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IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE. _Title:_ A Lover of the Land and Other Poems _Date of first publication:_ 1925 _Author:_ Frederick Niven (1878-1944) _Date first posted:_ February 18, 2026 _Date last updated:_ February 18, 2026 Faded Page eBook #20260233 This eBook was produced by: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net This file was produced from images generously made available by Internet Archive. [Cover Illustration] A LOVER OF THE LAND _and Other Poems_ _By_ FREDERICK NIVEN [Illustration] _NEW YORK_ BONI & LIVERIGHT 1925 _Copyright, 1925, by_ BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC. ——— _Printed in the United States of America_ _CONTENTS_ PAGE A LOVER OF THE LAND . . . . . 9 MEMORIES . . . . . . . 17 MY WORLD . . . . . . . 19 TO PAULINE. . . . . . . 20 NOW GOES OUR LADY TO THE WOODS. . . 21 HER SERVANTS LOOK ON THE LITTLE MOTHER FROM BETWEEN THE TAPESTRIES . . . . 22 AT MORNING. . . . . . . 24 A HARVEST . . . . . . . 25 TREES. . . . . . . . 27 UNDERTONES. . . . . . . 28 UNREST . . . . . . . 29 TRAVELLING. . . . . . . 32 INVENTORY . . . . . . . 33 TO THE MYSTERY . . . . . . 35 A SONG OF SILENCE . . . . . 36 LI PO. . . . . . . . 37 THE SONG OF THE FREEMEN . . . . 39 THE THREE YEW-TREES . . . . . 41 NORTH DEVON . . . . . . 43 THE ASH-TREE . . . . . . 45 THE SONG OF THE PEEBLES PEDLAR. . . 47 THINKING OF SOME LIVING POETS . . . 49 “FIRST THE BLADE, THEN THE EAR, AFTER THAT . . .” . . . . . . . 50 WORDS. . . . . . . . 52 POLITICS . . . . . . . 53 A SONG OF REST . . . . . . 54 MY LADY OF DREAMS . . . . . 56 EPITAPH . . . . . . . 57 A CAROL FROM FLANDERS . . . . 58 IN MEMORIAM (Edward Thomas, poet and critic, killed in action, 1917). . . . 60 THEOCRITUS IN ALEXANDRIA . . . . 62 TO THOSE WHO CALL ME BACK. . . . 70 A LOVER OF THE LAND A LOVER OF THE LAND _I_ In England it is April time Most moves the poets’ hearts to rime, They drunken then with orchard foam, The heady smell of new-ploughed loam, A cuckoo calling in dim blue Of distance, thrushes singing too. Here, in the west, October is The month of brimming ecstasies Because of magic in the land. Along the mountain-crests now stand New silver trees, tall pines of snow Against the blue, while yet below A bee or butterfly, at noon, Flecks by, deluded it is June, The day so warm, so good, so mellow. The birch-trees now are jets of yellow, The maples scarlet, in between The ranked firs in their evergreen. Tranquillity and ecstasy: Strange how these twain can allied be. But thus it is, while leaves drift down Yellow and scarlet, gold and brown. The squirrels have laid in their store; Our wood-pile’s stacked at the back door; And we are deified with all The supreme glory of the Fall. _II_ Somehow, when I arise at dawn And see gold threads and silver drawn Through the stretched silk of eastern sky, I am both glad and sad thereby. My gable window frames a tree, A jack-pine; and it seems to me The very jack-pine’s part of this Blend of old pain and ecstasies. To front I spy, and see the lake, That last I saw in moonlight quake, Still sliding sidewise, in the grey And gold beginning of the day. And O my heart is all astir To praise the great Artificer Who made the dawn, the lake, the tree, And this that loveth them in me. _III_ Framed by my door-way I can see A motionless cotton-poplar tree. In the still day it looks as though A stencil cut in gold, the show Of Autumn now begun. It stands Against one strip of silver sands And one of lapis-lazuli, A broader strip I know to be The stretch of lake; and then one more Thin silver band—the further shore. That takes us half-way up this tree That of gold stencil seems to be; And all the spreading top’s inlaid, Or stamped, upon a background made Of tones of green and darker yellow— The mountain opposite, going mellow, Autumnal, etched too up and down With thin lines, silver-grey and brown— The stems of leafless young birch-trees And of bare tamarack poles are these. O lovely tree of gold inlaid On silver, lapis-lazuli, jade! _IV_ Sometimes, in Summer time, I think how sad That my loved birch-trees, in gold sequins clad, Winds shall blow bare, and bitter Winter come. No more the twin-flower scent, no more the hum Of leisurely, brown, gold-dusted bumble-bees, And this stream too, of liquid gems, must freeze, All beauty lie beneath a shroud of snow. Then Winter comes. I rise one day, and lo, Out of my gable, on the jack-pine tree, The fluffy pom-poms of the snow I see— And sing for joy! Here is no tragic shroud. It snowed o’er night. Dawn breaks without a cloud In all sweet heaven. This world of white and blue I had forgotten, had forgotten too How the frost sparkles to the soaring moon When January is as good as June. I had forgot the crisp and peppering sound Of a dry snow-fall happing up the ground, And how the hid sun makes a rosy glow And golden radiance through the whirling snow. At morn, the blue jays tapping on the pane, At night, the stars, the sleigh-bells’ sweet refrain I had forgotten; and how creeks flow on Under green ice and white across them drawn, Opals through crystal. How at night the stove Hums, as content, while I in books may rove All times and countries, blissfully aloof From small affairs, under my snow-capped roof, I had forgot, else had I never said: How sad that Summer is so quickly sped. Now, in mid-Winter, I do surely know Too quick the Summers and the Winters go. _V_ I went into the yard to-night Upon some little final chore That something in a book I read Brought to my mind; and at the door I stood