 | A Second Series of Fleet Street Eclogues |  |
77
ST GEORGE'S DAY
Basil Menzies Percy Brian Herbert Sandy
HerbertI hear the lark and linnet sing;
I hear the whitethroat's alto ring.
Menzies
I hear the idle workman sigh;
I hear his hungry children cry.
Sandy
Still sad and brooding over ill:
Why listen to discordant tones?
78
We dream, we sing, we drive the quill
To keep the flesh upon our bones.
Therefore what trade have we with wrongs,
With ways and woes that spoil our songs?
Menzies
None, none! Alas, there lies the sting!
We see, we feel, but cannot aid;
We hide our foolish heads and sing:
We live, we die; and all is said.
Herbert
To wonder-worlds of old romance
Our aching thoughts for solace run.
Brian
And some have stolen fire from France.
79
And some adore the Midnight sun.
Menzies
I, too, for light the world explore,
And trembling, tread where angels trod;
Devout at every shrine adore,
And follow after each new god.
But by the altar everywhere
I find the money-changer's stall;
And littering every temple-stair
The sick and sore like maggots crawl.
Basil
Your talk is vain; your voice is hoarse.
Menzies
I would they were as hoarse and vain
80
Of helpless woe, of wrath insane.
Herbert
Why will you hug the coast of Hell?
Brian
Why antedate the Judgment Day?
Menzies
Nay, flout me not; you know me well.
Basil
Right, comrade! Give your fancy way.
Menzies
I cannot see the stars and flowers,
Nor hear the lark's soprano ring,
Because a ruddy darkness lowers
81
I see the strong coerce the weak,
And labour overwrought rebel;
I hear the useless treadmill creak,
The prisoner, cursing in his cell;
I see the loafer-burnished wall;
I hear the rotting match-girl whine;
I see the unslept switchman fall;
I hear the explosion in the mine;
I see along the heedless street
The sandwichmen trudge through the mire;
I hear the tired quick tripping feet
Of sad, gay girls who ply for hire.
Basil
To brood on feeble woe at length
Must drive the sanest thinker mad;
Consider rather weal and strength.
82
On what foundations do they stand?
I mark the sable ironclad
In every sea; in every land,
An army, idling on the chain
Of rusty peace that chafes and frets
Its seven-leagued limbs, and bristled mane
Of glittering bayonets;
The glowing blast, the fire-shot smoke
Where guns are forged and armour-plate;
The mammoth hammer's pounding stroke;
The din of our dread iron date.
And always divers undertones
Within the roaring tempest throb—
The chink of gold, the labourer's groans,
The infant's wail, the woman's sob.
Hoarsely they beg of Fate to give
83
A little time to love, to live,
A little time to think and know.
I see where from the slums may rise
Some unexpected dreadful dawn—
The gleam of steeled and scowling eyes,
A flash of women's faces wan!
Basil
This is St George's Day.
Menzies
St George? A wretched thief I vow.
Herbert
Nay, Menzies, you should rather say,
St George for Merry England, now!
84
That surely is a phantom cry,
Hollow and vain for many years.
Menzies
I hear the idle workmen sigh;
I hear the drip of women's tears.
Herbert
I hear the lofty lark,
The lowly nightingale
Basil
The Present is a dungeon dark
Of social problems. Break the gaol!
Get out into the splendid Past
Or bid the splendid Future hail.
85
Nor then, nor now, nor first, nor last,
I know. The slave of ruthless Law,
To me Time seems a dungeon vast
Where Life lies rotting in the straw.
Basil
I care not for your images
Of Life and Law. I want to sing
Of England and of Englishmen
Who made our country what it is.
Herbert
And I to praise the English Spring.
Percy
St George for Merry England, then!
Menzies
There is no England now, I fear.
86
No England, say you, and since when?
Menzies
Cockney and Celt and Scot are here,
And Democrats and ‘ans’ and ‘ists’
In clubs and cliques and divers lists;
But now we have no Englishmen.
Basil
You utter what you never felt,
I know. By bog and mount and fen,
No Saxon, Norman, Scot, or Celt
I find, but only Englishmen.
Herbert
In all our hedges roses bud.
87
And thought and speech are more than blood.
Herbert
Away with spleen, and let us sing
The praises of the English Spring!
Basil
In weeds of gold and purple hues
Glad April bursts with piping news
Of swifts and swallows come again,
And of the tender pensive strain
The bulfinch sings from bush to bush.
Percy
And oh! the blackbird and the thrush
Interpret as no master may
The meaning of the night and day.
88
They catch the whispers of the breeze
And weave them into melodies.
Brian
They utter for the hours that pass
The purpose of their moments bright.
Basil
They speak the passion of the grass,
That grows so stoutly day and night.
Herbert
St George for merry England then!
For we are all good Englishmen!
