Poems by Victoria Sackville West

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Making Cider

I saw within the wheelwright’s shed

The big round cartwheels, blue and red;

A plough with blunted share;

A blue tin jug; a broken chair;

And paint in trial patchwork square

Slapping up against the wall;

The lumber of the wheelwright’s trade,

And tools on benches neatly laid,

Victoria Sackville West

Bitterness

Yes, they were kind exceedingly; most mild

Even in indignation, taking by the hand

One that obeyed them mutely, as a child

Submissive to a law he does not understand.

They would not blame the sins his passion wrought.

No, they were tolerant and Christian, saying, 'We

Only deplore ...' saying they only sought

To help him, strengthen him, to show him love; but he

Victoria Sackville West

Mariana In The North

All her youth is gone, her beautiful youth outworn,

Daughter of tarn and tor, the moors that were once her home

No longer know her step on the upland tracks forlorn

Where she was wont to roam.

All her hounds are dead, her beautiful hounds are dead,

That paced beside the hoofs of her high and nimble horse,

Or streaked in lean pursuit of the tawny hare that fled

Out of the yellow gorse.

Victoria Sackville West

Sailing Ships

Lying on Downs above the wrinkling bay

I with the kestrels shared the cleanly day,

The candid day; wind-shaven, brindled turf;

Tall cliffs; and long sea-line of marbled surf

From Cornish Lizard to the Kentish Nore

Lipping the bulwarks of the English shore,

While many a lovely ship below sailed by

On unknown errand, kempt and leisurely;

Victoria Sackville West

Trio

So well she knew them both! yet as she came

Into the room, and heard their speech

Of tragic meshes knotted with her name,

And saw them, foes, but meeting each with each

Closer than friends, souls bared through enmity,

Beneath their startled gaze she thought that she

Broke as the stranger on their conference,

And stole abashed from thence.

Victoria Sackville West

Song

If I had only loved your flesh

And careless damned your soul to Hell,

I might have laughed and loved afresh,

And loved as lightly and as well,

And little more to tell.

But since to clasp your soul I strove,

(That mountebank, that fugitive)

Anrl poured the river of my love

Victoria Sackville West

A Saxon Song

Tools with the comely names,

Mattock and scythe and spade,

Couth and bitter as flames,

Clean, and bowed in the blade,--

A man and his tools make a man and his trade.

Breadth of the English shires,

Hummock and kame and mead,

Tang of the reeking byres,

Victoria Sackville West

Tuscany

Cisterns and stones; the fig-tree in the wall

Casts down her shadow, ashen as her boughs,

Across the road, across the thick white dust.

Down from the hill the slow white oxen crawl,

Dragging the purple waggon heaped with must,

With scarlet tassels on their milky brows,

Gentle as evening moths. Beneath the yoke

Lounging against the shaft they fitful strain

Victoria Sackville West

Bee-Master

I have known honey from the Syrian hills

Stored in cool jars; the wild acacia there

On the rough terrace where the locust shrills

Tosses her spindrift on the ringing air.

Narcissus bares his nectarous perianth

In white and golden tabard to the sun,

And while the workers rob the amaranth

Or scarlet windflower low among the stone,

Victoria Sackville West

Evening

When little lights in little ports come out,

Quivering down through water with the stars,

And all the fishing fleet of slender spars

Range at their moorings, veer with tide about;

When race of wind is stilled and sails are furled,

And underneath our single riding-light

The curve of black-ribbed deck gleams palely white,

And slumbrous waters pool a slumbrous world;

Victoria Sackville West

Beechwoods at Knole

How do I love you, beech-trees, in the autumn,

Your stone-grey columns a cathedral nave

Processional above the earth's brown glory!

I was a child, and I loved the knurly tangle

Of roots that coiled above a scarp like serpents,

Where I might hide my treasure with the squirrels.

I was a child, and splashed my way in laughter

Through drifts of leaves, where underfoot the beech-nuts

Victoria Sackville West

Leopards at Knole

Leopards on the gable-ends,

Leopards on the painted stair,

Stiff the blazoned shield they bear,

Or and gules, a bend of vair,

Leopards on the gable-ends,

Leopards everywhere.

Guard and vigil in the night

Victoria Sackville West