Preludes 1921-1922

John Drinkwater

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• Publié par: vaem
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 67
• Langue: English

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Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

Preludes 1921-1922 By John Drinkwater

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,  Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of love,  And feed his sacred flame. COLERIDGE.

**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, PRELUDES 1921-1922 ***

Title: Preludes 1921-1922 Author: John Drinkwater Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5628] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on July 25, 2002] Edition: 10 Language: English

FOR DAVID

CONTENTS

I. PRELUDEII. DAVID AND JONATHAN III. THEMAID OFNAAMAN'S WIFEIV. LAKEWINTER V. GOLD VI. BURNINGBUSH VII. TO MYSON VIII. INTERLUDE

NOTE.—This book is really one poem, and is a development of my sonnet sequence, Persuasion.

PRELUDE

Though black the night, I know upon the sky, A little paler now, if clouds were none, The stars would be. Husht now the thickets lie, And now the birds are moving one by one, — A note—and now from bush to bush it goes— A prelude—now victorious light along The west will come till every bramble glows With wash of sunlit dew shaken in song. Shaken in song; O heart, be ready now, Cold in your night, be ready now to sing. Dawn as it wakes the sleeping bird on bough Shall summon you to instant reckoning,— She is your dawn, O heart,—sing, till the night Of death shall come, the gospel of her light.

DAVID AND JONATHAN

And Jonathan too had honour in his heart, Jonathan who with an armour-bearer went Alone by Michmash to the Philistines, And met a spray of swords because of courage That made him single greater than a host. Jonathan too had known his battles, dared At any hour the coming of death, because In twilight silence he had walked with God, Read Him in blossoms and the mountain brooks, And learnt that death, well known, can alter nothing. He was a brown man, burnt with love of summer, His young beard curled, and russet as the eyes That looked on life, and feared it, yet were master, Because they knew the tyranny they feared, Measured it, learnt it, gazed it into nothing.

….

And now he watched the boy, the son of Jesse, David with hair like maples in October, And skin that women loving coveted, David with eyes that often by the sheepfolds Had looked through leaves up to the folds of heaven, And seeing them crammed with golden fleece of stars, Had known how the blood can run because of beauty. Jonathan watched him take the armour off Given by Saul, and choose the bright smooth pebbles, And walk out from the Israelitish throng Into the field against the Philistine giant. Watching, he snatched his sword and cried to Saul, "Bid him come back. This murder must not be." And as he spoke, he knew the words were treason, His heart alone in all the world was sure That David was the Lord's appointed arm, To meet this bulk of dirt, this giant fear Brandishing out of the loathly camps of evil. And before Saul could answer, he put down The sword, and said, "I love him. Let him go."

….

But the words, I love him, were not for his father Saul, Hardly Jonathan knowing he spake them out. But as he looked on David love was there, Waking from that in David that he himself A little was, and always greatly shaping Himself towards, so that his name was spoken

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…..

cked?

…..

Since boyhood he had known Philistia For the black thing it was, a plague opposed Always against the loveliness of Israel, And when his father Saul was anointed king By Samuel in Ramah, then Jonathan knew How all the lessons of his youth had been To fit him for the striking of the men Who profaned beauty and let the soul be blind. And he was diligent in bronze and arms, And kept his body supple, and his eye Keen, and the coming of his hooves was thunder, Wherever battle fell. He bore a flame, Zealous and pure, in the heavens of his mind, To serve and to instruct. Aye, to instruct— There was the biting blemish, as we shall see.

ainly wi,so  rlposemitem

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…..

 I, Jonathan, who know  The processes of God  Moving within me,  Turn aside to my idols of desire.  He has taught me the ways  Of Philistine cruelty. He  Shows me the bad man toiling to the ruin  Of beauty and the free spirit on earth,  And has equipped me for the establishment  Of His will in this battle, and I fail.  I am a leaf spinning about the wind,  Who have been shown the ways of stedfastness.  O Israel, I have heard  My dedication made  To your sweet service by the voice of Him,  And I betray  That wisdom, that great simpleness of wisdom,  Inventing in my brain  Fantastic argument  As though God's mind  Had missed the brighter pools  That I alone could visit and gaze into.  He tells me, and I hear  Voices not His.  Knowing, I question. And I am ashamed.

So Jonathan saw walking at his side Always a shadow that was his own denial.

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