Chapter C: Hilton Brown

Feb. 14, 1912.

The Despair of My Muse

Ye great brown hares, grown madder through the Spring!
Ye birds that utilise your tiny throttles
To make the archways of the forest ring
Or go about your easy house-hunting!
Ye toads! ye axolotls!

Ye happy blighters all, that squeal and squat
And fly and browse where'er the mood entices,
Noting in every hedge or woodland grot
The swelling surge of sap, but noting not
The rise in current prices!

But chiefly you, ye birds, whose jocund note
(Linnets and larks and jays and red-billed ousels)
Oft in those happier springtides now remote
Caused me to catch the lyre and clear my throat
After some coy refusals!

Ay, and would cause me now--I have such bliss
Seeing the star-set vale, the pearls, the agates
Sown on the wintry boughs by Flora's kiss--
Only the trouble in my case is this,
I do not feed on maggots.

Could I but share your diet cheap and rude,
Your simple ways in trees and copses lurking;
But no, I need a pipe and lots of food,
A comfortable chair on which to brood--
Silence! the bard is working.

Could I but know that freedom from all care
That comes, I say, from gratis sets of suitings
And homes that need not premium nor repair
Except with sticks and mud and moss and hair,
My! there would be some flutings.

So and so only would the ivory rod
Stir the wild strings once more to exaltation,
So and so only the impetuous god
Pound in my bosom and produce that odd
Tum-tiddly-um sensation.

And often as I heard the throstles vamp,
Pouring their liquid notes like golden syrup,
Out would I go and round the garden tramp,
Wearing goloshes if the day were damp,
And imitate their chirrup.

Or, bowling peacefully upon my bike,
Well breakfasted, by no distractions flustered,
Pause near a leafy copse or brambled dyke,
And answer song for song the black-backed shrike,
The curlew and the bustard.

But now--ah, why prolong the dreadful strain?--
Limply my hand the unstrung harp relaxes;
The dear old days will not come back again
Whatever Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
Does with the nation's taxes.

Lambs, buds, leap up; the lark to heaven climbs;
Bread does the same; the price of baccy's brutal;
And save (I do not note it in _The Times_)
They make exceptions for evolving rhymes,
Dashed if I mean to tootle!

E. G. V. KNOX.
March 24, 1920.

A Child of the Sun

Winged pirate with the poisoned dagger!
Devourer of the jampot's hoard,
And quite incorrigible ragger
Of every British breakfast board,
Till blind with surfeit to your doom you stagger,
Drunk as a lord;

Till, trapped amid the heady spices,
Snared by the treason of your taste,
Foreseeing not the hand that slices
(Be cautious, woman, not with haste!)--
Mary, who's always bold at such a crisis,
Severs your waist;

Wasp (to be brief), my dear good fellow--
A pestilential bore to some
Who mark you round their plates grow mellow,
But I am glad to hear you hum--
Which is your favourite brand, old boy, the yellow
Or greengage plum?

'Ware of your appetite for toping
I do not shriek nor tremble if
I find you round my foodstuffs sloping,
But, like a man, at danger sniff,
Watching my hour, well-armed and always hoping
To have you stiff.

Nay, what is more, I praise your pounces,
I contemplate with joy your nerve;
At every boom my bosom bounces,
It almost pains me when you swerve
Down to your last long sleep in 16 oz.
Of pure conserve.

For this I know, what time you smother
Remembrance in that final bout,
The sun's your sire, the earth's your mother,
You bring the days of halcyon drought;
Therefore I weep for you the while, my brother,
I wipe you out.

E. G. V. KNOX
July 20, 1910.

Herbs of Grace

VI.-ROSEMARY

Whenas on summer days I see
That sacred herb, the Rosemary,
The which, since once our Lady threw
Upon its flow'rs her robe of blue,
Has never shown them white again,
But still in blue doth dress them--
_Then, oh, then
I think upon old friends and bless them._

And when beside my winter fire
I feel its fragrant leaves suspire,
Hung from my hearth-beam on a hook,
Or laid within a quiet book
There to awake dear ghosts of men
When pages ope that press them--
_Then, oh, then
I think upon old friends and bless them._

