Georgian Poetry 1913-15 Part 1

Georgian Poetry 1913-15.

by Various.

Editor: Sir Edward Howard Marsh.

PREFATORY NOTE

The object of 'Georgian Poetry' 1911-1912 was to give a convenient survey of the work published within two years by some poets of the newer generation. The book was welcomed; and perhaps, even in a time like this, those whom it interested may care to have a corresponding volume for the three years which have since pa.s.sed.

Two of the poets--I think the youngest, and certainly not the least gifted--are dead. Rupert Brooke, who seemed to have everything that is worth having, died last April in the service of his country. James Elroy Flecker, to whom life and death were less generous, died in January after a long and disabling illness.

A few of the contributors to the former volume are not represented in this one, either because they have published nothing which comes within its scope, or because they belong in fact to an earlier poetic generation, and their inclusion must be allowed to have been an anachronism. Two names are added.

The alphabetical arrangement of the writers has been modified in order to recognize the honour which Mr Gordon Bottomley has done to the book by allowing his play to be first published here.

My thanks for permission to print the poems are due to Messrs Constable, Duckworth, Heinemann, Herbert Jenkins, Macmillan, Elkin Mathews, Methuen, Martin Seeker, and Sidgwick and Jackson; and to the Editors of 'Country Life', the 'English Review, Flying Fame, New Numbers', the 'New Statesman', and the 'Westminster Gazette'.

E. M.

Oct. 1915.

GORDON BOTTOMLEY

KING LEAR'S WIFE [1]

(To T.S.M.)

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

LEAR, King of Britain.

HYGD, his Queen.

GONERIL, daughter to King Lear.

CORDEIL, daughter to King Lear.

GORMFLAITH, waiting-woman to Queen Hygd.

MERRYN, waiting-woman to Queen Hygd.

A PHYSICIAN.

TWO ELDERLY WOMEN.

KING LEAR'S WIFE.

[The scene is a bedchamber in a one-storied house. The walls consist of a few courses of huge irregular boulders roughly squared and fitted together; a thatched roof rises steeply from the back wall. In the centre of the back wall is a doorway opening on a garden and covered by two leather curtains; the chamber is partially hung with similar hangings st.i.tched with bright wools. There is a small window on each side of this door.

Toward the front a bed stands with its head against the right wall; it has thin leather curtains hung by thongs and drawn back. Farther forward a rich robe and a crown hang on a peg in the same wall. There is a second door beyond the bed, and between this and the bed's head stands a small table with a bronze lamp and a bronze cup on it. Queen HYGD, an emaciated woman, is asleep in the bed; her plenteous black hair, veined with silver, spreads over the pillow. Her waiting-woman, MERRYN, middle-aged and hard-featured, sits watching her in a chair on the farther side of the bed. The light of early morning fills the room.]

Merryn:

Many, many must die who long to live, Yet this one cannot die who longs to die: Even her sleep, come now at last, thwarts death, Although sleep lures us all half way to death ...

I could not sit beside her every night If I believed that I might suffer so: I am sure I am not made to be diseased, I feel there is no malady can touch me-- Save the red cancer, growing where it will.

[Taking her beads from her girdle, she kneels at the foot of the bed.]

O sweet Saint Cleer, and sweet Saint Elid too, s.h.i.+eld me from rooting cancers and from madness: s.h.i.+eld me from sudden death, worse than two death-beds; Let me not lie like this unwanted queen, Yet let my time come not ere I am ready-- Grant s.p.a.ce enow to relish the watchers' tears And give my clothes away and calm my features And streek my limbs according to my will, Not the hard will of fumbling corpse-washers.

[She prays silently.]

[KING LEAR, a great, golden-bearded man in the full maturity of life, enters abruptly by the door beyond the bed, followed by the PHYSICIAN.]

Lear:

Why are you here? Are you here for ever?

Where is the young Scotswoman? Where is she?

Merryn:

O, Sire, move softly; the Queen sleeps at last.

Lear (continuing in an undertone):

Where is the young Scotswoman? Where is Gormflaith?

It is her watch ... I know; I have marked your hours.

Did the Queen send her away? Did the Queen Bid you stay near her in her hate of Gormflaith?

You work upon her yeasting brain to think That she's not safe except when you crouch near her To spy with your dropt eyes and soundless presence.

Merryn:

Sire, midnight should have ended Gormflaith's watch, But Gormflaith had another kind of will And ended at a G.o.dlier hour by slumber, A letter in her hand, the night-lamp out.

She loitered in the hall when she should sleep.

My duty has two hours ere she returns.

Lear:

The Queen should have young women about her bed, Fresh cool-breathed women to lie down at her side And plenish her with vigour; for sick or wasted women Can draw a virtue from such abounding presence, When night makes life unwary and looses the strings of being, Even by the breath, and most of all by sleep.