Poems - First Series.

by J. C. Squire.

LONDON: MARTIN SECKER (LTD) 1918

_DEDICATION_

_Lord, I have seen at harvest festival In a white lamp-lit fishing-village church, How the poor folk, lacking fine decorations, Offer the first-fruits of their various toils: Not only fruit and blossom of the fields, Ripe corn and poppies, scabious, marguerites, Melons and marrows, carrots and potatoes, And pale round turnips and sweet cottage flowers, But gifts of other produce, heaped brown nets, Fine pollack, silver fish with umber backs, And handsome green-dark-blue-striped mackerel, And uglier, hornier creatures from the sea, Lobsters, long-clawed and eyed, and smooth flat crabs, Ranged with the flowers upon the window-niches, To lie in that symbolic contiguity While l.u.s.ty hymns of grat.i.tude ascend._

_So I Here offer all I have found: A few bright stainless flowers And richer, earthlier blooms, and homely grain, And roots that grew distorted in the dark, And shapes of livid hue and sprawling form Dragged from the deepest maters I have searched.

Most diverse gifts, yet all alike in this: They are all the natural products of my mind And heart and senses; And all with labour grown, or plucked, or caught._

PREFACE

The t.i.tle of this book was chosen for this reason. Had the volume been called ---- _and Other Poems_ it might have given a false impression that its contents were entirely new. Had it been called _Collected Poems_ the equally false impression might have been given that there was something of finality about it. The t.i.tle selected seemed best to convey both the fact that it was a collection and that, under Providence, other (and, let us hope, superior) collections will follow it.

The book contains all that I do not wish to destroy of the contents of four volumes of verse. A number of small corrections have been made.

There are added, also, a few recent poems not previously published.

The earliest of the poems now reprinted is dated 1905, in which year I was twenty-one. Some of the subsequent years, such as 1914 and 1915, contributed nothing to this book: the greater number of the poems were written in 1911-1912 and 1916-1917.

Some of the poems were not written as I should now write them; and many of them reflect transient, though mostly recurrent, moods which I do not necessarily think worthy of esteem.

J. C. S.

_March_ 1918.

IN A CHAIR

The room is full of the peace of night, The small flames murmur and flicker and sway, Within me is neither shadow, nor light, Nor night, nor twilight, nor dawn, nor day.

For the brain strives not to the goal of thought, And the limbs lie wearied, and all desire Sleeps for a while, and I am naught But a pair of eyes that gaze at a fire.

A DAY

I. MORNING

The village fades away Where I last night came, Where they housed me and fed me And never asked my name.

The sun shines bright, my step is light, I, who have no abode, Jeer at the stuck, monotonous Black posts along the road.

II. MIDDAY

The wood is still, As here I sit My heart drinks in The peace of it.

A something stirs I know not where, Some quiet spirit In the air.

O tall straight stems!

O cool deep green!

O hand unfelt!

O face unseen!

III. EVENING

The evening closes in, As down this last long lane I plod; there patter round First heavy drops of rain.

Feet ache, legs ache, but now Step quickens as I think Of mounds of bread and cheese And something hot to drink.

IV. NIGHT

Ah! sleep is sweet, but yet I will not sleep awhile Nor for a s.p.a.ce forget The toil of that last mile;

But lie awake and feel The cool sheets' tremulous kisses O'er all my body steal...

Is sleep as sweet as this is?

THE ROOF

I

When the clouds hide the sun away The tall slate roof is dull and grey, And when the rain adown it streams 'Tis polished lead with pale-blue gleams.

When the clouds vanish and the rain Stops, and the sun comes out again, It shimmers golden in the sun Almost too bright to look upon.

But soon beneath the steady rays The roof is dried and reft of blaze, 'Tis dusty yellow traversed through By long thin lines of deepest blue.

Then at the last, as night draws near, The lines grow faint and disappear, The roof becomes a purple mist, A great square darkening amethyst

Which sinks into the gathering shade Till separate form and colour fade, And it is but a patch which mars The beauty of a field of stars.