How long the gale had blown he could not tell,
Only the world had changed, his life had died.
A moment now was everlasting hell.

Nature an onslaught from the weather side,
A withering rush of death, a frost that cried,
Shrieked, till he withered at the heart; a hail
Plastered his oilskins with an icy mail. . .

"Up!" yelled the Bosun; "up and clear the wreck!"
The Dauber followed where he led; below

He caught one giddy glimpsing of the deck
Filled with white water, as though heaped with snow.
He saw the streamers of the rigging blow

Straight out like pennons from the splintered mast,
Then, all sense dimmed, all was an icy blast.

Roaring from nether hell and filled with ice,
Roaring and crashing on the jerking stage,
An utter bridle given to utter vice,
Limitless power mad with endless rage
Withering the soul; a minute seemed an age.
He clutched and hacked at ropes, at rags of sail,
Thinking that comfort was a fairy tale,

Told long ago-long, long ago-long since
Heard of in other lives-imagined, dreamed-
There where the basest beggar was a prince.
To him in torment where the tempest screamed,
Comfort and warmth and ease no longer seemed
Things that a man could know; soul, body, brain,
Knew nothing but the wind, the cold, the pain.

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

Born at Hexam in 1878, Wilfrid Wilson Gibson has published almost a dozen books of verse-the first four or five

(see Preface) being imitative in manner and sentimentally romantic in tone. With The Stonefolds (1907) and Daily Bread (1910), Gibson executed a complete right-about-face and, with dramatic brevity, wrote a series of poems mirroring the dreams, pursuits and fears of common humanity. Fires (1912) marks an advance in technique and power. And though in Livelihood (1917) Gibson seems to be theatricalizing and merely exploiting his working-people, his later lyrics frequently recapture the veracity.

1

THE STONE 1

"And will you cut a stone for him,
To set above his head?

And will you cut a stone for him—
A stone for him?" she said.

Three days before, a splintered rock
Had struck her lover dead-
Had struck him in the quarry dead,
Where, careless of the warning call,
He loitered, while the shot was fired—
A lively stripling, brave and tall,
And sure of all his heart desired
A flash, a shock,

A rumbling fall. . .

And, broken 'neath the broken rock,
A lifeless heap, with face of clay;
And still as any stone he lay,
With eyes that saw the end of all.

I went to break the news to her;

And I could hear my own heart beat

From Fires by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. Copyright, 1912, by The Macmillan Co. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

With dread of what my lips might say./
But some poor fool had sped before;
And flinging wide her father's door, i
Had blurted out the news to her,
Had struck her lover dead for her,
Had struck the girl's heart dead in her,
Had struck life, lifeless, at a word,
And dropped it at her feet:
Then hurried on his witless way,
Scarce knowing she had heard!

And when I came, she stood, alone
A woman, turned to stone:
And, though no word at all she said,
I knew that all was known.

Because her heart was dead,
She did not sigh nor moan,
His mother wept:
She could not weep.
Her lover slept:

She could not sleep./

Three days, three nights,

She did not stir:

Three days, three nights,

Were one to her,

Who never closed her eyes

From sunset to sunrise,
From dawn to evenfall:
Her tearless, staring eyes,

That seeing naught, saw all.

The fourth night when I came from work,

I found her at my door.

"And will you cut a stone for him?"

She said and spoke no more:
But followed me, as I went in,
And sank upon a chair;

And fixed her grey eyes on my face,
With still, unseeing stare.

And, as she waited patiently,

I could not bear to feel

Those still, grey eyes that followed me,

Those eyes that plucked the heart from me, Those eyes that sucked the breath from me And curdled the warm blood in me,

Those eyes

that cut me to the bone,

And pierced my marrow like cold steel.

And so I rose, and sought a stone;

And cut it, smooth and square:

And, as I worked, she sat and watched,

Beside me, in her chair.

Night after night, by candlelight,

I cut her lover's name:

Night after night, so still and white,

And like a ghost she came;

And sat beside me in her chair;

And watched with eyes aflame. I

She eyed each stroke;

And hardly stirred: [
She never spoke

A single word: {

And not a sound or murmur broke
The quiet, save the mallet-stroke.
With still eyes ever on my hands,
With eyes that seemed to burn my hands,
My wincing, overwearied hands,

She watched, with bloodless lips apart,

And when at length the job was done,
And I had laid the mallet by,

As if, at last, her peace were won,
She breathed his name; and, with a sigh,
Passed slowly through the open door:
And never crossed my threshold more.

Next night I laboured late, alone,
To cut her name upon the stone./

SIGHT 1

By the lamplit stall I loitered, feasting my eyes
On colours ripe and rich for the heart's desire-
Tomatoes, redder than Krakatoa's fire,
Oranges like old sunsets over Tyre,

And apples golden-green as the glades of Paradise.

And as I lingered, lost in divine delight,

My heart thanked God for the goodly gift of sight And all youth's lively senses keen and

When suddenly, behind me in the night,.

I heard the tapping of a blind man's stick.

1

ick...

1 From Borderlands and Thoroughfares by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. Copyright, 1915, by The Macmillan Company. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.