Oxford poetry, 1920
Author: Unknown
Date: 2015-11-03T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: English poetry -- 20th century; College verse; English -- England -- Oxford

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Oxford poetry, 1920

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Oxford poetry, 1920

Editor: Vera Brittain

C. H. B. Kitchin

Alan Porter

Release date: November 3, 2015 [eBook #50376]
Most recently updated: October 22, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by MWS, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OXFORD POETRY, 1920 ***

OXFORD POETRY
1920

Uniform with this Volume

OXFORD POETRY, 1914
(Out of Print)
OXFORD POETRY, 1915
OXFORD POETRY, 1916
OXFORD POETRY, 1917
OXFORD POETRY, 1918
OXFORD POETRY, 1919
——
OXFORD POETRY, 1917-1919,
7s. 6d. net

OXFORD POETRY
1920

EDITED BY
V. M. B., C. H. B. K., A. P.

OXFORD
BASIL BLACKWELL
1920

The following authors wish to make acknowledgment to the editors of the publications mentioned for permission kindly given to reprint: Mr. E. Blunden, The Nation (“Forefathers”), Voices (“Sheet Lightning”); Miss V. M. Brittain, The Oxford Chronicle (“Boar’s Hill,” and “The Lament of the Demobilized”); Mr. R. Campbell, The Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany (“Bongwi’s Theology”); Mr. L. Golding, Voices (“The Moon-Clock,” “Cold Branch,” “I Seek a Wild Star”); Mr. A. Porter, Voices (“Life and Luxury,” “A Far Country”); Mr. E. Rickword, The London Mercury (“Intimacy”); Mr. W. Force Stead, The Poetry Review; Mr. L. A. G. Strong, Coterie (“A Devon Rhyme,” “Christopher Marlye”), The Oxford Chronicle (“From the Greek”).

CONTENTS

EDMUND BLUNDEN (Queen’s) | PAGE
Sheet Lightning | 1
Forefathers | 3
G. H. BONNER (Magdalen)
Sonnet | 5
VERA M. BRITTAIN (Somerville)
Boar’s Hill, October, 1919 | 6
The Lament of the Demobilized | 7
Daphne | 8
G. A. FIELDING BUCKNALL (Exeter)
Unto Dust | 9
ROY CAMPBELL (Merton)
The Porpoise | 10
Bongwi’s Theology | 11
ERIC DICKINSON (Exeter)
Three Sonnets | 12
LOUIS GOLDING (Queen’s)
The Moon-Clock | 14
Cold Branch in the Black Air | 15
I Seek a Wild Star | 16
ROBERT GRAVES (St. John’s)
Morning Phœnix | 17
L. P. HARTLEY (Balliol)
Candlemas | 18
B. HIGGINS (B.N.C.)
One Soldier | 21
WINIFRED HOLTBY (Somerville)
The Dead Man | 22
R. W. HUGHES (Oriel)
The Rolling Saint | 23
The Song of Proud James | 25
E. W. JACOT (Queen’s)
Here’s a Daffodil | 26
Nursery Rhymes | 26
G. H. JOHNSTONE (Merton)
Summer | 27
“Ipse Ego ...” | 28
C. H. B. KITCHIN (Exeter)
Opening Scene from “Amphitryon” | 29
V. de S. PINTO (Christ Church)
Art | 38
ALAN PORTER (Queen’s)
Life and Luxury | 39
A Far Country | 44
HILDA REID (Somerville)
The Magnanimity of Beasts | 45
EDGELL RICKWORD (Pembroke)
Intimacy | 46
Grave Joys | 47
Advice to a Girl from the Wars | 48
Yegor | 49
Strange Elements | 50
W. FORCE STEAD (Queen’s)
The Burden of Babylon | 51
L. A. G. STRONG (Wadham)
Frost | 55
Vera Venvstas | 55
A Baby | 56
From the Greek | 56
A Devon Rhyme | 56
The Bird Man | 57
Christopher Marlye | 58

EDMUND BLUNDEN
(QUEEN’S)

SHEET LIGHTNING

WHEN on the green the rag-tag game had stopt,
And red the lights through alehouse curtains glowed,
The clambering brake drove out and took the road.
Then on the stern moors all the babble dropt
Among those merry men, who felt the dew
Sweet to the soul and saw the southern blue
Thronged with heat lightning leagues and leagues abroad,
Working and whickering; snake-like; winged and clawed;
Or like old carp lazily rising and shouldering,
Long the slate cloud flank shook with the death-white smouldering;
Yet not a voice.

The night drooped oven-hot;
Then where the turnpike pierced the black wood plot,
Tongues wagged again and each man felt the grim
Destiny of the hour speaking through him:
And then tales came of dwarfs on Starling Hill,
And those young swimmers drowned at the roller mill,
Where on the drowsiest noon the undertow
Famishing for life boiled like a pot below:
And how two higglers at the “Walnut Tree”
Had curst the Lord in thunderstorm and He
Had struck them into soot with lightning then—
It left the pitchers whole, it killed the men.
Many a lad and many a lass was named
Who once stept bold and proud—but death had tamed
Their revel on the eve of May: cut short
The primrosing and promise of good sport,
Shut up the score book, laid the ribbands by.

Such bodings mustered from the fevered sky;
But now the spring well through the honeycomb
Of scored stone rumbling tokened them near home,
The whip lash clacked, the jog-trot sharpened, all
Sang “Farmer’s Boy” as loud as they could bawl,
Till at the “Walnut Tree” the homeward brake
Stopt for hoarse ribaldry to brag and slake.

The weary wildfire faded from the dark
While this one damned the parson, that the clerk;
And anger’s balefire forked from the unbared blade
At word of notches missed or stakes not paid:
While Joe the driver stooped with oath to find
A young jack rabbit in the roadway, blind
Or dazzled by the lamps, as stiff as steel
With fear. Joe beat its brain out on the wheel.

FOREFATHERS

HERE they went with smock and crook,
Toiled in the sun, lolled in the shade,
Here they mudded out the brook
And here their hatchet cleared the glade:
Harvest-supper woke their wit,
Huntsman’s moon their wooings lit.

From this church they led their brides;
From this church themselves were led
Shoulder-high; on these waysides
Sat to take their beer and bread:
Names are gone—what men they were
These their cottages declare.

Names are vanished, save the few
In the old brown Bible scrawled,
These were men of pith and thew,
Whom the city never called;
Scarce could read or hold a quill:
Built the barn, the forge, the mill.

On the green they watched their sons
Playing till too dark to see,
As their fathers watched them once,
As my father once watched me;
While the bat and beetle flew
On the warm air webbed with dew.

Unrecorded, unrenowned,
Men from whom my ways begin,
Here I know you by your ground,
But I know you not within—
All is mist, and there survives
Not one moment of your lives.

Like the bee that now is blown
Honey-heavy on my hand
From the toppling tansy-throne
In the green tempestuous land,—
I’m a-Maying now, nor know
Who made honey long ago.

