John Davidson
The Last Rose
‘O WHICH is the last rose?’ A blossom of no name. At midnight the snow came; At daybreak a vast rose, In darkness unfurl’d, O’er-petall’d the world. Its odourless pallor Blossom’d forlorn, Till radiant
Imagination
There is a dish to hold the sea, A brazier to contain the sun, A compass for the galaxy, A voice to wake the dead and done! That minister of ministers, Imagination, gathers up
Snow
‘Who affirms that crystals are alive?’ I affirm it, let who will deny: Crystals are engendered, wax and thrive, Wane and wither; I have seen them die. Trust me, masters, crystals have their day,
Song
THE boat is chafing at our long delay, And we must leave too soon The spicy sea-pinks and the inborne spray, The tawny sands, the moon. Keep us, O Thetis, in our western flight!
War Song
In anguish we uplift A new unhallowed song: The race is to the swift; The battle to the strong. Of old it was ordained That we, in packs like curs, Some thirty million trained
Battle
The war of words is done; The red-lipped cannon speak; The battle has begun. The web your speeches spun Tears and blood shall streak; The war of words is done. Smoke enshrouds the sun;
A Loafer
I hang about the streets all day, At night I hang about; I sleep a little when I may, But rise betimes the morning’s scout; For through the year I always hear Afar, aloft,
A Ballad of Hell
‘A letter from my love to-day! Oh, unexpected, dear appeal!’ She struck a happy tear away, And broke the crimson seal. ‘My love, there is no help on earth, No help in heaven; the
Thirty Bob a Week
I couldn’t touch a stop and turn a screw, And set the blooming world a-work for me, Like such as cut their teeth I hope, like you On the handle of a skeleton gold
Song of a Train
A monster taught To come to hand Amain, As swift as thought Across the land The train. The song it sings Has an iron sound; Its iron wings Like wheels go round. Crash under
A Runnable Stag
When the pods went pop on the broom, green broom, And apples began to be golden-skinn’d, We harbour’d a stag in the Priory coomb, And we feather’d his trail up-wind, up-wind, We feather’d his
In Romney Marsh
As I went down to Dymchurch Wall, I heard the South sing o’er the land I saw the yellow sunlight fall On knolls where Norman churches stand. And ringing shrilly, taut and lithe, Within