Part 1
WILLOW’S FORGE AND OTHER POEMS
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
THE TRAMPING METHODIST
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STARBRACE
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SPELL LAND
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ISLE OF THORNS
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Published by CONSTABLE & CO. LTD. 10 Orange Street, London, W.C.
WILLOW’S FORGE AND OTHER POEMS
BY SHEILA KAYE-SMITH
LONDON ERSKINE MACDONALD 1914
CONTENTS
BALLADS-- PAGE WILLOW’S FORGE 7
THE BALLAD OF A MOTOR BUS 10
THE SONG OF JACOB BOEHME 14
THE COUNSEL OF GILGAMESH 18
THE BALLAD OF THE QUICK AND DEAD 20
THE BALLAD OF DIVINE COMPASSION 23
THE LAST GOSPEL--
1. DEDICATION 27
2. LOVE CAST OUT 28
3. HOLY INNOCENTS 30
4. TO MY BODY--A THANKSGIVING 32
5. FUNERAL MARCH OF A FALLEN HERO 34
6. ‘I AM ALPHA AND OMEGA’ 36
CANT SONGS--
THE SCAMPSMAN’S NIGHT 38
A DEUCED MORAL LAY 39
CAST FOR LAG 40
TO A COMRADE SPED 41
MISCELLANEOUS--
BRIDE’S SONG 43
IMMORTALITY 44
THE OPTIMIST 47
RESURRECTION 49
A PRAYER 51
Willow’s Forge
I’ve crossed the fields from Lattenden And haunted Honey Mill, My feet and all my clothes are torn. Yet on I stumble still-- I must not stay to speak to you Or falter with my pain, But hasten on to Willow’s Forge, At the bottom of the lane.
Folk call me mad--perhaps ’tis true-- My life is full of fears, At whiles I bite my arms, and then I wash the blood with tears. I scream, I talk to owls and crows, Hear voices from the sky, I see the spooks that ride o’ nights-- Men shudder when I’m nigh.
My love was hanged for stealing sheep, ’Twas that which sent me mad-- He was a liar and a thief, But O I loved my lad! I’ve wandered wildly ever since, And last night, ’neath the Wain, I saw my love at Willow’s Forge, At the bottom of the lane.
His face was wan, his burning eye Was like a coal from hell (He’s with the damned souls, all folk say, But O I love him well!) His hands were misty as the moon That bathed his awful brow, His lips and breast were smeared with blood, His cheeks were white as snow.
‘O tell me, love, where have you been This weary sleepless while? I’ve screamed and wept to kiss your lips, I’ve hungered for your smile. Have you been down among the damned, Where, like the sheep in fold, The dead men lie, and bleat and cry And shiver in the cold?
‘Have you been up to where the clouds Are sailing in the blue, And have they thrown you down, and said ’Twas no fit place for you? Or have you roamed all Sussex through In weariness and pain, To meet me here at Willow’s Forge, At the bottom of the lane?’
He nothing said at all, but stared With glazed and dreadful eye, His red lips shook, as if he strove To part them with a cry. He could not speak, and O I thought He’d shiver from my sight, And leave me lone at Willow’s Forge, In the terror of the night.
‘O kiss me lad, before you go!’ I cried, and raised my head. He stooped his scarlet lips to me, The living kissed the dead. But O his mouth was all on fire, And burned my cheek and hair, I screamed aloud, and he had gone, And left me waiting there.
I told my mother what had passed, She shuddered at my tale-- ‘You’ve seen the moonlight through the trees That shiver in the gale; And as for your burnt cheek, my girl, Which makes you sob with pain, You’ve kissed the fire at Willow’s Forge, At the bottom of the lane.’
But though she speak, and though I hear, I will not aught believe But that at last I’ve met and kissed The lad for whom I grieve. And if I haunt the meeting spot, I’ll see him there again-- That’s why I haste to Willow’s Forge, At the bottom of the lane.
The Ballad of a Motor ’Bus
You get in at Ludgate Circus, Where in regiments they stand, All throbbing underneath the bridge, And pointing to the Strand-- All pageantry with colours, All poetry with words, Wait those blazoned motor-’buses In their fiercely panting herds.
There are ’buses for the East, There are ’buses for the West, For North and South and Central And where heaven pleases best-- For the Elephant and Castle, Gospel Oak and Parson’s Green, Some for Chelsea, some for Putney, Some for Barnes, and some for Sheen.
There are some that cross the river, And they see the steamers crawl With dirty belching smoke-stacks To the Pool or London Wall-- They rumble down the dingy streets Where dingy houses grow Like quickly sprouting toadstools In an evil yellow row.
And some go plunging northward Up the hills to Kensal Rise, And some are bound for Hampstead And the smokeless windy skies, And some go east to Hackney, And the long Commercial Road, Past the buying and the selling, To poverty’s abode.
