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                                SONGS OF
                             THREE COUNTIES

                            AND OTHER POEMS




                        With an Introduction by
                        R. B. CUNNINGHAME-GRAHAM




                                   By
                       MARGUERITE RADCLYFFE-HALL




                                 LONDON
                          CHAPMAN & HALL, LTD.
                                 1913.




                               Dedicated

                                   to

                      The Marchioness of Anglesey




                                CONTENTS


              INTRODUCTION BY R. B. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM ix
              RUSTIC COURTING:
                WALKING OUT                             1
                THE SHADOW OF RAGGEDSTONE               3
                THE LONG GREEN LANES OF ENGLAND         5
                THE HILLS                               7
                EASTNOR CHURCHYARD                      8
                THE MALVERN HILLS                       9
                THE FIRST CUCKOO                       11
                DUSK IN THE LANE                       12
                THE MEETING-PLACE                      13
                BY THE AVON                            15
                JEALOUSY                               16
                IN THE CITY                            18
                I BE THINKIN’                          19
                SUNDAY EVENING                         20
                THE LEDBURY TRAIN                      21
                JILTED                                 22
                CASEND HILL                            23
                THE LEDBURY ROAD                       24
                THE CALL TO LONDON                     25
                BREDON                                 27
                OUR DEAD                               28
                PRIMROSE FLOWERS                       29
                TRAMPING                               30
                THE BLIND PLOUGHMAN                    32
              MISCELLANEOUS POEMS:
                WHEN THE WIND COMES UP THE HILL        35
                PEACE                                  36
                LIME-TREES                             37
                A LITTLE SONG                          38
                THE SONG OF THE WATCHER                39
                BY THE RIVER                           41
                THE ROAD TO COLLA                      42
                PRAYER                                 43
                DAWN                                   45
                TO THE EARTH                           46
                DAWN AMONG THE OLIVE GROVES            48
                SILENT PLACES                          49
                ONE EVENING NEAR NICE                  50
                THOUGHTS AT AJACCIO                    51
                THREE CHILD-SONGS:
                  THE THRUSH’S SONG                    52
                  WILLOW WAND                          53
                  A WINTER SONG                        55
                AUTUMN IN SUSSEX                       56
                SI PARVA LICET COMPONERE MAGNIS        57
                TO ITALY                               59
                SUNDAY IN LIGURIA                      60
                GEORGETOWN, U.S.A.                     61
                ON THE POTOMAC RIVER, U.S.A.           63
                THE LOST WORD                          65
                COMPARISONS                            66
                A FRAGMENT                             67
              APPRECIATIONS                            69
              PRESS NOTICES                            73




                              INTRODUCTION


WITH as much grace as if a monoplanist should attempt to write a preface
to a book on flying for an albatross, so may a writer of mere prose
attempt to pen an introduction to a book of poetry.

The bird and man both use the air, but with a difference. So do the poet
and the man of prose use pen and ink.

Familiarity with tools, used in two branches of one art (or trade), is
apt to prove a snare.

Music and poetry, the most ethereal of the arts upon the face of them,
are in a way more mathematical than prose, for both have formulæ. Hence,
their appeal goes quicker to men’s minds, and oversteps countries and
languages to some degree, and makes it difficult to write about them. Of
late, young poets, those who have bulked the largest in the public eye,
those that the world has hailed as modern, have often been obscure. What
is modernity? To be modern is to touch the senses of the age you write
for. To me, a fool who owns a motor-car is just as great a fool as was a
fool of the stone age.

The only true modernity is talent, and Lucian of Samosata was as modern
to the full as Guy de Maupassant. The poet for whose verses I am writing
this my introduction, preface, foreword, call it what you will, is one
of those whose meaning he who runs may read.

Does she do well in making herself clear? I think so, for though there
are those who prefer a mist of words, holding apparently that poetry
should be written in Chinook, or Malagasy, this opinion must of
necessity be of the nature of what Ben Jonson called a “humour.”

Few men to-day read Eupheus and fewer Gongora. Yet in their time their
concepts were considered to be fine flowers of poetry. Those who wrote
so that all men could understand, as Sapho, Campion, Jorge Maurique,
Petrarca, Villon, and their fellow-singers in the celestial spheres
where poets sing, crowned with the bays of the approval of countless
generations, all wrote clearly. Their verses all were clear as is the
water running over chalk in a south country trout-stream, such as the
Itchin or the Test.

I take two specimens of Miss Radclyffe-Hall’s poetry to illustrate what
I have said. She writes of a blind ploughman, whose prayer is to his
friend to set him in the sun.

                     “Turn my face towards the East
                      And praise be to God.”

