Underneath the Bough: A Book of Verses

SONGS and SONNETS

George Allan England

II

My pavement-wearied feet again

Tread the rough streets whose ways are pain,

Hot with the sun’s last sullen beam,

And yet—I dream!

Dream when I wake, and at high, blinding Noon,

Or when the moon

Mocks the sad City in her sullen night

That burns too bright!

So sweet my visions seem

That from this sordid smoke and dust I turn,

Turn where the dim Wood-world calls out to me

And where the forest-virgins I half see

With green mysterious fingers beckoning!

Where vine-wreathed woodland altars sunlit burn,

Or Dryads weave their mystic rounds and sing,

Sing high, sing low, with magic cadences

That once the wild oaks of Dodona heard;

And every wood-note bids me burst asunder

The bonds that hold me from the leaf-hid bird!

I quaff thee, O Nepenthe! Ah, the wonder

Grows that there be who scorn not wealth and ease,

Who still will choose the street-life, rough and blurred,

Who will not quest you, O Hesperides!...

III

And now, and now... I feel the forest-moss!

O, on these moss-beds let me lie with Pan,

Twined with the ivy-vine in tendrilled curls!

And I will hold all gold that hampers man

But the base ashes of a barren dross!

On with the love-dance of the pagan girls!

The pagan girls with lips all rosy-red,

With breasts up-girt and foreheads garlanded!

With fair white foreheads nobly garlanded!

With sandalled feet that weave the magic ring

Now ... let them sing,

And I will pipe a song that all may hear,

To bid them mind the time of my wild rhyme!

Away! Away! Beware our mystic trees!

Who will not quest you, O Hesperides?...

IV

Great men of song, what sing ye? Woodland meadows?

Rocks, trees and rills where sunlight glints to gold?

Sing ye the hills adown whose sides blue shadows

Creep when the westering day is growing old?

Sing ye the brooks where in the purling shallows

The small fish dart and gleam?

Sing ye the pale green tresses of the willows

That stoop to kiss the stream?

Or sing ye burning streets and sweating toil

Where we spawned swarms of men, unendingly,

Above, below, in mart and workshop’s moil

Have quite forgot thee, O mine Arcady?...

With a copy of “Sonnets of this Century.”

THIS little book, a Garden where the bloom

And fragrance of an hundred years are pent,

To thee, dear girl, at Christmas-tide is sent

By one who breathes with love the sweet perfume

Of such frail flowers. Let aye the world consume

Itself with toil and labour—such are all

Without the bounds of this my garden-wall,

And I, in light, feel not nor heed their gloom.

Come thou into my Garden! Let me show

Thee all the treasures that do lend it grace,

These goodly Sonnets, standing in a row

To tell of joy, tears, love,—life’s madrigal;

And, mistress of the pure enchanted place,

Be thou the fairest Flower among them all!...

To C. Martius Censorinus.

“Donarem pateras grataque commodus...”

FREELY to my companions would I give

Beautiful bronzes, Censorinus, bowls

And tripods, once a guerdon to the souls

Of hardy Greeks; nor should’st thou bear away

The meanest of my gifts, could I but live

Possessed of arts like those Parrhasius plied,

Or Skopas, now depicting human clay

And now a god, in liquid colors one

In solid stone the other. But denied

To me are equal powers; need hast thou none

In mind or state for treasures like to these.

Thou dost delight in songs, and such are mine

To give, and fix a value to each song.

Not marbles carved with public elegies,

Whence to illustrious leaders still belong

In dreamless death their praises half divine,

Not the precipitate flights of Hannibal

Nor those retorted threats that wrought him shame,

Not impious Carthage and her flaming fall

More highly show, than the Calabrian Muse,

Glories of him who, having gained a name

From prostrate conquered Africa, returned.

Neither if writings should perchance refuse

To herald forth what thou so well hast earned

Wouldst thou have fitting praise. What were the son

Of Mars and Ilia, if in jealousy

Silence had drowned those lofty merits won

By Romulus? Through eloquence, through strength

And favor of all poets loved of fame,

Aeacus hallowed is, from Stygian floods,

To the fair Islands of the Blest at length.

The Muse forbids the worthy man to die;

She blesseth him with Heaven. Thus Hercules,

Untiring victor, finds a place on high

At Jove’s desired feasts. Tyndareus’ sons,

Clear-shining stars, thus from the deepest seas

Rescue the shattered ships. Thus Bacchus fair,

Twining his temples with fresh vine-leaves green,

To fruitful issue brings the votaries’ prayer.

