
They do not know, they do not care. 
That every line is a passionate prayer 

Wrung from the lips of pain. 

But with all my chirping of Love and the Spring 
There is one little song that I never may sing 

For a guinea or even two ; 
Not though I labour deep and long ; 
For, dear, it is that one silent song 

That speaks my heart to you / 



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