HAROLD MONRO [1879-1932] Poet, editor, anthologist, critic, publisher, publicist, bookseller. Proprietor and financier of the famous Poetry Bookshop in Bloomsbury
CHILD OF DAWN
O gentle
vision in the dawn:
My spirit over
faint cool water glides,
Child of the
day,
To thee;
And thou art
drawn
By kindred
impulse over silver tides
The dreamy way
To me.
I need thy
hands, O gentle wonder-child,
For they are
moulded unto all repose;
Thy lips are
frail,
And they are
cooler than an April rose:
Child of the
morning, hail!
Breathe thus
upon mine eyelids - that we twain
May build the
day together out of dreams.
Life, with thy
breath upon my eyelids, seems
Exquisite to the
utmost bounds of pain.
I cannot live,
except as I may be
Compelled for
love of thee.
O let us drift,
Frail as the
floating silver of a star,
Or like the
summer humming of a bee,
Or
stream-reflected sunlight through a rift.
I will not
hope, because I know, alas,
Morning will
glide, and noon, and then the night
Will take thee
from me. Everything must pass
Swiftly
- but nought so swift as dawn-delight.
If I could hold
thee till the day
Is broad on sea
and hill,
Child of repose,
What god can
say,
What god or
mortal knows,
What dream thou
mightest not in me fulfil?
O gentle
vision in the dawn:
My spirit over
faint cool water glides,
Child of the
day,
To thee;
And thou art
drawn
By kindred
impulse over silver tides
The dreamy way
To me.
OVERHEARD ON A SALT MARSH
Nymph, nymph,
what are your beads?
Green glass,
goblin. Why do you stare at them?
Give them
me.
No.
Give them
me! Give them me!
No.
Then I
will howl all night in the reeds,
Lie in the
mud and howl for them.
Goblin, why do you love them so?
They are
better than stars or water,
Better than
voices of winds that sing,
Better than
any man's fair daughter,
Your green
glass beads on a silver ring.
Hush! I stole them out of the moon.
Give me
your beads. I desire them.
No.
I will
howl in a deep lagoon
For your
green glass beads, I love them so.
Give them me!
Give them me!
No.
MEW,
CHARLOTTE [1879-1928] Poet, essayist, short-story-writer.
Menaced
lifelong by a hereditary mental illness. A severe nervous breakdown, after a
bereavement, ended in suicide.
QUESTION
If Christ
was crucified - ah, God! are we
Not scourged,
tormented, mocked and called to pay
The sin of
ages in our little day?
Has man no
crown of thorns, no Calvary,
Though Christ
has tasted of his agony?
We knew no
Eden, and the poisoned fruit
We did not
pluck, yet from the bitter root
We sprang,
maimed branches of iniquity.
Have we who
share the heritage accurst
Wrought
nothing? Tainted to the end of time,
The last
frail souls still suffer for the first,
Blind victims
of an everlasting crime.
Ask of the
crucified, who hangs enthroned,
If man - ah
God! man too has not atoned.
DOMUS CAEDET ARBOREM
Ever since
the great planes were murdered at the end of the gardens,
The city, to
me, at night has the look of a spirit brooding crime:
As if the
dark houses watching the trees from dark windows
Were simply
biding their time.
MARIAN
EVANS [1819-1880] Leading
19thC novelist, famous under her literary name GEORGE ELIOT
LONDON: DECEMBER 1865
The sky is
cloudy, yellowed by the smoke.
For view
there are the houses opposite
Cutting the
sky with one long line of wall
Like solid
fog: far as the eye can stretch
Monotony of
surface and of form
Without a
break to hang a guess upon.
No bird can
make a shadow as it flies,
For all is
shadow, as in ways o'erhung
By thickest
canvas where the golden rays
Are clothed
in hemp. No figure lingering
Pauses to
feed the hunger of the eye,
Or rest a
little on the lap of life.
All
hurry on and look upon the ground,
Or glance
unmarking at the passers-by.
The wheels
are hurrying too, cabs, carriages
All closed,
in multiplied identity.
The world
seems on huge prison-house and court,
Where men are
punished at the slightest cost,
With lowest
rate of colour, warmth and joy.
THE LAME BOY'S SONG
The world
is great: the birds all fly from me;
The stars are
golden fruit upon a tree
All out of
reach. My little sister went,
And I am
lonely.
