The Project Gutenberg EBook of London Sonnets, by Humbert Wolfe 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/license Title: London Sonnets Author: Humbert Wolfe Release Date: March 11, 2020 [EBook #61598] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON SONNETS *** Produced by Chuck Greif, MWS 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.) “ADVENTURERS ALL” SERIES No. XXVII. LONDON SONNETS {1} {2} Adventurers All. A SERIES OF YOUNG POETS UNKNOWN TO FAME. Come my friends.... ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down.... It may be we shall touch the happy isles. Yet our purpose holds ... to sail beyond the sunset. Ulysses {3} LONDON SONNETS BY HUMBERT WOLFE Oxford Basil Blackwell, Broad Street, 1920 DEDICATION. These were the first anemones— God only in his heaven sees How moving on their small green feet They blossomed in a London street, From a cool valley, as I guess, Beneath a hill in Lyonesse. CONTENTS. Page Dedication 4 London Pseudo-Sonnets: The Old Clothes Dealer 9 {4} {5} Coves at Hampton Court 10 One Man Returns 11 The Bun-Shop 12 The Fried Fish-Shop 13 The Streets Behind the Tottenham Court Road 14 The Yorkshire Grey 15 Wardour Street 16 The Suburbs 17 The Last London Sonnet 18 Other Verse: “Sometimes when I Think of Love” 21 Old 26 The Song of the Gambucinos 28 February 14 29 Pierrot 30 The Dead Man in the Pool 32 Dead Lover 35 The Gods of the Copy-Book Headings 36 Wheels 1919 38 The Well 41 Judas 43 The Night 44 Other Sonnets: Three Sonnets of Love 49 The Reply 52 God Gave us Bodies 53 Ronsard and Hélène 54 The Drift of the Lute 55 Love and Beauty 56 War Verse: V. D. F. 59 England 60 The Moon in Flanders 61 The Soldier Speaks 62 Flowers at Hampton Court 63 TO J. LONDON PSEUDO-SONNETS. Some of these verses have appeared in The Saturday Review, The Spectator, The Westminster Gazette, and are republished by the courtesy of the editors of these journals. THE OLD CLOTHES DEALER. {7} {8} {9} I T’S not my fault, now is it? I’m a Jew. I’d a been born a Christian quick enough If only so I could have sold my stuff Double the price, and not be called a screw. There’s half-day Saturday at Synagogue, And when Atonement comes a whole day lost. O, I don’t grumble; still one counts the cost When on the top I’m treated like a dog. And, though a Jew should’nt by rights complain Bein’ the chosen, can’t a man have dreams? Clothes’ dealing’s not the desert, still it seems We all of us are wandering again. I often think when the Shemah begins “O God o’ Jacob ain’t we paid our sins?” COVES AT HAMPTON COURT. Y OU go by motor-bus from Hammersmith And come back loud and cheerful after dark Adorned with twigs you’ve plucked in Bushey Park, Eating the sandwiches you started with. And you don’t care, why should you? when you’re brought Into the grimy streets out of the green, That, if you’d had the luck, you might have been The sort of cove who lives at Hampton Court. You’ve got the murders and the betting news, And slums to bake in and the picture shows. Why should you care if somewhere a red rose Burns all night through, and the great avenues Are lit as though with candles. What’s the odds? London’s for you; the summer’s for the gods. ONE MAN RETURNS. H E wanted me to tear me ’ands to bits Along o’ the box-makers, ’stead of which I took and bought a basket, struck a pitch To sell me flowers by the Hotel Ritz. I like ’is cheek. It isn’t ’im wot sits Working in darkness till your fingers itch And ’arf your side is broken with a stitch— ’Im swanking in ’is blessed epaulittes! Nor I don’t care, not what you might say care If ’e’s gone orf. Not that I’d reely mind If, ’earing that I’d got a bit to spare, He come back sudden. I should act refined, Pin ’im ’is flower in with me ’and quite steady And then say proud-like, “Why if it ain’t Freddy.” THE BUN-SHOP. {10} {11} {12} O DAMN those marble tables: makes me larf To think I’ve finished with them. I believe If you rubbed hard on each one with your sleeve, You’d find cut on them some gel’s epitaph. They look like tombstones, don’t they? in a row Quietly waiting in a mason’s yard. Seein’ them there cruel and white and hard One might ha’ guessed, I think, how things would go. But we don’t heed no warning, gels like me, And so I stayed, and now they’ve got my name Carved deep, with something written about shame For the next gel (when her turn comes) to see. One comfort though, if God damns us who fell He can’t find worse to ’urt us, not in ’Ell. THE FRIED FISH-SHOP. T HE upper clawses they don’t like the smell Nor they don’t need to. They can pay for food, But we who sometimes cawn’t, it does us good. Lord, what a life to ’ave fried fish to