The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deluge and Other Poems, by John Presland This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 Title: The Deluge and Other Poems Author: John Presland Release Date: October 13, 2011 [EBook #37751] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DELUGE AND OTHER POEMS *** Produced by Al Haines THE DELUGE AND OTHER POEMS BY JOHN PRESLAND AUTHOR OF "MANIN AND THE DEFENCE OF VENICE" "MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS," ETC. LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1911 All rights reserved CONTENTS The Deluge Sonnets— To J. F. W. To Andrew Chatto November To a Robin in December A January Morning February To April—I To April—II To Daniel Manin To the Leaders of both Parties Consolation Tapestry Wisdom and Youth A Villa on the Bay of Naples A Song The Ballad of a Sea-Nymph Chrysanthemums A Courtly Madrigal In Arcadia A Ballad of King Richard In the Valley of the Shadow THE DELUGE "The Sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair."—Genesis vi. 2. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ The Seeker after Truth His Wife His Mother Chorus SCENE I The wife and the mother spinning THE WIFE (sings) Love, it is dark among your roses, The face of the moon is turned away, The nightingale is silent and lonely; Lean from your window a little way!— Lean but a little way towards me, Out of the window where jasmines twine, Open the lattice, softly, slowly, Till the light of your eyes shall gladden mine. Love, it is dark among your roses; And how, since the nightingales are fled, Can I tell your heart how my heart is lowly, To touch the ground where your sandals tread? This is your garden; these your flowers; These stars have seen you; these dews have known; And now your eyes and your smile you give me— Give me your love, and be all mine own! THE MOTHER Sing that again, the music soothes my ear. THE WIFE My husband made it for me ere we wed, And sang it in my garden; I arose And leaned down to him, and my fingers gave To all his kisses. Ah! those days were sweet. THE MOTHER Not sweet now? THE WIFE I am happy in his love And thank God for it, nay, propitiate With vows and offering; I fear a wrath Called down on too great happiness; I fear— I know not what—Oh, I possess a gift So rare and precious, that, like men who go Laden with rubies, I am grown suspect Of all the earth and heaven, feel the stars Peer covetously on me. Every hour That he is from my side a cloud of woe Settles upon me like a swarm of bees. Ah, is it possible that we can sin In happiness, against a jealous God? THE MOTHER Nay, nay, these foolish thoughts! your wits are strayed With too much brooding: let me bind afresh The knot of scarlet lilies in your hair; They fade already, for the sun is high Towards the noon: Ah, child, what waits for you But love, and yet more love, and happiness, And children of delight, and in old age Respect of all the peoples, and at last Death in his arms and burial in peace? Still do you tremble, what is it you fear? THE WIFE Can you not feel a something in the air, A warning, or a presence, or the weight Of some unguessed-at horror, that, like dust Impalpable and deadly, clings and kills? There is some terror—'tis my heart that speaks And warns me—ah! would God indeed, your son, (My love and husband) had another father Than that celestial being. This it is That puts eternal sadness on his brow, And shade within his eyes I cannot lift, Even with kisses; 'tis the angel nature That makes him sit spell-woven in a trance, Chin in his hand, and eyes on vacancy, And lips all bare of love, the while his soul Struggles against the bonds of finity. THE MOTHER Ah, how you love him! THE WIFE More because of it, This kingdom infinite I cannot know Though loving him. THE MOTHER Alas! so did I love. THE WIFE Tell me of love. THE MOTHER Belovéd, what should I tell That his lips have not taught you? THE WIFE Tell of yours; So that I may compare your flowers with mine, Your doubts and times of joy, and how arose The sudden and sweet passion in your heart; Did the world burst forth, like a flower from bud, All suddenly in beauty, when you met? THE MOTHER Ah, how your words have wakened memory, And bitter-sweet, like love itself, it is. THE WIFE The first time that you met? THE MOTHER Ah, that first time! It was a night of gods, a night of love. The earth was still beneath a summer sky So thickly sown with stars, that it appeared A vase of ebon in a silver shroud; No breath there stirred, the hot air seemed to hang In heavy folds, like silken tapestry, Clinging, caressing; all the birds were still, No nightingale with her ecstatic