Poems   By: Muriel Stuart

By

MURIEL STUART

AUTHOR OF "CHRIST AT CARNIVAL," "THE COCKPIT OF IDOLS"

1922

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN

SONGS IN CAPTIVITY By R. H. Sauter

BALLAD OF THE "ROYAL ANN" By Crosbie Garstin

POEMS OF ISAAC ROSENBERG

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN

TO

CHANGE,

THE IMMORTAL FACTOR OF DELIVERANCE

I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Editors of The English Review, The New World, Poetry in America, and to Mr. Cecil Palmer, for several poems included in this volume .

CONTENTS

The Seed Shop Man and his Makers The New Aspasia A Song For Old Love Sic Transit Mrs. Effingham's Swan Song Annunciation Boys Bathing Lady Hamilton White Magic In the Orchard The Wood and the Shore The Tryst Leda The Harebell Words Shrift The Thief of Beauty Forgotten Dead, I Salute You Madala Goes by the Orphanage Obsession Enough In Memory of Douglas Vernon Cow The Cloudberry To For Fasting Days The Father Andromeda Unfettered

THE SEED SHOP.

Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie, Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand, Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry Meadows and gardens running through my hand.

Dead that shall quicken at the call of Spring, Sleepers to stir beneath June's magic kiss, Though birds pass over, unremembering, And no bee seek here roses that were his.

In this brown husk a dale of hawthorn dreams A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust That will drink deeply of a century's streams, These lilies shall make summer on my dust.

Here in their safe and simple house of death, Sealed in their shells a million roses leap; Here I can blow a garden with my breath, And in my hand a forest lies asleep.

MAN AND HIS MAKERS.

1.

I am one of the wind's stories, I am a fancy of the rain, A memory of the high noon's glories, The hint the sunset had of pain.

2.

They dreamed me as they dreamed all other; Hawthorn and I, I and the grass, With sister shade and phantom brother Across their slumber glide and pass.

3.

Twilight is in my blood, my being Mingles with trees and ferns and stones; Thunder and stars my lips are freeing, And there is sea rack in my bones.

4.

Those that have dreamed me shall out wake me, But I go hence with flowers and weeds; I am no more to those who make me Than other drifting fruit and seeds.

5.

And though I love them mourn to leave them Sea, earth and sunset, stars and streams, My tears, my passing do not grieve them... Other dreams have they, other dreams.

THE NEW ASPASIA.

If I have given myself to you and you, And if these pale hands are not virginal, Nor these bright lips beneath your own lips true, What matters it? I do not stand nor fall By your old foolish judgments of desire: If this were Helen's way it is not mine; I bring you beauty, but no Troys to fire: The cup I hold brims not with Borgia's wine. You, so soon snared of sudden brows and breasts, Lightly you think upon these lips, this hair. My thoughts are kinder: you are pity's guests: Compassion's bed you share.

It was not lust delivered me to you; I gave my wondering mouth for pity's sake, For your strange, sighing lips I did but break Many times this bread, and poured this wine anew. My body's woven sweetness and kindling hair Were given for heal of hurts unknown of me, For something I could slake but could not share. Sudden and rough and cruel I let you be, I gave my body for what the world calls sin, Even as for your souls the Nazarene Gave once. Long years in pity I and He Have served you Jesus and the Magdalen.