Part 2

Yes, lad, I lie easy, I lie as lads would choose; I cheer a dead man's sweetheart, Never ask me whose.

XXVIII

THE WELSH MARCHES

High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam Islanded in Severn stream; The bridges from the steepled crest Cross the water east and west.

The flag of morn in conqueror's state Enters at the English gate: The vanquished eve, as night prevails, Bleeds upon the road to Wales.

Ages since the vanquished bled Round my mother's marriage-bed; There the ravens feasted far About the open house of war:

When Severn down to Buildwas ran Coloured with the death of man, Couched upon her brother's grave The Saxon got me on the slave.

The sound of fight is silent long That began the ancient wrong; Long the voice of tears is still That wept of old the endless ill.

In my heart it has not died, The war that sleeps on Severn side; They cease not fighting, east and west, On the marches of my breast.

Here the truceless armies yet Trample, rolled in blood and sweat; They kill and kill and never die; And I think that each is I.

None will part us, none undo The knot that makes one flesh of two, Sick with hatred, sick with pain, Strangling-When shall we be slain?

When shall I be dead and rid Of the wrong my father did? How long, how long, till spade and hearse Put to sleep my mother's curse?

XXIX

THE LENT LILY

'Tis spring; come out to ramble The hilly brakes around, For under thorn and bramble About the hollow ground The primroses are found.

And there's the windflower chilly With all the winds at play, And there's the Lenten lily That has not long to stay And dies on Easter day.

And since till girls go maying You find the primrose still, And find the windflower playing With every wind at will, But not the daffodil,

Bring baskets now, and sally Upon the spring's array, And bear from hill and valley The daffodil away That dies on Easter day.

XXX

Others, I am not the first, Have willed more mischief than they durst: If in the breathless night I too Shiver now, 'tis nothing new.

More than I, if truth were told, Have stood and sweated hot and cold, And through their reins in ice and fire Fear contended with desire.

Agued once like me were they, But I like them shall win my way Lastly to the bed of mould Where there's neither heat nor cold.

But from my grave across my brow Plays no wind of healing now, And fire and ice within me fight Beneath the suffocating night.

XXXI

On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble; His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves; The gale, it plies the saplings double, And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

'Twould blow like this through holt and hanger When Uricon the city stood: 'Tis the old wind in the old anger, But then it threshed another wood.

Then, 'twas before my time, the Roman At yonder heaving hill would stare: The blood that warms an English yeoman, The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.

There, like the wind through woods in riot, Through him the gale of life blew high; The tree of man was never quiet: Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.

The gale, it plies the saplings double, It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone: To-day the Roman and his trouble Are ashes under Uricon.

XXXII

From far, from eve and morning And yon twelve-winded sky, The stuff of life to knit me Blew hither: here am I.

Now- for a breath I tarry Nor yet disperse apart- Take my hand quick and tell me, What have you in your heart.

Speak now, and I will answer; How shall I help you, say; Ere to the wind's twelve quarters I take my endless way.

XXXIII

If truth in hearts that perish Could move the powers on high, I think the love I bear you Should make you not to die.

Sure, sure, if stedfast meaning, If single thought could save, The world might end to-morrow, You should not see the grave.

This long and sure-set liking, This boundless will to please, -Oh, you should live for ever If there were help in these.

But now, since all is idle, To this lost heart be kind, Ere to a town you journey Where friends are ill to find.

XXXIV

THE NEW MISTRESS

_ "Oh, sick I am to see you, will you never let me be? You may be good for something, but you are not good for me. Oh, go where you are wanted, for you are not wanted here." _ And that was all the farewell when I parted from my dear.

"I will go where I am wanted, to a lady born and bred Who will dress me free for nothing in a uniform of red; She will not be sick to see me if I only keep it clean: I will go where I am wanted for a soldier of the Queen."

"I will go where I am wanted, for the sergeant does not mind; He may be sick to see me but he treats me very kind: He gives me beer and breakfast and a ribbon for my cap, And I never knew a sweetheart spend her money on a chap."

"I will go where I am wanted, where there's room for one or two, And the men are none too many for the work there is to do; Where the standing line wears thinner and the dropping dead lie thick; And the enemies of England they shall see me and be sick."

XXXV

On the idle hill of summer, Sleepy with the flow of streams, Far I hear the steady drummer Drumming like a noise in dreams.

Far and near and low and louder On the roads of earth go by, Dear to friends and food for powder, Soldiers marching, all to die.