and stared, I stood and stared. The hills with stars were brimming o’er. O books, what you do hold me from! O there I stood, O there I stood And looked and marvelled in the night, And knew why God had called it good, Enamored of the infinite Between the water and the wood. Up from the water came a pipe Of wild ducks resting on their way, Now Autumn’s come, from Arctic shores To some warm, Caribbean bay; A happy sound, a pleasing sound, Though why so pleasing who can say? Down from the woods there came a roar As though a railway train went by. No railroad there! It passed. Once more Again roared high, roared clamant high, A wind through night, and on that wind My spirit soared through starry sky. Then all was still on either hand, No pipe of duck, no windy roar, And I was all alone with stars, Forgot my book, forgot my chore, With stars and stars, and still more stars, Between the forest and the shore. _VI_ You ask me why I live here, As though the place were banned, And living here a thing no man Of sense can understand, A thing bizarre. I live here Because I love the land. You say: “It has no history; No ghosts go by your door.” I can but stare. If ghosts you wish, Here there are ghosts galore, From Thompson’s in the Rockies To Vancouver’s by the shore. You say: “It is so far there From the Berkeley or the Ritz.” But the Berkeley and the Ritz are far From roasting ducks on spits Of new green wood where the camp-fire light Through the sleeping forest flits. You say: “In England Robin Hood, In Scotland old Rob Roy Have left romance you lack out there.” But surely every boy Must know that our Bill Miner Could teach these their employ. Bill Miner was an outlaw Beloved of every one! No man could better ride a horse Or quicker flick a gun. Robin and Roy, compared with him, Were novices outdone. You say: “But are you not cut off From Culture, living there?” And with the sage I would reply, Smiling (you now may stare): Earth’s centre is where I am; My mind goes everywhere. I live here with the weather, And the seasons’ pageantry; I live with ruffling leaves and streams, These being more to me Than all your cities. Here in Time I touch Eternity. I have a shingled house here That stands among tall trees; A colored river flows before; Mountains guard over these. This “lodge in some vast wilderness” My soul does greatly please. The birds and squirrels round me Make lightsome every chore Outside, and oft at chores I pause Just on the scene to pore. Within I have my books to read. What could man ask for more? From humming-birds to sleigh-bells I love the way life goes In this lost land, from one view, But Paradise for those Who love the world God gave men, Its Summers and its Snows. _Willow Point,_ _Kootenay Lake, 1924._ MEMORIES A polished floor with sun thereon, Albeit all the shades were drawn; To front and rear doors opened wide; The patio bricks red-gold outside; Peace, and my mother sitting there, Sewing in a great cane chair. Lombardy poplars, straight and tall, Tapered beyond the patio wall; And I, a child of three or four, Stood looking at them from the door. My mother then began to sing; I turned to her, all wondering, For she was there and yet not there, Her body sewing in the chair, Her spirit, in her singing, gone, Strangely remote, afar, withdrawn. I ran to her and clasped her knees, Peered in her eyes for my heart’s ease, These netted eyes that did not see Her sewing, or the room, or me. Her singing ceased; she heaved a sigh; Once more my mother had come nigh. The day is fixed. Her gown of blue I see, with flower-sprigs patterned through. Pinning a fall of lace she wore A cameo brooch; and to restore My comfort after childish grief I fingered on its bas-relief. And then she smiled on me, aware; And still I see her sewing there. MY WORLD I took the purple of the heather And the white of a rose And the blue hill air, and the wild, wet weather, With the thought of a woman my glad soul knows: And I made me a wonderful magic world Like the globe of rain in a rose-leaf furled, A world complete and far more real Than this that we seem to see and feel. _Connel Ferry,_ _Argyllshire._ TO PAULINE Upon Her Recovery from Sickness We have been wounded oft so sore By Godly folk who set no store On any God except their own, Grim worshippers, with hearts like stone, That seldom do we say the name Of God at all. Yet when the flame Of health waned low upon thy cheek, Lately agone, I strove to speak A prayer unto some Deity For the recovery of thee, Although methought: “What will be must,” And tended thee with heart like dust, In a great agony. But when I saw the light return again In eyes and cheek, there broke from me Thanks to Almighty God for thee. _Epping Forest, 1913._ NOW GOES OUR LADY TO THE WOODS Now goes our lady to the woods: Not that she needeth to take flight: Her soul has its own solitudes— Its stars, on the most starless night, Its light, on the most sunless day. She takes not flight—she goes away As quiet, queenly, rare, as here, In Babylon, when days are drear, She moves about. She does not fly; She does not haste; she merely goes— To where the dreaming poplar rows Look upward to the Milky Way; Where men have bliss of stars by night, And in the pools their broken light; Behold the gorgeous sun by day; The colored seasons drifting by: She takes not flight—but none the less Does she rejoice again to catch The spaces to her soul and match Her quiet soul with quietness. _Biggin Hill,_ _Kent, 1908._ HER SERVANTS LOOK ON THE LITTLE MOTHER FROM BETWEEN THE TAPESTRIES She dwelleth there in calm and storm Weaving upon her