Day That I Have Loved

by Rupert Brooke

Tenderly, day that I have loved, I close your eyes,
   And smooth your quiet brow, and fold your thin dead hands.
The grey veils of the half-light deepen; colour dies.
   I bear you, a light burden, to the shrouded sands, 

Where lies your waiting boat, by wreaths of the sea's making
  Mist-garlanded, with all grey weeds of the water crowned.
There you'll be laid, past fear of sleep or hope of waking;
  And over the unmoving sea, without a sound, 

Faint hands will row you outward, out beyond our sight,
   Us with stretched arms and empty eyes on the far-gleaming
And marble sand. . . .
                                  Beyond the shifting cold twilight, 

   Further than laughter goes, or tears, further than dreaming, 

There'll be no port, no dawn-lit islands! But the drear
   Waste darkening, and, at length, flame ultimate on the deep.
Oh, the last fire -- and you, unkissed, unfriended there! 
   Oh, the lone way's red ending, and we not there to weep! 

(We found you pale and quiet, and strangely crowned with flowers,
   Lovely and secret as a child. You came with us,
Came happily, hand in hand with the young dancing hours,
   High on the downs at dawn!) Void now and tenebrous, 

The grey sands curve before me. . . .
                                                       From the inland meadows,
   Fragrant of June and clover, floats the dark, and fills
The hollow sea's dead face with little creeping shadows,
   And the white silence brims the hollow of the hills. 

 

Close in the nest is folded every weary wing,
   Hushed all the joyful voices; and we, who held you dear,
Eastward we turn and homeward, alone, remembering . . .
   Day that I loved, day that I loved, the Night is here!

The Last Tree

by John Hagan 

At the ends’ beginning, dreamt I she stood with me,

There at the forest’s furthest edge, beside the final tree,

As snowflakes gently fell, white in her dark-brown hair,

I joked to see her silver-touched, whom centuries would spare.

 

She took my hand as we regarded, the snow-fields awesome spread, 

As dipped towards the horizon, the sun in cloaks of red, 

And the shadows of the trees, wrote long words upon the ground,

That oldest of our alphabets, that not in books is found. 

 

“Make a wish upon this tree”, she pressed my hand upon its bark,

“The final one that stands, before the polar arc;

There’s magic in its wood, nourished by aurora’s rays,

That sees it through that Winter’s night, that lasts a hundred days.” 

 

For this sunset red, blue, gold, was the last that would be seen,

Whilst into depths of space, the North did tilt and lean;

And we lingered as by twilight, one by one the stars were found,

The rules of day undone, and its secrets were unbound.

  

“Taiga, Taiga, burning bright,

‘Neath the Aurora, in days of night!”

(I murmured so in rhyme- 

And she looked at me with that look, that takes me out of time)

 

Home through darkling woods we crept - beware the tracks of beasts, 

The forest a vast cathedral, and wolves its hungry priests, 

Until hand in hand we ran, joyful-scared of monster’s tread,

Returning to our tower, and the warmth of hearth and bed. 

 

Oh, there’s something to be said, for days of endless night,

When our only lantern is, the rippling Northern light,

And the only music needed, is the crackling of the fire,

That seems to dance in harmony, to the beats of our desire. 

 

Now shines upon our skin, the fire’s reflected glow,

As outside lunar light, leaps and shimmers in the snow,

And nightfall like a cloak, enchants this forest world,

As the awful, awesome cosmos, above us is unfurled. 

 

I close my eyes and know, that I have all I need,

And for the cares of ‘morrow, I will take no heed,

Let the sun be gone, and banished all its beams,

For warm beside me lies, the Princess of my dreams.

 

 

*  *  *

 

At the end’s beginning, I awoke alone,

Grasping for a fading world, that fading dreams had shown,

Grimacing as my boots, sealed round my aching feet,

Buckling on my uniform, I rose to blistering heat.

 

Above the July sky, stretched immaculate blue,

Blinding every single star, from our mortal view, 

In the trench we gathered, as if to spring up from our graves,

And charge the treeless plain, we cowards and we braves. 

 

Down from the Heavens, sunstroke like a mace,

Beat unremitting, on my pale and fearful face,

And I thought of my lost love, a girl of the Fay,

And the garden where we’d danced, on a Midsummer’s Day. 

 

Another dance we’d promised, when Midwinter came,

But she’d vanished from my life, and I knew not her name, 

No way back to our garden, here only barbed-wire bloomed,

Flowering with stinking corpses, the flesh- fruit of the doomed.

 

Our Captain did offer me, his last bottle of wine,

A libation he joked; which I did decline,

I looked at my brothers, as we readied our arms,

Thinking of families, our towns and our farms. 

 

The roar of our cannons, reached its final end,

The barrage was lifting, all us boys to send, 

Now the whistles were sounding, and there was no more time- 

 

Until I felt on my cheek, a stray flake of rime.

Grave Goods

For Armistice Day here is a tale both beautiful and chilling. Mr Hagan tells us he was inspired to take up his pen after reading about the Butte de Warlencourt, an ancient burial mound incorporated into German fortifications on the Western Front during the Great War. Grave Goods could equally well have been a short story, perhaps, but Mr Hagan is a master of verse and I feel sure HPL would have approved of his choice -- and of his imaginative talent.

by John Hagan

Once the barrow stood in fields of red,
But before our guns, the flowers have fled;
Where Empires spend lives without tally,
Warlencourt Hill rises over the valley.

Into this mountain, of the mouldering dead,
The living once wisely feared to tread,
But now we tunnel with martial intent,
Clay and chalk into wheelbarrows sent,
We young men, of the Kaiser’s hosts,
Laughing at curses, and stories of ghosts,
Electric torches like lightening spears,
Scattering rats, and banishing fears.

This ancient place our digging wrenches,
Into the future, our city of trenches,
Bunkers are carved by our tomb-raid,
Out of the chambers where lie displayed,
Dragon-slayers in their eternal rest,
Kings and Queens with cobwebs dressed,
Swords of glory proud at their sides,
But their names forgotten, only rust abides.
We who’ve seen so many dead,
Friends’ faces when their life has fled,
How could we spare a fleeting thought,
For the ancient bones our spade-tips caught?

And yet I paused, by that final grave,
No place of honour for a mere girl-slave,
Whilst the lord upon his dais still lay,
Dressed in glory for resurrection day.

I saw her form in white bones, traduced,
A life into a twisted sigil reduced,
Skeletal shards, unshriven and broken,
No final words for her were spoken.

Her body tattooed with their book of the dead,
In the tomb she was sealed, to in darkness be read,
Sealed in the dark, just another grave-good,
To best serve her Kaiser, with her living blood,
A sacrifice for an eldritch maw,
That plump royal souls it might ignore,
And though our God lives not underground,
I prayed to what hearing could be found.

Even as Fritz from the royal graves stole,
A necklace which marked a queen’s high role,
Links forged of metal, or so it seemed,
Alloyed with light, that from the moon once beamed,
That haunter’s moon, more gold than white,
That in equal parts, weighs love and spite.

Upon that necklace, an amber jewel shone,
A stone which burned with dawns long gone.
“Beats an Iron Cross!” My comrade crowed,
And his eyes with fame and fortune glowed,
Until next day a Tommy sniper’s gun,
Punctured a hole through which his brains did run,
And to the shallow graves, where the old bones had been laid,
The necklace I returned; not to the queen, but to her maid.

Now every day I feel, her presence edging near,
In this jagged border land, razor- sharp with fear,
The polished metal of my gun, in a flash reflects her face,
At the corner of my eye, but turning there’s no trace,
And every day I listen, for the softness of her breath,
In this jagged border land, steps away from death.

Amidst the stench of war, to which our guns give vent,
Comes now to my nostrils, her secret witching scent,
Amidst cordite, corpses and kerosene oil,
A stroke of the air, from which I do not recoil.

Once the barrow,
Raised from chalk was white,
And then by grass,
Green-hid from sight,
But now as shells,
Our cannons trade,
White again its skull is flayed,
Deafening howl the British guns,
And silently the dead,
Watch us with unblinking eyes,
As the sky falls on our head.

She came to me in darkness, my last breath I gave to her,
As from all around came shouting, and cries of grim despair,
Her lips I taste with mine, her kiss does our souls tether,
As this time, she is buried, not alone, but together.

The Ship of Death

I sing of autumn and the falling fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion.

The apples falling like great drops of dew
to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.

Have you built your ship of death, oh, have you?
Build then your ship of death, for you will need it!

Can man his own quietus make
with a bare bodkin?

With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make
a bruise or break of exit for his life
but is that a quietus, oh tell me, is it quietus?

Quietus is the goal of the long journey
the longest journey towards oblivion.

Slips out the soul, invisible one, wrapped still
in the white shirt of the mind’s experiences
and folded in the dark-red, unseen
mantle of the body’s still mortal memories.

Frightened and alone, the soul slips out of the house
or is pushed out
to find himself on the crowded, arid margins of existence.

The margins, the grey beaches of shadow
strewn with dim wreckage, and crowded with crying souls
that lie outside the silvery walls of our body’s builded city.

Oh, it is not so easy, I tell you it is not so easy
to set softly forth on the longest journey, the longest journey.

It is easy to be pushed out of the silvery city of the body
through any breach in the wall,
thrust out on to the grey grey beaches of shadow
the long marginal stretches of existence crowded with lost souls
that intervene between our tower and the shaking sea of the beyond.

Oh build your ship of death, oh build it in time
and build it lovingly, and put it between the hands of your soul.

Once outside the gate of this walled silvery life of days
once outside, upon the grey marsh-beaches, where lost souls moan
in millions, unable to depart
having no boat to launch upon the shaken, soundless
deepest and longest of seas,
once outside the gate
what will you do, if you have no ship of the soul?

Oh pity the dead that are dead, but cannot take
the journey, still they moan and beat
against the silvery adamant walls of this our exclusive existence.
They moan and beat, they gnash, they rage
they fall upon the new outcoming souls with rage
and they send arrows of anger, bullets and bombs of frustration
over the adamant walls of this, our by-no-means impregnable existence.

Pity, oh pity the poor dead that are only ousted from life
and crowd there on the grey mud beaches of the margins
gaunt and horrible
waiting, waiting till at last the ancient boatman with the common barge
shall take them aboard, towards the great goal of oblivion.

Pity the poor gaunt dead that cannot die
into the distance with receding oars
but must roam like outcast dogs on the margins of life,
and think of them, and with the soul’s deep sigh
waft nearer to them the bark of delivery.

But for myself, but for my soul, dear soul
let me build a little ship with oars and food
and little dishes, and all accoutrements
dainty and ready for the departing soul.

And put it between the hands of the trembling soul.
So that when the hour comes, and the last door closes behind him
he shall slip down the shores invisible
between the half-visible hordes
to where the furthest and the longest sea
touches the margins of our life’s existence
with wincing unwilling waves.

And launching there his little ship,
wrapped in the dark-red mantle of the body’s memories
the little, slender soul sits swiftly down, and takes the oars
and draws away, away, away, towards the dark depths
fathomless deep ahead, far, far from the grey shores
that fringe with shadow all this world’s existence.

Over the sea, over the farthest sea
on the longest journey
past the jutting rocks of shadow
past the lurking, octopus arms of agonised memory
past the strange whirlpools of remembered greed
through the dead weed of a life-time’s falsity,
slow, slow my soul, in his little ship
on the most soundless of all seas
taking the longest journey.

Pulling the long oars of a life-time’s courage
drinking the confident water from the little jug
and eating the brave bread of a wholesome knowledge
row, little soul, row on
on the longest journey, towards the greatest goal

Neither straight nor crooked, neither here nor there
but shadows folded on deeper shadows
and deeper, to a core of sheer oblivion
like the convolutions of shadow-shell
or deeper, like the foldings and involvings of a womb.

Drift on, drift on, my soul, towards the most pure
most dark oblivion.

And at the penultimate porches, the dark-red mantle
of the body’s memories slips and is absorbed
into the shell-like, womb-like convoluted shadow.

And round the great final bend of unbroken dark
the skirt of the spirit’s experience has melted away
the oars have gone from the boat, and the little dishes
gone, gone, and the boat dissolves like pearl
as the soul at last slips perfect into the goal, the core
of sheer oblivion and of utter peace,
the womb of silence in the living night.

Ah peace, ah lovely peace, most lovely lapsing
of this my soul into the plasm of peace.

Oh lovely last, last lapse of death, into pure oblivion
at the end of the longest journey
peace, complete peace,—!
But can it be that also it is procreation?

Oh build your ship of death
oh build it!
Oh, nothing matters but the longest journey.

* * *

Other, later versions of this D H Lawrence poem exist. Perhaps they are better versions (Lawrence presumably thought so) but this one seems most suited to the pages of Wrong magazine.

The Pathetick History of Sir Wilful Wildrake

by Howard Phillips Lovecraft

Dedicated to the Rt. Hon. Rheinhart Kleiner, Gent.

In Elder Days, when ruttish Rips

Were always pardon'd for their Slips;

When CHARLES (as if to set the Pace)

With Doxies swell'd our British Race,

There liv'd a Rake of ancient Name

Whose Sires had known a martial Fame;

But who, indiff'rent to the Sword,

Fought softer Fights, and gayly whor'd.

This Brat, of rampant Squire begot,

Was sure to design for Lecher's Lot:

At Birth he had a roving Eye

That winkt at Wenches passing by,

And ere he could in Speech converse

He got a Bastard on his Nurse.

When ten the Boy was known with Pride

Each Trollop of the Countryside,

And pass'd, so ably did he whore 'em,

The old Jus Trium Librorum !

His Father, liking not to see

So swift a Growth of Peasantry

(Or yet a Rival quite so bold as he),

Ere long the little Satyr sent

To travel on the Continent;

But many a Tale his Tutor told

That prov'd the Stripling still more bold.

He charm'd the easie Gallick Jades,

And Bitches of Italia’s Shades—

God help us all if Years ahead

Our Sons must fight the Troops he bred!

(Myself, I think it downright Treason

To wench abroad in any Season.)

But in due Time young WILDRAKE came

Back to our Isle to vaunt his Fame,

And gain the Prize for our King design

For Merit of a Gallant Kind.

Behold him now at ev'ry Ball

That frets the Peace of Windsor Hall;

A Maccaronie of Renown

With ev'ry Baggage of the Town;

Bold with the Trulls, and quick to boast

Of Vict'ries o'er each reigning Toast,

Nor slow to hint they hath been rash

With Lady Blank , or Countess Dash!

One idle Day a Nymph he knew

Prov'd pleasing to the Royal View,

Whereat our crafty riggish Imp

To serve his Fortune turn'd a Pimp:

The Fray was won — the Maiden blighted—

And WILL, to pay his Virtue, knighted.

(I need but add, the Drab was made

A Duchess, grand in red Brocade.)

Whene'er some pious Fool wou'd snivel

That such damn'd Raking pleas'd the Devil,

Our love-lockt Goat wou'd wink in Scorn

And vow that he for this was born;

For sure, the only Joy he knew

Was of the Cyprian and the Stew,

Whilst he wou'd rather far be dead

Than out of some loose Mopsy's Bed.

Of Husbands WILL Was Much In Awe,

And smil'd the more, the less he saw;

But Cupid oft will craft provide,

So WILDRAKE early learn'd to hide.

Now all went well, till one sad Day

WILL'S Nose beam'd out with redder Ray,

And powder'd Leeches cry'd that sure

He must depart to take the Cure.

Not once but often did they force

The rake-hell Blade to change his Course,

Yet spyte of all the poor Wretch grows

Pain'd, pox'd, and putrid with his Woes.

The years as well their Tribute claim,

They seam his Face and bend his Frame,

Till ere his Mind his State can see,

He finds no Joy in Venerie.

The Ladies flee as he draws near,

And ev'ry Strumpet costs him dear.

And what is worse, each bawdy Fling

No Spark of Pleasure can now bring.

Bred up to live on Lust alone,

A Courtier by Priapus' Throne,

He sees ahead a weary Waste

Whose Bliss he never learn'd to taste.

"Alas!" he whines, “had I but thought

Of what vast Ills by Love are wrought!

Had I but train'd my mind to glimpse

Some Goal above my Whores and Pimps!

Fifty and feeble, I must crave

And ogle vainly to my Grave,

Whilst even then (if Crones err not)

My itching Ghost will haunt the Spot! ”

But one last Joy our WILDRAKE learns,

The while in pox'd old Age he burns;

For tho 'the Flame of Love be low,

In Godliness new Beauties grow.

The Rake, his genial Ardor spent,

Turns pious, proud, and penitent;

Dons sober gray; three Church each Week

To dose, or hear the Parson speak;

Too old to whore, the Rip grows chaste,

And damns the Bliss he once embrac'd.

Resolv'd to wed, he seeks a Maid

Of Age and Chancres unafraid;

An ugly Chit, tho 'young and sound,

And bred on her ancestral Ground;

Nor (save for Errours with a Groom)

Devoid of Dian's virgin Bloom.

With this sweet Nymph the Rake essays

In rustick Peace to end his Days;

Trades Bawdry for a Patriot's Fire,

And turns a stolid country Squire.

Three infant Forms the Household bless,

Entrancing in their Loveliness;

An idiot Girl, a weakling Boy,

And one small Saint, the Mother's Joy,

Whose Groom-like Looks his lover's Sire annoy.

So ends poor WILL, whom Parents praise

For prudish Tongue and virtuous Ways;

First to reprove a lick'rish Air,

And first to stone the erring Fair.

'Tis he that rails with righteous Zest

At Modern Nymphs in Style undress'd

With shrinking Petticoat and naked Breast.

His Merits all the Country fill,

And Heirs adore him for his Will;

No one (aloud) can think with Ease

That Death so good a Man will seize.

Nagg'd, cuckolded by doltish Wife,

The Hypocrite concludes his Life;

Once hot for Cupid’s Pleasures only

He pines — dull, rotten, lewd, and lonely!