The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gipsy-Night and Other Poems, by Richard Arthur Warren Hughes This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: Gipsy-Night and Other Poems Author: Richard Arthur Warren Hughes Illustrator: Pamela Bianco Release Date: October 5, 2014 [EBook #47055] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GIPSY-NIGHT AND OTHER POEMS *** Produced by David E. Brown, Joke Van Dorst, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Of this first American edition of _Gipsy-Night and Other Poems_, with a special proof of the _Lithograph Portrait_ by _Pamela Bianco_, sixty-three copies, each signed by both author and artist, have been issued, of which thirty are for sale in America and twenty-four in England. Number 46 Richard Hughes Gipsy-Night and Other Poems [Illustration: Pamela Bianco] GIPSY-NIGHT _and_ Other Poems _by_ _Richard Hughes_ [Illustration] _Chicago_ WILL RANSOM _1922_ _Copyright 1922 by Will Ransom_ Some of these pieces have appeared in England in _The Athenæum_, _London Mercury_, _Spectator_, _Saturday Westminster Gazette_, _Oxford Review_, _Free Oxford_, _Oxford Outlook_, _Poetry Review_, and _Oxford Poetry_; and in America in _The Dial_, the _New York Evening Post Literary Review_, _The Bookman_, and _Poetry_. The Author offers the usual acknowledgments. CONTENTS _Portrait of the Author by Pamela Bianco_ _Frontispiece_ _Preface_ _7_ _Gipsy-Night_ _9_ _The Horse Trough_ _11_ _Martha_ _12_ _Gratitude_ _15_ _Vagrancy_ _17_ _Storm_ _20_ _Tramp_ _23_ _Epitaph_ _26_ _Glaucopis_ _27_ _Poets, Painters, Puddings_ _28_ _Isaac Ball_ _30_ _Dirge_ _32_ _The Singing Furies_ _34_ _The Ruin_ _36_ _Judy_ _38_ _Winter_ _40_ _The Moonlit Journey_ _41_ _A Song of the Walking Road_ _42_ _The Sermon_ _44_ _The Rolling Saint_ _45_ _Weald_ _48_ _The Jumping Bean_ _50_ _Old Cat Care_ _52_ _Cottager is given the Bird_ _53_ _A Man_ _55_ _Moon-struck_ _56_ _Enigma_ _58_ _Lament for Gaza_ _59_ _The Image_ _60_ _Felo de Se_ _61_ _The Birds-nester_ _63_ Preface _Probably the most important contribution to modern poetical theory is Mr. Robert Graves' book_ On English Poetry. _He grounds it upon Man as a Neurotic Animal. Poetry is to the poet, he argues, what dreams are to the ordinary man: a symbolical way, that is, of resolving those complexes which deadlock of emotion has produced. If this book meets with the success it deserves, it is probable that there will be a great deal of psycho-analytical criticism afloat, that the symbolic test will become the sole criterion of distinguishing the true from the fake poem; until some sort of 'Metamorphic' school arise, who defeat this by consciously faking their symbolism. I do not wish to oppose this thesis, but only to suggest that though true, it is only a partial truth: and that to make it the sole criterion of poetry would be damning: that as well as being a neurotic animal, Man is a Communicative Animal, and a Pattern-making Animal: that poetry cannot be traced simply to a sort of automatic psycho-therapy, but that these and many other causes are co-responsible. Indeed, though many of these poems may still prove poems within the meaning of Mr. Graves' Act, I should be sorry that they should be read with no other purpose than indecently to detect my neuroses._ _R. H._ _North Wales, 1922_ Gipsy-Night When the feet of the rain tread a dance on the roofs, And the wind slides through the rocks and the trees, And Dobbin has stabled his hoofs In the warm bracken-litter, noisy about his knees; And when there is no moon, and the sodden clouds slip over; Whenever there is no moon, and the rain drips cold, And folk with a shilling of money are bedded in houses, And pools of water glitter on Farmer's mould; Then pity Sally's girls, with the rain in their blouses: Martha and Johnnie, who have no money: The small naked puppies who whimper against the bitches, The small sopping children who creep to the ditches. But when the moon is run like a red fox Cover to cover behind the skies; And the breezes crack in the trees on the rocks, Or stoop to flutter about the eyes Of one who dreams in the scent of pines At ease: Then would you not go foot it with Sarah's Girls In and out the trees? Or listen across the fire To old Tinker-Johnnie, and Martha his Rawnee, In jagged Wales, or in orchard Worcestershire? The Horse Trough Clouds of children round the trough Splash and clatter in the sun: Their clouted shoes are mostly