G. H. BONNER
(MAGDALEN)

SONNET

QUIETLY the old men die, in carven chairs
Nodding to silence by the extinguished hearth;
Their days are as a treasure nothing worth,
For all their joy is stolen by the years.
The striving and the fierce delights and fears
Of youth trouble them not; for them the earth
Is dead; in their cold hearts naught comes to birth
Save ghosts: they are too old even for tears.

As to the breast of some slow moving stream,
Close girt with sentinel trees on either side,
The sear leaves flutter down and silently
Glide onward on its dark November dream,
So peacefully upon the quiet tide
They steal out to the still moon-silvered sea.

VERA M. BRITTAIN
(SOMERVILLE)

BOAR’S HILL, OCTOBER, 1919

TALL slender beech-trees, whispering, touched with fire,
Swaying at even beneath a desolate sky;
Smouldering embers aflame where the clouds hurry by
To the wind’s desire.

Dark sombre woodlands, rain-drenched by the scattering shower,
Spindle that quivers and drops its dim berries to earth—
Mourning, perhaps, as I mourn here alone for the dearth
Of a happier hour.

Can you still see them, who always delighted to roam
Over the Hill where so often together we trod
When winds of wild autumn strewed summer’s dead leaves on the sod,
Ere your steps turned home?

THE LAMENT OF THE DEMOBILIZED

“FOUR years,” some say consolingly. “Oh well,
What’s that? You’re young. And then it must have been
A very fine experience for you!”
And they forget
How others stayed behind, and just got on—
Got on the better since we were away.
And we came home and found
They had achieved, and men revered their names,
But never mentioned ours;
And no one talked heroics now, and we
Must just go back, and start again once more.
“You threw four years into the melting-pot—
Did you indeed!” these others cry. “Oh well,
The more fool you!”
And we’re beginning to agree with them.

DAPHNE

SUNRISE and spring, and the river agleam in the morning,
Life at its freshest, like flowers in the dawn-dew of May,
Hope, and Love’s dreams the dim hills of the future adorning,
Youth of the world, just awake to the glory of day—

Is she not part of them, golden and fair and undaunted,
Glad with the triumph of runners ahead in the race,
Free as a child by no shadows or memories haunted,
Challenging Death to his solemn and pitiful face?

Sunset and dusk, and the stars of a mellow September,
Sombre grey shadows, like Sleep stealing over the grass,
Autumn leaves blown through the chill empty lanes of November,
Sorrow enduring, though Youth with its rhapsodies pass—

Are they not part of her, sweet with unconscious compassion,
Ready to shoulder our burden of life with a jest,
Will she not make them her own in her light-hearted fashion,
Sadder than we in her song, in her laughter more blest?

G. A. FIELDING BUCKNALL
(EXETER)

UNTO DUST

NOT with a crown of thorns about his head
But with a single rose in his white hand,
Fairer than Death herself, he joins the dead,
He that could laugh at life, yet understand.
No veils are rent in twain, or unknown fears
Fall on the crowd who crucify my lord;
Lay him to rest, while poetry and tears
Be the last gifts his mourning friends accord.
Cast not white flowers on one who loved but red,
Leave him the dust who found in dust the praise
Only of life, and, now that he is dead
Surely in death is fair a thousand ways.
Leave him in peace, a poem to the end—
He was the man I loved: I was his friend.

ROY CAMPBELL
(MERTON)

THE PORPOISE

THE ocean-cleaving porpoise goes
Thrashing the waves with fins of gold,
Butting the waves with brows of steel,
From palm-fringed archipelagos
To coasts of coral, where the bold
Cannibal drives a pointed keel.

And round and round the world he runs,
A golden rocket trailing fire,
Out-distancing the moon and stars,
Leaving the pale abortive suns
To paint their dreams of dead desire
On faint horizons. Nothing mars

His constant course, though storms may rend
The charging waves from strand to strand,
Though Love may wait with fingers curled
To clutch him at the current’s bend,
Though Death may dart an eager hand
To drag him underneath the world!

Still threading depths of pearl and rose,
Derisive, gay, and overbold,
Who will not hear, who will not feel,
The ocean-cleaving porpoise goes,
Thrashing the waves with fins of gold,
Butting the waves with brows of steel!

BONGWI’S THEOLOGY

THIS is the wisdom of the ape
Who yelps beneath the moon—
’Tis God who made me in his shape;
He is a great baboon.
’Tis he who tilts the moon askew
And fans the forest trees:
The Heavens, which are broad and blue,
Provide him his trapeze.
He swings with tail divinely bent
Around those azure bars,
And munches, to his soul’s content,
The kernels of the stars.
And when I die, his loving care
Shall raise me from the sod,
To learn the perfect Mischief there,
The Nimbleness of God!

ERIC DICKINSON
(EXETER)

THREE SONNETS

For RANDOLPH HUGHES

I

SUCH beauty is the magic of old kings
Who webbed enchantments on the bowls of night,
Who stole the ocean-coral for their rings,
And samite-curls of mermaids for their light;
Who sent their envoys from the courts of Kand,
To find the blue-flowered crown of ecstasy
That grows beneath a Titan’s quiet hand.
The beauty that is yours is grown to me
More fine than furthest snows in golden Ind,
More fair indeed than doves, who draw the cars
Of purpurate belief in monarch’s mind,
With benediction of the ultimate stars.
Because of all this knowledge born of you,
Raise up my faith in stone, and keep men true.

II

Always your eyes, your hair, your cheek, your voice,
Impel the wish I had a magic art;
Your beauty’s kind can perfectly rejoice
With delicate music all a poet’s heart,
As voice of summer over hills of joy.
Oh, you are utterly of beauty’s dance,
Such kind of rhythmic beauty they employ,
Where Pheidias shakes the Parthenon with prance
Of his proud steeds, and prouder youths show us
The glory of a fair Athenian day.
Your beauty lived before tumultuous
Chattering knaves sped time and faith away,
Before the chime for Babylon was rung,
Or from the cross men found the stars were hung!

III

My love of most complete and dearest worth,
Has ever breath of years, one day all spent,
Mingled with thought of present smiling earth?
Have you bethought you how so soon is sent
To this poor passionate heart the Worm of Death
With twined and intimate corrupt caress?
Have you bethought you, how that your dear breath,
Bathing the rose upon your mouth, shall press
One day no more betwixt its petalled home?
How all exceeding beauties exquisite
Of limbs, of eyes, of hair, of cheek, shall come
One day perhaps within that open night,
Where sheep go plaintive on a lone highway,
And ecstasy of love is far away?

LOUIS GOLDING
(QUEEN’S)

THE MOON-CLOCK

TICK-TOCK! the moon, that pale round clock,
Her big face peering, goes tick-tock!

Metallic as a grasshopper
The far faint tickings start and stir.

All night tinily you can hear
Tick-tock tinkling down the sheer

Steep falls of space. Minute, aloof,
Here is no praise, here no reproof.

Remote in voids star-purged of sense,
Tick-tock in stark indifference!

From ice-black lands of lack and rock,
The two swords shake and clank tick-tock.

In the dark din of the day’s vault
Demand thy headlong soul shall halt

One moment. Hearken, taut and tense,
In the vast Silence beyond sense,

The moon! From the hushed heart of her,
Metallic as a grasshopper,

Patient though earth may writhe and rock,
Imperturbably, tock, tick-tock!

