The Project Gutenberg EBook of London Sonnets, by Humbert Wolfe This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: London Sonnets Author: Humbert Wolfe Release Date: March 11, 2020 [EBook #61598] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON SONNETS *** Produced by Chuck Greif, MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) “ADVENTURERS ALL” SERIES No. XXVII. [Illustration: XXVII] LONDON SONNETS [Illustration: Adventurers All. _A SERIES OF YOUNG POETS UNKNOWN TO FAME._ Come my friends.... ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down.... It may be we shall touch the happy isles. Yet our purpose holds ... to sail beyond the sunset. _Ulysses_] [Illustration: LONDON SONNETS BY HUMBERT WOLFE [Illustration: text decoration] OXFORD BASIL BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET, 1920] DEDICATION. These were the first anemones-- God only in his heaven sees How moving on their small green feet They blossomed in a London street, From a cool valley, as I guess, Beneath a hill in Lyonesse. CONTENTS. [Illustration: text decoration] Page Dedication 4 LONDON PSEUDO-SONNETS: The Old Clothes Dealer 9 Coves at Hampton Court 10 One Man Returns 11 The Bun-Shop 12 The Fried Fish-Shop 13 The Streets Behind the Tottenham Court Road 14 The Yorkshire Grey 15 Wardour Street 16 The Suburbs 17 The Last London Sonnet 18 OTHER VERSE: “Sometimes when I Think of Love” 21 Old 26 The Song of the Gambucinos 28 February 14 29 Pierrot 30 The Dead Man in the Pool 32 Dead Lover 35 The Gods of the Copy-Book Headings 36 Wheels 1919 38 The Well 41 Judas 43 The Night 44 OTHER SONNETS: Three Sonnets of Love 49 The Reply 52 God Gave us Bodies 53 Ronsard and Hélène 54 The Drift of the Lute 55 Love and Beauty 56 WAR VERSE: V. D. F. 59 England 60 The Moon in Flanders 61 The Soldier Speaks 62 Flowers at Hampton Court 63 [Illustration: text decoration] TO J. LONDON PSEUDO-SONNETS. Some of these verses have appeared in _The Saturday Review_, _The Spectator_, _The Westminster Gazette_, and are republished by the courtesy of the editors of these journals. THE OLD CLOTHES DEALER. It’s not my fault, now is it? I’m a Jew. I’d a been born a Christian quick enough If only so I could have sold my stuff Double the price, and not be called a screw. There’s half-day Saturday at Synagogue, And when Atonement comes a whole day lost. O, I don’t grumble; still one counts the cost When on the top I’m treated like a dog. And, though a Jew should’nt by rights complain Bein’ the chosen, can’t a man have dreams? Clothes’ dealing’s not the desert, still it seems We all of us are wandering again. I often think when the Shemah begins “O God o’ Jacob ain’t we paid our sins?” COVES AT HAMPTON COURT. You go by motor-bus from Hammersmith And come back loud and cheerful after dark Adorned with twigs you’ve plucked in Bushey Park, Eating the sandwiches you started with. And you don’t care, why should you? when you’re brought Into the grimy streets out of the green, That, if you’d had the luck, you might have been The sort of cove who lives at Hampton Court. You’ve got the murders and the betting news, And slums to bake in and the picture shows. Why should you care if somewhere a red rose Burns all night through, and the great avenues Are lit as though with candles. What’s the odds? London’s for you; the summer’s for the gods. ONE MAN RETURNS. He wanted me to tear me ’ands to bits Along o’ the box-makers, ’stead of which I took and bought a basket, struck a pitch To sell me flowers by the Hotel Ritz. I like ’is cheek. It isn’t ’im wot sits Working in darkness till your fingers itch And ’arf your side is broken with a stitch-- ’Im swanking in ’is blessed epaulittes! Nor I don’t care, not what you might say care If ’e’s gone orf. Not that I’d reely mind If, ’earing that I’d got a bit to spare, He come back sudden. I should act refined, Pin ’im ’is flower in with me ’and quite steady And then say proud-like, “Why if it ain’t Freddy.” THE BUN-SHOP. O damn those marble tables: makes me larf To think I’ve finished with them. I believe If you rubbed hard on each one with your sleeve, You’d find cut on them some gel’s epitaph. They look like tombstones, don’t they? in a row Quietly waiting in a mason’s yard. Seein’ them there cruel and white and hard One might ha’ guessed, I think, how things would go. But we don’t heed no warning, gels like me, And so I stayed, and now they’ve got my name Carved deep, with something written about shame For the next gel (when her turn comes) to see. One comfort though, if God damns us who fell He can’t find worse to ’urt us, not in ’Ell. THE FRIED