Part 15 (1/2)

PETER QUENNELL

PROCNE (A FRAGMENT)

So she became a bird, and bird-like danced On a long sloe-bough, treading the silver blossom With a bird's lovely feet; And shaken blossoms fell into the hands Of Sunlight. And he held them for a moment And let them drop.

And in the autumn Procne came again And leapt upon the crooked sloe-bough singing, And the dark berries winked like earth-dimmed beads, As the branch swung beneath her dancing feet.

A MAN TO A SUNFLOWER

See, I have bent thee by thy saffron hair --O most strange masker-- Towards my face, thy face so full of eyes --O almost legendary monster-- Thee of the saffron, circling hair I bend, Bend by my fingers knotted in thy hair --Hair like broad flames.

So, shall I swear by beech-husk, spindleberry, To break thee, saffron hair and peering eye, --To have the mastery?

PERCEPTION

While I have vision, while the glowing-bodied, Drunken with light, untroubled clouds, with all this cold sphered sky, Are flushed above trees where the dew falls secretly, Where no man goes, where beasts move silently, As gently as light feathered winds that fall Chill among hollows filled with sighing gra.s.s; While I have vision, while my mind is borne A finger's length above reality, Like that small plaining bird that drifts and drops Among these soft lapped hollows; Robed G.o.ds, whose pa.s.sing fills calm nights with sudden wind, Whose spears still bar our twilight, bend and fill Wind-shaken, troubled s.p.a.ces with some peace, With clear untroubled beauty; That I may rise not chill and shrilling through perpetual day, Remote, amazed, larklike, but may hold The hours as firm, warm fruit, This finger's length above reality.

PURSUIT

As wind-drowned scents that bring to other hills Disquieting memories of silences, Broad silences beyond the memory; As feathered swaying seeds, as wings of birds Dappling the sky with honey-coloured gold; Faint murmurs, clear, keen-winged of swift ideas Break my small silences; And I must hunt and come to tire of hunting Strange laughing thoughts that roister through my mind, Hopelessly swift to flit; and so I hunt And come to tire of hunting.

V. SACKVILLE-WEST

A SAXON SONG

Tools with the comely names, Mattock and scythe and spade, Couth and bitter as flames, Clean, and bowed in the blade,-- A man and his tools make a man and his trade.

Breadth of the English s.h.i.+res, Hummock and kame and mead, Tang of the reeking byres, Land of the English breed,-- A man and his land make a man and his creed.

Leisurely flocks and herds, Cool-eyed cattle that come Mildly to wonted words, Swine that in orchards roam,-- A man and his beasts make a man and his home.

Children st.u.r.dy and flaxen Shouting in brotherly strife, Like the land they are Saxon, Sons of a man and his wife,-- For a man and his loves make a man and his life.

MARIANA IN THE NORTH