Produced by Cindy Wolfe Boynton, www.cindywolfeboynton.com
Poems
of
West and East
By V. Sackville-West
(The Hon. Mrs. Harold Nicolson)
London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, Vigo St., W.
New York: John Lane Company, MCMXVII
Printed at The Complete Press, West Norwood
To the unkindest of critics H.G.N.
NO eyes shall see the poems that I write
For you; not even yours; but after long
Forgetful years have passed on our delight
Some hand may chance upon a dusty song
Of those fond days when every spoken word
Was sweet, and all the fleeting things unspoken
Yet sweeter, and the music half unheard
Murmured through forests as a charm unbroken.
It is the plain and ordinary page
Of two who loved, sole-spirited and clear.
Will you, O stranger of another age,
Not grant a human and compassionate tear
To us, who each the other held so dear?
A single tear fraternal, sadly shed,
Since that which was so living, is so dead.
LET us go back together to the hills.
Weary am I of palaces and courts,
Weary of words disloyal to my thoughts,—
Come, my beloved, let us to the hills.
Let us go back together to the land,
And wander hand in hand upon the heights;
Kings have we seen, and manifold delights,—
Oh, my beloved, let us to the land!
Lone and unshackled, let us to the road
Which holds enchantment round each hidden bend,
Our course uncompassed and our whim its end,
Our feet once more, beloved, to the road!
SONG: MY SPIRIT LIKE A SHEPHERD BOY
"Convalescente di squisiti mali"
MY spirit like a shepherd boy
Goes dancing down the lane.
When all the world is young with joy
Must I lie here in pain?
With shepherd's pipe my spirit fled
And cloven foot of Pan;
The mortal bondage he has shed
And shackling yoke of man.
And though he leave me cold and mute,
A traitor to his care,
I smile to hear his honeyed flute
Hang on the scented air.
WHEN I am in the Orient once again,
And turn into the gay and squalid street,
One side in the shadow, one in vivid heat,
The thought of England, fresh beneath the rain,
Will rise unbidden as a gently pain.
The lonely hours of illness, as they beat
Crawling through days with slow laborious feet,
And I lay gazing through the leaded pane,
Idle, and listened to the swallows' cry