Richard Hughes

The Singing Furies

The yellow sky grows vivid as the sun: The sea glittering, and the hills dun. The stones quiver. Twenty pounds of lead Fold upon fold, the air laps my head. Both eyes scorch: tongue stiff and bitter: Flies buzz, but no birds twitter: Slow bullocks stand with stinging feet, And naked fishes scarcely stir for heat. White as smoke, As jetted steam, dead clouds awoke And quivered on the Western rim. Then the singing started: dim And sibilant as rime-stiff reeds That whistle as the wind leads. The South whispered hard and sere, The North answered, low and clear; And thunder muffled up like drums Beat, whence the East wind comes. The heavy sky that could not weep Is loosened: rain falls steep: And thirty singing furies ride To split the sky from side to side. They sing, and lash the wet-flanked wind: Sing, from Col to Hafod Mynd, And fling their voices half a score Of miles along the mounded shore: Whip loud music from a tree, And roll their pæan out to sea Where crowded breakers fling and leap, And strange things throb five fathoms deep. The sudden tempest roared and died: The singing furies muted ride Down wet and slippery roads to hell: And, silent in their captors' train, Two fishers, storm-caught on the main: A shepherd, battered with his flocks; A pit-boy tumbled from the rocks; A dozen back-broke gulls, and hosts Of shadowy, small, pathetic ghosts, — Of mice and leverets caught by flood; Their beauty shrouded in cold mud.

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Moonstruck

Cold shone the moon, with noise The night went by. Trees uttered things of woe: Bent grass dared not grow: Ah, desperate man with haggard eyes And hands that fence away the skies, On rock and briar stumbling, Is it fear of the storm's rumbling, Of the hissing cold rain, Or lightning's tragic pain Drives you so madly? See, see the patient moon; How she her course keeps Through cloudy shallows and across black deeps, Now gone, now shines soon. Where's cause for fear? 'I shudder and shudder At her bright light: I fear, I fear, That she her fixt course follows So still and white Through deeps and shallows With never a tremor: Naught shall disturb her. I fear, I fear What they may be That secretly bind her: What hand holds the reins Of those sightless forces That govern her courses. Is it Setebos Who deals in her command? Or that unseen Night-Comer With tender curst hand? — I shudder, and shudder.' Poor storm-wisp, wander! Wind shall not hurt thee, Rain not appal thee, Lightning not blast thee; Thou art worn so frail, Only the moonlight pale To an ash shall burn thee, To an invisible Pain.

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Vagrancy

When the slow year creeps hay-ward, and the skies Are warming in the summer's mild surprise, And the still breeze disturbs each leafy frond Like hungry fishes dimpling in a pond, It is a pleasant thing to dream at ease On sun-warmed thyme, not far from beechen trees. A robin flashing in a rowan-tree, A wanton robin, spills his melody As if he had such store of golden tones That they were no more worth to him than stones: The sunny lizards dream upon the ledges: Linnets titter in and out the hedges, Or swoop among the freckled butterflies. Down to a beechen hollow winds the track And tunnels past my twilit bivouac: Two spiring wisps of smoke go singly up And scarcely tremble in the leafy air. — There are more shadows in this loamy cup Than God could count: and oh, but it is fair: The kindly green and rounded trunks, that meet Under the soil with twinings of their feet And in the sky with twinings of their arms: The yellow stools: the still ungathered charms Of berry, woodland herb, and bryony, And mid-wood's changeling child, Anemone. * * * * * Quiet as a grave beneath a spire I lie and watch the pointed climbing fire, I lie and watch the smoky weather-cock That climbs too high, and bends to the breeze's shock, And breaks, and dances off across the skies Gay as a flurry of blue butterflies. But presently the evening shadows in, Heralded by the night-jar's solitary din And the quick bat's squeak among the trees; — Who sudden rises, darting across the air To weave her filmy web in the Sun's bright hair That slowly sinks dejected on his knees.... Now is he vanished: the bewildered skies Flame out a desperate and last surmise; Then yield to Night, their sudden conqueror. From pole to pole the shadow of the world Creeps over heaven, till itself is lit By the very many stars that wake in it: Sleep, like a messenger of great import, Lays quiet and compelling hands athwart The easy idlenesses of my mind. — There is a breeze above me, and around: There is a fire before me, and behind: But Sleep doth hold me, and I hear no sound. In the far West the clouds are mustering, Without hurry, noise, or blustering: And soon as Body's nightly Sentinel Himself doth nod, I open furtive eyes.... With darkling hook the Farmer of the Skies Goes reaping stars: they flicker, one by one, Nodding a little; tumble, — and are gone.

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Poets, Painters, Puddings

Poets, painters, and puddings; these three Make up the World as it ought to be. Poets make faces And sudden grimaces: They twit you, and spit you On words: then admit you To heaven or hell By the tales that they tell. Painters are gay As young rabbits in May: They buy jolly mugs, Bowls, pictures, and jugs: The things round their necks Are lively with checks, (For they like something red As a frame for the head): Or they'll curse you with oaths, That tear holes in your clothes. (With nothing to mend them You'd best not offend them.) Puddings should be Full of currants, for me: Boiled in a pail, Tied in the tail Of an old bleached shirt: So hot that they hurt, So huge that they last From the dim, distant past Until the crack o' doom Lift the roof off the room. Poets, painters, and puddings; these three Crown the day as it crowned should be.

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