Selected Poems of John Drinkwater-John Drinkwater

0:00Selected poems of John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Cachuck. A prayer. Lord, not for light in darkness do we pray, not that the veil be lifted from our eyes, nor that the slow ascension of our day be otherwise, not for a clearer vision of the things where of the fashioning shall make us great, not for remission of the peril and stings of time and fate, not for a fuller knowledge of the end where too we travel, bruised yet unafraid, nor that the little healing that we lend shall be repaid. Not these, O Lord, we would not break the bars thy wisdom sets about us, we shall climb unfettered to the secrets of the stars in thy good time.

1:00We do not crave the high perception swift, when to refrain where well and when fulfill, nor yet the understanding strong to sift the good from ill. Not these, O Lord, for these thou hast revealed, we know the golden season when to reap the heavy-fruited treasure of the field, the hour to sleep. Not these, we know the hemlock from the rose, the pure from stained, the noble from the base, the tranquil holy light of truth that glows on pity's face. We know the paths wherein our feet should press, across our hearts our written thy decrease, and now, O Lord, be merciful to bless with more than these. Grant us the will to fashion as we feel.

2:04Grant us the strength to labor as we know. Grant us the purpose, ribbed and edged with steel to strike the blow. Knowledge we ask not. Knowledge thou hast lent. Grant, Lord, the will, their lies are bitter need. Give us to build above the deep intent, the deed, the deed. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. I heard my love go laughing beyond the bolted door. I saw my love go riding across the windy moor, and I would give my love no word because

3:05of evil tales I heard. That fancy man go laughing, let light men ride away. Brewsed corn is not for my mill, what's paid I will not pay, and so I thought because of this gossip that poisoned class band kiss. Four hundred men went riding, and he the best of all. A jolly man for labor, a sinewy man and tall. I watched him go beyond the hill, and shaped my anger with my will. At night my love came riding across the dusky moor, and other two rode with him, who knocked my bolted door, and called me out and bad me see how quiet a man a man could be. And now the tales that stung me, and gave my pride its rule, are worth a beggar's broken

4:09shoe, or the sermon of a fool, and all I know and all I can is false or true, he was my man. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Piero, by John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org. Piero alone, and then Pieroette, and then a story to forget. Piero alone. Pieroette among the apple-bows come down and take a Piero's kiss, the moon is white up on your brows, Pieroette among the apple-bows, your lips are cold, and I would set a rose upon your lips, Pieroette, a rosy kiss, Pieroette, Pieroette.

5:11And then Pieroette. I've left my apple-bows, Piero, a shadow now is on my face, but still my lips are cold, and oh, no rose is on my lips, Piero, you laugh, and then you pass away, among the scented leaves of may, and on my face the shadows stay, and then a story to forget. The petals fall upon the grass, and I am crying in the dark, the clouds above the white moon pass, my tears are falling on the grass, Piero, Piero, I heard your vows, and left my blossomed apple-bows, and sorrows dark are on my brows. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain.

6:18The Miracle by John Drinkwater. Read for librivox.org. Come, sweetheart, listen, for I have a thing most wonderful to tell you, news of spring. All be it winter still is in the air, and the earth troubled, and the branches bear, yet down the fields today I saw her pass. The spring, her feet when shining through the grass. She touched the ragged hedgerows. I have seen her fingerprints most delicately green, and she has whispered to the crocus leaves, and to the gargolous sparrows in the eaves. Swiftly she passed unshily, and her fair young face was hidden in her cloudy hair. She would not stay, her season is not yet, but she has reawakened and has set the sap of all the world astere, and rent once more the shadows of our discontent.

7:22Triumphant news, a miracle I sing, the everlasting miracle of spring. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The crowning of dreaming John by John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org One. Seven days he traveled down the roads of England, out of leafy warwick lanes into London town. Gray and very wrinkled was dreaming John of Grafton, but seven days he walked to see a king put on his crown. Down the streets of London he asked the crowded people, where would be the crowning, and when would it begin? He said he got a shilling, a shining silver shilling, but when he came to Westminster

8:28they wouldn't let him in. Dreaming John of Grafton looked upon the people. After little laugh and then whizzled and was gone. Out along the long roads, the twisting roads of England, back into the warwick lanes, wondered dreaming John. Two. As twilight touched with her ghostly fingers all the meadows and mellow hills and the great sun swept in his robes of glory, woven of petals of daffodils, and jowled and fringed with leaves of the roses, down the plains of the western way, among the rows of the scented clover, dreaming John in his dreaming lay. Since dawn had folded the stars of heaven, he'd counted a score of miles and five, and

9:28now with a vagabond heart untroubled and proud as a properst man alive. He sat him down with a limber spirit that all men covet and few may keep, and he watched the summer draw round her beauty, the shadow that shepherds the world to sleep, and up from the valleys and shining rivers, and out of the shadowy woodways wild, and down from the secret hills and streaming, out of the shimmering undefiled, wonder of sky that arched him over, came a company shot in gold and gird in gounds of a thousand blossoms, laughing and rainbow all re-old. Wrinkled and gray and with eyes a wonder, and so be notified, dreaming John, watched the marvelous company gather, while over the clover a glory shone, they bore on their

