Read Ebook: Selected Poems by Brooke Rupert

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Here, where love's stuff is body, arm and side Are stabbing-sweet 'gainst chair and lamp and wall. In every touch more intimate meanings hide; And flaming brains are the white heart of all

Here, million pulses to one centre beat: Closed in by men's vast friendliness, alone, Two can be drunk with solitude, and meet On the sheer point where sense with knowing's one.

Here the green-purple clanging royal night, And the straight lines and silent walls of town, And roar, and glare, and dust, and myriad white Undying passers, pinnacle and crown

Stay! though the woods are quiet, and you've heard Night creep along the hedges. Never go Where tangled foliage shrouds the crying bird, And the remote winds sigh, and waters flow!

Lest--as our words fall dumb on windless noons, Or hearts grow hushed and solitary, beneath Unheeding stars and unfamiliar moons, Or boughs bend over, close and quiet as death,--

Unconscious and unpassionate and still, Cloud-like we lean and stare as bright leaves stare, And gradually along the stranger hill Our unwalled loves thin out on vacuous air,

And suddenly there's no meaning in our kiss, And your lit upward face grows, where we lie Lonelier and dreadfuller than sunlight is, And dumb and mad and eyeless like the sky.

In a cool curving world he lies And ripples with dark ecstasies. The kind luxurious lapse and steal Shapes all his universe to feel And know and be; the clinging stream Closes his memory, glooms his dream, Who lips the roots o' the shore, and glides Superb on unreturning tides. Those silent waters weave for him A fluctuant mutable world and dim, Where wavering masses bulge and gape Mysterious, and shape to shape Dies momently through whorl and hollow, And form and line and solid follow Solid and line and form to dream Fantastic down the eternal stream; An obscure world, a shifting world, Bulbous, or pulled to thin, or curled, Or serpentine, or driving arrows, Or serene slidings, or March narrows. There slipping wave and shore are one, And weed and mud. No ray of sun, But glow to glow fades down the deep ; Shaken translucency illumes The hyaline of drifting glooms; The strange soft-handed depth subdues Drowned colour there, but black to hues, As death to living, decomposes-- Red darkness of the heart of roses, Blue brilliant from dead starless skies, And gold that lies behind the eyes, The unknown unnameable sightless white That is the essential flame of night, Lustreless purple, hooded green, The myriad hues that lie between Darkness and darkness!...

And all's one, Gentle, embracing, quiet, dun, The world he rests in, world he knows, Perpetual curving. Only--grows An eddy in that ordered falling, A knowledge from the gloom, a calling Weed in the wave, gleam in the mud-- The dark fire leaps along his blood; Dateless and deathless, blind and still, The intricate impulse works its will; His woven world drops back; and he, Sans providence, sans memory, Unconscious and directly driven, Fades to some dank sufficient heaven.

O world of lips, O world of laughter, Where hope is fleet and thought flies after, Of lights in the clear night, of cries That drift along the wave and rise Thin to the glittering stars above, You know the hands, the eyes of love! The strife of limbs, the sightless clinging, The infinite distance, and the singing Blown by the wind, a flame of sound, The gleam, the flowers, and vast around The horizon, and the heights above-- You know the sigh, the song of love!

But there the night is close, and there Darkness is cold and strange and bare; And the secret deeps are whisperless; And rhythm is all deliciousness; And joy is in the throbbing tide, Whose intricate fingers beat and glide In felt bewildering harmonies Of trembling touch; and music is The exquisite knocking of the blood. Space is no more, under the mud; His bliss is older than the sun. Silent and straight the waters run. The lights, the cries, the willows dim, And the dark tide are one with him.

When you were there, and you, and you, Happiness crowned the night; I too, Laughing and looking, one of all, I watched the quivering lamplight fall On plate and flowers and pouring tea And cup and cloth; and they and we Flung all the dancing moments by With jest and glitter. Lip and eye Flashed on the glory, shone and cried, Improvident, unmemoried; And fitfully and like a flame The light of laughter went and came. Proud in their careless transience moved The changing faces that I loved.