Till, boastful earth, your forests wilt
In grotesque death. Till death shall silt,

Loud-blooded man, her unchecked sands
From feet and warped expiring hands

Through fatuous channels of the thinned
Brain. Till all the clangours which have dinned

Through your arched ears are only this,
Tick-tock down blank eternities,

Where still the sallow death’s-head ticks
As stars burn down like candle-wicks.

COLD BRANCH IN THE BLACK AIR

WHO taps? You are not the wind tapping?
No! Not the wind!
You straining and moaning there,
Are you a cold branch in the black air
Which the storm has skinned?
No! Not a cold branch!
Not the wind!

Who are you? Who are you?
But you loved me once,
You drank me like wine.
The dead wood simmers in my skull. I am rotten.
And your blood is red still and you have forgotten,
And my blood was yours once and yours mine!

Are you there still? O fainter, O further ... nothing!
Nothing taps!
Surely you straining and moaning there,
You were only a cold branch in the black air?
... Or a door perhaps?

I SEEK A WILD STAR

WHAT seek you in this hoarse hard sand
That shuffles from your futile hand?
Your limbs are wry. With salt despair
All day the scant winds freeze your hair.
What mystery in the barren sand
Seek you to understand?

All day the acute winds’ finger-tips
Flay my skin and cleave my lips.
But though like fame about my skull
Leap the gibes of the cynic gull,
I shall not go from this place. I
Seek through all curved vacancy
Though the sea taunt me and frost scar,
I seek a star, a star!

Why seek you this, why seek you this
Of all distraught futilities?
The tide slides closer. The tide’s teeth
Shall bite your body with keen death!
Of all unspaced things that are
Vain, vain, most hideously far,
Why seek you then a star?

I seek a wild star, I that am
Eaten by earth and all her shame;
To whom fields, towns are a close clot
Of mud whence the worm dieth not;
To whom all running water is
Besnagged with timeless treacheries,
Who in a babe’s heart see designed
Mine own distortion and the blind
Lusts of all my kind!
Hence of all things that are
Vain, most hideously far,
A star, I seek, a star!

ROBERT GRAVES
(ST. JOHN’S)

MORNING PHŒNIX

IN my body lives a flame,
Flame that burns me all the day,
When a fierce sun does the same,
I am charred away.

Who could keep a smiling wit,
Roasted so in heart and hide,
Turning on the sun’s red spit,
Scorched by love inside?

Caves I long for and cold rocks,
Minnow-peopled country brooks,
Blundering gales of Equinox,
Sunless valley-nooks.

Daily so I might restore
Calcined heart and shrivelled skin,
A morning phœnix with proud roar
Kindled new within.

L. P. HARTLEY
(BALLIOL)

CANDLEMAS

THE conversation waned and waxed,
I was there: you were there:
Doubtless a few were overtaxed,
Talking was more than they could bear.

The aura of each candle-flame
Excited me, excited you;
I felt you in each diadem,
Now in the yellow, now the blue.

The conversation waxed and waned:
Question, reply; question, reply:
We, for our intercourse, disdained
Such palpable machinery.

Columnar in transparent gloom,
Symbolical, inviolate,
Those candles held the spell of some
Campanile or minaret,

Which still takes in, as it exhales,
The mood of joy or orison;
With hoarded ceremonials
Enfranchising communion—

Till every spoken word or thought,
However alien and profane,
Becomes the medium and resort
Where spirits spirits entertain;

So, idle talk’s quintessences
Gleamed in the candles’ radiance
With gathered stores of unproved bliss:
The multiplied inheritance

Of each succeeding moment.... More
Perfect in form the flames appeared;
Their arduous strivings overbore
Slight wayward wisps that swayed and veered.

They changed their contours, one and all,
Carefully, persistently,
With efforts economical
That had their will of you and me,—

For we somehow were party to
The issue of their enterprise;
Confounded in their overthrow,
Triumphant in their victories.

The alternation of each flame
—Thinning here—swelling there—
Compell’d our souls into the same
Compass,—ampler or narrower.

We knew that when those luminous spires
Hung upwards, pacified, and tranc’d,
Pois’d betwixt all and no desires,
Beyond their accidents advanc’d,—

We, their adepts, might acquiesce:
The promised consummation
Would drown our wills in its excess,
And mingle both our souls in one.

When suddenly a permanence,
—A flutter of wings before rest—
Drew down to those flame-forms: our sense
Was steeped in it, folded, caress’d....

A casual devastating gust
(The jolt, the sickening recoil!)
Our universe in chaos thrust;
And, not content to spoil

Our husbanded endeavour, threw
A mocking, flickering light,
Devour’d by shadows, on us two:
The talk became more bright.

We entered into it with zest;
Question, reply; question, reply:
And lookers-on were much impressed
By our inane garrulity.

B. HIGGINS
(B.N.C.)

ONE SOLDIER

TO GEORGE WRIGHT

HEAP the earth upon this head.
Nature, like a wistful child,
Clings unto the clay she fed,
Shatters it—unreconciled
Moans the ashes of her dead.
Heap the earth upon this head.

Chanter of the lonely tombs,
Lift him to thy harmony—
Moulded in the million wombs
That breed the soul’s nobility!...
Such the man that perished?
Heap the earth upon this head.

Our masters brood and preach and plot,
And mourn in monuments, not tears,
The man the centuries forgot
Who builded up the mighty years!
Faded are the fights they led,
Piteous the blood they shed.
Heap the earth upon this head.

Heap, heap the earth upon this head,
Brother he was to you, to me—
Lived, lusted, joyed and wept.... They spent
Their verbal earnings, and he went
And fought for human liberty,
And died. And politics were free.

Raise, raise memorials to our Dead....
But heap the earth upon this head.
Oh! heap the earth upon this head.

WINIFRED HOLTBY
(SOMERVILLE)

THE DEAD MAN

I SEE men walk wild ways with love,
Along the wind their laughter blown
Strikes up against the singing stars;
But I lie all alone.
When love has stricken laughter dead
And tears their silly hearts in twain,
They long for easeful death, but I
Am hungry for their pain.

R. W. HUGHES
(ORIEL)

THE ROLLING SAINT

UNDER the crags of Teiriwch,
The door-sills of the Sun,
Where God has left the bony earth
Just as it was begun;
Where clouds sail past like argosies
Breasting the crested hills,
With mainsail and foretop-sail
That the thin breeze fills;
With ballast of round thunder,
And anchored with the rain;
With a long shadow sounding
The deep, far plain:
Where rocks are broken playthings
By petulant gods hurled,
And Heaven sits a-straddle
On the roof-ridge of the World.
—Under the crags of Teiriwch
Is a round pile of stones:
Large stones, small stones,
—White as old bones;
Some from high places,
Or from the lake’s shore;
And every man that passes
Adds one more:
The years it has been growing
Verge on a hundred score.

