The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Three Hills, by John Collings Squire and Charles Baudelaire 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 Three Hills And other Poems Author: John Collings Squire Charles Baudelaire Release Date: July 5, 2011 [EBook #36620] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREE HILLS *** Produced by Marc D'Hooghe & Andrea Ballat http://www.freeliterature.org THE THREE HILLS AND OTHER POEMS BY J.C. SQUIRE LONDON: HOWARD LATIMER LTD. GREAT QUEEN STREET, KINGSWAY MCMXIII TO FRANCIS BURROWS CONTENTS ANTINOMIES ON A RAILWAY STATION THE THREE HILLS A CHANT ARTEMIS ALTERA STARLIGHT FLORIAN'S SONG DIALOGUE CREPUSCULAR AT NIGHT FOR MUSIC THE ROOF TREETOPS IN THE PARK SONG TOWN A MEMORIAL FRIENDSHIP'S GARLAND—I —II —III LINES ON THE EARTHLY PARADISE ECHOES THE FUGITIVE IN THE ORCHARD IN A CHAIR A DAY THE MIND OF MAN A REASONABLE PROTESTATION EPILOGUE TWELVE TRANSLATIONS FROM CHARLES BAUDELAIRE TOUT ENTIÈRE THE ALCHEMY OF GRIEF SPLEEN A VOYAGE TO CYTHERA THE CRACKED BELL THE OFFENDED MOON TO THEODORE BANVILLE, 1984 MUSIC THE CATS THE SADNESS OF THE MOON MOESTA ET ERRABUNDA THE OWLS Many of the above poems have appeared in the "British Review," the "Eye-Witness," the "New Witness," the "Oxford and Cambridge Review," the "New Statesman," and the "New Age," to the Editors of which thanks are due for permission to reprint. Three of the short poems and most of the translations are extracted from an earlier volume. ANTINOMIES ON A RAILWAY STATION As I stand waiting in the rain For the foggy hoot of the London train, Gazing at silent wall and lamp And post and rail and platform damp, What is this power that comes to my sight That I see a night without the night, That I see them clear, yet look them through, The silvery things and the darkly blue, That the solid wall seems soft as death, A wavering and unanchored wraith, And rails that shine and stones that stream Unsubstantial as a dream? What sudden door has opened so, What hand has passed, that I should know This moving vision not of trance That melts the globe of circumstance, This sight that marks not least or most And makes a stone a passing ghost? Is it that a year ago I stood upon this self-same spot; Is it that since a year ago The place and I have altered not; Is it that I half forgot, A year ago, and all despised For a space the things that I had prized: The race of life, the glittering show? Is it that now a year has passed Of vain pursuit of glittering things, Of fruitless searching, shouting, running, And greedy lies and candour cunning, Here as I stand the year above Sudden the heats and the strivings fail And fall away, a fluctuant veil, And the fixed familiar stones restore The old appearance-buried core, The moveless and essential me, The eternal personality Alone enduring first and last? No, this I have known in other ways, In other places, other days. Not only here, on this one peak, Do fixity and beauty speak Of the delusiveness of change, Of the transparency of form, The bootless stress of minds that range, The awful calm behind the storm. In many places, many days, The invaded soul receives the rays Of countries she was nurtured in, Speaks in her silent language strange To that beyond which is her kin. Even in peopled streets at times A metaphysic arm is thrust Through the partitioning fabric thin, And tears away the darkening pall Cast by the bright phenomenal, And clears the obscured spirit's mirror From shadows of deceptive error, And shows the bells and all their ringing, And all the crowds and all their singing, Carillons that are nothing's chimes And dust that is not even dust.... But rarely hold I converse thus Where shapes are bright and clamorous, More often comes the word divine In places motionless and far; Beneath the white peculiar shine Of sunless summer afternoons; At eventide on pale lagoons Where hangs reflected one pale star; Or deep in the green solitudes Of still erect entrancèd woods. O, in the woods alone lying, Scarce a bough in the wind sighing, Gaze I long with fervid power At leaf and branch and grass and flower, Breathe I breaths of trembling sight Shed from great urns of green delight, Take I draughts and drink them up Poured from many a stalk and cup. Now do I burn for nothing more Than thus to gaze, thus to adore This exquisiteness of nature ever In silence.... But with instant light Rends the film; with joy I quiver To see with new celestial sight Flower and leaf and grass and tree, Doomed barks on an eternal sea, Flit phantom-like as transient smoke. Beauty herself her spell has broke, Beauty, the herald and the lure, Her message told, may not endure; Her portal opened, she has died, Supreme immortal suicide. Yes, sleepless nature soundless flings Invisible grapples round the soul, Drawing her through the web of things To the primal end of her journeyings, Her ultimate and constant pole. For Beauty with her hands that beckon Is but the Prophet of a Higher, A flaming and ephemeral beacon, A Phoenix