Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1142

 GORDON BOTTOMLEY

The grass, forerunner of life, has gone, But plants that spring in ruins and shards Attend until your dream is done: I have seen hemlock in your yards.

The generations of the worm Know not your loads piled on their soil; Their knotted ganglions shall wax firm Till your strong flagstones heave and toil.

When the oldxhollow'd earth is crack'd, And when, to grasp more power and feasts, Its ores are emptied, wasted, lack'd, The middens of your burning beasts

Shall be raked over till they yield Last priceless slags for fashion ings high, Ploughs to wake grass in every field, Chisels men's hands to magnify.

��JOHN ALEXANDER CHAPMAN 957 Gipsy Queen

GIPSY queen of the night, wraith of the fire-lit dark, Glittering eyes of ice, sharp as glacier green, Lisping falling kisses, syllabled flakes of snow, Down on the stubble fields, over my eyes and hair; If on my mouth one falls, it is tasteless and light and cold She mocKs you, gipsy queen, the brown-eyed child of earth, As berry, that grew from flower, she, as grape of the vine, Is warm and sweet for man, the wine, in herself, and cup. Why do you haunt me then ? Are you for me, not she ?

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