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diff --git a/1381-0.txt b/1381-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4260285 --- /dev/null +++ b/1381-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9026 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Poems, Vol. 1 [of 3], by George Meredith + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Poems, Vol. 1 [of 3] + + +Author: George Meredith + + + +Release Date: January 2, 2015 [eBook #1381] +[This file was first posted on May 7, 1998] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS, VOL. 1 [OF 3]*** + + +Transcribed from the 1912 Times Book Club “Surrey Edition” by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Book cover] + + [Picture: Home cottage, Box Hill] + + + + + + POEMS + VOL. I + + + BY + GEORGE MEREDITH + + * * * * * + + SURREY EDITION + + * * * * * + + LONDON + THE TIMES BOOK CLUB + 376–384 OXFORD STREET, W. + 1912 + + * * * * * + + Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to his Majesty + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +CHILLIANWALLAH, 1 + + Chillianwallah, Chillianwallah! +THE DOE: A FRAGMENT, 3 + + And—‘Yonder look! yoho! yoho! +BEAUTY ROHTRAUT, 9 + + What is the name of King Ringang’s daughter? +THE OLIVE BRANCH, 11 + + A dove flew with an Olive Branch; +SONG, 16 + + Love within the lover’s breast +THE WILD ROSE AND THE SNOWDROP, 17 + + The Snowdrop is the prophet of the flowers; +THE DEATH OF WINTER, 19 + + When April with her wild blue eye +SONG, 21 + + The moon is alone in the sky +JOHN LACKLAND, 21 + + A wicked man is bad enough on earth; +THE SLEEPING CITY, 22 + + A Princess in the eastern tale +THE POETRY OF CHAUCER, 27 + + Grey with all honours of age! but fresh-featured and + ruddy +THE POETRY OF SPENSER, 27 + + Lakes where the sunsheen is mystic with splendour and + softness; +THE POETRY OF SHAKESPEARE, 28 + + Picture some Isle smiling green ’mid the white-foaming + ocean;— +THE POETRY OF MILTON, 28 + + Like to some deep-chested organ whose grand inspiration, +THE POETRY OF SOUTHEY, 29 + + Keen as an eagle whose flight towards the dim empyréan +THE POETRY OF COLERIDGE, 29 + + A brook glancing under green leaves, self-delighting, + exulting, +THE POETRY OF SHELLEY, 30 + + See’st thou a Skylark whose glistening winglets ascending +THE POETRY OF WORDSWORTH, 30 + + A breath of the mountains, fresh born in the regions + majestic, +THE POETRY OF KEATS, 31 + + The song of a nightingale sent thro’ a slumbrous valley, +VIOLETS, 31 + + Violets, shy violets! +ANGELIC LOVE, 32 + + Angelic love that stoops with heavenly lips +TWILIGHT MUSIC, 34 + + Know you the low pervading breeze +REQUIEM, 36 + + Where faces are hueless, where eyelids are dewless, +THE FLOWER OF THE RUINS, 37 + + Take thy lute and sing +THE RAPE OF AURORA, 40 + + Never, O never, +SOUTH-WEST WIND IN THE WOODLAND, 42 + + The silence of preluded song— +WILL O’ THE WISP, 46 + + Follow me, follow me, +SONG, 49 + + Fair and false! No dawn will greet +SONG, 50 + + Two wedded lovers watched the rising moon, +SONG, 51 + + I cannot lose thee for a day, +DAPHNE, 52 + + Musing on the fate of Daphne, +LONDON BY LAMPLIGHT, 68 + + There stands a singer in the street, +SONG, 73 + + Under boughs of breathing May, +PASTORALS, 74 + + How sweet on sunny afternoons, +TO A SKYLARK, 74 + + O skylark! I see thee and call thee joy! +SONG—SPRING, 85 + + When buds of palm do burst and spread +SONG—AUTUMN, 85 + + When nuts behind the hazel-leaf +SORROWS AND JOYS, 86 + + Bury thy sorrows, and they shall rise +SONG, 88 + + The Flower unfolds its dawning cup, +SONG, 89 + + Thou to me art such a spring +ANTIGONE, 90 + + The buried voice bespake Antigone. +‘SWATHED ROUND IN MIST AND CROWN’D WITH CLOUD,’ 92 +SONG, 93 + + No, no, the falling blossom is no sign +THE TWO BLACKBIRDS, 94 + + A Blackbird in a wicker cage, +JULY, 96 + + Blue July, bright July, +SONG, 98 + + I would I were the drop of rain +SONG, 99 + + Come to me in any shape! +THE SHIPWRECK OF IDOMENEUS, 100 + + Swept from his fleet upon that fatal night +THE LONGEST DAY, 112 + + On yonder hills soft twilight dwells +TO ROBIN REDBREAST, 114 + + Merrily ’mid the faded leaves, +SONG, 115 + + The daisy now is out upon the green; +SUNRISE, 117 + + The clouds are withdrawn +PICTURES OF THE RHINE, 120 + + The spirit of Romance dies not to those +TO A NIGHTINGALE, 123 + + O nightingale! how hast thou learnt +INVITATION TO THE COUNTRY, 124 + + Now ’tis Spring on wood and wold, +THE SWEET O’ THE YEAR, 126 + + Now the frog, all lean and weak, +AUTUMN EVEN-SONG, 128 + + The long cloud edged with streaming grey +THE SONG OF COURTESY, 129 + + When Sir Gawain was led to his bridal-bed, +THE THREE MAIDENS, 131 + + There were three maidens met on the highway; +OVER THE HILLS, 132 + + The old hound wags his shaggy tail, +JUGGLING JERRY, 134 + + Pitch here the tent, while the old horse grazes: +THE CROWN OF LOVE, 139 + + O might I load my arms with thee, +THE HEAD OF BRAN THE BLEST, 141 + + When the Head of Bran +THE MEETING, 145 + + The old coach-road through a common of furze, +THE BEGGAR’S SOLILOQUY, 146 + + Now, this, to my notion, is pleasant cheer, +BY THE ROSANNA TO F. M., 151 + + The old grey Alp has caught the cloud, +PHANTASY, 152 + + Within a Temple of the Toes, +THE OLD CHARTIST, 158 + + Whate’er I be, old England is my dam! +SONG, 163 + + Should thy love die; +TO ALEX. SMITH, THE ‘GLASGOW POET,’ 164 + + Not vainly doth the earnest voice of man +GRANDFATHER BRIDGEMAN, 165 + + ‘Heigh, boys!’ cried Grandfather Bridgeman, ‘it’s time + before dinner to-day.’ +THE PROMISE IN DISTURBANCE, 180 + + How low when angels fall their black descent, +MODERN LOVE, 181 + I. By this he knew she wept with waking eyes: + II. It ended, and the morrow brought the task. + III. This was the woman; what now of the man? + IV. All other joys of life he strove to warm, + V. A message from her set his brain aflame. + VI. It chanced his lips did meet her forehead + cool. + VII. She issues radiant from her dressing-room, + VIII. Yet it was plain she struggled, and that salt + IX. He felt the wild beast in him betweenwhiles + X. But where began the change; and what’s my + crime? + XI. Out in the yellow meadows, where the bee + XII. Not solely that the Future she destroys, + XIII. ‘I play for Seasons; not Eternities!’ + XIV. What soul would bargain for a cure that + brings + XV. I think she sleeps: it must be sleep, when + low + XVI. In our old shipwrecked days there was an + hour, + XVII. At dinner, she is hostess, I am host. + XVIII. Here Jack and Tom are paired with Moll and + Meg. + XIX. No state is enviable. To the luck alone + XX. I am not of those miserable males + XXI. We three are on the cedar-shadowed lawn; + XXII. What may the woman labour to confess? + XXIII. ’Tis Christmas weather, and a country house + XXIV. The misery is greater, as I live! + XXV. You like not that French novel? Tell me why. + XXVI. Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies, + XXVII. Distraction is the panacea, Sir! + XXVIII. I must be flattered. The imperious + XXIX. Am I failing? For no longer can I cast + XXX. What are we first? First, animals; and next + XXXI. This golden head has wit in it. I live + XXXII. Full faith I have she holds that rarest gift + XXXIII. ‘In Paris, at the Louvre, there have I seen + XXXIV. Madam would speak with me. So, now it comes: + XXXV. It is no vulgar nature I have wived. + XXXVI. My Lady unto Madam makes her bow. + XXXVII. Along the garden terrace, under which + XXXVIII. Give to imagination some pure light + XXXIX. She yields: my Lady in her noblest mood + XL. I bade my Lady think what she might mean. + XLI. How many a thing which we cast to the ground, + XLII. I am to follow her. There is much grace + XLIII. Mark where the pressing wind shoots + javelin-like + XLIV. They say, that Pity in Love’s service dwells, + XLV. It is the season of the sweet wild rose, + XLVI. At last we parley: we so strangely dumb + XLVII. We saw the swallows gathering in the sky, + XLVIII. Their sense is with their senses all mixed + in, + XLIX. He found her by the ocean’s moaning verge, + L. Thus piteously Love closed what he begat: +THE PATRIOT ENGINEER, 231 + + ‘Sirs! may I shake your hands? +CASSANDRA, 236 + + Captive on a foreign shore, +THE YOUNG USURPER, 240 + + On my darling’s bosom +MARGARET’S BRIDAL EVE, 241 + + The old grey mother she thrummed on her knee: +MARIAN, 248 + + She can be as wise as we, +BY MORNING TWILIGHT, 249 + + Night, like a dying mother, +UNKNOWN FAIR FACES, 249 + + Though I am faithful to my loves lived through, +SHEMSELNIHAR, 250 + + O my lover! the night like a broad smooth wave +A ROAR THROUGH THE TALL TWIN ELM-TREES, 252 + + A roar thro’ the tall twin elm-trees +WHEN I WOULD IMAGE, 252 + + When I would image her features, +THE SPIRIT OF SHAKESPEARE, 253 + + Thy greatest knew thee, Mother Earth; unsoured +CONTINUED, 253 + + How smiles he at a generation ranked +ODE TO THE SPIRIT OF EARTH IN AUTUMN, 254 + + Fair Mother Earth lay on her back last night, +MARTIN’S PUZZLE, 261 + + There she goes up the street with her book in her hand, + + + + +CHILLIANWALLAH {1} + + + CHILLANWALLAH, Chillanwallah! + Where our brothers fought and bled, + O thy name is natural music + And a dirge above the dead! + Though we have not been defeated, + Though we can’t be overcome, + Still, whene’er thou art repeated, + I would fain that grief were dumb. + + Chillianwallah, Chillianwallah! + ’Tis a name so sad and strange, + Like a breeze through midnight harpstrings + Ringing many a mournful change; + But the wildness and the sorrow + Have a meaning of their own— + Oh, whereof no glad to-morrow + Can relieve the dismal tone! + + Chillianwallah, Chillianwallah! + ’Tis a village dark and low, + By the bloody Jhelum river + Bridged by the foreboding foe; + And across the wintry water + He is ready to retreat, + When the carnage and the slaughter + Shall have paid for his defeat. + + Chillianwallah, Chillianwallah! + ’Tis a wild and dreary plain, + Strewn with plots of thickest jungle, + Matted with the gory stain. + There the murder-mouthed artillery, + In the deadly ambuscade, + Wrought the thunder of its treachery + On the skeleton brigade. + + Chillianwallah, Chillianwallah! + When the night set in with rain, + Came the savage plundering devils + To their work among the slain; + And the wounded and the dying + In cold blood did share the doom + Of their comrades round them lying, + Stiff in the dead skyless gloom. + + Chillianwallah, Chillianwallah! + Thou wilt be a doleful chord, + And a mystic note of mourning + That will need no chiming word; + And that heart will leap with anguish + Who may understand thee best; + But the hopes of all will languish + Till thy memory is at rest. + + + + +THE DOE: A FRAGMENT +(_FROM_ ‘_WANDERING WILLIE_’) + + + AND—‘Yonder look! yoho! yoho! + Nancy is off!’ the farmer cried, + Advancing by the river side, + Red-kerchieft and brown-coated;—‘So, + My girl, who else could leap like that? + So neatly! like a lady! ‘Zounds! + Look at her how she leads the hounds!’ + And waving his dusty beaver hat, + He cheered across the chase-filled water, + And clapt his arm about his daughter, + And gave to Joan a courteous hug, + And kiss that, like a stubborn plug + From generous vats in vastness rounded, + The inner wealth and spirit sounded: + Eagerly pointing South, where, lo, + The daintiest, fleetest-footed doe + Led o’er the fields and thro’ the furze + Beyond: her lively delicate ears + Prickt up erect, and in her track + A dappled lengthy-striding pack. + + Scarce had they cast eyes upon her, + When every heart was wagered on her, + And half in dread, and half delight, + They watched her lovely bounding flight; + As now across the flashing green, + And now beneath the stately trees, + And now far distant in the dene, + She headed on with graceful ease: + Hanging aloft with doubled knees, + At times athwart some hedge or gate; + And slackening pace by slow degrees, + As for the foremost foe to wait. + Renewing her outstripping rate + Whene’er the hot pursuers neared, + By garden wall and paled estate, + Where clambering gazers whooped and cheered. + Here winding under elm and oak, + And slanting up the sunny hill: + Splashing the water here like smoke + Among the mill-holms round the mill. + + And—‘Let her go; she shows her game, + My Nancy girl, my pet and treasure!’ + The farmer sighed: his eyes with pleasure + Brimming: ‘’Tis my daughter’s name, + My second daughter lying yonder.’ + And Willie’s eye in search did wander, + And caught at once, with moist regard, + The white gleams of a grey churchyard. + ‘Three weeks before my girl had gone, + And while upon her pillows propped, + She lay at eve; the weakling fawn— + For still it seems a fawn just dropt + A se’nnight—to my Nancy’s bed + I brought to make my girl a gift: + The mothers of them both were dead: + And both to bless it was my drift, + By giving each a friend; not thinking + How rapidly my girl was sinking. + And I remember how, to pat + Its neck, she stretched her hand so weak, + And its cold nose against her cheek + Pressed fondly: and I fetched the mat + To make it up a couch just by her, + Where in the lone dark hours to lie: + For neither dear old nurse nor I + Would any single wish deny her. + And there unto the last it lay; + And in the pastures cared to play + Little or nothing: there its meals + And milk I brought: and even now + The creature such affection feels + For that old room that, when and how, + ’Tis strange to mark, it slinks and steals + To get there, and all day conceals. + And once when nurse who, since that time, + Keeps house for me, was very sick, + Waking upon the midnight chime, + And listening to the stair-clock’s click, + I heard a rustling, half uncertain, + Close against the dark bed-curtain: + And while I thrust my leg to kick, + And feel the phantom with my feet, + A loving tongue began to lick + My left hand lying on the sheet; + And warm sweet breath upon me blew, + And that ’twas Nancy then I knew. + So, for her love, I had good cause + To have the creature “Nancy” christened.’ + + He paused, and in the moment’s pause, + His eyes and Willie’s strangely glistened. + Nearer came Joan, and Bessy hung + With face averted, near enough + To hear, and sob unheard; the young + And careless ones had scampered off + Meantime, and sought the loftiest place + To beacon the approaching chase. + + ‘Daily upon the meads to browse, + Goes Nancy with those dairy cows + You see behind the clematis: + And such a favourite she is, + That when fatigued, and helter skelter, + Among them from her foes to shelter, + She dashes when the chase is over, + They’ll close her in and give her cover, + And bend their horns against the hounds, + And low, and keep them out of bounds! + From the house dogs she dreads no harm, + And is good friends with all the farm, + Man, and bird, and beast, howbeit + Their natures seem so opposite. + And she is known for many a mile, + And noted for her splendid style, + For her clear leap and quick slight hoof; + Welcome she is in many a roof. + And if I say, I love her, man! + I say but little: her fine eyes full + Of memories of my girl, at Yule + And May-time, make her dearer than + Dumb brute to men has been, I think. + So dear I do not find her dumb. + I know her ways, her slightest wink, + So well; and to my hand she’ll come, + Sidelong, for food or a caress, + Just like a loving human thing. + Nor can I help, I do confess, + Some touch of human sorrowing + To think there may be such a doubt + That from the next world she’ll be shut out, + And parted from me! And well I mind + How, when my girl’s last moments came, + Her soft eyes very soft and kind, + She joined her hands and prayed the same, + That she “might meet her father, mother, + Sister Bess, and each dear brother, + And with them, if it might be, one + Who was her last companion.” + Meaning the fawn—the doe you mark— + For my bay mare was then a foal, + And time has passed since then:—but hark!’ + + For like the shrieking of a soul + Shut in a tomb, a darkened cry + Of inward-wailing agony + Surprised them, and all eyes on each + Fixed in the mute-appealing speech + Of self-reproachful apprehension: + Knowing not what to think or do: + But Joan, recovering first, broke through + The instantaneous suspension, + And knelt upon the ground, and guessed + The bitterness at a glance, and pressed + Into the comfort of her breast + The deep-throed quaking shape that drooped + In misery’s wilful aggravation, + Before the farmer as he stooped, + Touched with accusing consternation: + Soothing her as she sobbed aloud:— + ‘Not me! not me! Oh, no, no, no! + Not me! God will not take me in! + Nothing can wipe away my sin! + I shall not see her: you will go; + You and all that she loves so: + Not me! not me! Oh, no, no, no!’ + Colourless, her long black hair, + Like seaweed in a tempest tossed + Tangling astray, to Joan’s care + She yielded like a creature lost: + Yielded, drooping toward the ground, + As doth a shape one half-hour drowned, + And heaved from sea with mast and spar, + All dark of its immortal star. + And on that tender heart, inured + To flatter basest grief, and fight + Despair upon the brink of night, + She suffered herself to sink, assured + Of refuge; and her ear inclined + To comfort; and her thoughts resigned + To counsel; her wild hair let brush + From off her weeping brows; and shook + With many little sobs that took + Deeper-drawn breaths, till into sighs, + Long sighs, they sank; and to the ‘hush!’ + Of Joan’s gentle chide, she sought + Childlike to check them as she ought, + Looking up at her infantwise. + And Willie, gazing on them both, + Shivered with bliss through blood and brain, + To see the darling of his troth + Like a maternal angel strain + The sinful and the sinless child + At once on either breast, and there + In peace and promise reconciled + Unite them: nor could Nature’s care + With subtler sweet beneficence + Have fed the springs of penitence, + Still keeping true, though harshly tried, + The vital prop of human pride. + + + + +BEAUTY ROHTRAUT +(_FROM MÖRICKE_) + + + WHAT is the name of King Ringang’s daughter? + Rohtraut, Beauty Rohtraut! + And what does she do the livelong day, + Since she dare not knit and spin alway? + O hunting and fishing is ever her play! + And, heigh! that her huntsman I might be! + I’d hunt and fish right merrily! + Be silent, heart! + + And it chanced that, after this some time,— + Rohtraut, Beauty Rohtraut,— + The boy in the Castle has gained access, + And a horse he has got and a huntsman’s dress, + To hunt and to fish with the merry Princess; + And, O! that a king’s son I might be! + Beauty Rohtraut I love so tenderly. + Hush! hush! my heart. + + Under a grey old oak they sat, + Beauty, Beauty Rohtraut! + She laughs: ‘Why look you so slyly at me? + If you have heart enough, come, kiss me.’ + Cried the breathless boy, ‘kiss thee?’ + But he thinks, kind fortune has favoured my youth; + And thrice he has kissed Beauty Rohtraut’s mouth. + Down! down! mad heart. + + Then slowly and silently they rode home,— + Rohtraut, Beauty Rohtraut! + The boy was lost in his delight: + ‘And, wert thou Empress this very night, + I would not heed or feel the blight; + Ye thousand leaves of the wild wood wist + How Beauty Rohtraut’s mouth I kiss’d. + Hush! hush! wild heart.’ + + + + +THE OLIVE BRANCH + + + A DOVE flew with an Olive Branch; + It crossed the sea and reached the shore, + And on a ship about to launch + Dropped down the happy sign it bore. + + ‘An omen’ rang the glad acclaim! + The Captain stooped and picked it up, + ‘Be then the Olive Branch her name,’ + Cried she who flung the christening cup. + + The vessel took the laughing tides; + It was a joyous revelry + To see her dashing from her sides + The rough, salt kisses of the sea. + + And forth into the bursting foam + She spread her sail and sped away, + The rolling surge her restless home, + Her incense wreaths the showering spray. + + Far out, and where the riot waves + Run mingling in tumultuous throngs, + She danced above a thousand graves, + And heard a thousand briny songs. + + Her mission with her manly crew, + Her flag unfurl’d, her title told, + She took the Old World to the New, + And brought the New World to the Old. + + Secure of friendliest welcomings, + She swam the havens sheening fair; + Secure upon her glad white wings, + She fluttered on the ocean air. + + To her no more the bastioned fort + Shot out its swarthy tongue of fire; + From bay to bay, from port to port, + Her coming was the world’s desire. + + And tho’ the tempest lashed her oft, + And tho’ the rocks had hungry teeth, + And lightnings split the masts aloft, + And thunders shook the planks beneath, + + And tho’ the storm, self-willed and blind, + Made tatters of her dauntless sail, + And all the wildness of the wind + Was loosed on her, she did not fail; + + But gallantly she ploughed the main, + And gloriously her welcome pealed, + And grandly shone to sky and plain + The goodly bales her decks revealed; + + Brought from the fruitful eastern glebes + Where blow the gusts of balm and spice, + Or where the black blockaded ribs + Are jammed ’mongst ghostly fleets of ice, + + Or where upon the curling hills + Glow clusters of the bright-eyed grape, + Or where the hand of labour drills + The stubbornness of earth to shape; + + Rich harvestings and wealthy germs, + And handicrafts and shapely wares, + And spinnings of the hermit worms, + And fruits that bloom by lions’ lairs. + + Come, read the meaning of the deep! + The use of winds and waters learn! + ’Tis not to make the mother weep + For sons that never will return; + + ’Tis not to make the nations show + Contempt for all whom seas divide; + ’Tis not to pamper war and woe, + Nor feed traditionary pride; + + ’Tis not to make the floating bulk + Mask death upon its slippery deck, + Itself in turn a shattered hulk, + A ghastly raft, a bleeding wreck. + + It is to knit with loving lip + The interests of land to land; + To join in far-seen fellowship + The tropic and the polar strand. + + It is to make that foaming Strength + Whose rebel forces wrestle still + Thro’ all his boundaried breadth and length + Become a vassal to our will. + + It is to make the various skies, + And all the various fruits they vaunt, + And all the dowers of earth we prize, + Subservient to our household want. + + And more, for knowledge crowns the gain + Of intercourse with other souls, + And Wisdom travels not in vain + The plunging spaces of the poles. + + The wild Atlantic’s weltering gloom, + Earth-clasping seas of North and South, + The Baltic with its amber spume, + The Caspian with its frozen mouth; + + The broad Pacific, basking bright, + And girdling lands of lustrous growth, + Vast continents and isles of light, + Dumb tracts of undiscovered sloth; + + She visits these, traversing each; + They ripen to the common sun; + Thro’ diverse forms and different speech, + The world’s humanity is one. + + O may her voice have power to say + How soon the wrecking discords cease, + When every wandering wave is gay + With golden argosies of peace! + + Now when the ark of human fate, + Long baffled by the wayward wind, + Is drifting with its peopled freight, + Safe haven on the heights to find; + + Safe haven from the drowning slime + Of evil deeds and Deluge wrath;— + To plant again the foot of Time + Upon a purer, firmer path; + + ’Tis now the hour to probe the ground, + To watch the Heavens, to speak the word, + The fathoms of the deep to sound, + And send abroad the missioned bird, + + On strengthened wing for evermore, + Let Science, swiftly as she can, + Fly seaward on from shore to shore, + And bind the links of man to man; + + And like that fair propitious Dove + Bless future fleets about to launch; + Make every freight a freight of love, + And every ship an Olive Branch. + + + + +SONG + + + LOVE within the lover’s breast + Burns like Hesper in the west, + O’er the ashes of the sun, + Till the day and night are done; + Then when dawn drives up her car— + Lo! it is the morning star. + + Love! thy love pours down on mine + As the sunlight on the vine, + As the snow-rill on the vale, + As the salt breeze in the sail; + As the song unto the bird, + On my lips thy name is heard. + + As a dewdrop on the rose + In thy heart my passion glows, + As a skylark to the sky + Up into thy breast I fly; + As a sea-shell of the sea + Ever shall I sing of thee. + + + + +THE WILD ROSE AND THE SNOWDROP + + + THE Snowdrop is the prophet of the flowers; + It lives and dies upon its bed of snows; + And like a thought of spring it comes and goes, + Hanging its head beside our leafless bowers. + The sun’s betrothing kiss it never knows, + Nor all the glowing joy of golden showers; + But ever in a placid, pure repose, + More like a spirit with its look serene, + Droops its pale cheek veined thro’ with infant green. + + Queen of her sisters is the sweet Wild Rose, + Sprung from the earnest sun and ripe young June; + The year’s own darling and the Summer’s Queen! + Lustrous as the new-throned crescent moon. + Much of that early prophet look she shows, + Mixed with her fair espoused blush which glows, + As if the ethereal fairy blood were seen; + Like a soft evening over sunset snows, + Half twilight violet shade, half crimson sheen. + + Twin-born are both in beauteousness, most fair + In all that glads the eye and charms the air; + In all that wakes emotions in the mind + And sows sweet sympathies for human kind. + Twin-born, albeit their seasons are apart, + They bloom together in the thoughtful heart; + Fair symbols of the marvels of our state, + Mute speakers of the oracles of fate! + + For each, fulfilling nature’s law, fulfils + Itself and its own aspirations pure; + Living and dying; letting faith ensure + New life when deathless Spring shall touch the hills. + Each perfect in its place; and each content + With that perfection which its being meant: + Divided not by months that intervene, + But linked by all the flowers that bud between. + Forever smiling thro’ its season brief, + The one in glory and the one in grief: + Forever painting to our museful sight, + How lowlihead and loveliness unite. + + Born from the first blind yearning of the earth + To be a mother and give happy birth, + Ere yet the northern sun such rapture brings, + Lo, from her virgin breast the Snowdrop springs; + And ere the snows have melted from the grass, + And not a strip of greensward doth appear, + Save the faint prophecy its cheeks declare, + Alone, unkissed, unloved, behold it pass! + While in the ripe enthronement of the year, + Whispering the breeze, and wedding the rich air + With her so sweet, delicious bridal breath,— + Odorous and exquisite beyond compare, + And starr’d with dews upon her forehead clear, + Fresh-hearted as a Maiden Queen should be + Who takes the land’s devotion as her fee,— + The Wild Rose blooms, all summer for her dower, + Nature’s most beautiful and perfect flower. + + + + +THE DEATH OF WINTER + + + WHEN April with her wild blue eye + Comes dancing over the grass, + And all the crimson buds so shy + Peep out to see her pass; + As lightly she loosens her showery locks + And flutters her rainy wings; + Laughingly stoops + To the glass of the stream, + And loosens and loops + Her hair by the gleam, + While all the young villagers blithe as the flocks + Go frolicking round in rings;— + Then Winter, he who tamed the fly, + Turns on his back and prepares to die, + For he cannot live longer under the sky. + + Down the valleys glittering green, + Down from the hills in snowy rills, + He melts between the border sheen + And leaps the flowery verges! + He cannot choose but brighten their hues, + And tho’ he would creep, he fain must leap, + For the quick Spring spirit urges. + Down the vale and down the dale + He leaps and lights, till his moments fail, + Buried in blossoms red and pale, + While the sweet birds sing his dirges! + + O Winter! I’d live that life of thine, + With a frosty brow and an icicle tongue, + And never a song my whole life long,— + Were such delicious burial mine! + To die and be buried, and so remain + A wandering brook in April’s train, + Fixing my dying eyes for aye + On the dawning brows of maiden May. + + + + +SONG + + + THE moon is alone in the sky + As thou in my soul; + The sea takes her image to lie + Where the white ripples roll + All night in a dream, + With the light of her beam, + Hushedly, mournfully, mistily up to the shore. + The pebbles speak low + In the ebb and the flow, + As I when thy voice came at intervals, tuned to adore: + Nought other stirred + Save my heart all unheard + Beating to bliss that is past evermore. + + + + +JOHN LACKLAND + + + A WICKED man is bad enough on earth; + But O the baleful lustre of a chief + Once pledged in tyranny! O star of dearth + Darkly illumining a nation’s grief! + How many men have worn thee on their brows! + Alas for them and us! God’s precious gift + Of gracious dispensation got by theft— + The damning form of false unholy vows! + The thief of God and man must have his fee: + And thou, John Lackland, despicable prince— + Basest of England’s banes before or since! + Thrice traitor, coward, thief! O thou shalt be + The historic warning, trampled and abhorr’d + Who dared to steal and stain the symbols of the Lord! + + + + +THE SLEEPING CITY + + + A PRINCESS in the eastern tale + Paced thro’ a marble city pale, + And saw in ghastly shapes of stone + The sculptured life she breathed alone; + + Saw, where’er her eye might range, + Herself the only child of change; + And heard her echoed footfall chime + Between Oblivion and Time; + + And in the squares where fountains played, + And up the spiral balustrade, + Along the drowsy corridors, + Even to the inmost sleeping floors, + + Surveyed in wonder chilled with dread + The seemingness of Death, not dead; + Life’s semblance but without its storm, + And silence frosting every form; + + Crowned figures, cold and grouping slaves, + Like suddenly arrested waves + About to sink, about to rise,— + Strange meaning in their stricken eyes; + + And cloths and couches live with flame + Of leopards fierce and lions tame, + And hunters in the jungle reed, + Thrown out by sombre glowing brede; + + Dumb chambers hushed with fold on fold, + And cumbrous gorgeousness of gold; + White casements o’er embroidered seats, + Looking on solitudes of streets,— + + On palaces and column’d towers, + Unconscious of the stony hours; + Harsh gateways startled at a sound, + With burning lamps all burnish’d round;— + + Surveyed in awe this wealth and state, + Touched by the finger of a Fate, + And drew with slow-awakening fear + The sternness of the atmosphere;— + + And gradually, with stealthier foot, + Became herself a thing as mute, + And listened,—while with swift alarm + Her alien heart shrank from the charm; + + Yet as her thoughts dilating rose, + Took glory in the great repose, + And over every postured form + Spread lava-like and brooded warm,— + + And fixed on every frozen face + Beheld the record of its race, + And in each chiselled feature knew + The stormy life that once blushed thro’;— + + The ever-present of the past + There written; all that lightened last, + Love, anguish, hope, disease, despair, + Beauty and rage, all written there;— + + Enchanted Passions! whose pale doom + Is never flushed by blight or bloom, + But sentinelled by silent orbs, + Whose light the pallid scene absorbs.