Part 10 (1/2)

But presently the evening shadows in, Heralded by the night-jar's solitary din And the quick bat's squeak among the trees; --Who sudden rises, darting across the air To weave her filmy web in the Sun's bright hair That slowly sinks dejected on his knees....

Now is he vanished: the bewildered skies Flame out a desperate and last surmise; Then yield to Night, their sudden conqueror.

From pole to pole the shadow of the world Creeps over heaven, till itself is lit By the very many stars that wake in it: Sleep, like a messenger of great import, Lays quiet and compelling hands athwart The easy idlenesses of my mind.

--There is a breeze above me, and around: There is a fire before me, and behind: But Sleep doth hold me, and I hear no sound.

In the far West the clouds are mustering, Without hurry, noise, or bl.u.s.tering: And soon as Body's nightly Sentinel Himself doth nod, I open furtive eyes....

With darkling hook the Farmer of the Skies Goes reaping stars: they flicker, one by one, Nodding a little; tumble,--and are gone.

POETS, PAINTERS, PUDDINGS

Poets, painters, and puddings; these three Make up the World as it ought to be.

Poets make faces And sudden grimaces: They twit you, and spit you On words: then admit you To heaven or h.e.l.l By the tales that they tell.

Painters are gay As young rabbits in May: They buy jolly mugs, Bowls, pictures, and jugs: The things round their necks Are lively with checks, (For they like something red As a frame for the head): Or they'll curse you with oaths, That tear holes in your clothes.

(With nothing to mend them You'd best not offend them.)

Puddings should be Full of currants, for me: Boiled in a pail, Tied in the tail Of an old bleached s.h.i.+rt: So hot that they hurt, So huge that they last From the dim, distant past Until the crack o' doom Lift the roof off the room.

Poets, painters, and puddings; these three Crown the day as it crowned should be.

WILLIAM KERR

IN MEMORIAM D. O. M.

Chestnut candles are lit again For the dead that died in spring: Dead lovers walk the orchard ways, And the dead cuckoos sing.

Is it they who live and we who are dead?

Hardly the springtime knows For which today the cuckoo calls, And the white blossom blows.

Listen and hear the happy wind Whisper and lightly pa.s.s: 'Your love is sweet as hawthorn is, Your hope green as the gra.s.s.

'The hawthorn's faint and quickly gone, The gra.s.s in autumn dies; Put by your life, and see the spring With everlasting eyes.'

PAST AND PRESENT

Daisies are over Nyren, and Hambledon Hardly remembers any summer gone: And never again the Kentish elms shall see Mynn, or Fuller Pilch, or Colin Blythe.