Till suddenly, and otherwhence, I looked upon your innocence. For lifted clear and still and strange From the dark woven flow of change Under a vast and starless sky I saw the immortal moment lie. One instant I, an instant, knew As God knows all. And it and you I, above Time, oh, blind! could see In witless immortality. I saw the marble cup; the tea, Hung on the air, an amber stream; I saw the fire's unglittering gleam, The painted flame, the frozen smoke. No more the flooding lamplight broke On flying eyes and lips and hair; But lay, but slept unbroken there, On stiller flesh, and body breathless, And lips and laughter stayed and deathless, And words on which no silence grew. Light was more alive than you.

For suddenly, and otherwhence, I looked on your magnificence. I saw the stillness and the light, And you, august, immortal, white, Holy and strange; and every glint Posture and jest and thought and tint Freed from the mask of transiency, Triumphant in eternity, Immote, immortal.

Dazed at length Human eyes grew, mortal strength Wearied; and Time began to creep. Change closed about me like a sleep. Light glinted on the eyes I loved. The cup was filled. The bodies moved. The drifting petal came to ground. The laughter chimed its perfect round. The broken syllable was ended. And I, so certain and so friended, How could I cloud, or how distress, The heaven of your unconsciousness? Or shake at Time's sufficient spell, Stammering of lights unutterable? The eternal holiness of you, The timeless end, you never knew, The peace that lay, the light that shone. You never knew that I had gone A million miles away, and stayed A million years. The laughter played Unbroken round me; and the jest Flashed on. And we that knew the best Down wonderful hours grew happier yet. I sang at heart, and talked, and eat, And lived from laugh to laugh, I too, When you were there, and you, and you.

... would I were In Grantchester, in Grantchester!-- Some, it may be, can get in touch With Nature there, or Earth, or such. And clever modern men have seen A Faun a-peeping through the green, And felt the Classics were not dead, To glimpse a Naiad's reedy head, Or hear the Goat-foot piping low; But these are things I do not know. I only know that you may lie Day long and watch the Cambridge sky, And, flower-lulled in sleepy grass, Hear the cool lapse of hours pass, Until the centuries blend and blur In Grantchester, in Grantchester.... Still in the dawnlit waters cool His ghostly Lordship swims his pool, And tries the strokes, essays the tricks, Long learnt on Hellespont, or Styx, Dan Chaucer hears his river still Chatter beneath a phantom mill. Tennyson notes, with studious eye, How Cambridge waters hurry by.... And in that garden, black and white, Creep whispers through the grass all night; And spectral dance, before the dawn, A hundred Vicars down the lawn; Curates, long dust, will come and go On lissom, clerical, printless toe; And oft between the boughs is seen The sly shade of a Rural Dean.... Till, at a shiver in the skies, Vanishing with Satanic cries, The prim ecclesiastic rout Leaves but a startled sleeper-out, Grey heavens, the first bird's drowsy calls, The falling house that never falls.

Ah God! to see the branches stir Across the moon at Grantchester! To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten Unforgettable, unforgotten River-smell, and hear the breeze Sobbing in the little trees. Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand, Still guardians of that holy land? The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream, The yet unacademic stream? Is dawn a secret shy and cold Anadyomene, silver-gold? And sunset still a golden sea From Haslingfield to Madingley? And after, ere the night is born, Do hares come out about the corn? Oh, is the water sweet and cool, Gentle and brown, above the pool? And laughs the immortal river still Under the mill, under the mill? Say, is there Beauty yet to find? And Certainty? and Quiet kind? Deep meadows yet, for to forget The lies, and truths, and pain? ... oh! yet Stands the Church clock at ten to three? And is there honey still for tea?

When Beauty and Beauty meet All naked, fair to fair, The earth is crying-sweet, And scattering-bright the air, Eddying, dizzying, closing round, With soft and drunken laughter; Veiling all that may befall After--after--

Where Beauty and Beauty met, Earth's still a-tremble there, And winds are scented yet, And memory-soft the air, Bosoming, folding glints of light, And shreds of shadowy laughter; Not the tears that fill the years After--after--

Your hands, my dear, adorable, Your lips of tenderness --Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well, Three years, or a bit less. It wasn't a success.

