Poetical Works of Robert Bridges excluding the eight dramas

In memory of the War-work done in the Provost's Lodgings at Worcester College, Oxford, during the last two years of the War under the presidency of Mrs. Daniel, her fellow-workers beg to offer her with their homage this copy of William Blake's Lyrical Poems as a token of their gratitude for the very pleasant conditions which she provided for their meeting and to record their appreciation of her perpetual kindness and courtesy and cheerful hospitality throughout that sad time, and hereto they sign their names.

And I am asked for mere variety
To join my name with this society;
For tho' I wasn't rightly in't
I too hav pasted at a splint
And after wash'd my hands beslubber'd
Half-way downstairs i' the' housemaid's cupboard,
And follow'd others of the meinie
To sit around the steaming cheney,
Chatting with apostolic souls
Noel or Hack or Stuckey Coles,
The soft aroma and effulgence
Of afternones merged in th'indulgence

556

Of a spiritual kindly hostess
(which is what butter on hot toast is),
In friendship that began maybe
In eighteen eighty two or three,
When Daniel printed my promethevs
—a thing that others judged beneath use—,
He living then in Worcester House
Along with many a rat and mouse,
Which multiplying as their manner is
Had overswarm'd the neighb'ring granaries.

On winter eves when Bodley's bell
Drove every reader from his cell,
Betwixt my book and railway-station
Time found with place accommodation
There, by his study fire where he
Mid bursary bills was wont to be;
And other friends would end their walk,
Ere they went home, with tea and talk,
Which, if 'twas bookish, Toby Watson
Had he stol'n in could put the dots on,
Half-buried in an easy chair,
With gentle murmur and modest air
Fetching out learning with demurrage
As fearful to disturb his storage.

Or if 'twas summer and tea was laid
By wicker seats beneath the shade,
I must pass where in the garden entry
A monstruous effigy stood sentry,
One of those column-heads which Wren
Contracted for at two-pound-ten
To top the wall he built between
Theatre and road his work to screen,
Figuring those metaphysic sages
Whose lucubrations cross the ages;

557

For tho' they mistook heat-condition
Of matter for its composition
(in which not one of all the lot'll
seem more at sea than Aristotle),
We've now-a-days no boss so swagger as
Empedocles or Anaxagoras;
While th'intuitions of Democritus
Transcend whatever Hume or Locke writ us.

But jealous Time, who was unwilling
To suffer those poor fifty-shilling
Presentments of the brows of Hellas,
Snubb'd them as readily and as well as
His frost and rain make scald and sorry
Th'ashlar of our suburban quarry.

So 'twas in my day that the thirteen
Left all who look'd on them uncertain
Whether the comical old fossils
Were sages Kaisers or Apostles,
Or studied types of such impostors
As any seat of learning fosters;
Prehaps, said some malicious guessers,
Old Heads of Houses or Professors
In days when scholars all were topers,
After Charles sack'd the interlopers,
And every don and dean was able
To drink a Dutchman neath the table.

Faced with this scandal the Curators
Would to their trust hav been but traitors,
Had they allow'd the wrecks to worsen;
Nor 'mong them was a single person,
Master of Arts or scarlet D.D.
So void of scruple and unheedy

558

As not to deem it an iniquity
That genuine objects of antiquity,
Howe'er incongruous or rumbustuous,
Should thro' neglect be wholly lost to us:
Wherefor in '68 the Board
Decreed the heads should be restored
Before the most decay'd and choppiest
Should quite defy a faithful copyist.

Lo! then, whate'er the first designer
Had dream'd of earthlier or diviner,
His little effort quite went under
And we possess'd the world's tenth wonder.
Thank heaven I saw them at their smartest
As they were turn'd out by the artist,
And recognised that there were things
Unknown to prophets and to kings,
Whether or no they had desired them,
However much their faith inspired them.
Daring incompetence had master'd
Th'impossible and gotten a bastard,
Which tower'd in strength without relation
To human thought or God's creation,
And made what still in travellers' eyes is
One of old England's great surprises.

But Time again, who all things stomachs,
Soon brought them to their pristine flummux;
And that especial mullion-scullion,
Second in rank from th'old Ashmolean
(whose prototype at trifling expense
Daniel secured for three and sixpence)
And, 'mong the intellectual progeny,'s
Intended doubtless for Diogenes,
Is moulder'd down until his noddle
Well represents its quondam model:
Indeed the stone may hav been weaker
Of which they fashioned the replica,

559

(so Madan says with perfect fitness)
For all the set—as I can witness,
Oft as I visit Henry Bradley
To suck his brains, who suffers gladly,
Stuffing the words into their pigeonholes—
Are rotted worse than the originals.

This of the bust in Daniel's garden:
Tho' stone will soften ink may harden
To save a memory else abolish'd
Of Worcester House long since demolish'd,
When the townfolk to disentangle
The traffic, rounded off the angle
By which the carts and cabs must always
Crowd from north-Oxford to the railways.

Long live the bust, a festering relic
Of days perhaps not quite angelic,
Those changeful days that pass'd between,
say, Verdant Green and T. H. Green,
With th'eighteenth century still fruiting,
The nineteenth rooting and uprooting:
But since all things the while they germinate
Are undefined and indeterminate,
I'll not set up to be historian
Of th'era now yclept Victorian,
Full tho' it was of strength and colour
Nor emptier of delite nor duller
Than days which with their customs ántique
Seen from afar look more romantic.

