Baron Robert Gilbert Vansittart Vansittart

“ Is swallowed up in distance and the night.
Or is it, friend, the boats alone that pass?
The river, as I sometimes think, remains.
Even so it is with lovers and with love.
Then sing us something wise where laughter lurks,
As underneath the desert, from the hills
Whence cometh help, the hidden water-course
Chuckles. Upon this thread your garden hangs.
Nay, never shake that cypress head! We need
Not only sun but cloud and tears to build
Laughter, the rainbow of the inner man."
But the voice answered, or the cypress sighed:
"I am the brain of Hitherto. ”

“ We saw our path made plain, the hills removed by faith, whose foaming course
Flooded the continents like flats. We saw the world made one—by force.
In ecstasy our spirits soared. With beatific face toward
My cloudland all the crowd shed tears, and vowed to serve and save the Lord.
But cloudland, seeming to disdain such warmth, replied with slapping rain.
Conjuring such black augury the monks recited formulæ.
Besides, lest women, priests and traders should tempt the appetite of raiders,
The Church proclaimed the Truce of God. Not all our barons were crusaders. ”

“ Men's fluid facts may wash the grime from pictures of a distant time,
But I can paint the truth in one small touch: our poets ceased to rhyme.
Such was the army's hopelessness. I understood, who once had seen
Our fading gardener rouse himself to kick and curse the wolf-cub, Life.
I would not let my feet desert, but oh the woods—the woods of home
That bent and beckoned in the damp zephyr in vain! I could not stoop
To play false in an enterprise however mad, if once begun. ”

“ Men call that sacrifice.
The priests applauded nature.
Poor devil, she was loth
Enough. The love of God and you
Has made me hate you both.
And I was sad that Christians, clad in robes so dazzling, were not glad
To keep them spotless from the world, and give the Virgin all they had.
Yet I was racked by continence of all we rightly rank as sense.
I hungered for the Sunflower-tress that now my lips would never press.
I wrenched and wrestled to believe that God had sent us here to grieve
Our bodies with this fruitlessness, that only fakirs could achieve
His purpose. ”

“ A lithe voice mounted and leaned down again:
"Come, for to-night the hills are all white marble
Under a sapphire dome,
Where bats scrawl riddles which the bulbuls garble
For owls to answer. Come.
"The air is sick of moon-discoloured roses,
The plain stagnates like some
Weird archipelago of garden-closes
And dead, bleached waters. Come.
"O night of miracles! Come, let us wander
Over this ghostly sea
To that dark cypress-circled island yonder,
In whose clear centre we
"Will lie and float in phosphorescent ether. ”

“ For all the wealth wherewith Thou hadst endowed her,
For all our shepherds gone astray like sheep,
For all Thy temple's jewels ground to powder,
We sit alone and weep.
Because our soul is chastened as with lashes,
Because Thine anger like a stormy deep
Goes over us, in sackcloth and in ashes
We sit alone and weep.
Nobody gave them heed; indeed each man was thinking how to speed
His interests, and if the prey would satisfy ambition or need.
To honest minds with zeal imbued the Pope's indulgence, their own merit
Bestowed some licence to be lewd, and take—their preachers said "inherit." ”

“ I knew not yet the prickled herb of Love.
"Spring tricked the desert out with flowered patterns
For me to tread like flowered carpets wrought
In patience by my master's painted slatterns—
He said that only Persian women fought.
Ah, youth is free and silken-haired and leggy!
No camel knows why Allah makes it end,
But He is wiser. Me the tribe's Il-Beggi
Spied out and sent as tribute to a friend,
"A dweller in black tents, a nomad chieftain
Of Khamseh Arabs or unruled Kashgai,
Whose cattle-raids and rapines past belief stain
The furthest page of camel-history. ”

“ Sufi, the Queen that you ensued
Led and shall lead you still to look
On peace—it is not solitude.
Through her your warring kingdoms met,
And here is room for no regret."
So Dreamer-of-the-Age returned
With comfort, all his being fused
At last, and thus at night he mused
Beside the fire that in him burned:
"Heirs of the beauty yet to be,
Hail, from however far ahead
Or out of sight I hear you tread
The dust that made this tale and me. [Pg 165]
"Each day shall raise me to rejoice
That lovers such as we must bear
The unbroken chain of life and share
Its thanksgiving. ”

“ Thinking: "If ever I am πολύμητις,
'Tis yours to draw upon the hard-won store."
I had some bouts from Samarkand to Paris,
And took some falls 'twixt Sweden and Sudan.
If I was slow and patient learning parries,
I hoped to teach you when you were a man.
I cannot fall to whining round the threshold
Where Death awaited you. I lack the skill
Of hands for ever working out a fresh hold
On life. In mystic ways I serve you still.
The age of miracles is not yet ended. ”