— + + Like such a one I pace along + This City with its sleeping throng; + Like her with dread and awe, that turns + To rapture, and sublimely yearns;— + + For now the quiet stars look down + On lights as quiet as their own; + The streets that groaned with traffic show + As if with silence paved below; + + The latest revellers are at peace, + The signs of in-door tumult cease, + From gay saloon and low resort, + Comes not one murmur or report: + + The clattering chariot rolls not by, + The windows show no waking eye, + The houses smoke not, and the air + Is clear, and all the midnight fair. + + The centre of the striving world, + Round which the human fate is curled, + To which the future crieth wild,— + Is pillowed like a cradled child. + + The palace roof that guards a crown, + The mansion swathed in dreamy down, + Hovel, court, and alley-shed, + Sleep in the calmness of the dead. + + Now while the many-motived heart + Lies hushed—fireside and busy mart, + And mortal pulses beat the tune + That charms the calm cold ear o’ the moon + + Whose yellowing crescent down the West + Leans listening, now when every breast + Its basest or its purest heaves, + The soul that joys, the soul that grieves;— + + While Fame is crowning happy brows + That day will blindly scorn, while vows + Of anguished love, long hidden, speak + From faltering tongue and flushing cheek + + The language only known to dreams, + Rich eloquence of rosy themes! + While on the Beauty’s folded mouth + Disdain just wrinkles baby youth; + + While Poverty dispenses alms + To outcasts, bread, and healing balms; + While old Mammon knows himself + The greatest beggar for his pelf; + + While noble things in darkness grope, + The Statesman’s aim, the Poet’s hope; + The Patriot’s impulse gathers fire, + And germs of future fruits aspire;— + + Now while dumb nature owns its links, + And from one common fountain drinks, + Methinks in all around I see + This Picture in Eternity;— + + A marbled City planted there + With all its pageants and despair; + A peopled hush, a Death not dead, + But stricken with Medusa’s head;— + + And in the Gorgon’s glance for aye + The lifeless immortality + Reveals in sculptured calmness all + Its latest life beyond recall. + + + + +THE POETRY OF CHAUCER + + + GREY with all honours of age! but fresh-featured and ruddy + As dawn when the drowsy farm-yard has thrice heard Chaunticlere. + Tender to tearfulness—childlike, and manly, and motherly; + Here beats true English blood richest joyance on sweet English ground. + + + + +THE POETRY OF SPENSER + + + LAKES where the sunsheen is mystic with splendour and softness; + Vales where sweet life is all Summer with golden romance: + Forests that glimmer with twilight round revel-bright palaces; + Here in our May-blood we wander, careering ’mongst ladies and knights. + + + + +THE POETRY OF SHAKESPEARE + + + PICTURE some Isle smiling green ’mid the white-foaming ocean;— + Full of old woods, leafy wisdoms, and frolicsome fays; + Passions and pageants; sweet love singing bird-like above it; + Life in all shapes, aims, and fates, is there warm’d by one great + human heart. + + + + +THE POETRY OF MILTON + + + LIKE to some deep-chested organ whose grand inspiration, + Serenely majestic in utterance, lofty and calm, + Interprets to mortals with melody great as its burthen + The mystical harmonies chiming for ever throughout the bright spheres. + + + + +THE POETRY OF SOUTHEY + + + KEEN as an eagle whose flight towards the dim empyréan + Fearless of toil or fatigue ever royally wends! + Vast in the cloud-coloured robes of the balm-breathing Orient + Lo! the grand Epic advances, unfolding the humanest truth. + + + + +THE POETRY OF COLERIDGE + + + A BROOK glancing under green leaves, self-delighting, exulting, + And full of a gurgling melody ever renewed— + Renewed thro’ all changes of Heaven, unceasing in sunlight, + Unceasing in moonlight, but hushed in the beams of the holier orb. + + + + +THE POETRY OF SHELLEY + + + SEE’ST thou a Skylark whose glistening winglets ascending + Quiver like pulses beneath the melodious dawn? + Deep in the heart-yearning distance of heaven it flutters— + Wisdom and beauty and love are the treasures it brings down at eve. + + + + +THE POETRY OF WORDSWORTH + + + A BREATH of the mountains, fresh born in the regions majestic, + That look with their eye-daring summits deep into the sky. + The voice of great Nature; sublime with her lofty conceptions, + Yet earnest and simple as any sweet child of the green lowly vale. + + + + +THE POETRY OF KEATS + + + THE song of a nightingale sent thro’ a slumbrous valley, + Low-lidded with twilight, and tranced with the dolorous sound, + Tranced with a tender enchantment; the yearning of passion + That wins immortality even while panting delirious with death. + + + + +VIOLETS + + + VIOLETS, shy violets! + How many hearts with you compare! + Who hide themselves in thickest green, + And thence, unseen, + Ravish the enraptured air + With sweetness, dewy fresh and rare! + + Violets, shy violets! + Human hearts to me shall be + Viewless violets in the grass, + And as I pass, + Odours and sweet imagery + Will wait on mine and gladden me! + + + + +ANGELIC LOVE + + + ANGELIC love that stoops with heavenly lips + To meet its earthly mate; + Heroic love that to its sphere’s eclipse + Can dare to join its fate + With one beloved devoted human heart, + And share with it the passion and the smart, + The undying bliss + Of its most fleeting kiss; + The fading grace + Of its most sweet embrace:— + Angelic love, heroic love! + Whose birth can only be above, + Whose wandering must be on earth, + Whose haven where it first had birth! + Love that can part with all but its own worth, + And joy in every sacrifice + That beautifies its Paradise! + And gently, like a golden-fruited vine, + With earnest tenderness itself consign, + And creeping up deliriously entwine + Its dear delicious arms + Round the beloved being! + With fair unfolded charms, + All-trusting, and all-seeing,— + Grape-laden with full bunches of young wine! + While to the panting heart’s dry yearning drouth + Buds the rich dewy mouth— + Tenderly uplifted, + Like two rose-leaves drifted + Down in a long warm sigh of the sweet South! + Such love, such love is thine, + Such heart is mine, + O thou of mortal visions most divine! + + + + +TWILIGHT MUSIC + + + KNOW you the low pervading breeze + That softly sings + In the trembling leaves of twilight trees, + As if the wind were dreaming on its wings? + And have you marked their still degrees + Of ebbing melody, like the strings + Of a silver harp swept by a spirit’s hand + In some strange glimmering land, + ’Mid gushing springs, + And glistenings + Of waters and of planets, wild and grand! + And have you marked in that still time + The chariots of those shining cars + Brighten upon the hushing dark, + And bent to hark + That Voice, amid the poplar and the lime, + Pause in the dilating lustre + Of the spheral cluster; + Pause but to renew its sweetness, deep + As dreams of heaven to souls that sleep! + And felt, despite earth’s jarring wars, + When day is done + And dead the sun, + Still a voice divine can sing, + Still is there sympathy can bring + A whisper from the stars! + Ah, with this sentience quickly will you know + How like a tree I tremble to the tones + Of your sweet voice! + How keenly I rejoice + When in me with sweet motions slow + The spiritual music ebbs and moans— + Lives in the lustre of those heavenly eyes, + Dies in the light of its own paradise,— + Dies, and relives eternal from its death, + Immortal melodies in each deep breath; + Sweeps thro’ my being, bearing up to thee + Myself, the weight of its eternity; + Till, nerved to life from its ordeal fire, + It marries music with the human lyre, + Blending divine delight with loveliest desire. + + + + +REQUIEM + + + WHERE faces are hueless, where eyelids are dewless, + Where passion is silent and hearts never crave; + Where thought hath no theme, and where sleep hath no dream, + In patience and peace thou art gone—to thy grave! + Gone where no warning can wake thee to morning, + Dead tho’ a thousand hands stretch’d out to save. + + Thou cam’st to us sighing, and singing and dying, + How could it be otherwise, fair as thou wert? + Placidly fading, and sinking and shading + At last to that shadow, the latest desert; + Wasting and waning, but still, still remaining. + Alas for the hand that could deal the death-hurt! + + The Summer that brightens, the Winter that whitens, + The world and its voices, the sea and the sky, + The bloom of creation, the tie of relation, + All—all is a blank to thine ear and thine eye; + The ear may not listen, the eye may not glisten, + Nevermore waked by a smile or a sigh. + + The tree that is rootless must ever be fruitless; + And thou art alone in thy death and thy birth; + No last loving token of wedded love broken, + No sign of thy singleness, sweetness and worth; + Lost as the flower that is drowned in the shower, + Fall’n like a snowflake to melt in the earth. + + + + +THE FLOWER OF THE RUINS + + + TAKE thy lute and sing + By the ruined castle walls, + Where the torrent-foam falls, + And long weeds wave: + Take thy lute and sing, + O’er the grey ancestral grave! + Daughter of a King, + Tune thy string. + + Sing of happy hours, + In the roar of rushing time; + Till all the echoes chime + To the days gone by; + Sing of passing hours + To the ever-present sky;— + Weep—and let the showers + Wake thy flowers. + + Sing of glories gone:— + No more the blazoned fold + From the banner is unrolled; + The gold sun is set. + Sing his glory gone, + For thy voice may charm him yet; + Daughter of the dawn, + He is gone! + + Pour forth all thy grief! + Passionately sweep the chords, + Wed them quivering to thy words; + Wild words of wail! + Shed thy withered grief— + But hold not Autumn to thy bale; + The eddy of the leaf + Must be brief! + + Sing up to the night: + Hard it is for streaming tears + To read the calmness of the spheres; + Coldly they shine; + Sing up to their light; + They have views thou may’st divine— + Gain prophetic sight + From their light! + + On the windy hills + Lo, the little harebell leans + On the spire-grass that it queens, + With bonnet blue; + Trusting love instils + Love and subject reverence true; + Learn what love instils + On the hills! + + By the bare wayside + Placid snowdrops hang their cheeks, + Softly touch’d with pale green streaks, + Soon, soon, to die; + On the clothed hedgeside + Bands of rosy beauties vie, + In their prophesied + Summer pride. + + From the snowdrop learn; + Not in her pale life lives she, + But in her blushing prophecy. + Thus be thy hopes, + Living but to yearn + Upwards to the hidden scopes;— + Even within the urn + Let them burn! + + Heroes of thy race— + Warriors with golden crowns, + Ghostly shapes with marbled frowns + Stare thee to stone; + Matrons of thy race + Pass before thee making moan; + Full of solemn grace + Is their pace. + + Piteous their despair! + Piteous their looks forlorn! + Terrible their ghostly scorn! + Still hold thou fast;— + Heed not their despair!— + Thou art thy future, not thy past; + Let them glance and glare + Thro’ the air. + + Thou the ruin’s bud, + Be not that moist rich-smelling weed + With its arras-sembled brede, + And ruin-haunting stalk; + Thou the ruin’s bud, + Be still the rose that lights the walk, + Mix thy fragrant blood + With the flood! + + + + +THE RAPE OF AURORA + + + NEVER, O never, + Since dewy sweet Flora + Was ravished by Zephyr, + Was such a thing heard + In the valleys so hollow! + Till rosy Aurora, + Uprising as ever, + Bright Phosphor to follow, + Pale Phoebe to sever, + Was caught like a bird + To the breast of Apollo! + + Wildly she flutters, + And flushes all over + With passionate mutters + Of shame to the hush + Of his amorous whispers: + But O such a lover + Must win when he utters, + Thro’ rosy red lispers, + The pains that discover + The wishes that gush + From the torches of Hesperus. + + One finger just touching + The Orient chamber, + Unflooded the gushing + Of light that illumed + All her lustrous unveiling. + On clouds of glow amber, + Her limbs richly blushing, + She lay sweetly wailing, + In odours that gloomed + On the God as he bloomed + O’er her loveliness paling. + + Great Pan in his covert + Beheld the rare glistening, + The cry of the love-hurt, + The sigh and the kiss + Of the latest close mingling; + But love, thought he, listening, + Will not do a dove hurt, + I know,—and a tingling, + Latent with bliss, + Prickt thro’ him, I wis, + For the Nymph he was singling. + + + + +SOUTH-WEST WIND IN THE WOODLAND + + + THE silence of preluded song— + Æolian silence charms the woods; + Each tree a harp, whose foliaged strings + Are waiting for the master’s touch + To sweep them into storms of joy, + Stands mute and whispers not; the birds + Brood dumb in their foreboding nests, + Save here and there a chirp or tweet, + That utters fear or anxious love, + Or when the ouzel sends a swift + Half warble, shrinking back again + His golden bill, or when aloud + The storm-cock warns the dusking hills + And villages and valleys round: + For lo, beneath those ragged clouds + That skirt the opening west, a stream + Of yellow light and windy flame + Spreads lengthening southward, and the sky + Begins to gloom, and o’er the ground + A moan of coming blasts creeps low + And rustles in the crisping grass; + Till suddenly with mighty arms + Outspread, that reach the horizon round, + The great South-West drives o’er the earth, + And loosens all his roaring robes + Behind him, over heath and moor. + He comes upon the neck of night, + Like one that leaps a fiery steed + Whose keen black haunches quivering shine + With eagerness and haste, that needs + No spur to make the dark leagues fly! + Whose eyes are meteors of speed; + Whose mane is as a flashing foam; + Whose hoofs are travelling thunder-shocks;— + He comes, and while his growing gusts, + Wild couriers of his reckless course, + Are whistling from the daggered gorse, + And hurrying over fern and broom, + Midway, far off, he feigns to halt + And gather in his streaming train. + + Now, whirring like an eagle’s wing + Preparing for a wide blue flight; + Now, flapping like a sail that tacks + And chides the wet bewildered mast; + Now, screaming like an anguish’d thing + Chased close by some down-breathing beak; + Now, wailing like a breaking heart, + That will not wholly break, but hopes + With hope that knows itself in vain; + Now, threatening like a storm-charged cloud; + Now, cooing like a woodland dove; + Now, up again in roar and wrath + High soaring and wide sweeping; now, + With sudden fury dashing down + Full-force on the awaiting woods. + + Long waited there, for aspens frail + That tinkle with a silver bell, + To warn the Zephyr of their love, + When danger is at hand, and wake + The neighbouring boughs, surrendering all + Their prophet harmony of leaves, + Had caught his earliest windward thought, + And told it trembling; naked birk + Down showering her dishevelled hair, + And like a beauty yielding up + Her fate to all the elements, + Had swayed in answer; hazels close, + Thick brambles and dark brushwood tufts, + And briared brakes that line the dells + With shaggy beetling brows, had sung + Shrill music, while the tattered flaws + Tore over them, and now the whole + Tumultuous concords, seized at once + With savage inspiration,—pine, + And larch, and beech, and fir, and thorn, + And ash, and oak, and oakling, rave + And shriek, and shout, and whirl, and toss, + And stretch their arms, and split, and crack, + And bend their stems, and bow their heads, + And grind, and groan, and lion-like + Roar to the echo-peopled hills + And ravenous wilds, and crake-like cry + With harsh delight, and cave-like call + With hollow mouth, and harp-like thrill + With mighty melodies, sublime, + From clumps of column’d pines that wave + A lofty anthem to the sky, + Fit music for a prophet’s soul— + And like an ocean gathering power, + And murmuring deep, while down below + Reigns calm profound;—not trembling now + The aspens, but like freshening waves + That fall upon a shingly beach;— + And round the oak a solemn roll + Of organ harmony ascends, + And in the upper foliage sounds + A symphony of distant seas. + + The voice of nature is abroad + This night; she fills the air with balm; + Her mystery is o’er the land; + And who that hears her now and yields + His being to her yearning tones, + And seats his soul upon her wings, + And broadens o’er the wind-swept world + With her, will gather in the flight + More knowledge of her secret, more + Delight in her beneficence, + Than hours of musing, or the lore + That lives with men could ever give! + Nor will it pass away when morn + Shall look upon the lulling leaves, + And woodland sunshine, Eden-sweet, + Dreams o’er the paths of peaceful shade;— + For every elemental power + Is kindred to our hearts, and once + Acknowledged, wedded, once embraced, + Once taken to the unfettered sense, + Once claspt into the naked life, + The union is eternal. + + + + +WILL O’ THE WISP + + + FOLLOW me, follow me, + Over brake and under tree, + Thro’ the bosky tanglery, + Brushwood and bramble! + Follow me, follow me, + Laugh and leap and scramble! + Follow, follow, + Hill and hollow, + Fosse and burrow, + Fen and furrow, + Down into the bulrush beds, + ’Midst the reeds and osier heads, + In the rushy soaking damps, + Where the vapours pitch their camps, + Follow me, follow me, + For a midnight ramble! + O! what a mighty fog, + What a merry night O ho! + Follow, follow, nigher, nigher— + Over bank, and pond, and briar, + Down into the croaking ditches, + Rotten log, + Spotted frog, + Beetle bright + With crawling light, + What a joy O ho! + Deep into the purple bog— + What a joy O ho! + Where like hosts of puckered witches + All the shivering agues sit + Warming hands and chafing feet, + By the blue marsh-hovering oils: + O the fools for all their moans! + Not a forest mad with fire + Could still their teeth, or warm their bones, + Or loose them from their chilly coils. + What a clatter, + How they chatter! + Shrink and huddle, + All a muddle! + What a joy O ho! + Down we go, down we go, + What a joy O ho! + Soon shall I be down below, + Plunging with a grey fat friar, + Hither, thither, to and fro, + Breathing mists and whisking lamps, + Plashing in the shiny swamps; + While my cousin Lantern Jack, + With cook ears and cunning eyes, + Turns him round upon his back, + Daubs him oozy green and black, + Sits upon his rolling size, + Where he lies, where he lies, + Groaning full of sack— + Staring with his great round eyes! + What a joy O ho! + Sits upon him in the swamps + Breathing mists and whisking lamps! + What a joy O ho! + Such a lad is Lantern Jack, + When he rides the black nightmare + Through the fens, and puts a glare + In the friar’s track. + Such a frolic lad, good lack! + To turn a friar on his back, + Trip him, clip him, whip him, nip him. + Lay him sprawling, smack! + Such a lad is Lantern Jack! + Such a tricksy lad, good lack! + What a joy O ho! + Follow me, follow me, + Where he sits, and you shall see! + + + + +SONG + + + FAIR and false! No dawn will greet + Thy waking beauty as of old; + The little flower beneath thy feet + Is alien to thy smile so cold; + The merry bird flown up to meet + Young morning from his nest i’ the wheat + Scatters his joy to wood and wold, + But scorns the arrogance of gold. + + False and fair! I scarce know why, + But standing in the lonely air, + And underneath the blessed sky, + I plead for thee in my despair;— + For thee cut off, both heart and eye + From living truth; thy spring quite dry; + For thee, that heaven my thought may share, + Forget—how false! and think—how fair! + + + + +SONG + + + TWO wedded lovers watched the rising moon, + That with her strange mysterious beauty glowing, + Over misty hills and waters flowing, + Crowned the long twilight loveliness of June: + And thus in me, and thus in me, they spake, + The solemn secret of fist love did wake. + + Above the hills the blushing orb arose; + Her shape encircled by a radiant bower, + In which the nightingale with charméd power + Poured forth enchantment o’er the dark repose: + And thus in me, and thus in me, they said, + Earth’s mists did with the sweet new spirit wed. + + Far up the sky with ever purer beam, + Upon the throne of night the moon was seated, + And down the valley glens the shades retreated, + And silver light was on the open stream. + And thus in me, and thus in me, they sighed, + Aspiring Love has hallowed Passion’s tide. + + + + +SONG + + + I CANNOT lose thee for a day, + But like a bird with restless wing + My heart will find thee far away, + And on thy bosom fall and sing, + My nest is here, my rest is here;— + And in the lull of wind and rain, + Fresh voices make a sweet refrain, + ‘His rest is there, his nest is there.’ + + With thee the wind and sky are fair, + But parted, both are strange and dark; + And treacherous the quiet air + That holds me singing like a lark, + O shield my love, strong arm above! + Till in the hush of wind and rain, + Fresh voices make a rich refrain, + ‘The arm above will shield thy love.’ + + + + +DAPHNE + + + MUSING on the fate of Daphne, + Many feelings urged my breast, + For the God so keen desiring, + And the Nymph so deep distrest. + + Never flashed thro’ sylvan valley + Visions so divinely fair! + He with early ardour glowing, + She with rosy anguish rare. + + Only still more sweet and lovely + For those terrors on her brows, + Those swift glances wild and brilliant, + Those delicious panting vows. + + Timidly the timid shoulders + Shrinking from the fervid hand! + Dark the tide of hair back-flowing + From the blue-veined temples bland! + + Lovely, too, divine Apollo + In the speed of his pursuit; + With his eye an azure lustre, + And his voice a summer lute! + + Looking like some burnished eagle + Hovering o’er a fluttered bird; + Not unseen of silver Naiad, + And of wistful Dryad heard! + + Many a morn the naked beauty + Saw her bright reflection drown + In the flowing smooth-faced river, + While the god came sheening down. + + Down from Pindus bright Peneus + Tells its muse-melodious source; + Sacred is its fountained birthplace, + And the Orient floods its course. + + Many a morn the sunny darling + Saw the rising chariot-rays, + From the winding river-reaches, + Mellowing in amber haze. + + Thro’ the flaming mountain gorges + Lo, the River leaps the plain; + Like a wild god-stridden courser, + Tossing high its foamy mane. + + Then he swims thro’ laurelled sunlight, + Full of all sensations sweet, + Misty with his morning incense, + To the mirrored maiden’s feet! + + Wet and bright the dinting pebbles + Shine where oft she paused and stood; + All her dreamy warmth revolving, + While the chilly waters wooed. + + Like to rosy-born Aurora, + Glowing freshly into view, + When her doubtful foot she ventures + On the first cold morning blue. + + White as that Thessalian lily, + Fairest Tempe’s fairest flower, + Lo, the tall Peneïan virgin + Stands beneath her bathing bower. + + There the laurell’d wreaths o’erarching + Crown’d the dainty shuddering maid; + There the dark prophetic laurel + Kiss’d her with its sister shade. + + There the young green glistening leaflets + Hush’d with love their breezy peal; + There the little opening flowerets + Blush’d beneath her vermeil heel! + + There among the conscious arbours + Sounds of soft tumultuous wail, + Mysteries of love, melodious, + Came upon the lyric gale! + + Breathings of a deep enchantment, + Effluence of immortal grace, + Flitted round her faltering footstep, + Spread a balm about her face! + + Witless of the enamour’d presence, + Like a dreamy lotus bud + From its drowsy stem down-drooping, + Gazed she in the glowing flood. + + Softly sweet with fluttering presage, + Felt she that ethereal sense, + Drinking charms of love delirious, + Reaping bliss of love intense! + + All the air was thrill’d with sunrise, + Birds made music of her name, + And the god-impregnate water + Claspt her image ere she came. + + Richer for that glance unconscious! + Dearer for that soft dismay! + And the sudden self-possession! + And the smile as bright as day! + + Plunging ’mid her scattered tresses, + With her blue invoking eyes; + See her like a star descending! + Like a rosebud see her rise! + + Like a rosebud in the morning + Dashing off its jewell’d dews, + Ere unfolding all its fragrance + It is gathered by the muse! + + Beauteous in the foamy laughter + Bubbling round her shrinking waist, + Lo! from locks and lips and eyelids + Rain the glittering pearl-drops chaste! + + And about the maiden rapture + Still the ruddy ripples play’d, + Ebbing round in startled circlets + When her arms began to wade; + + Flowing in like tides attracted + To the glowing crescent shine! + Clasping her ambrosial whiteness + Like an Autumn-tinted vine! + + Sinking low with love’s emotion! + Levying with look and tone + All love’s rosy arts to mimic + Cytherea’s magic zone! + + Trembling up with adoration + To the crimson daisy tip + Budding from the snowy bosom— + Fainter than the rose-red lip! + + Rising in a storm of wavelets, + That for shelter, feigning fright, + Prest to those twin-heaving havens, + Harbour’d there beneath her light; + + Gleaming in a whirl of eddies + Round her lucid throat and neck; + Eddying in a gleam of dimples + Up against her bloomy cheek; + + Bribing all the breezy water + With rich warmth, the nymph to keep + In a self-imprison’d plaisance, + Tempting her from deep to deep. + + Till at last delirious passion + Thrill’d the god to wild excess, + And the fervour of a moment + Made divinity confess; + + And he stood in all his glory! + But so radiant, being near, + That her eyes were frozen on him + In a fascinated fear! + + All with orient splendour shining, + All with roseate birth aglow, + Gleam’d the golden god before her, + With his golden crescent bow. + + Soon the dazzled light subsided, + And he seem’d a beauteous youth, + Form’d to gain the maiden’s murmurs, + And to pledge the vows of truth. + + Ah! that thus he had continued! + O, that such for her had been! + Graceful with all godlike beauty, + But so humanly serene! + + Cheeks, and mouth, and mellow ringlets, + Bounteous as the mid-day beam; + Pleading looks and wistful tremour, + Tender as a maiden’s dream! + + Palms that like a bird’s throbb’d bosom + Palpitate with eagerness, + Lips, the bridals of the roses, + Dewy sweet from the caress! + + Lips and limbs, and eyes and ringlets, + Swaying, praying to one prayer, + Like a lyre, swept by a spirit, + In the still, enraptur’d air. + + Like a lyre in some far valley, + Uttering ravishments divine! + All its strings to viewless fingers + Yearning, modulations fine! + + Yearning with melodious fervour! + Like a beauteous maiden flower, + When the young beloved three paces + Hovers from the bridal bower. + + Throbbing thro’ the dawning stillness! + As a heart within a breast, + When the young beloved is stepping + Radiant to the nuptial nest. + + O for Daphne! gentle Daphne + Ever warmer by degrees + Whispers full of hopes and visions + Throng her ears like honey bees! + + Never yet was lonely blossom + Woo’d with such delicious voice! + Never since hath mortal maiden + Dwelt on such celestial choice! + + Love-suffused she quivers, falters— + Falters, sighs, but never speaks, + All her rosy blood up-gushing + Overflows her ripe young cheeks. + + Blushing, sweet with virgin blushes, + All her loveliness a-flame, + Stands she in the orient waters, + Stricken o’er with speechless shame! + + Ah! but lovelier, ever lovelier, + As more deep the colour glows, + And the honey-laden lily + Changes to the fragrant rose. + + While the god with meek embraces, + Whispering all his sacred charms, + Softly folds her, gently holds her, + In his white encircling arms! + + But, O Dian! veil not wholly + Thy pale crescent from the morn! + Vanish not, O virgin goddess, + With that look of pallid scorn! + + Still thy pure protecting influence + Shed from those fair watchful eyes!— + Lo! her angry orb has vanished, + And the bright sun thrones the skies! + + Voicelessly the forest Virgin + Vanished! but one look she gave— + Keen as Niobean arrow + Thro’ the maiden’s heart it drave. + + Thus toward that throning bosom + Where all earth is warmed,—each spot + Nourished with autumnal blessings— + Icy chill was Daphne caught. + + Icy chill! but swift revulsion + All her gentler self renewed, + Even as icy Winter quickens + With bud-opening warmth imbued. + + Even as a torpid brooklet, + That to the night-gleaming moon + Flashed in turn the frozen glances, + Melts upon the breast of noon. + + But no more—O never, never, + Turns she to that bosom bright, + Swiftly all her senses counsel, + All her nerves are strung to flight. + + O’er the brows of radiant Pindus + Rolls a shadow dark and cold, + And a sound of lamentation + Issues from its mournful fold. + + Voice of the far-sighted Muses! + Cry of keen foreboding song! + Every cleft of startled Tempe + Tingles with it sharp and long. + + Over bourn and bosk and dingle, + Over rivers, over rills, + Runs the sad subservient Echo + Toward the dim blue distant hills! + + And another and another! + ’Tis a cry more wild than all; + And the hills with muffled voices + Answer ‘Daphne!’ to the call. + + And another and another! + ’Tis a cry so wildly sweet, + That her charmed heart turns rebel + To the instinct of her feet; + + And she pauses for an instant; + But his arms have scarcely slid + Round her waist in cestian girdles, + And his low voluptuous lid + + Lifted pleading, and the honey + Of his mouth for hers athirst, + Ruby glistening, raised for moisture— + Like a bud that waits to burst + + In the sweet espousing showers— + And his tongue has scarce begun + With its inarticulate burthen, + And the clouds scarce show the sun + + As it pierces thro’ a crevice + Of the mass that closed it o’er, + When again the horror flashes— + And she turns to flight once more! + + And again o’er radiant Pindus + Rolls the shadow dark and cold, + And the sound of lamentation + Issues from its sable fold! + + And again the light winds chide her + As she darts from his embrace— + And again the far-voiced echoes + Speak their tidings of the chase. + + Loudly now as swiftly, swiftly, + O’er the glimmering sands she speeds; + Wildly now as in the furzes + From the piercing spikes she bleeds. + + Deeply and with direful anguish, + As above each crimson drop + Passion checks the god Apollo, + And love bids him weep and stop.