off, And some are quarrelling, and one Cools half her face, nose downward bubbling, Wetting her clo'es and never troubling; Bobble, bobble, bobble there Till bubbles like young earthquakes heave The orange island of her hair, And tidal waves run up her sleeve; Another's tanned as brown as bistre; Another ducks his little sister, And all are mixed in such a crowd And tell their separate joys so loud That who can be this silent one, This dimpled, pensive, baby one? --She sits the sunny steps so still For hours, trying hard to kill One fly at least of those that buzz So cannily ... And then she does. Martha (Gipsies on Tilberstowe: 1917) Small child with the pinched face, Why do you stare With screwed-up eyes under a shock Of dull carrot hair? --Child in the long, torn frock, Crouched in the warm dust: Why do you stare, as if Stare you must? * * * * * Fairies in gossamer, Hero and warrior, Queens in their cherry gowns, Wizards and witches: Dream you of such as these? Palaces? Orange-trees? Dream you of swords and crowns, Child of the ditches? _Still in the warm dust Sits she and stares; as if Stare she must, Pale eyes that see through: Soon I must stare too:_ Soon through the fierce glare Loom things that are not there: Out of the blind Past Savages grim: Negroes and muleteers, Saxons and wanderers Tall as a ship's mast, Spectral and dim. _Stirring the race's dust, Stares she as stare she must._ _Fade they: but still the glare Shimmers her copper hair._ Eight years of penury, Whining and beggary, Famine and cursing, Hunger and sharp theft: Death comes to such as these Under the sobbing trees. The cold stars nursing Those that are left. _Angel and devil peers Through those pale eyes of hers,_ Child of the Wide Earth, Born at the World's birth, Grave with the World's pain, Mirthless and tearless: Widowed from babyhood, Child without childhood, Stained with an earthy stain, Loveless and fearless: My God is overhead: Yours must be cold. Or dead. --Child with the pinched face Why do you stare With so much knowledge under your shock Of wild matted hair? Gratitude _Eternal gratitude_--a long, thin word: When meant, oftenest left unheard: When light on the tongue, light in the purse too; Of curious metallurgy: when coined true It glitters not, is neither large nor small: More worth than rubies--less, times, than a ball. Not gift, nor willed: yet through its wide range Buys what it buys exact, and leaves no change. Old Gurney had it, won on a hot day With ale, from glib-voiced Gipsy by the way. He held it lightly: for 'twas a rum start To find a hedgeling who had still a heart: So put it down for twist of a beggar's tongue ... _He_ had not felt the heat: how the dust stung A face June-roasted: _he_ saw not the look Aslant the gift-mug; how the hand shook ... Yet the words filled his head, and he grew merry And whistled from the Boar to Wrye-brook ferry, And chaffed with Ferryman when the hawser creaked, Or slipping bilge showed where the planks leaked; --Lent hand himself, till doubly hard the barge Butted its nose in mud of the farther marge. When Gurney leapt to shore, he found--dismay! He had no tuppence--(Tuppence was to pay To sulky Ferryman).--'Naught have I,' says he, 'Naught but the gratitude of Tammas Lee Given one hour.'--Sulky Charon grinned: 'Done,' said he, 'done: I take it--all of it, mind.' 'Done,' cries Jan Gurney. Down the road he went, But by the ford left all his merriment. This is the tale of midday chaffering: How Charon took, and Gurney lost the thing: How Ferryman gave it for his youngest daughter To a tall lad who saved her out of the water-- (Being old and mean, had none of his own to give, So passed on Tammas', glad to see her live): How the young farmer paid his quarter's rent With that one coin, when all else was spent, And how Squire kept it for some goldless debt ... For aught I know, it wanders current yet. But Tammas was no angel in disguise: He stole Squire's chickens--often: he told lies, Robbed Charon's garden, burnt young Farmer's ricks And played the village many lousy tricks. No children sniffled, and no dog cried, When full of oaths and smells, he died. Vagrancy When the slow year creeps hay-ward, and the skies Are warming in the summer's mild surprise, And the still breeze disturbs each leafy frond Like hungry fishes dimpling in a pond, It is a pleasant thing to dream at ease On sun-warmed thyme, not far from beechen trees. A robin flashing in a rowan-tree, A