FISH-SHOP. The upper clawses they don’t like the smell Nor they don’t need to. They can pay for food, But we who sometimes cawn’t, it does us good. Lord, what a life to ’ave fried fish to sell! Warm all day long and nuthin’ much to do And always a hot bit if you’re inclined. Shut all day Sundays and if you’ve a mind Always go out and pitch into a Jew. But wanting won’t mend ’oles up in your socks Nor cure that ’ungry feeling when you stands Clappin’ your stummick with your empty ’ands And thinking gently of a wooden box Where they will lay you at the parish charge Straight if you’re small and doubled if you’re large. THE STREETS BEHIND THE TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD. The quiet folk who live in Kensington Mothers of pleasant girls and worthy wives Living at ease their comfortable lives Don’t think what roots their homes are built upon, Don’t think, or wouldn’t listen if you shewed That beyond cure by love or change by hate Like hooded lepers at each corner wait, The streets behind the Tottenham Court Road. Row upon row the phantom houses stain The sweetness of the air and not a day Dies, but some woman’s child turns down that way Along those streets and is not seen again. And only God can in his mercy say Which is more cruel, Kensington or they. THE YORKSHIRE GREY. The Yorkshire Grey like any other pub, Quietly blazes till the final shout “Time’s-up” sends the companions tumbling out, Giving their lips a last reluctant rub. And if you’re passing by on any day You’ll hear a woman with a barrel organ, Sing in a high cracked voice what sounds like “Morgen, Morgen kommt nie und heute is mir weh,” And every day whether its rain or shine She holds an old umbrella with a handle Of curiously carved silver. Whether scandal Or tragedy, its no affair of mine. Why should I care then when some drunken feller Sends her to blazes, her and her umbrella. WARDOUR STREET. There’s a small cafe off the Avenue Where Alphonse, that old sinner, used to fix A five-course dinner up at one and six, And trust to luck and youth to pull him through. I can’t remember much about the wine Except that it was ninepence for the quart Called claret and was nothing of the sort, Cheap like the rest and like the rest divine. But Alphonse, I suppose, is long since sped And madame’s knitting needles rusted through And even Marguerite, like us she flew To wait on, waited on by death instead. Well Alphonse, well Madame, well Marguerite They’ve no more use for us in Wardour Street. THE SUBURBS. Because they are so many and the same, The little houses row on weary row; Because they are so loveless and so lame It were a bitter thing to tell them so. And ill to laugh at those who hither came Not without hope and not without a glow, And who, perchance, by sorrow struck or shame Not without tears look back before they go. Here is no place for laughter nor for blame, And not for tears, since none shall ever know What here is done and suffered, nor proclaim The end to which these myriad spirits grow. He understands, whose heart remembereth That here is all the tale of life and death. THE LAST LONDON SONNET. All roads in London lead the one last way, Like little streams that find a flowing river They find the one great road that runs for ever, Yet has no London name. They know it, they Who when the lamps in Oxford Street are lighted And star-strewn Thames through all his bridges moving, Velvet assumes, see not for all their loving These things they loved, hear not, as uninvited, To London revel calling Piccadilly. They have gone over to the bitter stranger Light-foot and heavy, hug-the-hearth and ranger Our streets desert. And under rose and lily (Even through Kew were unto lilac setting) Sleeping they pass forgotten and forgetting. OTHER VERSE. “SOMETIMES WHEN I THINK OF LOVE.” I. Sometimes when I think of love I think of Mimi singing in Boheme, Just as the tune across the footlights came When we were young, my dear, at Covent Garden! Poor music, but before the senses harden Puccini’s made for boys and girls to wear Spite of sham passion and a poitrinaire. For if they looked and didn’t find the key At least they found the hearts of you and me. That sort of love age thinks of with a smile How innocent it was of truth and guile, How young perhaps and yet how half-divine And how imperishably yours and mine. You will not wonder nor will you reprove My thoughts of Mimi when I think of love. II. Sometimes when I think of love I see a boat upon a river, And the rushes suddenly shiver, Because of a perilous foot that treads The reeds and the flowers into their beds. Because of a music that shakes