Journey (26 page)

But that cynical comment was not to be Lord Luton's final evaluation of his well-planned expedition to Dawson. It could not be; he was too good a man for that. As he watched Irina Kozlok disappear from view, swinging along with her mates in a free and easy stride, her fine uniform glistening in the sun, her kepi properly cocked, he suddenly uttered an anguished cry that startled others lining the rail, and he felt no embarrassment in disturbing them in this highly improper way.

“Oh God!” he cried, his heart torn with anguish, his brain finally prepared to face the truth. “She spent fifteen weeks going the right way. I spent one hundred going the wrong, and I lost three companions in doing so.” He trembled, still looking at the space she had just vacated, and then like some penitent anchorite in his medieval cave he mumbled, his proud head bowed at last: “Merciful God, let the souls of those precious three men forgive me.”

 

T
houghtful biographers of the ninth Marquess of Deal, which title he inherited in 1909, judged that his disastrous expedition to the Klondike had not been all loss:

He spent twenty-three months covering the two thousand and forty-three miles getting to Dawson and remained only a few hours, but it was this prolonged and dreadful experience, in which he lost three of his party, including his sister's only son, that put steel into the heart of the Marquess. When Lloyd George tapped him in 1916 to whip the British industrial effort into line so that Britain could muster its full strength against the Kaiser, he was as well prepared as a man could be to discipline the private sector.

A blue-blooded nobleman and a man who in the privacy of his club had dismissed Lloyd George as “that insufferable little Welshman, no gentleman at all,” he rallied to his assignment, became one of Lloyd George's most trusted adherents, and performed wonders in helping to throw back the German might. In dealing with refractory industrialists who came to him complaining that they simply could not accept the difficulties involved in this wartime measure or that, he never
referred to his two years in the Arctic, but he did look the man in the eye, stare him down with what was known as “Evelyn's silent-sneer” and ask: “Difficulties? Do you know what difficulty is?” and because everyone knew of his experiences in the Arctic, he got his way.

But that was not the characteristic which enabled him to become one of the most effective ministers of war, for as Lloyd George remarked in one of his cabinet summaries: “The Marquess of Deal could reach a decision quicker than any man I ever knew, defend it with brilliant logic and ram it down the throats of all who opposed. But if his opponent marshalled relevant facts to support his case, Deal was prepared to listen and even reverse himself, acknowledging with disarming grace: ‘I could have been wrong.' I asked him once: ‘Deal, how in God's name can you be so over-powering when you first thunder out your decision, then be so attentive when the other fellow argues his case? And how did you school yourself to surrender so graciously if his arguments prove superior to yours?' and he gave a cryptic answer: ‘Because I learned in the Arctic it's folly to persist in a predetermined course if in your heart you suspect you might be wrong.' I do believe his willingness to listen to others, to bend his will to theirs, anything to keep production humming, helped us win our war against the Boche.”

Among the few personal items Lord Luton carried back to England was Trevor Blythe's battered copy of Palgrave's
Golden Treasury
. He would complete Harry Carpenter's mission and bring Trevor's message of love and his precious book to Lady Julia. But before making the presentation he had put together in an elegant limited edition for family and friends a slim volume consisting of three parts: a selection from those Palgrave lyrics Trevor Blythe had read during the night sessions near the Arctic Circle, extracts from his own journal of the expedition, and, most precious of all, disjointed fragments of a poem cycle Blythe had intended to call
Borealis
.

In selecting the Palgrave poems, Luton chose those which he and the others had especially prized, and that collection is here reprinted in part. The editors express gratitude to the tenth Marquess of Deal
for allowing access to this treasured family heirloom, which is now part of the library collection at Wellfleet Castle.

In justifying his choices Luton explained: “Three of us were not yet married, so it was understandable that we would find great pleasure in the love poems, and Trevor read to us some of the most beautiful, none better than this first one which we all cherished.”

LXXXIX

Go, lovely Rose!

Tell her, that wastes her time and me
,

That now she knows
,

When I resemble her to thee
,

How sweet and fair she seems to be
.

Tell her that's young

And shuns to have her graces spied
,

That hadst thou sprung

In deserts, where no men abide
,

Thou must have uncommended died
.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired:

Bid her come forth
,

Suffer herself to be desired
,

And not blush so to be admired
.

Then die! that she

The common fate of all things rare

May read in thee:

How small a part of time they share

That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

E. WALLER

LI

Cupid and my Campaspe play'd

At cards for kisses; Cupid paid:

He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows
,

His mother's doves, and team of sparrows;

Loses them too; then down he throws

The coral of his lip, the rose

Growing on's cheek (but none knows how);

With these, the crystal of his brow
,

And then the dimple on his chin;

All these did my Campaspe win;

At last he set her both his eyes—

She won, and Cupid blind did rise
.