East and west on fields forgotten Bleach the bones of comrades slain, Lovely lads and dead and rotten; None that go return again.

Far the calling bugles hollo, High the screaming fife replies, Gay the files of scarlet follow: Woman bore me, I will rise.

XXXVI

White in the moon the long road lies, The moon stands blank above; White in the moon the long road lies That leads me from my love.

Still hangs the hedge without a gust, Still, still the shadows stay: My feet upon the moonlit dust Pursue the ceaseless way.

The world is round, so travellers tell, And straight though reach the track, Trudge on, trudge on, 'twill all be well, The way will guide one back.

But ere the circle homeward hies Far, far must it remove: White in the moon the long road lies That leads me from my love.

XXXVII

As through the wild green hills of Wyre The train ran, changing sky and shire, And far behind, a fading crest, Low in the forsaken west Sank the high-reared head of Clee, My hand lay empty on my knee. Aching on my knee it lay: That morning half a shire away So many an honest fellow's fist Had well-nigh wrung it from the wrist. Hand, said I, since now we part From fields and men we know by heart, From strangers' faces, strangers' lands,- Hand, you have held true fellows' hands. Be clean then; rot before you do A thing they'd not believe of you. You and I must keep from shame In London streets the Shropshire name; On banks of Thames they must not say Severn breeds worse men than they; And friends abroad must bear in mind Friends at home they leave behind. Oh, I shall be stiff and cold When I forget you, hearts of gold; The land where I shall mind you not Is the land where all's forgot. And if my foot returns no more To Teme nor Corve nor Severn shore, Luck, my lads, be with you still By falling stream and standing hill, By chiming tower and whispering tree, Men that made a man of me. About your work in town and farm Still you'll keep my head from harm, Still you'll help me, hands that gave A grasp to friend me to the grave.

XXXVIII

The winds out of the west land blow, My friends have breathed them there; Warm with the blood of lads I know Comes east the sighing air.

It fanned their temples, filled their lungs, Scattered their forelocks free; My friends made words of it with tongues That talk no more to me.

Their voices, dying as they fly, Thick on the wind are sown; The names of men blow soundless by, My fellows' and my own.

Oh lads, at home I heard you plain, But here your speech is still, And down the sighing wind in vain You hollo from the hill.

The wind and I, we both were there, But neither long abode; Now through the friendless world we fare And sigh upon the road.

XXXIX

'Tis time, I think by Wenlock town The golden broom should blow; The hawthorn sprinkled up and down Should charge the land with snow.

Spring will not wait the loiterer's time Who keeps so long away; So others wear the broom and climb The hedgerows heaped with may.

Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge, Gold that I never see; Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge That will not shower on me.

XL

Into my heart an air that kills From yon far country blows: What are those blue remembered hills, What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, The happy highways where I went And cannot come again.

XLI

In my own shire, if I was sad Homely comforters I had: The earth, because my heart was sore, Sorrowed for the son she bore; And standing hills, long to remain, Shared their short-lived comrade's pain. And bound for the same bourn as I, On every road I wandered by, Trod beside me, close and dear, The beautiful and death-struck year: Whether in the woodland brown I heard the beechnut rustle down, And saw the purple crocus pale Flower about the autumn dale; Or littering far the fields of May Lady-smocks a-bleaching lay, And like a skylit water stood The bluebells in the azured wood.

Yonder, lightening other loads, The seasons range the country roads, But here in London streets I ken No such helpmates, only men; And these are not in plight to bear, If they would, another's care. They have enough as 'tis: I see In many an eye that measures me The mortal sickness of a mind Too unhappy to be kind. Undone with misery, all they can Is to hate their fellow man; And till they drop they needs must still Look at you and wish you ill.

XLII

THE MERRY GUIDE

Once in the wind of morning I ranged the thymy wold; The world-wide air was azure And all the brooks ran gold.

There through the dews beside me Behold a youth that trod, With feathered cap on forehead, And poised a golden rod.

With mien to match the morning And gay delightful guise And friendly brows and laughter He looked me in the eyes.

Oh whence, I asked, and whither? He smiled and would not say, And looked at me and beckoned And laughed and led the way.

And with kind looks and laughter And nought to say beside We two went on together, I and my happy guide.

Across the glittering pastures And empty upland still And solitude of shepherds High in the folded hill,

By hanging woods and hamlets That gaze through orchards down On many a windmill turning And far-discovered town,

With gay regards of promise And sure unslackened stride And smiles and nothing spoken Led on my merry guide.

