The Project Gutenberg eBook of Coal and Candlelight, by Helen Parry Eden.

NOTE

THESE verses have been, for the most part,

already printed in England or America.

Five numbers are included by special permission of

the proprietors of Punch. All published in England

concerning the war are reprinted in their

original order.

H. P. E.

Begbroke, 1918.

[Pg 9]

	PAGE
The Distraction	13
Sir Bat-Ears	15
Coal and Candlelight	19
Trees	25
Simkin	27
A Ballard of Lords and Ladies	32
A Prayer for St.Innocent's Day	36
The Prize	38
To Wilfred Meynell	42
"Sidera sunt Testes et Matutina Pruina"	44
To A.W.: A Mother	46
The Ascent	47
April in Abingdon	51
An Idol of the Market Place	52
Peter Pigeon	55
I am glad the Martins are Building again....	58
A Parley with Grief	61
Levée de Rideau	63
An Afterthought on Apples[Pg 10]	65
Recruits on the Road to Oxford	67
A Volunteer	69
Ars Immortalis	71
The Admonition: To Betsey	75
The Great Rebuke	77
A Chairman of Tribunal	80
After the Storm	82
The Phœnix Liberty	83
By The Same Author	85

[Pg 11-12]

COAL AND
CANDLELIGHT

[Pg 13]

THE DISTRACTION

BETSEY, 'tis very like that I shall be—

When death shall wreak my life's economy—

Repaid with pains for contemplating thee

Unwisely out of season. With the rest

We knelt at Mass, not yet disperst and blest,

Waiting the imminent "Ite missa est."

And I, who turned a little from the pure

Pursuit of mine intention to make sure

My child knelt undistracted and demure,

Did fall into that sin. And ere the close

[Pg 14]

Of the grave Canon's "Benedicat vos ..."

Had scanned her hair and said, "How thick it grows

Over the little golden neck of her!"

So doth the mother sway the worshipper

And snatch the holiest intervals to err.

Nor piety constrained me, nor the place;

But I commended, 'gainst the light's full grace,

The little furry outline of her face.

[Pg 15]

SIR BAT-EARS

SIR BAT-EARS was a dog of birth

And bred in Aberdeen,

But he favoured not his noble kin

And so his lot is mean,

And Sir Bat-ears sits by the alms-houses

On the stones with grass between.

Under the ancient archway

His pleasure is to wait

Between the two stone pine-apples

That flank the weathered gate;

And old, old alms-persons go by,

All rusty, bent and black

[Pg 16]

"Good day, good day, Sir Bat-ears!"

They say and stroke his back.

And old, old alms-persons go by,

Shaking and wellnigh dead,

"Good night, good night, Sir Bat-ears!"

They say and pat his head.

So courted and considered

He sits out hour by hour,

Benignant in the sunshine

And prudent in the shower.

(Nay, stoutly can he stand a storm

And stiffly breast the rain,

That rising when the cloud is gone

He leaves a circle of dry stone

Whereon to sit again.)

A dozen little door-steps

[Pg 17]

Under the arch are seen,

A dozen agèd alms-persons

To keep them bright and clean;

Two wrinkled hands to scour each step

With a square of yellow stone—

But print-marks of Sir Bat-ears' paws

Bespeckle every one.

And little eats an alms-person,

But, though his board be bare,

There never lacks a bone of the best

To be Sir Bats-ears' share.

Mendicant muzzle and shrewd nose,

He quests from door to door;

Their grace they say, his shadow grey

[Pg 18]

Is instant on the floor—

Humblest of all the dogs there be,

A pensioner of the poor.

[Pg 19]

COAL AND CANDLELIGHT

... ἔχω δέ τοι ὄσσ' ἑν ὀνείρῳ φαίνονται.—
Theocritus, ix. Idyll.

BEFORE they left their mirth's warm scene

And slept, I heard my children say

That moonlight, like a duck's egg, green,

Outside the enfolding curtains lay.

But hearth-bound by maternal choice,

The fire-side's eremite, I know

The nightfall less by sight than voice—

How wake the huffing winds, and how

More full the flooded stream descends,

In unarrested race of sound,

The lasher where the river bends

To circle in our garden ground.

Within I harbour, hap what hap

[Pg 20]

Without, and o'er my baby brood:

Who, newly slumbering on my lap,

Stirs in resentful quietude.

Her little shawl-swathed fists enfold

One cherished forefinger of mine;

Her callow hair with Tuscan gold

Is pencilled in the candle-shine;

Her cheeks' sweet heraldry, exprest

Each evening since her happy birth,

Is argent to her mother's breast

And gules to the emblazoning hearth;

Only the lashes of her eyes

Some ancient discontent impairs,

Which, for their abdicated skies,

Are pointed with forgotten tears.

And so, as simple as a bird,

She nestles—there is no child else

[Pg 21]

To rouse her with a reckless word

Or clink her rattle's fallen bells:

All, long dismissed with wonted prayers,

Such apostolic vigils keep,

No sound descends the darkened stairs

To question the allure of sleep.