— + + He above each drop of crimson + Shadowing—like the laurel leaf + That above himself will shadow— + Sheds a fadeless look of grief. + + Then with love’s remorseful discord, + With its own desire at war, + Sighing turns, while dimly fleeting + Daphne flies the chase afar. + + But all nature is against her! + Pan, with all his sylvan troop, + Thro’ the vista’d woodland valleys + Blocks her course with cry and whoop! + + In the twilights of the thickets + Trees bend down their gnarled boughs, + Wild green leaves and low curved branches + Hold her hair and beat her brows. + + Many a brake of brushwood covert, + Where cold darkness slumbers mute, + Slips a shrub to thwart her passage, + Slides a hand to clutch her foot. + + Glens and glades of lushest verdure + Toil her in their tawny mesh, + Wilder-woofed ways and alleys + Lock her struggling limbs in leash. + + Feathery grasses, flowery mosses, + Knot themselves to make her trip; + Sprays and stubborn sprigs outstretching + Put a bridle on her lip; + + Many a winding lane betrays her, + Many a sudden bosky shoot, + And her knee makes many a stumble + O’er some hidden damp old root, + + Whose quaint face peers green and dusky + ’Mongst the matted growth of plants, + While she rises wild and weltering, + Speeding on with many pants. + + Tangles of the wild red strawberry + Spread their freckled trammels frail; + In the pathway creeping brambles + Catch her in their thorny trail. + + All the widely sweeping greensward + Shifts and swims from knoll to knoll; + Grey rough-fingered oak and elm wood + Push her by from bole to bole. + + Groves of lemon, groves of citron, + Tall high-foliaged plane and palm, + Bloomy myrtle, light-blue olive, + Wave her back with gusts of balm. + + Languid jasmine, scrambling briony, + Walls of close-festooning braid, + Fling themselves about her, mingling + With her wafted looks, waylaid. + + Twisting bindweed, honey’d woodbine, + Cling to her, while, red and blue, + On her rounded form ripe berries + Dash and die in gory dew. + + Running ivies dark and lingering + Round her light limbs drag and twine; + Round her waist with languorous tendrils + Reels and wreathes the juicy vine; + + Reining in the flying creature + With its arms about her mouth; + Bursting all its mellowing bunches + To seduce her husky drouth; + + Crowning her with amorous clusters; + Pouring down her sloping back + Fresh-born wines in glittering rillets, + Following her in crimson track. + + Buried, drenched in dewy foliage, + Thus she glimmers from the dawn, + Watched by every forest creature, + Fleet-foot Oread, frolic Faun. + + Silver-sandalled Arethusa + Not more swiftly fled the sands, + Fled the plains and fled the sunlights, + Fled the murmuring ocean strands. + + O, that now the earth would open! + O, that now the shades would hide! + O, that now the gods would shelter! + Caverns lead and seas divide! + + Not more faint soft-lowing Io + Panted in those starry eyes, + When the sleepless midnight meadows + Piteously implored the skies! + + Still her breathless flight she urges + By the sanctuary stream, + And the god with golden swiftness + Follows like an eastern beam. + + Her the close bewildering greenery + Darkens with its duskiest green,— + Him each little leaflet welcomes, + Flushing with an orient sheen. + + Thus he nears, and now all Tempe + Rings with his melodious cry, + Avenues and blue expanses + Beam in his large lustrous eye! + + All the branches start to music! + As if from a secret spring + Thousands of sweet bills are bubbling + In the nest and on the wing. + + Gleams and shines the glassy river + And rich valleys every one; + But of all the throbbing beauty + Brightest! singled by the sun! + + Ivy round her glimmering ancle, + Vine about her glowing brow, + Never sure was bride so beauteous, + Daphne, chosen nymph, as thou! + + Thus he nears! and now she feels him + Breathing hot on every limb; + And he hears her own quick pantings— + Ah! that they might be for him. + + O, that like the flower he tramples, + Bending from his golden tread, + Full of fair celestial ardours, + She would bow her bridal head. + + O, that like the flower she presses, + Nodding from her lily touch, + Light as in the harmless breezes, + She would know the god for such! + + See! the golden arms are round her— + To the air she grasps and clings! + See! his glowing arms have wound her— + To the sky she shrieks and springs! + + See! the flushing chace of Tempe + Trembles with Olympian air— + See! green sprigs and buds are shooting + From those white raised arms of prayer! + + In the earth her feet are rooting!— + Breasts and limbs and lifted eyes, + Hair and lips and stretching fingers, + Fade away—and fadeless rise. + + And the god whose fervent rapture + Clasps her finds his close embrace + Full of palpitating branches, + And new leaves that bud apace, + + Bound his wonder-stricken forehead;— + While in ebbing measures slow + Sounds of softly dying pulses + Pause and quiver, pause and go; + + Go, and come again, and flutter + On the verge of life,—then flee! + All the white ambrosial beauty + Is a lustrous Laurel Tree! + + Still with the great panting love-chase + All its running sap is warmed;— + But from head to foot the virgin + Is transfigured and transformed. + + Changed!—yet the green Dryad nature + Is instinct with human ties, + And above its anguish’d lover + Breathes pathetic sympathies; + + Sympathies of love and sorrow; + Joy in her divine escape; + Breathing through her bursting foliage + Comfort to his bending shape. + + Vainly now the floating Naiads + Seek to pierce the laurel maze, + Nought but laurel meets their glances, + Laurel glistens as they gaze. + + Nought but bright prophetic laurel! + Laurel over eyes and brows, + Over limbs and over bosom, + Laurel leaves and laurel boughs! + + And in vain the listening Dryad + Shells her hand against her ear!— + All is silence—save the echo + Travelling in the distance drear. + + + + +LONDON BY LAMPLIGHT + + + THERE stands a singer in the street, + He has an audience motley and meet; + Above him lowers the London night, + And around the lamps are flaring bright. + + His minstrelsy may be unchaste— + ’Tis much unto that motley taste, + And loud the laughter he provokes + From those sad slaves of obscene jokes. + + But woe is many a passer by + Who as he goes turns half an eye, + To see the human form divine + Thus Circe-wise changed into swine! + + Make up the sum of either sex + That all our human hopes perplex, + With those unhappy shapes that know + The silent streets and pale cock-crow. + + And can I trace in such dull eyes + Of fireside peace or country skies? + And could those haggard cheeks presume + To memories of a May-tide bloom? + + Those violated forms have been + The pride of many a flowering green; + And still the virgin bosom heaves + With daisy meads and dewy leaves. + + But stygian darkness reigns within + The river of death from the founts of sin; + And one prophetic water rolls + Its gas-lit surface for their souls. + + I will not hide the tragic sight— + Those drown’d black locks, those dead lips white, + Will rise from out the slimy flood, + And cry before God’s throne for blood! + + Those stiffened limbs, that swollen face,— + Pollution’s last and best embrace, + Will call, as such a picture can, + For retribution upon man. + + Hark! how their feeble laughter rings, + While still the ballad-monger sings, + And flatters their unhappy breasts + With poisonous words and pungent jests. + + O how would every daisy blush + To see them ’mid that earthy crush! + O dumb would be the evening thrush, + And hoary look the hawthorn bush! + + The meadows of their infancy + Would shrink from them, and every tree, + And every little laughing spot, + Would hush itself and know them not. + + Precursor to what black despairs + Was that child’s face which once was theirs! + And O to what a world of guile + Was herald that young angel smile! + + That face which to a father’s eye + Was balm for all anxiety; + That smile which to a mother’s heart + Went swifter than the swallow’s dart! + + O happy homes! that still they know + At intervals, with what a woe + Would ye look on them, dim and strange, + Suffering worse than winter change! + + And yet could I transplant them there, + To breathe again the innocent air + Of youth, and once more reconcile + Their outcast looks with nature’s smile; + + Could I but give them one clear day + Of this delicious loving May, + Release their souls from anguish dark, + And stand them underneath the lark;— + + I think that Nature would have power + To graft again her blighted flower + Upon the broken stem, renew + Some portion of its early hue;— + + The heavy flood of tears unlock, + More precious than the Scriptured rock; + At least instil a happier mood, + And bring them back to womanhood. + + Alas! how many lost ones claim + This refuge from despair and shame! + How many, longing for the light, + Sink deeper in the abyss this night! + + O, crying sin! O, blushing thought! + Not only unto those that wrought + The misery and deadly blight; + But those that outcast them this night! + + O, agony of grief! for who + Less dainty than his race, will do + Such battle for their human right, + As shall awake this startled night? + + Proclaim this evil human page + Will ever blot the Golden Age + That poets dream and saints invite, + If it be unredeemed this night? + + This night of deep solemnity, + And verdurous serenity, + While over every fleecy field + The dews descend and odours yield. + + This night of gleaming floods and falls, + Of forest glooms and sylvan calls, + Of starlight on the pebbly rills, + And twilight on the circling hills. + + This night! when from the paths of men + Grey error steams as from a fen; + As o’er this flaring City wreathes + The black cloud-vapour that it breathes! + + This night from which a morn will spring + Blooming on its orient wing; + A morn to roll with many more + Its ghostly foam on the twilight shore. + + Morn! when the fate of all mankind + Hangs poised in doubt, and man is blind. + His duties of the day will seem + The fact of life, and mine the dream: + + The destinies that bards have sung, + Regeneration to the young, + Reverberation of the truth, + And virtuous culture unto youth! + + Youth! in whose season let abound + All flowers and fruits that strew the ground, + Voluptuous joy where love consents, + And health and pleasure pitch their tents: + + All rapture and all pure delight; + A garden all unknown to blight; + But never the unnatural sight + That throngs the shameless song this night! + + + + +SONG + + + UNDER boughs of breathing May, + In the mild spring-time I lay, + Lonely, for I had no love; + And the sweet birds all sang for pity, + Cuckoo, lark, and dove. + + Tell me, cuckoo, then I cried, + Dare I woo and wed a bride? + I, like thee, have no home-nest; + And the twin notes thus tuned their ditty,— + ‘Love can answer best.’ + + Nor, warm dove with tender coo, + Have I thy soft voice to woo, + Even were a damsel by; + And the deep woodland crooned its ditty,— + ‘Love her first and try.’ + + Nor have I, wild lark, thy wing, + That from bluest heaven can bring + Bliss, whatever fate befall; + And the sky-lyrist trilled this ditty,— + ‘Love will give thee all.’ + + So it chanced while June was young, + Wooing well with fervent song, + I had won a damsel coy; + And the sweet birds that sang for pity, + Jubileed for joy. + + + + +PASTORALS + + +I + + + HOW sweet on sunny afternoons, + For those who journey light and well, + To loiter up a hilly rise + Which hides the prospect far beyond, + And fancy all the landscape lying + Beautiful and still; + + Beneath a sky of summer blue, + Whose rounded cloudlets, folded soft, + Gaze on the scene which we await + And picture from their peacefulness; + So calmly to the earth inclining + Float those loving shapes! + + Like airy brides, each singling out + A spot to love and bless with love, + Their creamy bosoms glowing warm, + Till distance weds them to the hills, + And with its latest gleam the river + Sinks in their embrace. + + And silverly the river runs, + And many a graceful wind he makes, + By fields where feed the happy flocks, + And hedge-rows hushing pleasant lanes, + The charms of English home reflected + In his shining eye: + + Ancestral oak, broad-foliaged elm, + Rich meadows sunned and starred with flowers, + The cottage breathing tender smoke + Against the brooding golden air, + With glimpses of a stately mansion + On a woodland sward; + + And circling round, as with a ring, + The distance spreading amber haze, + Enclosing hills and pastures sweet; + A depth of soft and mellow light + Which fills the heart with sudden yearning + Aimless and serene! + + No disenchantment follows here, + For nature’s inspiration moves + The dream which she herself fulfils; + And he whose heart, like valley warmth, + Steams up with joy at scenes like this + Shall never be forlorn. + + And O for any human soul + The rapture of a wide survey— + A valley sweeping to the West, + With all its wealth of loveliness, + Is more than recompense for days + That taught us to endure. + + + +II + + + YON upland slope which hides the sun + Ascending from his eastern deeps, + And now against the hues of dawn + One level line of tillage rears; + The furrowed brow of toil and time; + To many it is but a sweep of land! + + To others ’tis an Autumn trust, + But unto me a mystery;— + An influence strange and swift as dreams; + A whispering of old romance; + A temple naked to the clouds; + Or one of nature’s bosoms fresh revealed, + + Heaving with adoration! there + The work of husbandry is done, + And daily bread is daily earned; + Nor seems there ought to indicate + The springs which move in me such thoughts, + But from my soul a spirit calls them up. + + All day into the open sky, + All night to the eternal stars, + For ever both at morn and eve + Men mellow distances draw near, + And shadows lengthen in the dusk, + Athwart the heavens it rolls its glimmering line! + + When twilight from the dream-hued West + Sighs hush! and all the land is still; + When, from the lush empurpling East, + The twilight of the crowing cock + Peers on the drowsy village roofs, + Athwart the heavens that glimmering line is seen. + + And now beneath the rising sun, + Whose shining chariot overpeers + The irradiate ridge, while fetlock deep + In the rich soil his coursers plunge— + How grand in robes of light it looks! + How glorious with rare suggestive grace! + + The ploughman mounting up the height + Becomes a glowing shape, as though + ’Twere young Triptolemus, plough in hand, + While Ceres in her amber scarf + With gentle love directs him how + To wed the willing earth and hope for fruits! + + The furrows running up are fraught + With meanings; there the goddess walks, + While Proserpine is young, and there— + ’Mid the late autumn sheaves, her voice + Sobbing and choked with dumb despair— + The nights will hear her wailing for her child! + + Whatever dim tradition tells, + Whatever history may reveal, + Or fancy, from her starry brows, + Of light or dreamful lustre shed, + Could not at this sweet time increase + The quiet consecration of the spot. + + Blest with the sweat of labour, blest + With the young sun’s first vigorous beams, + Village hope and harvest prayer,— + The heart that throbs beneath it holds + A bliss so perfect in itself + Men’s thoughts must borrow rather than bestow. + + + +III + + + NOW standing on this hedgeside path, + Up which the evening winds are blowing + Wildly from the lingering lines + Of sunset o’er the hills; + Unaided by one motive thought, + My spirit with a strange impulsion + Rises, like a fledgling, + Whose wings are not mature, but still + Supported by its strong desire + Beats up its native air and leaves + The tender mother’s nest. + + Great music under heaven is made, + And in the track of rushing darkness + Comes the solemn shape of night, + And broods above the earth. + A thing of Nature am I now, + Abroad, without a sense or feeling + Born not of her bosom; + Content with all her truths and fates; + Ev’n as yon strip of grass that bows + Above the new-born violet bloom, + And sings with wood and field. + + + +IV + + + LO, as a tree, whose wintry twigs + Drink in the sun with fibrous joy, + And down into its dampest roots + Thrills quickened with the draught of life, + I wake unto the dawn, and leave my griefs to drowse. + + I rise and drink the fresh sweet air: + Each draught a future bud of Spring; + Each glance of blue a birth of green; + I will not mimic yonder oak + That dallies with dead leaves ev’n while the primrose peeps. + + But full of these warm-whispering beams, + Like Memnon in his mother’s eye,— + Aurora! when the statue stone + Moaned soft to her pathetic touch,— + My soul shall own its parent in the founts of day! + + And ever in the recurring light, + True to the primal joy of dawn, + Forget its barren griefs; and aye + Like aspens in the faintest breeze + Turn all its silver sides and tremble into song. + + + +V + + + NOW from the meadow floods the wild duck clamours, + Now the wood pigeon wings a rapid flight, + Now the homeward rookery follows up its vanguard, + And the valley mists are curling up the hills. + + Three short songs gives the clear-voiced throstle, + Sweetening the twilight ere he fills the nest; + While the little bird upon the leafless branches + Tweets to its mate a tiny loving note. + + Deeper the stillness hangs on every motion; + Calmer the silence follows every call; + Now all is quiet save the roosting pheasant, + The bell-wether’s tinkle and the watch-dog’s bark. + + Softly shine the lights from the silent kindling homestead, + Stars of the hearth to the shepherd in the fold; + Springs of desire to the traveller on the roadway; + Ever breathing incense to the ever-blessing sky! + + + +VI + + + How barren would this valley be, + Without the golden orb that gazes + On it, broadening to hues + Of rose, and spreading wings of amber; + Blessing it before it falls asleep. + + How barren would this valley be, + Without the human lives now beating + In it, or the throbbing hearts + Far distant, who their flower of childhood + Cherish here, and water it with tears! + + How barren should I be, were I + Without above that loving splendour, + Shedding light and warmth! without + Some kindred natures of my kind + To joy in me, or yearn towards me now! + + + +VII + + + SUMMER glows warm on the meadows, and speedwell, and gold-cups, and + daisies + Darken ’mid deepening masses of sorrel, and shadowy grasses + Show the ripe hue to the farmer, and summon the scythe and the + hay-makers + Down from the village; and now, even now, the air smells of the + mowing, + And the sharp song of the scythe whistles daily; from dawn, till the + gloaming + Wears its cool star, sweet and welcome to all flaming faces afield + now; + Heavily weighs the hot season, and drowses the darkening foliage, + Drooping with languor; the white cloud floats, but sails not, for + windless + Heaven’s blue tents it; no lark singing up in its fleecy white + valleys; + Up in its fairy white valleys, once feathered with minstrels, + melodious + With the invisible joy that wakes dawn o’er the green fields of + England. + Summer glows warm on the meadows; then come, let us roam thro’ them + gaily, + Heedless of heat, and the hot-kissing sun, and the fear of dark + freckles. + Never one kiss will he give on a neck, or a lily-white forehead, + Chin, hand, or bosom uncovered, all panting, to take the chance + coolness, + But full sure the fiery pressure leaves seal of espousal. + Heed him not; come, tho’ he kiss till the soft little upper-lip loses + Half its pure whiteness; just speck’d where the curve of the rosy + mouth reddens. + + Come, let him kiss, let him kiss, and his kisses shall make thee the + sweeter. + Thou art no nun, veiled and vowed; doomed to nourish a withering + pallor! + City exotics beside thee would show like bleached linen at mid-day, + Hung upon hedges of eglantine! Thou in the freedom of nature, + Full of her beauty and wisdom, gentleness, joyance, and kindness! + Come, and like bees will we gather the rich golden honey of noontide; + Deep in the sweet summer meadows, border’d by hillside and river, + Lined with long trenches half-hidden, where smell of white + meadow-sweet, sweetest, + Blissfully hovers—O sweetest! but pluck it not! even in the tenderest + Grasp it will lose breath and wither; like many, not made for a posy. + + See, the sun slopes down the meadows, where all the flowers are + falling! + Falling unhymned; for the nightingale scarce ever charms the long + twilight: + Mute with the cares of the nest; only known by a ‘chuck, chuck,’ and + dovelike + Call of content, but the finch and the linnet and blackcap pipe + loudly. + Round on the western hill-side warbles the rich-billed ouzel; + And the shrill throstle is filling the tangled thickening copses; + Singing o’er hyacinths hid, and most honey’d of flowers, white + field-rose. + Joy thus to revel all day in the grass of our own beloved country; + Revel all day, till the lark mounts at eve with his sweet + ‘tirra-lirra’: + Trilling delightfully. See, on the river the slow-rippled surface + Shining; the slow ripple broadens in circles; the bright surface + smoothens; + Now it is flat as the leaves of the yet unseen water-lily. + There dart the lives of a day, ever-varying tactics fantastic. + There, by the wet-mirrored osiers, the emerald wing of the kingfisher + Flashes, the fish in his beak! there the dab-chick dived, and the + motion + Lazily undulates all thro’ the tall standing army of rushes. + + Joy thus to revel all day, till the twilight turns us homeward! + Till all the lingering deep-blooming splendour of sunset is over, + And the one star shines mildly in mellowing hues, like a spirit + Sent to assure us that light never dieth, tho’ day is now buried. + Saying: to-morrow, to-morrow, few hours intervening, that interval + Tuned by the woodlark in heaven, to-morrow my semblance, far eastward, + Heralds the day ’tis my mission eternal to seal and to prophecy. + Come then, and homeward; passing down the close path of the meadows. + Home like the bees stored with sweetness; each with a lark in the + bosom, + Trilling for ever, and oh! will yon lark ever cease to sing up there? + + + + +TO A SKYLARK + + + O SKYLARK! I see thee and call thee joy! + Thy wings bear thee up to the breast of the dawn; + I see thee no more, but thy song is still + The tongue of the heavens to me! + + Thus are the days when I was a boy; + Sweet while I lived in them, dear now they’re gone: + I feel them no longer, but still, O still + They tell of the heavens to me. + + + + +SONG +SPRING + + + WHEN buds of palm do burst and spread + Their downy feathers in the lane, + And orchard blossoms, white and red, + Breathe Spring delight for Autumn gain; + And the skylark shakes his wings in the rain; + + O then is the season to look for a bride! + Choose her warily, woo her unseen; + For the choicest maids are those that hide + Like dewy violets under the green. + + + + +SONG +AUTUMN + + + WHEN nuts behind the hazel-leaf + Are brown as the squirrel that hunts them free, + And the fields are rich with the sun-burnt sheaf, + ’Mid the blue cornflower and the yellowing tree; + And the farmer glows and beams in his glee; + + O then is the season to wed thee a bride! + Ere the garners are filled and the ale-cups foam; + For a smiling hostess is the pride + And flower of every Harvest Home. + + + + +SORROWS AND JOYS + + + BURY thy sorrows, and they shall rise + As souls to the immortal skies, + And there look down like mothers’ eyes. + + But let thy joys be fresh as flowers, + That suck the honey of the showers, + And bloom alike on huts and towers. + + So shall thy days be sweet and bright; + Solemn and sweet thy starry night, + Conscious of love each change of light. + + The stars will watch the flowers asleep, + The flowers will feel the soft stars weep, + And both will mix sensations deep. + + With these below, with those above, + Sits evermore the brooding dove, + Uniting both in bonds of love. + + For both by nature are akin; + Sorrow, the ashen fruit of sin, + And joy, the juice of life within. + + Children of earth are these; and those + The spirits of divine repose— + Death radiant o’er all human woes. + + O, think what then had been thy doom, + If homeless and without a tomb + They had been left to haunt the gloom! + + O, think again what now they are— + Motherly love, tho’ dim and far, + Imaged in every lustrous star. + + For they, in their salvation, know + No vestige of their former woe, + While thro’ them all the heavens do flow. + + Thus art thou wedded to the skies, + And watched by ever-loving eyes, + And warned by yearning sympathies. + + + + +SONG + + + THE flower unfolds its dawning cup, + And the young sun drinks the star-dews up, + At eve it droops with the bliss of day, + And dreams in the midnight far away. + + So am I in thy sole, sweet glance + Pressed with a weight of utterance; + Lovingly all my leaves unfold, + And gleam to the beams of thirsty gold. + + At eve I droop, for then the swell + Of feeling falters forth farewell;— + At midnight I am dreaming deep, + Of what has been, in blissful sleep. + + When—ah! when will love’s own fight + Wed me alike thro’ day and night, + When will the stars with their linking charms + Wake us in each other’s arms? + + + + +SONG + + + THOU to me art such a spring + As the Arab seeks at eve, + Thirsty from the shining sands; + There to bathe his face and hands, + While the sun is taking leave, + And dewy sleep is a delicious thing. + + Thou to me art such a dream + As he dreams upon the grass, + While the bubbling coolness near + Makes sweet music in his ear; + And the stars that slowly pass + In solitary grandeur o’er him gleam. + + Thou to me art such a dawn + As the dawn whose ruddy kiss + Wakes him to his darling steed; + And again the desert speed, + And again the desert bliss, + Lightens thro’ his veins, and he is gone! + + + + +ANTIGONE + + + The buried voice bespake Antigone. + + ‘O SISTER! couldst thou know, as thou wilt know, + The bliss above, the reverence below, + Enkindled by thy sacrifice for me; + Thou wouldst at once with holy ecstasy + Give thy warm limbs into the yearning earth. + Sleep, Sister! for Elysium’s dawning birth,— + And faith will fill thee with what is to be! + Sleep, for the Gods are watching over thee! + Thy dream will steer thee to perform their will, + As silently their influence they instil. + O Sister! in the sweetness of thy prime, + Thy hand has plucked the bitter flower of death; + But this will dower thee with Elysian breath, + That fade into a never-fading clime. + Dear to the Gods are those that do like thee + A solemn duty! for the tyranny + Of kings is feeble to the soul that dares + Defy them to fulfil its sacred cares: + And weak against a mighty will are men. + O, Torch between two brothers! in whose gleam + Our slaughtered House doth shine as one again, + Tho’ severed by the sword; now may thy dream + Kindle desire in thee for us, and thou, + Forgetting not thy lover and his vow, + Leaving no human memory forgot, + Shalt cross, not unattended, the dark stream + Which runs by thee in sleep and ripples not. + The large stars glitter thro’ the anxious night, + And the deep sky broods low to look at thee: + The air is hush’d and dark o’er land and sea, + And all is waiting for the morrow light: + So do thy kindred spirits wait for thee. + O Sister! soft as on the downward rill, + Will those first daybeams from the distant hill + Fall on the smoothness of thy placid brow, + Like this calm sweetness breathing thro’ me now: + And when the fated sounds shall wake thine eyes, + Wilt thou, confiding in the supreme will, + In all thy maiden steadfastness arise, + Firm to obey and earnest to fulfil; + Remembering the night thou didst not sleep, + And this same brooding sky beheld thee creep, + Defiant of unnatural decree, + To where I lay upon the outcast land; + Before the iron gates upon the plain; + A wretched, graveless ghost, whose wailing chill + Came to thy darkened door imploring thee; + Yearning for burial like my brother slain;— + And all was dared for love and piety! + This thought will nerve again thy virgin hand + To serve its purpose and its destiny.’ + + She woke, they led her forth, and all was still. + + * * * * * + + SWATHED round in mist and crown’d with cloud, + O Mountain! hid from peak to base— + Caught up into the heavens and clasped + In white ethereal arms that make + Thy mystery of size sublime! + What eye or thought can measure now + Thy grand dilating loftiness! + What giant crest dispute with thee + Supremacy of air and sky! + What fabled height with thee compare! + Not those vine-terraced hills that seethe + The lava in their fiery cusps; + Nor that high-climbing robe of snow, + Whose summits touch the morning star, + And breathe the thinnest air of life; + Nor crocus-couching Ida, warm + With Juno’s latest nuptial lure; + Nor Tenedos whose dreamy eye + Still looks upon beleaguered Troy; + Nor yet Olympus crown’d with gods + Can boast a majesty like thine, + O Mountain! hid from peak to base, + And image of the awful power + With which the secret of all things, + That stoops from heaven to garment earth, + Can speak to any human soul, + When once the earthly limits lose + Their pointed heights and sharpened lines, + And measureless immensity + Is palpable to sense and sight. + + + + +SONG + + + NO, no, the falling blossom is no sign + Of loveliness destroy’d and sorrow mute; + The blossom sheds its loveliness divine;— + Its mission is to prophecy the fruit. + + Nor is the day of love for ever dead, + When young enchantment and romance are gone; + The veil is drawn, but all the future dread + Is lightened by the finger of the dawn. + + Love moves with life along a darker way, + They cast a shadow and they call it death: + But rich is the fulfilment of their day; + The purer passion and the firmer faith. + + + + +THE TWO BLACKBIRDS + + + A BLACKBIRD in a wicker cage, + That hung and swung ’mid fruits and flowers, + Had learnt the song-charm, to assuage + The drearness of its wingless hours. + + And ever when the song was heard, + From trees that shade the grassy plot + Warbled another glossy bird, + Whose mate not long ago was shot. + + Strange anguish in that creature’s breast, + Unwept like human grief, unsaid, + Has quickened in its lonely nest + A living impulse from the dead. + + Not to console its own wild smart,— + But with a kindling instinct strong, + The novel feeling of its heart + Beats for the captive bird of song. + + And when those mellow notes are still, + It hops from off its choral perch, + O’er path and sward, with busy bill, + All grateful gifts to peck and search. + + Store of ouzel dainties choice + To those white swinging bars it brings; + And with a low consoling voice + It talks between its fluttering wings. + + Deeply in their bitter grief + Those sufferers reciprocate, + The one sings for its woodland life, + The other for its murdered mate. + + But deeper doth the secret prove, + Uniting those sad creatures so; + Humanity’s great link of love, + The common sympathy of woe. + + Well divined from day to day + Is the swift speech between them twain; + For when the bird is scared away, + The captive bursts to song again. + + Yet daily with its flattering voice, + Talking amid its fluttering wings, + Store of ouzel dainties choice + With busy bill the poor bird brings. + + And shall I say, till weak with age + Down from its drowsy branch it drops, + It will not leave that captive cage, + Nor cease those busy searching hops? + + Ah, no! the moral will not strain; + Another sense will make it range, + Another mate will soothe its pain, + Another season work a change. + + But thro’ the live-long summer, tried, + A pure devotion we may see; + The ebb and flow of Nature’s tide; + A self-forgetful sympathy. + + + + +JULY + + +I + + + BLUE July, bright July, + Month of storms and gorgeous blue; + Violet lightnings o’er thy sky, + Heavy falls of drenching dew; + Summer crown! o’er glen and glade + Shrinking hyacinths in their shade; + I welcome thee with all thy pride, + I love thee like an Eastern bride. + Though all the singing days are done + As in those climes that clasp the sun; + Though the cuckoo in his throat + Leaves to the dove his last twin note; + Come to me with thy lustrous eye, + Golden-dawning oriently, + Come with all thy shining blooms, + Thy rich red rose and rolling glooms. + Though the cuckoo doth but sing ‘cuk, cuk,’ + And the dove alone doth coo; + Though the cushat spins her coo-r-roo, r-r-roo— + To the cuckoo’s halting ‘cuk.’ + + + +II + + + Sweet July, warm July! + Month when mosses near the stream, + Soft green mosses thick and shy, + Are a rapture and a dream. + Summer Queen! whose foot the fern + Fades beneath while chestnuts burn; + I welcome thee with thy fierce love, + Gloom below and gleam above. + Though all the forest trees hang dumb, + With dense leafiness o’ercome; + Though the nightingale and thrush, + Pipe not from the bough or bush; + Come to me with thy lustrous eye, + Azure-melting westerly, + The raptures of thy face unfold, + And welcome in thy robes of gold! + Tho’ the nightingale broods—‘sweet-chuck-sweet’— + And the ouzel flutes so chill, + Tho’ the throstle gives but one shrilly trill + To the nightingale’s ‘sweet-sweet.’ + + + + +SONG + + + I WOULD I were the drop of rain + That falls into the dancing rill, + For I should seek the river then, + And roll below the wooded hill, + Until I reached the sea. + + And O, to be the river swift + That wrestles with the wilful tide, + And fling the briny weeds aside + That o’er the foamy billows drift, + Until I came to thee! + + I would that after weary strife, + And storm beneath the piping wind, + The current of my true fresh life + Might come unmingled, unimbrined, + To where thou floatest free. + + Might find thee in some amber clime, + Where sunlight dazzles on the sail, + And dreaming of our plighted vale + Might seal the dream, and bless the time, + With maiden kisses three. + + + + +SONG + + + COME to me in any shape! + As a victor crown’d with vine, + In thy curls the clustering grape,— + Or a vanquished slave: + ’Tis thy coming that I crave, + And thy folding serpent twine, + Close and dumb; + Ne’er from that would I escape; + Come to me in any shape! + Only come! + + Only come, and in my breast + Hide thy shame or show thy pride; + In my bosom be caressed, + Never more to part; + Come into my yearning heart; + I, the serpent, golden-eyed, + Twine round thee; + Twine thee with no venomed test; + Absence makes the venomed nest; + Come to me! + + Come to me, my lover, come! + Violets on the tender stem + Die and wither in their bloom, + Under dewy grass; + Come, my lover, or, alas! + I shall die, shall die like them, + Frail and lone; + Come to me, my lover, come! + Let thy bosom be my tomb: + Come, my own! + + + + +THE SHIPWRECK OF IDOMENEUS + + + SWEPT from his fleet upon that fatal night + When great Poseidon’s sudden-veering wrath + Scattered the happy homeward-floating Greeks + Like foam-flakes off the waves, the King of Crete + Held lofty commune with the dark Sea-god. + His brows were crowned with victory, his cheeks + Were flushed with triumph, but the mighty joy + Of Troy’s destruction and his own great deeds + Passed, for the thoughts of home were dearer now, + And sweet the memory of wife and child, + And weary now the ten long, foreign years, + And terrible the doubt of short delay— + More terrible, O Gods! he cried, but stopped; + Then raised his voice upon the storm and prayed. + O thou, if injured, injured not by me, + Poseidon! whom sea-deities obey + And mortals worship, hear me! for indeed + It was our oath to aid the cause of Greece, + Not unespoused by Gods, and most of all + By thee, if gentle currents, havens calm, + Fair winds and prosperous voyage, and the Shape + Impersonate in many a perilous hour, + Both in the stately councils of the Kings, + And when the husky battle murmured thick, + May testify of services performed! + But now the seas are haggard with thy wrath, + Thy breath is tempest! never at the shores + Of hostile Ilium did thy stormful brows + Betray such fierce magnificence! not even + On that wild day when, mad with torch and glare, + The frantic crowds with eyes like starving wolves + Burst from their ports impregnable, a stream + Of headlong fury toward the hissing deep; + Where then full-armed I stood in guard, compact + Beside thee, and alone, with brand and spear, + We held at bay the swarming brood, and poured + Blood of choice warriors on the foot-ploughed sands! + Thou, meantime, dark with conflict, as a cloud + That thickens in the bosom of the West + Over quenched sunset, circled round with flame, + Huge as a billow running from the winds + Long distances, till with black shipwreck swoln, + It flings its angry mane about the sky. + And like that billow heaving ere it burst; + And like that cloud urged by impulsive storm + With charge of thunder, lightning, and the drench + Of torrents, thou in all thy majesty + Of mightiness didst fall upon the war! + Remember that great moment! Nor forget + The aid I gave thee; how my ready spear + Flew swiftly seconding thy mortal stroke, + Where’er the press was hottest; never slacked + My arm its duty, nor mine eye its aim, + Though terribly they compassed us, and stood + Thick as an Autumn forest, whose brown hair, + Lustrous with sunlight, by the still increase + Of heat to glowing heat conceives like zeal + Of radiance, till at the pitch of noon + ’Tis seized with conflagration and distends + Horridly over leagues of doom’d domain; + Mingling the screams of birds, the cries of brutes, + The wail of creatures in the covert pent, + Howls, yells, and shrieks of agony, the hiss + Of seething sap, and crash of falling boughs + Together in its dull voracious roar. + So closely and so fearfully they throng’d, + Savage with phantasies of victory, + A sea of dusky shapes; for day had passed + And night fell on their darkened faces, red + With fight and torchflare; shrill the resonant air + With eager shouts, and hoarse with angry groans; + While over all the dense and sullen boom, + The din and murmur of the myriads, + Rolled with its awful intervals, as though + The battle breathed, or as against the shore + Waves gather back to heave themselves anew. + That night sleep dropped not from the dreary skies, + Nor could the prowess of our chiefs oppose + That sea of raging men. But what were they? + Or what is man opposed to thee? Its hopes + Are wrecks, himself the drowning, drifting weed + That wanders on thy waters; such as I + Who see the scattered remnants of my fleet, + Remembering the day when first we sailed, + Each glad ship shining like the morning star + With promise for the world. Oh! such as I + Thus darkly drifting on the drowning waves. + O God of waters! ’tis a dreadful thing + To suffer for an evil unrevealed; + Dreadful it is to hear the perishing cry + Of those we love; the silence that succeeds + How dreadful! Still my trust is fixed on thee + For those that still remain and for myself. + And if I hear thy swift foam-snorting steeds + Drawing thy dusky chariot, as in + The pauses of the wind I seem to hear, + Deaf thou art not to my entreating prayer! + Haste then to give us help, for closely now + Crete whispers in my ears, and all my blood + Runs keen and warm for home, and I have yearning, + Such yearning as I never felt before, + To see again my wife, my little son, + My Queen, my pretty nursling of five years, + The darling of my hopes, our dearest pledge + Of marriage, and our brightest prize of love, + Whose parting cry rings clearest in my heart. + O lay this horror, much-offended God! + And making all as fair and firm as when + We trusted to thy mighty depths of old,— + I vow to sacrifice the first whom Zeus + Shall prompt to hail us from the white seashore + And welcome our return to royal Crete, + An offering, Poseidon, unto thee! + + Amid the din of elemental strife, + No voice may pierce but Deity supreme: + And Deity supreme alone can hear, + Above the hurricane’s discordant shrieks, + The cry of agonized humanity. + + Not unappeased was He who smites the waves, + When to his stormy ears the warrior’s vow + Entered, and from his foamy pinnacle + Tumultuous he beheld the prostrate form, + And knew the mighty heart. Awhile he gazed, + As doubtful of his purpose, and the storm, + Conscious of that divine debate, withheld + Its fierce emotion, in the luminous gloom + Of those so dark irradiating eyes! + Beneath whose wavering lustre shone revealed + The tumult of the purpling deeps, and all + The throbbing of the tempest, as it paused, + Slowly subsiding, seeming to await + The sudden signal, as a faithful hound + Pants with the forepaws stretched before its nose, + Athwart the greensward, after an eager chase; + Its hot tongue thrust to cool, its foamy jaws + Open to let the swift breath come and go, + Its quick interrogating eyes fixed keen + Upon the huntsman’s countenance, and ever + Lashing its sharp impatient tail with haste: + Prompt at the slightest sign to scour away, + And hang itself afresh by the bleeding fangs, + Upon the neck of some death-singled stag, + Whose royal antlers, eyes, and stumbling knees + Will supplicate the Gods in mute despair. + This time not mute, nor yet in vain this time! + For still the burden of the earnest voice + And all the vivid glories it revoked + Sank in the God, with that absorbed suspense + Felt only by the Olympians, whose minds + Unbounded like our mortal brain, perceive + All things complete, the end, the aim of all; + To whom the crown and consequence of deeds + Are ever present with the deed itself. + + And now the pouring surges, vast and smooth, + Grew weary of restraint, and heaved themselves + Headlong beneath him, breaking at his feet + With wild importunate cries and angry wail; + Like crowds that shout for bread and hunger more. + And now the surface of their rolling backs + Was ridged with foam-topt furrows, rising high + And dashing wildly, like to fiery steeds, + Fresh from the Thracian or Thessalian plains, + High-blooded mares just tempering to the bit, + Whose manes at full-speed stream upon the winds, + And in whose delicate nostrils when the gust + Breathes of their native plains, they ramp and rear, + Frothing the curb, and bounding from the earth, + As though the Sun-god’s chariot alone + Were fit to follow in their flashing track. + Anon with gathering stature to the height + Of those colossal giants, doomed long since + To torturous grief and penance, that assailed + The sky-throned courts of Zeus, and climbing, dared + For once in a world the Olympic wrath, and braved + The electric spirit which from his clenching hand + Pierces the dark-veined earth, and with a touch + Is death to mortals, fearfully they grew! + And with like purpose of audacity + Threatened Titanic fury to the God. + Such was the agitation of the sea + Beneath Poseidon’s thought-revolving brows, + Storming for signal. But no signal came. + And as when men, who congregate to hear + Some proclamation from the regal fount, + With eager questioning and anxious phrase + Betray the expectation of their hearts, + Till after many hours of fretful sloth, + Weary with much delay, they hold discourse + In sullen groups and cloudy masses, stirred + With rage irresolute and whispering plot, + Known more by indication than by word, + And understood alone by those whose minds + Participate;—even so the restless waves + Began to lose all sense of servitude, + And worked with rebel passions, bursting, now + To right, and now to left, but evermore + Subdued with influence, and controlled with dread + Of that inviolate Authority. + Then, swiftly as he mused, the impetuous God + Seized on the pausing reins, his coursers plunged, + His brows resumed the grandeur of their ire; + Throughout his vast divinity the deeps + Concurrent thrilled with action, and away, + As sweeps a thunder-cloud across the sky + In harvest-time, preluded by dull blasts; + Or some black-visaged whirlwind, whose wide folds + Rush, wrestling on with all ’twixt heaven and earth, + Darkling he hurried, and his distant voice, + Not softened by delay, was heard in tones + Distinctly terrible, still following up + Its rapid utterance of tremendous wrath + With hoarse reverberations; like the roar + Of lions when they hunger, and awake + The sullen echoes from their forest sleep, + To speed the ravenous noise from hill to hill + And startle victims; but more awful, He, + Scudding across the hills that rise and sink, + With foam, and splash, and cataracts of spray, + Clothed in majestic splendour; girt about + With Sea-gods and swift creatures of the sea; + Their briny eyes blind with the showering drops; + Their stormy locks, salt tongues, and scaly backs, + Quivering in harmony with the tempest, fierce + And eager with tempestuous delight;— + He like a moving rock above them all + Solemnly towering while fitful gleams + Brake from his dense black forehead, which display’d + The enduring chiefs as their distracted fleets + Tossed, toiling with the waters, climbing high, + And plunging downward with determined beaks, + In lurid anguish; but the Cretan king + And all his crew were ’ware of under-tides, + That for the groaning vessel made a path, + On which the impending and precipitous waves + Fell not, nor suck’d to their abysmal gorge. + + O, happy they to feel the mighty God, + Without his whelming presence near: to feel + Safety and sweet relief from such despair, + And gushing of their weary hopes once more + Within their fond warm hearts, tired limbs, and eyes + Heavy with much fatigue and want of sleep! + Prayers did not lack; like mountain springs they came, + After the earth has drunk the drenching rains, + And throws her fresh-born jets into the sun + With joyous sparkles;—for there needed not + Evidence more serene of instant grace, + Immortal mercy! and the sense which follows + Divine interposition, when the shock + Of danger hath been thwarted by the Gods, + Visibly, and through supplication deep,— + Rose in them, chiefly in the royal mind + Of him whose interceding vow had saved. + Tears from that great heroic soul sprang up; + Not painful as in grief, nor smarting keen + With shame of weeping; but calm, fresh, and sweet; + Such as in lofty spirits rise, and wed + The nature of the woman to the man; + A sight most lovely to the Gods! They fell + Like showers of starlight from his steadfast eyes, + As ever towards the prow he gazed, nor moved + One muscle, with firm lips and level lids, + Motionless; while the winds sang in his ears, + And took the length of his brown hair in streams + Behind him. Thus the hours passed, and the oars + Plied without pause, and nothing but the sound + Of the dull rowlocks and still watery sough, + Far off, the carnage of the storm, was heard. + For nothing spake the mariners in their toil, + And all the captains of the war were dumb: + Too much oppressed with wonder, too much thrilled + By their great chieftain’s silence, to disturb + Such meditation with poor human speech. + Meantime the moon through slips of driving cloud + Came forth, and glanced athwart the seas a path + Of dusky splendour, like the Hadean brows, + When with Elysian passion they behold + Persephone’s complacent hueless cheeks. + Soon gathering strength and lustre, as a ship + That swims into some blue and open bay + With bright full-bosomed sails, the radiant car + Of Artemis advanced, and on the waves + Sparkled like arrows from her silver bow + The keenness of her pure and tender gaze. + + Then, slowly, one by one the chiefs sought rest; + The watches being set, and men to relieve + The rowers at midseason. Fair it was + To see them as they lay! Some up the prow, + Some round the helm, in open-handed sleep; + With casques unloosed, and bucklers put aside; + The ten years’ tale of war upon their cheeks, + Where clung the salt wet locks, and on their breasts + Beards, the thick growth of many a proud campaign; + And on their brows the bright invisible crown + Victory sheds from her own radiant form, + As o’er her favourites’ heads she sings and soars. + But dreams came not so calmly; as around + Turbulent shores wild waves and swamping surf + Prevail, while seaward, on the tranquil deeps, + Reign placid surfaces and solemn peace, + So, from the troubled strands of memory, they + Launched and were tossed, long ere they found the tides + That lead to the gentle bosoms of pure rest. + And like to one who from a ghostly watch + In a lone house where murder hath been done, + And secret violations, pale with stealth + Emerges, staggering on the first chill gust + Wherewith the morning greets him, feeling not + Its balmy freshness on his bloodless cheek,— + But swift to hide his midnight face afar, + ’Mongst the old woods and timid-glancing flowers + Hastens, till on the fresh reviving breasts + Of tender Dryads folded he forgets + The pallid witness of those nameless things, + In renovated senses lapt, and joins + The full, keen joyance of the day, so they + From sights and sounds of battle smeared with blood, + And shrieking souls on Acheron’s bleak tides, + And wail of execrating kindred, slid + Into oblivious slumber and a sense + Of satiate deliciousness complete. + + Leave them, O Muse, in that so happy sleep! + Leave them to reap the harvest of their toil, + While fast in moonlight the glad vessel glides, + As if instinctive to its forest home. + O Muse, that in all sorrows and all joys, + Rapturous bliss and suffering divine, + Dwellest with equal fervour, in the calm + Of thy serene philosophy, albeit + Thy gentle nature is of joy alone, + And loves the pipings of the happy fields, + Better than all the great parade and pomp + Which forms the train of heroes and of kings, + And sows, too frequently, the tragic seeds + That choke with sobs thy singing,—turn away + Thy lustrous eyes back to the oath-bound man! + For as a shepherd stands above his flock, + The lofty figure of the king is seen, + Standing above his warriors as they sleep: + And still as from a rock grey waters gush, + While still the rock is passionless and dark, + Nor moves one feature of its giant face, + The tears fall from his eyes, and he stirs not. + + And O, bright Muse! forget not thou to fold + In thy prophetic sympathy the thought + Of him whose destiny has heard its doom: + The Sacrifice thro’ whom the ship is saved. + Haply that Sacrifice is sleeping now, + And dreams of glad tomorrows. Haply now, + His hopes are keenest, and his fervent blood + Richest with youth, and love, and fond regard! + Round him the circle of affections blooms, + And in some happy nest of home he lives, + One name oft uttering in delighted ears, + Mother! at which the heart of men are kin + With reverence and yearning. Haply, too, + That other name, twin holy, twin revered, + He whispers often to the passing winds + That blow toward the Asiatic coasts; + For Crete has sent her bravest to the war, + And multitudes pressed forward to that rank, + Men with sad weeping wives and little ones. + That other name—O Father! who art thou, + Thus doomed to lose the star of thy last days? + It may be the sole flower of thy life, + And that of all who now look up to thee! + O Father, Father! unto thee even now + Fate cries; the future with imploring voice + Cries ‘Save me,’ ‘Save me,’ though thou hearest not. + And O thou Sacrifice, foredoomed by Zeus; + Even now the dark inexorable deed + Is dealing its relentless stroke, and vain + Are prayers, and tears, and struggles, and despair! + The mother’s tears, the nation’s stormful grief, + The people’s indignation and revenge! + Vain the last childlike pleading voice for life, + The quick resolve, the young heroic brow, + So like, so like, and vainly beautiful! + Oh! whosoe’er ye are the Muse says not, + And sees not, but the Gods look down on both. + + + + +THE LONGEST DAY + + + ON yonder hills soft twilight dwells + And Hesper burns where sunset dies, + Moist and chill the woodland smells + From the fern-covered hollows uprise; + Darkness drops not from the skies, + But shadows of darkness are flung o’er the vale + From the boughs of the chestnut, the oak, and the elm, + While night in yon lines of eastern pines + Preserves alone her inviolate realm + Against the twilight pale. + + Say, then say, what is this day, + That it lingers thus with half-closed eyes, + When the sunset is quenched and the orient ray + Of the roseate moon doth rise, + Like a midnight sun o’er the skies! + ’Tis the longest, the longest of all the glad year, + The longest in life and the fairest in hue, + When day and night, in bridal light, + Mingle their beings beneath the sweet blue, + And bless the balmy air! + + Upward to this starry height + The culminating seasons rolled; + On one slope green with spring delight, + The other with harvest gold, + And treasures of Autumn untold: + And on this highest throne of the midsummer now + The waning but deathless day doth dream, + With a rapturous grace, as tho’ from the face + Of the unveiled infinity, lo, a far beam + Had fall’n on her dim-flushed brow! + + Prolong, prolong that tide of song, + O leafy nightingale and thrush! + Still, earnest-throated blackcap, throng + The woods with that emulous gush + Of notes in tumultuous rush. + Ye summer souls, raise up one voice! + A charm is afloat all over the land; + The ripe year doth fall to the Spirit of all, + Who blesses it with outstretched hand; + Ye summer souls, rejoice! + + + + +TO ROBIN REDBREAST + + + MERRILY ’mid the faded leaves, + O Robin of the bright red breast! + Cheerily over the Autumn eaves, + Thy note is heard, bonny bird; + Sent to cheer us, and kindly endear us + To what would be a sorrowful time + Without thee in the weltering clime: + Merry art thou in the boughs of the lime, + While thy fadeless waistcoat glows on thy breast, + In Autumn’s reddest livery drest. + + A merry song, a cheery song! + In the boughs above, on the sward below, + Chirping and singing the live day long, + While the maple in grief sheds its fiery leaf, + And all the trees waning, with bitter complaining, + Chestnut, and elm, and sycamore, + Catch the wild gust in their arms, and roar + Like the sea on a stormy shore, + Till wailfully they let it go, + And weep themselves naked and weary with woe. + + Merrily, cheerily, joyously still + Pours out the crimson-crested tide. + The set of the season burns bright on the hill, + Where the foliage dead falls yellow and red, + Picturing vainly, but foretelling plainly + The wealth of cottage warmth that comes + When the frost gleams and the blood numbs, + And then, bonny Robin, I’ll spread thee out crumbs + In my garden porch for thy redbreast pride, + The song and the ensign of dear fireside. + + + + +SONG + + + THE daisy now is out upon the green; + And in the grassy lanes + The child of April rains, + The sweet fresh-hearted violet, is smelt and loved unseen. + + Along the brooks and meads, the daffodil + Its yellow richness spreads, + And by the fountain-heads + Of rivers, cowslips cluster round, and over every hill. + + The crocus and the primrose may have gone, + The snowdrop may be low, + But soon the purple glow + Of hyacinths will fill the copse, and lilies watch the dawn. + + And in the sweetness of the budding year, + The cuckoo’s woodland call, + The skylark over all, + And then at eve, the nightingale, is doubly sweet and dear. + + My soul is singing with the happy birds, + And all my human powers + Are blooming with the flowers, + My foot is on the fields and downs, among the flocks and herds. + + Deep in the forest where the foliage droops, + I wander, fill’d with joy. + Again as when a boy, + The sunny vistas tempt me on with dim delicious hopes. + + The sunny vistas, dim with hurrying shade, + And old romantic haze:— + Again as in past days, + The spirit of immortal Spring doth every sense pervade. + + Oh! do not say that this will ever cease;— + This joy of woods and fields, + This youth that nature yields, + Will never speak to me in vain, tho’ soundly rapt in peace. + + + + +SUNRISE + + + THE clouds are withdrawn + And their thin-rippled mist, + That stream’d o’er the lawn + To the drowsy-eyed west. + Cold and grey + They slept in the way, + And shrank from the ray + Of the chariot East: + But now they are gone, + And the bounding light + Leaps thro’ the bars + Of doubtful dawn; + Blinding the stars, + And blessing the sight; + Shedding delight + On all below; + Glimmering fields, + And wakening wealds, + And rising lark, + And meadows dark, + And idle rills, + And labouring mills, + And far-distant hills + Of the fawn and the doe. + The sun is cheered + And his path is cleared, + As he steps to the air + From his emerald cave, + His heel in the wave, + Most bright and bare; + In the tide of the sky + His radiant hair + From his temples fair + Blown back on high; + As forward he bends, + And upward ascends, + Timely and true, + To the breast of the blue; + His warm red lips + Kissing the dew, + Which sweetened drips + On his flower cupholders; + Every hue + From his gleaming shoulders + Shining anew + With colour sky-born, + As it washes and dips + In the pride of the morn. + Robes of azure, + Fringed with amber, + Fold upon fold + Of purple and gold, + Vine-leaf bloom, + And the grape’s ripe gloom, + When season deep + In noontide leisure, + With clustering heap + The tendrils clamber + Full in the face + Of his hot embrace, + Fill’d with the gleams + Of his firmest beams. + Autumn flushes, + Roseate blushes, + Vermeil tinges, + Violet fringes, + Every hue + Of his flower cupholders, + O’er the clear ether + Mingled together, + Shining anew + From his gleaming shoulders! + Circling about + In a coronal rout, + And floating behind, + The way of the wind, + As forward he bends, + And upward ascends, + Timely and true, + To the breast of the blue. + His bright neck curved, + His clear limbs nerved, + Diamond keen + On his front serene, + While each white arm strains + To the racing reins, + As plunging, eyes flashing, + Dripping, and dashing, + His steeds triple grown + Rear up to his throne, + Ruffling the rest + Of the sea’s blue breast, + From his flooding, flaming crimson crest! + + + + +PICTURES OF THE RHINE + + +I + + + THE spirit of Romance dies not to those + Who hold a kindred spirit in their souls: + Even as the odorous life within the rose + Lives in the scattered leaflets and controls + Mysterious adoration, so there glows + Above dead things a thing that cannot die; + Faint as the glimmer of a tearful eye, + Ere the orb fills and all the sorrow flows. + Beauty renews itself in many ways; + The flower is fading while the new bud blows; + And this dear land as true a symbol shows, + While o’er it like a mellow sunset strays + The legendary splendour of old days, + In visible, inviolate repose. + + + +II + + + About a mile behind the viny banks, + How sweet it was, upon a sloping green, + Sunspread, and shaded with a branching screen, + To lie in peace half-murmuring words of thanks! + To see the mountains on each other climb, + With spaces for rich meadows flowery bright; + The winding river freshening the sight + At intervals, the trees in leafy prime; + The distant village-roofs of blue and white, + With intersections of quaint-fashioned beams + All slanting crosswise, and the feudal gleams + Of ruined turrets, barren in the light;— + To watch the changing clouds, like clime in clime; + Oh sweet to lie and bless the luxury of time. + + + +III + + + Fresh blows the early breeze, our sail is full; + A merry morning and a mighty tide. + Cheerily O! and past St. Goar we glide, + Half hid in misty dawn and mountain cool. + The river is our own! and now the sun + In saffron clothes the warming atmosphere; + The sky lifts up her white veil like a nun, + And looks upon the landscape blue and clear;— + The lark is up; the hills, the vines in sight; + The river broadens with his waking bliss + And throws up islands to behold the light; + Voices begin to rise, all hues to kiss;— + Was ever such a happy morn as this! + Birds sing, we shout, flowers breathe, trees shine with one delight! + + + +IV + + + Between the two white breasts of her we love, + A dewy blushing rose will sometimes spring; + Thus Nonnenwerth like an enchanted thing + Rises mid-stream the crystal depths above. + On either side the waters heave and swell, + But all is calm within the little Isle; + Content it is to give its holy smile, + And bless with peace the lives that in it dwell. + Most dear on the dark grass beneath its bower + Of kindred trees embracing branch and bough, + To dream of fairy foot and sudden flower; + Or haply with a twilight on the brow, + To muse upon the legendary hour, + And Roland’s lonely love and Hildegard’s sad vow. + + + +V + + + Hark! how the bitter winter breezes blow + Round the sharp rocks and o’er the half-lifted wave, + While all the rocky woodland branches rave + Shrill with the piercing cold, and every cave, + Along the icy water-margin low, + Rings bubbling with the whirling overflow; + And sharp the echoes answer distant cries + Of dawning daylight and the dim sunrise, + And the gloom-coloured clouds that stain the skies + With pictures of a warmth, and frozen glow + Spread over endless fields of sheeted snow; + And white untrodden mountains shining cold, + And muffled footpaths winding thro’ the wold, + O’er which those wintry gusts cease not to howl and blow. + + + +VI + + + Rare is the loveliness of slow decay! + With youth and beauty all must be desired, + But ’tis the charm of things long past away, + They leave, alone, the light they have inspired: + The calmness of a picture; Memory now + Is the sole life among the ruins grey, + And like a phantom in fantastic play + She wanders with rank weeds stuck on her brow, + Over grass-hidden caves and turret-tops, + Herself almost as tottering as they; + While, to the steps of Time, her latest props + Fall stone by stone, and in the Sun’s hot ray + All that remains stands up in rugged pride, + And bridal vines drink in his juices on each side. + + + + +TO A NIGHTINGALE + + + O NIGHTINGALE! how hast thou learnt + The note of the nested dove? + While under thy bower the fern hangs burnt + And no cloud hovers above! + Rich July has many a sky + With splendour dim, that thou mightst hymn, + And make rejoice with thy wondrous voice, + And the thrill of thy wild pervading tone! + But instead of to woo, thou hast learnt to coo: + Thy song is mute at the mellowing fruit, + And the dirge of the flowers is sung by the hours + In silence and twilight alone. + + O nightingale! ’tis this, ’tis this + That makes thee mock the dove! + That thou hast past thy marriage bliss, + To know a parent’s love. + The waves of fern may fade and burn, + The grasses may fall, the flowers and all, + And the pine-smells o’er the oak dells + Float on their drowsy and odorous wings, + But thou wilt do nothing but coo, + Brimming the nest with thy brooding