LUCA D\i 
 
 LL 
 
 A RU15BIA 
 
 AND t)Tlll'; 
 
 ; I'OKMS 
 
 By J 
 
 M 
 
 Blake 
 
(^arnell Hmn^raitjj SIthrary 
 
 Stifata. JSem lurk 
 
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 1891 
 
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 Cornell University Library 
 PR6003.L193L91920 
 
 Luca Delia Robbia, and other verses, 
 3 1924 013 589 381 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013589381 
 
Luca Delia Robbia 
 
 And Other Verses 
 
 BY 
 
 J. M. BLAKE 
 
 OXFORD 
 
 BASIL BLACKWELL 
 
 BROAD STREET 
 
 1920 
 
TO 
 
 C. T. N. 
 
 AND TO 
 
 THOSE MANY FRIENDS 
 
 LOVERS OF ITALY 
 
 AND OF THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 WHO WISHED 
 
 TO HAVE 
 
 THESE VERSES 
 
 IN A BOOK. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Florentine. 
 
 Luca della Robbia 5 
 
 To the Majesty of Giotto's Campanile 6 
 
 Ponte Santa Trinity, Florence, by Night, from 
 
 the Carraia Bridge - - 7 
 
 Dawn, from Monte Ceceri above Florence 8 
 
 To the Setting Sun. Fiesole, November 10 
 
 The River Arno— in Changeable Weather 12 
 
 San Miniato al Monte - - 13 
 
 The Interior of the Franciscan Church of Santa 
 
 Croce, Florence - 15 
 The Fa9ade of the Church of Santa Maria Novella, 
 
 Florence - - 16 
 
 The Judas-Tree, in the Boboli Gardens 17 
 
 The Mountains : 
 
 Mountain Magic 18 
 
 Nationality - 19 
 
 Night ... 25 
 
 Incarnation - 25 
 
 Evening - - 27 
 
 Song of Mountain Longing - - 28 
 
 To one who lives among the Hills 29 
 
 Other Verse. 
 
 Beppina - 30 
 
 To one who lives at Siena. K. E. W. ■ 32 
 
Music 
 
 33 
 
 Birthday 
 
 36 
 
 Assisi of Saint Francis : 
 
 
 I. The Porziuncula 
 
 37 
 
 II. The Carceri 
 
 38 
 
 III. The Cloistered Cemetery 
 
 39 
 
 On Leave in Italy, Spring, igi8 
 
 40 
 
 Anton, Tyrolese Peasant Proprietor. To K. F. 
 
 41 
 
 A Wayside Crucifix in Tyrol - 
 
 44 
 
 Eucharist 
 
 44 
 
 L. B. April 22, 1919 
 
 46 
 
 Immortality 
 
 47 
 
 In Memoriam. T. B. D. Dec. 23, 1918 
 
 47 
 
 Of Sandro Botticelli and of his Picture the Madonna 
 
 
 of the Magnificat 
 
 48 
 
 Christmas Eve, 1916 
 
 49 
 
 Spring 
 
 53 
 
 Quietness 
 
 56 
 
 Servants of the Dead. To C. T. N. 
 
 59 
 
 A Knight of Steel 
 
 60 
 
 C. R. W. K. (Lt. R.A.F.) 
 
 61 
 
 Sunset after Battle 
 
 61 
 
 To an Aberdeen Terrier 
 
 62 
 
FLORENTINE. 
 
 LUCA DELLA ROBBIA. 
 
 ^ OD lent to him His own blue warp of sky 
 
 ^-^ And, for a woof, earth's clay ; 
 
 Then seemed incitingly to say, 
 
 " Take these and shape them to your ecstasy ! " 
 
 But Luca found between his Tuscan sod 
 
 And the wide-arching canopy 
 
 A peopled land of mystery. 
 
 Of angels, cherubim and saints of God. 
 
 Thus with three diverse worlds unto his hand, 
 
 God's sky, and cloud, and plastic soil, 
 
 And two clear tints obedient to his toil. 
 
 Pure white and blue divine, he sanctified his land. 
 
 Into a thousand wayside shrines and holy places 
 He brought down God and Blessed Mary, 
 Christ and His friends — with clay for fairy — 
 And with the help of Faith set glory on their faces. 
 
TO THE MAJESTY OF GIOTTO'S 
 CAMPANILE. 
 
 ONCE thou wert nothing more than an ethereal toy 
 Of dreamy thought 
 Loved by a little shepherd-boy, 
 Who delicately wrought 
 With fancy, half asleep, 
 Watching his sheep. 
 
 Then thou didst dare thy hesitating way 
 
 Into the light 
 
 Of cold and analysing day. 
 
 Creeping by pencilled lines and curves into men's sight, 
 
 Taking thy part 
 
 In human art. 
 
 And then thou didst pile up in sculptured stone 
 
 Thy majesty, 
 
 To stand magniiical, alone. 
 
 In the discriminating sky: — 
 
 Yet even now how often thou dost seem 
 
 Still but a dream ! 
 
PONTE SANTA TRINITA, FLORENCE, BY 
 NIGHT, FROM THE CARRAIA BRIDGE. 
 
 'T^HREE doors wide-set into a Paradise of calm 
 -*- Whose paths meander among pools of gold, 
 As little children pictured it of old, 
 Loved it in vision, lauded it in psalm. 
 
 Three brows uplifted to the wonder of our night, 
 
 Hewn in that age of talismanic will 
 
 When Passion's overflow was Art, and Faith had giant skill. 
 
 Absolute, elemental, infinite. 
 
 Three symbols of the mystic architrave of Faith, 
 Bearing the souls of men across a dream. 
 All lovely in the shadows of that stream 
 Where stars trust their pale joys upon a wraith. 
 
DAWN, FROM MONTE CECERI ABOVE 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 "XT ^RAPT in a coverture of Night 
 
 ^ ^ As delicately white 
 As spindrift when a storm is spent 
 The valley lay content : 
 And the dear City of the Flowers slept 
 In mists, which closely kept 
 From human eyes 
 Her charms and secrecies. 
 There was a throng of hesitating stars 
 Irresolute betwixt the darkness and the day, 
 And on the barriers of the East, a world away, 
 Clouds stretched their sullen bars. 
 Then o'er the slumbering abyss 
 Spread the grey pinions of the Dawn 
 As with a kiss 
 
 To rouse the haunts of men to the awakening morn. 
 And then with pomp of wide-extended wings 
 The mighty Day soared up through Heaven silently 
 Exciting beauty everywhere, and by 
 
A breath transformed Earth's small imaginings 
 Into the earliest of sacramental things, 
 Life quickened out of pain — 
 Joy brought to men again. 
 
 Florence essayed her stately way 
 
 Into new spells of Time, 
 
 Fearful a little of an unknown day. 
 
 Yet with the happiness sublime 
 
 Of dreams come true. 
 
 Each spire and belfry and each gaunt grey tower 
 
 Was kindled into fleshlike hue 
 
 And the pale Campanile, that mysterious Queen 
 
 Incarnate from a world Eternal but unseen 
 
 Rose like a lily from the dew. 
 
