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Title: Poems

Date of first publication: 1910

Author: Frances Cornford (1886-1960)

Date first posted: Feb. 27, 2017

Date last updated: Feb. 27, 2017

Faded Page eBook #20170229

This eBook was produced by: Al Haines & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

POEMS

BY
FRANCES CORNFORD

HAMPSTEAD
THE PRIORY PRESS

CAMBRIDGE
BOWES & BOWES

CONTENTS

AUTUMN MORNING AT CAMBRIDGE

I ran out in the morning, when the air was clean & new,
And all the grass was glittering, & grey with autumn dew,
I ran out to the apple tree and pulled an apple down,
And all the bells were ringing in the old grey town.

Down in the town off the bridges and the grass
They are sweeping up the leaves to let the people pass,
Sweeping up the old leaves, golden-reds and browns,
Whilst the men go to lecture with the wind in their gowns.

AUTUMN EVENING

The shadows flickering, the daylight dying,
And I upon the old red sofa lying,
The great brown shadows leaping up the wall,
The sparrows twittering; and that is all.

I thought to send my soul to far-off lands,
Where fairies scamper on the windswept sands,
Or where the autumn rain comes drumming down
On huddled roofs in an enchanted town.

But O my sleepy soul, it will not roam,
It is too happy and too warm at home:
With just the shadows leaping up the wall,
The sparrows twittering; and that is all.

HARVEST

TRIOLET

They are mowing wheat
     Through the heavy days;
Through the silent heat
They are mowing wheat;
Flat fields retreat
     Into shrouding haze;
They are mowing wheat
     Through the heavy days.

DIRGE

The Devil has taken my Soul to eat,
My Soul that was bitter, & tender & sweet;
And every day and every day
He comes and sucks my Soul away.

First he smiled, and he sharpened his knife,
And he whittled away the Joy of Life;
And next he tore with his cruel tooth
All the spirit and glamour of Youth;
And last with his cold black finger ends
He crushed to death the Love of Friends.
O how shrunken and shrivelled and wan
Was my poor Soul when love was gone!

The Devil has taken my Soul to eat,
My Soul that was bitter, & tender & sweet;
And every day and every day
He comes and sucks my Soul away.

THE WOODS OF DESPAIR

Blank and bare
Are the Woods of Despair,
On the goldenest summer day;
And grim and grey
The trodden way
That leads, that leads you there.
           O often trodden,
           Slippery, sodden,
Lonely, loathèd way.

Turn and pace
From place to place,
From desolate nook to nook;
And in every brook
You stop to look,
You meet your own, own face,
         Your sickened, weary,
         Desolate, dreary,
Lonely, loathèd face.

THE MOUNTAINS IN WINTER

Unutterably far, and still, and high,
The mountains stand against the sunset sky.
O little angry heart, against your will
You must grow quiet here, and wise, and still.

E.W.D.

The sudden knowledge that you are not there,
                   That I live on alone,
Seems still too vast and desolate to bear,
                   My dear, my own.

The merciful slow years, that rend and rob,
                   But yet restore again,
Are shattered suddenly by one great throb
                   Of the old pain.

QUIET

Some day, though I am not brave,
I shall find the rest I crave
In an undeservèd grave;
Some day, quiet I shall lie
Underneath a quiet sky.

There no nerves shall throb & fray,
No dead hopes with faces grey
Haunt the endless, ugly, day;
Some day, quiet I shall lie
Underneath a quiet sky.

THE WATCH

I wakened on my hot, hard bed,
Upon the pillow lay my head;
Beneath the pillow I could hear
My little watch was ticking clear.
I thought the throbbing of it went
Like my continual discontent;
I thought it said in every tick:
I am so sick, so sick, so sick;
O Death, come quick, come quick, come quick,
Come quick, come quick, come quick, come quick.

TO R. M.

Untangling problematic Ifs,
     Sifting the false and true,
Along the visionary cliffs
     I went, and walked with you.

It seemed, my thoughts, so frail of growth,
     So tentative and stiff,
Leapt to the arms of yours, and both
     Went dancing down the cliff.

And on the cliff above the sea,
     They danced so free and high;
I knew through all the years to be
     They could not fade or die.

I looked into your eyes, to bless
     The knowledge in your eyes:
That one alone is foolishness,
     But two at once are wise.

"THE CERTAIN KNOT OF PEACE"

So, my proud soul, so you, whose shining force
     Had galloped with me to eternity,
Stand now, appealing like a tired horse:
                     Unharness me.

