A New Art Blog

begins on

MONDAY 20th NOVEMBER

ART FROM THE VICTORIAN ERA

artfromthevictorianera-mychoice.blogspot.com

and then will be updated every day

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This poem concludes the series.

All my blogs have now come to end.

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JOHN AND JANE

I

He sees the world as a boisterous place

Where all things bear a laughing face,

And humorous scenes go hourly on,

Does John.

II

They find the world a pleasant place

Where all is ecstasy and grace,

Where a light has risen that cannot wane,

Do John and Jane.

III

They see as a palace their cottage-place,

Containing a pearl of the human race,

A hero, maybe, hereafter styled,

Do John and Jane with a baby-child.

IV

They rate the world as a gruesome place,

Where fair looks fade to a skull's grimace, -

As a pilgrimage they would fain get done -

Do John and Jane with their worthless son.

John and Jane

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THE RAMBLER

I do not see the hills around,

Nor mark the tints the copses wear;

I do not note the grassy ground

And constellated daisies there.

I hear not the contralto note

Of cuckoos hid on either hand,

The whirr that shakes the nighthawk's throat

When eve's brown awning hoods the land.

Some say each songster, tree, and mead -

All eloquent of love divine -

Receives their constant careful heed:

Such keen appraisement is not mine.

The tones around me that I hear,

The aspects, meanings, shapes I see,

Are those far back ones missed when near,

And now perceived too late by me!

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GROWTH IN MAY

I enter a daisy-and-buttercup land,

   And thence thread a jungle of grass:

Hurdles and stiles scarce visible stand

   Above the lush stems as I pass.

Hedges peer over, and try to be seen,

   And seem to reveal a dim sense

That amid such ambitious and elbow-high green

   They make a mean show as a fence.

Elsewhere the mead is possessed of the neats,

   That range not greatly above

The rich rank thicket which brushes their teats,

   And HER gown, as she waits for her Love.

158

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THE BEAUTY

O do not praise my beauty more,

In such word-wild degree,

And say I am one all eyes adore;

For these things harass me!

But do for ever softly say:

"From now unto the end

Come weal, come wanzing, come what may,

Dear, I will be your friend."

I hate my beauty in the glass:

My beauty is not I:

I wear it: none cares whether, alas,

Its wearer live or die!

The inner I O care for, then,

Yea, me and what I am,

And shall be at the gray hour when

My cheek begins to clam.

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A WIFE IN LONDON

I - The Tragedy 

She sits in the tawny vapour 

   That the City lanes have uprolled, 

   Behind whose webby fold on fold 

Like a waning taper 

   The street-lamp glimmers cold. 

A messenger's knock cracks smartly, 

   Flashed news is in her hand 

   Of meaning it dazes to understand 

Though shaped so shortly: 

   He - has fallen - in the far South Land . . . 

II - The Irony 

'Tis the morrow; the fog hangs thicker, 

   The postman nears and goes: 

   A letter is brought whose lines disclose 

By the firelight flicker 

   His hand, whom the worm now knows: 

Fresh - firm - penned in highest feather - 

   Page-full of his hoped return, 

   And of home-planned jaunts by brake and burn 

In the summer weather, 

   And of new love that they would learn.

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AFTERWARDS

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay, 

And the May month flaps its glad green leaves

like wings, 

Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the

neighbours say, 

"He was a man who used to notice such things"?

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's

soundless blink, 

The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades

to alight 

Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer

may think, 

"To him this must have been a familiar sight." 

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm, 

When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn, 

One may say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm, 

But he could do little for them; and now he is gone." 

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door, 

Watching the full-starred heavens that

winter sees, 

Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,

"He was one who had an eye for such mysteries"? 

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom, 

And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings, 

Till they rise again, as they were a new

bell's boom, 

"He hears it not now, but used to notice

such things"?

JUST TREES

A new series which will be known by the full title of the blog

JUST TREES BUT LOVELY TO LOOK AT

begins on Saturday 21st October and will include extra features.

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