Part 6 (2/2)
Down the long slope the plough team drove The tossing rooks arose and hove.
A stone struck on the share. A word Came to the team. The red earth stirred.
I crossed the hedge by shooter's gap, I hitched my boxer's belt a strap, I jumped the ditch and crossed the fallow I took the hales from farmer Callow.
How swift the summer goes, Forget-me-not, pink, rose.
The young gra.s.s when I started And now the hay is carted, And now my song is ended, And all the summer spended; The blackbird's second brood Routs beech-leaves in the wood The pink and rose have speeded, Forget-me-not has seeded.
Only the winds that blew, The rain that makes things new, The earth that hides things old, And blessings manifold.
O lovely lily clean, O lily springing green, O lily bursting white, Dear lily of delight, Spring in my heart agen That I may flower to men.
GREAT HAMPDEN. June 1911.
NOTE
'The Everlasting Mercy' first appeared in _The English Review_ for October 1911. I thank the Editor and Proprietors of that paper for permitting me to reprint it here. The persons and events described in the poem are entirely imaginary, and no reference is made or intended to any living person.
JOHN MASEFIELD.
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH
FROM SIDGWICK & JACKSON'S LIST
JOHN MASEFIELD
THE WIDOW IN THE BYE STREET.
Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. net. Third Impression
”Mr Masefield is no common realist, but universalizes his tragedy in the grand manner.... We are convinced that he is writing truly of human nature, which is the vital thing.... The last few stanzas show us pastoral poetry in the very perfection of simplicity.”--_Spectator_.
”In 'The Widow in the Bye Street' all Mr Masefield's pa.s.sionate love of loveliness is utterly fused with the violent and unlovely story, which glows with an inner harmony. The poem, it is true, ends on a note of idyllism which recalls Theocritus; but this is no touch of eternal decoration. Inevitably the story has worked towards this culmination.”--_Bookman_.
THE TRAGEDY OF POMPEY THE GREAT.
A Play in Three Acts. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. net. Wrappers, 1s. 6d.
net. Third Impression
”In this Roman tragedy, while we admire its closely knit structure, dramatic effectiveness, and atmosphere of reality ... the warmth and colour of the diction are the most notable things.... He knows the art of phrasing; he has the instinct for and by them.”--_Athaeneum_.
”He has written a great tragedy.... The dialogue is written in strong, simple and nervous prose, flas.h.i.+ng with poetic insight, significance and suggestion. The characters are intensely alive, the situations are handled by a master hand, and the whole play is pregnant with that high and solemn pathos which is the gift of the born writer of tragedies.”--_Morning Post_.
AUTUMN, 1913
_NEW EDITION_
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TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS. By THOMAS HUGHES. With a Preface by LORD KILBRACKEN, and an Introduction and Notes by F. SIDGWICK. Ill.u.s.trated from contemporary Portraits and Drawings. Large square 8vo, buckram gilt, 10s. 6d. net.
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