10:29brows the hues of heaven, their limbs were sweet with flowers of the fields, and their feet were bright with the gleaming treasure that prodigal earth to her children yields. They stood before him, and John was laughing as they were laughing. He knew them all, spirits of trees and pools and meadows, mountain and windy waterfall, spirits of clouds and skies and rivers, leaves and shadows and rain and sun, a crowded jostling, laughing army, and dreaming John knew every one, among them then was a sound of singing, and chiming music as one came down the level rows of the scented clover, bearing a loft, a flushing crown, no word of a man's dessert was spoken, nor any word

11:29of a man's own worth, but there on the wrinkled brow it rested, and dreaming John was king of the earth. Three King John of Graften went away to London, saw the colored banners fly, heard the great bells ring, but though his tongue was civil, and he had a silver shelling, they wouldn't let him in to see the crowning of the king, so back along the long roads, the leafy roads of England, dreaming John went caroling, travelling alone, and in a summer evening, among the scented clover, he held before a shouting throng, a crowning of his own. One of poem, this recording is in the public domain.

12:35The Vagabond by John Drinkwater, red for librivox.org I know the pools where the grayling rise, I know the trees where the filberts fall, I know the woods where the red fox lies, the twisted elms where the brown owls call, and I've seldom a shelling to call my own, and there's never a girl I'd marry. I thank the Lord I'm a rolling stone, with never a care to carry. I talk to the stars as I come and go, on every night from July to June, I'm free of the speech of the winds that blow, and I know what weather will sing what tune, I so no seed, and I pay no rent, and I thank no man for his bounties, but I've a treasure that's never spent, I'm Lord of a dozen counties.

13:38One of poem, this recording is in the public domain. In Lady Street by John Drinkwater, red for librivox.org All day long the traffic goes in Lady Street by dingy rows of slavvon houses, tattered shops, bright fish old clothes and fortune tellers, tall trams on silver shining rails with grinding wheels and swaying tops, and lorries with their corded bales and screeching cars, by-by the sellers of rags and bones and sickening meat cry, all day long in Lady Street. And when the sunshine has its way in Lady Street, then all the grey-doll desolation grows in state more dull and grey and desolate, and the sun is a shame-fast thing.

14:44A Lord not-comely housed a god-seeing what gods must blush to see, a song where it is ill to sing, and each gold-ray despitiously lies like a gold-ironic rod. Yet one grey man in Lady Street looks for the sun, he never bent life to his will, his travelling feet have scaled no cloudy continent, nor has the sickle hand been strong. He lives in Lady Street, a bed for cobwebbed walls, but all day long a timeless singing in his head of youth in bluster lanes, he hears the wind among the barley blades, the tapping of the woodpeckers on the smooth beaches, thistle spades slicing the sinewy roots. He sees the hooded filberts in the cups, beyond the loaded orchard trees, the netted avenues

15:51of hops, he smells the honeysuckle thrown along the hedge. He lives alone, alone yet not alone, for sweet are Gloucester lanes in Lady Street. I, Gloucester lanes, for down below the cobwebbed room this grey man plies a trade, a coloured trade, a show of many coloured merchandise is in his shop, brown filberts there, and apples red with Gloucester hair, and cauliflower as he keeps, and round smooth marrows grown on Gloucester ground, fat cabbages and yellow plums and god-y brave chrysanthemums, and times a glossy fesent lies among his store. Not Tyrion dies more rich than are the neck feathers, and times a prize of violets, or

16:51doy mushrooms, certain skinned, and times an unfamiliar wind robbed of its woodland-favorsturs, may defadils this grey man sets among his treasure. All day long in Lady Street the traffic goes by dingy houses, desolate rows of shops that stare like hopeless eyes. Day long the sellers cry their cries, the fortune tellers tell no wrong of lives that no not any right, and drift that has not even the will to drift, toils through the day until the wage of sleep is one at night. But this grey man heads not at all, the hail of Lady Street. His stall of many coloured merchandise, he makes a shining paradise, as all day long chrysanthemums he sells and red and yellow plums and colour flowers.

17:56In that one spot of Lady Street the sun is not ashamed to shine and send a rare shower of colour through the air. The grey man says the sun is sweet and lost her lanes in Lady Street. And a poem, this recording is in the public domain. At Graften by John Drinkwater, read for librivox.org God laughed when he made Graften, that's under Breeden Hill, a jewel in a jeweled plain, the seasons work their will, on golden satch and crumbling stone, and every soft-lift breeze, makes music for the Graften men in comfortable trees. God's beauty overgraften, stall into roof and wall, and hallowed every pavid path and

19:04every lowly stall, and to a woven wonder, conspired with one accord. The labor of the servant, the labor of the Lord, and momently to Graften comes in from Vale and Wald, the sound of sheep unshepparded, the sound of sheep in fold, and blown along the bases of lands that set their wide. Frank Browse to God comes chanting, the breath of Bristol tied. And a poem, this recording is in the public domain. January dusk by John Drinkwater, read for librivox.org A steer and plaid in somber robes of grey, with hands up folded and with silent wings,

