Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, born on November 21, 1863, and died on May 12, 1944, was a Cornish writer, who published under the pen name Q. His legacy includes a vast body of critical and anthological work, most notably 'The Oxford Book of English Verse 1250–1900'. Quiller-Couch was knighted in 1910 and also served as a professor of English at the University of Cambridge. His works have influenced many, including writers like Virginia Woolf.

November 21, 1863

May 12, 1944

English

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A Letter.

Addressed during the Summer Term of 1888 by Mr. Algernon Dexter, Scholar of ------ College, Oxford, to his cousin, Miss Kitty Tremayne, at ------ Vicarage, Devonshire.

After W. M. P.


Dear Kitty,
    At length the term's ending;
    I 'm in for my Schools in a week;
And the time that at present I'm spending
    On you should be spent upon Greek:
But I'm fairly well read in my Plato,
    I'm thoroughly red in the eyes,
And I've almost forgotten the way to
    Be healthy and wealthy and wise.
So 'the best of all ways'--why repeat you
    The verse at 2.30 a.m.,
When I 'm stealing an hour to entreat you
    Dear Kitty, to come to Commem.?

Oh, come!    You shall rustle in satin
    Through halls where Examiners trod:
Your laughter shall...

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

A Triolet.

To commemorate the virtue of Homoeopathy in restoring one apparently drowned.

Love, that in a tear was drown'd,
Lives revived by a tear.
Stella heard them mourn around
Love that in a tear was drown'd,
Came and coax'd his dripping swound,
Wept 'The fault was mine, my dear!'
Love, that in a tear was drown'd,
Lives, revived by a tear.

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Alma Mater

    Know you her secret none can utter?
        Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?
    Still on the spire the pigeons flutter,
        Still by the gateway flits the gown;
    Still on the street, from corbel and gutter,
        Faces of stone look down.

    Faces of stone, and stonier faces--
        Some from library windows wan
    Forth on her gardens, her green spaces,
        Peer and turn to their books anon.
    Hence, my Muse, from the green oases
        Gather the tent, begone!

Nay, should she by the pavement linger
        Under the rooms where once she played,
    Who from the feast would rise to fling her
        One poor sou for her serenade?
    One short laugh for the antic finger
        Thrumming a lute-strin...

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

An Oath. (From 'Troy Town'.)

A month ago Lysander pray'd
    To Jove, to Cupid, and to Venus,
That he might die if he betray'd
    A single vow that pass'd between us.

Ah, careless gods, to hear so ill
    And cheat a maid on you relying!
For false Lysander's thriving still,
    And 'tis Corinna lies a-dying.

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Anecdote For Fathers.

Designed to show that the practice of lying is not confined to children.

By the late W. W. (of H.M. Inland Revenue Service).

And is it so?    Can Folly stalk
And aim her unrespecting darts
In shades where grave Professors walk
    And Bachelors of Arts?

I have a boy, not six years old,
A sprite of birth and lineage high:
His birth I did myself behold,
    His caste is in his eye.

And oh! his limbs are full of grace,
His boyish beauty past compare:
His mother's joy to wash his face,
    And mine to brush his hair!

One morn we strolled on our short walk,
With four goloshes on our shoes,
And held the customary talk
    That parents love to use.

(And oft I turn it into verse,
And write it down upon a page,
Wh...

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

As I Laye A-Dreamynge. L'Envoi.

After T. I.

    As I laye a-dreamynge, a-dreamynge, a-dreamynge,
O softlye moaned the dove to her mate within the tree,
    And meseemed unto my syghte
    Came rydynge many a knyghte
    All cased in armoure bryghte
        Cap-a-pie,
As I laye a-dreamynge, a goodlye companye!

    As I laye a-dreamynge, a-dreamynge, a-dreamynge,
O sadlye mourned the dove, callynge long and callynge lowe,
    And meseemed of alle that hoste
    Notte a face but was the ghoste
    Of a friend that I hadde loste
        Long agoe.
    As I laye a-dreamynge, oh, bysson teare to flowe!