Only their fringèd towels veil

The fender's interwoven wire,

And, parted in the midst, exhale

Domestic incense towards the fire.

Betwixt the hobs (their lease of light,

But not of heat, devolved to dark)

The elm-logs simmer, hoary white

Or ruddy-scaled with saurian bark.

'Twas the third George whose lieges planned

That grate, and all its iron caprice

Of classic garlands, nobly spanned

By that triumphant mantelpiece—

[Pg 22]

A very altar for the bright

Tame element its pomp installs

'Twixt flat pilasters, fluted, white,

And lion-bedizened capitals.

Here portly topers met of old

To serve their comfortable god

And praise the heroes wigged and jowled,

Of that pugnacious period.

Now in their outworn husk of state

Our frugal comfort oddly dwells—

(As recluse crabs accommodate

Their contours to discarded shells)

A dozen childish perquisites

Await my liberated hands

And lovelier usurpation sits

Enthroned above the fading brands,

[Pg 23]

Two lonely tapers criss-cross rays

Cancel the dusky wall and shine

To halo with effulgent haze

The Genius of this Georgian shrine.

Mary, who through the centuries holds

Her crown'd Son in her hand, amid

Her mantle's black Byzantine folds

More tenderly displayed than hid,

O'er this tramontane hearth presides

Oracular of Heaven and Rome—

Where Peter is the Church abides,

Where Mary and Her Son, the home.

All day she blesses my employ

Where surge and eddy round my knee,

Swayed by a comfit or a toy,

The battles of eternity.

And that regard of Hers and His,

[Pg 24]

Hallowing the truce of night, endows

The weariest vigilant head with bliss;

And sanctifies such sleeping brows

As hers I carry from the haunt

Of waning warmth, the empty bars,

Up the great staircase, 'neath the gaunt

North window with its quarrelled stars,

To the quiet cradle. Slumber on,

Small heiress of celestial peace,

The glitter of the world is gone,

Et lucet lux in tenebris.

[Pg 25]

TREES

I WANDER in the open fields

Amazed, for there is no one by,

To see the bowery-hanging trees

So sympathetic with the sky;

Where sheets of daisies on the grass

Lie like Our Lord's discarded shrouds,

Whence He is risen grow the elms

And etch their verges on the clouds.

But when I walk the causey'd town

Whose citizens with tedious breath

Make certain day by day that tomb

Which shuts the Godhead underneath,

I sorrowing tread the cobbled way

[Pg 26]

Their strait-rankt chestnut-rows between,

Where myriad blossoms hardly light

One sombre pyramid of green.

[Pg 27]

SIMKIN

TO the sheer summit of the town,

Up from the marshes where the mill is,

The High Street clambers, looking down

On willows, weirs and water-lilies;

What goblin homes those gradients bear,

Doors that for all their new defacements

Date darkly, windows that outwear

The centuries shining on their casements!

When Simkin shows you up the street

To pay a bill or post a letter,

Your urgency infects his feet,

He speeds as well as you, or better;

Moulding his Lilliputian stride

[Pg 28]

To your swift footfall's emulation

He walks unwavering by your side

Until you reach your destination.

Simkin, the urchin with the shock

Of curls rush-hatted, plainly preaches

The Age of Reason in a smock

And Liberty in holland breeches,

Yet all obediently he'll ramp

Against the counter, pressing closer

To watch you lick a ha'penny stamp

Or see you settle with the grocer.

But once your steps retrace the town

And "Home's" the goal your folly mentions

A thousand projects of his own

Engage the sum of his attentions—

As when, precariously superb,

[Pg 29]

He mounts with two-year-old activity

The great stone horse-block by the kerb

Time-worn to glacial declivity.

Then debonair and undebarred

By the old hound, its casual sentry,

He dallies in "The Old George" yard

And greets the jackdaw in the entry;

Retracted to the street, he gains

A sombre door no sunshine mellows,

The smithy, where there glows and wanes

Fire, at the bidding of the bellows.

A-tip-toe at the infrequent shops

Toys or tin kettles he appraises,

Seeds in bright packets, lollipops,

Through the dim oriels' greenish glazes:

Then with two sturdy hands he shakes

[Pg 30]

The stripling sycamore that dapples

With shade the side-walk and awakes

Some ancient memory of apples.

Next he rejoins, beneath a sky

With willow-leaves and gnats a-quiver,

The dapper martins where they ply

A clayey traffic by the river;

Watches the minnows in the warm

Near shallows with a smile persuading—

He could not come to any harm

On such a heaven-sent day for wading!

Home's gained at last. At last they cease,

Coaxes, entreaties, threats, coercions;

An old gate's iron fleurs-de-lis

Shut upon Simkin's last diversions.

The garden crossed, the door stands wide,

[Pg 31]

And, pouting like a wronged immortal,

But passive as a Roman bride,

Simkin is lifted through the portal.

[Pg 32]

A BALLAD OF LORDS AND LADIES

"At Wycombe County Court ...
as Lords and Lady of the Manor of Turville ..."

A SECOND spring came round when fell

To save our land (men said) from Hell

Of Teuton tyranny her sons—

On what strange soil, to what strange guns.

