Love and Humour
WHEN first I saw you, in eclipse,
A veil about your head,
And wondered at those unseen lips
With wit bediamonded:
Then laughing down the street I went,
And sang upon my way, content.
Next time we met in dim surmise,
Upon an autumn morn,
And in those understanding eyes
Shone humour, rainbow-born:
So travelling through this earthly maze,
A greater light fell on my ways.
But, when I saw your head unveiled,
Feature, and form, and hue:
A woodland fairy, silver-mailed,
Lightwinged upon the dew:
Then did I pay a heavy cost,
For love, a world of laughter lost.
poem by Herbert Asquith
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War's Cataract
In this red havoc of the patient earth,
Though higher yet the tide of battle rise,
Now has the hero cast away disguise,
And out of ruin splendour comes to birth.
This is the field where Death and Honour meet,
And all the lesser company are low:
Pale Loveliness has left her mirror now
And walks the Court of Pain with silent feet.
From cliff to cliff war's cataract goes down,
Hurling its booming waters to the shock;
And, tossing high their manes of gleaming spray,
The crested chargers leap from rock to rock,
While over all, dark though the thunder frown,
The rainbows climb above to meet the day.
poem by Herbert Asquith
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Soldiers at Peace
Mourn not for these, the children of the spring :
On Flemish plains and far Aegean sand,
Mourn not for these, who had no perishing !
Hang high their swords in churches greatly spanned !
Whose deeds have spoken so, beyond our tears,
Their spirits live, needing no other voice
Above the dimming valley of the years
They live anew, immortal by their choice.
The soldiers' peace of their imagining
has fallen here. The whirling leaves are still:
Deep in the shadow of the rainwashed hill,
A lustre and a quietude art shed,
When all the valley streams are glimmering,
And the moon swims from the storm-wrack overhead.
poem by Herbert Asquith
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Riding
FILL up, fill up the stirrup-cup!
The wine is running free:
The blue veils of the Spring are out;
She dances on the sea.
In fields of love, in lanes of laughter,
Slacken not the pace:
Care not for Him, who follows after,
And wins at last the race.
Past pear and apple-orchards,
The bramble and the rose,
And out across the swinging turf
To where the sea-wind goes:
To horse! To horse! the time is short;
Soon will the day be done:
We'll gallop on the morning grass,
And drink the rising sun:
And onward through the upland,
To see the plains unfurled,
And armies of the stars go down
Over the brink of the world.
poem by Herbert Asquith
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Youth in the Skies
These who were children yesterday
Now move in lovely flight,
Swift-glancing as the shooting stars
That cleave the summer night;
A moment flashed, they came and went,
Horizons rise and fall,
The speed of valour lifts them up
And strength obeys their call.
The downs below are breathing peace
With thyme and butterflies,
And sheep at pasture in the shade-
And now from English skies
These who were children yesterday
Look down with other eyes;
Man’s desperate folly was not theirs
But theirs the sacrifice.
[...] Read more
poem by Herbert Asquith
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A Ship Sails up to Bideford
A ship sails up to Bideford;
Upon a western breeze,
Mast by mast, sail over sail,
She rises from the seas,
And sights the hills of Devon
And the misty English trees.
She comes from Eastern islands;
The sun is in her hold;
She bears the fruit of Jaffa,
Dates, oranges and gold;
She brings the silk of China,
And bales of Persian dyes,
And birds with sparkling feathers
And snakes with diamond eyes.
She’s gliding in the starlight
As white as any gull;
The east is gliding with her
[...] Read more
poem by Herbert Asquith
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The Volunteer
Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent
Toiling at ledgers in a city grey,
Thinking that so his days would drift away
With no lance broken in life’s tournament:
Yet ever ’twixt the books and his bright eyes
The gleaming eagles of the legions came,
And horsemen, charging under phantom skies,
Went thundering past beneath the oriflamme.
And now those waiting dreams are satisfied;
From twilight to the halls of dawn he went;
His lance is broken; but he lies content
With that high hour, in which he lived and died.
And falling thus he wants no recompense,
Who found his battle in the last resort;
Nor needs he any hearse to bear him hence,
Who goes to join the men of Agincourt.
poem by Herbert Asquith
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The Fallen Spire [A Flemish Village]
THE spire is gone, that slept for centuries,
Mirrored among the lilies, calm and low:
And now the water holds but empty skies,
Through which the rivers of the thunder flow.
The church lies broken near the fallen spire:
For here, among these old and human things,
Death sweeps along the street with feet of fire,
And goes upon his way with moaning wings.
On pavements by the kneeling herdsmen worn
The drifting fleeces of the shells are rolled
Above the Saints a village Christ forlorn,
Wounded again, looks down upon his fold.
And silence follows fast: no evening peace,
But leaden stillness, when the thunder wanes,
Haunting the slender branches of the trees,
And settling low upon the listless plains.
poem by Herbert Asquith
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Jewels: A Young Man to a Merchant
OLD Man, your pearls are not for us,
Your rubies die too soon:
Have you the pearls of Sirius,
Or opals of the moon?
I do not ask for other gems;
Flashing with frost and fire
The sky's undying diadems
Shall be my love's attire.
Emeralds, that into rubies melt
Upon the brow of night,
I've taken from Orion's belt
To make her girdle bright.
On high ways of the albatross
I scale the purple air
For sapphires of the Southern Cross
And wreath them in her hair
[...] Read more
poem by Herbert Asquith
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On a Troopship - 1915
FAREWELL, the village leaning to the hill,
And all the cawing rooks that homeward fly ;
The bees; the drowsy anthem of the mill
The willows winding under April sky !
We watch the breakers crashing on the bow,
And those far flashes in the Eastern haze :
The fields and friends, that were, are fainter now
Than whispering of ancient waterways.
Now England stirs, as stirs a dreamer wound
In immemorial slumber ; lids apart,
Soon will she rouse her giant limbs, attuned
To that old music hidden at her heart.
The small occasions and the menial cries
Fade fast away : the little men beware :
She rises in her circuit of the skies,
An eagle drinking of the mountain air.
We come to harbour in the breath of wars;
Welcome again, the land of our farewells
In this strange ruin, open to the stars,
We find the haven, where her spirit dwells.
poem by Herbert Asquith
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