 Within the compass of that holy hour 
 
 All that had ever been 
 
 Of Art's high mastery 
 
 In deathless limner and in builder's might 
 
 Struggled once more towards the Light. 
 
 Only the ruddy- petalled Dome, 
 
 Gigantic flower 
 
 Of Art's wide garden, folded still 
 
 Against the night 
 
 Seemed to be waiting patiently until 
 
The heat of noonday's hour 
 Should come 
 
 And bid her open, tulip-wise, 
 Out to the generous skies. 
 
 A clear blue overarching canopy, 
 
 A new great music in the sky, 
 
 Grave oxen yawning back into the sun 
 
 Across the soft brown soil 
 
 Told that our life was once again begun 
 
 With all its joy and toil. 
 
 TO THE SETTING SUN. FIESOLE, 
 NOVEMBER. 
 
 HOW well thou showest us the courteous way 
 To die. 
 Pouring thy gifts 
 Through the long rifts 
 Of western sky 
 This chill autumnal day ! 
 Filled full with awe I watch thy setting, 
 All thought forgetting 
 
 10 
 
In thy most careful massing 
 
 Of largesses untold 
 
 During the very moments of thy passing, 
 
 When little human men look up and call thee old. 
 
 But thou art all beginnings and thy latest smile 
 
 Changes my earth to Paradise, 
 
 Lifting it Heavenwise, 
 
 Mile after lovely Tuscan mile. 
 
 From thy heart's blood thou makest bannerets for men 
 
 And softest coverlets for babes, and then 
 
 Thou hangest pageant signs along the space 
 
 Where thou hast run thy race, 
 
 And every twist of Arno smiles in glee 
 
 That Death is no unmannerly 
 
 Or sulky thing, lacking inheritance to leave to-morrow 
 
 Save only sorrow. 
 
THE RIVER ARNO— IN CHANGEABLE 
 WEATHER. 
 
 To A. McL. 
 
 •Yesterday. 
 
 A ND is this Arno of my life-long dream ? 
 -^"^ This peasant stream, 
 All brown 
 
 And furrowed, like the Tuscan soil. 
 Into the frown 
 Of stolid unimaginative toil, 
 My life-long dream ? 
 Oh ! turgid, muddy, disappointing stream ! 
 
 To-day. 
 This is the royal river that did wind 
 Its talismanic circlet round my mind 
 And heart, so 
 Many years ago. 
 A veritable Queen, 
 
 Clad for the Ocean in Cellini's bronze and Raphael's green, 
 She treads her smooth and stately way 
 Among her city's palaces which all array 
 Themselves for homage. As she passes them 
 They touch her raiment's hem 
 
 12 
 
With their own shadows silently, 
 While she, unwitting of their fealty, 
 Glides on towards the sea. 
 God-mother of my richest dream, 
 Most noble stream, 
 Take to each several Tyrrhenian wave 
 The salutations of a slave ! 
 
 SAN MINIATO AL MONTE. 
 
 /^UT of these dimmed lethargic days 
 
 ^-^ We turn our gaze 
 
 Of humble wonderment 
 
 To thee, half-Temple and half-Saint 
 
 Standing remote from us and solemn, like a sentinel 
 
 Upon thy consecrated hill. 
 
 For thou didst watch the travail and the mystery 
 
 Of a dying world's rebirth, 
 
 When came again to Earth 
 
 At weary last 
 
 Out of its floodlike energy 
 
 The bounty of an overbrimming Past : 
 
 And thou didst watch the penetrating Light 
 
 Of Wisdom whose long shafts 
 
 13 
 
Gave to all human crafts 
 
 The spirit and the glamour of the Infinite. 
 
 Watchman of those enchanted days 
 
 Through which the winged feet of Leonardo trod, 
 
 Those days when Dante wakened on his God 
 
 With fear and hope and praise, 
 
 When the angelic monk gave to his Christs eternal ecstasy 
 
 And Giotto added glory to the sky — 
 
 Watchman what of the night ? 
 
 " The morning cometh." Ah ! A seer's aeonian cry 
 
 Of Life and Light 
 
 Recurrent in Earth's sky. 
 
 " Cometh the morning ? " 
 
 We can discern no harbinger of dawning, 
 
 The grey horizon shows no hand in warning. 
 
 Assyria and Egypt of the ages long ago, 
 
 Greece, Italy and Spain 
 
 And the wide northern plain 
 
 Rose out of darkness when the Heavenly beam 
 
 Cast its inspiring gleam 
 
 On intellect and memory and soul, 
 
 And fructified the whole 
 
 With its own light. 
 
 But, ye creative Powers, 
 
 14 
 
Can any new thing come to such a world as ours ? 
 
 " The morning cometh." 
 
 Silent but certain as a dove that hometh ? 
 
 Howbeit out of reverie, 
 
 As one who prophecies 
 
 With penetrating eyes 
 
 Upon the ages yet to be, 
 
 San Miniato whispers — "Also the night." 
 
 THE INTERIOR OF THE FRANCISCAN 
 CHURCH OF SANTA CROCE, FLORENCE. 
 
 OO like the Soul of that dear human saint, 
 ^ Emptied of all, that God might fill it utterly, 
 Ever prepared for the one perfect Sacrament 
 Of Eucharist and Charity. 
 
 As the flood tides surge into ocean caves 
 Till they have merged them in the secrets of the sea. 
 So does God surge at times into that empty nave's 
 Immense recess, giving it His Infinity. 
 
 So like Christ's little poor man clad in Umbrian brown, 
 Glad spouse of Lady Poverty, when beams of morning strike 
 The terra-cotta floor, tumbling through coloured windows down 
 In laughter to the tiles, so like, so very like. 
 
 15 
 
THE FACADE OF THE CHURCH OF SANTA 
 MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE. 
 
 /^UT of the sanctuaries of the sky 
 
 ^-^ With lambent wings, 
 
 A flock of sunbeams rested silently 
 
 Upon those jewellings 
 
 Of marbled joy and praise 
 
 Which we inherit from more bounteous days. 
 
 In some far separated sphere 
 
 They learnt of that Aegean dream. 
 
 Wherein the well-beloved Seer 
 
 In mystic ecstasy 
 
 Saw deep into the gleam 
 
 And glamour of the secrets of the sea. 
 
 Thus they gave witness to his vision ultimate, 
 " And of one several pearl shall be each gate." 
 
 16 
 
THE JUDAS-TREE, IN THE BOBOLI 
 GARDENS. 
 
 T O ! Here again, 
 
 ^^ With its whole heritage of human pain 
 
 There wakes with Spring 
 
 That lovely gruesome thing, 
 
 Our Judas-tree ; 
 
 Which in the garden bleeds with centuries of miserj' 
 
 And live remorse ; 
 
 Deep purple and most passionate of heart. 
 
 With no resource 
 
 Of any other art, 
 
 Only to bleed and bleed and bleed. 
 