O passionate world! O faces of my friends!
     O half-grasped meanings, intricate and deep!—
Sudden, as with a child, the tumult ends,
                     Silenced by sleep.

THE TWO ARMIES

TO J.

I dreamt, when I had talked with you,
God re-arranged the world in two,
And marshalled it in two great lines,
Bohemians and Philistines;
     And well I knew, O well I knew,
     Which host my heart would lead me to.

All honour to the Philistines,
Whose sober gods, in solid shrines,
Are Duty and Obedience,
Self-sacrifice and Common-sense.

With tender and untortured hearts,
They go their ways and play their parts.
I honour them, so let it be;
But O, their ways are not for me.

For I must go to join that throng,
So often ruthless, stained, and wrong,
Who madly plunge and stray and strive,
But, O my God, they are alive!

Life stabs them deep with Love and Hate,
And from their longings they create;
And even their blackest, deepest wrongs
Must blossom into little songs.

PRE-EXISTENCE

I laid me down upon the shore
     And dreamed a little space;
I heard the great waves break and roar;
     The sun was on my face.

My idle hands and fingers brown
     Played with the pebbles grey;
The waves came up, the waves went down,
     Most thundering and gay.

The pebbles, they were smooth and round
     And warm upon my hands,
Like little people I had found
     Sitting among the sands.

The grains of sand so shining-small
     Soft through my fingers ran;
The sun shone down upon it all,
     And so my dream began:

How all of this had been before;
     How ages far away
I lay on some forgotten shore
     As here I lie to-day.

The waves came shining up the sands,
     As here to-day they shine;
And in my pre-pelasgian hands
     The sand was warm and fine.

I have forgotten whence I came,
     Or what my home might be,
Or by what strange and savage name
     I called that thundering sea.

I only know the sun shone down
     As still it shines to-day,
And in my fingers long and brown
     The little pebbles lay.

YOUTH

EPIGRAM

A young Apollo, golden-haired,
     Stands dreaming on the verge of strife,
Magnificently unprepared
     For the long littleness of life.

TO A LADY IN MOURNING

EPIGRAM

I liken thy attire of sober grey
Unto a quiet lake, at shut of day:
The collar round about thy neck, I take
For one white sail upon the quiet lake.

HOSPITALITY

TRIOLET

People are like wallèd towers,
     Built to face the winter skies;
Though you talk to them for hours,
People are like wallèd towers;
Dumb they are, and nothing flowers
     At their close-barred window-eyes.
People are like wallèd towers,
     Built to face the winter skies.

A SHORT PRAYER

Along the road, from day to day,
There are various curious things in the way;
And every well-conducted horse
Will shy at them all as a matter of course,
Will shy at them all (for such is the code),
And splutter about at the side of the road.

The donkey, on the other hand,
It says: I want to understand;
It points its ears, and sniffles its nose,
And thoroughly looks at the things as it goes,
Looks at them all with its candid eyes;
And we none of us like it, because it is wise.

But the gentleman's horse is a different race;
It never can look at a thing in the face;
But if once it conceives that its passage is blocked,
It says: I am shocked, I am shocked, I am shocked.
And we cry (for such conduct we truly revere):
The Lord of the animal kingdom is here.

                 Along the road of life I pray
                 But one advantage on the way
                 (I pray it with a humble heart):
                 O let me drag a coster's cart.

TO A FAT LADY SEEN FROM THE TRAIN

TRIOLET

O why do you walk, through the fields in gloves,
     Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves,
Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
When the grass is soft as the breast of doves
     And shivering-sweet to the touch?
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
     Missing so much and so much?

ON THE ROAD IN FEBRUARY

I thought she was a country squire's daughter:
Along the leafless hedges drowned in sun,
     She galloped on her pony—coat undone,
And hair flung up like golden flakes of water.

ON THE SEASHORE

AN EPIGRAM

Now, like a rising thought, the waters swell & dome;
     Then crash in thundering eloquence of wave;
And last the still shore delicately lave
In whispering curves of sweet, insinuating foam.

FEAR OF LIFE

TRIOLET

Thought shield you with her great grey wings.
     Away from hearts that wrench and tear,
Away from personal, tingling things
Thought shield you, with her great grey wings;
From dread, and tenderness that stings,
     Into the clean, impartial air.
Thought shield you, with her great grey wings,
     Away from hearts that wrench and tear.

DISLIKE OF DEATH

TRIOLET

My mother earth I shall forget
     When I am sick and like to die;
There, in a breathless chamber set,
My mother earth I shall forget,
These hedges starred with flowers wet,
     These muddy roads beneath the sky.
My mother earth I shall forget,
     When I am sick and like to die.

