John Freeman

“ Dark is the beechen hill these winter days,
The trees swallow the light
And make an evening there when morning shines
And the down heaves to the south.
Only when the sun's low a fire creeps through
The dark of the beechen hill;
While the green down, misty from head to foot,
Grows huge and dim with sleep.
Then in the valley by the yet shining river,
Under the noisy elms,
I know how like twin shadows over me
Rising high, east and west,
Are Love's dark hills, quiet, unchanging, vast,
Sleeping beneath the stars;
While I with those stars in my bosom shining
Move northward to the sea. ”

“ THE GOLD COAST
BY JOHN FREEMAN
A MORE beautiful dragon-fly had never been seen: he must follow it, catch it, release it unharmed and lovelier than before. Hovering at the edge of Crispin's Pool it seemed like a shining arrow of gold, shot from the sun and pausing before it fell. If it fell it would fall into the green water. Richard—Richard Corbet Clyne—had not been to the Pool since last winter, when it was frozen over and he tried to skate on the rimy surface, and skimmed pebbles upon it, and smiled to hear the noise. ”

“ The harsh dead leaf slept noiseless on the ground,
By unseen mouse nor insect stirred
Nor beak of hungry bird.
Then were voices heard
Mingling as though each
Earth and grass had individual speech.
—Has evening fallen so soon,
And yet no Moon?
—No, but hark: so still
Was never the Spring's voice adown the hill!
I do not feel her waters tapping upon
The culvert's under stone.
—And if 'tis not yet night a thrush should sing. ”

“ Alone upon the dark unwhispering hill:—
You in the stirless cold past lie,
But I ache warm and lonely still.
There's not a storm tossing among my boughs,
Nor gentle air drawn under quiet skies,
There's not an idle cloud that flows
Across the mind, nor bird that cries,
But says (if I have eyes, or ears to hear) ,
"You in this mortal being are alone."
And morn and noon and night-stars clear
Repeat, "Alone, alone, alone."
Yet the tree in wild storm her dark boughs shakes,
Thrusting her roots in the earth, her arms to heaven,
Fresh washed with dew when morning breaks ”

“ If I could rise up in a cloud
And look down on the new earth in flight,
Shadow-like cast my thought's thin shroud
Back upon these fields of light;
And hear the winds of day and night
Meet, singing loud!
THE WANDERER
Over the pool of sleep
The night mists creep,
Then faint thin light and then clear day,
Noontide, and lingering afternoon;
Then that Wanderer, the Moon
Wandering her old wild way.
How many spirits follow
Her in that dark hollow!
Like a lost lamb she roams on high
Through the cold and soundless sky,
And stares down into her deep
Reflection in the pool of sleep. ”

“ From morn to eve: and then stern night cried Peace!
And shut the strife in darkness; all was still.
Then slowly crept a triumph on the dark—
And I heard Beauty singing up the hill.
ENGLISH HILLS
O that I were
Where breaks the pure cold light
On English hills,
And peewits rising cry,
And gray is all the sky.
Or at evening there
When the faint slow light stays,
And far below
Sleeps the last lingering sound,
And night leans all round.
O then, O there
'Tis English haunted ground.
The diligent stars
Creep out, watch, and smile;
The wise moon lingers awhile. ”

“ From the morn's sun
And night's astonished moon,
Falling gently upon breaking seas.
Such quietness
Another beauty is—
Ah, and those stars
So gravely still
More than light, than beauty pour
Upon the strangeness
Of the heart's breaking seas.
THE BRIGHTNESS
Away, away—
Through that strange void and vast
Brimmed with dying day;
Away,
So that I feel
Only the wind
Of the world's swift-rolling wheel.
See what a maze
Of whirling rays!
The sharp wind
Weakens; the air
Is but thin air,
Not fume and flying fire.... ”