 With but one solitary need 
 
 Of full forgetfulness, the liberty to flee 
 
 From self's deliberate deed. 
 
 Yet once again, this very Spring, 
 
 The lovely gruesome thing. 
 
 Our Judas-tree, is decked with bleeding flowers 
 
 Through all the sunlit hours. 
 
 17 
 
THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 MOUNTAIN MAGIC. 
 " I ''0-DAY I came upon one large, sufficient thought to' send 
 
 -*- you, 
 
 Which would, I hoped, attend you 
 
 To the most distant bourne of destiny 
 
 That men can see ; 
 
 A prophet-thought inspiring as a friend, 
 
 Such as would walk with you to life's long end ; 
 
 But while I strove to give to it such outer dress 
 
 Of words and sentences as might express 
 
 Its inmost meaning, 
 
 The sudden sight, 
 
 In this wide evening's hesitating light 
 
 — Beyond the Autumn chestnut trees. 
 
 And the soft friendly music of the breeze — 
 
 Of the high wondering mountains leaning 
 
 Quietly against the sky 
 
 Eclipsed my memory ! 
 
 It was most strangely strange, 
 
 This quick forgetfulness, yet range on range 
 
 Of five-fold, dreaming, hovering lines 
 
 Of heaving Apennines 
 
 Wove all their magic loveliness into my brain, 
 
Trilling their theme as music does, again and still again, 
 
 Until the giant outlines up among the stars 
 
 Were pulsing bars 
 
 In a great harmony 
 
 Between the silent earth and silent sky. 
 
 And so my thought indeed I do forget. 
 
 But yet 
 
 Maybe 
 
 The mountains better think than we, 
 
 When they do stretch themselves on high ; 
 
 For so they make us sigh 
 
 With curious wonder and surprise 
 
 When we do lift our eyes. 
 
 Monte Senario. 
 
 NATIONALITY. 
 
 T IKE to beloved petals deftly pressed 
 
 •" By the fine care of Memory between her pages. 
 
 Held I the rugged path, the skyward spheres, 
 
 The great white Throne with snow-girt crest. 
 
 Whence, as if greatly compassed by a cloud 
 
 Of witnesses and prophets and of seers, 
 
 I looked on such a world as God might see 
 
 19 
 
In the clear focus of the Ages — 
 
 A vast and lovely thing, unconsciously endowed 
 
 With the whole heritage and splendour of Eternity. 
 
 And in the tabernacle of my soul 
 
 A stately melody was daily chanted 
 
 Over an altar dedicate to Ecstasy, 
 
 A glad responsive praise 
 
 By winged seraphim in mountain phrase 
 
 Of purple gentian and red alpenrose, 
 
 Of the shy creature of the mist, the edelweiss, 
 
 And of the whole 
 
 Wide-opened sea-green wonder of the glacier ice. 
 
 And the full cadence of their song was haunted 
 
 By the soft fluttering of the far-spread wings 
 
 Of Dawn, who out of long mysterious journeyings 
 
 Could find a fit repose 
 
 Amid the eaglets' wild inviolable ways. 
 
 Thus gently walked the world with me till yesterday. 
 
 When suddenly 
 
 Rude silence broke my seraphs' antiphone 
 
 And Memory turned inconsequent away, 
 
 Leaving me visionless, bereft, alone. 
 
 Yet with its old persuasiveness there came 
 
 The Spirit of the Mountain Heights to me 
 
 20 
 
Speaking of wounds and all the grim finality 
 
 Of mortal pain. So, as a lover to a sacrament, 
 
 Bidden insistently by name 
 
 And beckoned eagerly, I went. 
 
 The silent crags, whose scimitars had flashed so high 
 
 Into the Heaven by day, the stars by night. 
 
 With the keen urgency of giant prayer. 
 
 Betwixt two races, diverse planned by Fate 
 
 And cleft by adamantine Destiny, 
 
 Were in the thrall of fire and agony, 
 
 And blood-red tongues of cannon-flare 
 
 And the wild grandeur of uncalculated hate. 
 
 Which overflows the soul of Right 
 
 When faced by cruelty of reckless Might, 
 
 Had made their sacred slopes a Court of Rivalry. 
 
 The silver pyramid of proud Altissimo, 
 
 Pitched like an angel's tent 
 
 In the blue desert of the firmament. 
 
 Was gashed. 
 
 And unaccustomed billows lashed 
 
 Their foam on Garda's shore resentfully. 
 
 The happy garth of bountiful Ampezzo, 
 
 All paved with pasturage and freeborn flowers 
 
 And cloistered round by Titan bastions, 
 
 21 
 
Where in conventual felicity 
 
 Cortina knelt unfretted through her holy hours, 
 
 Was fouled by thundering boasts and huge profanity 
 
 From bursting flames of flesh-devouring guns. 
 
 And the bleak rock-strewn Carso plain, 
 
 Across whose meadowlands the breath 
 
 Of the Venetian sea 
 
 Floats to its soaring Alpine boundary, 
 
 Was in the tension of vile pain, 
 
 Gripped by the talons of insatiable Death. 
 
 But I had often slept upon the bosom of their heather 
 
 And we had shared the philtre of forgetfulness 
 
 Beneath some generous maternal cloud, 
 
 Which wrapped us close in ventures of heroic dreams, 
 
 And we had waked together 
 
 To the wonder and the miracle of Dawn. 
 
 For listen ! Long ago, 
 
 In the chill font of their baptismal streams, 
 
 Held by their massive arms, I was reborn. 
 
 Thus the initiate and creature of their spell, 
 
 I dared to cry aloud 
 
 In childlike stress. 
 
 That they should whisper by the winds to me 
 
 Or bid their Sylphid Echo tell 
 
 Their liege's name, their chosen fealty. 
 
 22 
 
Then from a chasm of portentous skies, 
 
 Through the grim riot of the battle's smoke, 
 
 Came fluttering their hesitant rephes 
 
 Like homing birds. 
 
 After the fashion of their souls the mountains spoke : 
 
 Tonale's Amazonian Queen, her sign of lealty, 
 
 Sent the most lilting of celestial words. 
 
 Her regal name and rhythmic — Presanella, 
 
 And her whole feudal retinue of peaks 
 
 Uttered a hundred syllables of Latin grace ; 
 
 From the far solemn fane of massy Sella 
 
 Floated a choric melody — 
 
 Rodella, di Fontane an4 Siella, 
 
 And the clear voice of Costabella, 
 
 Of pristine Babel race, 
 
 Who from our earthbound levels seeks 
 
 The Throne of God from her ambitious towers. 
 
 Thus Echo led enticing through rapt hours, 
 
 Wherein I heard the sighs of Col di Lana 
 
 Join the response of shadowy Tofana, 
 
 While the full cup of Marmolata's ice o'erbrimmed in sound 
 
 And the five bells of Cinque Torri clanged for festival 
 
 To the deep plains, and from the over-arched profound 
 
 Immense Cristallo spoke her soul in glistening light. 
 
