The Widow in the Bye Street Part 11

A broken ringing like a beaten pan It sent the sparrows wavering to the trees.

The wall-top gra.s.ses whickered in the breeze, The broken ringing clanged, clattered and clanged As though men's bees were swarming, not men hanged.

Now certain Justice with the pitiless knife.

The white sick chaplain snuffling at the nose.

'I am the resurrection and the life.'

The bell still clangs, the small procession goes, The prison warders ready ranged in rows.

'Now, Gurney, come, my dear; it's time,' they said.

And ninety seconds later he was dead.

Some of life's sad ones are too strong to die, Grief doesn't kill them as it kills the weak, Sorrow is not for those who sit and cry Lapped in the love of turning t'other cheek, But for the n.o.ble souls austere and bleak Who have had the bitter dose and drained the cup And wait for Death face fronted, standing up.

As the last man upon the sinking s.h.i.+p, Seeing the brine creep brightly on the deck, Hearing aloft the slatting topsails rip, Ripping to rags among the topmast's wreck, Yet hoists the new red ensign without speck, That she, so fair, may sink with colours flying, So the old widowed mother kept from dying.

She tottered home, back to the little room, It was all over for her, but for life; She drew the blinds, and trembled in the gloom; 'I sat here thus when I was wedded wife; Sorrow sometimes, and joy; but always strife.

Struggle to live except just at the last, O G.o.d, I thank Thee for the mercies past.

Harry, my man, when we were courting; eh...

The April morning up the Cony-gree.

How grand he looked upon our wedding day.

"I wish we'd had the bells," he said to me; And we'd the moon that evening, I and he, And dew come wet, oh, I remember how, And we come home to where I'm sitting now.

And he lay dead here, and his son was born here; He never saw his son, his little Jim.

And now I'm all alone here, left to mourn here, And there are all his clothes, but never him.

He's down under the prison in the dim, With quicklime working on him to the bone, The flesh I made with many and many a groan.

Oh, how his little face come, with bright hair, Dear little face. We made this room so snug; He sit beside me in his little chair, I give him real tea sometimes in his mug.

He liked the velvet in the patchwork rug.

He used to stroke it, did my pretty son, He called it Bunny, little Jimmie done.

And then he ran so, he was strong at running, Always a strong one, like his dad at that.

In summertimes I done my sewing sunning, And he'd be sprawling, playing with the cat.

And neighbours brought their knitting out to chat Till five o'clock; he had his tea at five; How sweet life was when Jimmy was alive.'

Darkness and midnight, and the midnight chimes.

Another four-and-twenty hours begin, Darkness again, and many, many times, The alternating light and darkness spin Until the face so thin is still more thin, Gazing each earthly evening wet or fine For Jimmy coming from work along the line.

Over her head the Chester wires hum, Under the bridge the rocking engines flash.

'He's very late this evening, but he'll come And bring his little packet full of cash (Always he does) and supper's cracker hash, That is his favourite food excepting bacon.

They say my boy was hanged; but they're mistaken.

And sometimes she will walk the cindery mile, Singing, as she and Jimmy used to do, Singing 'The parson's dog lep over a stile,'

Along the path where water lilies grow.

The stars are placid on the evening's blue, Burning like eyes so calm, so unafraid, On all that G.o.d has given and man has made.

Burning they watch, and mothlike owls come out, The redbreast warbles shrilly once and stops; The homing cowman gives his dog a shout, The lamps are lighted in the village shops.

Silence; the last bird pa.s.ses; in the copse The hazels cross the moon, a nightjar spins, Dew wets the gra.s.s, the nightingale begins.

Singing her crazy song the mother goes, Singing as though her heart were full of peace, Moths knock the petals from the dropping rose, Stars make the glimmering pool a golden fleece, The moon droops west, but still she does not cease, The little mice peep out to hear her sing, Until the inn-man's c.o.c.kerel shakes his wing.

And in the sunny dawns of hot Julys, The labourers going to meadow see her there.

Rubbing the sleep out of their heavy eyes, They lean upon the parapet to stare; They see her plaiting basil in her hair, Basil, the dark red wound-wort, cops of clover, The blue self-heal and golden Jacks of Dover.

Dully they watch her, then they turn to go To that high Shrops.h.i.+re upland of late hay; Her singing lingers with them as they mow, And many times they try it, now grave, now gay, Till, with full throat, over the hills away, They lift it clear; oh, very clear it towers Mixed with the swish of many falling flowers.

'The Widow in the Bye Street' first appeared in _The English Review_ for February 1912. I thank the editor and proprietors of the _Review_ for permitting me to reprint it here.

The persons and events described in the poem are entirely imaginary, and no reference is made or intended to any living person.

JOHN MASEFIELD.

10*th May* 1912.

THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH

JOHN MASEFIELD

THE EVERLASTING MERCY

Fifth Impression. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. net

SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS

"Mr Masefield is to be congratulated on a remarkable achievement--a vital portrait of a man, the drama of a great spiritual conquest, and many pa.s.sages of high beauty."--_Spectator_.

"This is probably the most important addition to English religious poetry since Francis Thompson wrote 'The Hound of Heaven.' 'The Everlasting Mercy' is the story of a conversion; not the 'interesting'

conversion of some cultured and introspective Agnostic, full of wise saws and modern instances, but the sensational, primitive, catastrophic conversion of a village wastrel, violent alike in body, mind and soul--a drunkard, poacher, bully and libertine.... In it Mr Masefield has accomplished two separate things. He has written a superb poem, swift in its pace and vivid in its phrasing, and produced as well a psychological doc.u.ment of surpa.s.sing interest.... He has brought the flaming torch of beauty to light the dry processes of the religious psychologist."--EVELYN UNDERHILL in _The Daily News_.

"Here, beyond question, in 'The Everlasting Mercy,' is a great poem, as true to the essentials of its ancient art as it is astoundingly modern in its method; a poem, too, which 'every clergyman in the country ought to read as a revelation of the heathenism still left in the land.' ...

Its technical force is on a level with its high, inspiring thought. It makes the reader think; it goads him to emotion; and it leaves him alive with a fresh appreciation of the wonderful capacity of human nature to receive new influences and atone for old and apparently ineradicable wrongs."--ARTHUR WAUGH in _The Daily Chronicle_.