Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (628 page)

OLD MAN’S EVENSON
G

‘TIS but a teeny mite
Hard, road side edge,
OF missus’ candle light
Shines through thet broken hedge.

Reach me my coat, lads,
Give me a lift into it,
Rowin’ they tater-clads
Tasks me to do it
Terribly;

Time was when I weer mad
Diggin’ by star’s light,
Now I am mortial glad
T’ reach my dure-ajar’s light,
‘N’ eat my tea.

Reach me my tools, boys,
Ah mun quit this talk’n’ lurry;
Theer’s my ol’ missus’ voice
Calls: “Or meastur, hurry,
Y’r tea-time’s come.”
Smells from the chimney side
Sniff down this plaguy mist,
Wanst I’d wander far an’ wide,
Now I’m terr’ble stiff an’ whist
‘N’ stay at home.

‘Tis but a yeard or two
Hard road, thank God.
Then off the hard an’ goo
Home on the sod.

CHILDREN’S SON
G

SOMETIMES wind and sometimes rain,
Then the sun comes back again;
Sometimes rain and sometimes snow,
Goodness, how we’d like to know
Why the weather alters so.

When the weather’s really good
We go nutting in the wood;
When it rains we stay at home,
And then sometimes other some
Of the neighbours’ children come.

Sometimes we have jam and meat,
All the things we like to eat;
Sometimes we make do with bread
And potatoes boiled instead.
Once when we were put to bed
We had nowt and mother cried,
But that was after father died.

So, sometimes wind and sometimes rain,
Then the sun comes back again;
Sometimes rain and sometimes snow,
Goodness, how we’d like to know
If things will
always
alter so.

FROM THE SOI
L

(TWO MONOLOGUES)

I

The Field Labourer speaks.
AH am a mighty simple man and only
Good wi’ my baggin’ hook and sichlike and’tis . lonely
Wheer Ah do hedge on Farmer Finn his farm.
Often Ah gits to thinking
When it grows dark and the ol’ sun’s done sinking,
And Ah hev had my sheere
Of fear
And wanted to feel sure that God were near
And goodly warm —
As near as th’eldritch shave I were at wark about...
Plenty o’ time for thinking
We hes between the getting up and sinking
Of that ol’ sun — about the God we tark about...

In the beginning God made Heaven and
The’ Arth,’n Sea we sometimes hear a-calling
When wind she bloweth from the rainy land
An’ says ther’ll soon be wet an’ rain a-falling.
Ah’ll give you, parson, God he made the sea,
An’ made this’Arth, ner yit Ah wo-an’t scrimmage
But what He made the sky; what passes
me
Is that what follows: “Then the Lord made we
In his own image.”
For, let alone the difference in us creatures,
Some short o’ words like me, and others preachers
With stores of them, like you; some fair, some middlin’,
Some black-avis’d like you and good at fiddlin’,
Some crabb’d, some mad, some mighty gay and pleasant,
No two that’s more alike than jackdaw is to pheasant,
We’re poorish stuff at best.

We doesn’t last no time before we die,
Nor leave more truck behind than they poor thrushes.
You find, stiff feathers, laid aside the bushes
After a hard ol’ frost in Janu-ry.
Ol’ crow he lives much longer,
Ol’ mare’s a de-al stronger
‘N the hare’s faster...
If so be God’s like we and we like He
The man’s as good’s his Master.
You are a civil, decent-spoken man, Muss Parson.
‘N’ I don’t think ye’ll say this kind o’ tark is worse’n arson —
That’s burning stacks, I think — surety it isn’ meant so,
I tell you, Parson, no;
‘N’ us poor folk we doesn’t want to blame
You parsons fer the things that’s said and sung
Up there in church. My apple tree is crook’d because
‘twere bent so
When it were young.
‘N’ them as had you preacher-folk to tame,
Taught you the tales that you are bound to tell
Us folk below
About three Gods that’s one an’ Heav’n an’ Hell,
An’ things us folk ain’t
meant to
understand.
I — tell you, sir, we men that’s on the land
Needs summut we can chew when trouble’s brewing,
When our ol’’ooman’s bad an’ rent is due
‘N’ we no farden,
‘N’ when it’s late to sow’n’ still too wet to dig the garden,
Something as we can chew like that ol’ cow be chewing.
Something told plain and something we gits holt on,
 
— You need a simple sort o’ feed to raise a colt on —
We needs it, parson, life’s a bitter scrimmage,
Livin’ and stuggin’ in the mud and things we do
Enow confound us;
We hain’t no need for fear
Of God, to make the living hardly worth —
You
tell us, sir, that “God He made this Earth
In His own image,”
An’ make the Lord seem near.
So’s we could think that when we come to die
We’ll lie
In this same goodly’Arth, an’ things goo on around us
Much as they used to goo.

II

The Small Farmer soliloquizes.