One sees him sitting, wrinkled and bent, and ploughworn in the sun, and
thanking God according to his faith, for light interior, for that
interior vision which all the mystics claim.

                     “God who made His sun to shine
                      On both you and me,
                      God who took away my eyes,
                      That my _soul_ might see.”

This shows the poet in an unusual light, for most poets write on far
different subjects; but here is one which is eternal, and has been
eternal since the time of Œdipus.

Again in the verses, “Thoughts at Ajaccio,” she shows a love of the
earth and of its fulness, a feeling which has been the birthright of all
English writers of good verse from the remotest times.

                “Fill me with scent of upturned ground,
                 Soft perfume from thy bosom drawn.”

This is the feeling that has inspired so many poets, and shows the
writer not striving to be modern or filled with strange conceits; but
with a love and trust of the brown earth, from which all poets take
their birth, and into which they all return.

                                               R. B. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM.




RUSTIC COURTING




 I

 WALKING OUT


 UPON a Sunday afternoon,
   When no one else was by,
 The little girl from Hanley way,
   She came and walked with I.

 We climbed nigh to the Beacon top,
   And never word spoke we,
 But oh! we heard the thrushes sing
   Within the cherry tree.

 The cherry tree was all a-bloom,
   And Malvern lay below,
 And far away the Severn wound—
   ’Twas like a silver bow.

 She took my arm, I took her hand,
   And never word we said,
 But oh! I knew her eyes were brown,
   Her lips were sweet and red.

 And when I brought her home again,
   The stars were up above,
 And ’twas the nightingale that swelled
   His little throat with love!




 II

 THE SHADOW OF RAGGEDSTONE


 O RAGGEDSTONE, you darksome hill,
   Your shadow fell for sure
 Upon my own dear love and I,
   Across the purple moor.

 For we were such a happy pair,
   The day we climbed your crest;
 And now my love she lays her head
   Upon another’s breast.

 She sits beside another man,
   And walks abroad with he,
 And never sheds a single tear,
   Or thinks a thought o’ me!

 My mind it seems a-fire like,
   My heart’s as cold as lead,
 My prayers they dry upon my lips
   And somehow won’t get said.

 I wish that I could lay me down,
   Upon the dreary plain
 That stretches out to Raggedstone,*
   And never rise again!

                           ------------------

* A legend is attached to Raggedstone Hill in Worcestershire. The Hill
was cursed by a Benedictine Monk. From time to time a great shadow rises
up from it, spreading across the surrounding country. Woe betide those
on whom the shadow falls, as it brings with it terrible misfortune! Many
of the people living near Raggedstone still firmly believe in this
legend.




 III

 THE LONG GREEN LANES OF ENGLAND


 OH! the long green lanes of England!
 They be very far away,
 And it’s there that I’d be walking,
 ’Mid the hawthorn and the may.

 Where the trees are all in blossom,
 And the mating birds they sing
 Fit to bust their little bodies,
 Out of joy because it’s Spring.

 I’d be courting of my true love,
 She’d be in her Sunday best,
 With my arm around her shoulder
 And her head upon my breast.

 For the new land it’s a fine land,
 Where a man can get a start;
 But there’s that about the old land
 That will grip his very heart:

 For he’ll mind him o’ the cowslips,
 Coming up all fresh and new
 In the fields of early mornings,
 Where the grass is white with dew.

 Oh! it’s money, money, money,
 “Go and try to earn a bit;”
 And “America’s the country
 For the lad as doesn’t quit.”

 Seems that folks go mad on money,
 Well, I’ll have enough some day,
 But the long green lanes of England
 They be Oh! so far away!




 IV

 THE HILLS


 WHEN I the hills of Malvern see,
 There comes a sadness over me.

 The reason why, I cannot tell,
 Perhaps I love those hills too well.

 But this I know, when I behold
 Their springtime green, and autumn gold,

 And see that year by year they bear
 Such witness that God’s earth is fair,

 I’m happy for their beauty’s sake,
 And yet my heart begins to ache.




 V

 EASTNOR CHURCHYARD


 I BE hopin’ you remember,
 Now the Spring has come again,
 How we used to gather violets
 By the little church at Eastnor,
 For we were so happy then!

 O my love, do you remember
 Kisses that you took and gave?
 There be violets now in plenty
 By the little church at Eastnor,
 But they’re growing on your grave.




 VI

 THE MALVERN HILLS


 THE Malvern Hills be green some days,
 And some days purple-blue,
 There never was the like of them
 The whole of England through.

 From Hanley straight into the Wells
 The road runs long and white,
 And there the hills they meet your gaze
 Against the evening light.