and begins A different music and conscious of sins A tune was old at the birth of the river A tune is asleep in the blood for ever Asleep in the blood and loving and hating The time and the hour for which it is waiting. Puccini yields to a sob in the throat A hand round the heart as note answers note With the music that wrenches and melts and grips The hands hot on hands, the lips close on lips Cruelly volleying clearer and stronger Till we are a boy and a girl no longer. And we struggle in vain as long as we can Hating and loving and welcoming Pan, And you are a woman and I am a man. And you will not wonder and cannot reprove If I hear Pan’s pipes when I think of love. III. Sometimes when I think of love I hear a heavy voice repeat “There’s a good doctor up the street.” And either it seems I am hard at hearing Or stupid perhaps or terribly fearing. For its late of a winter night and raining With cry of wind; or is something complaining? One lamp in the street and a leafless tree And a thing is moving that frightens me, With fingers that hover about my nape A shape like a hand and yet not a shape. Now all that we had in the past is over Each lover’s alone, the love from the lover. No comforting hand for me in the gloom, No voice of mine in the darkened room. Where is the music and where are the songs? For love has crept off ashamed of his wrongs. Poor love has gone off to rail at passion, And he will not wait for the night to fashion Out of pain and fear and anguish and danger, A lover strange with his love a stranger, And yet, as they were at the opera Incredibly close and familiar, Incredibly close as once on the river When each is a gift and each is a giver. Incredibly close and all they have hoarded Of life and of love in this moment rewarded. Rewarded! Has love in the darkness heard Of the little lost shadow, the small lost third? Love is returning--to find them alone, And if love be a sinner, who casts a stone? Shattered and beaten and blindingly sure Of love and themselves and strong to endure He finds them, by pain more lastingly crowned Than ever by joy and by laughter were bound Happier lovers and lovers untaunted By the shameful cries these lovers have haunted. If this be their love, who out of the pit Being a devil challenges it? In heaven assayed, in hell-fire priced Who casts the first stone? Not I, says Christ. You will not wonder nor will you reprove If I think of this, when I think of love. IV. Sometimes when I think of love I remember how you stooped down from heaven, Because they had told you I was unforgiven, To take half of the storm, and share the stripe An angel in hell with her guttersnipe. I am thinking then of your lighted face And your hands and the way your fingers lace As you sit quietly reading a book. Perhaps I move and you suddenly look Across the room and the soul in your eyes Is bright as it looks with the old surprise Changing for ever, for ever the same And you break my heart as you speak my name. You must not wonder, you will not reprove If sometimes I dare not think of love. OLD. So old, so changed, and odd Even as God, I am, so odd and old, That I am bitter cold In heart and limb Like him. I might in heaven be, Even as He. So lonely and so rare Beyond the utmost prayer My spirit weighs, Dead days. Or I might work in hell His miracle. Changing from joy to tears, To quiet all the years, With icy rod, Like God. I might immortal be Even as He. Saying, as heaven saith, What Victory, Oh death, What sting can save, Oh grave? As I, alone and dumb, What doth not come Ever, He waits to see And surely, waiting, he Must pray ah pray! to die Even as I. THE SONG OF THE GAMBUCINOS. The little houses in the street And the warm blinds at night, Outside the copper on his beat And the moon so white, so white. They know what we shall never know, See what we cannot see, The steady lamplit ways that go To the quiet cemetery. They have not any fear at all Of life and of its end. They hear church bells, their children call, Their wife and death their friend. But for us the moon is white, so white It drowns us and it stings, And we must fly throughout the night Because of dangerous things. FEBRUARY 14. Let’s be done with talking, Words are half a snare, That fools use for stalking What was never there. Let’s be done with weeping, Tears are but a sign That a doom is creeping On what was divine. Why be broken-hearted? Time to break the heart If we should be parted And not care we part. Dear, the wind is over In the world outside. I was once your lover, You were once my bride. Let’s go out together. In the quiet air, We may find each other