Part 1

FROM A LONDON GARDEN

FROM A LONDON GARDEN

BY A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK

[Illustration]

LONDON: DAVID NUTT 57–59 LONG ACRE 1903

NOTE.--_These verses have appeared in the ‘Spectator,’ ‘Outlook,’ ‘Chambers’s Journal,’ ‘Literary World,’ ‘Week’s Survey,’ ‘Pilot,’ &c._

CONTENTS

PAGE TRANSFIGURED 1 THE EARTH-BOND 3 THE PRIDE OF LAZARUS 5 MANHOOD 7 WAGES 9 LIFE AND TIME 11 GROWTH 14 THE DAY BEYOND 16 THE CITY ASLEEP 18 LOVE’S REASON 21 THE FORERUNNER 23 THE SICK MAN’S DREAM 25 CHARLES LAMB AT ENFIELD 28 THE CROWN OF FAILURE 31 AT PARTING 33 THRENOS 36 UNHONOURED WORK 38 OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 40 UNKNOWN KNOWLEDGE 41 THE LAST DAWN 44 A FORLORN HOPE 45 THE CUPBEARER 46 A DEAD FRIENDSHIP 48 THE WIDER VIEW 51 UNTIL THE EVENING 53 AFTER PARTING 55 THE GUEST 57 THE DREAMER 59 ENOUGH 63 LIGHT 65 A SONG OF SHADOWS 66 RECOMPENSE 68 THE HAUNTED CITY 69 RETURNING 71 ’TWIXT DAWN AND DAY 73 UNFORGOTTEN 75 A LAST TRIBUTE 76 YOUTH 78

TRANSFIGURED

Love took the sordid clay And pierced its grossness as with lustral fire, Fashioned a spirit from the common earth, And crowned him lord and king with tears and mirth: Love took the sordid clay And shaped it to the god of her desire.

Then, ere he could resign His white divinity and fall away From that ineffable, ideal height Whereto he had been lifted by Love’s might Ere he could so resign His godhead and return again to clay,

Death took the god of Love-- The god that was but man ashine with gleams From inner fires that Love’s own hands supplied-- And made him deathless who might else have died: Death took the god of Love And throned him in the heaven of her dreams.

THE EARTH-BOND

Surely both earth and heaven are God’s; and so He will not count it sin if I should love More than the unknown heaven above His dear earth that I know.

Meadow and sea and sky, and storm and shine, Glad voices that from croft and coppice call, The city loud with life, and all Of mortal and divine

That make this earth akin to you and me, Partner in hopes we live by or regret-- Dear are they all, and dearer yet Some human two or three.

So that, as one in sleep may leave his bed And, blindly drawn to haunts he loved by day, Walk through an old familiar way With sure, unconscious tread,

In the last sleep, if I should dream and do Even as thus some living sleeper might, I shall stray, ghost-like, in the night Home to the earth I knew.

THE PRIDE OF LAZARUS

Lord, I am poor and desolate! The beggars at Thy outer gate, Who cringe to purse-proud passers-by, Are not more desolate than I.

The rich and proud have passed me there And gone into Thy House of Prayer, But I have stretched no pleading palms To ask their pity or their alms.

And now, before the prayers begin, I too, O Lord, will enter in With heart elate, to praise and pray, As thankful and as blest as they.

They praise Thee in communion sweet For silks they wear and flesh they eat; They thank Thee that Thou dost not flout And leave them as the poor without.

I praise Thee that, for all my cares, I have a pride that laughs at theirs; I thank Thee that, though frail I be, My strength has bowed to none but Thee.

Curse me, O Lord, with want and ill, But make my spirit strong, and still Give me, whate’er Thy hand denies, A soul no swine-trough satisfies.

MANHOOD

Not till life’s heat has cooled, The headlong rush slowed to a quiet pace, And every purblind passion that had ruled Our noisier years, at last, Spurs us in vain, and, weary of the race, We care no more who loses or who wins-- Ah! not till all the best of life seems past The best of life begins.