breast, + ’Midst that young throng of future song, + Round whom the Future sings! + + + + +INVITATION TO THE COUNTRY + + + NOW ’tis Spring on wood and wold, + Early Spring that shivers with cold, + But gladdens, and gathers, day by day, + A lovelier hue, a warmer ray, + A sweeter song, a dearer ditty; + Ouzel and throstle, new-mated and gay, + Singing their bridals on every spray— + Oh, hear them, deep in the songless City! + Cast off the yoke of toil and smoke, + As Spring is casting winter’s grey, + As serpents cast their skins away: + And come, for the Country awaits thee with pity + And longs to bathe thee in her delight, + And take a new joy in thy kindling sight; + And I no less, by day and night, + Long for thy coming, and watch for, and wait thee, + And wonder what duties can thus berate thee. + + Dry-fruited firs are dropping their cones, + And vista’d avenues of pines + Take richer green, give fresher tones, + As morn after morn the glad sun shines. + + Primrose tufts peep over the brooks, + Fair faces amid moist decay! + The rivulets run with the dead leaves at play, + The leafless elms are alive with the rooks. + + Over the meadows the cowslips are springing, + The marshes are thick with king-cup gold, + Clear is the cry of the lambs in the fold, + The skylark is singing, and singing, and singing. + + Soon comes the cuckoo when April is fair, + And her blue eye the brighter the more it may weep: + The frog and the butterfly wake from their sleep, + Each to its element, water and air. + + Mist hangs still on every hill, + And curls up the valleys at eve; but noon + Is fullest of Spring; and at midnight the moon + Gives her westering throne to Orion’s bright zone, + As he slopes o’er the darkened world’s repose; + And a lustre in eastern Sirius glows. + + Come, in the season of opening buds; + Come, and molest not the otter that whistles + Unlit by the moon, ’mid the wet winter bristles + Of willow, half-drowned in the fattening floods. + Let him catch his cold fish without fear of a gun, + And the stars shall shield him, and thou wilt shun! + And every little bird under the sun + Shall know that the bounty of Spring doth dwell + In the winds that blow, in the waters that run, + And in the breast of man as well. + + + + +THE SWEET O’ THE YEAR + + + NOW the frog, all lean and weak, + Yawning from his famished sleep, + Water in the ditch doth seek, + Fast as he can stretch and leap: + Marshy king-cups burning near + Tell him ’tis the sweet o’ the year. + + Now the ant works up his mound + In the mouldered piny soil, + And above the busy ground + Takes the joy of earnest toil: + Dropping pine-cones, dry and sere, + Warn him ’tis the sweet o’ the year. + + Now the chrysalis on the wall + Cracks, and out the creature springs, + Raptures in his body small, + Wonders on his dusty wings: + Bells and cups, all shining clear, + Show him ’tis the sweet o’ the year. + + Now the brown bee, wild and wise, + Hums abroad, and roves and roams, + Storing in his wealthy thighs + Treasure for the golden combs: + Dewy buds and blossoms dear + Whisper ’tis the sweet o’ the year. + + Now the merry maids so fair + Weave the wreaths and choose the queen, + Blooming in the open air, + Like fresh flowers upon the green; + Spring, in every thought sincere, + Thrills them with the sweet o’ the year. + + Now the lads, all quick and gay, + Whistle to the browsing herds, + Or in the twilight pastures grey + Learn the use of whispered words: + First a blush, and then a tear, + And then a smile, i’ the sweet o’ the year. + + Now the May-fly and the fish + Play again from noon to night; + Every breeze begets a wish, + Every motion means delight: + Heaven high over heath and mere + Crowns with blue the sweet o’ the year. + + Now all Nature is alive, + Bird and beetle, man and mole; + Bee-like goes the human hive, + Lark-like sings the soaring soul: + Hearty faith and honest cheer + Welcome in the sweet o’ the year. + + + + +AUTUMN EVEN-SONG + + + THE long cloud edged with streaming grey + Soars from the West; + The red leaf mounts with it away, + Showing the nest + A blot among the branches bare: + There is a cry of outcasts in the air. + + Swift little breezes, darting chill, + Pant down the lake; + A crow flies from the yellow hill, + And in its wake + A baffled line of labouring rooks: + Steel-surfaced to the light the river looks. + + Pale on the panes of the old hall + Gleams the lone space + Between the sunset and the squall; + And on its face + Mournfully glimmers to the last: + Great oaks grow mighty minstrels in the blast. + + Pale the rain-rutted roadways shine + In the green light + Behind the cedar and the pine: + Come, thundering night! + Blacken broad earth with hoards of storm: + For me yon valley-cottage beckons warm. + + + + +THE SONG OF COURTESY + + +I + + + WHEN Sir Gawain was led to his bridal-bed, + By Arthur’s knights in scorn God-sped:— + How think you he felt? + O the bride within + Was yellow and dry as a snake’s old skin; + Loathly as sin! + Scarcely faceable, + Quite unembraceable; + With a hog’s bristle on a hag’s chin!— + Gentle Gawain felt as should we, + Little of Love’s soft fire knew he: + But he was the Knight of Courtesy. + + + +II + + + When that evil lady he lay beside + Bade him turn to greet his bride, + What think you he did? + O, to spare her pain, + And let not his loathing her loathliness vain + Mirror too plain, + Sadly, sighingly, + Almost dyingly, + Turned he and kissed her once and again. + Like Sir Gawain, gentles, should we? + _Silent_, _all_! But for pattern agree + There’s none like the Knight of Courtesy. + + + +III + + + Sir Gawain sprang up amid laces and curls: + Kisses are not wasted pearls:— + What clung in his arms? + O, a maiden flower, + Burning with blushes the sweet bride-bower, + Beauty her dower! + Breathing perfumingly; + Shall I live bloomingly, + Said she, by day, or the bridal hour? + Thereat he clasped her, and whispered he, + Thine, rare bride, the choice shall be. + Said she, Twice blest is Courtesy! + + + +IV + + + Of gentle Sir Gawain they had no sport, + When it was morning in Arthur’s court; + What think you they cried? + Now, life and eyes! + This bride is the very Saint’s dream of a prize, + Fresh from the skies! + See ye not, Courtesy + Is the true Alchemy, + Turning to gold all it touches and tries? + Like the true knight, so may we + Make the basest that there be + Beautiful by Courtesy! + + + + +THE THREE MAIDENS + + + THERE were three maidens met on the highway; + The sun was down, the night was late: + And two sang loud with the birds of May, + O the nightingale is merry with its mate. + + Said they to the youngest, Why walk you there so still? + The land is dark, the night is late: + O, but the heart in my side is ill, + And the nightingale will languish for its mate. + + Said they to the youngest, Of lovers there is store; + The moon mounts up, the night is late: + O, I shall look on man no more, + And the nightingale is dumb without its mate. + + Said they to the youngest, Uncross your arms and sing; + The moon mounts high, the night is late: + O my dear lover can hear no thing, + And the nightingale sings only to its mate. + + They slew him in revenge, and his true-love was his lure; + The moon is pale, the night is late: + His grave is shallow on the moor; + O the nightingale is dying for its mate. + + His blood is on his breast, and the moss-roots at his hair; + The moon is chill, the night is late: + But I will lie beside him there: + O the nightingale is dying for its mate. + + + + +OVER THE HILLS + + + THE old hound wags his shaggy tail, + And I know what he would say: + It’s over the hills we’ll bound, old hound, + Over the hills, and away. + + There’s nought for us here save to count the clock, + And hang the head all day: + But over the hills we’ll bound, old hound, + Over the hills and away. + + Here among men we’re like the deer + That yonder is our prey: + So, over the hills we’ll bound, old hound, + Over the hills and away. + + The hypocrite is master here, + But he’s the cock of clay: + So, over the hills we’ll bound, old hound, + Over the hills and away. + + The women, they shall sigh and smile, + And madden whom they may: + It’s over the hills we’ll bound, old hound, + Over the hills and away. + + Let silly lads in couples run + To pleasure, a wicked fay: + ’Tis ours on the heather to bound, old hound, + Over the hills and away. + + The torrent glints under the rowan red, + And shakes the bracken spray: + What joy on the heather to bound, old hound, + Over the hills and away. + + The sun bursts broad, and the heathery bed + Is purple, and orange, and gray: + Away, and away, we’ll bound, old hound, + Over the hills and away. + + + + +JUGGLING JERRY + + +I + + + PITCH here the tent, while the old horse grazes: + By the old hedge-side we’ll halt a stage. + It’s nigh my last above the daisies: + My next leaf ’ll be man’s blank page. + Yes, my old girl! and it’s no use crying: + Juggler, constable, king, must bow. + One that outjuggles all’s been spying + Long to have me, and he has me now. + + + +II + + + We’ve travelled times to this old common: + Often we’ve hung our pots in the gorse. + We’ve had a stirring life, old woman! + You, and I, and the old grey horse. + Races, and fairs, and royal occasions, + Found us coming to their call: + Now they’ll miss us at our stations: + There’s a Juggler outjuggles all! + + + +III + + + Up goes the lark, as if all were jolly! + Over the duck-pond the willow shakes. + Easy to think that grieving’s folly, + When the hand’s firm as driven stakes! + Ay, when we’re strong, and braced, and manful, + Life’s a sweet fiddle: but we’re a batch + Born to become the Great Juggler’s han’ful: + Balls he shies up, and is safe to catch. + + + +IV + + + Here’s where the lads of the village cricket: + I was a lad not wide from here: + Couldn’t I whip off the bail from the wicket? + Like an old world those days appear! + Donkey, sheep, geese, and thatched ale-house—I know them! + They are old friends of my halts, and seem, + Somehow, as if kind thanks I owe them: + Juggling don’t hinder the heart’s esteem. + + + +V + + + Juggling’s no sin, for we must have victual: + Nature allows us to bait for the fool. + Holding one’s own makes us juggle no little; + But, to increase it, hard juggling’s the rule. + You that are sneering at my profession, + Haven’t you juggled a vast amount? + There’s the Prime Minister, in one Session, + Juggles more games than my sins ’ll count. + + + +VI + + + I’ve murdered insects with mock thunder: + Conscience, for that, in men don’t quail. + I’ve made bread from the bump of wonder: + That’s my business, and there’s my tale. + Fashion and rank all praised the professor: + Ay! and I’ve had my smile from the Queen: + Bravo, Jerry! she meant: God bless her! + Ain’t this a sermon on that scene? + + + +VII + + + I’ve studied men from my topsy-turvy + Close, and, I reckon, rather true. + Some are fine fellows: some, right scurvy: + Most, a dash between the two. + But it’s a woman, old girl, that makes me + Think more kindly of the race: + And it’s a woman, old girl, that shakes me + When the Great Juggler I must face. + + + +VIII + + + We two were married, due and legal: + Honest we’ve lived since we’ve been one. + Lord! I could then jump like an eagle: + You danced bright as a bit o’ the sun. + Birds in a May-bush we were! right merry! + All night we kiss’d, we juggled all day. + Joy was the heart of Juggling Jerry! + Now from his old girl he’s juggled away. + + + +IX + + + It’s past parsons to console us: + No, nor no doctor fetch for me: + I can die without my bolus; + Two of a trade, lass, never agree! + Parson and Doctor!—don’t they love rarely, + Fighting the devil in other men’s fields! + Stand up yourself and match him fairly: + Then see how the rascal yields! + + + +X + + + I, lass, have lived no gipsy, flaunting + Finery while his poor helpmate grubs: + Coin I’ve stored, and you won’t be wanting: + You shan’t beg from the troughs and tubs. + Nobly you’ve stuck to me, though in his kitchen + Many a Marquis would hail you Cook! + Palaces you could have ruled and grown rich in, + But our old Jerry you never forsook. + + + +XI + + + Hand up the chirper! ripe ale winks in it; + Let’s have comfort and be at peace. + Once a stout draught made me light as a linnet. + Cheer up! the Lord must have his lease. + May be—for none see in that black hollow— + It’s just a place where we’re held in pawn, + And, when the Great Juggler makes as to swallow, + It’s just the sword-trick—I ain’t quite gone! + + + +XII + + + Yonder came smells of the gorse, so nutty, + Gold-like and warm: it’s the prime of May. + Better than mortar, brick and putty, + Is God’s house on a blowing day. + Lean me more up the mound; now I feel it: + All the old heath-smells! Ain’t it strange? + There’s the world laughing, as if to conceal it, + But He’s by us, juggling the change. + + + +XIII + + + I mind it well, by the sea-beach lying, + Once—it’s long gone—when two gulls we beheld, + Which, as the moon got up, were flying + Down a big wave that sparked and swelled. + Crack, went a gun: one fell: the second + Wheeled round him twice, and was off for new luck: + There in the dark her white wing beckon’d:— + Drop me a kiss—I’m the bird dead-struck! + + + + +THE CROWN OF LOVE + + + O MIGHT I load my arms with thee, + Like that young lover of Romance + Who loved and gained so gloriously + The fair Princess of France! + + Because he dared to love so high, + He, bearing her dear weight, shall speed + To where the mountain touched on sky: + So the proud king decreed. + + Unhalting he must bear her on, + Nor pause a space to gather breath, + And on the height she will be won; + And she was won in death! + + Red the far summit flames with morn, + While in the plain a glistening Court + Surrounds the king who practised scorn + Through such a mask of sport. + + She leans into his arms; she lets + Her lovely shape be clasped: he fares. + God speed him whole! The knights make bets: + The ladies lift soft prayers. + + O have you seen the deer at chase? + O have you seen the wounded kite? + So boundingly he runs the race, + So wavering grows his flight. + + —My lover! linger here, and slake + Thy thirst, or me thou wilt not win. + —See’st thou the tumbled heavens? they break! + They beckon us up and in. + + —Ah, hero-love! unloose thy hold: + O drop me like a curséd thing. + —See’st thou the crowded swards of gold? + They wave to us Rose and Ring. + + —O death-white mouth! O cast me down! + Thou diest? Then with thee I die. + —See’st thou the angels with their Crown? + We twain have reached the sky. + + + + +THE HEAD OF BRAN THE BLEST + + +I + + + WHEN the Head of Bran + Was firm on British shoulders, + God made a man! + Cried all beholders. + + Steel could not resist + The weight his arm would rattle; + He, with naked fist, + Has brain’d a knight in battle. + + He marched on the foe, + And never counted numbers; + Foreign widows know + The hosts he sent to slumbers. + + As a street you scan, + That’s towered by the steeple, + So the Head of Bran + Rose o’er his people. + + + +II + + + ‘Death’s my neighbour,’ + Quoth Bran the Blest; + ‘Christian labour + Brings Christian rest. + From the trunk sever + The Head of Bran, + That which never + Has bent to man! + + ‘That which never + To men has bowed + Shall live ever + To shame the shroud: + Shall live ever + To face the foe; + Sever it, sever, + And with one blow. + + ‘Be it written, + That all I wrought + Was for Britain, + In deed and thought: + Be it written, + That while I die, + Glory to Britain! + Is my last cry. + + ‘Glory to Britain! + Death echoes me round. + Glory to Britain! + The world shall resound. + Glory to Britain! + In ruin and fall, + Glory to Britain! + Is heard over all.’ + + + +III + + + Burn, Sun, down the sea! + Bran lies low with thee. + + Burst, Morn, from the main! + Bran so shall rise again. + + Blow, Wind, from the field! + Bran’s Head is the Briton’s shield. + + Beam, Star, in the West! + Bright burns the Head of Bran the Blest. + + + +IV + + + Crimson-footed, like the stork, + From great ruts of slaughter, + Warriors of the Golden Torque + Cross the lifting water. + Princes seven, enchaining hands, + Bear the live head homeward. + Lo! it speaks, and still commands: + Gazing out far foamward. + + Fiery words of lightning sense + Down the hollows thunder; + Forest hostels know not whence + Comes the speech, and wonder. + City-Castles, on the steep, + Where the faithful Seven + House at midnight, hear, in sleep, + Laughter under heaven. + + Lilies, swimming on the mere, + In the castle shadow, + Under draw their heads, and Fear + Walks the misty meadow. + Tremble not! it is not Death + Pledging dark espousal: + ’Tis the Head of endless breath, + Challenging carousal! + + Brim the horn! a health is drunk, + Now, that shall keep going: + Life is but the pebble sunk; + Deeds, the circle growing! + Fill, and pledge the Head of Bran! + While his lead they follow, + Long shall heads in Britain plan + Speech Death cannot swallow! + + + + +THE MEETING + + + THE old coach-road through a common of furze, + With knolls of pine, ran white; + Berries of autumn, with thistles, and burrs, + And spider-threads, droop’d in the light. + + The light in a thin blue veil peered sick; + The sheep grazed close and still; + The smoke of a farm by a yellow rick + Curled lazily under a hill. + + No fly shook the round of the silver net; + No insect the swift bird chased; + Only two travellers moved and met + Across that hazy waste. + + One was a girl with a babe that throve, + Her ruin and her bliss; + One was a youth with a lawless love, + Who clasped it the more for this. + + The girl for her babe hummed prayerful speech; + The youth for his love did pray; + Each cast a wistful look on each, + And either went their way. + + + + +THE BEGGAR’S SOLILOQUY + + +I + + + NOW, this, to my notion, is pleasant cheer, + To lie all alone on a ragged heath, + Where your nose isn’t sniffing for bones or beer, + But a peat-fire smells like a garden beneath. + The cottagers bustle about the door, + And the girl at the window ties her strings. + She’s a dish for a man who’s a mind to be poor; + Lord! women are such expensive things. + + + +II + + + We don’t marry beggars, says she: why, no: + It seems that to make ’em is what you do; + And as I can cook, and scour, and sew, + I needn’t pay half my victuals for you. + A man for himself should be able to scratch, + But tickling’s a luxury:—love, indeed! + Love burns as long as the lucifer match, + Wedlock’s the candle! Now, that’s my creed. + + + +III + + + The church-bells sound water-like over the wheat; + And up the long path troop pair after pair. + The man’s well-brushed, and the woman looks neat: + It’s man and woman everywhere! + Unless, like me, you lie here flat, + With a donkey for friend, you must have a wife: + She pulls out your hair, but she brushes your hat. + Appearances make the best half of life. + + + +IV + + + You nice little madam! you know you’re nice. + I remember hearing a parson say + You’re a plateful of vanity pepper’d with vice; + You chap at the gate thinks t’ other way. + On his waistcoat you read both his head and his heart: + There’s a whole week’s wages there figured in gold! + Yes! when you turn round you may well give a start: + It’s fun to a fellow who’s getting old. + + + +V + + + Now, that’s a good craft, weaving waistcoats and flowers, + And selling of ribbons, and scenting of lard: + It gives you a house to get in from the showers, + And food when your appetite jockeys you hard. + You live a respectable man; but I ask + If it’s worth the trouble? You use your tools, + And spend your time, and what’s your task? + Why, to make a slide for a couple of fools. + + + +VI + + + You can’t match the colour o’ these heath mounds, + Nor better that peat-fire’s agreeable smell. + I’m clothed-like with natural sights and sounds; + To myself I’m in tune: I hope you’re as well. + You jolly old cot! though you don’t own coal: + It’s a generous pot that’s boiled with peat. + Let the Lord Mayor o’ London roast oxen whole: + His smoke, at least, don’t smell so sweet. + + + +VII + + + I’m not a low Radical, hating the laws, + Who’d the aristocracy rebuke. + I talk o’ the Lord Mayor o’ London because + I once was on intimate terms with his cook. + I served him a turn, and got pensioned on scraps, + And, Lord, Sir! didn’t I envy his place, + Till Death knock’d him down with the softest of taps, + And I knew what was meant by a tallowy face! + + + +VIII + + + On the contrary, I’m Conservative quite; + There’s beggars in Scripture ’mongst Gentiles and Jews: + It’s nonsense, trying to set things right, + For if people will give, why, who’ll refuse? + That stopping old custom wakes my spleen: + The poor and the rich both in giving agree: + Your tight-fisted shopman’s the Radical mean: + There’s nothing in common ’twixt him and me. + + + +IX + + + He says I’m no use! but I won’t reply. + You’re lucky not being of use to him! + On week-days he’s playing at Spider and Fly, + And on Sundays he sings about Cherubim! + Nailing shillings to counters is his chief work: + He nods now and then at the name on his door: + But judge of us two, at a bow and a smirk, + I think I’m his match: and I’m honest—that’s more. + + + +X + + + No use! well, I mayn’t be. You ring a pig’s snout, + And then call the animal glutton! Now, he, + Mr. Shopman, he’s nought but a pipe and a spout + Who won’t let the goods o’ this world pass free. + This blazing blue weather all round the brown crop, + He can’t enjoy! all but cash he hates. + He’s only a snail that crawls under his shop; + Though he has got the ear o’ the magistrates. + + + +XI + + + Now, giving and taking’s a proper exchange, + Like question and answer: you’re both content. + But buying and selling seems always strange; + You’re hostile, and that’s the thing that’s meant. + It’s man against man—you’re almost brutes; + There’s here no thanks, and there’s there no pride. + If Charity’s Christian, don’t blame my pursuits, + I carry a touchstone by which you’re tried. + + + +XII + + + —‘Take it,’ says she, ‘it’s all I’ve got’: + I remember a girl in London streets: + She stood by a coffee-stall, nice and hot, + My belly was like a lamb that bleats. + Says I to myself, as her shilling I seized, + You haven’t a character here, my dear! + But for making a rascal like me so pleased, + I’ll give you one, in a better sphere! + + + +XIII + + + And that’s where it is—she made me feel + I was a rascal: but people who scorn, + And tell a poor patch-breech he isn’t genteel, + Why, they make him kick up—and he treads on a corn. + It isn’t liking, it’s curst ill-luck, + Drives half of us into the begging-trade: + If for taking to water you praise a duck, + For taking to beer why a man upbraid? + + + +XIV + + + The sermon’s over: they’re out of the porch, + And it’s time for me to move a leg; + But in general people who come from church, + And have called themselves sinners, hate chaps to beg. + I’ll wager they’ll all of ’em dine to-day! + I was easy half a minute ago. + If that isn’t pig that’s baking away, + May I perish!—we’re never contented—heigho! + + + + +BY THE ROSANNA +TO F. M. + + + STANZER THAL, TYROL + + THE old grey Alp has caught the cloud, + And the torrent river sings aloud; + The glacier-green Rosanna sings + An organ song of its upper springs. + Foaming under the tiers of pine, + I see it dash down the dark ravine, + And it tumbles the rocks in boisterous play, + With an earnest will to find its way. + Sharp it throws out an emerald shoulder, + And, thundering ever of the mountain, + Slaps in sport some giant boulder, + And tops it in a silver fountain. + A chain of foam from end to end, + And a solitude so deep, my friend, + You may forget that man abides + Beyond the great mute mountain-sides. + Yet to me, in this high-walled solitude + Of river and rock and forest rude, + The roaring voice through the long white chain + Is the voice of the world of bubble and brain. + + + + +PHANTASY + + +I + + + WITHIN a Temple of the Toes, + Where twirled the passionate Wili, + I saw full many a market rose, + And sighed for my village lily. + + + +II + + + With cynical Adrian then I took flight + To that old dead city whose carol + Bursts out like a reveller’s loud in the night, + As he sits astride his barrel. + + + +III + + + We two were bound the Alps to scale, + Up the rock-reflecting river; + Old times blew thro’ me like a gale, + And kept my thoughts in a quiver. + + + +IV + + + Hawking ruin, wood-slope, and vine + Reeled silver-laced under my vision, + And into me passed, with the green-eyed wine + Knocking hard at my head for admission. + + + +V + + + I held the village lily cheap, + And the dream around her idle: + Lo, quietly as I lay to sleep, + The bells led me off to a bridal. + + + +VI + + + My bride wore the hood of a Béguine, + And mine was the foot to falter; + Three cowled monks, rat-eyed, were seen; + The Cross was of bones o’er the altar. + + + +VII + + + The Cross was of bones; the priest that read, + A spectacled necromancer: + But at the fourth word, the bride I led + Changed to an Opera dancer. + + + +VIII + + + A young ballet-beauty, who perked in her place, + A darling of pink and spangles; + One fair foot level with her face, + And the hearts of men at her ankles. + + + +IX + + + She whirled, she twirled, the mock-priest grinned, + And quickly his mask unriddled; + ’Twas Adrian! loud his old laughter dinned; + Then he seized a fiddle, and fiddled. + + + +X + + + He fiddled, he glowed with the bottomless fire, + Like Sathanas in feature: + All through me he fiddled a wolfish desire + To dance with that bright creature. + + + +XI + + + And gathering courage I said to my soul, + Throttle the thing that hinders! + When the three cowled monks, from black as coal, + Waxed hot as furnace-cinders. + + + +XII + + + They caught her up, twirling: they leapt between-whiles: + The fiddler flickered with laughter: + Profanely they flew down the awful aisles, + Where I went sliding after. + + + +XIII + + + Down the awful aisles, by the fretted walls, + Beneath the Gothic arches:— + King Skull in the black confessionals + Sat rub-a-dub-dubbing his marches. + + + +XIV + + + Then the silent cold stone warriors frowned, + The pictured saints strode forward: + A whirlwind swept them from holy ground; + A tempest puffed them nor’ward. + + + +XV + + + They shot through the great cathedral door; + Like mallards they traversed ocean: + And gazing below, on its boiling floor, + I marked a horrid commotion. + + + +XVI + + + Down a forest’s long alleys they spun like tops: + It seemed that for ages and ages, + Thro’ the Book of Life bereft of stops, + They waltzed continuous pages. + + + +XVII + + + And ages after, scarce awake, + And my blood with the fever fretting, + I stood alone by a forest-lake, + Whose shadows the moon were netting. + + + +XVIII + + + Lilies, golden and white, by the curls + Of their broad flat leaves hung swaying. + A wreath of languid twining girls + Streamed upward, long locks disarraying. + + + +XIX + + + Their cheeks had the satin frost-glow of the moon; + Their eyes the fire of Sirius. + They circled, and droned a monotonous tune, + Abandoned to love delirious. + + + +XX + + + Like lengths of convolvulus torn from the hedge, + And trailing the highway over, + The dreamy-eyed mistresses circled the sedge, + And called for a lover, a lover! + + + +XXI + + + I sank, I rose through seas of eyes, + In odorous swathes delicious: + They fanned me with impetuous sighs, + They hit me with kisses vicious. + + + +XXII + + + My ears were spelled, my neck was coiled, + And I with their fury was glowing, + When the marbly waters bubbled and boiled + At a watery noise of crowing. + + + +XXIII + + + They dragged me low and low to the lake: + Their kisses more stormily showered; + On the emerald brink, in the white moon’s wake, + An earthly damsel cowered. + + + +XXIV + + + Fresh heart-sobs shook her knitted hands + Beneath a tiny suckling, + As one by one of the doleful bands + Dived like a fairy duckling. + + + +XXV + + + And now my turn had come—O me! + What wisdom was mine that second! + I dropped on the adorer’s knee; + To that sweet figure I beckoned. + + + +XXVI + + + Save me! save me! for now I know + The powers that Nature gave me, + And the value of honest love I know:— + My village lily! save me! + + + +XXVII + + + Come ’twixt me and the sisterhood, + While the passion-born phantoms are fleeing! + Oh, he that is true to flesh and blood + Is true to his own being! + + + +XXVIII + + + And he that is false to flesh and blood + Is false to the star within him: + And the mad and hungry sisterhood + All under the tides shall win him! + + + +XXIX + + + My village lily! save me! save! + For strength is with the holy:— + Already I shuddered to feel the wave, + As I kept sinking slowly:— + + + +XXX + + + I felt the cold wave and the under-tug + Of the Brides, when—starting and shrinking— + Lo, Adrian tilts the water-jug! + And Bruges with morn is blinking. + + + +XXXI + + + Merrily sparkles sunny prime + On gabled peak and arbour: + Merrily rattles belfry-chime + The song of Sevilla’s Barber. + + + + +THE OLD CHARTIST + + +I + + + WHATE’ER I be, old England is my dam! + So there’s my answer to the judges, clear. + I’m nothing of a fox, nor of a lamb; + I don’t know how to bleat nor how to leer: + I’m for the nation! + That’s why you see me by the wayside here, + Returning home from transportation. + + + +II + + + It’s Summer in her bath this morn, I think. + I’m fresh as dew, and chirpy as the birds: + And just for joy to see old England wink + Thro’ leaves again, I could harangue the herds: + Isn’t it something + To speak out like a man when you’ve got words, + And prove you’re not a stupid dumb thing? + + + +III + + + They shipp’d me of for it; I’m here again. + Old England is my dam, whate’er I be! + Says I, I’ll tramp it home, and see the grain: + If you see well, you’re king of what you see: + Eyesight is having, + If you’re not given, I said, to gluttony. + Such talk to ignorance sounds as raving. + + + +IV + + + You dear old brook, that from his Grace’s park + Come bounding! on you run near my old town: + My lord can’t lock the water; nor the lark, + Unless he kills him, can my lord keep down. + Up, is the song-note! + I’ve tried it, too:—for comfort and renown, + I rather pitch’d upon the wrong note. + + + +V + + + I’m not ashamed: Not beaten’s still my boast: + Again I’ll rouse the people up to strike. + But home’s where different politics jar most. + Respectability the women like. + This form, or that form,— + The Government may be hungry pike, + But don’t you mount a Chartist platform! + + + +VI + + + Well, well! Not beaten—spite of them, I shout; + And my estate is suffering for the Cause.— + No,—what is yon brown water-rat about, + Who washes his old poll with busy paws? + What does he mean by’t? + It’s like defying all our natural laws, + For him to hope that he’ll get clean by’t. + + + +VII + + + His seat is on a mud-bank, and his trade + Is dirt:—he’s quite contemptible; and yet + The fellow’s all as anxious as a maid + To show a decent dress, and dry the wet. + Now it’s his whisker, + And now his nose, and ear: he seems to get + Each moment at the motion brisker! + + + +VIII + + + To see him squat like little chaps at school, + I could let fly a laugh with all my might. + He peers, hangs both his fore-paws:—bless that fool, + He’s bobbing at his frill now!