For youth goes over, the joys that fly, The tears that follow fast; And the dirtiest things we do must lie Forgotten at the last; Even Love goes past.

What's left behind I shall not find, The splendour and the pain; The splash of sun, the shouting wind, And the brave sting of rain, I may not meet again.

But the years, that take the best away, Give something in the end; And a better friend than love have they, For none to mar or mend, That have themselves to friend.

I shall desire and I shall find The best of my desires; The autumn road, the mellow wind That soothes the darkening shires. And laughter, and inn-fires.

White mist about the black hedgerows, The slumbering Midland plain, The silence where the clover grows, And the dead leaves in the lane, Certainly, these remain.

And I shall find some girl perhaps, And a better one than you, With eyes as wise, but kindlier, And lips as soft, but true. And I daresay she will do.

Love is a breach in the walls, a broken gate, Where that comes in that shall not go again; Love sells the proud heart's citadel to Fate. They have known shame, who love unloved. Even then When two mouths, thirsty each for each, find slaking, And agony's forgot, and hushed the crying Of credulous hearts, in heaven--such are but taking Their own poor dreams within their arms, and lying Each in his lonely night, each with a ghost. Some share that night. But they know, love grows colder, Grows false and dull, that was sweet lies at most. Astonishment is no more in hand or shoulder, But darkens, and dies out from kiss to kiss. All this is love; and all love is but this.

Now that we've done our best and worst, and parted, I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend. I'll think of Love in books, Love without end; Women with child, content; and old men sleeping; And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain; And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping; And the young heavens, forgetful after rain; And evening hush, broken by homing wings; And Song's nobility, and Wisdom holy, That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things, Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly, One after one, like tasting a sweet food. I have need to busy my heart with quietude.

I have peace to weigh your worth, now all is over, But if to praise or blame you, cannot say. For, who decries the loved, decries the lover; Yet what man lauds the thing he's thrown away?

Be you, in truth, this dull, slight, cloudy naught, The more fool I, so great a fool to adore; But if you're that high goddess once I thought, The more your godhead is, I lose the more.

Dear fool, pity the fool who thought you clever! Dear wisdom, do not mock the fool that missed you! Most fair,--the blind has lost your face for ever! Most foul,--how could I see you while I kissed you?

So ... the poor love of fools and blind I've proved you, For, foul or lovely, 'twas a fool that loved you.

In the grey tumult of these after years Oft silence falls; the incessant wranglers part; And less-than-echoes of remembered tears Hush all the loud confusion of the heart; And a shade, through the toss'd ranks of mirth and crying, Hungers, and pains, and each dull passionate mood,-- Quite lost, and all but all forgot, undying, Comes back the ecstasy of your quietude.

So a poor ghost, beside his misty streams, Is haunted by strange doubts, evasive dreams, Hints of a pre-Lethean life, of men, Stars, rocks, and flesh, things unintelligible, And light on waving grass, he knows not when, And feet that ran, but where, he cannot tell.

THE PACIFIC, 1914

Today I have been happy. All the day I held the memory of you, and wove Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray, And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love, And sent you following the white waves of sea, And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth, Stray buds from that old dust of misery, Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth.

So lightly I played with those dark memories, Just as a child, beneath the summer skies, Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone, For which towns were fire of old, And love has been betrayed, and murder done, And great kings turned to a little bitter mould.

Not with vain tears, when we're beyond the sun, We'll beat on the substantial doors, nor tread Those dusty high-roads of the aimless dead Plaintive for Earth; but rather turn and run Down some close-covered by-way of the air, Some low sweet alley between wind and wind, Stoop under faint gleams, thread the shadows, find Some whispering ghost-forgotten nook, and there

Spend in pure converse our eternal day; Think each in each, immediately wise; Learn all we lacked before; hear, know, and say What this tumultuous body now denies; And feel, who have laid our groping hands away; And see, no longer blinded by our eyes.