For in the cave of Teiriwch
That scarce holds a sheep,
Where plovers and rock-conies
And wild things sleep,
A woman lived for ninety years
On bilberries and moss
And lizards, and small creeping things,
And carved herself a cross:
But wild hill robbers
Found the ancient saint
And dragged her to the sunlight,
Making no complaint:
Too old was she for weeping,
Too shrivelled, and too dry:
She crouched and mumle-mumled
And mumled to the sky.
No breath had she for wailing,
Her cheeks were paper-thin:
She was, for all her holiness
As ugly as sin.
They cramped her in a barrel
—All but her bobbing head.
—And rolled her down from Teiriwch
Until she was dead:
They took her out, and buried her
—Just broken bits of bone
And rags and skin: and over her
Set one small stone:
But if you pass her sepulchre
And add not one thereto
The ghost of that old murdered Saint
Will roll in front of you
The whole night through.

The clouds sail past in argosies
And cold drips the rain:
The whole world is far and high
Above the tilted plain.
The silent mist floats eerily,
And I am here alone:
Dare I pass the place by,
And cast not a stone?

THE SONG OF PROUD JAMES

(From “The Englishman.”)

“IF kith and kin disowned you,
And all your friends were dead?”
—I’d buy a spotted handkerchief
To flaunt upon my head:
I’d resurrect my maddest clothes,
And gaily would I laugh,
And climb the proud hills scornfully
With swinging cherry staff.

“But when you’d crossed the sky-line,
And knew you were alone?”
—I’d cast away the hollow sham,
I’d kick the ground, and groan,
And tear my coloured handkerchief
And snap my staff; and then
I’d curse the God that built me up
To break me down again.

E. W. JACOT
(QUEEN’S)

HERE’S A DAFFODIL

HERE’S a daffodil
Nodding to the hill,
Tipsy in the sunlight
Drinking his fill.

Here’s a violet
Pearled in dew as yet,
Smiling in the wood shade,
Sweet coquette!

NURSERY RHYMES

I

QUEEN Anne is dead
’Tis often said,
For my part I agree.
But she lived full ten score years ago
And so
She ought to be.

II

There was a scholar
Of Oxford Town.
He read till his wits were blunt.
He put his gown
On upside down,
And his cap
On back to front.

G. H. JOHNSTONE
(MERTON)

SUMMER

FULL of unearthly peace lies river-water,
Glaucous and here and there with irised circles:
Now subdued melody rises from the wreaths
Of whirling flies, their mazy conflict driving
To melancholy lamp-images in the pool:
An unseen fish greyly breeds lubric rounds
Up-reaching to the thrill of populous air:
O hour supreme for poised and halting thought!
Down colonnade on colonnade of rose
The immense Symbols move augustly on;
Mystery, her stony eyes revealed a little,
Not cumbered longer by the veils of noise:
Evening, a lithe and virginal dream-figure,
Wavering between a green cloak and a blue,
And, robed at length, turning with exquisite
And old despair towards the gate of Dawn:
And Fate, bemused awhile and half withdrawn,
Charmed to short rest between grim Day and Night.

“IPSE EGO ...”

MARSILIO sighed: and drew a rough discord
From his guitar, and sang so to us listeners:
“I too have mounted every step of ice
And dragged my bleeding ankles, hope-enthralled,
To Heaven’s blessed door; when instantly
From side-nooks rising tripped the outer angels,
In thin, light-hammered armour, giggling boys,
But muscular, and with concerted charge
Seized my poor feet, and flung me laughing, laughing,
Laughing, down, down among the insect men
Who look up never, antwise busy—crawling:
Alas! the burden of their feathery laughter,
More bitter than my fall, has pried a passage
Into my luckless head, and ‘Ha-ha, ha-ha!’
Maddens its walls and frets them ruinously:
Beware my flitting pestilence: I’ll not gage
That certain easier outlets may not bring
The noise out and about and thick among you:
O bitter, bitter days for those it visits!”
And murmuring “bitter” with a fading sadness
Marsilio went: the assembly all were silent.

C. H. B. KITCHIN
(EXETER)

OPENING SCENE FROM “AMPHITRYON”

ALCMENA. THREE ASTROLOGERS

Alcmena

I HAVE commanded you as often of old
To ply the doctor’s trade with my disease,
To cure me or to kill; for in whose veins
Courses the age-long poison of despair,
Seeks for himself no gentle surgery,
Nor wishes for the touch of tender hands
Upon his body.

First Astrologer

Something of your need
Has been revealed us. Yet should there remain
No secret hid from the physician’s eye.

Alcmena

It has been said that from the lips of queens
Should come no word more bitter than sweet honey.
If you adjudge me queen, let this too pass
That I must act unqueenly. In my soul
Drips wine more bitter than the taste of gall.

First Astrologer

When roses bloom most fully, death is near.

Alcmena

You too know this?

Second Astrologer

We know that life glides slowly
But death is quicker than a lightning stroke.

Alcmena

Is it of me that you have gained this wisdom?

Third Astrologer

The grand revolving spheres of heaven teach
The mind that hears their music. We have learned
To listen through the clamour of all noons
With evening in the heart.

Alcmena

He does not live
Who hears no noon-day clamour about his ears.

First Astrologer

And you, Queen, that have lived and now confront
Death or his shadow deep within your soul,
Have you in life such wisdom garnered up
As may disarm the heart’s rebellion?
Wherefore then are we summoned?

Second Astrologer

The garden of life
Is barren for you, bearing little fruit,
And yields no store for hungry days ahead.

Third Astrologer

To me you seem as one that has in thought
A hidden sin, and seeks an easy priest
Who shall with smooth and flowing words of grace
Persuade it from the heart.

Alcmena

Nay, I am sinless.

First Astrologer

You are still young to be thus weary of life.

Alcmena

There comes to every man a sudden time
When he undoes the bolts that bar his heart
Displaying hidden shame and scars concealed.
Such season is the present. Hear me now;
For I am sick and pale with lingering
Over a mystery that has no clue
Created idly by an idle brain.
Astrologers, thrice mighty in yourselves,
Say whence crept into me this discontent,
This fretfulness of mine. Say whence arose
My malady, so cunning in its ways,
That I tormented have no skill to guide
My doctors to the secret. Day by day
I feel the heavy burden of the flesh
Grow heavier. Your words rang true indeed.
Though I am young, I am grown weary of life.
The tedious cycle of each passing day
Like streams of dripping tears from blinded eyes
Falls in the cup of my calamity;
While thoughts, such as you guess, are often here,
Bringing a sweet temptation.
I have tried
All means of remedy. This perfumed air,
This gold and ivory, these purple robes
Have caused no change. The mute insistent hours
Wait for me still, interminably slow.
And, as in mental pain a man will crave
For any fierce sensation of the flesh
To rid his agony, so I have craved
The frenzied lashing of tempestuous rain,
The heat of flame, the sharpened fang of frost.
I have gone forth at midnight with no robe,
And walked bare-footed over stony ground
While wind and rain have done their worst on me.

I have kissed flame and held these hands in fire;
These hands have taken the scourge, that is for slaves,
To beat my body. Hear then all my curse.
Neither the blade of sharp-projecting flint
Nor wind nor rain nor burning tongue of flame
Nor knotted scourge can leave a mark on me.
These lips are no less red since they were kissed
By glowing coal; these hands are yet untorn.
Such is my fate, with flesh insensible
To suffer from a mind which has no love
And no distraction. Have it as you will,
I am a shipwreck far on lonely seas
With neither oars aboard, nor land in sight,
Nor mast, nor mast for fluttering rags of sail.