Waiting as we were. PIERROT. My friend Pierrot your sleeves are far too long. Look! I can hardly find at all your hands. And all your cotton tunic is cut wrong, And what your eyes mean no one understands. Ah yes, Pierrette, my sleeves are far too long. Ah yes, Pierrette, you cannot find my hands, But better so than Pierrot did you wrong By telling you what no one understands. My friend Pierrot you fear to take the light, Look! I can hardly see at all your face. And what I see, Pierrot is very white. Are you afraid? Ashamed? or in disgrace? Ah yes, Pierrette, I dare not take the light. Ah yes, Pierrette, you cannot see my face. My candle died with love, and in the night Oh! Harlequin, Pierrette, is my disgrace. My friend Pierrot it seems that things go ill With you. Look! I can hardly hear your word, And the dark shadow round grows darker still, And a new voice which is not yours is heard. Ah yes, Pierrette, it seems that things go ill. Ah yes, Pierrette, you cannot hear my word. And the dark shadow which grows darker still Is death, Pierrette, of which you have not heard. THE DEAD MAN IN THE POOL. Only a glance it was, Only a word! What a romance it was All but absurd! All but absurd, you see, Yes but not quite. There’s one more word you see “Death” we must write! She had the knack of it --Less than a kiss, And for the lack of it Look he is this. O what a king he was (Drowned in a pool), What a brave thing he was O what a fool! While all the rest of us Struggle to fame, Here is the best of us Dead with his shame. Shame? Oh I wonder now. What do you say? If you should blunder now Choose me your way! If you’d thrown hope away; Well would you care Through life to grope a way? Or would you dare Take up the lot of it Life, love and fame, Make a clean shot of it Into the flame? Ah it was brave of him Let them cry “shame.” Life made no slave of him! But you’ll exclaim, Was she worth trying for? He thought her so. Was she worth dying for? Yes, and then no. “No,” for a wiser man. “No,” for a less. But the heart cries “Amen,” When he says “yes.” There in the pool he was Just a dead thing. O what a fool he was, O what a king! DEAD LOVER. Tell me, dead lover, you who broke my heart (O dead indeed, since love himself is dead). Need I remember that we came to part, May I forget to whom and why you fled? Tell me, dead lover, since the grave is strong, And those who sleep are cured of joy and pain, And now no love may reach you, do I wrong If I begin to love you all again? And see, dead lover, since the shadows fall And nothing now is false and nothing true. Might I not dream (you would not know at all) That I, O love, was loved once more by you. And since, dead lover, death defeats your pride, And ere it dreamed of pride my love awoke, O let me think, it was because you died, And not because you left me, my heart broke. THE GODS OF THE COPY-BOOK HEADINGS. A REPLY. Fenris the wolf, and Jörmungand the snake In the slime and the swamp remorseless wait. For not the years nor human hopes can break Valhalla’s sentence thus pronounced by Fate. “These gods that are the children of men’s dreams-- Virtue and honour, courage and the songs Men sing about their hearthstones--stolen gleams In the poor heart unbroken by its wrongs, “These gods, of man’s refusal of the beast The half pathetic, wholly fleeting sign Who in that tenderness are gods the least Where human weakness finds them most divine, “These pitiful gods, fabric of mankind’s tears A dream of what all human hearts have wanted The vision at the end of all the years The holy ghost that half the world has haunted, “These gods are mortal as the heart that shaped them And in that hour when mankind’s heart must break These gods who only by that heart escaped them Fall to the wolf and Jörmungand the snake.” Fate pauses, but from Hela’s halls is heard A voice is young when all the gods are dead. Balder the beautiful has one more word The word that even Fate must leave unsaid. “True they depart the half-gods, and the snake And Fenris come. But in the heart’s defection I, Balder, bound in Hell for that heart’s sake I am the life and I the resurrection. “I, love, being loosed, will take my harp up--so-- Singing what all the world at last will learn ‘The devils come because the half-gods go But in the end the gods, the gods return.’” WHEELS 1919. Why d’you write about Frascati’s You who from the balcony leaning ’Neath the lure that was Astarte’s Find a negroid devil grinning. Changed indeed and almost stupid Yielding to analysis Now a Piccadilly cupid Hanging on a painted kiss. Now a toy in two dimensions Operated by a string In your