February by Sydney Elliott Napier

The scorpion summer—ev’ry burnish’d scale
Aflame with mortal agony and hate—
Crawls, blind and frenzied, to his venom’d fate
And stabs his life out with his armèd tail!
The sun is brazen and the skies are mail;
The airy argosies bear dusty freight;
And, see! The witches of the wind gyrate
O’er that which, once so green, has grown so pale!
But, ah! Though February, burnt and bare,
May claim—and take—his toll a little space,
Above his wailing western winds that parch
And through the haze that weights his sadden’d air,
There comes a whisper of autumnal grace:
There breathes a promise of the rains of March!

From: “The Australian Year: Twelve Sonnets on the Months” in The Bulletin, Volume 35, Number 1809 (15 October 1914), p. [unnumbered].
(https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-656636457/view?partId=nla.obj-656700094#page/n1/mode/1up)

Date: 1914

By: Sydney Elliott Napier (1870-1940)

Words for the Wind by Thomas Sturge Moore

With the waves for hounds,
With the clouds for hawks,
I hunt the fragile ships
And scour the dry-land’s dips;
And my hale voice sounds
When a cavern talks.—
Quick, children, hold your petticoats down,
Or with heads in -their folds you will sail through the town.

When I lie on the earth
For leagues flowers shake
With joy; I sit up, and trees
Pulse as my heart decrees;
And new heavens have birth
When I sleep on a lake.—
Quick, children, hold your petticoats down,
Or with heads in their folds you will sail through the town.

From: Moore, T. Sturge, The Sea is Kind, 1914, Grant Richards: London, p. 48.
(https://archive.org/details/seaiskind00mooriala/)

Date: 1914

By: Thomas Sturge Moore (1870-1944)

1914 by Ferenc Istvan Dénes Gyula Békássy

He went without fears, went gaily, since go he must,
And drilled and sweated and sang, and rode in the heat and dust
Of the summer; his fellows were round him, as eager as he,
While over the world the gloomy days of the war dragged heavily.

He fell without a murmur in the noise of battle; found rest
‘Midst the roar of hooves on the grass, a bullet struck through his breast.
Perhaps he drowsily lay; for him alone it was still,
And the blood ran out of his body, it had taken so little to kill.

So many thousand lay round him, it would need a poet, maybe,
Or a woman, or one of his kindred, to remember that none were as he;
It would need the mother he followed, or the girl he went beside
When he walked the paths of summer in the hush of his gladness and pride,

To know that he was not a unit, a pawn whose place can be filled;
Not blood, but the beautiful years of his coming life have been spilled,
The days that should have followed, a house and a home, maybe,
For a thousand may love and marry and nest, but so shall not he.

When the fires are alight in the meadow, the stars in the sky,
And the young moon drives its cattle, the clouds graze silently,
When the cowherds answer each other and their horns sound loud and clear,
A thousand will hear them, but he, who alone understood, will not hear.

His pale poor body is weak, his heart is still, and a dream
His longing, his hope, his sadness. He dies, his full years seem
Drooping palely around, they pass with his breath
Softly, as dreams have an end – it is not a violent death.

My days and the world’s pass dully, our times are ill;
For men with labour are born, and men, without wishing it, kill.
Shadow and sunshine, twist a crown of thorns for my head!
Mourn, O my sisters! singly, for a hundred thousand dead.

From: Békássy, Ferenc; Gömöri, George; Gömöri, Mari; and Jones, Peter (eds.), The Alien in the Chapel: Ferenc Békássy, Rupert Brooke’s Unknown Rival: Poems and Letters, 2016, Skyscraper: Oxford, pp. 39-40.

(https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Alien_in_the_Chapel.html?id=c04fjwEACAAJ)

Date: 1914

By: Ferenc Istvan Dénes Gyula Békássy (1893-1915)

The Last Straw by Rudolph Chambers Lehmann

I sing the sofa! It had stood for years,
An invitation to benign repose,
A foe to all the fretful brood of fears,
Bidding the weary eye-lid sink and close.
Massive and deep and broad it was and bland—
In short the noblest sofa in the land.