wanton robin, spills his melody As if he had such store of golden tones That they were no more worth to him than stones: The sunny lizards dream upon the ledges: Linnets titter in and out the hedges, Or swoop among the freckled butterflies. Down to a beechen hollow winds the track And tunnels past my twilit bivouac: Two spiring wisps of smoke go singly up And scarcely tremble in the leafy air. --There are more shadows in this loamy cup Than God could count: and oh, but it is fair: The kindly green and rounded trunks, that meet Under the soil with twinings of their feet And in the sky with twinings of their arms: The yellow stools: the still ungathered charms Of berry, woodland herb, and bryony, And mid-wood's changeling child, Anemone. * * * * * Quiet as a grave beneath a spire I lie and watch the pointed climbing fire, I lie and watch the smoky weather-cock That climbs too high, and bends to the breeze's shock, And breaks, and dances off across the skies Gay as a flurry of blue butterflies. But presently the evening shadows in, Heralded by the night-jar's solitary din And the quick bat's squeak among the trees; --Who sudden rises, darting across the air To weave her filmy web in the Sun's bright hair That slowly sinks dejected on his knees ... Now is he vanished: the bewildered skies Flame out a desperate and last surmise; Then yield to Night, their sudden conqueror. From pole to pole the shadow of the world Creeps over heaven, till itself is lit By the very many stars that wake in it: Sleep, like a messenger of great import, Lays quiet and compelling hands athwart The easy idlenesses of my mind. --There is a breeze above me, and around: There is a fire before me, and behind: But Sleep doth hold me, and I hear no sound. In the far West the clouds are mustering, Without hurry, noise, or blustering: And soon as Body's nightly Sentinel Himself doth nod, I open furtive eyes ... With darkling hook the Farmer of the Skies Goes reaping stars: they flicker, one by one, Nodding a little; tumble--and are gone. Storm: to the Theme of Polyphemus Mortal I stand upon the lifeless hills That jut their cragged bones against the sky: I crawl upon their naked ebony, And toil across the scars of Titan ills Dealt by the weaponing of gods and devils: I climb their uppermost deserted levels, And see how Heaven glowers his one eye Blood-red and black-browed in the sullen sky, While all his face is livid as a corpse And wicked as a snake's: see how he warps His sultry beam across the misted sea, As if he grudged its darkling ministry. He looks so covetous, I think he hides --Jetsam of the slow ethereal tides-- Some cursed and battered Sailor of the Spheres: All night he ravens on him and his peers, But with the day he straddles monstrously Across the earth in churlish shepherdry, A-hungered for his hideous nightly feast. But storms are gathering in the whitened East: The day grows darker still, and suddenly That lone and crafty Prisoner of the Sky Plunges his murky torch in Heaven's Eye: The blinded, screaming tempest trumpets out His windy agonies: Oh, he will spout His boiling rains upon the soggy air And heave great rocking planets: he will tear And snatch the screeching comets by the hair To fling them all about him in the sea, And blast the wretch's fatal Odyssey! The great convulsions of the Deity Rumble in agony across the sky: His thunders rattle in and out the peaks: His lightnings jab at every word He speaks: --At every heavenly curse the cloud is split And daggered lightnings crackle out of it. Like a steep shower of snakes the hissing rain Flickers its tongues upon the muddied plain, Writhing and twisting on the gutted rocks That tremble at the heavy thunder-shocks: Soon from the hub on Heaven's axel-tree The frozen hail flies spinning, and the sea Is lashed beneath me to a howling smoke As if the frozen fires of hell had woke And cracked their icy flames in the face of Heaven. Withered and crouching and scarce breathing even, And battered as a gnat upon a wall I cling and gasp--climb to my feet, and fall, And crawl at last beneath a lidded stone, Careless if all the earth's foundations groan And strain in the heaving of this devilry, Careless at last whether I live or die. * * * * * So the vast Æschylean tragedy Rolls to its thunderous appointed close: With final mutterings each actor goes: And the huge Heavenly tragedian Tears from his face the massy mask and wan, And shines resplendent on