20:10in unimpassioned mystery, the day passes, a lonely thrush its requiem sings. The dusk of night is tangled in the boughs of leafless lime and lilac, and the pine grows blacker, and the star upon the brows of sleep is set in heaven for a sign. Birds little weary peeples fall on peace, and dream of breaking buds and blossoming, of primrose hares, of days of large increase, and all the colored retinue of spring. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The town window by John Drinkwater, read for librivox.org

21:13Beyond my window in the night is but a drab in glorious street, yet there the frost and clean starlight as over warwick woods are sweet, under the grey drift of the town the crocus works among the mold as eagerly as those that crown the warwick spring in flame and gold, and when the tramway down the hill across the cobbles, moans and rings, there is about my window sill, the tumult of a thousand wings. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain.

22:28End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain.

23:28End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain.

24:49End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain.

25:49End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Mambol by John Drinkwater, read for librivox.org. I never went to Mambol that lies above the team so I wonder who's in Mambol and whether people seem who breed and brew along there as lazy as the name, and whether any song there sets ale house with a flame. The fingerpost says Mambol, and that is all I know of the narrow road to Mambol, and should I turn and go to that place of lazy token that lies above the team. There might be a Mambol broken that was lissum in a dream. So leave the road to Mambol and take another road to as good a place as Mambol be it lazy as a toad

26:56who travels Worcester County takes any place that comes when April tosses bounty to the cherries and the plums. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Birthright by John Drinkwater, read for librivox.org. Lord Ramesses of Egypt's side because of summer evening past and little Ariadne cried that summer fancy fell at last to dust, and young Varona died when beauty's hour was overcast. There's was the bitterness we know because the clouds of horthorn keep so short as date, and kisses go to tombs unfrethemably deep, while Ramesses and Romeo and little Ariadne sleep.

28:02End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Alton Pools by John Drinkwater, read for librivox.org. 2GCG Now June walks on the waters and the cookers last enchantment passes from Alton Pools. Now dawn comes to my window, breathing midsummer roses, and sights are wet with dew. Is it not strange, forever, that bowored in this wonder? Man keeps a jealous heart, that June and the June waters and birds and dawn lit roses are gospels in the wind, fading upon the deserts, poor tailgroom revelations, hissed over Alton Pools.

29:10End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Sunrise on Rhydle Water by John Drinkwater, read for librivox.org. 2EDS Come down at dawn from windless hills into the valley of the lake, where yet a larger quiet fills the hour, and mist and water make with rocks and reeds and island boughs one silence and one element, where wonder goes surely as once it went by Galilean prowess. Moveless the water and the mist, moveless the secret air above, hushed as upon some happy trist, the poised expectancy of love, what spirit is it that adores, what mighty presence yet unseen,

30:15what consummation works a pace between these wrapped enchanted shores. Never did virgin beauty wake, devouter to the bridal feast, then moves this hour upon the lake, in adoration to the east. Here is a bride, a god may know, the primal will, the young consent, till surely upon the appointed mood intent, the god shall leap and low. Over the lakes end strikes the sun, white flameless fire, some purity, thrilling the mist, a splendor one, out of the world's heart, let there be thoughts and atonements and desires, frowed limbs and undeliberate tongue, where now we move with mortal ores among immortal do's and fires,

31:18so the old mating goes a pace, wind with the sea and blood with thought, lover with lover and the grace of understanding comes unsought when stars into the twilight's steer or throshes build among the may, or wander moves between the hills and day comes up on right-old mere. And opulm, this recording is in the public domain. Holiness, by John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org. If all the carts were painted gay and all the streetswebbed clean, and all the children came to play by hollyhocks with green, grasses to grow between, if all the houses looked as though some heart were in their stones,

32:25if all the people that we know were dressed in scarlet gowns, with feathers in their crowns, I think this gayity would make a spiritual land, I think that holiness would take this laughter by the hand till both should understand. End opulm, this recording is in the public domain. Anthony Crundle, by John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org. Here lies the body of Anthony Crundle, farmer of this parish, who died in 1849 at the age of 82. He delighted in music, RIP, and of Susan, for 53 years his wife, who died in 1860, aged 86.

33:30Anthony Crundle, of Darrington Wood, played on a piccolo. Lord was he, for 70 years, of sheaves that stood, under the perry and cider tree. Anthony Crundle, RIP, and because he prospered with sickle and sithe, with cattle of field and laboring you, Anthony was uncommonly blind and played of a knight to himself and Sue. Anthony Crundle, 82, the earth to till, and a tune to play, and Susan for 50 years and three, and Darrington Wood at the end of day, may providence do no worse by me. Anthony Crundle, RIP. And a poem, this recording is in the public domain.

