Frederic Manning

“ And song shall blossom out of my lips,
Glowing, as gloweth the golden crocus of Zeus.
For the soft white flakes of the winter have covered me over
With a deep stillness not to be told,
And my heart hath gathered honey of many dreams.
Now may they blossom as flames, tawny and eager,
Shaking out their bright hair on the wind.
The soft wind that streameth through the long green, rippling grasses.
[Pg 60] Yea, like a bee, my heart hath fed on the honey of flowers
And is made drunken, and full of strength,
Full of the blood-red wine that is fierce and exultant. ”

“ Even as the rivers of earth bringing the wonder of boughs,
The rivers of thy love have filled up the channels of time.
Earth is a lure unto mine eyes. Lo! now I love
The fragile fleeting days, warm lips of women. ”

“ Whose feet come softly thro’ the dews,
Stoop thou unto us,
For we die so thou livest,
Our hearts the cups of thy vintage:
And the lips of no man uttereth love,
Suffering even for love’s sake.
[Pg 5]
RELIEVED For S. J. Kimm
We are weary and silent,
There is only the rhythm of marching feet;
Tho’ we move tranced, we keep it
As clock-work toys.
But each man is alone in this multitude;
We know not the world in which we move,
Seeing not the dawn, earth pale and shadowy,
Level lands of tenuous grays and greens;
For our eye-balls have been seared with fire. ”

“ Pure brows, and placid lips and eyes, and hair
With wind and sunlight glorious: but all
Are mingled in one flame. O thou, in me,
Art shrined, as none hath seen thee, as gods live
Whom Time shall not consume ”

“ Making thine images of ivory, stained with sanguine;
Strewing frail petals of roses before you;
Bringing you soft stuffs of sea-dyes,
Vermilion and saffron sandals,
Floating wimples of filmy webs, that veil you,
As clear water the glittering limbs
Of a nymph beloved of Pan.
But you come among us,
With sleepy eyelids, and a sleep-soft smile,
[Pg 7] Ere we have scraped our boots of the mud
That is half human....
You come, tho’ we are killing the lice in our shirts,
To fill our eyes with the wine of your vision,
Tho’ we are weary, and our hearts
Emptied of the old jests. ”

“ Down miry ways, tho’ storms be wild,
Heigh-ho, the bitter winds blow!
A warm soft fleece for a naked child:
I saw three shepherds out in the snow.
Now Mary turns her face to sleep:
Heigh-ho, the bitter winds blow!
While we go back to tend our sheep:
I saw three shepherds out in the snow.
The sparks fly from the crackling thorn,
Heigh-ho, the bitter winds blow!
Our God was in a stable born:
I saw three shepherds out in the snow. ”

“ Stir gleaming, and grow still; then the green light
Alone moves, pulsing in pooled air, that shakes
No more with sound. Quiet brims full; then break
As dropping rain hurrying elfin feet,
A silvery foam of sound blown as white spray,
Sparkling with great bright bubbles: no sound to sense,
Bright foam upon blue pools of quiet tossed:
And a sight of waven manes that gleam
[Pg 79] Shaken in the twilight under luminous leaves;
And challenging fairy horns that invite to the chace
Gay, light o’ heart. And the galloping host,
Winding their horns, rush by as wind in the grass,
Shimmering ”

“ Beyond us, eternal, exultant.
[Pg 54]
DEMETER MOURNING
I have seen her in sorrow, as one blind
With grief, across the furrows on soiled feet
Pass, as the cold gray dawn came with cold wind,
Gray as fine steel and keen with bitter sleet,
Beneath the white moon waning in the skies:
And I grew holy gazing in her eyes.
Then her voice came: Ah! but thou wert too fair
To seek among the dim realms of the dead
Love: and what hands will tremble in thine hair
Or lips faint on thy lips? The clear stars shed
All night their dews on me: and the wind’s breath
Pierced ”

“ Sing, thou great wind; smite the harp of the wood,
For in thee the souls of slain men are singing exultant,
Now free of the air, feather-footed! Yea, they swim therein
Toward the green twilight, surging
Naked and beautiful with playing muscles,
Yea, even the naked souls of men
Whose beauty is a fierce thing, and slayeth us
Like the terrible majesty of the gods;
Blow, thou great wind, scatter the yellowing leaves.
[Pg 18]
BOIS DE MAMETZ For H. L.
Men have marred thee, O Mother:
Autumn hath now no tawny and gilded leaves;
Nor murmuring among sleepy boughs ”

“ Peopled with stiff prone forms, stupidly rigid,
As tho’ they had not been men.
Dead are the lips where love laughed or sang,
The hands of youth eager to lay hold of life,
Eyes that have laughed to eyes,
And these were begotten,
O love, and lived lightly, and burnt
With the lust of a man’s first strength: ere they were rent,
[Pg 24] Almost at unawares, savagely; and strewn
In bloody fragments, to be the carrion
Of rats and crows.
And the sentry moves not, searching
Night for menace with weary eyes.
[Pg 25]
LEAVES
A frail and tenuous mist lingers on baffled and intricate branches ”

“ Of blossoming boughs lulls her as day grows late
And level sunlight streameth through the tree-stems
Lying as pale gold on the green fallows, and gilding the fleeces
Of the slow-feeding sheep in the pastures. ”

“ TO A GIRL (Miss E. F.)
Thy face, which love renews ever with loveliness,
Is known and strange as earth, from night each dawn is new:
Stirred with such restless beauty
As water that wind shadoweth.
How may love snare thy soul, or know the ways thereof?
Subtile as flame it is, and secret as the dews:
Even thus closely folded
Love hath thee not, but followeth.
From change to change, nor surfeiteth his ecstasy
That from so brief a joy desireth new delight,
[Pg 51] As tho’ the sweet life in thee
Were fugitive and bodiless.
Nay, love, in thee all change immortal is ”