Harold Monro

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Two Poems

(Numbers i and x in 'Strange Meetings.')

I

If suddenly a clod of earth should rise,

And walk about, and breathe, and speak, and love,

How one would tremble, and in what surprise

Gasp: ' Can you move? '

I see men walking, and I always feel:

' Earth! How have you done this? What can you be? '

I can't learn how to know men, or conceal

How strange they are to me.

II

A flower is looking through the ground,

Blinking at the April weather;

Now a child has seen the flower:

Now they go and play together.

Now is seems the flower will speak,

And will call the child its brother --

But, oh strange forgetfulness! --

They don't recognize each other.

Every Thing

Since man has been articulate,

Mechanical, improvidently wise,

(Servant of Fate),

He has not understood the little cries

And foreign conversations of the small

Delightful creatures that have followed him

Not far behind;

Has failed to hear the sympathetic call

Of Crockery and Cutlery, those kind

Reposeful Teraphim

Of his domestic happiness; the Stool

He sat on, or the Door he entered through:

He has not thanked them, overbearing fool!

What is he coming to?

But you should listen to the talk of these.

Honest they are, and patient they have kept,

Served him without his Thank you or his Please. . .

I often heard

The gentle Bed, a sigh between each word,

Murmuring, before I slept.

The Candle, as I blew it, cried aloud,

Then bowed,

And in a smoky argument

Into the darkness went.

The Kettle puffed a tentacle of breath : --

' Pooh! I have boiled his water, I don't know

Why; and he always says I boil too slow,

He never calls me "Sukie, dear," and oh,

I wonder why I squander my desire

Sitting submissive on his fire.'

Now the old Copper Basin suddenly

Rattled and tumbled from the shelf,

Bumping and crying: ' I can fall by myself;

Without a woman's hand

To patronize and coax and flatter me,

I understand

The lean and poise of gravitable land.'

It gave a raucous and tumultuous shout,

Twisted itself convulsively about,

Rested upon the foor, and, while I stare,

It stares and grins at me.

The old impetuous Gas above my head

Begins irascibly to flare and fret,

Wheezing into its epileptic jet,

Reminding me I ought to go to bed.

The Rafters creak; an Empty-Cupboard door

Swings open; now a wild Plank of the floor

Breaks from its joist, and leaps behind my foot.

Down from the chimney half a pound of Soot

Tumbles, and lies, and shakes itself again.

The Putty cracks against hte window-pane.

A piece of Paper in the basket shoves

Another piece, and toward the bottom moves.

My independent Pencil, while I write,

Breaks at the point: the ruminating Clock

Stirs all its body and begins to rock,

Warning the waiting presence of the Night,

Strikes the dead hour, and tumbles to the plain

Ticking of ordinary work again.

You do well to remind me, and I praise

Your strangely individual foreign ways.

You call me from myself to recognize

Companionship in your unselfish eyes.

I want your dear acquaintances, although

I pass you arrogantly over, throw

Your lovely sounds, and squander them along

My busy days. I 'll do you no more wrong.

Purr for me, Sukie, like a faithful cat.

You, my well trampled Boots, and you, my Hat,

Remain my friends: I feel, though I don't speak,

Your touch grow kindlier from week to week.

It well becomes our mutual happiness

To go toward the same end more or less.

There is not much dissimilarity,

Not much to choose, I know it well, in fine,

Between the purposes of you and me,

And your eventual Rubbish Heap, and mine.

Solitude

When you have tidied all things for the night,

And while your thoughts are fading to their sleep,

You'll pause a moment in the late firelight,

Too sorrowful to weep.

The large and gentle furniture has stood

In sympathetic silence all the day

With that old kindness of domestic wood;

Nevertheless the haunted room will say:

' Some one must be away. '

The little dog rolls over half awake,

Stretches his paws, yawns, looking up at you,

Wags his tail very slightly for your sake,

That you may feel he is unhappy too.

A distant engine whistles, or the floor

Creaks, or the wandering night-wind bangs a door.

Silence is scattered like a broken glass.

The minutes prick their ears and run about,

Then one by one subside again and pass

Sedately in, monotonously out.

You bend your head an wipe away a tear.

Solitude walks one heavy step more near.

Week-End

I

The train! The twleve o'clock for paradise.

    Hurry, or it will try to creep away.

Out in the country every one is wise:

    We can be only wise on Saturday.

There you are waiting, little friendly house:

    Those are your chimney-stacks with you between

Surrounded by old trees and strolling cows,

    Staring through all your windows at the green.

Your homely floor is creaking for our tread;

    The smiling tea-pot with contented spout

Thinks of the boiling water, and the bread

    Longs for the butter. All their hands are out

To greet us, and the gentle blankets seem

Purring and crooning: 'Lie in us, and dream.'

II

The key will stammer, and the door reply,

    The hall wake, yawn, and smile; the torpid stair

Will grumble at our feet, the table cry:

    'Fetch my bolongings for me; I am bare.'

