The Imp

At the evening hour I bend
In a reverential awe,
Day draws darkly to its end,
In fulfilment of the law :
So I bow and make my peace,
To the power of gloom I pray,
For he causeth day to cease
By his universal Nay.

When the sun shines bright again
And the day laughs to the sky,
When the distant hills are plain
To the leaping of my eye ;
Lust of life shall make me sin,
Sin and laugh and dance and pray
To him who makes the day begin
By his universal Yea.

Yea and nay and here and there,
Back and forth, begin and end,
Joy and woe and foul and fair,
Give and take and break and mend ;
These are words which I despise
Although at morn and eve I pray,
Throwing dust into the eyes
Of the gods of Yea and Nay.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

The Nodding Stars

I

I think the stars do nod at me,
But not when people are about,
For they regard me curiously
Whenever I go out.
I may have been a star one day,
One of the rebel host that fell,
And they are nodding down to say,
" Come back to us from hell."
Perhaps they shout to one another
" There he is ! " or, "That is he ! "
And tell it to some other mother
Than the one that walloped me.

II

Brothers ! what is it ye mean ?
What is it ye try to say ?
That so earnestly ye lean
From the spirit to the clay.

There are weary gulfs between
Here and sunny Paradise,
Brothers ! what is it ye mean
That ye search with burning eyes.

Down for me whose fire is clogged,
Clamped in sullen earthy mould,
Battened down and fogged and bogged
Where the clay is seven-fold ?

III

If ye mean revolt, if ye
Raise the standard, do not seek
Help or heartening from me,
I am very, very weak;

My wings are clipped : the crown of gold
Would not fit me now, my rage
Is as futile as the scold
Of a linnet in a cage.

Do ye look to me for aid,
O, my brothers far away ?
I whom god and star betrayed
When ye stamped me into clay !

O, my dears ! I'm nodding, too,
Hard as ever I can try,
Up and up and up to you,
Where you nod upon the sky.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

The Crown Of Thorns

A man had many sins, and he
Looked upon them pridefully,
And thereof he made a crown
Of thorns.

He made thereof a thorny crown,
He pressed it down upon his brow.
And he walks in triumph now.

And he walks in triumph now,
Crowned without and crowned within,
He has triumphed over sin.

He has triumphed over sin,
He named it honour and renown,
And thereof he made a crown
Of thorns.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

The Ancient Elf

I am the maker,
The builder, the breaker,
The eagle-winged helper,
The speedy forsaker.

I am the lyre,
The water, the fire,
The tooth of oppression,
The lips of desire.

The snare and the wing,
The honey, the sting ;
When you seek for me look
For a different thing.

I, careless and gay,
Never mean what I say,
For my thoughts and my eyes
Look the opposite way.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

The King Of The Fairy Men

I know the man without a soul :
He is happy as the day,
He is happy, people say.

He is happy—so they say :
But they do not see him roll
On the ground in very dole.

All along the ground in dole,
When no one is watching, he
Bites the ground in agony.

He bites the ground in agony :
But with people he is whole :
I know the man without a soul !

Songs From The Clay [1915]

Irony

There spake a man in days of old :
"I will believe that God can be
As kind and just as we are told,
If He will throw down here to me
A bag of gold."

But when his wife rose from her bed
To see what kept her man away,
She found him with a broken head,
And on the ground beside him lay
A bag of lead.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

The Four Old Men

In the Café where I sit
The four old men who look like bards
Are playing at a game of cards ;
And they are enjoying it.

They are so eager at their play,
They shout together joyously,
They laugh with all their voices, they
Are like the little boys you see
Playing in your nursery.

But they'd be angry, they would rave
And swear and take it quite amiss,
If you walked across and gave
Each a penny and a kiss.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

Women Shapes

(After Sappho)

I could not see,
I looked but could not see !
Down through the mists of twenty hundred years
I peered profound,
Where in a round
Stood women shapes who mourned with bitter tears ;
Dim mourners ! what is it ye bend to see ?
What is it that ye look upon so earnestly ?

Will ye not move,
Will ye not move aside ?
O fluttering robe ! O little foot of white
Pressing the grass !
Move that my eyes may pass Into your mystic circle, to the sight
Of that ye gaze upon in mournful way,
As though upon the ground some piteous body lay.

The moon rose full,
The silver moon soared high
Upon the clouds, but still we could not see
What lay between
Those figures on the green,
And down the moon and I stared in a mystery;
For all the women stood, hushed, as in prayer
Around an altar when the god is there.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

The Clouds

I stood and looked around where, far and nigh,
The heather bloom was swaying in the air,
The clouds chased one another down the sky
Beyond my sight, and everywhere
The birds flew through the sunshine, where they sang
So loud, so clear, so sweet, the heavens rang
Of lark and thrush and stare.