loom. She is so child-like in her face, Although she hath a god-like grace, One wonders who hath taught her all Her mastery of line and form. Her peaceful singing in the room Blends with the sound like soft foot-fall Of faeries, as the shuttles weave. What weaveth she? A king’s proud mantle or a pall? What symbols, and what tapestry? The sun shines in, the light of storm; She weaves upon her loom. Hush! Look; she hath a wondrous face, Our queen; behold her radiant grace. She weaveth gladly, for us all, As she hath woven her sacred form, Out of her soul. Hush! Her foot-fall! She riseth up to cross the room. What weaveth she? The soul’s fair cloths, the body’s pall. Hush; hence; let drop the tapestry. AT MORNING When I see her sleeping there, in the grey of morning, Peace upon her face and her eyelids down, The first of day arriving for her cheeks’ adorning, Glinting in her tresses on the tints of brown— Sacred is she to me, in the new day breaking; There’s a trill of birds in the light outside; On this half the world all things are a-waking, Life flowing wondrously, like a flowing tide— Sacred is she to me as she lies there sleeping, Sacred and mysterious—and O so dear to me: The treasure of all treasures that God gave to me for keeping, To journey with and cherish, midst the mystery. _Finchley, 1911._ A HARVEST I fill my heart, I fill my mind With all the beauty I may find; I gather many memories Of such eternal things as these: The spreading of the light of dawn Across the sky, along my lawn; The sigh of wind in high and fine Needles of tamarack and pine; The haunting call of laughing loons Through the warm glow of August noons. I cull the hazy Pleiades Netted among my orchard trees On misty eves; I store away Venus, beheld just after day Has gone, and when the early night Is fragile blue, astounding bright, Venus, above a hill, alone. I gather up the blossom strown From cherry trees in May; I keep Full moons in mind that, waked from sleep In lonely camps, I’ve gazed upon, Full moons so big, and hushed, and wan, Over some spectral forest glade, They almost make the heart dismayed; And slender slivers of new moon Dropping behind a mountain soon. The happing hush of winter snows, Great glaciers, and a rain-splashed rose, And always scent of balsam trees That brings my soul unto its knees Within its room within my breast, Seeming, in scent, God manifest: These and such things as these I keep To love, before I turn to sleep. TREES I thank my God that I can see The blossom on the maple tree; I thank my God when I behold, Some morning after rain, new gold Sifted upon the tamaracks, Whose very name of grandeur smacks, As of romance does lodge-pole pine; I thank God for the silver shine, Through dusk woods, of a birch-tree stem; I do thank God for all of them, From tall and stately Douglas fir To little twisted juniper: I could go down upon my knees And sing God thanks for all His trees. UNDERTONES In among the rustle of leaves (Out on the trail alone), Heard and lost in the roar of a creek, How can we tell what voices speak Implication in undertone? Up in the feathery tops of pines More than the wind alone Sighs to me when a wind sighs by; And something within me makes reply In a wordless undertone. Ah, but I fear the tongue we speak Can never make rightly known What the voice of a creek, or the wind in thegrass Talks to travellers as they pass, Riding the trail alone. UNREST Whence comes this restlessness imploring me When in Montmartre to seek out Italy? And when at last I see the falling leaf In Vallombrosa, why this almost grief That I can hear not the incoming seas Roll in toward Appin, past the Hebrides? Where is my home? I have not any home Save all the world. To rest I can but roam. Strange names are friendly to me and I tell Them o’er as beads. They move me like a spell. Thus it has been since in my boyish years, Blurring my school-books, there rose up Algiers; The very names of caftan and of haik Called me to Africa for their names’ sake. And now how many an island, mountain, bay (From the blue crescent curved toward Monterey, Outlined in silver against yellow sand, To where I first saw light illumine land In Chili) are as dear as any friend, And how far severed! ’Tis some way to wend From Aconcagua unto Cruachan! Only in dreams can I wing up and scan, As ’twere an orange in my clutch, the whole God’s bauble, magical from pole to pole. My school-books sloughed, I did not once abate My travel-speed when Illecillewaet Then caught my ear. I lived with discontent Till I had seen the Rocky Mountains rent By the great waters there, the cañon walls. I saw and passed; and now again it calls. When I come home from each outlandish place Each lures me back, as his beloved’s face Called back Odysseus. Home is not my home; I have no other rest except to roam. How shall I rest? There is no rest for me On any continent, or isle, or sea. Down the deep gulch of Fleet Street I descry Mount Shasta, not Saint Paul’s, against the sky; My eyes are filmed, I am lost utterly; I must go forth again across the sea. In Okanagan I shall buy a horse And to the mountains ride. Perchance the gorse Of Keston Common, breaking then, shall send A message to me, but I shall not lend An ear to that; shrewdly I shall recall The mists of England, their distressful pall; Or so I purpose as I walk the deck And Rathlin fades into a foam-flecked speck. There shall I camp on fir-boughs featly laid By some tall fir, in balsam-scented shade. But shall I rest there? Waking in the night Among meshed planets and the half-moon’s light, Will not the old-time wonder