In The Park

    This dense hard ground I tread.
    These iron bars that ripple past,
    Will they unshaken stand when I am dead
    And my deep thoughts outlast?

    Is it my spirit slips,
    Falls, like this leaf I kick aside;
    This firmness that I feel about my lips,
    Is it but empty pride?

    Mute knowledge conquers me;
    I contemplate them as they are,
    Faint earth and shadowy bars that shake and flee,
    Less hard, more transient far

    Than those unbodied hues
    The sunset flings on the calm river;
    And, as I look, a swiftness thrills my shoes
    And my hands with empire quiver.

    Now light the ground I tread,
    I walk not now but rather float;
    Clear but unreal is the scene outspread,
    Pitiful, thin, remote.

    Poor vapour is the grass,
    So frail the trees and railings seem,
    That, did I sweep my hand around, 'twould pass
    Through them, as in a dream.

    Godlike I fear no changes;
    Shatter the world with thunders loud,
    Still would I ray-like flit about the ranges
    Of dark and ruddy cloud.

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

Constantinople

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Ode: In A Restaurant

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Rivers

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Song

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

English

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Antinomies On A Railway Station

    As I stand waiting in the rain
    For the foggy hoot of the London train,
    Gazing at silent wall and lamp
    And post and rail and platform damp,
    What is this power that comes to my sight
    That I see a night without the night,
    That I see them clear, yet look them through,
    The silvery things and the darkly blue,
    That the solid wall seems soft as death,
    A wavering and unanchored wraith,
    And rails that shine and stones that stream
    Unsubstantial as a dream?
    What sudden door has opened so,
    What hand has passed, that I should know
    This moving vision not a trance
    That melts the globe of circumstance,
    This sight that marks not least or most
    And makes a stone a passing ghost?
    Is it that a yea...

John Collings Squire, Sir

In An Orchard

    Airy and quick and wise
    In the shed light of the sun,
    You clasp with friendly eyes
    The thoughts from mine that run.

    But something breaks the link;
    I solitary stand
    By a giant gully's brink
    In some vast gloomy land.

    Sole central watcher, I
    With steadfast sadness now
    In that waste place descry
    'Neath the awful heavens how

    Your life doth dizzy drop
    A little foam of flame
    From a peak without a top
    To a pit without a name.

John Collings Squire, Sir

Processes Of Thought

    I

    I find my mind as it were a deep water.

    Sometimes I play with a thought and hammer and bend it,
    Till tired and displeased with that I toss it away,
    Or absently let it slip to the yawning water:
    And down it sinks, forgotten for many a day.

    But a time comes when tide or tempest washes it
    High on the beach, and I find that shape of mine,
    Or I haul it out from the depths on some casual rope,
    Or, passing over that spot in quiet shine,

    I see, where my boat's shadow makes deep the water,
    A patch of colour, far down, from the bottom apart,
    A wavering sign like the gleam from an ancient anchor,
    Brown fixing and fleeting flakes; and I feel my heart

    Wake to a strange excitement; so that I s...

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

Crepuscular

    No creature stirs in the wide fields.
    The rifted western heaven yields
    The dying sun's illumination.
    This is the hour of tribulation
    When, with clear sight of eve engendered,
    Day's homage to delusion rendered,
    Mute at her window sits the soul.

    Clouds and skies and lakes and seas,
    Valleys and hills and grass and trees,
    Sun, moon, and stars, all stand to her
    Limbs of one lordless challenger,
    Who, without deigning taunt or frown.
    Throws a perennial gauntlet down:
    "Come conquer me and take thy toll."

    No cowardice or fear she knows,
    But, as once more she girds, there grows
    An unresignèd hopelessness
    From memory of former stress.
    Head bent, she muses whilst he waits:

John Collings Squire, Sir

A Chant

    Gently the petals fall as the tree gently sways
    That has known many springs and many petals fall
    Year after year to strew the green deserted ways
    And the statue and the pond and the low, broken wall.

    Faded is the memory of old things done,
    Peace floats on the ruins of ancient festival;
    They lie and forget in the warmth of the sun,
    And a sky silver-blue arches over all.

    O softly, O tenderly, the heart now stirs
    With desires faint and formless; and, seeking not, I find
    Quiet thoughts that flash like azure kingfishers
    Across the luminous, tranquil mirror of the mind.

John Collings Squire, Sir