First Astrologer

When you have seen the solemn moon in tears
With long green tresses dipped in a purple sea,
And noted in each tear a breaking heart,
A lump of salty crystal, then your dreams
Will give you counsel which we cannot give.

Second Astrologer

We are empowered to tell you what has been
And what shall be, but this created image
Of your own thought eludes our groping hand.

Third Astrologer

Soon he shall come to you!
That stung your heart?

Alcmena

O wailing winds, scatter these words away
As chaff unfruitful to unfruitful soil.

First Astrologer

As glints the jewel in the toad’s brown head——

Second Astrologer

As lurks a bitter sting in honeyed words——

Third Astrologer

As a foul plague lies hid beneath the skin——

Alcmena

You wrong me.

Third Astrologer

Nay, your heart has uttered it.
When the strong arms of young Amphitryon——

First Astrologer

I hear a voice.

Alcmena

O God! the dream returns.

Third Astrologer

The dream was not, then, of Amphitryon?

Alcmena

May the royal hand of Zeus deliver me.

[Zeus enters in the form of Amphitryon.

Zeus

Your task is ended. Go, astrologers,
Taking your admonition to such ears
As are in need of it. Go silently.

[The Astrologers go out.

Zeus

Still you pursue their empty sorceries?

Alcmena

Will you now weary me again? You drive
My friends away like dogs. I follow them.

Zeus

A sullen greeting to the traveller.

Alcmena

Have I not told you often how it is
With me and you? Or must you ask again
And hear me through unreasoned reasonings
To the last drop of bitterness? And yet——

Zeus

Why gaze so strangely on me?

Alcmena

I had thought
Your journey would be longer.

Zeus

No, alas!

Alcmena

What brings you here to probe the core of my heart
With your unspoken question?

Zeus

We have need
No longer of these lamps. Quench them. The dawn
Arises in the East.

Alcmena

Since when am I
Become your slave?

Zeus

Since you obeyed my word.

Alcmena

I was no friend to such obedience
In the dead days that were my life’s design.

Zeus

You tremble. Speak your fear.

Alcmena

Heart’s utterance
Were mockery, if spoken by the tongue.

Zeus

Yet, be assured, nothing is hid from me.

Alcmena

Unmoving figure of Amphitryon
I knew and hated, when you crossed the threshold,
Hope seemed to step beside you.

Zeus

Hope is mine.

Alcmena

Then say, where have you found the keys of life,
That you unlock its portals suddenly?

Zeus

At my command all doors are set ajar.

Alcmena

The miserable forebodings of the night
Have fallen from me like the gossamer
Which spiders weave until a master-hand
Sweeps clean their tracery. Mark you a change
In me, as I in you?

Zeus

I am unchanging,
But, till this moment, me you have not known.

Alcmena

Or known myself save as a falling leaf,
The toy of winds, uncherished and unloved,
Gliding to earth and slow decay in earth
Of what was green and young.

Zeus

When you were younger
And guarded still the pitiable illusion
That life is good and destiny exalted,
Did you not dream perhaps of sacrifice
In which yourself as immolated victim
Should satisfy delirious desire,
Wedded at last in death with strength,—which marriage
Humanly shaped has never learned to yield?

Alcmena

Your voice has in it the power of new command
To pierce my secret.

Zeus

Naught is hid from me.

Alcmena

My soul is weak with longing for your counsel.

Zeus

When Semele, with lightning-darted flame
Engirdled, woke with knowledge she must die,
Having aspired to touch the majesty
Of the omnipotent, in no wise dismayed
Was she consumed with that unquenchable fire
Which burns all veils that overspread the flesh.

Alcmena

Whence came the thought of Semele to you?
And why this chain of words now coiled on me
As a predestined victim?

Zeus

I myself
Blaze with the fire of Semele. This hand
Shall rend the veil once more. Myself am hope,
Sole arbiter of germinating life,
The driver of the lusty winds of morning,
The cloud-compeller, dancer of the dance
Wherein the sea is festive and the hills
Nod musical assent, the charioteer
That drags the world behind his flashing wheels,
Bringer of life and change that is called death
And vibrant longing, setter of an end
To fear and doubt, a darting two-edged sword
That heals the wounds created of itself,
The crystal-veined one, in whose blood there flows
The flame of life—in such wise apprehend
Me standing here, and in such wise remark
The honour I have done you.

Alcmena

Open-eyed
At last, I see a spirit stands beside me.
For this cause I grew pale and bent my head
In sweet confusion. Bringer of release,
Even if it should be my worship falls
Before a devil from hell, behold I kneel
To kiss the fragrance of your garment’s hem.

V. DE S. PINTO
(CHRIST CHURCH)

ART

FATE from an unimaginable throne
Scatters a million roses on the world;
They fall like shooting stars across the sky
Glittering:
Under a dark clump of trees
Man, a gaunt creature, squats upon the ground
Ape-like, and grins to see those brilliant flowers
Raining through the dark foliage:
He tries
Sometimes to clutch at them, but in his hands
They melt like snow.
Then in despair he turns
Back to his wigwam, stirs the embers, pats
His blear-eyed dog, and smokes a pipe, and soon,
Wrapped in his blankets, drowses off to sleep.

But all his dreams are full of flying flowers.

ALAN PORTER
(QUEEN’S)

LIFE AND LUXURY

I HELD imagination’s candle high
To thread the pitchy cavern, life. A whisper
Dazed all the dark with sweetness oversweet,
A lithe body languished around my neck.
“Do out this unavailing light;” she pleaded.
“Soother is darkness. How may candle strive
With topless, bleak, obdurate blanks of space?
It can but cold the darkness else were warm.
Leave, leave to search so bitter-toilfully
Unthroughgone silence, leave and follow me;
For I will lead where many riches lie,
Where rippling silks and snow-soft cushions, rare
Cool wines, and delicates unearthly sweet,
And all the comfort flesh of man craves more.
We two shall dallying uncurl the long
And fragrant hours.” She reached a slender arm
Slowly along mine to the light. I flung her
Off, down. My candle showed her cheeks raddled,
Her bindweed pressure made me sick and mad;
I flung her back to the gloom. Her further hand
Clanked; hidden gyves fell ringing to the rock.
Peering behind her barely I could discern
Outstretching bodies clamped along the floor,
Unmoving most and silent, some uneasy,
Stirring and moaning. Smothery clutches came
Of slothful scents and fingered at my throat;
But, brushing by them, unaccompanied
I held aloft my rushlight in the cave
And searched for beauty through the cleaner air.
Thus far in parable. Laugh loud, O world,
Laugh loud and hollow. There are those would spurn
Your joys unjoyous and your acid fruits.
They would not tread the corpsy paths of commerce
Nor juggle with men’s bones; they would not chaffer
Their souls for strumpet pleasure. Cast them out,
Deny what little they would ask of life,
Assail, starve, torture, murder them, and laugh.
Shall it be war between us? Better war
Than faint submission—better death. And yet
I would not, no, nor shall not die. How weaponed
Shall I go passionate against your host?
How, cautelous, elude your calm blockade?