come again, Gazing on Mars, if bobolink or wren Flit thereupon; the longing to inquire Out of the ether on these sparks of fire Again torment; once more the Milky Way Rain restlessness to haunt my joyous day? There is no home, there is no rest for me Till, disembodied, all the worlds I see. _Hayes, Kent,_ _1920._ TRAVELLING Where am I going to, passing here, Listening, looking, lending an ear To the red-breast’s trill or the loon’s lone call, To the deep tom-tom of a waterfall, To the sigh of wind in fir-tree tops, And hushed in the silence when that stops? Where am I going to, gazing round On the rain of flowers that jewel the ground? Once having seen the dawn, I rise Often, betimes, for that surprise Of its beginning, the ancient way, A pallor, a presence, and in the grey Something, it seems, that once I knew, Lost again in the drying dew. I know not where I go, nor why The sight of Orion in the sky, The swerve of a bird, the curve of a hill With a joy beyond telling my whole heart fill. Looking, listening, I am glad, With a wealth not wealthy Crœsus had, Listening, looking, passing by, Although I know not where go I. INVENTORY Was ever man so drawn before By diverse loves? One clings to shore; The other takes the foam-flecked sea In quest of far adversity. The one desireth opal rings, And silks as frail as are the wings Of humming-birds; carved ivories; Quaint bronzes made by Japanese; Old jars, unearthed in Babylon, The Pharaohs must have looked upon; Tear-bottles hid two thousand years, Once moist with Cleopatra’s tears, But now so old they seem to be Brimful of calm eternity; Venetian mirrors; scimitars With jewelled hilts, once used in wars, But gem-wrought with so much of love They now like healing unctions prove. The other calls to sun-scorched toil By lava-bed and sandy soil, To travelling the tremendous trail Where it is splendid even to fail. It calls unto the sound and sight Of seas that swirl through purple night, Whose stars are magical as when Jason beheld them and his men. Ah me! Whichever life I choose I can but sip of it, must lose Far more than ever I shall quaff— Life is so brief, the hours thereof Too speedy for a man to do The things of one. I ask for two! TO THE MYSTERY These be the things that move my heart, I know not why: _A pool; a stream where sunbeams dart;_ _The song the stream makes flowing by;_ _The gleam of pebbles in the stream;_ _The wavering light:_ I dipped, and found a stone; the gleam Passed, as the sun-glow does at night. _A voice beloved_: it sang a strain Of old dead years. My heart was full of joy—and pain: The silence after touched to tears. _Roses_; my heart is as a home Where every rose, Being so loved, might fluttering come When wind-cast from its garden-close. They were too beautiful to pass— The voice, the air; Ah! How the rose-leaves strew the grass, And how the transient things are fair! A SONG OF SILENCE If thou possess thy soul in peace, It matters not what may befall From seed time, till the Summer’s lease Of flowers is o’er, and on the wall No roses flutter or birds call. For whether thou dost smile, or sigh; Or make thy soul to feel, or make Thy soul to feel not; all goes by— The smiles that cheer; the griefs that break; Thee let not such things captive take. Even she who sets thy heart aglow With Love’s strange lure, half-sad, half-gay, Must very soon arise and go Into the dark the wonted way: What love speech, there, can a man say? Soon thou, too, softly hence shalt pass, In silence, to the silent land, And over thee the heedless grass Shall wave and the tall jonquils stand; Possess thy soul; withhold thy hand. LI PO A courtly poet called Li Po, Silken of hair, with almond eyes, Over a thousand years ago One twilight, when the fire-flies Danced in the garden of his king, Sang a sweet lyric of regret For birds that trail a broken wing Or in the cruel cages fret. _On silver saddle, on white steed_, So sang he, _goes the frontiersman;_ _A sword and lance supply his need_ _His palace is the mighty span_ _Of changeful sky, and for his books_ _He has the winds and wavering streams;_ _He goes not grey in scholars’ nooks;_ _No heavy curtains stale his dreams_ And still we sing so; still we sigh In cities to be frontiersmen; On frontiers, for new lands to try; For ever questing, now, as then— Thus does that lyric of Li Po, That sweet far lyric of regret, Woven a thousand years ago In China, live and murmur yet. _London, 1908._ THE SONG OF THE FREEMEN One mocked me, and I turned and saw the skies Awash with evening, far beyond the hill Where hill-birds wavered, with their lonely cries, On the long wavering crest; yea, crying still, Though hollows were blue-dark, and skyward fields Were scarcely lit with light that seemed to be A memory; such calm the calm sky yields . . . How far they seem, mockers and mockery; How wondrous nigh that sunset they gave me. They sought to maim me, pelting me with stones; They robbed me, filching from my garden-close My fair, love-tended blooms—they, the world’s drones And the world’s mighty, life being as it is; And then they mocked me . . . nay, they mocked not me! Theirs the loud laughter; mine the silences; For every rose they filched, a fairer rose Bloomed in that other garden no man knows Save him who makes it, hedged about with tears And all abloom with sorrows that the years Have turned to flowers, sung softly to by trees High as high poplars, that are reveries. They forged me fetters and came forth to hale Me, as a slave, to labor at their oar; I know not now whether I toiled or not; I do but mind the music of the gale, The