Narrative Poems Read online

  In stealing sweetness wind from tree to tree.

  Battered and bruised in body and soul was he

  When first he saw a little lightness growing

  Ahead: and from that light the sound was flowing.

  28

  The trees were fewer now: and gladly nearing

  That light, he saw the stars. For sky was there,

  And smoother grass, white-flowered—a forest clearing

  Set in seven miles of forest, secreter

  Than valleys in the tops of clouds, more fair

  Than greenery under snow or desert water,

  Or the white peace descending after slaughter.

  29

  As some who have been wounded beyond healing

  Wake, or half wake, once only and so bless,

  Far off the lamplight travelling on the ceiling,

  A disk of pale light filled with peacefulness,

  And wonder if this is the C.C.S.,

  Or home, or heaven, or dreams—then sighing win

  Wise, ignorant death before the pains begin:

  30

  So Dymer in the wood-lawn blessed the light,

  A still light, rosy, clear, and filled with sound.

  Here was some pile of building which the night

  Made larger. Spiry shadows rose all round,

  But through the open door appeared profound

  Recesses of pure light—fire with no flame—

  And out of that deep light the music came.

  31

  Tip-toes he slunk towards it where the grass

  Was twinkling in a lane of light before

  The archway. There was neither fence to pass

  Nor word of challenge given, nor bolted door;

  But where it’s open, open evermore,

  No knocker and no porter and no guard,

  For very strangeness entering in grows hard.

  32

  Breathe not! Speak not! Walk gently. Someone’s here.

  Why have they left their house with the door so wide?

  There must be someone. . . . Dymer hung in fear

  Upon the threshold, longing and big-eyed.

  At last he squared his shoulders, smote his side

  And called, ‘I’m here. Now let the feast begin.

  I’m coming now. I’m Dymer,’ and went in.

  CANTO II

  1

  More light. Another step, and still more light

  Opening ahead. It swilled with soft excess

  His eyes yet quivering from the dregs of night,

  And it was nowhere more and nowhere less:

  In it no shadows were. He could not guess

  Its fountain. Wondering round around he turned:

  Still on each side the level glory burned.

  2

  Far in the dome to where his gaze was lost

  The deepening roof shone clear as stones that lie

  In-shore beneath pure seas. The aisles, that crossed

  Like forests of white stone their arms on high,

  Past pillar after pillar dragged his eye

  In unobscured perspective, till the sight

  Was weary. And there also was the light.

  3

  Look with my eyes. Conceive yourself above

  And hanging in the dome: and thence through space

  Look down. See Dymer, dwarfed and naked, move,

  A white blot on the floor, at such a pace

  As boats that hardly seem to have changed place

  Once in an hour when from the cliffs we spy

  The same ship always smoking towards the sky.

  4

  The shouting mood had withered from his heart;

  The oppression of huge places wrapped him round.

  A great misgiving sent its fluttering dart

  Deep into him—some fear of being found,

  Some hope to find he knew not what. The sound

  Of music, never ceasing, took the rôle

  Of silence and like silence numbed his soul.

  5

  Till, as he turned a corner, his deep awe

  Broke with a sudden start. For straight ahead,

  Far off, a wild-eyed, naked man he saw

  That came to meet him: and beyond was spread

  Yet further depth of light. With quickening tread

  He leaped towards the shape. Then stooped and smiled

  Before a mirror, wondering like a child.

  6

  Beside the glass, unguarded, for the claiming,

  Like a great patch of flowers upon the wall

  Hung every kind of clothes: silk, feathers flaming,

  Leopard skin, furry mantles like the fall

  Of deep mid-winter snows. Upon them all

  Hung the faint smell of cedar, and the dyes

  Were bright as blood and clear as morning skies.

  7

  He turned from the white spectre in the glass

  And looked at these. Remember, he had worn

  Thro’ winter slush, thro’ summer flowers and grass

  One kind of solemn stuff since he was born,

  With badge of year and rank. He laughed in scorn

  And cried, ‘Here is no law, nor eye to see,

  Nor leave of entry given. Why should there be?

  8

  ‘Have done with that—you threw it all behind.

  Henceforth I ask no licence where I need.

  It’s on, on, on, though I go mad and blind,

  Though knees ache and lungs labour and feet bleed,

  Or else—it’s home again: to sleep and feed,

  And work, and hate them always and obey

  And loathe the punctual rise of each new day.’

  9

  He made mad work among them as he dressed,

  With motley choice and litter on the floor,

  And each thing as he found it seemed the best.

  He wondered that he had not known before

  How fair a man he was. ‘I’ll creep no more

  In secret,’ Dymer said. ‘But I’ll go back

  And drive them all to freedom on this track.’

