EVELYN PALMER VERSES BY A FEMALE ROBINSON CRUSOE



	



	VERSES BY A FEMALE ROBINSON CRUSOE



	



	EVELYN PALMER VERSES BY A FEMALE ROBINSON CRUSOE
	No. 4 SCHILDPADREEKS DERDE TIENTAL



	



	DEDICATION TO K To you, sweet friend, my thoughts forever straying From my Pacific-bounded home of ease Must yet for very distance turn like hees Too far on light and fragile wings a-straying. So homing then against the surf-wet breeze, No honey gathered, but the sea-salt staying Upon my weary messengers, gainsaying My hope of help from the antipodes. The useless exercise of thinking done, I lay reclined in empty-minded leisure When my hid soul to exstasy was won To feel the rising tide of unknown pleasure: The soundless echo in my heart of one Most distant throb that kept my private rneasure.



	VERSE EPISTLE
	In what way can one thank for poems, but by writing poems? Though a clumsy fellow like I om, Eve, rnay think and yawn and bellow, and still his verse is of uncertain cut.
	I see you walking in the magie mellow light of the moon, chewing a coco-nut, through palms and prickly shrubs to your lone hut, I see your beach, surf-beaten, gleaming yellow.
	The Southern Cross be noiv my lodestar, dear, my love is bet ter than this shaky rhyme; Til leave my country and my gods, to steer a downright course to you, till I can hear your voice, that's calling me over the grey and lossing waters. Here I come. Your K.



	Confused in Time, and that nice point of Space Where lies my home and livelihood, unknotvn,
	Yet is my course predictable: for thrown On this lost island far frorn all my race I can but cherish what is most mine own. My world reflects upon its brightened face The haloed rays from that most inward grace Which in true hearts from Venus’ breath is blown. No sweeter do the pigeons call, than oft The voice I love hath fallen on my ear;
	The seas continued murmur is as soft, And to my drowsy mind one thought is clear: The very palm-trees pattern it aio ft That there is no one in the world more near.



	To wake in this same circling ring Of coral-banks where sea-spray blows; Beyond, as far as eyesight goes, The moving wave encornpassing This sordid rock that Neptune chose To be rny prison. Menacing His guard surrounds me. Can I bring Sufficiënt sacrifice for those?
	Ah, rulerless the ancient sea And unimplorable now moves Without the touch of mastery By potent gods, and it behooves Unaided mortal misery To wait in silence what Time proves.



	Within this firrn and subtly rounded shell The inunaterial brush of light has laid Each single tint that rainbowed beauty made When first to earth the rays of sunlight feil;
	Since that prirneval touch, in light and shade, Earth has been ruled by this unvaried spell And will be so in all her buds to swell TUI cools the sun and our rnoist texture fade.
	The layered pearl shows on its surf ace all We can conceive as fair, but yet we know The range of light is wider in its fall
	Than nature’s and our eyes’ response. Just so Are all those shades of feeling which love’s call Roused in our breast inadequate for show.



	If beauty still be perfect in itself Then now it is not less, though seen alone And unaccompanied by farmer wealth Of that familiar hand slipped in my otvn.
	We find, if beauty is the lover s gift, A new interpretation, erst unknown: The soothing quality of sweet uplift In contemplation, is communion's loan.
	To be received but by a wider self Which can interpret, and condone Even Time's destruction and his stealth.
	A heart without this charitable shift In uil perception is too prone To see Earth’s outward fair cracked by Death’s rift.



	We slept beside the moonlit sea, lts holloiv moaning in our ears. And with involuntary tears Awoke to find an argosy
	Riding at anchor on the lea. The fervent hopes of bygone years Now realised, seerned more like fears; We stood and waited silently.
	And then we taw the lively fleet Hoist coloured sail, and tvork to heave The anchor up with rythmic beat.
	Then, as the ships prepared to leave, The sun burst through the cloudy sheet And hi s hand faded front my sleeve.