smooth fronts of the marbled, mounting, waves, Mirroring gulls’ wings as the gulls flew o’er. I mind the winds and waves with friendship fraught. Mayhap they scourged; mayhap they scourged me not; What matter? Even so they are forgot, Their voices drowned in singing of the slaves. THE THREE YEW-TREES The wind that talks in the trees Is more to me than love; Talking over the time-worn graves Where my forefathers lie at ease: And I heed what the wind says, as it waves The branches, and soft o’er the worn stones move Sunlight, and shade of the three yew-trees. I lie awake and with delight Hear the rain along the rones, And smile to think it beats all night On the grey and time-worn stones; And the thought of the beds where my fathers lie Somehow subdues my soul, that says: “What are the light of a woman’s eye And the feet of the children along the ways?” I hear the ring of the stone On the scythes at reaping time, And take my place with them there; But somehow I seem alone ’Midst the scythe-men red and the reapers fair As they bend and bind, where the green hills climb From the valley, where are the three yew-trees And all my people lying at ease. The men look puzzled on me at times, As I swing the scythe, and the women smile, White-teethed women with full red lips, And arms that shall some man beguile; But if at the meal-time I should pass The scones, or the jar from the long, cool grass, And happen to touch their finger tips, I look to the vale whence the calm hill climbs, Where my forefathers lie at ease ’Neath the worn stones and the three yew-trees. NORTH DEVON Over there the churchyard is; The old square steeple Stands above the old grey stones With their old-time names— Sellicks, Acklands, Babbacombes. That green slope is Silence’s; There he dwells with the dead people, Having hushed their laughs and moans, Ended all their prides and shames, In their six-foot homes. It is quiet there: when rain comes The green grass shines through: When the rain goes the bee hums And the blackbird pipes too. But the quiet is not ever broken Even on Sabbaths by the worship, or the bell: There hath Silence set his unseen token, Set his spell. And here too, here beyond these sleeping Ringed and guarded by the rusted, mossy wall, Here comes Silence also softly creeping With his unheard foot-fall. By the nettled and black-berried byways, By the lanes, and on the climbing highways, Even to this highway’s end where it goes down Over cliffs where gulls and foam are blown, He wanders, from his walled green Sanctuary, To the immemorial sea. THE ASH-TREE This ash-tree, waving all the day With divagating branches, weaves A witching pattern I could stay For ever watching, while the leaves Come down in showers and strew the lane To be made mould and dust again. Like turning a kaleidoscope Is its enchantment for the eye: The branches surge, and toss, and grope, Poise, flurry, rake the pallid sky; And leaves upon the leaves again Come down and flutter in the lane. A sound, as if some distant shore Sent hence the surge of hidden seas, Mounts up into a sullen roar, Then droops to plaintive litanies Of Autumn and the Autumn rain And dreams that shall be dreamt again. Ah me, but I have dreamt them well Upon my curious pilgrimage, And loved the leaves that for a spell Dance in the sun, till cometh age And Autumn and the Autumn rain And all the ancient tale again. Of Gods and men I do not know; Both are mysterious unto me; But like a wistful fool I go— Or should I say a sage maybe? And love the sun and love the rain, And even these dead leaves in the rain. _Ca’er Onnen, Bangor,_ _North Wales, 1915._ SONG OF THE PEEBLES PEDLAR As I cam’ doon the water-side I heard the water on the stanes (I saw the brichtly-coloured stanes) But nought heard I o’ kelpies’ manes, Nor saw them play wi’ drooned men’s banes, As I cam’ doon the water-side. As I cam’ doon the side o’ Tweed, Frae Stobo back tae Peebles Toon (I saw the roofs o’ Peebles Toon), I heard in pools the suckin’ soun’ O’ eddies swirlin’ slowly roun’ As I cam’ doon the side o’ Tweed. As I cam’ doon the water-side The lauchter that I heard was no’ (Och aye, I’m very sure ’twas no’) Lauchter o’ fairy folk that go Wi’ “milk white limbs” alang the flow: Sic havers mock the water-side. Nae need for tae invent a thing— And kelpies nane have ever seen. Does’t no’ suffice that in atween Sic banks o’ trees, and grasses green, Sic singing waters intervene Miraculous as onything? Aye, always doon the water-side The things I see suffice for me (It’s a’ miraculous tae me); Ilk tree and flourish on the tree, And this auld water tae the sea Whimplin’ and lauchin’ by my side. THINKING OF SOME LIVING POETS I do give thanks that in these deadly days Some poets still, in harder circumstance Than their fore-runners, cast no longing glance To the arena of the tinsel bays. They will not heed the sophist phrase that says: “In their own fair-ground pipe—that men may dance,” Nor turn rare music to rude dissonance, As he must do who such behest obeys. Down in the fair-ground, for an evening’s hire, Before their booths so many jesters scream, And (not content with naphtha-fame) conspire To cast despite on their discarded dream, That, doubly, I give thanks ye do not tire. Pipe on, pipe featly, following the Gleam! _1913._ “FIRST THE BLADE, THEN THE EAR, AFTER THAT . . .” Whatever the dream I dream may be, Whatever the hope I hope, I know, by the flash of the vasty sea, By the glow on the grassy slope, By the light that lies along the sky At night, when the last birds homeward fly, By the gleam of the wet rose-hedge in June, By the