THE THREE HILLS

AND OTHER POEMS

BY

J.C. SQUIRE

LONDON: HOWARD LATIMER LTD.

GREAT QUEEN STREET, KINGSWAY

MCMXIII

TO

FRANCIS BURROWS

CONTENTS

ANTINOMIES ON A RAILWAY STATION
THE THREE HILLS
A CHANT
ARTEMIS ALTERA
STARLIGHT
FLORIAN'S SONG
DIALOGUE
CREPUSCULAR
AT NIGHT
FOR MUSIC
THE ROOF
TREETOPS
IN THE PARK
SONG
TOWN
A MEMORIAL
FRIENDSHIP'S GARLAND—I
—II
—III
LINES ON THE EARTHLY PARADISE
ECHOES
THE FUGITIVE
IN THE ORCHARD
IN A CHAIR
A DAY
THE MIND OF MAN
A REASONABLE PROTESTATION
EPILOGUE

TWELVE TRANSLATIONS FROM CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

TOUT ENTIÈRE
THE ALCHEMY OF GRIEF
SPLEEN
A VOYAGE TO CYTHERA
THE CRACKED BELL
THE OFFENDED MOON
TO THEODORE BANVILLE, 1984
MUSIC
THE CATS
THE SADNESS OF THE MOON
MOESTA ET ERRABUNDA
THE OWLS

Many of the above poems have appeared in the "British Review," the "Eye-Witness," the "New Witness," the "Oxford and Cambridge Review," the "New Statesman," and the "New Age," to the Editors of which thanks are due for permission to reprint. Three of the short poems and most of the translations are extracted from an earlier volume.

ANTINOMIES ON A RAILWAY STATION


As I stand waiting in the rain
For the foggy hoot of the London train,
Gazing at silent wall and lamp
And post and rail and platform damp,
What is this power that comes to my sight
That I see a night without the night,
That I see them clear, yet look them through,
The silvery things and the darkly blue,
That the solid wall seems soft as death,
A wavering and unanchored wraith,
And rails that shine and stones that stream
Unsubstantial as a dream?
What sudden door has opened so,
What hand has passed, that I should know
This moving vision not of trance
That melts the globe of circumstance,
This sight that marks not least or most
And makes a stone a passing ghost?

Is it that a year ago
I stood upon this self-same spot;
Is it that since a year ago
The place and I have altered not;
Is it that I half forgot,
A year ago, and all despised
For a space the things that I had prized:
The race of life, the glittering show?
Is it that now a year has passed
Of vain pursuit of glittering things,
Of fruitless searching, shouting, running,
And greedy lies and candour cunning,
Here as I stand the year above
Sudden the heats and the strivings fail
And fall away, a fluctuant veil,
And the fixed familiar stones restore
The old appearance-buried core,
The moveless and essential me,
The eternal personality
Alone enduring first and last?

No, this I have known in other ways,
In other places, other days.
Not only here, on this one peak,
Do fixity and beauty speak
Of the delusiveness of change,
Of the transparency of form,
The bootless stress of minds that range,
The awful calm behind the storm.
In many places, many days,
The invaded soul receives the rays
Of countries she was nurtured in,
Speaks in her silent language strange
To that beyond which is her kin.
Even in peopled streets at times
A metaphysic arm is thrust
Through the partitioning fabric thin,
And tears away the darkening pall
Cast by the bright phenomenal,
And clears the obscured spirit's mirror
From shadows of deceptive error,
And shows the bells and all their ringing,
And all the crowds and all their singing,
Carillons that are nothing's chimes
And dust that is not even dust....
But rarely hold I converse thus
Where shapes are bright and clamorous,
More often comes the word divine
In places motionless and far;
Beneath the white peculiar shine
Of sunless summer afternoons;
At eventide on pale lagoons
Where hangs reflected one pale star;
Or deep in the green solitudes
Of still erect entrancèd woods.

O, in the woods alone lying,
Scarce a bough in the wind sighing,
Gaze I long with fervid power
At leaf and branch and grass and flower,
Breathe I breaths of trembling sight
Shed from great urns of green delight,
Take I draughts and drink them up
Poured from many a stalk and cup.
Now do I burn for nothing more
Than thus to gaze, thus to adore
This exquisiteness of nature ever
In silence....

But with instant light
Rends the film; with joy I quiver
To see with new celestial sight
Flower and leaf and grass and tree,
Doomed barks on an eternal sea,
Flit phantom-like as transient smoke.
Beauty herself her spell has broke,
Beauty, the herald and the lure,
Her message told, may not endure;
Her portal opened, she has died,
Supreme immortal suicide.
Yes, sleepless nature soundless flings
Invisible grapples round the soul,
Drawing her through the web of things
To the primal end of her journeyings,
Her ultimate and constant pole.

For Beauty with her hands that beckon
Is but the Prophet of a Higher,
A flaming and ephemeral beacon,
A Phoenix perishing by fire.
Herself from us herself estranges,
Herself her mighty tale doth kill,
That all things change yet nothing changes,
That all things move yet all are still.

I cannot sink, I cannot climb,
Now that I see my ancient dwelling,
The central orb untouched of time,
And taste a peace all bliss excelling.
Now I have broken Beauty's wall,
Now that my kindred world I hold,
I care not though the cities fall
And the green earth go cold.




THE THREE HILLS


There were three hills that stood alone
With woods about their feet.
They dreamed quiet when the sun shone
And whispered when the rain beat.

They wore all three their coronals
Till men with houses came
And scored their heads with pits and walls
And thought the hills were tame.

Red and white when day shines bright
They hide the green for miles,
Where are the old hills gone? At night
The moon looks down and smiles.

She sees the captors small and weak,
She knows the prisoners strong,
She hears the patient hills that speak:
"Brothers, it is not long;

"Brothers, we stood when they were not
Ten thousand summers past.
Brothers, when they are clean forgot
We shall outlive the last;

"One shall die and one shall flee
With terror in his train,
And earth shall eat the stones, and we
Shall be alone again."




A CHANT


Gently the petals fall as the tree gently sways
That has known many springs and many petals fall
Year after year to strew the green deserted ways
And the statue and the pond and the low, broken wall.

Faded is the memory of old things done,
Peace floats on the ruins of ancient festival;
They lie and forget in the warmth of the sun,
And a sky silver-blue arches over all.

O softly, O tenderly, the heart now stirs
With desires faint and formless; and, seeking not, I find
Quiet thoughts that flash like azure king-fishers
Across the luminous tranquil mirror of the mind.




ARTEMIS ALTERA


O full of candour and compassion,
Whom love and worship both would praise,
Love cannot frame nor worship fashion
The image of your fearless ways!

How show your noble brow's dark pallor,
Your chivalrous casque of ebon hair,
Your eyes' bright strength, your lips' soft valour,
Your supple shoulders and hands that dare?

Our souls when naïvely you examine,
Your sword of innocence, flaming, huge,
Sweeps over us, and there is famine
Within the ports of subterfuge.

You hate contempt and love not laughter;
With your sharp spear of