34:35Him mortality, by John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org. When other beauty governs other lips, and snow drops come to strange and happy springs, when seas renewed bear yet unbuilded ships, and alien hearts know all familiar things. When frosty night spring comrades to enjoy sweet hours at hearts, where we no longer sit, when Liverpool is won with dusty Troy, and London famed Asatica for wit, how shall it be with you, and you, and you? How with us all who have gone greatly here in friendship, making some delight, some true song in the dark, some story against fear, shall song still walk with love, and life be brave,

35:39and we, who were all these, be but the grave. No, lovers yet shall tell the nightingale sometimes a song that we have old time made, and Gossips gathered at the twilight hail shall say, those two were friends, or, unafraid of bitter thought were those because they loved better than most, and sometime shall be told how one who died in his young beauty, moved as astrophel, those English hearts of old, and the new seas shall take the new ships home, telling how yet the dimmich orchard stand, and you shall walk with Julius at Rome, and Paul shall be my fellow in the strand. There in the midst of all those words shall be our names, our ghosts, our immortality.

36:43End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Petition by John Drinkwater, read for librivox.org O Lord, I pray that for each happiness my housemate brings, I may give back no less than all my fertile will, that I may take from friends but as the stream creates again, the Hawthorn Bloom, a dream above the river sill, that I may see the spurt upon the wall, and hear the nesting birds give call to call, keeping my wonder in you, that I may have a body fit to mate with the green fields and stars and streams in spate, and clean as clover dew, that I may have the courage to confute all fools with silence,

37:45when they will dispute all fools who will deride, that I may know all strict and sinny we art as that in man, which is the counterpart, Lord, of thy fiercest pride, that somehow this beloved earth may wear a later grace for all the love I bear, for some song that I sing, that when I die this word may stand for me. He had a heart to praise, an eye to see, and beauty was his king. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. May Garden by John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org A shower of green gems on my apple tree, this first morning of May,

38:50has fallen out of the night to be herald of holiday, bright gems of green that fall in there seem fixed and glowing on the air, until a flutter of blackbird wings shakes and makes the boughs alive, and the gems are now no frozen things, but apple-green buds to thrive on sep of my May Garden. How well the green September globes will tell! Also my pear tree has its buds, but they are silvery yellow, like autumn meadows when the floods are silver under willow, and here shall long and shapely pear is be gathered, while the autumn wears, and there are sixty daffodils beneath my wall, and jealousy it is that kills this world when all the springs behavior here is spent to make the world magnificent.

39:58End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Respiracy by John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org I do not think that skies and meadows are moral, or that the fixture of a star comes of a quiet spirit, or that trees have wisdom in their windless silences, yet these are things invested in my mood with constancy and peace and fortitude, that in my troubled season I can cry upon the wide composure of the sky, and envy fields, and wish that I might be as little daunted as a star or tree. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain.

40:59The hours by John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org Those hours are best when suddenly the voices of the world are still, and in that quiet place is heard the voice of one small singing bird, alone within his quiet tree, when two one field that crowns a hill, with but the sky for neighborhood. The crowding counties of my brain give all their riches, lake and plain, cornland and fell, and pillard wood, when in a hilltop acre bear, for the siege use, I am aware of all the beauty that an age of earth has taught my eyes to see. When pride and generosity, the constant heart and evil rage, affection and desire,

42:01and all the passions of experience are no more tabled in my mind, learnings idolatry, but find particularity of sense and daily fortitudes that fall from this or that companion, or in an angry gossips word, when one man speaks for every one, when music lives in one small bird, when in a far-rowed hill we see all beauty in epitome. Those hours are best for those belong to the lucidity of song. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Midlands by John Drinkwater, read for librivox.org

43:03Black in the summer night my cotswold hill, a slant my window sleeps, beneath a sky deep as the bedded violets that fill march woods with dusky passion. As I lie a bed between cool walls, I watch the host of the slow stars lit over Gloucester plain, and drowsily the habit of these most beloved of English lands moves in my brain, while silence holds dominion of the dark, safe when the foxes from the spinny's bark. I see the valleys in their morning mist, wreathed under limped hills and moving light, happy with many a yeoman melodist. I see the little roads of twinkling white, busy with field-word teams and market gear of rosy men, cloth-gatored, who can tell the many minded changes of the year,

44:07who know why crops and kind fair ill or well. I see the sun persuade the mist away, till town and stead are shining to the day. I see the wagons move along the rows of ripe and summer breathing clover flower. I see the lism husband-man who knows deep in his heart the beauty of his power, as lightly pitched the full-heaped fork bids on the harvest home. I hear the rickyard fill with gossip, as in generations gone, while wagon follows wagon from the hill. I think how, when our seasons all are sealed, shall come, the unchanging harvest from the field. I see the barons and comely manners planned by men who somehow moved in comely thought, who with a simple ship and to their hand, as men upon some god-like business wrought.

45:09I see the little cottages that keep their beauty still, where since plant-taginot have come the shepherds happily to sleep, finding the loaves and cups of cider set. I see the twisted shepherds, brown and old, driving at dusk their glimmering sheep to fold. And now the valleys that upon the sun, broke from their opal veils, or veiled again, and the last light upon the wolds is done, and silence falls on flocks and fields and men. And black upon the night I watch my hill, and the star shine, and their an alley-wing brushes the night, and all again is still. And from this land of worship that I sing, I turn to sleep, content that from my sires I draw the blood of England's midmost shires.

