James Elroy Flecker

“ No more on the long summer days shall we walk in the meadow-sweet ways
With the teachers of music and phrase, and the masters of dance and
design.
No more when the trumpeter calls shall we feast in the white-light halls;
For stayed are the soft footfalls of the moon-browed bearers of wine,
And lost are the statues of Kings and of Gods with great glorious wings,
And an empire of beautiful things, and the lips of the love who was mine.
We have vanished, but not into night, though our manhood we sold to
delight,
Neglecting the chances of fight, unfit for the spear and the bow. ”

“ From the lands, where the elephants are, to the forts of Merou and
Balghar,
Our steel we have brought and our star to shine on the ruins of Rum.
We have marched from the Indus to Spain, and by God we will go there
again;
We have stood on the shore of the plain where the Waters of Destiny boom.
A mart of destruction we made at Jalula where men were afraid,
For death was a difficult trade, and the sword was a broker of doom ”

“ Forgive a young and boastful man
Whom dreams delight and passions please,
And love me as great women can
Who have no children at their knees.
MY FRIEND I had a friend who battled for the truth
With stubborn heart and obstinate despair,
Till all his beauty left him, and his youth,
And there were few to love him anywhere. ”

“ And a pretty girl came out to hang up clothes in a small delightful
garden.
O strange motion in the suburb of a county town: slow regular movement
of the dance of death!
Men and not phantoms are these that move in light.
Forgotten they live, and forgotten die. ”

“ Thou knowest the corners of the jealous Earth
Where God has hidden jewels of great worth.
Satan, at last take pity on our pain.
Thou dost discover by mysterious signs
Where sleep the buried people of the mines.
Satan, at last take pity on our pain.
Thou stretchest forth a saving hand to keep
Such men as roam upon the roofs in sleep. ”

“ And those white cloudy folk who sang to me.
O death, why hast thou covered me so deep?
I was thy sister's child, the friend of Sleep."
Then said my heart, Death takes and cannot give.
Dark with no dream is hateful: let me live! ”

“ INVITATION TO A YOUNG BUT LEARNED FRIEND TO ABANDON ARCHAEOLOGY FOR THE MOMENT, AND PLAY ONCE MORE WITH HIS NEGLECTED MUSE. In those good days when we were young and wise,
You spake to music, you with the thoughtful eyes,
And God looked down from heaven, pleased to hear
A young man's song arise so firm and clear. ”

“ WAR SONG OF THE SARACENS We are they who come faster than fate: we are they who ride early or
late:
We storm at your ivory gate: Pale Kings of the Sunset, beware!
Not on silk nor in samet we lie, not in curtained solemnity die
Among women who chatter and cry, and children who mumble a prayer. ”

“ But have you wine and music still,
And statues and a bright-eyed love,
And foolish thoughts of good and ill,
And prayers to them who sit above? ”

“ I ROSE FROM DREAMLESS HOURS I rose from dreamless hours and sought the morn
That beat upon my window: from the sill
I watched sweet lands, where Autumn light newborn
Swayed through the trees and lingered on the hill.
If things so lovely are, why labour still
To dream of something more than this I see?
Do I remember tales of Galilee,
I who have slain my faith and freed my will?
Let me forget dead faith, dead mystery,
Dead thoughts of things I cannot comprehend.
Enough the light mysterious in the tree,
Enough the friendship of my chosen friend. ”

“ We are dead, but our living was great: we are dumb, but a song of our
State
Will roam in the desert and wait, with its burden of long, long ago,
Till a scholar from sea-bright lands unearth from the years and the sands
Some image with beautiful hands, and know what we want him to know.
THE BALLAD OF ZACHO (a Greek Legend.)
Zacho the King rode out of old
(And truth is what I tell)
With saddle and spurs and a rein of gold
To find the door of Hell.
And round around him surged the dead
With soft and lustrous eyes.
"Why came you here, old friend?" they said:
"Unwise . . . unwise . . . ”

“ Back-shadowing in their parody of light
Across the little cardboard balustrade;
And we, like that poor Faun who pipes and flees,
Adore their beauty, hate it for too bright,
And tremble, half in rapture, half afraid. ”

“ And work with the mill-hands of black Riouperoux,
And walk with you, and talk with you, like any other boy.
THE TOWN WITHOUT A MARKET There lies afar behind a western hill
The Town without a Market, white and still ”

“ The singing of a thousand nightingales.
I know dead men are blind and cannot see
The friend that shuts in horror their big eyes,
And they are witless—O I'd rather be
A living mouse than dead as a man dies. ”

“ To leave the blind alone.
THE REVELLERS Greatly we fear lest he, still resolute,
Have wandered to the fields for poisoned fruit.
THE BEGGAR See here upon this stone . . .
He is all frozen . . . take him to a bed
And warm his hands.
THE REVELLERS O sorrow, he is dead! ”

“ FORTY-TWO POEMS Contents
To a Poet a thousand years hence
Riouperoux
The Town without a Market
The Balled of Camden Town
Mignon
Felo de se
Tenebris Interlucentem
Invitation to a young but learned friend . . . ”