Young Fellow My Lad
Robert William Service

"Where are you going, Young Fellow My Lad,
On this glittering morn of May?"
"I'm going to join the Colours, Dad;
They're looking for men, they say."
"But you're only a boy, Young Fellow My Lad;
You aren't obliged to go."
"I'm seventeen and a quarter, Dad,
And ever so strong, you know."

"So you're off to France, Young Fellow My Lad,
And you're looking so fit and bright."
"I'm terribly sorry to leave you, Dad,
But I feel that I'm doing right."
"God bless you and keep you, Young Fellow My Lad,
You're all of my life, you know."
"Don't worry. I'll soon be back, dear Dad,
And I'm awfully proud to go.

"Why don't you write, Young Fellow My Lad?
I watch for the post each day;
And I miss you so, and I'm awfully sad,
And it's months since you went away.
And I've had the fire in the parlour lit,
And I'm keeping it burning bright
Till my boy comes home; and here I sit
Into the quiet night."

"What is the matter, Young Fellow My Lad?
No letter again to-day.
Why did the postman look so sad,
And sigh as he turned away?
I hear them tell that we've gained new ground,
But a terrible price we've paid:
God grant, my boy, that you're safe and sound;
But oh I'm afraid, afraid."

"They've told me the truth, Young Fellow My Lad:
You'll never come back again:
(OH GOD! THE DREAMS AND THE DREAMS I'VE HAD,
AND THE HOPES I'VE NURSED IN VAIN!)
For you passed in the night, Young Fellow My Lad,
And you proved in the cruel test
Of the screaming shell and the battle hell
That my boy was one of the best.

"So you'll live, you'll live, Young Fellow My Lad,
In the gleam of the evening star,
In the wood-note wild and the laugh of the child,
In all sweet things that are.
And you'll never die, my wonderful boy,
While life is noble and true;
For all our beauty and hope and joy
We will owe to our lads like you."

A Summer's Day Michael Drayton (1563–1631) CLEAR had the day been from the dawn,
All chequer’d was the sky,
The clouds, like scarfs of cobweb lawn,
Veil’d heaven’s most glorious eye.
The wind had no more strength than this,
—That leisurely it blew—
To make one leaf the next to kiss
That closely by it grew.
The rills, that on the pebbles play’d,
Might now be heard at will;
This world the only music made,
Else everything was still.
The flowers, like brave embroider’d girls,
Look’d as they most desired
To see whose head with orient pearls
Most curiously was tyred.
And to itself the subtle air
Such sovereignty assumes,
That it receiv’d too large a share
From Nature’s rich perfumes.

Martins: September
Walter de la Mare

At secret daybreak they had met —
Chill mist beneath the welling light
Screening the marshes green and wet —
An ardent legion wild for flight.

Each preened and sleeked an arrowlike wing;
Their eager throats with lapsing cries
Praising whatever fate might bring —
Cold wave, or Africa's paradise.

Unventured, trackless leagues of air,
England's sweet summer narrowing on,
Her lovely pastures: nought their care —
Only this ardour to be gone.

A tiny, elflike, ecstatic host ...
And 'neath them, on the highway's crust,
Like some small mute belated ghost,
A sparrow pecking in the dust.

Autumnal Threads
Mary Leapor - 1722-1746
(Mary earned her living as a kitchen maid and died of measles aged 24)

'Twas when the fields had shed their golden grain
And burning suns had scar'd the russet plain;
No more the rose or hyacinth were seen,
Nor yellow cowslip on the tufted green:
But the rude thistle rear'd its hoary crown,
And the ripe nettle shew'd an irksome brown.
In mournful plight the tarnish'd groves appear,
And nature weeps for the declining year:
The sun, too quickly, reach'd the western sky,
And rising vapours hid his ev'ning eye:
Autumnal threads around the branches flew,
While the dry stubble drank the falling dew.

An Epistle to a Lady
Mary Leapor

In vain, dear Madam, yes in vain you strive;
Alas! to make your luckless Mira thrive,
For Tycho and Copernicus agree,
No golden Planet bent its Rays on me.

'Tis twenty Winters, if it is no more;
To speak the Truth it may be Twenty four.
As many Springs their 'pointed Space have run,
Since Mira's Eyes first open'd on the Sun.
'Twas when the Flocks on slabby Hillocks lie,
And the cold Fishes rule the wat'ry Sky:
But tho these Eyes the learned Page explore,
And turn the pond'rous Volumes o'er and o'er,
I find no Comfort from their Systems flow,
But am dejected more as more I know.
Hope shines a while, but like a Vapour flies,
(The Fate of all the Curious and the Wise)
For, Ah! cold Saturn triumph'd on that Day,
And frowning Sol deny'd his golden Ray.