the shattered stage As he has done from age to bewildered age, Giving the lie to all his mimic rage. Tramp (The Bath Road, June) When a brass sun staggers above the sky, When feet cleave to boots, and the tongue's dry, And sharp dust goads the rolling eye, Come thoughts of wine, and dancing thoughts of girls: They shiver their white arms, and the head whirls, And noon light is hid in their dark curls: Noon feet stumble and head swims. Out shines the sun, and the thought dims, And death, for blood, runs in the weak limbs. To fall on flints in the shade of tall nettles Gives easy sleep as a bed of rose petals, And dust drifting from the highway As light a coverlet as down may. The myriad feet of many-sized flies May not open those tired eyes. The first wind of night Twitches the coverlet away quite: The first wind and large first rain Flickers the dry pulse to life again. Flickers the lids burning on the eyes: Come sudden flashes of the slipping skies: Hunger, oldest visionary, Hides a devil in a tree, Hints a glory in the clouds, Fills the crooked air with crowds Of ivory sightless demons singing-- Eyes start: straightens back: Limbs stagger and crack: But brain flies, brain soars Up, where the Sky roars Upon the back of cherubim: Brain rockets up to Him. Body gives another twist To the slack waist-band; In agony clenches fist Till the nails bite the hand. Body floats light as air, With rain in its sparse hair. Brain returns, and would tell The things he has seen well: Body will not stir his lips: Mind and Body come to grips. Deadly each hates the other As treacherous blood brother. No sight, no sound shows How the struggle goes. I sink at last faint in the wet gutter; So many words to sing that the tongue cannot utter. Epitaph Jonathan Barlow loved wet skies, And golden leaves on a rollick wind ... The clouds drip damp on his crumbled eyes, And the storm his roystering dirge hath dinned. Proud buck rabbits he loved, and the feel Of a finicky nose that sniffed his hand: So now they burrow, and crop their meal; Their fore-paws scatter him up in sand. He loved old bracken, and now it pushes Affectionate roots between his bones: He runs in the sap of the young spring bushes, --Basks, when a June sun warms the stones. * * * * * Jonathan Barlow loved his Connie Better than beasts, or trees, or rain ... But her ears are shut to her Golden-Johnnie, And his tap, tap, tap, at her window-pane. Glaucopis John Fane Dingle By Rumney Brook Shot a crop-eared owl, For pigeon mistook: Caught her by the lax wing. --She, as she dies, Thrills his warm soul through With her deep eyes. Corpse-eyes are eerie: Tiger-eyes fierce: John Fane Dingle found Owl-eyes worse. Owl-eyes on night-clouds, Constant as Fate: Owl-eyes in baby's face: On dish and plate: Owl-eyes, without sound. --Pale of hue John died of no complaint, With owl-eyes too. Poets, Painters, Puddings Poets, painters, and puddings; these three Make up the World as it ought to be. Poets make faces And sudden grimaces: They twit you, and spit you On words: then admit you To heaven or hell By the tales that they tell. Painters are gay As young rabbits in May: They buy jolly mugs, Bowls, pictures, and jugs: The things round their necks Are lively with checks, (For they like something red As a frame for the head): Or they'll curse you with oaths, That tear holes in your clothes. (With nothing to mend them You'd best not offend them). Puddings should be Full of currants, for me: Boiled in a pail, Tied in the tail Of an old bleached shirt: So hot that they hurt, So huge that they last From the dim, distant past Until the crack o' doom Lift the roof off the room. Poets, painters, and puddings; these three Crown the day as it crowned should be. Isaac Ball Painting pictures Worth nothing at all In a dark cellar Sits Isaac Ball. Cobwebs on his butter, Herrings in bed: Stout matted in the hair Of his poor cracked head. There he paints Men's Thoughts --Or so says he: For in that cellar It's too dark to see. Isaac knew great men, Poets and peers: Treated crown-princes To stouts and beers; Some still visit him; Pretend to buy His unpainted pictures-- The Lord knows why. His grey beard is woolly, Eyes brown and wild: Sticky things in his pocket For anybody's child. Someday he'll win fame, --So Isaac boasts, Lecturing half the night To long-legged ghosts. Isaac was young once: At sixty-five Still seduces more girls Than any man alive. Dirge To those under smoke-blackened