W.J. Turner

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Romance

When I was but thirteen or so

I went into a golden land,

Chimborazo, Cotopaxi

Took me by the hand.

My father died, my brother too,

They passed like fleeting dreams,

I stood where Popocatapetl

In the sunlight gleams.

I dimly heard the master's voice

And boys far-off at play,

Chamborazo, Cotopaxi

Had stolen me away.

I walked in a great golden dream

To and fro from school --

Shining Popocatapetl

The dusty streets did rule.

I walked home with a gold dark boy

And never a word I'd say,

Chimborazo, Cotopaxi

Had taken my speech away.

I gazed entranced upon his face

Fairer than any flower --

O shining Popocatapetl

It was thy magic hour:

The houses, people, traffic seemed

Thin fading dreams by day,

Chimborazo, Cotopaxi

They had stolen my soul away!

Ecstasy

I saw a frieze on whitest marble drawn

Of boys who sought for shells along the shore,

Their white feet shedding pallor in the sea,

The shallow sea, the spring-time sea of green

That faintly creamed against he cold, smooth pebbles.

The air was thin, their limbs were delicate,

The wind had graven their small eager hands

To feel the forests and the dark nights of Asia

Behind the purple bloom of the horizon,

Where sails would float and slowly melt away.

Their naked, pure, and grave, unbroken silence

Filled the soft air as gleaming, limpid water

Fills a spring sky those days when rain is lying

In shattered bright pools on the wind-dried roads,

And their sweet bodies were wind-purified.

One held a shell unto his shell-like ear

And there was music carven in his face,

His eyes half-closed, his lips just breaking open

To catch the lulling, mazy, coralline roar

Of numberless caverns filled with singing seas.

And all of them were hearkening as to singing

Of far-off voices thin and delicate,

Voices too fine for any mortal wind

To blow into the whorls of mortal ears --

And yet those sounds flowed from their grave, sweet faces.

And as I looked I heard that delicate music,

And I became as grave, as calm, as still

As those carved boys. I stood upon that shore,

I felt the cool sea dream around my feet,

My eyes were staring at the far horizon:

And the wind came and purified my limbs,

And the stars came and set within my eyes,

And snowy clouds rested upon my shoulders,

And the blue sky shimmered deep within me,

And I sang like a carven pipe of music.

Magic

I love a still conservatory

That's full of giant, breathless palms,

Azaleas, clematis and vines,

Whose quietness great Trees becalms

Filling the air with foliage,

And curved and dreamy statuary.

I like to hear a cold, pure rill

Of water trickling low, afar

With sudden little jerks and purls

Into a tank or stoneware jar,

The song of a tiny sleeping bird

Held like a shadow in its trill.

I love the mossy quietness

That grows upon the great stone flags,

The dark tree-ferns, the staghorn ferns,

The prehistoric, antlered stags

That carven stand and stare among

The silent, ferny wilderness.

And are they birds or souls that flit

Among the trees so silently,

And are they fish or ghosts that haunt

The still pools of the rockery! --

For I am but a sculptured rock

As in that magic place I sit.

Still as a great jewel is the air

With boughs and leaves smooth-carved in it,

And rocks and trees and giant ferns,

And blooms with inner radiance lit,

And naked water like a nymph

That dances tireless slim and bare.

I watch a white Nyanza float

Upon a green, untroubled pool,

A fairyland Ophelia, she

Has cast herself in water cool,

And lies while fairy cymbals ring

Drowned in her fairy castle moat.

The goldfish sing a winding song

Below her pale and waxen face,

The water-nymph is dancing by

Lifting smooth arms with mournful grace,

A stainless white dream she floats on

While fairies beat a fairy gong.

Silent the Cattleyas blaze

And thin red orchid shapes of Death

Peer savagely with twisted lips

Sucking an eerie, phantom breath

With that bright spotted, fever'd lust

That watches lonely travellers craze.

Gigantic, mauve and hairy leaves

Hang like obliterated faces

Full of dim unattained expression

Such as haunts virgin forest places

When Silence leaps among the trees

And the echoing heart deceives.

The Hunter

"But there was one land he dared not enter."

Beyond the blue, the purple seas,

Beyond the thin horizon's line,

Beyond Antilla, Hebrides,

Jamaica, Cuba, Caribbees,

There lies the land of Yucatan.

The land, the land of Yucatan,

The low coast breaking into foam,

The dim hills where my thoughts shall roam

The forests of my boyhood's home,

The splendid dream of Yucatan!