O Love! has she done this to thee?

What shall, alas! become of me?

J. LYLY

XCII

A sweet disorder in the dress

Kindles in clothes a wantonness:—

A lawn about the shoulders thrown

Into a fine distractión,—

An erring lace, which here and there

Enthrals the crimson stomacher,—

A cuff neglectful, and thereby

Ribbands to flow confusedly,—

A winning wave, deserving note
,

In the tempestuous petticoat,—

A careless shoe-string, in whose tie

I see a wild civility,—

Do more bewitch me, than when art

Is too precise in every part
.

R. HERRICK

CI

Why so pale and wan, fond lover?

Prythee, why so pale?

Will, if looking well can't move her
,

Looking ill prevail?

Prythee, why so pale?

Why so dull and mute, young sinner?

Prythee, why so mute?

Will, when speaking well can't win her
,

Saying nothing do't?

Prythee, why so mute?

Quit, quit, for shame! this will not move
,

This cannot take her
,

If of herself she will not love
,

Nothing can make her:

The D—l take her!

SIR J. SUCKLING

XC

Drink to me only with thine eyes
,

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup

And I'll not look for wine
.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise

Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove's nectar sup
,

I would not change for thine
.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath
,

Not so much honouring thee

As giving it a hope that there

It could not wither'd be;

But thou thereon didst only breathe

And sent'st it back to me;

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear
,

Not of itself but thee!

B. JONSON

LXXXII

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may
,

Old Time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to-day
,

To-morrow will be dying
.

The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun
,

The higher he's a-getting

The sooner will his race be run
,

And nearer he's to setting
.

That age is best which is the first
,

When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spent, the worse, and worst

Times, still succeed the former
.

Then be not coy, but use your time;

And while ye may, go marry:

For having lost but once your prime
,

You may for ever tarry
.

R. HERRICK

“But the harsh times, the terrible times came when we needed not the reassurances of love but these stern reminders of what the essential character of a man ought to be. Then we turned to those oaklike definitions of how a true Englishman should behave in adversity; poems that sound like bugle calls at night with barbarians at the gate. My heart elates as I recall them.”

CXXIV

How sleep the Brave who sink to rest

By all their Country's wishes blest!

When Spring, with dewy fingers cold
,

Returns to deck their hallow'd mould
,

She there shall dress a sweeter sod

Than Fancy's feet have ever trod
.

By fairy hands their knell is rung
,

By forms unseen their dirge is sung:

There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey
,

To bless the turf that wraps their clay;

And Freedom shall awhile repair

To dwell a weeping hermit, there!

W. COLLINS

LXXI

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide
,

And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest He returning chide,—

Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?

I fondly ask:—But Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies; God doth not need

Either man's work, or His own gifts: who best

Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His state

Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed

And post o'er land and ocean without rest:—

They also serve who only stand and wait
.

J. MILTON

LXXIII

It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make Man better be;

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year
,

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:

A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May
,

Although it fall and die that night—

It was the plant and flower of Light
.

In small proportions we just beauties see;

And in short measures life may perfect be
.

B. JONSON

CCXLVI

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand
,

Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things
,

The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
,

The lone and level sands stretch far away
.

P.B. SHELLEY

LXXXIII

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind

That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind

To war and arms I fly
.

True, a new mistress now I chase
,

The first foe in the field;

And with a stronger faith embrace

A sword, a horse, a shield
.

Yet this inconstancy is such

As you too shall adore;

I could not love thee, Dear, so much
,

Loved I not Honour more
.

COLONEL LOVELACE

“And then there was that little song by the master voice of our tongue. Its words were simple and some lines almost comic, but they bespoke the pure joy of being alive. We treasured them, reciting them often to one another when temperatures plunged.”

XXVII

When icicles hang by the wall

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
,

And Tom bears logs into the hall
,

And milk comes frozen home in pail;

When blood is nipt, and ways be foul
,

Then nightly sings the staring owl

Tuwhoo!

Tuwhit! tuwhoo! A merry note!

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot
.

When all aloud the wind doth blow
,

And coughing drowns the parson's saw
,

And birds sit brooding in the snow
,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw;

When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl—

Then nightly sings the staring owl

Tuwhoo!

Tuwhit! tuwhoo! A merry note!

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot
.

W. SHAKESPEARE