 Against the evening light they stand,
 So proud, and dark, and old,
 The Raggedstone and Hollybush,
 And Worcester Beacon bold.

 No matter where you chance to be,
 However far away,
 You’ll see the hills awaiting you
 At close of every day.

 Oh! it’s a lovely sight to see
 The twilight stealing down
 Their steepish banks and little paths,
 Along to Malvern town.

 And maybe on the Severn side,
 Hung low on Bredon’s mound,
 The big red harvest moon will rise,
 So lazy-like and round.

 They talks a lot o’ foreign parts,
 Them as has seen them do,
 But give me Malvern Hills at dusk
 All green or purple-blue!




 VII

 THE FIRST CUCKOO


 TO-DAY I heard the cuckoo call,
 Atop of Bredon Hill,
 I heard him near the blackthorn bush,
 And Oh! my heart stood still!

 For it was just a year ago,
 That to my love I said,
 “When next we hear the cuckoo call,
 Then you and I will wed.”

 My love and I we still be two,
 And will be, many Springs;
 I think the saddest sound on earth
 Is when the cuckoo sings.




 VIII

 DUSK IN THE LANE


 COME, put yer little hand in mine,
 And let it be at rest,
 It minds me of a tired bird
 Within a warm brown nest;
 And bend that pretty head o’ your’n,
 And lay it on my breast.

 The lambs they all be wearied out,
 I penned them in the fold;
 The lights along the Malvern Hills
 They shine like stars o’ gold;
 And yonder rises up the moon,
 All round, and big, and bold.

 There’s not a single passer-by,
 Nor sound along the lane,
 And Oh! the earth be smelling sweet,
 Like meadows after rain.
 Then come a little closer, maid,
 And kiss me once again.




 IX

 THE MEETING-PLACE


 I MIND me of the hawthorn trees,
   With cuckoos flying near;
 The hawthorn blossoms smelt so sweet,
   The cuckoo called so clear!

 The hill was steep enough to climb,
   It seemed to touch the sky!
 You saw two valleys from the top,
   The Severn and the Wye.

 The Severn and the Wye you saw,
   And they were always green;
 I think it was the prettiest sight
   That I have ever seen.

 And there, so far above the town,
   With not a soul to see,
 Whenever she could slip away
 My love would come to me!

 I never smell the hawthorn bloom,
   Or hear the cuckoo sing,
 But I am minded of my love,
   And Malvern Hills in Spring!




 X

 BY THE AVON


 IN the meadows by the Avon,
 Underneath the <DW72> of Bredon,
 There we often used to wander,
 My girl and I.

 All around the thrushes singing,
 And on Sunday, church bells ringing,
 Overhead the soft clouds floating,
 White in the sky.

 Still the waters of the Avon
 Flow so gently under Bredon,
 And on Sunday bells be ringing,
 Clouds floating high.

 But I’m sick at heart and lonely,
 Nothing here has changed, save only
 Just we two, who once were courting,
 My girl and I.




 XI

 JEALOUSY


 I SEE’D yer turn the other day
 To watch a chap go by,
 Because he wore a uniform,
 And held his shoulders high.
 And then yer wouldn’t even smile,
 Or say a word to I!

 A kid he was, all pink and white,
 And strutting like a chick,
 A tassel at his silly side,
 And carrying a stick.
 And yet yer thought the world o’ him,
 And started breathin’ quick—

 The same as when I kissed yer first,
 Oh! maybe you forget!
 But you was desperate sweet on I,
 I mind yer blushes yet.
 But now yer says me hands are rough,
 Me coat will never set.

 Me hands they bean’t lily white,
 Me coat may not be trim,
 But you may know, if fightin’ comes,
 I’ll fight as well as him,
 Although they pad his shoulders out
 To make his waist look slim.

 I haven’t got no buttons on
 A showy coat of red;
 I haven’t got no soldier’s cap
 To wear upon me head.
 But I can love yer just the same,
 When all be done and said!




 XII

 IN THE CITY


 OH! City girls are pale-like,
 And proud-like, and cold-like,
 And nineteen out of twenty
 Have never been our way.
 I tells them of the tall hills,
 The green hills, the old hills,
 Where hawthorns are a-blossoming,
 And thrushes call all day.

 Oh! London is a fine place,
 A big place, a rich place,
 Where nineteen out of twenty
 Of all the girls are fair.
 But well I knows a white road,
 A long road, a straight road,
 That leads me into Bosbury;
 I’m wishing I was there!




 XIII

 I BE THINKIN’


 THE hillside green with bracken,
 And the red plough land,
 The brownish hurrying rivers,
 Where the willows stand