sell! Warm all day long and nuthin’ much to do And always a hot bit if you’re inclined. Shut all day Sundays and if you’ve a mind Always go out and pitch into a Jew. But wanting won’t mend ’oles up in your socks Nor cure that ’ungry feeling when you stands Clappin’ your stummick with your empty ’ands And thinking gently of a wooden box Where they will lay you at the parish charge Straight if you’re small and doubled if you’re large. THE STREETS BEHIND THE TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD. T HE quiet folk who live in Kensington Mothers of pleasant girls and worthy wives Living at ease their comfortable lives Don’t think what roots their homes are built upon, Don’t think, or wouldn’t listen if you shewed That beyond cure by love or change by hate Like hooded lepers at each corner wait, The streets behind the Tottenham Court Road. Row upon row the phantom houses stain The sweetness of the air and not a day Dies, but some woman’s child turns down that way Along those streets and is not seen again. And only God can in his mercy say Which is more cruel, Kensington or they. THE YORKSHIRE GREY. {13} {14} {15} T HE Yorkshire Grey like any other pub, Quietly blazes till the final shout “Time’s-up” sends the companions tumbling out, Giving their lips a last reluctant rub. And if you’re passing by on any day You’ll hear a woman with a barrel organ, Sing in a high cracked voice what sounds like “Morgen, Morgen kommt nie und heute is mir weh,” And every day whether its rain or shine She holds an old umbrella with a handle Of curiously carved silver. Whether scandal Or tragedy, its no affair of mine. Why should I care then when some drunken feller Sends her to blazes, her and her umbrella. WARDOUR STREET. T HERE’S a small cafe off the Avenue Where Alphonse, that old sinner, used to fix A five-course dinner up at one and six, And trust to luck and youth to pull him through. I can’t remember much about the wine Except that it was ninepence for the quart Called claret and was nothing of the sort, Cheap like the rest and like the rest divine. But Alphonse, I suppose, is long since sped And madame’s knitting needles rusted through And even Marguerite, like us she flew To wait on, waited on by death instead. Well Alphonse, well Madame, well Marguerite They’ve no more use for us in Wardour Street. THE SUBURBS. B ECAUSE they are so many and the same, The little houses row on weary row; Because they are so loveless and so lame It were a bitter thing to tell them so. And ill to laugh at those who hither came Not without hope and not without a glow, And who, perchance, by sorrow struck or shame Not without tears look back before they go. Here is no place for laughter nor for blame, And not for tears, since none shall ever know What here is done and suffered, nor proclaim The end to which these myriad spirits grow. He understands, whose heart remembereth That here is all the tale of life and death. THE LAST LONDON SONNET. {16} {17} {18} A LL roads in London lead the one last way, Like little streams that find a flowing river They find the one great road that runs for ever, Yet has no London name. They know it, they Who when the lamps in Oxford Street are lighted And star-strewn Thames through all his bridges moving, Velvet assumes, see not for all their loving These things they loved, hear not, as uninvited, To London revel calling Piccadilly. They have gone over to the bitter stranger Light-foot and heavy, hug-the-hearth and ranger Our streets desert. And under rose and lily (Even through Kew were unto lilac setting) Sleeping they pass forgotten and forgetting. OTHER VERSE. “SOMETIMES WHEN I THINK OF LOVE.” I. S OMETIMES when I think of love I think of Mimi singing in Boheme, Just as the tune across the footlights came When we were young, my dear, at Covent Garden! Poor music, but before the senses harden Puccini’s made for boys and girls to wear Spite of sham passion and a poitrinaire. For if they looked and didn’t find the key At least they found the hearts of you and me. That sort of love age thinks of with a smile How innocent it was of truth and guile, How young perhaps and yet how half-divine And how imperishably yours and mine. You will not wonder nor will you reprove My thoughts of Mimi when I think of love. II. {19} {20} {21} {22} S OMETIMES when I think of love I see a boat upon a river, And the rushes suddenly shiver, Because of a perilous foot that treads The reeds and the flowers into their beds. Because of a music that shakes and begins A different music and conscious of sins A tune was old at the birth of the river A tune is asleep in the blood for ever Asleep in the blood and loving and