A clatter! something in the attic falls,

    A ghost has lifted up his robes and fled.

    Then silence very slowly lifts his head.

The starling with impatient screech has flown

    The chimney, and is watching from the tree.

They thought us gone for ever: mouse alone

    Stops in the middle of the floor to see.

Now all you idle things, resume your toil.

Hearth, put your flames on. Sulky kettle, boil.

III

Contented evening; comfortable joys;

    The snoozing fire, and all the fields are still:

Tranquil delight, no purpose, and no noise --

    Unless the slow wind flowing round the hill.

'Murry' (the kettle) dozes; little mouse

    Is rambling prudently about the floor.

There's lovely conversation in this house:

    Words become princes that were slaves before.

What a sweet atmosphere for you and me

    The people that have been here left behind. . . .

Oh, but I fear it may turn out to be

    Built of a dream, erected in the mind:

So if we speak too loud, we may awaken

To find it vanished, and ourselves mistaken.

IV

Lift up the curtain carefully. All the trees

    Stand in the dark like drowsy sentinels.

    The oak is talkative to-night; he tells

The little bushes crowding at his knees

That formidable, hard, voluminous

    History of growth from acord into age.

They titter like school-children; they arouse

    Their comrades, who exclaim: ' He is very sage. '

Look how the moon is staring through that cloud,

    Laying and lifting idle streaks of light.

O hark! was that the monstrous wind, so loud

And sudden, prowling always through the night?

Let down the shaking curtain. They are queer,

Those foreigners. They and we live so near.

V

Come, come to bed. The shadows move about,

    And some one seems to overhear our talk.

The fire is low; the candles flicker out;

    The ghosts of former tenants want to walk.

Already they are shuffling through the gloom.

    I felt on old man touch my shoulder-blade;

Once he was married here; they love this room,

    He and his woman and the child they made.

Dead, dead, they are, yet some familiar sound,

    Creeping along the brink of happy life,

Revives their memory from under ground --

    The farmer and his troublesome old wife.

Let us be going: as we climb the stairs,

They'll sit down in our warm half-empty chairs.

VI

Morning! Wake up! Awaken! All the boughs

    Are rippling on the air across the green.

The youngest birds are singing to the house.

    Blood of the world! -- and is the country clean?

Disturb the precinct. Cool it with a shout.

    Sing as you trundle down to light the fire.

Turn the encumbering shadows tumbling out,

    And fill the chambers with a new desire.

Life is no good, unless the morning brings

    White happiness and quick delight of day.

These half-inanamate domestic things

    Must all be useful, or must go away.

Coffee, be fragrant. Porridge in my plate,

Increase the vigour to fulfil my fate.

VII

The fresh air moves like water round a boat.

    The white clouds wander. Let us wander too.

The whining, wavering plover flap and float.

    That crow is flying after that cuckoo.

Look! Look! . . . They're gone. What are the great trees calling?

    Just come a little farther, by that edge

Of green, to where the stormy ploughland, falling

    Wave upon wave, is lapping to the hedge.

Oh, what a lovely bank! Give me your hand.

    Lie down and press your heart against the ground.

Let us both listen till we understand,

    Each through the other, every natural sound. . . .

I can't hear anything to-day, can you,

But, far and near: ' Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! ' ?

VIII

The everlasting grass -- how bright, how cool!

    The day has gone too suddenly, too soon.

There's something white and shiny in that pool --

    Throw in a stone, and you will hit the moon.

Listen, the church-bell ringing! Do not say

    We must go back to-morrow to our work.

We'll tell them we are dead: we died to-day.

    We're lazy. We're too happy, We will shirk,

We're cows. We're kettles. We'll be anything

    Except the manikins of time and fear.

We'll start away to-morrow wandering,

    And nobody will notice in a year. . . .

Now the great sun is slipping under ground.

Grip firmly! -- How the earth is whirling round!

IX

Be staid; be careful; and be not too free.

Temptation to enjoy your liberty

May rise against you, break into a crime,

And smash the habit of employing Time.

It serves no purpose that the careful clock

    Mark the appointment, the officious train

Hurry to keep it, if the minutes mock

    Loud in you ear: 'Late. Late. Late. Late again.'

Week-end is very well on Saturday:

    On Monday it's a different affair --

A little episode, a trivial stay

    In some oblivious spot somehow, somewhere.

On Sunday night we hardly laugh or speak:

    Week-end begins to merges itself in Week.

X

Pack up the house, and close the creaking door.

    The fields are dull this morning in the rain.

It's difficult to leave that homely floor.

    Wave a light hand; we will return again.

(What was that bird?) Good-bye, ecstatic tree,

    Floating, bursting, and breathing on the air.

The lonely farm is wondering that we

    Can leave. How every window seems to stare!

That bag is heavy. Share it for a bit.

    You like that gentle swashing of the ground

As we tread ? . . .

            It is over. Now we sit

    Reading the morning paper in the sound

Of the debilitating heavy train.

London again, again. London again.

The Bird at Dawn

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