I never heard a melody so sweet
As I heard then ; I never knew a day
So filled with sunshine ; never saw the fleet
And tinted clouds so high and free and gay ;
Each danced to the horizon like a boy
Let out from school, each tumbled in its joy
And ran away.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

This Way To Winter

Day by day
The sun's broad beam
Fades away
By a golden gleam ;
Hark on the cliff
How the sea-gulls scream !

Eve by eve
The wind more drear
Stays to grieve
That the winter's near ;
Hark how the crisp leaves
Dart and fleer !

Night by night
The shade grows dense,
And the cold starlight
Beams more intense ;
Hark how the beggar boy
Asks for pence !

Get you out
Your muffler grey,
Your boots so stout,
And your great-coat, pray,
And put on your gloves,
'Tis a hardy day.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

Etched In Frost

The corn is down,
The stooks are gone,
The fields are brown,
And the early dawn
Grows slowly behind
Where the mountains frown,
And a thin white sun
Is shivering down.

There is not a leaf,
Nor anything green,
To aid belief
That summer has been ;
And the puffed-up redbreast
(Ball o' Grief)
Comes to the window
For relief.

The cows are in byre,
The sheep in fold,
The mare and the sire
Are safe from cold,
The hens are sheltered,
In wood and wire,
And the sheep-dog snoozes
Before the fire.

The farmer can grin,
As he rubs his hands,
For the crops are in
From the resting lands ;
And the wheat is stored
In the oaken bin,
And the farmer's wife
Makes merry within.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

When The Leaves Fall

When the leaves fall off the trees
Everybody walks on them :
Once they had a time of ease
High above, and every breeze
Used to stay and talk to them.

Then they were so debonair
As they fluttered up and down ;
Dancing in the sunny air,
Dancing without knowing there
Was a gutter in the town.

Now they have no place at all !
All the home that they can find
Is a gutter by a wall,
And the wind that waits their fall
Is an apache of a wind.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

In Green Ways

Among the leaves I make a rhyme,
To the winter in its pall,
For the poor, forgotten time
Has not had a song at all.

Winter ! winter ! do not fear,
You shall have an icy crown
At the falling of the year,
When the leaves have tumbled down.

I am singing to you here,
Though the bud is on the tree,
At the falling of the year
You will sing a song to me.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

At The Edge Of The Sea

There was a river that rose
In the cool of the morn,
It leaped down the side of the mountain,
And ran through the meadows and corn,
But it came at the last to a cave
By the edge of the sea,
And it fell through the darkness and vanished
Forever from me.

I am sad for the river that fell
Through the darkness away,
From the meadows and corn, from the sun,
From the light of the day ;
I could weep for the river that danced
In the light of the day,
And sank through the darkness and vanished
Forever away.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

Dark Wings

Sing while you may, O bird upon the tree !
Although on high, wide - winged above the day
Chill evening broadens to immensity ;
Sing while you may.

On thee, wide-hovering too, intent to slay,
The hawk's slant pinion buoys him terribly :
Thus near the end is of thy happy lay.

The day and thou and miserable me
Dark wings shall cover up and hide away
Where no song stirs of bird or memory ;
Sing while you may.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

The Liar

Did you think, Old Grizzly-Face ! to frighten me ?
To frighten me who fronted you before
Times out of mind,
When, through that sudden door,
You took and bound and cast me to the sea,
Far from my kind,
Far from all friendly hands—now I
Tremble no longer at your whisper, at your lie.

I go with you, but only till the end
Of one small hour; and when the hour is done
I shall again
Arise and leap and run
From the wind-swept, icy caves : I shall ascend,
I shall attain
To the pearly sky and the open door and the infinite sun,
And find again my comrades with me, every one.

So, once more, here are my hands to wind
Your cords about : here are my feet to tie
Straitly and fast ;
And here, on either eye,
Press your strong fingers until I am blind :
Now, at the last,
Heave me upon your shoulder, whispering sly,
As you so oft before have whispered, your dark lie.

A day dawns surely when you will not dare
To come to me—then you will hide away
In your dark lands ;
Then you will pray ;
You will snarl and tremble when I seek you there
To bind your hands,
To whisper truth where you have whispered lies,
To press my mighty fingers down upon your eyes.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

The Tramp's Dream

I saw this in a place at the world's end,
When He was left alone without a friend :

From every side, from far and near they came,
The blind and battered and the lewd and lame,
The frightened people, and the helpless crew
Who hid in cellars, and the stragglers who
Dodged here and there in corners of the earth
Cursing the sun, and they who from their birth
Were lapped in madness, raved, and strode along,
Chaunting in fury to a flighty song
Their holy wrath : and all the hungry folk,
Who through the world had rummaged, yelped, and broke
To a stiff run, for vengeance was in view,
And every one knew what he had to do.