And here on English sward where some

Unsacrificed remained at home

The mild commenting sage saw pass

The insensate strife of class with class

Men lived in England side by side

As sweetly as their brethren died

[Pg 33]

In Flanders, said the Optimist.

One instance to augment his list ...

In England, when the tranquil spring

Bought and endowed with suffering

Began, and the heroic year's

New wheat shot up through blood and tears

Of sacrifice its slender shoots;

When every elm-tree, its great roots

Confirmed in English agony,

Shook its red buds against the sky;

In April, when the country lifted

Its winter-smitten face and shifted

From sombre tenderness to smiles

The sun-swept champaign's miles on miles

And melody made the morning rich—

Then Lords and Ladies lined the ditch

With the same spear-shaped leaves that stood,

[Pg 34]

Noble and meek, beneath the Rood,

Dappled with Jesus Christ His Blood.

As emulous of those unfurled swords

One noble Lady and two Lords—

Whose names the chronicler rejoice,

One Mrs. Nairne and Lord Camoys

And Mr. Hewitt—did consort

To sue in Wycombe County Court

"A cottager," one Walter West:

And did from that tribunal wrest

A strong injunction to affray

The man from "cutting thorn or may

Or trespassing" where the Manor's hand

Lay on "the waste or common land

Of Turville." With the noble Three's

Victory went the lawyers' fees—

"Costs, and one shilling damages."

[Pg 35]

Now, even in war-time, when one-half

Our ink wells forth in epitaph

And every quill their fate commends

Who lay down lives to save their friends,

There should be gall enough for those

Who lay down laws to snare their foes;

A little monument or cairn

For my Lord Camoys, Mrs. Nairne

And Mr. Hewitt, who, while hosts

Of English cottagers on coasts

Unknown went down to death, effaced

One cottager from Turville Waste;

Conserving in this world of scorns

Their brambles for the Crown of Thorns.

[Pg 36]

A PRAYER FOR ST. INNOCENT'S DAY

WISDOM, be Thou

The only garland of my burdened brow,

The nearest stage

And vowed conclusion of my pilgrimage,

Shade whence I shun

The untempered supervision of the sun,

Planet whose beams

Dispel the desperate ambuscade of dreams;

Through the Red Sea

Of mine own passion, Wisdom, usher me.

For this I pray

[Pg 37]

The four austere custodians of to-day,

Urge mine intent—

Nazarius, Celsus, Victor, Innocent.

[Pg 38]

THE PRIZE

WITH ivy wreathed, a hundred lights

Shone out; the Convent play was finished;

The waning term this night of nights

To a few golden hours diminished.

Again the curtain rose. Outshone

The childish frocks and childish tresses

Of the late cast that had put on

Demureness and its party dresses.

Rustled a-row upon the stage

Big girls and little, ranged in sizes,

All waiting for the Personage

To make the speech and give the prizes.

And there, all rosy from her rôle,

[Pg 39]

Betsey with sturdy valiance bore her,

Nor did she recognize a soul

But braved the buzzing room before her

With such resolve that guest on guest,

And many a smiling nun behind them,

Met her eyes obviously addressed

To proving that she did not mind them.

(So might a kitchen kitten see—

Whose thoughts round housemaids' heels are centred—

The awful drawing-room's company

He inadvertently has entered.)

Swift from her side the girlish crowd,

With lovely smiles and limber graces,

Went singly, took their prizes, bowed,

[Pg 40]

Returning quietly to their places.

Then "Betsey Jane!" and all the rout,

Sweet postulant and nun pedantic,

Beheld that little craft put out

Upon the polished floor's Atlantic.

The Personage bestowed her prize,

And Betsey, lowly as the others,

Bowed o'er her sandals, raised her eyes

Alight with pride—and met her mother's!

She thrust between the honoured row

Before her in her glad elation;

Her school-mates gasped to see her go;

The nuns divined her destination;

The guests made way. Clap following clap

[Pg 41]

Acclaimed Convention's overleaping,

As Betsey gained her mother's lap

And gave the prize into her keeping.

[Pg 42]

TO WILFRID MEYNELL

His Friend complains of Prose that would never
serve her.

THRICE foolish I that, to portray

For you apart my heart and mind,

Bid foolish Prose the gift convey—

No thrall of mine and proved unkind—

Who flung both heart and mind away.

He never did my hests with joy

On deftest feet with fleetness shod,

But lagged in byways o'er some toy

More meet for babyhood. A rod

Reward my graceless errand boy!

On many a fair suit swiftly sent

[Pg 43]

He still hath stayed nor weighed the cost,

Reluctant to your door he bent,

The string of my thoughts' parcel lost

And gone the gist of mine intent.

Wherefore that ruffian lad I curse,

For 'tis his guilt hath spilt my sense,

For you, lest you should take for worse

His lack of wit, this evidence

Of my regard I send by Verse.

