Chapter C: W. S

_The Fourth Bishop of Truro May_ 1912

Prince of courtesy defeated,
Heir of hope untimely cheated,
Throned awhile he sat, and, seated,

Saw his Cornish round him gather;
"Teach us how to live, good Father!"
How to die he taught us rather:

Heard the startling trumpet sound him,
Smiled upon the feast around him,
Rose, and wrapp'd his coat, and bound him

When beyond the awful surges,
Bathed in dawn on Syrian verges,
God! thy star, thy Cross emerges.

_And so sing we all to it--_

Crux, in coelo lux superna,
Sis in carnis hac taberna
Mihi pedibus lucerna:

Quo vexillum dux cohortis
Sistet, super flumen Mortis,
Te, flammantibus in portis!

ALMA MATER

_Know you her secret none can utter?_
Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?
Still on the spire the pigeons flutter,
Still by the gateway flits the gown;
Still on the street, from corbel and gutter,
Faces of stone look down.

Faces of stone, and stonier faces--
Some from library windows wan
Forth on her gardens, her green spaces,
Peer and turn to their books anon.
Hence, my Muse, from the green oases
Gather the tent, begone!

Nay, should she by the pavement linger
Under the rooms where once she played,
Who from the feast would rise to fling her
One poor _sou_ for her serenade?
One short laugh for the antic finger
Thrumming a lute-string frayed?

Once, my dear--but the world was young then--
Magdalen elms and Trinity limes--
Lissom the blades and the backs that swung then,
Eight good men in the good old times--
Careless we, and the chorus flung then
Under St Mary's chimes!

Reins lay loose and the ways led random--
Christ Church meadow and Iffley track,
"Idleness horrid and dog-cart" (tandem),
Aylesbury grind and Bicester pack--
Pleasant our lines, and faith! we scanned 'em:
Having that artless knack.

Come, old limmer, the times grow colder;
Leaves of the creeper redden and fall.
Was it a hand then clapped my shoulder?--
Only the wind by the chapel wall!
Dead leaves drift on the lute ... So, fold her
Under the faded shawl.

Never we wince, though none deplore us,
We who go reaping that we sowed;
Cities at cock-crow wake before us--
Hey, for the lilt of the London road!
One look back, and a rousing chorus!
Never a palinode!

Still on her spire the pigeons hover;
Still by her gateway haunts the gown.
Ah! but her secret? You, young lover,
Drumming her old ones forth from town,
Know you the secret none discover?
Tell it--when _you_ go down.

Yet if at length you seek her, prove her,
Lean to her whispers never so nigh;
Yet if at last not less her lover
You in your hansom leave the High;
Down from her towers a ray shall hover--
Touch you, a passer-by!

CHRISTMAS EVE

Friend, old friend in the Manse by the fireside sitting,
Hour by hour while the grey ash drips from the log;
You with a book on your knee, your wife with her knitting,
Silent both, and between you, silent, the dog.

Silent here in the south sit I; and, leaning,
One sits watching the fire, with chin upon hand;
Gazes deep in its heart--but ah! its meaning
Rather I read in the shadows and understand.

Dear, kind she is; and daily dearer, kinder,
Love shuts the door on the lamp and our two selves:

Not my stirring awakened the flame that behind her
Lit up a face in the leathern dusk of the shelves.

Veterans are my books, with tarnished gilding:
Yet there is one gives back to the winter grate
Gold of a sunset flooding a college building,
Gold of an hour I waited--as now I wait--

For a light step on the stair, a girl's low laughter,
Rustle of silk, shy knuckles tapping the oak,
Dinner and mirth upsetting my rooms and, after,
Music, waltz upon waltz, till the June day broke.

Where is her laughter now? Old tarnished covers--
You that reflect her with fresh young face unchanged--
Tell that we met, that we parted, not as lovers;
Time, chance, brought us together, and these estranged.

Loyal were we to the mood of the moment granted,
Bruised not its bloom, but danced on the wave of its joy;
Passion--wisdom--fell back like a fence enchanted,
Ringing a floor for us both--whole Heaven for the boy!

Where is she now? Regretted not, though departed,
Blessings attend and follow her all her days!
--Look to your hound: he dreams of the hares he started,
Whines, and awakes, and stretches his limbs to the blaze.