hand, whose interventions Set the object capering. You who at the higher level Know love as he truly is Not the fair Assyrian devil, Not the poor idolatries, Of the savage, not the crazes Say of Shelley, and his set: But you find him (as your phrase is) Palm to palm in quiet sweat. That’s a way, O brother brother A new way for verse to move There’s an older and another Will you listen? way of love. I from that same terrace waiting For the music to begin “Amoureuse” anticipating Watched a boy who blundered in. Slim he was, a little stooping At the shoulders as it seemed, Eyes on which the lids were drooping Seeing only what he dreamed. Where he came was noise and clatter, But the pandemonium Either didn’t seem to matter Where he stood or else grew dumb. And the waltz the band was creaking, Like a cluster, round his head Changed to cry “What’s music seeking Save what he has left unsaid.” And like flowers, bourgeois faces Overtaken by the tune, Pilfered unimagined graces From an unimagined June. And, when once again the Babel Rose, though we had never stirred, There between us at the table At Frascati’s was the third. What’s the good of all this antic You’ll impatiently exclaim, Still incurably romantic Still incurably the same. Only this--that at Frascati’s If one does not wash one’s hands That old magic was Astarte’s Goes, before one understands. THE WELL. At full afternoon slowly the branches Stirred as of old and fragrant with flowers Touched with a breath of wind look down and wonder To where--far below--is the delicate water. Here should be peace as was peace and splendour Of hearts’ first stirrings, the eye to the hills Turned, the call of the perilous margins Life just beginning, but life well begun. Here by the well we played (you remember) (Then too the grasses grew at the edges Tempting small hands but tempt now no longer) Here by the well we dreamed after playing. Have you forgotten (or has death no mercy) How bright the days were and how the evening Softer than sleep laid her mysterious Hands on the garden soothing and changing. Here at the well side we loved after dreaming Since we had played by it, since we had dreamed. Here at the well side love that was wakened Sank like a stone, but leaving no ripple. Here are our shapes that play dream love quarrel, Here are our dreams (and if there were dreamers, If we were not like our visions a dream) All is not over--is all then over? Here is the well and the delicate water Far below gleaming, the starred white branches Fragrant with flowers. Here is the noontide, Even the grasses grow at the edges. What then is gone? If we were the dreamers (And not a dream) then all must be over. I an old man cold, fruitless and lonely, Watch by the water, which you cannot see. But if we two are dreams of a dreamer, All is not over, and here together Age falls from me, and from you the mantle Death seemed to cast, and here by the well side Lifted again is the voice of your singing, Golden again are the perilous margins, Sweet are your eyes and young and immortal Our hearts are set to the day and the hills. JUDAS. Not I, oh Christ, not I betrayed thee But He was traitor, He who made thee Born of a village carpenter With such immortal longings stir As stretched beyond the world and found In God himself the final wound. Through me thou wast by soldiers taken By Him, by Him on the Cross forsaken. THE NIGHT. Be quiet bird Be silent all That e’er were heard And cease to call. Drop perfume rose And flowers white Put off your shows For see ’tis night. Soft creatures slow Begin to pass, And thousands grow From out the grass. With deep low whirr The air is full And through the fir The moon shines cool. There is no pain Sorrow is dead Slow Charles’ wain Wheels overhead. There is no grief All things have ease No bough or leaf Stirs on the trees. OTHER SONNETS. THREE SONNETS OF LOVE. I. AT NOONTIDE SEEKING. Can love being love and therefore magical When summer and the roses lie between, Find back to spring? Or shall he know at all The places where his golden feet have been At noontide seeking. Shall he know again The tune of dawn, the unconditioned sky, The world before the coming of the rain, That like a shadow waited and went by, Soft like a God and like a God aflame? Ah will he find that murmur at your lips, Still see you standing, as the morning stands, With fingers stretched that touched and fled and came To mine again, warm to the tender lips Once lilies and now roses--Oh your hands? II. AN ACCUSATION. What have you given, love, to those who gave All for your sake? What gift to weigh the worth Of those who, having all, did