Dialogue

    THE ONE

    The dead man's gone, the live man's sad, the dying leaf shakes on the tree,
    The wind constrains the window-panes and moans like moaning of the sea,
    And sour's the taste now culled in haste of lovely things I won too late,
    And loud and loud above the crowd the Voice of One more strong than we.


    THE OTHER

    This Voice you hear, this call you fear, is it unprophesied or new?
    Were you so insolent to think its rope would never circle you?
    Did you then beastlike live and walk with ears and eyes that would not turn?
    Who bade you hope your service 'scape in that eternal retinue?


    THE ONE

    No; for I swear now bare's the tree and loud the moaning of the wind,
    I walked no rut with eyelids shut, my ears and eyes were never blind,
    Only my eager thoughts I bent on many things that I desired
    To make my greedy heart content ere flesh and blood I left behind.


    THE OTHER

    Ignorance, then, was all your fault and filmèd eyes that could not know,
    That half discerned and never learned the temporal way that men must go;
    You set the image of the world high for your heart's idolatry,
    Though with your lips you called the world a toy, a ghost, a passing show.


    THE ONE

    No, no; this is not true; my lips spoke only what my heart believed.
    Called I the world a toy; I spoke not echo-like or self-deceived.
    But that I thought the toy was mine to play with, and the passing show
    Would sate at least my passing lusts, and did not, therefore am I grieved.

    What did I do that I must bear this lifelong tyranny of my fate,
    That I must writhe in bonds unsought of accidental love and hate?
    Had chance but joined different dice, but once or twice, but once or twice,
    All lovely things that I desired I should have held before too late.

    Surely I knew that flesh was grass nor valued overmuch the prize,
    But all the powers of chance conspired to cheat a man both just and wise.
    Happy I'd been had I but had my due reward, and not a sword
    Flaming in diabolic hand between me and my Paradise.


    THE OTHER

    No hooded band of fates did stand your heart's ambitions to gainsay,
    No flaming brand in evil hand was ever thrust across your way,
    Only the things all men must meet, the common attributes of men,
    That men may flinch to see or, seeing, deny, but avoid them no man may.

    Fall the dice, not once or twice but always, to make the self-same sum;
    Chance what may, a life's a life and to a single goal must come;
    Though a man search far and wide, never is hunger satisfied;
    Nature brings her natural fetters, man is meshed and the wise are dumb.

    O vain all art to assuage a heart with accents of a mortal tongue,
    All earthly words are incomplete and only sweet are the songs unsung,
    Never yet was cause for regret, yet regret must afflict us all,
    Better it were to grasp the world 'thwart which this world is a curtain flung.

John Collings Squire, Sir

John Collings Squire, also known as Sir John Squire, was an influential British poet, writer, historian, and influential literary editor of the early 20th century. He is best known for his role as editor of the London Mercury, a powerful literary journal of the time. Squire was a leading figure in the Georgian poetry movement, which sought to return English poetry to its traditional form and diction.

John Collings Squire, Sir

Harlequin

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Acacia Tree

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Town

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Prologue: In Darkness

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Friendship's Garland

    I

    When I was a boy there was a friend of mine:
    We thought ourselves warriors and grown folk swine,
    Stupid old animals who never understood
    And never had an impulse and said "you must be good."

    We slank like stoats and fled like foxes,
    We put cigarettes in the pillar-boxes,
    Lighted cigarettes and letters all aflame,
    O the surprise when the postman came!

    We stole eggs and apples and made fine hay
    In people's houses when people were away,
    We broke street lamps and away we ran,
    Then I was a boy but now I am a man.

    Now I am a man and don't have any fun,
    I hardly ever shout and I never, never run,
    And I don't care if he's dead that friend of mine,
    For then I was a boy and now...

John Collings Squire, Sir

A Reasonable Protestation

    [To F., who complained of his vagueness and lack of dogmatic statement]

    Not, I suppose, since I deny
    Appearance is reality,
    And doubt the substance of the earth
    Does your remonstrance come to birth;
    Not that at once I both affirm
    'Tis not the skin that makes the worm
    And every tactile thing with mass
    Must find its symbol in the grass
    And with a cool conviction say
    Even a critic's more than clay
    And every dog outlives his day.
    This kind of vagueness suits your view,
    You would not carp at it; for you
    Did never stand with those who take
    Their pleasures in a world opaque.
    For you a tree would never be
    Lovely were it but a tree,
    And earthly splendours never splendid

John Collings Squire, Sir

Ode: In A Restaurant

        In this dense hall of green and gold,
        Mirrors and lights and steam, there sit
        Two hundred munching men;
        While several score of others flit
        Like scurrying beetles over a fen,
        With plates in fanlike spread; or fold
        Napkins, or jerk the corks from bottles,
        Ministers to greedy throttles.
        Some make noises while they eat,
        Pick their teeth or shuffle their feet,
        Wipe their noses 'neath eyes that range
        Or frown whilst waiting for their change.
        Gobble, gobble, toil and trouble.
        Soul! this life is very strange,
        And circumstances very foul
        Attend the belly's stormy howl.
    How horrible this noise! this air how thick!
    It is disgusting ...

John Collings Squire, Sir

On A Friend Recently Dead

    I

    The stream goes fast.
    When this that is the present is the past,
    'Twill be as all the other pasts have been,
    A failing hill, a daily dimming scene,
    A far strange port with foreign life astir
    The ship has left behind, the voyager
    Will never return to; no, nor see again,
    Though with a heart full of longing he may strain
    Back to project himself, and once more count
    The boats, the whitened walls that climbed the mount,
    Mark the cathedral's roof, the gathered spires,
    The vanes, the windows red with sunset's fires,
    The gap of the market-place, and watch again
    The coloured groups of women, and the men
    Lounging at ease along the low stone wall
    That fringed the harbour; and there beyond it all<...

John Collings Squire, Sir

A Memorial

    (F.T.)


    The cord broke, and the tent
    Slipped, and the silken roof
    Lay prone beneath the viewless hoof
    Of the deliberate firmament.
    Yet cared we not; how should we care?
    Knowing that labourless now he breathes
    A golden paradisal air
    Where with more certain craft he wreathes
    Bright braids of words more wise and fair
    Than ever his earthly fabrics were,
    That his unwavering eyes made fresh,
    Purged and regarbed in fadeless flesh,
    What he then darkly guessed behold,
    And watch with an abiding joy
        The eternal mysteries unfold
    Which do his now transfigured songs evermore employ.

        Brother, yet great thy power;
        Thou stood'st as on a tower
    Small 'neath...

John Collings Squire, Sir

The Three Voices

THE FIRST VOICE


He trilled a carol fresh and free,
He laughed aloud for very glee:
There came a breeze from off the sea:

It passed athwart the glooming flat,
It fanned his forehead as he sat,
It lightly bore away his hat,

All to the feet of one who stood
Like maid enchanted in a wood,
Frowning as darkly as she could.

With huge umbrella, lank and brown,
Unerringly she pinned it down,
Right through the centre of the crown.

Then, with an aspect cold and grim,
Regardless of its battered rim,
She took it up and gave it him.

A while like one in dreams he stood,
Then faltered forth his gratitude
In words just short of being rude:

For it had lost its shape and shine,
And it had cost him four-and-nine,...

Lewis Carroll