Complete Works of Isaac Rosenberg Read online

Was it lorn Echo babbling to herself,

  190 That none would mate and none would hear her?

  ‘I wander — I wander — O will she wander here?

  Where’er my footsteps carry me I know that she is near.

  A jewelled lamp within her hand and jewels in her hair,

  I lost her in a vision once and seek her everywhere.

  195 ‘My spirit whispers she is near, I look at you and you.

  Surely she has not passed me, I sleeping as she flew.

  I wander — I wander, and yet she is not here,

  Although my spirit whispers to me that she is near.’

  Verily my heart doth know the voice of Hope.

  200 What doth he in these woods singing this wise?

  ‘By what far ways shall my heart reach to thine?

  We, who have never parted — never met,

  Nor done to death the joys that shall be yet,

  Nor drained the cup of love’s delirious wine.

  205 How shall my craving spirit know for mine

  Thine, self-same seeking? Will a wild regret

  For the lost days — the lonely suns that set,

  Be for our love a token and a sign?

  Will all the weary nights, the widowed days

  210 That sundered long, all point their hands at thee?

  Yea! all the stars that have not heard thy praise

  Low murmur in thy charmed ear of me?

  All pointing to the ending of the ways,

  All singing of the love that is to be?’

  215 Of love to be, wherefore of love to be?

  I never have heard the stars though they look wistfully at me.

  I have cried to them and they showed me Desire.

  She brought me a passionate wistful dream of eternity.

  I cried to them, and they showed me Hope — a fire.

  220 He brought me a dream of love — he made my heart to feel

  Vague shadowy longings — whereon loneliness had put a seal.

  Wherefore? because love is the radiant smile of God,

  Because love’s land is a heaven only by angels trod.

  Where beauty sings and teaches her fair song

  225 Of the eternal rhythm — ah! teach me.

  ‘Close thine eyes and under the eyelids that hide,

  The glory thine eyes have seen in thy soul shall abide.

  The beauty thy soul has heard shall flow into thy soul.

  Lordship of many mysteries will be thine being beauty’s thrall.

  230 ‘Close thine eyes and under the eyelids that hide,

  A bridge build from Heaven as the earth is — wide,

  For the bright and dense shapes that ‘twixt earth and heaven do pass,

  Lutanists of day and even, to the pool and to the grass.

  ‘To the cloud and to the mountains, to the wind and to the stars,

  235 Silvern tongued din of fountains, golden at the sunset bars.

  ‘So they sing the songs I taught them, and they lute the songs

  I made

  For the praise of Him who wrought them lauders of his sun and shade.

  ‘How may there be a silence? for the cosmic cycle would cease.

  I am but the voice of God and these do lute my litanies.’

  240 One night and one day and what sang Desire?

  All that God sings betwixt them is not lost.

  One night and one day, what did Beauty choir?

  If our souls hearken little is the most,

  And nothing is which is not living sound,

  245 All flowing with the eternal harmony

  That with creation’s first day was unwound.

  One night and one day — what sang Hope to me?

  That the next night and day love’s song must fill.

  He showed me in a mirror, ecstasy,

  250 And a new dawn break over the old hill.

  Twilight’s wide eyes are mystical

  With some far off knowledge;

  Secret is the mouth of her,

  And secret her eyes.

  255 Lo! she braideth her hair

  Of dim soft purple and thread of satin.

  Lo! she flasheth her hand —

  Her hand of pearl and silver in shadow.

  Slowly she braideth her hair

  260 Over her glimmering eyes,

  Floating her ambient robes

  Over the trees and the skies,

  Over the wind-footing grass.

  Softly she braideth her hair

  265 With shadow deeper than thought.

  To make her comely for night?

  To make her meet for the night?

  Slowly she heaveth her breast,

  For the night to lie there and rest?

  270 Hush, her eyes are in trance

  Swooningly raised to the sky.

  What heareth she so to enthral?

  Filleth her sight to amaze?

  ‘From the sweet gardens of the sky

  275 Whose roots are pleasures under earth,

  Whose atmosphere is melody

  To hail each deathless minute’s birth,

  Between frail night and frailer day

  I sing what soon the moon will say,

  280 And what the sun has said in mirth.

  ‘I sing the centre of all bliss.

  The peace like a sweet-smelling tree

  That spreads its perfumed holiness

  In unperturbed serenity.

  285 Between the darkness and the light,

  I hang above my message bright

  The clamour of mortality.

  ‘Here, from the bowers of Paradise

  Whose flowers from deep contentment grew,

  290 To reach his hand out to the wise

  My casement God’s bright eyes look through.

  For him whose eyes do look for Him

  He leans out through the seraphim

  And His own bosom draws him to.’

  300 I heard the evening star.

  TO J. H. AMSCHEWITZ

  In the wide darkness of the shade of days

  Twixt days that were, and days that yet will be,

  Making the days that are, gloom’d mystery,

  What starshine glimmers through the nighted ways

  Uplifting? and through all vain hope’s delays

  What is it brings far joy’s foretaste to me?