tiles, and cavernous echoing arches, In tortuous hid courts, where the roar never ceases Of deep cobbled streets wherein dray upon dray ever marches, The sky is a broken lid, a litter of smashed yellow pieces. To those under mouldering roofs, where life to an hour is crowded, Life, to a span of the floor, to an inch of the light, And night is all fevrous-hot, a time to be bawded and rowdied, Day is a time of grinding, that looks for rest to the night. Those who would live, do it quickly, with quick tears, sudden laughter, Quick oaths--terse blasphemous thoughts about God the Creator: Those who would die, do it quickly, with noose from the rafter, Or the black shadowy eddies of Thames, the hurry-hater. Life is the Master, the keen and grim destroyer of beauty: Death is a quiet and deep reliever, where soul upon soul And wizened and thwarted body on body are loosed from their duty Of living, and sink in a bottomless, edgeless impalpable hole. Dead, they can see far above them, as if from the depth of a pit, Black on the glare small figures that twist and are shrivelled in it. The Singing Furies The yellow sky grows vivid as the sun: The sea glittering, and the hills dun. The stones quiver. Twenty pounds of lead Fold upon fold, the air laps my head. Both eyes scorch: tongue stiff and bitter: Flies buzz, but no birds twitter: Slow bullocks stand with stinging feet, And naked fishes scarcely stir for heat. White as smoke, As jetted steam, dead clouds awoke And quivered on the Western rim. Then the singing started: dim And sibilant as rime-stiff reeds That whistle as the wind leads. The North answered, low and clear; The South whispered hard and sere, And thunder muffled up like drums Beat, whence the East wind comes. The heavy sky that could not weep Is loosened: rain falls steep: And thirty singing furies ride To split the sky from side to side. They sing, and lash the wet-flanked wind: Sing, from Col to Hafod Mynd And fling their voices half a score Of miles along the mounded shore: Whip loud music from a tree, And roll their pæan out to sea Where crowded breakers fling and leap, And strange things throb five fathoms deep. The sudden tempest roared and died: The singing furies muted ride Down wet and slippery roads to hell: And, silent in their captors' train Two fishers, storm-caught on the main; A shepherd, battered with his flocks; A pit-boy tumbled from the rocks; A dozen back-broke gulls, and hosts Of shadowy, small, pathetic ghosts, --Of mice and leverets caught by flood; Their beauty shrouded in cold mud. The Ruin Gone are the coloured princes, gone echo, gone laughter: Drips the blank roof: and the moss creeps after. Dead is the crumbled chimney: all mellowed to rotting The wall-tints, and the floor-tints, from the spotting Of the rain, from the wind and slow appetite Of patient mould: and of the worms that bite At beauty all their innumerable lives. --But the sudden nip of knives, The lady aching for her stiffening lord, The passionate-fearful bride And beaded pallor clamped to the torment-board, --Leave they no ghosts, no memories by the stairs? No sheeted glimmer treading floorless ways? No haunting melody of lovers' airs, Nor stealthy chill upon the noon of days? No: for the dead and senseless walls have long forgotten What passionate hearts beneath the grass lie rotten. Only from roofs and chimneys pleasantly sliding Tumbles the rain in the early hours: Patters its thousand feet on the flowers, Cools its small grey feet in the grasses. Judy Sand hot to haunches: Sun beating eyes down, Yet they peer under lashes At the hill's crown: See how the hill slants Up the sky half way; Over the top tall clouds Poke, gold and grey. Down: see a green field Tipped on its short edge, Its upper rim straggled round By a black hedge. Grass bright as new brass: Uneven dark gorse Stuck to its own shadow, _Like Judy that black horse_. Birds clatter numberless, And the breeze tells That bean-flower somewhere Has ousted the blue-bells: Birds clatter numberless: In the muffled wood Big feet move slowly: Mean no good. Winter Snow wind-whipt to ice Under a hard sun: Stream-runnels curdled hoar Crackle, cannot run. Robin stark dead on twig, Song stiffened in it: Fluffed feathers may not warm Bone-thin linnet: Big-eyed rabbit, lost, Scrabbles the snow, Searching for long-dead grass With frost-bit toe: Mad-tired on the road Old Kelly goes; Through crookt fingers snuffs the air Knife-cold in his