way that in Winter the grey night falls When the lonely bird on the moorland calls, By the fiery sun, and the high, calm moon, I know, I know in my inmost heart, I know in my quiet, singing soul That the Hope lives on and the Fears depart, And the god in man shall have more control And more, and more; and the voiceless hope And the dream too strange to be wholly told, That some old dead dreamer dreamt on his slope, Straying along through the wind-blown grass, Soul in the vastness, feet in the mould, Shall come to pass; And out of Time—Eternity: And a man shall walk where now he gropes, Whatever the whole high Dream may be, Whatever the hope of hopes. WORDS I am in love with words . . . With which skilled men have fashioned Lyrics that sing like birds, Tales too; with heart impassioned I am in love with words. With words am I in love . . . Men have reared fanes of these As masons do with rough Hewn stone, shaped as they please— With words am I in love. I am in love with words . . . With these skilled minds have made Aye, songs more sweet than birds’, Aye, towers more strongly stayed Than towers of stone—with words! I am in love with words. POLITICS I heard them talking politics, All the different shades: And as they talked I sat and dreamt Of deer in forest glades. I dreamt so deep that I could see The sunshafts in between The lightly swaying cedar-boughs, And the deer dappled green. The quality of anger came, The voices louder grew. Near where I sat there was a door, And the wind blew through. I am not better than these men, Nor nobler, nor more great; But on their talk of politics I cannot concentrate. Somehow I always hear the wind Moaning below the door; And the real me strays through a hushed old wood Or walks on a lonely shore. A SONG OF REST Sing us, O dear musicians, a song of lulling, A song Lethean, All drowsiness and rest and grief-annulling. For strenuous pæan, Urging to war and anxious rivalry, He hath no need Whose doom is war. Ah, nay! What need hath he At resting-time For aught but lulling rime Or soothing reed— A sweet voice singing that all things are well; A soft flute fluting its calm minstrelsies; Earth’s murmur vague as that within a shell; And rest and ease? We would forget the desolate deadly places Of foiled endeavor; Our victories too forget; our foes’ dead faces Forget for ever. Our doom is war; we would forget our doom, Would rest our ears, Weary of hearkening through the night’s long gloom For sudden foes: War-weary eyes would close In dreams, not fears; From searching the dim slopes for foemen cease. From warfare would we cease, content and calm, The flute-notes entering our hearts with peace, The voice with balm. Our doom is war; wherefore, O dear musicians, Our hearts had rather The flute than trumpet. As those wise physicians Who daily gather Poppy and eglantine and heart-of-ease For their distilling, Whate’er in song’s high realms are kin to these Go gather then And bring again to men, Physicians willing, The healing of soft music, ere we go To-morrow, trumpet-driven, the fighting way: To-day the sweet voice singing we would know, The flute to-day. MY LADY OF DREAMS (From the French of Paul Verlaine) Oft-times in dreams intense, she doth appear, This unknown one I love, who loveth me; Subtly she changes, yet unchanged is she Each time she cometh to me, ah how near! My heart for her transparent is (but clear For her alone, alas! its mystery). She smooths my forehead, all my agony She weeps away, she only, loved and dear. How looketh she, what color eyes and hair? I cannot tell! Her name? ’Tis sonorous And sweet as those that ransomed spirits bear; No sculptured goddess hath more calm a mien; And for her voice—not sweeter were to us Loved voices that now are not—that have been. EPITAPH I came, and opening my eyes Beheld the beauty of the skies; I saw the soaring of the trees, And in them heard a talking breeze That moved me to the heart although Just what it said I did not know, Nor what the creeks for ever spoke, Nor what the waves cried as they broke; Scarce could I more than but infer, In lack of an interpreter. I saw the stars at night, at dawn Hints of revealment quick withdrawn, The heels of God among the grey; And wondering still I went away. A CAROL FROM FLANDERS In Flanders on the Christmas morn The trenchèd foeman lay, The German and the Briton born— And it was Christmas Day. The red sun rose on fields accurst, The grey fog fled away; But neither cared to fire the first, For it was Christmas Day. They called from each to each across The hideous disarray (For terrible had been their loss): “O this is Christmas Day!” Their rifles all they set aside, One impulse to obey; ’Twas just the men on either side, Just men—and Christmas Day. They dug the graves for all their dead And over them did pray; And Englishman and German said: “How strange a Christmas Day!” Between the trenches then they met, Shook hands, and e’en did play At games on which their hearts are set On happy Christmas Day. Not all the Emperors and Kings, Financiers, and they Who rule us could prevent these things— For it was Christmas Day. O ye who read this truthful rime From Flanders, kneel and say: _God speed the time when every day_ _Shall be as Christmas Day._ _Christmas, 1914._ IN MEMORIAM Edward Thomas, Poet and Critic, Killed in Action, 1917 Lover of England, in the sun and rain, Of the Welsh marches all the seasons through, No more by Taf-side will you walk again And pause to hearken till the dim cuckoo Calls nearer, wondering why his rich refrain Does move men so, heard through the Maytime’s blue, Over the