  A savour of a ship-unsullied sea,

  A glimpse of golden lands too high for praise.

  Life holds the glass but gives us tears for wine.

  But if at times he changes in his hand

  The bitter goblet for the drink divine,

  I stand upon the shore of a strange land.

  And when mine eyes unblinded of the brine

  See clear, lo! where he stood before, you stand.

  ASPIRATION

  The roots of a dead universe are shrunken in my brain;

  And the tinsel leafed branches of the charred trees are strewn;

  And the chaff we deem’d for harvest shall be turned to golden grain,

  While May no more will mimic March, but June be only June.

  5 Lo! a ghost enleaguer’d city where no ghostly footfall came!

  And a rose within the mirror with the fragrance of it hid;

  And mine ear prest to the mouth of the shadow of a name;

  But no ghost or speech or fragrance breathing on my faint eyelid.

  I would crash the city’s ramparts, touch the ghostly hands without.

  10 Break the mirror, feel the scented warm lit petals of the rose.

  Would mine ears be stretched for shadows in the fading of the doubt?

  Other ears shall wait my shadow, — can you see behind the brows?

  For I would see with mine own eyes the glory and the gold.

  With a strange and fervid vision see the glamour and the dream.

  15 And chant an incantation in a measure new and bold,

  And enaureole a glory round an unawaken’d theme.
/>   HEART’S FIRST WORD

  To sweeten a swift minute so

  With such rare fragrance of sweet speech,

  And make the after hours go

  In a blank yearning each on each;

  5 To drain the springs till they be dry,

  And then in anguish thirst for drink,

  So but to glimpse her robe thirst I,

  And my soul hungers and I sink.

  There is no word that we have said

  10 Whereby the lips and heart are fire;

  No look the linkéd glances read

  That held the springs of deep desire.

  And yet the sounds her glad lips gave

  Are on my soul vibrating still.

  15 Her eyes that swept me as a wave

  Shine my soul’s worship to fulfil.

  Her hair, her eyes, her throat and chin;

  Sweet hair, sweet eyes, sweet throat, so sweet,

  So fair because the ways of sin

  20 Have never known her perfect feet.

  By what far ways and marvellous

  May I such lovely heaven reach?

  What dread dark seas and perilous

  Lie ‘twixt love’s silence and love’s speech?

  WHEN I WENT FORTH

  When I went forth as is my daily wont

  Into the streets, into the eddying throng,

  Lady — the thought of your sweet face was strong,

  The grace of your sweet shape my ways did haunt.

  About this spell clangoured the busy chaunt

  Of traffic, like some hundred-throated song

  Of storm set round some moon-flashed isle in wrong.

  But soon usurped your robe’s undulant flaunt —

  Your last words said — your ruby gaolers’ loss —

  The instant and unanchored gleams across

  My soul’s mirror that holds you there for aye;

  The sounds that beat the guard down of sound’s gates,

  But memory mastereth not, behind who waits,

  Your speech — your face — his text by night and day.

  IN NOVEMBER

  Your face was like a day in June

  Glad with the raiment of the noon,

  And your eyes seemed like thoughts that stir

  To dream of warm June nights that were.

  5 The dead leaves dropped off one by one,

  All hopeless in the withered sun.

  Around, the listless atmosphere

  Hung grey and quiet and austere.

  As we stood talking in the porch

  10 My pulse shook like a wind kissed torch,

  Too sweet you seemed for anything

  Save dreams whereof the poets sing.

  Your voice was like the buds that burst

  With latter spring to slake their thirst,

  15 While all your ardent mouth was lit

  With summer memories exquisite.

  LADY, YOU ARE MY GOD

  Lady, you are my God —

  Lady, you are my heaven.

  If I am your God

  Labour from your heaven.

  Lady, you are my God,

  And shall not love win heaven?

  If Love made me God

  Deeds must win my heaven.

  If my love made you God,

  What more can I for heaven?

  SPIRITUAL ISOLATION

  Fragment

  My Maker shunneth me.

  Even as a wretch stricken with leprosy

  So hold I pestilent supremacy.

  Yea! He hath fled far as the uttermost star,

  5 Beyond the unperturbed fastnesses of night,

  And dreams that bastioned are

  By fretted towers of sleep that scare His light.

  Of wisdom writ, whereto

  My burdened feet may best withouten rue,

  10 I may not spell — and I am sore to do.

  Yea! all seeing my Maker hath such dread,

  Even mine own self-love wists not but to fly

  To Him, and sore besped

  Leaves me, its captain, in such mutiny.

  15 Will, deemed incorporate

  With me, hath flown ere love, to expiate

  Its sinful stay where he did habitate.

  Ah me! if they had left a sepulchre;

  But no — the light hath changed not and in it

  20 Of its same colour stir

  Spirits I see not but phantasm’d feel to flit.

  Air legioned such stirreth,

  So that I seem to draw them with my breath.

