Classic Poem

i

May the good King
That guards like sheep
Kings and shepherds all
Send us quiet sleep!

Shepherds great and small
Has He in hold;
There need no danger
Threaten field or fold.

Lowly in a manger
That King was born
Of maid undefiled
On a winter's morn.

He lay a little child
On His mother's knee;
Three kings out of the East
Came Him to see.

On a mother's breast
Still did He lie:
Said one king to the other,
"Such once was I!"

Then said his brother,
"Even thus, I trow,
Once lay thy simplicity,
But where is that now?"


ii

How many a woman's eyes are worn,
Weeping a murder'd son!
How many wish none they had borne
To do as theirs have done!
Who dares to see a mask of hate
And snarling on the face
Which she had pray'd to consecrate
To honour for a space?

This high-flusht lad whom she has known
Since as a new-born child
He lay as soft as thistle-down,
Or like an angel smil'd;
Whom she has seen, a sturdy imp
Tumble bare-breecht at play,
Or nurst to health when, quiet and limp,
Short-breath'd and flusht he lay;

Or shockhead boy, aburst with joy,
Or gawky, ill-at-ease,
All hot and coy, a hobbledehoy
With laces round his knees--
But hers, her own, with eyes that trust
Hers for his better part--
Ah, tiger-lust of War that thrust
A hand to snatch that heart!

She hides her woe, and helps him go,
She sits at home to pray;
He tells her when he met the foe,
But nothing of the way.
She never knows the way, and who
Would know it if she could,
What in his fever-heat he do
Of rage and dust and blood?

The lads go by, the colours fly,
Drums rattle, bugles bray;
We only cry, Let mine not die--
No thought for whom he slay.
But woman bares a martyr breast,
And herself points the flame:
Her son, a hero or a beast,
Will never be the same.


iii

When forth my love to duty went
I sought my old home,
My few months' joy over and spent,
And lean years to come.
My mother blinkt her patient eyes;
She said, It was to be.
Was I less temperate or more wise
To question her decree?

Was it for this, our clasp and kiss?
For this end and no other
That I was shapt to have increase,
And call'd to be mother?
Did God make o'er the power to soar
On men, that they should sink?
Did He outpour a flood of war
And leave us on the brink?

Was't so He wove the robe of Love,
To mock the lovely earth?
Sees He, above, creation move
To death, not birth?
Go, thou dear head, for God is dead,
And Death is our Lord:
Between us, red, lies in the bed
War, like a naked sword.


iv

O failing heart, accept your part,
And thank the Lord, Who bound
Your labour daily to the mart,
Your service to the ground!
Take to the mart your stricken heart,
Tho' the chaffer graze it;
Shrink not altho' the quick flesh smart--
But meet pain and praise it!


v

He came to see me once again,
Stiffen'd in his new buff:
A few short hours compact of strain,
Too hasty for love;
For Love can never be confin'd,
But asks eternity.
To nurse the lov'd one in the mind
The bond must first be free.

And he, he now serv'd otherwhere
And could not be the same;
To all the world my love was there
And answer'd to his name;
But not to me, oh, not to me
The kisses of his lips
Were as of old, but guardedly,
Like sunlight in eclipse.

The moment came, I held him close,
But had no word to say--
Good-bye, sweetheart, Good-bye, Blush Rose:
'Twas his old way.
Then in a hush which seem'd to rock
Me like a leaf about,
I heard the pulsing of the clock,
Counting my dear life out.

And I am here, and you are, where?
While the long hours go by,
And on my eyes the glaze of care,
And in my heart a cry.
Bury my heart deep in the grave
Where all its grace is hid:
What other service should I have
Than tend my lovely dead?


vi

Then waiting, watching, judging news,
Then terror in the night--
I used to start up with the dews
All over me of fright.
I dream'd of him on stormy seas;
Then, in a woodland bare,
I saw my love on hands and knees,
With blood upon his hair.