perishing by fire. Herself from us herself estranges, Herself her mighty tale doth kill, That all things change yet nothing changes, That all things move yet all are still. I cannot sink, I cannot climb, Now that I see my ancient dwelling, The central orb untouched of time, And taste a peace all bliss excelling. Now I have broken Beauty's wall, Now that my kindred world I hold, I care not though the cities fall And the green earth go cold. THE THREE HILLS There were three hills that stood alone With woods about their feet. They dreamed quiet when the sun shone And whispered when the rain beat. They wore all three their coronals Till men with houses came And scored their heads with pits and walls And thought the hills were tame. Red and white when day shines bright They hide the green for miles, Where are the old hills gone? At night The moon looks down and smiles. She sees the captors small and weak, She knows the prisoners strong, She hears the patient hills that speak: "Brothers, it is not long; "Brothers, we stood when they were not Ten thousand summers past. Brothers, when they are clean forgot We shall outlive the last; "One shall die and one shall flee With terror in his train, And earth shall eat the stones, and we Shall be alone again." A CHANT Gently the petals fall as the tree gently sways That has known many springs and many petals fall Year after year to strew the green deserted ways And the statue and the pond and the low, broken wall. Faded is the memory of old things done, Peace floats on the ruins of ancient festival; They lie and forget in the warmth of the sun, And a sky silver-blue arches over all. O softly, O tenderly, the heart now stirs With desires faint and formless; and, seeking not, I find Quiet thoughts that flash like azure king-fishers Across the luminous tranquil mirror of the mind. ARTEMIS ALTERA O full of candour and compassion, Whom love and worship both would praise, Love cannot frame nor worship fashion The image of your fearless ways! How show your noble brow's dark pallor, Your chivalrous casque of ebon hair, Your eyes' bright strength, your lips' soft valour, Your supple shoulders and hands that dare? Our souls when naïvely you examine, Your sword of innocence, flaming, huge, Sweeps over us, and there is famine Within the ports of subterfuge. You hate contempt and love not laughter; With your sharp spear of virgin will You harry the wicked strong; but after, O huntress who could never kill, Should they be trodden down or pierced, Swift, swift, you fly with burning cheek To place your beauty's shield reversed Above the vile defenceless weak! STARLIGHT Last night I lay in an open field And looked at the stars with lips sealed; No noise moved the windless air, And I looked at the stars with steady stare. There were some that glittered and some that shone With a soft and equal glow, and one That queened it over the sprinkled round, Swaying the host with silent sound. "Calm things," I thought, "in your cavern blue, I will learn and hold and master you; I will yoke and scorn you as I can, For the pride of my heart is the pride of a man." Grass to my cheek in the dewy field I lay quite still with lips sealed, And the pride of a man and his rigid gaze Stalked like swords on heaven's ways. But through a sudden gate there stole The Universe and spread in my soul; Quick went my breath and quick my heart, And I looked at the stars with lips apart. FLORIAN'S SONG My soul, it shall not take us, O we will escape This world that strives to break us And cast us to its shape; Its chisel shall not enter, Its fire shall not touch, Hard from rim to centre, We will not crack or smutch. 'Gainst words sweet and flowered We have an amulet, We will not play the coward For any black threat; If we but give endurance To what is now within— The single assurance That it is good to win. Slaves think it better To be weak than strong, Whose hate is a fetter And their love a thong. But we will view those others With eyes like stone, And if we have no brothers We will walk alone. DIALOGUE THE ONE The dead man's gone, the live man's sad, the dying leaf shakes on the tree, The wind constrains the window panes and moans like moaning of the sea, And sour's the taste now culled in haste of lovely things I won too late, And loud and loud above the crowd the Voice of One more strong than we. THE OTHER This Voice you hear, this call you fear, is it unprophesied or new? Were you so insolent to think its rope would never circle you? Did you then beastlike live and walk with ears and eyes that would not turn? Who bade you hope your service 'scape in that eternal retinue? THE ONE No; for I swear now bare's the tree and loud the moaning of the wind, I walked no rut with eyelids shut, my ears and eyes were never blind, Only my eager thoughts I bent on many things that I desired To make my greedy heart content ere flesh and blood I left behind. THE OTHER Ignorance, then, was all your fault and filmèd eyes that could not know, That half discerned and never learned the