By blowing realms of woodland With sunstruck vanes afield And cloud-led shadows sailing About the windy weald,

By valley-guarded granges And silver waters wide, Content at heart I followed With my delightful guide.

And like the cloudy shadows Across the country blown We two face on for ever, But not we two alone.

With the great gale we journey That breathes from gardens thinned, Borne in the drift of blossoms Whose petals throng the wind;

Buoyed on the heaven-heard whisper Of dancing leaflets whirled From all the woods that autumn Bereaves in all the world.

And midst the fluttering legion Of all that ever died I follow, and before us Goes the delightful guide,

With lips that brim with laughter But never once respond, And feet that fly on feathers, And serpent-circled wand.

XLIII

THE IMMORTAL PART

When I meet the morning beam, Or lay me down at night to dream, I hear my bones within me say, "Another night, another day."

"When shall this slough of sense be cast, This dust of thoughts be laid at last, The man of flesh and soul be slain And the man of bone remain?"

"This tongue that talks, these lungs that shout, These thews that hustle us about, This brain that fills the skull with schemes, And its humming hive of dreams,-"

"These to-day are proud in power And lord it in their little hour: The immortal bones obey control Of dying flesh and dying soul."

" 'Tis long till eve and morn are gone: Slow the endless night comes on, And late to fulness grows the birth That shall last as long as earth."

"Wanderers eastward, wanderers west, Know you why you cannot rest? 'Tis that every mother's son Travails with a skeleton."

"Lie down in the bed of dust; Bear the fruit that bear you must; Bring the eternal seed to light, And morn is all the same as night."

"Rest you so from trouble sore, Fear the heat o' the sun no more, Nor the snowing winter wild, Now you labour not with child."

"Empty vessel, garment cast, We that wore you long shall last. -Another night, another day." So my bones within me say.

Therefore they shall do my will To-day while I am master still, And flesh and soul, now both are strong, Shall hale the sullen slaves along,

Before this fire of sense decay, This smoke of thought blow clean away, And leave with ancient night alone The stedfast and enduring bone.

XLIV

Shot? so quick, so clean an ending? Oh that was right, lad, that was brave: Yours was not an ill for mending, 'Twas best to take it to the grave.

Oh you had forethought, you could reason, And saw your road and where it led, And early wise and brave in season Put the pistol to your head.

Oh soon, and better so than later After long disgrace and scorn, You shot dead the household traitor, The soul that should not have been born.

Right you guessed the rising morrow And scorned to tread the mire you must: Dust's your wages, son of sorrow, But men may come to worse than dust.

Souls undone, undoing others,- Long time since the tale began. You would not live to wrong your brothers: Oh lad, you died as fits a man.

Now to your grave shall friend and stranger With ruth and some with envy come: Undishonoured, clear of danger, Clean of guilt, pass hence and home.

Turn safe to rest, no dreams, no waking; And here, man, here's the wreath I've made: 'Tis not a gift that's worth the taking, But wear it and it will not fade.

XLV

If it chance your eye offend you, Pluck it out, lad, and be sound: 'Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you, And many a balsam grows on ground.

And if your hand or foot offend you, Cut it off, lad, and be whole; But play the man, stand up and end you, When your sickness is your soul.

XLVI

Bring, in this timeless grave to throw, No cypress, sombre on the snow; Snap not from the bitter yew His leaves that live December through; Break no rosemary, bright with rime And sparkling to the cruel clime; Nor plod the winter land to look For willows in the icy brook To cast them leafless round him: bring No spray that ever buds in spring.

But if the Christmas field has kept Awns the last gleaner overstept, Or shrivelled flax, whose flower is blue A single season, never two; Or if one haulm whose year is o'er Shivers on the upland frore, -Oh, bring from hill and stream and plain Whatever will not flower again, To give him comfort: he and those Shall bide eternal bedfellows Where low upon the couch he lies Whence he never shall arise.

XLVII

THE CARPENTER'S SON

"Here the hangman stops his cart: Now the best of friends must part. Fare you well, for ill fare I: Live, lads, and I will die."

"Oh, at home had I but stayed 'Prenticed to my father's trade, Had I stuck to plane and adze, I had not been lost, my lads."

"Then I might have built perhaps Gallows-trees for other chaps, Never dangled on my own, Had I but left ill alone."

"Now, you see, they hang me high, And the people passing by Stop to shake their fists and curse; So 'tis come from ill to worse."

"Here hang I, and right and left Two poor fellows hang for theft: All the same's the luck we prove, Though the midmost hangs for love."