The world
is great: I tried to mount the hill
Above the
pines, where the light lies so still,
But it rose
higher. Little Lisa went,
And I am
lonely.
The world
is great: the wind comes rushing by.
I wonder
where it comes from. Sea-birds cry
And hurt my
heart. My little sister went,
And I am
lonely.
The world
is great: the people laugh and talk,
And make loud
holiday: how fast they walk!
I'm lame;
they push me. Little Lisa went,
And I am
lonely.
MARY AGNES
ROBINSON [1857-c.1930] Little is known about this poet, beyond that she settled
in Paris in 1888, after her marriage to a French academic, Professor
Darmesteter.
AN ETRUSCAN BURIAL
Beneath
the branches of the olive yard
Are roots
where cyclamen and violet grow.
Beneath the
roots the earth is deep and hard,
And there a
king was buried long ago.
The
peasants digging deeply in the mound
Cast up the
autumn soil about the place,
And saw a
gleam of unexpected gold,
And
underneath the earth a living face.
With
sleeping lids and rosy lips he lay
Among the
wreaths and gems that mark the king,
One moment;
then a little dust and clay
Fell
shrivelled over wreath and urn and ring.
Aa carven
slab recalls his name and deeds,
Writ in a
language no-one living reads.
EMILY BRONTE [ 1818-1848] Novelist:
author of the famous Wuthering Heights
THE MERCENARY
Why ask to know what date, what clime?
There dwelt our own humanity,
Power-worshippers from earliest time,
Foot-kissers of triumphant crime,
Crushers of helpless misery,
Crushing down justice, honouring wrong,
If that be feeble, this be strong:
Shedders of blood, shedders of tears,
Self-cursers, avid of distress,
Yet mocking heaven with senseless prayers
For mercy on the merciless.
It was the autumn of the year
When grain grows yellow in the ear.
Day after day, from noon to noon,
The August sun blazed bright as June.
But we with unregarding eyes
Saw panting earth and glowing skies:
No hand the reaper's sickle held,
Nor bound the ripe sheaves in the field.
Our corn was garnered months before,
Threshed out and kneaded-up with gore;
Ground when the ears were milky sweet,
With furious toil of hoofs and feet.
I, doubly cursed on foreign sod,
Fought neither for my home, nor God.
HENRY
KIRKE WHITE [1785-1806] Died of consumption at the age of twenty-one.
TO A TAPER
'Tis
midnight. On the globe dead slumber sits,
And all is
silence in the hour of sleep,
Save when the
hollow gust, that swells by fits,
In the dark
wood roars fearfully and deep.
I wake alone
to listen and to weep;
To watch, my
taper, thy pale beacon burn;
And, as still
memory does her vigils keep,
To think of
days that never can return.
By they pale
ray I raise my languid head.
My eyes
survey the solitary gloom,
And the sad
meaning tear, unmixed with dread,
Tell thou
doest light me to the silent tomb.
Like thee I
wane; like thine my life's last ray
Will fade in
loneliness, unwept, away.
SAMUEL
JOHNSON [1709-1784] Journalist, essayist, poet, lexicographer. Lifelong sufferer
from periods of endogenous depression.
THE WINTER WALK
Behold,
my fair, where'er we rove,
What dreary
prospects round us rise:
The naked
hills, the leafless grove,
The hoary
ground, the frowning skies.
Not only
through the wasted plain,
Stern winter,
is thy force confessed.
Still wider
spreads its horrid reign:
I feel its
power usurp my breast.
Enlivening
hope and fond desire
Resign the
heart to spleen and care.
Scarce
frighted love maintains his fire,
As rapture
saddens to despair.
In
groundless hope and causeless fear,
Unhappy man!
behold thy doom:
Still
changing with the changeful year,
The slave of
sunshine and of gloom.
Tired with
vain joys and false alarms,
With mental
and corporeal strife:
O Stella,
snatch me to thine arms,
And hide me
from the sight of life!
THE SKATER
(after the
French of Pierre Roy)
O'er ice
the nimble skater flies,
With sport
above and death below.
Where danger
lurks in pleasure's guise,
Thus lightly
touch and quickly go.
EPITAPH
FOR A HOUSE-DOG
(after the
Latin of Joachim Du Bellay)
To robbers
furious and to lovers tame,
I pleased my
master and I pleased my dame.