Many Voices

SONG

 
Now the Spring is waking,
   Very shy as yet,
Busy mending, making
   Grass and violet.
Frowsy Winter’s over:
   See the budding lane!
Go and meet your lover:
   Spring is here again!
 
 
Every day is longer
   Than the day before;
Lambs are whiter, stronger,
   Birds sing more and more;
Woods are less than shady,
   Griefs are more than vain—
Go and kiss your lady:
   Spring is here again!
 

A PARTING

 
         So good-bye!
This is where we end it, you and I.
Life’s to live, you know, and death’s to die;
         So good-bye!
 
 
         I was yours
For the love in life that loves while life endures,
For the earth-path that the Heaven-flight ensures
         I was yours.
 
 
         You were mine
For the moment that a garland takes to twine,
For the human hour that sorcery shews divine
         You were mine.
 
 
         All is over.
You and I no more are love and lover;
Nought’s to seek now, gain, attain, discover.
         All is over.
 

THE GIFT OF LIFE

 
Life is a night all dark and wild,
   Yet still stars shine:
This moment is a star, my child—
   Your star and mine.
 
 
Life is a desert dry and drear,
   Undewed, unblest;
This hour is an oasis, dear;
   Here let us rest.
 
 
Life is a sea of windy spray,
   Cold, fierce and free:
An isle enchanted is to-day
   For you and me.
 
 
Forget night, sea, and desert: take
   The gift supreme,
And, of life’s brief relenting, make
   A deathless dream.
 

INCOMPATIBILITIES

 
If you loved me I could trust you to your fancy’s furthest bound
While the sun shone and the wind blew, and the world went round,
To the utmost of the meshes of the devil’s strongest net . . .
If you loved me, if you loved me—but you do not love me yet!
 
 
I love you—and I cannot trust you further than the door!
But winds and worlds and seasons change, and you will love me more
And more—until I trust you, dear, as women do trust men—
I shall trust you, I shall trust you, but I shall not love you then!
 

THE STOLEN GOD

LAZARUS TO DIVES

 
We do not clamour for vengeance,
   We do not whine for fear;
We have cried in the outer darkness
   Where was no man to hear.
We cried to man and he heard not;
   Yet we thought God heard us pray;
But our God, who loved and was sorry—
   Our God is taken away.
 
 
Ours were the stream and the pasture,
   Forest and fen were ours;
Ours were the wild wood-creatures,
   The wild sweet berries and flowers.
You have taken our heirlooms from us,
   And hardly you let us save
Enough of our woods for a cradle,
   Enough of our earth for a grave.
 
 
You took the wood and the cornland,
   Where still we tilled and felled;
You took the mine and quarry,
   And all you took you held.
The limbs of our weanling children
   You crushed in your mills of power;
And you made our bearing women toil
   To the very bearing hour.
 
 
You have taken our clean quick longings,
   Our joy in lover and wife,
Our hope of the sunset quiet
   At the evening end of life;
You have taken the land that bore us,
   Its soil and stone and sod;
You have taken our faith in each other—
   And now you have taken our God.
 
 
When our God came down from Heaven
   He came among men, a Man,
Eating and drinking and working
   As common people can;
And the common people received Him
   While the rich men turned away.
But what have we to do with a God
   To whom the rich men pray?
 
 
He hangs, a dead God, on your altars,
   Who lived a Man among men,
You have taken away our Lord
   And we cannot find Him again.
You have not left us a handful
   Of even the earth He trod . . .
You have made Him a rich man’s idol
   Who came as a poor man’s God.
 
 
He promised the poor His heaven,
   He loved and lived with the poor;
He said that the rich man’s shadow
   Should never darken His door:
But bishops and priests lie softly,
   Drink full and are fully fed
In the Name of the Lord, who had not
   Where to lay His head.
 
 
This is the God you have stolen,
   As you steal all else—in His name.
You have taken the ease and the honour,
   Left us the toil and the shame.
You have chosen the seat of Dives,
   We lie where Lazarus lay;
But, by God, we will not yield you our God,
   You shall not take Him away.
 
 
All else we had you have taken;
   All else, but not this, not this.
The God of Heaven is ours, is ours,
   And the poor are His, are His.
Is He ours?  Is He yours?  Give answer!
   For both He cannot be.
And if He is ours—O you rich men,
   Then whose, in God’s name, are ye?
 

WINTER

 
Hold your hands to the blaze;
   Winter is here
With the short cold days,
   Bleak, keen and drear.
Was there ever a day
With hawthorn along the way
Where you wandered in mild mid-May
   With your dear?
 