—what a sight! + Licking the dish up, + As if he thought to pass from black to white, + Like parson into lawny bishop. + + + +IX + + + The elms and yellow reed-flags in the sun, + Look on quite grave:—the sunlight flecks his side; + And links of bindweed-flowers round him run, + And shine up doubled with him in the tide. + _I’m_ nearly splitting, + But nature seems like seconding his pride, + And thinks that his behaviour’s fitting. + + + +X + + + That isle o’ mud looks baking dry with gold. + His needle-muzzle still works out and in. + It really is a wonder to behold, + And makes me feel the bristles of my chin. + Judged by appearance, + I fancy of the two I’m nearer Sin, + And might as well commence a clearance. + + + +XI + + + And that’s what my fine daughter said:—she meant: + Pray, hold your tongue, and wear a Sunday face. + Her husband, the young linendraper, spent + Much argument thereon:—I’m their disgrace. + Bother the couple! + I feel superior to a chap whose place + Commands him to be neat and supple. + + + +XII + + + But if I go and say to my old hen: + I’ll mend the gentry’s boots, and keep discreet, + Until they grow _too_ violent,—why, then, + A warmer welcome I might chance to meet: + Warmer and better. + And if she fancies her old cock is beat, + And drops upon her knees—so let her! + + + +XIII + + + She suffered for me:—women, you’ll observe, + Don’t suffer for a Cause, but for a man. + When I was in the dock she show’d her nerve: + I saw beneath her shawl my old tea-can + Trembling . . . she brought it + To screw me for my work: she loath’d my plan, + And therefore doubly kind I thought it. + + + +XIV + + + I’ve never lost the taste of that same tea: + That liquor on my logic floats like oil, + When I state facts, and fellows disagree. + For human creatures all are in a coil; + All may want pardon. + I see a day when every pot will boil + Harmonious in one great Tea-garden! + + + +XV + + + We wait the setting of the Dandy’s day, + Before that time!—He’s furbishing his dress,— + He _will_ be ready for it!—and I say, + That yon old dandy rat amid the cress,— + Thanks to hard labour!— + If cleanliness is next to godliness, + The old fat fellow’s heaven’s neighbour! + + + +XVI + + + You teach me a fine lesson, my old boy! + I’ve looked on my superiors far too long, + And small has been my profit as my joy. + You’ve done the right while I’ve denounced the wrong. + Prosper me later! + Like you I will despise the sniggering throng, + And please myself and my Creator. + + + +XVII + + + I’ll bring the linendraper and his wife + Some day to see you; taking off my hat. + Should they ask why, I’ll answer: in my life + I never found so true a democrat. + Base occupation + Can’t rob you of your own esteem, old rat! + I’ll preach you to the British nation. + + + + +SONG {163} + + + SHOULD thy love die; + O bury it not under ice-blue eyes! + And lips that deny, + With a scornful surprise, + The life it once lived in thy breast when it wore no disguise. + + Should thy love die; + O bury it where the sweet wild-flowers blow! + And breezes go by, + With no whisper of woe; + And strange feet cannot guess of the anguish that slumbers below. + + Should thy love die; + O wander once more to the haunt of the bee! + Where the foliaged sky + Is most sacred to see, + And thy being first felt its wild birth like a wind-wakened tree. + + Should thy love die; + O dissemble it! smile! let the rose hide the thorn! + While the lark sings on high, + And no thing looks forlorn, + Bury it, bury it, bury it where it was born. + + + + +TO ALEX. SMITH, THE ‘GLASGOW POET,’ {164} +ON HIS SONNET TO ‘FAME’ + + + NOT vainly doth the earnest voice of man + Call for the thing that is his pure desire! + Fame is the birthright of the living lyre! + To noble impulse Nature puts no ban. + Nor vainly to the Sphinx thy voice was raised! + Tho’ all thy great emotions like a sea, + Against her stony immortality, + Shatter themselves unheeded and amazed. + Time moves behind her in a blind eclipse: + Yet if in her cold eyes the end of all + Be visible, as on her large closed lips + Hangs dumb the awful riddle of the earth;— + She sees, and she might speak, since that wild call, + The mighty warning of a Poet’s birth. + + + + +GRANDFATHER BRIDGEMAN + + +I + + + ‘HEIGH, boys!’ cried Grandfather Bridgeman, ‘it’s time before dinner + to-day.’ + He lifted the crumpled letter, and thumped a surprising ‘Hurrah!’ + Up jumped all the echoing young ones, but John, with the starch in his + throat, + Said, ‘Father, before we make noises, let’s see the contents of the + note.’ + The old man glared at him harshly, and twinkling made answer: ‘Too + bad! + John Bridgeman, I’m always the whisky, and you are the water, my lad!’ + + + +II + + + But soon it was known thro’ the house, and the house ran over for joy, + That news, good news, great marvels, had come from the soldier boy; + Young Tom, the luckless scapegrace, offshoot of Methodist John; + His grandfather’s evening tale, whom the old man hailed as his son. + And the old man’s shout of pride was a shout of his victory, too; + For he called his affection a method: the neighbours’ opinions he + knew. + + + +III + + + Meantime, from the morning table removing the stout breakfast cheer, + The drink of the three generations, the milk, the tea, and the beer + (Alone in its generous reading of pints stood the Grandfather’s jug), + The women for sight of the missive came pressing to coax and to hug. + He scattered them quick, with a buss and a smack; thereupon he began + Diversions with John’s little Sarah: on Sunday, the naughty old man! + + + +IV + + + Then messengers sped to the maltster, the auctioneer, miller, and all + The seven sons of the farmer who housed in the range of his call. + Likewise the married daughters, three plentiful ladies, prime cooks, + Who bowed to him while they condemned, in meek hope to stand high in + his books. + ‘John’s wife is a fool at a pudding,’ they said, and the light carts + up hill + Went merrily, flouting the Sabbath: for puddings well made mend a + will. + + + +V + + + The day was a van-bird of summer: the robin still piped, but the blue, + As a warm and dreamy palace with voices of larks ringing thro’, + Looked down as if wistfully eyeing the blossoms that fell from its + lap: + A day to sweeten the juices: a day to quicken the sap. + All round the shadowy orchard sloped meadows in gold, and the dear + Shy violets breathed their hearts out: the maiden breath of the year! + + + +VI + + + Full time there was before dinner to bring fifteen of his blood, + To sit at the old man’s table: they found that the dinner was good. + But who was she by the lilacs and pouring laburnums concealed, + When under the blossoming apple the chair of the Grandfather wheeled? + She heard one little child crying, ‘Dear brave Cousin Tom!’ as it + leapt; + Then murmured she: ‘Let me spare them!’ and passed round the walnuts, + and wept. + + + +VII + + + Yet not from sight had she slipped ere feminine eyes could detect + The figure of Mary Charlworth. ‘It’s just what we all might expect,’ + Was uttered: and: ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ Of Mary the rumour resounds, + That she is now her own mistress, and mistress of five thousand + pounds. + ’Twas she, they say, who cruelly sent young Tom to the war. + Miss Mary, we thank you now! If you knew what we’re thanking you for! + + + +VIII + + + But, ‘Have her in: let her hear it,’ called Grandfather Bridgeman, + elate, + While Mary’s black-gloved fingers hung trembling with flight on the + gate. + Despite the women’s remonstrance, two little ones, lighter than deer, + Were loosed, and Mary, imprisoned, her whole face white as a tear, + Came forward with culprit footsteps. Her punishment was to commence: + The pity in her pale visage they read in a different sense. + + + +IX + + + ‘You perhaps may remember a fellow, Miss Charlworth, a sort of black + sheep,’ + The old man turned his tongue to ironical utterance deep: + ‘He came of a Methodist dad, so it wasn’t his fault if he kicked. + He earned a sad reputation, but Methodists are mortal strict. + His name was Tom, and, dash me! but Bridgeman! I think you might add: + Whatever he was, bear in mind that he came of a Methodist dad.’ + + + +X + + + This prelude dismally lengthened, till Mary, starting, exclaimed, + ‘A letter, Sir, from your grandson?’ ‘Tom Bridgeman that rascal is + named,’ + The old man answered, and further, the words that sent Tom to the + ranks + Repeated as words of a person to whom they all owed mighty thanks. + But Mary never blushed: with her eyes on the letter, she sate, + And twice interrupting him faltered, ‘The date, may I ask, Sir, the + date?’ + + + +XI + + + ‘Why, that’s what I never look at in a letter,’ the farmer replied: + ‘Facts first! and now I’ll be parson.’ The Bridgeman women descried + A quiver on Mary’s eyebrows. One turned, and while shifting her comb, + Said low to a sister: ‘I’m certain she knows more than we about Tom. + She wants him now he’s a hero!’ The same, resuming her place, + Begged Mary to check them the moment she found it a tedious case. + + + +XII + + + Then as a mastiff swallows the snarling noises of cats, + The voice of the farmer opened. ‘“Three cheers, and off with your + hats!” + —That’s Tom. “We’ve beaten them, Daddy, and tough work it was, to be + sure! + A regular stand-up combat: eight hours smelling powder and gore. + I entered it Serjeant-Major,”—and now he commands a salute, + And carries the flag of old England! Heigh! see him lift foes on his + foot! + + + +XIII + + + ‘—An officer! ay, Miss Charlworth, he is, or he is so to be; + You’ll own war isn’t such humbug: and Glory means something, you see. + “But don’t say a word,” he continues, “against the brave French any + more.” + —That stopt me: we’ll now march together. I couldn’t read further + before. + That “brave French” I couldn’t stomach. He can’t see their cunning to + get + Us Britons to fight their battles, while best half the winnings they + net!’ + + + +XIV + + + The old man sneered, and read forward. It was of that desperate + fight;— + The Muscovite stole thro’ the mist-wreaths that wrapped the chill + Inkermann height, + Where stood our silent outposts: old England was in them that day! + O sharp worked his ruddy wrinkles, as if to the breath of the fray + They moved! He sat bareheaded: his long hair over him slow + Swung white as the silky bog-flowers in purple heath-hollows that + grow. + + + +XV + + + And louder at Tom’s first person: acute and in thunder the ‘I’ + Invaded the ear with a whinny of triumph, that seem’d to defy + The hosts of the world. All heated, what wonder he little could brook + To catch the sight of Mary’s demure puritanical look? + And still as he led the onslaught, his treacherous side-shots he sent + At her who was fighting a battle as fierce, and who sat there unbent. + + + +XVI + + + ‘“We stood in line, and like hedgehogs the Russians rolled under us + thick. + They frightened me there.”—He’s no coward; for when, Miss, they came + at the quick, + The sight, he swears, was a breakfast.—“My stomach felt tight: in a + glimpse + I saw you snoring at home with the dear cuddled-up little imps. + And then like the winter brickfields at midnight, hot fire lengthened + out. + Our fellows were just leashed bloodhounds: no heart of the lot faced + about. + + + +XVII + + + ‘“And only that grumbler, Bob Harris, remarked that we stood one to + ten: + ‘Ye fool,’ says Mick Grady, ‘just tell ’em they know to compliment + men!’ + And I sang out your old words: ‘If the opposite side isn’t God’s, + Heigh! after you’ve counted a dozen, the pluckiest lads have the + odds.’ + Ping-ping flew the enemies’ pepper: the Colonel roared, Forward, and + we + Went at them. ’Twas first like a blanket: and then a long plunge in + the sea. + + + +XVIII + + + ‘“Well, now about me and the Frenchman: it happened I can’t tell you + how: + And, Grandfather, hear, if you love me, and put aside prejudice now”: + He never says “Grandfather”—Tom don’t—save it’s a serious thing. + “Well, there were some pits for the rifles, just dug on our + French-leaning wing: + And backwards, and forwards, and backwards we went, and at last I was + vexed, + And swore I would never surrender a foot when the Russians charged + next. + + + +XIX + + + ‘“I know that life’s worth keeping.”—Ay, so it is, lad; so it is!— + “But my life belongs to a woman.”—Does that mean Her Majesty, Miss?— + “These Russians came lumping and grinning: they’re fierce at it, + though they are blocks. + Our fellows were pretty well pumped, and looked sharp for the little + French cocks. + Lord, didn’t we pray for their crowing! when over us, on the hill-top, + Behold the first line of them skipping, like kangaroos seen on the + hop. + + + +XX + + + ‘“That sent me into a passion, to think of them spying our flight!” + Heigh, Tom! you’ve Bridgeman blood, boy! And, “‘Face them!’ I + shouted: ‘All right; + Sure, Serjeant, we’ll take their shot dacent, like gentlemen,’ Grady + replied. + A ball in his mouth, and the noble old Irishman dropped by my side. + Then there was just an instant to save myself, when a short wheeze + Of bloody lungs under the smoke, and a red-coat crawled up on his + knees. + + + +XXI + + + ‘“’Twas Ensign Baynes of our parish.”—Ah, ah, Miss Charlworth, the one + Our Tom fought for a young lady? Come, now we’ve got into the fun!— + “I shouldered him: he primed his pistol, and I trailed my musket, + prepared.” + Why, that’s a fine pick-a-back for ye, to make twenty Russians look + scared! + “They came—never mind how many: we couldn’t have run very well, + We fought back to back: ‘face to face, our last time!’ he said, + smiling, and fell. + + + +XXII + + + ‘“Then I strove wild for his body: the beggars saw glittering rings, + Which I vowed to send to his mother. I got some hard knocks and sharp + stings, + But felt them no more than angel, or devil, except in the wind. + I know that I swore at a Russian for showing his teeth, and he grinned + The harder: quick, as from heaven, a man on a horse rode between, + And fired, and swung his bright sabre: I can’t write you more of the + scene. + + + +XXIII + + + ‘“But half in his arms, and half at his stirrup, he bore me right + forth, + And pitched me among my old comrades: before I could tell south from + north, + He caught my hand up, and kissed it! Don’t ever let any man speak + A word against Frenchmen, I near him! I can’t find his name, tho’ I + seek. + But French, and a General, surely he was, and, God bless him! thro’ + him + I’ve learnt to love a whole nation.”’ The ancient man paused, winking + dim. + + + +XXIV + + + A curious look, half woeful, was seen on his face as he turned + His eyes upon each of his children, like one who but faintly discerned + His old self in an old mirror. Then gathering sense in his fist, + He sounded it hard on his knee-cap. ‘Your hand, Tom, the French + fellow kissed! + He kissed my boy’s old pounder! I say he’s a gentleman!’ Straight + The letter he tossed to one daughter; bade her the remainder relate. + + + +XXV + + + Tom properly stated his praises in facts, but the lady preferred + To deck the narration with brackets, and drop her additional word. + What nobler Christian natures these women could boast, who, ’twas + known, + Once spat at the name of their nephew, and now made his praises their + own! + The letter at last was finished, the hearers breathed freely, and sign + Was given, ‘Tom’s health!’—Quoth the farmer: ‘Eh, Miss? are you weak + in the spine?’ + + + +XXVI + + + For Mary had sunk, and her body was shaking, as if in a fit. + Tom’s letter she held, and her thumb-nail the month when the letter + was writ + Fast-dinted, while she hung sobbing: ‘O, see, Sir, the letter is old! + O, do not be too happy!’—‘If I understand you, I’m bowled!’ + Said Grandfather Bridgeman, ‘and down go my wickets!—not happy! when + here, + Here’s Tom like to marry his General’s daughter—or widow—I’ll swear! + + + +XXVII + + + ‘I wager he knows how to strut, too! It’s all on the cards that the + Queen + Will ask him to Buckingham Palace, to say what he’s done and he’s + seen. + Victoria’s fond of her soldiers: and she’s got a nose for a fight. + If Tom tells a cleverish story—there is such a thing as a knight! + And don’t he look roguish and handsome!—To see a girl snivelling + there— + By George, Miss, it’s clear that you’re jealous’—‘I love him!’ she + answered his stare. + + + +XXVIII + + + ‘Yes! now!’ breathed the voice of a woman.—‘Ah! now!’ quiver’d low the + reply. + ‘And “now”’s just a bit too late, so it’s no use your piping your + eye,’ + The farmer added bluffly: ‘Old Lawyer Charlworth was rich; + You followed his instructions in kicking Tom into the ditch. + If you’re such a dutiful daughter, that doesn’t prove Tom is a fool. + Forgive and forget’s my motto! and here’s my grog growing cool!’ + + + +XXIX + + + ‘But, Sir,’ Mary faintly repeated: ‘for four long weeks I have failed + To come and cast on you my burden; such grief for you always + prevailed! + My heart has so bled for you!’ The old man burst on her speech: + ‘You’ve chosen a likely time, Miss! a pretty occasion to preach!’ + And was it not outrageous, that now, of all times, one should come + With incomprehensible pity! Far better had Mary been dumb. + + + +XXX + + + But when again she stammered in this bewildering way, + The farmer no longer could bear it, and begged her to go, or to stay, + But not to be whimpering nonsense at such a time. Pricked by a goad, + ’Twas you who sent him to glory:—you’ve come here to reap what you + sowed. + Is that it?’ he asked; and the silence the elders preserved plainly + said, + On Mary’s heaving bosom this begging-petition was read. + + + +XXXI + + + And that it was scarcely a bargain that she who had driven him wild + Should share now the fruits of his valour, the women expressed, as + they smiled. + The family pride of the Bridgemans was comforted; still, with + contempt, + They looked on a monied damsel of modesty quite so exempt. + ‘O give me force to tell them!’ cried Mary, and even as she spoke, + A shout and a hush of the children: a vision on all of them broke. + + + +XXXII + + + Wheeled, pale, in a chair, and shattered, the wreck of their hero was + seen; + The ghost of Tom drawn slow o’er the orchard’s shadowy green. + Could this be the martial darling they joyed in a moment ago? + ‘He knows it?’ to Mary Tom murmured, and closed his weak lids at her + ‘No.’ + ‘Beloved!’ she said, falling by him, ‘I have been a coward: I thought + You lay in the foreign country, and some strange good might be + wrought. + + + +XXXIII + + + ‘Each day I have come to tell him, and failed, with my hand on the + gate. + I bore the dreadful knowledge, and crushed my heart with its weight. + The letter brought by your comrade—he has but just read it aloud! + It only reached him this morning!’ Her head on his shoulder she + bowed. + Then Tom with pity’s tenderest lordliness patted her arm, + And eyed the old white-head fondly, with something of doubt and alarm. + + + +XXXIV + + + O, take to your fancy a sculptor whose fresh marble offspring appears + Before him, shiningly perfect, the laurel-crown’d issue of years: + Is heaven offended? for lightning behold from its bosom escape, + And those are mocking fragments that made the harmonious shape! + He cannot love the ruins, till, feeling that ruins alone + Are left, he loves them threefold. So passed the old grandfather’s + moan. + + + +XXXV + + + John’s text for a sermon on Slaughter he heard, and he did not + protest. + All rigid as April snowdrifts, he stood, hard and feeble; his chest + Just showing the swell of the fire as it melted him. Smiting a rib, + ‘Heigh! what have we been about, Tom! Was this all a terrible fib?’ + He cried, and the letter forth-trembled. Tom told what the cannon had + done. + Few present but ached to see falling those aged tears on his heart’s + son! + + + +XXXVI + + + Up lanes of the quiet village, and where the mill-waters rush red + Thro’ browning summer meadows to catch the sun’s crimsoning head, + You meet an old man and a maiden who has the soft ways of a wife + With one whom they wheel, alternate; whose delicate flush of new life + Is prized like the early primrose. Then shake his right hand, in the + chair— + The old man fails never to tell you: ‘You’ve got the French General’s + there!’ + + + + +THE PROMISE IN DISTURBANCE + + + HOW low when angels fall their black descent, + Our primal thunder tells: known is the pain + Of music, that nigh throning wisdom went, + And one false note cast wailful to the insane. + Now seems the language heard of Love as rain + To make a mire where fruitfulness was meant. + The golden harp gives out a jangled strain, + Too like revolt from heaven’s Omnipotent. + But listen in the thought; so may there come + Conception of a newly-added chord, + Commanding space beyond where ear has home. + In labour of the trouble at its fount, + Leads Life to an intelligible Lord + The rebel discords up the sacred mount. + + + + +MODERN LOVE + + +I + + + BY this he knew she wept with waking eyes: + That, at his hand’s light quiver by her head, + The strange low sobs that shook their common bed + Were called into her with a sharp surprise, + And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes, + Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay + Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away + With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes + Her giant heart of Memory and Tears + Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat + Sleep’s heavy measure, they from head to feet + Were moveless, looking through their dead black years, + By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall. + Like sculptured effigies they might be seen + Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between; + Each wishing for the sword that severs all. + + + +II + + + It ended, and the morrow brought the task. + Her eyes were guilty gates, that let him in + By shutting all too zealous for their sin: + Each sucked a secret, and each wore a mask. + But, oh, the bitter taste her beauty had! + He sickened as at breath of poison-flowers: + A languid humour stole among the hours, + And if their smiles encountered, he went mad, + And raged deep inward, till the light was brown + Before his vision, and the world, forgot, + Looked wicked as some old dull murder-spot. + A star with lurid beams, she seemed to crown + The pit of infamy: and then again + He fainted on his vengefulness, and strove + To ape the magnanimity of love, + And smote himself, a shuddering heap of pain. + + + +III + + + This was the woman; what now of the man? + But pass him. If he comes beneath a heel, + He shall be crushed until he cannot feel, + Or, being callous, haply till he can. + But he is nothing:—nothing? Only mark + The rich light striking out from her on him! + Ha! what a sense it is when her eyes swim + Across the man she singles, leaving dark + All else! Lord God, who mad’st the thing so fair, + See that I am drawn to her even now! + It cannot be such harm on her cool brow + To put a kiss? Yet if I meet him there! + But she is mine! Ah, no! I know too well + I claim a star whose light is overcast: + I claim a phantom-woman in the Past. + The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell! + + + +IV + + + All other joys of life he strove to warm, + And magnify, and catch them to his lip: + But they had suffered shipwreck with the ship, + And gazed upon him sallow from the storm. + Or if Delusion came, ’twas but to show + The coming minute mock the one that went. + Cold as a mountain in its star-pitched tent, + Stood high Philosophy, less friend than foe: + Whom self-caged Passion, from its prison-bars, + Is always watching with a wondering hate. + Not till the fire is dying in the grate, + Look we for any kinship with the stars. + Oh, wisdom never comes when it is gold, + And the great price we pay for it full worth: + We have it only when we are half earth. + Little avails that coinage to the old! + + + +V + + + A message from her set his brain aflame. + A world of household matters filled her mind, + Wherein he saw hypocrisy designed: + She treated him as something that is tame, + And but at other provocation bites. + Familiar was her shoulder in the glass, + Through that dark rain: yet it may come to pass + That a changed eye finds such familiar sights + More keenly tempting than new loveliness. + The ‘What has been’ a moment seemed his own: + The splendours, mysteries, dearer because known, + Nor less divine: Love’s inmost sacredness + Called to him, ‘Come!’—In his restraining start, + Eyes nurtured to be looked at scarce could see + A wave of the great waves of Destiny + Convulsed at a checked impulse of the heart. + + + +VI + + + It chanced his lips did meet her forehead cool. + She had no blush, but slanted down her eye. + Shamed nature, then, confesses love can die: + And most she punishes the tender fool + Who will believe what honours her the most! + Dead! is it dead? She has a pulse, and flow + Of tears, the price of blood-drops, as I know, + For whom the midnight sobs around Love’s ghost, + Since then I heard her, and so will sob on. + The love is here; it has but changed its aim. + O bitter barren woman! what’s the name? + The name, the name, the new name thou hast won? + Behold me striking the world’s coward stroke! + That will I not do, though the sting is dire. + —Beneath the surface this, while by the fire + They sat, she laughing at a quiet joke. + + + +VII + + + She issues radiant from her dressing-room, + Like one prepared to scale an upper sphere: + —By stirring up a lower, much I fear! + How deftly that oiled barber lays his bloom! + That long-shanked dapper Cupid with frisked curls + Can make known women torturingly fair; + The gold-eyed serpent dwelling in rich hair + Awakes beneath his magic whisks and twirls. + His art can take the eyes from out my head, + Until I see with eyes of other men; + While deeper knowledge crouches in its den, + And sends a spark up:—is it true we are wed? + Yea! filthiness of body is most vile, + But faithlessness of heart I do hold worse. + The former, it were not so great a curse + To read on the steel-mirror of her smile. + + + +VIII + + + Yet it was plain she struggled, and that salt + Of righteous feeling made her pitiful. + Poor twisting worm, so queenly beautiful! + Where came the cleft between us? whose the fault? + My tears are on thee, that have rarely dropped + As balm for any bitter wound of mine: + My breast will open for thee at a sign! + But, no: we are two reed-pipes, coarsely stopped: + The God once filled them with his mellow breath; + And they were music till he flung them down, + Used! used! Hear now the discord-loving clown + Puff his gross spirit in them, worse than death! + I do not know myself without thee more: + In this unholy battle I grow base: + If the same soul be under the same face, + Speak, and a taste of that old time restore! + + + +IX + + + He felt the wild beast in him betweenwhiles + So masterfully rude, that he would grieve + To see the helpless delicate thing receive + His guardianship through certain dark defiles. + Had he not teeth to rend, and hunger too? + But still he spared her. Once: ‘Have you no fear?’ + He said: ’twas dusk; she in his grasp; none near. + She laughed: ‘No, surely; am I not with you?’ + And uttering that soft starry ‘you,’ she leaned + Her gentle body near him, looking up; + And from her eyes, as from a poison-cup, + He drank until the flittering eyelids screened. + Devilish malignant witch! and oh, young beam + Of heaven’s circle-glory! Here thy shape + To squeeze like an intoxicating grape— + I might, and yet thou goest safe, supreme. + + + +X + + + But where began the change; and what’s my crime? + The wretch condemned, who has not been arraigned, + Chafes at his sentence. Shall I, unsustained, + Drag on Love’s nerveless body thro’ all time? + I must have slept, since now I wake. Prepare, + You lovers, to know Love a thing of moods: + Not, like hard life, of laws. In Love’s deep woods, + I dreamt of loyal Life:—the offence is there! + Love’s jealous woods about the sun are curled; + At least, the sun far brighter there did beam.— + My crime is, that the puppet of a dream, + I plotted to be worthy of the world. + Oh, had I with my darling helped to mince + The facts of life, you still had seen me go + With hindward feather and with forward toe, + Her much-adored delightful Fairy Prince! + + + +XI + + + Out in the yellow meadows, where the bee + Hums by us with the honey of the Spring, + And showers of sweet notes from the larks on wing + Are dropping like a noon-dew, wander we. + Or is it now? or was it then? for now, + As then, the larks from running rings pour showers: + The golden foot of May is on the flowers, + And friendly shadows dance upon her brow. + What’s this, when Nature swears there is no change + To challenge eyesight? Now, as then, the grace + Of heaven seems holding earth in its embrace. + Nor eyes, nor heart, has she to feel it strange? + Look, woman, in the West. There wilt thou see + An amber cradle near the sun’s decline: + Within it, featured even in death divine, + Is lying a dead infant, slain by thee. + + + +XII + + + Not solely that the Future she destroys, + And the fair life which in the distance lies + For all men, beckoning out from dim rich skies: + Nor that the passing hour’s supporting joys + Have lost the keen-edged flavour, which begat + Distinction in old times, and still should breed + Sweet Memory, and Hope,—earth’s modest seed, + And heaven’s high-prompting: not that the world is flat + Since that soft-luring creature I embraced + Among the children of Illusion went: + Methinks with all this loss I were content, + If the mad Past, on which my foot is based, + Were firm, or might be blotted: but the whole + Of life is mixed: the mocking Past will stay: + And if I drink oblivion of a day, + So shorten I the stature of my soul. + + + +XIII + + + ‘I play for Seasons; not Eternities!’ + Says Nature, laughing on her way. ‘So must + All those whose stake is nothing more than dust!’ + And lo, she wins, and of her harmonies + She is full sure! Upon her dying rose + She drops a look of fondness, and goes by, + Scarce any retrospection in her eye; + For she the laws of growth most deeply knows, + Whose hands bear, here, a seed-bag—there, an urn. + Pledged she herself to aught, ’twould mark her end! + This lesson of our only visible friend + Can we not teach our foolish hearts to learn? + Yes! yes!—but, oh, our human rose is fair + Surpassingly! Lose calmly Love’s great bliss, + When the renewed for ever of a kiss + Whirls life within the shower of loosened hair! + + + +XIV + + + What soul would bargain for a cure that brings + Contempt the nobler agony to kill? + Rather let me bear on the bitter ill, + And strike this rusty bosom with new stings! + It seems there is another veering fit, + Since on a gold-haired lady’s eyeballs pure + I looked with little prospect of a cure, + The while her mouth’s red bow loosed shafts of wit. + Just heaven! can it be true that jealousy + Has decked the woman thus? and does her head + Swim somewhat for possessions forfeited? + Madam, you teach me many things that be. + I open an old book, and there I find + That ‘Women still may love whom they deceive.’ + Such love I prize not, madam: by your leave, + The game you play at is not to my mind. + + + +XV + + + I think she sleeps: it must be sleep, when low + Hangs that abandoned arm toward the floor; + The face turned with it. Now make fast the door. + Sleep on: it is your husband, not your foe. + The Poet’s black stage-lion of wronged love + Frights not our modern dames:—well if he did! + Now will I pour new light upon that lid, + Full-sloping like the breasts beneath. ‘Sweet dove, + Your sleep is pure. Nay, pardon: I disturb. + I do not? good!’ Her waking infant-stare + Grows woman to the burden my hands bear: + Her own handwriting to me when no curb + Was left on Passion’s tongue. She trembles through; + A woman’s tremble—the whole instrument:— + I show another letter lately sent. + The words are very like: the name is new. + + + +XVI + + + In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour, + When in the firelight steadily aglow, + Joined slackly, we beheld the red chasm grow + Among the clicking coals. Our library-bower + That eve was left to us: and hushed we sat + As lovers to whom Time is whispering. + From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing: + The nodding elders mixed good wine with chat. + Well knew we that Life’s greatest treasure lay + With us, and of it was our talk. ‘Ah, yes! + Love dies!’ I said: I never thought it less. + She yearned to me that sentence to unsay. + Then when the fire domed blackening, I found + Her cheek was salt against my kiss, and swift + Up the sharp scale of sobs her breast did lift:— + Now am I haunted by that taste! that sound! + + + +XVII + + + At dinner, she is hostess, I am host. + Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps + The Topic over intellectual deeps + In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost. + With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball: + It is in truth a most contagious game: + HIDING THE SKELETON, shall be its name. + Such play as this the devils might appal! + But here’s the greater wonder; in that we, + Enamoured of an acting nought can tire, + Each other, like true hypocrites, admire; + Warm-lighted looks, Love’s ephemerioe, + Shoot gaily o’er the dishes and the wine. + We waken envy of our happy lot. + Fast, sweet, and golden, shows the marriage-knot. + Dear guests, you now have seen Love’s corpse-light shine. + + + +XVIII + + + Here Jack and Tom are paired with Moll and Meg. + Curved open to the river-reach is seen + A country merry-making on the green. + Fair space for signal shakings of the leg. + That little screwy fiddler from his booth, + Whence flows one nut-brown stream, commands the joints + Of all who caper here at various points. + I have known rustic revels in my youth: + The May-fly pleasures of a mind at ease. + An early goddess was a country lass: + A charmed Amphion-oak she tripped the grass. + What life was that I lived? The life of these? + Heaven keep them happy! Nature they seem near. + They must, I think, be wiser than I am; + They have the secret of the bull and lamb. + ’Tis true that when we trace its source, ’tis beer. + + + +XIX + + + No state is enviable. To the luck alone + Of some few favoured men I would put claim. + I bleed, but her who wounds I will not blame. + Have I not felt her heart as ’twere my own + Beat thro’ me? could I hurt her? heaven and hell! + But I could hurt her cruelly! Can I let + My Love’s old time-piece to another set, + Swear it can’t stop, and must for ever swell? + Sure, that’s one way Love drifts into the mart + Where goat-legged buyers throng. I see not plain:— + My meaning is, it must not be again. + Great God! the maddest gambler throws his heart. + If any state be enviable on earth, + ’Tis yon born idiot’s, who, as days go by, + Still rubs his hands before him, like a fly, + In a queer sort of meditative mirth. + + + +XX + + + I am not of those miserable males + Who sniff at vice and, daring not to snap, + Do therefore hope for heaven. I take the hap + Of all my deeds. The wind that fills my sails + Propels; but I am helmsman. Am I wrecked, + I know the devil has sufficient weight + To bear: I lay it not on him, or fate. + Besides, he’s damned. That man I do suspect + A coward, who would burden the poor deuce + With what ensues from his own slipperiness. + I have just found a wanton-scented tress + In an old desk, dusty for lack of use. + Of days and nights it is demonstrative, + That, like some aged star, gleam luridly. + If for those times I must ask charity, + Have I not any charity to give? + + + +XXI + + + We three are on the cedar-shadowed lawn; + My friend being third. He who at love once laughed + Is in the weak rib by a fatal shaft + Struck through, and tells his passion’s bashful dawn + And radiant culmination, glorious crown, + When ‘this’ she said: went ‘thus’: most wondrous she. + Our eyes grow white, encountering: that we are three, + Forgetful; then together we look down. + But he demands our blessing; is convinced + That words of wedded lovers must bring good. + We question; if we dare! or if we should! + And pat him, with light laugh. We have not winced. + Next, she has fallen. Fainting points the sign + To happy things in wedlock. When she wakes, + She looks the star that thro’ the cedar shakes: + Her lost moist hand clings mortally to mine. + + + +XXII + + + What may the woman labour to confess? + There is about her mouth a nervous twitch. + ’Tis something to be told, or hidden:—which? + I get a glimpse of hell in this mild guess. + She has desires of touch, as if to feel + That all the household things are things she knew. + She stops before the glass. What sight in view? + A face that seems the latest to reveal! + For she turns from it hastily, and tossed + Irresolute steals shadow-like to where + I stand; and wavering pale before me there, + Her tears fall still as oak-leaves after frost. + She will not speak. I will not ask. We are + League-sundered by the silent gulf between. + You burly lovers on the village green, + Yours is a lower, and a happier star! + + + +XXIII + + + ’Tis Christmas weather, and a country house + Receives us: rooms are full: we can but get + An attic-crib. Such lovers will not fret + At that, it is half-said. The great carouse + Knocks hard upon the midnight’s hollow door, + But when I knock at hers, I see the pit. + Why did I come here in that dullard fit? + I enter, and lie couched upon the floor. + Passing, I caught the coverlet’s quick beat:— + Come, Shame, burn to my soul! and Pride, and Pain— + Foul demons that have tortured me, enchain! + Out in the freezing darkness the lambs bleat. + The small bird stiffens in the low starlight. + I know not how, but shuddering as I slept, + I dreamed a banished angel to me crept: + My feet were nourished on her breasts all night. + + + +XXIV + + + The misery is greater, as I live! + To know her flesh so pure, so keen her sense, + That she does penance now for no offence, + Save against Love. The less can I forgive! + The less can I forgive, though I adore + That cruel lovely pallor which surrounds + Her footsteps; and the low vibrating sounds + That come on me, as from a magic shore. + Low are they, but most subtle to find out + The shrinking soul. Madam, ’tis understood + When women play upon their womanhood, + It means, a Season gone. And yet I doubt + But I am duped. That nun-like look waylays + My fancy. Oh! I do but wait a sign! + Pluck out the eyes of pride! thy mouth to mine! + Never! though I die thirsting. Go thy ways! + + + +XXV + + + You like not that French novel? Tell me why. + You think it quite unnatural. Let us see. + The actors are, it seems, the usual three: + Husband, and wife, and lover. She—but fie! + In England we’ll not hear of it. Edmond, + The lover, her devout chagrin doth share; + Blanc-mange and absinthe are his penitent fare, + Till his pale aspect makes her over-fond: + So, to preclude fresh sin, he tries rosbif. + Meantime the husband is no more abused: + Auguste forgives her ere the tear is used. + Then hangeth all on one tremendous IF:— + _If_ she will choose between them. She does choose; + And takes her husband, like a proper wife. + Unnatural? My dear, these things are life: + And life, some think, is worthy of the Muse. + + + +XXVI + + + Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies, + Has earth beneath his wings: from reddened eve + He views the rosy dawn. In vain they weave + The fatal web below while far he flies. + But when the arrow strikes him, there’s a change. + He moves but in the track of his spent pain, + Whose red drops are the links of a harsh chain, + Binding him to the ground, with narrow range. + A subtle serpent then has Love become. + I had the eagle in my bosom erst: + Henceforward with the serpent I am cursed. + I can interpret where the mouth is dumb. + Speak, and I see the side-lie of a truth. + Perchance my heart may pardon you this deed: + But be no coward:—you that made Love bleed, + You must bear all the venom of his tooth! + + + +XXVII + + + Distraction is the panacea, Sir! + I hear my oracle of Medicine say. + Doctor! that same specific yesterday + I tried, and the result will not deter + A second trial. Is the devil’s line + Of golden hair, or raven black, composed? + And does a cheek, like any sea-shell rosed, + Or clear as widowed sky, seem most divine? + No matter, so I taste forgetfulness. + And if the devil snare me, body and mind, + Here gratefully I score:—he seemëd kind, + When not a soul would comfort my distress! + O sweet new world, in which I rise new made! + O Lady, once I gave love: now I take! + Lady, I must be flattered. Shouldst thou wake + The passion of a demon, be not afraid. + + + +XXVIII + + + I must be flattered. The imperious + Desire speaks out. Lady, I am content + To play with you the game of Sentiment, + And with you enter on paths perilous; + But if across your beauty I throw light, + To make it threefold, it must be all mine. + First secret; then avowed. For I must shine + Envied,—I, lessened in my proper sight! + Be watchful of your beauty, Lady dear! + How much hangs on that lamp you cannot tell. + Most earnestly I pray you, tend it well: + And men shall see me as a burning sphere; + And men shall mark you eyeing me, and groan + To be the God of such a grand sunflower! + I feel the promptings of Satanic power, + While you do homage unto me alone. + + + +XXIX + + + Am I failing? For no longer can I cast + A glory round about this head of gold. + Glory she wears, but springing from the mould; + Not like the consecration of the Past! + Is my soul beggared? Something more than earth + I cry for still: I cannot be at peace + In having Love upon a mortal lease. + I cannot take the woman at her worth! + Where is the ancient wealth wherewith I clothed + Our human nakedness, and could endow + With spiritual splendour a white brow + That else had grinned at me the fact I loathed? + A kiss is but a kiss now! and no wave + Of a great flood that whirls me to the sea. + But, as you will! we’ll sit contentedly, + And eat our pot of honey on the grave. + + + +XXX + + + What are we first? First, animals; and next + Intelligences at a leap; on whom + Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb, + And all that draweth on the tomb for text. + Into which state comes Love, the crowning sun: + Beneath whose light the shadow loses form. + We are the lords of life, and life is warm. + Intelligence and instinct now are one. + But nature says: ‘My children most they seem + When they least know me: therefore I decree + That they shall suffer.’ Swift doth young Love flee, + And we stand wakened, shivering from our dream. + Then if we study Nature we are wise. + Thus do the few who live but with the day: + The scientific animals are they.— + Lady, this is my sonnet to your eyes. + + + +XXXI + + + This golden head has wit in it. I live + Again, and a far higher life, near her. + Some women like a young philosopher; + Perchance because he is diminutive. + For woman’s manly god must not exceed + Proportions of the natural nursing size. + Great poets and great sages draw no prize + With women: but the little lap-dog breed, + Who can be hugged, or on a mantel-piece + Perched up for adoration, these obtain + Her homage. And of this we men are vain? + Of this! ’Tis ordered for the world’s increase! + Small flattery! Yet she has that rare gift + To beauty, Common Sense. I am approved. + It is not half so nice as being loved, + And yet I do prefer it. What’s my drift? + + + +XXXII + + + Full faith I have she holds that rarest gift + To beauty, Common Sense. To see her lie + With her fair visage an inverted sky + Bloom-covered, while the underlids uplift, + Would almost wreck the faith; but when her mouth + (Can it kiss sweetly? sweetly!) would address + The inner me that thirsts for her no less, + And has so long been languishing in drouth, + I feel that I am matched; that I am man! + One restless corner of my heart or head, + That holds a dying something never dead, + Still frets, though Nature giveth all she can. + It means, that woman is not, I opine, + Her sex’s antidote. Who seeks the asp + For serpent’s bites? ’Twould calm me could I clasp + Shrieking Bacchantes with their souls of wine! + + + +XXXIII + + + ‘In Paris, at the Louvre, there have I seen + The sumptuously-feathered angel pierce + Prone Lucifer, descending. Looked he fierce, + Showing the fight a fair one? Too serene! + The young Pharsalians did not disarray + Less willingly their locks of floating silk: + That suckling mouth of his upon the milk + Of heaven might still be feasting through the fray. + Oh, Raphael! when men the Fiend do fight, + They conquer not upon such easy terms. + Half serpent in the struggle grow these worms. + And does he grow half human, all is right.’ + This to my Lady in a distant spot, + Upon the theme: _While mind is mastering clay_, + _Gross clay invades it_. If the spy you play, + My wife, read this! Strange love talk, is it not? + + + +XXXIV + + + Madam would speak with me. So, now it comes: + The Deluge or else Fire! She’s well; she thanks + My husbandship. Our chain on silence clanks. + Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs. + Am I quite well? Most excellent in health! + The journals, too, I diligently peruse. + Vesuvius is expected to give news: + Niagara is no noisier. By stealth + Our eyes dart scrutinizing snakes. She’s glad + I’m happy, says her quivering under-lip. + ‘And are not you?’ ‘How can I be?’ ‘Take ship! + For happiness is somewhere to be had.’ + ‘Nowhere for me!’ Her voice is barely heard. + I am not melted, and make no pretence. + With commonplace I freeze her, tongue and sense. + Niagara or Vesuvius is deferred. + + + +XXXV + + + It is no vulgar nature I have wived. + Secretive, sensitive, she takes a wound + Deep to her soul, as if the sense had swooned, + And not a thought of vengeance had survived. + No confidences has she: but relief + Must come to one whose suffering is acute. + O have a care of natures that are mute! + They punish you in acts: their steps are brief. + What is she doing? What does she demand + From Providence or me? She is not one + Long to endure this torpidly, and shun + The drugs that crowd about a woman’s hand. + At Forfeits during snow we played, and I + Must kiss her. ‘Well performed!’ I said: then she: + ‘’Tis hardly worth the money, you agree?’ + Save her? What for? To act this wedded lie! + + + +XXXVI + + + My Lady unto Madam makes her bow. + The charm of women is, that even while + You’re probed by them for tears, you yet may smile, + Nay, laugh outright, as I have done just now. + The interview was gracious: they anoint + (To me aside) each other with fine praise: + Discriminating compliments they raise, + That hit with wondrous aim on the weak point: + My Lady’s nose of Nature might complain. + It is not fashioned aptly to express + Her character of large-browed steadfastness. + But Madam says: Thereof she may be vain! + Now, Madam’s faulty feature is a glazed + And inaccessible eye, that has soft fires, + Wide gates, at love-time, only. This admires + My Lady. At the two I stand amazed. + + + +XXXVII + + + Along the garden terrace, under which + A purple valley (lighted at its edge + By smoky torch-flame on the long cloud-ledge + Whereunder dropped the chariot) glimmers rich, + A quiet company we pace, and wait + The dinner-bell in prae-digestive calm. + So sweet up violet banks the Southern balm + Breathes round, we care not if the bell be late: + Though here and there grey seniors question Time + In irritable coughings. With slow foot + The low rosed moon, the face of Music mute, + Begins among her silent bars to climb. + As in and out, in silvery dusk, we thread, + I hear the laugh of Madam, and discern + My Lady’s heel before me at each turn. + Our tragedy, is it alive or dead? + + + +XXXVIII + + + Give to imagination some pure light + In human form to fix it, or you shame + The devils with that hideous human game:— + Imagination urging appetite! + Thus fallen have earth’s greatest Gogmagogs, + Who dazzle us, whom we can not revere: + Imagination is the charioteer + That, in default of better, drives the hogs. + So, therefore, my dear Lady, let me love! + My soul is arrowy to the light in you. + You know me that I never can renew + The bond that woman broke: what would you have? + ’Tis Love, or Vileness! not a choice between, + Save petrifaction! What does Pity here? + She killed a thing, and now it’s dead, ’tis dear. + Oh, when you counsel me, think what you mean! + + + +XXXIX + + + She yields: my Lady in her noblest mood + Has yielded: she, my golden-crownëd rose! + The bride of every sense! more sweet than those + Who breathe the violet breath of maidenhood. + O visage of still music in the sky! + Soft moon! I feel thy song, my fairest friend! + True harmony within can apprehend + Dumb harmony without. And hark! ’tis nigh! + Belief has struck the note of sound: a gleam + Of living silver shows me where she shook + Her long white fingers down the shadowy brook, + That sings her song, half waking, half in dream. + What two come here to mar this heavenly tune? + A man is one: the woman bears my name, + And honour. Their hands touch! Am I still tame? + God, what a dancing spectre seems the moon! + + + +XL + + + I bade my Lady think what she might mean. + Know I my meaning, I? Can I love one, + And yet be jealous of another? None + Commits such folly. Terrible Love, I ween, + Has might, even dead, half sighing to upheave + The lightless seas of selfishness amain: + Seas that in a man’s heart have no rain + To fall and still them. Peace can I achieve, + By turning to this fountain-source of woe, + This woman, who’s to Love as fire to wood? + She breathed the violet breath of maidenhood + Against my kisses once! but I say, No! + The thing is mocked at! Helplessly afloat, + I know not what I do, whereto I strive. + The dread that my old love may be alive + Has seized my nursling new love by the throat. + + + +XLI + + + How many a thing which we cast to the ground, + When others pick it up becomes a gem! + We grasp at all the wealth it is to them; + And by reflected light its worth is found. + Yet for us still ’tis nothing! and that zeal + Of false appreciation quickly fades. + This truth is little known to human shades, + How rare from their own instinct ’tis to feel! + They waste the soul with spurious desire, + That is not the ripe flame upon the bough. + We two have taken up a lifeless vow + To rob a living passion: dust for fire! + Madam is grave, and eyes the clock that tells + Approaching midnight. We have struck despair + Into two hearts. O, look we like a pair + Who for fresh nuptials joyfully yield all else? + + + +XLII + + + I am to follow her. There is much grace + In woman when thus bent on martyrdom. + They think that dignity of soul may come, + Perchance, with dignity of body. Base! + But I was taken by that air of cold + And statuesque sedateness, when she said + ‘I’m going’; lit a taper, bowed her head, + And went, as with the stride of Pallas bold. + Fleshly indifference horrible! The hands + Of Time now signal: O, she’s safe from me! + Within those secret walls what do I see? + Where first she set the taper down she stands: + Not Pallas: Hebe shamed! Thoughts black as death + Like a stirred pool in sunshine break. Her wrists + I catch: she faltering, as she half resists, + ‘You love . . .? love . . .? love . . .?’ all on an indrawn breath. + + + +XLIII + + + Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like + Its skeleton shadow on the broad-backed wave! + Here is a fitting spot to dig Love’s grave; + Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike, + And dart their hissing tongues high up the sand: + In hearing of the ocean, and in sight + Of those ribbed wind-streaks running into white. + If I the death of Love had deeply planned, + I never could have made it half so sure, + As by the unblest kisses which upbraid + The full-waked sense; or failing that, degrade! + ’Tis morning: but no morning can restore + What we have forfeited. I see no sin: + The wrong is mixed. In tragic life, God wot, + No villain need be! Passions spin the plot: + We are betrayed by what is false within. + + + +XLIV + + + They say, that Pity in Love’s service dwells, + A porter at the rosy temple’s gate. + I missed him going: but it is my fate + To come upon him now beside his wells; + Whereby I know that I Love’s temple leave, + And that the purple doors have closed behind. + Poor soul! if, in those early days unkind, + Thy power to sting had been but power to grieve, + We now might with an equal spirit meet, + And not be matched like innocence and vice. + She for the Temple’s worship has paid price, + And takes the coin of Pity as a cheat. + She sees through simulation to the bone: + What’s best in her impels her to the worst: + Never, she cries, shall Pity soothe Love’s thirst, + Or foul hypocrisy for truth atone! + + + +XLV + + + It is the season of the sweet wild rose, + My Lady’s emblem in the heart of me! + So golden-crownëd shines she gloriously, + And with that softest dream of blood she glows; + Mild as an evening heaven round Hesper bright! + I pluck the flower, and smell it, and revive + The time when in her eyes I stood alive. + I seem to look upon it out of Night. + Here’s Madam, stepping hastily. Her whims + Bid her demand the flower, which I let drop. + As I proceed, I feel her sharply stop, + And crush it under heel with trembling limbs. + She joins me in a cat-like way, and talks + Of company, and even condescends + To utter laughing scandal of old friends. + These are the summer days, and these our walks. + + + +XLVI + + + At last we parley: we so strangely dumb + In such a close communion! It befell + About the sounding of the Matin-bell, + And lo! her place was vacant, and the hum + Of loneliness was round me. Then I rose, + And my disordered brain did guide my foot + To that old wood where our first love-salute + Was interchanged: the source of many throes! + There did I see her, not alone. I moved + Toward her, and made proffer of my arm. + She took it simply, with no rude alarm; + And that disturbing shadow passed reproved. + I felt the pained speech coming, and declared + My firm belief in her, ere she could speak. + A ghastly morning came into her cheek, + While with a widening soul on me she stared. + + + +XLVII + + + We saw the swallows gathering in the sky, + And in the osier-isle we heard them noise. + We had not to look back on summer joys, + Or forward to a summer of bright dye: + But in the largeness of the evening earth + Our spirits grew as we went side by side. + The hour became her husband and my bride. + Love, that had robbed us so, thus blessed our dearth! + The pilgrims of the year waxed very loud + In multitudinous chatterings, as the flood + Full brown came from the West, and like pale blood + Expanded to the upper crimson cloud. + Love, that had robbed us of immortal things, + This little moment mercifully gave, + Where I have seen across the twilight wave + The swan sail with her young beneath her wings. + + + +XLVIII + + + Their sense is with their senses all mixed in, + Destroyed by subtleties these women are! + More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar + Utterly this fair garden we might win. + Behold! I looked for peace, and thought it near. + Our inmost hearts had opened, each to each. + We drank the pure daylight of honest speech. + Alas! that was the fatal draught, I fear. + For when of my lost Lady came the word, + This woman, O this agony of flesh! + Jealous devotion bade her break the mesh, + That I might seek that other like a bird. + I do adore the nobleness! despise + The act! She has gone forth, I know not where. + Will the hard world my sentience of her share + I feel the truth; so let the world surmise. + + + +XLIX + + + He found her by the ocean’s moaning verge, + Nor any wicked change in her discerned; + And she believed his old love had returned, + Which was her exultation, and her scourge. + She took his hand, and walked with him, and seemed + The wife he sought, though shadow-like and dry. + She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh, + And tell her loudly she no longer dreamed. + She dared not say, ‘This is my breast: look in.’ + But there’s a strength to help the desperate weak. + That night he learned how silence best can speak + The awful things when Pity pleads for Sin. + About the middle of the night her call + Was heard, and he came wondering to the bed. + ‘Now kiss me, dear! it may be, now!’ she said. + Lethe had passed those lips, and he knew all. + + + +L + + + Thus piteously Love closed what he begat: + The union of this ever-diverse pair! + These two were rapid falcons in a snare, + Condemned to do the flitting of the bat. + Lovers beneath the singing sky of May, + They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers: + But they fed not on the advancing hours: + Their hearts held cravings for the buried day. + Then each applied to each that fatal knife, + Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole. + Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul + When hot for certainties in this our life!— + In tragic hints here see what evermore + Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean’s force, + Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse, + To throw that faint thin fine upon the shore! + + + + +THE PATRIOT ENGINEER + + + ‘SIRS! may I shake your hands? + My countrymen, I see! + I’ve lived in foreign lands + Till England’s Heaven to me. + A hearty shake will do me good, + And freshen up my sluggish blood.’ + + Into his hard right hand we struck, + Gave the shake, and wish’d him luck. + + ‘—From Austria I come, + An English wife to win, + And find an English home, + And live and die therein. + Great Lord! how many a year I’ve pined + To drink old ale and speak my mind!’ + + Loud rang our laughter, and the shout + Hills round the Meuse-boat echoed about. + + ‘—Ay, no offence: laugh on, + Young gentlemen: I’ll join. + Had you to exile gone, + Where free speech is base coin, + You’d sigh to see the jolly nose + Where Freedom’s native liquor flows!’ + + He this time the laughter led, + Dabbling his oily bullet head. + + ‘—Give me, to suit my moods, + An ale-house on a heath, + I’ll hand the crags and woods + To B’elzebub beneath. + A fig for scenery! what scene + Can beat a Jackass on a green?’ + + Gravely he seem’d, with gaze intense, + Putting the question to common sense. + + ‘—Why, there’s the ale-house bench: + The furze-flower shining round: + And there’s my waiting-wench, + As lissome as a hound. + With “hail Britannia!” ere I drink, + I’ll kiss her with an artful wink.’ + + Fair flash’d the foreign landscape while + We breath’d again our native Isle. + + ‘—The geese may swim hard-by; + They gabble, and you talk: + You’re sure there’s not a spy + To mark your name with chalk. + My heart’s an oak, and it won’t grow + In flower-pots, foreigners must know.’ + + Pensive he stood: then shook his head + Sadly; held out his fist, and said: + + ‘—You’ve heard that Hungary’s floor’d? + They’ve got her on the ground. + A traitor broke her sword: + Two despots held her bound. + I’ve seen her gasping her last hope: + I’ve seen her sons strung up b’ the rope. + + ‘Nine gallant gentlemen + In Arad they strung up! + I work’d in peace till then:— + That poison’d all my cup. + A smell of corpses haunted me: + My nostril sniff’d like life for sea. + + ‘Take money for my hire + From butchers?—not the man! + I’ve got some natural fire, + And don’t flash in the pan;— + A few ideas I reveal’d:— + ’Twas well old England stood my shield! + + ‘Said I, “The Lord of Hosts + Have mercy on your land! + I see those dangling ghosts,— + And you may keep command, + And hang, and shoot, and have your day: + They hold your bill, and you must pay. + + ‘“You’ve sent them where they’re strong, + You carrion Double-Head! + I hear them sound a gong + In Heaven above!”—I said. + “My God, what feathers won’t you moult + For this!” says I: and then I bolt. + + ‘The Bird’s a beastly Bird, + And what is more, a fool. + I shake hands with the herd + That flock beneath his rule. + They’re kindly; and their land is fine. + I thought it rarer once than mine. + + ‘And rare would be its lot, + But that he baulks its powers: + It’s just an earthen pot + For hearts of oak like ours. + Think! Think!—four days from those frontiers, + And I’m a-head full fifty years. + + ‘It tingles to your scalps, + To think of it, my boys! + Confusion on their Alps, + And all their baby toys! + The mountains Britain boasts are men: + And scale you them, my brethren!’ + + Cluck, went his tongue; his fingers, snap. + Britons were proved all heights to cap. + + And we who worshipp’d crags, + Where purple splendours burn’d, + Our idol saw in rags, + And right about were turn’d. + Horizons rich with trembling spires + On violet twilights lost their fires. + + And heights where morning wakes + With one cheek over snow;— + And iron-wallèd lakes + Where sits the white moon low;— + For us on youthful travel bent, + The robing picturesque was rent. + + Wherever Beauty show’d + The wonders of her face, + This man his Jackass rode, + High despot of the place. + Fair dreams of our enchanted life + Fled fast from his shrill island fife. + + And yet we liked him well; + We laugh’d with honest hearts:— + He shock’d some inner spell, + And rous’d discordant parts. + We echoed what we half abjured: + And hating, smilingly endured. + + Moreover, could we be + To our dear land disloyal? + And were not also we + Of History’s blood-Royal? + We glow’d to think how donkeys graze + In England, thrilling at their brays. + + For there a man may view + An aspect more sublime + Than Alps against the blue:— + The morning eyes of Time! + The very Ass participates + The glory Freedom radiates! + + + + +CASSANDRA + + +I + + + CAPTIVE on a foreign shore, + Far from Ilion’s hoary wave, + Agamemnon’s bridal slave + Speaks Futurity no more: + Death is busy with her grave. + + + +II + + + Thick as water, bursts remote + Round her ears the alien din, + While her little sullen chin + Fills the hollows of her throat: + Silent lie her slaughter’d kin. + + + +III + + + Once to many a pealing shriek, + Lo, from Ilion’s topmost tower, + Ilion’s fierce prophetic flower + Cried the coming of the Greek! + Black in Hades sits the hour. + + + +IV + + + Eyeing phantoms of the Past, + Folded like a prophet’s scroll, + In the deep’s long shoreward roll + Here she sees the anchor cast: + Backward moves her sunless soul. + + + +V + + + Chieftains, brethren of her joy, + Shades, the white light in their eyes + Slanting to her lips, arise, + Crowding quick the plains of Troy: + Now they tell her not she lies. + + + +VI + + + O the bliss upon the plains, + Where the joining heroes clashed + Shield and spear, and, unabashed, + Challenged with hot chariot-reins + Gods!