Down the blue night the unending columns press In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow, Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow Up to the white moon's hidden loveliness. Some pause in their grave wandering comradeless, And turn with profound gesture vague and slow, As who would pray good for the world, but know Their benediction empty as they bless.

They say that the Dead die not, but remain Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth. I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these, In wise majestic melancholy train, And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas, And men, coming and going on the earth.

Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile; Each kiss lasts but the kissing; and grief goes over; Love has no habitation but the heart. Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile, Cling, and are borne into the night apart. The laugh dies with the lips, "Love" with the lover.

SOUTH KENSINGTON--MAKAWELI, 1913

Fish Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear, Each secret fishy hope or fear. Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond? This life cannot be All, they swear, For how unpleasant, if it were! One may not doubt that, somehow, good Shall come of Water and of Mud; And, sure, the reverent eye must see A Purpose in Liquidity. We darkly know, by Faith we cry, The future is not Wholly Dry. Mud unto Mud!--Death eddies near-- Not here the appointed End, not here! But somewhere, beyond Space and Time, Is wetter water, slimier slime! And there there swimmeth One Who swam ere rivers were begun, Immense, of fishy form and mind, Squamous, omnipotent, and kind; And under that Almighty Fin, The littlest fish may enter in. Oh! never fly conceals a hook, Fish say, in the Eternal Brook, But more than mundane weeds are there, And mud, celestially fair; Fat caterpillars drift around, And Paradisal grubs are found; Unfading moths, immortal flies, And the worm that never dies. And in that Heaven of all their wish, There shall be no more land, say fish.

Mamua, when our laughter ends, And hearts and bodies, brown as white, Are dust about the doors of friends, Or scent a-blowing down the night, Then, oh! then, the wise agree, Comes our immortality. Mamua, there waits a land Hard for us to understand. Out of time, beyond the sun, All are one in Paradise, You and Pupure are one, And Ta?, and the ungainly wise. There the Eternals are, and there The Good, the Lovely, and the True, And Types, whose earthly copies were The foolish broken things we knew; There is the Face, whose ghosts we are; The real, the never-setting Star; And the Flower, of which we love Faint and fading shadows here; Never a tear, but only Grief; Dance, but not the limbs that move; Songs in Song shall disappear; Instead of lovers, Love shall be; For hearts, Immutability; And there, on the Ideal Reef, Thunders the Everlasting Sea!

PAPEETE, February 1914

In your arms was still delight, Quiet as a street at night; And thoughts of you, I do remember, Were green leaves in a darkened chamber, Were dark clouds in a moonless sky. Love, in you, went passing by, Penetrative, remote, and rare, Like a bird in the wide air, And, as the bird, it left no trace In the heaven of your face. In your stupidity I found The sweet hush after a sweet sound. All about you was the light That dims the greying end of night; Desire was the unrisen sun, Joy the day not yet begun, With tree whispering to tree, Without wind, quietly. Wisdom slept within your hair, And Long-Suffering was there, And, in the flowing of your dress, Undiscerning Tenderness. And when you thought, it seemed to me, Infinitely, and like a sea, About the slight world you had known Your vast unconsciousness was thrown.

O haven without wave or tide! Silence, in which all songs have died! Holy book, where hearts are still! And home at length under the hill! O mother quiet, breasts of peace, Where love itself would faint and cease! O infinite deep I never knew, I would come back, come back to you, Find you, as a pool unstirred, Kneel down by you, and never a word, Lay my head, and nothing said, In your hands, ungarlanded; And a long watch you would keep; And I should sleep, and I should sleep!

These I have loved: White plates and cups, clean-gleaming, Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust; Wet roofs, beneath the lamplight; the strong crust Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food; Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood; And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers; And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours, Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon; Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen Unpassioned beauty of a great machine; The benison of hot water; furs to touch; The good smell of old clothes; and other such, The comfortable smell of friendly fingers, Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers About dead leaves and last year's ferns....

MATAIEA, 1914

When colour goes home into the eyes, And lights that shine are shut again With dancing girls and sweet birds' cries Behind the gateways of the brain; And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close The rainbow and the rose:--

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