temporal way that men must go; You set the image of the world high for your heart's idolatry, Though with your lips you called the world a toy, a ghost, a passing show. THE ONE No, no; this is not true; my lips spoke only what my heart believed. Called I the world a toy; I spoke not echo-like or self-deceived. But that I thought the toy was mine to play with, and the passing show Would sate at least my passing lusts, and did not, therefore am I grieved. What did I do that I must bear this lifelong tyranny of my fate, That I must writhe in bonds unsought of accidental love and hate? Had chance but joinèd different dice, but once or twice, but once or twice, All lovely things that I desired I should have held before too late. Surely I knew that flesh was grass nor valued overmuch the prize, But all the powers of chance conspired to cheat a man both just and wise. Happy I'd been had I but had my due reward, and not a sword Flaming in diabolic hand between me and my Paradise. THE OTHER No hooded band of fates did stand your heart's ambitions to gainsay, No flaming brand in evil hand was ever thrust across your way, Only the things all men must meet, the common attributes of men, That men may flinch to see or, seeing, deny, but avoid them no man may. Fall the dice, not once or twice but always, to make the self-same sum; Chance what may, a life's a life and to a single goal must come; Though a man search far and wide, never is hunger satisfied; Nature brings her natural fetters, man is meshed and the wise are dumb. O vain all art to assuage a heart with accents of a mortal tongue, All earthly words are incomplete and only sweet are the songs unsung, Never yet was cause for regret, yet regret must afflict us all, Better it were to grasp the world 'thwart which this world is a curtain flung. CREPUSCULAR No creature stirs in the wide fields. The rifted western heaven yields The dying sun's illumination. This is the hour of tribulation When, with clear sight of eve engendered, Day's homage to delusion rendered, Mute at her window sits the soul. Clouds and skies and lakes and seas, Valleys and hills and grass and trees, Sun, moon, and stars, all stand to her Limbs of one lordless challenger, Who, without deigning taunt or frown, Throws a perennial gauntlet down: "Come conquer me and take thy toll." No cowardice or fear she knows, But, as once more she girds, there grows An unresignèd hopelessness From memory of former stress. Head bent, she muses whilst he waits: How with such weapons dint his plates? How quell this vast and sleepless giant Calmly, immortally defiant, How fell him, bind him, and control With a silver cord and a golden bowl? AT NIGHT Dark firtops foot the moony sky, Blue moonlight bars the drive; Here at the open window I Sit smoking and alive. Wind in the branches swells and breaks Like ocean on a beach; Deep in the sky and my heart there wakes A thought I cannot reach. FOR MUSIC Death in the cold grey morning Came to the man where he lay; And the wind shivered, and the tree shuddered And the dawn was grey. And the face of the man was grey in the dawn, And the watchers by the bed Knew, as they heard the shaking of the leaves, That the man was dead. THE ROOF I When the clouds hide the sun away The tall slate roof is dull and grey, And when the rain adown it streams 'Tis polished lead with pale-blue gleams. When the clouds vanish and the rain Stops, and the sun comes out again, It shimmers golden in the sun Almost too bright to look upon. But soon beneath the steady rays The roof is dried and reft of blaze, 'Tis dusty yellow traversed through By long thin lines of deepest blue. Then at the last, as night draws near, The lines grow faint and disappear, The roof becomes a purple mist A great square darkening amethyst Which sinks into the gathering shade Till separate form and colour fade, And it is but a patch which mars The beauty of a field of stars. II It stands so lonely in the sky The sparrows never come anigh, The glossy starlings seldom stop To preen and chatter on the top. For a whole week sometimes up there No wing-wave stirs the quiet air, The roof lies silent and serene As though no life had ever been; Till some bright afternoon, athwart The edge two sudden shadows dart, And two white pigeons with pink feet Flutter above and pitch on it. Jerking their necks out as they walk They talk awhile their pigeon-talk, A low continuous murmur blent Of mock reproaches and content. Then cease, and sit there warm and white An hour, till in the fading light They wake, and know the close of day, Flutter above, and fly away, Leaving the roof whereon they sat As 'twas before, a peaceful flat Expanse, as silent and serene As though no life had ever been. TREETOPS There beyond my window ledge, Heaped against the sky a hedge Of huge and wavering treetops stands With multitudes of fluttering hands. Wave they, beat they to and fro, Never stillness may they know, Plunged by the wind and hurled and torn Anguished, purposeless, forlorn. "O ferocious, O