Works

(After a glimpse of a certain monument in New York, during the Victory Celebration)


The thousand-windowed towers were all alight.
Throngs of all nations filled that glittering way;...

They are buffeting out in the bitter grey weather,
Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!
Sea-lark singing to Golden Feather,
And burly blue waters all swelling aroun'....

Not with a flash that rends the blue
Shall fall the avenging sword.
Gently as the evening dew
Descends the mighty Lord.

His dreadful balances are made
To move with moon and tide;...

The neighbours gossiped idly at the door.
Copernicus lay dying overhead.
His little throng of friends, with startled eyes,
Whispered together, in that dark house of dreams,...

Shun the brush and shun the pen,
Shun the ways of clever men,
When they prove that black is white,
Whey they swear that wrong is right,
When they roast the singing stars...

I.

Steadfast as any soldier of the line
He served his England, with the imminent death
Poised at his heart. Nor could the world divine
The constant peril of each burdened breath.
...

I.

(On many recent novels by the conventional unconventionalists.)

Old Pantaloon, lean-witted, dour and rich,
After grim years of soul-destroying greed,
Weds Columbine, that April-blooded witch...

(On a certain goddess, acclaimed as "new" but known in Babylon.)

I saw the assembled artists of our day
Waiting for light, for music and for song.
A woman stood before them, fresh as May...

(On Certain of the Bolsheviki "Idealists.")

With half the force and thought you waste in rage
Over your neighbor's house, or heart of stone,
You might have built your own new heritage,...

(On Certain Realists.)

You with the quick sardonic eye
For all the mockeries of life,
Beware, in this dark masque of things that seem,
Lest even that tragic irony,...

(An Answer)
...

I know a land, I, too,
Where warm keen incense on the sea-wind blows,
And all the winter long the skies are blue,
And the brown deserts blossom with the rose.

Deserts of all delight,...

When hawthorn buds are creaming white,
And the red foolscap all stuck with may,
Then lasses walk with eyes alight,
And it's chimney-sweepers' dancing day.

For the chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham town,...

How few are they that voyage through the night
On that eternal quest,
For that strange light beyond our light,
That rest beyond our rest.

And they who, seeking beauty, once descry...

The man who discovered the use of a chair,
Odds--bobs--
What a wonderful man!
He used to sit down on it, tearing his hair,
Till he thought of a highly original plan....

I.

There is one road, one only, to the Light:
A narrow way, but Freedom walks therein;
A straight, firm road through Chaos and old Night,
And all these wandering Jack-o-Lents of Sin.
...

Was it a dream?--that crowded concert-room
In Bath; that sea of ruffles and laced coats;
And William Herschel, in his powdered wig,
Waiting upon the platform, to conduct...