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Seven Poems From 'Lollingdon Downs'

by John Masefield

Here in the self is all that man can know

Of Beauty, all the wonder, all the power,

All the unearthly colour, all the glow,

Here in the self which withers like a flower;

Here in the self which fades as hours pass,

And droops and dies and rots and is forgotten

Sooner, by ages, than the mirroring glass

In which it sees its glory still unrotten.

Here in the flesh, within the flesh, behind,

Swift in the blood and throbbing on the bone,

Beauty herself, the universal mind,

Eternal April wandering alone;

The God, the holy Ghost, the atoning Lord,

Here in the flesh, the never yet explored.

What am I, Life? A thing of watery salt

Held in cohesion by unresting cells

Which work they know not why, which never halt,

Myself unwitting where their master dwells.

I do not bid them, yet they toil, they spin;

A world which uses me as I use them,

Nor do I know which end or which begin,

Nor which to praise, which pamper, which condemn.

So, like a marvel in a marvel set,

I answer to the vast, as wave by wave

The sea of air goes over, dry or wet,

Or the full moon comes swimming from her cave,

Or the great sun comes north, this myriad I

Tingles, not knowing how, yet wondering why.

III

If I could get within this changing I,

This ever altering thing which yet persists,

Keeping the features it is reckoned by,

While each component atom breaks or twists;

If, wandering past strange groups of shifting forms,

Cells at their hidden marvels hard at work,

Pale from much toil, or red from sudden storms,

I might attain to where the Rulers lurk;

If, pressing past the guards in those grey gates,

The brain's most folded, intertwisted shell,

I might attain to that which alters fates,

The King, the supreme self, the Master Cell;

Then, on Man's earthly peak, I might behold

The unearthly self beyond, unguessed, untold.

Ah, we are neither heaven nor earth, but men;

Something that uses and despises both,

That takes its earth's contentment in the pen,

Then sees the world's injustice and is wroth,

And flinging off youth's happy promise, flies

Up to some breach, despising earthly things,

And, in contempt of hell and heaven, dies

Rather than bear some yoke of priests or kings.

Our joys are not of heaven nor earth, but man's,

A woman's beauty, or a child's delight,

The trembling blood when the discoverer scans

The sought-for world, the gussed-at satellite;

The ringing scene, the stone at point to blush

For unborn men to look at and say 'Hush.'

Roses are beauty, but I never see

Those blood drops from the burning heart of June

Glowing like thought upon the living tree

Without a pity that they die so soon,

Die into petals, like those roses old,

Those women, who were summer in men's hearts

Before the smile upon the Sphinx was cold

Or sand had hid the Syrian and his arts.

O myriad dust of beauty that lies thick

Under our feet that not a single grain

But stirred and moved in beauty and was quick

For one brief moon and died nor lived again;

But when the moon rose lay upon the grass

Pasture to living beauty, life that was.

I went into the fields, but you were there

Waiting for me, so all the summer flowers

Were only glimpses of your starry powers;

Beautiful and inspired dust they were.

I went down by the waters, and a bird

Sang with your voice in all the unknown tones

Of all that self of you I have not heard,

So that my being felt you to the bones.

I went into the house, and shut the door

To be alone, but you were there with me;

All beauty in a little room may be,

Though the roof lean and muddy be the floor.

Then in my bed I bound my tired eyes

To make a darkness for my weary brain;

But like a presence you were there again,

Being and real, beautiful and wise,

So that I could not sleep, and cried aloud,

' You strange grave thing, what is it you would say? '

The redness of your dear lips dimmed to grey,

The waters ebbed, the moon hid in a cloud.

VII

Death lies in wait for you, you wild thing in the wood,

Shy-footed, beauty dear, half-seen, half-understood,

Glimpsed in the beech-wood dim and in the dropping fir,

Shy like a fawn and sweet and beauty's minister.

Glimpsed as in flying clouds by night the little moon,

A wonder, a delight, a paleness passing soon.

Only a moment held, only an hour seen,

Only an instant known in all that life has been,

One instant in the sand to drink that gush of grace,

The beauty of your way, the marvel of your face.

Death lies in wait for you, but few short hours he gives;

I perish even as you by whom all spirit lives.

Come to me, spirit, come, and fill my hour of breath

With hours of life in life that pay no toll to death.