Along the limits of the wood,
A green bank full of holes,
With lichen'd stumps which lean'd or stood
Like crazy channel-poles:
'Twas there I saw my love's drawn face,
A face of paper-white,
Wherein just for a choking space
His eyes shone burning bright;

Then faded, and an eyeless man
He crawled along the wood,
And from his hair a black line ran
And broaden'd into blood.
It was not horror of him wrong'd,
It was not pity mov'd me;
It was, those tortur'd eyes belong'd
To one who'd never lov'd me.

That was my love in face and shape,
That was my love in pain;
But something told me past escape
That not by him I'd lain.
I sat and star'd into the night,
And still most dreadfully
I saw those two eyes burning white
That never had seen me!


vii

Upon a wild March morn
My husband went to France;
The day my child was born
His word came to advance.

'Twas on that very day
When my life should be crown'd,
As I lay in, he lay
Broken upon the ground.

For my loss there was gain,
But his precious blood
Was shed to earth like rain
Within the shatter'd wood.

Missing, the paper said,
But my heart said, Nay.
Missing! My man had been dead
Before he went away!


viii

It never throve from the first,
Mother, she seem'd to fear it;
But her words were the worst:
"Nancy, you'll never rear it."

Yet he took to the breast
And I knew the great end
Of women, to give their best,
To spend and to spend.

But his great eyes stared
Till he seemed all eyes,
And more than I dared
Meet looks so wise.

Wondering and darkly blue,
Pondering and slow,
They would look you thro' and thro',
Then tire and let you go,

And fall back to vacancy,
As if the poor thing plain'd,
"Why was I not let be,
And what have I gain'd?"

'Twas more than I could bear,
I pray'd that he might die;
And God must have heard my prayer,
For he went with a little sigh:

A flutter, a murmur, a sigh
Lighter than dawn wind--
It was his soft Good-bye;
And all my life lay behind.

I wonder if they were wise,
Those three kings of the East
Who offer'd gifts of price
To the Child on a Girl's breast.

But if they were wise, their sons
Have other counsel than they:
The gifts they offer are guns,
And the children's parents they slay.


ix

He went before my load was quicken'd,
And I lay in alone.
He was not there when baby sicken'd,
Nor when it was gone.
I walkt with Mother to the church,
With Mother and Fan,
My hard eyes ever on the search--
Pity me who can!

The grief was bad enough to bear,
So dreadfully to wean it;
But to go home and leave it there,
And he had never seen it--!
It was a thing to thank God for
That home for me was none;
I knew before we reacht the door
That my home life was done.


x

Now limpt or dragg'd about our street
The wounded men in blue,
Trailing the feet which had been fleet,
Or crutching one for two;
Like ghosts of men past out of ken,
Pale and uncertain-eyed,
Whose gaze would flicker out, and then
Come back with hasty pride.

What they had seen they never told,
Nor what they had done:
I saw young lads turn'd suddenly old;
I saw the blind in the sun
Look up to pray, as if the blue
Was shapt like a cross:
There came back one my husband knew,
Spoke kindly of my loss.

He told me how my love was dead;
He was not the first!
Broadcast our land the word of dread
Told women the worst.
They say, let love and light be given
So we keep Liberty;
But I say there is no more Heaven
If men must so be free.


xi

Can it be own'd that kings were crown'd,
Consecrate to such evil?
God-appointed, by God anointed
Only to play the devil!
Their men to bind of the tiger kind,
To bind and then to goad,
Blundering, slavering, hot and blind,
On murder's hollow road?

If kings are so, then let all go--
Let my dear love cast down
His lovely life, so we lay low
The last to wear a crown.
I'll look upon the steadfast stars,
Patient and true and wise,
And read in them the end of wars,
As in my dead love's eyes.

O Lord of Life, for whom this earth
Should image back Thy thought,
Wherein the mystery of birth
In Love like Thine be wrought,
If pity stands with Thy commands,
Grant a short breathing-space
Ere men hold up their bloody hands
Before Thy awful face.