(Terza Rima.)

IF ever thou shouldst cease to think of me

With love, and turn thy soul’s sweet warmth to ice—

(Stop not my mouth with kisses! Change may be,

As all do know who take for their device

A bleeding heart!)—If any change should seal

To me the gates of uttermost Paradise,

And I should darkling fare, with no repeal,

In company of them, that, love forsaken,

Before cold shrines and at dead altars kneel,

Remember this—I bade thy heart awaken;

Here in this hand it lay a prisoner!

Thy first wild love-kiss from my lips was taken,

And with my breath thy first sighs mingled were!

Remember this—I loved thee well and long,

Thou haven to me, a time-worn wanderer!

Then, though my voice be drowned in that clear song

Of thy new love, and I forgotten be

Or all-despisÈd, think thou in my wrong

Some good there was, some truth akin with thee,

Some light half-seen, since I could tune a soul

Virgin as thine to perfect harmony,

And crown thy brow with Love’s pure aureole!

II

And yet their sweetest moment did not seem

That dizzying issue into tenuous light,

Where the keen salt-sea wind that lashed their height

Drowned their love-quickened breath as in a stream

Of chill, on-rushing Æther; not the gleam

Of multitudinous Ocean, nor the bright

Expanse of Earth could draw their dazzled sight

From the new glory of their passionate dream.

It was upon the tower’s midmost stair

At one dim diamond-window; both beguiled

Paused in the gloom; she trembled like a child;

His hot mouth found her mouth, her gold-twined hair,

And in her milk-white breast her heart beat wild

Beneath one burning kiss he printed there.

(After Chateaubriand)

OH sweet, how sweet old memories be

Of one most lovely place, to me—

My birthplace! Sister, fair those days

And free!

Oh France, be thou my love, my praise

Always!

Our mother—hath thy memory flown?—

Beside our humble chimney-stone

Pressed us against her heart, whilst you,

Dear one,

And I her white hair kissed anew,

We two.

Sweet little sister, dost recall

The stream that bathed the castle-wall?

The old round-tower whence came alway

The call

Of bells to banish night away

At day?

Dost thou recall the lake—how still!—

Where swallows skimmed at their sweet will?

The reeds, swayed by the gentle air

Until

The sun set on the waters there,

So fair?

Oh, who will give me my HelÈne?

My mountains, my great oak again?

Their memory brings with all my days

Fresh pain;

My land shall be my love, my praise

Always!

“The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman.”
Twelfth Night.

MY little Red Devil upon my desk

With a smile sardonic stands.

He holds my pen with a patient air

In his crooked, outstretched hands;

The paint is worn from his hoof and horn

And scratched is his curving tail,

Yet he still holds on with a right good grace,

A knowing look on his crafty face,

And spirits that never fail.

So, what if his fingers are some of them gone,

And twisted the horns on his head?

His cheek still glows, and his aquiline nose

Is a genuine devilish red;

And his tail, beside, is a thing of pride,

For it swings in a glorious sweep,

With a graceful bend and a fork in the end

That would cause a sinner his ways to mend,

Or a saint, his vows to keep!

Though only a single eye has he

The world and the flesh to view,

(For the right is gone,) yet the other one

Has fire enough for two.

So his eyes ill-mated an air jocund

To his wrinkled features lend,

And to see his look you would almost think

That he was tipping a devilish wink

To his old, familiar friend.

Oh, he is a jolly good fellow, in truth,

With a wit that is ever new,

And a heart like which, in this world of ours,

There are only, I fear, too few.

And he doesn’t complain when I come in late

Or keep him awake o’ nights,

So I have respect for his comfort, too,

By giving the Devil his utmost due,

And the whole of his royal rights.

To everyone else but myself his smile

Is fixed as the solid stone;

He changes the curve of his parted lips

For me, and for me alone.

So when I’m in luck he wishes me joy

With his whole Satanic heart,

But when I’ve the blues, it seems he would say

“Brace up, for the luck will be better some day!”

And my cares like the wind depart.

So my Devil and I are the best of friends

In a sort of a cynical way,

For he watches me out of his only eye

As I work at my desk each day,

And the idle verses I write in hope,

He quietly smiles to see,

For he knows full well that at first or last,

Like Biblical bread on the waters cast,

They will surely come back to me...

And at night, as I sit by the ruddy hearth,

With my pipe and my book, alone,

Or lazily muse by the embers red

When the light of the fire is gone,

I think of him sometimes, and hope in my heart

I never shall see the day

That sets me adrift from my little friend

And puts to our sociable life an end,

By taking my Devil away!...