But the ’bus I take goes westward-- It leaves Charing Cross behind, Then it bounds up Piccadilly, Through the smokey dusty wind-- The first lamps have been lighted, And across St James’s Park The early lights of Westminster Are splashing on the dark.
The dusk is falling gently, And from the streets below The London glare climbs upward To make the sad skies glow-- Through the mingled dusk and dazzle We hum swiftly on our way, While the wind brings to our faces The first damps of the day.
It is Summer, it is evening, Early stars are in the sky, Shining dim above the smoke-wreaths, While the western bonfires die-- And the wind sings of the river That beyond the city flows, Of the pleasant westward reaches That no cargo-tramper knows.
So we spin through holy Brompton, We leave Kensington behind, We thunder down to Fulham, Past churches tall and blind-- Till we come at last to Putney, And the starlit river gleams Through darkness up to Richmond, A thoroughfare of dreams.
And it’s there that you are waiting, O my faithful love, for me! Through the dark your eyes are straining My chariot to see-- For the working-day is over, All its dust and hurry past, And we go to the river, With my hand in yours at last.
While the motor-’bus rolls onward-- And we stop to watch it tear All burning through the twilight, Mysterious and fair. It was our love’s bright chariot, The torch of our desires, Kindling the London darkness With youth’s eternal fires.
O youth!--O youth in London! Shall they ever be forgot, Those young and eager footsteps On pavements hard and hot? The dust is in the breezes, Stinks of petrol stain the air, But youth has come to London, And has found a garden there.
The Song of Jacob Boehme
The wild fowl hath not seen it, No vulture flown so high, The lion’s whelp hath not trodden, Nor the fierce lion passed by, The crags and the abysses Of that most lonely way, Which windeth in the mountains, And leadeth to the May.
The chymist labours nightly, No travail will he shirk, If he can hope to finish The Philosophic Work. Mercury, salt, and sulphur, In Athanor are they, But through their transmutation He cannot find the May.
And I am but a cobbler, At work from morn till night, A poor and silly groundling Who scarce can read or write; With cares of trade and household I struggle all the day, But I have trod the mountains, And I have found the May.
--The May of glancing sunshine, The May of glowing flowers, Of singing birds, and breezes, And swift leaf-scented showers. No more I fear the Turba, For I have seen God play Among the dews and lilies Of the Eternal May.
O I have found the spring-time Of green sun-spotted shade! O I have found the garden Where roses never fade! O I have learned the secrets And signs of all the sky, And wrought the Magnum Opus Of holy Alchemy!
The salt Impress of Saturn Is mine, and Luna’s Form, And Mercury’s sharp Flagrat, And Mars’ most ruddy storm, Mine is the young child Venus, Mine Jupiter’s pure might, I haunt the sacred Houses, I read the dooms of night.
The magical Triangles Have shown me what they hold Of light and corporiety, Of bitterness and gold, I saw God in the garden, I saw Him on the Tree, Dying to bring back Adam Into the Liberty.
Men laugh, and call me crazy, The pastor saith I’ve sought To overturn the doctrines That Martin Luther taught. My books he burnt, with curses, And I have heard him tell Good Christians to avoid me As they would flee from hell.
The astrologers all mock me, The learned chymists cry, ‘What hath this child to tell us About our Alchemy?’ I have felt drought and hunger, Met lions in the way, Been wounded in friends’ houses, But I have found the May.
--The May of glancing sunshine, The May of glowing flowers, Of singing-birds, and breezes, And swift leaf-scented showers. No more I fear the Turba, For I have seen God play Among the dews and lilies Of the Eternal May.
O hearken then, thou Magus, And let thy love be sure, Give worship to the Artist, And keep his pattern pure, O labour in the lubet! And I shall humbly pray That thou become a Champion, And find at last the May.
The magical Triangles Shall both at last be one, Adam return to Paradise, The Mighty Work be done; Then the meek holy servants Shall see their God at play-- O haste the time, great Master, When all men find the May!
The Counsel of Gilgamesh
‘Gilgamesh, why dost thou wander around? Life, which thou seekest, thou canst not find.’
_Epic of Gilgamesh._
Why wander round, Gilgamesh? The sun that set to-night Shall climb the sky to-morrow, And bake the world with light. Throughout undying ages The sun shall set and rise As it hath set and risen From dim eternities.
Why wander round, Gilgamesh? Why vainly wander round? What canst thou find, O seeker, Which hath not long been found? What canst thou know, O scholar, Which hath not long been known? What canst thou have, O spoiler, Which dead men did not own?
The camel of the desert, The wild ape of the wood, Tread the white bones of heroes Who in thy place once stood; Like thee, they felt the sunshine, Like thee, they loved the day, Like thee, they sought and suffered-- And thou shalt be as they.