“ For gifts of self. You cannot understand
Love loves for nothing, brother. Those who serve
God the most purely cannot count that He
Will love them in return...."
The Wazir scowled.
But Dreamer-of-the-Age took him aside,
"I would unfold a story like a carpet.
The camel Tous told it to me last night:
"King Suleiman's wives were as jewels, his jewels as stones of the desert
In number. His concubines herded as desert-gazelles in their grace,
That answered his bidding as meekly as all his wild animal kingdom,
The beasts and the birds and the fishes. Yet the world was as pitch on his face. ”

“ Their ribald spokesman forced a drunkard's way to Godfrey's tent:
You that have led us through the many tests
Of Hungary, King Caloman, and Thrace,
Who think of kingdoms as of palimpsests
And human nature as a carapace,
Go up and prosper in your lofty chase!
We cannot live on barren mountain-crests.
Our wildest dreams are prisoners that pace
The little space between a woman's breasts. [Pg 122]
Here lies the stronghold that our zeal invests,
This infidel alone we long to face.
This hollow, where our constant fancy nests,
Is more to us than pedestal and dais. ”

“ Our aspirations all became mean as our hosts; the inner flame
Went out. From many a starting-point we found a common ground in shame;
For here no soul can keep its health, but cat-like honour creeps by stealth
Down side streets where the children breathe an atmosphere of rotting wealth.
Between our fellow-churches rose the hate that heaven had meant for foes....
The infidel might well have laughed. Perhaps he did. We came to blows.
And I was sad that Christians had nothing in common, saving bad
Blood, that our highest dizziest heads could all divide but none could add. ”

“ Here from the night he conjured up Hereafter,
Quarried the river-mists to house the unseen.
Only the woodpecker had found life hollow,
And gods went whither none was fain to follow,
Because the earth was green
And Afterwards was black.
"Man, the child of a tale of rape,
Drew the seas with his hunting ships,
Cut their prows to a giant's shape,
Fitted names to their snarling lips:
Gods in his image born,
Singing, fierce-eyed, unshorn,
Lords of a drinking-horn
Five fathoms deep ”

“ My childless manhood fixed my heart. The Holy Land was all my own.
I grew in grace with man—I hoped with God; from Beersheba to Dan
I went about my Father's work. Faith could not shirk what Faith began.
Sometimes qualms came. I looked askance on Bishop Daimbert's schemes to enhance
His seat. The native Christians sighed they missed the Caliph's tolerance.
Not that had hurt me, but the void which love will make if unemployed.
I spent my strength to keep him quiet, and free the thoughts that he decoyed,
Till woods and Rhone were out of range. ”

“ He was sadder than rain in the willows of Jordan.
'We are God's passing thoughts. They alone that await their fulfilment are wise.
You shall be for a warning, O hoopoe. I had given you more than gold-wages
If you had believed we not only had ears, I and Allah, but eyes! ”

“ Whose hair was shining sunflower brown. I thought of all the games we played
All day with hay and idle mowers. She dubbed me knight in pixy bowers,
Where in the hindering undergrowth I caught the singing of the flowers,
Ah me, how distant!... I was blest in my young lord who shared the test,
Being sent upon this pilgrimage, his snow-white love still unpossessed. [Pg 108]
He, too, was paler than a ghost, as though already all were lost.
She dreamed of empery for him. He taught me this to show the cost:
My heart was mine. ”

“ I fear no foe but thunder
And winds that sting the sea."
"And I," said he of Kerman,
"Fear nothing but the night,
Or some imperious firman
That bids the Faithful fight."
"They say some lads fear ladies
And truckle to them." "Who
Could be so weak? ”

“ And on the sea the singing ceased.
And is this all my story? Yes,
Save that the Sufi's dream is true.
Dearest, in its deep lowliness
This tale is told of me and you. [Pg 7]
O love of mine, while I have breath,
Whatever my last fate shall be,
I seek you, you alone, till death
With all my life—from sea to sea. ”

“ As he sees only yours.
Lean down! And they shall meet us at the surface.
O silent paramours
"We bring to you, by stealth, while men are sleeping,
A gift. Let your domain
Have it for ever in its steadfast keeping;
We shall not come again.
"We bring our shadows: just the fleeting semblance
Of human love. O might
Your waters hold them for us in remembrance
Of one short summer night!
"A wondrous night, when two reflections hovered,
Dreaming of love aloud
Here by the pool, until the moon was covered
By an impending cloud; [Pg 92]
"And then they lost each other. ”