nose. Hunger-weak, snow-dazzled, Old Thomas Kelly Thrusts his bit hands, for warmth 'Twixt waistcoat and belly. The Moonlit Journey Unguarded stands the shuttered sky: The creeping Thief of Night With tool and hook begins to ply His careful picking: he would pry And filch her coffered light. The soundless tapping of his bar Pricks out each sudden star. The soundless tapping of his bar Lets out the wealthy Moon: The frozen Bright goes arching far On buttresses of lucid spar And lights the road to Cloun; And all the pouring of her riches Floats on the silent ditches. The crescent road is ivory Between the silver water: But squat and black and creeping, see, Blank as the shadow of a tree, Old Robert and his daughter Toil on: and fearful, each descries Moon-gleams in other's eyes. A Song of the Walking Road The World is all orange-round: The sea smells salt between: The strong hills climb on their own backs, Coloured and damascene, Cloud-flecked and sunny-green; Knotted and straining up, Up, with still hands and cold: Grip at the slipping sky, Yet cannot hold: Round twists old Earth, and round ... Stillness not yet found. Plains like a flat dish, too, Shudder and spin: Roads in a pattern crawl Scratched with a pin Across the fields' dim shagreen: --Dusty their load: But over the craggy hills Wanders the Walking Road! Broad as the hill's broad, Rough as the world's rough, too: Long as the Age is long, Ancient and true, Swinging, and broad, and long: --Craggy, strong. Gods sit like milestones On the edge of the Road, by the Moon's sill; Man has feet, feet that swing, pound the high hill Above and above, until He stumble and widely spill His dusty bones. Round twists old Earth, and round ... Stillness not yet found. The Sermon (Wales, 1920) Like gript stick Still I sit: Eyes fixed on far small eyes, Full of it: On the old, broad face, The hung chin; Heavy arms, surplice Worn through and worn thin. Probe I the hid mind Under the gross flesh: Clutch at poetic words, Follow their mesh Scarce heaving breath. Clutch, marvel, wonder, Till the words end. Stilled is the muttered thunder: The hard, few people wake, Gather their books and go ... --Whether their hearts could break How can I know? The Rolling Saint Under the crags of Teiriwch, The door-sills of the Sun, Where God has left the bony earth Just as it was begun; Where clouds sail past like argosies Breasting the crested hills With mainsail and foretopsail That the thin breeze fills; With ballast of round thunder, And anchored with the rain; With a long shadow sounding The deep, far plain: Where rocks are broken playthings By petulant gods hurled, And Heaven sits a-straddle The roof-ridge of the World: --Under the crags of Teiriwch Is a round pile of stones, Large stones, small stones, --White as old bones; Some from high places Or from the lake's shore; And every man that passes Adds one more-- The years it has been growing Verge on a hundred score. For in the Cave of Teiriwch That scarce holds a sheep, Where plovers and rock-conies And wild things sleep, A woman lived for ninety years On bilberries and moss And lizards and small creeping things, And carved herself a cross: But wild hill robbers Found the ancient saint And dragged her to the sunlight, Making no complaint. Too old was she for weeping, Too shrivelled and too dry: She crouched and mumle-mumled And mumled to the sky. No breath had she for wailing, Her cheeks were paper-thin: She was, for all her holiness, As ugly as sin. They cramped her in a barrel --All but her bobbing head --And rolled her down from Teiriwch Until she was dead: They took her out and buried her --Just broken bits of bone And rags and skin, and over her Set one small stone: But if you pass her sepulchre And add not one thereto The ghost of that old murdered Saint Will roll in front of you The whole night through. The clouds sail past in argosies And cold drips the rain: The whole world is far and high Above the tilted plain. The silent mists float eerily, And I am here alone: Dare I pass the place by And cast not a stone? Weald Still is the leaden night: The film-eyed moon Spills hardly any light, But nods to sleep--And soon Through five broad parishes there is no sound But the far melancholy wooing Of evil-minded cats; and the late shoeing Of some unlucky filly by the ford. For twenty miles abroad there is no moving, But for the uncomfortable hooving Of midnight cows a-row in Parson's Lag: --That; and the slow