You see I'm learned, and I shew't the more,
That none may wonder when they find me poor.
Yet Mira dreams, as slumbring Poets may,
And rolls in Treasures till the breaking Day:
While Books and Pictures in bright Order rise,
And painted Parlours swim before her Eyes:
Till the shrill Clock impertinently rings,
And the soft Visions move their shining Wings:
Then Mira wakes,-- her Pictures are no more,
And through her Fingers slides the vanish'd Ore.
Convinc'd too soon, her Eye unwilling falls
On the blue Curtains and the dusty Walls:
She wakes, alas! to Business and to Woes,
To sweep her Kitchen, and to mend her Clothes.

But see pale Sickness with her languid Eyes,
At whose Appearance all Delusion flies:
The World recedes, its Vanities decline,
Clorinda's Features seem as faint as mine!
Gay Robes no more the aching Sight admires,
Wit grates the Ear, and melting Music tires:
Its wonted pleasures with each sense decay,
Books please no more, and paintings fade away,
The sliding Joys in misty Vapours end:
Yet let me still, Ah! let me grasp a Friend:
And when each Joy, when each lov'd Object flies,
Be you the last that leaves my closing Eyes.

But how will this dismantl'd Soul appear,
When stripp'd of all it lately held so dear,
Forc'd from its Prison of expiring Clay,
Afraid and shiv'ring at the doubtful Way.

Yet did these Eyes a dying Parent see,
Loos'd from all Cares except a Thought for me,
Without a Tear resign her short'ning Breath,
And dauntless meet the ling'ring Stroke of Death.
Then at th' Almighty's Sentence shall I mourn:
"Of Dust thou art, to Dust shalt thou return."
Or shall I wish to stretch the Line of Fate,
That the dull Years may bear a longer Date,
To share the Follies of succeeding Times
With more Vexations and with deeper Crimes:
Ah no -- tho' Heav'n brings near the final Day,
For such a Life I will not, dare not pray;
But let the Tear for future Mercy flow,
And fall resign'd beneath the mighty Blow.
Nor I alone -- for through the spacious Ball,
With me will Numbers of all Ages fall:
And the same Day that Mira yields her Breath,
Thousands may enter through the Gates of Death.                         

Sunday Morning
Louis McNeice

Down the road someone is practising scales,
The notes like little fishes vanish with a wink of tails,
Man's heart expands to tinker with his car
For this is Sunday morning, Fate's great bazaar;
Regard these means as ends, concentrate on this Now,

And you may grow to music or drive beyond Hindhead anyhow,
Take corners on two wheels until you go so fast
That you can clutch a fringe or two of the windy past,
That you can abstract this day and make it to the week of time
A small eternity, a sonnet self-contained in rhyme.

But listen, up the road, something gulps, the church spire
Open its eight bells out, skulls' mouths which will not tire
To tell how there is no music or movement which secures
Escape from the weekday time. Which deadens and endures.                         

A Song
Earl of Rochester

My dear mistress has a heart
Soft as those kind looks she gave me,
When with love's resistless art,
And her eyes, she did enslave me;
But her constancy's so weak,
She's so wild and apt to wander,
That my jealous heart would break
Should we live one day asunder.

Melting joys about her move,
Killing pleasures, wounding blisses;
She can dress her eyes in love,
And her lips can arm with kisses;
Angels listen when she speaks,
She's my delight, all mankind's wonder;
But my jealous heart would break
Should we live one day asunder.                         

A Denial
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

We have met late---it is too late to meet,
   O friend, not more than friend!
Death's forecome shroud is tangled round my feet,
And if I step or stir, I touch the end.
   In this last jeopardy
Can I approach thee, I, who cannot move?
How shall I answer thy request for love?
   Look in my face and see.

 I love thee not, I dare not love thee! go
   In silence; drop my hand.
If thou seek roses, seek them where they blow
In garden-alleys, not in desert-sand.
   Can life and death agree,
That thou shouldst stoop thy song to my complaint?
I cannot love thee. If the word is faint,
   Look in my face and see. 


I might have loved thee in some former days.
   Oh, then, my spirits had leapt
As now they sink, at hearing thy love-praise!
Before these faded cheeks were overwept,
   Had this been asked of me,
To love thee with my whole strong heart and head,---
I should have said still . . . yes, but smiled and said,
   "Look in my face and see!" 