[Pg 44]

"SIDERA SUNT TESTES ET MATUTINA
PRUINA"

THE stars are witness and the morning frost,

The shuttered inn, the icy lane, the hoar

Alley transmuted at the keen moon's cost

To silver birch from leaden sycamore,

The shivering steps, the door that barely stands

Ajar, the altar's weekday thrift of gold,

The hasty breath that dews my helpless hands,

At what white heat I come through this white cold:

How before day blows up the smouldering sun

I feed my ashen hope with kindling phrase,

Cast fuel on my faith, watch the flame run

[Pg 45]

From brand to brand of love and by that blaze

Pillow my head upon His Heart whereon

Lay but last night the lovelocks of St. John.

[Pg 46]

TO A. W.: A MOTHER

WHEN beside you to your bed

Comes the little Catkin-head

(For she surely boasts some fair

Down or beech-leaf coloured hair

Your endowing aspects taught her,

His and yours, this first-born daughter)

Think how many, blessed two,

Babe and mother, prayed for you.

And when you hold appeased and warm

The Dear and Greedy on your arm,

Or laugh among the pillows piled,

All-sufficient to your child,

Pray sometimes for all exiled

(And maybe wistful) from these good

Earliest days of Motherhood.

[Pg 47]

THE ASCENT

HERE, where of old they sowed the mustard-seed,

A-branch like candelabra lit with flowers,

Above the slim young wheat-spears towers the weed

Burning the sunshine through these ardent hours;

And I, late pent in a small chintz-hung room

With all the bicker of a little town

About my window, I have burst my tomb

And stand assumed to the imperial down.

From the warm-breathing vale as from a prison,

[Pg 48]

From last year's plashy oak-leaves to the austere

Summits of chalky plough-land, I have risen

And sloughed my skin of sloth and heavened me here.

Past gardens laden with lilac and slow streams

Where the black-flowering rush renews its ranks

Where willow-drills lave in a mist of dreams

Their whispering leaflets, past the roadside banks

All white with daisies as green tide with surf,

(No star-bedizened belt of white Orion's

Holds lovelier constellations than this turf)

[Pg 49]

Past little closes set with dandelions

(And set so full that yellow ousts the green

And brags of victory shouting to the sun)

I urged me till beneath the sky's hot sheen

These heights of stony solitude were won.

Here on the crack'd white clods I stand elated

Whose iron verge scarce crumbles at my heels

So hath the effulgent ether indurated

The slot of horse-hoofs and the track of wheels;

And now, and now, the spirit no longer spent

In ease that overtops itself, takes grace,

Cleansed by the sweat of that divine ascent,

Exulting in the harsh unshaded place.

For here where God hath been so hard to shackle

[Pg 50]

The martyred earth He hath His first acclaim,

Still the parched flowers burn round His tabernacle,

The unwatered hills are vocal with His Name.

[Pg 51]

APRIL IN ABINGDON

WHEN milder days are well begun,

And window-sills are warm in the sun,

And grannies in white mufflers meet

Friends at the turn of every street,

When at the doctor's door you dread

Upon his spaniel's ears to tread

Who by the scraper lays to doze

His ginger lovelocks and his nose,

When the oldest alms-folk rise and peer

Out of their painted doors, to hear

The bellman's speech ere he be gone—

Then April comes to Abingdon.

[Pg 52]

AN IDOL OF THE MARKET PLACE

DECORUM and the butcher's cat

Are seldom far apart—

From dawn when clouds surmount the air,

Piled like a beauty's powdered hair,

Till dusk, when down the misty square

Rumbles the latest cart

He sits in coat of white and grey

Where the rude cleaver's shock

Horrid from time to time descends,

And his imposing presence lends

Grace to a platform that extends

Beneath the chopping-block.

How tranquil are his close-piled cheeks,

[Pg 53]

His paws, sequestered warm!

An oak-grained panel backs his head

And all the stock-in-trade is spread,

A symphony in white and red,

Round his harmonious form.

The butcher's brave cerulean garb

Flutters before his face,

The cleaver dints his little roof

Of furrowed wood; remote, aloof,

He sits superb and panic proof

In his accustomed place.

Threading the columned County Hall,

Midmost before his eyes,

Alerter dog and loitering maid

Cross from the sunlight to the shade,

And small amenities of trade

[Pg 54]

Under the gables rise;

Cats of the town, a shameless crew,

Over the way he sees

Propitiate with lavish purr

An unresponsive customer,

Or, meek with sycophantic fur,

Caress the children's knees.

But he, betrothed to etiquette,

Betrays nor head nor heart;

Lone as the Ark on Ararat,

A monument of fur and fat,

Decorum and the butcher's cat

Are seldom far apart.

[Pg 55]

PETER PIGEON

THE pigeons dwell in Pimlico; they mingle in the street;

They flutter at Victoria around the horses' feet;

They fly to meet the royal trains with many a loyal phrase

And strut to meet their sovereign on strips of scarlet baize;

But Peter, Peter Pigeon, salutes his cradle days.

The pigeons build in Bloomsbury; they rear their classic homes

Where pedants clamber sable steps to search forgotten tomes;

They haunt Ionic capitals with learned lullabies

[Pg 56]

And each laments in anapaests and in iambics cries;

But Peter, Peter Pigeon, how sleepily he sighs!