pain Transfixed the silence; earth was dead asleep, Sunk in a scented languor; every flower Steamed all its odour forth, as it would pour Its soul before the mystery of love. And I into the night had stolen forth, Oppressed, with pain or joy, I knew not which, Knew only that the blood throughout my veins Did run like liquid fire, head to foot I tingled with sensation, all my hair Stirred, as with separate life within itself; And as I plucked the flowers and wove them in, Purple and waxen, languorously sweet, They seemed anticipation of a touch Should make each thread of hair become a bird, Fluttering with outstretched wings. From off my breast I flung my garment back; the soft air wooed Like sleepy lips ere love is yet awake. Then, as I lingered in the dusky depths, All flower-shadowed, blacker than the night, Blacker than shadows cast by palace walls Upon a moonlit night, there, in that web Of close-knit darkness, suddenly there came The wonder unto me, the god, my love— Within mine ears there was a silver silence, And in my heart a golden burst of song, The darkness burned around me, with a light Born from the other worlds, and there he stood, Radiant, godlike, purple were his wings And splashed with fire, purply-black his hair And crowned with stars for flowers; in his eyes My soul sank into passion and was drowned. CHORUS Oh, what a pair of birds, Hidden among the leaves! He a god and she a maid, Deathless lips on mortal laid; (Nothing death retrieves.) There a son of God And child of mortal seed Met and kissed as love with love; Oh the leaves were thick above, No stars saw the deed. No stars, but the eye of God? Ah, perchance He saw How a god to mortal prayed And the fatal compact made 'Gainst eternal law. Veiled and still the night. So, a fount of tears Springs at first unseen, unguessed, Till at last the flood confessed Gushes down the years. Son of a son of God And the daughter of men too frail! Union of the nature's twain? Only sorrow and want and pain, Striving without avail; Desire for wings of a god Tied to the will of a man; Memory of a boundless space, (Where stars and spheres their dance enlace) With the threescore human span Hung like a bridge, in the gulf Of God's eternity. Oh a mind to know and a heart to crave Beyond the horizon of the grave To the bounds of infinity! Yet ever Fate compels This infinite desire To match with cramped and finite brain; And all of heaven earth may gain Is smoke, where should be fire. SCENE II THE SEEKER The air is heavy, all the winds are still So that my own breath hangs about my head Like incense o'er an altar. Now the earth Lies in a swoon, and all the flowers droop Weighting their stems, ranged in their brazen pots Without the house: the very petals lie Like languid limbs relaxed; this crimson rose Looks as if blood-steeped, almost to my sense Smells of the same, the lilies are like death. There is a taint of sickness in the air Through all the noonday light—like fever chill In fever burning,—and the sky is brass; The very tinkle of the fountain spray Is dead and tuneless, even the fresh springs Have lost their freshness, run from off my hands In drops of lead, and all my spirit seems Weighed and confined with fetters of decay. Because I have loved beauty more than most And striven to pluck out the heart of it; Because I have such sense of lovely things That I can pour my soul in thankfulness Before a leaf God makes to grow aright, A unit of perfection; 'tis ordained Because I love most still I most must lack Love's satisfaction, quietude of soul— Still must I find such void disparity Between the false and true, and yet they grow Together, intermingled; true is false Itself, by sometime seeming, who shall find The point where false and true are reconciled? The very flower that we stoop to smell Grows from a dunghill, look but in its roots, And what obscene and hideous blind life Goes teeming; sickened then we shrink aback From rose's velvet petals. So the soul Holds best and meanest in a common cup. Yet must there be a law in things that are Seemingly lawless, purify the sight And truth must surely then be visible, Disparity made clear; the eye of God Sees good in everything, thereto I strive, To see with God's own vision, be more clear In speech, than God, to asking human hearts. Then is the tangle straightened, and the world Lies in perspective, as before me lie, Traced through the shimmering heat, the palaces, Towers and temples, gardens and granaries, Of this fair City, melting far away Into the sunlight-flooded hills at last. Yet must I sit here for a little while, Where many columns make a heavy gloom, And with the trickle from the water-jars