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Read Ebook: The Coming of Evolution: The Story of a Great Revolution in Science by Judd John W John Wesley
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Ebook has 465 lines and 48310 words, and 10 pages
Lilac, Laburnum Streets of Gold "In the Gallery where the Fat Men go" Dead in Gallipoli A Journey South The New Trade The Woman who Shrieked against Peace The Women at the Corners Stand Joining-up During the Battle Jack German Boy Skylark and Dawn Jack of April Statesmen Debonair Over in Flanders Wild Weather Broken Bodies A Thought The Vintner For now comes Summer The Advent of Mars Prophet and Fool Whatever Path I walk upon London Magdalene Secret Girl Lanky Tim Mrs. Briggs Athens Now Down Tottenham Court Road In a Station Liza Women of the Night I Standing in the Street Slum Evening Fires of Change Poetry The Prisoner Nerves A Poet For My Friend "I shall be splendidly and tensely Young" "I" I know not whence my Poems come Lyrria Faringdon from Salonica Call of the Plover The Gallant Road The Quest Having finished "Jude the Obscure" Ghost and Body Gallop We Lads who Barter Rhymes Who knows Me? Judaeus Errans Cold Stars Reactionary Late Wind of Black Night Yellow Satins My Mother's Portrait To A. L. O. The Dark Knight of the Road To the Swift Green Wind The Midmost Field in Kent Murmuryngeham Winchester Downs Cycling in October The Shepherd Derwentwater "I vowed that I would be a Tree" Wounded Soldiers Still Life in France I Dream'd I Died Flowers in War Evening--Kent Black Magic A Soldier Dying At Last War Ends
SORROW OF WAR
LILAC, LABURNUM
Lilac, lilac, laburnum, How shall you bloom this Spring? Gathering birds, gathering birds, How shall you sing?
Gathering birds, gathering birds, How shall you lift your singing head? Lilac, lilac, laburnum, Shall not your blossom be fiery red?
Lilac, laburnum, gathering birds...?
STREETS OF GOLD
O there are streets of gold in Bethnal Green, With troughs of pearl where lovely horses drink, And tripping on the greenswards, silver-clean, The girls are marvellouser than you can think. Gawd blimey! Bethnal Green! .
O there is harvest now in Camden Town, And songs and laughing and old flasks of wine! O the grand moon of bronze! the wakeful brown Owl in the barn! ghost-poppies and dream-kine! Lor lumme! Camden Town! .
O what green seas sweep winds through Camberwell, Through all her islands where the palm-trees heave! O winding down the channels steals a bell Calling poor weary lads to bathe at eve! God blawst it! Camberwell! .
"IN THE GALLERY WHERE THE FAT MEN GO"
They are showing how we lie With our bodies run dry: The attitudes we take When impaled upon a stake. These and other things they show In the gallery where the fat men go.
In the gallery where the fat men go They're exhibiting our guts Horse-betrampled in the ruts; And Private Tommy Spout, With his eye gouged out; And Jimmy spitting blood; And Sergeant lying so That he's drowning in the mud, In the gallery where the fat men go.
They adjust their pince-nez In the gentle urban way, And they plant their feet tight For to get a clearer sight. They stand playing with their thumbs, With their shaven cheeks aglow. For the Terror never comes, And the worms and the woe. For they never hear the drums Drumming Death dead-slow, In the gallery where the fat men go.
If the gallery where the fat men go Were in flames around their feet, Or were sucking through the mud: If they heard the guns beat Like a pulse through the blood: If the lice were in their hair, And the scabs were on their tongue, And the rats were smiling there, Padding softly through the dung, Would they fix the pince-nez In the gentle urban way, Would the pictures still be hung In the gallery where the fat men go?
DEAD IN GALLIPOLI
He died in Gallipoli. What English flower That we cherish shall grow of him? Never a flower Shall grow that we know of him! No white daisy-coverlet Shall grow from the ground of him; No English bird-loverlet Pipe love-songs around of him. Under the sycamore His grave not appears, Where the crocuses flicker more Than armies with spears. Under no tree at all England designed His body may be at all Gently consigned.
He died in Gallipoli The death on a stake. Gallipoli poison Is now the great part of him. A flower like a snake Shall writhe from the heart of him. The desolate surf Below him is muttering. Over his turf A bird like a devil Is flapping and fluttering. The poisonous bird Whose scarlet eye glowers, The poisonous flowers With petals unclean Are the only things heard And the only things seen.
Ah, would that I knew What the Word was that came, What the Thing was that gleamed With a wind and a flame; Ah, would that I knew, Even as you, O white lad from England, White lad from England, Dead in Gallipoli, Would that I knew If I heard or I dreamed!
A JOURNEY SOUTH
To the South lands, the green lands, from the North, the harsh Rocks, where the eagles whose granite bills Screech from the scars of toppling hills. To the South lands, the green lands, from the North, the marsh Hollows which black waste water fills, --The South green lands!