The pigeons walk the Guildhall; they dress in civic taste

With amplitude of mayoral chain and aldermanic waist;

They bow their grey emphatic heads, their topknots rise and fall,

They cluster in the courtyard at their midday dinner call;

But Peter, Peter Pigeon, he nods beneath my shawl.

The pigeons brood in Battersea; while yet the dawn is dark

Their ready aubade ripples in the plane-trees round the park;

[Pg 57]

They light upon your balcony, a brave and comely band,

Till night decoys their coral feet, their voices low and bland;

But Peter, Peter Pigeon, his feet are in my hand.

[Pg 58]

"I AM GLAD THE MARTINS ARE
BUILDING AGAIN...."

I AM glad the martins are building again,

They had all departed

From the old deserted

House by the stream;

Its windows were black to the snow and the rain

And the sky and the sun,

And the river sobbed on,

Like a child in a dream,

Under the unlopped sycamore boughs

That stifled the old stone house.

Now the axe-edge is blue on the sycamore rind,

[Pg 59]

By the workers huzza'd

Till the ashlared façade

Outpeers its disguise;

Now little white curtains flap out to the wind

Across the grey sills

And summer instils

The peace of the skies

And the zest of the sun into every old room

So given to grief and gloom.

And the children who wake the green walks with their mirth

And lift the shy heads

Of the flowers from their beds,

By a strange cry stirred—

Desert their dear pastime, look up from the earth,

Up, up, through the leaves

[Pg 60]

Where under the eaves

Clings the back of the bird:

And his nest-mate white-throated regards the new day

From her arch of inverted clay.

[Pg 61]

A PARLEY WITH GRIEF

GRIEF, let us come to terms! Your strict siege narrows

In on the final citadel of my soul,

Perish the outworks in a storm of arrows,

Mangonel, mace and battleaxe gain their goal.

Yet have we still provision and caparison,

You will not brook, nor we admit, defeat—

Take then the broken fort not grudge the garrison

Generous safe-conduct and a proud retreat.

Granted, O Grief? So am I saved disbanding,

Even in my end, the powers which called me chief—

[Pg 62]

Sick Memory, weak Will and Understanding

Wounded to death. Marvellest thou, chivalrous Grief,

Seeing us slink into the eternal distance,

A foe so faint should make such long resistance?

[Pg 63]

LEVÉE DE RIDEAU

HE rode upon the sorrel horse and led the dapple grey,

They passed below the gables mute soon after dawn of day,

Before the bell had chimed for Mass, while yet the sunless air

Lifted the straws of yesterday about the sleeping square.

I recked not of his name and fate nor yet did I surmise

Whose were the steeds whose locks were blown betwixt their spacious eyes,

The finches fluttered from their hoofs, I stayed to mark the ease

[Pg 64]

Of him who led the grey and swayed the sorrel with his knees.

They passed. Uprose the rural sun and spake his prologue clear

Across the world for suburbs sleek and linkèd slums to hear—

"Come hither, hither, where are played the interludes of light

And day enacts her dearest parts for your abusèd sight!"

[Pg 65]

AN AFTERTHOUGHT ON APPLES

WHILE yet unfallen apples throng the bough,

To ripen as they cling

In lieu of the lost bloom, I ponder how

Myself did flower in so rough a spring;

And was not set in grace

When the first flush was gone from summer's face.

How in my tardy season, making one

Of a crude congregation, sour in sin,

I nodded like a green-clad mandarin,

Averse from all that savoured of the sun.

But now throughout these last autumnal weeks

[Pg 66]

What skyey gales mine arrogant station thresh,

What sunbeams mellow my beshadowed cheeks,

What steely storms cudgel mine obdurate flesh;

Less loath am I to see my fellows launch

Forth from my side into the air's abyss,

Whose own stalk is

Grown untenacious of its wonted branch.

And yet, O God,

Tumble me not at last upon the sod,

Or, still superb above my fallen kind,

Grant not my golden rind

To the black starlings screaming in the mist.

Nay, rather on some gentle day and bland

Give Thou Thyself my stalk a little twist,

Dear Lord, and I shall fall into Thy hand.

[Pg 67]

RECRUITS ON THE ROAD TO OXFORD

THEY passed in dusty black defile

Along the burning champaign's edge

Where English oaks for many a mile

Dripped acorns o'er the berried hedge,

With valorous smiles on faces soiled

Out of the autumn's heat and light

These who on English earth had toiled

Came forth for English earth to fight,

Round their descending flank outspread

The country like a painted page—

God's truth, a man were lightly dead

For such a golden heritage!

But these, the surging centuries' wrack

[Pg 68]

Beyond all tides auspicious thrown,

Doomed with bowed head and threadbare back

To till the land they might not own,

Reft of the swallow's tranquil lease,

Reft of the scrap-fed robin's dole—

How have these reared in starving peace

This flaming valiancy of soul?...

O England, when with fluttered breath

You greet the victory they earn

And when with eyes that looked on death

The remnant of your sons return,

On your inviolate soil repent

And give the guerdon unbesought—

To these whose lives were freely lent

Some share of that for which they fought!