Far old friend in the Manse, by the green ash peeling
Flake by flake from the heat in the Yule log's core,
Look past the woman you love. On wall and ceiling
Climbs not a trellis of roses--and ghosts--of yore?

Thoughts, thoughts! Whistle them back like hounds returning--
Mark how her needles pause at a sound upstairs.
Time for bed, and to leave the log's heart burning!
Give ye good-night, but first thank God in your prayers!

THE ROOT

Deep, Love, yea, very deep.
And in the dark exiled,
I have no sense of light but still to creep
And know the breast, but not the eyes. Thy child
Saw ne'er his mother near, nor if she smiled;
But only feels her weep.

Yet clouds and branches green
There be aloft, somewhere,
And winds, and angel birds that build between,
As I believe--and I will not despair;
For faith is evidence of things not seen.
Love! if I could be there!

I will be patient, dear. Perchance some part of me Puts forth aloft and feels the rushing year And shades the bird, and is that happy tree Then were it strength to serve and not appear, And bliss, though blind, to be.

TO A FRIEND WHO SENT ME A BOX OF VIOLETS

Nay, more than violets These thoughts of thine, friend! Rather thy reedy brook-- Taw's tributary-- At midnight murmuring, Descried them, the delicate Dark-eyed goddesses, There by his cressy bed Dissolved and dreaming Dreams that distilled into dew All the purple of night, All the shine of a planet.

Whereat he whispered; And they arising--

Of day's forget-me-nots The duskier sisters-- Descended, relinquished The orchard, the trout-pool, Torridge and Tamar, The Druid circles, Sheepfolds of Dartmoor, Granite and sandstone; By Roughtor, Dozmare, Down the vale of the Fowey Moving in silence, Brushing the nightshade By bridges cyclopean, By Trevenna, Treverbyn, Lawharne and Largin, By Glynn, Lanhydrock, Restormel, Lostwithiel, Dark wood, dim water, dreaming town; Down the vale of the Fowey To the tidal water Washing the feet Of fair St Winnow-- Each, in her exile Musing the message, Passed, as the starlit Shadow of Ruth from the land of the Moabite.

So they came, Valley-born, valley-nurtured-- Came to the tideway The jetties, the anchorage, The salt wind piping, Snoring in Equinox, By ships at anchor, By quays tormented, Storm-bitten streets; Came to the Haven Crying, "Ah, shelter us, The strayed ambassadors, Love's lost legation On a comfortless coast!"

Nay, but a little sleep, A little folding Of petals to the lull Of quiet rainfalls-- Here in my garden, In angle sheltered From north and east wind-- Softly shall recreate The courage of charity, Henceforth not to me only Breathing the message.

Clean-breath'd Sirens! Hencefore the mariner.

TO A FRIEND

Here in the fairway Fetching--foul of keel, Long-stray but fortunate-- Out of the fogs, the vast Atlantic solitudes. Shall, by the hawser-pin Waiting the signal _Leave--go--anchor!_ Scent the familiar, The unforgettable Fragrance of home; So in a long breath Bless us unknowing: Bless them, the violets, Bless me, the gardener, Bless thee, the giver.

OF THREE CHILDREN

OF THREE CHILDREN CHOOSING A CHAPLET OF VERSE

You and I and Burd so blithe--
Burd so blithe, and you, and I--
The Mower he would whet his scythe
Before the dew was dry.

And he woke soon, but we woke soon
And drew the nursery blind,
All wondering at the waning moon
With the small June roses twined:
Low in her cradle swung the moon
With an elfin dawn behind.

In whispers, while our elders slept,
We knelt and said our prayers,
And dress'd us and on tiptoe crept
Adown the creaking stairs.

The world's possessors lay abed,
And all the world was ours--
"Nay, nay, but hark! the Mower's tread!
And we must save the flowers!"

The Mower knew not rest nor haste--
That old unweary man:
But we were young. We paused and raced
And gather'd while we ran.