hating The time and the hour for which it is waiting. Puccini yields to a sob in the throat A hand round the heart as note answers note With the music that wrenches and melts and grips The hands hot on hands, the lips close on lips Cruelly volleying clearer and stronger Till we are a boy and a girl no longer. And we struggle in vain as long as we can Hating and loving and welcoming Pan, And you are a woman and I am a man. And you will not wonder and cannot reprove If I hear Pan’s pipes when I think of love. III. {23} S OMETIMES when I think of love I hear a heavy voice repeat “There’s a good doctor up the street.” And either it seems I am hard at hearing Or stupid perhaps or terribly fearing. For its late of a winter night and raining With cry of wind; or is something complaining? One lamp in the street and a leafless tree And a thing is moving that frightens me, With fingers that hover about my nape A shape like a hand and yet not a shape. Now all that we had in the past is over Each lover’s alone, the love from the lover. No comforting hand for me in the gloom, No voice of mine in the darkened room. Where is the music and where are the songs? For love has crept off ashamed of his wrongs. Poor love has gone off to rail at passion, And he will not wait for the night to fashion Out of pain and fear and anguish and danger, A lover strange with his love a stranger, And yet, as they were at the opera Incredibly close and familiar, Incredibly close as once on the river When each is a gift and each is a giver. Incredibly close and all they have hoarded Of life and of love in this moment rewarded. Rewarded! Has love in the darkness heard Of the little lost shadow, the small lost third? Love is returning—to find them alone, And if love be a sinner, who casts a stone? Shattered and beaten and blindingly sure Of love and themselves and strong to endure He finds them, by pain more lastingly crowned Than ever by joy and by laughter were bound Happier lovers and lovers untaunted By the shameful cries these lovers have haunted. If this be their love, who out of the pit Being a devil challenges it? In heaven assayed, in hell-fire priced Who casts the first stone? Not I, says Christ. You will not wonder nor will you reprove If I think of this, when I think of love. IV. S OMETIMES when I think of love I remember how you stooped down from heaven, Because they had told you I was unforgiven, To take half of the storm, and share the stripe An angel in hell with her guttersnipe. I am thinking then of your lighted face And your hands and the way your fingers lace As you sit quietly reading a book. Perhaps I move and you suddenly look Across the room and the soul in your eyes Is bright as it looks with the old surprise Changing for ever, for ever the same And you break my heart as you speak my name. You must not wonder, you will not reprove If sometimes I dare not think of love. {24} {25} {26} OLD. S O old, so changed, and odd Even as God, I am, so odd and old, That I am bitter cold In heart and limb Like him. I might in heaven be, Even as He. So lonely and so rare Beyond the utmost prayer My spirit weighs, Dead days. Or I might work in hell His miracle. Changing from joy to tears, To quiet all the years, With icy rod, Like God. I might immortal be Even as He. Saying, as heaven saith, What Victory, Oh death, What sting can save, Oh grave? As I, alone and dumb, What doth not come Ever, He waits to see And surely, waiting, he Must pray ah pray! to die Even as I. THE SONG OF THE GAMBUCINOS. T HE little houses in the street And the warm blinds at night, Outside the copper on his beat And the moon so white, so white. They know what we shall never know, See what we cannot see, The steady lamplit ways that go To the quiet cemetery. They have not any fear at all Of life and of its end. They hear church bells, their children call, Their wife and death their friend. But for us the moon is white, so white It drowns us and it stings, And we must fly throughout the night Because of dangerous things. FEBRUARY 14. {27} {28} {29} L ET’S be done with talking, Words are half a snare, That fools use for stalking What was never there. Let’s be done with weeping, Tears are but a sign That a doom is creeping On what was divine. Why be broken-hearted? Time to break the heart If we should be parted And not care we part. Dear, the wind is over In the world outside. I was once your lover, You were once my bride. Let’s go out together. In the quiet air, We may find each other Waiting as we were. PIERROT. M Y friend Pierrot your sleeves are far too long. Look! I can hardly find at all your hands. And all your cotton tunic is cut wrong, And what your eyes mean