Tree-Tops

    There beyond my window ledge,
    Heaped against the sky, a hedge
    Of huge and waving tree-tops stands
    With multitudes of fluttering hands.

    Wave they, beat they, to and fro,
    Never stillness may they know,
    Plunged by the wind and hurled and torn
    Anguished, purposeless, forlorn.

    "O ferocious, O despairing,
    In huddled isolation faring
    Through a scattered universe,
    Lost coins from the Almighty's purse!"

    "No, below you do not see
    The firm foundations of the tree;
    Anchored to a rock beneath
    We laugh in the hammering tempest's teeth.

    "Boughs like men but burgeons are
    On an adamantine star;
    Men are myriad blossoms on
    A staunch and cosmic skeleton."

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

The March

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

The Cats - (Twelve Translations From Charles Baudelaire)

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

A Generation (1917)

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Tout Entière - (Twelve Translations From Charles Baudelaire)

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

English

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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

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,...

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

Tree, Old Tree Of The Triple Crook

Carmen Patibulare - To H. S.



Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Crook
And the rope of the Black Election,
'Tis the faith of the Fool that a race you rule
Can never achieve perfection:
So 'It's O, for the time of the new Sublime
And the better than human way,
When the Rat (poor beast) shall come to his own
And the Wolf shall have his day!'

For Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Beam
And the power of provocation,
You have cockered the Brute with your dreadful fruit
Till your fruit is mere stupration:
And 'It's how should we rise to be pure and wise,
And how can we choose but fall,
So long as the Hangman makes us dread,
And the Noose floats free for all?'

So Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Coign
And the trick there's no recalling,
Th...

William Ernest Henley

Acacia Tree

    All the trees and bushes of the garden
    Display their bright new green.

    But above them all, still bare,
    The great old acacia stands,
    His solitary bent black branches stark
    Against the garden and the sky.

    It is as though those other thoughtless shrubs,
    The winter over, hastened to rejoice
    And clothe themselves in spring's new finery,
    Heedless of all the iron time behind them.

    But he, older and wiser, stronger and sadder of heart,
    Remembers still the cruel winter, and knows
    That in some months that death will come again;
    And, for a season, lonelily meditates
    Above his lighter companions' frivolity.

    Till some late sunny day when, breaking thought,
    He'll suddenly yield to th...

John Collings Squire, Sir

Faith

    When I see truth, do I seek truth
    Only that I may things denote,
    And, rich by striving, deck my youth
    As with a vain unusual coat?

    Or seek I truth for other ends:
    That she in other hearts may stir,
    That even my most familiar friends
    May turn from me to look on her?

    So I this day myself was asking;
    Out of the window skies were blue
    And Thames was in the sunlight basking;
    My thoughts coiled inwards like a screw.

    I watched them anxious for a while;
    Then quietly, as I did watch,
    Spread in my soul a sudden smile:
    I knew that no firm thing they'd catch.

    And I remembered if I leapt
    Upon the bosom of the wind
    It would sustain me; question slept;
    I fel...

John Collings Squire, Sir