 That most convincing tongue of all, 
 
 23 
 
Which cuts its message deep into the nerves of sight ; 
 
 Across their frozen paths the Brenta's and the Pala's call 
 
 Crashed in a glacial cataract to the ground; 
 
 And the wide eastward range of saintly christening, 
 
 Of Marco, Caterina, Gabriele, 
 
 Of Croce, Daniele and Michele, 
 
 Revealed themselves high comrades to my listening. 
 
 I who loved well their screes and crags, their fissures and their 
 
 snows. 
 Can share with them their throes — 
 Illustrious slaves, held alien from a natural dynasty ; 
 Thus they unfolded their affinities to me — 
 Love calling unto Love — and told transparently, 
 In their own birthright tongue, with no Teutonic word. 
 Whom they elected for their rightful lord — 
 Down from those Northern heights of what shall be 
 To-morrow — in God's world of Right — -true Italy. 
 
 Spring, 1917. 
 
 24 
 
NIGHT. 
 
 Among the Dolomites. 
 
 A LL shadows and all darkness of the world seem to have 
 -^*- found 
 
 Contentment here in silence, not muteness as of Death, 
 But of deep prayer, pausing as one who listeneth 
 If peradventure God might speak through some dim sound. 
 
 INCARNATION. 
 
 Cortina d'Ampezzo, Cadore. 
 
 TN the dim quietness of dawn, 
 
 -^ Among the shadow of these crystal masses, 
 
 A sacred word returns to me, 
 
 The word of the Babe-Christ so lowly born 
 
 Near by the oxen and the asses, 
 
 The word — Nativity. 
 
 He was the promised Dayspring 
 
 Come to visit from on high 
 
 All men's necessities. 
 
 In His own flesh and blood to bring 
 
 Heaven's consummate offering, 
 
 God coming nigh 
 
 Unto man's prayers and grave perplexities. 
 
 25 
 
Here the white stars of morning sing 
 
 With angel mirth 
 
 At the first coming of the Hght, 
 
 Now touching, now awakening 
 
 The sleeping Earth 
 
 Out of the darkness of the night. 
 
 Forbid that we should desecrate 
 
 By word or mood 
 
 The mystery of Holy Incarnation ! 
 
 Yet surely by some Heaven-planned fate 
 
 This dawn brings food 
 
 Unto the soul's salvation. 
 
 Pink as the flesh of new-born child 
 
 The peaks arise 
 
 In beauty unimagined and unspoken, 
 
 The Very Light redomiciled 
 
 Before men's eyes, 
 
 Incarnate, clear, in splendid token. 
 
 26 
 
EVENING. 
 
 Cortina d'Ampezzo. Cadore. 
 
 A FITTING couch whereon tired Day might lie, 
 -^^*- Soft-woven of a strath of dreaming flowers, 
 Who having added gala to its hours, 
 Proffer their sumptuous hospitality. 
 
 Fragrance of pines and of the drying hay 
 Floats gently down upon the Summer breeze, 
 Odours of grasses and of forest trees. 
 Censing the couch made ready for the Day. 
 
 Vast rocks hold back wide areas of the sky 
 
 And break all gusts from North and East and West 
 
 Upon some jagged crag or towering crest ; 
 
 A fitting place wherein tired Day should lie. 
 
 And Day — philanthropist supreme — 
 Comes silently to share the flowers' dream. 
 
 27 
 
SONG OF MOUNTAIN LONGING. 
 
 W 
 
 'HEN my mind's unaccountable ways 
 Have become a burden to me, 
 Give me the sounds and the scents 
 And a part in the mystery, 
 Of the land of Heavenward peak 
 And ice-flecked battlement. 
 There shall my thoughts find quietness 
 And my harassed soul content. 
 
 Give me the laugh of the hurrying stream and the rustle of 
 
 grasshoppers' wings, 
 And the cowherd's voice coming down from the heights as he 
 
 lustily yodels and sings, 
 The cry of the falcon far up above, and below, the soft 
 
 humming of bees, 
 And the shy little birds and the soft warm wind, whispering in 
 
 the trees. 
 
 Give me the breath of the new-mown hay on the mountain 
 
 slopes as it dries, 
 And the fragrance of moss and of resinous pines in the hour 
 
 when the sun shall arise, 
 Give me the scent of a thousand flowers and the odour of rich 
 
 brown loam. 
 And at night the smoke from the log-built fire of a peasant's 
 
 upland home. 
 
 28 
 
Give me the lift of the surging rocks with their foaming crests 
 
 in the sky. 
 And the faith of the earth in whose resolute peaks is prayer 
 
 which never can die, 
 Make me the child of a new-born day, who will blush in 
 
 surprise at the sun, 
 Forgetful of all that has ever yet been, in a world that has 
 
 hardly begun. 
 
 TO ONE WHO LIVES AMONG THE HILLS— 
 
 VrOU blessed thing ! 
 
 -*■ You child of kind soft clouds and heavenl}- graces. 
 Above the need of common bread 
 Feeding upon white stars unlimited ! 
 I am remembering. 
 
 And yet, though mine is but the misty plain. 
 
 From youj at very least, a world away. 
 
 The prophets say 
 
 Again and yet again, 
 
 That the sure path to Life's best places 
 
 Is the least likely one, 
 
 Through the flat ways of drudgery and pain. 
 
 But God Himself is there when the path is done. 
 
 29 
 
OTHER VERSE. 
 
 BEPPINA. 
 
 T TER years, I ween, 
 
 ■'- -'■ Have scarcely touched sixteen. 
 
 Her height ? 
 
 It's difficult to count the inches of a sprite. 
 
 But she is tall 
 
 And hath a springing gait which is majestical. 
 
 Her figure ? Slight and supple is as any withy, 
 
 Even a little Grecian, prithee, 
 
 Like her small face. 
 
 Which is the last epitome of girlhood's grace. 
 
 Her eyes ? 
 
 Two cloudless Tuscan skies, 
 
 Quite crystal clear. 
 
 Full of the visions of a seer. 
 
 Her sun-bronzed brow 
 
 Is smooth unto the touch, I trow, 
 
 30 
 
And her brown hair 
 
 Like falcon wings upon the air. 
 
 The curves of her sweet mouth 
 
 Are tuned unto the music of the South, 
 
 With teeth which do belong 
 
 Unto some merry-making pastoral song. 
 
 As to her powers ? 
 
 She doth most diligently fill the hours, 
 
 And would not shirk 
 
 The least important kind of unimposing work. 
 
 Her intellect ? I cannot tell; 
 
 Being herself she would not need to spell. 
 
 What then will her unwritten future be ? 
 
 It matters not — each day is her Eternity. 
 
 And her impelling charm ? 
 
 She is the blithe young goddess of an upland farm ; 
 
 And when she comes into the waking morn, 
 
 Out of her dreams re-born, 
 
 Leading her oxen forth at five. 
 
 You know how good it is to be alive. 
 
 31 
 
TO ONE WHO LIVES AT SIENA. K.E.W. 
 
 T KNOW your Duomo, with its miracle of simple bars 
 
 -"- Of marble, black and white, climbing in parallels into the sky. 
 