To toil for only fame, Hand-clappings and the fickle gusts of praise, For place or power or gold to gild a name Above the grave whereto All paths will bring us, were to lose our days, We on whose ears youth’s passing bell has tolled, In blowing bubbles even as children do, Forgetting we grow old.

But the world widens when Such hope of trivial gain that ruled us lies Broken among our childhood’s toys, for then We win to self-control And mail ourselves in manhood, and there rise Upon us from the vast and windless height Those clearer thoughts that are unto the soul What stars are to the night.

WAGES

I’d have you love me, yet your love should be A virtue less in you than me; I would not have folk say, “With what a meek Most patient strength she bears with all his weak And childish sins, his follies mean and wild! She loves him as we love a wayward child, Loves him for very pity, even, methinks, As God loves us.” Ah, stoop not to me thus! For love so given poisons him that drinks.

If, when you look into my life, you see No worth that you can love in me; If, being very human, I am prone To ways that are less heavenly than your own; If I have fall’n from your ideal height --Then do not love me in my own despite, Make me no halting beggar at Love’s gate Loved, as such are, For God’s sake; rather far Think I at least am worthy of your hate.

Love me, dear heart, if thus it may befall, For my own sake--or not at all. Love me for what I am; or, if not so, For what I am hate me and let me go; Dole me no humbling charity, nor turn Unjustly from me--pay but what I earn, That unashamed and man-like I may live And know, elate, That be it love or hate, At least you think me worthy what you give.

LIFE AND TIME

Time sits in silence, patient at his loom, And throws untired his shuttles of moon and sun, And weaves with flying strands of dark and light, And weaves again for ever, as it wanes, His pageant of the living hours that die-- Night treading lonely through a land of sleep; Dawn that has dreams of Night within her eyes; Day with the bloom of Morning on her cheeks; Day flushed from labours in the stress of Noon; And Eve whose eyes are sad with dreams of Day.

And circling in the dazzle and the dark, In all the ever fading, growing gloom And glory, swings the clamorous world of men: Clamour of Peace, who sows her happy fields Or feasts with all her sons at harvest-home; Of War, that wields his lightnings like a god And thunders god-like from his clouds, and swirls His red rain on the fields that Peace has sown; Of Joy, who brims his cup and shouts his songs, Exultant in a bubble-heaven that bursts; Of Death, who snows his winter where he will, And walks amid a wailing as of winds; Of Hope who, blinded by his first sun-rise, Waits for the slow to-morrow and dies to-day; Of Love, whose earth and hell and heaven are one; Of Loss, that whimpers at the heels of Love; Of Pity, and Hate, of Anguish, and Despair--

Clamour of all the voices of the world Moan to him like a murmur of his loom, But heedless whether men may laugh or weep, And careless ever though they live or die, Time sits in silence at his spanless web And throws untired his shuttles of moon and sun And weaves anew his pageant as it wanes-- Dawn that has dreams of Night within her eyes; Day with the bloom of Morning on her cheeks; Day flushed from labours in the stress of Noon; And Eve whose eyes are dim with dreams of Day; And Night who loiters saddening still for Dawn.

GROWTH

Blow, winds, your rage but shakes the tree And roots it surer in its place! Scatter your rain, ye clouds, and free The buds that wait your frowning grace! Roll down, O river, to the sea, And widen in your onward race!

Peace through a sunny span may keep His garden in some quiet glen, Whilst others sow for him, and reap, And tend his flocks on moor and fen: The flowers of Peace are death and sleep; The strife of living makes us men.

Ah, joy it is to win the goal By tireless work and dauntless will, Yet may the life rise orbed and whole From clouded hopes, and loss, and ill: Our baffled toils upbuild the soul, And failure so is victory still.

THE DAY BEYOND

When youth is with us, all things seem But lightly to be wished and won; We snare to-morrow in a dream, And take our toll for work undone; “For life is long and time a stream That sleeps and sparkles in the sun-- What need of any haste?” we say, “To-morrow’s longer than to-day.”

