Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (626 page)
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Authors: Ford Madox Ford
The following poems appeared in the volume of the above name published by Mr Alston Rivers in 1907.
I DREAMED that you and I were young
Once more, and by our old grey sea
Raced in the wind; but matins, sung
High on these vineyards, wakened me:
I lay half-roused and seemed to hold
Once more, beside our old grey sea,
Your hand. I saw the primrose gold
Your hair had then, and seemed to see
Your eyes, so childlike and so wise,
Look down on me.
By the last fire we ever lit
You knelt, and bending down your head,
— If you could compass it, you said,
Not ever would you live again
Your vanished life; never again
Pass through those shadowy vales of pain.
“And now I’m old and here I sit!”
You said, and held your hands apart
To those old flames we’ve left behind
As far — as far as some dead wind —
No doubt I fetched from near my heart
Brave platitudes — for you were there;
The firelight lit your brooding face,
Shadowed your golden, glowing hair:
I could be brave for the short space
I — had you by my chair....
As thus: “Since with the ebb of Youth
Rises the flood of passionless
And calm enjoyment, rises Truth
And fades the painful earnestness
Of all young thought, We two,” I said,
“Have still the best to come.” But you
Bowed down your brooding, silent head,
Patient and sad and still —
This view,
Steep vineyards rising parched and brown,
This weary stream, this cobbled town,
White convents on each hill-top — Dear!
What would I give to climb our down,
Where the wind hisses in each stalk
And, from the high brown crest to see,
Beyond the ancient, sea-grey town,
The sky-line of our foam-flecked sea;
And, looking out to sea, to hear,
Ah! Dear, once more your pleasant talk;
And to go home as twilight falls
Along the old sea-walls!
The best to come! The best! The best!
One says the wildest things at times,
Merely for comfort. But
— The best!
Ah! well, at night, when the moon climbs
High o’er these misty inland capes,
And hears the river lisping rhymes,
And sees the roe-deer nibbling grapes
Beneath the evanescent gleams
Of shaken dewdrops, shall come dreams,
Gliding amid the mists beneath:
A dream, maybe, of you and me,
Young once again by our old sea.
But, ah! we two must travel wide
And far and far ere we shall find
That recollected, ancient tide
By which we walked, or that old wind
That fled so bravely to its death.
SHE sits upon a tombstone in the shade;
One flake of sunlight, falling thro’ the veils
Of quivering poplars, lights upon her hair,
Shot golden, and across her candid brow.
Thus in the pleasant gloom she holds the eye,
Being life amid piled up remembrances
Of the tranquil dead.
One hand, dropped lightly down,
Rests on the words of a forgotten name:
Therefore the past makes glad to stay her up.
Closed in, walled off: here’s an oblivious place,
Deep, planted in with trees, unvisited:
A still backwater in the tide of life.
Life flows all round: sounds from surrounding streets,
Laughter of unseen children, roll of wheels,
Cries of all vendors. — So she sits and waits.
And she rejoices us who pass her by,
And she rejoices those who here lie still,
And she makes glad the little wandering airs,
And doth make glad the shaken beams of light
That fall upon her forehead: all the world
Moves round her, sitting on forgotten tombs
And lighting in to-morrow. She is Life:
That makes us keep on moving, taking roads,
Hauling great burdens up the unending hills,
Pondering senseless problems, setting sail
For undiscovered anchorages. Here
She waits, she waits, sequestered among tombs,
The sunlight on her hair. She waits, she waits:
The secret music, the resolving note
That sets in tune all this discordant world
And solves the riddles of the Universe.
SON
G
OH! purer than the day new-born,
More candid than the pearlèd morn
Come soon and set the day in tune
All through the sun-bathed afternoon;
Come soon!
Oh! sweeter than the roses be,
Subtler than balm or rosemary,
Come now, and’neath this orchard bough
Hark to the tranquil sea-wind’s sough:
Come now!
More rhythmic when you step than tunes
Wafted o’er waves in summer moons,
Bide here, and in my longing ear
Murmur the words I crave to hear;
Bide here!
Here, in the shadowy sacred place,
Close up your eyes, hide, hide your face,
And, in the windless silence, rest.
Now the cool night falls; dear and blest,
Now sleep, a dim and dreamless sleep,
Whilst I watch over you and keep
Your soul from fears. Now sleep!
Oh! Purer than the morning light
,
And more beloved than dead of night,
Come soon to set the world in tune
From midnight till the dial marks noon:
From dawn till the world’s end. Come soon!
Come soon!
NOW where’s a song for our small dear,
With her quaint voice and her quick ear,
To sing — for gnats and bats to hear —
At twilight in her bed?
A song of tiny elfin things
With shiny, silky, silvery wings,
Footing it in fairy rings,
And kissing overhead.
A song of starry glow-worms’ lights
In the long grass of shadowy nights,
And flitting showers of firefly flights,
Where summer woods hang deep;
Of hovering, noiseless owls that find
Their way at dark; and of a kind
And drowsy, drowsy ocean wind
That puts the sea to sleep.
But where’s the song for our small dear,
With her quaint voice and her quick ear,
To sing — for dreamland things to hear
—
And hush herself to sleep?