 And I have watched it play the wizard with the unaccustomed 
 
 eye. 
 Glistening at noonday and at midnight companying with the 
 
 stars. 
 
 I know it, towering ambition, gorgeously conceived ; 
 
 I can detect a smile upon those wise old Papal faces, 
 
 As they look down upon that pavement worthy of celestial 
 
 races, 
 A floor on which great Gods might be most pompously received. 
 
 I know how the soft winged rays come down each Tuscan 
 
 morn 
 And rest like Seraphim about the altar set on high. 
 Where Mystery and Beauty meet and kiss in ecstasy ; 
 Yet all its splendour leaves me sad, unfriended and forlorn. 
 
 I know ; and wonder wherefore it was planned and wrought. 
 From hunger for the love of God ? or out of pride in human 
 
 opulence ? 
 Far from its jewelled glories, wandering through by-ways thence. 
 In a small shrine unnoted I did find the Christ I sought. 
 
 32 
 
MUSIC. 
 
 OOMETIMES, before the day begins, I dream 
 
 ^ Of instruments all bravely cast 
 
 From the full glory of that light 
 
 Which pours its radiant stream 
 
 From the red furnace of the rim of night, 
 
 Played by angelic minstrels massed 
 
 In praise triumphant, round Those Feet 
 
 Where all the Arts of Earth and Heaven meet. 
 
 The fettered arts are fain to find content 
 
 In earthly things, 
 
 Things to cajole or labour, shape or twist 
 
 According as they list 
 
 To their imaginings ; , 
 
 Things pliant or obedient, 
 
 Pigments and syllables, filaments and stone. 
 
 Metal and plastic clay 
 
 Which do obey 
 
 A dominating mind and own 
 
 A Maker's right 
 
 Through them to bring into the light 
 
 Visions which had been pent. 
 
 33 c 
 
But oh ! Ye thin white moon and pahng stars ! 
 
 How different 
 
 The unconscious skill 
 
 The free, exuberant, creative will 
 
 And tireless energy 
 
 Which fills the little lark that wakens me ! 
 
 He has the freedom of the trackless skies. 
 
 He casts his unexpected bars — 
 
 As one who thinks aloud — 
 
 From cloud to listening cloud, 
 
 Forebeckoning our destinies 
 
 The wonder and the sacrament of birth 
 
 Up from the plains of Earth 
 
 And down from Heaven in one emprise. 
 
 And with such fearless confidence 
 
 He upward wings 
 
 And sings 
 
 That the high mountains mutely stand 
 
 Far back in natural obeisance 
 
 To give him wider space 
 
 For the outpouring 
 
 Of his grace. 
 
 While hovering and soaring 
 
 He scatters notes of mirth 
 
 Or paeans grand. 
 
 34 
 
And at great moments in great hours 
 
 The little sorcerer sets free 
 
 Those fettered arts, 
 
 Marshalling all to take their parts 
 
 In his great artistry, 
 
 And then he stretches, guides or lifts 
 
 According to its gifts 
 
 Or powers, 
 
 Each form and curve, each rhythm and each tint 
 
 And uses every smallest hint 
 
 Of all Earth's richest energies 
 
 To make the hour supreme. 
 
 La Casetta, Mugello. 
 
 35 C2 
 
BIRTHDAY. 
 
 TT TITH His own hand God painted for my mood, 
 
 * ^ On the wide space above the ilex-wood, 
 One marvellously simple thought. 
 Which was by Him so intimately wrought 
 That all the January sky 
 Flushed at the touch of His Divinity. 
 Yet there are those who impudently say 
 That human clay 
 Is the one Primal Cause ! 
 Dear prattlers ! they would pause, 
 If they had looked upon that canvas of the West 
 When the Supreme Artificer, to-day at Vesper hour. 
 Made me His offering, the very loveliest 
 First smile of Spring, and tender as a flower. 
 
 36 
 
ASSISI OF SAINT FRANCIS. 
 
 I. 
 THE PORZIUNCULA. 
 
 OTATELY initiate of Umbria's Holy spell 
 ^ Saint Mary of the Angels in her giant shell 
 Still clasps that pearl of the soul's deepest sea, 
 The " Little Portion," where the Intimate of Christ, 
 Second to be the Spouse of Lady Poverty, 
 Kept daily tryst. 
 Thither with overflo wing praise 
 From hungry hearts and dark despondent days 
 On which had shone his joyous love, 
 Like light through dew, from Heaven above, 
 I went into that place forever sacrosanct, to say 
 My thanks to God from the small shrine where he was wont to 
 pray. 
 
 Upon the shallow Altar-steps, most lowly bent, 
 
 There kneeled in rapture of content 
 
 A little brown-clad monk, immoveable, alone. 
 
 Sculptured, as might be, out of stone : 
 
 I touched the very gates of Heaven there, 
 
 And having emptied all my soul in prayer 
 
 I looked towards the little monk and found 
 
 No sign of him ! Yet had the stillness told no faintest sound. 
 
 37 
 
II. 
 
 THE CARCERI. 
 
 OOME say that all is different now men be grown so wise, 
 ^ Not all, Thank God ! Not birds, nor flowers, nor skies, 
 The trees and moss endure unchanged by trite imaginings 
 And the sheer soul is still anhungered for God's things. 
 
 Among the woods on steep Subasio's side, 
 
 The stripling Tiber far below, once strangely deified ; 
 
 Men and their fickle wisdoms fade, while God draws near. 
 
 And the heart dares to cast out every fear : 
 
 Great comfort overcomes and fills it with a certainty 
 
 Of large and anxious love, born of Eternity. 
 
 God and His Christ, Saint Francis and his friends 
 
 Are there and every angel-memory attends. 
 
 Shutting my eyes, birds fluttered down to rest 
 Upon my arms and knees and breast. 
 Those birds who never fly beyond their Father's care 
 They came as silently as answers unto prayer. 
 
 It was an hour of pure delight unlimited. 
 
 And when a soft hand rested on my head 
 
 I rose with wonder that a human touch could reach me there, 
 
 Yet was there no one, and no footfall stirred the quiet air. 
 
 38 
 
III. 
 
 THE CLOISTERED CEMETERY. 
 (Upper Church of Saint Francis.) 
 
 "DUILDED of Faith and living memories, 
 
 -*-' Here only worthless vision dies : 
 
 All else is of the pilgrim ages 
 
 Among the cypresses and saxifrages : 
 
 Here doth the spirit wake to gladly mingled stress 
 
 Of prayer and wonderment and tenderness. 
 
 Easter had given to Earth the Living Christ again 
 
 Rising, baptised afresh in suffering and pain ; 
 
 Feeling Him near, I leaned upon the cloister wall 
 
 And gazed at the gay light and cheerful shade, watching them 
 
 fall 
 In suchwise as to make all glorious, to fulfil 
 Their duty unto Him, by their long practised skill. 
 
