The Bird-Catcher (2 page)

And the bright bulwarks crusted o'er

With silver limpets from the floor

Of the drowned Earth. So Solomon,

Dreaming towards evening alone,

In the clear kingdom of his brain

Wrought that first temple without stain,

Too pure for stone or the rough grain

Of cedar or the dross of gold.

And Homer, blind and very old,

Along the wide plains of his thought

Saw battles and long sieges fought

Round ramparts rosy even as these.

So soared above the glooming trees

That tower of laughter and of tears

Where Beauty slept a hundred years.

And, built of sweetness and pure light,

So love and hope and heart's-delight

And all the lovely things of dream,

Hovering an instant on the stream

Of Man's ambitious spirit, glow

And vanish like an April snow.

Green grows the grass in these well-watered meadows

For here there bubbles from a hundred springs

The bright Clitumnus under dappled shadows

Of slender poplars where the faint breeze sings

And the green-showering tresses of weeping willows;

And all the pool is floored with woven weed

And caverns lined with glimmering mossy pillows

And pale blue rocks. Those bubbling waters feed

Rich farms, half-hidden behind a feathery screen

Of silver olive-boughs and trailing vines

Heavy with clusters purple, red, and green,

Soon to be trodden to red and golden wines.

And bounding either edge of the green plain,

The violet mountains lift their peaceful crowns,

Soaring like waves crest above crest again,

Still peopled by remote and ancient towns,—

Lofty Spoleto with its rocky gorge

Spanned by the aqueduct, and many a keep,

Spello and Montefalco, towns that urge

Stone street and scowling palace up the steep

And set a crown of towers on many hills,

Leaping abrupt and stark against the sky

And turbid at noon and eve with clanging bells.

From these and all the villages that lie

Scattered upon the plain, the countryfolk

Are flocking towards Foligno for the fair,

Bringing their goods. With song and curse and joke

They swelter along in the dry and dusty glare.

All day along the parched and dazzling roads

That straggle to the town from every part,

Oxen and mules and horses draw their loads

In wain and barrow and brightly painted cart.

While in the town all day, along the streets

And in that empty space within the walls

Edged with cool-shaded trees and long stone seats,

A crowd of busy folk are building stalls;

Till the place rings with hammering and knocking

And cracking whips and jangling harness-bells

And rumbling wheels of all the traffic flocking

In from the teeming plains and those blue hills.

Still with the growing crowd the din grows louder

With shouts of drivers, wagons turning, backing,

And stamping hooves that churn the dust to powder

And sweating men unloading and unpacking,

Spreading the wares in clusters on the grass

All duly planned like little towns with walls

And lanes and streets to let the buyers pass,

Or carefully disposed upon the stalls.

And carts and mules come pushing through the throng

Or scarlet wagon like a stranded hulk

That great white oxen slowly haul along

Heaving the yoke with all their noble bulk,

Patient, with branching horns and deep calm eyes

Like forest pools, and scarlet-tasselled brows.

Evening draws on; but ere the sunset dies

The bells in every tower and belfry rouse

A hum of clanging bronze that builds a dome

Of mellow noise above the din below,

So bright, it seems as if the shining foam

Of dust-motes and the golden evening glow

Were suddenly enchanted into sound.

But when both sound and light from the sky have faded

And colour has faded from all the hills around

And streets and squares are all grown cool and shaded,

Those weary folk make ready for the night.

Some with tarpaulin sheets build bivouacs

Or over the wide wagons stretch them tight

To form a hutch, or spread their rugs and sacks

Under the carts, while every tethered beast

With drooping head crops at the scanty grass.

Then, before rest, they spread the evening feast

Grouped about lamps and lanterns, and they pass

The wine-flask, the brown loaf and honeyed figs

And marbled mortadella and pale cheese.

Then someone tunes a fiddle and scratches jigs

Or softly from the darkness of the trees

Jingles a mandoline, so sad, so faint,

It sounds as though dead fingers touched the strings:

And laughter comes in gusts and through the quaint

Dark-huddled groups the yellow lamplight flings

Brightness across the corner of a shawl

Or fires a hand or gilds a laughing face

Or, touching hidden boughs, reveals a fall

Of emerald leaves with shadows frail as lace.

Then lamps go out and laughter dies and each

Creeps to his bed, and moonlight fills the square

And silence, broken by the lone owl's screech,

While all lie dreaming of to-morrow's fair

Till the delicious coolness of early dawning

Sharpens the air and all is fresh and gleaming,

And a chill fragrance steals beneath the awning

Of dewy boughs and stirs them from their dreaming.

Here on the blind verge of infinity

We live and move like moles. Our crumbling trench

Gapes like a long wound in the sodden clay.

The land is dead. No voice, no living thing,

No happy green of leaves tells that the spring

Wakes in the world behind us. Empty gloom

Fills the cold interspace of earth and sky.

The sky is waterlogged and the drenched earth

Rots, and the whining sorrow of slow shells

Flies overhead. But memory like the rose

Wakes and puts forth her bright and odorous blooms

And builds green hanging gardens in the heart.

Once, in another life in other places,

Where a slow river coiled through broad green spaces

And sunlight filled the long grass of the meadows

And moving water flashed from shine to shadows

Of old green-feathered willows, bent in ranks

    Along sun-speckled banks,—

Lovely remembered things now gone forever;

I saw young men run naked by the river,

Thirty young soldiers. Where the field-path goes,

Their boots and shirts and khaki lay in rows.