twist of water round a snag. The silver mist that slumbers in the hollow Dreams of a breeze, and turns upon its side, So sleep uneasy: but no breezes follow, Only the moon blinks slowly thrice, wan-eyed. --I think this is the most unhappy night Since hot-cheeked Hecuba wept in the dawn. --There never was a more unhappy night, Not that when Hero's lamp proved unavailing, Nor that when Bethlehem was filled with wailing ... ... There is no reason for unhappiness, Save that the saddened stars have hid their faces, And that dun clouds usurp their brilliant places, And that the wind lacks even strength to sigh. And yet, as if outraged by some long tune A dog cries dolefully, green-eyed in the moon ... The Jumping-Bean (A curious bean, with a small maggot in it, who comes to life and tumbles his dwelling at the stimulus of warmth) Sun in a warm streak Striping the plush: Catch breath, hold finger tight: All delight hush. Dance, small grey thing Sleek in the warm sun: Roll around, to this, to that, --Rare wormy fun! Hot sun applauds thee: Warm fingers press To wake the small life within Thy rotund dress. Alack! Have years in cupboard, In chill and dark, Stifled thy discontent? Snufft thy spark? Liest thou stark, stiff, There in thy bed? _Weep then a dirge for him: Poor Bean's dead!_ Old Cat Care outside the Cottage (1918) Green-eyed Care May prowl and glare And poke his snub, be-whiskered nose: But Door fits tight Against the Night: Through criss-cross cracks no evil goes. Window is small: No room at all For Worry and Money, his shoulder-bones: Chimney is wide, But Smoke's inside And happy Smoke would smother his moans. Be-whiskered Care May prowl out there: But I never heard He caught the Blue Bird! Cottager is given the Bird (1921) Sidelong the Bird ran, Hard-eyed on the turned mould: Was door--window--wide? --Then Heart grew kettle-cold. Might no wind-suckt curtain Dim that travelling Eye? Could Door's thick benediction Deafen: if he should cry? Sidelong the Bird crept Into the stark door: His yellow, lidless eye! Foot chill to the stone floor! ... Then Smoke, that slender baby, To Hearth's white Niobe-breast Sank trembling--dead. Oh Bird, Bird, spare the rest! * * * * * He has bidden bats to flit In Window's wide mouth: Starlings to tumble, and mock Poor Pot's old rusty drouth: And a wet canker, nip Those round-breasted stones That I hugged to strong walls With the love of my strained bones. He bad lank Spider run, Grow busy, web me out With dusty trespass stretcht From mantel to kettle-spout. Door, Window, Rafter, Chimney, Grow silent, die: All are dead: all moulder: Sole banished mourner I. See how the Past rustles Stirring to life again ... Three whole years left I lockt Behind that window-pane. A Man He is a man in love with grass, He shivers at a tree: Thrill of wing in briar-bushes Wildly at his heart pushes Like the first, faint hint A lover is let see. If he had known a wordless song As a bird he would sing; Who took delight in slim rabbits, Watched their delicate habits, --Waited, by the briar-bush, That flutter of wooing. _Why did he break that small wing?_ The sun looks hollowly: Mocking's where the water goes; The breeze bitter in his nose: Mocking eyes wide burning --Lost, lost is he! Moon-Struck Cold shone the moon, with noise The night went by. Trees uttered things of woe: Bent grass dared not grow: Ah desperate man with haggard eyes And hands that fence away the skies On rock and briar stumbling, Is it fear of the storm's rumbling, Of the hissing cold rain, Or lightning's tragic pain Drives you so madly? See, see the patient moon; How she her course keeps Through cloudy shallows and across black deeps, Now gone, now shines soon: Where's cause for fear? 'I shudder and shudder At her bright light: I fear, I fear, That she her fixt course follows So still and white Through deeps and shallows With never a tremor: Naught shall disturb her. I fear, I fear What they may be That secretly bind her: What hand holds the reins Of those sightless forces That govern her courses. Is it Setebos Who deals in her command? Or that unseen Night-Comer With tender curst hand? --I shudder, and shudder.' Poor storm-wisp, wander! Wind shall not hurt thee, Rain not appal thee, Lightning not blast thee; Thou art worn so frail Only the moonlight pale To an ash shall burn thee, To an invisible Pain. Ænigma How can I tell it? I saw a thing That I did not find strange In my visioning. A flawless tall