The gentle Rosemary, I wis,
Is Friendship's herb and Memory's.
Ah, ye whom this small herb of grace
Brings back, yet brings not face to face,
Yea, all who read those lines I pen,
Would ye for truth confess them?
_Then, oh, then
Think upon old friends and bless them._

W. W. BLAIR FISH.
April 11, 1917.

Spring Cleaning

The hailstorm stopped; a watery sun came out,
And late that night I clearly saw the moon;
The lilac did not actually sprout,
But looked as if it ought to do in June.
I did not say, "My love, it is the Spring";
I rubbed my chilblains in a cheerful way
And asked if there was some warm woollen thing
My wife had bought me for the first of May;
And, just to keep the ancient customs green,
We said we'd give the poor old house a clean.

Good Mr. Ware came down with all his men,
And filled the house with lovely oily pails,
And went away to lunch at half-past ten,
And came again at tea-time with some nails.
And laid a ladder on the daffodil,
And opened all the windows they could see,
And glowered fiercely from the window sill
On me and Mrs. Tompkinson at tea,
And set large quantities of booby-traps
And then went home--a little tired, perhaps.

They left their paint-pots strewn about the stair,
And switched the lights off--but I knew the game;
They took the geyser--none could tell me where;
It was impossible to wash my frame.
The painted windows would not shut again,
But gaped for ever at the Eastern skies;
The house was full of icicles and rain;
The bedrooms smelled of turpentine and size;
And if there be a more unpleasant smell
I have no doubt that it was there as well.

My wife went out and left me all alone,
While more men came and clamoured at the door
To strip the house of everything I own,
The curtains and the carpets from the floor,
The kitchen range, the cushions and the stove,
And ask me things that husbands never know,
"Is this 'ere paint the proper shade of mauve?"
Or "Where is it this lino has to go?"
I slunk into the cellar with the cat,
This being where the men had put my hat.

I cowered in the smoking-room, unmanned;
The days dragged by and still the men were here.
And then I said, "I, too, will take a hand,"
And borrowed lots of decorating gear.
I painted the conservatory blue;
I painted all the rabbit-hutches red;
I painted chairs in every kind of hue,
A summer-house, a table and a shed;
And all of it was very much more fair
Than any of the work of Mr. Ware.

But all his men were stung with sudden pique
And worked as never a worker worked before;
They decorated madly for a week
And then the last one tottered from the door,
And I was left, still working day and night,
For I have found a way of keeping warm,
And putting paint on everything in sight
Is surely Art's most satisfying form;
I know no joy so simple and so true
As painting the conservatory blue.

A. P. HERBERT.
May 14, 1919.

Lines to a Mudlark

[In memory of the days when Summers were wet.]

Thrice happy fay, ah, would that men could model
Their lives on thine, most beautiful, most calm,
Melodious songster! List, how, while we swaddle
Our limbs in mackintoshes, thy clear psalm
Rises untroubled. Lo! low thou dost waddle
About in filthy pools and find them balm,
Insatiate of beastliness and muck,
Blithe spirit of our summer, hail, O duck!

There is no gleam of comfort in the heavens,
Now, while we sit with suppliant hands and groan,
Pavilion-bound the impotent elevens,
The farmer cursing at the tempest's moan,
But thou, O duck, O duck, of Mrs. Evans,
For ever singest in mellifluous tone,
The deluge pouring from thy rain-proof back,
Loud orisons of praise. Thou goest "Quack,"

And once more, "Quack," well knowing to recover
The first fine careless sound, egregious brute,
Out in the orchard yonder, where some lover
Maybe has wandered with goloshless boot
In other years, and plucked from boughs above her
(Matching his lady's cheek) the ripened fruit:
But now in vain they vaunt their crimson front,
One cannot pick them, not without a punt.

Ah, yes, thou singest on, thy voice assuages
(Or ought to) human plaints about the corn,
Perhaps the self-same voice that in past ages
Cheered the sick heart of HAM some early morn,
As he leaned out and cried, "The flood still rages,
The Ark is tossing in a sea forlorn,
But some live thing is happy; don't condemn
Our Eastern climate, JAPHET! Cheer up, SHEM!"