[Pg 69]

A VOLUNTEER

HE had no heart for war, its ways and means,

Its train of machinations and machines,

Its murky provenance, its flagrant ends;

His soul, unpledged for his own dividends,

He had not ventured for a nation's spoils.

So had he sighed for England in her toils

Of greed, was't like his pulse would beat less blithe

To see the Teuton shells on Rotherhithe

And Mayfair—so each body had 'scaped its niche,

The wretched poor, the still more wretched rich?

Why had he sought the struggle and its pain?

[Pg 70]

Lest little girls with linked hands in the lane

Should look "You did not shield us!" as they wended

Across his window when the war was ended.

[Pg 71]

ARS IMMORTALIS

BETSEY, when all the stalwarts left

Us women to our tasks befitting,

Your little fingers, far from deft,

Coped for an arduous week with knitting;

And, though the meekness of your hair

Drooped o'er the task disarmed my strictures,

The Army gained when in despair

You dropped its socks to paint it pictures.

I, knowing well your guileless brush,

Urged that there wanted something subtler

To put Meissonier to the blush

And snatch the bays from Lady Butler;

And so your skies retained their blue,

[Pg 72]

Nor reddened with the wrath of nations,

To prove at least one artist knew

Her public and her limitations.

A dozen warriors far away

Craved of your skill to keep them posted,

With coloured pictures day by day,

In aught of note their birthplace boasted;

Hence these "Arriving Refugees"

(Cheerful in burnt sienna) hurry

To soothe your uncle's hours of ease

In some congested hut in Surrey.

I hear that Nurse's David gets

(His valour is already French's)

Your "Market" with the cigarettes

His sister forwards to the trenches;

This "Cat" (for Rupert in the East),

[Pg 73]

Limned in its moments of inertia,

You send that he may show the beast

To its progenitors in Persia.

Daily your brush depicts a home

Such as our duller pens are mute on;

Squanders Vermilion, Lake and Chrome

And Prussian Blue—that furious Teuton

Paper beneath your fingers calls

For forms and figures to divide it,

Colours and cock-eyed capitals

And kisses cruciform to hide it.

Till brushes sucked and laid apart,

And candles lit and daylight dying

And you asleep, your works of art

Ranged on the mantelpiece and drying—

We elders (older when you're gone)

[Pg 74]

Muse on our country's gains and losses ...

Ah, Betsey, is it you alone

Who send your kisses shaped like crosses?

[Pg 75]

THE ADMONITION: TO BETSEY

REMEMBER, on your knees,

The men who guard your slumbers—

And guard a house in a still street

Of drifting leaves and drifting feet,

A deep blue window where below

Lies moonlight on the roof like snow,

A clock that still the quarters tells

To the dove that roosts beneath the bell's

Grave canopy of silent brass

Round which the little night winds pass

Yet stir it not in the grey steeple;

And guard all small and drowsy people

Whom gentlest dusk doth disattire,

[Pg 76]

Undressing by the nursery fire

In unperturbed numbers

On this side of the seas—

Remember, on your knees,

The men who guard your slumbers.

[Pg 77]

THE GREAT REBUKE

"May those at war soon lay down the sword and
so end the slaughter which is dishonouring Europe
and humanity."—Benedict XV.

"PUT up thy sword." So Peter found

Rebuke upon his weapon's aid,

The High Priest's servant of his wound

Was healed, and the disciple's blade

Rebidden to its scabbard. See,

O World, the lovely evidence—

True lesson of Gethsemane—

That Heaven on Earth disdained defence.

For still the hostile ages pass,

And force may strive for right, but know,

You cannot cut at Caiaphas

But the hired servant bears the blow;

And still the apostle, he who dies

[Pg 78]

In thought to stem Christ's Passion, falls

Short of his fervour and denies

His Master in the High Priest's halls ...

Forth leaps the sword upon the same

Innocent pretexts—little homes

Childhood and womanhood wronged, the Name

Of this rebuking Christ: hence comes

A votive fury that begins

All conflicts, and the justest pride

Is first the stalking-horse of sins

And then deserted and denied.

Despots, diplomatists, dark trades

Set men unceasingly at strife,

Usurp the war-cries of crusades,

Divert each God-devoted life;

Never, Oh never yet, will war,

[Pg 79]

Howe'er so poisonous root and stem,

Lack the assurance of a star

Outdazzling His of Bethlehem

Till Truth and Innocence reprove

Their ghastly champions with His word—

Who chid the violence even of love—

"Put up thy sword." "Put up thy sword."

[Pg 80]

A CHAIRMAN OF TRIBUNAL

"I am joined with ... nobility and tranquillity,
burgomasters and great oneyers such as ... pray
continually to their saint the commonwealth."—
I Henry IV, ii. 1.

SO ringed about with sparrow-hawks and owls,

Bloodhounds and weasels, triplicated jowls,

Complaisant dewlaps and uneasy eyes,

He sits—this President of Destinies—

Fingers his papers, strokes his creasy chin,

Bellows beneath his borrowed baldaquin.

