Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE MAY MORNING AND THE OLD MAN, by MARGARET LOUISA WOODS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE MAY MORNING AND THE OLD MAN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The morn is very clear, the young morn
Last Line: Listen, listen and follow!
Alternate Author Name(s): Woods, Mrs. Margaret Louisa Bradley
Subject(s): Old Age; Solitude; Loneliness


I

THE Morn is very clear, the young Morn
Looks on the Earth, imagining all the Earth
Is as herself, new-born.
She beholds the hills, the dim colourless hills
Over the City of Towers
Dark in the valley; drowning mists flow round it,
Ghosts of dead rivers, stealing through the valley.
Morn smiles on the Earth.
Answering, the hills put on their colours clear,
Young corn and copses gay and hawthorn trees,
Fair as enchanted towers
Built of young dreams and bright with dawns from afar,
Out of silver mists uprises the blond City.
It is Morn, it is May,
And Earth a moment imagines herself new-born.

II

But the Old Man—
For him it never can be morn again.
Beside the haystack in the field he slept,
But weary is he yet, though he has slumbered.
The load is very light upon his shoulders,
Yet are his shoulders bowed,
And like a laden man he climbs the hill:
He cannot dream his youth returned again.

Slowly he climbs, his shadow creeps
Before him, climbing the long white hill.
His shadow is weary and backward creeps,
Hanging about his weary feet.
The climbing lark sings overhead,
And hark! the merry bicyclists,
Behind him on the hill.

THE BICYCLISTS' REVEILLÉ

Under the hedges the parsley is white,
The hedges are white with May,
Hither we come in the early light,
In the fresh of the waking day.
Listen, listen and follow!

There's a sunbeam star on your window-pane,
The cuckoo cries, "We are here!"
And the swish of the wheel down the long white lane
Merrily hums in your ear.
Listen, listen and follow!

Swooping and skimming high in their flight,
Mock us, our mates of the air.
Up from the valley and down from the height,
Farther than you shall we fare.
Listen, listen and follow!

The workaday world has foundered afar,
Under the sheen of the dew.
Come where a world like a flower, like a star,
Spins for an hour in the blue.
Listen, listen and follow!

They have climbed the hill, they have conquered the height,
They meet new airs from distant skies,
Telling how far and fair it lies,
The Land of Morn, the undiscovered.
And swiftly springing from earth away,
As birds on rush of wings speeding,
Over the brow the bicyclists hurry
To the uninhabited, undiscovered
Wonderful world of Youth and Morning.

III

The solitary fields are wide
Where bright the narrow rivers run.
The buttercups of burnished gold
Uplift their triumph in the sun.

THE BUTTERCUPS' REVEILLÉ

Brave, brave banners of gold!
See how we wave
Banners of gold,
Lift them up from the dark mould!

Sun, sun, flower of the skies!
We too have begun.
Thou dost the skies
We the gilded Earth surprise.

Earth, Air, never were seen
Half so fair
Before, with sheen
Of gold above their blue and green.

Bright wings, messengers bold,
Tell how the Spring's
Banners of gold
Flaming over the Earth unfold!

In the Land of Youth and Morning
All things seem but new begun,
The Wonder and the Joy of Life
Uplift their triumph in the Sun.

IV

THE BICYCLISTS

Hither away where the waters gleam
And meadows are buttercup-dyed,
Over arches grey where Time is a dream
And rivers of Avalon glide!
Listen, listen and follow!

Silver gauze the mists are floating,
Silver gleams the rivers showing
Among the golden, golden fields
Where willows spread their veils of green.

V

The Old Man comes to the brow alone.
He does not behold the Land of Morning,
But far away he beholds familiar hills.
And in the fallow, solitary
And old as he is solitary
Himself and old, he sees a man,
A tall man, leaning upon his hoe.

The wanderer fain would speak awhile,
Telling the sorrow of his soul
And all his weariness to one
That like himself is old.
His voice is high and his speech sways
Slowly with slow words, as the boughs
In wind of summer sway; for so
Did country folk talk long ago.

