Friendship

Opening salvo in "The Bush Controversy".



I am back from up the country, very sorry that I went,
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track,
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back.
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of which our poets boast,
But I think the country's rather more inviting round the coast,
Anyway, I'll stay at present at a boarding-house in town
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down.

Sunny plains! Great Scot!, those burning wastes of barren soil and sand
With their everlasting fences stretching out across the land!
Desolation where the crow is! Desert! where the eagle flies,
Paddocks where the luny bullock starts and ...

I lay in my bed and fiddled
With a dreamland viol and bow,
And the tunes flew back to my fingers
I had melodied years ago.
It was two or three in the morning
When I fancy-fiddled so
Long reels and country-dances,
And hornpipes swift and slow.

And soon anon came crossing
The chamber in the gray
Figures of jigging fieldfolk -
Saviours of corn and hay -
To the air of "Haste to the Wedding,"
As after a wedding-day;
Yea, up and down the middle
In windless whirls went they!

There danced the bride and bridegroom,
And couples in a train,
Gay partners time and travail
Had longwhiles stilled amain! . . .
It seemed a thing for weeping
To find, at slumber's wane
And morning's sly increeping,
That Now, not Then, held reign.

        Good-bye - yes, I am going.
    Sudden? Well, you are right;
        But a startling truth came home to me
    With sudden force last night.
        What is it? Shall I tell you?
    Nay, that is why I go.
        I am running away from the battlefield
    Turning my back on the foe.

        Riddles? You think me cruel!
    Have you not been most kind?
        Why, when you question me like that,
    What answer can I find?
        You fear you failed to amuse me,
    Your husband's friend and guest,
        Whom he bade you entertain and please -
    Well, you have done your best.
        Then why am I going?
    A friend of mine abroad,
        Whose theories I have been acting upon,
    Has proven himself a fraud.
        Y...

You'll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may as well go patiently on with our life,
And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun
For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane.
It is true the longest drouth will end in rain,
The longest peace in China will end in strife.
Still it wouldn't reward the watcher to stay awake
In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break
On his particular time and personal sight.
That calm seems certainly safe to last to-night...

        Our loved ones lay them down to sleep
            And leave us here to grieve and mourn,
        While we, our silent watches keep,
            O'er their low graves whence they are bourne.
        Some heroes are in battle slain,
            Their names are honored far and near,
        While others die on beds of pain
            And no sad mourner sheds a tear.

        This day we honor each and all
            Whose soul has left its temporal case;
        And be he great, or be he small,
            We'll reverence his resting place.

If to her eyes' bright lustre I were blind,

No longer would they serve my life to gild.

The will of destiny must be fulfilid,
This knowing, I withdrew with sadden'd mind.

No further happiness I now could find:

The former longings of my heart were still'd;

I sought her looks alone, whereon to build
My joy in life, all else was left behind.

Wine's genial glow, the festal banquet gay,

Ease, sleep, and friends, all wonted pleasures glad

I spurn'd, till little there remain'd to prove.

Now calmly through the world I wend my way:

That which I crave may everywhere be had,

With me I bring the one thing needful love.

    April rain, delicious weeping,
        Washes white bones from the grave,
    Long enough have they been sleeping.
        They are cleansed, and now they crave
    Once more on the earth to gather
    Pleasure from the springtime weather.

    The pine trees and the long dark grass
        Feed on what is placed below.
    Think you not that there doth pass
        In them something we did know?
    This spell, well, friends, I greet ye once again
    With joy, but with a most unuttered pain.

In the old wars of the world there were camp followers,
Women of ancient sins who gave themselves for hire,
Women of weak wills and strong desire.
And, like the poison ivy in the woods
That winds itself about tall virile trees
Until it smothers them, so these
Ruined the bodies and the souls of men.
More evil were they than Red War itself,
Or Pestilence, or Famine.    Now in this war -
This last most awful carnage of the world -
All the old wickedness exists as then:

But as a foul stream from a festering fen
Is met and scattered by a mountain brook
Leaping along its beautiful, bright course,
So now the force
Of these new Followers of the camp has come
Straight from God's Source
To cleanse the world and cleanse the minds of men.
Good women, of gr...

Words are great forces in the realm of life:
    Be careful of their use.    Who talks of hate,
Of poverty, of sickness, but sets rife
    These very elements to mar his fate.

When love, health, happiness, and plenty hear
    Their names repeated over day by day,
They wing their way like answering fairies near,
    Then nestle down within our homes to stay.

Who talks of evil conjures into shape
    The formless thing and gives it life and scope.
This is the law:    then let no word escape
    That does not breathe of everlasting hope.

"Shall it be Peace?
A voice within me cried and would not cease,--
'One man could do it if he would but dare.'"
(From "Policeman X" in "Bees in Amber.")


He did not dare!
His swelling pride laid wait
On opportunity, then dropped the mask
And tempted Fate, cast loaded dice,--and lost;
Nor recked the cost of losing.

"Their souls are mine.
Their lives were in thy hand;--
Of thee I do require them!"

The Voice, so stern and sad, thrilled my heart's core
And shook me where I stood.
Sharper than sharpest sword, it fell on him
Who stood defiant, muffle-cloaked and helmed,
With eyes that burned, impatient to be gone.

"The fetor of thy grim burnt offerings
Comes up to me in clouds of bitterness.
Thy fell undoings crucify afres...

("Ma fille! ô seul bonheur.")

