Part 13 (1/2)

Like s.h.i.+ps, the anchor dropped, Furled every sail is; Mirrored with all their masts In a deep water.

A DREAM

My dead love came to me, and said: 'G.o.d gives me one hour's rest, To spend with thee on earth again: How shall we spend it best?'

'Why, as of old,' I said; and so We quarrelled, as of old: But, when I turned to make my peace, That one short hour was told.

_Laurence Binyon_

Laurence Binyon was born at Lancaster, August 10, 1869, a cousin of Stephen Phillips; in _Primavera_ (1890) their early poems appeared together. Binyon's subsequent volumes showed little distinction until he published _London Visions_, which, in an enlarged edition in 1908, revealed a gift of characterization and a turn of speech in surprising contrast to his previous academic _Lyrical Poems_ (1894). His _Odes_ (1901) contains his ripest work; two poems in particular, ”The Threshold” and ”The Baccha.n.a.l of Alexander,” are glowing and unusually spontaneous.

Binyon's power has continued to grow; age has given his verse a new sharpness. ”The House That Was,” one of his most recent poems, appeared in _The London Mercury_, November, 1919.

A SONG

For Mercy, Courage, Kindness, Mirth, There is no measure upon earth.

Nay, they wither, root and stem, If an end be set to them.

Overbrim and overflow, If your own heart you would know; For the spirit born to bless Lives but in its own excess.

THE HOUSE THAT WAS

Of the old house, only a few crumbled Courses of brick, smothered in nettle and dock, Or a squared stone, lying mossy where it tumbled!

Sprawling bramble and saucy thistle mock What once was firelit floor and private charm Where, seen in a windowed picture, hills were fading At dusk, and all was memory-coloured and warm, And voices talked, secure from the wind's invading.

Of the old garden, only a stray s.h.i.+ning Of daffodil flames amid April's cuckoo-flowers, Or a cl.u.s.ter of aconite mixt with weeds entwining!

But, dark and lofty, a royal cedar towers By homely thorns: whether the white rain drifts Or sun scorches, he holds the downs in ken, The western vale; his branchy tiers he lifts, Older than many a generation of men.

_Alfred Douglas_

Lord Alfred Douglas was born in 1870 and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was the editor of _The Academy_ from 1907 to 1910 and was at one time the intimate friend of Oscar Wilde. One of the minor poets of ”the eighteen-nineties,” several of his poems rise above his own affectations and the end-of-the-century decadence. _The City of the Soul_ (1899) and _Sonnets_ (1900) contain his most graceful writing.

THE GREEN RIVER

I know a green gra.s.s path that leaves the field And, like a running river, winds along Into a leafy wood, where is no throng Of birds at noon-day; and no soft throats yield Their music to the moon. The place is sealed, An unclaimed sovereignty of voiceless song, And all the unravished silences belong To some sweet singer lost, or unrevealed.

So is my soul become a silent place....

Oh, may I wake from this uneasy night To find some voice of music manifold.