Oxford Poetry, 1919 :: RALPH W. W. FOX

RALPH W. W. FOX

T. W. Earp

(MAGDALEN)

LOVE WEEPING AMONG THE CROSSES

Cupid has broken his bow,

His arrows are shattered and lost.

Oh, look at him, look at him now,

His pinions trailing the dust!

The beautiful boy is sad,

The glory has left his glance,

You would say he had never been glad,

That his limbs did not know how to dance.

Oh, look at him, look at him now,

Hugging his broken bow,

Forlornly he wanders about

Dreaming forgotten things ...

Nobody heeds him now,

Nobody hears if he sings.

Once at his wanton play

Everyone railed and laughed,

But nobody laughs to-day

For love is so far away.

Beautiful sorrowing child,

Hugging your broken bow,

Your eyes grow suddenly wild,

Anguish is twisting your face ...

So changed from the Cupid's we know,

The Cupid of dimples and grace.

Cupid is down on his knees,

Down in the midst of the crosses;

His glorious, childish head

Is bowed on his lovely arms ...

But the young of the world are dead

And heedless of Cupid's charms.

Oh, look at him, look at him now,

The delicate shoulders shake.

Hugging his broken bow

Cupid is weeping now.

Cupid is weeping as though

His wonderful heart would break.

ON HEARING THAT THE NAMES CARVED UPON AN OLD SCHOOL TABLE ARE TO BE REMOVED

Gaze long upon this length of lifeless deal,

Carved with rude cipher or with ill-cut name.

Here youthful hands have wrought to set their seal

Of immortality. No idle fame

For those too-soon-forgotten names they sought,

Only that others, seeing them, might say,

These too were young and here have something brought

Of youth's high heart, ere going each his way.

These names, that thus have sung the joyous song

Of youth's endeavour, now must fade and die

'Neath the cold malice that doth e'er belong

To small minds wielding blind authority.

So youth by age is ever vanquishÈd

And beauty smirched and soiled when youth is dead.

THE ENVIOUS POETS

You say we are happy, being poets,

In our poor songs and tawdry tales.

I tell you it is not true.

There are those we envy above the gods,

And they are the painters and carvers.

With bright colour and cunning line

They have the power to conjure up before them

Great visions of all the loveliness they have known.

A tree, the sea at night,

A friend,

The dear face of their belovÈd,

All these they can make live before them

In colour, in marble.

But what satisfaction do you think there is

In a black printed word?

I tell you we envy the painters and carvers.

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