46:16End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Cotswold love by John Drinkwater, read for librivox.org. Blue skies are over Cotswold, and April's nose go by, the lasses turn their ribbons for April's in the sky, and April is the season when Sabbath girls are dressed, from Rodboro to Campton in all their silken best, and Uncle is a marvel when first the buds are brown, and not a lass but nose it, from stow to cluster town, and not a girl goes walking along the Cotswold lanes, but nose men's eyes in April are quicker than their brains.

47:17It's little that it matters so long as you're alive, if you're 18 in April or rising 65, when April comes to amberly, with skies of April blue, and Cotswold girls are briding, with slightly tilted shoe. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Moonlit apples by John Drinkwater, read for librivox.org. At the top of the house the apples are laid in rows, and the skylight lets the moon light in, and those apples are deep sea apples of green. There goes a cloud on the moon in the autumn night, a mouse in the Wayne Scott scratches and scratches,

48:18and then there is no sound at the top of the house of men, or mice, and the cloud is blown, and the moon again, dapples the apples with deep sea light. They are lying in rows there, under the gloomy beams, on the sagging floor, they gather the silver streams out of the moon, those moonlit apples of dreams, and quiet is the steep stair under. In the corridors under there is nothing but sleep, and stiller than ever unortured bows they keep, trist with the moon, and deep is the silence, deep on moonwashed apples of wonder. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Elizabethan by John Drinkwater,

49:21read for LibriVox.org. This is the tale of Elizabethan, who went away with her fancy man, and was a girl who hadn't a gown, as finest a lady who walked the town, all day long from 726, and was polishing candle sticks, for bishops and crappulous millionaires, who buy for their altars or bed chambers, and youth in a year and a year will pass, but there's never an end of polishing brass, all day long from 726, 70,000 candle sticks, so frail and lute Elizabethan, went away with her fancy man, you bishops and crappulous millionaires, give her your charity, give her your prayers. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain.

50:23Blackbird by John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org. He comes on chosen evenings, my blackbird bountiful, and sings over the gardens of the town, just at the hour the sun goes down, his flight across the chimney's thick, by some divine arithmetic, comes to his customary stack, and couches there his plumage black, and there he lifts his yellow bill, kindled against the sunset till, these suburbs are like dimmick woods, where music has her solitudes, and while he mocks the winter's wrong, wrapped on his pinnacle, his song figured above our garden plots, those are celestial chimney pots. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain.

51:27Mystery by John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org. Think not that mystery has place in the obscure and valed face, or when the midnight watches are, uncompanyed of moon or star, or where the fields and forests lie, enfolded from the loving eye, by fog's rebellious to the sun, or when the poet's rhymes are spun from dreams that even in his own imagining are half unknown. These are not mystery, but mere conditions that deny the clear reality, that lies behind the weak, unspeculative mind, beyond contagions of the air, and screens of beauty, everywhere, the brooding and tormented sky, the hesitation of an eye. Look rather when the landscapes glow through crystal distances,

52:31as though the forty shires of England spread, into one vision harvested, or when the moonlit waters lie in silver-cold lucidity. Those countenances search that bear witness to very character, and listen to the song that weighs a life's adventure, in a phrase. These are the founts of wonder. These the planar miracles to please the brain that reads the world a right. Here is the mystery of light. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Mrs. Willow, by John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org. Mrs. Thomas Willow, seems very glum.

53:32Her life perhaps is very lonely and humdrum, digging up potatoes, cleaning out the weeds, doing the little for a lone woman's needs. Who was her husband? How long ago? What does she wonder? What does she know? Why does she listen? Over the wall. Morning and noon time and twilight and all, as though unforgotten were some footfall. Good morning, Mrs. Willow. Good morning, sir. Is all the conversation I can get from her? And her path-stones are white, as lilies of the wood, and she washes this and that till she must be very good. She sings no letters and no one calls, and she doesn't go whispering beyond her walls. Nothing in her garden is secret, I think. That's all sun bright, with fox glove and pink, and she doesn't hover round old cupboards and shelves,

54:32as old people do who have buried themselves. She has no late lamps, and she digs all day, and polishes and plants, in a common way. But glum she is, and she listens now and then, for a footfall, a footfall, a footfall, a footfall again, and whether it's hope, or whether it's dread, or a poor old fancy, in her head, I shall never be told, it will never be said. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Dear, by John Drinkwater, read for librivox.org. Shae in their herding, dwell the fellow deer, they are spirits of wild sense, nobody near comes upon their pastures, they are a life they live

55:33of sufficient beauty, phantom, fugitive, treading as a bird, fugitive, treading as in jungles, free leopards do, frivolous as Evelight, instant as dew, the great kine are patient, and homecoming sheep, no are bidding, the fellow deer keep, delicate and far, their counsels wild, never to be folded, reconciled, to the spoiling hand, as the poor flocks are, light foot and swift, and unfamiliar, these you may not hinder, unconfined, beautiful flocks of the mind. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Passage. By John Drinkwater,

56:33read for LibriVox.org. When you deliberate the page of Alexander's pilgrimage, or say, it is three years or ten, since Easter slew, Connelly's men, or prudently to judgment come, of Antony your absolute, and think how duly are designed, case and instruction, for the mind. Remember then that also we, in a moon's course, our history. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. History. By John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org. Sometimes when walls and occupations seem apprised merely, a dark barrier between me, everywhere, and life, or the larger province of the mind,