First Old Man. Mester, be't vur to Chillingbourne?
Second Old Man. To Chillingbourne?
1st O. M. Ay, for 'tis yonder I must go.
To Chillingbourne across the down.
2nd O. M. Why, Mester, that's a longish roäd,
To Chillingbourne, a steepish roäd. Clear over hills you see un climb,
Yonder so white's a thread he goes
Betwix the Clumpes and away
To Chillingbourne beyond the downs.
1st O. M. How vur be't, Mester, do 'ee know?
2nd O. M. Nay, Mester, but a longish roäd.
Myself I never took no j'y
In travelling, nor can rightly tell
How fur it be, but a great way
To Chillingbourne across the downs.
1st O. M. It bean't for j'y I taäk the roäd.
But, Mester, I be getten awld.
Do seem as though in all the e'th
There bean't no plaäce,
No room on e'th for awld volk.
2nd O. M. The e'th do lie
Yonder, so wide as Heaven a'most,
And God as made un
Made room, I warr'nt, for all Christian souls.
1st O. M. The Union, Mester,
Wer plaäce for me, they said. Aw dear!
Yet I can work and toil more willin'
Than young uns will. The world, Mester,
It be so chaänged, so chaänged it be!
They wun't gi' no work to awld volk.
2nd O. M. Nay, Mester, I do get a job
Most times o' year, for folks do know me
Through all the plaäce. Ha'n't ee no frien's
Down yonder, where ee come from? Home
Be best, to my thinking.
1st O. M. Hwome be best,
Ay that it be! I wer a straänger
At Marlden. Now as Jeän be dead,
Union they said wer plaäce for me.
They're cruel hard at Marlden, Mester.
2nd O. M. Ay, Mester, that be hard.
1st O. M. I wer a straänger
And furrin like down Marlden way.
"Mesters," says I, "I be agwine hwome."
Vor I wer barn at Chillingbourne,
At Chillingbourne acrass the down.
2nd O. M. God give ee luck and bring ee safe,
For, Mester, you've a longish roäd
To travel. Won't ee wet yer throät
And eat a bit for company?
1st O. M. Well I wun't say
But I'll be glad o' summat, Mester.
2nd O. M. Us can sit down
Under the May-bush. He do smell
Sweeter nor spices, what were brought
To Solomon in all his glory.
Lord, it do seem
Like yesterday I heard un tell
In church o' myrrh and frankincense
And pomegranate, and kep on smelling
At hawthorn-flower stuck in my coät:
Yet I were a lad then.
1st O. M. Time he do pass.
2nd O. M. So smooth and slick as water runs
Under a bridge. There's many a while
I've leaned and watched un run as clear
Over saäme pebbles and the shaäde
O' bridge a-movin'.
'Twere hard to think it never wer
The saäme water, but allays passing
And changing. That be so's our years,
To my thinking.
1st O. M. Time do pass.
Be varty year come Lady Day
Sin' I were hwome at Chillingbourne.
2nd O. M. Whoy, Mester, fourty year
Be a longish time. Ye'll find a deal o' change.
1st O. M. There wun't be nowt a-chaänged at Chillingbourne;
Chillingbourne be a main loänsome plaäce.
When I were a chile
A scarin' birds from the veäld all the day,
Up o' the downland agen the road,
I mind the hours 'ud creep and go
That slow,
And niver nowt a-coming along the road;
Unless maybe dust marchin' with the wind.
Nowt but a lark
Overhead to hear, or a scud o' plover
Passin' and cryin' loänsome like.
2nd O. M. Ben't ee afeared to miss your way,
Wi noön to ask?
1st O. M. Not I, Mester!
I mind the way, the straät road
To Chillingbourne acrass the down.
But ee doan't see nowt o' tree nor house
Till edge o' the hill;
Then plump onto roof o' church tower
Seems ee med drop, and tops o' trees
Wi' rooks beneath ee cawin' and flittin'.
And ee see as plaän the length of the streat
And th' aäncient Cross
Under the elm, what Cromwell broke.
There bean't nowt a-chaänged yonder,
No chaänge, I warr'nt, at Chillingbourne.
2nd O. M. And ee've gotten your friends yet a-livin'?
1st O. M. Gearge he be shepherd at Manor Varm,
There do he bide.
My darter Jeän, her's I've buried,
Wrote to un unst and he made answer.
How many years be that a-gone?
Naäy, surely!
I cann't a-tell—but Brother Gearge,
Younger nor me by seven year,
Ain't a-got no call to die.
2nd O. M. Death do go withouten order
Up and down upon the earth.
1st O. M. I tell ee Gearge
Were a lusty chap; and Vicar he knowed—
Why there! The awld man be dead!
But new un, said Gearge, were a sight better.
He'll find I a job, he will for sure.
2nd O. M. It's like he will. I ha' gotten a job
Most times o' year.
1st O. M. It be work I want—
But I were a straänger Marlden waäy;
Went there courtin' my wife as died
Aäteen year come September.
The las' day,
Mother were living, I mind her said:
"Tom'll be sorry in time to come
He bided away and never did wed
Cousin Bessie." She married well
Did Cousin Bess, and she ain't a-forgotten
Me for sure, if she be alive.
2nd O. M. There be as remembers, there be as forgets.
1st O. M. Well, I must be a-gettin' hwome!
I thankee, Mester, an' wish 'ee luck.
Aw dear! I never thowt,
When sprack an' young I stepped awaäy,
How I'd come hwome!
I niver thowt I'd care to lay
My boäns at last where Mother's lie,
In churchyard, under th' aäncient tower.
2nd O. M. Good day to ee, Mester, an good luck!
I wish ee safe at journey's end
Afore't be dark.
1st O. M. At vall o' night
Curvew do ring to guide ee hwome
To Chillingbourne acrass the down.

The Old Man on his journey passed alone,
That way his shadow led, straight down the road.
Below him lay
Earth in the gold and glory of the time,
Rejoicing Earth, decked with the light of waters.
But he beheld her not. Only beyond,
Lovely and dim, he saw the remembered hills.

VI

THE BICYCLISTS' RETURN

Back to the workaday world, the old,
As errant mariners fleet,
With spices laden and secret gold,
Or lovers with thoughts more sweet.
Listen, listen and follow!

Back to the workaday world anew,
To the crowd and the toil away!
But our hearts have been dipped in the morning dew
And the light of the early day.
Listen, listen and follow!





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