I wonder why we toiled upon the earth
From sunrise until sunset, dug and delved,
Crook-backed, cramp-fingered, making little marks
On the unmoving bosoms of the hills,
And nothing came of it. And other men
In the same places dug and delved and ended
As we have done; and other men just there
Shall do the self-same things until the end.
I wonder why we did it — Underneath
The grass that fed my sheep, I often thought
Something lay hidden, some sinister thing
Lay looking up at us as if it looked
Upwards thro’ quiet waters; that it saw
Us futile toilers scratching little lines
And doing nothing. And maybe it smiled
Because it knew that we must come to this —
I lay and heard the rain upon the roof
All night when rain spelt ruin, lay and heard
The east wind shake the windows when that wind
Meant parched up land, dried herbage, blighted wheat,
And ruin, always ruin creeping near
In the long droughts and bitter frosts and floods.
And when at dawning I went out-a-doors
I used to see the top of the tall shaft
O’ the workhouse here, peep just above the downs,
It was as if the thing were spying, waiting,
Watching my movements, saying, “You will come,
Will come at last to me.” And I am here...
And down below that Thing lay there and smiled;
Or no, it did not smile; it was as if
One might have caught it smiling, but one saw
The earth immovable, the unmoved sheep
And senseless hedges run like little strings
All over hill and dale —

WISDO
M

THE young girl questions: “Whether were it better
To lie for ever, a warm slug-a-bed
Or to rise up and bide by F ate and Chance,
The rawness of the morning,
The gibing and the scorning
Of the stern Teacher of my ignorance?’’
“I know not,” Wisdom said.

The young girl questions: “Friend, shall I die calmer,
If I’ve lain for ever, sheets above the head,
Warm in a dream, or rise to take the worst
Of peril in the highways
Of straying in the by-ways.
Of hunger for the truth, of drought and thirst?”
“We do not know,” he said,
“Nor may till we be dead.”

THE POSY-RIN
G

(AFTER CLEMENT MAROT)

THIS on thy posy-ring I’ve writ:
“True Love and Faith.”
For, failing Love, Faith droops her head,
And lacking faith, why love is dead
And’s but a wraith.
But Death is stingless where they’ve lit
And stayed, whose names hereon I’ve writ.

THE GREAT VIE
W

UP here, where the air’s very clear
And the hills slope away nigh down to the bay,
It is very like Heaven...

For the sea’s wine-purple and lies half asleep
In the sickle of the shore and, serene in the west,
Lion-like purple and brooding in the even,
Low hills lure the sun to rest.

Very like Heaven — For the vast marsh dozes,
And waving plough-lands and willowy closes
Creep and creep up the soft south steep;
In the pallid North the grey and ghostly downs do fold away.
And, spinning spider-threadlets down the sea, the
sea-lights dance
And shake out a wavering radiance.

Very like Heaven — For a shimmering of pink.
East, far east, past the sea-lights’ distant blink,
Like a cloud shell-pink, like the ear of a girl,
Like Venice-glass mirroring mother-o’-pearl,
Like the small pink nails of my lovely lady’s fingers,
Where the skies drink the sea and the last light lies and lingers,
There is France.

WIFE TO HUSBAN
D

IF I went past you down this hill
And you had never seen my face before,
Would all your being feel the sudden thrill
You said it felt, once more?

If I went past you through this shaw,
Would be all a-quiver at the brush
Of my trailed garments; would the sudden hush
You said the black-birds’ voices had in awe
Of my first coming, fall upon the place
Once more, if you had never seen my face
Nor ever heard my passing by before,
And nought had passed of all that was of yore?

A NIGHT PIEC
E

AS I lay awake by my good wife’s side,
And heard the clock tick through a night in June,
I thought of a song with a haunting tune;
But the songs that betide,
And the tunes that we hear in the ear when the June
moon rides in the sky,
Fade and die away with the coming of the day.
And my haloed angels with golden wings,
And the small sweet bells that rang in tune,
And the strings that quivered above the quills,
And all my mellow imaginings
Faded and died away at the coming of the day
With the gradual growth and spread of grey
Above the hills.

TO CHRISTINA AT NIGHTFAL
L

LITTLE thing, ah, little mouse,
Creeping through the twilit house,
To watch within the shadow of my chair
With large blue eyes; the firelight on your hair
Doth glimmer gold and faint,
And on your woollen gown
That folds a-down
From steadfast little face to square-set feet.
Ah, sweet! ah, little one! so like a carven saint,
With your unflinching eyes, unflinching face,
Like a small angel, carved in a high place,
Watching unmoved across a gabled town;
When I am weak and old,
And lose my grip, and crave my small reward
Of tolerance and tenderness and ruth,
The children of your dawning day shall hold
The reins we drop and wield the judge’s sword
And your swift feet shall tread upon my heels,
And I be Ancient Error, you New Truth,
And I be crushed by your advancing wheels...
Good-night! The fire is burning low,
Put out the lamp;
Lay down the weary little head
Upon the small white bed.
Up from the sea the night winds blow
Across the hill across the marsh;
Chill and harsh, harsh and damp,
The night winds blow.
But, while the slow hours go,
I, who must fall before you, late shall wait and keep
  
Watch and ward,
  
Vigil and guard,
  
Where you sleep.
Ah, sweet! do you the like where I lie dead.