 
That was when you were young
   And the world was gold;
Now all the songs are sung,
   The tales all told.
You shiver now by the fire
Where the last red sparks expire;
Dead are delight and desire:
   You are old.
 

SEA-SHELLS

 
I gathered shells upon the sand,
   Each shell a little perfect thing,
So frail, yet potent to withstand
   The mountain-waves’ wild buffeting.
Through storms no ship could dare to brave
The little shells float lightly, save
All that they might have lost of fine
Shape and soft colour crystalline.
 
 
Yet I amid the world’s wild surge
   Doubt if my soul can face the strife,
The waves of circumstance that urge
   That slight ship on the rocks of life.
O soul, be brave, for He who saves
The frail shell in the giant waves,
Will bring thy puny bark to land
Safe in the hollow of His hand.
 

HOPE

 
O thrush, is it true?
   Your song tells
Of a world born anew,
Of fields gold with buttercups, woodlands all blue
   With hyacinth bells;
Of primroses deep
   In the moss of the lane,
Of a Princess asleep
And dear magic to do.
Will the sun wake the princess?  O thrush, is it true?
   Will Spring come again?
 
 
Will Spring come again?
   Now at last
With soft shine and rain
Will the violet be sweet where the dead leaves have lain?
   Will Winter be past?
In the brown of the copse
   Will white wind-flowers star through
Where the last oak-leaf drops?
   Will the daisies come too,
And the may and the lilac?  Will Spring come again?
   O thrush, is it true?
 

THE PRODIGAL’S RETURN

 
I reach my hand to thee!
   Stoop; take my hand in thine;
Lead me where I would be,
   Father divine.
I do not even know
The way I want to go,
   The way that leads to rest:
But, Thou who knowest me,
Lead where I cannot see,
   Thou knowest best.
 
 
Toys, worthless, yet desired,
   Drew me afar to roam.
Father, I am so tired;
   I am come home.
The love I held so cheap
I see, so dear, so deep,
   So almost understood.
Life is so cold and wild,
I am thy little child—
   I will be good.
 

THE SKYLARK

“. . . a dripping shower of notes from the softening blue.  It is the skylark come.”—Robert à Field, in the New Age.

 
“It is the skylark come.”  For shame!
Robert-à-Cockney is thy name:
Robert-à-Field would surely know
That skylarks, bless them, never go!
 
 
Love of my life, bear witness here
How we have heard them all the year;
How to the skylark’s song are set
The days we never can forget.
At Rustington, do you remember?
We heard the skylarks in December;
In January above the snow
They sang to us by Hurstmonceux
Once in the keenest airs of March
We heard them near the Marble Arch;
Their April song thrilled Tonbridge air;
May found them singing everywhere;
And oh, in Sheppey, how their tune
Rhymed with the bean-flower scent in June.
One unforgotten day at Rye
They sang a love-song in July;
In August, hard by Lewes town,
They sang of joy ’twixt sky and down;
And in September’s golden spell
We heard them singing on Scaw Fell.
October’s leaves were brown and sere,
But skylarks sang by Teston Weir;
And in November, at Mount’s Bay,
They sang upon our wedding day!
 
 
Mr.-à-Field, go forth, go forth,
Go east and west and south and north;
You’ll always find the furze in flower,
Find every hour the lovers’ hour,
And, by my faith in love and rhyme,
The skylark singing all the time!
 

SATURDAY SONG

 
They talk about gardens of roses,
   And moonlight over the sea,
And mountains and snow
And sunsetty glow,
   But I know what is best for me.
The prettiest sight I know,
   Worth all your roses and snow,
Is the blaze of light on a Saturday night,
   When the barrows are set in a row.
 
 
I’ve heard of bazaars in India
   All glitter and spices and smells,
But they don’t compare
With the naphtha flare
   And the herrings the coster sells;
And the oranges piled like gold,
The cucumbers lean and cold,
And the red and white block-trimmings
   And the strawberries fresh and ripe,
And the peas and beans,
And the sprouts and greens,
   And the ’taters and trotters and tripe.
 
 
And the shops where they sell the chairs,
   The mangles and tables and bedding,
And the lovers go by in pairs,
   And look—and think of the wedding.
And your girl has her arm in yours,
   And you whisper and make her blush.
Oh! the snap in her eyes—and her smiles and her sighs
   As she fancies the purple plush!
 
 
And you haven’t a penny to spend,
   But you dream that you’ve pounds and pounds;
And arm in arm with your only friend
   You make your Saturday rounds:
And you see the cradle bright
   With ribbon—lace—pink and white;
And she stops her laugh
And you drop your chaff
   In the light of the Saturday night.
And the world is new
For her and you—
   A little bit of all-right.