“ O bitter light, all-threatening stars,
O tired ghosts of men that sleep
After stern mortal wars
'Neath skies chill and steep.
These mortal hills, this flickering sea,
This shadowy and thoughtful night,
Throb with infinity,
Burn with immortal light.
TEN O'CLOCK AND FOUR O'CLOCK
It stands there
Tall and solitary on the edge
Of the last hill, green on the green hill.
Ten o'clock the tree's called, no one knows why.
Perhaps it was planted there at ten o'clock
Or someone was hanged there at ten o'clock—
A hundred such good reasons might be found,
But no one knows. ”

“ Then from the cloud's side flickered
Sharp lightning, thrusting madly
At the cowering fields.
Thrice the fierce cloud lighten'd,
Down the hill slow thunder trembled;
Day in her cave grew frightened,
Crept away, and died.
THE UNTHRIFT
Here in the shade of the tree
The hours go by
Silent and swift,
Lightly as birds fly.
Then the deep clouds broaden and drift,
Or the cloudless darkness and the worn moon.
Waking, the dreamer knows he is old,
And the day that he dreamed was gone
Is gone.
THE WREN
Within the greenhouse dim and damp
The heat floats like a cloud. ”

“ Yet left their brightness lying on the mind,
As the white blossoms the raw airs shake down
That lie awhile yet lovely on the chill grass;
Thinking of the dark, where all these end like cloud,
And the stars watch like Knights to Honour vowed,
Of those too lovely colours of the East,
And the too tender loveliness of grey:
Thinking of all, I was as one that stands
'Neath the bewildering shock of breaking seas;
Mortal-immortal things had lost their power,
I knew no more than sweetness in the flower;
No more than colour in the changing light,
No more than order in the stars of night ”

“ That mound was once a hill,
The old lime-tree a forest (now as small
As the poor lilac by the ivied wall) ,
And this neglected narrow greenery
A wilderness, and I its king and keeper;
Lying upon the grass I saw the sky
And all its clouds: the garden edged the sky.
The harsh gate jars upon its hinges still.
UNPARDONED
Gentle as the air that kisses
The splendid and ignoble with one breath,
Gentle as obliterating Death—
Though you be gentler yet,
In days when the old, old things begin to fret
The backward-looking consciousness,
Will you forget? ”

“ Into my arms,
Till I've forgotten I ever met you.
I shall not have you when I hold you
Body to body,
Though your firm flesh, though your strong fingers
Be knit to these.
On a wild hill I shall be chasing
The thought of you;
False will be those true things I told you:
I shall forget you.
No, do not come.
Where the wind hunts, there shall I find you.
In cool gray cloud
Where the sun slips through I shall see you,
Or where the trees
Are silenced, and darken in their branches. ”

“ And most-loved wallflower's bloody petal
Shakes over that long frosty battle.
But this leaping, sinking heart
Finds question in grass, bud and blossom—
Too deeply into the earth is prying,
Too sharply hears old voices crying.
There is in blossom, bud and grass
Something that's neither sorrow nor joy,
Something that sighs like autumn sighing,
And in each living thing is dying.
It is myself that whispers and stares
Down from the hill and in the wood,
And in the untended orchard's shining
Sees the light through thin leaves declining. ”

“ Over age that darkens, and griefs that destroy?
THE TOSSING MOUNTAINS
They were like dreams that in a drowsy hour
A sad old God had dreamed in loneliness of power.
They were like dreams that in his drowsy mind
Rose slowly and then, darkening, made him wise and blind—
So that he saw no more the level sun,
Nor the small solid shadow of unclouded noon.
The dark green heights rose slowly from the green
Of the dark water till the sky was narrowly seen;
Only at night the lifting walls were still,
And stars were bright and calm above each calm dark hill. ”