Of older days heart-free the poet roved
Along the furrowed lanes, and watched the robin
Squat in a puddle, whir his stumpy wings,
And tweet amid the tempest he aroused;
A hare would hirple on ahead (keep back,
Let her get out of sight; quick, cross yourself),
Or taper weasel slink past over the road;
And, seeing native blossoms, breathing air
From English hills, what recked the wanderer
That barons threw no penny to his song?
Should he be hungered, he would seek some rill
And, scrambling down the hazel scarp, would walk
Wet-ankled up the stream until he found
A larger pool of cold, colourless water,
Full two-foot deep, scooped out of solid stone
By a chuckling trickle spated after rains.
There he would rest upon the bank, while slowly
His fingers crept along the crannied rock.
Poor starveling belly!—No, that lower fissure,
Straight, lipless grin like an unholy god’s,
Reach out for that. The water stings to his armpit,
He hangs above the pool from head to waist,
His legs push tautly back for body’s poise,
And careful, careful creep the sensitive fingers.

—Sudden touch of cold, wet silk.
Now flesh be one with brain! He lightly strokes
The slippery smoothness upward to the gills
And throws a twiring trout upon the grass.
Or where the rattle of the water slacks
To low leaf-whisper, there he gropes beneath
Root-knots that hug black, unctuous mould from toppling
To slutch the daylit stream. His wary nerves
Tell blunt teeth biting at his thumb. Stormswift
He snatches a heavy hand over his head.
A floundering eel flops wildly to the floor,
And glides for the water. Quick the hungry poet
Spins round, whips out his knife, and shears the neck
How firm soever gripped, the limber body
Long after wriggles headless out of hand.
But if he roam across foot-tangling heath
And bracken, where no burble glads the root
Of juicy grasses? If along his way
Never a kingcup lifted bowls of light,
Nor burly watermint with bludgeon scent,
Beat down the fair, mild, slumbering meadowsweet?
If no nearby forgetmenot looks up
With frank and modest eye, no yellow flag
Plays Harold crowned and girt by fearless pikes?
No more he fails of ample fare; nor famine
Drains out his blood and piecemeal drags his flesh
From outward-leaping bones, till wrathful death,
Grudging to lose a pebble from his cairn,
Bears off the pitiful orts. For, stepping soft,
He finds a rabbit gazing at the world
With eyes in which not many moons have gleamed;
And, raising a bawl of more expended breath
Than fritter your burghers in a year of gabbling,
He runs and hurls himself headlong on to it.
Stunned at the cry, the rabbit waits and dithers;
His muscles melt beneath him; “Pluck up strength,”
He calls to his legs; “oh, stiffen, stiffen!” and still
He waits and dithers. Now the trembling scale
Of timeless pain crashes suddenly down,
And life’s a puffed-out flame.

Thus the poet
Of bygone England (as an alchemist
After ill magics and long labours wrought
Seals in the flask his magisterium,
Lest volatile it waste among the winds,
And all men breathe a never-ageing youth)
Found way to pend within his body life
And what of pain or interwoven joy
Life brings to poets. Friend, I do not gulp
And weep with maudlin, sentimental tears,
Lacking a late lamented golden age.
The more of life was ever misery’s,
And Socrates won hemlock. Yet before
Was man so constant enemy to man?
Did earth grow bleak at all these purposeless,
Rotting and blotting, roaking, smoking chimneys?
Look, men are dying, women dying, children dying.
They sell their souls for bread, and poison-filths
Whiten their flesh, bow their bodies. Crippled,
Consumption-spotted, feeble-minded, sullen,
They seek, bewildered, out of black despair,
The star of life; so, dying a Christian death,
Lie seven a grave unheedful. “Bad as that?
Put down five hundred on the Lord Mayor’s list.
After the cost of organizing’s paid
There’ll still be something left. Besides, it looks well,
And charity brings the firm new customers.
Not that I hold with all this nonsense really.
When I was young I’d nothing more than they,
But I climbed, and trampled other people down.
Why shouldn’t they?” O murderers, look, look, look.
No man but tramples, tramples on his neighbour,
And these the lowest wrench and writhe and kick
And crush the desperate lives of whom they can.
I will not tread the corpsy path of commerce
Nor juggle with men’s bones. The world shall wend
Those murderous ways. Not I, no, never I.
You shall not gaol me round with city walls;
I will not waste among your houses; roads
That indiscriminate feel a thousand footings
Shall not for mine augment their insolence.
But, as of old the poet, poet now
Shall hold a near communion with earth,
Free from all traffic or truck with worldlihood:
As poet one time lived of natural bounty,
So now shall I. Yet differs even this.
Me no man wronging still the world shall hound
With interdict of food. Gamekeepers, bailiffs,
And all the manlings vail and bob to lords
Shall sturdy stand on decent English Law
And threat my famine with a worser fate,
The seasonless monotonies of walls
That straitlier cabin than the closest town.
So let them threat. War stands between us. I
Take peril comrade, knowing a hazel scarp
That breaks down ragged to a scampering brook;
Knowing a hill whose deep-slit, slanting sides
Brave out the wind and shoulder the rough clouds through.

A FAR COUNTRY

THIS wood is older born than other woods:
The trees are God’s imagining of trees,
Anemones
So pale as these
Have never laughed like children in far solitudes,
Shaking and breaking worldforweary moods
To pure and childish glees.

The dripple from the mossed and plashing beck
Has carven glassy walls of pallid stone,
Where ferns have thrown
Fine silks unsewn,
Faint clouds unskied, that, one enchanted moment, check
And chalice waterdrops. They, silver grown,
With moons the darkness fleck.

HILDA REID
(SOMERVILLE)

THE MAGNANIMITY OF BEASTS

MAN—you who think you really know
The beast you gaze on in the show,
Nor see with what consummate art
Each animal enacts its part—
How different do they all appear
The moment that you are not there!
Then, fawns with liquid eyes a-flame
Pursue the bear, their nightly game;
Wolves shiver as the rabbit roars
And stretches his terrific claws;
While trembling tigers dare not sleep
For passionate, relentless sheep,
And frantic eagles through the skies
Are chased by angry butterflies.
—But beasts would suffer all confusions
Before they shattered man’s illusions.

EDGELL RICKWORD
(PEMBROKE)

INTIMACY

SINCE I have seen you do those intimate things
That other men but dream of; lull asleep
The sinister dark forest of your hair,
And tie the bows that stir on your calm breast
Faintly as leaves that shudder in their sleep.
Since I have seen your stocking swallow up,
A swift black wind, the pale flame of your foot,
And deemed your slender limbs so meshed in silk
Sweet mermaid sisters drowned in their dark hair;
I have not troubled overmuch with food,
And wine has seemed like water from a well;
Pavements are built of fire, grass of thin flames.
All other girls grow dull as painted flowers
Or flutter harmlessly like coloured flies
Whose wings are tangled in the net of leaves
Spread by frail trees that grow behind the eyes.