Cocytus still sobs past him, on its brink

He lays nice odds which souls emerge or sink,

Paddles his bovine hoofs in the spilt bliss

Of Love, and in the tearfullest abyss

Angles for little jests. He knows no ruth—

[Pg 81]

Though even Pilate was concerned for Truth

And Caiaphas for Forms—his scarlet thumb

Was born reversed: and Innocence is dumb

Bound by the implication of his dream,

Unholy revenant of a dead régime,

Who made red War ere God made me and you

And now, God willing, thinks to see it through.

[Pg 82]

AFTER THE STORM

ALONG the silent lane I found—

Where all night long the wind blew Hell—

The chestnut trees had heaped the ground

With ruthless spoil of nut and shell.

So shall we see our night's grim tolls—

When dawn displays the insensate dusk's

Ravage—the unnumbered, fallen souls,

The unnumbered, vacant, mangled husks.

[Pg 83]

THE PHŒNIX LIBERTY

ONE dark December day, the text-books teach,

The English Commons set unbending names,

By the wan light of wavering candle-flames,

To their immortal Protest for Free Speech:

Stern signatories, who spared not to impeach

Mompesson and Mitchell of corrupted aims,

"And argue and debate," said peevish James,

"Publicly, matters far beyond their reach."

"O fiery popular spirits," re-create

Some sparkle of your ashes. Let us see

The Phœnix Liberty, that chirps by stealth

Through chinks and crannies of our shuttered state,

[Pg 84]

Bright as the sun and unabashed as he,

Cry through the casements of the commonwealth.

[Pg 85]

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

"BREAD AND CIRCUSES"

Crown 8vo, 3/6 net.

Some Opinions of the Press

"The best first book produced in many a year."—The New York Times.

"It is difficult to describe the effect they produce without seeming to use the language of exaggeration."—
The Westminster Gazette.

"There is not a piece in the engaging volume that does not make appeal."—The Daily Telegraph.

"A remarkable event in the world of women."—G. B. D., in The Queen.

"The large bulk of this small volume is a sheer delight."—E. H. L., in the Manchester Guardian.

"She has approached common things and great things with a quiet delicate ecstasy that is clean and refreshing."—J. M. B., in The Graphic.

"Mrs. Eden at once secures for herself a place by her first volume in the distinctively literary class of her day. It is the best volume of light verse that has been issued for many a year."—Clement Shorter, in The Sphere.

"I have read it a great many times myself and it has become part of my existence in a peculiar manner."—
G. K. Chesterton, in The New Witness.

"Poems ... which competent critics consider the noblest devotional poetry written since the death of Francis Thompson."—Joyce Kilmer, in the New York Independent.

"She can work innocence into art without damaging the dew on it: the very cunning of her verse seems indeed a kind of added candour—a sort of celestial mischief that proves the possession of the full freedom of heaven."—Dixon Scott, in the Liverpool Daily Courier.

[Pg 86]

RECENT VERSE

CHRIST IN HADES

By Stephen Phillips. With an Introduction by C. Lewis Hind. Illustrated by Stella Langdale.
Demy 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. (Uniform with "The Dream of Gerontius.")

Daily News: "Mr. Lewis Hind has written a fascinating and amusing chapter of memories of the literary 'nineties."

CACKLES AND LAYS

RHYMES OF A HENWIFE. By Margaret Lavington.
With numerous Illustrations by Helen Urquhart.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

If Ann and Jane Taylor had lived in the twentieth century and taken to keeping poultry for profit in war time, they would probably have had a laudable desire to inculcate the principles and practice of hen-keeping among the young. But unless they had developed an unexpected sense of humour they wouldn't have produced anything like "Cackles and Lays," for while some of Margaret Lavington's rhymes are practical and sprightly, others are just delightfully whimsical and humorous.

POEMS OF WEST AND EAST

By V. Sackville-west (the Hon. Mrs. Harold Nicolson).
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

Morning Post: "These poems reveal a personality both charming and courageous. They have all been lived—not merely written."

THE RHYME GARDEN

By Marguerite Buller-allan. With Pictures in Black and White and Colour by the Author.
Crown 4to. 3s. 6d. net.

An unconventional book for children in that it is illustrated in what seems at first sight a conventional childish manner, but behind the apparent crudity there is real art and colour of the kind that will appeal to all children and all grown-ups who love children.

HAY HARVEST and Other Poems

By Lucy Buxton.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

A HIGHLAND REGIMENT and Other Poems

By Lieut. E. A. Mackintosh, M.C. 3rd edition.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

Daily Graphic: "This is one of the most notable poetic harvests of the war."

WAR THE LIBERATOR and Other Pieces

By Lieut. E. a. Mackintosh, M.C., Author of "A Highland Regiment."
Crown 8vo. With portrait. 5s. net.

MESSINES ET AUTRES POÈMES. Messines and Other Poems

By Emile Cammaerts. English version by Tita Brand Cammaerts.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

ON HEAVEN and Other Poems

By Ford Madox Hueffer.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

RETROGRESSION and Other Poems

By Sir William Watson.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.