despairing, In huddled isolation faring Through a scattered universe, Lost coins from the Almighty's purse!" "No, below you do not see The firm foundations of the tree; Anchored to a rock beneath We laugh in the hammering tempest's teeth." "Boughs like men but burgeons are On an adamantine star; Men are myriad blossoms on A staunch and cosmic skeleton." IN THE PARK This dense hard ground I tread These iron bars that ripple past, Will they unshaken stand when I am dead And my deep thoughts outlast? Is it my spirit slips, Falls, like this leaf I kick aside; This firmness that I feel about my lips, Is it but empty pride? Mute knowledge conquers me; I contemplate them as they are, Faint earth and shadowy bars that shake and flee, Less hard, more transient far Than those unbodied hues The sunset flings on the calm river; And, as I look, a swiftness thrills my shoes And my hands with empire quiver. Now light the ground I tread, I walk not now but rather float; Clear but unreal is the scene outspread, Pitiful, thin, remote. Poor vapour is the grass, So frail the trees and railings seem, That, did I sweep my hand around, 'twould pass Through them, as in a dream. Godlike I fear no changes; Shatter the world with thunders loud, Still would I ray-like flit about the ranges Of dark and ruddy cloud. SONG There is a wood where the fairies dance All night long in a ring of mushrooms daintily, By each tree bole sits a squirrel or a mole, And the moon through the branches darts. Light on the grass their slim limbs glance, Their shadows in the moonlight swing in quiet unison, And the moon discovers that they all have lovers, But they never break their hearts. They never grieve at all for sands that run, They never know regret for a deed that's done, And they never think of going to a shed with a gun At the rising of the sun. TOWN Mostly in a dull rotation We bear our loads and eat and drink and sleep, Feeling no tears, knowing no meditation— Too tired to think, too clogged with earth to weep. Dimly convinced, poor groping wretches, Like eyeless insects in a murky pond That out and out this city stretches, Away, away, and there is no beyond. No larger earth, no loftier heaven, No cleaner, gentler airs to breathe. And yet, Even to us sometimes is given Visions of things we otherwhiles forget. Some day is done, its labour ended, And as we brood at windows high, A steady wind from far descended, Blows off the filth that hid the deeper sky; There are the empty waiting spaces, We watch, we watch, unwinking, pale and dumb, Till gliding up with noiseless paces Night sweeps o'er all the wide arch: Night has come. Not that sick false night of the city, Lurid and low and yellow and obscene, But mother Night, pure, full of pity, The star-strewn Night, blue, potent and serene. O, as we gaze the clamour ceases, The turbid world around grows dim and small, The soft-shed influence releases Our shrouded spirits from their dusty pall. No more we hear the turbulent traffic, Not scorned but unremembered is the day; The Night, all luminous and seraphic, Has brushed its heavy memories away. The great blue Night so clear and kindly, The little stars so wide-eyed and so still, Open a door for souls that blindly Had wandered, tunnelling the endless hill; They draw the long-untraversed portal, Our souls slip out and tremble and expand, The immortal feels for the immortal, The eternal holds the eternal by the hand. Impalpably we are led and lifted, Softly we shake into the gulf of blue, The last environing veil is rifted And lost horizons float into our view. Lost lands, lone seas, lands that afar gleam With a miraculous beauty, faint yet clear, Forgotten lands of night and star-gleam, Seas that are somewhere but that are not here. Borne without effort or endeavour, Swifter and more ethereal than the wind, In level track we stream, whilst ever The fair pale panorama rolls behind. Now fleets below a trancèd moorland, A sweep of glimmering immobility; Now craggy cliff and dented foreland Pass back and there beyond unfolds the sea. Now wastes of water heaving, drawing, Great darkling tracts of patterned restlessness, With whitened waves round rough rocks mawing And licking islands in their fierce caress. Now coasts with capes and ribboned beaches Set silent 'neath the canopy sapphirine, And estuaries and river reaches Phantasmal silver in the night's soft shine. Ah, these fair woods the spirit crosses, These quiet lakes, these stretched dreaming fields, These undulate downs with piny bosses Pointing the ridges of their sloping shields. These valleys and these heights that screen them, These tawnier sands where grass and tree are not, Ah, we have known them, we have seen them Long, long ago or ever we forgot; We know them all, these placid countries, And what the pathway is and what the goal; These are the gates and these the sentries That guard the ancient fortress of the soul. And onward speed we flying, flying, Over the sundering worlds of hill and plain To where they rear their heads undying The unnamed