[LE ROI S'AMUSE, Act II]


My child! oh, only blessing Heaven allows me!
Others have parents, brothers, kinsmen, friends,
A wife, a husband, vassals, followers,
Ancestors, and allies, or many children.
I have but thee, thee only. Some are rich;
Thou art my treasure, thou art all my riches.
And some believe in angels; I believe
In nothing but thy soul. Others have youth,
And woman's love, and pride, and grace, and health;
Others are beautiful; thou art my beauty,
Thou art my home, my country and my kin,
My wife, my mother, sister, friend - my child!
My bliss, my wealth, my worship, and my law,
My Universe! Oh, by all other things
My soul is tortured. If I should ever lose thee -
Horrible thought! I canno...

The Dog is black or white or brown
    And sometimes spotted like a clown.
He loves to make a foolish noise
    And Human Company enjoys.

The Human People pat his head
    And teach him to pretend he's dead,
And beg, and fetch and carry too;
    Things that no well-bred Cat will do.

At Human jokes, however stale,
    He jumps about and wags his tail,
And Human People clap their hands
    And think he really understands.

They say "Good Dog" to him. To us
    They say "Poor Puss," and make no fuss.
Why Dogs are "good" and Cats are "poor"
    I fail to understand, I'm sure.

To Someone very Good and Just,
    Who has proved worthy of her trust,
A Cat will _sometimes_ condescend--
    The Dog is Everybody's friend.

    An abandoned house -
    dark salved to eclectic;
    crinkly, black pigment of old pine boards
    disparate to the elements.

    The waters of the bay lie beneath.
    A long slope trailing back of brush,
    garbles stones hoarse
    in the throat of a dust-flecked field
    are made more barren
    by the skunk cabbage weeds,
    the ugly, flotsam cloaks
    of horse hair to the neck -
    a hair shirt, coddling abrupt the barren pain
    tilled from empty soil.

    The summer's heat.
    Nameless insect waifs
    wavering, adjusting tumult
    to straighten the tight air
    about the outward door frame.
    Pinched in windows, glass in
    refugee lots billowing about
    urine paper;
    nails a ruddy pick

    She is neither pink nor pale,
        And she never will be all mine;
    She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
        And her mouth on a valentine.

    She has more hair than she needs;
        In the sun 'tis a woe to me!
    And her voice is a string of colored beads,
    Or steps leading into the sea.

    She loves me all that she can,
        And her ways to my ways resign;
    But she was not made for any man,
        And she never will be all mine.

In days of old the King of Saxe
Had singular opinions,
For with a weighty battle-axe
He brutalized his minions,
And, when he'd nothing to employ
His mind, he chose a village,
And with an air of savage joy
Delivered it to pillage.

But what aroused within his breast
A rage well-nigh primeval
Was, most of all, his daughter, dressed
In fashion mediæval:
The gowns that pleased this maiden's eye
Were simple as Utopia,
And for a hat she had a high
Inverted cornucopia.

In all her life she'd never smiled,
Her sadness was abysmal:
The boisterous monarch found his child
Unutterably dismal.
He therefore said the prince who made
Her laughter from its shell come,
Besides in ducats being paid,
Might wed the girl, and welcome!

Levommi il mio pensier in parte ov' era.

SOARING IN IMAGINATION TO HEAVEN, HE MEETS LAURA, AND IS HAPPY.


    Fond fancy raised me to the spot, where strays
She, whom I seek but find on earth no more:
There, fairer still and humbler than before,
I saw her, in the third heaven's blessèd maze.
She took me by the hand, and "Thou shalt trace,
If hope not errs," she said, "this happy shore:
I, I am she, thy breast with slights who tore,
And ere its evening closed my day's brief space.
What human heart conceives, my joys exceed;
Thee only I expect, and (what remain
Below) the charms, once objects of thy love."
Why ceased she? Ah! my captive hand why freed?
Such of her soft and hallow'd tones the chain,
From that delightful heaven my soul could sca...

    Jaspar was poor, and want and vice
    Had made his heart like stone,
    And Jaspar look'd with envious eyes
    On riches not his own.

    On plunder bent abroad he went
    Towards the close of day,
    And loitered on the lonely road
    Impatient for his prey.

    No traveller came, he loiter'd long
    And often look'd around,
    And paus'd and listen'd eagerly
    To catch some coming sound.

    He sat him down beside the stream
    That crossed the lonely way,
    So fair a scene might well have charm'd
    All evil thoughts away;

    He sat beneath a willow tree
    That cast a trembling shade,
    The gentle river full in front
    A little island made,

    Where pleasantly the moon-beam shone

I.

She stood at Greenwich, motionless amid
The ever-shifting crowd of passengers.
I marked a big tear quivering on the lid
Of her deep-lustrous eye, and knew that hers
Were days of bitterness. But, "Oh! what stirs"
I said "such storm within so fair a breast?"
Even as I spoke, two apoplectic curs
Came feebly up: with one wild cry she prest
Each singly to her heart, and faltered, "Heaven be blest!"

Yet once again I saw her, from the deck
Of a black ship that steamed towards Blackwall.
She walked upon MY FIRST. Her stately neck
Bent o'er an object shrouded in her shawl:
I could not see the tears - the glad tears - fall,
Yet knew they fell. And "Ah," I said, "not puppies,
Seen unexpectedly, could lift the pall
From hearts who KNOW what tasting mis...