Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (627 page)

THE FACE OF THE NIGH
T

The following poems appeared in the volume called as above and published by Mr Macqueen in 1904.

A SEQUENC
E

I

Y — OU make me think of lavender,
And that is why I love you so:
Your sloping shoulders, heavy hair,
And long swan’s neck like snow,
Befit those gracious girls of long ago,
Who in closed gardens took the quiet air;
Who lived the ordered life gently to pass
From earth as from rose petals perfumes go,
Or shadows from that dial in the grass;
Whose fingers from the painted spinet keys
Drew small heart-clutching melodies.

II

  
I DO not ask so much,
 
— O, bright-hued; oh, tender-eyed —
As you should sometimes shimmer at my side,
Oh, Fair.

  
I do not crave a touch,
Nor, at your comings hither,
Sound of soft laughter, savour of your hair,
Sight of your face; oh fair, oh full of grace,
  
I ask not, I.

  
But that you do not die,
Nor fade, oh bright, nor wither,
That somewhere in the world your sweet, dim face
Be unattainable, unpaled by fears,
  
Unvisited by years,
  
Stained by no tears.

III

COME in the delicate stillness of dawn,
Your eyelids heavy with sleep;
When the faint moon slips to its line — dimdrawn,
Grey and a shadow, the sea. And deep, very deep,
The tremulous stillness ere day in the dawn.

Come, scarce stirring the dew on the lawn,
Your face still shadowed by dreams;
When the world’s all shadow, and rabbit and fawn —
Those timorous creatures of shadows and gleams;
And twilight and dewlight, still people the lawn.

Come, more real than life is real,
Your form half seen in the dawn;
A warmth half felt, like the rays that steal
Hardly revealed from the East; oh warmth of my breast,
O life of my heart, oh intimate solace of me...
So, when the landward breeze winds up from the quickening sea,
And the leaves quiver of a sudden and life is here and the day,
You shall fade away and pass
As — when we breathed upon your mirror’s glass —
Our faces died away.

IV

IF we could have remembrance now
And see, as in the winter’s snow
We shall, what’s golden in these hours,
The flitting, swift, intangible desires of sea and strand!

Who sees what’s golden where we stand?
The sky’s too bright, the sapphire sea too green;
I, I am fevered, you cold-sweet, serene,
And... and...

Yet looking back in days of snow
Unto this olden day that’s now,
We’ll see all golden in these hours
This memory of ours.

V

IT was the Autumn season of the year
When ev’ry little bird doth ask his mate:
“I wonder if the Spring will find us here,
It groweth late.”

I saw two Lovers walking through the grass,
And the sad He unto his weeping Dear
Did say. “Alas!
When Spring comes round I shall no more be here,
For I must sail across the weary sea
And leave the waves a-churn ‘twixt you and me.

“Oh, blessed Autumn! blest late Autumn-tide!
For ever with thy mists us Lovers hide.
Ignore Time’s laws
And leave thy scarlet haws
For ever on the dewy-dripping shaws
Of this hillside.
Until the last, despite of Time and Tide,
Give leave that we may wander in thy mist,
With the last, dread
Word left for aye unsaid
And the last kiss unkisst.”

It was the Autumn season of the year,
When ev’ry little bird doth ask his mate:
“I wonder if the Spring will find us here
,
It groweth late.”

VI

WHEN all the little hills are hid in snow,
And all the small brown birds by frost are slain,
And sad and slow the silly sheep do go
All seeking shelter to and fro;
Come once again
To these familiar, silent, misty lands;
Unlatch the lockless door
And cross the drifted floor;
Ignite the waiting, ever-willing brands,
And warm thy frozen hands
By the old flame once more.
Ah, heart’s desire, once more by the old fire stretch out thy hands.

ON THE HILL
S

KEEP your brooding sorrows for dewymisty hollows.
Here’s blue sky and lark song, drink the
air. The joy that follows
Drafts of wine o’ west wind, o’ north wind, o’ summer breeze,
Never grape’s hath equalled from the wine hills
by the summer seas.
Whilst the breezes live, joy shall contrive,
Still to tear asunder, and to scatter near and far
  
Those nets small and thin
  
That spider sorrows spin
In the brooding hollows where no breezes are.

SIDERA CADENTI
A

(ON THE DEATH OF QUEEN VICTORIA)

WHEN one of the old, little stars doth fall from its place,
The eye,
Glimpsing aloft must sadden to see that its space
In the sky
Is darker, lacking a spot of its ancient, shimmering grace,
And sadder, a little, for loss of the glimmer on high.

Very remote, a glitter, a mote far away, is your star,
But its glint being gone from the place where it shone
The night’s somewhat grimmer and something is gone
Out of the comforting quiet of things as they are.

        
A shock,
A change in the beat of the clock;
And the ultimate change that we fear feels a little less far.