    As I laye a-dreamynge, a-dreamynge, a-dreamynge,
O sadlye sobbed the dove as she seemed to despayre,
    And laste upon the tracke
    Came one I hayled as 'Jacke!'

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Behold! I Am Not One That Goes To Lectures.'

By W. W.

Behold! I am not one that goes to Lectures or the pow-wow of Professors.

The elementary laws never apologise: neither do I apologise.

I find letters from the Dean dropt on my table--and every one is signed by the Dean's name--

And I leave them where they are; for I know that as long as I stay up

Others will punctually come for ever and ever.

I am one who goes to the river,

I sit in the boat and think of 'life' and of 'time.'

How life is much, but time is more; and the beginning is everything,

But the end is something.

I loll in the Parks, I go to the wicket, I swipe.

I see twenty-two young men from Foster's watching me, and the trousers of the twenty-two young men,

I see the Balliol men en masse

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Caliban Upon Rudiments[1]. Or Autoschediastic Theology In A Hole.
Rudiments, Rudiments, and Rudiments!
'Thinketh one made them i' the fit o' the blues.

'Thinketh one made them with the 'tips' to match,
But not the answers; 'doubteth there be none,
Only Guides, Helps, Analyses, such as that:
Also this Beast, that groweth sleek thereon,
And snow-white bands that round the neck o' the same.

'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease.
'Hath heard that Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands, and the rest o 't. That's the case.
Also 'hath heard they pop the names i' the hat,
Toss out a brace, a dozen stick inside;
Let forty through and plough the sorry rest.

'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in them,
Only their strength, being made o' sloth i' the main--
'Am strong myself compared to yonder names
...
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Chant Royal Of High Virtue
Who lives in suit of armour pent
And hides himself behind a wall,
For him is not the great event,
The garland nor the Capitol.
And is God's guerdon less than they?
Nay, moral man, I tell thee Nay:
Nor shall the flaming forts be won
By sneaking negatives alone,
By Lenten fast or Ramazàn;
But by the challenge proudly thrown--
Virtue is that becrowns a Man!

God, in His Palace resident
Of Bliss, beheld our sinful ball,
And charged His own Son innocent
Us to redeem from Adam's fall.

"Yet must it be that men Thee slay."
"Yea, tho' it must, must I obey,"
Said Christ; and came, His royal Son,
To die, and dying to atone
For harlot, thief, and publican.
Read on that rood He died upon--
Vi...
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Christmas Eve
Friend, old friend in the Manse by the fireside sitting,
Hour by hour while the grey ash drips from the log;
You with a book on your knee, your wife with her knitting,
Silent both, and between you, silent, the dog.

Silent here in the south sit I; and, leaning,
One sits watching the fire, with chin upon hand;
Gazes deep in its heart--but ah! its meaning
Rather I read in the shadows and understand.

Dear, kind she is; and daily dearer, kinder,
Love shuts the door on the lamp and our two selves:

Not my stirring awakened the flame that behind her
Lit up a face in the leathern dusk of the shelves.

Veterans are my books, with tarnished gilding:
Yet there is one gives back to the wint...
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Coronation Hymn
Tune--Luther's Chorale
"Ein' feste burg ist unser Gott"

I

Of old our City hath renown.
Of God are her foundations,
Wherein this day a King we crown
Elate among the nations.
Acknowledge, then, thou King--
And you, ye people, sing--
What deeds His arm hath wrought:
Yea, let their tale be taught
To endless generations.

II

So long, so far, Jehovah guides
His people's path attending,
By pastures green and water-sides
Toward His hill ascending;
Whence they beneath the stars
Shall view their ancient wars,
Their perils, far removed.
O might of mercy proved!
...
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

De Tea Fabula.
Plain Language from truthful James^[1].

Do I sleep? Do I dream?
Am I hoaxed by a scout?
Are things what they seem,
Or is Sophists about?
Is our "to ti en einai" a failure, or is Robert Browning played out?