nothing save, But for a kiss made jetsam of the earth? What answer have you for the thronging ghosts-- Gentlemen of high heart, who were not brave Because of you? What for the stricken hosts Of those who, seeking truth, embraced the grave Your magic sets about the brain? What way Of answer have you for the fallen tears Of those who heard you calling, and, once strong As being pure, became the body’s prey? What answer, O sweet God, to all the years That worshipped you and crowned you, and were wrong? III. THE TREMBLING BRIM. Love, if remorseless, needeth no defence, (You say) for though he waste our lives it seems A moment spent with love is recompense, For all the might have beens of all our dreams. Yet is there something in the might have been Was never yet in love. O trembling brim Of the far country, that our eyes have seen, Have seen and turned from for the sake of him. Are there no pleasant places, no strange deeds Waiting the comer? Is there no great sea Watched by immaculate angels who attend Our sails that linger? No red star that leads To where beyond all passion shaken free We follow the great road that has no end? THE REPLY. All things are true of love, save these things only, That at the long day’s end when love is over, He’s of love cheated who was once a lover, And she, by love once visited, left lonely. The dream is done, but here’s no cause for sorrow When beauty’s seal is on the dream descending. Beauty is mortal, beauty has an ending, Beauty and love alone need no to-morrow. All other things--courage and truth and virtue-- Have the one doom, the lust for the immortal. Love only, with lost beauty, life outpaces, Cold, though they burn, untroubled, though they hurt you, And white, like gods, when through the sculptured portal The starshine enter and the moon’s cold graces. GOD GAVE US BODIES.... God gave us bodies for suffering and for strangers, To have their will of. We divided waken To find the heart that won through all its dangers By the stained body at the dawn forsaken. We said of love “The body, and its langours Are but a little thing, though sweet. Unshaken Behold the heart!” Fools! Who forgot the angers Of blood despised and the heart overtaken By the gross hands of lust even at the portal Of bliss. And not for any tears is altered Love thus betrayed, yet though betrayed, immortal, Struggling for ever and for ever haltered. God gave us bodies; let them write in heaven “Love we forgive, but God is not forgiven.” RONSARD AND HELENE. You sang, Ronsard, in your imperial lay Hélène, and sang as only you would dare That she would cry, in reading, old and grey “Ronsard sang this of me when I was fair.” That was youth spoke, Ronsard, who will not stay To wonder if his own divine despair May not with losing loveliness outweigh Kisses, that given, melt upon the air. If youth but knew, Ronsard! The things that seem Would he not barter for the things that are, And leave his mistress to embrace her dream Exchange her lips for her lost beauty’s star? Losing Hélène youth finds the lovelier truth, If youth but knew! But then he were not youth. THE DRIFT OF THE LUTE. Love, lay aside your lute and leave the roses That with the bays are twined. No time for sweeping The strings now in the hush of the heart, nor reaping Summer’s fulfilment. For the daylight closes With laying on of hands and the heart shriven, And mystical washing away of sorrow, So there is neither yesterday nor morrow But quiet and the world to healing given. And if such peace o’er lute and roses drifted Would seem to beggar love of coronation Thus in the darkness fallen on an ending, See! Than the sun, whose golden hands were lifted In heaven, now cloaked, more lovely seek her station, The moon consummate in her place ascending. LOVE AND BEAUTY. Even tho’ love were done, shall we complain If in the world there’s hidden loveliness Born of that love, and not a lost caress But makes us poorer to the common gain? This beauty may adorn with deeper stain The cool first jonquil, or with light redress The vision of a star, and thus confess That love, though lost, is never lost in vain. And if for others we have lit this flame, While us the gloom invests of dying embers, Being so separate, your heart remembers, As mine, the world before the wonder came, For that sweet change we spent our hearts in heaven, Thus briefly won, thus lost, and thus forgiven. WAR VERSE. V. D. F. (_Ave atque Vale._) You from Givenchy, since no years can harden The beautiful dead, when holy twilight reaches The sleeping cedar and the copper beeches, Return to walk again in Wadham Garden. We, growing old, grow stranger