mountains of old days again. The snows upon their calm still summits, The chasms, the lines of trees that foot the snow, Curving like inky frozen comets, Into the forest-ocean spread below. The glisten where the peaks are hoarest, The soundless darkness of the sunken vales, The folding leagues of shadowy forest, Wave beyond wave till all distinctness fails. So invulnerable it is, so deathless, So floods the air the loveliness of it, That we stay dazzled, rapt and breathless, Our beings ebbing to the infinite. There as we pause, there as we hover, Moveless in ecstasy, a sudden light Breaks in our eyes, and we discover We sit at windows gazing to the night. Wistful and tired, with eyes a-tingle Where still the sting of Beauty faintly smarts, But with our mute regrets there mingle Thanks for the resurrection of our hearts. O night so great that will not mock us! O stars so wise that understand the weak! O vast consoling hands that rock us! O strong and perfect tongues that speak! O night enrobed in azure splendour! O whispering stars whose radiance falls like dew! O mighty presences and tender, You have given us back the dreams our childhood knew! Lulled by your visions without number, We seek our beds content and void of pain, And dreaming drowse and dreaming slumber And dreaming wake to see the day again. A MEMORIAL (F.T.) The cord broke, and the tent Slipped, and the silken roof Lay prone beneath the viewless hoof Of the deliberate firmament. Yet cared we not; how should we care? Knowing that labourless now he breathes A golden paradisal air Where with more certain craft he wreathes Bright braids of words more wise and fair Than ever his earthly fabrics were, That his unwavering eyes made fresh, Purged and regarbed in fadeless flesh, What he then darkly guessed behold, And watch with an abiding joy The eternal mysteries unfold Which do his now transfigured songs evermore employ. Brother, yet great thy power; Thou stood'st as on a tower Small 'neath the stars yet high above the fields; In thy alembic song Imagination strong Distilled what essences the quest to mortals yields. This thy reward well-won, For every morning's sun Found thy heart's firm allegiance still unshaken; No temporal ache or smart Drave Beauty from thy heart, And by thy mighty mistress never wast forsaken. Yes; for though stringent was the test, When that thy trial was bitterest, Steadfast thou did'st remain; unshod The harrows of Pain thy feet once trod, Humiliate as thy sad song tells Before the vault's white sentinels. Friendless and faint thou sojourned'st there, A bowed, brave, timid wanderer, A lonely nomad of the spirit, Who did a triple curse inherit, Hunger, regret and memory. Yet never did they vanquish thee; When nighest broken, most alone, Thy unassuagèd thoughts could clamber To beauty on her ageless throne; Thou wert as one in torture chamber Who sees the blue through an open casement And hammers his soul to endure the time Of his corporeal abasement; Nor writhed'st at thine or others' fault, But with grim tenderness did salt Thy cicatrices with a rhyme. Not the most sable flame of gloom Could penetrate thy inmost room; But through the walls thy spirit sucked Into that cloistral hermitage Stray lovely things, moonbeams and snows The far sky shed into thy cage, And, from the very gutter plucked, A lost and mired campestral rose. Ended that purgatorial period, Filled was thy wallet and thy feet were shod, The leaden weights were moved, the rack withdrawn, Thou didst traverse the dewy fields of dawn, Watch sunsets blazoning over upland turf, Pull poppies from the frontiers of the surf, Dwelled'st with love and human eyes Vigilant, calm and wise. But still as when thy bark did ride Derelict on the city's tide, As then for penury now for pride Thy bodily senses were denied; Though they cried out and would not sleep, Ascetic thou didst armour them Lest acid pleasure should eat thine art's pure gem. Hourly the tempter's ambuscades But thou didst guard the gates and keep Thy senses' hungry colonnades Accessible but to Beauty's ministers, Unlit by any ruby flame but hers. Immuring so thy spirit eager Within a body frail and meagre, Far from the meads of earthly milk and honey, Yet franchised of more wondrous territories, Like those poor Bedouin of Arabia the Stony Who roam spare-fed and hollow-eyed but free By day to wander and by night to camp In vast serenity, Compassed by God's great silent glories The sun's gold splendour and the moon's white lamp, Folded and safe from harm Beneath the mighty sky's protecting arm. Ha! but the Titan's ardour Wherewith thou scour'dst the vast, To spoil the starry larder Of fruits of heavenly taste! Urania's fiercest servant, With thirst as furnace fervent And serene burning brow, Worthy of thy great lineage, thou Drankest without a shudder In proud humility Milk from that vast primæval udder That swells for such as thee, Milk from the fountains of the Universe That cowards deem infected with a curse, That flushes him who drinks Nor shrinks