And when to-morrow shall destroy The heaven of our dreams, in vain Our hurrying manhood we employ To build the vanished bliss again; We have no leisure to enjoy, “So few the years that yet remain, So much to do, and ah!” we say, “To-morrow’s shorter than to-day.”

But when our hands are worn and weak, And still our labours seem unblest, And time goes past us like a bleak Last twilight waning to the west, “It is not here--the bliss we seek, Too brief is life for happy rest; What need of any haste?” we say, “To-morrow’s longer than to-day.”

THE CITY ASLEEP

Darkly, under a drifting moon, The streets lie empty of sound and life; Dawn of to-morrow come not soon! Silent afar is yesterday’s noon, And the city forgets its sorrow and strife: Oh, weary eyes and hearts that ache, Sleep!--it is better to sleep than wake.

Here, where all day the air was loud With a rattle of carts and jingle of cars And the murmur and laughter and tread of the crowd, Are only the ruts that the wheels have ploughed, And rails that gleam with a glint of the stars, And dreaming streets that the crowd forsake: Sleep!--it is better to sleep than wake.

Toil and care to the day belong; To-morrow their tears shall fall again, But now for a little the weak are strong; Sleep knows nothing of right or wrong, To-night feels naught of to-morrow’s pain. Sleep has a cup all thirst to slake: Sleep!--it is better to sleep than wake.

Bare little feet grown hard on the stones, Gaunt little hands that work has worn-- Oh, children, whom man enslaves or disowns, Christ in His heaven has heard your moans And touched you with happy death till morn. Children, to-morrow your hearts shall ache: Sleep!--it is better to sleep than wake.

Sorrow and sin crouch side by side, Stived in their slum as swine in their pen; Sin?--is it sorrow too sorely tried? A birth of the ashes where hope has died? Weary and outcast women and men, Is it God that mars what His own hands make? Sleep!--it is better to sleep than wake.

Wealth that dwells on the heights serene, Virtue a-dream in your blissful bower, With the blood of the poor are your walls unclean, Your pleasures are dredged from their woes obscene; Could ye smell the filth of the root in the flower, What joy in the scent thereof would ye take? Sleep!--it is better to sleep than wake.

Palace and hovel, the prince and the throng, Are one in sleep ’neath the drifting moon; Now for a little the weak are strong, Sleep knows nothing of right or wrong: Dawn of to-morrow, come not soon! Eyes that are tearless and hearts that break, Sleep!--it is better to sleep than wake.

LOVE’S REASON

What makes me love you?--Well, In truth, I cannot tell! I love, but know not why-- I only know I do, And shall while I am I And you are you.

It is your voice, maybe, That draws the heart from me And makes it yours alone: Your voice it is--yet, nay, ’Tis not so much your tone As what you say.

Perhaps it is your rare And winsome, happy air, Your eyes of sunny blue, Your silvery laughter glad-- And yet, I love you too When you are sad.

Though sweet your voice, and sweet Your words be, when we meet, And sweet the changeful light Your heaven-deep eyes disclose-- I do not love you quite For these or those.

I love you--yet I try In vain to tell you why! I love you by no laws Men know or ever knew, But just, I think, because You’re simply--you!

THE FORERUNNER

A wind out of heaven o’er holt and lea Blows the dead ashes of life to a blaze, And little green flames on hedge and tree Flicker and shine through the lengthening days. Summer is coming! The sound of her name Gives sight to the blind and a voice to the dumb; Spring is setting the green little buds aflame To light the way she will come.

And down through the city, by shop and mart, An Angel passes with hushed footfall-- His coming gladdens the wistful heart Of a caged thrush hung on an outer wall, And it sings till the spell of its rapturous song Brings the field to its bars, and below in the street Hearing, and mocked with remembrance, the throng Feel the grass under their feet.