O youth is careless, youth is fleet,
With heart and wing of bird!
The lark flew up beneath our feet,
To his copse the pheasant whirr'd;

The cattle from their darkling lairs
Heaved up and stretch'd themselves;
Almost they trod at unawares
Upon the busy elves

That dropp'd their spools of gossamer,
To dangle and to dry,
And scurried home to the hollow fir
Where the white owl winks an eye.

Nor you, nor I, nor Burd so blithe
Had driven them in this haste;
But the old, old man, so lean and lithe,
That afar behind us paced;
So lean and lithe, with shoulder'd scythe,
And a whetstone at his waist.

Within the gate, in a grassy round
Whence they had earliest flown,
He upside-down'd his scythe, and ground
Its edge with careful hone.
But we heeded not, if we heard, the sound,
For the world was ours alone;
The world was ours!--and with a bound
The conquering Sun upshone!

And while as from his level ray We stood our eyes to screen. The world was not as yesterday Our homelier world had been-- So grey and golden-green it lay All in his quiet sheen, That wove the gold into the grey, The grey into the green. Sure never hand of Puck, nor wand Of Mab the fairies' queen, Nor prince nor peer of fairyland Had power to weave that wide riband Of the grey, the gold, the green.

But the Gods of Greece had been before And walked our meads along, The great authentic Gods of yore That haunt the earth from shore to shore Trailing their robes of song.

And where a sandall'd foot had brush'd,
And where a scarfed hem,
The flowers awoke from sleep and rush'd
Like children after them.

Pell-mell they poured by vale and stream,
By lawn and steepy brae--
"O children, children! while you dream,
Your flowers run all away!"

But afar and abed and sleepily
The children heard us call;
And Burd so blithe and you and I
Must be gatherers for all.

The meadow-sweet beside the hedge,
The dog-rose and the vetch,
The sworded iris 'mid the sedge,
The mallow by the ditch--

With these, and by the wimpling burn,
Where the midges danced in reels,
With the watermint and the lady fern
We brimm'd out wicker creels:

Till, all so heavily they weigh'd,
On a bank we flung us down,
Shook out our treasures 'neath the shade
And wove this Triple Crown.

Flower after flower--for some there were The noonday heats had dried, And some were dear yet could not bear A lovelier cheek beside, And some were perfect past compare-- Ah, darlings! what a world of care It cost us to decide!

Natheless we sang in sweet accord,
Each bending o'er her brede--
"O there be flowers in Oxenford,
And flowers be north of Tweed,
And flowers there be on earthly sward
That owe no mortal seed!"

And these, the brightest that we wove, Were Innocence and Truth, And holy Peace and angel Love, Glad Hope and gentle Ruth. Ah, bind them fast with triple twine Of Memory, the wild woodbine That still, being human, stays divine, And alone is age's youth!...

But hark! but look! the warning rook
Wings home in level flight;
The children tired with play and book
Have kiss'd and call'd Good-night!

Ah, sisters, look! What fields be these That lie so sad and shorn? What hand has cut our coppices, And thro' the trimm'd, the ruin'd, trees Lets wail a wind forlorn?

'Tis Time, 'tis Time has done this crime
And laid our meadows waste--
The bent unwearied tyrant Time,
That knows nor rest nor haste.

Yet courage, children; homeward bring
Your hearts, your garlands high;
For we have dared to do a thing
That shall his worst defy.

We cannot nail the dial's hand;
We cannot bind the sun
By Gibeon to stay and stand,
Or the moon o'er Ajalon;

We cannot blunt th' abhorred shears,
Nor shift the skeins of Fate,
Nor say unto the posting years
"Ye shall not desolate."

We cannot cage the lion's rage,
Nor teach the turtle-dove
Beside what well his moan to tell
Or to haunt one only grove;
But the lion's brood will range for food
As the fledged bird will rove.

And east and west we three may wend--
Yet we a wreath have wound
For us shall wind withouten end
The wide, wide world around:

Be it east or west, and ne'er so far, In east or west shall peep no star, No blossom break from ground, But minds us of the wreath we wove Of innocence and holy love That in the meads we found, And handsell'd from the Mower's scythe, And bound with memory's living withe-- You and I and Burd so blithe-- Three maidens on a mound: And all of happiness was ours Shall find remembrance 'mid the flowers, Shall take revival from the flowers And by the flowers be crown'd.