Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Verses and Sonnets by Belloc Hilaire
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page
Ebook has 156 lines and 8796 words, and 4 pages
In woods so long time bare. Cuckoo! Two notes fall. Yet I do not envy him at all His phantasy. Cuckoo! I too, Somewhere, I have sang as merrily as he Who can dare, Small and careless lover, so to laugh at care, And who Can call Cuckoo! In woods of winter weary, In scented woods, of winter weary, call Cuckoo! In woods so long time bare.
SONNETS.
THE HARBOUR.
I was like one who grips the deck by night, Bearing the tiller up against his breast; I was like one who makes with all his might For keeping course although so hardly prest; Who veers with veering shock, now east, now west, And strains his foothold still, and still makes play, Of bending beams until the sacred light Shows him high lands and heralds up the day.
But now such busy work of battle past, I am like one whose barque at bar at last Comes hardly heeling down the adventurous breeze, And entering calmer seas, I am like one that brings his merchandise To Californian skies.
HER YOUTH.
Look, this youth in us is an old man taking A boy to make him wiser than his days. So is our old youth our young ages making, So rich in time his final debt he pays. So with your quite young arms do you me hold, And I will still be young when all the world's grown old.
LOVE AND HONOUR.
Love wooing Honour, Honour's love did win, And had his pleasure all a summer's day. Not understanding how the dooms begin, Love wooing Honour, wooed her life away. Then wandered he for full five years' unrest, Until, one night, this Honour that had died Came as he woke, in youth grown glorified, And smiling like the saints whom God has blest.
But when he saw her in the dear night shine Serene, with more than mortal light upon her, The boy that careless was of things divine, Small Love, turned penitent to worship Honour. So Love can conquer Honour; when that's past, Dead Honour risen outdoes Love at last.
HER MUSIC.
Oh! do not play me music any more, Lest in us mortal, some not mortal spell Should stir strange hopes, and leave a tale to tell Of two belov?d whom holy music bore, Through whispering night and doubt's uncertain seas, To drift at length along a dawnless shore, The last sad goal of human harmonies. Look! do not play me music any more.
You are my music and my mistress both, Why, then, let music play the master here? Make silent melody, Melodie. I am loath To find that music, large in my soul's ear, Should stop my fancy, hold my heart in prize, And make me dreamer more than dreams are wise.
HER FAITH.
Because my faltering feet will fail to dare The downward of the endless steps of Hell, Give me the word in time that triumphs there.
I too must go into the dreadful hollow, Where all our human laughter stops--and hark! The tiny stuffless voices of the dark Have called me, called me till I needs must follow.
Give me the word, and I'll attempt it well.
Say it's the little winking of an eye, Which in that issue is uncurtained quite. A little sleep that helps a moment by Between the thin dawn and the large daylight. Oh! tell me more than yet was hoped of men, Swear that's true now, and I'll believe it then.
HER GIFT IN A GARDEN.
Not for the luckless buds our roots may bear, Now quite in bloom, now seared and cankered lying, Will I entreat you, lest they should compare My sad mortality with the fall of flowers; But hold with me your chaste communion rare, And touch with life this mortal case of ours. For you were born beyond the power of dying: I die as bounded things die everywhere.
You're full companionship, I'm silence lonely; You're stuff, I'm void; you're living, I'm decay. I fall, I think, to twilight ending only, You lift, I know, to never-ending day. And knowing living gift was life for me, In narrow room of rhyme, I fixed it certainly.
THE CHECK.
Shall any man for whose dear love another Has thrown away his wealth and name in one, Shall he turn scoffer of a more than brother, To mock his needs when his desires are done? Or shall a low-born boy whose mother won him In great men great concerns his little place, Turn, when his farthing honours come upon him, To note her yeoman air and conscious grace?
Then mock me as you do my narrow scope, For you it was put out this light of mine, Traitrously wrecked my new adventured hope, Wasted my wordy wealth, spilt my rich wine, Made my square ship within a league of shore, Alas! to be entombed in seas and seen no more.
THE POOR OF LONDON.
Almighty God, whose Justice, like a sun Shall coruscate along the floors of heaven: Raising what's low, perfecting what's undone, Breaking the proud, and making odd things even. The Poor of Jesus Christ along the street In your rain sodden, in your snows unshod, They have nor hearth, nor roof, nor daily meat, Nor even the bread of men; Almighty God.
The Poor of Jesus Christ whom no man hears Have called upon your vengeance much too long. Wipe out not tears but blood: our eyes bleed tears: Come, smite our damn?d sophistries so strong, That thy rude hammer battering this rude wrong Ring down the abyss of twice ten thousand years.
GROTESQUES.
NO?L.
On a winter's night long time ago , When high howled wind, and down fell snow . Saint Joseph he and Nostre Dame, Riding on an ass, full weary came From Nazareth into Bethlehem. And the small child Jesus smile on you.
And Bethlehem inn they stood before , The landlord bade them begone from his door . "Poor folk" "must lie where they may, For the Duke of Jewry comes this way, With all his train on a Christmas Day." And the small child Jesus smile on you.
Poor folk that may my carol hear , See! God's one Child had hardest cheer! . Men grown hard on a Christmas morn; The dumb beast by and a babe forlorn. It was very, very cold when our Lord was born. And the small child Jesus smile on you.
Now these were Jews as Jews must be , But Christian men in a band are we . Empty we go and ill bedight, Singing No?l on a winter's night; Give us to sup by the warm firelight. And the small child Jesus smile on you.
THE EARLY MORNING.
The Moon on the one hand, the Dawn on the other; The Moon is my sister, the Dawn is my brother. The Moon on my left, and the Dawn on my right; My Brother, good morning; my Sister, good night.
AUVERGNAT.
There was a man was half a clown , He saw the church in Clermont Town, And laughed to hear the bells of it.
He laughed to hear the bells that ring In Clermont Church and round of it; He heard the verger's daughter sing, And loved her for the sound of it.
The verger's daughter said him nay ; He left the town at break of day .
The road went up, the road went down, And there the matter ended it; He broke his heart in Clermont Town, At Pontgibaud they mended it.
THE WORLD'S END.
The clouds are high and the skies are wide . I hear the wind upon a hillside .
Over the hills and over the sea . The woman alone is a-calling me .
Beyond the rim of the rising moon . He's back too late who starts too soon .
He's wise, and he laughs who loves to roam ; He's wise and he cries the when he comes home .
Woman alone, and all alone . I'll just be sitting at home, my own, The world's a weary way.
FILLE-LA-HAINE.
THE MOON'S FUNERAL.
The Moon is dead. I saw her die. She in a drifting cloud was drest, She lay along the uncertain west, A dream to see. And very low she spake to me: "I go where none may understand, I fade into the nameless land, And there must lie perpetually." And therefore I, And therefore loudly, loudly I And high And very piteously make cry: "The Moon is dead. I saw her die." And will she never rise again? The Holy Moon? Oh, never more! Perhaps along the inhuman shore Where pale ghosts are Beyond the far lethean fen She and some wide infernal star-- To us who loved her never more, The Moon will never rise again. Oh! never more in nightly sky Her eye so high shall peep and pry To see the great world rolling by. For why? The Moon is dead. I saw her die.
THE JUSTICE OF THE PEACE.
Distinguish carefully between these two, This thing is yours, that other thing is mine. You have a shirt, a brimless hat, a shoe And half a coat. I am the Lord benign Of fifty hundred acres of fat land To which I have a right. You understand?
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page