	The tender tidés of morning, far away. Have overspread the pale autumnal sky With varied gentle colour, rnelting high To tvide clear fields of cloud-hemmed blue and grey.
	Soft mist among the beeches seems to He And gather in uhat brighter light of day Would fall there9 in a pallid gloom to stay Beneath the red and yellow leaves that sigh
	Awaiting dissolution that will turn The ripe and rnellow colouring they show To dull broivn rustling in de fern.
	Now through damp fields a quick tall form ivill go And voatch alone the smoky bon-fires burn, And speak my name most secretly and low.



	Uncertain flame, that flickers in the blast Of passing time, called by too great a name! No deathless passion in this mortal frame Was by design or chance's lossing cast.
	The passive earth is by great Sol aflame With larnbent heat, front spring to fall, at last To silent winter led, and in the past The story of rny heart is all the sarne.
	As lights the sky in secret ere the rnorn Affection spread beneath Platonic leaves, TUI in one night the magic-ripened corn
	Was cut, the Harvest garnered into sheaves. So easily hidden lay love ere boni, So with the day dissolves the web he tveaves.



	These ashes are yet warm and almost gloiv; Can fanning breath rekindle their lost flame? And all intent, as captive to a game, I kneel before them and most gently blow.
	’Tis strange for this charred wood to be the same That yesterday in fire's resplendent shotv Gave forth a living substance and did grow Transcendent now remains the dead black frame.
	’Twill not revive. The last hid sparks are gone; And if I rise and go upon my umy I leave but death bebind me; there is none
	To wonder by what hearth my riches lay. Autumn consurned my all. Why linger on To wait aslant for Winter s deadly day?



	Ulysses wrecked and on an island cast Had better fortune than I here have found; However great the footsteps on the ground, They indicated man or Cyclops passed;
	And lonely with a goddess, lovers siveet sound Was murrnured in his ear, until at last Though still in show unwilling, he held fast In smooth and scented arms at night lay bound.
	Such lot were mine, had but the sylvan God Who once inhabited this mountain-land Leaping on two, or jour, bright hooves, unshod
	Come frorn his cavern to the still white sand And gathered me as careless past I trod With one swift grip of that relentless hand.



	Unspoilt creation, green about the rim Of this quiescent, time-untouchèd peak, For ages has continued here. I seek By unskilled labour, foolishly to trim A garden in the forest. lam weak Against the rising colurnnarly slim And pliant palnis, that far outsoar the dim Deep interleaved roof a true antique Of ancient lustre. But Vve scratched it here
	the itch of instinct stirring in my hand, I have set on old nature’s calrn veneer Though transient, like a pattern made in sand By one rare wind, which others soon blow clear, The mark of man in either hernisphere.



	THE CIRCULAR COURSE
	The unforeseen full rnoon, in jear Stays cloudily hidden9 imbued With shyness oj the many-hued And iridescent sea; too clear A min or for the bright and crude, The hurried order of the year9
	Ever an echo clanging near The lahyrinth of solitude, Confuses by too quick a tread The ontward passage of the rnind And by perverted instinct led I still in anguish seek to find That which I thought9 when jirst I fled9 Forever to have left behind.



	Reduced to pure essentials, to live Uncrowded on an island, never know The uniform disheartening and slow Coagulation, the sedative
	Administered by Mars, that none may sow Sedition against his mie, or give A sudden turn to his bold narrative Enlivened as before with blood’s bright flow; Escapèd from that stultifying press
	To He abroad in never-ending calm Is to hold Fortune by that foremost tress Which but oncc miss’d no more invites the palm. Such lot is mine; nor could another guess My soul’s delight, secure from worldly harm.



	By Nature favoured, though by Man forgot, I am secure from ev’ry Enmity. Blue indolence, the wet immensity Has spread a languid arm about me, shot With dancing fire, reflected sky to sea. Whether I labour, or lazily plot New thoughts, Earth’s gentle care forsakes me not; Soft cooings overhead accornpany My unprescribèd steps, voiced interest Now focussed on me by my universe: For here at last in very truth I rest Clasped to a tender and infinite nurse, Feeding at leisure upon that very breast That Faustus cried for in his bitter curse.



	These verses by Evelyn Palmer, with an introductory poem by K., and illustrated by Adine van Houten, were set in Bodoni type and printed in the spring of 1944 in an edition exclusively intended for friends and relations of the author, illustrator and publisher.
	Enelyn