no one understands. Ah yes, Pierrette, my sleeves are far too long. Ah yes, Pierrette, you cannot find my hands, But better so than Pierrot did you wrong By telling you what no one understands. My friend Pierrot you fear to take the light, Look! I can hardly see at all your face. And what I see, Pierrot is very white. Are you afraid? Ashamed? or in disgrace? Ah yes, Pierrette, I dare not take the light. Ah yes, Pierrette, you cannot see my face. My candle died with love, and in the night Oh! Harlequin, Pierrette, is my disgrace. My friend Pierrot it seems that things go ill With you. Look! I can hardly hear your word, And the dark shadow round grows darker still, And a new voice which is not yours is heard. Ah yes, Pierrette, it seems that things go ill. Ah yes, Pierrette, you cannot hear my word. And the dark shadow which grows darker still Is death, Pierrette, of which you have not heard. THE DEAD MAN IN THE POOL. {30} {31} {32} O NLY a glance it was, Only a word! What a romance it was All but absurd! All but absurd, you see, Yes but not quite. There’s one more word you see “Death” we must write! She had the knack of it —Less than a kiss, And for the lack of it Look he is this. O what a king he was (Drowned in a pool), What a brave thing he was O what a fool! While all the rest of us Struggle to fame, Here is the best of us Dead with his shame. Shame? Oh I wonder now. What do you say? If you should blunder now Choose me your way! If you’d thrown hope away; Well would you care Through life to grope a way? Or would you dare Take up the lot of it Life, love and fame, Make a clean shot of it Into the flame? Ah it was brave of him Let them cry “shame.” Life made no slave of him! But you’ll exclaim, Was she worth trying for? He thought her so. Was she worth dying for? Yes, and then no. “No,” for a wiser man. “No,” for a less. But the heart cries “Amen,” When he says “yes.” There in the pool he was Just a dead thing. O what a fool he was, O what a king! DEAD LOVER. {33} {34} {35} T ELL me, dead lover, you who broke my heart (O dead indeed, since love himself is dead). Need I remember that we came to part, May I forget to whom and why you fled? Tell me, dead lover, since the grave is strong, And those who sleep are cured of joy and pain, And now no love may reach you, do I wrong If I begin to love you all again? And see, dead lover, since the shadows fall And nothing now is false and nothing true. Might I not dream (you would not know at all) That I, O love, was loved once more by you. And since, dead lover, death defeats your pride, And ere it dreamed of pride my love awoke, O let me think, it was because you died, And not because you left me, my heart broke. THE GODS OF THE COPY-BOOK HEADINGS. A REPLY. {36} F ENRIS the wolf, and Jörmungand the snake In the slime and the swamp remorseless wait. For not the years nor human hopes can break Valhalla’s sentence thus pronounced by Fate. “These gods that are the children of men’s dreams— Virtue and honour, courage and the songs Men sing about their hearthstones—stolen gleams In the poor heart unbroken by its wrongs, “These gods, of man’s refusal of the beast The half pathetic, wholly fleeting sign Who in that tenderness are gods the least Where human weakness finds them most divine, “These pitiful gods, fabric of mankind’s tears A dream of what all human hearts have wanted The vision at the end of all the years The holy ghost that half the world has haunted, “These gods are mortal as the heart that shaped them And in that hour when mankind’s heart must break These gods who only by that heart escaped them Fall to the wolf and Jörmungand the snake.” Fate pauses, but from Hela’s halls is heard A voice is young when all the gods are dead. Balder the beautiful has one more word The word that even Fate must leave unsaid. “True they depart the half-gods, and the snake And Fenris come. But in the heart’s defection I, Balder, bound in Hell for that heart’s sake I am the life and I the resurrection. “I, love, being loosed, will take my harp up—so— Singing what all the world at last will learn ‘The devils come because the half-gods go But in the end the gods, the gods return.’ ” WHEELS 1919. W HY d’you write about Frascati’s You who from the balcony leaning ’Neath the lure that was Astarte’s Find a negroid devil grinning. Changed indeed and almost stupid Yielding to analysis Now a Piccadilly cupid Hanging on a painted kiss. Now a toy in two dimensions Operated by a string In your hand, whose interventions Set the object capering. You who at the higher level Know love as he truly is Not the fair Assyrian devil, Not the poor idolatries, Of the savage, not the crazes {37} {38}