GRAVE JOYS

TO PEGGY

WHEN our sweet bodies moulder under-ground,
Shut off from these bright waters and clear skies,
When we hear nothing but the sullen sound
Of dead flesh dropping slowly from the bone
And muffled fall of tongue and ears and eyes;
Perhaps, as each disintegrates alone,
Frail broken vials once brimmed with curious sense,
Our souls will pitch old Grossness from his throne,
And on the beat of unsubstantial wings
Soar to new ecstasies still more intense.
There the thin voice of horny, black-legged things
Shall thrill me as girls’ laughter thrills me here,
And the cold drops a passing storm-cloud flings
Be my strong wine, and crawling roots and clods
My trees and hills, and slugs swift fallow deer.
There I shall dote upon a sexless flower
By dream-ghosts planted in my dripping brain,
And suck from those cold petals subtler power
Than from your colder, whiter flesh could fall,
Most vile of girls and lovelier than all.
But in your tomb the deathless She will reign
And draw new lovers out of rotting sods
That your lithe body may for ever squirm
Beneath the strange embraces of the worm.

ADVICE TO A GIRL FROM THE WARS

WEEP for me but one day,
Dry then your eyes;
Think, is a heap of clay
Worth a maid’s sighs?

Sigh nine days if you can
For my waste blood;
Think then, you love a man
Whose face is mud;

Whose flesh and hair thrill not
At your faint touch;
Dear! limbs and brain will rot,
Dream not of such.

YEGOR

“What shall I write?” said Yegor.—Tchekov.

“WHAT shall I write?” said Yegor;
“Of the bright-plumed bird that sings
Hovering on the fringes of the forest,
Where leafy dreams are grown,
And thoughts go with silent flutterings,
Like moths by a dark wind blown?”

“Oh, write of those quiet women,
Beautiful, slim and pale,
Whose bodies glimmer under cool green waters,
Whose hands like lilies float
Tangled in the heavy purple veil
Of hair on their breast and throat.”

“Or write of swans and princes
Carved out of marble clouds,
Of the flowers that wither upon distant mountains,
Grey-pencilled in the brain;
Of fiercely hurrying night-born crowds
By the first swift sun-ray slain.”

“Nay, I will sing,” said Yegor,
“Of stranger things than these,
Of a girl I met in the fresh of morning,
A laughing, slender flame;
Of the slow stream’s song and the chant of bees,
In a land without a name.”

STRANGE ELEMENTS

WHEN my girl swims with me I think
She is a Shark with hungry teeth,
Because her throat that dazzles me
Is white as sharks are underneath.

And when she drags me down with her
Under the wave, she clings so tight,
She seems a deadly Water-snake
Who smothers me in that dim light.

Yet when we lie on the hot sand,
I find she cannot bite or hiss,
But she swears I’m a Tiger fierce
Who kills her slowly with a kiss.

W. FORCE STEAD
(QUEEN’S)

THE BURDEN OF BABYLON[A]

“It is in the soul that things happen.”

[A] The lyrics from “The Burden of Babylon” appeared in Oxford Poetry, 1919. The present editors have decided to reprint them with their context.

Scene: An upper chamber in the Palace of the King of Babylon. Dusk on a hot summer’s evening. The voice of one singing far off beyond the palace-gardens is heard vaguely from time to time. The King is sitting by an open window.

The King of Babylon

SINCE I am Babylon, I am the world.
The windy heavens and the rainy skies
Attend the earth in humble servitude.
And I am Babylon, I am the world:
The heavens and their powers attend on me.

The Voice of One Crying in the Night

Babylon, the glory of the Kingdoms,
And the Chaldee’s excellency,
Is become as Sodom and Gomorrah,
Whom God overthrew by the Sea.

The King

Who is that fellow crying by the river?
I think I heard him lift his voice in praise
Of Babylon: some minstrelle seeking hire:
I need him not to tell me who I am,
For I am Baladan of Babylon.
The splendours of my sceptre, throne, and crown,
And all the awe that fills my royal halls,
The pomp that heralds me, the shout that follows,
Are flying shadows and reflections only
From the wide dazzlings of myself, the King.
This I conceive: and yet, we kings have labour
To apprehend ourselves imperially,
And see the blaze and lightnings of our person;
The thought of their own sovereignty amazes
The princelings even, and the lesser kings:
But I am Baladan of Babylon.

The Voice in the Night

Never again inhabited,
Babylon, O Babylon
Even the wandering Arabian
From thy weary waste is gone.
Neither shall the shepherd tend his fold there,
Nor any green herb be grown:
It cometh in the night-time suddenly,
And Babylon is overthrown.

The King

Pale from the east, the stars arise, and climb,
And then grow bright, beholding Babylon;
They would delay, but may not; so they pass,
And fade and fall, bereft of Babylon.
Quick from the Midian line the sun comes up,
For he expects to see my palaces;
And the moon lingers, even on the wane....
Mine ancient dynasty, as yon great river,
Euphrates, with his fountains in far hills,
Arose in the blue morning of the years;
And as yon river flows on into time,
Unalterable in majesty, my line
Survives in domination down the years.
I know, but am concerned not, that some peoples,
At the pale limits of the world, abide
As yet beyond the circle of my sway,
The miserable sons of meagre soil
That needs much tillage ere the yield be good.
I only wait until they ripen more,
And fatten toward my final harvesting:
When I am ready, I will reap them in.
For it is written in the stars, and read
Of all my wise men and astrologers,
That I, and my great line of Babylon,
Shall rule the world, and only find a bound
Where the horizon’s bounds are set, an end
When the world ends; so shall all other lands,
All languages, all peoples, and all tongues,
Become a fable told of olden times,
Deemed of our sons a thing incredulous.

The Voice in the Night

Woeful are thy desolate palaces,
Where doleful creatures lie,
And wild beasts out of the islands
In thy fallen chambers cry.
Where now are the viol and the tabret?—
But owls hoot in moonlight,
And over the ruins of Babylon
The satyrs dance by night.

The King

That voice, that seems to hum my kingdom’s glory
Fails in the vast immensity of night,
As fails all earthly praise of Him who hears
The ceaseless acclamation of the stars.
What needs there more?—the apple of the world,
Grown ripe and juicy, rolls into my lap,
And all the gods of Babylon, well pleased
With blood of bulls and fume of fragrant things,
Even while I take mine ease, attend on me:
The figs do mellow, the olive, and the vine,
And in the plains climb the big sycamores;
My camels and my laden dromedaries
Move in from eastward bearing odorous gums,
And the Zidonians hew me cedar beams,
Even tall cedars out of Lebanon;
Euphrates floats his treasured freightage down,
And all great Babylon is filled with spoil.
Wherefore, upon the summit of the world,
The utmost apex of this thronèd realm,
I stand, as stands the driving charioteer,
And steer my course right onward toward the stars.
Mean-fated men my horses trample under,
And my wine-bins have drained the blood of mothers,
And smoothly my wheels run upon the necks
Of babes and sucklings,—while I hold my way,
Serene, supreme, secure in destiny,
Because the gods perceive mine excellence,
And entertain for mine imperial Person
Peculiar favours.... I am Babylon:
Exceeding precious in the High One’s eyes.