 Then came like ripples of soft sound upon an inland shore 
 Half whisper, half clear music through the corridor. 
 Two voices as of those who talk 
 In intimacy as they walk. 
 One spake as with a Heavenly finality, 
 
 I heard the words "My Kingdom," "Verily," "Birds," 
 " Charity," 
 
 39 
 
The other spoke ia tones of trembling joy 
 As of a keen impressionable boy. 
 I waited for them at the postern door 
 They came not ! and I heard no more. 
 
 ON LEAVE IN ITALY, SPRING, 1918. 
 
 T CRAVED a few old-fashioned hours, 
 
 -*- A stretch of greensward, wayside flowers, 
 
 A place of such sure peace 
 
 As could afford release 
 
 From my own wearied brain 
 
 And the loud furnace of the plain ; 
 
 Soft quietness like sleep, if it might be, 
 
 A quietness to dream in, and to see 
 
 Perhaps God's own idea of Victory. 
 
 And so I went among the gentle things 
 
 That pass their days amid the silent grass. 
 
 Friendlike anemone, violet and celandine. 
 
 Far from the roar and flame and mutterings 
 
 Of Death, whelming and crass. 
 
 I found them neath a broken Christ within a shrine! 
 
 I turned to the long avenues of vine, 
 Hoping that they, of their rich charity, 
 
 40 
 
Would give me rest with them. 
 
 But from their shade a virile hand sought mine, 
 
 And a voice pleaded eagerly, 
 
 " Withoul; thee I am but a fruitless stem ! " 
 
 At last I sought mid twisted olive-trees 
 
 That peace which they, so very old and wise, 
 
 Must surely understand. 
 
 I found among them One upon His knees. 
 
 Daring to gaze into God's very eyes, 
 
 A cup in His trembling hand ! 
 
 ANTON, TYROLESE PEASANT PROPRIETOR. 
 
 TO K. F. 
 
 /^UT of these dusk November days, melancholy, lone, 
 
 ^-^ I have the shortest of short cuts, I cry " Anton ! " 
 
 And at that call he looms into my memory 
 
 Silhouetted up against a cloudless sky 
 
 Portentous, like a primitive Divinity ! 
 
 Thus bring I back those comfortable days 
 
 When Heaven was busy with her largesses of grace 
 
 And every geveral sunbeam seemed to bring 
 
 The blissful earth some new and perfect offering. 
 
 In day-dreams he returns delightfully 
 
 41 
 
With his whole overflowing natural humanity. 
 
 His face ? A gargoyle carved of wood, 
 
 Hurried a little in the chiselling, and roughly stained 
 
 Yet excellently good 
 
 In kindliness unfeigned : 
 
 Of all the weather-beaten creatures ever seen. 
 
 The prize would go to Anton of the ripened mien ! 
 
 His glance is unrehearsed as sunbeams dancing 
 
 On a glacier stream, from eyes entrancing ; 
 
 Square brow, deep lined, as though for pleasure 
 
 Time had let plenteous history into it at leisure ; 
 
 Teeth gripping like a vice forever busy 
 
 With a stalwart pipe, so serious a smoker is he ; 
 
 The lips around them ready for a smile when need be 
 
 Or a loud laugh, reverberating, jolly. 
 
 His shirt wide open, shorts of untanned leather, 
 
 A sunburnt chest and bare abundant knees, 
 
 Show him a furry man of boundless energies, 
 
 Builded of dust and Godliness together. 
 
 From his capacious hands and swarthy arm 
 
 I count five thousand long unstinted days upon his farm. 
 
 To him " eight hours of work " would be 
 
 An impudent affront on his virility. 
 
 He looks upon the world through eyes 
 
 Which loathe its subtilities, 
 
 42 
 
In other men he seeks for what is in himself, 
 
 No knavery — with greedy eyes on pelf ; 
 
 One man, consistent, clean, not two, 
 
 Wholesome of mind and soul, one man all through. 
 
 Italian? German? Ladin? Silence ye Ethnic theories jl 
 
 For good five centuries back — pure Tyrolese. 
 
 To me I frankly own, 
 
 He's part of summer's blessedness, this good Anton, 
 
 Part of the laden vines, the bristling chestnut trees 
 
 The busy nectar-hunting bees. 
 
 The fragrance of the hesitating breeze : 
 
 But, bless you ! when the snow lies thick, 
 
 I'm sure he still is he, a veritable brick 
 
 As ever art divine has tried 
 
 Its hand upon — and must indeed be satisfied. 
 
 Why do I love this excellent Anton ? 
 
 You think may be it's just a sentimental whim, — 
 
 Well ! Well ! The most of us might humbly envy him. 
 
 When he shall stand before the Great White Throne. 
 
 43 
 
A WAYSIDE CRUCIFIX IN TYROL. 
 
 A yTY Christ, why dost Thou droop so deep Thy tired head? 
 -'■'•'■ And Thine attenuated arms, why are they so far spread? 
 Is it the glory of the peaks that Thou wouldst hold ? 
 Surely their glory and their fulness were forever Thine of old. 
 
 Yet do Thine arms continue wide in longing every day. 
 
 Outspread towards me as I pass beneath Thee on my home- 
 ward way, 
 
 Still wide Thine arms. Thine eyes still seeking, still Thy 
 drooping head. 
 
 Is it that Thou art wanting not more glory — but myself instead? 
 
 EUCHARIST. 
 
 T TNWEARYING Husbandman, I thank Thee 
 
 *-^ For the seed 
 
 Of hungry human need. 
 
 Set in me 
 
 By Thy skill so deep 
 
 Long years ago, when Thou didst plan 
 
 My little span ! 
 
 44 
 
I thank Thee, for awakening from sleep 
 
 It makes me clasp Thy hand, 
 
 And quickens me to understand 
 
 Thy ways 
 
 Through a vast multitude of days ! 
 
 I have no words fitly to tell 
 
 The overbrimmings of delight. 
 
 The nameless spell 
 
 Of Tuscan night ; 
 
 Yet Thou hast made it to be intimately mine 
 
 As Thine. 
 
 Thou hast bent down and steeped Thy mountains red 
 
 With wine, like blood new-shed. 
 
 And with a boundless hospitality 
 
 Outspread 
 
 A radiant galaxy. 
 
 To be 
 
 A feast of white mysterious bread 
 
 To me. 
 
 So do I humbly raise 
 
 My praise 
 
 For that most human need. 
 
 Which slept within Thine unsuspecting seed 
 
 45 
 
Called me, and for its hungering flower. 
 
 Which wakened for this banquet hour 
 
 Of stars and blood-wrought sky, 
 
 Which Thou didst bend 
 
 And lend 
 
 To me, that I 
 
 Might feed content 
 
 Upon Thy Heavenly Sacrament. 
 
 s 
 
 L.B. APRIL 22, 1919. 
 
 HE used to walk with God among the olive-trees 
 Hearing His voice in the soft cadence of the breeze. 
 
 His overarching Love gave to her heart its Light, 
 As the Sun to the morning and the Stars to night. 
 
 Now lies her body by an ivy-covered wall 
 
 Where out of shadows a great cypress weaves its pall. 
 