LONDON STREETS

VILLANELLE

O Providence, I will not praise,
Neither for fear, nor joy of gain,
Your blundering and cruel ways.

This city, where the dun fog stays,
These tired faces in the rain,
O Providence, I will not praise.

Here in the mud, and wind that slays
In the cold streets, I scan again
Your blundering and cruel ways.

And all men's miserable days,
And all the ugliness and pain,
O Providence, I will not praise.

I will not join the hymns men raise,
Like slaves who would avert, in vain,
Your blundering and cruel ways.

At least, in this distracted maze,
I love the truth and see it plain;
O Providence, I will not praise
Your blundering and cruel ways.

DAWN

So begins the day,
Solid, chill, and grey,
But my heart will wake
Happy for your sake;
Singing like a child,
No more tossed and wild,
Quiet as a flower
In this first grey hour.

So my heart will wake
Happy, for your sake.

FROM A LINCOLNSHIRE FARM

FOR F.M.C.

Through the sheltering sycamores
Blows the wild wind from the shores,
And the nations of the wheat
Bow and sway before his feet.
Where the far fields fade, and die
In the shining of the sky,
Right across the spacious plain
He is gone, and back again.
He will ruffle, as they browse,
Those old meadow-gods, the cows;
He will toss, like prancing steeds,
All the beanfields and the reeds,
Whilst the scattered clouds on high
Speed like galleons through the sky.

We alone are safe indoors,
Sheltered by the sycamores.

THE DANDELION

NURSERY RHYME

The dandelion is brave and gay,
And loves to grow beside the way;
A braver thing was never seen,
To praise the grass for growing green;
     You never saw a gayer thing,
     To sit and smile and praise the spring.

The children with their simple hearts,
The lazy men that come in carts,
The little dogs that lollop by,
They all have seen its shining eye:
     And every one of them would say,
     They never saw a thing so gay.

THE RAGWORT

NURSERY RHYME

The thistles on the sandy flats
Are courtiers with crimson hats;
The ragworts, growing up so straight,
Are emperors who stand in state,
And march about, so proud and bold,
In crowns of fairy-story gold.

The people passing home at night
Rejoice to see the shining sight;
They quite forget the sands and sea
Which are as grey as grey can be,
Nor ever heed the gulls who cry
Like peevish children in the sky.

THE POPLAR IN AUGUST

TRIOLET FOR C.M.J.

Poplar, poplar, in the heat,
         Shivering and bending,
Have you shade for dusty feet,
Poplar, poplar, in the heat?
Shade is cool and sleep is sweet,
         And roads unending.
Poplar, poplar, in the heat,
         Shivering and bending.

IN DORSET

FOR W.R.

From muddy road to muddy lane
I plodded through the falling rain;
For miles and miles was nothing there
But mist, and mud, and hedges bare.

At length approaching I espied
Two gipsy women side by side;
They turned their faces broad and bold
And brown and freshened by the cold,
And stared at me in gipsy wise
With shrewd, unfriendly, savage eyes.

No word they said, no more dared I;
And so we passed each other by—
The only living things that met
In all those miles of mist and wet.

THE SAVAGE BY THE SEA

TRIOLET

If I could hang all the foam of the sea in my hair,
If I could sing all the songs that were ever invented,
If I could kiss all the pebbles that ever there were,
If I could hang all the foam of the sea in my hair,
If I could drink all the waves as they break over there,
     Should I then be contented?
If I could hang all the foam of the sea in my hair?
     If I could sing all the songs that were ever invented?

THE CHILD STEALER

WORDS WRITTEN FOR THE TUNE OF MY LOVE'S AN ARBUTUS

A child in the city,
So solemn and wise,
With dirt on its fingers,
And dust in its eyes.

If I were a gipsy,
With long brown arms,
I would hug it, and steal it
Away from all harms.

And in the green lane
Where my gipsy-tent stands,
It should lie in my arms
And feed from my hands.

It should drink of sweet milk
And wash in the streams,
Whose voices all night
Should sound through its dreams.

It should know the wild creatures
And herbs as they grow,
The stars how they shine,
The winds how they blow,

The sun in the morning,
The grass in the rain,
And never return
To the city again.

THE
ARDEN PRESS
LETCHWORTH

W. H. SMITH & SON
FETTER LANE • LONDON • E.C.
AND LETCHWORTH

[The end of Poems by Frances Cornford]