NIGHT PIEC
E

AH, of those better tides of dark and melancholy —
When one’s abroad, in a field — the night very deep, very holy;
The turf very sodden a-foot, walking heavy — the
small ring of light,
O’ the lanthorn one carries, a-swinging to left and to right,
Revealing a flicker of hedgerow, a flicker of rushes
 
— and Night
Ev’rywhere; ev’rywhere sleep and a hushing to sleep —
I — know that I never shall utter the uttermost secrets aright,
They lie so deep.

THANKS WHILST UNHARNESSIN
G

I

[He gets down from the cart.)

WEST’RING the last silver light doth gleam,
Whilst in the welling shimmer of the lamp
From the tired horse the blanketing of steam
Flickers and whirls aloft into the damp
Sharp winter darkness. In the deadened air
The long, still night doth settle everywhere.
And hark! there comes the rapt, sweet, crooning snatches
Of song from where the little robin watches
Close in the thorn, beyond the ring of light.

II

(He speaks towards the bushes
.)
Softest of all the birds that sing at night,
  
For the most mellowest sound,
  
That the long year brings round,
Sweet robin. I give thanks and love you best
  
Of birds that nest.

  
(He follows the horse in, humming?)
Sing! it is well, though the rest of life be bitter,
Sing!
(Z swill the oats in the trough and loose the girth.)
Warble! It is well. (
There’s a rustle in the litter:
Thafs the old grey rat.)
It is well upon the earth.

III

Clotht-up and snug and warm, a-munching oats
Old Tom doth make a comfortable sound,
A rhythmic symphony for your sweet notes.

  
[He speaks from the stable door.)
Small brother, flit in here, since all around
The frost hath gripped the ground;
And oh! I would not like to have you die.
We’s help each other,
Little Brother Beady-eye.

  
(
The Robin flits in.)
There —
Sing!
Warm and mellow the lanthorn lights the stable.
Little brother
,
sing!
In-a-doors beside the hearth.
Slippers are a-toast, and the tea’s upon the table.
Robin when you sing it is well tipon the earth.
[He closes the stable door and enters the cottage
.)

GREY MATTE
R

THEY leave us nothing.
He.
— Still, a little’s left.
She.
A crabbèd, ancient, dried biologist,
Somewhere very far from the sea, closed up from the sky,
Shut in from the leaves, destroys our hopes and us.
He.
Why, no, our hopes and...
She.
— In his “Erster Heft.”
Page something, I forget the line, he says
That, hidden as deep in the brain as he himself from hope,
There’s this grey matter.
He.
— Why,’tis there, dear heart.
She.
That, if that hidden matter cools, decays,
Dies — what you will — our souls die out as well;
Since, hidden in the millionth of a cell,
Is all we have to give us consciousness.
He.
Suppose it true.
She.
— Ah, never; better die,
Better have never lived than face this mist,
Better have never toiled to such distress.
He.
It matters little.
She.
— Little! — Where shall I,
The woman, where shall you take part,
My poet? Where has either of us scope
In this dead-dawning century that lacks all faith,
All hope, all aim, and all the mystery
That comforteth. Since he victorious
With his cold vapours chill out you and me,
The woman and the poet?
He.
— Never, dear.
For you and I remain,
The woman and the poet. And soft rain
Still falls and still the crocus flames,
The blackbird calls.
She.
— But halt the sweet is gone.
The voices of our children at their games
Lack half their ring.
He.
— Why, never, dear. Out there,
The sea’s a cord of silver, still to south
Beyond the marsh.
She.
— Ah, but beyond it all,
And all beneath and all above, half of the glory’s done.
And I and you....
He.
— Why, no. The ancient sun
Shines as it ever shone, and still your mouth
Is sweet as of old it was.
She.
— But what remains?
He.
All the old pains,
And all the old sweet pleasures and the mystery
Of time, slow travel and unfathomed deep.
She.
And then this cold extinction?...
He.
— Dreamless sleep.
She.
And nothing matters?
He.
— All the old, old things.
Whether to Church or College rings
The clamorous bell of creeds,
We, in the lush, far meads,
Poet and woman, past the city walls,
Hear turn by turn the burden of their calls,
Believe what we believe, feel what we feel,
Like what we list of what they cry within
Cathedral or laborat’ry,
Since, by the revolution of the wheel,
The one swings under, let us wait content.
She.
Yet it is hard.
He.
— Ah no. A sure intent,
For me and you.
The right, true, joyful word, the sweet, true phrase,
The calling of our children from the woods these garden days
Remain. — These drops of rain have laid the dust
And in our soft brown seed-beds formed the crust
We needed for our sowings. Bring your seed,
And you shall prick it in, I close the row.
Be sure the little grains your hands have pressed
Tenderly, lovingly, home, shall flourish best.
She.
Aye you are still my poet.
He.
— Even so
Betwixt the rain and shine. Half true’s still true
More truly than the thing that’s proved and dead.
The sun lends flame to every crocus head
Once more, and we once more must sow and weed
Since in the earth the newly stirring seed
Begins the ancient mystery anew.