 Yet does she neither sleep nor dream in wonder there ; 
 Hers is the Liberty of God's Eternal Everywhere. 
 
 46 
 
IMMORTALITY. 
 
 T AST night the sun sank down mid belts of gloom, 
 -^-' Followed not even by the torch of one faint star ; 
 Down and forespent, alone, he sank afar 
 While black horizon-clouds covered his tomb. 
 
 Yet was the sun not dead ! This day's first Light 
 Exultant in a whole world quickening anew 
 Laughed through a hundred million drops of dew 
 Escaping like small elves out of the night. 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. T.B.D., DEC. 23, 1918. 
 
 T IKE as the silent chisel of the rain 
 
 ■*-' Reveals the alabaster treasured by the hills 
 
 Wherein its mysteries unseen had lain, 
 
 So did the slow deliberate hand of Pain 
 
 Lay bare within his mien that spirit which fulfills 
 
 The prophecy of life and vanquishes our human ills. 
 
 In him it seemed as though the Christ had died again. 
 
 47 
 
OF SANDRO BOTTICELLI AND OF 
 
 HIS PICTURE THE MADONNA OF THE 
 
 MAGNIFICAT. 
 
 A ND does he know now that he labours day by day 
 -*^*- At other themes, which seem to us so very far away, 
 How often here he gives a living child to anguished arms, 
 A little Christ to carry off and cherish gainst Earth's harms. 
 A darling, wistful, solemn boy needing much human care, 
 A world of understanding and an Earthly hearthstone where 
 A perfect little God can be once more at home. 
 Madonna gives him up whenever childless hearts say — " Come." 
 
 48 
 
CHRISTMAS EVE, 1916. 
 
 (Just after Germany's first proposal of Peace.) 
 
 'T^HE eager star 
 
 -*- Which, on this eve of vast expectancy 
 Long centuries since, 
 Leaned from afar 
 And held its light 
 
 For pilgrims coming from the wondering East, 
 Lest they should miss the Holy Prince 
 Because He came so humanly, 
 Leans Earthward once again 
 To-night, 
 
 This night of our red scars and wounds and pam, 
 Bidding us to a feast ! 
 
 Ah ! It was easy then. 
 
 On that calm night 
 
 A score of gentle centuries ago, 
 
 To blossom so, 
 
 Like to a flower uncurling white 
 
 In the dim garden of a dreaming sky, 
 
 And with o'erbrimming love towards men 
 
 49 
 
To hint a gracious prophecy 
 Of Peace 
 
 And infinitely rich increase 
 Of human charity. 
 
 But now, even the sinless soil 
 
 Of frugal toil 
 
 Is stained with smoke and fire and blood ; 
 
 Barbarian passion's flood 
 
 Has swept high promises and every sacred thing 
 
 To nether places, 
 
 With an uncalculating hate, 
 
 Unthoughtful and unthinking. 
 
 As a wild torrent when it races 
 
 In careless spate. 
 
 Well nigh two thousand times 
 
 The midnight chimes 
 
 Have cast 
 
 Their Christmas benedictions on the Past ; 
 
 Yet some have even coldly said : 
 
 " The little Child grew frightened e'er His birth 
 
 And came to Bethlehem dead ; 
 
 Shrinking from mortal laps, 
 
 He did not dare 
 
 To trust Himself to merely human care ; 
 
 50 
 
So Earth might call and call and call, 
 But He, He did not come at all ; 
 This hungry and illusioned Earth 
 Is but a fragment of God's mirth ! " 
 
 Howbeit, unto hearts that see, 
 
 Some far-off light 
 
 Leans down again within the circuit of our sight 
 
 And gleams 
 
 With long and penetrating beams. 
 
 But in this stricken, crushed, distorted day 
 
 Of ours can any strange Nativity 
 
 Have part ? 
 
 Dare even sky-girt angels sing 
 
 The advent of a King ? 
 
 Is there in truth a star to steer by and obey ? 
 
 It is not so 
 
 The Prince of Mystery now comes ; softer than breath 
 
 And with the silent tread of Life or Death 
 
 He comes, not calling " Lo ! 
 
 I come ! " — with observation loud. 
 
 As to a heedless crowd. 
 
 But like a tired traveller seeking some welcoming room, 
 
 Some clean, contentful refuge from the gloom 
 
 Without, which is so dark. 
 
 51 D2 
 
Have you a fitting place for Him within your heart ? 
 
 Wake then all senses of your soul and hark ! 
 
 Listen ! His voice ! 
 
 " Hell's light or mine, hatred or love, honour or lies ; 
 
 There is no other choice 
 
 For you ! " He cries. 
 
 But this is hard and stern and grim, 
 
 Not as we heard of Him, 
 
 The Holy Child, the Enemy of Strife ! 
 
 Come to the Feast and sup ! 
 
 The Bread is His own tortured Life ; 
 
 Into the Cup 
 
 He pours, out of His soul, the Wine 
 
 Of His own Victory, so human, so divine, 
 
 Whereof the prize He gives to you and me — 
 
 If we will have it so — the instinct of Eternity. 
 
 52 
 
SPRING. 
 
 'T'O me 
 
 -■- This is no simple customary thing, 
 The Spring. 
 For see ! 
 
 The Earth awakes, 
 Opening ten million eyes 
 Of beautiful surprise. 
 And takes 
 Her fill of light 
 After a long dark dreary night. 
 Now all her splendid winter dreams, 
 It seems, 
 Are coming true, 
 
 So perfectly does Spring make all things new. 
 It is but yesterday, with weary sigh, 
 I did prepare myself to die, 
 Not therefore sad. 
 But glad. 
 Howbeit now, 
 
 53 
 
Under this gentle spell, I know not how, 
 
 The world is different 
 
 Under this spell 
 
 Of clean blue firmament 
 
 And smiling earth. 
 
 Where radiant daffodil and golden crocus tell 
 
 An overbrimming mirth. 
 
 So you may see 
 
 How haps it unto me. 
 
 That the huge gift of Spring 
 
 Is really no small thing. 
 
 To-day 
 
 Though why I cannot say, 
 
 I want to feel the throbbing pulse of things 
 
 Rise from my soul and steal 
 
 Through all my questionings, 
 
 And deal 
 
 With all my multitude of craven fears 
 
 And tears, 
 
 So that my heart will never once again 
 
 Lose courage under pain. 
 
 I want to live 
 
 A hungry thousandfold and more 
 
 Than I have ever lived before. 
 
 To give 
 
 54 
 
All impulses that have their start 
 
 Within my heart 
 
 Their liberty to strive 
 
 And thrive. 
 
 I want to love as I have dreamed 
 
 That love might be ; 
 
 Clearly to see 
 
 What in the past has only gleamed 
 
 Like far-off light 
 
 In some dull lonely night ; 
 
 To guess the secret of the morning star 
 
 And come to intimacy with the spheres 
 
 Afar, afar, 
 
 Beyond our fears, 
 
 Where all my giant hope 
 
 Will find fulfilment of its scope. 
 