And other men, Gilgamesh, Shall seek what thou dost seek, And to their youth and ardour Thy rotting bones will speak. They will not heed thy counsel, They too will wander round, And waste their years in seeking That which hath long been found.
Why wander round, Gilgamesh? Why vainly wander round? What canst thou find, O seeker, Which hath not long been found? What canst thou know, O scholar, Which dead men did not know?
And this was asked in Nineveh Thousands of years ago.
The Ballad of the Quick and Dead
And every night I sit alone, And every night I see A little cotton-aproned ghost Who takes no heed of me.
She sets the milk, she sets the bread, One scarce would know that she was dead-- But long ago death gave her greeting, In the great bed whence one can see The sunset in the cherry tree, And hear the fold-bound wethers bleating.
In a far country lives the man Who loved this little maid, He knows not, cares not, that each night His supper here is laid.
She lays it as in twilights gone, When, all the farmstead labour done, His passion in her arms would take Its daylong waited recompense-- And her lost peace and innocence She gave ungrudging for his sake.
She lived for love, she died for love, Though love was agony, And here, where joy was sold for love, She loves eternally.
He does not care--he wanders far, Where light and wine and pleasure are; He strives and battles to forget The little cottage dove he caught, Who gave so much and asked for naught, And haunts the crumbling farmhouse yet.
O Lord, how happy I should be, If one my heart holds dear Would come and spread the board for me, As she who rambles here!
I should not wander far away, Or struggle to forget the day I loved, but to her straight would speed, And pledge the cup and break the bread With one who has been ten years dead-- Ah, that were heaven indeed!
It may not be--no dreams of me Disturb her quiet sleep; She little knows that dreams of her Wake me each night to weep.
I never mocked her confidence, Or robbed her of her innocence, But with both hands I gave her all I had to give--she did not see My love, she never thinks of me, She comes not when I call.
So every night I sit alone, And every night I see A little cotton-aproned ghost Who takes no heed of me.
This is the tragedy of love, By all men be it read, ’Tis thus the dead dream of the quick, The quick dream of the dead.
This is the mockery of love, By all men be it read, ’Tis thus the dead forget the quick, The quick forget the dead.
The Ballad of Divine Compassion
The halls of heaven were full of joy, The quivering air was blue With incense, and with candles gay The mansions of eternal day Were gleaming through and through.
The Saints in Glory danced and sang In robes of glittering white-- Till heaven with their music rang, The Saints in Glory danced and sang, And filled themselves with light.
Through groves of trees and lawns of flowers They trod the mystic maze Of many a sacred rigadoon, Danced to a fiddling angel’s tune, With endless roundelays.
One only walked apart and sighed, In all that blissful horde, Shrank from the revel, and alone Poured from an aching heart his moan, And He was Christ the Lord.
He leaned across the fiery gate Which stands above the stars, And from the fields where angels dwell Shuts the red cemeteries of hell With seven burning bars.
He leaned above the direful deep Where tortured spirits lie, He saw their helpless agonies, He saw their wild and weeping eyes Turned up towards the sky.
And all the sorrows of His heart Were grinding in His breast, He longed to comfort those poor sheep, To give them drink, and let them sleep On the green hills of rest.
Nought were to Him the heavenly fields, The flocks His blood had bought, He thought alone of His lost sheep, Of those who toss, and starve, and weep, Whom He had vainly sought.
And as the Saviour watched them there In all their sweat and fear, His love and longing rose so high, That from His tender, pitying eye There fell a holy Tear.
The tear rolled down, until it dropped Into the blackest hell, And straight there were strange things to see Within that pit of misery Where the pure token fell.
The Tear became a mighty sea, Which raged, and roared, and rolled, And filled each black and gaping gorge, And quenched each red and belching forge, And wrecked each towering hold.
And all the lost and sinning souls Were borne upon its waves-- By that one Tear the Saviour wept The doomed of ages all were swept Out of their living graves.
And, carried on the heaving tide, The lost souls rose to heaven, Tumbling and drowning, hand in hand, They reached the coolness of that land Where all things are forgiven.
Women, and men, and children too, All blasted, scorched, and red, Were washed up to the Saviour’s feet, By that one Tear of pity sweet His loving eye had shed.
The Saints in Glory danced and sang, They sang and danced so high They saw not that their Lord was gone, Or that His white and fiery throne Stood empty in the sky.
They saw Him not as He stooped down To lift each cowering slave, They saw Him not, so great their bliss, On each scarred forehead lay His kiss, As sign that He forgave.
He could not take those guilty ones To where the guiltless throng Pealed forth their own salvation’s praise, And through the everlasting days Shouted their triumph song.
He led them to the wilderness, Where stood the Holy Cross, And from the timber of that Tree He built a house of welcome, free To those lame sons of loss.