Not then to theorise or speculate,—
When '63 saw me matriculate
There still wer fights 'twixt Town and Gown,
Nor Bouncer's type was yet liv'd down.
I knew one fellow, a handsome scout
Of Corpus, had an eye put out
Following as Bull-dog with the Proctor;
And 'twas an earl who paid his doctor.

560

If Tommy Case then bought a new cur,
He dealt perforce with Filthy Luker:
But if men hunted or drove tandem
The Proctor did not reprimand 'em.
At crowded wines ‘with songs and clatter
Freshmen wer taught their brains to scatter,
Yet still within the college compass
Monkish seclusion lurk'd in rumpus;
A pore scoler might sport his oak
Nor fear to hav his windows broke,
Nor was there any intrusion feminine,
The porter let not dogs or women in:
But now—even tho' no college ball's on—
Girls are about, and if one calls on
A nephew, ten to one the blade is
Giving a teaparty to ladies,
His room with cigarette-smoke stuffy;
Wherat he spends, on tea and coffee
And butter'd buns, so sober-minded,
As much as we on beer and wine did.
No don survives now whom it vexes
To see this ease between the sexes,
And we'd some dons dead as those dummies
Carven on tombs to look like mummies
Waiting until the resurrection
To put their trowsers and their neck-tie on.

As for the boys, tho' our juventus
Was not perhaps all as God meant us,
Too eager in th'exploit of pastime,
Yet on our books we spent no less time,
Pronouncing Latin quite as oddly
As A. C. Clark or A. D. Godley,
And sportively intent on getting
A first in Greats against the betting:
For teachers know examination

561

To be the crown of education:
Since minds cannot like plants be trusted
To keep their rootlets well-adjusted,
They who would rear them must examine 'em
To gauge th'effect of what they cram in 'em.
True, in our gamesome gay ideal
Comfort bulk'd somewhat large and real,
Plus aequo operati in cute
Curanda, yet 'twas not so footy;
We liv'd a life of joy unchequer'd;
We lov'd and laugh'd and beat the record.

Delivering well-pitch'd balls no worse is
Than turning out neat Latin verses;
Or, if the latter trick surpasses
The former, 'tis in making asses.
Within the church, which sadly suffers
From blinkerdom of classic duffers,
To hav been a batsman does not weaken
The reverence paid to an archdeacon,
And every bishop knows it biasses
The public favour in his diocese;
While if he has only stroked the eight-oar
He curules it like a dictator.

And certain 'tis that nature ossifies
In students who too much philosophize;
No man can brood on abstract Unity
Or abstract Being with impunity;
And some I knew that haunted whilom
The schools who died in an asylum.

There was malaise in the defiance
With which the gown regarded science;
As now it wounds whom it astounds
To hear that speech is made of sounds,
Phonetical,—O word of fear
Unpleasing to a marrèd ear!

Awkwardness shyness and selfconsciousness

562

Were but the garment of pretentiousness;
'Twixt younger don and undergraduate
There's freer commerce now, and, had you it
Complete, 'twould lubricate the wheel
Which otherwise must stick or squeal.

Who'd now believe that wisdom's pith
Was wrapp'd from sight in Goldwin Smith?
Ah! if some scornful future Timon
Should know the names that I coud ryme on,
And judge those men by what they built,
Will he distinguish folly and guilt
In him who rear'd that gothic fustian
On Christ Church meadows for a bastion?
In them whose taste it was to shunt
Butterfield's box on Merton front?
Or, seeing Balliol as we know it,
Will he suppose that Master Jowett
More light and sweetness suck'd from Plato
Than a man might from a potato?
Nay! Pin each name to its memorial;
'Twas the high fellowship of Oriel,
On such a site, in such a seat;
Perpetrated King Edward Street!

The boys meanwhile clear of these shames
Added on music to their games;
And, freelier so their legs to use,
Above the knee cut short their trews,
And did not for ill-manners take it
To run upon the street half-naked.

And then the WAR . . . . . .
. . . . . . I thought not, when
I laid hand on this skittish pen
To carry me cantering across country,
The jade would show so much effront'ry,
And lurching with a vice inveterate

563

Refuse the last fence that I set her at.
She does.—And since my run is ended
I'll plead ‘least said is soonest mended’,
And shove the rest back in my storeroom:
So make the most of this culorum.

564

2
THE WIDOW

Whenever I pass that house
my heart is in prayer
for reverence of the angels
who are watching there;
where a widow reareth
the child that she bore
after her young lover
was kill'd in the war.

A bird torn by the hawk
hath pangs bodily
and a birth of wonder
in its agony:
'Tis man's Gethsemane
to know his soul riven
and feel the bleeding roots
being torn out from heaven.

God speed thee with comfort,
thou sorrowing one,
may God give thee great joy
and pride in thy son!
Thy hope's haunted ruin
is not to rebuild:
How shall the broken cup
with wine be refill'd?

Keep thou bravely for him
thought of thy morrow,
and thy beauty for grace
of thy life's sorrow,
like a wreathing rainbow
over thy way thrown,
sanctifying thy presence
while thou walkest alone.

1921.

FINIS

University of Virginia Library

Two Pieces

written after the war & not included in any of the foregoing publications

1 VERSES WRITTEN FOR MRS. DANIEL

TO EMILY DANIEL

2 THE WIDOW

1
VERSES WRITTEN FOR MRS. DANIEL

2
THE WIDOW