The Voice in the Night

Babylon is fallen, fallen,
And never shall be known again!
Drunken with the blood of my belovèd,
And trampling on the sons of men.
But God is awake and aware of thee,
And sharply shines His sword,
Where over the earth spring suddenly
The hidden hosts of the Lord;
Armies of right and of righteousness,
Huge hosts, unseen, unknown:
And thy pomp, and thy revellings, and glory,
Where the wind goes, they are gone.

L. A. G. STRONG
(WADHAM)

FROST

UNNATURAL foliage pales the trees,
Frost in compassion of their death
Has kissed them, and his icy breath
Proclaims and silvers their election.
Death, wert thou beautiful as these,
We scarce would pray for resurrection.

VERA VENVSTAS

Corporis

PROUD Eastern Queene,
Borne forth in splendour to thy buriall.
What need of gems
To deck thee? Bear the Tyrian gauds aside.
Thy own dead loveliness outshines the pride
Of diadems.

Animæ

O splendid hearte,
Scorned and afflicted, still thou needest not
Comfort of me.
What matter though the body be uncouthe
Wherein thou art? Fear not. He seeth truth
Who gave it thee.

[To be chaunted as in a solemn Dumpe by such as fear God.]

A BABY

TWO days with puckered face of pain
The accidental baby cried,
And on the morning of the third
Unclenched her tiny hands, and died.

FROM THE GREEK

BILL Jupp lies ’ere, aged sixty year:
From Tavistock ’e came.
Single ’e bided, and ’e wished
’Is father’d done the same.

A DEVON RHYME

GNARLY and bent and deaf ’s a post
Pore ol’ Ezekiel Purvis
Goeth creepin’ slowly up the ’ill
To the Commoonion Survis.

Tap-tappy-tappy up the haisle
Goeth stick and brassy ferule;
And Parson ’ath to stoopy down
And ’olley in ees yerole.

THE BIRD MAN

TO ERIC DICKINSON

I DREAD the parrots of the summer sun,
The harsh and blazing screams of July noon,
A riot of jays and peacocks and macaws.
There is some presage of big ardours due
Even in the pale flamingoes of the dawn;
While golden pheasants and hoopoes of the West
Burn fierce and proudly still, when he has set.

Better the winter wagtails of pied skies,
Cold ospreys of the north, cormorants of squall,
Brown wrens of rain, white silent owls of snow,
And bitterns of great clouds that in October
Sweep from the west at evening. Lovelier still
The night’s black swans, the daws of starless night
(Daw-like to hide what’s shiny), plovers and gulls
Of winds that cry on autumn afternoons....

These every one I love: but above these
Rarest of all my birds, I dearly love
The blue and silver herons of the moon.

CHRISTOPHER MARLYE

CHRISTOPHER MARLYE damned his God
In many a blasphemous mighty line,
—Being given to words and wenches and wine.

He wrote his Faustus, and laughed to see
How everyone feared his devils but he.

Christopher Marlye passed the gate,
Eager to stalk on the floor of Heaven,
Outface his God, and affront the Seven:

But Peter genially let him in,
Making no mention of all his sin.

And he got no credit for all he had done,
Though he grabbed a hold on the coat of God,
And bellowed his infamies one by one,
Blasphemy, lechery, thought, and deed ...

But nobody paid him the slightest heed.

And the devils and torments he thought to brave
He left behind, on this side of the grave.

Heigh-ho! for Christopher Marlye.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND ESHER

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OXFORD POETRY, 1920 ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works provided that:

- • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”

- • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

- • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.

- • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

back

Table of Contents

OXFORD POETRY 1920

CONTENTS

EDMUND BLUNDEN (QUEEN’S)

- SHEET LIGHTNING

- FOREFATHERS

G. H. BONNER (MAGDALEN)

- SONNET

VERA M. BRITTAIN (SOMERVILLE)

- BOAR’S HILL, OCTOBER, 1919
- THE LAMENT OF THE DEMOBILIZED
- DAPHNE

G. A. FIELDING BUCKNALL (EXETER)

- UNTO DUST

ROY CAMPBELL (MERTON)

- THE PORPOISE

- BONGWI’S THEOLOGY

ERIC DICKINSON (EXETER)

- THREE SONNETS

- I
- II
- III

LOUIS GOLDING (QUEEN’S)

- THE MOON-CLOCK
- COLD BRANCH IN THE BLACK AIR
- I SEEK A WILD STAR

ROBERT GRAVES (ST. JOHN’S)

- MORNING PHŒNIX

L. P. HARTLEY (BALLIOL)

- CANDLEMAS

B. HIGGINS (B.N.C.)

- ONE SOLDIER

WINIFRED HOLTBY (SOMERVILLE)

- THE DEAD MAN

R. W. HUGHES (ORIEL)

- THE ROLLING SAINT

- THE SONG OF PROUD JAMES

E. W. JACOT (QUEEN’S)

- HERE’S A DAFFODIL

- NURSERY RHYMES

- I

- II

G. H. JOHNSTONE (MERTON)

- SUMMER

- “IPSE EGO ...”

C. H. B. KITCHIN (EXETER)

- OPENING SCENE FROM “AMPHITRYON”

- Alcmena
- First Astrologer
- Alcmena
- First Astrologer
- Alcmena
- Second Astrologer
- Alcmena
- Third Astrologer
- Alcmena
- First Astrologer
- Second Astrologer
- Third Astrologer
- Alcmena
- First Astrologer
- Alcmena
- First Astrologer
- Second Astrologer
- Third Astrologer
- Alcmena
- First Astrologer
- Second Astrologer
- Third Astrologer
- Alcmena
- Third Astrologer
- First Astrologer
- Alcmena
- Third Astrologer
- Alcmena
- Zeus
- Zeus
- Alcmena
- Zeus
- Alcmena
- Zeus
- Alcmena
- Zeus
- Alcmena
- Zeus
- Alcmena
- Zeus
- Alcmena
- Zeus
- Alcmena
- Zeus
- Alcmena
- Zeus
- Alcmena
- Zeus
- Alcmena
- Zeus
- Alcmena
- Zeus
- Alcmena
- Zeus
- Alcmena
- Zeus
- Alcmena
- Zeus
- Alcmena

V. DE S. PINTO (CHRIST CHURCH)

- ART

ALAN PORTER (QUEEN’S)

- LIFE AND LUXURY

- A FAR COUNTRY

HILDA REID (SOMERVILLE)

- THE MAGNANIMITY OF BEASTS

EDGELL RICKWORD (PEMBROKE)

- INTIMACY
- GRAVE JOYS
- ADVICE TO A GIRL FROM THE WARS
- YEGOR
- STRANGE ELEMENTS

W. FORCE STEAD (QUEEN’S)

- THE BURDEN OF BABYLON[A]

- The King of Babylon

- The Voice of One Crying in the Night
- The King
- The Voice in the Night
- The King
- The Voice in the Night
- The King
- The Voice in the Night

L. A. G. STRONG (WADHAM)

- FROST

- VERA VENVSTAS

- Corporis

- Animæ

- A BABY
- FROM THE GREEK
- A DEVON RHYME
- THE BIRD MAN
- CHRISTOPHER MARLYE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE