Poems by John Le Gay Brereton

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While to the clarion blown by Marlowe’s breath
On a monument formed as a curving wave
Within my heart I hear the cry
I have sought and followed you, drunk with your sacred wine;
The Blatant Beast saw meadows, made for peace,
A timid child with heart oppressed
Eternal cold of silence, where each sound
He, born of my girlhood, is dead, while my life is yet young in my heart
Grant me a moment of peace,
When fires have burnt your forest bare and black,
A singing voice is in my dream
Hail to you, comrades, who have won,
Not till the sun, that brings to birth
“Where shall we dwell?” say you.
From every quarter we,
One of the twain was long and dusty grey,
’Twas Jack-o’-Winter hailed it first,
Love may trace his echoing footsteps, yet we never more shall meet
While the summer day is hot
“Our loss was light,” the paper said,
And can you tell me Love is blind
The spell of Shakespeare fills the heart
The heart is hard that cannot feel
O Merlin, how the magic from your eyes
He looks beyond the veils of night and day;
Lonely wonder, delight past hoping!
An outcry in the bush below,
How many years, how many years have fled,
I
Spring, and the wispy clouds that fade away
Swags up! and yet I turn upon the way.
One very rough day on the Pride of the Fray
Alone
Borne in the car along a crowded way,
Beside the path, on either hand,
When I cast my slough of clay
Hail and farewell to those who fought and died,
Out of the pregnant darkness, where from fire
The bulging cloud mounts lazily
I
When I was but a little boy
His shatter’d Empire thunders to the ground:
The cold green rocks and lapping waves
What imps are these that come with scowl and leer?
The foamy waves are swishing
Far down the reach a creeping mist
The patriot from his walls of brass
The seeking souls, by baleful fires made blind,
“There is no place,” he said,
Here lies the woven garb he wore
In what pearl-paven mossy cave
Time, who with soft pale ashes veils the brand
I.
Stupidity and Selfishness and Fear,
Once more the Christian festival is near,
Hey, Toby, Toby, Toby!—Dead?
Where yonder ruddy-misted star
Behind us lay the homely shore
The world, all busy round us here of late,
O wistful eyes that haunt the gloom of sleep,
Nurse not your grief, nor make obsequious moan
I.
The doom is imminent of unholy hate.
When my time is come to die,
What of these tender feet
When winter chills your aged bones
A golden largesse from a store untold