It was the Judgment Day ; and so they sped
(These vagabonds who always had been dead),
And packed their multitudes into the space
Between two stars : a deep and hollow place,
Rolling immense, a swirl of blue and grey
Steeped out of eye -shot: so it ever lay
Swinging in whispers, prickling to a sound,
Till the wind's whimper, rolling round and round,
Jolted to thunder, or the dreary sigh
Of a dead man drummed madness on the sky.

There they were silent, every awful stare,
With a dumb grin, was lifting anywhere ;
When sudden He came stately, marching fleet,
From the red sun, with fire about His feet,
And flaming brow. And as He walked in fire,
Those million, million muzzles lifted higher,
Stared at Him, grinned in fury, toned a yelp,
A vast malignant query, "Did you help?"

Songs From The Clay [1915]

The Road

Because our lives are cowardly and sly,
Because we do not dare to take or give.
Because we scowl and pass each other by,

We do not live ; we do not dare to live.

We dive, each man, into his secret house,
And bolt the door, and listen in affright,
Each timid man beside a timid spouse,
With timid children huddled out of sight.

Kissing in secret, fighting secretly !
We crawl and hide like vermin in a hole,
Under the bravery of sun and sky
We flash our meannesses of face and soul.

Let us go out and walk upon the road,
And quit for evermore the brickbuilt den,
The lock and key, the hidden, shy abode
That separates us from our fellowmen.

And by contagion of the sun we may
Catch at a spark from that primeval fire,
And learn that we are better than our clay,
And equal to the peaks of our desire.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

A Reply

To Ralph Hodgson

I

You have sent your verse to me
And a poet must reply
To the gracious courtesy
With whatever tune is nigh,
With whatever little air
Can be plucked from anywhere.

Verse has fled from me so long,
I have quite forgot to sing ;
I who had a hoard of song
Now can scarce find anything
Worth the singing, though I grope
Less with fingers than with hope.

Singing at your highest tone !
How shall I return the rhyme,
Whom the gods have left alone
Such a very lengthy time ?
So I veer and break and yaw
On my little pipe of straw.

II

Lift up my heart, and sing again
As once you did when I was young,
Before I knew of woe and pain,
When every happy bird that sung
I sang to it, and it to me
Repeated half the melody.

Like a thrush at peep of light,
I would pipe my sunny lay,
Singing how the blackest night
Always has to run away
When the sun climbs from afar
Brandishing his scimitar.

Like an eagle's is your cry ;
More of fierceness than of glee
Sent your pinions to the sky
Bounding our humanity ;
Sent you winging to the sun
That is seen of every one.

III

You have climbed a hill, and I
Climbed it too ; we saw the sun
Toiling up his hill of sky,
Shouting to the night to run
And hide itself before he came
With his scimitar of flame.

With his scimitar of heat,
With his diadem of fire,
Lightning singing at his feet,
Thunder chanting in the choir,
Twice ten thousand leagues of wind
Shouting victory behind.

You and I know well the hill,
We have climbed it up and down,
Knowing what there is of ill,
Knowing what it is to frown,
Lest the bitter word should be
On the lips of ecstasy.

IV

Still lift up my heart and sing
Once again, as once you knew,
That the end of everything
Is to build it up anew.
Are you sad, my heart ? then keep
Singing, singing, lest you weep.

For whoever climbs that hill
They shall feed on bitterness,
Wearying along until,
At the very top of stress,
They shall eat their hearts and know
Joy is kernel of their woe.

They shall breathe a sweeter air,
They shall see with other eyes
What they are and what they were,
And the strange and sad disguise
Of humanity will slip
From the shoulder and the lip.

V

Them the sun shall greet and call,
"Hail, and hail, and hail again,
Elder brothers of us all,
Who descended into pain ;
Welcome to the thrones that ye
Sat in through eternity.

"Who descended to the heart,
Who descended to the hell,
Gathering every poisoned dart
Of pain and sorrow, hiding well
In their bosoms all they knew
Of the sin a god can do."

They shall climb the hell again,
They shall scale the heart anew,
Treading back without a stain
Through the sunlight and the dew,
From the rigour of the clay
To the thrones of yesterday.

Songs From The Clay [1915]

The Holy Time

The drowsy sun trod slowly to his rest ;
He gathered all his dusty gold again
Away with him ;
He only left a dim
Red colour on the sky, a ruddy stain
Scarce to be seen upon the quiet west :
So evening came, and darkness, and the sound
Of moving feet upon the whispering ground.

Like timid girls the shades went pacing down
The slopes of evening, trailing soberly
Their vestments grey ;
Far, far away
The last red colour faded to a brown,
So very faint the eye could scarcely see:
And then the skirts of evening swungupon
That little distant light, and it was gone.

The bee sped home, the beetle's wing of horn
Went booming by, the darkness every side
Gathered around,
On air and sky and ground ;
The pliant trees sang gently, far and wide,
In cadenced lift of leaves, a tale of morn ;
And then the moon's white circle, faint and thin,
Looked steady on the earth—there is no sin.

Songs From The Clay [1915]