The Saints in Glory feasted on The honey-dews of heaven, So all those sinners had for food Was their Lord’s body and His blood, To their great hunger given.
The Saints in Glory danced and sang, Nor missed Him from their sport, And so He made His dwelling-place With the poor pensioners of grace His pardoning love had bought.
And never to the halls of bliss He lifts a longing eye, The poor souls never hear Him groan, Or sigh because His great white throne Stands empty in the sky.
He leads them through the wilderness, He makes their faces wet With water from a desert steam, The black past as an evil dream He helps them to forget.
He is the comforter of those Whom stormy seas have tossed, He dries the eyes of those that weep, He is the shepherd of lame sheep, The Saviour of the Lost.
THE LAST GOSPEL
1. Dedication
When Mass is said, The music dead, And the last lights upon the Altar-throne Drop slowly one by one into the dark, To the east Turns the Priest, And bows his knee before the sacred Ark And whispers the Last Gospel through--alone.
So do I When dreams die, And love’s last wretched candle-lights are seen Darkening upon the Altar of your heart, Face the east, And like the Priest Say my Last Gospel through ere I depart, And before leaving bow to What Has Been.
2. Love Cast Out
A victim crowned am I, Crowned, piercèd, and adored, In my eyes a flame of fire, In my heart a sword.
Christ is my brother dear, Sister to Christ am I, For He has felt the thirsty wound That I must perish by.
He came a king uncrowned, Unrobed, the Son of Loss, And so they pierced His body through, And hung Him on the cross.
And my love wore no robe, And my love wore no crown, My love a pilgrim was, and trod The roads in pilgrim’s brown.
And since my love went thus, A stranger and a dove, You built a cruel wooden cross, And crucified my love.
And now you bend the knee --As now we Christ adore-- And set your bleeding sacrifice At God’s right hand above the skies, To worship evermore.
The third day, from the dead The Saviour rose again, He put on robes of royalty, And sat Him down to reign.
But my love shall not rise, My love shall rest and sleep, My love is tired, why should it wake, That your eyes may not weep?
For Christ the Saviour has A gentler heart than mine, He lets you crown what you did kill, Of His torn body eat your fill, And make His blood your wine.
You shall not use me so-- Go far, the world is wide; Why should you wake from its poor rest The heart you crucified?
Beneath the tender ground My love shall sleep for aye, No last trump for my love shall sound No resurrection day.
A victim crowned am I, Crowned, piercéd, and adored, In my eyes a flame of fire, In my heart a sword.
3. Holy Innocents
To-day I keep a feast, with red and white-- The red blood and the snow-white innocence Of little souls who had their recompense Before they learned the horrors of the fight.
I see them running in their gardens gay, They snatch the colours of the rainbow’s flame, And throw the stars about in childish game, And pull the clouds to pieces for their play.
But these are not the throng the king did slay, The babes for whom dark Rachael’s head is bowed-- ’Tis not for them her wailing rings so loud; Other and holier Innocents are they.
These are the little ones who never wrought Love’s royalest wonder in a mother’s eyes, Who never brought a tender warm surprise With groping lips to breasts till then unsought.
These are the fruit of hundredfold desires, Ten thousand dreams begot this laughing band, They fill the cities of a promised land-- Long promised, but not given--lost in fires.
These are the children I had hoped to show The secret of this life, and all its love-- But they are playing with my dreams above, While I plunge on through my dead hopes below.
Saved--Oh perhaps from much that I must brave-- I worship you, sweet saints!--oh pray for me! The little children that shall never be-- The little children I shall never have.
4. To My Body--A Thanksgiving
Though thou hast set me many a snare, And cost me many a groan, And causéd feet to slip that were Far dearer than my own-- Though thou hast been both sword and gin To others and to me, Yet I recall what thou didst win Once for my soul, and I give thanks to thee.
For once, when all my heavens fell, And each hour that went by Brought nearer to the pit of hell The Dayspring which is I-- When all unheard the highest cried, When lost were course and goal, When hope had fled and faith had died-- Thou, even thou, didst then redeem my soul.
Thou broughtest me unto the snow, And thou didst force through me The pumping blood, that I might know How fierce my flesh could be; My flesh--till then half love, half dread-- Became an armoured tower, To which my wounded spirit fled, And found a refuge in its bitter hour.
Thou didst deny the healing sleep Unless I strove all day With thews and muscles, fierce to keep The wolves of thought at bay; And thou didst crown thyself with strength, And lift thyself on high, And free salvation win at length For the poor soul that thought it was to die.
Redemption thou didst work for me, And forth into the light Crept my healed spirit, saved by thee From all the hells of night-- And this I never shall forget, And so I can forgive Thy treacheries, and thank thee yet, For ’tis through thee I have found grace to live.