But now . . . God sees me, God, who took my heart
   And drowned it in life's surge.
In all your wide warm earth I have no part---
A light song overcomes me like a dirge.
   Could Love's great harmony
The saints keep step to when their bonds are loose,
Not weigh me down? am I a wife to choose?
   Look in my face and see---

While I behold, as plain as one who dreams,
   Some woman of full worth,
Whose voice, as cadenced as a silver stream's,
Shall prove the fountain-soul which sends it forth;
   One younger, more thought-free
And fair and gay, than I, thou must forget,
With brighter eyes than these . . . which are not wet.
    Look in my face and see!

So farewell thou, whom I have known too late
   To let thee come so near.
Be counted happy while men call thee great,
And one belovèd woman feels thee dear!---
   Not I!---that cannot be.
I am lost, I am changed,---I must go farther, where
The change shall take me worse, and no one dare
   Look in my face and see.

Meantime I bless thee. By these thoughts of mine
   I bless thee from all such!
I bless thy lamp to oil, thy cup to wine,
Thy hearth to joy, thy hand to an equal touch
   Of loyal troth. For me,
I love thee not, I love thee not!---away!
Here's no more courage in my soul to say
   "Look in my face and see."

'I know a hidden field...'
Felix Dennis

I know a hidden field of ridge and furrow
              Far from track or human tread,
Where grasses sigh and coneys burrow,
       Where the cowslips dot the midden,
    Where a skylark hovers, hidden,
             Very high above your head.
I know an ancient road men call The Drover,
             Free of fences, gate or wire;
A chalky way of turf and clover,
     There the hedge is white at May time,
     There a barn owl roosts in daytime
             Snug within a ruined byre.

I know a Druid yew, a silent mourner,
              Mourning what, I do not know.
It stands within a pasture corner,
      Grim with age, grown gaunt and hollow,
      Guarding still some secret sorrow;
              Rot within and grief below.

I know a grassy mound, an orchard parcel
              Tucked beside a hazel wood,
There the lambs play king o’ the castle,
      There I’ve sat amid the cherries,
      Swearing I’d be back for berries—
           Knowing that I never should.

 

Returning, We Hear The Larks
Isaac Rosenberg

Sombre the night is:

And, though we have our lives, we know
What sinister threat lurks there.

 

Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know

This poison-blasted track opens on our camp—

On a little safe sleep.

 

But hark! Joy—joy—strange joy.

Lo! Heights of night ringing with unseen larks:

Music showering on our upturned listening faces.

 

Death could drop from the dark

As easily as song—

But song only dropped,

Like a blind man's dreams on the sand

By dangerous tides;

Like a girl's dark hair, for she dreams no ruin lies there,

Or her kisses where a serpent hides.

End of Another Home Holiday
D. H. Lawrence

When shall I see the half-moon sink again
Behind the black sycamore at the end of the garden?
When will the scent of the dim white phlox
Creep up the wall to me, and in at my open window?
Why is it, the long, slow stroke of the midnight bell
(Will it never finish the twelve?)
Falls again and again on my heart with a heavy reproach?

The moon-mist is over the village, out of the mist speaks the bell,
And all the little roofs of the village bow low, pitiful, beseeching, resigned.
–Speak, you my home! what is it I don’t do well?

Ah home, suddenly I love you
As I hear the sharp clean trot of a pony down the road,
Succeeding sharp little sounds dropping into silence
Clear upon the long-drawn hoarseness of a train across the valley.

The light has gone out, from under my mother’s door.
That she should love me so!–
She, so lonely, greying now!
And I leaving her,
Bent on my pursuits!

Love is the great Asker.
The sun and the rain do not ask the secret
Of the time when the grain struggles down in the dark.
The moon walks her lonely way without anguish,
Because no-one grieves over her departure.

Forever, ever by my shoulder pitiful love will linger,
Crouching as little houses crouch under the mist when I turn.
Forever, out of the mist, the church lifts up a reproachful finger
Pointing my eyes in wretched defiance where love hides her face to mourn.

 Oh! but the rain creeps down to wet the grain
That struggles alone in the dark,
And asking nothing, patiently steals back again!
The moon sets forth o’nights
To walk the lonely, dusky heights
Serenely, with steps unswerving;
Pursued by no sigh of bereavement,
No tears of love unnerving
Her constant tread
While ever at my side,
Frail and sad, with grey, bowed head,
The beggar-woman, the yearning-eyed
Inexorable love goes lagging.