"Comrades all, that stand and gaze, Walk henceforth in other ways; See my neck and save your own: Comrades all, leave ill alone."

"Make some day a decent end, Shrewder fellows than your friend. Fare you well, for ill fare I: Live, lads, and I will die."

XLVIII

Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle, Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong. Think rather,-call to thought, if now you grieve a little, The days when we had rest, O soul, for they were long.

Men loved unkindness then, but lightless in the quarry I slept and saw not; tears fell down, I did not mourn; Sweat ran and blood sprang out and I was never sorry: Then it was well with me, in days ere I was born.

Now, and I muse for why and never find the reason, I pace the earth, and drink the air, and feel the sun. Be still, be still, my soul; it is but for a season: Let us endure an hour and see injustice done.

Ay, look: high heaven and earth ail from the prime foundation; All thoughts to rive the heart are here, and all are vain: Horror and scorn and hate and fear and indignation- Oh why did I awake? when shall I sleep again?

XLIX

Think no more, lad; laugh, be jolly: Why should men make haste to die? Empty heads and tongues a-talking Make the rough road easy walking, And the feather pate of folly Bears the falling sky.

Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around. If young hearts were not so clever, Oh, they would be young for ever: Think no more; 'tis only thinking Lays lads underground.

L

_ Clunton and Clunbury, Clungunford and Clun, Are the quietest places Under the sun. _

In valleys of springs of rivers, By Ony and Teme and Clun, The country for easy livers, The quietest under the sun,

We still had sorrows to lighten, One could not be always glad, And lads knew trouble at Knighton When I was a Knighton lad.

By bridges that Thames runs under, In London, the town built ill, 'Tis sure small matter for wonder If sorrow is with one still.

And if as a lad grows older The troubles he bears are more, He carries his griefs on a shoulder That handselled them long before.

Where shall one halt to deliver This luggage I'd lief set down? Not Thames, not Teme is the river, Nor London nor Knighton the town:

'Tis a long way further than Knighton, A quieter place than Clun, Where doomsday may thunder and lighten And little 'twill matter to one.

LI

Loitering with a vacant eye Along the Grecian gallery, And brooding on my heavy ill, I met a statue standing still. Still in marble stone stood he, And stedfastly he looked at me. "Well met," I thought the look would say, "We both were fashioned far away; We neither knew, when we were young, These Londoners we live among."

Still he stood and eyed me hard, An earnest and a grave regard: "What, lad, drooping with your lot? I too would be where I am not. I too survey that endless line Of men whose thoughts are not as mine. Years, ere you stood up from rest, On my neck the collar prest; Years, when you lay down your ill, I shall stand and bear it still. Courage, lad, 'tis not for long: Stand, quit you like stone, be strong." So I thought his look would say; And light on me my trouble lay, And I slept out in flesh and bone Manful like the man of stone.

LII

Far in a western brookland That bred me long ago The poplars stand and tremble By pools I used to know.

There, in the windless night-time, The wanderer, marvelling why, Halts on the bridge to hearken How soft the poplars sigh.

He hears: long since forgotten In fields where I was known, Here I lie down in London And turn to rest alone.

There, by the starlit fences, The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.

LIII

THE TRUE LOVER

The lad came to the door at night, When lovers crown their vows, And whistled soft and out of sight In shadow of the boughs.

"I shall not vex you with my face Henceforth, my love, for aye; So take me in your arms a space Before the east is grey."

"When I from hence away am past I shall not find a bride, And you shall be the first and last I ever lay beside."

She heard and went and knew not why; Her heart to his she laid; Light was the air beneath the sky But dark under the shade.

"Oh do you breathe, lad, that your breast Seems not to rise and fall, And here upon my bosom prest There beats no heart at all?"

"Oh loud, my girl, it once would knock, You should have felt it then; But since for you I stopped the clock It never goes again."

"Oh lad, what is it, lad, that drips Wet from your neck on mine? What is it falling on my lips, My lad, that tastes of brine?"

"Oh like enough 'tis blood, my dear, For when the knife has slit The throat across from ear to ear 'Twill bleed because of it."

Under the stars the air was light But dark below the boughs, The still air of the speechless night, When lovers crown their vows.

LIV

With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipt maiden And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping The lightfoot boys are laid; The rose-lipt girls are sleeping In fields where roses fade.

LV

Westward on the high-hilled plains Where for me the world began, Still, I think, in newer veins Frets the changeless blood of man.

Now that other lads than I Strip to bathe on Severn shore, They, no help, for all they try, Tread the mill I trod before.