Of unfresh water, cheat myself awhile With thought of evening freshness. Oh my soul Is wearier than my body with the toil, It aches with length of watching. I have strained My spiritual eyes to catch a glimpse of dawn And nothing seen but blackness. Let me rest As rest the quiet dead from doubt and toil; Like silver feathers from the wings of God Sleep fans my senses—— [He sleeps. THE CHORUS Sleep, and forget, forget the aching toil, The disappointments, and the long delays, The watches of the night-time and the morn, The lonely hours, unrewarded days; Sleep, and forget. In death we all are equal, great and small Brought to the common level of the dust; There is no glory that survives the years, Nay, nay, alike we shall be as we must; Sleep and forget. In sleep we are omnipotent as gods, Beyond our furthest wish we can attain, Unfettered by the chain of circumstance; Sleep then; or waking, turn and pray again A little more to sleep and to forget. SCENE III Enter the MOTHER to the WIFE THE MOTHER Ah me, your fears have settled on my heart; I fear the very day, there is a strange Portentous look o'er all the earth, my hand Stretched in the sunlight seems to throw no shade As if the natural laws had all stood still— I breathe as in a nightmare, breath oppressed; I start at every sound, but fear no sound So much as stillness, which descends on us Like a great mantle choking out our hearts. THE WIFE Give me your hand, what is it makes you fear And shiver like plane trees before the rain? THE MOTHER As I lay in the shadow of the court During the noonday fierceness, watched the rays Chequered between the lattice window work, And listened to the fountain in the grove Of orange trees go singing to itself— Behold, all suddenly before me stood My lover-god, the angel ever dear, And radiant as that first night years ago, There stood he; where the marble touched his feet It glowed translucent like a sunlit gem, The perfume of his hair had made me swoon Had not his eyes compelled me. Grave he looked, Where gravity in such a beauteous thing Could find occasion, and his voice was low And troubled, warning me. "Let not your son Tempt God too far, He will not brook affront Though son of mine should dare it; be assured The secret of this riddle universe Shall ne'er be known on earth, man was not made For too much knowledge, mankind ceases then When man too much aspires. Speak to him Lest he should bring destruction on your head And on the world." Thus spoke he, nothing more, And ere my eyes could hold him he was gone. THE WIFE Ah, let us go in to my husband then And warn him quickly. THE MOTHER I have warned, alas! And he has heard with the unheeding smile One gives to children's prattle. "Now at last The hours bear fruit, and shall I hold my hand," He answered, "for your vision? I have waited, Now is the time when hope is justified; Truth dawns, not even God Himself can stand Between the light and me and shadow it." THE WIFE Ah God! ah God! to whom shall be appeal? THE MOTHER Look where he comes. THE WIFE With what an air fulfilled. Enter the SEEKER AFTER TRUTH, inspired THE SEEKER Now do I stand upon the very brink Of my desire; as a soul released And purified by passing through the rays Of white Eternity, I view the world. Now am I all at peace; the heart that yearns In bitter loneliness through midnight hours Yet cannot voice its longing, brain that weaves Its subtle web around the central thought Yet never can absorb it; and this form, The visible pride of body, all complete Are one in union; the body knows Its uses and its worths and has no fear, The heart no more is empty, I have found Eternal love to fill it, and no more Gropes the blind brain for the Great Definite. Away from me, my people, lest the sight Of loving faces blunt the senses keen, Hovering on the pain of a new birth. THE MOTHER My son, my son, it is not well to tempt The thunders of Jehovah; He who placed Man on this earth, and gave him such a form And such a nature never did intend The form or nature to be changed. THE SEEKER Enough, Is it not parcel of the nobleness Of His conception thus to place us here Low in the scale; that we, by effort's worth, May reach to Him and equal Him at last? THE MOTHER Oh man was born for failure, not success, To strive and strive, and evermore to fail, And failing still strive ever; therein lies The nobleness that equals him to God Though linked to insufficient means for God. Why will you hope to change appointed fate? While still in man the sad twi-nature dwells, Godhead and manhood, still as dark and light The eternal war goes on. It is our lot, Accept it, spare us last catastrophe. THE WIFE Alas! alas! you see he marks you not, His eyes are fixed on distance, and his lips Move to the cadence of a song or prayer, I know not which; and ever and anon, His forehead, vivid with the teeming brain, Rests in his hollow hand. He marks you not; No more than raindrops plashing on a roof, Whereto perhaps one listens for a space And says "It raineth"—then again to sleep. THE MOTHER Speak you to him, if he may hear his wife! THE WIFE Ah me, my lord, what is it I can say That will excuse the saying? Words are few When hearts are fullest. On my wedding night— Do you remember?