To the South lands, the green lands, where the flowers of fruit Are moons entangled in cosmic trees, Where birds are rocks in the foam of seas, The wind's a player, the grass a lute Whose wires are swept by the wings of bees, --The South green lands!
To the South lands, the green lands--but halt, O hark! A sob of birds in a poisoned wood! The fume of poppies crushed foul in mud! The whine of the wings of Death through the dark! A sunset of flame, a moon of blood! --The South red lands!
THE NEW TRADE
In the market-places they have made A dolorous new trade. Now you will see in the fierce naphtha-light, Piled hideously to sight, Dead limbs of men bronzed in the over-seas, Bomb-wrenched from elbows and knees; Torn feet, that would, unwearied by harsh loads, Have tramped steep moorland roads; Torn hands that would have moulded exquisitely Rare things for God to see. And there are eyes there--blue like blue doves' wings, Black like the Libyan kings, Grey as before-dawn rivers, willow-stirred, Brown as a singing-bird; But all stare from the dark into the dark, Reproachful, tense, and stark. Eyes heaped on trays and in broad baskets there, Feet, hands, and ropes of hair. In the market-places ... and women buy ... ... Naphtha glares ... hawkers cry ... Fat men rub hands.... O God, O just God, send Plague, lightnings ... Make an end!
THE WOMAN WHO SHRIEKED AGAINST PEACE
Abundant woman panting there, Whose breast is flecked with spots of grease That splutter from your laboured hair, O dew-lapped woman, you who reek Of stout and steak and fish and chips, Why does the short indignant shriek Come toppling from your fleshy lips; Because, poor smitten fool, I dare To breathe the outcast name of Peace?
And shall your flesh grow less to view, And shall your chubby arms grow thin, And shall you miss your stout and stew, The bracelets which you wear so well, If blinded boys no more shall creep Along the scorching roads to Hell, If thick red blood no more shall steep Green fields in France, nor corpses smell; If Peace send down her blasting blight, O shall it spoil your sleep at night, And shall you lose your treble chin?
THE WOMEN AT THE CORNERS STAND
The women at the corners stand. They say, "Where are the men you stole from us away? Where are they now, the laughing lovers whom You heaped in sombre ranks against the gloom?" They murmur ceaselessly and without haste, "Our arms are empty and our wombs are waste." "Where are the men that marched into the dusk?" They say with voices withered like a husk. "Night is like cinders: day is lean and stern. Our hearts are parched with thirsting; yea, we burn. Where are the men you took? Bid them return."
The women at the corners stand. But no Reply is heard. They wait till night. They go Back to their homes. Once more they come next day, "Where are the men you stole from us away?" They draw their shawls around their heads. They wait. They say, "But we are weary. It is late." They murmur ceaselessly and without haste, "Our arms are empty and our wombs are waste." No word is said to them. But only they, The women at the corners, stand. They say, "Send back our lovers whom you stole away."
JOINING-UP
No, not for you the glamour of emprise, Poor driven lad with terror in your eyes.
No dream of wounds and medals and renown Called you like Love from your drab Northern town.
No haunting fife, dizzily shrill and sweet, Came lilting drunkenly down your dingy street.
You will not change, with a swift catch of pride, In the cold hut among the leers and oaths, Out of your suit of frayed civilian clothes, Into the blaze of khaki they provide.
Like a trapped animal you crouch and choke In the packed carriage where the veterans smoke And tell such pitiless tales of Over There, They stop your heart dead short and freeze your hair.
Your body's like a flower on a snapt stalk, Your head hangs from your neck as blank as chalk.
What horrors haunt you, head upon your breast! ... O but you'll die as bravely as the rest!
DURING THE BATTLE
O the terror of the Battle at this ending of the days! O the thunder of the wings through the gloom! O the thousand thousand companies that strew the sombre ways To achieve this final doom!
Where the flames disrupt the night and the hell-fumes flee, 'Mid the darkness and the splitting of the skies, Only your young white wistful face I see, My brother, only your eyes!
JACK
The heavy smells of Spring Are flooding through my skin. My body drinks them in. Like rich red veils they cling About my prostrate head. I swoon into a bed, The heavy smells of Spring.
I now almost forget The pain, the pain, the pain; Now being lulled by rain, And smells and warm wings wet. I swoon into a bed, Almost forget you're dead, Almost, almost forget.
Now, now my memories drowse Amid the whine of bells, The fumes of rich red smells, The stupor round my brows. My nerves and veins are lead. I swoon into a bed, Where all my sorrows drowse.
Then suddenly you return, O marrow of my bone, Blood flowing through my own! My pulses yearn and burn. I battle round my head, Cry strickenly from my bed. Suddenly you return!
GERMAN BOY
German boy with cold blue eyes, In the cold and blue moonrise, I who live and still shall know Flowers that smell and winds that blow, I who live to walk again, Fired the shot that broke your brain.
SKYLARK AND DAWN
Stretched and silent they lie to the furious gold of the dawn, And the earth like a leper's face is pitted and scarred. Firm in the grip of the wire relentless and hard, They lie with their dead young faces pallid and drawn.
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