Daily News: "'Retrogressions' will revive a splendid reputation."

AN EVENING IN MY LIBRARY AMONG THE ENGLISH POETS

By the Hon. Stephen Coleridge.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

POEMS OF CAPTAIN BRIAN BROOKE

With a Foreword by M. P. Willcocks, and nine Illustrations.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

Land and Water: "I cannot forbear the pleasure of quoting from a book that will soon be by the side of Lindsay Gordon's poems on the shelves of all those who love the poetry of out-of-doors."

THERE IS NO DEATH

Poems by the late Richard Dennys. With an Introduction by Captain Desmond Coke,
and a Photogravure Portrait of the Author.
Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.

Globe: "This graceful verse is distinguished by its manly tone and vigorous quality."

THE DAY and Other Poems

By Henry Chappell. With an Introduction by Sir Herbert Warren, K.C.V.O.
Crown 8vo. Cloth (with a Portrait), 2s. 6d. net.

Henry Chappell has long been widely known as the railway-porter poet of Bath, and many of his poems have been published in the press, and not a few set to music. His famous poem, "The Day," was printed in practically every newspaper in America. The present volume, however, constitutes the first publication of his work in a collected form.

OUR GIRLS IN WAR TIME

By Joyce Dennys. With Topical Verses by Hampden Gordon.
Crown 4to. 3s. 6d. net. 2nd Edition.

This is a companion volume to "Our Hospital A B C."

Morning Post: "Once again these clever collaborators play up to the cheery souls on the Western Front, and their new consignment of the munitions of merriment will be even more sought after than the first volume. This Christmas the Dennys Girl will become as well established as the Gibson Girl."

ODES TO TRIFLES, and Other War Rhymes

Poems by R. M. Eassie (Sergt. 5th Canadian Infantry)
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

The Times: "Humorous verse, by a member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, in which every stanza gets well home; written with a refreshing air of conviction and a real wit which scintillates the more sharply because not a word of it could be spared."

FLOWER-NAME FANCIES

Designed and Written by Guy Pierre Fauconnet.
English Rhymes by Hampden Gordon.
Crown 4to. 2s. 6d. net.

A charming series of drawings illustrating in a delightfully quaint and delicate manner the popular nicknames of many flowers, both in French and English.

Each drawing is accompanied by an explanation as quaint as itself, in French and English, the latter in rhyme by Hampden Gordon.

JOHN LANE, The Bodley Head, Vigo Street, W.






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COAL
AND
CANDLELIGHT

TO E. A. P.

NOTE

CONTENTS

THE DISTRACTION

SIR BAT-EARS

COAL AND CANDLELIGHT

TREES

SIMKIN

A BALLAD OF LORDS AND LADIES

A PRAYER FOR ST. INNOCENT'S DAY

THE PRIZE

TO WILFRID MEYNELL

"SIDERA SUNT TESTES ET MATUTINA
PRUINA"

TO A. W.: A MOTHER

THE ASCENT

APRIL IN ABINGDON

AN IDOL OF THE MARKET PLACE

PETER PIGEON

"I AM GLAD THE MARTINS ARE
BUILDING AGAIN...."

A PARLEY WITH GRIEF

LEVÉE DE RIDEAU

AN AFTERTHOUGHT ON APPLES

RECRUITS ON THE ROAD TO OXFORD

A VOLUNTEER

ARS IMMORTALIS

THE ADMONITION: TO BETSEY

THE GREAT REBUKE

A CHAIRMAN OF TRIBUNAL

AFTER THE STORM

THE PHŒNIX LIBERTY

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

"BREAD AND CIRCUSES"

RECENT VERSE

COAL ANDCANDLELIGHT

TO E. A. P.

NOTE

CONTENTS

THE DISTRACTION

SIR BAT-EARS

COAL AND CANDLELIGHT

TREES

SIMKIN

A BALLAD OF LORDS AND LADIES

A PRAYER FOR ST. INNOCENT'S DAY

THE PRIZE

TO WILFRID MEYNELL

"SIDERA SUNT TESTES ET MATUTINA PRUINA"

TO A. W.: A MOTHER

THE ASCENT

APRIL IN ABINGDON

AN IDOL OF THE MARKET PLACE

PETER PIGEON

"I AM GLAD THE MARTINS ARE BUILDING AGAIN...."

A PARLEY WITH GRIEF

LEVÉE DE RIDEAU

AN AFTERTHOUGHT ON APPLES

RECRUITS ON THE ROAD TO OXFORD

A VOLUNTEER

ARS IMMORTALIS

THE ADMONITION: TO BETSEY

THE GREAT REBUKE

A CHAIRMAN OF TRIBUNAL

AFTER THE STORM

THE PHŒNIX LIBERTY

BY THE SAME AUTHOR "BREAD AND CIRCUSES"

RECENT VERSE

COAL
AND
CANDLELIGHT

"SIDERA SUNT TESTES ET MATUTINA
PRUINA"

"I AM GLAD THE MARTINS ARE
BUILDING AGAIN...."

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

"BREAD AND CIRCUSES"