The wild young heifer, glancing distraught,
With a strange new knocking of life at her side
Runs seeking a loneliness.
The little grain draws down the earth, to hide.
Nay, even the slumberous egg, as it labours under the shell
Patiently to divide and self-divide,
Asks to be hidden, and wishes nothing to tell.

But when I draw the scanty cloak of silence over my eyes
Piteous love comes peering under the hood;
Touches the clasp with trembling fingers, and tries
To put her ear to the painful sob of my blood;
While her tears soak through to my breast,
Where they burn and cauterize.

The moon lies back and reddens.
In the valley a corncrake calls
Monotonously,
With a plaintive, unalterable voice, that deadens
My confident activity;
With a hoarse, insistent request that falls
Unweariedly, unweariedly,
Asking something more of me,
Yet more of me.

   
An English Light
Felix Dennis

9.45 on a fine June night,
I watch from the window and write and write
As the fields are lit by the red-eyed flight
Of the westering sun - as the trees ignite,
And the shadows lance in the slanted light,
Each leaf a halo of fire, more bright
Than the pale moon clothed in mottle and white
Awaiting the arms of her purple knight.

Little is moving in Eden this night
But the ears of an owl on a branchy height
For the rustle of voles, however slight,
As a martin blurs like a sickle kite
Of gunmetal grey... and I write and write
This hymn of delight in an English light.

Half Fledged
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

 

 I feel the stirrings in me of great things,
New half-fledged thoughts rise up and beat their wings,
And tremble on the margin of their nest,
Then flutter back, and hide within my breast.

Beholding space, they doubt their untried strength
Beholding men, they fear them. But at length
Grown all too great and active for the heart
That broods them with such tender mother art,
Forgetting fear, and men, and all, that hour,
Save the impelling consciousness of power
That stirs within them---they shall soar away
Up to the very portals of the Day.

Oh, what exultant rapture thrills me through
When I contemplate all those thoughts may do;
Like snow-white eagles penetrating space,
They may explore full many an unknown place,
And build their nests on mountain heights unseen
Whereon doth lie that dreamed-of rest serene.
Stay thou a little longer in my breast,
Till my fond heart shall push thee from the nest.
Anxious to see thee soar to heights divine---
Oh, beautiful but half-fledged thoughts of mine.

Sonnet 28 - Sonnets from the Portuguese

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
This said,- he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand... a simple thing,
Yet I wept for it! - this,... the paper's light...
Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As if God's future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine- and so its ink has paled
With Iying at my heart that beat too fast.
And this... O Love, thy words have ill availed
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!                         

From The Land - Winter
Vita Sackville-West

The country habit has me by the heart,
For he's bewitched forever who has seen,
Not with his eyes but with his vision, Spring
Flow down the woods and stipple leaves with sun,
As each man knows the life that fits him best,
The shape it makes in his soul, the tune, the tone,
And after ranging on a tentative flight
Stoops like the merlin to the constant lure.
The country habit has me by the heart.
I never hear the sheep-bells in the fold,
Nor see the ungainly heron rise and flap
Over the marsh, nor hear the asprous corn
Clash, as the reapers set the sheaves in shocks
(That like a tented army dream away
The night beneath the moon in silvered fields),
Nor watch the stubborn team of horse and man
Graven upon the skyline, nor regain
The sign-posts on the roads towards my home
Bearing familiar names—without a strong
Leaping of recognition; only here
Lies peace after uneasy truancy;
Here meet and marry many harmonies,
—All harmonies being ultimately one,—
Small mirroring majestic; for as earth
Rolls on her journey, so her little fields
Ripen or sleep, and the necessities
Of seasons match the planetary law.
So truly stride between the earth and heaven
Sowers of grain: so truly in the spring
Earth's orbit swings both blood and sap to rhythm,
And infinite and humble are at one;
So the brown hedger, through the evening lanes
Homeward returning, sees above the ricks,
Sickle in hand, the sickle in the sky.

Shepherds and stars are quiet with the hills.
There is a bond between the men who go
From youth about the business of the earth,
And the earth they serve, their cradle and their grave;
Stars with the seasons alter; only he
Who wakeful follows the pricked revolving sky,
Turns concordant with the earth while others sleep;
To him the dawn is punctual; to him
The quarters of the year no empty name.
A loutish life, but in the midst of dark
Cut to a gash of beauty, as when the hawk
Bears upwards in its talons the striking snake,
High, and yet higher, till those two hang close,
Sculptural on the blue, together twined,
Exalted, deathly, silent, and alone.