Percy
We stand as our forefathers stood
For Liberty's and Conscience' sake.
89
We are the sons of Robin Hood,
The sons of Hereward the Wake.
Percy
The sons of yeomen, English-fed,
Ready to feast or drink or fight.
Herbert
The sons of kings—of Hal and Ned,
Who kept their island right and tight.
Percy
The sons of Cromwell's Ironsides,
Who knew no king but God above.
Basil
We are the sons of English brides,
Who married Englishmen for love.
90
Oh, now I see Fate's means and ends!
The Bruce and Wallace wight I ken,
Who saved old Scotland from its friends,
Were mighty northern Englishmen.
Brian
And Parnell, who so greatly fought
Against a wanton useless yoke,
With Fate inevitably wrought
That Irish should be English folk.
Basil
By bogland, highland, down, and fen,
All Englishmen, all Englishmen!
Menzies
There is no England now, I say—
91
No England now! My grief, my grief!
Menzies
We lie widespread, the dragon-prey
Of any Cappadocian thief.
In Arctic and Pacific seas
We lounge and loaf: and either pole
We reach with sprawling colonies—
Unwieldy limbs that lack a soul.
Basil
St George for Greater England, then!
The Boreal and the Austral men!
They reverence the heroic roll
Of Englishmen who sang and fought:
They have a soul, a mighty soul,
The soul of English speech and thought.
92
And when the soul of England slept—
Basil
St George for foolish England, then!—
Sandy
Lo! Washington and Lincoln kept
America for Englishmen!
Basil
Hurrah! The English people reigns
Across the wide Atlantic flood!
It could not bind itself in chains!
For Yankee blood is English blood.
Herbert
And here the spring is queen
In robes of white and green.
93
In chestnut sconces opening wide
Tapers shall burn some fresh May morn.
Brian
And the elder brightens the highway side,
And the briony binds the thorn.
Sandy
White is the snow of the leafless sloe
The saxifrage by the sedge,
And white the lady-smocks a-row
And sauce-alone in the hedge.
Basil
England is in her Spring;
She only begins to be.
Oh! for an organ voice to sing
The summer I can see!
94
And a bat may understand,
That we are the people wherever we go—
Kings by sea and land!
Herbert
And the spring is crowned and stoled
In purple and in gold.
Percy
Wherever light, wherever shade is,
Gold and purple may be seen.
Brian
Gold and purple lords-and-ladies
Tread a measure on the green.
Herbert
In deserts where the wild wind blows
Blossoms the magic hæmony.
95
Deep in the Chiltern woodland glows
The purple pasque anemone.
Basil
And England still grows great
And never shall grow old;
Within our hands we hold
The world's fate.
Menzies
We hold the world's fate?
The cry seems out of date.
Basil
Not while a single Englishman
Can work with English brains and bones!
96
The swamps of ice, the wastes of flame!
In Boreal and Austral zones
Took life and meaning when we came.
The Sphinx that watches by the Nile
Has seen great empires pass away:
The mightiest lasted but a while;
Yet ours shall not decay.
Because, although red blood may flow,
And ocean shake with shot,
Not England's sword but England's Word
Undoes the Gordian Knot.
Bold tongue, stout heart, strong hand, brave brow
The world's four quarters win;
And patiently with axe and plough
We bring the deserts in.
97
Whence comes this patriotic craze?
Spare us at least the hackneyed brag
About the famous English flag.
Basil
I'll spare no flourish of its praise.
Where'er our flag floats in the wind
Order and justice dawn and shine.
The dusky myriads of Ind,
The swarthy tribes far south the line,
And all who fight with lawless law,
And all with lawless men who cope
Look hitherward across the brine,
For we are the world's forlorn hope.
98
That makes my heart leap up! Hurrah!
We are the world's forlorn hope!
Herbert
And with the merry birds we sing
The praises of the English Spring.
Percy
Iris and orchis now unfold.
Brian
The drooping-leaved laburnums ope
In thunder-showers of greenish gold.
Menzies
And we are the world's forlorn hope!
99
The lilacs shake their dancing plumes
Of lavender, mauve, and heliotrope.
Herbert
The speedwell on the highway blooms.
Menzies
And we are the world's forlorn hope!
Sandy
Skeletons lurk in every street.
Herbert
We push and strike for air and scope.
100
The pulses of rebellion beat
Where want and hunger sulk and mope.
Menzies
But though we wander far astray,
And oft in gloomy darkness grope,
Fearless we face the blackest day,
For we are the world's forlorn hope.
Sandy
St George for Merry England then!
For we are all good Englishmen!
Basil
St George for Greater England then!
The Boreal and the Austral men!
101
By bogland, highland, down, and fen,
All Englishmen, all Englishmen!
Who with their latest breath shall sing
Of England and the English Spring!
| A Second Series of Fleet Street Eclogues | |