Today is rebels' day. And yet we work

Today is rebels' day. And yet we work—
All of us rebels, until day is done.
And when the stars come out we celebrate
A revolution that's not yet begun.
Today is rebels' day. And men in jail
Tread the old mill-round until day is done.
And when night falls they sit alone to brood
On revolution that's not yet begun.
Today is rebels' day. Let all of us
Take courage to fight on until we're done—
Fight though we may not live to see the hour
The Revolution's splendidly begun.

poem by Lesbia Harford
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You want a lily

You want a lily
And you plead with me
'Give me my lily back.'
I went to see
A friend last night and on her mantelshelf
I saw some lilies,
Image of myself,
And most unlike your dream of purity.
They had been small green lilies, never white
For man's delight
In their most blissful hours.
But now the flowers
Had shrivelled and instead
Shone spikes of seeds,
Burned spikes of seeds,
Burned red
As love and death and fierce futurity.
There's this much of the lily left in me.

poem by Lesbia Harford
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Polytheist

One comes to love the little saints,
As years go by.
One learns to love the little saints.
'O hear me sigh,
St. Anthony,
Find this for me,
I wish you'd try.'
There must be many garden gods,
A gardener sees.
There'd have to be an orchard god. 'Divinities,
Take honour due.
The long year through
Protect these trees.'
The Mother and the Holy Child
Are friends to me.
I pray, 'I am my mother's child.
I trust you'll see
That days are bright
And all goes right
With her and me.'

poem by Lesbia Harford
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I hate work so

I hate work so
That I have found a way
Of making one small task outlast the day.
I will not leave
The garden and the sun,
In spite of all the work that should be done.
So when I go
To really make my bed
I've made it ten times over in my head.
Then as for meals!
I think I'd rather be
A nervous wreck than make a cup of tea.
The fire's so low
It isn't any good—
While I sit planning to put on some wood.
One thing is sure,
I pity other drones,
God having made me such a lazy-bones.

poem by Lesbia Harford
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Up in my room on my unmade bed

Up in my room on my unmade bed
I sat and read.
There was work waiting for me below.
I didn't go.
For in my little green room the song
Flickered along.
If the singer had seen the way it fared
She would have stared,
Have wondered and stared at me who read
With tumbled bed,
Wide-open window, wide-open door,
Books on the floor.
Hers was a disciplined, comely, wise
Christina-guise.
But what's the hell of a mess to me
When I am free
And wind blows in and a delicate song
Flickers along.

poem by Lesbia Harford
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I can't feel the sunshine

I can't feel the sunshine
Or see the stars aright
For thinking of her beauty
And her kisses bright.
She would let me kiss her
Once and not again.
Deeming soul essential,
Sense doth she disdain.
If I should once kiss her,
I would never rest
Till I had lain hour long
Pillowed on her breast.
Lying so, I'd tell her
Many a secret thing
God has whispered to me
When my soul took wing.
Would that I were Sappho,
Greece my land, not this!
There the noblest women,
When they loved, would kiss.

poem by Lesbia Harford
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Miss Mary Fairfax

Every day Miss Mary goes her rounds,
Through the splendid house and through the grounds,
Looking if the kitchen table's white,
Seeing if the great big fire's alight,
Finding specks on shining pans and pots,
Never praising much, but scolding lots.
If the table's white, she does not see
Roughened hands that once were ivory.
It is fires, not cheeks, that ought to glow;
And if eyes are dim, she doesn't know.
Poor Miss Mary! Poor for all she owns,
Since the things she loves are stocks and stones.

poem by Lesbia Harford
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I read a statement in a newspaper

I read a statement in a newspaper
That Twentyman, the manufacturer,
Found it was cheaper to deliver goods
By horse and lorry than by motor-truck
Or motor-van. So he had sold his trucks
To purchase horses. He dismissed those men
Who had mechanics' minds to re-employ
Drivers of horses, friends of animals.
Then life grew stronger in me because life
Had triumphed in this case and would perhaps
Finally triumph over the machine.
Even such mean commercial victory
Being better than no victory at all.

poem by Lesbia Harford
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They are so glad of a young companion,

They are so glad of a young companion,
They hail and bless me, these boys of mine,
And I whose pathway was dark and lonely
Have no more need of the sun to shine.
We'll walk in darkness, obscure, despised,
We'll mourn each other at prison gates.
These boys are splendid as mountain eagles,
But mountain eagles have eagle mates.
The girls who prattle of work and pleasure,
Of last week's picnic and this week's joys,
Of past and present, nor heed the future,
Are lagging comrades for dawnstruck boys.

poem by Lesbia Harford
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Three Teachers

Sometimes I can see
When I teach
Half my children talk
Each to each.
Then I almost wish
I could be
Very fierce and they
Scared of me.
They will all be still
For one man
Who could never teach
As I can.
He is kind and strong,
Narrow-souled.
He has never sought
Dangerous gold.
If he might do both
That were good.
In my life I knew
One who could.

[...] Read more

poem by Lesbia Harford
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