Читать книгу Oxford Poetry 1917-1921 - Various Authors - Страница 17

C. J. DRUCE
(NON-COLL.)

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THE MEETING

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But we should meet in very different wise—

On some clear-lifted crest when sunset stills

Wide cleansing winds, and transient beauty lies

Immortal in the moment it fulfils:

Or down a deep glade you should come to me,

Moving your limbs with slow primordial ease,

With eyes whose calm has caught the mystery

That walks at dawn beneath the gloom of trees:

Or by the tenderness of a placid stream:

Or anywhere where trivial clamours cease,

And things irrelevant fade like a dream,

That souls may grow articulate in peace.

Instead of this, I know what will befall:—

The seething station where, urged and confined,

Chaotic energies interweave and brawl,

And confused sights and sounds beat on my mind;

There I shall wait, and feel my spirit's flame

(Trained upwards, purged, for that white moment's sake)

Flicker, burn thickly, bowing to the claim

Of alien currents that I cannot break.

For all the folk who come and go, or stand

With strained expectant eyes, or talk with those

From whom they soon must part, have at command

Some part of my unwilling brain, impose

Conjectured joys and griefs upon my sense,

As they, perhaps, guess at my purpose here;

And jealous egotisms feed suspense

As the desired, half-dreaded hour draws near.

At last a rumble, distant, ominous, hoarse,

Swells to a shattering roar that daunts the world;

And round the curve, a black embodied force

Triumphantly increases, and is hurled

Like a great wave upon us, swallowing all.

Vague figures wax and wane and fluctuate

In the inane, till one, more steadfast-small,

Persists, grows luminous, letting penetrate

Some likeness of your shape, and of your face

Some strange reflected charm: I grope to find

A hand with mine in the resisting space,

Hear my tongue utter what no thought designed,

Weak ineffectual words, unheedful of replies—

Questions of tickets, luggage, urge and swarm—

But far beneath all this, in secret lies

An infant consciousness, yet feebly warm

With life, and promise that the time is nigh

That crowds or things no longer may subdue,

When the dull futile body that is I

Shall feel the quickening spirit that is you.