Form: a quarterly of the arts (N.S. 1.1921/1922)

THE SPHINX

PEN DRAWING BY HERBERT COLE

THE AWAKENING

OMEhappy windand blow

away care

And dance you leafy
mazes;

Too stubborn with his
burning stare
The sun upon you
gazes:

And like the antic gods at feast,

Weary of mirth and measure,

The sultry clouds loll west and east
’Twixt pleasure and displeasure.

For this proud smouldering tyrannous sky
Give back the trembling weather,

Come lively wind and puff on high
Each woolpack like a feather:

In ripe bean-blossom ere it fade

Dip your lithe wings for sweetness,

To sow abroad sharp light and shade
In more delicious fleetness.

So sweet in April’s morricing days
’Twas on the down to listen
To lark’s unnumbered roundelays,

To see the young corn glisten!

The ploughlands burnished with late rains,
The chestnut torches coming,

The twinkling ponds and far-away panes,
The zigzag wild-bees humming.

The lane’s white furrow tops the hill,

And there I’ll be to meet you;

There by the mill, no longer still,

Lay bare my brow to greet you:

There, while the lion lights agrin
Range wheat like water sighing,

May power again in me begin
To clasp the joy that’s flying.

EDMUND BLUNDEN 25