gorse-lands; so our hearts have pain, Knowing not here shall we encounter you. Lover of England and her songs and tales, The westland meadows and the westland hills, Borrow in pocket, wandering through Wild Wales, You knew the heath-wind flaunts our little ills. Of old inn-corners that from sudden gales Shelter the traveller, while the roads turn rills, You knew the glamour; how, when daylight fails, Dear candle-light the mellow chamber fills. Lover of England and the English speech, Of those who used it featly to recite The old oak’s story, or the marvel teach Of thrush at morning, or of owl at night; You knew the charm of gold-encrusted beech; You knew where Cobbett eyed the squire aright; You gaily trudged the long white road, to reach Old Selborne, for the sake of Gilbert White. Lover of England and the English tongue, How must they mourn you who did know you well, Who’ve heard you quote old runes our fathers sung, Or some new poet’s song you had to tell, As ’twere a noose of words by genius flung Around Eternity. You, too, the spell Of words were skilled in, and your phrases rung Full oft with beauty, like a sacred bell. And this to Britain, for such Britons dead For all they stood for in the time of woes: Britain, forget not why such blood was shed As his veins ran, who need not from wild rose In hedges of his isle, or daisies spread For simple hearts, or any wind that blows Now ask for solace, vastly comforted, Beyond where Lethe through the twilight flows. THEOCRITUS IN ALEXANDRIA Thus was the coming home of old Theocritus From Alexandria, where he had been too long: ’Twas on the night that Ptolemy Philadelphus Was crowned within the innermost pavilion; Circle on circle round him, feasting and song, Spreading from him, the centre of it, Through all the city, night long, even till dawn, So that the poorest slave, long wont to sit, Scourged, by the laboring oar, let free that night To wander wide-eyed through the murmurous town, Felt in his barbarous heart a strange delight Not from his one night’s liberty alone— But as the ripples when a stone is thrown In water—so it happened when the crown Was placed on Ptolemy’s brows, even then Spread the strange revelry unto meanest men. But at the inmost banquet old Theocritus Sat with the noblest, ’neath the white-fringed awning Upheld, in tribute to God Dionysus, By pillars thyrsi-shaped. But with no fawning Sat old Theocritus. Though some men fawn On Kings, not he who once hath known for King The Dawn; For Bride the dewy Evening; For orchestra the wind’s voice and the rills On the Sicilian hills. Yet he was skilled in all civilities And they whose couches by his side were spread Knew him a King (in other territories Than Egypt) by his calm, instead Of by a crown, or by King’s raiment: For who hath known the Summer firmament With all its stars, above the three-caped isle Is then a King, and after, for long while. But when without insult a man might leave The Banquet, when the Bassarids’ procession Had passed, and the brown women, garlanded With vines, brought lustful glances to some eyes About the board, much wine having by then Been quaffed, Theocritus half turned as to arise, Then slowly settled to his couch again— Because a maiden with a lotus blossom In her dark hair, and one rose, damask red, Blooming midways the gold band round her bosom, Passed, playing a Sicilian air. O simple maid! O simple air! How touching in the tumult were These twain unto that wearied one Who had seen maidens playing thus When the bright, laboring day was done, After the milking, as the sun set On his island home and the high peaks shone And lamps in the valleys, one by one, Through the darkening meads of asphodel Gleamed forth from the farms that he loved well— Maids simple as this sweet maid, but yet With rosier cheeks as the hillmaids’ be, How touching to Theocritus, Theocritus of Sicily! As in old red-roofed Syracuse Amidst the streets one morn he met, With thrilling heart, a fresh wind straying From the nigh mountains, wet with dews, A gladsome wind that had been playing With Spring, and Spring’s flowers, dew-fresh yet When it came thither lightly blowing: So this maid’s coming—and her going. And as one rises quietly to depart, Seeking no stir from men, a delicate art, Now rose Theocritus, his face less flushed with wine Than with a sadness few there might divine, Or if divining think a trivial thing To flush his cheek, and ’mongst themselves deride, Not knowing all the thoughts that move a King Who hath had stars and sun for his possession, The calm, untroubled evening for his bride, For orchestra the music the winds weave, Rustling of leaves and rills On the sky-gazing hills. Rose and escaped and journeyed home Theocritus, with mind preoccupied (Now careless as the night’s o’er-arching dome Of Alexandria’s triumph, Ptolemy’s pride), Through streets still thronged with men of many nations, Castes, tribes, and stations: The swarthy, white-eyed Nubians, gaily clad; Men of the East (their lean, wise faces sad With all the vanity of life they knew) Shouldering fierce Arabs from the desert places; And Grecians, and they, too, with thoughtful faces, Albeit strong of muscle and of thew, And something in their bearing that bespoke How they were sons of men who had done mightily, And they not knowing yet their day was done For conquest of men’s lands (nor how should be Afterward, in men’s minds, their high dominion): Strong men, but last of all that glorious race That lit the world with beauty and with grace; And the calm Jew who goeth stealthily, Smiling, as to his soul, o’er some vast