With feet among the long warm grass stood one

    Like ivory in the sun,

And in the water, white upon the shade

    That hung beneath the shore,

His long reflexion like a slow flag swayed

And at the trembling of the water frayed

Into a hundred shreds, then joined once more.

One, where the river, when the willows end,

Breaks from its calm to swirl about a bend,

Strong swimmer he, wrestled against the race

Of the full stream. I saw his laughing face

Framed by his upcurved arm. Another, slim,

Hands above head, stood braced upon the brim,

Then dived, a brother of the curved new moon,

    And came up streaming soon

Ten feet beyond, brown shoulders shining wet

And comic face and hair washed sleek as jet.

Out on the further bank another fellow

Climbed stealthily into a leaning willow

And perched leaf-shrouded, crooning like a dove;

Till from the pool below a voice was heard:

“'Ere, Bert! Where's Bert?” and Bert sang out above:

“Up 'ere, old son, changed to a bloody bird!”

And dived through leaves and shattered through the cool

Clear watery mirror, and all across the pool

Slow winking circles opened wide, till he

Rose and in rising broke their symmetry.

Laughter and shouting filled the sparkling air.

Bright flakes of scattered water everywhere

Leapt from their diving. Hosts of little billows

Beat the shores, and the hanging boughs of willows

Glittered with glassy drops. Then, bright as fire,

A bugle sounded, and their happy din

Stopped, and the boys, with that swift discipline

By which keen life answers the soul's desire,

Rushed for the bank. And soon the bank was bright

With bodies swarming up out of the stream.

From the water and the boughs they came in sight:

Across the leaves I saw their quick limbs gleam.

Then brandished towels flashed whitely here and there.

They dried their ears and scrubbed their towzled hair.

One, stepping to the water, carefully

Stretched a bare leg to rinse a muddy foot:

    One sat with updrawn knee,

Bent head, and both hands tugging on a boot.

And gradually the bright and flashing crowd

Dimmed into sober khaki. Then the loud

Laughter and shouts and songs died at a word.

The ranks fell in: no sound, no movement stirred.

The willow-boughs were still: the blue sky burned:

The party numbered down, formed fours, right turned,

Marched. And their shadows faded from the stream

And the dark pool swayed back into its dream:

Only the trodden meadow-grass reported

Where all that gay humanity had sported.

So the dream fades. I wake, remembering how

Many of those smart boys no longer now

Cast running shadows on the grass or make

    White tents with laughter shake,

But lie in narrow chambers underground,

Eyes void of sunlight, ears unthrilled by sound

Of laughter. Round my post on every hand

Stretches this grim, charred skeleton of land

Where ruined homes and shell-ploughed fields are lost

In one great sea of clay, clay seared by fire,

Battered by rainstorms, jagged and scarred and crossed

By gaping trench-lines hedged with rusted wire.

The rainy evening fades. A rainy night

Sags down upon us. Wastes of sodden clay

Fade into mist, and fade all sound and sight,

All broken sounds and movements of the day,

To emptiness and listlessness, a grey

Unhappy silence tremulous with the poise

Of hearts intent with fearful expectation

    And secret preparation,

Silence that is not peace but bated breath,

    A listening for death,

    The quivering prelude to tremendous noise.

O give us one more day of sun and leaves,

The laughing soldiers and the laughing stream,

And when at dawn the loud destruction cleaves

The silence, and (like men that walk in dream,

Knowing the stern ordeal has begun)

We climb the trench and cross the wire and start,

We'll stumble through the shell-bursts with good heart

Like boys who race through meadows in the sun.

When on the sluggish tide of time

The immortal moment comes

Whose bugle-summons cleaves with gleaming edge

Flesh and all stuff of the material world,

The soldier-soul, with that swift discipline

Wherewith keen life answers the heart's desire,

Leaps on the deed as tiger leaps on fawn,

As powder answers fire.

Soul is the perfect athlete running free

Among the clear winds of reality;

For whom dim speculation and the thought

That measured, weighed, and sought

In worlds unreal the cloudy paradises

And comfortable prizes

For loveless rules obeyed, are less than nought.

The eternal moment being his vital air,

He cannot ask nor care

Whether his burning deed shall sow the seeds

Of other life and deeds,

Or if his being, ardent, pure, intact,

Die on the summit of the immortal act.

Mournful and clear and golden on the dusk

The sudden fire of bugles. Fervid flights

Of burning wings flash up from the dark hill

Where like a growth of giant lilies glow

The lighted tents. That piercing music rouses

The slumbrous memory. Forests of the past

Answer those fervid notes with fainter notes

Sepulchral, far, whose clear reveille shakes

The dark unfretted waters of the mind

Till all the surface quivers with keen pain

And depth to depth the searching trouble stirs

Till all that watery world

Thrills with new life that urges to the top

Layers of dim memory hidden long from light,

And years long dead, victories, endurances,

And terrible happenings live again. Again

In rainswept darkness down the broken roads

The drenched and sweating troops swarm towards the line,

Stumbling with burdened backs and burdened hearts

Into their new ordeal: on and on

Through tunnels of the blind and timeless night,

By wallowing lorries thrust into the ditch

And pulsing tractors hauling monstrous guns,

Or in cold rain interminably impeded

By some unknown obstruction miles ahead:

Through fields that stink of carnage, yawn with holes

Full of pale stagnant water; thicket-snares

Of sharp-fanged wire, through roar of murderous shells

And gas and blood and flame, till the shocked mind

Flares up in terror and the memory dies