—you did take my hand, (As I take yours now) lay your lips on it, (See, here I lay my lips) and all the love Your heart would fain express and tongue could not I read in eyes and kisses, being well skilled In love's translation. THE SEEKER Who is this that speaks? Your words come through my musing, like the call Of quails across the desert, troubling me With a strange stirring of the peaceful heart. THE WIFE It was my soul and not my words that called. THE SEEKER My hand is wet with tears. THE WIFE They are my prayers. THE SEEKER Why do you weep when all the world should be Poised on the outspread wings of happiness? Ah! just a little moment loose your hold, While strips my soul for last and fiercest struggle That gives us victory. THE WIFE Nay cease, ah cease. Why must you venture to the wrath of God For a mere idle fancy? Is not love, My love, and youth and joy enough for you? Roses are beautiful to bind one's brow, Why must one grasp at stars? Ah, if my tears, Barren as dew that falls upon the sand, Cannot incline you to forgetfulness Of all save love, you are inexorable, You love me not. THE SEEKER I make an end of tears. THE WIFE Nay, rather tears enough to drown the world THE MOTHER Again, he lapses in his trance. THE WIFE Ah me, I can no more, we wait on God's event. THE SEEKER There have been summer nights so exquisite The soul in me did pant with pain, And with its efforts vain To grasp the beauty of the infinite; When 'twixt my senses and the silent stars The world of forms was purged away, And all creation lay Intense, eternal, without bounds or bars; And all my yearning soul Reached up to, strove for, failed to grasp that Whole. Ye who have felt the ache Of visible beauty burning through your brain, And vainly tried to break Through forms of beauty, Beauty to attain; Ye who have felt the weight Of much desire in a little space; God in your narrow brain, and in the face Of mortals the large lineaments of Fate; Ye who have felt the pang, Even in love's most full communion Of the soul's loneliness, which may not hang For all its love, another soul upon; Draw near, draw near to me now, ye who long Above the common things, For truth approaches us on flaming wings And all life's tangle shall be straightened now, And right shall rise triumphant over wrong, And nought be great or little, weak or strong, But all Creation share in knowledge vast As in design; with neither first nor last. A moment let the waiting heart be dumb, Last silence ere the revelation come— The truth! the truth! [He is struck dead. THE MOTHER Alas! the Wrath of God Flashing upon us from the angry skies, Ah woe! this is destruction. THE WIFE Let it be, Since low he lies, struck by a meteor, With truth upon his lips. THE MOTHER No meteor that; His father, my god-lover, struck him down. THE WIFE Since end must be what matter how it come? Here will I sit, his head upon my breast, Where it has lain in sleep, my arms about His kingly body, sit, and wait the end, Mocking at God. THE CHORUS Alas! alas! alas! The skies are torn, the heavens crash, From pole to pole in terror rending, Mountains against mountains dash, The blinding lightnings blaze and flash, And are shaken the foundations Of the earth, for earth is ending. Black the air and black the waters, Lifeless the life-giving sun; Woe upon earth's sons and daughters, For the Wrath is now begun. Ah, too late you clamour wildly, Earth is blind, and earth is dumb, You by earth and earth by you Child and mother are undone; Let your cry to God ascend, For from God the terrors come. Now the father is destroyer And the mother is the grave, Woe is us for God forsakes us And 'tis God alone can save. Oh, a union of destruction Sons of God and nature's daughters, Seed of terror, seed of evil, Nurtured for the hungry waters. Is there help now? Oh beseeching, Raise for help impotent hands. While the frenzied winds are roaring, Hound-like loosened from their bands, And the waters' tumult reaching To the stars, where quiet stands God contemplative. Destruction, 'Tis the uttermost destruction he demands! Now the waters are uprising And the mountain