To a touch of the sunlight Death unlocks His doors, and with laughter Life returns; In high-walled garden, and window-box, In square and byway glimmers and burns Blossom and leaf, as a happier thought Lights eyes that were sad, for each dull city place Thrilled as the Angel went past it, and caught The look that flashed from his face.

THE SICK MAN’S DREAM

And there before me flashed a morning gleam (It was not like a dream), A dazzle of light that overflowed the sky And filled the sea; and I, A city-toiler fallen in the strife That I could wage no more, I seemed the wreck and remnant of a life The sea had cast ashore.

Oh but to lie upon those sun-kissed sands With idle, restful hands, To feel the freshening wind, to hear the sea Whisper and call to me, Was as though heaven had dawned on earth at last, Or I to heaven were brought; The city here, my life of all the past, Dwindled to but a thought.

There in the streets, I thought, the dull day long The busy workers throng, Whilst I.... The waves broke nearer and more near, And still I had no fear; I yearned to feel the cool bright waters sweep Above me, hushed and high, For when I gazed I saw in all the deep Only another sky.

... Then something stirred; or was it you that spoke? I started, and awoke, And lo! my hands lay white and wasted yet On the white coverlet; And here, about me still, this silent room, The shaded lamp, the red Quick fire-flame darting lightnings through the gloom-- And you beside my bed.

As stars at dawn, the dreams that fill the dark Wane when we waken.... Hark! Is it the wind among the garden trees, That voice so like the sea’s?-- Listen!... I have not dreamed. Oh restful bliss! The great sea calls me now.... These are its winds that cool my lips, and this Its spray upon my brow.

CHARLES LAMB AT ENFIELD

(“Yet in this self-condemned obliviousness, in the stagnation, some molesting yearnings of life, not quite killed, rise prompting me that there was a London, and that I was of that old Jerusalem. In dreams I am in Fleet Market, but I wake, and cry to sleep again.”--Lamb to Wordsworth, 1830.)

Though yet no blossom stars the hedge, nor light Of daisies twinkles from the barren lawn, Here is no death, for, like the sun by night, Spring waits below the earth her hour of dawn.

But cold to this mute life that never dies, This dull, indifferent Nature old and dread, Under these leafless boughs and alien skies I wander ghost-like from a life that’s dead:

That’s dead to me, self-banished from the ways Whose walls hold all of heaven I have known, Whose phantoms haunt me through my nights and days With unforgotten touch, and look, and tone.

I tread no more the city that I love, And though its far-off streets be peopled yet And roofed with their grey slips of sky above, For me they only live in my regret--

Those roaring streets that glared in sunny noons, And gloomed in lamp-lit eves of plashy rain, Or slept enchanted under dreamful moons-- Their life goes on without me; and in vain

I strive elsewhere to gather aught of good, To quite forget them dwelling here apart, I cannot make them strangers if I would, Nor close my ears against them, nor my heart:

Old echoes from the very stones I trod Call to me with a human voice, and then I sadden in these lonely fields of God, Grown home-sick for the crowded world of men.

THE CROWN OF FAILURE

When you have lived your life, When you have fought your last good fight and won, And the day’s work is finished, and the sun Sets on your darkening world and all its strife-- Ere the worn hands are tired with all they’ve done, Ere the mind’s strength begins to droop and wane, Ere the first touch of sleep has dulled the brain, Ere the heart’s springs are slow and running dry-- When you have lived your life, ’Twere good to die.

If it may not be so, If you but fight a fight you may not win, See the far goal but may not enter in, ’Twere better then to die and not to know Defeat--to die amid the rush and din, Still striving, while the heart beats high and fast With glorious life: if you must fail, at last, Such end were best, with all your hope and all Your spirit in its youth, Then, when you fall.

Far better so to die, Still toiling upwards through the mists obscure, With all things possible and nothing sure, Than to be touched by glory and passed by, To win, by chance, fame that may not endure, That dies and leaves you living, while you strive With wasted breath to keep its flame alive, And fan, with empty boasts and proud regrets, Remembrance of a name The world forgets.

