Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The News

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

THE BUZZER boomed, and instantly the clang

Of hammers dropped, just as the fendered bow

Bumped with soft splash against the wharf; though now

Again within the Yard a hammer rang—

A solitary hammer striking steel

Somewhere aloft—and strangely, stridently

Echoed as though it struck the steely sky—

The low, cold, steely sky.
She seemed to feel

That hammer in her heart—blow after blow

In a strange clanging hollow seemed to strike

Monotonous, unrelenting, cruel-like,

Her heart that such a little while ago

Had been so full, so happy with its news

Scarce uttered even to itself.

It stopped,

That dreadful hammer. And the silence dropped

Again a moment. Then a clatter of shoes

And murmur of voices as the men trooped out:

And as each wife with basket and hot can

Hurried towards the gate to meet her man,

She too ran forward, and then stood in doubt

Because among them all she could not see

The face that usually was first of all

To meet her eyes.

Against the grimy wall

That towered black above her to the sky,

With trembling knuckles to the cold stone pressed

Till the grit seemed to eat into the bone,

And her stretched arm to shake the solid stone,

She stood, and strove to calm her troubled breast—

Her breast, whose trouble of strange happiness,

So sweet and so miraculous as she

Had stood among the chattering company

Upon the ferry-boat, to strange distress

Was changed. An unknown terror seemed to lie

For her behind that wall, so cold and hard

And black above her, in the unseen Yard,

Dreadfully quiet now.

Then with a sigh

Of glad relief she ran towards the gate

As he came slowly out, the last of all.

The terror of the hammer and the wall

Fell from her as, a woman to her mate,

She moved with happy heart and smile of greeting—

A young and happy wife whose only thought

Was whether he would like the food she’d brought,

Whose one desire, to watch her husband eating.

With a grave smile he took his bait from her,

And then without a word they moved away,

To where some grimy baulks of timber lay

Beside the river, and ’twas quieter

Than in the crowd of munching, squatting men

And chattering wives and children. As he eat,

With absent eyes upon the river set,

She chattered too a little now and then

Of household happenings; and then silently

They sat and watched the grimy-flowing stream,

Dazed by the stunning din of hissing steam

Escaping from an anchored boat hard by;

Each busy with their own thoughts, who till now

Had shared each thought, each feeling, speaking out

Easily, eagerly, without a doubt,

As innocent, happy children, anyhow,

The innermost secrets of their wedded life.

So, as the dinner hour went swiftly by,

They sat there for the first time, troubled, shy—

A silent husband a silent wife.

But she was only troubled by excess

Of happiness; and as she watched the stream,

She looked upon her life as in a dream,

Recalling all its tale of happiness

Unbroken and unshadowed, since she’d met

Her man the first time, eighteen months ago….

A keen blue day with sudden flaws of snow

And sudden sunshine, when she first had set

Her wondering eyes upon him—gaily clad

For football in a jersey green and red;

Knees bare beneath white shorts, his curly head

Wind-blown and wet—and knew him for her lad.

He strode towards her down the windy street—

The wet gray pavements flashing sudden gold

And gold the unending coils of smoke that rolled

Unceasingly overhead, fired by a fleet

Wild glint of glancing sunlight. On he came

Beside her brother—still a raw uncouth

Young hobbledehoy—a strapping mettled youth

In the first pride of manhood, that wild flame

Touching his hair to fire, his cheeks aglow

With the sharp stinging wind, his arms aswing:

And as she watched, she felt the tingling sting

Of flying flakes, and in a whirl of snow

A moment he was hidden from her sight.

It passed, and then before she was aware,

With white flakes powdering his ruddy hair

He stood before her, laughing in the light,

In all his bravery of red and green

Snow-sprinkled. And she laughed, too; in the sun

They laughed: and in that laughter they were one.

Now, as with kindled eyes on the unseen

Gray river she sat gazing, she again

Lived through that moment in a golden dream….

And then quite suddenly she saw the stream

Distinct in its cold grimy flowing. Then

The present with its deeper happiness

Thrilled her afresh: this wonder strange and new;

This dream in her young body coming true—

Incredible, yet certain none the less;

This news, scarce broken to herself, that she

Must break to him. She longed to see his eyes

Kindle to hear it, happy with surprise

When she should break it to him presently.

But she must wait a while yet. Still too strange,

Too wonderful for words, she could not share

Even with him her secret. He sat there

So quietly, little dreaming of the change

That had come over her. But when he knew!—

For he was always one for bairns, was John,

And this would be his own, their own. There shone

A strange new light on all since this was true.

All, all seemed strange: the river and the shore,

The barges and the wharves with timber piled,

And all her world familiar from a child,

Was as a world she’d never seen before.