But I, when I observe no sunshine dapple
The leaden pall above, the rayless gloom,
And hear thee singing 'neath the pendant apple,
Although I praise thee, duck, I also fume,
I ask for vengeance, for the gods who grapple
With too much fortune, for the hand of doom;
I like to think that thou must end thy joys,
And stop that silly sort of rootling noise.

I lift my nose to catch the wafted savour
Of incense stealing from the onion-bed,
The perfume of the sage leaf. O, thou laver
In filthiness and slush, I want thee dead--
No more to gloat upon our grief, nor favour
The air with that wild music, but instead
With vermeil fruit, like those on yonder trees,
Garnished in dissolution. Also peas.

E. G. V. KNOX.
SEPT. 4, 1912.

Pagan Fancies

Blow, Father Triton, blow your wreathéd horn
Cheerily, as is your wont, and let the blast
Circle our island on the breezes born;
Blow, while the shining hours go swiftly past.
Rise, Proteus, from the cool depths rise, and be
A friend to them that breast your ancient sea.

I shall be there to greet you, for I tire
Of the dull meadows and the crawling stream.
Now with a heart uplifted and a-fire
I come to greet you and to catch the gleam
Of jocund Nereids tossing in the air
The sportive tresses of their amber hair.

High on a swelling upland I shall stand
Stung by the buffets of the wind-borne spray;
Or join the troops that sport upon the sand,
With shouts and laughter wearing out the day;
Or pace apart and listen to the roar
Of the great waves that beat the crumbling shore.

Then, when the children all are lapped in sleep
The pretty Nymphlets of the sea shall rise,
And we shall know them as they flit and creep
And peep and glance and murmur lullabies;
While the pale moon comes up beyond the hill,
And Proteus rests and Triton's horn is still.

R. C. LEHMANN.
Aug. 14, 1912.

Ballade of August

Now when the street-pent airs blow stale
A longing stirs us as of yore
To take the old Odyssian trail,
To bend upon the trireme's oar
For isled stream and hill-bound shore;
To lay aside the dirty pen
For summer's blue and golden store
'Neath other skies, 'mid stranger men!

Then let the rover's call prevail
That opes for us the enchanted door,
That bids us stretch the silken sail
For bays o'er which the seabirds soar,
And foam-flecked rollers pitch and roar,
Where nymph maybe, and mermaiden,
Come beachward to the moonrise hoar,
'Neath other skies, 'mid stranger men!

Blue-eyed Calypsos, Circes pale
(The sage who shuns them I abhor),
These--for a fortnight--shall not fail
To thrill the heart's susceptive core,
To bind us with their ancient lore,
Who rather like to listen when
Sweet-lipp'd the sirens voice their score,
'Neath other skies, 'mid stranger men!

ENVOY

Masters, who seek the minted ore,
It's only August now and then,
Ah, take the Wanderer's way once more,
'Neath other skies, 'mid stranger men!

P. R. CHALMERS.
Aug. 23, 1911.

Farewell to Summer

Summer, if now at length your time is through,
And, as occurs with lovers, we must part,
My poor return for all the debt, your due,
Is just to say that you may keep my heart;
Still warm with heat-waves rolling up the sky,
Its melting tablets mark in mid-September
Their record of the best three months that I
Ever remember.

I had almost forgotten how it felt
Not to awake at dawn to sweltering mirth,
And hourly modify my ambient belt
To cope with my emaciated girth;
It seems that always I have had to stay
My forehead's moisture with the frequent mopper,
And found my cheek assume from day to day
A richer copper.

Strange spells you wrought with your transforming glow!
O London drabness bathed in lucent heat!
O Mansions of the late Queen Anne, and O
Buckingham Palace (also Wimpole Street)!
O laughing skies traditionally sad!
O barometric forecasts never "rainy"!
O balmy days, and nodes, let me add,
_Ambrosianae!_

And if your weather brought the strikers out
And turned to desert-brown the verdant plot;
If civic fathers, who are often stout,
Murmured at times, "This is a bit too hot!"
If the slow blood of rural swains has stirred
When stating what their views about the crops is,
Or jammy lips have flung some bitter word
At this year's wopses;--

What then? You may have missed the happy mean,
But by excess of virtue's ample store,
Proving your lavish heart was over-keen,
And for that fault I love you yet the more;
Nay, had you been more temperate in your zeal,
I should have lacked the best of all your giving--
The thirst, the lovely thirst, that made me feel
Life worth the living.

