THE THREE HILLS AND OTHER POEMS BY J.C. SQUIRE LONDON: HOWARD LATIMER LTD. GREAT QUEEN STREET, KINGSWAY MCMXIII TO FRANCIS BURROWS CONTENTS ANTINOMIES ON A RAILWAY STATION THE THREE HILLS A CHANT ARTEMIS ALTERA STARLIGHT FLORIAN 'S SONG DIALOGUE CREPUSCULAR AT NIGHT FOR MUSIC THE ROOF TREETOPS IN THE PARK SONG TOWN A MEMORIAL FRIENDSHIP'S GARLAND--I --II --III LINES ON THE EARTHLY PARADISE ECHOES THE FUGITIVE IN THE ORCHARD IN A CHAIR A DAY THE MIND OF MAN A REASONABLE PROTESTATION EPILOGUE TWELVE TRANSLATIONS FROM C. BAUDELAIRE TOUT ENTIÈRE THE ALCHEMY OF GRIEF SPLEEN A VOYAGE TO CYTHERA THE CRACKED BELL THE OFFENDED MOON TO THEODORE BANVILLE, 1842 MUSIC THE CATS THE SADNESS OF THE MOON MOESTA ET ERRABUNDA THE OWLS Many of the above poems have appeared in the "British Review," the "Eye-Witness," the "New Witness," the "Oxford and Cambridge Review," the "New Statesman," and the "New Age," to the Editors of which thanks are due for permission to reprint. Three of the short poems and most of the translations are extracted from an earlier volume. ANTINOMIES ON A RAILWAY STATION As I stand waiting in the rain For the foggy hoot of the London train, Gazing at silent wall and lamp And post and rail and platform damp, What is this power that comes to my sight That I see a night without the night, That I see them clear, yet look them through, The silvery things and the darkly blue, That the solid wall seems soft as death, A wavering and unanchored wraith, And rails that shine and stones that stream Unsubstantial as a dream? What sudden door has opened so, What hand has passed, that I should know This moving vision not of trance That melts the globe of circumstance, This sight that marks not least or most And makes a stone a passing ghost? Is it that a year ago I stood upon this self-same spot; Is it that since a year ago The place and I have altered not; Is it that I half forgot, A year ago, and all despised For a space the things that I had prized: The race of life, the glittering show? Is it that now a year has passed Of vain pursuit of glittering things, Of fruitless searching, shouting, running, And greedy lies and candour cunning, Here as I stand the year above Sudden the heats and the strivings fail And fall away, a fluctuant veil, And the fixed familiar stones restore The old appearance-buried core, The moveless and essential me, The eternal personality Alone enduring first and last?