Just Christmas, and other verses

Allen, C. R. (Charles Richards), the Caxton Press, Victoria Street, Christchurch, N.Z., 1941

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The original publication details are as follows:

Title: Just Christmas, and other verses

Author: Allen, C. R. (Charles Richards)

Published: The Caxton Press, Victoria Street, Christchurch, N.Z., 1941

JUST CHRISTMAS

AND OTHER VERSES

C. R. ALLEN

JUST CHRISTMAS

Were you ever Christmas, little man?

Think it over. Tell us if you can.

Did you ever wake to hear them singing

"Noel, Noel?" Did the bells go ringing

Out across the sunlight or the snow?

Were you ever Christmas long ago?

What was wrong with Christmas, little son?

Something wrong, when all is said and done,

Something wrong when you had drained your

flagon,

Burned your little fingers with snap-dragon.

Love there was, and many a gift and token,

Yet it seemed that there was something broken.

Something disconnected. Was it pleasure

Only in the wondering Magi's treasure.

Gold there was and frankincense. They brought it

All the way from somewhere. We have sought it

Sought it up and down de whole creation

Till we're longing for de old plantation.

You were happy, playing wid your brudder

You were happy listening to your mudder

Reading you the dear familiar story

How the stars shone out in pulsing glory.

How one star stood still above a cave

Hollowed in a rock, and how men gave

Gift of gold and frankincense. What more?

There was myrrh for Him they would adore.

Myrrh is bitter as the aspen w r ood

Where they nailed Him. He was very good.

We'll forget about it if we can,

But it isn't easy, little man.

s

THE FORGE

Children are little savages. They are;

But savages have watched an evening star

Pale in the sky, and savages desire

That they should look on sacrament of fire.

But children staring through an open door

In wonderment upon a blacksmith's floor

Discard their goblin semblance, it would seem.

They hear the bellows murmur, and they dream.

Strange dreams. Ido not kid myself that I

Was beautiful with atavistic sigh

And dingy goggles glued. The hand was deft

That stayed the tremulous hoof of speed bereft.

Still do I carry something with me now

Who am no more a child. I know not how

I dribbled or was stertorous. I think

Another child stood there upon the brink.

The sun shines on the wicked and the just.

God sends the whirlwind and God sends the dust

Engoldening the butterfly. He sends

A man his features and a man his friends.

God sees how rodents in a trap are drowned.

I watched one as a child go round and round,

_ _ _ _ _ _ o _ _ . j And was all stupified to think that He

In His great love could let such dark things be.

I think a blacksmith's patience with a beast

Is very beautiful. I think, at least,

They have some discipline. They are morose,

These burly men, and sometimes they are gross.

6

I never called a cat in from the rain.

I have no flair for looking: on at pain.

I do distrust my pity so akin

To something that is rooted in old sin.

Yet to a dog some courtesy I've shown

Through staying at his side when he alone

o - o Came on new circumstance. It is not much,

But good men's lives are made of many such.

I am no zealot, nor would I rebuke

The drayman for his blow, nor chide the duke

Who runs his Reynard down, and sees him die.

Nor fulminate at fox-hounds in full cry.

For hounds that thread a brake are lovely things,

And hunting is, they say, the sport of kings;

But I would see the patient beasts plod home

Like spectral galleons across the loam.

I keep my hands for any dainty fare

That comes my way. Oh, delicate and rare

To dance to violins, to dance to flutes

Is better than the slaying of dumb brutes.

The cooper fashions, but the strong smith mends

And he that with his hands a worn hoof tends

Performs a Maundy office. So at least

I looked, a child, as one looks on a priest,

Were I equestrian I would mean well

To my good mount. I’d share the sight and smell

Of stable-things, but I should court reproof

For my neglect. I'd let him foul his hoof.

And fierce old ladies would come surging round,

And put my horse to oats and me in pound.

So here's to Merrie England and St. George,

The chestnut tree, the bellows and the forge.

7

AGNUS DEI

Behold the Lamb of God, a weather-vane

Set on a tower where the tenuous swallow

Comes home from pilgrimage, as who should follow

A holy calendar. In sun, in rain

Superfluous guidance to unheeding folk

It proffers patiently. Who cares, who knows

Which way on Hendon Hill the March wind blows

To freedom. Ecce? Agnus. Take my yoke.

Poor painted brummagem that would take dint

From a boy's catapult. The weather-cocks

That turn in thraldom to the Equinox,

Telling how Peter turned when one gave hint

His speech and look betrayed him, have not part

In that your meditation. All around

The unknown buried lie, whose names upstart

Calling in chiselled silence, "Whither bound?"

Whither, in sooth. Beyond the gates and meads

Of some strange paradise. No man shall listen

To such a lark, or see the spring rain christen

The grass and thorn, but such as surely reads

As Bunyan read his parable. There wait

Under the lifted Lamb the vessels meet,

The Book of Life. Pass not the wicket gate.

8

NO MORE COON?

" No more coon,

Octoroon

You go way "

So dey say.