GOD made all things,
And, seeing they were good,
He set a limit to the springs,
And circumscribed the flood,
Stayed the aspiring mountain ranges,
And said: “Henceforth shall be no changes
On all the beasts he set that ban,
And drew his line ‘twixt woman and ‘twixt man.
God, leaning down
Over the world beneath,
Surveyed his changeless work:
No creature drew its breath,
No cloud approached with rain unto the hills,
No waves white on the ocean, and no breeze;
Still lay the cattle in the meads; the rills
Hung in the tufts of moss; the trees
Seemed carven out of metal; manhood stood
Drooping his silent head by womanhood.
Nor voice of beasts nor any song of bird
Nor sound of wind were from the woodlands heard.
God, leaning down
Over the world beneath,
Knitted his brows to a frown
And fashioned Death:
The clouds faded around the mountain heads,
The rills and streams sank in their stony beds,
The ocean shivered and lay still and dead,
And man fled and the beasts fled
Into the crevices of mountains round;
The grass withered on the sod;
Beetles and lizards faded into the ground:
And God frowned.
Looked on his last-made creature, Death, and
He paced in thought awhile
His darkened and resounding courts above:
They brightened at his smile:
He had imagined Love
(
Oh! help us ere we die: we die too soon;
Wey who are horn at dawn, have but one noon
,
A nd fade e’er nightfall
) —
Then the Lord made Love.
And, looking down to Earth, he saw
The green flame out across each shaw,
The worms came creeping o’er the lawns,
Sweet showers in the pleasant dawns,
The lapwings crying in the fens,
The young lambs leaping from their pens,
The waves run tracing lines of white
On the cerulean ocean. But at night
Man slept with woman in his arms.
Then thunder shook
At the awful frown of God. His way he took
Over the trembling hills to their embowered nook.
But standing there above those sleeping things
God was aware of one whose insubstantial wings
A-quiver formed a penthouse o’er the place:
Therefore God stayed his hand, and sighed
To see how lip matched lip, side mated side,
And the remembered joy on each sealed face:
Therefore God stayed his hand and smiled,
Shook his tremendous head and went his way;
Love being his best begotten child,
And having over Death and Sin God’s sway.
(Oh! help us ere we die: we die too soon;
We, who are born at dawn, have but one noon
,
And fade e’er nightfall. Oh! Eternal One
,
Help us to know short joy whose course is run
So soon: so soon.)
CAST not your looks upon the wan grey sea,
Waste not your voice upon the wind;
Let not your footsteps sink upon the sand,
Hold no sea-treasure in your hand,
And let no sea-shell in your ear
Nor any sea-thought in your mind
Murmur a mystery.
Turn your soft eyes upon mine eyes that long;
Let your sweet lips on mine be sealed;
Fold soft sweet hands between your sweet soft breasts,
And, as a weary sea-mew rests
Upon the sea
Utterly — utterly yield
Your being up to me,
And all around, grey seascape and the sound
Of droned sea song.
“Enough for you,” said he, “that ye from afar have viewed this goodly thing that all that many may never espy.” —
How They Quested, etc.
LONG we’d sought for Avalon,
Avalonthe rest place;
Long, long we’d laboured
The oars — yea, for years.
Late, late one eventide
Saw we o’er still waters
Turrets rise and roof-frets
Golden in a glory,
Heard for a heart-beat
Women choirs and harpings
Waft down the wave-ways.
Saw we long-sought Avalon
Sink thro’ still waters:
Long, long we’d laboured
The oars — yea, and yearned.
(WALTER VON DER VOGELWEIDE)
UNDER the lindens on the heather,
There was our double resting-place,
Side by side and close together
Garnered blossoms, crushed, and grass
Nigh a shaw in such a vale:
Tandaradei,
Sweetly sang the nightingale.
I — came a-walking through the grasses;
Lo! my dear was come before.
Ah! what befell then — listen, listen, lasses —
Makes me glad for evermore.
Kisses? — thousands in good sooth:
Tandaradei,
See how red they’ve left my mouth.
There had he made ready — featly, fairly —
All of flow’ring herbs a yielding bed,
And that place in secret still smiles rarely.
If by chance your foot that path should tread,
You might see the roses pressed,
Tandaradei,
Where e’enow my head did rest.
How he lay beside me, did a soul discover
(Now may God forfend such shame from me):
Not a soul shall know it save my lover;
Not a soul could see save I and he,
And a certain small brown bird:
Tandaradei,
Trust him not to breathe a word.
WE’VE wandered all about the upland fallows,
We’ve watched the rabbits at their play;
But now, good-night, good-bye to soaring swallows,
Now good-night, good-bye, dear day.
Poppy heads are closing fast, pigeons circle home at last;
Sleep, Liebchen, sleep, the bats are calling.
Pansies never miss the light, but sweet babes must sleep at night;
Sleep, Liebchen, sleep, the dew is falling.
Even the wind among the quiet willows
Rests, and the sea is silent too.
See soft white linen, cool, such cool white pillows,
Wait in the darkling room for you.
All the little lambs are still now the moon peeps down the hill;
Sleep, Liebchen, sleep, the owls are hooting.
Ships have hung their lanthorns out, little mice dare creep about;
Sleep, Liebchen, sleep, the stars are shooting.