And he too sat with eyes upon the stream,

Remembering that day when first the light

Of her young eyes, with laughter sparkling bright,

Kindled to his; and as he caught the gleam

The life within him quickened suddenly

To fire, and in a world of golden laughter

They stood alone together; and then after,

When he was playing with his mates and he

Hurtled headlong towards the goal, he knew

Her eyes were on him; and for her alone,

Who had the merriest eyes he’d ever known

He played that afternoon. Though until then

He’d only played to please himself, somehow

She seemed to have a hold upon him. Now,

No longer a boy, a man among grown men,

He’d never have a thought apart from her,

From her, his mate….

And then that golden night

When, in a whirl of melody and light,

Her merry brown eyes flashing merrier,

They rode together in a gilded car

That seemed to roll forever round and round,

In a blind blaze of light and blare of sound,

For ever and for ever, till afar

It seemed to bear them from the surging throng

Of lads and lasses happy in release

From the week’s work in yards and factories—

For ever through a land of light and song

While they sat, rapt in silence, hand in hand,

And looked into each other’s merry eyes:

They two, together, whirled through Paradise,

A golden glittering, unearthly land;

A land where light and melody were one;

And melody and light, a golden fire

That ran through their young bodies; and desire,

A golden music streaming from the sun,

Filling their veins with golden melody

And singing fire …

And then when quiet fell

And they together, with so much to tell,

So much to tell each other instantly,

Left the hot throng and roar and glare behind,

Seeking the darker streets, and stood at last

In a dark lane where footsteps seldom passed—

Lit by a far lamp and one glowing blind

That seemed to make the darkness yet more dark

Between the cliffs of houses, black and high,

That soared above them to the starry sky,

A deep blue sky where spark on fiery spark

The stars for them were kindled, as they raised

Their eyes in new-born wonder to the night;

And in a solitude of cold starlight

They stood alone together, hushed, and gazed

Into each other’s eyes until speech came:

And underneath the stars they talked and talked….

Then he remembered how they two had walked

Along a beach that was one golden flame

Of yellow sand beside a flame-blue sea—

The day they wedded, that strange day of dream,

One flame of blue and gold….
The murky stream

Flowed once again before his eyes, and he

Dropped back into the present; and he knew

That he must break the news that suddenly

Had come to him last night, as drowsily

He lay beside her—startling, stern and true

Out of the darkness flashing. He must tell

How, as he lay beside her in the night,

His heart had told him he must go and fight,

Must throw up everything he loved so well

To go and fight in lands across the sea

Beside the other lads—must throw up all,

His work, his home….
The shadow of the wall

Fell on her once again, and stridently

That hammer struck her heart, as from the stream

She raised her eyes to his, and saw their flame.

Then back into her heart her glad news came

As John smiled on her; and her golden dream

Once more was all about her as she thought

Of home, the new home that the future held

For them—they three together. Fear was quelled

By this new happiness that all unsought

Had sprung from the old happiness….
And he,

Watching her, thought of home too. When he stepped

With her across the threshold first, and slept

That first night in her arms so quietly,

For the first time in all his life he’d known

All that home meant—or nearly all, for yet

Each night brought him new knowledge as she met

Him, smiling on the clean white threshold stone

When he returned from labor in the Yard …

And she’d be waiting for him soon, while he

Was fighting with his fellow oversea—

She would be waiting for him….
It was hard

For him that he must go, as go he must,

But harder far for her: things always fell

Harder upon the women. It was well

She didn’t dream yet … He could only trust

She too would feel that he had got to go,

Then ’twould not be so hard to go, and yet …

Dreaming, he saw the lamplit table, set

With silver pot and cups and plates aglow

For tea in their own kitchen bright and snug,

With her behind the tea-pot—saw it all,

The colored calendars upon the wall,

The bright fire-irons, and the gay hearth-rug

She’d made herself from bright-hued rags; his place

Awaiting him, with something hot-and-hot—

His favorite sausages as like as not,

Between two plates for him—as, with clean face

Glowing from washing in the scullery,

And such a hunger on him, he would sink

Content into his chair….
’Twas strange to think

All this was over, and so suddenly—

’Twas strange, and hard….
Still gazing on the stream,

Her thoughts too were at home. She heard the patter

Of tiny feet beside her, and the chatter

Of little tongues….
Then loudly through their dream

The buzzer boomed; and all about them rose

The men and women: soon the wives were on

The ferry-boat, now puffing to be gone;

The husbands hurrying, ere the gates should close,

Back to the Yard….
She, in her dream of gold,

And he, in his new desolation, stood.

Then soberly, as wife and husband should,

They parted with their news as yet untold.