Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall Poems

HAVE I played fellowship with night, to see
The allied armies break our gates at dawn
And let our general in ? By Bacchus, no !
...

UNDER the fluent folds of needlework,
Where Balkis prick'd the histories of kings
Once great as he, that were as greatly loved,
...

IN your dim Greece of old, Alcithoë,
Death like a lover sought and crowned you young,
Between the olive orchards and the sea.
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HERE is no hedge of yewe to hold in griefe,
No cypresse nor long willow for despaire.
But the young birch displayes his cheerfulle leaf
...

[In many English churches before the Reformation there was kept a little lamp continually burning, called the Lamp of Poor Souls. People were reminded thereby to pray for the souls of those dead whose kinsfolk were too poor to pay for prayers and masses.]


Above my head the shields are stained with rust,
...

HERE where the bee slept and the orchis lifted
Her honeying pipes of pearl, her velvet lip,
Only the swart leaves of the oak lie drifted
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Great names of thy great captains gone before
Beat with our blood, who have that blood of thee;
Raleigh and Grenville, Wolfe, and all the free
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BEAUTY is still immortal in our eyes;
When sways no more the spirit-haunted reed,
When the wild grape shall build
No more her canopies,
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FROM the clouded belfry calling,
Hear my soft ascending swells;
Hear my notes like swallows falling;
I am Bega, least of bells.
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JEFFIK was there, and Matthieu, and brown Bran,
Warped in old wars and babbling of the sword,
And Jannedik, a white rose pinched and paled
...