" You go home, little feller

_ a J ----- To your mammv. and tell her

Dere's no more melon and mammy palaver

If she comes around de new boss he will starve her

De old massa's dead, and de old dog he cracks a

bone,

For de new massa plays all de time on his

saxophone "

No more croon,

No more moon

And dere's no more banjo with its twang tinkle

turn,

For de old things have passed and de new things

have come.

“ No more croon

'Neath de moon ' :

Come inside.

Baby hide.

Oh, you little black Sammy

, j j j You must hide with your mammy.

We must wait for de day when dey want a back

number

To set dem a thinking of honey-bee slumber.

I dare say old massa will wait and be listening

When little black Sammy comes home from his

christening.

9

Come back moon,

Come back coon,

And de banjo will play with its twiddle twang

twack,

For de new things have passed and de old things

come back.

10

OBITER SCRIPTA

There are treasures in the archives everyone must

know.

There are treasures in odd corners, and it well may

be

Shakespeare left a sonnet somewhere or a folio

For a commoner to come on just like you or me.

There are words of wit and wisdom written by the

way

That would cause a stir at Christie's should they

see the light,

Palimpsests well worth a ransom for a king to pay,

Drafts and fragments that bespeak an epic end in

sight.

There are dungeon walls that glitter with the

pretitious bane

Of bright gold from iron transmuted where in

durance vile

Bunyan, Smart or Wyatt scribbled for a countless gain

Though without the hooded menace waited all the

while.

These I conjure not to-day, but one whose testament

Ratified with failing script whatever good she

found

In the preached or printed word until the hand was

spent,

And the dark wings closed about her world of

sight and sound.

11

Trifles written by the way, the way we went together,

Oh, who shall put a price on them? As well to

name the cost

Of golden leaves that drift adown the dales in autumn

weather

When the ocean is lifted up and trees are

tempest-tossed.

12

BAL MASQUE

They dance within half-hearing of the sea

And wood and strings were all their minstrelsy,

And their amorphous measure seemed to lack

A force centrifugal. They looked them back

Upon a corner where a sea-coal fire

Smouldered and darted like a dull desire.

And by the brazier crouched with pensive mien

A ballad-monger in a gabardine.

And when the music died they gathered round

The old grey man, and asked what he had found

In all their horoscopes. The chapman bent

His eyes upon the floor, and gave consent.

They left him where he sat in cloak arrayed,

j -. _ j 7 And turned towards their dancing, half afraid,

Half scornful of the sombre things he said.

The old man cupped his hands to rest his head.

13

JOHNNY JONES

There is a white road running to the sea

Where all things have apocalypse for me.

It goes by rugged firs that proffer shade

To a red parsonage where once I played,

Then to a Church. God's acre at its flanks

Will listen to a blackbird giving thanks

For what went through the years. I knew a child

Slant-eyed and supple, distant when she smiled

As if she waited on some hierophant

Her straight white party frock was sacrosanct.

What news had I of echoes, semi-tones

That did bespeak her gaffer, Johnny Jones.

Yet it was so. In some far backward day

Jones contemplated Waikouaiti Bay,

Previsaged thoroughfares with happy throngs,

With London lavender, maybe, and London songs.

This would the blubber be and these the bones

The prince of whales should yield to Johnny Jones.

It does not need a Robert Burns to say

The best-laid schemes of men erang aft aedey;

Yet, Johnny Jones, you did this thing for me,

You set a white road dancing towards the sea.

14

SHORE BIRD

Shore bird, shore bird, out of your hidden breast

Cometh the balm that the watcher craves high in his

bleak crow’s nest.

Furlongs of sea would a mariner give for an acre of

ling or heath,

For a window set in a white-washed wall with a rose

bed underneath.

Shore bird, shore bird, here where the mounds are

green

Your voice is one with the quiet yews by the lettered

stones that tell

Of the bad days past with the fall of night and the

good days that have been,

Shore bird, shore bird, it is well with the dead 'tis

well .

Shore bird, shore bird, your passionless song steals

through

From the garden close to the workshop pent, and you

carry a toll of days

To each man's heart as he bends and gropes at the

work that is his to do

For the sleep it brings when the night comes down

and they go on their own fond ways.

15

SNOW

I did not bury my love, for the lack of heart

To the break at the death of her, but I stood, a mourner

With the ground all cold at my feet, and the sky above

Grey as a brain that's tired; greyer, forlorner

Than ever I knew a sky, and my own brain shuttered

Against the familiar words that the parson muttered

From an open book in his hands. When I buried the

dead

I had no book, but the words in my brain instead,

Then there came the snow, as it never had come

before,

With an interdict on the gate on the step on the door.

And I thought how the living are buried yet all conspire

Forgetting' the dead in the face of the snow and fire

And we who have loved not have only the snow to

clear

From the path we tread to the heart of the great black

fear.

16

ONE WAY

You can't have it both ways, bracken for the burning

And bracken for the ground-lark; or breathing,

waiting pines

All sun-motes and resin where the slant road’s

turning

And blazing in the hearth-well as the cold moon

shines.

Then give me the one way. Bid the pines remember

Half a country's history as we go by;

Bid them horde the ocean salt and sunlight of

November

If there were but one way for a man to die!

17

PRINTED AT THE CAXTON PRESS,

VICTORIA STREET CHRISTCHURCH