57:34as dreams confined, as the trouble of a dream, I seek to make again, a life long gone, to be my mind's approach and consolation, to give it forms lucidity, resilient form, as porcelain pieces thrown in buried China, by a wrist unknown, or mirrored brigs upon foy sea. Then to my memory comes nothing great of purpose or debate, or perfect end, pomp nor loves rapture, nor heroic hours to spend, but most and strangely, for long and so much have I seen, comes back an afternoon of a June Sunday at Hillsfield, that is up on a green hill, and there, through a little farm-parler door, a floor of red tiles and blue, and the air, sweet with the hot June sun,

58:34cascading through the vine-leaves under the glass, and a scarlet fume of geranium flower, and soft and yellow bloom of musk, and stains of scarlet and yellow glass. Such are the things remain quietly, and forever, in the brain, and the things that they choose for history-making, pass. And a poem, this recording is in the public domain. To One I Love, by John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org. As I walked along the passage in the night beyond the stairs, in the dark, I was afraid. Suddenly, as will happen you know my dear, it will often happen. I knew the walls at my side,

59:35knew the drawings hanging there, the order of their placing, and the door where my bed lay beyond, and the window on the landing, there was even a little ray of moonlight through it. All was known, familiar, my comfortable home, and yet I was afraid. Suddenly, in the dark, like a child of nothing, of vastness, of eternity, of the queer pains of thought, such as used to trouble me when I heard when I was little, the people talk on Sundays of, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. I am thirty-six years old, and folk are friendly to me, and there are no ghosts that should have reason to haunt me, and I have tempted no magical happenings by forsaking the clear noons of thought, for the wizardries that the credulous take

1:00:37to be golden roads to revelation. I knew all was simplicity there, without conspiracy, without antagonism, and yet I was afraid. Suddenly, a child in the dark, forlorn, and there, and suddenly, I was aware of a profound, a miraculous understanding, knowledge that comes to a man, but once or twice, as a bird's note in the still depths of the night, striking upon the silence. I stood at the door, and there was mellow candlelight, and companionship, and comfort, and I knew that it was even so, that it must be even so, with death. I knew that no harm could have touched me out of my fear, because I had no grudge against anything,

1:01:37because I had desired in the darkness, when fear came, love only, and pity, and fellowship, and it would have been a thing monstrous, something defying nature, and all the simple universal fitness for any force there to have come evilly upon me, who had no evil in my heart, but only trust, and tenderness for every presence about me in the air, for the very shadow about me, being a little child, for no one's envy. And I knew that God must understand that we go to death as little children, desiring love so simply, and loves defense, and that he would be a barren God without humor, to cheat so little, so wistful, a desire, that he created, in us,

1:02:37in our childishness. And I may never again be sure of this, but there, for a moment, in the candlelight, standing at the door, I knew. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Tall Gate House, by John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org.

1:03:38End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. End of poem. End of poem.

1:05:07End of poem. End of poem.

1:06:07End of poem. End of poem.

1:07:07End of poem. End of poem.

1:08:08End of poem. End of poem. The Dying Philosopher to His Fiddler By John Drinkwater Red for LibriVox.org Come Fiddler, play one tune before I die. Philosophy is barren and I lie untouched now by the plagues of all the schools, and only silly Fiddlers are not fools. Bring then your bow, and on the strings let be, in this last hour, merely the melody

1:09:14of waves and leaves and footfalls hazardous, where crafty logic shall not keep with us. The patient fields of knowledge did I sow. I have done with knowledge, for I nothing know. The system and folly set their faces hens, and in their eyes a twin intelligence. Only your notes make quick again the keyed tree shadows cut upon the paddock's green, the pools where mirrored branches are at rest, the heron lifting to her windy nest. But these are things that no not argument. Come Fiddler, play philosophy is spent out of my thought the chiding doctor's slip, and you are now the only scholarship. End of poem.

1:10:14This recording is in the public domain. Two ships, by John Drinkwater, read for LibriVox.org. The morning shone with April, on a little silver ship at sea, with happy sails and bearing bales to Panama, from Tripoli, and fortunately bound she went without a sound. Into the night, for lornly bright there came a little ship of gold, without a name she passed in flame, with cargos never to be told, out of a port unknown, swinging to death alone. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain.

1:11:15Kansas Housekeeping, by John Drinkwater, read for LiBriVox.org. We are thrifty of joy in this our modern house, we probe the springs of joy with uneasy rods, and sh Apollo's the worm in every thrilling bud. Virtue we know will walk in seedy rags of nafory when the better humour fails, and we know the good man's shadow of desire. It was not so with Portia. She was simple, plain for clear yes or no and good or bad. Bassaniot at Belmont in the evening, walking the terrace with Antonio, was a good man with his friend and that was all. Save that his lips were young and masterful. She had no fine philosophy of sin. You lied and that was bad. You gave your word and when time came redeemed it.