Which expressions like these
May be fairly applied
By a party who sees
A Society skied
Upon tea that the Warden of Keble had biled with legitimate pride.

'Twas November the third,
And I says to Bill Nye,
'Which it's true what I've heard:
If you're, so to speak, fly,
There's a chance of some tea and cheap culture, the sort recommended as High.'

Which I mentioned its name,
And he ups and remarks:
'If dress-coats is the game
And pow-wow in the Parks,
Then I 'm nuts on...
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Epilogue To A Mother, On Seeing Her Smile Repeated In Her Daughter's Eyes
A thousand songs I might have made
Of You, and only You;
A thousand thousand tongues of fire
That trembled down a golden wire
To lamp the night with stars, to braid
The morning bough with dew.

Within the greenwood girl and boy
Had loiter'd to their lure,
And men in cities closed their books
To dream of Spring and running brooks
And all that ever was of joy
For manhood to abjure.

And I'd have made them strong, so strong
Outlasting towers and towns--
Millennial shepherds 'neath the thorn
Had piped them to a world reborn,
And danced Delight the dale along
And up the daisied downs.

A thousand songs I might have made...
But you required them not;
Content to reign your little while
Ere, abdicatin...
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Exmoor Verses I. Vashti's Song
Over the rim of the Moor,
And under the starry sky,
Two men came to my door
And rested them thereby.

Beneath the bough and the star,
In a whispering foreign tongue,
They talked of a land afar
And the merry days so young!

Beneath the dawn and the bough
I heard them arise and go:
And my heart it is aching now
For the more it will never know.

Why did they two depart
Before I could understand?
Where lies that land, O my heart?
--O my heart, where lies that land?
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Exmoor Verses II. Saturn
From my farm, from hèr farm
Furtively we came.
In either home a hearth was warm:
We nursed a hungrier flame.

Our feet were foul with mire,
Our faces blind with mist;
But all the night was naked fire
About us where we kiss'd.

To her farm, to my farm,
Loathing we returned;
Pale beneath a gallow's arm
The planet Saturn burned.
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Exmoor Verses III. Dereliction
O'er the tears that we shed, dear
The bitter vines twist,
And the hawk and the red deer
They keep where we kiss'd:
All broken lies the shieling
That sheltered from rain,
With a star to pierce the ceiling,
And the dawn an empty pane.

Thro' the mist, up the moorway,
Fade hunters and pack;
From the ridge to thy doorway
Happy voices float back ...
O, between the threads o' mist, love,
Reach your hands from the house.
Only mind that we kiss'd, love,
And forget the broken vows!
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Fire!
By Sir W. S.

Written on the occasion of the visit of the United Fire Brigades to Oxford, 1887.

I.

St. Giles's street is fair and wide,
St. Giles's street is long;
But long or wide, may naught abide
Therein of guile or wrong;
For through St. Giles's, to and fro,
The mild ecclesiastics go
From prime to evensong.
It were a fearsome task, perdie!
To sin in such good company.

II.

Long had the slanting beam of day
Proclaimed the Thirtieth of May
Ere now, erect, its fiery heat
Illumined all that hallowed street,
And breathing benediction on
Thy serried battlements, St. John,
Suffused at once with equal glow
The cluster'd Archipelago,
The Art Professor's studio
An...
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Hesperus
Down in the street the last late hansoms go
Still westward, but with backward eyes of red
The harlot shuffles to her lonely bed;
The tall policeman pauses but to throw
A flash into the empty portico;
Then he too passes, and his lonely tread
Links all the long-drawn gas-lights on a thread
And ties them to one planet swinging low.

O Hesperus! O happy star! to bend
O'er Helen's bosom in the trancèd west--
To watch the hours heave by upon her breast
And at her parted lip for dreams attend:
If dawn defraud thee, how shall I be deem'd.
Who house within that bosom, and am dreamed?
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

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