Ronsard.

THOU (being sometime old), by candlelight

Close crouched by the fire, spinning and mumbling o’er

The past, shalt croon my verses, marvelling more

That Ronsard sang thy praise, what time thy bright

First beauty was. Then, hearing thee recite

Such thing, thy drowsy maid, though weary-sore

And nodding off to sleep, shall wake before

My name and thine, with blessings infinite.

I under earth shall be, a soul in vain

Seeking its rest where myrtle shadows play;

Thou by the hearthstone cringe, outworn and blear,

My love regretting and thy cold disdain.

Live! an thou hear’st me! Wait no other day!

Gather life’s roses ere thy night be near!

The Fens, June, 1897.

FAR in the west the crescent moon hung low,

A filmy haze about it faintly spread,

And one bright star, a point of silver light

Seem’d comrade to it. Whispering Zephyrus

Tender as love, stole through the list’ning leaves,

Making a pleasant murmur in the night,

And touched the glimmering waters with his breath.

The ripples came unnumbered to the shore,

Soft-murmuring through the sedge and fenny reeds

With that same whisp’ring voice that Pan once heard

What time he first made pipes to sound the praise

Of her whom he had lost. The water’s breast

Was banded with a path of shimmering light

Broken by the ever-restless waves, which made

A thousand points of liquid brilliancy.

And in the beauty of still, hallowed night

Beside the plashing sandy shore, we met

In happiness. Each whispering of the wind,

Each tremulous leaf, and even the sleeping flowers

Seem’d breathing “Love” in tender unison,

And the sphered star in Heaven sang that word.

Dost thou remember how from out the grass,

I plucked a gentle flow’ret by that shore,

—Anemone some call it, wind-flower some,

Sprung from the crimson of Adonis’ blood

Where he was slain,—and how I softly said,

“O thou belovÈd, beauty is a rose

Growing in Life’s fair garden, by the spring

Of deathless Purity, and that clear dew

Which lies within its sweetness hid, is Love.”

Dost thou recall? And so it chance, I pray

Though we be parted, now and evermore,

Think sometimes of that night, and fancy still

We see the summer landscape, glimmering,

Lit by the steady-burning lights of heaven,

We scent the sweetness of the warm young night,

We hold the tender wind-flower, and still hear

The murmuring ripples on the sounding shore.

The XXXIXth Sonnet
of Petrarch
to his Lady Laura.

He blesseth all the divers causes and effects of his love toward her.

BLEST be the day, the season and the year

The hour and moment, and the countrie fair,

Ay, even that very spot and instant where

Those two sweet eyne did first to me appear

Which since have left me—yet that sorrow dear

Of Love still blessÈd be, like as the bow

And shafts wherewith sweet Love did work me woe

With wounds most deep in this my bosom here.

Blest be the many voices wherewithal

I on my Lady’s well-belovÈd name

Have called, and blest the sighs, the tears, the flame

Of my desire, and all my screeds designed

To praise her—yet most blest my thoughts I call,

So hers that none but she may entrance find...

After Ronsard.

COME, sweet, away! Come see the rose,

Now that the day draws near its close,

See whether it be faded grown—

Whether at evening fall away

Those leaves that opened to the day,

Or dies their blush, so like thine own.

Thou seest, dear love, its beauties pass,

Its wasted petals fall, alas!,

In one short hour. It may not bide.

Unkind in truth is Mother Earth

Since dawn gives such a flower its birth

And Death draws nigh at eventide.

So, sweet my darling, hear my voice,

I bid thee, in thy youth, rejoice!

Before thy fragile petals close

Gather thy blossoms whilst thou may,

With time they fall and fade away

As droops at night the withered rose.

“Les grands bois s’Éveillaient; il faisait jour À peine...”
Pradel.

THE great woods were awakening. A new day

Was freshly born; enchanted birds among

The clear green foliage raised their matin song

To praise the morning-glow. Thought-sad I lay

Beneath a gnarlÈd oak; despite that gay

Fresh springtide, all my soul was suffering.

I waited her, and lo! the rapid wing

Of fluttering footsteps brushed the dew away.

Drunken with pleasure in a long-locked kiss

Our breath enmingled. Tightening in my arms

That beautiful, supple form, her heart’s alarms

I stifled on my heart. The thicket drew

Close over us, the sun grew dark, I wis,

Earth faded, Heaven opened to our view...

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