  10

  He turned towards the glass. The space looked smaller

  Behind him now. Himself in royal guise

  Filled the whole frame—a nobler shape and taller,

  Till suddenly he started with surprise,

  Catching, by chance, his own familiar eyes,

  Fevered, yet still the same, without their share

  Of bravery, undeceived and watching there.

  11

  Yet, as he turned, he cried, ‘The rest remain. . . .

  If they rebelled . . . if they should find me here,

  We’d pluck the whole taut fabric from the strain,

  Hew down the city, let live earth appear!

  —Old men and barren women whom through fear

  We have suffered to be masters in our home,

  Hide! hide! for we are angry and we come.’

  12

  Thus feeding on vain fancy, covering round

  His hunger, his great loneliness arraying

  In facile dreams until the qualm was drowned,

  The boy went on. Through endless arches straying

  With casual tread he sauntered, manly playing

  At manhood lest more loss of faith betide him,

  Till lo! he saw a table set beside him.

  13

  When Dymer saw this sight, he leaped for mirth,

  He clapped his hands, his eye lit like a lover’s.

  He had a hunger in him that was worth

  Ten cities. Here was silver, glass and covers.

  Cold peacock, prawns in aspic, eggs of plovers,

  Raised pies that stood like castles, gleaming fishes

  And bright fruit with broad leaves around the dishes.

  14

  If ever you have passed a café door

  And lingered in the dusk of a June day,
/>   Fresh from the road, sweat-sodden and foot-sore,

  And heard the plates clink and the music play,

  With laughter, with white tables far away,

  With many lights—conceive how Dymer ran

  To table, looked once round him, and began.

  15

  That table seemed unending. Here and there

  Were broken meats, bread crumbled, flowers defaced

  —A napkin, with white petals, on a chair,

  —A glass already tasted, still to taste.

  It seemed that a great host had fed in haste

  And gone: yet left a thousand places more

  Untouched, wherein no guest had sat before.

  16

  There in the lonely splendour Dymer ate,

  As thieves eat, ever watching, half in fear.

  He blamed his evil fortune. ‘I come late.

  Whose board was this? What company sat here?

  What women with wise mouths, what comrades dear

  Who would have made me welcome as the one

  Free-born of all my race and cried, Well, done!’

  17

  Remember, yet again, he had grown up

  On rations and on scientific food,

  At common boards, with water in his cup,

  One mess alike for every day and mood:

  But here, at his right hand, a flagon stood.

  He raised it, paused before he drank, and laughed.

  ‘I’ll drown their Perfect City in this draught.’

  18

  He fingered the cold neck. He saw within,

  Like a strange sky, some liquor that foamed blue

  And murmured. Standing now with pointed chin

  And head thrown back, he tasted. Rapture flew

  Through every vein. That moment louder grew

  The music and swelled forth a trumpet note.

  He ceased and put one hand up to his throat.

  19

  Then heedlessly he let the flagon sink

  In his right hand. His staring eyes were caught

  In distance, as of one who tries to think

  A thought that is still waiting to be thought.

  There was a riot in his heart that brought

  The loud blood to the temples. A great voice

  Sprang to his lips unsummoned, with no choice.

  20

  ‘Ah! but the eyes are open, the dream is broken!

  To sack the Perfect City? . . . a fool’s deed

  For Dymer! Folly of follies I have spoken!

  I am the wanderer, new born, newly freed . . .

  A thousand times they have warned me of men’s greed

  For joy, for the good that all desire, but never

  Till now I knew the wild heat of the endeavour.

  21

  ‘Some day I will come back to break the City,

  —Not now. Perhaps when age is white and bleak

  —Not now. I am in haste. O God, the pity

  Of all my life till this, groping and weak,

  The shadow of itself! But now to seek

  That true most ancient glory whose white glance

  Was lost through the whole world by evil chance!

  22

  ‘I was a dull, cowed thing from the beginning.

  Dymer the drudge, the blackleg who obeyed.

  Desire shall teach me now. If this be sinning,

  Good luck to it! O splendour long delayed,

  Beautiful world of mine, O world arrayed

  For bridal, flower and forest, wave and field,

  I come to be your lover. Loveliest, yield!

  23

  ‘World, I will prove you. Lest it should be said

  There was man who loved the earth: his heart

  Was nothing but that love. With doting tread

  He worshipt the loved grass: and every start

  Of every bird from cover, the least part

  Of every flower he held in awe. Yet earth

  Gave him no joy between his death and birth.

  24

  ‘I know my good is hidden at your breast.

  There is a sound of great good in my ear,

  Like wings. And, oh! this moment is the best;

  I shall not fail—I taste it—it comes near.

  As men from a dark dungeon see the clear

  Stars shining and the filled streams far away,

  I hear your promise booming and obey.

  25

  ‘This forest lies a thousand miles, perhaps,

  Beyond where I am come. And farther still

  The rivers wander seaward with smooth lapse,

  And there is cliff and cottage, tower and hill.

