October and Other Poems with Occasional Verses on the War

October and Other Poems with Occasional Verses on the War
Robert Bridges

Robert Bridges

October and Other Poems / with Occasional Verses on the War

PREFACE

This miscellaneous volume is composed of three sections. The first twelve poems were written in 1913, and printed privately by Mr. Hornby in 1914.

The last of these poems proved to be a “war poem,” and on that follow eighteen pieces which were called forth on occasion during the War, the last being a broadsheet on the surrender of the German ships. All of these verses appeared in some journal or serial. There were a few others, but they are not included in this collection, either because they are lost, or because they show decidedly inferior claims to salvage.

The last six poems or sonnets are of various dates.

    R. B.

OCTOBER

April adance in play
met with his lover May
where she came garlanded.
The blossoming boughs o’erhead
were thrill’d to bursting by
the dazzle from the sky
and the wild music there
that shook the odorous air.

Each moment some new birth
hasten’d to deck the earth
in the gay sunbeams.
Between their kisses dreams:
And dream and kiss were rife
with laughter of mortal life.

But this late day of golden fall
is still as a picture upon a wall
or a poem in a book lying open unread.
Or whatever else is shrined
when the Virgin hath vanishèd:
Footsteps of eternal Mind
on the path of the dead.

THE FLOWERING TREE

What Fairy fann’d my dreams
while I slept in the sun?
As if a flowering tree
were standing over me:
Its young stem strong and lithe
went branching overhead
And willowy sprays around
fell tasseling to the ground
All with wild blossom gay
as is the cherry in May
When her fresh flaunt of leaf
gives crowns of golden green.

The sunlight was enmesh’d
in the shifting splendour
And I saw through on high
to soft lakes of blue sky:
Ne’er was mortal slumber
so lapt in luxury.

Rather—Endymion—
would I sleep in the sun
Neath the trees divinely
with day’s azure above
When my love of Beauty
is met by beauty’s love.

So I slept enchanted
under my loving tree
Till from his late resting
the sweet songster of night
Rousing awaken’d me:
Then! this—the birdis note—
Was the voice of thy throat
which thou gav’st me to kiss.

NOEL: CHRISTMAS EVE, 1913

Pax hominibus bonæ voluntatis

A frosty Christmas Eve
when the stars were shining
Fared I forth alone
where westward falls the hill,
And from many a village
in the water’d valley
Distant music reach’d me
peals of bells aringing:
The constellated sounds
ran sprinkling on earth’s floor
As the dark vault above
with stars was spangled o’er.

Then sped my thought to keep
that first Christmas of all