“ Even I who was in love with Christ, I with the conscience clean and cold
That hankered not for lands or gold, was wondering how to clinch my hold [Pg 140]
On reputation, while our chiefs, before we could consolidate,
Rode a great wallop round the State and split it into petty fiefs.
Their overlords revolted me. Alas, for our brief unity!
Edessa snarled at Antioch, Jerusalem at Tripoli.
Poor Godfrey, who would not accept a crown where his Redeemer wore
Thorns, nor be strong where Jesus wept! From the beginning weakness crept
Into our councils. ”

“ And when the foe marched in, I own that I was thinking of the Rhone
Long, long ago, and wondering—a child once more—if it had grown. [Pg 156]
Yet there remained the sharpest cup to drain: the moan of us went up,
When from the topmost dome was hurled the Sign that should have ruled the world.
Down, down it rumbled with our grand designs. All we had built or planned,
Toiled, bled for, crumbled at a touch, was ruined like a house of sand.
So soon we pass. The wind knows why. ”

“ Louis and Conrad struggled through one day with some small retinue.
I watched. Almost I could foretell what they and Providence would do.
And I remember, as we fared, a Sufi—so the sect is named—
Sat by the road as though he cared no jot for us, while he declaimed:
Her home is in the heart of spaciousness,
In the mid-city of ideals. The site
Is harmony, the walls are made of light. ”

“ The efforts of a century,
Three generations' handiwork failed in the twinkling of an eye.
And I was sad to think that shadows occupy us all. I had
No hope of earth. What boots a toy that thinks its maker raving mad?
My soul had passed through every phase and, counting forty thousand days,
Was farther off than at the start from comprehending heaven's ways
Or bowing to them. I came nearest when I pressed my childish ear
Earthward through briar and bramble bowers to catch the singing of the flowers. [Pg 157]
The last remains of faith were shaken when I, the oracle, was taken. ”

“ He said to the hoopoe:
'I will haggle no more. You shall learn to your cost what the bargainer buys,
Whose faith levies toll upon duty, whose trust will not serve me on trust,
Or love for Love. On your head be it.' The hoopoe said: 'Cheshm—on my eyes!' [Pg 73]
"All other birds fainted with envy, as Suleiman lifted a digit. ”

“ For the governor's pot, came back with a tale
Of a lean arm shaken against the sky
Like a stunted thorn, and this piteous cry:
"As sound within an ice-bound desert mewed
Drags out existence at the very core [Pg 21]
Of isolation, as breakers slip ashore
In vainly eternal whispers to the nude
Reef-coral, where no human feet intrude
Upon the purity of stillness; or
As, far from life, unmated eagles soar
Above the hilltops' breathless solitude,
"So moves my love, like these a thing apart,
Fierce, in the ruined temple of my heart,
Shy as a shooting star that peers new-risen
Mid strangers. ”

“ Belike 'twas well no foe would stand—our cavaliers were out of hand—
So I was baulked. With scarce a blow we filed across the wasted land
For leagues, till Baldwin turned aside, and out of Peradventure carved
His slice, Edessa. We were plied to march on Antioch half-starved.
For seven months sheer courage toiled to take the town. Its ramparts foiled
Our engines. Sulkiness sat down within us, and temptation coiled
Tight round our bodies ”

“ In nature's child, in me. The formulæ were there. "God's ways are strange." [Pg 143]
Yet in my struggle with the powers of darkness I recalled the showers
Of light that fought the undergrowth to catch the singing of the flowers.
Time passed, and no one seemed to reck of Zenghi, the first Atabek,
Though every year we failed to act the Saracens grew more compact.
In vain I urged that we might fall, so slender was our human wall,
So numberless the foe beside the Templars and the Hospital. ”

“ With fame too much to show my fears. My duty lay in dying hard.
Oh irony! That fame increased the more its robes were patched and pieced.
My whole ambition was fulfilled when power and confidence had ceased.
The women kissed my feet, my horse; they clung to me like my remorse.
I that set out to make the world had made myself believe by force.
Nay, I that knew we were reprieved at best, had I in truth believed?
My youth came back. I seemed to meet my tutor's sneer in every street. ”

“ We follow love from sea to sea,
And Love and Prayer have common end:
'May God be merciful to me!'"
So fared they, camped from noon to even,
Till dawn, quick-groping through the gloom,
Pounced on gilt planets low in heaven.
Thus they beheld the domes of Kum.
And onward nightly. Though the dust
Swirled in dread shapes of desert Jinn,
Ever the footsore poet's trust
Soared to the jewelled palanquin,
Parched, but still singing: "God, being great,
Lent me a star from sea to sea,
The drop in his hand-hollow, Fate.
He holds it high, and signs to me [Pg 4]
"Although She—She may not ..." ”