 So you may see 
 
 This old and jog-trot, regular-coming Spring 
 
 Is not to me 
 
 In any wise an ordinary thing ! 
 
 55 
 
QUIETNESS. 
 
 TT THILE the Artificer Supreme was gendering His cosmic 
 
 ^ ' plan 
 Of giving life to Earth and making man ; 
 With deep parental joy in the creative thought, 
 He loved it through the ages, as He wrought 
 Into their finished state the vast machineries 
 Beneath whose impact out of dust should rise 
 A world of beings, quickening with a sense 
 Of potency, conscious, intense. 
 
 His instruments were manifold; sunlit calm and storm. 
 Plenty and penury in diverse form, 
 Laughter and agony, wonderment and tears. 
 Blood-feud, affection, hopes, perplexities and fears. 
 And such constructive tools of every kind 
 As in His dextrous hand would surely wake 
 The sensibilities of this mysterious dust, and make 
 Its life responsive to a Master-mind. 
 And then, methinks, He stayed His hand, 
 Having with care unwearying designed. 
 By the inerrant foresight of His mind, 
 
 56 
 
A place of hunger and surprise, a land 
 
 Of contrast, question, and of enterprise. 
 
 Wherein awakening clay might feel the glory of its birth, 
 
 When day by day its latent energies 
 
 Were claimed by the demands of Earth. 
 
 He stayed, because one offering He did desire 
 
 To make unto His creatures all, 
 
 Wise as they might be, hungering or small. 
 
 Something to which they could aspire 
 
 According to their mood, 
 
 As to ambrosial food. 
 
 Of which, however weary, they would never tire. 
 
 Then holding in His hand that unborn stream 
 
 Of life, which at His bidding instantly 
 
 Should forward flow, bound for Eternity, 
 
 Forever widening, like a river in a dream. 
 
 He did resolve that nothing less 
 
 Than part of His own life 
 
 Should be His offering to the stress 
 
 Of a small star whose destiny was strife : 
 
 And thus His choice was Quietness — His own. 
 
 Completing all that He had done 
 
 Before the world was yet begun ; 
 
 And this lay waiting, like a seed deep-sown : 
 
 This His so frequent form of speech 
 
 57 
 
When to our anguish He desires to reach ; 
 
 And this His tenderest of deeds, 
 
 Binding His inmost Self unto a whole world's needs. 
 
 The ice of floating berg and skyward peak accept its spell 
 
 And every falling snowflake loves it well ; 
 
 After the anger of great storms, the tired sea 
 
 Accepts the gift most willingly ; 
 
 Some of our household intimates, not born to sing, 
 
 Bring us the nearer God by practising 
 
 A function so Divine, 
 
 And all the flowers, gently born and wise. 
 
 Bearing the Heavenly sign. 
 
 Are its Apostles to discerning eyes. 
 
 But restless men ? Save but for here and there a seer, 
 They have not apprehended it, it doth appear ; 
 To-day, when they do lack it most and cry 
 For just such dower, they heedless pass it by. 
 
SERVANTS OF THE DEAD. 
 TO C.T.N. 
 
 T3Y the high-flung confines, 
 
 -*-^ Whose shelving sides were Austria and Italy, 
 
 A soldiers' graveyard nestles silently 
 
 Among the mountain pines. 
 
 They sleep beneath the snows. 
 Leaving no name by which to trace 
 Their nationality, or rank, or race. 
 Those mute unnumbered rows. 
 
 Yet is their sacred soil 
 
 Not left to be forgotten utterly. 
 
 The shadows of a Crucifix each sunlit day 
 
 Give it their gentle toil. 
 
 And on the bare hillside, 
 
 Above the level of the friendly trees, 
 
 Warfare has stamped into the earth deep vestiges 
 
 Ruthlessly multiplied. 
 
 59 
 
Red, rusting where they fell, 
 
 The scattered helmets of the dead still lie, 
 
 Which to a heedful passer-by 
 
 Their tale of battle tell. 
 
 A thousand holy flowers 
 
 Lending their lips unto the dumb. 
 
 Blue Heavenward forget-me-nots, are come 
 
 To pray beside them through the summer hours. 
 
 A KNIGHT OF STEEL. 
 
 T MET a blood-stained warrior whose flaming eyes 
 •*• Seemed to have pierced the unborn centuries : 
 I asked for whom he had sought victory ; 
 He said " For a whole world of children yet to be. 
 Not Vengence am I, nor a man of any fame, 
 Only a Christian Knight — Pity by name." 
 
 60 
 
C. R. W. K. (Lt. R.A.F.) 
 
 "\T O marble pillar carved as if snapped suddenly in twain 
 -*- ' Shall desecrate the fane of the Eternal skies, 
 Or foul our Faith, or make the death of Christ seem vain, 
 Upon the sacred ground wherein his body lies. 
 
 To Life there are no voids, no breaks, no useless pauses. 
 Though through innumerable doors its path must wind 
 It waits not, never even hesitates ; the Great God causes 
 Each son of His forward to go and prosper after His own mind. 
 
 Therefore in bronze enduring there shall be, symbol of pil- 
 grimages, 
 Only a volume newly opened at its frontispiece 
 And all uncut its multitude of pages, 
 Waiting for record of the coming years that now are his. 
 
 SUNSET AFTER BATTLE. 
 
 UNCOUNTED gold and priceless blood 
 Cast ruthlessly upon the spread 
 Of Life's horizon — young To-morrow's world : 
 And then across the sky, a sudden flood 
 Of surging cloud over the dead 
 Like a great banner solemnly unfurled. 
 
 61 
 
TO AN ABERDEEN TERRIER. 
 
 "I T 7"E sepultured his dear white ashes in a Tuscan urn 
 
 " ' And set it deep among the roots of a great cypress tree, 
 Beneath whose spreading branches as you turn 
 Whichever way you look on mountains and can see 
 Those uplands over Vallombrosa's forest trees 
 Where he was wont to nose for winter crocuses so merrily ; 
 And far across Val d'Arno to those peaks of snow 
 Of Tre Potenze and Cimone which he learnt to know, 
 Treading them with us, barking as he slid along their icy screes, 
 Then standing solemnly, with open mouth, to sniff the breezes 
 
 from two seas. 
 Of all who knew him never one has said 
 Or even felt, that he is dead : 
 He was too well compact of very life. 
 Too stirring in his Knightlike courtesy 
 To sink and be forgotten, or inconsequent to die : 
 Weakly to cede even in grimmest strife, 
 Whatever happed, that could not be his destiny. 
 
 62 
 
A WAYSIDE pool may hold the glimmer of a star : 
 ■^-*- Fireflies an ill-wrought mesh may gather from the night ; 
 Diamonds when cut unfetter light from centuries afar 
 And every child who laughs with natural delight 
 Unwitting voices God. With such verse ranks, 
 If it be true ; not to the poet's skill be thanks. 
 
 63 
 
PRINTED AT THE VINCENT WORKS, OXFORD.