You, too, my friend, my solid friend, I sing,
Whom on an afternoon I did behold
Eying—’twas after lunch—the cushioned thing,
And murmuring gently, “Here are realms of gold,
And I shall visit them,” you said, “and be
The sofa’s burden till it’s time for tea.”

“Let those who will go forth,” you said, “and dare,
Beyond the cluster of the little shops,
To strain their limbs and take the eager air,
Seeking the heights of Hedsor and its copse.
I shall abide and watch the far-off gleams
Of fairy beacons from the world of dreams.”

Then forth we fared, and you, no doubt, lay down,
An easy victim to the sofa’s charms,
Forgetting hopes of fame and past renown,
Lapped in those padded and alluring arms.
“How well,” you said, and veiled your heavy eyes,
“It slopes to suit me! This is Paradise.”

So we adventured to the topmost hill,
And, when the sunset shot the sky with red,
Homeward returned and found you taking still
Deep draughts of peace with pillows ‘neath your head.
“His sleep,” said one, “has been unduly long.”
Another said, “Let’s bring and beat the gong.”

“Gongs,” said a third and gazed with looks intent
At the full sofa, “are not adequate.
There fits some dread, some heavy, punishment
For one who sleeps with such a dreadful weight.
Behold with me,” he moaned, “a scene accurst.
The springs are broken and the sofa’s burst!”

Too true! Too true! Beneath you on the floor
Lay blent in ruin all the obscure things
That were the sofa’s strength, a scattered store
Of tacks and battens and protruded springs.
Through the rent ticking they had all been spilt,
Mute proofs and mournful of your weight and guilt.

And you? You slept as sweetly as a child,
And when you woke you recked not of your shame,
But babbled greetings, stretched yourself and smiled
From that eviscerated sofa’s frame,
Which, flawless erst, was now one mighty flaw
Through the addition of yourself as straw.

From: Lehmann, R C, The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch, 1918, John Lane, The Bodley Head: London, p. 102.
(https://archive.org/details/vagabondotherpoe00lehmuoft/)

Date: 1914

By: Rudolph Chambers Lehmann (1856-1929)

Lassitude by Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck

These lips have long forgotten to bestow
Their kiss on blind eyes chiller than the snow,
Henceforth absorbed in their magnificent dream.
Drowsy as hounds deep in the grass they seem;
They watch the grey flocks on the sky-line pass,
Browsing on moonlight scattered o’er the grass,
By skies as vague as their own life caressed.
They see, unvexed by envy or unrest,
The roses of joy that open on every hand,
The long green peace they cannot understand.

From: Maeterlinck, Maurice and Miall, Bernard (transl.), Poems: Done into English Verse by Bernard Miall, 1915, Methuen & Co: London, p. 11.
(http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50043)

Date: 1896 (original in French); 1914 (translation in English)

By: Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (1862-1949)

Translated by: Arthur Bernard Miall (1876-1953)

The Voice of Christmas by Harry Hibbard Kemp

I cannot put the Presence by, of Him, the Crucified,
Who moves men’s spirits with His Love as doth the moon the tide;
Again I see the Life He lived, the godlike Death He died.

Again I see upon the cross that great Soul-battle fought,
Into the texture of the world the tale of which is wrought
Until it hath become the woof of human deed and thought,

And, joining with the cadenced bells that all the morning fill,
His cry of agony doth yet my inmost being thrill,
Like some fresh grief from yesterday that tears the heart-strings still.

I cannot put His Presence by, I meet Him everywhere;
I meet Him in the country town, the busy market-square;
The Mansion and the Tenement attest His Presence there.

Upon the funneled ships at sea He sets His shining feet;
The Distant Ends of Empire not in vain His Name repeat,
And, like the presence of a rose, He makes the whole world sweet.

