After
"How fared you when you mortal were?
What did you see on my peopled star?"
"Oh well enough," I answered her,
"It went for me where mortals are!
"I saw blue flowers and the merlin's flight
And the rime on the wintry tree,
Blue doves I saw and summer light
On the wings of the cinnamon bee."
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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February
A few tossed thrushes save
That carolled less than cried
Against the dying rave
And moan that never died,
No bird sang then; no thorn,
No tree was green beside
Them only never shorn -
The few by all the winds
And chill mutations born
Of Winter's many minds
Abused and whipt in vain -
Swarth yew and ivy kinds
And iron breeds germane.
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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The Late last Rook
The old gilt vane and spire receive
The last beam eastward striking;
The first shy bat to peep at eve
Has found her to his liking.
The western heaven is dull and grey,
The last red glow has followed day.
The late, last rook is housed and will
With cronies lie till morrow;
If there's a rook loquacious still
In dream he hunts a furrow,
And flaps behind a spectre team,
Or ghostly scarecrows walk his dream.
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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The House Across the Way
The leaves looked in at the window
Of the house across the way,
At a man that had sinned like you and me
And all poor human clay.
He muttered: 'In a gambol
I took my soul astray,
But to-morrow I'll drag it back from danger,
In the morning, come what may;
For no man knows what season
He shall go his ghostly way.'
And his face fell down upon the table,
And where it fell it lay.
And the wind blew under the carpet
And it said, or it seemed to say:
'Truly, all men must go a-ghosting
And no man knows his day.'
And the leaves stared in at the window
Like the people at a play.
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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Playmates
It's sixty years ago, the people say:
Two village children, neighbours born and bred,
One morning played beneath a rotten tree
That came down crash and caught them as they fled;
And one was killed and one was left unhurt
Except for certain fancies in his head.
And though it's all so very long ago
He's never left the wood a single day;
I've often met him peeping through the leaves
And chuckling to himself, an old man grey;
And once he started in his cracked old voice:
'We're playing I'm a merchant lost his way,
She's robbers in the wood behind yon tree,
The minute we grow up too big to play' -
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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The Journeyman
Not baser than his own homekeeping kind
Whose journeyman he is -
Blind sons and breastless daughters of the blind
Whose darkness pardons his, -
About the world, while all the world approves,
The pimp of Fashion steals,
With all the angels mourning their dead loves
Behind his bloody heels.
It my be late when Nature cries Enough!
As one day cry she will,
And man may have the wit to put her off
With shifts a season still;
But man may find the pinch importunate
And fall to blaming men -
Blind sires and breastless mothers of his fate,
It may be late and may be very late,
Too late for blaming then.
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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The Gypsy Girl
'Come, try your skill, kind gentlemen,
A penny for three tries!'
Some threw and lost, some threw and won
A ten-a-penny prize.
She was a tawny gypsy girl,
A girl of twenty years,
I liked her for the lumps of gold
That jingled from her ears;
I liked the flaring yellow scarf
Bound loose about her throat,
I liked her showy purple gown
And flashy velvet coat.
A man came up, too loose of tongue,
And said no good to her;
She did not blush as Saxons do,
Or turn upon the cur;
[...] Read more
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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The Moor
The world's gone forward to its latest fair
And dropt an old man done with by the way,
To sit alone among the bats and stare
At miles and miles and miles of moorland bare
Lit only with last shreds of dying day.
Not all the world, not all the world's gone by:
Old man, you're like to meet one traveller still,
A journeyman well kenned for courtesy
To all that walk at odds with life and limb;
If this be he now riding up the hill
Maybe he'll stop and take you up with him . . .
'But thou art Death?' 'Of Heavenly Seraphim
None else to seek thee out and bid thee come.'
'I only care that thou art come from Him,
Unbody me - I'm tired - and get me home.'
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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Time, You Old Gypsy Man,
Time, You Old Gypsy Man
Will you not stay,
Put up your caravan
Just for one day?
All things I'll give you
Will you be my guest,
Bells for your jennet
Of silver the best,
Goldsmiths shall beat you
A great golden ring,
Peacocks shall bow to you,
Little boys sing.
Oh, and sweet girls will
Festoon you with may,
Time, you old gypsy,
Why hasten away?
Last week in Babylon,
Last night in Rome,
Morning, and in the crush
Under Paul's dome;
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poem by Ralph Hodgson
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Ghoul Care
Sour fiend, go home and tell the Pit
For once you met your master, -
A man who carried in his soul
Three charms against disaster,
The Devil and disaster.
Away, away, and tell the tale
And start your whelps a-whining,
Say 'In the greenwood of his soul
A lizard's eye was shining,
A little eye kept shining.'
Away, away, and salve your sores,
And set your hags a-groaning,
Say 'In the greenwood of his soul
A drowsy bee was droning,
A dreamy bee was droning.'
Prodigious Bat! Go start the walls
Of Hell with horror ringing.
Say 'In the greenwood of his soul
There was a goldfinch singing,
A pretty goldfinch singing.'
[...] Read more
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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