secret; And slant-eyed Asian folk who seemed to be Half fearful of the throng, though part of it. Through all these, then, Theocritus passed slow, Wrapped in his cloak and nursing his sad thought, From Alexandria and from men withdrawn; Thus found his chamber and there seated him Still cloaked, nor in the darkness of the room Lit he the silvern lamp to break the gloom Of it, or of his heart, but in the dim Wan half light twixt the night and dawn Sat, probing in his soul this thing to know— The meaning of the grief his heart had got; He being one of these Who probe to the Founts and stretch to the Destinies. The world’s high pomps, the Ptolemy’s renown (The King he honored truly) seemed that night, And morning, very tawdry in his sight: A foolish thing this feasting round a crown. Grieved he for lilies lying withering About the board at which he late had sat? (For though ’twas Winter much profusion there Of pallid lily and of blushing rose Made mock of all the glistening silver-ware.) There lay they dying through the evening Who should have been asleep, in garden-close. Came this his sadness through some thought of that? Or some rough ordering of a willing slave By pompous master, overheard by chance, Smote on his ears like some harsh dissonance And to his sensitive spirit this grief gave? Such things may grieve a kindly man, Or a tranquil man offend; Thoughts born of things more poignant than These, make the dark his friend. Might it not be some jesting utterance Of Apollonius, with a cynical glance Toward him across the flowers, as he would thus Send home with eye-thrust what the lips Half spake, a jest, yet not a jest (As one in poison a light arrow dips)? Nay, such things troubled not Theocritus, Vexed not his meditative rest. ’Twas just yon sun-girl (with the lotus blossom In her dark hair And in her high-girt bosom The red rose) playing on a simple flute, Simple as she, a simple air; ’Twas at her fluting and not before (Not at the jest of Apollonius Not worth a soft breath to refute) This sadness came. But wherefore thus So sad? Nay, how else could it be When that the winsome maid had played An old sweet air of Sicily? And, ah! How sweet are simple things Among the rioting of kings! Then rose he, sadly, aware again Of all the city murmuring still; New dawn had just begun to instil The east with color. Ah! what pain For that green isle amidst the sea Shot through his heart, for Sicily! And at his stirring, or at the dawn, The bird that o’er the balcony Had slept night long, a dark cloth drawn Loose round its cage by the brown slave, Lest all the torchlight flashing by On that great night of revelry Should scare its simple little heart, Woke, stirred, and stretched its wings apart With a thin ruffling sound and gave To the new day a welcoming cry. Then, as it stirred, somehow the cloth Loosened and fell; and nothing loth The bird broke forth in minstrelsy That the old singer heard with tears, With healing tears the music heard, For this frail bird Had come with him from Sicily! And thinking of the three-caped isle, The uplands green, the browsing sheep, The nights of soft and tranquil sleep, The mornings, sweet as a girl-child’s smile, The piping herdsmen, the lowing herd, He cried unto the new-waked bird: “O bird! To-morrow we shall go, To-morrow o’er the wine-dark sea, Where Etna’s peak of fire and snow Beacons us home—to Sicily!” _Dundee, 1905._ TO THOSE WHO CALL ME BACK “Come you back,” good friends beseech, “Come you back from hill and beach, Come and let men know your name, Here in London seek for fame.” But I cannot seek her there, In the heavy, thrice-breathed air. She meant never much to me; Tricky jade, I let her be. If some snatch of song I sing Dear response of friendship bring, Good. But feverish to pursue Fame, for me will never do. No, I live the life I write, Writing little for delight In the living with such things As that great hawk’s patterned wings. Watch them now go drifting over And the blue grouse taking cover. Living only once I choose Which life I had rather lose: Talking art in Montparnasse— Seeing lovely Venus pass; Talking books in Kensington— Dwelling with the dusk and dawn. Here I live all day aware How the clouds through heaven fare, How the creeks are liquid gems, And young cotton-poplar stems Silver, and the maple trees Murmurous with questing bees. With the weather I must dwell And the seasons’ rosary tell. When the humming-birds fly north I must know. Though little worth Unto some such knowledge be, It means very much to me. In September, just to hear Crickets chirring far and near, Chirring as they’d never cease, Part of all the Autumn’s peace: Even that, a small thing too, Holds me here, to tell you true. Ah forgive me, friends, for this— But I dare not, dare not miss, Cooped in houses, wind and rain; I may never come again This way; I must see this place, All its beauty, face to face, Suns and moons, and tossing trees, Know the forests’ Summer ease, Shadows blue in Winter snows: Thus my apologia goes. _Kootenay, 1924._ The poems in this volume (with the exception of a few here printed for the first time) originally appeared in _The Academy_, _Athenæum_, _Bookman_, _Daily News_ (London), _English Review_, _London Mercury_, _Nation_, _New Statesman_, _Observer_, _Saturday Review_, _Spectator_, _T. P.’s Magazine_. TRANSCRIBER NOTES Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed. Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur. A cover was created for this eBook and is placed in the public domain. [The end of _A Lover of the Land and Other Poems_, by Frederick Niven.]