to the College, Symbol of youth, where we were young together, But you, beyond the reach of time and weather, Of youth in death for ever keep the knowledge. We hoard our youth, we hoard our youth, and fear it, But you, who freely gave what we have hoarded, Are with the final goal of youth rewarded The road to travel and the traveller’s spirit. And, therefore, when for us the stars go down, Your star is steady over Oxford Town. ENGLAND. Dear English heart, the open waterways, The sea that is aware of liberty, And your great ships, her servitors, the sea Deep, as your depths, saying of pomp and blaze, “These things are not for us,” since other days Return, and when the flag is shaken free, Cold captains, Drake and Nelson, watch with thee, Whose eyes, of boastings cleared and empty praise, Beyond the wrecked armadas find the soul That unto battle brings our captains’ test: “Triumph is good, but honour still is best. Conquest of what is evil, and no goal Of self-advancement. For the world set free The ships of England keep the English sea.” THE MOON IN FLANDERS. Soldiers that after struggle in the night See the cold stars assume their shining place, Watch the sweet moon and her unaltered grace Mocking with peace the battle-tortured sight, Think these not careless. These were not less white Long years ago upon the upturned face Of other soldiers also of your race Who on those fields fought such another fight, These stars, this moon, in their high citadel Of heaven are witness in the Low Country, Whose lights are the mere lights of history Falling on you, these on your fathers fell. See through the reek and horror, shining through, Cold lights indeed, but lights of Waterloo! THE SOLDIER SPEAKS. This then was love of women. O how little Remembered, being free! Say she was tender And had a lure of the hands. Here ruthless splendour Outlures that lure. And, look you, love was brittle That broke, and none could heal it, being sated. But this is lasting, this is always stranger Each terrible new dawn, for each new danger May be the last of all. O, we have waited On love like cowards, and the worshipped woman Enslaved and shamed us. But that shame is over. We are with death acquainted, and to riot And call of blood and tenderness and human Regrets, he does succeed this final lover Whose love is freedom and whose gift is quiet. FLOWERS AT HAMPTON COURT. The chestnut trees in Bushey Park are lit This year as always since the spring knows naught Of war and death, and still the shadows flit Across the dappled grass and burnish it. And still at night the moon in stately sort Is tranquil with the avenues, and lights The sleeping palace, as on other nights Of springs long past; but searching for the rose In vain, the dawn a little whisper knows: “Where are the flowers that were at Hampton Court?” Two years ago when all the trees were green The old red walls were unto to summer brought, By joyous bands of lilies and the lean Daffodils danced before or ran between. Where are they gone these blooms of good report? And where the lad and where the laughing maid Who came to wonder and to love who stayed? For a lost flower is a little thing But a lost lover is the end of spring. “Where are the flowers that were at Hampton Court?” Ah! spring these flowers are growing otherwhere, In a new soil a changing radiance taught, Born of the soul and nourished of the air, Sweeter though scentless and unseen more fair. Where are they gone these blooms of good report? Is it perhaps that where the Tigris flows There blooms an unaccustomed English rose? And where the guns have killed the spring in France The English lilies break a silver lance? “Where are the flowers that were at Hampton Court?” If thus the flowers, where are those who here Themselves fresh flowers with the springtime fraught, Saw the first leaves in Bushey Park appear The dead swept leaves the leaves of yesteryear? Where are they gone those lads of good report? It may be they are sleeping; it may be Strange lands have taken them or a strange sea. But wheresoever in the world they lie An English voice till that world ends will cry “Here are the flowers that were at Hampton Court?” _Printed at The Vincent Works, Oxford._ End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of London Sonnets, by Humbert Wolfe *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON SONNETS *** ***** This file should be named 61598-0.txt or 61598-0.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/5/9/61598/ Produced by Chuck Greif, MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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