summits bend, Headlong all the turrets hurling, Towers and temples now descend; All in black confusion whirling Earth and heaven rocking blend, In the waters wildly swirling To annihilation's end. Alas! alas! alas! Neither foothold, hand-hold, safety For the body nor the soul. Cracks the earth, the heavens rend, And the waters of despair consuming roll. SONNETS TO J. F. W. We've touched the borderland of death and life And come back to the primroses again, And see with different eyes the slanting rain Buffet the larches in a short-lived strife; With different eyes, for we have looked on death, And know what life is for; we felt the hand Of that sad Lady of the other Land, And now, with her released, we draw our breath. Life is for gladness, not for mulish days Between the galling shafts of commonplace. See, now, the willow tassels all ablaze Against the background of the windy blue! And in the dusk the crocus glimmers through The footsteps of Persephone we trace. TO ANDREW CHATTO It is your thin, ungracious wine that runs Within a year of bottling, to your tongue, The noblest wine is somewhat harsh when young; Lay it aside for many moons and suns, Send it, if so you will, its "wander-year," A-battling with the ocean's storm and strife, Then open it, when ripe are wine and life, And see what mellow sunshine you have there. Here is another year to crown that head So full of years and honour, dear old friend, Whose wisdom makes a constant, quiet balm For tricks and trials of life, whose age doth blend Young-heartedness with philosophic calm, And sunshine on this generation shed. NOVEMBER There is a gleam of sunshine on the earth After so many weary days of rain, A break of yellowing clouds, which offers plain The sun's veiled disc (a very shadow-birth, But still the sun, with sun's November worth); The sky is of a Turner lived again, Such colours through the misty greyness gain They almost seem to touch with spring the earth. How should we not be glad, when this one day Out of the saddest of all months, appears Suddenly beautiful? A single ray Of sunlight strikes through cloud, and clears The whole drear countryside of grey; So may one word dispel a cloud of tears. TO A ROBIN IN DECEMBER In Paradise there is no sweeter song Than that thin music that the robin makes On short December afternoons, and takes The winter woods, with utterance frail, yet strong; Till all the barren fields, and ruined brakes, The flowerless gardens, and the hedges bare Dream of the spring, and all the rainy air Seems soft and mellow as the summer lakes. More precious than the treasures of the East, (Guarded by silver-footed antelope,) Or all the nightingales that haunt the grove Of Persian gardens; silver pipe of hope! That Nature gives us when her gifts are least, Sing to our hearts, oh, little voice of love. A JANUARY MORNING How strangely shone the crescent of the moon In the grey twilight dawning o'er the sea; A star, that seemed of stars a memory, (As faint as lilies on a sultry noon) Ebbed in the chilly waxing of the morn; The sea was rest in motion; hardly stirred Its waves upon the beach; there was no bird To break its undersong of silence born. The misty shadows lay upon the trees, Whose colour was but echo of the tone That earth and sky were wrapped in, harmonies Of wedded hue were visible alone, —And over all a breath of memory blown, Of other dawnings upon other seas. FEBRUARY Can there be aught to touch the sleeping dead To consciousness; can love still call to love Across that dark abyss; can feeling move Dead heart and brain, that once with blood were fed, To stir and quicken in their narrow bed, For that which yet is living? We believe Such force has love, that it may still retrieve Its heart's Eurydice among the dead. I shall awake, then, shall awake my soul— Not when full summer beautifies the earth, But with the first sweet stirring of the sap, Ere yet the fields are green or leaves unroll: I shall but sleep awhile in Nature's lap, To be reborn with February's rebirth. TO APRIL I 'Tis not alone the loveliness of spring That makes spring lovely; there's a sense behind Of wonders, deeper than the eye can find In daffodils, or swallows on the wing; A subtler pleasure than the sense can bind When on the dusty roads the rain-drops sing As March turns April, and the hours bring Songs to deaf ears, and beauty to the blind. April is secret nature's treasure room, Which she unlocks to us who love her well In magic moments; then indeed we see The wonder of all spring-times, from the gloom Of world-beginnings, long ere Adam fell— And all the beauty of all springs to be. TO APRIL II There will be other days as fair as these