  Somewhere, before the world’s end, I shall fill

  My spirit at earth’s pap. For earth must hold

  One rich thing sealed as Dymer’s from of old.

  26

  ‘One rich thing—or, it may be, more than this . . .

  Might I not reach the borders of a land

  That ought to have been mine? And there, the bliss

  Of free speech, there the eyes that understand,

  The men free grown, not modelled by the hand

  Of masters—men that know, or men that seek,

  —They will not gape and murmur when I speak.’

  27

  Then, as he ceased, amid the farther wall

  He saw a curtained and low lintelled door;

  —Dark curtains, sweepy fold, night-purple pall,

  He thought he had not noticed it before.

  Sudden desire for darkness overbore

  His will, and drew him towards it. All was blind

  Within. He passed. The curtains closed behind.

  28

  He entered in a void. Night-scented flowers

  Breathed there, but this was darker than the night

  That is most black with beating thunder-showers,

  —A disembodied world where depth and height

  And distance were unmade. No seam of light

  Showed through. It was a world not made for seeing,

  One pure, one undivided sense of being.

  29

  Through darkness smooth as amber, warily, slowly

  He moved. The floor was soft beneath his feet.

  A cool smell that was holy and unholy,

  Sharp like the very spring and roughly sweet,

  Blew towards him: and he felt his fingers meet

  Broad leaves and wiry stems that at his will

  Unclosed before and closed behind him still.

  30

  With body intent he felt the foliage quiver

  On breast and thighs. With groping arms he made

  Wide passes in the air. A sacred shiver

  Of joy from the heart’s centre oddly strayed

  To every nerve. Deep sighing, much afraid,

  Much wondering, he went on: then, stooping, found

  A knee-depth of warm pillows on the ground.

  31

  And there it was sweet rapture to lie still,

  Eyes open on the dark. A flowing health

  Bathed him from head to foot and great goodwill

  Rose springing in his heart and poured its wealth

  Outwards. Then came a hand as if by stealth

  Out of the dark and touched his hand: and after

  The beating silence budded into laughter:

  32

  —A low grave laugh and rounded like a pearl,

  Mysterious, filled with home. He opened wide

  His arms. The breathing body of a girl

  Slid into them. From the world’s end, with the stride

  Of seven-leagued boots came passion to his side.

  Then, meeting mouths, soft-falling hair, a cry,

  Heart-shaken flank, sudden cool-folded thigh:

  33

  The same night swelled the mushroom in earth’s lap

  And silvered the wet fields: it drew the bud

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sp; From hiding and led on the rhythmic sap

  And sent the young wolves thirsting after blood,

  And, wheeling the big seas, made ebb and flood

  Along the shores of earth: and held these two

  In dead sleep till the time of morning dew.

  CANTO III

  1

  He woke, and all at once before his eyes

  The pale spires of the chestnut-trees in bloom

  Rose waving and, beyond, dove-coloured skies;

  But where he lay was dark and, out of gloom,

  He saw them, through the doorway of a room

  Full of strange scents and softness, padded deep

  With growing leaves, heavy with last night’s sleep.

  2

  He rubbed his eyes. He felt that chamber wreathing

  New sleepiness around him. At his side

  He was aware of warmth and quiet breathing.

  Twice he sank back, loose-limbed and drowsy-eyed;

  But the wind came even there. A sparrow cried

  And the wood shone without. Then Dymer rose,

  —‘Just for one glance,’ he said, and went, tip-toes,

  3

  Out into crisp grey air and drenching grass.

  The whitened cobweb sparkling in its place

  Clung to his feet. He saw the wagtail pass

  Beside him and the thrush: and from his face

  Felt the thin-scented winds divinely chase

  The flush of sleep. Far off he saw, between

  The trees, long morning shadows of dark green.

  4

  He stretched his lazy arms to their full height,

  Yawning, and sighed and laughed, and sighed anew;

  Then wandered farther, watching with delight

  How his broad naked footprints stained the dew,

  —Pressing his foot to feel the cold come through

  Between the spreading toes—then wheeled round

  Each moment to some new, shrill forest sound.

  5

  The wood with its cold flowers had nothing there

  More beautiful than he, new waked from sleep,

  New born from joy. His soul lay very bare

  That moment to life’s touch, and pondering deep

  Now first he knew that no desire could keep

  These hours for always, and that men do die

  —But oh, the present glory of lungs and eye!

  6

  He thought: ‘At home they are waking now. The stair

  Is filled with feet. The bells clang—far from me.

  Where am I now? I could not point to where

  The City lies from here,’ . . . then, suddenly,

  ‘If I were here alone, these woods could be

  A frightful place! But now I have met my friend

  Who loves me, we can talk to the road’s end.’

  7

  Thus, quickening with the sweetness of the tale

  Of his new love, he turned. He saw, between