  Ghouls that devour each joy they do to death.

  25 Strange glimmering griefs and sorrowing silences,

  Bearing dead flowers unseen whose charnel smell

  Great awe to my sense is

  Even in the rose-time when all else is well.

  In my great loneliness,

  30 This haunted desolation’s dire distress,

  I strove with April buds my thoughts to dress,

  Therewith to reach to joy through gay attire;

  But as I plucked came one of those pale griefs

  With mouth of parched desire

  35 And breathed upon the buds and charred the leaves.

  TESS

  The free fair life that has never been mine, the glory that might have been,

  If I were what you seem to be and what I may not be!

  I know I walk upon the earth but a dreadful wall between

  My spirit and your spirit lies, your joy and my misery.

  The angels that lie watching us, the little human play —

  What deem they of the laughter and the tears that flow apart?

  When a word of man is a woman’s doom do they turn and wonder and say,

  ‘Ah! why has God made love so great that love must burst her heart?’

  O! IN A WORLD OF MEN AND WOMEN

  O! in a world of men and women

  Where all things seemed so strange to me,

  And speech the common world called human

  For me was a vain mimicry,

  5 I thought — O! am I one in sorrow?

  Or is the world more quick to hide

  Their pain with raiment that they borrow

  From pleasure in the house of pride?

  O! joy of mine, O! longed for stranger,

  10 How I would greet you if you came!

  In the world’s joys I’ve been a ranger,

  In my world sorrow is their name.

  YOUTH

  During the winter of 1913, Rosenberg’s health deteriorated. Afraid of consumption, his doctor advised him to seek a warmer climate. His sister Minnie had married and settled in South Africa. With the aid of a grant of £13 to cover his fare, Rosenberg sailed from Tilbury to Cape Town at the beginning of June 1914. At first excited by the beauty and light of the southern hemisphere country, he was soon irritated by the lack of cultural diversions there. However, hoping to receive commissions, he delivered a lecture on art, which was published in two parts in a local magazine. Meanwhile, Europe was engulfed in war and in February 1915, Rosenberg decided to leave South Africa, uncertain what he would find when he arrived home in England.

  Soon, he knew he would have to decide whether to enlist. His first decision was to prepare for publication his second collection of poems, Youth. Featuring twenty-two poems, a few previously having appeared in Night and Day, the collection was divided into three sections and demonstrated a more conscious striving for an artistic whole.

  CONTENTS

  PART I. FAITH AND FEAR.

  ASPIRATION

  IN THE PARK.

  DESIRE SINGS OF IMMORTALITY.

  NOON IN THE CITY

  NONE HAVE SEEN THE LORD OF THE HOUSE

  A GIRL’S THOUGHTS

  WEDDED.

  MIDSUMMER FROST

  PART II. THE CYNIC’S LAMP.

  LOVE AND LUST

  IN PICCADILLY

  A MOOD

  PART III. CHANGE AND SUNFIRE.

  APRIL
DAWN

  IF YOU ARE FIRE

  DIM-WATERY-LIGHTS, GLEAMING ON GIBBERING FACES

  BREAK IN BY SUBTLER WAYS

  LADY, YOU ARE MY GOD

  THE ONE LOST

  MY SOUL IS ROBBED

  GOD MADE BLIND

  THE DEAD HEROES

  THE CLOISTER

  EXPRESSION

  The first edition

  PART I. FAITH AND FEAR.

  ASPIRATION

  The roots of a dead universe are shrunken in my brain;

  And the tinsel leafed branches of the charred trees are strewn;

  And the chaff we deem’d for harvest shall be turned to golden grain,

  While May no more will mimic March, but June be only June.

  5 Lo! a ghost enleaguer’d city where no ghostly footfall came!

  And a rose within the mirror with the fragrance of it hid;

  And mine ear prest to the mouth of the shadow of a name;

  But no ghost or speech or fragrance breathing on my faint eyelid.

  I would crash the city’s ramparts, touch the ghostly hands without.

  10 Break the mirror, feel the scented warm lit petals of the rose.

  Would mine ears be stretched for shadows in the fading of the doubt?

  Other ears shall wait my shadow, — can you see behind the brows?

  For I would see with mine own eyes the glory and the gold.

  With a strange and fervid vision see the glamour and the dream.

  15 And chant an incantation in a measure new and bold,

  And enaureole a glory round an unawaken’d theme.

  IN THE PARK.

  Let me weave my fantasy

  Of this web like broken glass

  Gleaming through the fretted leaves

  In a quaint intricacy,

  Diamond tipping all the grass.

  Hearken as the spirit heaves

  Through the branches and the leaves

  In the shudder of their pulse.

  Delicate nature trembles so

  To a ruder nature’s touch,

  And of peace that these convulse

  They have little who should have much.

  Life is so.

  Let me carve my fantasy

  Of the fretwork of the leaves.

  Then spake I to the tree,

  ‘Were ye your own desire

  What is it ye would be?’

  Answered the tree to me,