W.J. Turner

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Silence

It was bright day and all the trees were still

In the deep valley, and the dim Sun glowed;

The clay in hard-baked fire along the hill

Leapt through dark trunks to apples green and gold,

Smooth, hard and cold, they shone like lamps of stone:

They were bright bubbles bursting from the trees,

Swollen and still among the dark green boughs;

On their bright skins the shadows of the leaves

Seemed the faints ghosts of summers long since gone,

Faint ghosts of ghosts, the dreams of ghostly eyes.

There was not sound between those breathless hills.

Only the dim Sun hung there, nothing moved;

The thronged, massed, crowded multitude of leaves

Hung like dumb tongues that loll and gasp for air:

The grass was thick and still, between the trees.

There were big apples lying on the ground,

Shining, quite still, as though they had been stunned

By some great violent spirit stalking through,

Leaving a deep and supernatural calm

Round a dead beetle upturned in a furrow.

A valley filled with dark, quiet, leaf-thick trees,

Loaded with green, cold, faintly shining suns;

And in the sky a great dim burning disc! --

Madness it is to watch these twisted trunks

And to see nothing move and hear no sound!

Let's make a noise, Hey! . . . Hey! . . . Hullo! Hullo!

Kent in War

The pebbly brook is cold to-night,

   Its water soft as air,

A clear, cold, crystal-bodied wind

   Shadowless and bare,

Leaping and running in this world

   Where dark-horned cattle stare:

Where dark-horned cattle stare, hoof-firm

   On the dark pavements of the sky,

And trees are mummies swathed in sleep

   And small dark hills crowd wearily:

Soft multitudes of snow-grey clouds

   Without a sound march by.

Down at the bottom of the road

   I smell the woody damp

Of that cold spirit in the grass,

   And leave my hill-top camp --

Its long gun pointing at the sky --

   And take the Moon for lamp.

I stop beside the bright cold glint

   Of that thin spirit in the grass,

So gay it is, so innocent!

   I watch its sparkling footsteps pass

Lightly from smooth round stone to stone,

   Hid in the dew-hung grass.

My lamp shines in the globes of dew,

   And leaps into that crystal wind

Running along the shaken grass

   To each dark hole that it can find --

The crystal wind, the Moon my lamp,

   Have vanished in a wood that's blind.

High lies my small, my shadowy camp,

   Crowded about by small dark hills;

With sudden small white flowers the sky

   Above the woods' dark greenness fills;

And hosts of dark-browed, muttering trees

   In trance the white Moon stills.

I move among their tall grey forms,

   A tin moon-glimmering, wandering Ghost,

Who takes his lantern through the world

   In search of life that he has lost,

While watching by that long lean gun

   Up on his small hill post.

---

Talking with Soldiers

The mind of the people is like mud,

From which arise strange and beautiful things,

But mud is none the less mud,

Though it bear orchids and prophesying Kings,

Dreams, trees, and water's bright bubblings.

It has found form and colour and light,

The cold glimmer of the ice-wrapped Poles;

It has called a far-off glow Arcturus,

And some pale weeds, lilies of the valley,

It has imagined Virgil, Helen and Cassandra;

The sack of Troy, and the weeping for Hector --

Rearing stark up 'mid all this beauty

In the thick, dull neck of Ajax.

There is a dark Pine in Lapland,

And the great, figured Horn of the Reindeer

Moving soundlessly across the snow,

Is its twin brother, double-dreamed,

In the mind of a far-off people.

It is strange that a little mud

Should echo with sounds, syllables, and letters,

Should rise up and call a mountain Popocatapetl,

And a green-leafed wood Oleander.

These are the ghosts of invisible things;

There is no Lapland, no Helen and no Hector,

And the Reindeer is a darkening of the brain,

And Oleander is but Oleander.

Mary Magdalena and the vine Lachryma Christi,

Were like ghosts up the ghost of Vesuvius,

As I sat and drank wine with the soldiers,

As I sat in the Inn on the Mountain,

Watching the shadows in my mind.

The mind of the people is like mud:

Where are the imperishable things,

The ghosts that flicker in the brain --

Silent women, orchids, and prophesying Kings,

Dreams, trees, and water's bright babblings!

---

Song

Gently, sorrowfully sang the maid

   Sowing the ploughed field over,

And her song was only:

   'Come, O my lover!'

Strangely, strangely shone the light,

   Stilly wound the river:

'Thy love is a dead man,

   He'll come back never.'

Sadly, sadly passed the maid

   The fading dark hills over;

Still her song far, far away said:

   'Come, O my lover!'

---

The Princess

The stone-grey roses by the desert's rim

Are soft-edged shadows on the moonlit sand,

Grey are the broken walls of Khangavar,

That haunt of nightingales, whose voices are

Fountains that bubble in the dream-soft Moon.

Shall the Gazelles with moonbeam pale bright feet

Entering the vanished gardens sniff the air --

Some scent may linger of that ancient time,

Musician's song, or poet's passionate rhyme,

The Princess dead, still wandering love-sick there.

A Princess pale and cold as mountain snow,

In cool, dark chambers sheltered from the sun,

With long dark lashes and small delicate hands:

All Persia sighed to kiss her small red mouth

Until they buried her in shifting sand.

And the Gazelles shall flit by in the Moon

And never shake the frail Tree's lightest leaves,

And moonlight roses perfume the pale Dawn

Until the scarlet life that left her lips

Gathers its shattered beauty in the sky.

---

Peace

In low chalk hills the great King's body lay

And bright streams fell, tinkling like polished tin,

As though they carried off his armoury,

And spread it glinting through his wide domain.

Old bearded soldiers sat and gazed dim-eyed

At the strange brightness flowing under trees,

And saw his sword flashing in ancient battles,

And drank, and swore, and trembled helplessly.

And bright-haired maidens dipped their cold white arms,

And drew them glittering colder, whiter, still;

The sky sparkled like the dead King's blue eye

Upon the sentries that were dead as trees.

His shining shield lay in an old grey town,

And white swans sailed so still and dreamfully,

They seemed the thoughts of those white, peaceful hills

Mirrored that day within his glazing eyes.

And in the square the pale cool butter sold,

Cropped from the daisies sprinkled on the downs,

And old wives cried their wares, like queer day owls,

Piercing the old men's sad and foolish dreams.

And Time flowed on till all the realm forgot

The great King lying on the low chalk hills;

Only the busy water dripping through

His hard white bones knew of him lying there.

---

Death

When I am dead a few poor souls shall grieve

As I grieved for my brother long ago.

   Scarce did my eyes grow dim,

   I had forgotten him;

I was far-off hearing the spring-winds blow,

   And many summers burned

When, though still reeling with my eyes aflame,

   I heard that faded name

Whispered one Spring amid the hurrying world

   From which, years gone, he turned.

I looked up at my windows and I saw

The trees, thin spectres sucked forth by the moon.

   The air was very still

   Above a distant hill;

It was the hour of night's full silver moon.

   'O are thou there my brother?' my soul cried;

And all the pale stars down bright rivers wept,

   As my heart sadly crept

About the empty hills, bathed in that light

   That lapped him when he died.

Ah! it was cold, so cold; do I not know

How dead my heart on that remembered day!

   Clear in a far-away place

   I see his delicate face

Just as he called me from my solitary play,

   Giving into my hands a tiny tree.

We planted it in the dark, blossomless ground

   Gravely, without a sound;

Then back I went and left him standing by

   His birthday gift to me.

---

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