—they glimmer ocean-washed. + + + +VII + + + Alien voices round the ships, + Thick as water, shouting Home. + Argives, pale as midnight foam, + Wax before her awful lips: + White as stars that front the gloom. + + + +VIII + + + Like a torch-flame that by day + Up the daylight twists, and, pale, + Catches air in leaps that fail, + Crushed by the inveterate ray, + Through her shines the Ten-Years’ Tale. + + + +IX + + + Once to many a pealing shriek, + Lo, from Ilion’s topmost tower, + Ilion’s fierce prophetic flower + Cried the coming of the Greek! + Black in Hades sits the hour. + + + +X + + + Still upon her sunless soul + Gleams the narrow hidden space + Forward, where her fiery race + Falters on its ashen goal: + Still the Future strikes her face. + + + +XI + + + See toward the conqueror’s car + Step the purple Queen whose hate + Wraps red-armed her royal mate + With his Asian tempest-star: + Now Cassandra views her Fate. + + + +XII + + + King of men! the blinded host + Shout:—she lifts her brooding chin: + Glad along the joyous din + Smiles the grand majestic ghost: + Clytemnestra leads him in. + + + +XIII + + + Lo, their smoky limbs aloof, + Shadowing heaven and the seas, + Fates and Furies, tangling Threes, + Tear and mix above the roof: + Fates and fierce Eumenides. + + + +XIV + + + Is the prophetess with rods + Beaten, that she writhes in air? + With the Gods who never spare, + Wrestling with the unsparing Gods, + Lone, her body struggles there. + + + +XV + + + Like the snaky torch-flame white, + Levelled as aloft it twists, + She, her soaring arms, and wrists + Drooping, struggles with the light, + Helios, bright above all mists! + + + +XVI + + + In his orb she sees the tower, + Dusk against its flaming rims, + Where of old her wretched limbs + Twisted with the stolen power: + Ilium all the lustre dims! + + + +XVII + + + O the bliss upon the plains, + Where the joining heroes clashed + Shield and spear, and, unabashed, + Challenged with hot chariot-reins + Gods!—they glimmer ocean-washed. + + + +XVIII + + + Thrice the Sun-god’s name she calls; + Shrieks the deed that shames the sky; + Like a fountain leaping high, + Falling as a fountain falls: + Lo, the blazing wheels go by! + + + +XIX + + + Captive on a foreign shore, + Far from Ilion’s hoary wave, + Agamemnon’s bridal slave + Speaks Futurity no more: + Death is busy with her grave. + + + + +THE YOUNG USURPER + + + ON my darling’s bosom + Has dropped a living rosy bud, + Fair as brilliant Hesper + Against the brimming flood. + She handles him, + She dandles him, + She fondles him and eyes him: + And if upon a tear he wakes, + With many a kiss she dries him: + She covets every move he makes, + And never enough can prize him. + Ah, the young Usurper! + I yield my golden throne: + Such angel bands attend his hands + To claim it for his own. + + + + +MARGARET’S BRIDAL EVE + + +I + + + THE old grey mother she thrummed on her knee: + _There is a rose that’s ready_; + And which of the handsome young men shall it be? + _There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping_. + + My daughter, come hither, come hither to me: + _There is a rose that’s ready_; + Come, point me your finger on him that you see: + _There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping_. + + O mother, my mother, it never can be: + _There is a rose that’s ready_; + For I shall bring shame on the man marries me: + _There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping_. + + Now let your tongue be deep as the sea: + _There is a rose that’s ready_; + And the man’ll jump for you, right briskly will he: + _There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping_. + + Tall Margaret wept bitterly: + _There is a rose that’s ready_; + And as her parent bade did she: + _There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping_. + + O the handsome young man dropped down on his knee: + _There is a rose that’s ready_; + Pale Margaret gave him her hand, woe’s me! + _There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping_. + + + +II + + + O mother, my mother, this thing I must say: + _There is a rose in the garden_; + Ere he lies on the breast where that other lay: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + Now, folly, my daughter, for men are men: + _There is a rose in the garden_; + You marry them blindfold, I tell you again: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + O mother, but when he kisses me! + _There is a rose in the garden_; + My child, ’tis which shall sweetest be! + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + O mother, but when I awake in the morn! + _There is a rose in the garden_; + My child, you are his, and the ring is worn: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + Tall Margaret sighed and loosened a tress: + _There is a rose in the garden_; + Poor comfort she had of her comeliness + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + My mother will sink if this thing be said: + _There is a rose in the garden_; + That my first betrothed came thrice to my bed; + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + He died on my shoulder the third cold night: + _There is a rose in the garden_; + I dragged his body all through the moonlight: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + But when I came by my father’s door: + _There is a rose in the garden_; + I fell in a lump on the stiff dead floor: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + O neither to heaven, nor yet to hell: + _There is a rose in the garden_; + Could I follow the lover I loved so well! + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + + +III + + + The bridesmaids slept in their chambers apart: + _There is a rose that’s ready_; + Tall Margaret walked with her thumping heart: + _There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping_. + + The frill of her nightgown below the left breast: + _There is a rose that’s ready_; + Had fall’n like a cloud of the moonlighted West: + _There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping_. + + But where the West-cloud breaks to a star: + _There is a rose that’s ready_; + Pale Margaret’s breast showed a winding scar: + _There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping_. + + O few are the brides with such a sign! + _There is a rose that’s ready_; + Though I went mad the fault was mine: + _There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping_. + + I must speak to him under this roof to-night: + _There is a rose that’s ready_; + I shall burn to death if I speak in the light: + _There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping_. + + O my breast! I must strike you a bloodier wound: + _There is a rose that’s ready_; + Than when I scored you red and swooned: + _There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping_. + + I will stab my honour under his eye: + _There is a rose that’s ready_; + Though I bleed to the death, I shall let out the lie: + _There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping_. + + O happy my bridesmaids! white sleep is with you! + _There is a rose that’s ready_; + Had he chosen among you he might sleep too! + _There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping_. + + O happy my bridesmaids! your breasts are clean: + _There is a rose that’s ready_; + You carry no mark of what has been! + _There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping_. + + + +IV + + + An hour before the chilly beam: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + The bridegroom started out of a dream: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + He went to the door, and there espied: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + The figure of his silent bride: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + He went to the door, and let her in: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + Whiter looked she than a child of sin: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + She looked so white, she looked so sweet: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + She looked so pure he fell at her feet: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + He fell at her feet with love and awe: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + A stainless body of light he saw: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + O Margaret, say you are not of the dead! + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + My bride! by the angels at night are you led? + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + I am not led by the angels about: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + But I have a devil within to let out: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + O Margaret! my bride and saint! + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + There is on you no earthly taint: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + I am no saint, and no bride can I be: + _Red rose and while in the garden_; + Until I have opened my bosom to thee: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + To catch at her heart she laid one hand: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + She told the tale where she did stand: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + She stood before him pale and tall: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + Her eyes between his, she told him all: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + She saw how her body grow freckled and foul: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + She heard from the woods the hooting owl: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + With never a quiver her mouth did speak: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + O when she had done she stood so meek! + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + The bridegroom stamped and called her vile: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + He did but waken a little smile: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + The bridegroom raged and called her foul: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + She heard from the woods the hooting owl: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + He muttered a name full bitter and sore: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + She fell in a lump on the still dead floor: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + O great was the wonder, and loud the wail: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + When through the household flew the tale: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + The old grey mother she dressed the bier: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + With a shivering chin and never a tear: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + O had you but done as I bade you, my child! + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + You would not have died and been reviled: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + The bridegroom he hung at midnight by the bier: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + He eyed the white girl thro’ a dazzling tear: + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + O had you been false as the women who stray: + _Red rose and white in the garden_; + You would not be now with the Angels of Day! + _And the bird sings over the roses_. + + + + +MARIAN + + +I + + + SHE can be as wise as we, + And wiser when she wishes; + She can knit with cunning wit, + And dress the homely dishes. + She can flourish staff or pen, + And deal a wound that lingers; + She can talk the talk of men, + And touch with thrilling fingers. + + + +II + + + Match her ye across the sea, + Natures fond and fiery; + Ye who zest the turtle’s nest + With the eagle’s eyrie. + Soft and loving is her soul, + Swift and lofty soaring; + Mixing with its dove-like dole + Passionate adoring. + + + +III + + + Such a she who’ll match with me? + In flying or pursuing, + Subtle wiles are in her smiles + To set the world a-wooing. + She is steadfast as a star, + And yet the maddest maiden: + She can wage a gallant war, + And give the peace of Eden. + + + + +BY MORNING TWILIGHT + + + NIGHT, like a dying mother, + Eyes her young offspring, Day. + The birds are dreamily piping. + And O, my love, my darling! + The night is life ebb’d away: + Away beyond our reach! + A sea that has cast us pale on the beach; + Weeds with the weeds and the pebbles + That hear the lone tamarisk rooted in sand + Sway + With the song of the sea to the land. + + + + +UNKNOWN FAIR FACES + + + THOUGH I am faithful to my loves lived through, + And place them among Memory’s great stars, + Where burns a face like Hesper: one like Mars: + Of visages I get a moment’s view, + Sweet eyes that in the heaven of me, too, + Ascend, tho’ virgin to my life they passed. + Lo, these within my destiny seem glassed + At times so bright, I wish that Hope were new. + A gracious freckled lady, tall and grave, + Went, in a shawl voluminous and white, + Last sunset by; and going sow’d a glance. + Earth is too poor to hold a second chance; + I will not ask for more than Fortune gave: + My heart she goes from—never from my sight! + + + + +SHEMSELNIHAR + + + O MY lover! the night like a broad smooth wave + Bears us onward, and morn, a black rock, shines wet. + How I shuddered—I knew not that I was a slave, + Till I looked on thy face:—then I writhed in the net. + Then I felt like a thing caught by fire, that her star + Glowed dark on the bosom of Shemselnihar. + + And he came, whose I am: O my lover! he came: + And his slave, still so envied of women, was I: + And I turned as a hissing leaf spits from the flame, + Yes, I shrivelled to dust from him, haggard and dry. + O forgive her:—she was but as dead lilies are: + The life of her heart fled from Shemselnihar. + + Yet with thee like a full throbbing rose how I bloom! + Like a rose by the fountain whose showering we hear, + As we lie, O my lover! in this rich gloom, + Smelling faint the cool breath of the lemon-groves near. + As we lie gazing out on that glowing great star— + Ah! dark on the bosom of Shemselnihar. + + Yet with thee am I not as an arm of the vine, + Firm to bind thee, to cherish thee, feed thee sweet? + Swear an oath on my lip to let none disentwine + The life that here fawns to give warmth to thy feet. + I on thine, thus! no more shall that jewelled Head jar + The music thou breathest on Shemselnihar. + + Far away, far away, where the wandering scents + Of all flowers are sweetest, white mountains among, + There my kindred abide in their green and blue tents: + Bear me to them, my lover! they lost me so young. + Let us slip down the stream and leap steed till afar + None question thy claim upon Shemselnihar. + + O that long note the bulbul gave out—meaning love! + O my lover, hark to him and think it my voice! + The blue night like a great bell-flower from above + Drooping low and gold-eyed: O, but hear him rejoice! + Can it be? ’twas a flash! that accurst scimitàr + In thought even cuts thee from Shemselnihar. + + Yes, I would that, less generous, he would oppress, + He would chain me, upbraid me, burn deep brands for hate, + Than with this mask of freedom and gorgeousness + Bespangle my slavery, mock my strange fate. + Would, would, would, O my lover, he knew—dared debar + Thy coming, and earn curse of Shemselnihar! + + + + +A ROAR THROUGH THE TALL TWIN ELM-TREES + + + A ROAR thro’ the tall twin elm-trees + The mustering storm betrayed: + The South-wind seized the willow + That over the water swayed. + + Then fell the steady deluge + In which I strove to doze, + Hearing all night at my window + The knock of the winter rose. + + The rainy rose of winter! + An outcast it must pine. + And from thy bosom outcast + Am I, dear lady mine. + + + + +WHEN I WOULD IMAGE + + + WHEN I would image her features, + Comes up a shrouded head: + I touch the outlines, shrinking; + She seems of the wandering dead. + + But when love asks for nothing, + And lies on his bed of snow, + The face slips under my eyelids, + All in its living glow. + + Like a dark cathedral city, + Whose spires, and domes, and towers + Quiver in violet lightnings, + My soul basks on for hours. + + + + +THE SPIRIT OF SHAKESPEARE + + + THY greatest knew thee, Mother Earth; unsoured + He knew thy sons. He probed from hell to hell + Of human passions, but of love deflowered + His wisdom was not, for he knew thee well. + Thence came the honeyed corner at his lips, + The conquering smile wherein his spirit sails + Calm as the God who the white sea-wave whips, + Yet full of speech and intershifting tales, + Close mirrors of us: thence had he the laugh + We feel is thine: broad as ten thousand beeves + At pasture! thence thy songs, that winnow chaff + From grain, bid sick Philosophy’s last leaves + Whirl, if they have no response—they enforced + To fatten Earth when from her soul divorced. + + + + +CONTINUED + + + HOW smiles he at a generation ranked + In gloomy noddings over life! They pass. + Not he to feed upon a breast unthanked, + Or eye a beauteous face in a cracked glass. + But he can spy that little twist of brain + Which moved some weighty leader of the blind, + Unwitting ’twas the goad of personal pain, + To view in curst eclipse our Mother’s mind, + And show us of some rigid harridan + The wretched bondmen till the end of time. + O lived the Master now to paint us Man, + That little twist of brain would ring a chime + Of whence it came and what it caused, to start + Thunders of laughter, clearing air and heart. + + + + +ODE TO THE SPIRIT OF EARTH IN AUTUMN + + + FAIR Mother Earth lay on her back last night, + To gaze her fill on Autumn’s sunset skies, + When at a waving of the fallen light + Sprang realms of rosy fruitage o’er her eyes. + A lustrous heavenly orchard hung the West, + Wherein the blood of Eden bloomed again: + Red were the myriad cherub-mouths that pressed, + Among the clusters, rich with song, full fain, + But dumb, because that overmastering spell + Of rapture held them dumb: then, here and there, + A golden harp lost strings; a crimson shell + Burnt grey; and sheaves of lustre fell to air. + The illimitable eagerness of hue + Bronzed, and the beamy winged bloom that flew + ’Mid those bunched fruits and thronging figures failed. + A green-edged lake of saffron touched the blue, + With isles of fireless purple lying through: + And Fancy on that lake to seek lost treasures sailed. + + Not long the silence followed: + The voice that issues from thy breast, + O glorious South-west, + Along the gloom-horizon holloa’d; + Warning the valleys with a mellow roar + Through flapping wings; then sharp the woodland bore + A shudder and a noise of hands: + A thousand horns from some far vale + In ambush sounding on the gale. + Forth from the cloven sky came bands + Of revel-gathering spirits; trooping down, + Some rode the tree-tops; some on torn cloud-strips + Burst screaming thro’ the lighted town: + And scudding seaward, some fell on big ships: + Or mounting the sea-horses blew + Bright foam-flakes on the black review + Of heaving hulls and burying beaks. + + Still on the farthest line, with outpuffed cheeks, + ’Twixt dark and utter dark, the great wind drew + From heaven that disenchanted harmony + To join earth’s laughter in the midnight blind: + Booming a distant chorus to the shrieks + Preluding him: then he, + His mantle streaming thunderingly behind, + Across the yellow realm of stiffened Day, + Shot thro’ the woodland alleys signals three; + And with the pressure of a sea + Plunged broad upon the vale that under lay. + + Night on the rolling foliage fell: + But I, who love old hymning night, + And know the Dryad voices well, + Discerned them as their leaves took flight, + Like souls to wander after death: + Great armies in imperial dyes, + And mad to tread the air and rise, + The savage freedom of the skies + To taste before they rot. And here, + Like frail white-bodied girls in fear, + The birches swung from shrieks to sighs; + The aspens, laughers at a breath, + In showering spray-falls mixed their cries, + Or raked a savage ocean-strand + With one incessant drowning screech. + Here stood a solitary beech, + That gave its gold with open hand, + And all its branches, toning chill, + Did seem to shut their teeth right fast, + To shriek more mercilessly shrill, + And match the fierceness of the blast. + + But heard I a low swell that noised + Of far-off ocean, I was ’ware + Of pines upon their wide roots poised, + Whom never madness in the air + Can draw to more than loftier stress + Of mournfulness, not mournfulness + For melancholy, but Joy’s excess, + That singing on the lap of sorrow faints: + And Peace, as in the hearts of saints + Who chant unto the Lord their God; + Deep Peace below upon the muffled sod, + The stillness of the sea’s unswaying floor, + Could I be sole there not to see + The life within the life awake; + The spirit bursting from the tree, + And rising from the troubled lake? + Pour, let the wines of Heaven pour! + The Golden Harp is struck once more, + And all its music is for me! + Pour, let the wines of Heaven pour! + And, ho, for a night of Pagan glee! + + There is a curtain o’er us. + For once, good souls, we’ll not pretend + To be aught better than her who bore us, + And is our only visible friend. + Hark to her laughter! who laughs like this, + Can she be dead, or rooted in pain? + She has been slain by the narrow brain, + But for us who love her she lives again. + Can she die? O, take her kiss! + + The crimson-footed nymph is panting up the glade, + With the wine-jar at her arm-pit, and the drunken ivy-braid + Round her forehead, breasts, and thighs: starts a Satyr, and they + speed: + Hear the crushing of the leaves: hear the cracking of the bough! + And the whistling of the bramble, the piping of the weed! + + But the bull-voiced oak is battling now: + The storm has seized him half-asleep, + And round him the wild woodland throngs + To hear the fury of his songs, + The uproar of an outraged deep. + He wakes to find a wrestling giant + Trunk to trunk and limb to limb, + And on his rooted force reliant + He laughs and grasps the broadened giant, + And twist and roll the Anakim; + And multitudes, acclaiming to the cloud, + Cry which is breaking, which is bowed. + + Away, for the cymbals clash aloft + In the circles of pine, on the moss-floor soft. + The nymphs of the woodland are gathering there. + They huddle the leaves, and trample, and toss; + They swing in the branches, they roll in the moss, + They blow the seed on the air. + Back to back they stand and blow + The winged seed on the cradling air, + A fountain of leaves over bosom and back. + + The pipe of the Faun comes on their track + And the weltering alleys overflow + With musical shrieks and wind-wedded hair. + The riotous companies melt to a pair. + Bless them, mother of kindness! + + A star has nodded through + The depths of the flying blue. + Time only to plant the light + Of a memory in the blindness. + But time to show me the sight + Of my life thro’ the curtain of night; + Shining a moment, and mixed + With the onward-hurrying stream, + Whose pressure is darkness to me; + Behind the curtain, fixed, + Beams with endless beam + That star on the changing sea. + + Great Mother Nature! teach me, like thee, + To kiss the season and shun regrets. + And am I more than the mother who bore, + Mock me not with thy harmony! + Teach me to blot regrets, + Great Mother! me inspire + With faith that forward sets + But feeds the living fire, + Faith that never frets + For vagueness in the form. + In life, O keep me warm! + For, what is human grief? + And what do men desire? + Teach me to feel myself the tree, + And not the withered leaf. + Fixed am I and await the dark to-be + And O, green bounteous Earth! + Bacchante Mother! stern to those + Who live not in thy heart of mirth; + Death shall I shrink from, loving thee? + Into the breast that gives the rose, + Shall I with shuddering fall? + + Earth, the mother of all, + Moves on her stedfast way, + Gathering, flinging, sowing. + Mortals, we live in her day, + She in her children is growing. + + She can lead us, only she, + Unto God’s footstool, whither she reaches: + Loved, enjoyed, her gifts must be, + Reverenced the truths she teaches, + Ere a man may hope that he + Ever can attain the glee + Of things without a destiny! + + She knows not loss: + She feels but her need, + Who the winged seed + With the leaf doth toss. + + And may not men to this attain? + That the joy of motion, the rapture of being, + Shall throw strong light when our season is fleeing, + Nor quicken aged blood in vain, + At the gates of the vault, on the verge of the plain? + Life thoroughly lived is a fact in the brain, + While eyes are left for seeing. + Behold, in yon stripped Autumn, shivering grey, + Earth knows no desolation. + She smells regeneration + In the moist breath of decay. + + Prophetic of the coming joy and strife, + Like the wild western war-chief sinking + Calm to the end he eyes unblinking, + Her voice is jubilant in ebbing life. + + He for his happy hunting-fields + Forgets the droning chant, and yields + His numbered breaths to exultation + In the proud anticipation: + Shouting the glories of his nation, + Shouting the grandeur of his race, + Shouting his own great deeds of daring: + And when at last death grasps his face, + And stiffened on the ground in peace + He lies with all his painted terrors glaring; + Hushed are the tribe to hear a threading cry: + Not from the dead man; + Not from the standers-by: + The spirit of the red man + Is welcomed by his fathers up on high. + + + + +MARTIN’S PUZZLE + + +I + + + THERE she goes up the street with her book in her hand, + And her Good morning, Martin! Ay, lass, how d’ye do? + Very well, thank you, Martin!—I can’t understand! + I might just as well never have cobbled a shoe! + I can’t understand it. She talks like a song; + Her voice takes your ear like the ring of a glass; + She seems to give gladness while limping along, + Yet sinner ne’er suffer’d like that little lass. + + + +II + + + First, a fool of a boy ran her down with a cart. + Then, her fool of a father—a blacksmith by trade— + Why the deuce does he tell us it half broke his heart? + His heart!—where’s the leg of the poor little maid! + Well, that’s not enough; they must push her downstairs, + To make her go crooked: but why count the list? + If it’s right to suppose that our human affairs + Are all order’d by heaven—there, bang goes my fist! + + + +III + + + For if angels can look on such sights—never mind! + When you’re next to blaspheming, it’s best to be mum. + The parson declares that her woes weren’t designed; + But, then, with the parson it’s all kingdom-come. + Lose a leg, save a soul—a convenient text; + I call it Tea doctrine, not savouring of God. + When poor little Molly wants ‘chastening,’ why, next + The Archangel Michael might taste of the rod. + + + +IV + + + But, to see the poor darling go limping for miles + To read books to sick people!—and just of an age + When girls learn the meaning of ribands and smiles! + Makes me feel like a squirrel that turns in a cage. + The more I push thinking the more I revolve: + I never get farther:—and as to her face, + It starts up when near on my puzzle I solve, + And says, ‘This crush’d body seems such a sad case.’ + + + +V + + + Not that she’s for complaining: she reads to earn pence; + And from those who can’t pay, simple thanks are enough. + Does she leave lamentation for chaps without sense? + Howsoever, she’s made up of wonderful stuff. + Ay, the soul in her body must be a stout cord; + She sings little hymns at the close of the day, + Though she has but three fingers to lift to the Lord, + And only one leg to kneel down with to pray. + + + +VI + + + What I ask is, Why persecute such a poor dear, + If there’s Law above all? Answer that if you can! + Irreligious I’m not; but I look on this sphere + As a place where a man should just think like a man. + It isn’t fair dealing! But, contrariwise, + Do bullets in battle the wicked select? + Why, then it’s all chance-work! And yet, in her eyes, + She holds a fixed something by which I am checked. + + + +VII + + + Yonder riband of sunshine aslope on the wall, + If you eye it a minute ’ll have the same look: + So kind! and so merciful! God of us all! + It’s the very same lesson we get from the Book. + Then, is Life but a trial? Is that what is meant? + Some must toil, and some perish, for others below: + The injustice to each spreads a common content; + Ay! I’ve lost it again, for it can’t be quite so. + + + +VIII + + + She’s the victim of fools: that seems nearer the mark. + On earth there are engines and numerous fools. + Why the Lord can permit them, we’re still in the dark; + He does, and in some sort of way they’re His tools. + It’s a roundabout way, with respect let me add, + If Molly goes crippled that we may be taught: + But, perhaps, it’s the only way, though it’s so bad; + In that case we’ll bow down our heads,—as we ought. + + + +IX + + + But the worst of _me_ is, that when I bow my head, + I perceive a thought wriggling away in the dust, + And I follow its tracks, quite forgetful, instead + Of humble acceptance: for, question I must! + Here’s a creature made carefully—carefully made! + Put together with craft, and then stamped on, and why? + The answer seems nowhere: it’s discord that’s played. + The sky’s a blue dish!—an implacable sky! + + + +X + + + Stop a moment. I seize an idea from the pit. + They tell us that discord, though discord, alone, + Can be harmony when the notes properly fit: + Am I judging all things from a single false tone? + Is the Universe one immense Organ, that rolls + From devils to angels? I’m blind with the sight. + It pours such a splendour on heaps of poor souls! + I might try at kneeling with Molly to-night. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{1} First contributed to a MS. magazine, ‘The Monthly Observer,’ in the +year 1849; first printed in _Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal_, July 7, 1849. + +{163} Originally printed in ‘Poems,’ 1851. + +{164} ‘The Leader,’ December 20, 1851. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS, VOL. 1 [OF 3]*** + + +******* This file should be named 1381-0.txt or 1381-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/8/1381 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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