mirror, Glass dim and green; And a tall, dim figure There was between: Pale, so pale her face As veils of thin water; And her eyes water-pale, And the moonlight on her; And she was dying, dying; She combed her long hair, And the crimson blood ran In the fine gold there. She was dying, dying ... And in her perfect eye No terror lurked; nor pity That she should so die. Lament for Gaza You who listen, pity Gaza, this poor city; For now the roof rocks, And the blind god's hands Grope at the pillars where he stands: While Gaza mocks, While Gaza mocks. The Image Dim the light in your faces: be passionless in the room. Snuffed are the tapers, and bitterly hang on the flowerless air: See: and this is the Image of her they will lay in the tomb, Clear, and waxen, and cooled in the mass of her hair. Quiet the tears in your voices: feel lightly, finger, for finger In love: then see how like is the Image, but lifelessly fashioned And sightless, calm, unloving ... Oh who is the Artist? Oh linger And ponder whither has flitted his Sitter Impassioned. Felo de Se If I were stone dead and buried under, Is there a part of me would still wander, Shiver, mourn, and cry Alack, With no body to its back? When brain grew mealy, turned to dust, Would lissom Mind, too, suffer rust? Immortal Soul grow imbecile, Having no brain to think and feel? --Or grant it be as priests say, And growth come on my death-day: Suppose Growth came: would Certainty? Or would Mind still a quester be, Frame deeper mysteries, not find them out, And wander in a larger Doubt? --Alas, if to Mind's petty stir Death prove so poor a silencer: Though veins when emptied a few hours Of this hot blood, might suckle flowers: _From spiritual flames that scorch me Never, never were I free!_ Then back, Death! Till I call thee Hast come too soon! ... _Thou silly worm, gnaw not Yet thine intricate cocoon._ The Birds-nester _A Memorial, to an Unfortunate Young Man, Expelled from his University for a Daring Neologism_ Critic, that hoary Gull, in air Whistles, whistles shrilly: Climbing Youth, beware Murder and mockery! That wheeling, hoary gull Bats on his thin skull, Claws at his steady eyes, Whinnies and cries: Youth flings the gibe back. Hundreds of wings clack, Bright eyes encircle, search For foothold's fatal lurch. 'See now he shifts his grip: Loosen each finger-tip! Whew, brothers, shall he slip?' Crack-tendoned, answers Youth 'I seek for Eggs of Truth.' Claws clutch his hair, Beaks prick his eyes-- 'Whistle, _Despair_, _Despair!_ With ancient quills prise Every hand's--foot's--hold, Wedged in the rock's fold! Batter and scream, bewilder This impious babel-buil ... whew! Down he is rocketing falling twisting.' For days and nights Time's curly breakers Winnow him, wash him ... What is that stirs? What wing from the heights Slants to that murdered limb? Gull's peering eye bath spotted Something the sea has rotted. Secretly to the feast Dives big gull, less, and least; For Age never dies: Age shall pick out his eyes, Taste them with critick zest, --Age knows the Best! --Age shall build his lair Out of his hair: Gulp his small splintered bones To his gizzard, for stones: Feed on his words All his young woolly birds. Say not he died in vain! All that he cried in pain Ear-cocked Age hearkens to Someday. Declares it true Someday. What though he fell? The jest Feathers old Critic's nest. By arrangement with the author, and with the gracious permission of his publishers, _The Golden Cockerel Press, Waltham Saint Lawrence, Berkshire, England_, this edition of _Gipsy-Night and Other Poems_ becomes the third publication issued by _The Private Press of Will Ransom: Maker of Books, 14 West Washington Street, Chicago, U. S. A._ Composition and presswork by _Will Ransom_, assisted by _Edmond A. Hunt_; binding by _Anthony Faifer_. Printing finished _September 30th, 1922_. [Illustration] * * * * * Transcriber's Notes Obvious printer errors were silently corrected. Archaic and variable spelling was preserved. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Gipsy-Night and Other Poems, by Richard Arthur Warren Hughes *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GIPSY-NIGHT AND OTHER POEMS *** ***** This file should be named 47055-8.txt or 47055-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/0/5/47055/ Produced by David E. Brown, Joke Van Dorst, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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