AT PARTING

So, with a last good-bye, In this grey hour you die To us, as we to you; Parting is dying too, And distance, heart to heart despairing saith Is but a name for Death.

To-morrow we shall say, “Our thoughts reflect, to-day, His quiet room upstairs, The lonely look it wears For all the house is desolate and dim With want of only him.”

What household things shall stand, Hallowed, because your hand Has touched them! We shall miss Your help in that or this, And treasure even trivial words you said As memories of the dead.

You will bear with you thus Remembrances of us; And, writing now and then Of stranger lands and men, Your tidings from afar shall reach us here As from another sphere:

Just as if you, at last, That greater sea had passed Whose winds and waters yearn Outwards, and never turn, And, looking through the waste of silence lone You called from the Unknown.

Even Death is nothing more Than opening of a door Through which men pass away As stars into the day, And we, who see not, blinded by the light Cry, “They are lost in Night!”

Thus ever, near or far, Life seems but where we are; Yet those we bid Good-bye Find Death is not to die, As you, departing from our daily strife, Go hence from Life to Life.

Clasp hands, and now Farewell! The word’s a passing knell, But ripening year by year Life triumphs there as here, Nor dark nor silent would the distance be Could we but hear and see.

THRENOS

There is nothing so beautiful now As it used to be, Something has gone from the grass, And the flower, and the tree, Something, O thou who art gone! That faded with thee, And there’s nothing so beautiful now As it used to be.

Youth, with its faith in the world And its dreams divine, Youth, that is filled with delight As the grape with wine, Youth, like the moon from the night, Has gone from me, And there’s nothing so beautiful now As it used to be.

A glory has passed from the sky, And a joy from earth; There are tears in the music that once Spake only of mirth; I know there is death in the world Under all that I see, And there’s nothing so beautiful now As it used to be.

UNHONOURED WORK

So that no day from dawn to darkness stands, Then passes from your door with empty hands, What though the world should grant you no acclaim? The worth of what is done is still the same.

Men sought of old a wand that would invoke Desire’s fulfilment by a single stroke, A magic Sesame, some potent word That Fortune needs must yield to when she heard.

But never thus are any wonders wrought, Save in the happy fairy-realm of thought, Here, where no harvest crowns the field unsown, Nor word nor wand avails, but work alone.

Strength builds in silence. Lo! without a sound, Or on the heights or in the deeps profound, All Nature toils with mightier arts than ours, And only man is clamorous of his powers.

His work fulfils its purpose, high or low, But he, not great enough to leave it so, Stoops from his loftiest labour and delays For some poor guerdon of his fellows’ praise,

Yet sees the little worth of such a prize, What folly wears the honours of the wise, What tinsel passes current for pure gold, What juggling for a marvel, while, behold!--

The shining worlds of heaven, the growth of earth Through every mystic change of death and birth-- Coming and going with a noiseless pace, The miracles of God seem commonplace.

OUTSIDE THE CHURCH

I passed without, what time the organ pealed The last high rapture of a stately hymn, And lingering where upon the twilight dim The storied windows, rich with warmth, revealed A pitying Christ ’mid humble shapes that kneeled, Heard the punctilious Priest intone a grim Creed-curse of some dead, earthly sanhedrim, As if it opened all that God has sealed.

Not mine that perfect faith which strangely soothes The world’s disquiet where it enters in, And yet I bear, through every night of doubt, A heart of hope made glad by simple truths: No door, O Priest! shuts all God’s light within, His stars are with me in the dark without.

UNKNOWN KNOWLEDGE

O, soul that seest far off the light That is not seen of human sight, That knowest truths of God begot And how thou knowest knowest not!

We know not what to hope or fear: Thou speakest, but we do not hear, Or hearing some low-whispered word, But half believe that we have heard.

For while to us the old is new, And youth has all its work to do, And o’er us rear the heights sublime That we have set ourselves to climb,

While the quick brain has thronging dreams And spins its airy-threaded schemes To catch the great world’s tardy praise And glorify inglorious days--