SIR OWEN SEAMAN.
Sept. 20, 1911.

A Failure of Sympathy

When the dead leaves adown the lane are hurried,
And all the dells are bare and bonfires smoke,
The bard (by rights) should be extremely worried,
He ought not to evolve a single joke,
But wander, woods among, a pale down-hearted bloke.

And I (of old) have felt the chestnuts patter
Like sounds of nails upon my coffin-lid;
My landlady, disturbed about the matter,
Asked if I liked my food; I said I did;
But told her where I ailed, and why Joy's face was hid.

"The flowers," I said, "are gone; once more Proserpina
Is rapt by Pluto to the iron gates;
Can even hard-boiled eggs prolong the chirp in a
Poetic bosom at such awful dates?"
And she said nothing, but removed the breakfast plates.

But now (I know not why) I feel quite jolly;
The ways are thick with mire, the woods are sere;
The rain is falling, I have lost my brolly,
Yet still my aptitude for song and cheer
Seems unaffected by the damp. It's deuced queer.

And when I wander by the leafless spinneys
I notice as a mere phenomenon
The way they've moulted; I would give two guineas
To feel the good old thrill, but ah, it's gone:
I neither weep nor tear my hair; I just move on.

I quite enjoy my meals (it seems like treason);
Far other was the case in days of yore,
When every mood of mine subserved the season--
Mirth for the flowery days, and mirth no more
When Summer ended and her garlands choked the floor.

You bid me take my fill of joy, dear reader,
And hang repining! but I dread my bliss;
If I can prove myself a hearty feeder,
Saying to tea-shop fairs, "Two crumpets, Miss,"
What time Demeter's daughter feels that icy kiss,

Shall I be some day cold to Nature's laughter?
Shall I no longer leap and shout and sing
And shake with vernal odes the echoing rafter,
When at the first warm flush of amorous Spring
The woodlands shine again? That _would_ be sickening.

E. G. V. KNOX.
Nov. 1, 1911.

To Santa Claus

Historic Santa! Seasonable Claus!
Whose bulging sack is pregnant with delight;
Who comest in the middle of the night
To stuff distracting playthings in the maws
Of stockings never built for infant shins,
Suspended from the mantelpiece by pins.

Thou who on earth was named Nicholas--
There be dull clods who doubt thy magic power
To tour the sleeping world in half-an-hour,
And pop down all the chimneys as you pass
With woolly lambs and dolls of frabjous size
For grubby hands and wonder-laden eyes.

Not so thy singer, who believes in thee
Because he has a young and foolish spirit;
Because the simple faith that bards inherit
Of happiness is still the master key,
Opening life's treasure-house to whoso clings
To the dim beauty of imagined things.

Wherefore, good Kringle, do not pass me by,
Who am too old, alas! for trains and blocks,
But stuff the Love of Beauty in my socks
And Childlike Faith to last me till I die;
And there'll be room, I doubt not, in the toes
For Magic Cap and Spectacles of Rose.

And not a song of beauty, sung of old,
Or saga of the dead heroic days,
And not a blossom laughing by the ways,
Or wind of April blowing on the wold
But in my heart shall have the power to stir
The shy communion of the worshipper.

Hark! On the star-bright highways of the sky
Light hoofs beat and the far-off sleigh-bell sounds!
Is it old Santa on his gracious rounds
Or one dead legend drifting sadly by?
Not mine to say. And, though I long to peep,
Santa shall always find me fast asleep.

C. H. BRETHERTON.
Dec. 26, 1917.

In Winter

Boreas blows on his high wood whistle,
Over the coppice and down the lane
Where the goldfinch chirps from the haulm of the thistle
And mangolds gleam in the farmer's wain.
Last year's dead and the new year sleeping
Under its mantle of leaves and snow;
Earth holds beauty fast in her keeping
But Life invincible stirs below.

Runs the sap in each root and rhizome,
Primrose yellow and snowdrop cold,
Windyflowers when the chiffchaff flies home,
Lenten lilies with crowns of gold.
Soon the woods will be blithe with bracken,
April whisper of lambs at play;
Springs will triumph--and our old black hen
(Thank the Lord!) will begin to lay.