“ No leaf shivers:
The bare boughs bend and creak as the wind moans by
Fled is the fitful gleam of brightness
From the stooping sky.
A robin scatters
Like bright rain his song,
Of merry matters
The sparrows gossip long.
Snow in the sky
Lingers, soon to cover the world with white,
And hush the slender enchanting music
And chill the delight.
But snow new fallen
On the stiffened grass
Gives back beauty stolen
By the winds as they pass:—
Turns the climbing hedge
Into a gleaming ladder of frozen light:
And hark, in the cold enchanted silence
A cry of delight! ”

“ She shakes the clustered stars
Lightly, as she goes
Amid the unseen branches of the night,
Rose-limb'd, rose-bosom'd bright.
She leaps: they shake and pale; she glows—
And who but knows
How the rejoiced heart aches
When Venus all his starry vision shakes;
When through his mind
Tossing with random airs of an unearthly wind,
Rose-bosom'd, rose-limb'd,
The mistress of his starry vision arises,
And the boughs glittering sway
And the stars pale away,
And the enlarging heaven glows
As Venus light-foot mid the twinèd branches goes.
BEECHWOOD
Hear me, O beeches! ”

“ I hear again the shouts and cries and lip-lap of the waveless pool;
I see again the smalling cloud of sail that into distance fades,
I am again the boy whose eyes with tears of grief and hope are full.
AT EVENING'S HUSH
Now pipe no more, glad Shepherd,
Your joys from this fair hill
Through golden eves and still:
There sounds from yon dense quarry
A burden harsh and sorry.
No piping now, poor Shepherd.
Men strive with violent hand,
And anger stirs the bland
Blithe heaven that ne'er yet trembled,
Save with great spirits assembled. ”

“ With creeping-jenny, sunflower, marigold, snapdragon—
These all my love, these now all my light,
Bringing their kindness to any painful night.
The sun brushed all their brightness with his skirt more bright.
And I was happy when I knew it not,
Dreaming of nothing more than that small plot,
And the high sky and sun that floated bright and hot.
But what night was, save dark, I did not know.
The blind shut out the stars: the moon would go
Staring, unstared at, moon and stars unnoted flow. ”

“ Water her brightness has from neck to still feet,
Water crystal-cold as her cold body flows.
But not water has the colour I saw when I dreamed,
Nor water such strength has. I joyed to behold
How the blood lit her body with lamps of fire
And made the flesh glow that like water gleamed cold.
A flame in her arms and in each finger flame,
And flame in her bosom, flame above, below,
The curve of climbing flame in her waist and her thighs;
From foot to head did flame into red flame flow.
I knew how beauty seen from unseen must rise,
How the body's joy for more than body's use was made. ”

“ Of my own generation, my own mind;
Their strength and courage rooted deep in the earth
That brings men to such splendid birth
And no vain sacrifice ...
It was as when the land all darkness lies,
And shades, nor only shades, move freely out
And through the trees are heard and all about
Their ancient ways, 'neath the old stars and skies.
So now in morning's light I knew them there
Leading the men that marched and marched away,
And mounted up the hill, and down the hill
Passed from my eyes and ears, and left the air
Trembling everywhere,
And then how still! ”

“ Hath sought to bruise the brain, the sensitive will,
The conscience of the world,
For this, England, art risen, and shalt fight
Purely through long profoundest night,
Making their quarrel thine who are grieved like thee;
And (if to thee the stars yield victory)
Tempering their hate of the great foe that hurled
Vainly her strength against the conscience of the world.
I looked again, or dreamed I looked, and saw
The stars again and all their peace again.
The moving mist had gone, and shining still
The moon went high and pale above the hill. ”

“ Yet I know grass and weed, ivy and apple and thorn
Their whole sweet would keep
Though in Eden no human spirit on a shining morn
Had awaked from sleep.
IN THOSE OLD DAYS
In those old days you were called beautiful,
But I have worn the beauty from your face;
The flowerlike bloom has withered on your cheek
With the harsh years, and the fire in your eyes
Burns darker now and deeper, feeding on
Beauty and the remembrance of things gone.
Even your voice is altered when you speak,
Or is grown mute with old anxiety
For me. ”