He comes to break the barriers down raised up by barren creeds;
About the globe from zone to zone like sunlight He proceeds;
He comes to give the World’s starved heart the perfect love it needs,

The Christ Whose friends have played Him false, Whom Dogmas have belied,
Still speaking to the hearts of men Tho shamed and crucified,
The Master of the Centuries Who will not be denied!

From: Kemp, Harry, The Cry of Youth, 1914, Mitchell Kennerley: New York, pp.
(https://archive.org/details/cryofyouth00kemprich)

Date: 1914

By: Harry Hibbard Kemp (1883-1960)

I Am He Whom I Love by Mansur al-Hallaj

I am He whom I love,
and He whom I love is I:
We are two spirits
dwelling in one body.
If thou seest me,
thou seest Him,
And if thou seest Him,
thou seest us both

From: https://allpoetry.com/Mansur-Al-Hallaj

Date: 9^th century (original in Arabic); 1914 (translation in English)

By: Mansur al-Hallaj (c858-922)

Translated by: Reynold Alleyne Nicholson (1868-1945)

Opportunity by George Lucian Crary

They call me opportunity;
But once in a life time we meet,
As I hasten through your community
I walk on the toes of my feet,

And those wings on my feet that you see,
Are to show you how quick I pass by,
Unless by the hair you now seize me,
When past you I quickly will fly.

Though again for the chance you may yearn,
When once you have let me pass by,
You will find that I never return
But onward, straight onward I fly.

The wise Greeks a statue did raise,
And on it this lesson engraved,
That the traveler upon it might gaze
And from disappointment be saved.

Then let us this lesson receive,
And then we shall never regret,
Or will never have reason to grieve,
That we did not seize her when we met.

From: From: Crary, Oringe Smith and Crary, George Lucian, Poetical Works of Oringe Smith Crary and George Lucian Crary, 1914, Self Published: New York, p. 96.
(https://archive.org/stream/poeticalworksofo00crar#page/96/mode/2up)

Date: 1914

By: George Lucian Crary (1837-1923)

Beneath the Sea by Maud Keary

Were I a fish beneath the sea,
Shell‐paved and pearl‐brocaded,
Would you come down and live with me,
In groves by coral shaded?

No washing would we have to do;
Our cushions should be sponges—
And many a great ship’s envious crew
Should watch our merry plunges!

From: Keary, Maud, Enchanted Tulips and Other Verses for Children, 1914, Macmillan and Co: London, p. 6.
(http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/vwwp/VAB7182)

Date: 1914

By: Maud Keary (18??-19??)

Selene in the South by John Laurence Rentoul (Gervaise Gage)

(On first seeing the ” New Moon ” rise over an Australian mountain-range.)

O fair young Moon, that risest on my sight
Clad in thy naked beauty white and pure,
A haunting sweet surprise, hopes that endure
Leap up to greet thee in my heart to-night!
Long, long ago I hailed thee, radiant-bright,
In the cold North: above thee, strong and sure,
Steadfast ‘midst darkling storms or mists that lure,
Gleamed guardant the Great Bear’s calm eyes of light.
New Heavens are o’er thee. New stars kneel and shine
At thy fair feet. Nay, thou wilt not forget
Endymion’s kiss that thrilled back joy to thine!
Here is no Latmos*; but, more lustrous yet,
Our South heights hail thee: for thy fairer crown
The Great Cross sheds on thee his splendour down.

Note: Endymion was said to have been the lover of the goddess of the moon, Selene, in Greek mythology. Selene saw and fell in love with him on Mount Latmos (or Latmus).

From: Gage, Gervaise (J. Laurence Rentoul), From Far Lands: Poems of North and South, 1914, MacMillan and Co: London, p. 67.
(https://archive.org/details/fromfarlandspoem00rentuoft)

Date: 1914

By: John Laurence Rentoul (Gervaise Gage) (1846-1926)