1:12:16A treasure kept at another's cost was ashes in your hand. She liked her roses red, her lilies white, and counted punctual hours in guests of virtue. Sometimes she thought of a Jew and a young doctor standing before the majesty of Venice, and smiled without approval, then again to sow the aster's or feed guinea-fowl. Grasiano finding every new neuroses among her maids, she told not to be tedious, and Grasiano said she was growing dull. She liked the verse Lorenzo took to writing, and made some tunes herself upon the loot to fit a little moonlight sequence. When Lancelot gobo stole a goo-set Christmas, she did not say he was an honest fellow, but rated him and almost sent him off. He didn't brag about it to his fellows. She had two children and said two were enough, and loved them.

1:13:18She believed there was a god with an impatient ear for Casuestry. Basanio had no regrets, but some agreed with Grasiano. I do not know. In Belmont was a lady richly left. In the valley by John Drinkwater, red for liveryvox.org. Let non devout forgive my sin who have not sinned as I, the soul immaculate within has not to measure by my sorrowing husbandry. The dark, the error of my days shall be consoled by none, that have not in forbidden ways, wondered as I have done, with faces from the sun.

1:14:21Princess of virtue, keep your skill of pardon for your peers. All with the frail I travel still, along on certain years, for bear your holy tears. One hour in black gets semeny. I walked with him alone. He sees he knows he touches me. How shall it then be known? To you, oh hearts of stone! And of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Who were before me by John Drinkwater, red for liveryvox.org? Long time in some forgotten churchyard earth of Warwickshire, my fathers in their generations

1:15:22lie beyond desire, and nothing breaks the rest I know of John Drinkwater now, who left in 1670, his own tea-mat plough. And James son of John is there, a mighty ploughman too. Scilled he was at thatching, and the barley-corn brew, and he had a heart-load of sorrow in his day, but ten score of years ago he put it away. When Thomas came and played a fiddle, cut off mellow wood, and broke his heart they say for love that never came too good. A hundred winter peals and more have wrung above his bed, O poor eternal grief so long, so lightly comforted. And in the gentle yesterday these were but glimmering tombs, or tales to tell on fireside devs of legendary dooms, by being life while they were none, what had their dust to bring,

1:16:31but cold intelligence of death upon my tides of spring. Now grief is in my shadow, and it seems well enough to be there with my fathers, where neither fear nor love can touch me more, nor spite of men, nor my own teasing blame, while the slow mosses weave an end of my forgotten name. And opulm, this recording is in the public domain. In praise of love upon my mind samplers are make to be, as lovers long ago designed emblems of courtesy, threading in warm and frosty wools their wisdom's calendars and

1:17:34rules. Heers to think those hands were set all spinster like and cold, who spelt a scarlet alphabet and birds of blue and gold, and made immortal garden plots of daisies and forget me knots. The bodkins woven even pace yet these are lyrics too. Breathing of spectral lawn and lace old orders too renew, for in the corners love would keep his fold among the little sheep. So I will samplers make as well, nor shall the cutters lack in shining characters to tell your lovely zodiac, and all your kisses there and words shall spring again as flaccous flowers and birds. And opulm, this recording is in the public domain.

1:18:43The pledge by John Drinkwater, read for librivox.org. When love is bright and whole again I'll sing like the bees' weather, I'll set my cutters up again like the cock fessens feather. I'll find a note to make me warn with lyric birds that sing the sun. I'll fill my songs with pommers buds and sprigs of thorn for wit Sunday, and they shall dance as willow rods and shine with garlands of the may. I'll be a theme that takes the spring from bushes where the blackbird sing. I'll walk among my sheep again and turn my steps to numbers when love is bright and whole again and fear has gone to slumbers, with wings again and flowers and stars to be

1:19:45my cuttered calendars. And opulm, this recording is in the public domain. Nunk Dometas by John Drinkwater, read for librivox.org. I have seen the plover's wing and the gray willow bow, the sandy bubbling spring, the hawk over the plow, and now instructed so. I am content to go. Songs of the lake and wood of water and wind I have heard, and I have understood, according to thy word. What then is now to learn? Seeward o' soul, return. Though I shall walk again, nor spring nor winter field, yet surely in my brain are spring

1:20:49and winter sealed. Earth, you have shown me all. I am ready for the call. End opulm, this recording is in the public domain. Swasion by John Drinkwater, read for librivox.org. Then I asked, does a firm persuasion that a thing is so, make it so? He replied, all poets believe that it does, and in ages of imagination this firm persuasion removed mountains, but many are not capable of a firm persuasion of anything. Wakes, marriage of heaven and hell. One, at any moment, love unheralded, comes and is king. Then as, with a fall of frost, the buds upon the horthorn spread are withered in untimely

1:21:55burial. So love, occasion gone, his crown puts by, and as a beggar walks unfriended ways, with but remembered beauty to defy the frozen sorrows of unceptored days. Or in that later traveling he comes upon a bleak oblivion, and tells himself again, again, forgotten tombs are all now that love was, and blindly spells his royal state of old, a glory cursed, saying, I have forgot, and that's the worst. Two, if we should part upon that one embrace and set far courses ever, each from each, with all our treasure but a fading face and little ghostly syllables of speech, should beauty's moment never be renewed, and moons on moons look out for us in vain, and each but whisper from a solitude to hear but echoes of a lonely pain, still in a world that fortune

