Sword Blades and Poppy Seed Part 2

It was her wings, G.o.ddess!

Who stepped over the clouds, And laid her rainbow feathers Aslant on the currents of the air.

I followed her for long, With gazing eyes and stumbling feet.

I cared not where she led me, My eyes were full of colours: Saffrons, rubies, the yellows of beryls, And the indigo-blue of quartz; Flights of rose, layers of chrysoprase, Points of orange, spirals of vermilion, The spotted gold of tiger-lily petals, The loud pink of bursting hydrangeas.

I followed, And watched for the flas.h.i.+ng of her wings.

In the city I found her, The narrow-streeted city.

In the market-place I came upon her, Bound and trembling.

Her fluted wings were fastened to her sides with cords, She was naked and cold, For that day the wind blew Without suns.h.i.+ne.

Men chaffered for her, They bargained in silver and gold, In copper, in wheat, And called their bids across the market-place.

The G.o.ddess wept.

Hiding my face I fled, And the grey wind hissed behind me, Along the narrow streets.

The Precinct. Rochester

The tall yellow hollyhocks stand, Still and straight, With their round blossoms spread open, In the quiet suns.h.i.+ne.

And still is the old Roman wall, Rough with jagged bits of flint, And jutting stones, Old and cragged, Quite still in its antiquity.

The pear-trees press their branches against it, And feeling it warm and kindly, The little pears ripen to yellow and red.

They hang heavy, bursting with juice, Against the wall.

So old, so still!

The sky is still.

The clouds make no sound As they slide away Beyond the Cathedral Tower, To the river, And the sea.

It is very quiet, Very sunny.

The myrtle flowers stretch themselves in the suns.h.i.+ne, But make no sound.

The roses push their little tendrils up, And climb higher and higher.

In spots they have climbed over the wall.

But they are very still, They do not seem to move.

And the old wall carries them Without effort, and quietly Ripens and s.h.i.+elds the vines and blossoms.

A bird in a plane-tree Sings a few notes, Cadenced and perfect They weave into the silence.

The Cathedral bell knocks, One, two, three, and again, And then again.

It is a quiet sound, Calling to prayer, Hardly scattering the stillness, Only making it close in more densely.

The gardener picks ripe gooseberries For the Dean's supper to-night.

It is very quiet, Very regulated and mellow.

But the wall is old, It has known many days.

It is a Roman wall, Left-over and forgotten.

Beyond the Cathedral Close Yelp and mutter the discontents of people not mellow, Not well-regulated.

People who care more for bread than for beauty, Who would break the tombs of saints, And give the painted windows of churches To their children for toys.

People who say: "They are dead, we live!

The world is for the living."

Fools! It is always the dead who breed.

Crush the ripe fruit, and cast it aside, Yet its seeds shall fructify, And trees rise where your huts were standing.

But the little people are ignorant, They chaffer, and swarm.

They gnaw like rats, And the foundations of the Cathedral are honeycombed.

The Dean is in the Chapter House; He is reading the architect's bill For the completed restoration of the Cathedral.

He will have ripe gooseberries for supper, And then he will walk up and down the path By the wall, And admire the snapdragons and dahlias, Thinking how quiet and peaceful The garden is.

The old wall will watch him, Very quietly and patiently it will watch.

For the wall is old, It is a Roman wall.

The Cyclists

Spread on the roadway, With open-blown jackets, Like black, soaring pinions, They swoop down the hillside, The Cyclists.

Seeming dark-plumaged Birds, after carrion, Careening and circling, Over the dying Of England.

She lies with her bosom Beneath them, no longer The Dominant Mother, The Virile--but rotting Before time.

The smell of her, tainted, Has bitten their nostrils.

Exultant they hover, And shadow the sun with Foreboding.

Suns.h.i.+ne through a Cobwebbed Window

What charm is yours, you faded old-world tapestries, Of outworn, childish mysteries, Vague pageants woven on a web of dream!

And we, pus.h.i.+ng and fighting in the turbid stream Of modern life, find solace in your tarnished broideries.

Old lichened halls, sun-shaded by huge cedar-trees, The layered branches horizontal stretched, like j.a.panese Dark-banded prints. Carven cathedrals, on a sky Of faintest colour, where the gothic spires fly And sway like masts, against a s.h.i.+fting breeze.

Worm-eaten pages, clasped in old brown vellum, shrunk From over-handling, by some anxious monk.

Or Virgin's Hours, bright with gold and graven With flowers, and rare birds, and all the Saints of Heaven, And Noah's ark stuck on Ararat, when all the world had sunk.

They soothe us like a song, heard in a garden, sung By youthful minstrels, on the moonlight flung In cadences and falls, to ease a queen, Widowed and childless, cowering in a screen Of myrtles, whose life hangs with all its threads unstrung.

A London Thoroughfare. 2 A.M.