Selected Poetry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 9, 1 March 1923, Page 28

Selected Poetry

Easter, 1916 I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among gray Eighteenth-century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done Of a mocking tale or a gibe To please a companion Around the fire at the club, Being certain that they and I But lived where motley is worn: All changed, changed utterly : A terrible beauty is born. That woman's days were s*pent In ignorant good will, Her nights in argument Until her voice grew shrill. What voice more sweet than hers When young and beautiful, She rode to harriers? This man had kept a school And rode our winged horse This other his helper and friend Was coming into his force; He might have won fame in the end, So sensitive his nature seemed, So daring and sweet his thought. This other man I had dreamed A drunken, vainglorious lout. Ho had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart, Yet 1 number him in the song; He, too, has resigned his part In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. Hearts with one purpose alone Through summer and winter, seem Enchanted to a 'stone To trouble the living stream. The horse that comes from the road. The rider, the birds that range From cloud to tumbling cloud, Minute by minute change; A shadow of cloud on the stream Changes minute by minute; A horse-hoof slides on the brim. And a horse plashes within it Where longlegged moor-hens dive, And hens to moor-cocks call. Minute by minute they live; The stone's in the midst of all. Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart. 0 when may it suffice? That is heaven's part, our part To murmur name upon name, As a mother names her child When sleep at last has come On limbs that had run wild. What is it but nightfall? No, no, not night but death;

Was it needless death after all ? For England may keep faith For all that is done and said. We know their dream; enough To know they dreamed and are dead, And what if excess of love Bewildered them till they died? I write it out in a verse — MacDonagh and Macßride And Connolly and Pearse Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn, Are changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. —W. B. Yeats, in the New Statesman (London). «P A Poem Seeing, it is a gladdening thing: White birds against a morning sky, Blowing poppies, nodding grasses, Light that grows and fades and passes, Young-leaved poplars shining high. And God be thanked that gave us hearing For children's laughter, sweet and bold, For winds that whisper old hills round, For every intimate sweet sound The quiet golden evenings hold. But oh, 'tis scent that makes immortal The little lives of mortal men! Poses with haunting sweetness riven. Incense, to lift men's hearts to heaven, Lilacs, to draw them home again. —Margaret Adelaide Wilson, in The Villager. The Shepherds' Field From Bethlehem the way runs steep Through Beit Sahour, a town asleep; No lights within the houses keep A welcome for the night. By rocky path we reach the plain To lose our way. Through fragrant grain. Ripe barley-fields, our goal we gain, (May stars were ne'er so bright.) The Arab boy who guides me there Sees but a field, a tree, the bare Stone wall —(What incense fills the air! Be still, my lad, be still.) He does not hear the chorus swell With strange, unearthly notes — Noel ! He deems it but a distant bell That rings on Bethlehem hill. To him the enchanted melodies Are but the winds in olive-trees, (Be still, my boy; fall on your knees, Look! Look! o'er Bethlehem's tower, A star that flames above them all: See, on the town it seems to fall!) To him 'tis but the star they call In Arab tongue "The Flower." "Peace and good will." I surely hear Voices long hushed now singing clear; To-night the dead seem very near. "Peace and good will to men." Not forever must we wait? . . . (Take up your lantern, boy; 'tis late; The star has set. Out through the gate To Bethlehem again.) Edward Bliss Reed, in The Yale Review.