1:23:03cannot change, should walk those two that once were you and I. Those two that once when moon and stars were strange poets above us in an April sky, heard a voice falling on the midnight sea, mute and forever, but for you and me. Three, this nature, this great flood of life, this cheat that uses us as bubbles for her coat, takes love that should be nothing but the beat of blood for its own beauty, by the throat, saying, you are my servant and shall do my purposes, or utter bitterness shall be your wage, and nothing come to you but stammering tongues that never can confess. Undaunted then, in answer here I cry, you wanton, that control the hand of him who masquerades as wisdom in a sky where holy, holy sing the cherubim, I will not pay one penny to your

1:24:10name, though all my body crumble into shame. Four, woman I once had whimpered at your hand, saying that all the wisdom that I sought lay in your brain, that you were as the sand should cleanse the muddy mirrors of my thought. I should have read in you the character of oracles that quick a thousand lays, looked in your eyes and seen accounted their Solomon's legion for bewildered praise. Now have I learned love as love is? I take your hand and with no inquisition learn all that your eyes can tell, and that's to make a little reckoning and brief, then turn away, and in my heart I hear a call. I love, I love, I love, and that is all.

1:25:13Five, when all the hungry pain of love I bear, and in poor lightless thought but burn and burn, and which goes hunting wisdom everywhere yet can no word of revelation learn, when endlessly the scales of ye and nay in dreadful motion fall and rise and fall. When all my heart in sorrow I could pay until that last were left no tear at all. Then if with tame or subtle argument companions come and draw me to a place, where words are but the tapings of content and life spreads all her garments with a grace, I curse that ease and hunger in my heart back to my pain and lonely to depart. Six, not anything you do can make you mine for enterprise with equal charity and duty as in love elect will shine, the constant slave of mutability.

1:26:20Or can your words for all their honey breath ousting the speech of many an older rhyme, and though my ear deliver them from death one day or two, it is so little time. Nor does your beauty in its excellence excel a thousand in the daily sun, yet must I put a period to pretense, and with my logic's catalog have done. For act and word and beauty are but keys to unlock the heart, and you, dear love, are these. Seven, never the heart of spring had trembled so as on that day when first in paradise we went afoot as novices, to know for the first time what blue was in the skies, what fresher green than any in the grass, and how the sap goes beating to the sun, and tell how on the clocks of beauty pass minute by minute till the last is done.

1:27:24But not the new birds singing in the break, and not the buds of our discovery, the deeper blue, the wilder green, the ache for beauty that we share to as we see, made heaven, but we, as loves occasion brings, took these, and made them paradisal things. Eight, the lilacs offer beauty to the sun, throbbing with wonder as eternally foresaid and happy lovers, they have done with the first bloom of summer in the sky, yet they are newly spread in honor now, because for every beam of beauty given out of that clustering heart, back to the bow, my love goes beating from a greater heaven. So be my love for good or sorry luck bound, it has virtue on this April eve that shall be thereforever, when they pluck lilacs for love, and though I come to grieve long at

1:28:27a frosty tomb, there still shall be my happy lyric in the lilac tree. Nine, when they make silly question of my love and speak to me of danger and disdain, and look by fond old argument to move my wisdom to docility again, when to my prouder heart they set the pride of custom and the gossip of the street, and show me figures of myself beside a self diminished at their judgment seat. And do I sit as in a drowsy pew to hear a priest expounding the heavenly will, defiling wonder that he never knew with stolen words of measured good and ill, for to the love that knows their counseling, out of my love contempt alone I bring. Ten, not love of you is most that I can bring, since what I am to love you is the test,

1:29:29and should I love you more than anything you would but be of idle love possessed. A mere love wandering in appetite, counting your glories and yet bringing none, finding in you occasions of delight, a thief of payment for no service done. But when of laboring life I make a song and bring it to you, as that were my reward, you let what most is me to you belong, then do I come of high possessions, Lord, and loving life more than my love of you, I give you love more excellently true. Eleven. What better tale could any lover tell when age or death is reckoning shall write, than thus, love taught me only to rebel against these things, the thieving of delight without return, the gospelers of fear who, loving yet denied the truth they bear, sad suited

1:30:32lusts with lacherous hands to smear the cloth of gold they would but dare not wear, and love gave me great knowledge of the trees and singing birds and earth with all her flowers. Wisdom I knew and righteousness in these I lived in their atonement all my hours. Love taught me how to beauties I alone, the secret of the lying heart is known. Twelve. This then, at last, we may be wiser far than love and put his folly to our measure, yet shall we learn poor wizards that we are, that love times not, nor motions at our pleasure. We bid him come and light an eager fire, and he goes down the road without debating. We cast him from the house of our desire, and when at last we leave he will be waiting, and in the end there is no folly but this, to counsel love out of our little learning,

1:31:38for still he knows where rotten timber is, and where the boughs for the long winter burning, and when life needs no more of us at all, loves word will be the last that we recall. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. End of selected poems of John Drinkwater.