TWO FRESCOE
S

It occurred to me that a series of frescoes might arise dealing
with the fortunes of Roderick the Goth. Having neither wall nor
brushes I have tried to put two of them upon paper.

I

THE TOWER

DOWN there where Europe’s arms
Stretch out to Africa,
Throughout the storms, throughout the calms
Of centuries it took the alms
Of sun and rain; the loud alarms
Of war left it unmoved; and grey
And brooding there it watched the strip of foam
And fret of ruffled waters, was the home
Of the blue rock-dove and the birds o’ the main.

Coming from Africa
The swallows rested on it flying north
In spring-time; rested there again,
When the days shorten, speeding on the way
Homewards to Africa.
Back and forth
The tiny ships below sped; east and west
It was called blest
By mariners it guided. Mystery
Hung round it like a veil. The ancient Ones,
They said, had seen it rise
Upwards to the old suns,
Upwards to the old skies,
When Hercules
Did bid it guard those seas.

It was a thing of the Past;
Stood there untroubled; like a virgin, dreamed;
And not a man of all that land but deemed
The tower sacred.
It was a symbol of an ancient faith,
Some half-forgotten righteousness, some Truth,
Some virtue in the land whose tillers said:
“Whilst that stands unenforced, it is well.”
Be sure the thing is even so to-day,
Our tower doth somewhere unenforced rise
Upwards to our old skies.
And if we suffer sacrilegious hands
To force its innocence, our knell shall ring
As it rang out for them on that old day
Knolling from Africa.
You say it was the King who did this thing,
Who sinned against this righteousness. But say:
If we stand by and with averted eyes,
Or, shrugging shoulders, let our rulers sin
Against the very virtue of the race,
Who is it then but us must bear the pains
Of Nemesis? Ah, yes, it was the King....

II

GOTHS

“Let the stars flame by as the flaming earth falls down,
Ruined fall the earth as the clanging heavens fall.
Clasp me, love of mine; be the jewels in my crown
But the firelit tears of Gods, of the Ancient Ones of all.”

The swart King paced his palace wall
And down below the maids at ball
Sang in choir at evenfall
As they played:

“Make our couch of Greece and the footstool for our throne
Of Rome, throw scented Spain for the incense of our fire,
Bring me all the East for the jewels in my zone,
Cast them all together for our leaping wedding pyre.”

And he looked down
Into their cloistral shade
And saw, without the tongues of shadow thrown
By wall and tree of that sequestered place
One girl who had the sunlight on her face,
Who swayed and clapped her hands and sang alone.

“My father can but die,” she sang,
“My mother can but weep,
This weary town fall blazing down
And be a smouldering heap
Beneath the flame
Where I was wont to keep
My weary vigil till my lover came.”

Chanting in her pauses all the girls within the close
Sang to her singing, and their hidden chorus rose
Like a wave, fell like falling asleep.
And for the King, her voice like fiery wine
Set all his pulses throbbing and her face
Did dazzle more than did the blood-red sun.

“He who would win me, let him woo like this,
Flames on his face and the blood upon his hands,
Ravish me away when the blackening embers hiss
As the red flesh weeps to the brands.”

That King was one who reignèd there alone
Upon those very confines of the world,
Where conquering races ebb to sloth and sink
As still great rivers sink into the sands.
And — for his fathers had been rav’ning wolves
Who coursed through ruin, pestilence and death
When all the world flamed red from end to end —
That ancient song of his destroying race
The girl sang stirred the fibres of his frame
Till all the earth was red before his face.
It had been so the women sang of old
To his forgotten sires, and still they sang
Within the shadow of his palace wall,
The cloister of his grimmest liege of all.
And as she sang the ferment worked in her
And shook her virgin’s voice to jarring notes.
Stirring in her the ancient cry of throats
Torn with the passions of the ancient days.

“Pour me blood o’ gods; bring me broken oaths for toys
Countless of the cost, of their ruin, of thine own;
Drunk with wine and passion, drink thy moment’s fill of joys,
Godlike, beastlike, manlike, drink and cast thy cup a-down;
Lose thy life; give thy crown,
Lose thy soul, give thine all,
As we sink to death and ruin with the smoke o’ worlds for pall.”

And so she raised her eyes and saw the King
Stand frowning down, his face inspired with flame
Fro’ the west’ring sun. And then the Angelus
Chimed out across the silent land of Spain.
Beyond the strip of foam the imaums called,
And Africa and Europe fell to prayer.

But those two gazing in each other’s eyes
Looked back into the hollows of the years.
And as he stood above his brooding land
It was as if she saw her sires again.
Flames shone upon his face and on his hands
Incarnadined; whenas the sun sank down
He raised his eyes and seemed to see that Spain
Was all on fire with blood upon the roofs.
And down to South the inviolate, pallid tower
Rose silent, pointing to the crescent moon
And that great peering planet called Sohéil,
That heralds, as Mahomet’s doctors say,
His domination and his children’s sway,
Rose over Africa.