I met thee long, long ago

Turning a printed page, and I

Stared at a world I did not know

And felt my flood like fire flow

At the strange name of Yucatan.

O those sweet, far-off Austral days

When life had a diviner glow,

When hot Suns whipped my blood to know

Things all unseen, then I could go

Into they heart O Yucatan!

I have forgotten what I saw,

I have forgotten what I knew,

And many lands I've set sail for

To find that marvellous spell of yore,

Never to set foot on thy shore

O haunting land of Yucatan!

But sailing I have passed thee by,

And leaning on the white ship's rail

Watched thy dim hills till mystery

Wrapped thy far stillness close to me

And I have breathed ' 'tis Yucatan!

' 'Tis Yucatan, 'tis Yucatan!'

The ship is sailing far away,

The coast recedes, the dim hills fade,

The bubble-winding track we've made,

And thou'rt Dream O Yucatan!

The Sky-Sent Death

"A German aeroplane flew over Greek territory dropping a bomb which killed a shepherd."

Sitting on a stone a Shepherd,

Stone and Shepherd sleeping,

Under the high blue Attic sky;

Along the green monotony

Grey sheep creeping, creeping.

Deep down on the hill and valley,

At the bottom of the sunshine,

Like great Ships in clearest water,

Water holding anchored Shadows,

Water without wave or ripple

Sunshine deep and clear and heavy,

Sunshine like a booming bell

Made of purest golden metal,

White Ships heavy in the sky

Sleep with anchored shadow.

Pipe a song in that still air

And the song would be of crystal

Snapped in silence, or a bronze vase

Smooth and graceful, curved and shining.

Tell an old tale or a history;

It would seem a slow Procession

Full of gestures; limbs and torso

White and rounded in the sunlight.

Sitting on a stone a Shepherd,

Stone and Shepherd sleeping,

Like a fragment of old marble

Dug up from the hillside shadow.

In the sunshine deep and soundless

Came a faint metallic humming;

In the sunshine clear and heavy

Came a speck, a speck of shadow --

Shepherd lift your head and listen,

Listen to that humming Shadow!

Sitting on a stone the Shepherd,

Stone and Shepherd sleeping

In a sleep dreamless as water,

Water in a white glass beaker,

Clear, pellucid without shadow;

Underneath a sky-blue crystal

Sees his grey sheep creeping.

In the sunshine clear and heavy

Shadow-fled a dark hand downward:

In the sunshine deep and soundless

Burst a star-dropt thing of thunder --

Smoked the burnt blue air's torn veiling

Drooping softly round the hillside.

Boomed the silence in returning

To the crater in the hillside,

To the red earth fresh and bleeding,

To the mangled heap remaining:

Far away that humming Shadow

Vanished in the azure distance.

Sitting on a stone no Shepherd,

Stone and Shepherd sleeping,

But across the hill and valley

Grey sheep creeping, creeping,

Standing carven on the sky-line,

Scattering in the open distance,

Free, in no man's keeping.

The Caves of Auvergne

He carved the red deer and the bull

Upon the smooth cave rock,

Returned from war with belly full,

And scarred with many a knock,

He carved the red deer and the bull

Upon the smooth cave rock.

The stars flew by the cave's wide door,

The clouds wild trumpets blew,

Trees rose in wild dreams from the floor,

Flowers with dream faces grew

Up to the sky, and softly hung

Golden and white and blue.

The woman ground her heap or corn,

Her heart a guarded fire;

The wind played in his trembling soul

Like a hand upon a lyre,

The wind drew faintly on the stone

Symbols of his desire:

The red deer of the forest dark,

Whose antlers cut the ky,

That vanishes into the mirk

And like a dream flits by,

And by an arrow slain at last

Is but the wind's dark body.

The bull that stands in marshy lakes

As motionless and still

As a dark rock jutting from a plain

Without a tree or hill;

The bull that is the sign of life

Its sombre, phallic will.

And from the dead, white eyes of them

The wind springs up anew,

It blows upon the trembling heart,

And bull and deer renew

Their flitting life in the dim past

When the dead Hunter drew.

I sit beside him in the night,

And, fingering his red stone,

I chase through endless forests dark

Seeking that thing unknown,

That which is not red deer or bull,

But which by them was shown;

By those stiff shapes in which he drew

His soul's exalted cry,

When flying down the forest dark

He slew and knew not why,

When he was filled with song, and strength

Flowed to him from the sky.

The wind blows from red deer and bull,

The clouds wild trumpets blare,

Trees rise in wild dreams from the earth,

Flowers with dream faces stare,

O Hunter, your own shadow stands

Within your forest lair!

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